At thirty-five, single and as strong as a horse, he’d felt dutybound to enlist. But he’d been turned down because he’d got two fingers missing on his right hand. He’d lost them eleven years earlier when his hand was trapped under a metal girder while he was trying to free a small boy who’d been playing in a derelict building when it collapsed.
The board hadn’t believed he could fire a rifle. He would have liked to be given a chance to prove them wrong – after all, the loss of his fingers hadn’t affected his police work. Rejection had soured him for a while and made him feel less of a man, but the excitement he felt now he’d got evidence that Mrs Reilly’s attacker was responsible for other crimes too had cleared that away.
‘What’s he done?’ Wootton asked, taking the sketch closer to the light and peering at it. He was in his fifties, with heavy jowls and a military-style handlebar moustache.
Broadhead gave him a résumé of the man’s crimes, and told him that other victims of similar crime had confirmed this was the face of the man who had robbed them.
‘Who drew the picture? Is he in the force?’
‘It was sketched by Mrs Reilly, the milliner in Blackheath. She also lost the child she was carrying and came close to death because of it.’
Wootton frowned. ‘Then we’d better catch him before he hurts anyone else. His face is familiar, though I can’t quite put a name to it. But someone here will know if we’ve nicked him in the past.’
Broadhead grinned in delight, as this investigation had become personal to him. He was the first officer at the scene of the crime, and had been horrified that a woman he’d admired from a distance for so long could have been treated so badly. The Railway was the pub he drank in, and as he had a great deal of respect for Jimmy Reilly too, he very much wanted to bring his wife’s attacker to justice.
‘Can you find out now?’ he asked Wootton. ‘The sooner we get the toe-rag behind bars, the better.’
Wootton went off to consult other officers and was gone some twenty minutes. As Broadhead waited alone in the interview room he was staggered by the noise and rumpus in the building. Except on Saturday nights when fighting drunks were hauled in, Blackheath police station tended to be a very quiet place. But this was noon on a weekday, and a woman was shouting at the top of her lungs, someone else was drumming on a cell door, doors banged incessantly, and every couple of minutes there was an eruption of shouting and swearing. At one point there was a scuffle right outside the door of the interview room, a man protesting loudly that it wasn’t him.
Wootton came back into the room looking rather smug. ‘Yes, he is here on our patch. Name of Archie Newbold, but with no fixed abode. They say he was invalided out of the army some years ago, and we’ve had him in here several times for brawling and being drunk and disorderly.’
Broadhead nodded. ‘So when can we go after him?’
‘There’s no “we”,’ the senior man said sharply. ‘He’s on our patch, we’ll bring him in. You go on back to pleasant Blackheath; we’ll contact the nick there when we’ve got him.’
Broadhead felt as though he’d been slapped. ‘But sir, I’ve done all the legwork on this. I wanted to bring him in.’
Wootton looked hard at him for a moment before replying. ‘To capture villains here, you need to know the area. There are scores of narrow dark alleys, old warehouses, opium dens, knocking shops, and tenements with as many as ten people to a room, filthy holes where the women are as bad as the men and the children following suit. You’d be a liability to us. You look tough, but that’s not enough here, you need to be as wily as they are.’
Broadhead resented the inference that his police work consisted of finding lost dogs and escorting old ladies across the road, but he knew better than to argue with a senior officer, and Wootton looked as if he could be a nasty piece of work if crossed.
‘Well, you know where I am if you want any extra help,’ he said. ‘I’ll take the sketch back with me as it will be needed as evidence.’
Wootton looked at the sketch again. ‘It’s a good likeness. I wonder if she could draw someone described to her. That would help us track down villains far more easily.’
‘I’ll pass on the compliment, but I can’t imagine her wanting to spend her time in such a way, not after what she’s been through,’ Broadhead replied. ‘I’ll be off now; I wish you luck in catching Newbold.’
In the last week of November Belle went to look at her shop for the first time since she was attacked. She had Mog with her and Miranda was due to meet them at any minute too.
