The Girl at My Door: An utterly gripping mystery thriller based on a true crime

by Rebecca Griffiths

  Queenie watched the flames lick, one then two, until it was ablaze.

  ‘I think it’s about time we upped your wages.’ If this was his way of stopping her from leaving, it was feeble and touching and made her feel worse than she already did. ‘You should at least be earning the same as the boys.’ He plumped down on his chair with a leathery creak.

  ‘Sounds fair.’ Isn’t Uncle Fish going to ask me about Weiszmann’s offer? Evidently not… head in the sand.

  ‘On top of your clothing allowance, of course.’ He downed another mouthful of cigar smoke.

  Queenie smoothed her dress over her knees and shared nothing of her need to use this allowance to supplement the shortfall in housekeeping. That her father’s emphysema had worsened and meant he had reduced his hours at the bottle factory.

  ‘Should be easier now clothing rationing’s ended. Although I must congratulate you, my dear.’ He tugged on his moustache. ‘That’s another wonderful outfit. You are good at giving your public what they want.’

  My public?

  It seemed farcical to someone of her origins. She couldn’t seriously believe she had a public. Returning, as she did, to the bleak-bricked monotony of that rented terraced house and her room squashed under the eaves. Whatever her evenings here brought with them – adoration from the audience, a stream of male admirers – it all melted into nothing when she was back at the Belfast sink.

  Uncle Fish counted out money from his cash box and she took the bundle of notes, thanking him.

  ‘Just one other thing.’ He picked up his cigar and filled his cheeks again.

  ‘Yes?’ She breathed in the rich, spicy smoke.

  ‘Gladys is leaving to get married and I need a new waitress. Someone personable, happy to muck in. You wouldn’t happen to know anyone?’

  2

  It had stopped raining by the time Joy Rivard reached the top of Great Russell Street. But the damage had been done. Her old green school coat was blackened by rain and her stout shoes mud-encrusted. Even her hat in fawn velour had failed miserably. The brim collected water so that when she tipped her head, icy rain slid down inside her collar. Refusing to travel by Tube, if it rained, she would usually pick up a bus but had been caught on the hop today. Never one for heels like her best friend Queenie, the walk from her lodgings in Gloucester Road and up through Hyde Park wasn’t a problem. The interest she found along the way helped energise her for a day cooped up inside the British Museum, where it was her job to classify and catalogue the thousands of books, journals, patents, prints and ancient manuscripts in the Reading Room.

  Since first arriving in London from Northern France, the ink still wet on her bilingual secretarial certificate, Joy found she shared the same fears as her father, who wouldn’t go underground either. Whenever recounting tales of Paris, his youth spent working the kitchens of Maxim’s, he would say it was only rats and those with something to hide who went beneath the paving slabs. A distressing irony, coming like a stab to the heart, to think her father had been buried in the churchyard of Arras’s Saint-Géry these last three years.

  Tilting her nose to the sky, where a glimmer of sun found a space between a dip in the rooftops, she pushed the sadness about her father away. Today was her birthday and to celebrate she was meeting Queenie before work. Work was another thing to feel good about. Joy knew she was lucky to have a job; the labour market was flooded. For every man that returned after the war, there was a woman who refused to be shooed back inside the home. Her mother used to say it was a mistake to be born a woman – a woman needed to earn her own living. But Joy didn’t see it like that. After leaving school at sixteen, an aunt had paid for her to attend college, where she learnt how to be useful in the business world of men. And even though she was always short of money – after paying rent, there was barely anything for food and nothing for luxuries – she refused to go back to her mother’s house in Arras.

  Joy was on the last leg of her journey and she loved this street. As long and straight as a corridor, the lofty buildings engulfed the pavements in shadow. Great Russell Street was made up of ubiquitous pubs and laundries, drapers and tobacconists with windows advertising everything from Neapolitan ice cream to Old Holborn tobacco. When she came upon a fruiterer, its wares set out in crates on the pavement and looking as colourful as jewels, she opted for a large apple and stepped inside to present it at the till.

  ‘Just this, please.’

  ‘Those are display only,’ the shopkeeper barked at her.

  She shrugged inside her wet coat and breathed back the musty shop smell. ‘I’d still like to buy one,’ she said, allowing the offending fruit to be snatched away.

  The man in a starched apron pulled a face, but Joy stood firm, forcing him to go behind a curtain and return with a paper bag heavy with an apple.

