Without a Trace

by Lesley Pearse

  She got home to find Constance beaming.

  ‘The landlord has just been round. He said you could use the little box room on the next floor if you clean it out and give it a coat of paint,’ she said gleefully. ‘He doesn’t even want any rent, because it’s too small to let.’

  ‘How wonderful!’ Molly exclaimed. ‘And I’ve just got a job, too. I’ll pop up and see the room, because it’ll be dark very soon, then I’ll come back and make some tea and tell you about the job.’

  The room was hardly bigger than a cupboard, with no gas light in it, but Molly thought once she’d scrubbed it out it would be fine.

  Constance was delighted, too, that Molly had found a job. ‘Pat could do with some lessons in hygiene,’ she said. ‘But the café is close to home – a good thing in the winter months – and it’s a chance to get back on your feet. Now let’s think what we can put in your new room to make it homely.’

  Pat required nothing more of Molly than the ability to cook things like bacon and eggs, sausage and chips, or cheese on toast, to wash up and ring up money in the till. It was as different from working at Bourne & Hollingsworth as it was possible to be. Almost all the clientele were male, either market traders or local workmen. They were rough, noisy, many with the table manners of pigs, but they appreciated Molly, the time flew by and she could walk home in five minutes.

  She had to wait until Sunday to scrub her room out and give it a coat of whitewash. She slotted the truckle bed and a slender chest of drawers of Constance’s in, and some hooks on the back of the door became her wardrobe. She bought a yard of cheap cotton in the market to make a curtain for the tiny window, and Constance dug out a bright-red blanket for her to cover the bed and create a cosier feel.

  ‘It’s an old ambulance blanket,’ Constance explained. ‘They used to have red ones to hide the blood. A rescue worker gave it to me during the war when I was bombed out, and I never thought to return it.’

  The room was terribly cold, of course, and there was no way of heating it, but Molly put a couple of hot-water bottles in the bed at night, and she slept soundly. She was glad to be able to give her friend back her privacy, as both of them sleeping and living in the same room had been far from ideal.

  On her first night in the room, she thought about Cassie having lived next door; in fact, in the room on the other side of her wall. Molly couldn’t help but feel it wasn’t just chance that had brought her here but fate, and that she was right to keep on searching for the truth, because it would surface eventually. She hoped that if someone around here did know more about Cassie, or even the identity of the person who took Petal, they might make themselves known to her.

  She kept the picture of Cassie and the one of Petal on the counter at Pat’s Café, and every time a new face came in she’d ask them if they knew Cassie. Not many of them did, but there was a sprinkling of younger men who had known and liked her. Every one of them was shocked that she’d been murdered, and horrified that Petal hadn’t been found.

  That was one thing here in the East End that she really liked: people cared about children. Not just their own, but all children. In the main, they weren’t concerned about colour or whether the mother was married either. But then, the East End had always been a melting pot of colour, culture and religion. Russians, Poles, Chinese, Jews, lascars, Africans and West Indians – many of them had arrived here as seamen and ended up staying. They had heard the evil racism that Oswald Mosley and his Blackshirts had tried to rouse the rabble with in the thirties, yet mostly they shut their ears. They had stuck together and helped one another through the Blitz, too. Molly was beginning to understand why Cassie had stayed here for so long, and also to realize how hurt she must have been by some of the narrow-minded people in Sawbridge.

  One Sunday morning right at the end of January it had begun to snow while they were in church, and when they came out it was very thick on the ground and it was hard for Molly to push Constance’s wheelchair. Ted Barlow, a neighbour from Myrdle Street, rushed over to help and, with a lot of laughter, as both Ted and Molly kept slipping, they got Constance and the chair home.

  Molly had put a half-shoulder of lamb on a low gas to roast before they went out, and it smelled wonderful. The fire was banked up and, with a little poking, it was soon blazing.

  ‘I think the snow is going to be around for a while,’ Constance remarked as she looked out the window. ‘It’s a kind of blessing, isn’t it? All the ugliness around us is hidden.’

