Molly was no stranger to being rushed off her feet at Christmas. Back in her father’s shop at previous Christmases, sometimes it had seemed as if people were afraid they’d starve during the two days the shop would be closed.
Bourne & Hollingsworth, though, was much busier than she could ever have imagined, and she was astounded at how much money some people were spending. She and her sister had only ever had one present each from their parents, and a filled stocking from Santa Claus, the latter being mainly stuffed with cheap things like crayons, colouring books, a few nuts, sweets and a tangerine. But shoppers in London had long lists of things they were going to buy, and the cost seemed almost unimportant.
Every male customer wanted advice on which pair of gloves to buy his wife, mother or sister, yet few knew what size the recipients were. Women customers were more decisive and usually chose more utilitarian gloves, not the fancy red suede ones or those in white kidskin. Yet the Christmas spirit seemed to be in everyone, as they were mostly genial and patient, even when they had to wait a long time to be served.
Molly had been as excited as any six-year-old when the legendary lights in Oxford Street and Regent Street, which she’d always wanted to see, were switched on at the end of November. Coming from a small village where the only Christmas lights she’d ever seen were those on the tree in the village hall, to her, London’s lights were like a glimpse of Fairyland.
Her delight grew as the display team at Bourne & Hollingsworth put lights and decorations up in the store, too. Each day, as Christmas inched closer and closer, there was a gradually increasing excitement in the air; people smiled and laughed more as they chose gifts or bought clothes to wear for Christmas parties. Molly got a warm feeling inside each time someone wished her a Merry Christmas, and when the Salvation Army band played carols right outside the store she got a lump in her throat.
Aided and abetted by Dilys, Molly had dared to buy the kind of dress for the staff party that, at home, would be unthinkable. It was red shantung with a low neck, a very full skirt and a wide, waist-clinching belt. Her father would have claimed she looked like a harlot, but after a few months in London she no longer cared about his opinion. The party was to be held on the evening of the twenty-third because many of the staff would be going home to their families after the shop closed on Christmas Eve.
As Christmas Eve fell on a Friday this year, most of the staff were taking advantage of the three-day holiday to do this. But both Molly and Dilys were staying on at the hostel. They told anyone that asked them why they weren’t going home that a very long train journey after a full day at work was too much for them, but of course that wasn’t the real reason they were staying in London.
In the past four months, the girls had become close enough for Molly to tell Dilys about her bullying father; Dilys had confided that hers was a drunkard and that her home in Cardiff was a slum. Admitting to each other that they hadn’t come from a happy family when so many of the other girls boasted about how wonderful theirs were was liberating, and it bound them even more tightly together.
After telling each other about awful Christmases they’d had in the past, they resolved that this one would be wonderful. They hung paper chains up in their room, filled a stocking for each other with cheap little things, and they both had new dresses. There was also far more going on in London than there ever would be back home.
After the shop closed on Christmas Eve it was the tradition that everyone staying on at Warwickshire House would go down to Trafalgar Square for the carol service that was held around the huge Christmas tree. This was always followed by a pub crawl back, with a drink taken in every pub they passed.
Christmas dinner was cooked by the few kitchen staff staying on and, afterwards, everyone played party games. On Boxing Day, the Empire would be open, and that promised to be a great evening as, a fortnight ago, the girls had met Frank and Robert, two men from Notting Hill who they really liked, and they’d arranged to meet them again on Boxing Day. Dilys had said gloomily that they’d probably forgotten her and Molly already, but Molly had sensed that both men were pretty taken with the girls and that they would be there.
Molly was just thinking about the staff party the next evening and how she’d look in her new dress when Dilys stopped at the glove counter on the way back from a late lunch break.
‘Pst!’ she hissed, to get Molly’s attention, then pretended to be studying a display of gloves tumbling out of a small basket.
Molly sidled nearer, opening a drawer beneath the counter and pretending to look in it. ‘What is it?’ she asked, concerned that they would be told off if they were seen chatting.
