The Daughter of Night (3 page)

He shook off her hands as though there was no particle of strength in her grip. 'Don't tell me what to do, Miss Hester Marsh! I'm merely considering if and how you should be paid. If I decide you should have the money, I then have to work out how best to pay you—'

'Cash,' she answered promptly. 'No cheques, I don't want anything traceable. What is it they say in the movies?—small denomination notes and in a paper bag—I want to be able to count it! Knowing Vilma, and you do get to know a person when you've spent the best part of your adult life tracing them—she's quite likely to try short-changing me. Money sticks to her little fingers like glue—she can't bear to part with it. And I don't want money from your family, that would spoil the whole thing—it'll hurt her that much more to have to part with her own.' She took a deep breath. 'Now you can call me a bitch, I deserve it!' And without waiting for a reply, she stormed into the tiny bathroom, slammed the door viciously, locked it and began to dress her shivering body in the clothes laid out ready.

Her teeth were chattering as she wriggled her chilled body into bra, panties and tights, topped them with the towelling robe which was still damp so that she shivered even more, and then waited for the sound of movement in the bedsitting room. She had no intention of leaving her refuge until he was gone.

It seemed like an age before she heard his footsteps leaving the room and going down the mini-hallway, and then came the sound of the quiet closing of her door onto the landing. She had taken off her watch before she showered and it was still lying where she'd left it on the mantlepiece in her bedsitting room, so she had no means of telling the time, so she sat on the stool beside the shower cabinet and counted slowly up to two hundred. After that, she took the catch off the bathroom door, opened it and poked her head round the narrow gap, still listening. She wasn't going to be caught again—she'd heard of people who slammed a door and then hid behind it, but everything was silent and there was that indefinable feeling that the flat was empty, so she felt it safe to emerge from her hiding place.

Picking up her watch, she gazed at the clear little face as though she could hardly believe so little time had passed since Demetrios Thalassis had forced his way into her bedsitter flat. She felt as exhausted as if she had been battling verbally with him for hours and hours, and reaction was setting in so that her slender body shook with tremors of cold and exhaustion. Wearily, she lit the middle bar of the gas fire, went into the microscopic kitchenette and started to make a pot of tea.

Her mouth was dry and her head was beginning to ache, so, while the kettle was boiling, she hunted through her bag for a couple of aspirins and, at last, sat down on the rug before the fire with her tea, to stare wearily at the glowing element, paying no attention to the hisses and whistling pops which the fire emitted. It always did that. Now she had to think.

Quietly she went over in her mind the contents of her bedsit. There was nothing here that could give him a lead, of that she was sure. Here she was Hester Marsh who lived alone, there were no traces of her past life, nothing which would lead anywhere but to this rather dreary little, place. That was good; she didn't want anybody else involved. Her musings were interrupted by a ring on the doorbell and for a moment every muscle in her body tightened in fear that it might be him again, come back to torment her some more, but there was a second ring and a third, which meant it was safe, and she scrambled to her feet to go and open the door.

It was only her landlady, who could be garrulous at times, and evidently this was going to be one of them.

'Everything all right, Miss Marsh?' The woman's face was filled with curiosity. 'I didn't know whether I should let your visitor up, but he seemed to know you—had your name off pat and he looked quite respectable…'

'Quite all right,' Hester manufactured a smile, 'But his visit delayed me a bit,' she indicated her robe. 'I was just going to take a shower when he arrived.'

'Looked like one of those lawyer fellows.' The landlady seemed determined to learn as much as she could and Hester knew from experience that she would ask questions until she had some sort of tale that satisfied her.

'Mmm,' she nodded, and smiled again. 'A small bequest, nothing much, not even worth a visit to his office, but you know how these legal people are, they have to satisfy themselves that I am who I am even if it's only a matter of a few pounds. And now,' she started to close the door, 'if you'll excuse me, I've got a date tonight and I'm late already.'

The landlady went off downstairs with sufficient misinformation to keep her happy for the rest of the week, and Hester closed the door and went back to the fire, slumping down on the rug and feeling sorry for herself.

Trust Vilma to make things as awkward as possible! It would have been so simple for her to pay up and keep quiet, but as Hester had told Demetrios Thalassis, Vilma wasn't like that. She'd got away with so many things in her life, she was greedy and couldn't bear to part with a penny, so Hester might have known she'd try to frighten her daughter off and she'd nearly succeeded.

But Hester was convinced that everything would be all right now. Tonight, she'd been taken by surprise; she had been expecting quite a battle with Vilma, but she hadn't allowed for having to fight that battle with an unknown quantity like Demetrios Thalassis. Even so, she grinned weakly to herself, she hadn't done so badly. In any other circumstances, Flo would have been proud of her!