  ‘Thank you.’ Joy dropped the necessary coins on the counter and left the shop.

  The people running the outlets in this part of town had an air of hostility that made her feel – as many Londoners did – the foreigner on foreign soil. Something she supposed she was, as this wasn’t her country, and despite her impeccable English, the moment she opened her mouth, her accent made people suspicious. The indigenous population of this city evidently had trouble differentiating a German accent from her French one.

  When the tall black railings encasing the British Museum came into view, she peeped through the gaps and sighed at the Greek Revival façade that never failed to impress. A miracle, surely, when so much of London had been bombed, that this remained relatively intact. The clip-clop of hoofs on the road and she turned to a horse hauling a cart. It pulled up in front of her, and a dusty-coated man jumped down and began humping coal sacks to the pavement. She went over to the horse, stroked its muzzle and was sorry for the drooping head, the matted mane. She supposed the animal never galloped in grassy meadows, free of its harness and cart. A flash of her wartime childhood at Bugbrooke Farm: sun-kissed and dirty-kneed, sauntering the lanes around Goldchurch aboard a Suffolk Punch belonging to Queenie’s grandfather.

  She took the apple she had been saving for lunch out of the bag, nibbled off pieces to feed the horse from the flat of her palm. Listened to the jolly jangle of metal bit.

  ‘All gone,’ she told the long-lashed eyes behind the blinkers.

  ‘Joy!’ a woman’s voice called from across the street.

  Queenie. Her hourglass silhouette cut from the gloom. But for her dark hair, she was the image of Betty Grable. Joy raised an excited hand and with a final goodbye left the horse behind.

  ‘Happy birthday.’ Queenie kissed Joy’s cheek. She smelled of Californian Poppy.

  They linked arms and set off along the pavement, passing a lone policeman who couldn’t stop himself from turning to admire Queenie from beneath the peaked cap that looked too big for him.

  ‘What were you doing with that horse?’

  ‘Feeding him my apple.’

  ‘You’re a one, you are.’ Queenie gave her an affectionate squeeze.

  ‘I am?’ She didn’t understand.

  ‘You decided where we’re going?’ Leading, steering, Joy kept pace with Queenie’s positive strides.

  ‘You look lovely.’ She stole a glance at her friend.

  ‘As do you,’ came the quick reply.

  Do I? Really? Joy didn’t believe her. In her drenched coat and muddy shoes, her imitation panama with its thin blue ribbon, limp and ruined. Queenie obviously wasn’t looking at her. No one looked at her. Compared to Queenie, Joy believed she was nothing. Queenie was exotic and not quite of this world. With her dark eyes and bounce of hair, she had always cast Joy in the shade.

  ‘What about trying down here?’ Queenie piloted them into a side street.

  Joy waved a hand in the direction of a Lyons Corner House. She had been envisaging a breakfast of bacon and eggs and had counted the shillings and pence out ready.

  ‘This looks nice.’ Queenie, as assertive as her heels striking the cobbles, led her
on towards the candy-striped awning of a tea shop. ‘We’ll go in here.’

  They dipped inside, pushing beyond the tinkling bell and into a space confused by mirrors, packed with women of all shapes and sizes. The smell was of roasted coffee, almonds, perfume: expensive things. They chose a table by the window, to have what was available of the daylight.

  ‘Marie Antoinette.’ Queenie twisted away to read the name of the shop, while a ginger cat beside the till eyed them with suspicion. ‘Didn’t she come to a sticky end?’

  ‘Her fault for telling the starving population of France to eat cake.’

  ‘Talking of cake, what d’you fancy?’ Queenie cocked her hat at a better angle in the mirror then removed her coat to reveal a bold red dress beneath.

  Joy admired the way it flowed from the waist and swayed when she moved to the counter to choose tea for two with apple cake and shortbread. Embarrassed about her ready-made suit bought on credit from Oxford Street, she kept her coat fastened and picked up the menu, saw they served cream of chicory soup at lunchtimes. The remembered bittersweet tang of this, one of her father’s specialities, in her mouth.

  ‘You look miles away.’ Queenie sat down opposite.

  ‘I was wondering what happened to Papa’s recipes after he died.’

  ‘Have you asked your mother?’

  ‘She probably burnt them.’

  ‘Burnt them?’ Queenie, appalled.

