Coronation Wives (51 page)

She forced herself to concentrate on what Brookman was saying.

‘As long as those documents are kept in order, the Bureau for Displaced Persons cannot be responsible for any anomalies.’

Charlotte’s spirits sank. Nothing could be done. But Brookman had more to say.

‘On investigation it was found that a local police sergeant has been stamping the documents whenever these employers wanted to move workers to a different construction site. He was being paid very handsomely to falsify records. Your
people were being employed very cheaply. As most could not speak English they could not protest.’

Her spirits soared higher than they had for weeks. ‘So this policeman’s been arrested?’

‘He has. But he’s not saying much about the people paying him and making the most money. There are others at the top, principally this Michael O’Hara. He’s the one we really want. It’s almost a tradition that the Irish control illegal hiring on building sites, but we think in this case that things are not quite as they seem. We have reason to believe O’Hara is not who he says he is. Could his accent be anything other than Irish?’

Charlotte frowned as his face and a memory flashed into her mind. ‘Yes! American!’

‘Ah!’

Brookman’s short, sharp exclamation said it all. There was something more to this.

She said what was in her mind and had been since first seeing him. ‘I keep thinking I’ve seen him somewhere before – perhaps in the war. His hair might be a different colour of course …’

‘Does the name Mickey Noble mean anything to you?’

‘Not really.’

‘If this man is Noble he’s an American ex-serviceman and was questioned about his papers back in nineteen fifty after a pub landlord was certain he was the man who’d attacked a soldier in his pub four years before that. O’Hara, or Noble, was questioned. The investigation went so far then suddenly the landlord withdrew his accusation.’

‘Why did he do that?’

‘I don’t know. But as I have said, an investigation was instituted and it seemed to be heading in a questionable direction. If O’Hara is Noble, it means that he is here on false papers. It also means that this is a man wanted by the United
States Army for the suspected killing of a fellow soldier. Fingerprints would be useful plus any relevant documentation to back it up. I’ll post you the details.’

Noble. Mickey Noble. What was it about that name and about that man? Where had she seen him before? She sighed, closed her eyes and tried to remember. It was no good. I’m getting old, she thought, and felt suddenly drained of energy. But the question remained. Who was Mickey Noble?

Mickey O’Hara was trying to seduce her. Polly knew he was and the very thought of it made her feel like a young girl again, not a married woman with an eleven-year-old daughter.

‘Have another port and lemon, honey.’

Honey! How long had it been since she’d heard that word. Coupled with his accent it took her back to a time when the world had seemed full of good-looking Americans who spoke like Gary Cooper at best or James Cagney at worst.

He took her out just one night a week – that’s all it was. Saturday night at the Lucky Cat Club, which was approached down steps slippery with moss. If it had had windows they would have looked out over the river, but they were boarded over. Originally the basement of a large Georgian house – all that remained of the house nowadays – now a gathering point for those who liked thick smoke with their whisky and the company of women who were called Gertie by day and Gloria once darkness had fallen and the streetlights had come on.

Polly was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, partly because she was on her third drink and partly because she was attracting looks from blokes in double-breasted suits with gold fillings and big cigars. A lot of women smoked too. One in a dark blue dress was using a cigarette holder like the one Charlotte had used at the birthday party the day before the Coronation.

‘I’d look like Jean Harlow if I had one of them,’ she said to Mickey.

His eyes followed the girl. ‘That’s one hell of a hot baby.’

Biting back her jealousy, Polly watched too. The girl was standing behind her boyfriend, her arms wound around him. Her hands looked as though they met somewhere below his waist.

‘Hmm,’ murmured Polly. ‘That’s a baby likely to get burned.’

Mickey laughed, put his arm around her and kissed her cheek.

Polly studied his features as though trying to guess what he thought of her, where their relationship might end up. Was she likely to get burned too? She didn’t want to think so. He wasn’t the best-looking bloke she’d ever gone out with, but he certainly knew how to treat a girl. And that smile! As long as he smiled like that, looked at her like that, she was putty in his hands.

