Текст книги "Without a Trace"

Автор книги: Lesley Pearse

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CHAPTER SIX

Molly waved from the train window until she could no longer see George standing on the platform at Bristol’s Temple Meads Station. But when she sat down her heart plummeted.

On the drive to the station with him she hadn’t been the least bit worried about her two-night stay in London. Yet now she was in a compartment with three total strangers, it came to her that, when she was in the city, there would be absolutely no one to turn to for help.

George had arranged for her to spend two nights in a small guest house he’d stayed at a couple of times when he had to be in court in London. It was close to Paddington Station, and he’d even drawn her a little map so she could find it easily.

Tomorrow morning at eleven she had her interview at Bourne & Hollingsworth. After that she would have to find her way from Oxford Street to Whitechapel to see Constance, then back again to Paddington for her last night there.

What had seemed so simple when George was talking about it now looked so scary. What if she got lost? People said London was dangerous. Supposing someone stole her handbag with all her money and train tickets?

Molly had never been to London before. In fact, the furthest she’d been from her home was a day trip to Weston-super-Mare. She recalled her disappointment when her father refused to let her go to London for the Coronation. He was going to be savage when he got up today to discover that, this time, she’d taken off without his permission.

She smiled at the thought of it. He hated anyone getting one over him and was smart enough to realize she would have been planning this for days. Of course, she’d be for it when she got home but, hopefully, she’d be able to inform him that he’d have no further say in her future, as Bourne & Hollingsworth had offered her a position.

It had seemed forever waiting for the replies to her letters; almost every day, she had had to make sure she was in the shop when the postman called, to ensure that any letter came straight to her. The one from Bourne & Hollingsworth came first, offering her an interview on 12 August. By that point, Molly had convinced herself that Constance wasn’t ever going to reply. But she was wrong: the long-awaited letter arrived a few days later.

Molly took the letter out of her handbag to read again because each time she read it she gained comfort in finding that Constance cared as much about Cassie and Petal as she did.

Dear Miss Heywood

[she read]

Please forgive my delay in responding to your letter, but the content was so upsetting that I found myself unable to think what I should say to you. I am deeply shocked and horrified that Cassandra is dead, and absolutely appalled that Petal was taken by her murderer.

To think of that sweet child crying for her mother is more than I can bear, and all I can do is offer up prayers that her kidnapper is treating her well, wherever she is.

Please do call on me when you are in London. We may be able to help one another through the grief and anxiety by talking about it together.

Sincerely yours

Constance

Molly had telephoned her yesterday and was surprised to hear a very frail-sounding voice on the other end of the line. She hadn’t for one moment thought of Constance as old. However, Constance had seemed delighted that Molly would be coming to see her the following afternoon.

George had pressed a five-pound note into her hand just before she boarded the train. ‘It’s for unexpected expenses,’ he said, waving away her protestations. ‘If you get lost, or you feel threatened, it’s money for a cab. It’s a safety net.’

Molly had said she would give it him back if no emergency arose, but he’d laughed and kissed her cheek, saying all she had to do was come home safely.

Molly wished she knew how he really thought of her. He’d been part of her life since she was five, and she’d always assumed he saw her like a sister, nothing more. But there did seem to be something more than that or why would he be so waspish about Simon? Like everyone else he had heard about his wife coming to the village to see him. George had spoken about the man as if he were a complete cad. Was it jealousy?

She might not know George’s true feelings for her, but one thing was certain, she couldn’t wish for a better friend. He’d rung the guest house in London and booked her room, driven her to the station and given her the encouragement she needed to make this huge first step towards leaving home. She hadn’t admitted to him that she was scared of staying in a guest house because she’d never been in one before, or that the prospect of going on the underground filled her with dread. She certainly wouldn’t have admitted that she didn’t know how she was going to eat while she was away, because she was much too bashful to go into a café alone.

Was everyone like this on their first trip to London? Or was she just being a big baby?

The rhythmic chugging of the train was so soothing that Molly found herself wafting into a kind of torpor in which random thoughts and things people had said in the last couple of days kept popping back into her head.

George had warned her that the Braemar Guest House was a little shabby, but she was to keep in mind that the whole of London was that way, and it would be some time before it recovered from all the bomb damage during the war. He said she’d see bomb sites wherever she went.