‘I just saw Miss Stow and Mr Hardcraft waiting for the lift together. I wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but they were talking, heads close together, and looked back in your direction before getting in the lift.’
‘So what?’ Molly said. ‘I expect they were just looking back to check there wasn’t a queue of people waiting to be served.’
‘Maybe, but I got a funny feeling about it – thought I’d warn you. Must go now.’
Molly smiled fondly as her friend scuttled off to the canteen. She thought that Dilys read too many thrillers and so saw intrigue everywhere. In fact, Miss Stow had been much less demanding recently. Molly thought it was because she’d finally come to the conclusion that Molly could be trusted to put unsold gloves back in the right drawer, not be rude to customers and that she wasn’t after her job.
It became even busier after four that afternoon. Schools had broken up for Christmas the day before, and so there were hundreds of mothers with children who had come up west to see the lights. It had started to rain heavily, so they were all taking shelter in the shops, and many of the children were badly behaved, touching everything and racing around.
‘Where on earth is Miss Stow?’ Julie Drysdale, the other assistant in the glove department, asked Molly. ‘Look what those blessed kids have done to the counter!’ She pointed to the sticky fingerprints all over the glass counter.
‘They’d have done that even if she had been here,’ Molly said as she went to serve a lady in a stylish, red, wide-brimmed hat. ‘I love your hat, madam,’ she said to the lady. ‘We’ve got some gloves that would match it perfectly.’
‘I’m sure you have, but I’m after some sensible, woolly gloves for my sister, who lives right up in the north of Scotland,’ she replied, smiling at Molly.
Molly was just ringing up the sale when Mr Douglas, the security man, came along. Molly had never seen him on the shop floor before; he was always in his cubbyhole down by the staff entrance and exit. He was there to see that no one took anything out of the shop with them. Staff purchases went down to him, too; he had to make sure no one added anything to the bag after paying for their goods.
She finished serving the customer and wished her a Merry Christmas, then turned to Mr Douglas. ‘A pair of gloves for your wife?’ she asked with a wide smile. ‘I hope you know her size.’
‘No, Miss Heywood, I’ve come to fetch you,’ he said. ‘They want to talk to you upstairs.’
Molly looked at him. Staff were summoned upstairs to the personnel office for a variety of reasons, but the message usually came by telephone, or through the department manager. She’d never heard of anyone being escorted there by Mr Douglas.
‘Now, please,’ he said, more sharply.
Molly felt faintly sick as she went up in the lift, wondering what she could have done wrong. It was clear she’d done something but, apart from being five minutes late to the counter last Friday morning, she couldn’t think of anything. But would she really be hauled out at such a busy time for something so trivial?
A voice from inside the personnel office responded to Mr Douglas’s knock, telling him to come in. He didn’t go in, though, just put his head round the door to say he had Miss Heywood with him.
‘Go in.’ He nodded at Molly, his face cold and blank.
Molly went in to find Hawk Face, the woman w
ho had been on the interview panel, sitting behind the desk. She knew her now as Miss Jackson, one of the directors of the company, but aside from occasionally seeing her walk through the store, she’d had no reason to speak to her.
‘Miss Heywood,’ she began, not even asking Molly to sit down. ‘It has been alleged that you have been putting extra goods which haven’t been paid for into customers’ bags. As I am quite sure you are in total command of your faculties, I have to assume the lucky recipients are friends or relatives of yours.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Molly frowned, not really understanding. ‘There must be some mistake. I have never done such a thing.’
‘But we have two independent witnesses who saw you do it.’
Molly felt her heart plummet. In a flash she guessed that the two so-called witnesses were Miss Stow and Mr Hardcraft, but why they should claim such a thing was a mystery to her.
‘They’re mistaken. I have never stolen anything in my life, and this is theft you’re talking about, isn’t it?’