And Mickey knew it. What Polly didn’t know was that it amused him to have her in his thrall. Polly looked at him sometimes as if she were trying to remember where she’d seen him before. It pleased him to charm her into forgetfulness. Weakness, obsessive behaviour no matter whether it was with regard to gambling, drinking, drugs or sex, Mickey liked to control. And in this particular case it was doubly delicious. A cruel streak ran through him so he would never tell her where they had originally met. If she remembered of her own accord, then so be it. But in the meantime he would take advantage of her in any way he could. What if she was married? What was it to him?

The people in the nightclub were no more than blurred blobs of colour moving against a background of mellow lights. The scene came back into clearer focus as a head bent towards Mickey’s. Ginger! He whispered something into Mickey’s ear. Polly pouted. Were they talking about her? Had Ginger ever
told Mickey how an eleven-year-old girl had soundly beaten him with a hockey stick? Not likely, she thought.

Ginger was looking towards the girl in blue and the young toffs she was with, who were beginning to make a nuisance of themselves. The girl in blue had undone the buttons on her boyfriend’s shirt. Now she was down on her knees, unbuttoning his flies, obviously drunk and egged on by the crowd of young men and the one or two women with them.

Mickey got to his feet and excused himself.

Polly pretended to be a lady and looked the other way, but still heard the shouting and screaming as Mickey and his mates bundled the upper crust crowd out of the club and up to the pavement.

He’s very manly, she thought to herself as she eyed the thick red padding of the bar, the glasses and bottles behind it, their gleam reflected and magnified by the mirrors behind them.

All his, she thought. And they all do what he says. She liked that in a man – authority. Hell, it seemed an age since she’d lain in bed with Billy on a Sunday morning, the best time of all for cuddling up together after peeling their nightclothes off beneath the bedclothes.

A warm flush began to creep over her body. It seemed to start from her toes, but she couldn’t be sure. All she did know was that she suddenly needed Billy – a man – Mickey – physically.

It was fifteen minutes or more before Mickey came back, smoothing the wide lapels of his suit and straightening his tie, enough time for her to get her feelings under control. She patted her cheeks with the back of her right hand.

‘Sorry about that, honey.’ He kissed her cheek. His fingers caressed the nape of her neck. The tingles it caused spread over her body like a spider’s web.

I mustn’t, she thought. Let him take you home, but nothing else, mind you. Be a good girl, Polly Hills.

Thinking it was one thing. Telling him to get lost was an option, but one she didn’t choose. Like an overripe apple, she was falling from the tree. All she could hope for was a soft landing.

‘You’re going to let me take you home, aren’t you?’

‘Yes.’

There it was, the word was out.

He looked into her eyes as he repeated it. ‘Yes.’

And they both knew it wasn’t just the lift they were talking about.

Just as she’d expected, he took a detour. Protestations about her being a respectable married woman stuck in her throat.

The car was spacious. There were no lights on the narrow roads around Durdham Down and there were places to park beneath the trees where the darkness was thickest and privacy was assured.

It started as soft caresses, his hands gently moving around her neck, cupping her face as he kissed her mouth. Her best black coat was thrown over the front seat. The heat of his hands warmed her breasts, but still she shivered as the touch of his palms resurrected old thrills she thought long past. His fingers moved slowly, teasingly beneath her skirt, over her stockings to where they ended and her bare flesh began. She groaned and almost begged for more.

It was like Chinese torture. He was drip-feeding the pleasure so she couldn’t help but want more. And she’d been starved for so long. Would it really be so dreadful to give in, to enjoy it just this once?

The house was in darkness when Polly got home. The streetlights were out. Curtains upstairs were tightly closed. A
faint moon shone through a crisp frost. Camborne Road was sound asleep.

Creeping home silently was not new for Polly. It was second nature to slip off her shoes even before putting her key in the door. She lit a match to see the lock better, snuffed it out quickly once the key was in then pushed the door open.

Although little light filtered through the dimpled glass of the council house door, there was enough to see by. She wouldn’t need to reach for the light switch. Anyway, council house hallways were hardly spacious. Front door, living room door to the left, coats, jackets and macs hanging on coat hooks to the right, stairs to the bedrooms straight in front of her.