There were a great many bomb sites in Bristol, too; almost the entire medieval shopping area of High Street and Wine Street was destroyed during the Blitz. Molly could remember the thudding noise from the bombs late in 1940 and the winter of ’41, and seeing a red glow to the sky from the burning buildings. The horror of what was going on in the city was brought home even more closely by seeing ‘trekkers’, people fleeing for safety to the countryside, prams loaded up with their treasures as well as small children. Those people walked miles, many of them camping out under the stars however cold it was, fearing they would be killed if they stayed at home.

Molly had been twelve then, old enough to have a clear grasp of what war meant, to understand why food rationing was necessary and the terror bombing produced. She remembered how the children at school talked about their fathers and older brothers who had been called up. To her shame, at the time, Molly had always considered those children lucky, because their fathers were away, but she didn’t know back then that some fathers were kind, gentle, affectionate men.

A couple of weeks ago she had run into George while delivering some groceries. It was a hot afternoon and they’d gone for a short walk across the fields together, because George was delaying getting back to the police station just as she was spinning out delivering the groceries.

He’d asked her what she’d been talking to Peter Hayes about in the street a few days earlier. Peter Hayes was a bit of a womanizer, and a bighead, too, and she’d responded a little brusquely, saying something cutting about men who liked to throw their weight around.

‘Maybe the reason you’ve never met Mr Right is because you suspect all men are bullies like your dad and you never give anyone a chance to prove himself,’ George had said.

‘I don’t think that,’ she said indignantly. She’d been a bit nasty about Peter; she had, in fact, stopped him in the street to remind him he hadn’t been into the shop to pay for some groceries that had been dropped off with him several days earlier. She wasn’t going to tell George that, though, because it was unfair to bandy such things around. ‘If you must know, George, you’ve got it back to front. It’s not that I’m “left on the shelf” because I’m frightened of men. It’s just that my dad makes it impossible for me to keep a boyfriend.’

Except for Andy, whom Jack Heywood never met or even found out about, every other prospective boyfriend had been frightened off. Molly had tried to deter them from coming to the house to pick her up, but well-brought-up boys insisted on it. One encounter with her father was enough for most of them: his sarcasm and the way he belittled them was too hard to stomach. She’d had boyfriends who had tried to persist, but who could blame them for preferring to date a girl whose parents were pleasant?

All Molly’s old schoolfriends had been allowed to invite boyfriends home for tea or Sunday lunch; sometimes their fathers even went to the football or to the pub with them. Courtship flourished where there was a climate of friendliness, trust and real interest. Molly knew this for certain, as all those same old friends were married now, and most had at least two children.

Molly yearned for love. She thought the nearest thing to heaven would be to have a husband and a home of her own. She liked to imagine the kind of wallpaper and curtains she’d have, the meals she’d cook, and sleeping in her husband’s arms at night.

Yet, of all the men she’d met, George was the only one ever to stand up to Jack Heywood. He’d been marvellous that day in the shop when he’d turned on her father and taken his weapon from him. But then, he didn’t seem to want her for his girlfriend, so maybe it could be said that her father put him off, too.

Molly knew deep down inside her that if she stayed in Sawbridge she’d probably settle for any man who wanted her, and the chances were he’d be as big a bully as her father. She had to go away and meet new people who wouldn’t see her as a kind of Cinderella but as a competent, interesting girl with many talents.

These two days away were the first step to a new, completely different life. She would charm the manager at Bourne & Hollingsworth into offering her a job; she would work out for herself how to get around on the underground, conquer the fear of going into a café alone and make Constance like her enough to tell her all she knew about Cassie.

Molly had temporarily put aside thinking about Cassie and what might have happened to Petal because of her own problems, but she hadn’t forgotten them. She was desperate to get some answers, and when she’d got them she would go back to the police and demand that they finish the job and bring whoever killed Cassie and took Petal to justice.

Molly had gone to see George at his home the day before to check he could still take her to the station in Bristol. Mrs Walsh had been so welcoming, inviting her in for tea and cake while she waited for George to get in, and it made Molly feel a bit guilty, because she hadn’t told him about the letter and Constance.

George arrived back some twenty minutes later, apologizing for being late and telling her he’d been sent out to get some sheep off the road and, as fast as he got them back in the field, the rest of the flock in the field decided to make their escape, too.

