The Fight for Lizzie Flowers Read Online Free

left of him.’
    ‘Not your fault,’ his old friend insisted. ‘You were ninety-nine per cent certain it was Frank the coppers dragged out of the water.’
    ‘And the one per cent manages to turn up on our wedding day.’ Danny sat forward, gazing into Doug’s fatherly face with its calm expression. At sixty-seven, Doug had been a
white-collar worker at the docks, and had always provided for his family. But after the loss of his two sons in the war, he’d aged dramatically. Danny admired him for the way he’d
pulled through the nightmare and somehow got on with his life. He was wise and steady and had been in all their lives since forever, standing by Lizzie through the mess of her marriage to Frank.
For that, Danny would be eternally grateful. They were good people and Danny loved them for it.
    Doug’s smooth forehead wrinkled under his thinning grey hair. ‘Stop beating yourself up, cocker. We all know you did your best.’
    ‘I saw a body wearing Frank’s clothes and shoes, and half a face. I didn’t hang around to find out I was wrong.’
    ‘Any one of us would have given the nod,’ Bert agreed in his deep, lumbering voice. A voice, Danny reflected, that could only have come from a man who weighed over nineteen stone and
stood almost with his head in the clouds. Bert sat squashed in an armchair, his tie removed and the buttons of his shirt undone. ‘You wasn’t going to get any help from Old
Bill.’
    ‘I’ve got a nasty feeling it don’t end here.’ Danny stretched his broad shoulders, uncomfortable under the restrictive tailoring of his wedding suit. He was more
accustomed to his overalls, the ones he wore at the garage. He wore them with pride, knowing the business was his own little kingdom. He’d thought he was on the way to a happy life now, with
the garage on its feet and Lizzie as his wife. How wrong could a man be?
    He stared desolately at Doug. ‘The point being, who did I identify as Frank?’
    A knock at the front door prevented anyone from venturing an opinion. Danny stood up. ‘That’ll be Cal. I asked him to go by the pub and see if there was word on the grapevine. If
there is, the landlord will know.’
    ‘Y’all right, Danny?’ Cal Bronga, Danny’s mechanic, best friend and only employee, stepped in. Black-bearded, with ebony shoulder-length hair, Cal was the agile bushman
Danny had first met in the gold mines of Australia. No one had been more pleased than Danny when Cal had eventually followed him to England last summer.
    ‘Find out anything?’ Danny kept his voice low.
    ‘No, boss. Not a breath.’ Cal shook his dark head. ‘Like you told me, I checked at the Quarry and the Ship, then drove past your old man’s drum. Quiet as a dingo’s
fart.’
    ‘I can’t see Frank visiting Dad.’ Danny felt the swell of anger again in his chest. Their father was entitled to some peace in his twilight years. Frank had never given Bill
Flowers the respect he was due. Despite all the effort Bill had put in to compensate for the early death of their mother, Frank had still turned out the bad apple.
    Cal followed Danny in, grinning broadly at the two men seated in the chairs. Bert stood, dwarfing Cal momentarily as he clasped his hand.
    Doug said after a while, ‘Frank don’t have any friends on the island. Without Ferreter’s muscle behind him, I can’t see him making waves.’
    ‘Well, he managed more than a ripple today.’ Irritably, Danny flicked undone the top button of his shirt and slid out his tie, stuffing it in his pocket. ‘Five minutes later me
and Lizzie would have been wed with an official signature to prove it.’
    Cal moved closer to the window and nodded to the street. ‘Looks like we’ve got company.’
    Danny joined him, to see their guests approaching. He knew without a shade of doubt that not one of the invited stepping into the house this day would welcome Frank’s return.

Chapter Five
    ‘Calm down, Flo, don’t upset yourself.’ Sydney