  ‘Not much of a blessing for those too poor to buy coal, though,’ Molly said thoughtfully. Since living here, she’d become very aware of what poverty really meant. Back home in Somerset, it wasn’t so clearly defined, as people grew their own vegetables and kept a few chickens. They might have little more than the clothes they stood up in, but they weren’t hungry. She’d seen plenty of people round here who really were; they were gaunt with hollow eyes, stooped and slow with the desperate struggle to get through each day, with no hope things would improve. Hardly a day passed without her reading in the paper about an old person found dead in their home from malnutrition or cold. It preyed on her mind and she wished there was something she could do to help.

  ‘You are right, my dear.’ Constance sighed deeply. ‘In the bitter winter of 1947 people were burning their furniture to keep warm. Bomb damage had left holes in roofs, and broken windows, and there was no one, or any materials, to fix things. I heard of families who got into one bed together as soon as they got home; it was too cold to do anything else. I was lucky the church provided me with coal. I used to ask people I knew were in a bad way round here for the evening.’

  ‘I bet you were a tower of strength to people during the war,’ Molly said. Constance always thought of others before herself. She would willingly give away her last crust of bread to someone in need. That was probably the reason people around here did so much for her, now that she needed help.

  ‘Everyone did their bit during the war. I was nothing special.’ Constance shrugged. ‘But however grim you think it is, Molly, things are getting better. There is plenty of work now, the bomb sites are being cleared and new homes built. As for the new Health Service, that’s miraculous. I often wondered how many died in the East End in the past because they didn’t have a shilling for the doctor.’

  ‘But that’s awful!’ Molly exclaimed.

  Constance nodded in agreement. ‘However, we should be looking to the future, not dwelling on the past. I think that, after we’ve had our dinner, we should sit by the fire and have a talk about what you want to do.’

  It was nearly dark by the time they’d eaten their dinner. Molly got up from the table, lit the gas light and put another couple of lumps of coal on the fire.

  When she looked round, Constance was scraping the last remnants of rice pudding from the dish. She laughed when she realized Molly had seen her.

  ‘You’re such a good cook it’s hard not to eat every last scrap,’ she said appreciatively. ‘The lamb was so tasty, the roast potatoes perfect. My dear friends around here, although kindness itself, tend to be a bit limited in their culinary skills. Did your mother teach you to cook?’

  ‘Yes – well, the basics,’ Molly said. ‘But we had a good domestic-science teacher at school who was always urging us to borrow cookery books from the library, and to experiment, too.’

  ‘Working in Pat’s Café doesn’t give you much scope for creativity or experimentation.’ Constance chuckled.

  ‘I don’t mind.’ Molly smiled. ‘I can improve things a bit by not giving people food swimming in grease. That’s about the only improvement, though. I have suggested serving some home-made soup or stew. Pat said she’d think about it, but I doubt she’ll agree.’

  Constance laughed. She knew, as did everyone in the area, that Pat was lazy and against any kind of change. The only reason anyone ever ate in her café was because it was convenient and because, now and then, she employed someone like Molly, who could cook.

  ‘Maybe it i
sn’t worth the effort of trying to persuade her,’ she said. ‘After all, it’s only a stop-gap job. Have you given any thought to a new job, or a career?’

  ‘I did think I might be suited to hotel work,’ Molly said, with some hesitation. ‘A small hotel, where I could do lots of different jobs – reception, cooking, running a bar and cleaning the rooms. By the sea somewhere in Kent or Sussex would be nice, especially if I could live in.’

  ‘A great deal nicer than the East End,’ Constance said with a smile. ‘I’d miss you, of course, but I’d be happy to see you embark on something you really liked, and which has a future. I’ve been so pleased that you aren’t talking about Cassandra and Petal so much lately. Something like that takes a great deal of getting over but, at your age, it isn’t healthy to brood on it.’