‘Of course it is. Any item taken from the store without payment or permission is considered stolen. A cunning way of stealing, too, as you personally would never have the stolen goods on you.’
‘Then why didn’t the witnesses call Security when they saw it happening?’ Molly asked, but the shock of being accused of theft made her voice waver and her eyes prickle with tears.
‘The first time, you were given the benefit of the doubt, but after that you were watched and, of course, you did it again, and again.’
‘I did not,’ Molly said with indignation. ‘Whoever told you this is a liar and a troublemaker. Get them in here, and they can say it to my face. I don’t have any friends or relatives in London to give anything to. The only people I know are members of staff.’
‘That’s not what I’ve heard,’ Hawk Face said, her dark eyes flashing with steel. ‘I’ve heard you have friends in Whitechapel.’
Molly was astounded. ‘I know one person there, and she is a Sister in the Church Army,’ she retorted angrily. ‘And she’s a frail old lady in a wheelchair. She can’t even go out alone, much less come up to the West End so I can pass stolen gloves to her.’
‘Come now! Do you really expect me to believe she is the only friend you have?’
‘I have friends back home in Somerset.’ Molly was aware that her voice was rising in her agitation, but she tried to control it. ‘But the only friends I have in London are people who work here and live in Warwickshire House.’
‘Don’t you dare raise your voice to me, Miss Heywood. Or deny something which senior and trusted staff members have reported. I want you to go to Warwickshire House now, pack your suitcase and leave. You may count yourself very lucky we are not calling the police.’
‘You aren’t calling the police because you have no proof or evidence of theft,’ Molly said, wanting to scream and stamp her feet at the injustice of it, but she wasn’t the kind to do that. ‘You only have the word of a spiteful spinster who doesn’t like me because I’m popular with everyone else. And I expect she’s influenced Mr Hardcraft into believing her story about me.’
Miss Jackson sat back in her chair, putting her two hands together to make a church spire, and looked at Molly over them, a reflective expression on her face.
‘Go quietly now, or I will call the police,’ she said after a second or two. ‘Aside from everyone seeing you taken away to the police station, you are likely to get a prison sentence and a police record. So just be grateful that I am being so lenient.’
She got to her feet, picked a brown envelope up from her desk and handed it to Molly. ‘Your wages, made up till the end of the week. But I want you out of the store now.’
‘I didn’t do this,’ Molly pleaded. She couldn’t hold back her tears any longer. ‘Please believe me, Miss Jackson. I promise on all that’s holy that I have never given any goods to anyone, or taken them for myself. This is an act of spite by Miss Stow because she is jealous of me. I love working here. I wouldn’t jeopardize my job by doing such a thing.’
‘Go now,’ the older woman said, and her voice was as cold as a January morning. ‘Mr Douglas is waiting to escort you from the premises, both from here and from the staff hostel.’
CHAPTER NINE
Molly caught hold of Mr Douglas’s sleeve as he ushered her out of the staff entrance and began walking her to the hostel.
‘I didn’t do this,’ she pleaded with him. ‘How can they throw me out of my job and home without any proof that I did anything wrong?’
He brushed her hand away from his jacket, his face cold and stern. ‘If the floor walker and the head of department say you did it, then that’s proof enough for me. I see thieves almost every day; they always deny their guilt. Now come along. It’s my job to oversee you as you pack your belongings and to escort you from the hostel.’
‘I haven’t got anywhere to go,’ Molly said, and the tears she’d tried to control spilled over and cascaded down her cheeks.
‘No good blubbing,’ he said brusquely. ‘You’ve got your wages. Go home to your folks.’
Twenty minutes later Mr Douglas stood with his arms crossed, resolutely unmoved by her tears as she packed her clothes into her suitcase. She found his manner even more distressing because he’d always been so nice to her before; they’d often shared a little light-hearted banter at the staff door. She couldn’t believe that he would turn against her like this.
