Queen of Thieves

by Beezy Marsh

  Gypsy started preening herself, the way she did whenever a half-decent bloke stepped into her orbit, but Jimmy only had eyes for me.

  Then, he seemed to remember he was meant to be working, so he adjusted his tie and glanced back over his shoulder. His mate still had tight hold of his end of the rug. Something in the rug emitted a muffled groan.

  ‘Pick it up, you clown!’ said Jimmy’s companion. ‘For Gawd’s sake, Mr Sullivan told us to take it straight into his office; no hanging about!’

  The rug started wriggling around. Lou turned away and started polishing some glasses as Gypsy, Alma and me stood there, opened mouthed.

  ‘What you got in there?’ said Gypsy, ‘A crocodile?’

  Jimmy picked up his end of the rug, which was kicking like fury, and tucked it under his arm: ‘No, just a particularly troublesome snake.’

  He gave me a wink: ‘I’ll catch you later, Nell. Fancy a drink when you knock off work?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ I said, casually.

  He grinned at me again and the pair of them lugged the body in the rug across the club, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to carry someone bundled up like that.

  My stomach lurched as I thought back to the blood stains on Billy Sullivan’s office floor.

  Lou must have caught the look on my face because he pulled a bottle of champagne out from under the bar and uncorked it. He poured three glasses, with bubbles fizzing over, and handed them to me, Gypsy and Alma.

  ‘Now, did any of you ladies see anything unusual just now?’

  Alma took a large gulp and said: ‘Not me.’

  Gypsy sipped at it and thought for a moment: ‘I saw a perfectly normal carpet being delivered, didn’t you, Nell?’

  I drank, deeply.

  ‘Same here,’ I said. I knew which side my bread was buttered in gangland.

  ‘Good,’ said Lou. ‘What happens in The Windsor, stays in The Windsor, and that is the way Mr Sullivan likes it.’

  ‘Taking my name in vain again, Lou?’

  His voice echoed across the room, making me jump out of my skin. How long had he been there watching us?

  Billy Sullivan strolled over, flicking raindrops off his fedora, and bellied up to the bar. ‘Mothers’ meeting, is it? Haven’t you got work to do?’ The temperature dropped several degrees at that, and the cheap champagne went flat. He was no mood for chit-chat. We knew he had business to attend to in the back room, for one thing.

  We emptied our glasses as quickly as we could and made our way over to the stage to begin rehearsals.

  But not before Alma’s mouth had run away with her: ‘So, Nell, who is your secret boyfriend? And how come you know one of Billy’s Chaps so well?’

  I looked over my shoulder to see if Billy Sullivan had overheard me. By the look on his face, he was digesting that piece of information, as if it were tastier than one of his knock-off chocolates.

  The muffled cries coming from Billy’s office could be heard in the club, no matter how hard the pianist hammered on the ivories to try to disguise it. Dancers exchanged glances as they practiced their steps, and I belted the songs out but I couldn’t help wondering what on earth was going on in there.

  After a couple of hours, when it was time to let the punters in, Lou traipsed down the corridor and the rolled up carpet was once again carted out and up the stairs by Jimmy and his chum, who gave me a cheery wave. This time the carpet was not moving.

  That evening, I sang my way lamely through my set, to a packed audience of whey-faced punters, with condensation rising from their damp clothes. Gypsy and Alma set about the tables with boxes of chocolates, perching on laps, stroking thighs and draping themselves over anything with a pulse and a fat wallet, much to Lou’s delight.

  Billy held court at his favourite table by the bar, and when Albert came in, Gypsy made a point of hovering near him, until he bought her a drink. She’d put her new silk slip on, and he watched her backside, mesmerized by it, as she strode to the stage for her act.

  At eleven o’clock, Billy and Albert and the rest of the gang got up and left, with much glad-handing and straightening of ties. It was close to midnight when Jimmy strode back into the club to find me, nursing cuts and bruises on his knuckles.

  ‘Fancy that drink? We’ve got a lot to catch up on, haven’t we?’ He ruffled his hair, showing off his handsome features.

  My stomach went all floaty, but I fought that feeling.

