‘My name’s Sister Teresa,’ she said, wringing her hands. ‘Back in the world I was someone else, which is what I’ve come to talk to you about.’
I frowned.
‘You’ve been asking my sister, Joseph, about me,’ she said. ‘Amber Reynolds.’
She didn’t get round to telling me much before the sirens went. I’d asked her if she wanted to be introduced to her niece, but she said no and so, when the warning did go, I just took all the women down to the shelter, then went back to Sister Teresa. She never used shelters, so she said. Apparently quite a number of people in Southend feel they are generally a waste of time. But they haven’t had what we’ve had. I agreed to stay with her for as long as it lasted. I would rather have gone out, but I could hardly leave a woman, a nun no less, alone in the house.
I think it only lasted a few hours, that raid, but because I was neither out nor talking it seemed like it went on for ever. Of course, I didn’t talk because I couldn’t, but the nun didn’t know that which made her own silence all the more strange, really. And so in a sense it was as if I was alone, which meant that my brain did what it usually does: gibbered and boiled, throwing pictures of men ripped to ribbons on first the pitch dark and then the red and gold explosion-filled sky. I don’t know whether Sister Teresa knew or suspected she was sitting with a madman, but some time later she said, ‘I think this is coming to an end now.’
Sometimes raids can be short, like this, just a couple of hours maybe. But judging the length of things can be difficult for me when I’m on leave from my mind, as it were. I assumed that the raid was over when the Duchess and the others came up from the shelter and went back to their beds, but even now I can’t be certain when that was. Sitting there with Sister Teresa, I can remember feeling my chair move as if an explosion had happened somewhere nearby and the shop was getting the blast. But I don’t know. I rolled a fag as if it was over and then, at her request, I rolled one for the nun too. Sister Teresa held her cigarette between her first finger and thumb like a docker. You see such queer things in war, on the battlefield, which we are.
‘So what’s all this about Pearl?’ she said.
I could speak properly now and so I told her about the various theories that were going about, as well as the facts as I knew them so far. I spared her nothing. ‘Pearl was worried that something might’ve happened or be about to happen to you as well,’ I said. ‘Both Pearl and Ruby seem to think that this, what’s happened to them, could be some sort of revenge to do with Harold Neilson.’
‘My father,’ Sister Teresa said matter-of-factly. ‘Horrible man.’
‘There was his sister . . .’
‘Phyllis? She’s dead.’
‘Yes, I know,’ I said.
‘God rest her soul, she died some years ago and is buried in the same Methodist cemetery as her brother. How did you know?’
I told her about Tony and my little foray into Paddington.
‘I always liked old Tony,’ Sister Teresa said, ‘but I’d never go back to Praed Street, not if my life depended on it. It was good of you to do that for Ruby.’
Something trembled in the ground under my feet, probably shock waves from some collapsing building, and I looked up into her deep, black eyes – just like those of Pearl Dooley.
‘Was Neilson Pearl’s father too?’ I asked.
‘No. We’re all different, Mr Hancock. Ruby’s father was a Jew, Pearl’s was some smart fella, mine was Neilson, and Opal, well, her dad, so Mum would have it, was some other Jew.’
‘Caused trouble between your parents, didn’t it?’ I said. ‘Opal’s father and . . .’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said. ‘The bloke Mum was going with at the time was someone she really loved. Whether he was Opal’s father or not, I don’t know, but she liked to think he was. Mum lived for that little girl. Neilson didn’t like the situation about Opal one bit. Hated the uncertainty of not knowing who or what she was.’
‘But he stayed,’ I said, ‘for many years, until . . .’
‘He wanted to.’ The nun looked away.
‘But he was violent.’
‘Just because he stayed didn’t mean he had to like it. Whatever’s happened to Pearl and Ruby has got nothing to do with what happened to Mum. There’s no one left . . .’
‘So you . . .’
‘I’m all right. Just because Pearl’s husband died like Neilson doesn’t mean that someone’s trying to make a point. I mean, I suppose you’ve considered the possibility my sister might have done it. I imagine to protect herself. She’s a gentle girl, or was.’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Of course I’ve wondered whether Pearl could have done it. I started all this off because I wanted to get to the truth about her husband – I still do. But Ruby going through something similar and now disappearing, it doesn’t sit right with me.’
