Charlie (50 page)

Charlie didn’t really know how to take that. Was it worse to hear he’d been killed, or that he’d cast off his responsibilities and family to start a new life?

Angie seemed to sense what she felt because she patted her shoulder. ‘There’s always rumours in Soho, love. If I weren’t seen for a coupla weeks they’d say I’d bin done in an’ all. So don’t take that as gospel. But to get back to yer mum! Well, I’m ’eart-sick about ’er. I always liked ’er. She didn’t deserve such an end. And you, you’re just a kid yerself. ’Ow you been managing?’

‘Not too bad,’ Charlie said, touched that the woman had so much compassion when her own life fell very short of being perfect. ‘I’m working and living in London now. But you see, I was away in York when Andrew started this, I suppose he wanted to surprise me, and now he’s disappeared. I’m really worried about him, Angie. Did he mention anyone else he was going to see?’

‘No love, ’e never.’ Angie shook her head. ‘’E said when I first met ’im that ’e was on ’is way to see someone. But ’e never said who it were. I met ’im again the day after. He took me to Lyons Corner ’Ouse for an ice cream and we chatted. Lovely lad he was. ’E did ask if ’e could some ’ere to talk to me again. But that’s all.’

‘He had written some notes about you, that’s where I found your address, and it said you got the sack from the Lotus Club because of DeeDee. Then he’d written that she’s now known as Miss Dexter.’

Angie looked very uncomfortable suddenly, her eyes narrowed and she seemed to tense up.

‘I’m sorry to bring it up. He’s written too that you didn’t want to talk about her. But was it Daphne Dexter?’

Angie looked startled. ‘’Ow on earth did you know that? I never told Andrew her Christian name!’

‘A friend told me,’ Charlie said.

Angie lit another cigarette and offered one to Charlie.

‘I don’t smoke, thank you,’ Charlie said. ‘Was Daphne Dexter my father’s mistress?’

Angie got up to make a pot of tea and as she didn’t answer the question and seemed very nervous, Charlie surmised she was stalling purposely.

‘Anything you tell me is just between us,’ Charlie reassured her. ‘All I care about at this moment is what’s happened to Andrew. I’m just trying to get the full picture because the friend who gave me her Christian name told me Daphne was dangerous.’

‘So she is. My life wouldn’t be worth tuppence if it got out I’d been talking about ’er,’ Angie said sharply, putting the teapot on the table. ‘When I first met yer mum, she and DeeDee, Miss Dexter, whatever you want to call ’er, were mates. Good mates, real close. So when I ’eard a whisper that yer dad was ’aving it off with ’er later on I didn’t believe it. But then when he gave ’er his club, it seemed it could be true, and from then on she was off like a rocket, a finger in every piece of action going.’

‘Is she still around? I mean, in Soho?’

Angie gave a hollow, humourless laugh, and took two mugs down off a hook. ‘’Er spies are still there,’ she said. ‘But she ain’t got no business left in Soho now. Mayfair’s more ’er scene.’

Charlie sensed Angie had no intention of telling her any more about the woman, so she thought she’d try another tack. ‘Do you know someone called “Spud”? He’s an ex-boxer. I think that’s the person Andrew was going to see when he met you.’

‘Blimey!’ Angie exclaimed, clattering the mugs. ‘I ’ope ’e didn’t tell ’im too much. Spud’ll grass up anyone for a fiver. ’E’s a drunk, a loser and a slimy bastard.’

She poured out the tea in silence and Charlie sensed she was mulling something over in her mind. She thought she knew what it was.

‘Look, Angie,’ Charlie said in a small voice. ‘Andrew didn’t know about Miss Dexter, not until you told him, and that was the day after he’d seen Spud. In Andrew’s notes he’d put that Spud didn’t know DeeDee. Do you think Spud was lying?’

‘’Course he was!’ she exclaimed. ‘’E were in the Lotus most every night in those days.’

Charlie mulled that over. ‘Well, if Spud denied knowing her, perhaps that was because he didn’t want to get in Miss Dexter’s bad books either?’

‘Sounds about right,’ she said.

‘Well then. Might he have gone to her and warned her someone was asking questions?’

‘Very likely. Like I said, ’e’s the sort to do anything for a fiver.’

‘Do you think it might bother her enough to get hold of Andrew somehow?’

There was a moment or two of silence when Angie just stared at Charlie, her pale blue eyes suddenly darker with anxiety.