  ‘I don’t know, Jim, you look like you’re trouble, and I’ve got to see that Gypsy gets home too.’

  ‘Don’t you two lovers worry about me,’ shouted Gypsy, glancing up from a table, where she’d spent hours hanging on to every word from a pair of twits with shiny shoes to match their slicked back hair and old school ties. The table was piled with empty glasses and she’d managed to foist not one, but two boxes of chocolates on the unsuspecting pair. ‘I don’t want to be a gooseberry, you go on without me, Nell.’

  ‘Alright,’ I said, ‘One drink.’

  He pulled me to him, but I brushed him off: ‘And no funny business.’

  Ivy’s café was a proper dive, on the corner of Frith Street, but it was always open late. Nobody minded the chipped china or greasy cutlery, because everyone got a warm welcome and she buttered her toast so thickly. The grocery store next door was under the protection of Billy Sullivan, so there was no shortage of black market food on her plates, unless the boys in blue darkened her doors, in which case cuts of bacon, trays of eggs and pats of butter would be hurriedly shoved under the sink or rushed out of the back door and into the alley.

  Ivy toiled over her gas stove by the light of a paraffin lamp in the blackout and wax oozed over saucers in the middle of each table in the cafe, where stumpy candles had burned down almost to the wick. The smell of cooking made my stomach rumble, as I realized I hadn’t eaten all day.

  I devoured my piece of toast with such gusto, licking my fingers, that Jimmy took pity and gave me his as well.

  A muscle twitched in his cheek, as he leaned across the table towards me.

  ‘So, how have you been keeping?’

  ‘Fine,’ I said, tightly.

  He lowered his voice so that the fella reading a newspaper at the next table couldn’t hear. The headlines read: ‘Spivs and Drones Order – Police to clamp down on the scum of London’

  ‘I thought about you a lot, about the baby. I heard you’d gone inside…’ said Jimmy.

  ‘Well, a fat lot of good that did, all your thinking,’ I spat.

  ‘I tried to get a message to you, through Iris. She promised me she’d write to you, to tell you how I felt about everything…’ He looked hurt.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ I said.

  ‘So, you got the letter? Why didn’t you get in touch?’

  ‘Because, Jimmy, I thought about it and decided it was just a load of old flannel. And I had to do what was right for the baby…’

  ‘Did you have it?’

  ‘Of course, I had it. And it was a boy, a beautiful baby boy,’ I said. God, he was so flipping clueless. I felt rage boiling up inside, but I managed to keep a lid on it.

  Jimmy was lost for words, for once.

  I looked up at the flies stuck on the gummy paper hanging above the counter and started to count them.

  ‘Had him adopted, didn’t I? He was gorgeous. Looked a lot like you.’ Well, that was just too much. Tears welled in my eyes and I blinked them away at the thought of my baby, my Joseph.

  Jimmy swallowed hard: ‘A baby boy, our son…’

  ‘My son, Jimmy,’ I said, sharply. ‘I carried him for nine months, and I pushed him out and then I had to make the right choice for him, which was to give him away and now I’m living with the guilt of it.’

  Tears were running down my face and I wiped them away with the back of my hand.

  ‘Oh, God,’ Jimmy said, reaching out to me. ‘It’s all my fault, Nell, but I can make it up to you.’

  He made it sound so easy, but he was pissing in t
he wind, as usual.

  ‘It don’t matter now,’ I said, looking away. He had no idea what I had been through in Holloway and what I was going through now in Soho. He never would: ‘What’s done is done.’

  ‘It don’t have to be this way,’ he said. ‘We can make a go of it. You and me. I’m on to something big now, good money, we could move out to one of the suburbs, out West, Ealing way, to start over. What do you think?’

  He clocked the ring on my finger and a dark look swept over his features.

  ‘Who gave you that? You got a fella, Nell?’

  ‘No, Jimmy, I haven’t got a fella, not that it is any business of yours! I earned it myself.’

  He rocked back on his chair and ran his hands through his hair. ‘You ain’t on the game, are you, Nell? Because God knows I would never forgive myself for it…’

  ‘Who do you think you are, questioning me?’ I scoffed. ‘I won’t let the greasy punters in that dive lay so much as a finger on me. I earned it myself through other little jobs I do outside the club, if you must know, not that it is any of your business!’