‘Maybe not.’ She sighed.
‘I think that Pearl, begging your pardon, Sister, that she had that, you know, that abortion . . .’
‘Yes, yes.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Look . . . what about Opal? Is she all right?’
There was a brief pause before she answered. ‘Opal was adopted,’ she said. ‘Me and the others, we all agreed that as soon as we could we’d split up.’
‘Why?’
‘Because it was for the best,’ she said, just as Ruby before her had. ‘I don’t know where Opal is, Mr Hancock.’
‘You could find out.’
‘No.’
‘Why not?’
‘Just trust me. It isn’t possible. It’s all too long ago, far too late,’ she said. There was something flustered about her now. She looked away a lot, down sometimes at the end of the roll-up in her fingers. She hadn’t smoked any of it. Just quickly I did think that perhaps she was a fraud, but then I dismissed the idea. She must have had at least some contact with Sister Joseph and she did, undoubtedly, have Pearl Dooley’s eyes. But quite why she’d come I still didn’t know, so I asked her.
‘I don’t want anything to do with Pearl or Ruby, but I want them to know that I’m all right,’ she said. ‘The message I got was that Pearl wanted to know if I was all right. Well, I am, as you can see. Amber Reynolds no longer exists but Sister Teresa still cares about her old family in her own way.’ She moved her head across the table towards me. ‘Pearl’s husband’s death has got nothing to do with our mother and neither has whatever has happened to Ruby. That’s all over now. All the badness died with Mum.’
Nun she might be, but I got the distinct feeling that Sister Teresa wasn’t telling me the whole truth. ‘Sister,’ I said, ‘don’t take this wrong, but there’s some as seem to think, I’ve heard, that Pearl wasn’t your mother’s child. Is that true?’
The nun laughed. ‘Who you talking about, Mr Hancock?’
‘Her priest, Pearl’s. He told me Pearl couldn’t have killed her husband because that crime, your mother’s, couldn’t have been inherited by her – if you believe in such things anyway. He implied your mother and Pearl were not the same blood. She’d spoken, I think, in confession . . .’
‘Well, either he got it wrong or my sister lied.’
‘Why would she do that?’
Sister Teresa’s face was red. ‘I don’t know! Mum sacrificed for her, for all of us!’ And then, as if the word burst out of her of its own accord, she said, ‘Bitch!’
The Duchess and Nan, in particular, had looked at Sister Teresa a little funny when she’d first arrived. With her direct manner, not to mention, later on, her smoking and swearing, she was a very odd nun. When I finally left her in the early hours I still had the feeling she might be a fraud. But if she was, she was very thorough. The next morning when Nan went in to get her up out of my bed – this time I had the settee – she saw her head without its wimple and it was as bald as an egg.
Chapter Fourteen
I saw Blatt get out of his car. Thinking about Amber, or Sister Teresa as she was, as well as mentally preparing myself for another raid
, I hadn’t slept well so I’d been up since before dawn. As had, apparently, Blatt and the bloke driving the car for him. I had to pull my braces up pretty sharpish when I saw the solicitor walk towards the shop door.
‘Your telephone’s been out so I came as soon as I could,’ he said, as I let him in.
‘What’s the matter, Mr Blatt?’
He looked agitated. ‘I can take Velma in tomorrow afternoon between three and four,’ he said. ‘That’s the only time the prison authorities will give me. Can you bring her or shall I take her now and keep her overnight? I can’t be late – I’ve appointments all this morning.’
I turned away to look in my own appointment book. Doris, as usual, had been very efficient. I had that poor little baby, William from Plashet Grove, later on that day, but there was nothing for the following morning or afternoon.
‘Well, it looks like I can bring her tomorrow,’ I said. ‘Do you want to meet up at the prison, Mr Blatt?’
‘I think that would be for the best,’ he said. ‘I mean, all of this is providing any of us are still standing tomorrow morning.’
I smiled.
‘You know,’ he said, ‘when we got to, I don’t know, Wapping or somewhere like that, the police stopped us and said we had to take another route because a house had, as they said, “been blown” into our path. My driver, he’s a Cockney lad, asked about the occupants and the officer said that the Heavy Rescue team was at work, but it was a big job. There were five families in that house, Mr Hancock, five.’
