Without a Trace (24 page)

‘Working in Pat’s Café doesn’t give you much scope for creativity or experimentation.’ Constance chuckled.

‘I don’t mind.’ Molly smiled. ‘I can improve things a bit by
not giving people food swimming in grease. That’s about the only improvement, though. I have suggested serving some home-made soup or stew. Pat said she’d think about it, but I doubt she’ll agree.’

Constance laughed. She knew, as did everyone in the area, that Pat was lazy and against any kind of change. The only reason anyone ever ate in her café was because it was convenient and because, now and then, she employed someone like Molly, who could cook.

‘Maybe it isn’t worth the effort of trying to persuade her,’ she said. ‘After all, it’s only a stop-gap job. Have you given any thought to a new job, or a career?’

‘I did think I might be suited to hotel work,’ Molly said, with some hesitation. ‘A small hotel, where I could do lots of different jobs – reception, cooking, running a bar and cleaning the rooms. By the sea somewhere in Kent or Sussex would be nice, especially if I could live in.’

‘A great deal nicer than the East End,’ Constance said with a smile. ‘I’d miss you, of course, but I’d be happy to see you embark on something you really liked, and which has a future. I’ve been so pleased that you aren’t talking about Cassandra and Petal so much lately. Something like that takes a great deal of getting over but, at your age, it isn’t healthy to brood on it.’

Molly hesitated before replying. She might not have spoken to Constance about Cassie and Petal so much, but they’d been on her mind all the time.

‘I don’t talk about them because I’ve said everything I have to say,’ she replied after a moment’s thought. ‘But I haven’t forgotten them, or given up the idea of trying to find Petal. Every single day I show their pictures to people and ask them if they knew Cassie. In fact, that’s exactly why I
thought of a hotel in Kent or East Sussex. Many of Cassie’s poems mention places there, so I think that’s maybe where she came from. I’ve found out nothing here, but if I can discover where she used to live, I might be able to find some family members, too.’

Constance instantly looked worried, and Molly sensed she was going to say something she didn’t want to hear.

‘I think the idea of a hotel is a good one. But I’m not so sure about digging around for Cassie’s relatives. We both sensed she had run away from something, or someone. Is it wise to go digging?’

‘A child’s life is at stake,’ Molly said indignantly, surprised Constance didn’t see it that way. ‘For all we know, Cassie’s relatives might not even know about her death, or that her daughter is missing, maybe murdered, or at least abducted. I suppose I just want to find someone who cares the way I do.’

‘It’s good that you care. I didn’t mean that you shouldn’t think about her and want to make it right,’ Constance reproved her. ‘But I have to say that when you first visited me here I felt you were making her the focus of your life because you had so little else in yours. That was perfectly understandable, as you had no boyfriend, you had a difficult father – you even said your sister wasn’t interested in you any longer. And Cassie had filled your life, just as she did mine when she lived here, so I know what a hole she left behind.’

Molly nodded. She didn’t trust herself to speak in case she burst into tears.

‘I had hoped that you’d find real happiness and good friends at Bourne & Hollingsworth,’ Constance went on. ‘I’m so sorry that went so badly wrong.’ She paused, smiled and reached out to take Molly’s hand.

‘I know this place isn’t what you’re used to, and Heaven forbid that you get the idea that you’ve got to stay and take care of this old lady. But I will say that everyone who has met you here likes you. I think you have a tremendous amount to offer the world, because you are kind, thoughtful and very caring, along with being brave and intelligent, too. I don’t believe you know what a good person you are – that’s why I’m telling you this now. I think working in a hotel is a really good idea: you do have all the right credentials for it, and I think you’d be perfect for it. But I want you to choose a hotel that you like, in a place you’d like to live in. But not just so you can try and find Petal.’

Molly gulped back the lump in her throat. No one had ever said such nice things about her before, and she knew Constance meant it.

‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I’ll take note of everything you said, but I have to try and find Cassie’s family, if only so they can make the police open the case again and look for Petal. Something inside me tells me she’d want that.’