‘Luckily, old Enoch came along with his dog and rounded them all up for me,’ George said. ‘I told him you were going to London tomorrow for an interview for a job, and he wished you luck. “She’s a bonny girl,” he said. “London will be the making of her.” I don’t know why he thinks that – I doubt he’s ever been.’

‘Now, George, you don’t need to go to London to know that it offers a lot more than Sawbridge,’ Mrs Walsh said, reprovingly. ‘And, besides, old Enoch did his bit in the trenches in the First War. So I expect he did go to London on the way to France. You shouldn’t assume that no old person has ever done or seen anything.’

George just laughed good-naturedly. ‘Molly’s going to sail through her interview,’ he said. ‘She’s the best sales girl I know. She always manages to make me buy more than I intended.’

‘Let’s hope they put you in the Fashion Department,’ Mrs Walsh said, as if Molly had already got the job. ‘I can just imagine you selling beautiful evening gowns to smart city ladies.’

‘That would be lovely, but I’m fairly certain they give those jobs to experienced, more mature women,’ Molly said. ‘I’d like to be in Children’s Wear, really.’

Mrs Walsh left the living room then; she said she had to get the tea on.

‘You do know they call us “Swedes” up there,’ George said once she’d gone. ‘They snigger at our West Country accents. When I went on a course there, they never stopped pulling my leg. I thought most Londoners were far too full of themselves.’

‘Oh, don’t say that!’ she begged him. ‘I’ll be afraid to speak. It’s bound to be a bit strange at first. Maybe I’ll hate it and I’ll come back and settle in Bristol. But, whatever happens, I can’t see me coming back here to the village, not while Dad’s still around.’

She couldn’t be certain, but she thought George looked a bit sad. ‘Of course, I’ll keep in touch with you, George.’

He smiled at that. ‘Will you be keeping in touch with that writer chap?’ he asked.

‘No, I don’t think so,’ she said, secretly pleased that he was bothered at the prospect of a rival penpal. ‘He’s just a passing acquaintance, and he’ll move on soon. I’ll keep in touch with you, because you’re special. I’ve known you all my life. Funnily enough, though, you’ve never so much as asked me to the pictures.’

She was surprised at herself for daring to be so outspoken.

‘Would you have gone if I’d asked?’ he said. He looked bashfully boyish and Molly’s stomach gave a tiny flip.

‘I think it’s a possibility,’ she said, leaning over to pat his cheek affectionately. ‘The last time you held my hand was eleven years ago when we were leaving school. I thought you were going to ask me out that day, but you didn’t. A girl has only so much patience.’

He blushed. ‘I wanted to, but I was afraid you’d turn me down. Then there was the problem of how I’d find any time, because I had so many chores, with Dad being off at the War. Mum kept me busy with the vegetable garden, the chickens and sending me out shooting rabbits.’

‘That’s right, blame me,’ Mrs Walsh called out from the kitchen. ‘I’m the big bad mother keeping her boy close to home. As if! Mind you, I might have warned him off in case your dad skinned him alive.’

George looked at Molly, ‘I’m not frightened of him. Even when I was fifteen I wasn’t.’

Molly smiled. ‘Then you were the only boy in the village that wasn’t. I’m going to stand up to him, starting when I get back from London. But I am worried what he’ll be like to Mum once I’ve gone for good.’

‘We’ll all keep an eye out for her,’ George said, and the sincerity in his voice was touching. ‘I’ll whisper in a few ears, get my scouts out. He’ll need to get help in the shop, and I think that woman who helps out in busy times will be anxious to do more hours.’

Molly nodded. Her mother had said earlier that Hilda Swainswick had often offered to do more hours if she was needed. She would be good for the shop, too: she was hard working, loyal and very fond of Mary, and she had the kind of husband who wouldn’t stand for his wife being bullied by Jack.

‘It isn’t for you to worry about my parents,’ she said. ‘But I appreciate it, and I must be going now. Eight o’clock tomorrow? ’

George got up out of his seat, too, and in two steps reached her and took her hands in his. ‘Be careful up there, won’t you?’

On an impulse, Molly leaned in and kissed him, and all at once his arms went around her and he was kissing her back.

‘I’m sorry to intrude,’ his mother said from the doorway, making them jump apart, blushing furiously.

