Without a Trace

by Lesley Pearse

  ‘I’m not likely to make a fool of myself over any man,’ she said sharply. ‘I’ve got more self-respect.’

  ‘I was just warning you. I heard in the pub last night that his wife came looking for him. Seems he’d walked out on her.’

  ‘Fancy that,’ she said, picking up the basket of vegetables. ‘Excuse me. I’ll take these up to Mum.’

  She didn’t go upstairs, but went out into the backyard and sat on the bench in the sun to gather herself.

  It didn’t make any real difference to her that Simon was married, or that he’d walked out on his wife. Apart from a couple of friendly chats, there was nothing between them, whatever her father thought. He must’ve had his reasons for leaving his wife – she, of all people, understood that no one knew what went on behind closed doors.

  But what this news had done was remind her that she could be an awful fool when it came to men, and that, if Simon had made a play for her, she’d probably be putty in his hands, just the way she’d been with Andy Soames.

  Andy was a bricklayer. He’d come into the shop when he was building a new house just outside the village. She was nineteen then; he was twenty-five: tall, blond, blue-eyed and, to her eyes, utter perfection. He had flirted with her as he bought a pork pie and some apples for his lunch.

  That afternoon she had taken off her shop overall, brushed her hair and put on some lipstick. A quarter of tea had been accidentally left out of a delivery to Mrs Rawlings that morning, so Molly told her mother she was going to drop it in to her. The house Andy was working on was, conveniently, in the same direction as the Rawlings place.

  Andy was standing on the scaffolding around the half-built house. He’d taken his shirt off because it was a hot day, and the sight of his bronzed bare chest with its rippling muscles made her feel quite faint.

  ‘Out for a walk?’ he called out, leaning on the scaffolding rail and smiling down at her.

  ‘Taking this round to a customer,’ she called back, waving the tea. ‘It’s far too nice to be stuck in the shop this afternoon.’

  He moved suddenly, catching hold of one of the vertical scaffold poles, and shinned down it at the speed of light.

  ‘That was impressive,’ she said. ‘You didn’t even look as if you were hanging on.’

  ‘A trick of the trade,’ he said, flashing a wide smile that showed his startlingly white teeth.

  She ought to have known right then that he was out of her league. Men that looked like him wouldn’t fall for a girl like her. But when he said he would walk with her to deliver the tea and perhaps take a stroll across the fields, she stupidly imagined he was smitten by her.

  He kissed her as soon as they were in a field and tried to persuade her to lie down in the grass with him. His kiss sent her reeling, and she might have lain down with him if her father hadn’t been expecting her back at the shop. As it turned out, after three or four such incidents, she began to see that all he wanted from her was sex. He never asked her out. Not a night out at the pictures or a dance when he was washed, shaved and in smart clothes. All he ever offered was a walk during the day, when he was all dirty and smelling of sweat. Yet each time she agreed to meet him up the road she came very close to losing her virginity.

  It was purely the fear of having a baby that stopped her going the whole way. She knew her father would throw her out if she fell pregnant and, anyway, she’d seen other girls she’d gone to school with either being made to marry the boy responsible or sent away in disgrace and having the baby adopted.

  But she had wanted him so much. Just the thought of his kisses made her tremble and her stomach flip over. Three weeks later his work in the village was finished, and he never even came to say goodbye to her.

  It was a harsh lesson. She cried at night for weeks, feeling cheap and used. But maybe it was a worthwhile lesson, because she had never let any other man or boy treat her that way since. Of course, Cassie had said she saw nothing wrong in having sex before marriage, as long as you made sure the man used a Durex. As Molly couldn’t imagine ever being bold enough to ask a man if he had one, she had told herself she wasn’t ever going to go that far. Yet even at Cassie’s funeral she’d been having erotic thoughts about Simon. If he had made a pass at her, might she have succumbed? She thought, to her shame, that it was likely.

  A little later that morning her mother came into the shop and, between customers, Molly told her about Enoch Flowers.