  ‘She burnt his clothes and books.’ A memory of her mother poking them down into the hot hungry mouth of the brazier her father had fashioned out of an oil drum to incinerate leaves. ‘She made sure there was nothing of him left.’

  ‘That’s horrible, Joy, I’m so sorry.’ Queenie reached over the tabletop and put a hand on hers.

  When their rather odd breakfast arrived, Queenie lifted her hand away and the warmth of her was replaced with a strange cold feeling.

  ‘You heard from your mother?’ Queenie’s eyes shone from a face that was as flawless as the inside of her porcelain cup.

  Joy groaned over the clatter of crockery. ‘She’s threatening to visit in the summer.’

  ‘I’ve some news that’ll cheer you up.’ Joy listened to her say the Mockin’ Bird was looking for a waitress. ‘You’d be perfect. I’ve told Uncle Fish all about you.’ Queenie passed her a cup of tea. ‘How about it? You’re always saying you could use some extra cash.’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Joy squirmed. ‘What would I wear?’ She was thinking of Queenie’s lustrous gowns.

  ‘I can lend you something.’

  Joy was conscious of the other customers sitting close by: the clink of their china, the delicacy of their conversation.

  ‘Don’t look like that. It’ll get you out of that crummy bedsit, and we’ll get to spend more time together. Look, I know you said you were doing something with Amy tonight, but why don’t you come to the club?’

  ‘It’s too late to let Amy down. I’ll come another time.’

  ‘You’ve been saying that since forever.’ Queenie rolled her eyes. ‘It’s lovely there. I don’t know what you’ve been imagining. Uncle Fish wouldn’t let any riff-raff in.’ Queenie ate a square of shortbread, dabbed crumbs from her mouth. She transferred her customary red lipstick to the damask napkin Joy thought too beautiful to even unfold.

  ‘Don’t tell me you’re still feeding that pigeon?’

  Queenie had noticed Joy take the last corner of cake and fold it into the paper doily. ‘Yes, I am.’ She ignored the look she was getting. ‘I can’t disappoint him; he’s come to expect it now.’

  ‘Oh, I nearly forgot.’ Queenie dived for her handbag. ‘I hope you like them.’

  The gloves were beautiful. The leather was the colour of the purple plums her father used to grow. She put them on and tilted her hands to admire the tiny button at the wrist, the flawless stitching.

  ‘Queenie.’ She gasped. ‘This is too generous.’

  ‘Do you like them?’

  ‘Like them? I love them. Thank you.’

  ‘I’m so glad.’ Queenie lifted her teacup and toasted her. ‘Happy birthday, Joy.’

  3

  Terrence Banks didn’t seem to need sleep. However late leaving the Mockin’ Bird, he would make the short journey from Mayfair to Soho for the shadowy after-hours café life because he happened to love the wrong person.

  ‘Here will do. Thank you.’

  He wasn’t stupid; he never took the same taxicab twice and always asked to be dropped a few streets from his intended destination. Even the most affable of cab drivers could be working for the police, and he needed to be vigilant. Handing over the necessary fare, he stepped out into the night. The piercing cold sharpened to a spike in his throat as he adjusted his homburg and buttoned his overcoat for the walk ahead. A glance at the moon. Full and rare and hanging in the night sky. It silvered the pavement and the dejected bomb-blasted metropolis as he tracked down one dilapidated street after another.

  This area of the West End that would never quite reach the dizzy heights of neighbouring Mayfair or Bloomsbury certainly had its uses. With its cheek-by-jowl townhouses, taverns and gaming rooms, it served as a gathering place for refugees and the dispossessed and was, since the end of the war, becoming known for its raffish, unregulated air. But only if you knew where to look. Because the endless parades of Georgian buildings gave no hint of the seedy goings-on below the paving slabs. Up here, in daylight or gaslight, Terrence could be the decent man society believed him to be. He had always been frightened of the law, but his need to mask his proclivities was driving him further and deeper into London’s murky underworld than he ever meant to go. Terrence hadn’t chosen his sexuality. He hadn’t asked to be born to love men. How was it his fault he needed to mix with the con men, prostitutes and petty thieves?