  ‘You ain’t still in with The Forty Thieves, are you? Because Billy’s got it in for them from what I’ve heard…’ he murmured.

  I shook my head. ‘I take in piece-work for the theatres, sewing and mending, I’ve always been good with a needle and thread, ever since the fur factory. So, a posh actress gave it to me, as a thank you when I saved her modesty one night.’

  He seemed satisfied with that.

  He stirred his tea: ‘I know you’re angry with me, Nell, and you’ve every right to be, but there’s no other girl like you as far as I’m concerned. I tried to make it right, to walk you up the aisle but you wouldn’t have it…’

  ‘Oh, the spielers are full to the brim with floozies, I’ll bet,’ I said, buttoning up my coat. I’d heard enough of his patter. He was worse than the spivs up Old Compton Street, with loudly painted ties, selling dolls wrapped in cellophane, that dropped to bits the minute you bought them.

  ‘Please, Nell,’ he begged, ‘Give me a chance. Things just took a bad turn for us because I was stupid that night when you told me about the baby. It was the shock of it, I was drunk as a lord, and I didn’t take care of you. I should have shown you I was serious about us, I could’ve faced your dad down, man to man at the start, and persuaded him to let us marry because… because I love you, Nell.’

  ‘You can’t go saying that you love me, Jimmy, not now, not like this…’

  But there was something desperate in his eyes, something I hadn’t seen before in the old Jimmy, that stopped me in my tracks.

  ‘The way I feel about you is precious, and I know that now because I’ve seen things, done things…’ he murmured. We both knew what he was talking about. The body in the carpet at The Windsor was only the tip of the iceberg, I suspected.

  ‘I want us to have a life, like other people do. I want a wife and a baby and a home, away from this. I can keep us safe. I want to take care of you, if you will let me try. All I’m asking for is a second chance.’

  The bloke at the next table rustled his newspaper and peered at us both. I didn’t like the look of him, and he was clearly ear-wigging. What with the law clamping down on spivs and gangsters, for all I knew, there could be spies everywhere in Soho.

  ‘Jimmy, we can’t talk here,’ I said. ‘It’s getting late…’

  ‘Well, tomorrow?’ he said, hope lighting up his face. ‘You get a night off, don’t you? I can take you to the pictures and you can see that I’m serious about us. I can explain everything then. It will be fun, like it used to be. I promise.’

  I let him kiss me on the cheek and he made a great show of unrolling a wad of bank notes to pay the bill.

  ‘Alright,’ I sighed. ‘I’ll meet you tomorrow. But I ain’t promising anything.’ I wasn’t going to let him back in to my life that easily, even if my heart was aching for him.

  We strolled out of the cafe arm-in-arm, through the darkened Soho streets that were still glossy and wet, laughing as we avoided the puddles, looking like any other couple heading home after a night on the town.

  By the time we got to my front door, we were arm-in-arm, and I felt the familiar warmth of his body next to mine.

  Jimmy bent his head to kiss me, and I tilted my chin up, so that our lips met.

  At my feet, a discarded cigarette packet bobbed along the gutter in a torrent of rainfall.

  I clung to him for a moment, watching as it was swept away, down into the drains below London.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  NELL

  Soho, London, March 1947

  The queue for An Ideal Husband snaked half-way round Leicester Square but as the minutes ticked by and I found myself nearing the doors of the cinema, my heart sank.

  Jimmy was nowhere to be seen. He’d obviously got a better offer. So much for an ideal husband; he was a crap boyfriend, for starters. I should have known better than to trust him.

  Inside, the foyer was plush, in gold and red, with velvet drapes. A grand clock on the wall chimed loudly, echoing off the ornate plasterwork.

  ‘Do you want a ticket or not?’ clucked the woman at the box office, shooting me a pitying glance over the top of her glasses. ‘The film starts in two minutes, love.’

  I caught the eye of another no-hoper who’d been stood up. She was pretending to do her lipstick as she loitered by the entrance. A few moments later, she gave up the ghost and headed out of the door, back into the remains of her evening.