  ‘My word, that’s a turn-up!’ her mother exclaimed. ‘He doesn’t normally give anyone the time of day.’

  ‘He’s a bit of an outcast – I expect that’s why he understood Cassie,’ Molly said. ‘I’ll go up to the cottage after we close and look around.’

  Mary looked anxious. ‘I don’t like to think of you up there alone,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t be daft, Mum. The person who killed Cassie and took Petal won’t be hanging around there looking for another victim.’

  ‘Perhaps not, but go now and get it over with.’

  Molly was pleased to get out, and jumped on her bicycle. Ever since she had decided she was going to go to London she had found the days in the shop endless. Only last night her mother had told her she had withdrawn some money from her post-office account for Molly and that she ought to go soon. Molly’s plan was to write to Bourne & Hollingsworth, a department store in London’s Oxford Street, to ask for a job. The reason she’d picked that shop was because she remembered from Margaret, an old schoolfriend, who had gone to work there years ago, that they had a hostel where the staff lived. Margaret had worked there right up till last year, when she got married, and she had been very happy.

  The bushes either side of the track to Stone Cottage had grown thicker since she last came up here and appeared to be doing their best to hide the footpath. It was also eerily quiet. Molly felt a little nervous, and looked all around her as she approached the cottage.

  ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said aloud. ‘There’s nothing here to harm you.’ Yet, all the same, she retrieved the key quickly from its place by the pump and hastily unlocked the door.

  Looking around inside, she found a multicoloured silk scarf in a drawer which she’d always admired on Cassie, and put it to one side. There was also a pretty little gold-and-white hand-painted wooden horse she seemed to remember Cassie saying came from India. Amongst Petal’s things she found a blue cardigan that Cassie had knitted for her daughter and embroidered down the front with daisies, and the book Ameliaranne and the Green Umbrella by Constance Heward, one Petal had wanted read to her time and time again.

  In a small leather box she found some amber beads, a silver bangle and a gold ring with red stones set into it. She had no idea if the ring was valuable, but if Petal was ever found she would like something of her mother’s, so she put the box with the other things.

  There didn’t appear to be anything else worth taking but, all the same, Molly pulled all the drawers right out to check behind them and looked at books on the shelves. Cassie had had surprisingly literary taste in books – Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen and Ernest Hemingway – but she also liked A. J. Cronin and had got Molly to read The Citadel.

  Seeing Hatter’s Castle by the same author, Molly pulled it out to take home to read. As it came off the shelf, a letter fell out of it on to the floor.

  There was no envelope, just a single sheet of paper with a London address at the top and no date. She had no way of knowing whether Cassie had received it here, or before she came to Sawbridge.

  ‘Dearest Cassie,’ she read:

  I was so very relieved to finally hear from you. I had been desperately worried about you and you have been in all my prayers.

  I do understand why you felt you must go – the East End is not an ideal place to bring up a child. You said that you felt you were in danger, and I do so wish you had talked to me about this, as I’m sure the pair of us could’ve found a solution to whatever the trouble was. I can only hope that you are with good people now who are kind to you both. I
miss you, and if it doesn’t work out for you there I hope you know there will always be room for you both back here.

  You are a remarkable person, Cassie. You’ve come through so much and yet somehow managed to keep your compassion for others and your sense of humour. Most would have crumbled or become very bitter. I wish I was in a position to help you more. All I can offer is my affection, a listening ear and the promise that God is with you. Kiss Petal for me and write back soon.

  Your loving friend, Constance

  Molly felt like shouting aloud in glee at having finally found something that was a lead into Cassie’s past. She hastily pulled all the other books off the shelf and shook them to see if any other letters might be hidden there, but she found nothing more.

  She stood for a few minutes looking around her, remembering Cassie. She could see her lying full length on the couch, her red hair shining in the light from the oil lamp, and hear her laughter as she related something funny she’d overheard or read in the paper. The brightly coloured crochet blanket she would tuck round Petal when she didn’t feel well was there on the back of the sofa, and a pencil pot made from an old baked-bean can and covered by Petal in fabric and trimmed with braid sat on a side table. Everything in the cottage had Cassie’s hand on it, and it hurt to think it would all be taken out and thrown away, wiping out the character of the strong woman who had been so dear to her.

