The Cockney Angel (17 page)

She closed her eyes, trying to remember his exact words when he had threatened to run away. He had mentioned an aunt living in Essex. Aunt Maude, who lived in a place called Havering which was fairly near a town called Romford. Irene had no idea where that was. It would not be difficult to find out, but she needed the full address. She gazed round the room in desperation and then she spotted Arthur’s old school desk tucked away in a corner and half hidden under a pile of discarded clothing. She crossed the floor and threw the garments onto the bed. Lifting the lid she discovered a leather-bound notebook buried beneath a jumble of sealing wax, pen nibs and scraps of paper. She flipped through the pages of notes and designs for silverware and jewellery and at the back, written in Arthur’s untidy scrawl, she found some names and addresses including that of Miss Maude Greenwood, The Round House, Havering-atte-Bower, Essex. Committing it to memory, she
put
everything back in its place and opened the door just wide enough to make certain that there was no one about. The corridor was empty and there was no sound to be heard apart from the odd creak of ageing timbers. Breathing a sigh of relief, Irene crept down the backstairs and let herself out of the house.

When she arrived home, she was horrified to find the shop door open. At first she thought that someone must have broken in, but there was no obvious sign of forced entry. She stepped inside. ‘Hello?’

‘Is that you, Renie?’

She breathed a sigh of relief at the sound of her father’s voice. ‘Yes, Pa.’

He came thundering down the stairs and for a moment she thought he was going to upbraid her for closing the shop, but he wrapped his arms around her in a bear-like hug. ‘Pack some clothes, enough for a day or two. You’re going to your sister’s until I get back.’

‘What do you mean? Why am I to go and stay with Emmie?’

‘I have to go away on business, my duck. You’ll be safer in Love Lane than you would be if I left you here on your own.’

‘What sort of business?’ Irene watched him shrug on his greatcoat. He seemed to be avoiding meeting her gaze and she was instantly
suspicious
. ‘You’re not doing a job for the Sykes brothers, are you, Pa?’

He shot her a quick glance and then turned away to ram his bowler hat on his head. ‘Never you mind, Renie. The less you know the better.’

‘You promised you wouldn’t get involved with their goings-on.’ Irene caught him by the coat sleeve. ‘Please don’t do this, Pa. I’ll use the money you gave me to restock the shop and we can live on the takings, just like we used to.’

‘You don’t understand, poppet. I owe Vic a small fortune, and it’s the only way I can pay him off. I want you to trust me, Renie. Do as I say, there’s a good girl.’

Irene bit her lip. ‘You know that Inspector Kent is having the gang watched. He’s just waiting for a chance to arrest them all, and that will include you if you’re not careful. Please don’t do this.’

He dropped a kiss on the top of her head. ‘Lock the shop up, ducks. Go to Emmie’s and I’ll come for you as soon as it’s all over.’

‘As soon as what is over, Pa? What have you got yourself into?’

‘Nothing for you to worry about, my angel, but if things go wrong I want you to look after your mother.’ He moved swiftly to the door and wrenched it open. He paused for a moment, glancing over his shoulder.
‘You
know I’d never do anything really bad, don’t you, Renie?’

She nodded silently as she watched him walk out of the door. She had a terrible feeling that she might never see him again, and yet she knew that it was useless to try to dissuade him from his purpose. Billy Angel was a stubborn man. She ran to the door in time to see him disappearing round the corner into Cheapside. Suddenly he seemed to her like one of Artie’s lead soldiers, marching into battle; a gallant figure but very much misguided and doomed to be on the losing side.

She brushed tears away from her eyes with the back of her hand as she stood, undecided as to what to do next. Should she run straight to Inspector Kent at Old Jewry and tell him that the Sykes brothers were planning something desperate? She abandoned the idea almost immediately. To do so would immediately incriminate her father, and she had no definite information to give Kent. Her instinct was to remain in the shop and await Pa’s return, but there was Artie to consider. The police were already searching for him, and it would not be too long before they traced him to Essex, if indeed that was where he had gone.

A cold east wind sent a shower of copper and gold leaves tumbling from the plane tree,
and
something startled the rooks into an angry protest of cawing and flapping wings. Irene closed the shop door and went upstairs to pack a few necessities into a canvas bag, but the plan forming in her head did not include a visit to Love Lane. She paused by the oak chest and then knelt down to open it. Jim’s old clothes lay on top where she had left them. For all she knew, Kent’s men might be keeping a watch on her as well as Pa, and she had no intention of leading them to Arthur.

