He got off the bed and began to sidle round the narrow space at the end of it to where she was.
Molly waited till he was almost close enough to grab her, then jumped up on the bed. He hastily moved back the way he had come, assuming she was making for the door. But as soon as he was there she jumped back to the floor where she’d been before and, once again, he moved back to try to catch her.
She repeated this twice more, as if it were a game. Each time, he was getting redder in the face and panting with the exertion.
‘Can’t catch me, Fat Man!’ she taunted him, and bounced high on the bed, making the springs twang. He lunged forward across the bed to grab her, but this time she jumped off the bed on the side of the pole and snatched it up.
She’d worked out that she needed to disable him with just one blow or he would hurt her, so it had to be an extremely hard one. She knew she was strong: all that cycling and lifting heavy boxes back in Somerset had built up her muscles. Turning towards him and gripping the pole with both hands, she lifted it and brought it down on his head with all the force she could muster.
The sound as it hit his head was horrible, something like breaking china. He slumped forward on to the bed, his face into the blankets, and a thin red line of blood popped up on the back of his head and ran down to his neck.
She gasped, afraid she’d killed him, but although that was shocking, because she hadn’t intended to go that far, she knew she couldn’t wait to find out.
Quick as a flash, she moved round to where her shoes, coat, handbag and suitcase were still grouped together on the floor. She put her coat on, tucked her shoes under her arm and then, picking up her handbag and case, she made for the stairs.
She wanted to fly down them, to get out as fast as she could, but she controlled the urge and crept softly so no one would hear her and come to stop her.
There were sounds coming from behind most of the doors she passed – grunting, bedsprings creaking and the occasional yelp or moan, reminding her what had been in store for her, but when she got down to Dora’s door there was silence.
Creeping, her heart hammering with terror, her legs like jelly and threatening to give way at any minute, she finally reached the last flight of stairs and got out on to the street.
It was only when the cold wind hit her that it dawned on her she’d been drugged. She had felt strange after drinking the sherry, and she remembered that Dora had supported her as she went up the stairs because she was wobbling as if she were drunk. But one small glass of sherry would never have had that effect on her.
What a naïve idiot she’d been to think that two complete strangers like Dora and Seb would help her just because they were kind people. Dora had clearly drugged her to make her compliant, and she was fairly sure the man she’d just hit over the head had paid Dora for her. That made her feel sick.
She had no idea what time it was – it had to be the early hours of the morning – but Greek Street was still busy with people, and she could hear music coming from several different places. All at once it was clear why people said Soho was dangerous, and passing through it in the middle of the night carrying a suitcase was virtually advertising that she was homeless. She was afraid that someone could be lurking in a doorway, ready to pounce on her.
Tears threatened, but she bit them back, remembering that Seb had spoken to her because he’d seen her crying. She picked up her suitcase and made herself walk purposefully down the street. She knew she had to get out of Soho and into a safer area.
Several men accosted her as she walked. One asked her how much; another asked if she wanted a bed for the night; and the others said things she didn’t understand but knew by their tone of voice and their expression they were bad. She was growing more and more scared, so much so, she was struggling to breathe.
Finally, she came to a crossroads, and across the road she saw the blue light of a police station. She hurried towards it, hoping against hope there would be a policeman like George on duty who would be sympathetic to her plight.
Molly noted, once she was in the police station, that it was Bow Street, and she recalled her teacher telling the class about the Bow Street Runners, the first policemen in London. A middle-aged police sergeant called Simmons with a saggy face like a bloodhound took her into a small interview room. He got her a cup of tea, commiserated with her about her swollen cheek, and seemed full of sympathy as she related what had happened to her.
But when she finished with how she’d run from the place in Greek Street, he looked at her very sternly. ‘You hit this man over the head with a pole and left the house without checking he was still alive?’
Molly had thought the sergeant was totally in sympathy with her up to that point, but the way he spoke now suggested that he thought she was a potential murderess. She wanted to cry with frustration.
‘Would you have expected me to stay till he came round?’ she said with some indignation. ‘He got what he deserved. Look! That woman Dora drugged me. Sebastian, the man who took me there, must have known what would happen to me. The only thing I did wrong was being stupid enough to think they were kind people putting me up for the night.’
‘The address where it took place?’ he asked curtly.
‘Greek Street. I don’t know the number, but there was a barber’s shop beneath it. The woman was called Dora and the man who took me there was called Seb, short for Sebastian.’
‘Dora, you say? Mid-forties, a buxom redhead?’
‘Yes, that’s her,’ Molly said. ‘Can’t you go round there now and arrest her and the fat man?’
‘Unless you killed the fat man, he’ll be long gone now,’ the sergeant said wearily. ‘And it’s just your word against Dora’s that you were ever there. She’ll deny it, of course.’
Molly couldn’t hold back her tears any longer. She could hardly believe that, twice in one day, she wasn’t being believed.
‘Come now, don’t cry,’ the policeman said, his tone softer now. ‘I can appreciate you’ve had a really bad scare and a hard time of it today. But it’s not the end of the world.’