  What would the police do with the letter from Constance? Would they send someone to see her to try to find out more about Cassie? Maybe they would, but they’d almost certainly be heavy-handed, and Constance might just clam up on them, as she sounded, from the letter, like a very sensitive soul.

  It might be better if she went herself, and if Constance did know anything useful about Cassie then she could pass her name and address over to the police and let them take it from there.

  With nowhere else to search now, she picked up the few things she’d collected and left the house, putting them into the basket on her bike. Then, after locking the door and replacing the key by the pump, she rode home.

  After supper she wrote to Bourne & Hollingsworth, and to Constance. The first letter outlined her experience in her father’s shop and her interest in display, and asked that she be considered for a job interview.

  In the letter to Constance she explained how she had found her address and that Cassie was dead and Petal missing.

  It is plain to me that you are very fond of Cassie and Petal, and I’m sure this letter coming from a total stranger is a huge shock to you [she wrote] but I was very fond of Cassie and Petal, too, and I would so much like to talk to you and discover a bit more about her. I am hoping to come to work in London soon and, if you are agreeable, I could come to your home for a chat.

  Yours sincerely

  Molly Heywood.

  Finishing the letters at nine, Molly decided to slip out, post them and take the letter from Constance round to show Simon. He might have already left his flat, if his wife had made him go home with her, or she could even be there, but Molly really wanted his opinion about the letter and, besides, she needed to prove to herself that he was nothing more than a friend and, if he was leaving, to say goodbye to him properly.

  She had thought that her father was watching the television in the sitting room but, after she’d gone downstairs and was about to open the back door, he appeared from the stock room.

  ‘Who have you been writing to?’ he asked, seeing the letters in her hand.

  Molly’s heart sunk. ‘Just a couple of friends,’ she lied.

  ‘You haven’t got any friends,’ he said scornfully. ‘Give them here and let me see.’

  ‘Oh, Dad. One of them is to Margaret Goodie, now Mrs Blake. I remember that you couldn’t stand her,’ she bluffed, forcing herself to sound light-hearted as she tucked the letters into her cardigan pocket. ‘The other one is to Susan Eaggers. I’m sure you remember her family moving away last year.’

  He looked hard at her, eyes narrowed with suspicion. ‘But why the rush to post them now? They don’t empty the postbox till after nine in the morning.’

  ‘I wanted some fresh air,’ she said.

  ‘But it’ll be dark soon.’

  ‘There is street lighting, Dad,’ she said. ‘It’s a lovely evening, and I’ve been stuck indoors all day.’

  She waited, fairly certain he would point out she’d been gone for an hour that very afternoon. But, clearly, he wasn’t aware of it. ‘Don’t go hanging around on street corners’ was all he could come up with.

  Molly held her breath until she was out of the door and the backyard. She wouldn’t put it past him to come after her and take the letters to see if she was telling the truth. But, to her relief, he didn’t, and she hurried down to the postbox and put them in.

  She hesitated for a moment or two at the bottom of the stairs leading to Simon’s flat, unsure whether he’d be pleased to see her or annoyed. But she took a deep breath, ran up the stairs and rapped on the door.

  ‘Well, blow me down!’ he exclaimed when he opened the door and saw her there. ‘I was just feeling a bit sorry for myself, and you arrive to cheer me up. Come on in.’

  ‘I did hear a bit of gossip today about you,’ she said carefully as she walked in. ‘But that isn’t why I came, because that’s your private business. I’ve got something to show you, and I want your advice.’

  ‘I’m sure the whole village is buzzing with it, and making completely false suppositions,’ Simon said, grimacing. ‘The truth is that my wife and I were washed up years ago. She only came here today to talk about getting a divorce. Unfortunately, she couldn’t find my flat, so went into your dad’s shop, when it was busy, to ask where it was. I didn’t realize omitting to tell the world that you are still legally married was such a heinous crime!’

