Queen of Thieves

by Beezy Marsh

  Rubbish was blowing about outside the grimy windows of the local pub, which squatted opposite huge, red-brick tenements looming so high that they blotted out the sun. A bomb had done for the houses next to the pub, making somewhere for the kiddies to dice with death when their mums got sick to the back teeth of them. I glanced up to see washing strung between the flats, greying vests and holey sheets, fluttering high up above me. Down below, the shouts of little ones running amok echoed in the courtyard.

  In a heartbeat, two of the little sods were on me. They were bombsite kids alright, snotty-noses, matted hair like straw, covered in filth and God knows what else.

  ‘Gi’z a penny, Missus!’

  ‘Shouldn’t you be in school?’

  ‘Mind yer flaming business, you nosy cow.’

  I went to take a swipe at her, for cheeking me, but then I realized her face was all scarred and her little friend was holding her hand tightly, because she couldn’t see, the poor little mite. She must have been caught near a window during the Blitz.

  ‘Alright,’ I sighed, reaching into my purse. ‘There’s a penny but you’ve got to tell me where I can find Alice Diamond.’

  ‘If it’s the cozzers, she don’t live here no more,’ said the blind girl, as her mate kicked her in the shins.

  ‘Ow!’ she yelped.

  ‘Not supposed to say nuffink, stupid,’ said her mate, scowling at me.

  ‘I’m not the police, for Gawd’s sake, I just need to talk to her,’ I said, glancing at my watch.

  The shin-kicker snatched the penny, so I held on to her collar, to stop her legging it.

  ‘Flat 32 on the third floor in that block over there,’ she said pointing to a doorway in the corner of the courtyard before breaking free and scarpering, pulling her chum along behind her, like a little rag doll.

  There was an eerie silence as I climbed the stairwells, which stank of carbolic soap, but even that couldn’t cover the stench of urine in the corners. My nerves almost got the better of me but I’d come this far, so I ignored the butterflies in my stomach and rapped gently on the green front door of number 32.

  It swung open and Molly, the ginger tart, was standing there.

  ‘Well, look what the cat dragged in,’ she drawled, puffing away on a roll-up. She glanced over my shoulder for an instant. ‘You alone?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Better come in, then.’

  She led me down the hallway, past a room which was like an Aladdin’s cave, with a clothes rail stuffed to the gunnels with expensive looking coats and dresses. Perhaps Alice was a seamstress of some sort and took in piecework for wealthy ladies? They probably had more call for posh outfits now the war was done. I spied a Singer sewing machine in the corner too, a really fancy one. I loved sewing. I was a dab hand with the needle and thread, which came in very handy during the war, but I’d never been able to afford an actual sewing machine, so I was craning my neck to get a look at that. Molly tired of me dawdling and shoved me, quite hard, down the corridor towards a tiny kitchen.

  Alice Diamond was sitting at the kitchen table, surrounded by more bags brimming with clothes, grinning from ear to ear.

  She had an enormous tea pot in front of her, covered by a Union Jack cosy, and she poured me a brew. It was the brownest, most delicious looking cuppa I had seen since rationing began. Our tea was like dishwater, from reused tealeaves, but hers looked like paradise.

  ‘Thought I’d be seeing you again,’ she smirked. ‘Had a little think about my offer, did you?’

  She motioned at me to sit down and I pulled out a wooden chair which screeched on the tiled floor.

  ‘Yes,’ I said, sipping the scalding liquid. I was so keen to taste it, I almost burned my tongue.

  There was no point being standoffish. ‘I’m in trouble and like you said, there’s not many opportunities for a girl in my situation. I don’t want Jimmy to find out I’ve been here, but I want to know more, that’s all.’

  ‘Not still harping on about him, are you?’ said Molly, serving herself two boiled eggs from a pan on the gas stove – two, if you please! We only got one a week, at the best of times. She saw me eyeing them, sliced the tops off, took pity and pushed one towards me, along with a slice of thickly buttered toast. I ain’t ashamed to say I accepted it and started gobbling it up, before she could change her mind.

  Alice smiled, warmly: ‘What you do with Jimmy is your business, love, but in our line of work, it helps not to have too many strings attached. And like I told you, he ain’t all that reliable. You seen him since the other night?’

