The Girl With No Name (17 page)

Dan came home with the dawn, his face black, his eyes red-rimmed. He crept upstairs and crawled into bed beside Naomi. She gathered him into her arms and on the instant he plunged into the depths of slumber. Naomi lay beside him, her brain churning as the events of the day flooded through her mind. Be positive, she told herself. Shirley could be right. And Naomi began to plan her search for Lisa in the morning. School, rescue centres, hospitals. She would visit them all.

I won’t go in to work, she decided. They can do without me for another day. I’ll tell them why later.

She thought, too, of what Shirley had said about getting out of London. She knew that many expectant mothers had left the cities when war had first been declared, but lots of them had returned when the expected bombing hadn’t happened. Now the much-feared Blitz had indeed begun, would they go again? Should she go? How could she go and leave Dan to face the bombing on his own? Could she bear to be without him for weeks at a time? But then, Shirley was without her Derek, away at sea. Thousands of women were living without their menfolk. Why should she be any different? She should be protecting the baby. Her most important duty was to her unborn child. But to be without Dan, when Dan was exposed to the Blitz, not even safe in the cellar, but out on the streets, unprotected... Her heart contracted with love and fear at the very thought of it.

Finally she, too, drifted off to sleep and awoke only when she heard someone downstairs in the kitchen. For a moment she couldn’t think who it was. Dan was still fast asleep beside her. Then she remembered Shirley. It must be her. And she slid out of bed, threw on her dressing gown and went downstairs to see.

‘Couldn’t sleep no more,’ Shirley said, ‘so I come in to make a drink.’

‘I couldn’t sleep neither,’ Naomi said and poured herself some tea from the pot Shirley had made.

‘When I’ve had this,’ Shirley said, lifting her cup, ‘I’ll be off round the rescue centre to see if they can find me somewhere to live, temporary like.’

‘You can stay here for a bit,’ Naomi offered. ‘I was glad you was here last night through the raid.’

‘Thanks, and I will if I have to, but it’ll be better if they find me somewhere more permanent, like.’ As soon as she’d drunk her tea she slipped out of the house and was gone.

When Dan came down he looked round. ‘Where’s Shirley?’

‘Gone. May be back later. You going out in the cab today?’

‘Yes, have to,’ replied Dan as he ate the piece of toast she’d made for him. ‘Can’t afford to miss another day, can I? What about you?’

‘No, I ain’t going to work today. I’m going round the school. They was supposed to start the new term today. Maybe some of the kids might have seen her.’

‘Naomi—’ began Dan, but she cut him off.

‘Don’t say it!’ she said sharply. ‘I’m going to look for her, Dan. After the school I’m going round the hospitals, see if she’s been taken to one of them. She
could
have been,’ she said firmly when he was about to interrupt again. ‘Then I’ll go to the rescue centres. Maybe they found her and are looking after her. She could still be alive, Dan. She mightn’t have been in that house.’

Dan looked across at her with a reluctant smile. He didn’t think she had a hope in hell of finding Lisa, but he admired her determination to try. ‘You do that, girl,’ he said, ‘but please, darlin’, don’t get your hopes up.’

Dan left the house and went to the railway arches where he and several other cabbies kept their taxis. He hadn’t been there for two days and was dreading what he might find. If the cab had been destroyed in one of the raids, then apart from Naomi’s paltry wage, their source of income was gone. When he reached the arches he found several of his mates there as well. All were relieved to see their cabs parked where they had left them, still undamaged.

‘May have problems finding a way through the streets today,’ said Jim Tucker. ‘The damage is something fierce, specially round the docks.’

‘Had to detour round Milton Road,’ said Bert Halford. ‘Unexploded bomb!’

‘Think I’ll head up west,’ Dan said. ‘Usually pick up a fare round Whitehall.’ The cabbies drove their taxis out from the shelter of the arches and set out to do a day’s work. The night’s bombing was over and, unbowed by the German air force, they were back in business.

Naomi cleared away the breakfast things and then put on her coat and went out. She’d chosen the school as her first port of call. Walking the route Lisa would have taken, she kept an eye out for any children she might know, but she recognised none. When she reached the school gates she looked into the playground. There were a few children arriving, but not the usual crowd waiting for the bell. Where are they all? she wondered. She very soon had her answer. When she asked to see Miss Hammond she was taken straight into the head’s office.

