Without a Trace (15 page)

‘I thought the same myself,’ Molly said, then explained everything, beginning from when she found her friend dead. ‘The coroner said the bruising on her arms and neck was evidence of a struggle, then it seemed she either fell back on to the hearth or was pushed, and her head banged hard on it, breaking her skull.’

Molly paused. She could see that Constance felt as deeply about Cassie as she did, and that was all the justification she needed to continue to search for answers.

‘What I don’t understand, though,’ she continued, ‘is why the police have given up on looking for Petal. I kind of see why they’ve run out of steam in finding Cassie’s killer, but they shouldn’t have stopped searching for a six-year-old. They wouldn’t be this way if she was the daughter of a doctor, or a teacher – someone that mattered. I hate it that they don’t
care about her because she’s mixed race and her mother wasn’t married.’

Constance reached out and patted Molly’s knee. ‘You mustn’t hate. Pity people’s ignorance and prejudice perhaps, and try to show them by example what is right, but hating just makes you feel bad inside and serves no useful purpose.’

Molly smiled weakly. She liked everything about this woman: her soft blue eyes that were full of understanding; her acceptance that she had to be in a wheelchair now after spending the best part of her life caring for the poor. ‘I came to you because I’m hoping you can tell me stuff about Cassie which may make sense of everything. I want to be a detective and find Petal.’

‘That sounds a good idea to me.’ Constance smiled. ‘Though I don’t think I have any information that will help you. Cassie wasn’t one for confiding things about herself.’

‘But she must have told you where she came from, and something about Petal’s father?’

‘No, she didn’t. Let me explain something, Molly. People who aren’t born here in the East End come to live here for widely varying reasons,’ Constance said earnestly. ‘People like me, and nurses, doctors and social workers come here to serve the community. Some think it’s sort of romantic or heroic to work with the poor, and they soon find out that’s not the case and leave. Others, like me, come to love the people and stay. Other newcomers are immigrants, and they come because this is where friends and relatives have already settled and they want to join them. If you look around, you will see people from almost every corner of the globe: Jews, Arabs, Africans, Indians, and many more.

‘Other people end up here because they are too poor to go
anywhere else. Finally, some are running away and see this as a good place to hide. But I doubt that any of these people, other than those who work here or were born here, actually want to live here. It is too tough and harsh.’

‘Do you think Cassie was running away?’

‘Yes, I believe so. But I don’t think she was hiding from the police. She would chat happily to a constable on his beat. She certainly didn’t slink away.’

‘So that means she’d run away from Petal’s father?’

Constance sighed. ‘That does seem to be the obvious assumption, but I’ve found that women tend to admit such things once they feel safe with a new friend. She never spoke of Petal’s father once, not even in a vague way. I came to the conclusion it was her parents she’d run away from.’

‘I’ve thought of that myself,’ Molly said. ‘But her father died in the war, so maybe her mother?’

‘Possibly. There were pointers to her having had a quite privileged childhood, though. She was well spoken, well educated, she had first-class manners. I would take a guess that she was brought up by a nanny or a housekeeper, though.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘The lack of information about her mother, really. We all mention our mothers, even if only in passing. I asked Cassie once if she was orphaned, and she looked shocked. “I have a mother,” she said. “She just doesn’t figure in my life.” I thought that was a very odd thing to say.’

‘Yes, I agree.’ Molly frowned. ‘It sounds like she’d deliberately cut herself off.’

Constance nodded. ‘Hmm. I thought maybe her mother was cruel to her when Petal was born – after all, an unmarried mother with a mixed race baby is often far too much for some
people to deal with. Especially those higher up the social scale. But, if that was the case and Cassie had been thrown out because of it, you would expect her to be bitter. But she wasn’t.’

‘No, I never saw any bitterness in her either,’ Molly agreed. ‘Did she ever say where she grew up? What she’d done before she had Petal?’

Constance shook her head. ‘She told me once she used to ride. The way she said that made me think she was brought up with horses, not just a ride now and then on a friend’s or neighbour’s horse. I don’t think she ever worked for a living – another clue to a gentle, privileged upbringing. Those sort of girls don’t work.’

‘But while she was here, how did she live?’

