Snow Angels: An emotional Christmas read from the Sunday Times bestseller (The Lovely Lane Series Book 5)

by Nadine Dorries

  SNOW

  ANGELS

  Also by Nadine Dorries

  The Tarabeg Series

  Shadows in Heaven

  Mary Kate

  The Velvet Ribbon (January 2020)

  The Lovely Lane Series

  The Angels of Lovely Lane

  The Children of Lovely Lane

  The Mothers of Lovely Lane

  Christmas Angels

  Snow Angels

  The Four Streets Trilogy

  The Four Streets

  Hide Her Name

  The Ballymara Road

  Standalone novels

  Ruby Flynn

  Short stories

  Run to Him

  A Girl Called Eilinora

  NADINE

  DORRIES

  SNOW

  ANGELS

  www.headofzeus.com

  First published in the UK in 2019 by Head of Zeus Ltd

  Copyright © Nadine Dorries, 2019

  The moral right of Nadine Dorries to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN (HB): 9781789544817

  ISBN (ANZTPB): 9781789544824

  ISBN (PB): 9781789544831

  ISBN (E): 9781789544800

  Author photo: © Cassie Dorries

  Cover Art | Design: Rory Kee

  Photo: Colin Thomas Photography | Background: Getty

  Head of Zeus Ltd

  5–8 Hardwick Street

  London EC1R 4RG

  WWW.HEADOFZEUS.COM

  For Paul

  Contents

  Also by Nadine Dorries

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  About the author

  An Invitation from the Publisher

  Chapter 1

  Liverpool, Winter

  Malcolm Coffey was not expecting anyone to knock on his door this late at night. He had only just slipped the first forkful of creamy mashed potato into his mouth and settled down to listen to the six o’clock news on the radio. It was his favourite supper, steak and heel pie made by Melly, the daily who came in six days a week and helped him to run his boarding house for seamen that lay close to the docks.

  ‘You’re a creature of habit you are. I swear to God, if I left you a pan of scouse on a Thursday instead of the pie, I’d come back in here on a Friday morning and find you’d dropped dead by that oven door,’ Melly would laugh, the well-rounded raucous laugh that he heard most nights, slipping back in through the walls from the bar of the Silvestrian next door, long after Melly, in bodily form, had left. Melly made him the same meal every Thursday and, as a man accustomed to regimental order, that suited him just fine.

  ‘I like to wake up in the morning and know exactly what the day will bring, and that includes my dinner – I hate surprises,’ Malcolm would reply. He disapproved of Melly drinking in the Silvestrian, known locally as the Silly but it appeared that no matter how much Melly drank – and it appeared to be a huge amount – she still turned up for work on time every morning, completed her duties to his satisfaction and appeared none the worse for it, giving him no grounds for complaint. ‘That’s a woman who is used to her drink, that is,’ his late mother’s friend Biddy would say, ‘and there’s nothing you can do, Malcolm; if she wants to drink what she earns, that’s her choice. Don’t interfere. I’d clock anyone who stood between me and my vices. If Emily tried to deprive me of my buttered potato cakes or the bingo I’d find another job.’ Malcolm took all Biddy’s advice with the same degree of adherence he would that of the priest, or his mother if she were alive and, so far, Melly had never missed a day’s work. As he settled down to his supper, he was jolted by the sound of Melly’s piercing laugh penetrating through his wall; and once again he wished that she would find another public house to drink in.

  The fire burnt well in the grate and he had lit the long brass standard lamp with the burgundy fringed shade, frayed and tattered, still soot-stained from the Blitz. It was the lamp his mother had sat under to read every night of his childhood and he was loath to change it, regardless of how many times Melly complained. ‘There’ll be nothing left if I try and clean that again.’ He would not let it go because with it, he feared, the ghostly image of his mother that he often conjured for comfort, would disappear too. The lamp stood to the rear of the tanned leather armchair with arms wide enough to support an ashtray with his pipe on one side and his opened copy of the evening edition of the Echo on the other. It now sat neatly folded, waiting, tempting and the ashtray winked at him in the firelight.

  Malcolm lit the fire at six o’clock and not a moment before, regardless of the temperature or the weather outside and the pulling of the cord on the lamp to light the room was a luxury he left until the point where the room was so filled with dusk that the landmarks of domesticity faded into the gloom until he could barely see at all. The polished oak furniture that had once belonged to his parents stood neatly around him and it shone under the years of being rubbed by Melly with daily helpings of wax and elbow grease, the room smelling of lavender polish during the day and pipe smoke at night. The table at which he sat, scrubbed with Vim, was now depositing a thin film of white powder on the sleeves of his jacket, and a faint aroma of bleach competed with steak and heel, tickling his nostrils.