Miss Hammond looked pale and exhausted. ‘What can I do for you?’ she asked wearily. ‘There’s no school today, we’re sending them all home again, so if you’ve come to say Lisa won’t be coming, don’t worry. Nor will anyone else. Not today.’

Naomi’s heart sank. ‘No,’ she murmured, ‘I wasn’t coming to say that. I was coming to ask you if you’d seen Lisa. She’s been missing since Saturday afternoon.’

If possible, Miss Hammond went even paler. ‘Not Lisa, too?’ she whispered. ‘I just heard that Hilda and Peter Lang and their parents were killed on Saturday night.’

Naomi drew a deep breath. ‘We think Lisa might have been with them.’

‘At the Langs’?’

‘We don’t know. It’s what I’m trying to find out. She was supposed to be round their house on Saturday, but maybe...’ Naomi’s voice broke on a sob, ‘we thought maybe she’d been on her way home and had sheltered somewhere.’

‘Perhaps she has,’ Miss Hammond said. ‘Have you tried asking at the hospitals?’

‘Doing the rounds straight after here.’ Naomi blew her nose. ‘Just thought I’d ask here first... case any of the other kids had seen her, or she’d been with someone else.’

‘I’ll ask around, Mrs Federman, and if I hear anything about her, I promise you’ll be the first to know. We’ve cancelled school for today; we’re trying to organise evacuation again for those that want it. London isn’t safe, and you can be sure there’s more of this to come. We can’t risk losing any more children.’

Naomi left the school and set out to try the local hospitals. She knew there were several hospitals in the area and if she’d been injured somewhere, Lisa could have been taken to any of them. She was determined to visit every one.

At each one she went first to the Casualty department and spoke to the receptionist on the desk. Casualty was still hectic, with more victims of the bombing still coming in, some to be patched up and sent home again, others to stay in for more serious treatment.

The receptionists were all extremely busy dealing with the continuing influx of patients, but in each case they made time to look at the register to see if the name Lisa Becker was there.

‘Sorry, dear,’ said the woman behind the desk at Bart’s. ‘No one of that name been treated here.’

‘She’s only just turned fourteen,’ Naomi explained. ‘I just wondered if she’d been brought in, you know, without anyone knowing who she was.’

‘No unknown teenage girls brought in on Saturday,’ said the woman firmly. ‘Sorry, I can’t help you.’

‘Could I speak to someone who was here at the time?’ Naomi asked.

‘Madam,’ the receptionist’s voice became brusque, ‘you have no idea of the chaos we had here on Saturday night and it’s little better now. If the child’s name is not in the book as having been treated, then she wasn’t treated here.’ She looked over Naomi’s shoulder and called, ‘Next!’

It was the same at the London Hospital. ‘No, afraid not, no one of that name brought here.’

‘Any girls of about fourteen?’ asked Naomi desperately. ‘You might not have her name.’

‘No, the only child we had in on Saturday who was unidentified at first turned out to be called Smith and came from Harrogate. Sorry. Try King’s College...’

‘Try Guy’s...’

‘Try St Thomas’s...’

Naomi trailed from one to another, across the river and back again, but no one had any knowledge of a fourteen-year-old girl by the name of Lisa Becker. Nowhere was there an unidentified child patient. Everywhere the hospitals were under immense pressure, trying to treat those who had been injured, those who were suffering from shock and those who were simply ill and in need of care.

She got back to Kemble Street in the late afternoon, worn out and miserable. She had found no trace of Lisa and she was beginning to accept that she must have been in Grove Avenue when the bombs fell. Determined not to give up quite yet, she made herself a sandwich and set out to visit the three local rescue centres.

The first was not far from Grove Avenue. Mrs Barber, a harassed WVS volunteer, was struggling to find shelter for all those whose homes were no longer habitable. No, she had not seen a fourteen-year-old girl wandering about on her own, lost.

‘Sorry, my dear,’ she said, dashing untidy hair out of her eyes. ‘I’ve a list of everyone who’s been here yesterday and today, where they came from and where I’ve managed to place them, but there’s no Lisa Becker. Try the Kingsland Road centre. It’s much bigger than this one.’

It was the same both in Kingsland Road and Shoreditch High Street. No one had heard of Lisa nor any unidentified girl. With a leaden heart, Naomi went back to Kemble Street.

