The Girl at My Door: An utterly gripping mystery thriller based on a true crime

by Rebecca Griffiths

  ‘No?’ She thought he looked as troubled as she felt. ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Queenie, darling…’ Terrence coughed into his hand. ‘She knows.’

  ‘You what?’

  ‘She knows.’

  ‘Who? Who knows?’

  ‘Joy. She knows about you and Charles. She knows you’re carrying his child. Buster told her last night at the club.’

  Queenie turned away from him. Began spooning loose tea out of a caddy her mother had bought. A battered tin with a faded portrait of Earl Grey stamped on its sides. It was something that had always been an object of mild family mockery but Queenie loved it. She’d grown up with it. Her father liked to fill it with Taylors tea. Earl Grey, no disrespect to his lordship – she replayed her father’s voice, anything other than listen to Terrence, who was pestering her for a reaction she wasn’t ready to give – was for toffs and women.

  Her hand shook as she poured boiling water into the teapot. Chose two of the pretty porcelain cups and saucers Terrence had bought her. With automatic movements, she closed the lid of the caddy and put it away into its cupboard. Gripped the teapot by the scruff of its tweed cosy and transported it from work surface to tabletop: a she-cat with a kitten.

  ‘Queenie? Say something…’ Terrence filtered through to her. ‘Are you all right? You’ve gone terribly pale. Sit down, darling, sit.’

  She let him steer her to a chair. ‘I’ll pour tea. Oh, I forgot the milk. It’s on the windowsill, can you get it?’

  ‘Never mind the bloody tea. Did you hear what I just said?’

  Queenie stared at her hands. The chipped nail varnish, the raw knuckles. It was as if the world had stopped, but looking out through the kitchen window, at what was left of the November afternoon, she saw black clouds sliding over the rooftops, threatening rain.

  ‘I should have been the one to tell her, not Buster. I’ve got to talk to her,’ Queenie spoke, at last. ‘It’s not too late, she’ll be at work.’

  ‘Is that wise?’

  ‘Probably not, but I can’t leave it like this.’

  ‘What will you say?’

  ‘I’ve no idea, but she deserves an explanation.’

  ‘Do you want me to come with you?’

  ‘Would you?’ Queenie looked up and into Terrence’s warm, kind eyes. Then, reaching out for his hand, she gripped it in her own.

  They left the pot of tea to go cold on the table. Queenie grabbed her bag and coat, and without checking her face or applying the merest smear of lipstick, she put an arm through Terrence’s and they head off out into the blustery street.

  They walked as far as Wimbledon Broadway, where they boarded a bus. Terrence wanted to climb to the top deck, so they did. Sat side by silent side, smoking cigarettes throughout the journey. Queenie could tell he was preoccupied, that it was something more than the trouble she was in. There was a heaviness about him that showed in the purple half-moons under his eyes. Did he hate her, was that it? Hate her in the way she hated herself for what she had done to Joy? She didn’t dare to ask, fearful of his answer, so she let whatever was bothering him sit beside them like another passenger as they turned their heads to look out through the bus windows at the lowering sun bleeding red over the city.

  They got off the bus when the British Museum’s tall black railings came into view. Queenie, her insides knotted up with nerves, felt the cold finger of wind push through her coat buttons as they bumped up against the traffic sounds along Great Russell Street.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Not really, but come on, I don’t want to miss her.’

  They took a right turn down into a side street squashed between the high walls of the museum. A route the staff used, which Joy had shown her. An old woman sat on the cobbles. Queenie could see the rotting and discoloured face. It was as if to look into the face of damnation. Beggars made her nervous with their visceral demands for help she couldn’t afford to give, so she shifted her attention to a gang of pigeons. Watched them swoop down on the overhanging roofs and dump their load, streaking the Portland stone with grey.

  ‘Help me, sweet lady. Spare me a penny?’ the woman called to her.

  Queenie’s mind curved back to the beggar she and Joy had seen in Hyde Park that showery spring day. Telling Joy off when she had given him money. What right did she have to do that?