  ‘No,’ I said, tracing a few crumbs around the tabletop with my fingers, avoiding her gaze.

  Alice went on: ‘Speaks volumes, don’t it, Molly, not to check on his girl?’

  Molly nodded, smugly. For some reason, I was dying to give her a clump, egg or no egg.

  ‘What is it, the work you are offering me?’ I asked, between mouthfuls of delicious yolk.

  ‘Well, we go shopping to earn a living,’ said Alice, ‘But there’s skill involved, because we think the prices in the big shops like Selfridges and Gamages are too high for the likes of us.’

  She jabbed the air in front of her with a bejewelled finger as she spoke, to underline her point: ‘And it just. Ain’t. Fair.’

  ‘You nick stuff,’ I said, the penny dropping. ‘It’s all stolen. I ain’t a thief!’

  ‘Pickpockets, dippers, burglars,’ said Alice. ‘They’re the lowest of the low, stealing from old ladies’ coats, people’s houses and women’s handbags, the filth.

  ‘The way I see it,’ Alice continued, taking a slurp of tea as a fat, tabby tomcat strutted in and jumped on to her lap, ‘we are skilled workers. The posh folk are pinching from us every day of our lives. They treat us like mugs. We work our fingers to the bone.’

  I had to admit, she had a point but Molly’s cigarette-stained fingers, with red nails like talons, didn’t look like they’d done a hard day’s graft in their life.

  Alice continued, as the cat rubbed its head against her hand, purring: ‘And all we get is coupons we can’t live on, rent we can’t pay, even after the sacrifices we’ve all made in the war.

  ‘Not the quality, oh no, they’re over the water in their posh houses, Mr and Mrs Lah-Di-Dah, dressed up nice, going out to dinner, bending the rules or breaking ’em because when you’re rich, Nell, the rules don’t count.

  ‘And in any case, the shops have got insurance, so they get the money back. We’re just nicking a few things here and there to help give people, our kind of people, stuff they want, at a fair price. We ain’t really robbing from anyone if you look at it that way. We’re helping ourselves because no one will help us.’

  Molly grinned at me, and I noticed her teeth were yellowing: ‘We’re hoisters, Nell. It’s a trade you have to train for, but it will set you up for life.’

  Just then, the kitchen door swung open and another couple of girls, the ones from the pub at the Victory Parade, stepped in and started pulling things out of their pockets to lay them on the table before Alice.

  One of them lifted her dress and produced – no word of a lie – an entire fur coat from the most enormous pair of bloomers I have ever seen in my life. They had elastic at each knee and were proper apple-catchers, reaching all the way up beyond her belly button. As she unrolled the fur, still on the hanger, she laughed: ‘Ta da!’ and Molly gave her a little round of applause. It was sable, the softest and most beautiful pelt, and I knew it would cost a bleeding fortune.

  ‘Well done, Em,’ said Alice. ‘Turn out your pockets, Patsy,’ she said to her companion, who was fishing around inside her coat. She was blonde, with freckles and looked like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. With expert fingers, she produced several pairs of leather gloves, some stockings and a watch, as Alice looked on, approvingly: ‘Nice work. Any problems up West?’

  ‘Gamages are getting wise to us,’ said Em. ‘I had a few near misses.’

  ‘These are some of my girls
,’ said Alice. ‘We look after each other. It’s a bit like a family.’ She produced a fistful of pound notes from the pocket of her apron and gave some to each of them, just like that, as if money grew on trees.

  My dad was killing himself at Hartley’s Jam Factory for four quid and six shillings a week and I was grafting all week for two.

  ‘We stick together, and we don’t tell no tales ever,’ said Alice. ‘It’s a proud tradition, hoisting, goes all the way back to the times of Queen Victoria herself. The cozzers call us The Forty Thieves.’

  I was listening, open-mouthed. It sounded like something out of the talkies, Ali Baba and The Forty Thieves, only this was Alice Diamond and The Forty Thieves. It was thrilling, to be honest.

  ‘The bosses up in the shops in the West End are getting too clever for their own good, the sneaky bastards. We have our methods but they’re getting walkers on the shop floor, to follow us around, spot anyone acting suspicious, which is where you come in, love.