She didn’t say what she’d come in for, perhaps too surprised at finding them kissing, and Molly and George just stood there feeling awkward.

‘I must go,’ Molly managed to get out, moving towards the door. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, George.’

He didn’t repeat the kiss at the station today, but remembering it now gave her a lovely prickles-down-the-spine sensation and, as she relived it, she got the stomach-flip thing again. How infuriating it was that George couldn’t have kissed her like that two or three years ago! Why did it have to happen just as she was planning to leave?

Molly stood still and looked up at the Braemar Guest House, 32 Sussex Gardens. It was identical to all the other houses in the once rather grand terrace: four storeys, steps up to an impressive door, but in desperate need of a coat of paint.

It had been a very long train journey; she was tired, stiff and her face felt as if it were covered in a layer of grit. Yet she wasn’t scared now. Simon’s map had been easy to follow and, although London was frantically busy, with its countless cars and buses and so many more people rushing around than she’d ever seen in Bristol, it wasn’t as terrifying as she’d imagined. She thought it was exciting.

The door to the guest house was opened by an elderly woman with iron-grey hair, thick spectacles and a frilly white apron over a navy-blue dress. ‘You must be Miss Heywood,’ she said with a wide smile. ‘Come on in, my dear. After that long train journey you must be dying for a cup of tea.’

Molly knew right away why George liked staying at the Braemar: it was cosy and clean and Miss Grady, the owner, was kind and welcoming. Molly’s room was on the first floor at the back. It had a double bed with a cheerful red print bedspread, a dressing table and a small wardrobe, the window looked out on to walled gardens, and there were tall plane trees at the bottom of Miss Grady’s, which stopped the Braemar being overlooked.

The shared bathroom and a separate lavatory were both at the front of the house, but Molly had a washbasin in her room, too.

Over a cup of tea and a slice of fruit cake, Molly chatted to Miss Grady, telling her about her job interview the next day. Miss Grady offered to make Molly something to eat but, as tempting as it was to avoid the need to go to a café, Molly refused, because she felt it was cheating. Besides, it was an adventure coming to London, and it would be a shame to stay in the room on a summer’s evening.

It was just after ten when Molly got back to the guest house that evening. She had had egg and chips in a café, followed by apple pie and custard, and had then walked for what seemed miles, looking in shop windows. The café experience hadn’t been frightening, though she had felt a little self-conscious eating alone. As for the fear of being robbed, that had vanished. She had kept a tight hold on her handbag, but she hadn’t feel threatened in any way. As she climbed into bed, she felt very satisfied with herself at overcoming some of her fears.

The interview at Bourne & Hollingsworth was held in an oak-panelled room right at the top of the building. Molly had heard someone refer to it as the boardroom. In films, such rooms had a huge, oval, shiny table and men sat all around it, but the one at the London store had a very ordinary long table, behind which sat the three interviewers, and in front of it, one single chair for the interviewee.

‘You do understand that being an assistant in a high-class fashion store is very different from slicing bacon and weighing up sugar and tea,’ one of the interviewers, a hawk-faced woman, said. She sat between two middle-aged men and was wearing a very smart black costume, her dark-brown hair in a bun. Her voice was what Molly’s mother would call ‘BBC’. Every word was pronounced with precision. All the questions she’d fired at Molly had been insulting to Molly’s intelligence, but she had responded politely.

‘Of course I know the difference between a fashion store and a grocer’s,’ Molly said, her patience beginning to run out. She was sure this hard-faced woman was appalled by the home-made navy-and-white dress and jacket and little white hat. She probably didn’t like Molly’s West Country burr either, so she might as well say her piece and be done with it. ‘But even if the products sold are very different, customer care should be the same. I have been brought up to treat every customer as very important, to go that extra mile for them.’

To Molly’s astonishment, the more portly of the two men gave a little hand clap, glancing round at Hawk Face to see her reaction. ‘You are quite right, Miss Heywood. Customer care is the most important thing, but you do need to have a keen interest in fashion, too.’

‘I always read fashion magazines,’ Molly volunteered. ‘I am keenly interested in it and hope that you’ll give me the chance to prove my worth.’

‘Will you wait outside, Miss Heywood? We’ll call you in again later,’ Hawk Face said.