  Brought up a Catholic, it wasn’t only the police he feared. Homosexuality, in the eyes of God, was an abomination, and if his illegal practices were discovered, his mother would never forgive him. It would knock his self-respect clean overboard – a pretence he had managed to maintain all his adult life. He knew what he and Malcolm did was risky; it was why he needed to keep their relationship secret. If they were discovered, it would mean his family, friends, colleagues at the bank, the band would shut him out in the cold – well, maybe not Queenie, but his reluctance to put her in a compromising position was why she and Malcolm still hadn’t met. It was hard for others to understand how repressive the atmosphere surrounding homosexuality was. How fears of his impending disgrace and imprisonment haunted his every waking hour. Because no one ever spoke of it, it wasn’t until he was into late adolescence that he realised it was a crime. He’d tried talking to his headmaster about it, but because the man couldn’t bring himself to mention it, Terrence supposed he was lucky he’d managed to work out what was going on before anyone else did. Using the dictionary to formulate his feelings, the one thing he did establish was the ugly aura of criminality, degeneracy and abnormality that surrounded it, and this was why he had remained mostly solitary until he’d met Malcolm.

  On his left, a gap appeared between two high buildings – blink and you’d miss it. A furtive look over his shoulder before slipping between them, down into an unlit passageway narrow enough for the shoulders of his coat to graze the wet brick sides. Accompanied by the hollow sounds of his shoes bouncing through the dark, he aimed for the farthest end and the innocuous black door. Heralded by a grimy portico and sliver of light from a rectangular panel, he squeezed inside. Was hit by a wall of voices and the penetrating heat of those who came to gamble and drink after hours.

  ‘Welcome to Albert’s Cavern…’ he mouthed through the veil of cigarette smoke. ‘The sleaziest dive in town.’

  He shut the door behind him and swung his head around, looking for his boyfriend. Searching the dark-beamed space, he recognised, along with the faces of his nattily dressed friends, the faces of those he knew to avoid. Like that high court judge Albert had identified for him. Secreted inside a candlelit
booth, his heavy arm looped around a prostitute, claiming her. Terrence considered the recent court case this judge had presided over: a young man charged and convicted of gross indecency and given a five-year prison sentence. He had followed the story in the papers, and this judge’s closing statement – ‘These are the most sordid and depraved crimes I have ever come across in my thirty years on the bench’ – chilled him to the core, especially as the previous week this very same judge had officiated at the trial of a child killer.

  How was exploiting women not a crime, but it was a crime for a man to be in a loving, consensual relationship with another man? The hypocrisy was breathtaking. Terrence turned away to pinpoint the owner of this den of immorality: the head of the wasters, buggers, hypocrites and thieves. Albert’s tall and bulky figure was manning the bar as usual. A Romanian gypsy who had reputedly fled the Nazis, he was hailed as Soho’s very own Oscar Wilde with his foppish ways and velvet frock coat. He was a terrific showman and, from a distance, as tempting and bejewelled as a Christmas tree. Much like his establishment in that the padded couches and armchairs looked inviting from afar but up close were greasy-skinned with pinhole burns.

  At last, Terrence saw Malcolm huddled with unknown others at the bar. Cool inside his pinstriped zoot suit, his mocha-skinned face fixed in concentration. He looked like one of those film noir detectives, and the fist Terrence carried in his chest squeezed a little tighter around his heart. A reminder their love could only be a transient thing and that like some men he had known in the past, Malcolm would no doubt end up conforming to the pressures of society by finding himself a wife. Some unfortunate woman who didn’t object to her husband’s lukewarm advances, and in exchange for a child or two would cover for him.

  When Malcolm saw him, he smiled his great white smile. Like a row of lights in the darkness above his crisp, striped shirt. Terrence was about to cross the floor to greet him when someone came in from outside and crept past. A man, small and ordinary, in a brown trilby and raincoat. His eyes fidgety behind horn-rimmed spectacles. Terrence didn’t know why, but he disliked him on sight and rubbed his sleeves to rid himself of the sudden goosebumps prickling his arms. He followed him to the bar and stood alongside. Up close, the man reeked of Tube trains and the unpleasant damp of unaired clothes. And something else. Harshly astringent and belonging to his schooldays. Slippery, he couldn’t bring it to mind. It was then he noticed the odd sucking movement the man did with his mouth and the way he kept looking around him as if searching for something. His fretful fingers tugged on his collar, pulled at his ear, as he exchanged words with Albert. Words Terrence couldn’t hear. But seeing him single out a prostitute and push a tumbler of something towards her, it was obvious what he was there for.