The Cockney Angel (16 page)

Irene balled her hands into fists. What a rude, insufferable man he was to be sure; officious, arrogant and cold-hearted. He was like one of those automatons that she had seen in shop windows, with a heart made out of coiled steel. She doubted whether he had ever felt a human emotion in his whole life. If Kent had ever cared about anyone other than himself he would realise that she loved her pa. He might not be perfect, but he was a warm and loving father and he had never been part of the Sykes gang. Irene stifled a sob of sheer frustration. The distant chiming of a church clock brought her back to the present and she started off towards Wood Street and home. She must warn Pa about Kent’s plan to catch the Sykes brothers red-handed. She would tell him
everything
, even though it meant revealing Arthur’s part in the whole sorry business, which would confirm Pa’s poor opinion of him. Poor Arthur, she thought sadly; everyone was against him.

Once safely inside the shop she locked the door behind her. ‘Arthur,’ she called, hoping for a response. ‘Are you here?’

Her voice came back to her in an echo, but it was obvious that there was no one in the shop.

The living room was similarly deserted. In the pale moonlight shafting through the windowpanes, Irene could just make out the shape of her parents’ bed and the wooden chair by the fireplace where Ma had spent so many hours waiting for her man to return home. The room seemed so quiet and empty now, but once, not so long ago, it had been filled with love and laughter. Of course there had been the inevitable arguments, followed by Ma’s gentle but firm reprimands. These family squabbles nearly always ended in tears of regret, hugs and apologies. There had been good times, when Pa was flush with money and there had been abundant food on the table and coal for the fire. There had been hard times aplenty, when they were cold and hungry and barely able to subsist, but these paled into insignificance now as Irene recalled only the
happy
events in her years of growing up in the room above the shop.

The bare branches of the plane tree scratched at the window above her bed, sounding eerily like sharp fingernails being drawn across the glass. The curtains had long since shredded into tatters and there had been no money to spare for replacements. The irony of the situation struck her forcibly. There was her sister married to a wealthy draper, and Ma did not even possess a decent pair of curtains to keep out the winter cold and dark. Irene sat down on her bed and took off her boots. She huddled, fully clothed, beneath the coverlet and closed her eyes, but sleep evaded her. She found herself listening for the grating of the key in the lock, and Pa’s heavy tread on the staircase, or the sound of Arthur shuffling about in the shop below as he made up his bed beneath the counter. Eventually she drifted into a fitful sleep, but when she awakened next morning nothing had changed.

A thick white mist had crept up the Thames and it hung in a damp cloud over the city. Irene went out to fetch water and almost immediately her hair was pearled with tiny droplets of moisture. She managed to dodge Sal’s inquisitive company by going to the bakery and then the dairy where she had her jug filled with a pint of milk. At least when
Pa
did eventually turn up she would have breakfast waiting for him. When he was in a good mood it would be time for them to talk seriously. As she left the dairy, Irene was pleased to see that Sal had latched on to one of the scullery maids from the Mitre pub, further along Wood Street. They were deep in conversation and did not notice her as she hurried past them to draw water from the pump. She struggled home with the heavy bucket, and was attempting to fish the key from her pocket when the sound of approaching footsteps made her glance over her shoulder. ‘Pa! Thank goodness you’ve come home.’

Taking the key from her hand, Billy grinned as he opened the door. ‘Don’t I always turn up like the proverbial bad penny, my little flower?’

‘Don’t soft soap me, Pa. You know it won’t work.’ Irene stepped over the threshold and set the heavy pail of water down carefully so as not to spill a drop. She turned to him, concealing her relief with a frown. ‘I suppose you’ve only come home now because you’ve run out of funds.’

Billy tossed his hat onto the peg, followed by his muffler. ‘Not entirely, my pet.’ He tapped the side of his nose and winked at her as he made for the stairs. Irene knew that there
was
no use scolding him when he was in this ebullient mood. ‘What do you mean by not entirely, Pa?’ She followed him upstairs to the living room.

‘I mean exactly that, dumpling. I lost some and I won some, and then I lost some more, but Vic has got a job for me which will pay ten times what I lost at the tables.’

‘What job would that be?’ She spoke more sharply than she had meant to, and she tempered her words with an attempt at a smile.

Billy perched on the edge of his bed and began to unlace his boots. ‘Just a job, sweetheart. Nothing bad, I can assure you, so don’t worry your pretty head about that.’

