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

by Rebecca Griffiths

  6

  His mother’s house, four streets away from Camden Town Tube, was not like other houses. The front garden was more or less wild, and there were no pretty borders to turn the head of the passer-by.

  ‘Sorry, mister.’ A boy and girl with chapped cheeks bumped against him as they careered past.

  Terrence smiled after them. It wasn’t so long ago that he’d played in this street, bouncing along the pavement with hoops and balls. He was the only one of his siblings still living in London. His younger brother, Colin, like his five older sisters, had moved to Halifax, where their parents originated from, leaving him the responsibility of their mother. He didn’t begrudge them; they were busy with their own families and visited when they could.

  Terrence had his own latchkey. Necessary because his mother refused to answer the door. Whenever someone came to the house, she would hide on the stairs and hiss, ‘You get it.’ He had no idea what she did when he wasn’t here.

  Opening up, he peeked into the living room with its hulking furniture and heard the voice on the wireless, but not what it said. The house was filled with the warm smells of baking. And something else. Something that thrust him back to childhood Sundays when his father was alive.

  ‘Mum, are you there?’

  Nothing. But she had to be home; she never went anywhere. Terrence shook off his coat and pegged it up in the way he would when home from school. A sideways look at his mother’s plaster Madonna and Child figurine nailed to the wall. The image had dominated him since he could crawl, and it wasn’t one he liked. Turning from it, he found his mother standing before him, as solid as one of her armchairs and tied into an apron on which she had embroidered a pink flower. Bigger than anything in nature, its luxuriant petals spread out over her comfortable middle.

  ‘Happy birthday, Mum.’ Terrence bent to give her the obligatory kiss she tilted her head for. His lips bumping against her powdered cheek. ‘Here you go.’ He handed her a box of sugared jellies.

  ‘My favourites. You are a naughty boy.’ She beamed up at him. ‘Wherever did you find them?’

  Terrence tapped the side of his nose. ‘I’ve got my sources.’ Thanks, Albert – the go-to man who can get you anything.

  ‘Clever boy. Not that I want you wasting your money on me…’ Her objection fizzled out. ‘I’ve made a pie. And there’s roast chicken for later.’

  ‘Lovely.’ That’s what the smell was. Terrence kept to himself the news he wouldn’t be staying.

  ‘I’ll go and put the kettle on.’ Her rings flashing. ‘Won’t be a minute.’

  The front room faced east and the sun had passed over the house long ago. Left alone, he listened to his mother bumping about in her kitchen, shooing the cat from under her feet. He looked around the space that had remained unchanged since childhood. His father’s cello gathering dust against the wall. A permanent fixture that, like his mother, didn’t go anywhere either. He sidled over to place a hand on its gloriously curved shape that was just like Queenie’s figure. The comparison might have been evoked, he thought, by Man Ray’s iconic ‘Le Violon d’Ingres’ with the painted-on f-holes on the buxom woman’s back. He moved away from the cello and lifted the lid on the upright piano he had learnt to play. Its sound was impaired and the keys were chipped like a rat had gnawed the ivory. He closed the lid again.

  He circled the room, dragging his fingers over the spines of paperbacks and a rubber plant with dusty leaves. The cabinet heaving with china ornaments bought on holidays to Dorset and presents from his sisters. A jam pot of wax flowers faded to the colour of onion skins. He sat down in the armchair, its sides shredded by cat claws, and tilted his head to the cornice, where a damp patch had stained the ceiling brown. Mr Tiddles jumped into his lap and began tenderising his thighs, purring like a pigeon.

  ‘Hello, old boy. Nice to see you.’

  Terrence stroked the cat with a steady determination and watched grey hairs fall on his trousers, float to the floor. The back door slammed. He imagined his mother going outside in her slippers to scrape the breadboard for the birds. The families of finches and tits she had tamed in from the wild to feed at the tables his father had made before suffering a fatal stroke.

  His mother appeared, pushing her little brass trolley into the room, its wheels protesting against the bumps in the rugs. Mr Tiddles jumped down.

  ‘Don’t sit there, Terry.’ Clattering noises as she laid out cups and saucers. ‘That’s Dad’s chair.’