Half an hour later, feeling horribly self-conscious to be dressed like a boy in broad daylight, Irene left the shop, locking the door behind her. She had emptied the till and she reckoned she had enough money for her train fare to the station closest to her destination and possibly for the hire of a cab to Havering. She hitched her pack over her shoulder and adopted a boyish stride as she headed into Cheapside, where she caught an omnibus to Shoreditch station. Her heart was thudding away inside her chest as she walked up to the ticket office. The rheumy-eyed representative of the Eastern Counties Railway blew his nose on a piece of oily-looking rag, sneezed several times, and informed her that Romford was probably her best bet. She purchased a return ticket and following his instructions, given
between
racking coughs and wiping his nose, she went to the platform where an engine was hissing steam like a giant prehistoric monster.

The third class compartment was almost full but Irene eventually found a seat squashed between a ruddy-cheeked man wearing a billycock hat, moleskin trousers and gaiters who kept dozing off and leaning on her shoulder and a middle-aged countrywoman who clutched an empty wicker basket and seemed unwilling to put it on the rack above their heads. Every time the train lurched over the points or rounded a bend, they swayed against her, almost crushing the breath from her lungs. In her boyish persona, Irene merely grinned and did not complain. The woman appeared to have taken a liking to her and chattered incessantly, boasting that she had taken a basketful of eggs to market and earned two shillings, which judging by her gin-tainted breath she had already spent in the pub. Having run out of things to say about herself, she then turned her attention to Irene, firing questions at her. How old was he? What was his destination? And what were his parents thinking in allowing a young lad to travel alone by train? Was anyone meeting him? Irene answered in a series of monosyllables and grunts, praying silently that the nosey old woman would either get off at the next station
or
fall asleep like the man on her right, who was now snoring loudly and grunting like a stuck pig.

After suffering almost an hour of this, Irene was only too glad to alight from the train at Romford. She was carried out past the ticket collector on a surging crowd of travellers eager to reach home, but just how she was going to get to Havering she had no idea. The white face of the station clock showed half past four and it was already dark. A smoky haze hung above the bare branches of a hawthorn hedge, dimming the light from the street lamps to a yellowish glow. The air smelt of hot cinders and damp earth, and the ground shook as the great iron beast shunted off towards its final destination. Her fellow passengers had vanished into the gloom, leaving Irene standing alone and wondering what to do next when a horse-drawn box wagon trundled to a halt outside the station entrance. The driver climbed down from his seat, barely giving her a glance as he hefted several heavy-looking sacks off the wagon and into the station.

When he returned after depositing the last of his load he paused for a moment, staring hard at Irene. ‘What? You still here, boy?’ His voice was gruff and his accent was strange to Irene’s ears, but he did not sound unfriendly.

‘I got to get to a place called Havering-atte-Bower, mister. Are you going that way, by any chance?’

The man tipped his cap to the back of his head. ‘That’s a fair way, young man.’

‘I can pay.’ Irene put her hand in her breeches pocket and jingled the few coins that were left after paying her train fare.

‘What’s your name, son?’

‘I’m Jim …’ Irene hesitated for a moment. ‘Jim Smith.’

‘I go by the name of Farmer Mason, but you can call me Gaffer.’ He eyed Irene thoughtfully. ‘You’re powerful young to be travelling alone.’

Irene did not like the way the conversation was going. She had always thought that country people were slow on the uptake, but this old bloke seemed to be all there and back again. He seemed to suspect that something was amiss, and he was probing for answers. She raised her chin and looked him straight in the eye. ‘Either you can give me a ride to where I want to go or not.’

‘All right. No need to get in a state. I can take you as far as Noak Hill. That’s where my farm is.’ He climbed onto the driver’s seat and held out his hand. ‘Hop up beside me, and you can keep me company.’

Irene hesitated for a moment, but then she realised she had very little choice. This was
not
London. There were no hansom cabs or hackney carriages tooling around looking for custom, and she did not want to be stranded all night at the station. She took his hand and flinched at the touch of his work-roughened skin.