‘I think she must have had savings. Or she sold jewellery or other things to keep herself. She lived very frugally. She wasn’t above collecting up fallen fruit or vegetables at the close of the market. But, speaking of food, let’s have a cup of tea and some cake!’

Molly made the tea and, on Constance’s instructions, got a fruit cake out of a tin and the best china from the sideboard.

She clearly lived very frugally, too. The one room was simply furnished: a bed covered in a dark-blue blanket, two easy chairs by the fireplace, a sideboard, a table and two chairs. There were lots of books on shelves and a couple of lovely watercolours of a picturesque village. There were also various religious pictures, but these weren’t framed, just tacked to the wall. The room was clean and neat, although there were damp stains on the walls and a faint musty smell. Constance said she was fortunate enough to have two kind friends who came in and helped her wash and dress and kept the place clean. To
Molly, it seemed a very sad and lonely life being in a wheelchair, and alone for much of the day. But Constance seemed happy with it.

‘Do you get out?’ Molly asked her as they waited for the kettle to boil. ‘I mean, is there anyone who can take you out in your wheelchair?’

‘Oh yes! Don’t you get the idea I’m some sort of hermit. Most days someone will pop round and take me for a spin. Reverend Adams – he’s the vicar at St Swithin’s, takes me to church every Sunday, and I go home with him for lunch, too. People are very kind. That fruit cake, for instance, was a gift from a parishioner. I get people dropping in, too. It’s a rare day when I don’t see anyone.’

Constance kept asking Molly about her life and family, and it was all Molly could do to keep dragging the conversation back to Cassie. She found out that her friend had lived here for three years and only left then because she wanted Petal to go to a good school.

‘The schools around here are overcrowded, and they don’t attract good teachers,’ Constance admitted. ‘The government seems to have forgotten that we took the brunt of the Blitz here, and they are being very slow to clear the bomb sites and build new homes. Some families share one room with another family. There are children who don’t even have a bed to sleep in, or share it with all their siblings. Most people don’t have a bathroom in their home, babies get bitten by rats very often, and I’d say at least a quarter of the children are suffering from malnutrition. We keep hearing that England is almost bankrupt from the expense of the war, yet they found the money for a lavish Coronation. Don’t get me wrong, I love and admire the royal family, but if I was in charge I’d put ordinary families first.’

‘Well, we do have the National Health Service now,’ Molly ventured, rather surprised that someone like Constance would criticize the Coronation.

‘Yes, and it’s a wonderful thing to have free medical care,’ Constance said with a smile. ‘But people’s health would improve vastly with decent housing; too many small children are still dying of preventable diseases.’

This struck a chord with Molly. Cassie had often said similar things and, somehow, that confirmed how well she’d known Constance.

‘When did you last hear from Cassie?’ Molly asked.

Constance frowned, as if trying to picture it. ‘I think it was late 1950. I’ve probably got her last letter here somewhere. She told me she didn’t like living in Bristol, but she thought the countryside around it was lovely and she was going to look for somewhere to live there. I was a little hurt that she didn’t write again. She had told me she wasn’t good at keeping in touch, but I suppose I thought I was a special case.’

‘From what you’ve told me, I think you were, and maybe the reason she didn’t write to you was because she was afraid whoever she was running from might come to you. That would be a very good reason not to tell you where she was.’

Constance half smiled. ‘You make it sound very cloak and dagger, Molly, but you might be right, because there was a man making enquiries about her around that time. He didn’t come to me, but he questioned a few people in the road. They said they thought he was a private detective.’

‘Really?’ Molly exclaimed. ‘What did people tell him?’

‘They couldn’t tell him anything, because they didn’t know. I was the only person who knew she’d moved to Bristol, and I hadn’t said a word to anyone. But people round here don’t
tell tales anyway, not if they like the person, and people did like Cassie. She slotted in here, Molly. Women liked her because she was straight-talking; she’d write letters for them if they couldn’t do it. She helped children with their reading; she talked to them, too. She could make a fancy-dress outfit out of nothing and often helped people decorate their homes. A great many people missed her when she moved away, and those who I have told about her death are very sad.’

‘It sounds as if people here are a lot broader minded than back home.’ Molly sighed. ‘She had few friends in our village. It’s one of the reasons I want to move to London.’