‘I can’t ’elp you. Go to the police.’ She made a despairing gesture with her hands. ‘Tell ’em everything you’ve told me. Once you’ve bin to the station, go ’ome and stay there. Don’t you even think of wandering around asking any more questions. It ain’t safe.’

Charlie was stunned. Although she knew nothing about London’s underworld, she was aware women in Angie’s position weren’t normally inclined to suggest visits to the police. Was this because she knew Daphne Dexter had a hand in Jin’s disappearance?

‘Okay,’ she agreed, struggling to keep her composure. ‘But if you hear anything more on the grapevine, will you ring me and tell me?’

Angie shook her head. ‘No, I daren’t. I’ve got my kids’ safety to think of. Forget you ever spoke to me, don’t come ’ere again, and don’t you dare tell the fuzz you’ve bin ’ere either.’

As Charlie looked into Angie’s frightened eyes, all at once she understood why Andrew had written that phrase ‘
having her tentacles into everything
’ in his notebook. Daphne Dexter had got Rita’s silence by threatening to hurt her son. Angie knew her children could be in danger too, because that’s the way Miss Dexter controlled people. She was certain then that the woman had got hold of Andrew.

‘I promise I’ll never mention your name to anyone,’ Charlie said in little more than a whisper. ‘I can’t thank you enough for your help.’

‘I ain’t done nothing to ’elp,’ Angie retorted, finally pouring the tea.

‘You have,’ Charlie said. She was on the verge of tears now, because at last a shaft of light had been shone on the events of two years earlier. ‘You see, Mum used to have these black moods, I always thought she didn’t care about me much. When those men hurt her she made out she knew nothing, not who they were, or why they did it. I always thought she was protecting Dad. But she wasn’t, was she? She was protecting me?’

‘’Course she was,’ Angie said without any hesitation. ‘I don’t think there’s a mum in the world what wouldn’t fight to the death for her kids. And your mum put you first right from the start. She never worked in the club after you was born, she made sure you was kept right away from all that stuff. She wanted sommat better for you than what she ’ad.’

‘I never realized that,’ Charlie said, and a tear trickled down her cheek. ‘I always had the idea I kind of spoiled her life.’

‘That’s rubbish, you made her life,’ Angie said fiercely. ‘I don’t know what went on after ’er and Jin moved away from London, maybe she ’ad the black moods ’cos of what Jin were up to. But I can tell you she ’ad a good ’eart. See, I did see you when you was a baby, only once, but I ain’t forgotten it.’

‘Will you tell me about it?’ Charlie asked.

‘It were outside Dickins and Jones in Regent Street. Yer mum was pushing you in yer pram, you was about fourteen months. I was in a bad way then, drinking ’eavy, not looking after meself. I’d lost me first child, you see, just a few months before. Stillborn she was, they reckoned it was from a kicking I got from me old man, anyway I went up to yer mum and asked if I could ’old you. I thought she’d tell me to get lost, most would. But she didn’t. She lifted you out and put you in me arms.’

Angie paused and lit another cigarette, her eyes were welling with tears.

‘Go on,’ Charlie urged her.

‘I cuddled you, you was laughing and pulling at me ’air, and it made me cry ’cos you were so lovely and I wished you was mine. Anyway, Sylvie must’a known what was going on in me mind. She put you back in the pram and then cuddled me. I was dirty, Charlie, like a bleedin’ tramp, and she were in nice clothes, her ’air all done nice and everything. But she still ’eld me, comforted me, and I never forgot it. Funny ’ow things work out, ain’t it? ’Ere you are all these years later, in me kitchen drinking tea.’

Charlie had a big lump in her throat. It was the only story she’d ever been told about her mother that portrayed her in a compassionate role.

‘I wish I’d known more about her,’ Charlie said wistfully. ‘You see, she never showed her feelings, not to me.’

Angie put one hand on Charlie’s and squeezed it. ‘Some people just can’t, love. Maybe it’s ’cos of the way they was brought up, or things what ’appened to ’em. But just ’cos they don’t go round wif their ’eart on their sleeve, don’t mean they don’t feel.

‘Look at the way you’ve turned out! You’re a nice girl, nice manners, nice voice, smart as new shoes. Now, you didn’t get that way all on yer own, did you?’

Charlie smiled weakly. She could see the point Angie was making. ‘I can see why Mum cuddled you,’ she said. ‘I want to.’ She got up from her chair and leaned over the older woman to hug her, resting her head on her shoulder for a moment. ‘You’re a really good woman,’ she murmured, that didn’t quite cover it but then she wasn’t used to being emotional with strangers.