‘It smells a bit musty,’ Mog said as she opened the door and turned on the lights. ‘But that will soon go once we get the stove going.’
Belle walked in hesitantly and felt some surprise that everything looked exactly the same as it had before the attack. She knew Mog and Garth had got the cheval mirror glass replaced and removed anything that was broken, but she had expected there still to be some evidence of the events of that last afternoon she was here.
She knew she ought to feel relieved there were no reminders, and even excited to see the place she once loved so much. But the truth was she didn’t want to be here at all. Not now, or in the future.
It wasn’t that she was afraid. She just felt that whatever it was that had made her want a hat shop so badly, and work so hard to make it a success, had gone. She didn’t feel she had it in her any longer to spend hours designing a hat and then working out how to make it. Nor did she want to stand in this shop day after day watching women try on hats and listening to their stories about what they wanted them for.
The irony of this change of heart wasn’t lost on her. She’d worked on Mog, Jimmy and Garth to convince them she needed the shop, and now they were convinced, she didn’t want it. But she couldn’t see a way out now, especially as she’d impulsively offered Miranda a job.
‘You’ll need to make some new stock and change the window so people can see you are happy to be back,’ Mog said.
Belle opened her mouth to say that she would never be happy to be back, but she closed it again, knowing that if she told Mog how she was feeling she’d become worried.
‘I can’t do it before Christmas,’ Belle managed to get out. ‘I’ll wait till New Year.’
Her body might have healed, but it was as if the vital spark she’d once had inside her had gone out. She often felt so low and melancholic that she took herself off to her bedroom, pretending to Mog that she wanted to read. But she wouldn’t attempt to open a book, and just lay in bed staring at the ceiling, feeling hopeless and desperately sad.
‘I think that’s wise,’ Mog said without even looking at Belle. She was straightening up a red velvet hat on a stand as if that was all that mattered. ‘You won’t have enough time to make more than a few new hats, and you really should make a splash for the re-opening. Besides, Miranda’s still helping out on the tea stall.’
Right on cue Miranda arrived, waving at them through the window. Glad of a diversion, Belle opened the door and embraced her friend.
Belle felt that if it hadn’t been for Miranda’s regular visits she might have fallen apart in the past few weeks. Miranda never probed; if Belle was in a sombre mood she just accepted it. If she was tearful she gave her a hug and offered to do her hair for her, or suggested they went for a walk. Often she told her tales about the ladies she worked with on the tea stall at Charing Cross station which were very funny. It was her ability to make Belle laugh that had got her through so many bad days.
‘I’m so excited to come back in here,’ Miranda said breathlessly, then spotting a midnight-blue hat on a stand she darted forward to pick it up.
‘Oh, what a darling one,’ she gasped, tossing her own brown felt hat aside and replacing it with the blue one. Then, striking a pose in front of the mirror, she sucked in her cheeks and pouted. ‘How did I miss this one before? It’s just me.’
As always, she made Belle laugh. The blue hat was a bit of nonsense really, all tulle and velvet flowers
, a hat for afternoon tea in a smart hotel, and perfect against Miranda’s blonde hair. ‘I think your mother would say it isn’t likely to keep your head warm,’ she said.
‘Who would care about warmth when something is so pretty and such fun?’ Miranda replied. ‘You are so clever, Belle. I hope I can learn to make something that resembles a hat while I’m here.’
A stab of guilt ran through Belle as she realized Miranda had taken the offer of a job very seriously. Doubtless she’d get over the disappointment if Belle was to explain how she felt, but in that moment, with her friend looking so pretty in the hat, her cheeks glowing with her excitement at a new start, Belle couldn’t bring herself to stick a pin in her balloon.
After Mog left to do some shopping, leaving Belle and Miranda to come back to the pub when they’d finished looking around, Miranda wandered about the shop trying on hats, and with each one she pretended to be a different person talking about what occasion she might wear it for.