Molly went back outside with a heavy heart and joined the five other girls waiting there. Despite all the patronizing questions from Hawk Face, she thought she’d given a good account of herself, and the men had seemed impressed with her School Certificate results. But these other girls waiting all looked smarter, prettier and more confident than she was. She was just a country bumpkin in handmade clothes. It was tempting to leave now and avoid the humiliation of being turned down.

One by one, the girls went in, but they must have left the interview room another way, as they didn’t come back out to where Molly was. Finally, when she was the only girl left sitting there, Hawk Face called her in.

‘Well, Miss Heywood,’ one of the men spoke up. ‘We have decided to offer you a position here in Bourne & Hollingsworth, and would like you to begin in-store training with Miss Maloney, one of our fashion buyers, on Monday the seventeenth at 8.45.’

Molly’s mouth dropped open in surprise, but she quickly pulled herself together. ‘Thank you so much. I hope I can justify your faith in me,’ she said, with as much dignity as she could muster.

Hawk Face half smiled. ‘We hope for that, too, and that you will have the stamina to remain cheerful and attentive to our customers at the very busiest times. Your room in Warwickshire House, our hostel in Gower Street, will be available on Saturday the fifteenth. It’s always better for our new girls to get settled in a day or so before beginning work, and it gives Miss Weatherby, our matron, a chance to tell you the rules over the weekend.’

Molly’s mind was reeling when she finally left the London store and headed for the tube station. She was to get a starting salary of sixteen shillings per week, her board and lodging all found. She would share a room with another girl and be issued with a black dress as a uniform. Some of the other things she’d been told – days off, commission and laundry arrangements – had all gone straight out of her head.

As the nearest thing she had had to a wage back in Sawbridge was the odd half-crown from her father, she felt rich just thinking about earning sixteen shillings. On top of that, she would get staff discount off anything she bought in the shop.

But just being chosen was the real thrill. Those other girls were well turned out, they looked confident and poised, but the interview board had picked her.

Her new-found confidence swept her on to the tube without a false step. But when she came out of Whitechapel tube station she had to stand still for a moment to regain her equilibrium, because it was like landing in a stinking, overcrowded hellhole.

Nothing had prepared her for such squalid mayhem. It made her think of a huge anthill; there were people scurrying about and horse-drawn carts, cars, lorries and buses vying for routes between them.

Right opposite was a big, soot-blackened hospital and, even as she stood there, two ambulances tore into the forecourt, bells jangling. Adding to the tumult was a market which spread right along the street. She could hear the stall holders yelling out inducements to buy. But it was the smell which really turned her stomach and made her want to get right back on the underground. A potent mix of horse droppings, sewage, human body odours, rotting rubbish and drains.

It was a warm, sunny day and there had been no rain for a while, so maybe that was why the smells were so bad, but everyone looked terribly shabby, too. Very old ladies and men bent almost double over their walking sticks were wearing little more than rags. Young mothers wheeling ramshackle prams didn’t just have one baby in them but often a couple of toddlers and a big bag of washing, too. Everywhere Molly looked, the children were scrawny and pale.

She didn’t like it one bit. She felt threatened by the sheer numbers of people, and it was all so dirty and squalid. She had to go and see Constance now, because she was expected, but as soon as that was over she’d rush away from this horrible place.

She asked a man selling newspapers outside the station for directions to Myrdle Street, which is where Constance lived.

‘You sound like a farmer, ducks,’ he said. ‘You come up from Bristol?’

‘Near there,’ she said, surprised that he had any interest in her. ‘Do you know it?’

‘Never bin there,’ he said. ‘But I ’ad a mate in the army from there and ’e sounded just like you. Come up ’ere to work, ’ave you?’

After a brief exchange with him, Molly followed his directions to Myrdle Street, only to find that Whitechapel Road was a smart address in comparison to the side streets she was now walking along. There were so many houses missing in the long terraces, big timbers held up the remaining ones, and the weed-covered bomb sites in between were now impromptu playgrounds for huge packs of skinny, pale, sharp-featured children.

Molly looked up at the remaining houses and shuddered, because she could imagine how grim and comfortless they were inside. Old folk sat on the doorsteps of some of the houses, and the sight made her feel unbearably sad for some reason she didn’t understand.