Clutching his pound note, Harry had made a quick exit from the back room at the Black Bull. Truth to tell, he was afraid of Mikey Sharp, though he didn’t like to admit as much to himself. He liked to think it was a great thing to work for a man like Mikey, a man of the world who knows what’s what, a man in charge,
The Man
! Ever since that first day, Harry had been a runner for Mikey Sharp. He carried messages, delivered parcels, loaded and unloaded lorries and vans and did anything else that Mikey told him to. Harry was a child of the streets, a city-rat, and Mikey recognised something of his younger self in the boy. He was smart, fast on his feet and despite his small stature, he could handle himself in a fight. Yes, he had an eye to the main chance, but didn’t everyone? Hadn’t it been just that which had got Mikey to where he was now? Cock of the walk?

Harry made himself very useful to Mikey, but he never forgot that the moment his usefulness ceased, or if he made an error of some kind, Mikey wouldn’t hesitate to dispose of him, possibly permanently.

He’d soon found his way about the streets of East London, learning the alleyways and back doubles, able to outrun and evade anyone who might want to catch or question him about what he was up to. Working for Mikey he was never short of money, but he knew that he was walking a thin line and if he were caught while on a job somewhere there’d be no cavalry coming to his rescue. Mikey would disown him.

He was aware he’d taken a risk, telling that Dickett bloke to bring the whisky with him on Tuesday. Mikey might not have wanted it and simply having it in the same van as the fags could have posed a problem. Still, Harry thought as he was leaving the market to head towards Lisa’s school, Mikey had seemed OK about it and instead of the usual ten bob for a job, he’d given him a whole pound! As he passed a stall selling cheap jewellery he paused. He remembered how pleased Lisa had been with the necklace from Swan and Edgar he’d given her just before Christmas. There was no way he could ‘borrow’ anything from any of the stalls or barrows in Petticoat Lane – for a start he didn’t know which were actually run by Mikey – but with a whole pound in his pocket, Harry thought he’d buy something for Lisa, to make up for having left her to find her own way home on Saturday. He chose a bracelet of blue beads, thinking they were the same colour as the necklace. He handed over a florin for it and there was no change. Expensive, he thought, but worth it for Lisa.

When he reached the school he was surprised to find it apparently closed. Despite it being nearly dinner time, there were no children in the playground, no children in the street on their way home to their dinner. He stood outside the gates and watched for a while, but no one came or went. Where were they all? The place seemed deserted. He was about to go when he saw Miss May coming out of the front door. She was carrying a basket and her handbag and was clearly leaving for the day.

As she emerged into the street Harry stepped out in front of her, barring her way. She stopped, surprised, and then said, ‘Harry Black, isn’t it? You left at Christmas. I hardly recognised you.’

‘Is school closed?’ Harry asked by way of response. ‘Isn’t it term again yet?’

‘Yes, it should have started today,’ said Miss May, ‘but with all the bombing, well, things are changing here.’

‘So where is everyone?’

‘At home, I suppose. Sorry, young man, but I can’t discuss school matters with you.’ Then she added, ‘What are you doing here, anyway?’

‘Oh, nothing. Just looking for friends still at school.’

‘Well, I’m sorry, there’s no one here. Now, if you’ll just let me pass...’

Harry stood aside and watched as she hurried along the street and into the butcher’s.

Wonder if Lisa’s at home, Harry thought and turned his steps to Kemble Street. As he came to the corner where the pub now lay in ruins, he looked along the road and saw a woman, coming from the other direction, go into a house halfway along. Was that Lisa’s house? Harry thought it was. He’d watched her go into a house about there before now. He felt the bracelet in his pocket and decided to go and see if she was at home.

Perhaps, he thought, if I walk past the house a couple of times, Lisa’ll see me and come out.

He strolled up the road, passing the house on the opposite side. Yes, the one the woman had gone into was number sixty-five. He glanced across, but the front room windows were still blacked out. Even if Lisa was in there she’d be at the back, not sitting in the front room in the dark. He had just passed the second time when the woman came out of the house again, slamming the front door behind her. She strode off down the street without a glance in Harry’s direction. Harry waited for several minutes in case she came back and then went up to the front door. He gave it a push, but it wouldn’t open. Surely the woman would have left it on the latch if someone was still in the house. He gave a quick glance up and down the street. There was no one in sight. The two houses almost opposite were derelict and burnt out, so he risked it. He bent down and, pushing open the letter box, peered through. He couldn’t see much, just the edge of the staircase and a passage leading to the back of the house.