  Molly hesitated before replying. She might not have spoken to Constance about Cassie and Petal so much, but they’d been on her mind all the time.

  ‘I don’t talk about them because I’ve said everything I have to say,’ she replied after a moment’s thought. ‘But I haven’t forgotten them, or given up the idea of trying to find Petal. Every single day I show their pictures to people and ask them if they knew Cassie. In fact, that’s exactly why I thought of a hotel in Kent or East Sussex. Many of Cassie’s poems mention places there, so I think that’s maybe where she came from. I’ve found out nothing here, but if I can discover where she used to live, I might be able to find some family members, too.’

  Constance instantly looked worried, and Molly sensed she was going to say something she didn’t want to hear.

  ‘I think the idea of a hotel is a good one. But I’m not so sure about digging around for Cassie’s relatives. We both sensed she had run away from something, or someone. Is it wise to go digging?’

  ‘A child’s life is at stake,’ Molly said indignantly, surprised Constance didn’t see it that way. ‘For all we know, Cassie’s relatives might not even know about her death, or that her daughter is missing, maybe murdered, or at least abducted. I suppose I just want to find someone who cares the way I do.’

  ‘It’s good that you care. I didn’t mean that you shouldn’t think about her and want to make it right,’ Constance reproved her. ‘But I have to say that when you first visited me here I felt you were making her the focus of your life because you had so little else in yours. That was perfectly understandable, as you had no boyfriend, you had a difficult father – you even said your sister wasn’t interested in you any longer. And Cassie had filled your life, just as she did mine when she lived here, so I know what a hole she left behind.’

  Molly nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak in case she burst into tears.

  ‘I had hoped that you’d find real happiness and good friends at Bourne & Hollingsworth,’ Constance went on. ‘I’m so sorry that went so badly wrong.’ She paused, smiled and reached out to take Molly’s hand.

  ‘I know this place isn’t what you’re used to, and Heaven forbid that you get the idea that you’ve got to stay and take care of this old lady. But I will say that everyone who has met you here likes you. I think you have a tremendous amount to offer the world, because you are kind, thoughtful and very caring, along with being brave and intelligent, too. I don’t believe you know what a good person you are – that’s why I’m telling you this now. I think working in a hotel is a really good idea: you do have all the right credentials for it, and I think you’d be perfect for it. But I want you to choose a hotel that you like, in a place you’d like to live in. But not just so you can try and find Petal.’

  Molly gulped back the lump in her throat. No one had ever said such nice things about her before, and she knew Constance meant it.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’ll take note of everything you said, but I have to try and find Cassie’s family, if only so they can make the police open the case again and look for Petal. Something inside me tells me she’d want that.’

  Constance sighed, then nodded. ‘Yes, you’re probably right, but just make it secondary to getting your own life settled. And, by the way, have you written to your mother or that policeman friend of yours back home? You should tell them where you are now, because if they write to you at the hostel, they’ll probably get the letter returned to them marked “Gone away”, and that is going to worry them.’

  Molly blushed. She hadn’t thought of mail being returned. ‘I don’t know what to say to them. I don’t think they’ll believe I stole anything, but all the same –’ she broke off, not liking to admit her real fear was that they would all be horrified to think of her living in Whitechapel. George might even come up here to try to rescue her. That would make everything much worse.

  Constance gave her a knowing look, making Molly blush again, because Molly was fairly certain the older woman understood her fears. ‘You don’t have to go into any detail. Just reassure them you’re safe and happy. Your poor mother is probably frantic.’

  A little later Constance glanced across the room to where Molly was sitting at the table, writing a letter to her mother. She could see by the way the girl’s brow was furrowed that she was finding it difficult. Constance knew without a shadow of doubt that Molly hadn’t stolen anything, and the injustice riled her. Her mother would surely know that, too, as anyone would who knew her well.

