‘You do understand that being an assistant in a high-class fashion store is very different from slicing bacon and weighing up sugar and tea,’ one of the interviewers, a hawk-faced woman, said. She sat between two middle-aged men and was wearing a very smart black costume, her dark-brown hair in a bun. Her voice was what Molly’s mother would call ‘BBC’. Every word was pronounced with precision. All the questions she’d fired at Molly had been insulting to Molly’s intelligence, but she had responded politely.
‘Of course I know the difference between a fashion store and a grocer’s,’ Molly said, her patience beginning to run out. She was sure this hard-faced woman was appalled by the home-made navy-and-white dress and jacket and little white hat. She probably didn’t like Molly’s West Country burr either, so she might as well say her piece and be done with it. ‘But even if the products sold are very different, customer care should be the same. I have been brought up to treat every customer as very important, to go that extra mile for them.’
To Molly’s astonishment, the more portly of the two men gave a little hand clap, glancing round at Hawk Face to see her reaction. ‘You are quite right, Miss Heywood. Customer care is the most important thing, but you do need to have a keen interest in fashion, too.’
‘I always read fashion magazines,’ Molly volunteered. ‘I am keenly interested in it and hope that you’ll give me the chance to prove my worth.’
‘Will you wait outside, Miss Heywood? We’ll call you in again later,’ Hawk Face said.
Molly went back outside with a heavy heart and joined the five other girls waiting there. Despite all the patronizing questions from Hawk Face, she thought she’d given a good account of herself, and the men had seemed impressed with her School Certificate results. But these other girls waiting all looked smarter, prettier and more confident than she was. She was just a country bumpkin in handmade clothes. It was tempting to leave now and avoid the humiliation of being turned down.
One by one, the girls went in, but they must have left the interview room another way, as they didn’t come back out to where Molly was. Finally, when she was the only girl left sitting there, Hawk Face called her in.
‘Well, Miss Heywood,’ one of the men spoke up. ‘We have decided to offer you a position here in Bourne & Hollingsworth, and would like you to begin in-store training with Miss Maloney, one of our fashion buyers, on Monday the seventeenth at 8.45.’
Molly’s mouth dropped open in surprise, but she quickly pulled herself together. ‘Thank you so much. I hope I can justify your faith in me,’ she said, with as much dignity as she could muster.
Hawk Face half smiled. ‘We hope for that, too, and that you will have the stamina to remain cheerful and attentive to our customers at the very busiest times. Your room in Warwickshire House, our hostel in Gower Street, will be available on Saturday the fifteenth. It’s always better for our new girls to get settled in a day or so before beginning work, and it gives Miss Weatherby, our matron, a chance to tell you the rules over the weekend.’
Molly’s mind was reeling when she finally left the London store and headed for the tube station. She was to get a starting salary of sixteen shillings per week, her board and lodging all found. She would share a room with another girl and be issued with a black dress as a uniform. Some of the other things she’d been told – days off, commission and laundry arrangements – had all gone straight out of her head.
As the nearest thing she had had to a wage back in Sawbridge was the odd half-crown from her father, she felt rich just thinking about earning sixteen shillings. On top of that, she would get staff discount off anything she bought in the shop.
But just being chosen was the real thrill. Those other girls were well turned out, they looked confident and poised, but the interview board had picked her.
Her new-found confidence swept her on to the tube without a false step. But when she came out of Whitechapel tube station she had to stand still for a moment to regain her equilibrium, because it was like landing in a stinking, overcrowded hellhole.
Nothing had prepared her for such squalid mayhem. It made her think of a huge anthill; there were people scurrying about and horse-drawn carts, cars, lorries and buses vying for routes between them.
Right opposite was a big, soot-blackened hospital and, even as she stood there, two ambulances tore into the forecourt, bells jangling. Adding to the tumult was a market which spread right along the street. She could hear the stall holders yelling out inducements to buy. But it was the smell which really turned her stomach and made her want to get right back on the underground. A potent mix of horse droppings, sewage, human body odours, rotting rubbish and drains.