Constance sighed, then nodded. ‘Yes, you’re probably right, but just make it secondary to getting your own life settled. And, by the way, have you written to your mother or that policeman friend of yours back home? You should tell them where you are now, because if they write to you at the hostel, they’ll probably get the letter returned to them marked “Gone away”, and that is going to worry them.’

Molly blushed. She hadn’t thought of mail being returned. ‘I don’t know what to say to them. I don’t think they’ll believe I stole anything, but all the same –’ she broke off, not liking to admit her real fear was that they would all be horrified to think of her living in Whitechapel. George might even come
up here to try to rescue her. That would make everything much worse.

Constance gave her a knowing look, making Molly blush again, because Molly was fairly certain the older woman understood her fears. ‘You don’t have to go into any detail. Just reassure them you’re safe and happy. Your poor mother is probably frantic.’

A little later Constance glanced across the room to where Molly was sitting at the table, writing a letter to her mother. She could see by the way the girl’s brow was furrowed that she was finding it difficult. Constance knew without a shadow of doubt that Molly hadn’t stolen anything, and the injustice riled her. Her mother would surely know that, too, as anyone would who knew her well.

Although Constance had never had children, she understood that a child’s hurt was felt just as keenly by the mother. Mrs Heywood must have spent her entire life in pain for the way her husband treated his daughters. Some would ask why she didn’t leave him; that was easy to say but almost impossible for a woman with two children and no money of her own to do. Mrs Heywood probably thought, too, that it was better for her children to live with their father, and maybe she even believed he would change. How many thousands of women married to bullies believed that!

As for Molly’s policeman friend, she sensed that Molly liked him a great deal, and he had to feel the same way, as he’d helped her get to London and wrote to her every week. Constance felt it was only a feeling of unworthiness on Molly’s part that had prevented her from encouraging him.

Constance smiled to herself. Here she was, a frail old lady
who had never married, sitting in a wheelchair, believing she had all the answers about courtship, love and marriage. But, in her defence, she had been privy to so many people’s secrets over the last fifty years. She was a seasoned observer, and she liked to think she was also an excellent judge of character.

She had recently written to young Dilys at Bourne & Hollingsworth and told her she didn’t believe for one moment that Molly had given goods to friends posing as customers. She said that one of the worst things for Molly was to be frogmarched from the building without even being able to leave a note of explanation for Dilys, who she had cared for a great deal. She asked that, if Dilys had felt the same about Molly, she should write to her or telephone. She ended her letter reminding her that true friends are rare and valuable and should be treasured.

If Dilys came back into Molly’s life, it would help heal the wounds that the treacherous Miss Stow had inflicted on her, and maybe prove to Molly that she was worthy of love and affection. But there was something more Constance could do, and that was to use her contacts to help with Molly’s future. Tomorrow, when Molly was at work, Constance intended to telephone someone she knew well and see if they had any vacancies.

February was even colder than January. Snow turned to dirty slush and then froze again, leaving great piles of black ice at the sides of the roads. All the pavements were treacherous. Every day Molly heard horrible stories from people who lived in tenements about frozen lavatories and water pipes. She could tell by the smell of people who came into the café that washing wasn’t a high priority any more. Even she, who
had once been so fastidious, found it too cold to strip off in the scullery and wash all over every day. She went to the public baths with Constance every Thursday night, but even though it was lovely once she was in a nice, hot bath, it was so cold getting dressed and going home that sometimes she was tempted to skip it.

Constance often told her tales about how it was in the Blitz. She said that she didn’t wash anything but her face and hands for over three weeks once, because she’d been bombed out and was sleeping in shelters.

‘It was the same for lots of us.’ She laughed. ‘People came out of a night in the shelter to find their house had been flattened. They’d lost everything, but they’d still go off to work like nothing had happened. I saw women having a strip wash in the public toilets – they had nowhere else to do it.’

‘In Bristol, people went out into the countryside at night because they were scared of the bombs,’ Molly said.