‘A hard time?’ she snapped back at him. ‘I get accused of stealing at my job and get thrown out on my ear. I’ve got nowhere to go, and the one person who is understanding and kind turns out to want to force me into prostitution. If all that happened to you in one day, I think you’d cry, too.’
‘Yes, I expect I would, Miss Heywood.’ He sighed. ‘But it’s two in the morning now, and I don’t really know what to do with you. All I can offer at this time of night is a bed in a cell. They aren’t very nice, and there’re a few drunks down there, too, but it’s better than being out on the street in the cold.’
‘Oh, thank you, but I’d happily sleep on the floor here,’ she said gratefully.
‘I couldn’t let you do that. But I’ll send someone round to Greek Street, just to check you haven’t left a man dying in that room. And we’ll read Dora the riot act while we’re at it. By the time it’s daylight, you might be able to think of someone you can turn to for help.’
‘There isn’t anyone.’ Molly dried her eyes and blew her nose.
‘Well. I’ll put my thinking cap on, too,’ he said gently, and smiled at her. ‘Maybe one of the churches round here has contacts with people who can help those in your position. Now come with me and we’ll get some blankets and try to make you comfortable in a cell.’
An hour later, as Molly lay on the narrow bench in the cell covered by a blanket that smelled of feet and vomit, she wept again, this time in utter despair. She could hear a drunk shouting and singing further along the passageway, and every now and then another man would shout at him to shut up.
It seemed that she had no choice but to go home and throw herself on her father’s mercy. Was his nastiness any worse than walking the streets with nowhere to go? Were his clouts as bad as attempted rape or being accused of theft? She didn’t think he’d believe that she’d stolen any gloves; after all, she’d never stolen anything f
rom him. But she would have to put up with an endless litany of ‘I said you wouldn’t be able to cope with London.’ How he was going to enjoy that!
Molly woke with a start to find the sergeant shaking her shoulder. ‘Come upstairs with me for a little chat,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to go off duty soon, and these cells are no place for a lady when the other occupants start to wake up.’
He led her back into the same small room where they’d been the night before. He told her to sit down while he got her a cup of tea.
‘Have you had any more thoughts about someone you could go to?’ he asked when he got back, putting a mug of tea and a couple of ginger biscuits in front of her. ‘Surely you know someone in London?’
Molly was just about to tell him she’d decided she had no choice but to go home when she suddenly thought of Constance.
‘Well, I do know a lady in the Church Army in Whitechapel,’ she said cautiously. ‘I don’t know her terribly well, but she’s kind and she might have some useful contacts.’
The sergeant nodded. ‘Those Church Army ladies are good sorts,’ he said. ‘You know, Miss Heywood, I don’t believe you stole anything, and I think your friend will believe you, too. You’ve had a nasty shock with Dora. I sent a couple of men to shake her up. As expected, the fat man had gone and Dora claimed no strangers had been in her house. But the men found the window pole still on the bed upstairs, and there was blood on it and on the blankets. Dora blustered that two of her girls had had a fight up there, but she knew as well as my men did that, without the fat man, we couldn’t charge anyone with anything.’
‘Isn’t what she does against the law?’ Molly asked.
‘Soliciting on the street is.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘So is living off immoral earnings, which is what she’s doing. But we can’t prove that, or do anything about what goes on in private property.’
That seemed crazy to Molly, but then so did giving someone the sack for stealing when there was no proof.
‘Can I stay here till a more reasonable hour?’ she asked. ‘I can’t go knocking on someone’s door at seven or eight in the morning.’
‘No, you can’t,’ he said. ‘As I already told you, I’m off in a minute, but I’m going to take you upstairs now to our canteen and get them to give you some breakfast. Then I’m going to get one of my men to drive you to your Church Army lady. If she can’t take you in, he’ll take you on to someone else we fall back on at times like this. How would that be?’
Molly’s heart swelled up with gratitude and her eyes prickled with tears. She hadn’t expected such kindness. ‘Thank you so much,’ she managed to say, and had to cover her face to hide the tears.
A couple of hours later, after a breakfast of bacon, egg and sausage washed down by two large mugs of tea, PC Stanley delivered Molly to Constance’s door in Myrdle Street. Stanley was a big, craggy-faced copper in his early fifties, and on the drive to Whitechapel he had tried to make her laugh with some awful jokes.
Molly’s mother had always claimed that men telling jokes was a way of concealing that they couldn’t hold a real conversation, and she was probably right in this instance, as Molly had learned nothing personal about PC Stanley.
When they stopped outside Constance’s house PC Stanley said he would go and speak to her alone first. ‘Sarge said I should, as it will sort of oil the wheels if I tell her you were in real danger last night and assure her we don’t believe you stole anything. If she really can’t help you, it’s easier for her to tell me that without you there.’
Molly watched PC Stanley disappear into the house and hoped he wouldn’t try to tell Constance any terrible, unfunny jokes. She wasn’t happy about putting the old lady in a position where she’d feel obliged to help her. It wasn’t fair. Neither did she think she could bear to live in this terrible, grimy area for more than a couple of days.
PC Stanley came back to the doorway and beckoned for her to come in. Molly got out of the car with her suitcase and walked hesitantly towards the policeman.