  ‘Hang on for me, would you?’ She left Terrence and retraced her steps. Back to the woman whose head and shoulders were wrapped in a soiled blanket. ‘Here you go.’ She took out her purse and dropped coins into the filthy folds of the woman’s palm, watched the wrinkled fingers fumble over them.

  ‘Since when do you give to beggars?’ Terrence asked her when she returned to him.

  ‘Since I ruined my best friend’s life.’

  * * *

  It wasn’t Joy who came to meet Queenie in the grand marble foyer of the museum, it was Amy. Amy with her cloud of curls and freckle-filled face.

  ‘Where’s Joy?’

  From the girl’s hostile expression, Queenie wished she’d asked Terrence to come inside with her.

  ‘Are you mad, coming here like this? Joy doesn’t want to see you ever again.’

  ‘But I want to explain.’

  ‘There’s nothing to explain. You slept with her sweetheart and broke her heart. You’ve ruined everything…’ Queenie followed the trajectory of Amy’s gaze, saw it hover over her stomach. ‘You’ve even managed to ruin yourself by the look of you.’

  ‘Please? I want to tell her how sorry I am.’ She moistened her lips.

  ‘To salve your conscience, more like. You just don’t get it, do you? This isn’t about you. God, you’re unbelievable.’ Amy crossed her arms. ‘Who d’you think you are, turning up here? You’re beyond selfish.’

  ‘But how else am I going to put this right?’

  ‘Put this right?’ A sneer. ‘You really are brazen. Can’t you see how impossible that is? It’s your fault about that Buster bloke in your band, too. Joy wanted to finish at that sleazy club of yours, but you wouldn’t let her. She only agreed to work there to please you. Everything she did, she did to please you.’

  Queenie looked blank.

  ‘You don’t know about Buster, do you?’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘That the brute forced himself on her.’

  ‘What? When?’ Queenie slapped a hand to her mouth. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I’ve told you what happened, and I told Joy she should have reported him.’

  ‘Please let me see her,’ Queenie implored. She was thinking, If I hadn’t persuaded Joy to stay on at the club, she might never have found out about me and Charles.

  ‘No. Clear off and leave her alone.’

  ‘You can’t speak to me like that.’

  ‘Do you want me to have you removed from the building?’ Hands on hips, mildly threatening. ‘Because I will. You don’t realise, do you? The damage you’ve done to Joy… it’s… it’s beyond repair. Call yourself a friend?’ Amy flung back her head and Queenie saw there were tears in her eyes. ‘You’re no friend. You never deserved her.’

  51

  It was as if Joy had strayed into another narrative altogether. Nothing made sense any more. She couldn’t believe the two most precious people in the world had betrayed her. There had to be some mistake. Except there wasn’t. She’d been a fool. How could Charles have ever been hers? A man like him, a girl like her – who was she kidding?

  She had found an empty window seat. A quiet nook under the vast vaulted ceiling of the Reading Room. Sat with her feet tucked under her, turning page after page of a book, unable to take anything in. A break in the rain and a November sun blinked in through the permanently closed windows, throwing bands of gold against the walls of books. There one second, gone the next. They were as elusive as the wedding ring she had been promised but would never now wear. The light had gone from her since the night Buster had told her the truth. The core of her nothing more than a shrivelled,
ruined kernel as black as her father’s compost heap when he would push his garden fork into it. Her father’s compost had fertilised and fed; what was she fit to nourish? Not even herself, from the way she was shrinking inside her clothes. She knew it and knew her colleagues saw it also. Taking her gently by the elbow to question her mental state in the shadowy recesses of the museum. Buttonholing her in hollow corridors, in the deserted stairwell that led to different floors.

  ‘Charles is in reception. He says he needs to talk to you.’ Amy was suddenly beside her. Her earnest expression cut in half by shadow. She must have come up three flights of stairs to find her.

  ‘Tell him there’s nothing to say.’

  ‘If you’re sure?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  Amy disappeared again and Joy flopped back against the window. There wasn’t anything to say. What could he say that would put this right? He’d shown her who he wanted, he’d made his choice – she didn’t need to see him to know that. Part of her wanted to remember what the two of them had been, not for everything to be sullied, which it would be if she listened to his ham-fisted explanation.