‘People left London, too,’ Constance said. ‘Not everyone was as brave as you are led to believe. I met women who were so terrified that they almost lost their reason. I would lead prayers in the shelters when the bombing was at its worst and, while most people found it comforting, there were some who tried to shout me down, saying there was no God.’

‘Were you in the Church Army then?’

‘Yes, but I can’t remember if I also told you that I was a nurse back then. I was twenty-two in 1905 when my sweetheart, Ronald, died of pneumonia. We were planning to get married, but he died just a few weeks before the date we’d booked,’ she said. ‘That was my reason for turning to nursing. I thought that caring for the sick and injured would make me whole again, too. Perhaps it did, as nursing men with appalling
injuries during the Great War brought me into the church to pray for them.’

‘I think it would’ve stopped me believing in God,’ Molly said.

Constance smiled, the kind of wry smile that said she’d had that response from many people. ‘I can only speak for myself and, odd as it sounds, I felt something like a hand on my shoulder urging me to put my life in God’s hands. I suppose, had I been a Roman Catholic, I might have entered a convent, but I was an Anglican, so it was the Church Army. They have always done evangelical work in places like slums, and I was sent here.’

‘To try and make people turn to the Church?’

‘To introduce them to God’s love is how I see it. Some of the people I’ve met over the years have been right down in the gutter, as far down as it’s possible to be. They might have a drink problem, be a criminal, have some terrible medical condition, or just be desperately poor, with absolutely no one to turn to. If I can make them see that God loves them, too, that their life is important to him, often that raises them up and gives them the inner strength to improve their situation.’

‘But you don’t preach to people,’ Molly said, puzzled how this evangelical thing worked. ‘Well, at least not to any of the people I’ve met.’

‘The simplest way to get the message across is by example.’ Constance shrugged. ‘They know I have as little as them, but they also see my contentment. Over the years I’ve been a friend to half the people in Whitechapel while they went through a tough period. For some, it was being bombed out in the war or having their husband brought home badly injured. Some have lost a child; others have a serious medical
problem. Ordinary people encounter countless different hurdles but, mostly, they can cope if they have someone to talk to about it. I give them myself and God.’

Molly privately thought that Constance being willing to listen and sympathize was what worked, but if it was her faith that motivated her to do that, then just maybe God was there, too.

The morning after Constance had told Molly how she came to join the Church Army, she got a letter. She’d picked it up from the door mat with a couple of letters for Constance, and stood in the hall looking at the handwriting, which she didn’t recognize for some time, before finally opening the envelope.

When she did, she gave a little shriek of joy and ran in to Constance. ‘It’s from Dilys, my friend at Bourne & Hollingsworth,’ she said excitedly. ‘How on earth did she get this address?’

‘Go on and read it then,’ Constance urged her, and wheeled her chair over to the stove, because the kettle was boiling for their tea.

Dear Molly
[she read]
. I was so very relieved and happy to get a letter from your friend, because I just knew you hadn’t stolen anything, I know that wicked Miss Stow made it up. But I didn’t know how to find you, and I was really sad because I missed you so much and I was afraid you’d have to go home and face your dad.

I spent the whole of Christmas Day crying. All those plans we had, the stockings and meeting those blokes at the Empire. It was just miserable. I never even wore my new dress.

None of the other girls believe you’d done anything either. All of them thought it was a terrible thing to do to you. I hope that makes you feel better.

I’ve got a new girl in with me now. Her name is Janice, and she’s the most boring person I’ve ever met. She sits and knits, like that Madame Defarge in
A Tale of Two Cities.
Even the jumper she’s knitting is brown. Only really dull people wear that colour! I’m almost tempted to invite her out one night and then push her onto the tube line.

I’ll phone you on Thursday evening, and I hope we can arrange to meet up somewhere. I never wanted to lose touch with you. I thought we’d still be mates when we were old ladies. You thank Constance for me, tell her I said she is an angel for writing to me.