It was a warm, sunny day and there had been no rain for a while, so maybe that was why the smells were so bad, but everyone looked terribly shabby, too. Very old ladies and men bent almost double over their walking sticks were wearing little more than rags. Young mothers wheeling ramshackle prams didn’t just have one baby in them but often a couple of toddlers and a big bag of washing, too. Everywhere Molly looked, the children were scrawny and pale.
She didn’t like it one bit. She felt threatened by the sheer numbers of people, and it was all so dirty and squalid. She had to go and see Constance now, because she was expected, but as soon as that was over she’d rush away from this horrible place.
She asked a man selling newspapers outside the station for directions to Myrdle Street, which is where Constance lived.
‘You sound like a farmer, ducks,’ he said. ‘You come up from Bristol?’
‘Near there,’ she said, surprised that he had any interest in her. ‘Do you know it?’
‘Never bin there,’ he said. ‘But I ’ad a mate in the army from there and ’e sounded just like you. Come up ’ere to work, ’ave you?’
After a brief exchange with him, Molly followed his directions to Myrdle Street, only to find that Whitechapel Road was a smart address in comparison to the side streets she was now walking along. There were so many houses missing in the long terraces, big timbers held up the remaining ones, and the weed-covered bomb sites in between were now impromptu playgrounds for huge packs of skinny, pale, sharp-featured children.
Molly looked up at the remaining houses and shuddered, because she could imagine how grim and comfortless they were inside. Old folk sat on the doorsteps of some of the houses, and the sight made her feel unbearably sad for some reason she didn’t understand.
Myrdle Street was much the same as the others she’d passed through, but there was a gang of about twelve girls skipping over a long rope turned by two of the bigger ones. Molly paused to watch them for a moment, noting that they wore plimsolls on their feet, some with the toe cut out to give more room, they all had scabby knees, and every one of them wore a dress so faded and worn they looked like they’d fall apart in the wash. She was suddenly reminded that, however horrible her father could be, she’d always had enough to eat, good clothes and shoes. She hadn’t realized until now what real poverty looked like.
The front door to 22 Myrdle Street was open. Molly tapped on it and, when there was no response, she went into the narrow hall a little way and called out to Constance.
‘I’m back here!’ a weak voice called back. ‘Do come in.’
Molly nervously followed the voice to another open door at the end of the passage. It led to a rather dark room with a kitchen sink under the window. Constance was sitting in a wheelchair.
‘I’m sorry, I can’t get up very easily,’ she said. ‘You must be Miss Heywood?’
Constance was very small and thin. She wore a grey cotton dress and a grey cotton veil over her hair. Molly felt that she must belong to some religious order and that she was perhaps in her mid-sixties, maybe even older.
‘Yes, I’m Miss Heywood, but please call me Molly. Thank you for agreeing to see me,’ she said.
‘It is my pleasure. Now, pull that chair up and sit down. Tell me, did you get the job?’
‘Yes, I did,’ Molly sa
id, pulling the easy chair closer to Constance. ‘I’m sorry that I addressed the letter just to “Constance”, but I didn’t know your other name.’
‘I’m known round here to everyone as Sister Constance,’ the old lady said. ‘I’m a Church Army sister. We aren’t like Roman Catholics: we don’t live in nunneries but out in the parish we are sent to. This has been my parish for over twenty years now but, since I ended up in this wheelchair, my work is mostly of the listening kind.’
‘I’ve always thought that good listeners are very valuable,’ Molly said. ‘Will you tell me how you got to know Cassie?’
‘She came to live next door when Petal was just a few months old,’ Constance said. ‘I wasn’t in the wheelchair then, and I walked down the street beside her one day. I asked her if she’d like to come to the young mothers’ meeting at the church.’