What was she to do? She couldn’t go home, not when she’d told her father she’d never come back while he was alive. She couldn’t land herself on George and his family at Christmas either, not without being invited, and they weren’t even on the telephone so she couldn’t try sounding them out. And even if she had a fairy godmother living in the village, one who would welcome her with open arms and no strings attached, Molly would have to admit that she’d lost her job. The reason would soon come out and, before she could even say ‘dismissed’, it would be right round the village. No one would believe that she hadn’t done something bad.
Once she’d got everything into her suitcase, she looked pleadingly at Mr Douglas. ‘Please may I leave a note for Dilys?’ she asked.
‘Certainly not,’ he said gruffly. ‘The management doesn’t hold with thieves fraternizing with employees. Pick up that case and get going.’
‘Dilys will be upset if I’m gone without her knowing why,’ she pleaded.
‘She will know why. All the staff will be told. It encourages them to stay honest.’
Molly put her hands over her face in despair to imagine all the girls she’d come to know and like thinking she was a thief. How could this have happened? She had never done anything wrong.
Yet from deep inside her indignation rose up. ‘What about innocent until proved guilty?’ she snapped at the security man. ‘If Miss Stow or Mr Hardcraft had really seen me slipping something to someone, as they claim they did, why didn’t they stop that person?’ Her voice rose in her anger and she moved closer to the man to drive her point home.
‘I haven’t even heard a description of this person! Not even whether it was a man or a woman. But then they couldn’t describe them, or stop them, because they just don’t exist. It’s all fantasy, malicious at that. If they could do this to me, they’re probably robbing the store blind between them. Have you thought of that?’
If her words meant anything to him, he didn’t show it. His face was as cold and hard as granite. ‘Come on, let’s go,’ he said and, putting his hand in the small of her back, he nudged her towards the door.
She took one last look at the room she’d been so happy in. Dilys’s somewhat bedraggled poster of Gone with the Wind, and the photograph of Frank Sinatra she used to kiss goodnight. The paper chains they’d made together, looped right round the room, the two bulging felt stockings hanging from the knobs on the wardrobe.
So many stories from the past traded in this room; a few tears, but far more laughter. Now Dilys would be alone for Christmas, thinking her
best friend was a thief.
Mr Douglas shut the front door of Warwickshire House the second she was over the threshold and, as the cold wind hit Molly’s face, the enormity of her situation hit her, too. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve; she was jobless and homeless. What’s more, it would be difficult to get another job after Christmas without a reference from Bourne & Hollingsworth.
Part of her wanted to hang around and see Dilys to tell her what had happened. But all the staff came back together in big groups, and if they’d already been told what she was supposed to have done, they would probably be as nasty as Mr Douglas had been. Dilys might even believe it was true. After all, she’d been the one warning her that something was afoot.
Molly made her way towards Euston, rather than going the other way, which might mean running into someone from the store. Her suitcase was much heavier than when she had first came to London, because she’d bought new clothes and shoes. The weight of it and the need to sit down and think about what she was going to do made her go into a café and order a cup of tea.
Once she had her tea and an iced bun, she counted her money, including the wages she’d been given today. They’d paid her for two weeks, as she’d worked a week in hand when she had first arrived in London, and along with what she already had in her purse, she had three pounds, four shillings and sixpence. But that was all: no savings, nothing more.
If Miss Grady at the Braemar would give her a room, she had enough money for roughly five nights. Maybe she could get a job in one of the restaurants around Paddington?
But what if she couldn’t? Once her money ran out, she’d be destitute, like the men who slept on the park benches down on the Embankment.
A little later, she telephoned the Braemar from a telephone box, and Miss Grady answered.
‘I’m very sorry, Miss Heywood,’ she replied to Molly’s request for a room, ‘I’m full to bursting. So many people come to London at Christmas to see relatives, it’s often my busiest time of the year. But aren’t you going home?’
Without a Trace Page 15