  ‘Stuff him.’ Amy was back. ‘Let him think you’re coming, the stupid sod. I’m not going all the way back down there.’

  ‘I’m not surprised he’s come here. He keeps turning up at my lodgings.’

  ‘Does he?’

  Joy closed the book. ‘Banging on the door, waking people up. He’s going to land me in hot water with my landlord if he keeps on.’

  ‘Cruel sod. Why can’t he leave you alone? Her too, turning up here like that; who does she think she is?’

  ‘I am right not to hear what he has to say, aren’t I?’ Joy picked at a bobble on her blue wool jacket. Strange to be back in her old clothes, for the new Joy to have been put back in her box before she’d had the time to enjoy her. ‘Maybe there is an explanation? Maybe it was something I did. Do you think?’

  Amy picked up Joy’s hand. ‘This is not your fault; you’ve done nothing wrong.’

  ‘Queenie sent me a letter.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I haven’t opened it.’ Joy reached for her bag and took out the envelope that had arrived before she’d left for work that morning. ‘Will you read it to me?’

  ‘I will do no such thing. That bitch doesn’t deserve anything from you.’ Amy lifted the letter from Joy’s fingers and ripped it in half, then half again.

  Joy laughed a little at this. At Amy’s boldness. She was glad to have her as a shield. Sitting shoulder against shoulder, they stared out on the rain that had started again.

  ‘November.’ Amy groaned. ‘Such a dark time of year. Hang on in there, Joy. You’ve had the most terrible kick in the teeth. You don’t have to see either of them again, they’re no good for you. You have to do what’s best for you. You’re always thinking of everyone else.’ Amy put a protective arm around her and pulled her close. ‘Who is there to ever think of you?’

  ‘You’re always kind to me.’ Joy couldn’t stop the tears. They spilled over her cheeks like the rain against the window. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You don’t have to thank me, silly.’ Amy gave her another squeeze. ‘I’m here for you, you’re here for me, it’s what friends do.’

  Sadness held like a ball in the fist of that dreary afternoon. Joy waited for it to be thrown to her before speaking again.

  ‘I can’t get beyond him.’ She sobbed. ‘I don’t know what to do with myself.’

  ‘We used to play this game when we were little.’ Amy, taking their conversation in a different direction. ‘Do you want to play?’

  ‘We?’ Joy, a glimmer of interest.

  ‘Me and my sister. Pick a raindrop.’

  Joy put her finger to the windowpane. ‘I didn’t know you had a sister.’

  ‘You can meet her if you like. My lot are all coming to London fortnight Saturday. We always get together for a nosh-up before Christmas. Same place, it’s in Putney. Views of the bridge. You’ll love it.’ Amy bumped against her, jollying her along. ‘I can draw you a map so you’ll be able to find it?’

  Joy looked at her and nodded blankly into her enthusiasm; she didn’t have it in her to think that far ahead.

  ‘Right, this is mine.’ Amy tapped the glass. ‘We’ll see whose raindrop goes the fastest, shall we?’

  52

  Terrence stood in the middle of F. Lambert & Co’s impressive trading floor and looked around him. Operating as a private bank for over three hundred years, to enter this building from a crestfallen Fleet Street was to step into a bygone world. A world of exquisite architecture, antique portraits and furniture, untouched by the war. But he didn’t fit within the rich warm hues of the oak-panelled walls, the gentle lighting and muffled sounds of money-counting, and couldn’t care less that the bank’s collections included records from former customers such as Samuel Pepys, Lord Byron and Jane Austen. That it offered a unique insight into the minutiae of their lives.

  He had been lucky to get this job. His mother was always telling him and he was always telling himself. It was the only way he could drag himself in here day after day. To join the troupe of obsequious men who guarded the cash boxes and shared the etiolated look of creatures kept under stones.

  I dunno how you stand it with dem stuffed shirts, man. Terrence played Malcolm’s voice in his head. How did he stand it? These faceless men in suits weren’t his kind of people; always the outsider, all they did was make him feel inferior. You wanna be playin’ piano… that place is killin’ you, man.