The lino beneath her feet was as cold as the concrete path out in the garden. But she gritted her teeth. Rather cold feet than a ticking off from Aunty Meg. She wouldn’t attempt the stairs. They creaked about halfway up and would quickly give the game away. It wouldn’t hurt to sleep on the settee for one night even if the springs did play a bit of a tune if you moved too vigorously. If she lay very still there’d be no sound at all. In the darkness of the living room with just the glow of a dying fire for company she could think about things – and there was a lot to think about.

Hanging on to the handle so she could stop the door if it creaked, she pushed it open. Just as she’d envisaged the coal that had been heaped and black when she’d gone out was now no more than a glowing bed of red embers. The glow made the room look as if it too was smouldering slightly. It also illuminated Aunty Meg who was hunched in her favourite armchair pulled close to the fire. Polly’s heart fell to her feet.

‘So you did it!’ Meg’s voice was sharp and accusing.

For once Polly was dumbstruck.

Meg continued. ‘You’re no saint, Poll, but I never expected you to play around once you were married even though yer bloke’s got ’imself in clink.’

Polly opened her mouth to protest her innocence, but stopped when Meg looked directly at her. There was no doubting the accusation in her eyes. She rethought things, decided to brazen it out and stepped closer to the fire.

‘I work for him. That’s all.’

‘Don’t make me laugh, Poll. I know damn well what work that sort wants you to do!’

Polly feigned indignation. ‘I work in his nightclub of course. Like a sort of manageress.’

‘Oh, it’s a manageress now, is it? I thought it was supposed to be an office job?’

Polly made a great show of tidying her hair while studying her reflection in the mirror above the fireplace. The glow of the fire lit her face from underneath. Shadows accentuated her features and for a split second she almost thought it was Old Nick looking back out at her. Bloody hell, she weren’t that wicked!

‘There’s no money in office work,’ she managed to say. ‘It’s a job for stuck-up cows like Charlotte’s Janet or timid little tarts like Edna. It’s not for me.’

Meg slapped her meaty hands down on the chair arms so hard it made Polly almost jump out of the black gaberdine suit she was wearing. ‘Well, it’s all coming about, ain’t it? Running around with two-bit scum and running yer friends down. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!’

Polly’s defiance turned to anger. ‘Mickey’s looking after me. He thinks the world of me. See? Look what ’e gave me.’ She took the cigarette holder from her bag and showed it to Meg in the palm of her hand. The girl who’d been thrown out of the club had left it behind.

Meg barely glanced at it. ‘Billy gave you a ring – gold too.’

Polly felt her face grow hotter and it wasn’t because of the fire. She’d been a willing partner in the back of Mickey’s car.
She’d missed having sex with Billy, but she’d told herself it would be all right. She didn’t love Mickey. At least she didn’t think she did.

‘He’s all right,’ she blurted at last and set the cigarette holder down on the mantelpiece. She turned to Aunty Meg and did her best to sound as emphatic as possible. ‘He’s all right. Honest he is.’

Meg pushed her hands down on the arms of the chair and pulled herself to her feet. She faced Polly square on, her accusing expression just inches from Polly’s face.

‘What have you done, Poll? What have you done? You’re just a toy to him. He’ll play with you and then throw you aside like some old rag doll with her stuffing coming out. And then you’ll be running back to Billy. And what will you say to him, Poll? What will you say?’

Polly stuck her chin out defiantly. ‘So who’s going to tell him?’

The stairs out in the hall creaked slightly. Blinking away the sleep Carol was settled on a stair and flattened against the wall.

She’d heard the noise and had almost convinced herself that Father Christmas was back with the presents she’d asked for, but had never got at Christmas. But no, of course not. She wasn’t a kid. She knew what her mother was like. She’d been out with another man, and from what her Aunty Meg was saying, he was something to do with the nasty pair who’d come in and pushed them around.

‘I’m not ’aving it,’ shouted Meg. ‘It’s not right. An’ Billy will find out about it – mark my words!’

Carol frowned and muttered. ‘Mum, you are a stupid cow!’ She shook her head sagely and lay closer to the wall so she could hear better. Her mother didn’t always think straight, but Carol did.