Flo! Hester stared into the fire, remembering her foster-mother. Dear Flo, warm, kind and loving, with a maternal complex as big as the dome of St Paul's. Flo, who could never have a child of her own because of a rhesus negative blood factor, and Hester had always thought herself to be Flo's child. She'd known all about Mia, Flo's orphaned niece who had been adopted and come to live with them when she, Hester, had been five, but herself she had always thought of as really belonging.

It wasn't until she was eighteen that Flo had explained about her own fostering, and Hester had been angry at the thought of another, unknown mother. She could remember the scene as though it had only happened yesterday—herself being angry and hurt and Flo, stern and just but loving and understanding.

'She's
not
my mother,' Hester had stormed. 'She gave me away. I don't want to know anything about her!' and Flo had interrupted.

'Don't you speak like that, my girl. There's lots of reasons why your mother could have given you away. Women don't do that without cause, not to their own babies. Maybe she's been grieving all these years, but now you've got the chance to set her mind at rest. So stop getting into one of your paddys! Your dad and I loved you both, neither one more than the other, for all Mia's my brother's child. We chose you, remember, and your dad would turn in his grave if he could hear you now!'

'I'm sorry.' Hester had brushed away her tears with the back of her hand and allowed a watery smile to peep through. 'But I've always thought of myself as your daughter. It's been a bit of a blow.'

'And you're still my girl,' Flo had been brisk. 'Nothing will ever change that.'

Hester had been partly mollified, but only partly. 'I still don't want to know anything about her.' She had been flatly positive, and at that time she had meant every word, but that was before Flo became so very ill—a blood disease, all to do with that rhesus negative factor—and Mia, now a staff nurse, had found a Swiss specialist who had offered some hope.

It had cost nearly the earth to see the man when he paid a visit to London and then his prognosis had been overly cautious, but so very much more hopeful than that of any to her doctor Flo had been to. If he could have Flo in his Swiss clinic for six months, although a year might be better…

'He might as well ask us to send her to the moon!' Mia had been heartbroken. 'We could maybe afford the fare to get her there, but did you hear what it would cost to keep her there—five hundred pounds a week! We just haven't got that kind of money.'

It was at that moment that Hester had her bright idea. She, despite her protest, had already done a bit of work in tracing her own mother. She had at least established that she was a wealthy woman, and Hester reckoned that her mother owed Flo this much at least. A little further investigation had proved to her that Flo was owed much more than that. She had concocted her plot and then discussed it with Mia, who wasn't enthusiastic, but Mia had always been a scaredy-cat and rather timid.

'As long as Flo doesn't know,' she had said, 'and as long as you don't get yourself into trouble…'

Hester had qualms herself, but she put a brave face on it. 'Poh! I'm not doing anything illegal, I'm just asking my own mother to give me some money—that's quite within the law, isn't it?' And at Mia's nod, she had gone off to her bedsit to put her plan into operation.

Of course, she hadn't been able to tell Mia the whole of it and they hadn't told Flo any part. Doing either of those things would have doomed it from the start. Flo was rigidly honest, she wouldn't have accepted a penny from anybody else, and Mia was too timid. She would have balked at blackmail and given the whole thing away in no time flat.

Half an hour later, dressed in a lovat tweed skirt, a matching sweater, a suede jacket and soft casual shoes, Hester left her flatlet to visit Mia and Flo. She had originally intended to take a taxi, but something inside her was being very cautious. She had tried laughing it off, jeering at herself for suspecting that Demetrios Thalassis would have her followed, something out of a second-rate T.V. thriller, she told herself—it wouldn't happen to her, but caution won. There was too much at stake—Flo's health, maybe even her life—for Hester to be careless.

Instead she went by tube from Finsbury Park to Holborn, where she changed for Mile End, and once there, she threaded her way through streets which were as familiar to her as the back of her own hand— she could have walked them blindfold to find the block of Council flats which had been all the home she'd ever known until a few years ago. Several people— acquaintances from her youth—hailed her and stopped to speak, giving messages for Flo and admiring the flowers she was carrying, and she answered them and their questions cheerily, knowing it wasn't just curiosity which prompted them but real interest. Flo was a neighbour and a good neighbour in this tight-knit community of East Enders.

She avoided the lift—too many times she'd found it broken down—and made straight for the stairs, nearly running up all four flights of them to arrive at the flat door out of breath. She was nearly an hour late. There was no need to knock, she still had a key, and she went into the parlour softly.

'How is she?' Hester kept her voice down and Mia, who was stripping off her nurse's uniform, turned to her with a glad smile.

'No worse today.' Mia spoke in little more than a whisper. Flo had keen ears and the walls were far from soundproof. 'Did you get it?'

Hester made a little face to indicate her lack of success so far. 'But I shall, Mia—don't worry so.'

Mia fluffed up her light brown hair which the cap had flattened and her glad smile turned to an expression of doom. 'But I do worry, Hes. I worry about you and what you're doing all the time. You're going to get yourself into trouble, I know you are. It was a mad idea!'