Myrdle Street was much the same as the others she’d passed through, but there was a gang of about twelve girls skipping over a long rope turned by two of the bigger ones. Molly paused to watch them for a moment, noting that they wore plimsolls on their feet, some with the toe cut out to give more room, they all had scabby knees, and every one of them wore a dress so faded and worn they looked like they’d fall apart in the wash. She was suddenly reminded that, however horrible her father could be, she’d always had enough to eat, good clothes and shoes. She hadn’t realized until now what real poverty looked like.

The front door to 22 Myrdle Street was open. Molly tapped on it and, when there was no response, she went into the narrow hall a little way and called out to Constance.

‘I’m back here!’ a weak voice called back. ‘Do come in.’

Molly nervously followed the voice to another open door at the end of the passage. It led to a rather dark room with a kitchen sink under the window. Constance was sitting in a wheelchair.

‘I’m sorry, I can’t get up very easily,’ she said. ‘You must be Miss Heywood?’

Constance was very small and thin. She wore a grey cotton dress and a grey cotton veil over her hair. Molly felt that she must belong to some religious order and that she was perhaps in her mid-sixties, maybe even older.

‘Yes, I’m Miss Heywood, but please call me Molly. Thank you for agreeing to see me,’ she said.

‘It is my pleasure. Now, pull that chair up and sit down. Tell me, did you get the job?’

‘Yes, I did,’ Molly said, pulling the easy chair closer to Constance. ‘I’m sorry that I addressed the letter just to “Constance”, but I didn’t know your other name.’

‘I’m known round here to everyone as Sister Constance,’ the old lady said. ‘I’m a Church Army sister. We aren’t like Roman Catholics: we don’t live in nunneries but out in the parish we are sent to. This has been my parish for over twenty years now but, since I ended up in this wheelchair, my work is mostly of the listening kind.’

‘I’ve always thought that good listeners are very valuable,’ Molly said. ‘Will you tell me how you got to know Cassie?’

‘She came to live next door when Petal was just a few months old,’ Constance said. ‘I wasn’t in the wheelchair then, and I walked down the street beside her one day. I asked her if she’d like to come to the young mothers’ meeting at the church.’

‘Did she go?’ Molly remembered Cassie being very anti-Church.

Constance shook her head. ‘No, she said she wasn’t a “joiner”, but we chatted as we walked, and I realized she was on her own without a husband and asked her if she got lonely.’

‘I bet she said she didn’t know the meaning of that word,’ Molly said.

‘No, what she said was that being alone can sometimes be far better for you than having others around you. I agreed with her, and I talked a little about how I pray when I’m alone, and how it clears my mind.’

‘She didn’t run a mile, then?’ Molly said lightly.

‘No! Despite her claims to be agnostic, she was a very spiritual girl. She understood about meditation, and had read widely on many religions. But let’s leave that for a minute, Molly. Explain to me first about her death? I was so distressed to get your letter and, to be honest, it didn’t make much sense to me. Why would anyone kill Cassie?’

‘I thought the same myself,’ Molly said, then explained everything, beginning from when she found her friend dead. ‘The coroner said the bruising on her arms and neck was evidence of a struggle, then it seemed she either fell back on to the hearth or was pushed, and her head banged hard on it, breaking her skull.’

Molly paused. She could see that Constance felt as deeply about Cassie as she did, and that was all the justification she needed to continue to search for answers.

‘What I don’t understand, though,’ she continued, ‘is why the police have given up on looking for Petal. I kind of see why they’ve run out of steam in finding Cassie’s killer, but they shouldn’t have stopped searching for a six-year-old. They wouldn’t be this way if she was the daughter of a doctor, or a teacher – someone that mattered. I hate it that they don’t care about her because she’s mixed race and her mother wasn’t married.’

Constance reached out and patted Molly’s knee. ‘You mustn’t hate. Pity people’s ignorance and prejudice perhaps, and try to show them by example what is right, but hating just makes you feel bad inside and serves no useful purpose.’

Molly smiled weakly. She liked everything about this woman: her soft blue eyes that were full of understanding; her acceptance that she had to be in a wheelchair now after spending the best part of her life caring for the poor. ‘I came to you because I’m hoping you can tell me stuff about Cassie which may make sense of everything. I want to be a detective and find Petal.’