‘But I do worry, Pa. You know that Inspector Kent has been asking questions.’

‘You didn’t tell him anything, did you?’

‘How could I, when I don’t know what’s going on?’

‘And that young idiot Arthur, did Kent speak to him too?’

Irene knelt down to riddle the cinders in the grate. ‘Why didn’t you ask him yourself? You must have seen him at the Sykes’ place.’

‘Not a sign of him, the lazy young devil. I daresay he’s gone crawling back to his father.’

She sat back on her haunches, eyeing him suspiciously. ‘You didn’t have a row with Artie, did you, Pa?’

‘I told you, ducks. I haven’t seen the boy, and I wouldn’t waste my breath on him if I had. Unless he’d been making improper advances to you, and then I’d tan his hide.’

‘He hasn’t done anything of the kind. I’ve told you that Artie isn’t like that.’

‘Likes boys better than girls, does he? I’ve always had my suspicions about that fellow.’

‘Don’t be cruel, Pa. He’s just an ordinary bloke, but he’s sensitive and his dad is a bully. I think Artie might have run away.’

‘Bah!’ Billy threw himself back onto the bed and closed his eyes. ‘I’ve no patience with the fellow. Wake me when my breakfast is ready, love.’ He opened one eye and raised his head. ‘And I don’t want tea and toast. I’ll have a pork pie with a good dollop of mustard pickle on the side and a pint of porter to wash it down with.’

Irene scrambled to her feet. ‘And where is the money coming from for this feast, Pa?’

Billy thrust his hand in his pocket and pulled out a crown. He tossed it to her. ‘Get yourself something better than a slice of bread and scrape. There’s more where that came from. Soon we’ll be rolling in money and I’ll have your mother back home where she belongs.’

Fear clutched at Irene’s heart. ‘Promise me that you haven’t got yourself mixed up in anything bad.’

Billy folded his hands on his chest and groaned. ‘How many times must I tell you not to worry? Now go and get those vittles before I die of starvation.’

There was little that Irene could do other than humour him, and when she had a good fire blazing up the chimney she went out to purchase the food and drink that he had demanded. Billy demolished his meal with obvious enjoyment and did not seem to notice that she contented herself with a slice of bread and a thin scraping of butter. She intended to use what was left of the money he had given her to buy new stock, and now she could pay the old villain Yapp in advance as he had demanded.

Billy went to bed as soon as he had finished his meal, instructing Irene to wake him at noon. She went downstairs to open the shop but she could not rid herself of the fear that something awful might have happened to Arthur. Supposing that either Vic or Wally had discovered that he was spying on them? They would show no mercy to an informer and their vengeance would be swift and deadly. Somehow she managed to get through the morning, and having dutifully awakened her father at midday she waited until he had left for Blue Boar Court, saying nothing about her intention of closing the shop for as long as it
took
to visit the Greenwoods’ house in Bread Street. If Arthur had gone home without telling her, she would want to know the reason why, but if he had not then she would be really worried.

Irene did not recognise the maidservant who answered her urgent rapping on the doorknocker, but she was hardly surprised. The servants in the Greenwood residence never seemed to stay for any length of time. Mr Greenwood was a notoriously hard taskmaster and Mrs Greenwood was possessed of a volatile temper. Living in their house, Irene thought, must be like dwelling on the edge of an extremely active volcano.

‘The master is at the shop in Silver Street.’ The maid was about to close the door but Irene was too quick for her and she put her foot over the sill.

‘I meant Mr Arthur Greenwood.’

‘Haven’t seen him for days, miss.’

‘Then I would like to see your mistress. Please tell her that Miss Irene Angel would like to speak with her.’

The maid blanched visibly. ‘Mistress is having her midday meal, miss. I daresn’t disturb her.’

‘Oh, for goodness sake let me in,’ Irene exclaimed, pushing past the astonished girl
and
heading towards the dining room. Although she had never been formally invited into the Greenwoods’ establishment, Irene was familiar with the general layout of the house. She had often sneaked in with Arthur when they were younger, and he had smuggled her up to his room on the third floor where they had played war games with his lead soldiers. The four-storey house had always seemed like a palace to the young Irene, but now, by comparison with Josiah Tippet’s mansion, the house in Bread Street did not seem quite so large or so grand. The wallpaper in the hallway was slightly faded and there were chips off the plasterwork on the high ceiling. The black and white marble floor tiles were crazed and worn down in places by the passage of feet over the course of two centuries, and the atmosphere was one of faded elegance and pervading melancholy.