‘Did she go?’ Molly remembered Cassie being very anti-Church.
Constance shook her head. ‘No, she said she wasn’t a “joiner”, but we chatted as we walked, and I realized she was on her own without a husband and asked her if she got lonely.’
‘I bet she said she didn’t know the meaning of that word,’ Molly said.
‘No, what she said was that being alone can sometimes be far better for you than having others around you. I agreed with her, and I talked a little about how I pray when I’m alone, and how it clears my mind.’
‘She didn’t run a mile, then?’ Molly said lightly.
‘No! Despite her claims to be agnostic, she was a very spiritual girl. She understood about meditation, and had read widely on many religions. But let’s leave that for a minute, Molly. Explain to me first about her death? I was so distressed to get your letter and, to be honest, it didn’t make much sense to me. Why would anyone kill Cassie?’
‘I thought the same myself,’ Molly said, then explained everything, beginning from when she found her friend dead. ‘The coroner said the bruising on her arms and neck was evidence of a struggle, then it seemed she either fell back on to the hearth or was pushed, and her head banged hard on it, breaking her skull.’
Molly paused. She could see that Constance felt as deeply about Cassie as she did, and that was all the justification she needed to continue to search for answers.
‘What I don’t understand, though,’ she continued, ‘is why the police have given up on looking for Petal. I kind of see why they’ve run out of steam in finding Cassie’s killer, but they shouldn’t have stopped searching for a six-year-old. They wouldn’t be this way if she was the daughter of a doctor, or a teacher – someone that mattered. I hate it that they don’t care about her because she’s mixed race and her mother wasn’t married.’
Constance reached out and patted Molly’s knee. ‘You mustn’t hate. Pity people’s ignorance and prejudice perhaps, and try to show them by example what is right, but hating just makes you feel bad inside and serves no useful purpose.’
Molly smiled weakly. She liked everything about this woman: her soft blue eyes that were full of understanding; her acceptance that she had to be in a wheelchair now after spending the best part of her life caring for the poor. ‘I came to you because I’m hoping you can tell me stuff about Cassie which may make sense of everything. I want to be a detective and find Petal.’
‘That sounds a good idea to me.’ Constance smiled. ‘Though I don’t think I have any information that will help you. Cassie wasn’t one for confiding things about herself.’
‘But she must have told you where she came from, and something about Petal’s father?’
‘No, she didn’t. Let me explain something, Molly. People who aren’t born here in the East End come to live here for widely varying reasons,’ Constance said earnestly. ‘People like me, and nurses, doctors and social workers come here to serve the community. Some think it’s sort of romantic or heroic to work with the poor, and they soon find out that’s not the case and leave. Others, like me, come to love the people and stay. Other newcomers are immigrants, and they come because this is where friends and relatives have already settled and they want to join them. If you look around, you will see people from almost every corner of the globe: Jews, Arabs, Africans, Indians, and many more.
‘Other people end up here because they are too poor to go anywhere else. Finally, some are running away and see this as a good place to hide. But I doubt that any of these people, other than those who work here or were born here, actually want to live here. It is too tough and harsh.’
‘Do you think Cassie was running away?’
‘Yes, I believe so. But I don’t think she was hiding from the police. She would chat happily to a constable on his beat. She certainly didn’t slink away.’
‘So that means she’d run away from Petal’s father?’
Constance sighed. ‘That does seem to be the obvious assumption, but I’ve found that women tend to admit such things once they feel safe with a new friend. She never spoke of Petal’s father once, not even in a vague way. I came to the conclusion it was her parents she’d run away from.’
‘I’ve thought of that myself,’ Molly said. ‘But her father died in the war, so maybe her mother?’
‘Possibly. There were pointers to her having had a quite privileged childhood, though. She was well spoken, well educated, she had first-class manners. I would take a guess that she was brought up by a nanny or a housekeeper, though.’