‘And so was yer mum,’ Angie said stoutly. ‘Now, clear off and go down the police station. Then straight ’ome.’

‘Which one should I go to?’ Charlie asked. ‘Just any one?’

‘No, go to West End Central in Bow Street. That’s where they came from when they was asking questions about yer dad. No point in farting around in places where they know nothing about ’im.’

It was after seven that evening when Charlie got home. Rita was out, the flat seemed cold and bleak without her, and after she’d telephoned Jack Straw’s Castle and found Andrew wasn’t back and his mother didn’t know where he was either, she lay down on her bed and cried.

The police had been decent enough. They started out trying to fob her off with a young constable, but she’d stuck her ground and insisted she spoke to someone senior and eventually she was ushered into an interview room to speak to Detective Inspector Hughes.

He was a jovial man around fifty, with a bald head and a big stomach that strained his shirt buttons, but he was a good listener. He didn’t seem the least bit confused that Charlie’s story was part present, part events of two years earlier. She showed him the handout Andrew had made, and the
A to Z
he’d marked with small crosses, but because of Angie she didn’t say she had Andrew’s notes with her too. He took down the details of the scooter, and said he would get the police in that area to look for it.

‘What makes you so sure this Daphne Dexter is behind his disappearance?’ he asked. ‘And how can you be so certain that she is your mother’s old friend and father’s mistress?’

‘I just know,’ she said stubbornly. She’d already told him all the many similarities, but she couldn’t say that it had been confirmed by Angie. ‘I feel it inside me.’

He laughed, but not unkindly. ‘That’s hardly proof,’ he said.

‘Maybe not, but don’t you think it’s significant that Andrew should go missing so soon after talking to people about my father in Soho? And ominous that people are afraid to talk about Daphne Dexter?’ Charlie argued. ‘And another thing. If I can put together that DeeDee and Dexter are the same person, why didn’t the police uncover it while Mum was still alive? The woman took over Dad’s club, and she was up on a drugs charge during the Sixties, I would have thought that made her pretty suspicious.’

‘Can you tell me why you are hiding where you got some of your information from?’ he asked, looking at her sharply.

‘No, because some of the people involved have made me promise I won’t.’

‘Why?’

‘Because they are afraid of her of course,’ she said indignantly.

He smiled knowingly. ’That, Charlie, is exactly what makes police work so difficult. Almost every time a serious crime is committed we generally have a good idea of who is responsible, but getting people to speak up and act as witnesses is the tricky bit.

‘We might very well have our suspicions about this woman, but without evidence she has committed a crime we can’t put a case against her together. Being your father’s mistress isn’t a crime, and yourboyfriend has only been missing for twenty-four hours, so he might well be off somewhere playing cards and drinking. So what possible reason could we have for bringing her in for questioning?’

‘Do you mean you aren’t even going to try and find Andrew?’ she asked, tears spilling down her face. ‘Can’t you see if Daphne has abducted Andrew then it’s certain she’s got something she wants kept hidden? What could that be other than she knows exactly what happened to Dad?’

‘Now, let’s take it one step at a time. Of course we’re going to try and find Andrew,’ he said. ‘But London’s a very big city, so it might take some time. Now, you go on home now. The chances are he will turn up. When I was Andrew’s age I disappeared regularly, sometimes I didn’t even know where I’d been.’

Charlie had never felt so frustrated in her entire life as when she left the police station. She knew Hughes thought Andrew was off somewhere with another girl. How long would he have to be gone before anyone took any action?

She pulled herself together later and phoned Beryl on the off-chance he might have contacted her, but that made her feel even worse. Beryl told her he’d phoned during the week all excited about the information he’d got, and how she’d been scared for him and made him promise he wouldn’t go back to Soho again. Now Charlie had to be the one to pretend she was over-reacting and play down how worried she was.

The telephone remained stubbornly silent on Sunday morning. Rita cooked roast beef and made a chocolate cake, but her attempts at being cheerful merely heightened the gloom rather than lifting it. It was raining again and a strong wind buffeted the windows. Charlie sat staring out at the road below, wondering why when just a couple of days ago in York she’d felt so full of life and optimism, she was suddenly thrown back to reliving the nightmares of the past.

The telephone finally rang in the middle of the afternoon. Charlie jumped out of her chair, Rita rushed from the kitchen.