  Turning, he saw how London’s light filtered through the high glazed windows and magnified its stateliness, its glamour, but not glamour like the Mockin’ Bird. And unlike the Mockin’ Bird, this place didn’t want him. A kind of dizziness afflicted him; he’d been experiencing it for several days. He wondered if he might be ill but refused to dwell on it, sensing it to be more of a realisation of his insignificance. A small cog in the mists of history he wouldn’t make any impact on. Fearful of falling, he propelled himself forwards, shoes clicking against the marble floor. Took up his position behind the curved walnut cash desk with its ornamental brass railings and removed his coat and hat, pegged them on the stand. He looked at the clock on the opposite wall and sighed at the prospect of another monotonous day stretching ahead.

  ‘Good morning, sir.’ Sensing the eyes attached to the scribbling hands of his colleagues, he greeted his first customer with a cheery smile. ‘What can I do for you today?’

  And so it went on. Well into the afternoon. Serving customer after customer. Receiving account transactions, deposits, loan payments; cashing cheques, issuing saving withdrawals. Nothing unusual. Nothing to concern himself with.

  ‘Don’t worry, madam, we’ll sort it out for you,’ he told one elderly lady who was fussing with his method of recording her mail deposits.

  ‘But it seems stupid—’

  ‘Stupid?’

  ‘Well, illogical.’

  Terrence tried to manufacture a convincing smile. ‘Please be assured, madam, it will be fine, absolutely fine.’

  ‘If you’re sure?’ the woman kept on.

  ‘I’m sure.’

  When the woman walked away, Terrence turned to file the relevant forms in a cabinet made up of tiny drawers. Then turned back to serve the next customer in the queue.

  Christie.

  Conveying the same deadly stare. The cosmic coldness it communicated travelled the length of Terrence’s arms.

  ‘’Ow do.’

  The hat was doffed and then removed. Held upturned like a begging bowl. Under the bank’s subdued electric bulbs, the man’s forehead glowed, giving his skin a strange, synthetic sheen.

  Sick with fear, Terrence was rendered silent.

  ‘Aren’t you pleased to see me, lad?’ the gentle voice enquired while the eyes bored through him.

  ‘What the hell d’you want?’ Finding his voice, at last, Terrence was frightened his colleagues would hear. He lowered his face and
hissed at Christie through the thin brass railings. ‘How the hell did you find me? Find where I work?’

  ‘I’ve been watching you, Terry, lad. You and your friends. Especially that lovely Joy. Such a sweet little thing, isn’t she?’

  ‘Joy!’ Terrence slapped a hand to the sudden clamminess that had broken out on his forehead. ‘You know Joy?’ The bubble of panic in his throat grew bigger and it took everything he had not to shout. ‘How d’you know her?’

  Christie tapped the side of his nose and Terrence could tell he was enjoying himself.

  ‘You’re to stay away from her, d’you hear?’

  ‘I know about that club you play piano in, too.’ Christie dismissed his concern with a nauseating smirk. ‘I bet they don’t know what you get up to in your spare time either. Like your friends here, because there’s no way they’d employ you in a place like this if they knew about your dirty little ways.’ That accent again, that sickening, gut-churning whisper. ‘Aye, I’ve been following you.’ Conceited and haughty. It was while fearing the damage this man could do to him, Terrence – not usually violent – had an overwhelming urge to punch him to the ground. ‘You want to keep your eyes open, lad. I know all there is to know about you.’

  Terrence studied him. He had the kind of face a nark might have. A man who grassed people up for fun. The kind of person who would squeal on him to the rozzers in a heartbeat.

  ‘I want you to clear off. Clear out of here.’

  ‘Dear me, that’s hardly polite, is it? I travel over here to see you, and you speak to me like that. Does your boss know what a dirty bugger you are? Standing there in your nice smart suit, earning your big fat salary. I wonder what he’d say? Shall we ask him?’

  Terrence could do nothing. In a kind of muted wonder, he watched Christie step back and raise his chin to scan the row of tellers, then further, his beady eyes searching through to the back where other colleagues of his sat working at desks.

  ‘Are you going to tell me which one your boss is, or do I have to shout to get his attention?’