  ‘Who would ever suspect your innocent little face? And let me tell you, that bump of yours is only going to get bigger, which means you can shove more down your drawers and get away with it!’ she said triumphantly.

  ‘What if I get caught?’

  ‘You won’t get caught, because I will teach you everything I know. And I know plenty. And in any case, you’re pregnant, which means they will be more sympathetic. You could have just been having a funny turn, couldn’t you?’

  She turned to Molly, who was admiring the watch, which had a beautiful mother-of-pearl clockface: ‘Moll, when was the last time anyone went up before the beak?’

  Molly shrugged her shoulders: ‘Maybe three years ago. Eva got time but that was during the war when they were clamping down on us and even then, it was only six months in Holloway. The prison cocoa was nice from what I hear.’

  ‘And did I look after her?’

  ‘Yes, paid her wages weekly and she had it all when she came out, with interest,’ said Molly.

  I had no intention of going to prison, ever, but stealing a few clothes and earning easy money did sound like an attractive prospect. Besides, the way Alice was talking and given my situation, I didn’t really have a choice.

  ‘I want to be able to get some money together to help raise my baby,’ I said, the words tumbling out before I even knew what I was really saying. Jimmy had made promises about the future, our future, but right now he was nowhere to be seen and I needed to do something to make things better for myself and this baby. Supposing it had all been a load of hot air and he’d done a runner, given I was in the family way? It wouldn’t be the first time a bloke had left his girl in the lurch at the first sign of trouble.

  I’d heard of a few women who’d had babies with GIs who were going it alone, and they were on the waiting list for council prefabs. The clever ones put their kids with an aunty and they went out to work during the day. You never saw them out and about because they were always working or at home, and frankly most people didn’t want to talk to them, but at least they were living life on their own terms. I knew my dad would never let Mum help me out, but at least if I had money, I could pay a babysitter…

  ‘That’s a lovely idea, ain’t it, Molly?’ said Alice. ‘D’you think we’ll be able to help Nell stand on her own two feet with her little one?’

  ‘Can’t see why not,’ said Molly. ‘The best girls easily earn a fiver a week, Nell, and I should know.’

  A fiver a week! I’d be living like a lord on that.

  ‘But, that’s more than fellas earn!’ I gasped. Jimmy or no Jimmy, earning that kind of cash was like a dream and I wanted to know more.

  ‘It is,’ said Alice. ‘I have a few blokes working for me, to help us get shopping away from the stores in a hurry, and I pay them fairly, but my girls are my priority. There’s no other job in London that’ll pay you more than me. Well, none that will let you keep your knickers on.

  ‘Now I’ve let you in to some of our secrets, I’ll need you to prove yourself, but first why don’t you come and pick something nice, just as a welcome present, for joining our little gang?’

  She was so persuasive, almost homely looking, in a pinny and fluffy carpet slippers. This Alice wasn’t a bit like the fierce woman in a fedora who’d commanded such respect in the pub. She was softer, motherly almost, and she was a million miles nicer than my boss, Miss Pritchard. I didn’t care that the bell would have sounded for the end of lunchbreak by now and everyone would be hurrying back to their places in the factory. I simply did not give a fiddler’s damn about it anymore.

  Alice was offering me a different life; money, big money, more than I’d ever earned, standing on my own two feet with no man being the boss of me.

  She put her arm around me as she swept me down the hall and into the front room, where the clothes rail stood.

  ‘Help yourself.’ She smiled.

  My fingers ran the full length of that rail, feeling the softness of printed cotton, silks and taffeta. Those were other people’s lives on that rail, rich people’s, but I was allowed more than a glimpse, I was allowed to touch, for once.

  There was no way I needed a fancy frock in my condition and I’d never be able to explain that to my parents. In a bag on the floor, I spied some underwear.

  My bust was barely contained in my liberty bodice these days. My boobs were looking more like two barrage balloons.

  Bending down for a closer look, I pulled out a brassiere and a silk camisole. I’d seen a picture of one in the adverts in the Evening News but never dreamed I’d feel one, let alone own it.