  I handed over my two shillings, pretending that I’d planned to come alone anyway, and the usherette guided me to the stalls, her face illuminated by the glowing end of a ciggie, which perched on her bottom lip, as if by magic.

  I can’t remember when I started to cry but by the interval, my mascara was running down my cheeks and an old fella in the row in front turned around and gave me his handkerchief.

  ‘Ain’t any of my business, sweet, but whoever he is, he ain’t worth it,’ he said.

  Those words were like a knife in my heart.

  I gathered what was left of my pride and left the cinema, picking my way through the backstreets, ignoring the shouts from drunken blokes falling out of pubs, until I found my way to somewhere familiar.

  It wasn’t exactly home, but it was the only place I knew I’d get a warm welcome; alongside the dregs of Soho and those desperate to make a bob or two, just to keep their heads above water.

  The sound of the piano being bashed for dear life drifted up the dank stairwell and as I pushed through the doors and into The Windsor, Alma and Gypsy were strutting at the head of a conga-line, flashing everything that God gave them, while the fellas queuing up behind sang The Lambeth Walk at the top of their voices.

  Presiding over the whole scene, leaning on the bar in a double-breasted navy wool suit, his eyes drinking it all in, was Billy Sullivan.

  ‘Evening, Nell,’ he said, with a grin slowly spreading over his face. ‘You look like you could use a bit of cheering up. Fancy a drink?’

  I forced a smile as the cheap champagne bubbles exploded on my tongue: ‘Thanks, Billy.’

  ‘I wonder if you might like to do me a little favour,’ he said, leaning in close, so that I caught a whiff of his lemony cologne. I should have known that nothing in his clubs came without strings attached, not even a free drink.

  ‘I’ve got a game of cards tonight, important clients, and I need someone to help serve the drinks and look decorative, who knows how to behave in decent company,’ he said, watching me closely.

  I must have recoiled slightly because he very gently laid his hand over my forearm: ‘There’s no pressure, Nell, if you have other plans, but I like to have people I can trust by my side when I play, so that I can focus on the game. And I will pay you handsomely for your time.’

  Gypsy waved at me from the conga-line as she twirled her feather boa: ‘Come on, Nell, don’t be a wet weekend! Come and join in!’

  ‘Can Gypsy come too? I
’d feel better about going if she came with me…’

  He thought about it for a moment, as he lit a cigar.

  ‘Don’t see why not. Albert would probably like that. But she’ll have to keep her trap shut unless she’s spoken to and mind her p’s and q’s. I’m talking about a high stakes game in Mayfair, Nell, not some backroom spieler where you’ll get a thug’s boot in your face the minute you try to leave the card table. There will be lords and ladies there, most likely. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, fumbling with my cardigan, feeling self-conscious. I was just a girl from the slums. What would I know about talking to posh people who were born with a silver spoon in their mouths?

  ‘I’ve got a feeling you can hold your own in good company but to help you, there are a few nice things in my office that I’ve just got in from one of my suppliers. I reckon you’ll find something in your size that might take your fancy. I’ll be waiting in the car outside when you are ready. Meet me in half an hour.’

  He handed me the key to his office.

  ‘And, Nell,’ he said, brushing a thumb across my cheek, ‘Go and fix your face, there’s a good girl.’

  I pushed my way through the crowded club to go backstage and into Billy Sullivan’s lair, wondering how I could think up and excuse to get out of having to go to his stupid card game. I just wanted to go home, pull the bedclothes over my head and forget about Jimmy standing me up.

  But when I turned the key in the lock, the sight that greeted me was not the gangland den that I had expected. Roses and freesias in cut-glass vases on the desk filled the air with the most delicious scent and the blood-spattered carpet had been replaced with an oriental rug.

  A clothes rail of the fanciest-looking gowns I’d ever laid eyes on stood next to the leather sofa. I knew from the first glance they were dead-ringers for that Dior New Look dress I’d seen in a glass case in Gamages. I peeked down inside one of the linings, to check the label and my heart skipped a beat. They were Dior gowns, the real thing, not some knock-offs from an East End tailor. God only knows how Billy Sullivan had managed it, but he had a whole rail full of them; they must have been worth hundreds of pounds each.