Putting on a rather plain navy-blue felt cloche, she became a country girl at an interview for a position as a nursemaid.
‘I know’s everything about kiddies,’ she said in a strong rural accent. ‘I’m the oldest of ten, you see, and me mam she likes a drink, so it falls on me to care for ’em. I don’t believe in taking a strap to young ’uns, not even when they’re being little bleeders, a good hard slap usually does the trick, then locking ’em in the coal shed.’
Belle burst out laughing because the way Miranda screwed up her face to say her piece reminded her very much of a hateful teacher she’d had at school who had regularly whacked her pupils with a cane.
A rap on the shop door startled them both. Miranda snatched off the hat guiltily. ‘It’s a policeman,’ she said.
Belle got to her feet. ‘It’s Constable Broadhead, the one I’ve told you about.’
She opened the shop door and invited him in. Although she didn’t really remember his role on the day of the attack, since then he’d called to see her at home several times, and she’d grown to like him.
‘What brings you here today?’ she asked.
‘They’ve found and arrested your attacker,’ he beamed. ‘It was in the early hours of the morning, in Deptford. He’ll be appearing in court tomorrow but will be held in custody until his trial. Whether that will be before Christmas depends very much on how busy the courts are at the moment.’
Belle felt a wave of relief. ‘That is good news,’ she said. ‘Knowing he’s out of harm’s way will make me and the other shopkeepers in the street feel much safer.’
The policeman nodded. ‘I saw Mrs Franklin down the road and she said you were here. Glad to see you up and about again. You’ve had a rough time of it, especially with your husband away.’
Belle introduced Miranda to him and explained she was going to be her assistant in the shop. ‘Jimmy’s on a march to the Western Front,’ she added. ‘At least he was when I last heard from him. Goodness only knows when he’ll get home again.’
‘And they said it would all be over by Christmas!’ Broadhead said. He looked a little awkward, as if he had something else to say but couldn’t get it out.
‘Am I expected to be at court tomorrow?’ Belle asked, hoping that would prompt him.
‘Oh no, it’s just a preliminary hearing. A solicitor tells the judge what the case is about.’
‘So you’ll tell me when I am needed then?’ she said.
‘Yes, of course,’ he said and smiled. ‘I’d better be off, but I wanted to tell you that without your sketch of this man, we’d never have got him. You have a rare talent. And your hats are lovely too.’
‘Well, thank you, Constable,’ she said. ‘And I’m very glad you’ve got your man.’
After he’d gone, Miranda leaned against the wall smirking at Belle.
‘What’s that look for?’ Belle asked.
‘He’s got a thing for you,’ Miranda said.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Belle retorted.
‘He couldn’t take his eyes off you! I’d bet he’s heard that you once lived in Paris and he’s hoping for a little ooh-là-là.’
Belle wiggled a finger at Miranda like a school teacher. ‘You, Miranda, have a smutty mind and an over-active imagination.’
Miranda was in fact very perceptive because as James Broadhead walked back to the police station, his mind was on Belle. Right from the first day she opened the shop in Tranquil Vale, she had caused a ripple of excitement around the village which had even reached the police station. Her beauty was enough to get her noticed, but there was something about her elegant, totally feminine shop which intrigued everyone, male and female. Every time James passed it while on his beat, he could never resist looking in the window. He had heard the rumour that she was French, and there was an implication of being ‘fast’ in that. However, that rumour was scotched when it became known she had only trained to be a milliner in France, and that she was going to marry Jimmy Franklin, who co-owned the Railway with his uncle.
But James had never spoken to Belle before the day she was attacked. All he’d had were glimpses of her as he passed the shop window. Sometimes she was serving a customer, at other times sitting on a chair sewing or writing something. But he always got a jolt at the combination of her dark, shiny hair, creamy skin and slender but very shapely figure.