I wasn’t surprised either by the five families or by Blatt’s amazement. There have always been boardinghouses, but since the bombing started people have been jammed up against each other like never before this century. Nobody wants to be a refugee, put in temporary billets with strangers, so people take in their friends and family if they get bombed out. But with money, things, I know, are different. In Mr Blatt’s world, people don’t often get bombed out and if they do they move out to their homes in the country. I don’t suppose he even saw too much that was this distressing when he was, as he must’ve been at least for a bit, in the first lot. Most of the top brass never did. Personally I don’t have a problem with how the rich are, provided they do their bit, but I know that others have strong feelings about it and Doris Rosen is one of them.
‘Oh,’ she said, as she came into the shop and took off her hat. ‘Mr Blatt.’
I was surprised to see her in so early and even more surprised that Blatt should comment on it.
‘Very keen staff you have, Hancock,’ he said, as he looked Doris up and down in the way that a punter might view a horse he’s just been given a tip on.
You didn’t need to be a genius to see that Doris was less than flattered by his attention. But she kept it to herself for the sake of me and the business.
‘Hello, Mr Blatt.’
We all turned to look at her. Doris, in particular, was openly amazed at the sight of a nun walking through the back curtains.
‘I’m sorry . . .’ Blatt began.
‘You knew me, briefly, as Amber Reynolds,’ Sister Teresa said. ‘You know, when you “defended” my mother?’
‘Ah.’
‘Yes,’ the nun said, almost menacingly, I felt. ‘Mr Hancock tells me you’re “defending” our Pearl now.’
‘Yes.’
She turned to me and said, ‘Mr Hancock, could I please take Mr Blatt up to your parlour? I need to have a word, about Pearl.’
I looked at Blatt, who was quite white now. ‘As long as that is all right with Mr Blatt, Sister.’
‘It’s fine.’ He smiled, quickly, using only his mouth. And then, addressing the nun, he said, ‘What do I call you?’
‘Sister Teresa,’ she said, and then, with a swish of her skirts, she turned. ‘It’s up here.’
He followed her without another word.
Both Doris and I listened to their footsteps, first on the stairs and then over our heads in the parlour.
Doris spoke first. ‘The nun’s involved in this thing with young Velma and the dead paper-and-string man?’
‘She’s Velma’s aunt,’ I said. ‘Mr Blatt—’
‘Is Mrs Dooley’s solicitor. Yes, I know,’ Doris said. ‘Although where, with respect, a family like hers would get the money to pay a bloke like him, I can’t imagine.’
‘He is rather top drawer,’ I said.
‘Yeah, top-drawer Yiddisher he is,’ Doris said. ‘Loads of gelt. Don’t know why he’s working for poor goyim, do you, Mr H?’
‘No.’
In a way, I could understand why he would want to be involved with Pearl, having defended her mother, if unsuccessfully, in the past. Maybe he wanted to vindicate himself. But how and why had he decided to take Victorine’s case? He’d obviously done his reputation absolutely no good with it and there can’t have been any money in it for him. And he was, as I had now learned, Jewish – like Ruby’s father, like, reputedly, Opal’s father too. Had Blatt been Victorine Reynolds’s lover all those years ago? No one had ever mentioned him in that context: the Reynolds girls had spoken only of his incompetence. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t been involved with their mother or even fathered some of her children. Such things aren’t supposed to happen, I know, but I’m also aware that they’re more common than most people think.
Suddenly I was gripped by an overwhelming urge to do something I’d never done before: listen at a keyhole.
‘I’m just, er, going up for a bit,’ I said to Doris, as I went up the stairs. ‘Get yourself a cuppa, won’t you?’
I just caught her wry smile as I raced upstairs on the very tips of my boots.
‘I will,’ she said. ‘Abyssinia, Mr H.’
My old dad always used to moan about the doors in this place. ‘Shoddy,’ was how he used to describe them, ‘all piss and plywood!’
As usual he’d been right and I didn’t even have to put my ear to the keyhole to hear what I needed. I just stood outside, trying for no reason whatsoever to look casual. All the family that was up was in the kitchen making breakfast.