  ‘You know how people here love a bit of scandal,’ Molly said lightly, a little surprised that such a man of the world should be upset by tittle-tattle. ‘I bet they were disappointed you hadn’t made a second, bigamous marriage or left some damsel in distress because you couldn’t marry her.’

  ‘Divorce isn’t such a big thing,’ he sighed. ‘But never mind about that. Do sit down and tell me what advice were you looking for?’

  Molly sat down at his table and explained how Enoch had told her to go and look for a keepsake from Cassie.

  ‘I found this – it fell out of a book,’ she explained, handing the letter to Simon.

  He read it, but didn’t comment for a moment, just rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  ‘I should tell you to take it straight to the police,’ he said. ‘This woman definitely knows something about Cassie’s past, and she’s obviously a good sort, and religious, too. But the police aren’t noted for their delicacy, and I think you could get more out of her than they would.’

  ‘But surely that would be tampering with evidence,’ Molly said. She knew perfectly well that she’d already decided what to do, but she supposed she hoped he’d agree it was the right thing.

  ‘All I can say to that is that if they’d done their job properly in the first place they would’ve found it themselves. I’m not saying you shouldn’t hand it over to them when you know a bit more detail, Molly. But let’s face it – I haven’t seen any evidence of dynamic detective work, have you?’

  ‘No, I suppose not,’ Molly agreed. ‘But how do we know this woman will tell me anything?’

  ‘She sounds like a very nice woman who cared deeply about Cassie, so she’s bound to want to talk about her to you. People do when they’re grieving.’

  Molly went on to tell him then about writing to Bourne & Hollingsworth to ask about a job. ‘Their staff get accommodation in a hostel,’ she said. ‘I thought that would be better for me until I got to know my way around London.’

  ‘That sounds like a great plan. London can be a lonely place but, living in a hostel, you’ll get to know the other girls well.’

  ‘Do you think they’ll take me on?’ she asked. ‘Won’t they ta
ke one look at me and see a country bumpkin?’

  ‘I think they’ll look at you with your shining hair, pink cheeks and that ready smile and be delighted to employ you.’

  ‘You old flatterer.’ Molly laughed. ‘Now, what do you think about the lady who wrote the letter?’

  Simon looked at it again. ‘There is something a little curious about her. She has beautiful handwriting, and the tone of the letter suggests that she’s well brought up, but it’s odd that such a person would live in Whitechapel.’

  Molly looked at him blankly.

  ‘Whitechapel is in the East End of London, and it’s the rough part of the city. It was also very badly bombed during the Blitz.’

  ‘Well, maybe she’s a vicar’s wife or doing something to help the people there.’

  ‘That could be it,’ Simon nodded. ‘Let’s hope she writes back quickly to you. In the meantime, how is it at home?’

  Molly shrugged. ‘Dad is as sullen as ever. He demanded to know who the letters I was posting were for. I lied to him, but I was scared he’d snatch them out of my hand. I can’t wait to get away from here, but I’m so worried about my mother – she’ll be at his mercy with no one to help her.’

  ‘Your policeman friend will keep an eye on her. Molly, you aren’t responsible for your parents. Your duty is primarily to yourself.’

  ‘I’m not sure I agree with that. The world would be a terrible place if all everyone thought of was themselves.’

  Simon smiled. ‘There should be a balance, I agree, but you, my dear, have allowed your life to be completely taken over by your parents’ wishes. At your age, you should be out having fun, falling in love and being reckless and silly. Stay at home much longer and you’ll become a classic old maid.’

  ‘Well, I’ve been reckless enough for one night, coming into your flat,’ Molly said with a smile. ‘If that got back to Dad he’d put me under lock and key. So I’d better go. I’ll let you know as soon as I hear from Constance.’

  Simon walked with her to the door. ‘Be brave, little one,’ he said as he opened it for her. ‘Believe in yourself, too. You are a very special girl.’