He had been passing by the church on her wedding day just as she was coming out on Jimmy’s arm and she took his breath away. Glorious was the only word to describe how she looked, in cream silk with a froth of veil around her lovely face. She was looking up at Jimmy and laughing at something, and James felt a stab of pure envy. No woman had ever looked at him in quite that way.
It was pure chance that he was first on the scene when she was attacked. The direction of his beat had been changed just the day before, and if he’d been on the old one he would have been walking down towards Lee Green instead of coming up Tranquil Vale. And Stokes the cobbler who came running out of the shop shouting for help would have found someone else.
She was lying crumpled on the floor, blood splattered up the wall behind her. He hadn’t known until then that she was carrying a child, but the way she had fallen made the curve of her belly obvious, and she still had one hand protectively over it, which he found deeply affecting. Once the doctor arrived, James ran up on to the heath looking for her attacker, and he thought that had he found him, he might have ripped his throat out.
Since that night he’d called on Belle on three more occasions. The first was the day after the attack when he visited her to take a statement. She had looked so pale, drained and battered then, yet she had still made the effort to give him as much detail as possible.
Then he heard that she had lost her baby, and that for a while it was touch and go whether she would pull through. But happily she did, and on each of the subsequent occasions he had had reason to go and speak to her, she looked a little better. Even after all she had been through she didn’t whine about it; in fact she had seemed impatient for his questions about it to be over, so she could ask him about himself.
People always looked at his missing fingers, then quickly averted their eyes as if repelled by the sight. But Belle asked him what had happened and how long it had been before he had been able to use his hand again. She asked what injuries the little boy he had rescued had, and said how indebted his mother must feel to him for saving her son. James had left the Railway that day feeling that his missing fingers were a badge of honour rather than something he ought to keep hidden.
He had wanted to say how pleased he was to see her looking so much better now, but he was too struck by the vivid blue of her eyes, the length of her dark eyelashes and the plumpness of her lips. He wished he was better at social chit-chat, then she might have engaged him in conversation a little longer. He would gladly have examined every one of her hats, swept her floor and cleaned the windows, anything to remain with her. But her friend was there, and he couldn’t think of anything further to say.
> He was thrilled that her attacker had been caught, and he felt proud to be complimented by senior officers on all the legwork he’d done on the case. Maybe he’d even get promoted, which would round things off nicely. But in the meantime he knew he’d have to try to stop daydreaming about Belle. She was after all a married woman.
James Broadhead wasn’t alone in thinking about Belle. Jimmy was too – it was the one thing that always managed to make him feel warmer.
The march from the training camp at Etaples through France was tortuous. French roads were cobbled and very hard on the feet, especially as the army-issue heavy Ammos had not been broken in. He’d had his share of blisters – the one on his heel was now the size of a half crown – but other men had it much worse; their feet were bleeding and they hobbled along like old men.
Antwerp had fallen and the roads were a seething mass of people running away from the Germans. Some pushed handcarts or perambulators loaded high with their belongings. He’d seen one cart piled up with furniture and an old lady perched up on a chair at the top. Other people were bent almost double with the huge loads they carried on their backs. Women with frightened eyes and babies in their arms begged for milk and bread, and there were so many children and old people who looked lost and pitiful. No one seemed to know where they were going or how they would live. Jimmy thought they were like so many hundreds of sheep, following the person in front of them blindly.
From the start of November there had been continuous heavy rain, and now they had to contend with snow too. It wouldn’t have been so bad if each night they had had warm shelter and a hot meal, if they could have dried out their clothes properly and start the next day refreshed. But instead, the best they could hope for was a night in a barn – they didn’t even have tents as some of the other regiments did. Many nights they’d spent in the open, shivering with only a waterproof cape over them, and cold bully beef to eat.
Tonight as he thought about Belle, he was in a barn, and as he looked around him at men he had trained with at Etaples trying to sleep, huddled together for warmth in the straw, he wondered how many of them would even make it to fight at the front. Many had terrible coughs, some kept having to get up to go outside as they had the runs, one man had collapsed today and it was said he had pneumonia.