  ‘Don’t be shy, try them on,’ said Alice.

  I slipped out of my blouse and undid my bodice, heaving a sigh of relief as I eased into that bra, feeling the softness of silk camisole next to my skin.

  Alice picked up my tatty old liberty bodice and twirled it around before chucking it in the corner.

  ‘You won’t be needing that any more, love.’

  Then she rummaged in an old wooden chest and pulled out something else, holding it aloft.

  It was a pair of those ridiculous hoister’s bloomers, with thick elastic at each leg.

  ‘But you will be needing these.

  ‘Welcome to The Forty Thieves.’

  Chapter Five

  NELL

  Waterloo, London, June 1946

  It felt like I was hopping the wag from school.

  ‘You’re doing what?’ whispered Iris in astonishment, as we sat together on the tram the next day.

  ‘Old Pritchard nearly blew a gasket when she realised you were missing all afternoon,’ she went on. ‘Shouldn’t you go and face the music? At least tell her you’re leaving?’

  ‘No flipping way,’ I said. ‘I’m not going back, and that’s that. Just tell her I’ve gone to look after me sick nan down in Kent, will you? I’ve got bigger fish to fry now.’

  As far as Mum and Dad were concerned, I was going to work down at the Alaska factory every day, just as I always had.

  In reality, I was holed up in Scovell Road, learning how to be a hoister, taught by Alice Diamond, the Queen of The Forty Thieves, who was the best pilferer in the business. Molly Hall, her light-fingered second-in-command, was planning to take me out on my first shopping expedition up in the West End, but first I had to learn the tricks of the trade. Molly dispensed advice in between slugs of gin from one of Alice’s best china teacups.

  ‘Alice has three other teams working for her, but they leave their shopping with local fences, for safety, in case of police raids, so they don’t come round to Scovell Road,’ she said, topping up her cup. It was not yet lunchtime, she could drink like a man, for sure. ‘And if the cozzers did show up, things would disappear into other flats, as if by magic, wouldn’t they, Alice?’

  ‘They can’t search the whole of Queen’s Buildings,’ said Alice strolling into the kitchen. ‘They know I’m crooked, I am right down to my smalls, but they have never been able to prove it.’

  ‘Now, let’s get
on with it. Have you got your hoister’s drawers on, Nell?’

  Pulling on those stupid knickers, Gawd, I looked a sight. I was doubled over laughing.

  ‘Passion killers,’ said Molly, drily. ‘They’d work better than a chastity belt.’

  ‘Wish I’d had them on round the back of the Trocadero a few months back,’ I replied.

  That broke the ice between us.

  I can’t say I liked Molly, given how she’d been all over my Jimmy, but she was a good teacher and she did her best to make amends: ‘If I’d known he was walking out with you, doll, I wouldn’t have touched him with a barge pole, honest.’ She smiled but her eyes didn’t. I was prepared to let that slide.

  When I say my Jimmy, well, he wasn’t really my Jimmy anymore because he’d done a bunk. No one down The Cut had seen him since the night I’d caught him boozing with The Forty Thieves. His barrow was still parked in its usual place, up an alley, but he’d upped and gone, like the Scarlet Pimpernel. I tried not to dwell on it, but the thought of being without him made me feel properly queasy in the pit of my stomach.

  ‘You look a bit pale, love,’ said Alice, coming to my side. ‘Expect it’s a bit of morning sickness. It’ll pass. Come on, let’s take your mind off it. This will be fun.’

  We used Alice’s kitchen table as a counter, and I practiced sweeping things off and into my bag. The bag swap took place between me and Molly, across the threshold of the front room to the hallway. She’d had a few by then but was still steady as a rock on her feet.

  ‘Speed it up,’ said Alice. ‘You’ve got to be quicker, Nell.’

  God knows, I was trying my best, but she was like greased lightening when she did it.

  ‘You’re doing fine,’ she said. ‘It takes years to get fast at it, but you’ve got real potential, ain’t she, Molly?’

  ‘Oh, she’s a natural!’ she cried. I think it was the drink talking.

  We practiced distraction, where Alice would knock something of the table, and I would swipe scarves and gloves and stuff them in my pockets.