‘Why are you defending Pearl?’ I heard the nun demand. ‘How did you find her?’
‘I’m defending her because I feel I owe—’
‘Too fucking right!’
I heard Blatt laugh. ‘Oh, what a perfect nun you are, Sister,’ he said. ‘Where did you say you pursue your vocation?’
‘Nazareth House in Southend – where you put us, remember?’ she said. ‘We all do what we must to survive and to make penance. This undertaker seems to think that Pearl and Ruby have some idea about being victimised by someone. Does Pearl really think that’s happening?’
‘Her husband died in exactly the same way as Neilson, yes,’ Blatt said. ‘But I can’t think of anyone still living who might wish to harm you now. Can you?’
‘No, but—’
‘Provided I can make it stick, Pearl does have an alibi for the night her husband died.’
‘That doesn’t answer why someone might be—’
‘Why would anyone at this distance in time bother?’ Blatt said. ‘Phyllis Neilson died years ago—’
‘Yes, I know!’
‘You haven’t had any problems yourself?’
‘No!’ I heard her move very quickly across the lino and, instinctively, I retreated a little from the door. ‘But look,’ she continued, ‘I think you should at least warn Opal. She, at least, needs to know. Maybe the undertaker’s right.’
‘Opal is with the same family.’
‘I don’t want to know where she is, just that she’s safe. Ruby’s missing too, you know. There could be something going on. Someone could have found something out.’
‘You agree with Mr Hancock?’
‘I don’t know, really.’ I heard her sniff, loudly. ‘What does he know anyway? What does anyone, apart from . . . But I bet Pearl’s worried about Opal. I know she’s worried about me. It’s because of her Mr Hancock came looking for me.’
‘What do you mean?’<
br />
‘She sent him a note,’ she said. ‘Sent it through the prison governor, not you. She didn’t want you to be involved.’
‘But—’
‘Pearl, just like Ruby and me, know what you are, Blatt,’ the good Sister spat. ‘Now, you’d better get looking to see who might be coming out of the woodwork. My father had more than just a sister to call his family and this bombing means that people can get away with anything – including murder. There’s a lot of people out there who have scores to settle with you, as well as us, so you’re in the firing line . . .’
‘You expect a lot of me, Amber,’ Blatt replied smoothly. ‘Getting your sister off, solving a mystery that is probably not a mystery . . .’
‘Pearl was having an abortion when her husband died and Ruby, well, she loved that old Jew.’
‘A common failing in your family.’
‘Oh, drop dead, will you, Blatt? Look, do you think that Pearl and Ruby killed their fellows? Honestly?’
‘I don’t know,’ Blatt said. ‘After what you all saw at such tender ages . . .’ I heard him begin to laugh.
‘Fuck you, Blatt! Fuck—’
‘Why don’t you come back to the office with me and we’ll talk about these things?’
‘I’d rather die,’ I heard her say. ‘I’m not going anywhere with someone like you.’
‘Francis?’
The Duchess’s voice is always gentle, but sometimes disapproving.
‘Duchess?’
‘I do hope that you are not listening at that door, Francis.’ She lowered her voice as she spoke, lest those inside should hear us. ‘The Sister and the gentleman came up here for a private conversation.’
‘Yes, Duchess.’
‘Then . . .’
I moved away, after her, down the corridor and back towards the kitchen. At that point I don’t know whether I was more confused or less. Blatt’s involvement with the Reynoldses was obviously at a deeper level than the usual solicitor/client relationship. But how deep it went, I couldn’t tell. The main thing among all the talk of Neilson’s possible relatives, and who might or might not have done what, that had a lot of meaning for me was that Blatt knew where Opal was. It wasn’t a case of him being able to find out, nor was it a case of him ‘believing’ she’d been adopted, as he had told me. No, he knew. Sister Teresa knew it and so, I imagined, did Pearl. It would explain why she hadn’t asked me to find Opal. In fact, in her note she’d sort of glossed over Opal’s existence. Did this mean perhaps that Blatt had already contacted the girl? There was something about people ‘knowing’ something unspecified too. What was that, and why had the nun spoken about Blatt being ‘in the firing line’ as well as her and her sisters?
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