‘What makes you think that?’
‘The lack of information about her mother, really. We all mention our mothers, even if only in passing. I asked Cassie once if she was orphaned, and she looked shocked. “I have a mother,” she said. “She just doesn’t figure in my life.” I thought that was a very odd thing to say.’
‘Yes, I agree.’ Molly frowned. ‘It sounds like she’d deliberately cut herself off.’
Constance nodded. ‘Hmm. I thought maybe her mother was cruel to her when Petal was born – after all, an unmarried mother with a mixed race baby is often far too much for some people to deal with. Especially those higher up the social scale. But, if that was the case and Cassie had been thrown out because of it, you would expect her to be bitter. But she wasn’t.’
‘No, I never saw any bitterness in her either,’ Molly agreed. ‘Did she ever say where she grew up? What she’d done before she had Petal?’
Constance shook her head. ‘She told me once she used to ride. The way she said that made me think she was brought up with horses, not just a ride now and then on a friend’s or neighbour’s horse. I don’t think she ever worked for a living – another clue to a gentle, privileged upbringing. Those sort of girls don’t work.’
‘But while she was here, how did she live?’
‘I think she must have had savings. Or she sold jewellery or other things to keep herself. She lived very frugally. She wasn’t above collecting up fallen fruit or vegetables at the close of the market. But, speaking of food, let’s have a cup of tea and some cake!’
Molly made the tea and, on Constance’s instructions, got a fruit cake out of a tin and the best china from the sideboard.
She clearly lived very frugally, too. The one room was simply furnished: a bed covered in a dark-blue blanket, two easy chairs by the fireplace, a sideboard, a table and two chairs. There were lots of books on shelves and a couple of lovely watercolours of a picturesque village. There were also various religious pictures, but these weren’t framed, just tacked to the wall. The room was clean and neat, although there were damp stains on the walls and a faint musty smell. Constance said she was fortunate enough to have two kind friends who came in and helped her wash and dress and kept the place clean. To Molly, it seemed a very sad and lonely life being in a wheelchair, and alone for much of the day. But Constance seemed happy with it.
‘Do you get out?’ Molly asked her as they waited for the kettle to boil. ‘I mean, is there anyone who can take you out in your wheelchair?’
‘Oh yes! Don’t you get the idea I’m some sort of hermit. Most days someone will pop r
ound and take me for a spin. Reverend Adams – he’s the vicar at St Swithin’s, takes me to church every Sunday, and I go home with him for lunch, too. People are very kind. That fruit cake, for instance, was a gift from a parishioner. I get people dropping in, too. It’s a rare day when I don’t see anyone.’
Constance kept asking Molly about her life and family, and it was all Molly could do to keep dragging the conversation back to Cassie. She found out that her friend had lived here for three years and only left then because she wanted Petal to go to a good school.
‘The schools around here are overcrowded, and they don’t attract good teachers,’ Constance admitted. ‘The government seems to have forgotten that we took the brunt of the Blitz here, and they are being very slow to clear the bomb sites and build new homes. Some families share one room with another family. There are children who don’t even have a bed to sleep in, or share it with all their siblings. Most people don’t have a bathroom in their home, babies get bitten by rats very often, and I’d say at least a quarter of the children are suffering from malnutrition. We keep hearing that England is almost bankrupt from the expense of the war, yet they found the money for a lavish Coronation. Don’t get me wrong, I love and admire the royal family, but if I was in charge I’d put ordinary families first.’
‘Well, we do have the National Health Service now,’ Molly ventured, rather surprised that someone like Constance would criticize the Coronation.
‘Yes, and it’s a wonderful thing to have free medical care,’ Constance said with a smile. ‘But people’s health would improve vastly with decent housing; too many small children are still dying of preventable diseases.’
This struck a chord with Molly. Cassie had often said similar things and, somehow, that confirmed how well she’d known Constance.
Without a Trace Page 11