  It was at moments like this that he pondered on the fact that he had almost sold the house, the life, the routine that made him as happy as a man who had lost his family could expect to be. He had to constantly chase up Melly to clean behind the toilet doors and to cease flirting with the coalman, but he couldn’t fault her delicious pies. He had pierced the pastry with his fork to allow the steam to rise and was just about to dive in when a loud knock on the door burst his bubble of anticipation. More often than not, according to their sailing rota and the tide table, which was as accurate as it could be, the sea and stevedores allowing, his paying guests rebooked their next stay as they checked out. He grunted with irritation, reluctant to leave the buttery shortcrust pastry, hot and melting, and the wafting smell of rich gravy under his nose.

  ‘Who the hell is it?’ he called.

  His paying guests each had a key so this must be someone looking for a room. No one knocked on his door for any other reason, u
nless it was the postman, the milkman or Biddy Kennedy, on her way home from work, and it was too late for any of them. The wind rattled at the windowpanes with such ferocity it felt as though the room itself shook. This was not the weather or the night to be disturbing the routine of Malcolm Coffey, a stickler for everything being done by the book. The only thing he looked forward to, or dreamt about during the day, was his supper – and he often wondered, as he ate, what kind of pie his late wife would have turned out. He had served throughout the war, only to return home to find that he had lost his wife with his newly delivered son in her arms as a result of the bomb that had landed on the maternity hospital during the May Blitz nine months after his leave. He also found himself an orphan too, both his parents having lost their lives by a bomb that hit close to the dockers’ steps only two days later. The regimental major had withheld the second news from the dispatches to his posting for over a week, to give him time to absorb the shock of the first.

  Malcolm had been serving in North Africa at the time and all leave was denied. Only his parents had been afforded a funeral due to their bodies being identifiable – a funeral he had not been able to attend, but Biddy Kennedy had. His wife and son lay in a concrete grave on what was once the delivery suite of the maternity hospital, both beyond identification and removal. Today, the hospital rebuilt, life came forth over death.

  ‘Biddy? Is that you?’ Malcolm called not expecting a reply, reluctant to rise and leave his pie.

  ‘Malcolm, I promised your mam, I would keep an eye on you,’ Biddy would say when she called in for a cup of tea. Biddy worked as a housekeeper at the St Angelus hospital, a plum job in the school of nursing, working for Sister Emily Horton; and one of the pleasures in Malcolm’s life was to hear all about the antics of the probationer nurses and how they ran Biddy around in circles. Over two thousand bombs had been dropped the week his family died; nearly seven thousand homes had been completely destroyed. Fire had ripped through the dock’s side streets. ‘Think of me as your mam, if you ever need one, I’m here. You aren’t alone, Malcolm,’ Biddy would say.

  Malcolm had been at school with her own children and not one of them had remained in Liverpool or even in contact with Biddy. He enjoyed her visits. She had transferred from being his mother’s friend to his – and more than that, much more. Melly had her own opinions about Biddy. ‘That woman mourns her kids,’ she would say. ‘Not one of the buggers bothers to write to her. Still working her socks off and all those kids, not one of them tips up a penny, a crying shame it is. You want to watch out – she might have her eye on this place, if anything happens to you.’

  Malcolm would snort with derision. ‘Biddy is looking for an easier life, not to take on more work,’ he would reply, irritated by Melly’s suspicions of Biddy and left with the depressing thought that there was no one to take over, should anything happen to him. No kith or kin of his own to rely on, no legacy to leave… and in his heart, he sometimes wondered what the point was of everything he worked for. A question that had been quickly answered upon his return from the war. The seven-bedroomed Victorian family town house, next to the Silvestrian Public House on one side and the St Angelus hospital at the top of the road, had survived the war intact and it was very soon obvious, given the rapid increase in trade and activity down on the docks, where his new career path should lie. The parlour had been converted into a reception room which doubled up as his sitting and dining room. A hatch had been made in the wall and, from where he sat at his kitchen table-cum-desk, he could clearly see who came in and out.

  Outside, the sky had now darkened and the rain fell like twines of ice as it blew up the hill off the Mersey and pelted against the door of the ‘Seaman’s Stop’ bed and breakfast. The door knocker banged again, more forcefully, leaving him in no doubt that it was neither the wind nor Biddy – who would have tapped on the window by now, given that he had put the lamp on – and he would have to leave his pie. Malcolm sighed, laid down his knife and fork and, begrudgingly, rose from his seat.

  ‘I’m coming, give me a minute,’ he shouted as he tugged at the napkin that was neatly tucked inside his collar. He picked up the wire spectacles he had removed to avoid them steaming up as a part of his pre-pie ritual, and threaded each arm over his ears. His thick hair was dark and glistening with Brylcreem, worn in a short back and sides, and the only feature to make him stand out in the crowd was one missing tooth to the side of his mouth, his only war wound, courtesy of a nasty fall from a horse. As he made his way to the door, he pondered who it might be from his regular paying guests. There were two ships berthed overnight at the dock and another two due at the bar in the early hours, to be brought down by the tugs in the morning. He had eight seamen checked in who were all out on the town. He knew the tide table like the back of his own hand. The door knocked again, this time with more urgency.