  He shifted to the couch. ‘You should give Dad’s cello away.’ He said this because he couldn’t say how ridiculous she was about his father’s chair – the man had been dead for nearly twenty years.

  ‘I’m not ready to part with it yet, lad.’ Another flash of her rings as she raised a hand to the headful of curlers under her headscarf.

  A rather self-conscious gesture. Not that Terrence was looking at her hair that, despite his mum being in her seventies, was still as sandy-brown as his. He was more interested in her choice of lurid blue eyeshadow, her drawn-on eyebrows, the faint moustache.

  ‘How’s about a slice of pie?’ She spoke as if to a stranger. ‘Home-made pie’s such a treat.’

  There was nothing of the woman Terrence had known as a child, and he worried how much longer she could manage to live here on her own. He watched as she cut a wedge of the golden-topped pie and slid it onto a plate.

  ‘Cream?’

  There wasn’t time to answer, it was already being poured, thick and yellow, from a jug off the trolley. He didn’t ask where she had it from. The pie crust had been patterned with pastry leaves and he picked out a chunk of apple, ate it with his fingers. It was sweet and sharp all at once. He was hungrier than he realised.

  ‘Aren’t you having any?’ The inside of the crust was white and gluey. Thinned at the top so the red of the blackcurrant jam showed through. He spooned up a pond of cream. Sugar gritting his tongue.

  ‘I cooked it for you. I only ever cook for you.’

  He swallowed his mouthful and watched his mother shelling peas. Her hands, mapped with rope-like veins, were as busy as her garden birds.

  ‘Where did you get those?’ Terrence couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen peas, apart from in a tin.

  ‘Ivy Sutton. A glut, she said, so I took them. Waste not, want not.’

  He liked watching her. Her automatic movements were comforting. The transference of pea pod from newspaper to her chipped enamel colander. The room filled with their raw, green smell.

  ‘You’re quiet today, our Terry. Is anything the matter?’

  ‘I can’t stay for dinner.’ He scrunched his face in anticipation of her disappointment. ‘I’m sorry, Mum, but I’m due at the club in an hour.’

  ‘Y-you and that c-club,’ she started, sputtering, an engine warming up. ‘What d’you need to work there for? You’ve your job at the bank. When are you going to settle down and find yourself a wife? It’s not natural, living like you do, the hours you keep… You need someone to look after you.’

  ‘I look after myself.’

  ‘Aye, you’ve your army training to thank for that. Mind you, I still say you were too young. Signing up at sixteen, then going off to war… if your dad had still been with us.’

  ‘Don’t start that again.’ He lifted a hand and looked at his nails.

  ‘I’m not starting nowt. I’m only saying. You’ll be twenty-seven, next birthday; don’t you want to find a nice girl?’

  ‘A nice girl? I’m not sure I know any. Apart from Queenie.’

  ‘Queenie?’ His mother’s frowned response. ‘I don’t like her sort. She’s not wife material… Whatever would Dad say? He wouldn’t have liked her.’

  I think you’ll find he would, and for all the reasons you don’t.

  ‘Oh, no, Terry, you haven’t gone and set your cap at her?’

  Pie finished, he put down his plate. Glanced over at the Madonna and Child in the hall. He wished he could tell her what he was, own up to what he suspected
she knew but couldn’t admit to. But he wouldn’t, it was too risky; if push came to shove, she might choose her God over him.

  Neither spoke. The only sounds were the ticking clock on the mantelpiece. The hum of the wireless. The sipping of tea. He turned his head away, reluctant to let her see his tears.

  * * *

  The band picked up the pace. Changing to another song. Queenie, with her usual command, swayed to the rhythm and opened her throat to the mic. Her dress was one with the back scooped out, showing an opaque window of her skin. Terrence adored her. Shimmering and silvery as moonlight, she was like no one else. But not as a lover. Her charms in that department were wasted on him. It was why the two of them could speak plainly; theirs was a relationship unmuddied by hormones and desire. His hands flowed over the piano keys like sea over sand while he peered beyond the dazzling stage lights, seeking the softer, rosy tint of the Chinese lanterns strung along the club’s far wall like fake moons.