‘You may find the girls in Bourne & Hollingsworth are even smaller minded than your neighbours back home,’ Constance said, arching one eyebrow. ‘I’ve known a few girls who have worked in the big London stores and, for most, it’s not as they imagined. But I’m sure you’ll rise above it.’

‘Don’t say that!’ Molly said in alarm. ‘I thought it was going to be fun!’

‘It might very well be,’ Constance said soothingly. ‘I’ve lived in the East End so long I can’t imagine a life now where you can’t speak your mind or be a bit different. All I can say is that if you don’t like it, Molly, you come right back here. I’ll help you find a job and somewhere to live.’

Molly didn’t think it would come to that. But before she could make any comment a woman came in, greeting Constance as ‘Sister’. Her name was Sheila. Molly thought she was in her late thirties, and she wore a flowery print pinafore and a headscarf over metal curlers.

‘This is Molly, the friend of Cassie’s I told you about,’ Constance said. ‘She wants to play detective and find Petal.’

Sheila looked hard at Molly. ‘Terrible business,’ she said.
‘We was fond of Cassie and her little girl round ’ere. It were a nasty shock to ’ear she were dead. I reckon it all had to do with an inheritance. She were ’iding up when she were ’ere, but maybe she were too close to ’er ’ome and got spotted.’

‘Where do you think she came from, then?’ Cassie asked.

‘I’d say down Sussex way. She mentioned riding her ’orse on the downs. And she talked about the sea. Didn’t she mention Hastings and the marshes in that notebook she left ’ere, Sister?’

Molly sat up straight. ‘Notebook?’

‘Well, a journal I think you’d call it. Just scribblings of poetry, really, Molly,’ Constance said. ‘You can find it in the sideboard. I have no idea why she left it with me.’

‘When you say she left it with you, would that be like leaving it here by accident, or wanting you to keep it safe?’

Constance frowned. ‘I don’t really know. She left it here one evening and when, a couple of days later, I mentioned I still had it, she just said, “Oh, you hang on to it for me.” I gathered by that it wasn’t important.’

‘May I take it away with me to read?’

‘Please do. Maybe as you are closer in age to her than me, you’ll find something meaningful in it. I can’t be doing with poetry that doesn’t rhyme.’

Constance pointed to the sideboard and said Molly would find it at the back, under a biscuit tin.

The notebook had a brown leather cover and an elastic strap that held it closed. Molly opened it at the first page and read aloud:

‘“Fletcher’s box, where he keeps his socks, and the schemes and dreams that don’t fit in his head.

‘“His clothes, his tools and his mother’s old jewels, he keeps in a suitcase under his bed.”’

Sheila snorted with laughter. ‘That’s a bit peculiar. But it kind of rhymes.’

Molly laughed too. ‘It
is
peculiar, but I like it just the same. It’s very Cassie! But that’s all there is to it, unfortunately.’

‘Did she tell you she liked to write poetry?’ Constance asked.

‘She did mention it once. She had a diary – it looked a bit like this notebook – she said she wrote her thoughts in it. It wasn’t found in her home after she died.’

‘Sounds like the geezer who killed ’er took it, then,’ Sheila said. ‘Tell us, Molly, were she ’appy down in Somerset?’

‘Yes, I’d say so. People in the village were a bit mean to her, but she seemed to accept that was just the way it was. As long as they weren’t nasty to Petal, she didn’t seem troubled.’

‘Were there a man in her life?’

Molly wasn’t sure how to reply to that. She didn’t want to tell the truth and shock Constance.

‘I think she had a couple of admirers,’ she replied hesitantly. ‘But they were ruled out as her killer, and I never met them.’

‘Sounds like she hadn’t changed much,’ Sheila said with a smile. ‘She were always cagey about that stuff when she were ’ere. But I knowed there was a couple of blokes sniffin’ around.’

‘Oh, Sheila, you always like to add a bit of drama to everything!’ Constance said with a little chuckle.

Molly talked to the two women for a little longer, but sensing that Sheila had come to see Constance for more than just a social call, she told them she had to go.

‘Come back and see me again once you’ve moved to London,’ Constance urged her. ‘If I hear anything more about Cassie, I’ll pass it on to you.’