  ‘Jesus wept, I’m coming!’ he said again as his footsteps, heavy and hard, marched along the lino-covered hallway. He flung open the door, expecting to see the familiar face of a seaman in need of a bath, wearing a peaked cap with a kitbag slung over his shoulder; instead he was met by a diminutive woman who looked as though she was soaked to the skin.

  ‘I-I’m looking for a room,’ she stammered.

  Malcolm was taken back and, unusually, lost for words. ‘Excuse me,’ he blurted back as he craned his neck out of the door and looked up and down the street to see if anyone was watching. In those few seconds his glasses were pebble-dashed with rain, making it difficult for him to see. A female visitor to his door was a rare occurrence and she could not have been more than five feet two, frail and childlike, her dripping dark hair adhered to her face as rivulets of rainwater ran into her eyes. Her cheekbones were sharp and thin, her eyes almost black, her skin a ghastly shade of tallow as she stood almost directly under the globe sulphur light above the front door. ‘We don’t usually have ladies as guests,’ he said.

  She was clutching the handles of a blanket holdall, equally sodden, tight to her body and he could see that the shoulders of her coat were dark and soaked through. ‘Everywhere else is full,’ she almost whispered back to him and he had to bend his head to hear her.

  ‘Can’t be,’ he blurted. ‘There’s plenty of rooms about. You just need to knock and ask. Enquire at Mrs Bennett’s on Lovely Lane. Here, I’ll write the address down. I can tell you’re not Irish by your accent – she won’t take the Irish.’

  ‘No.’ The response was swift. ‘I want to be close to the hospital. I have to be here.’

  ‘But Lovely Lane is close to the hospital; the nurses’ home is opposite the park gates.’

  ‘Please, I want to stay here, it’s closer to the hospital.’

  He shook his head. ‘I’ve been asked before, but this is a seaman’s rest. I sleep two to a room and if I take you in, I lose half a room rate.’ He felt uncomfortable. He did have a spare room, but a female guest was the last thing he wanted or needed. His guests spoke freely and swore loudly; they wouldn’t like it if they came down and found a woman at breakfast and had to watch their Ps and Qs – and God alone knew what Melly, not shy of expressing an opinion, would have to say if she came in and found a woman at the breakfast table. ‘There’s no fancy frills here that would suit a woman’s taste; it’s all geared up for sailors. Besides, you wouldn’t want to be sharing a bathroom with men.’

  He saw the flicker in her eye at that, but, ‘I really don’t mind, I just need a room. I’m desperate, please.’

  At that moment he knew that he had lost, for he could no more turn away a woman so obviously in need in such foul weather than fly to the moon. She was soaked and the rain was so bitterly cold it hurt his cheeks. If he had opened his door to an animal knocking, he would have let it in. He hated himself for being weak as he sighed and said, ‘It’s seven and six a week,’ his voice making it quite clear he didn’t think she could afford it. The woman didn’t speak, but rummaged around in the purse she had taken out of her bag and gave Malcolm five green one-po
und notes which became an even darker green and went limp in her hands as the rain hit them. He scratched his head. ‘Bleedin’ ’ell, you staying for Christmas or what?’

  She kept her gaze steady and her voice, matter-of-fact. ‘Does that mean I can have a room?’

  He could detect a slight accent, but couldn’t make it out. He felt a hint of shame; she was so cold and wet, how could he refuse her? The weather was foul and his pie was getting cold. ‘Come on, bring your bag up. I’m quieter now that Christmas is coming and there is one smaller room I only let out when I have to. It has bunks. You can have the bottom one and the room to yourself.’ He stood back and held open the door as she stepped inside and stood under the central ceiling lamp which made her look worse than she had outdoors as it cast dark shadows down over her face. He bent down and took the holdall from her. ‘Here, let me. I’ll lead the way,’ he said as he slammed the door shut. Silence fell as he locked out the sound of the rain and wind. Taking a better look at her, he felt his heart sink. He had seen enough people stay in his lodgings, served with enough men during the war years, to know that this was a woman in trouble. He took a deep breath and bit his tongue. Her money was as good as anyone’s and besides, every man, and woman was entitled to his or her secrets. It was none of his business. Christmas was just around the corner, business would be light, the ships from Rotterdam headed back home. He had learnt that when it came to paying guests, their personal lives were none of his business. All he had to concern himself with was swift payment and abiding by the house rules. Malcolm was as stickler for the rules.

  ‘Come on then, follow me,’ he said as he walked on ahead. He chatted as he went, only once glancing, regretfully, through the hatch at his cooling supper. ‘It’s a fry-up in the morning, cooked by Melly; she comes in every day at seven and does all the cooking. I do the porridge because Melly always burns the pan. She helps me to run the place. This is the breakfast room,’ he opened a door opposite the parlour and she saw a large trestle table laid out with cutlery and dishes, ready for the morning. ‘We serve from seven o’clock until ten and the rooms are cleaned between ten and twelve so we like the place to be empty from ten and guests are allowed back in at three. Melly puts a pot of tea and a plate of Garibaldi on the table, just in case anyone’s peckish. They’re Melly’s favourites.’