Free Lizzie's War by Rosie Clarke

she supposed he was the most likely person to want to upset Lizzie – but it just didn’t seem Bert Oliver’s style. He could be mean and he had a sharp temper – but was he the sort to hire someone to frighten her? That spoke of a truly vindictive nature and she just couldn’t see him going to those extremes. Telling lies about her was one thing, but paying someone to threaten and frighten her was quite another – and why else would a stranger follow her and make threats? Who would dislike her that much? Lizzie didn’t think she had enemies, but someone must hate her. Could it really be Harry’s uncle behind it all?
    Somehow it didn’t fit in Lizzie’s mind, but she decided to go round at the weekend and speak to him. She couldn’t just let things drift the way they had, and she was pretty sure the police couldn’t do much to help her. It would need someone to keep watch over her wherever she went and the police didn’t have time for such things. These days it took all their time to keep up with the looters and rescuing people from bombed-out areas. No, she was going to have to sort this out for herself…
    Lizzie had calmed down by the time she got home and felt it would be wrong to distress her friend by telling her what had happened. Beth had more than enough on her shoulders as it was.
    â€˜Mum says Mary won’t stop crying,’ Beth announced as soon as Lizzie walked into the kitchen. ‘They need her bed at the hospital and the doctors are talking about sending her somewhere – somewhere they treat mental patients – if she doesn’t calm down and stop accusing them of murdering her baby.’
    â€˜Oh, Beth,’ Lizzie sympathized. ‘You’ll have to talk to her, shake her out of it somehow. A mental institution is the last place she wants to go. Once you’re in there it isn’t easy to get out…’
    â€˜You went somewhere a bit like that when you had that trouble as a young girl, didn’t you?’
    â€˜Yes, and what I remember of it – and that isn’t much, because they had me drugged most of the time – was horrible. Tell Mary that she wouldn’t like it in one of those places, Beth. She has to come home. Losing a baby is bad enough; she doesn’t want to lose her freedom or her sanity too. If Uncle Jack hadn’t used all his savings to help me to move me to the private sanatorium, I might still have been a prisoner in that place. Even though I’d been raped, I was treated as if I was a bad girl just because I’d miscarried a child and I was only fourteen. It’s all still hazy, but since Aunt Jane told me, I’ve half remembered things about that time…’ A shudder went through Lizzie. ‘But it’s too horrid to want to remember it properly…’
    â€˜Oh, Lizzie, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have reminded you,’ Beth apologized. ‘It’s just that Mum is so worried about Mary.’
    â€˜Of course she is,’ Lizzie said. ‘Speak to Mary tonight, Beth, and if she won’t listen to you I’ll visit her and tell her where she’s headed if she doesn’t attempt to get better.’
    â€˜Mum says she can’t do anything with her. She thinks the doctor is right and Mary might be better off somewhere like that for a while…’
    â€˜No, she wouldn’t,’ Lizzie corrected instantly. ‘Tell your mum, and tell Mary, what it was like for me. If that doesn’t make her stop nothing will…’
    â€˜I’ll try.’ Beth sighed. ‘So what sort of a day did you have today?’
    â€˜Pretty quiet,’ Lizzie said, not wanting to worry her about her narrow escape at the bus stop. She would tell Ed the next morning, but Beth had enough on her shoulders just now. ‘Only a couple of customers and Ed finished the order for Mr Johnson. The order book is almost empty after that, Beth.