‘You can’t go in there, miss,’ the maid cried, running after Irene and catching her by the arm. ‘She’ll skin me alive.’

‘I’m sorry, but this won’t wait. I’ll take the blame for my bad manners.’ Shaking her off, Irene opened the door and stepped into the dining room.

Mrs Greenwood, resplendent in purple, with her dark hair severely scraped into a bun and crowned with a white lace cap, looked to Irene
like
a rather poor imitation of her majesty the Queen. Drusilla Greenwood raised her slanting black eyebrows so that they formed a triangle over the bridge of her sharp nose. ‘What’s all this? How dare you burst in on me like this?’ She lifted a lorgnette and peered myopically at Irene. ‘Is that you, Irene Angel?’

‘I’m sorry to disturb you, ma’am,’ Irene said, bobbing a curtsey. ‘But I’m worried about Artie. Has he come home?’

Mrs Greenwood turned on the maid. ‘This is all your fault, Ethel. How dare you disobey my orders?’

‘I’m sorry, missis. She pushed past me. I couldn’t stop her.’

‘Get out of my sight, you stupid girl.’ Mrs Greenwood rose to her feet, shaking her fist at the maid who fled sobbing from the room.

‘There was no need for that,’ Irene said angrily. ‘It wasn’t her fault. She tried to stop me, but I needed to see you urgently.’

Mrs Greenwood subsided onto her seat, clutching her bosom. ‘I’m having one of my turns. Fetch the sal volatile.’

Irene looked round helplessly. ‘I don’t know where it is.’

‘In my reticule, you fool.’ Mrs Greenwood pointed to the chiffonier where a small black beadwork bag lay on a silver salver. ‘Bring it to me.’

Irene passed it to her and waited until Mrs Greenwood had inhaled the pungent fumes from a silver vinaigrette, coughing and spluttering and then wiping her eyes on a scrap of lace handkerchief. ‘All I asked was if Arthur had come home,’ Irene murmured. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’

‘Upset me? You encourage my only son to leave home and live in sin with you in that pickle shop, and you say you didn’t mean to upset me.’

‘No, ma’am. You’ve got it all wrong. It’s not like that. Arthur and me are just friends, as we’ve always been. It was Mr Greenwood who threw him out on the street. Artie had nowhere else to go.’

Mrs Greenwood eyed her beneath lowered lids. ‘It seems he’s found somewhere else now then, for the worthless boy has not returned to the bosom of his family. He has abandoned his apprenticeship and broken his father’s heart, and mine too. Was there ever such an ingrate as he?’

Irene opened her mouth to defend Arthur, but Mrs Greenwood had turned away from her and was attacking a plateful of roast lamb as if the poor animal was still alive. She stabbed at the meat with her knife and forked large portions into her mouth, followed by a whole roast potato and then a carrot. Irene backed
out
of the door, closing it softly behind her. It seemed that Arthur’s mother was more concerned with her belly than with her son’s fate. Poor Artie, no wonder he sought solace in drinking and gambling whenever he had the chance. She hesitated for a moment in the hallway. The last thing she wanted was to linger in this gloomy and unhappy house, but there might be a clue as to Arthur’s whereabouts in his bedroom. She cocked her head, listening for sounds of movement, but all was quiet except for the solemn tick-tock of a long-case clock at the foot of the staircase. She reasoned that at this time of day, unless summoned by the master or mistress, the servants would be downstairs in the basement having their midday meal.

She headed for the back stairs and made her way up to Arthur’s room, where she discovered that almost nothing had changed since she was last here. There were no toy soldiers in evidence now, but the chintz curtains were the same, if rather faded, and the coverlet on the narrow iron bedstead was similar to the one that had been there when they were children. In fact, it was a child’s room still, with no indication as to the personality or taste of the adult occupant. Perhaps Arthur liked living in a monk-like cell? Maybe he didn’t even notice the austerity of his surroundings. Irene
did
not stop to wonder why he had not demanded a little more comfort from his well-off parents. She set about methodically going through the drawers in the tallboy but it did not look as though he had come home to collect any of his clothes, and this was borne out by a portmanteau and a valise sitting on top of the wardrobe.