‘It’s okay. She’s happy to put you up,’ he said. ‘She said she likes you a lot and was shocked at what has happened to you. So go on in and I’ll go back to the station.’
Molly thanked him and asked him to thank the sergeant, too, for his kindness. Then, as the policeman drove away, she made her way in to see Constance.
‘You poor love,’ the old lady said as soon as she saw Molly. ‘Come and sit down by the fire and tell me all about it.’
Constance was sitting by the fire in her wheelchair. She didn’t get out of it to hug her, she didn’t even hold out a reassuring hand, yet just the way she spoke it felt to Molly as if someone had just wrapped a warm, soft blanket around her. All at once she didn’t care how squalid Whitechapel was, or that she’d have to cope with no bathroom and an outside lavatory here. She felt safe and wanted.
All her other visits here had been on a different footing. She had been, to all intents and purposes, like a distant relative doing her duty in coming to see an old lady, staying just long enough to be polite, then leaving. Yet by one o’clock on Christmas morning, after wheeling Constance home in her wheelchair from the midnight service, Molly felt that fate had smiled on her. It wasn’t just a temporary place of refuge, somewhere she would want to leave as soon as she could. She felt that coming to the East End might actually be a really good thing for her.
All day, people had been dropping into Myrdle Street with food, offers of a shared Christmas dinner, to see if Constance needed any help, or just for a chat. These were nice people. They might be very poor, and often loud and coarse, but they had warm hearts.
Constance wasn’t bound to the wheelchair; she could walk well enough with a stick to get to the lavatory, to stand up to wash and dress herself and make a cup of tea. But she was frail and her neighbours clearly wanted to show how much they loved her by doing as much as possible for her.
They didn’t see Molly as some kind of interloper but as company for their friend, and when the story was told about her experiences the previous day, they were all in total sympathy with her. In fact, they were all impressed that she had got the better of the fat man in Greek Street.
Molly had spent the day not only meeting all the neighbours but decorating a small Christmas tree someone had brought round, helping wrap some toys for various small children Constance cared about, making up a narrow truckle bed for herself in the corner of the room and stowing her clothes away in a linen press.
Molly had always been involved with the church at home, not just going to services but singing in the choir and flower arranging, but she’d never been to a midnight service before. When Constance asked her to go with her, she agreed out of politeness, but she would rather have gone to bed. So it was a real surprise to find herself uplifted by the service. The carols, candles and flowers played a part, but it was more than that: she felt as if a burden had been taken from her shoulders and that whatever path she took after Christmas would be the right one.
She made some cocoa for her and Constance when they got in.
‘It will work out for you,’ Constance said as she got into her bed. ‘You mustn’t doubt that, dear. For now, you must just settle in here with me, rest and be comfortable. The New Year is the time for making plans.’
‘I had such a cheek throwing myself on you,’ Molly said, shame-faced. ‘But there wasn’t anyone else.’
‘It wasn’t chance,’ Constance said. ‘The whole thing – you finding my address in a book at Cassie’s home, feeling you had to see me – it was all meant to be. The Almighty has a plan here; we just have to wait until He decides to let us know what to do next.’
If Molly had heard anyone else say such a thing, she would have scoffed. But Constance had a way of talking about God as if he was her best friend and she knew he could sort anything. Molly was beginning to believe that, too.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
By mid-January Molly’s life had settled into a gentle routine. She couldn’t claim it was a c
omfortable one, in a cold, draughty house with no bathroom and so much squalor and poverty all around her. But she was surprisingly happy.
Constance’s belief that ‘the Lord will provide’ had rubbed off on her. Three days after Christmas she was walking by Pat’s Café on Whitechapel Road and she noticed a card in the window saying ‘PART-TIME HELP WANTED’. She went in immediately to enquire.
Pat Heady, who owned the café, was a woman in her early fifties, skinny, bedraggled and slovenly, and she was often very rude to her customers. The café was as grubby as its owner.
‘What do you want to work here for?’ Pat had asked Molly, looking at her with deep suspicion.
For two pins Molly would have turned and walked out. But she needed a job and, however grubby Pat and her café were, it was just a three-minute walk from home, and she needed to pay her way.
‘Because I need a job,’ Molly said, tempted to add that only a desperate person would want to work in Pat’s.
‘I only pay sixpence an hour, and it’s hard work.’
‘I’ll take it.’ Molly didn’t think she had any choice.
‘God love you!’ Pat’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. ‘I thought a posh bint like you would sooner put a fork in her eyes than work here.’
‘Desperate times call for desperate measures,’ Molly said with a grin. She quite liked being called a posh bint; she thought she would tell George about it when she eventually got round to writing to him. ‘When can I start and what are the hours?’
‘Start tomorrow if you like. I want you ten till two, but if you’re any good I might stretch that from nine to three,’ Pat said. ‘It’s mostly cooking fry-ups.’
Molly could see that the frying pan on the stove was half full of lard and that there were four eggs floating around in it. She thought she could definitely improve the standard of the cooking by using less fat. But she kept that to herself. ‘I’ll be in at ten then. My name is Molly Heywood.’