‘You’ve got hands like a girl,’ Farmer Mason said, chuckling as he helped her clamber up beside him. ‘I’ll bet you’ve never done a hard day’s work in your whole life, boy. Are you running away from home then?’

‘No, I ain’t.’ She settled herself as comfortably as she could on the hard wooden seat. ‘I’m going to visit my aunt in Havering. She lives at the Round House. D’you know it, mister?’

‘No, can’t say I do, but I don’t often go that way. What’s her name?’

‘Miss Greenwood.’

‘Now I have heard of that lady. A bit eccentric she is by all accounts. I seen her in Romford market selling day-old chicks and bantam eggs. Dresses like a bloke she does, and smokes a clay pipe. And her supposed to be a lady too.’

Irene digested this in silence. She had not given much thought to Arthur’s Aunt Maude until now. But what did it matter if the old lady was a bit strange? If she had taken Artie in, then she could act as weird as she liked.
Irene
clamped her hand on her cap as the sturdy shire horse plodded forward at the flick of Farmer Mason’s whip. Her hair was a sure giveaway, and to lose her cap would be a disaster. As they turned into the main marketplace, the stallholders were just packing up for the day. Their voices rang out above the deep lowing of cattle being driven from their pens and the grunting of pigs as they were loaded into farm carts. The smell of animal dung and damp straw filled the frosty air, and naphtha flares sent bright pools of light flooding onto the cobblestones.

Farmer Mason acknowledged shouts and friendly insults from his fellow farmers with a cheery wave of his hand. They left the town behind them, plunging into the darkness of the country road. Here and there along the way there were groups of cottages with pale shafts of light streaming from their windows. Curls of smoke billowed into the night sky and above them countless stars twinkled with jewel brightness. Irene tucked her cold hands into the jacket pockets and wished she had her shawl to wrap around her shoulders.

‘How far now, Gaffer?’ she asked, making an effort to control her chattering teeth.

‘A couple of miles. Old Tom will start to pick up a bit when he thinks he’s near to home.’ Farmer Mason stuck a clay pipe between his
teeth
and handed the reins to Irene. ‘Hold him steady while I light up.’

She took the leather straps nervously. She had never held reins before but perhaps the old horse would not realise that she was a complete novice. She glanced sideways at Farmer Mason as he filled his pipe from a baccy pouch and struck a match on the side of the wagon. It flared and then hissed as it ignited the tobacco. Fragrant plumes of smoke puffed into the air and he emitted a satisfied sigh as he took the reins from her hands. ‘You’ve never done that afore, I’ll warrant,’ he said conversationally. ‘What sort of life have you led, boy?’

‘Not your sort, that’s for certain. I’m London born and bred. I ain’t sure I like the countryside that much. It’s dark and it’s cold, and it smells funny.’

Farmer Mason’s great gust of laughter caused Old Tom to prick his ears, and he quickened his pace to a near trot. ‘That’s good country air you can smell, son.’

‘Maybe, but it’s awful cold here. It’s much warmer in the city.’

‘It is a bit chilly. What we need is something to warm our bellies. We’ll stop at the Ship Inn for a hot rum toddy. You can treat me by way of payment for the ride, if you feel so inclined.’

Irene fingered the coins in her pocket and
was
about to make an excuse, but she was too late. The horse seemed to know his way, and obviously this was a normal stopping place. The wagon drew to a halt outside a black and white timbered inn, and Farmer Mason climbed down with surprising agility. ‘Stay, Tom,’ he murmured as he placed a nosebag over his horse’s head. ‘Good boy. I won’t be long.’

‘You’d think the animal understood,’ Irene said as she leapt to the ground.

‘Old Tom knows every word I say. Now come along, Jim. I can taste that toddy already.’

Inside the pub, the low beamed ceiling was yellowed with many years of tobacco smoke and a log fire crackled in the inglenook where men sat chatting over their pints of ale. Irene fingered the coins in her pocket and reluctantly handed over a silver sixpence to her travelling companion. He pointed to an oak settle by the window and told her to take a seat while he went to the bar. Two men leaning against the counter greeted him like an old friend. They exchanged a few jocular words, slapping each other on the back and guffawing loudly, and then one of them shot a curious glance at Irene. ‘Hey, Gaffer. You haven’t been picking up waifs and strays, have you?’