  When the band broke off at half-time, Terrence, saying he needed to sort his music, asked Queenie to fetch him a Scotch and soda. Buster was already slouched on a bar stool; he’d been hitting the sauce before they’d even opened and was out of rhythm again. He was chatting up that new waitress friend of Queenie’s. Joy, he thought she said her name was. Sweet little thing and clever, the way she slipped between French and English and Italian and talked books. He couldn’t do that with Queenie; Terrence had never known her to finish a book. But however clever Joy was, she was having trouble telling Buster to keep his paws to himself. Couldn’t the twerp see he didn’t stand a chance? Evidently not. It must be dreadful to be a woman sometimes, to have to fend off types like Buster. He was about to rescue Joy when she ducked away with a tray of drinks to a nearby table. Terrence couldn’t imagine anyone being interested in Buster romantically. Squat and graceless, with his thinning gingery hair. He could almost feel sorry for him. Almost.

  Returning to his sheet music, marking in pencil about phrasing and tempo, little chimes of laughter had him looking over at Major Charles Gilchrist, who had pulled up a bar stool beside Queenie. The silver-topped cane he was sometimes seen with was propped against him, and when he removed his peaked cap, the pendant lighting gleamed off his blue-black hair. What a contrast to Buster, this elegant man was the quintessential English gent and, going by the squeals of gaiety, Queenie was obviously flirting – and who could blame her? Charles Gilchrist, a decorated officer, was movie-star quality.

  Realising he wasn’t going to get his drink any time soon, Terrence descended the stairs to the dressing room and flopped into the velvety embrace of the chaise longue. He shoved a cigarette from Queenie’s packet of Sobranies into his mouth and, while he smoked, his gaze wandered the dusty surfaces, the red curtain Queenie pulled across when she wanted privacy.

  ‘There you are.’ The door burst open and Queenie handed him a tumbler. ‘I’ve been looking everywhere.’

  He thanked her and watched as she positioned herself in front of the mirror, kicked off her green suede slingbacks.

  ‘The two of you have met?’ Queenie swung an arm to the auburn-haired girl hovering on the threshold.

  He winked to put her at ease and encouraged her inside. ‘Joy and I are quite well acquainted, thank you.’

  ‘Acquainted… I told you he was posh.’ Queenie set about dabbing Californian Poppy on her cleavage, under her hair.

  Posh wasn’t something Terrence considered himself to be; he was as working class as she was. Cigarette finished, he stubbed it out and settled back with his drink to listen to their chatter.

  Queenie wriggled up to make room for Joy and talked to her reflection. ‘Have a try of my lipstick. Not like that, silly… let me do it for you. Us girls have to make the most of ourselves.’

  Queenie shook out one of her white cigarettes and lit up. ‘Hey! You been smoking my fags, Terry? You’re naughty, you know they cost a fortune.’

  ‘You cadge enough of mine.’ Terrence caught the look of amusement on Joy’s face and winked at her again.

  ‘They’re for ladies. Keep your mitts off.’

  By God, Queenie was clever. His thoughts as he watched her smoking as if in a film. Even those elegant cigarettes were props. The girl was one big act, and Terrence was grateful he wasn’t like other men and under her spell. He’d noticed Joy was a little under Queenie’s spell, however, and would have struggled to understand how these two could ever be friends had he not been told of their shared wartime childhood.

  Joy had looked lost to start with tonight, but Queenie was showing her the ropes, and provided she kept out of Buster’s way, Terrence supposed she was safe enough. But serving drinks to these sophisticated types, with their status and money, people who were nothing like her? He wasn’t sure it suited Joy any more than the dress Queenie had lent her. And yet, there must be more to the girl than he gave her credit for. What was she, barely twenty? Coming to London from France on her own, no family. That took guts.

  ‘Try a little rouge. Uncle Fish likes us to be glamorous and the punters tip better if you look nice,’ Queenie started up again. ‘At least you’re wearing that hair clip I gave you. You need a bit of sparkle.’

  ‘Who got you the roses, darling?’ Terrence, sipping his Scotch, thought the diamante trinket pinned to Joy’s hair was delightful.

  Queenie pushed her nose to the petals. ‘Card just says, “An admirer”.’

  ‘And you’ve hundreds of those.’

  ‘She certainly has,’ Joy agreed, eyes downcast.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’ Queenie was on to her.