  Although Constance had never had children, she understood that a child’s hurt was felt just as keenly by the mother. Mrs Heywood must have spent her entire life in pain for the way her husband treated his daughters. Some would ask why she didn’t leave him; that was easy to say but almost impossible for a woman with two children and no money of her own to do. Mrs Heywood probably thought, too, that it was better for her children to live with their father, and maybe she even believed he would change. How many thousands of women married to bullies believed that!

  As for Molly’s policeman friend, she sensed that Molly liked him a great deal, and he had to feel the same way, as he’d helped her get to London and wrote to her every week. Constance felt it was only a feeling of unworthiness on Molly’s part that had prevented her from encouraging him.

  Constance smiled to herself. Here she was, a frail old lady who had never married, sitting in a wheelchair, believing she had all the answers about courtship, love and marriage. But, in her defence, she had been privy to so many people’s secrets over the last fifty years. She was a seasoned observer, and she liked to think she was also an excellent judge of character.

  She had recently written to young Dilys at Bourne & Hollingsworth and told her she didn’t believe for one moment that Molly had given goods to friends posing as customers. She said that one of the worst things for Molly was to be frogmarched from the building without even being able to leave a note of explanation for Dilys, who she had cared for a great deal. She asked that, if Dilys had felt the same about Molly, she should write to her or telephone. She ended her letter reminding her that true friends are rare and valuable and should be treasured.

  If Dilys came back into Molly’s life, it would help heal the wounds that the treacherous Miss Stow had inflicted on her, and maybe prove to Molly that she was worthy of love and affection. But there was something more Constance could do, and that was to use her contacts to help with Molly’s future. Tomorrow, when Molly was at work, Constance intended to telephone someone she knew well and see if they had any vacancies.

  February was even colder than January. Snow turned to dirty slush and then froze again, leaving great piles of black ice at the sides of the roads. All the pavements were treacherous. Every day Molly heard horrible stories from people who lived in tenements about frozen lavatories and water pipes. She could tell by the smell of people who came into the café that washing wasn’t a high priority any more. Even she, who had once been so fastidious, found it too cold to strip off in the scullery and wash all over every day. She went to the public baths with Constance every Thursday night, but even though it was lovely once she was in a nice, hot bath, it was so cold getting dressed and going hom
e that sometimes she was tempted to skip it.

  Constance often told her tales about how it was in the Blitz. She said that she didn’t wash anything but her face and hands for over three weeks once, because she’d been bombed out and was sleeping in shelters.

  ‘It was the same for lots of us.’ She laughed. ‘People came out of a night in the shelter to find their house had been flattened. They’d lost everything, but they’d still go off to work like nothing had happened. I saw women having a strip wash in the public toilets – they had nowhere else to do it.’

  ‘In Bristol, people went out into the countryside at night because they were scared of the bombs,’ Molly said.

  ‘People left London, too,’ Constance said. ‘Not everyone was as brave as you are led to believe. I met women who were so terrified that they almost lost their reason. I would lead prayers in the shelters when the bombing was at its worst and, while most people found it comforting, there were some who tried to shout me down, saying there was no God.’

  ‘Were you in the Church Army then?’

  ‘Yes, but I can’t remember if I also told you that I was a nurse back then. I was twenty-two in 1905 when my sweetheart, Ronald, died of pneumonia. We were planning to get married, but he died just a few weeks before the date we’d booked,’ she said. ‘That was my reason for turning to nursing. I thought that caring for the sick and injured would make me whole again, too. Perhaps it did, as nursing men with appalling injuries during the Great War brought me into the church to pray for them.’

  ‘I think it would’ve stopped me believing in God,’ Molly said.

  Constance smiled, the kind of wry smile that said she’d had that response from many people. ‘I can only speak for myself and, odd as it sounds, I felt something like a hand on my shoulder urging me to put my life in God’s hands. I suppose, had I been a Roman Catholic, I might have entered a convent, but I was an Anglican, so it was the Church Army. They have always done evangelical work in places like slums, and I was sent here.’