  ‘It’s that Lawrence man. He’s pestering me to go out for dinner.’

  ‘Cor, I wish he’d ask me. The old duffer’s loaded. Let him spoil you, if that’s what he wants. What d’you say, Terry?’

  ‘I think it’s up to Joy.’ He bent over his knees to re-lace his toffee-coloured Oxfords.

  ‘But supposing he wants more?’ Joy pulled a face.

  ‘Saving yourself for Mr Right?’ Queenie teased her.

  ‘I’m not going to jump into bed with any old person. I’m not like you.’

  ‘What?’ Aghast. ‘I don’t sleep with them. This…’ Queenie looked down at herself. ‘Out of bounds, Joy. I just let them spoil me. Meals out, the odd knick-knack.’ A flash of her bejewelled fingers. ‘You’ve got to know how to play them. That way you can get what you want without giving anything of yourself.’

  ‘You make it sound like a business.’

  Terrence, listening, had to agree.

  ‘Well, it is. Marriage is the same. Not that I want any part of it. Can you see me with a string of nippers… tied to the sink for the rest of my life?’ Queenie yawned and stretched, abandoning herself to the yawn with a judder. ‘This is a new age for us, Joy. Thanks to those wild women suffragettes, we’ve got choices. We don’t have to be like our mothers. You wait around for Prince Charming if you want but with so many men lost in the war…’ She tapered off, letting them fill in the gaps. ‘And we all have to eat. So, if dear old Lawrence wants to take you for a blowout—’

  ‘I’m not going.’

  Queenie looped an arm about Joy’s shoulders; so much of the way they were reminded Terrence of the sisters he rarely saw. ‘You’re too sweet for your own good. You’ll drive them all crazy.’

  ‘But I don’t want to drive anyone crazy.’

  ‘You know Buster’s mad for you?’

  ‘I don’t like him. He scares me.’ Joy looked desperate. ‘I didn’t do anything to encourage him. I was only being kind.’

  ‘I know that; you’re kind to everyone.’ Queenie took back her arm and powdered her nose. ‘Don’t worry about Buster. Whatever fixation he’s got on you, he’ll get over it.’

  7

  There she was again. Waving goodbye to her freckly friend through the weekend crowd. He’d seen her earlier but had lost her. It was miraculous. Heaven-sent. He had to admit, he really wanted this one; she was his absolute ideal. The only disappoint
ment was that she’d hidden her willowy figure under a shapeless green coat and her beautiful auburn hair under that cut-price panama.

  Chancing upon her a few weeks ago, he had taken to following her whenever the opportunity arose. It meant he was coming to know something of her haunts and habits. Although, the Lyons Corner House at the top end of Kensington High Street had been a new one. Walking past earlier with his dog, Judy, keen to get to the park, he saw the girl had met up with a plain little friend for an unbuttered scone and a cup of hot milk. He added these little details to the growing list of things he was gleaning about her. He had a superb mind for detail and loved being privy to the minutiae of people’s lives; he felt it gave him power over them. His love of detail was why he’d volunteered as a full-time special constable with the Met in 1939 – well, this and the uniform he still liked to parade around in. For a man who had often been in prison, it was an astonishing piece of impudence; not that he saw the irony – had he done so he would be a different person. But in the same way he was able to delude himself about his own integrity, he was, by some uncanny stroke of luck, able to delude others also.

  Something else he’d gleaned about this young woman was that she never took the Tube, and only caught a bus if it rained; that the rest of the time she liked to walk, and at a brisk pace. It was one of the first things that attracted him to her. Unlike his wife, Ethel, who was a slouch by comparison and someone he needed to jab in the ribs to get her to pick her feet up, this girl walked on air.

  ‘Come on, Judy.’ He tugged the lead and pulled the dog away from a lamp post she was sniffing. ‘I can’t be losing her again.’

  Walking like this reminded him of Sunday afternoons and the ten-mile hikes his father would take him and his sisters on. Occasions when he was instructed to hold his shoulders back and swing his arms and walk like a guardsman. It wasn’t a happy memory. His father had been what he termed a manly man who had a violent temper. He would often thrash him for trivial offences like stealing a tomato from a plate or rocking on a park bench with his sister, Dolly.