No Peace for the Wicked

by Pip Granger

  I’d had my breakfast and was washed and dressed by the time T.C. arrived. As he walked through the flat door, I noticed that his hair was just beginning to grow out of its regulation police short, back and sides, and the natural spring had begun to assert itself once again.

  As T.C. smiled at me, my heart lurched slightly. Just for a second, I had to fight the urge to trace some of the deeper lines on his face with my fingertips, to smooth the strain out of them with a little tenderness. I felt myself blush at the thought and made myself concentrate on something else.

  Because I worked in a costumier’s, I naturally concentrated on his clothes. As I tore my eyes from his face, I noted the fat Windsor knot in his wool tie, and that its tiny flecks of blue, mauve and grey were picked up in the colours of his Harris tweed jacket. I wondered, briefly, who had matched them: him or his late wife, Pat. Whoever it was had an eye for colour.

  The jacket was old, but obviously well loved, with its brown leather patches at the elbow and at the cuffs. Beneath it, he wore a blue pullover and his trousers, with their sharp creases, were navy blue woollen worsted. His black brogues were old, much-mended but polished to a dazzling shine. Only policemen and ex-servicemen seemed to get a shine like that on their shoes.

  We stood for an age at the bus stop, and as we waited, T.C. began to confide in me. ‘I’m worried about Cassie,’ he said, apropos of nothing.

  ‘Really?’ I kept my head down, conscious that I was blushing with my guilty knowledge of his conversation with her the evening before.

  ‘She drinks too much and lands herself in far too much hot water for my liking,’ he said impatiently.

  ‘What about for her liking?’ I asked, playing the devil’s advocate.

  T.C.’s eyes crinkled again. ‘Ah, there’s the rub. She can see nothing wrong with it. And you’re right of course; it’s none of my business.’

  ‘I said no such thing,’ I retorted indignantly. Well I hadn’t, not in so many words.

  ‘You don’t have to. I’m not her keeper.’

  ‘No, you’re not. But if you’re fond of her …’ I let it trail limply.

  ‘I knew you’d understand. I am fond of her. I hate to see her do it to herself, or to Rosie. That poor child cringes sometimes, when Cassie’s around. She’s an embarrassment to the kid, even if she’s only slightly the worse for wear. And of course, we were close once.’

  It was like jabbing a sore tooth with my tongue, but I just couldn’t help it. ‘I thought you were close now,’ I said, a little sharply. ‘After all, you did go home with her the other night and I thought she’d surely disappear down your throat at one point in the evening, before you left. Sugar said he hoped she had her name tattooed on her feet, the way she was carrying on.’ Which was an absolute lie. I don’t know what got into me.

  ‘I don’t know why I went. Loneliness, perhaps. There was a time when Cass was the most exciting woman I had ever known. Dear God, when she walked into a room …’ T.C.’s eyes had that faraway look of a person gazing back upon happier times.

  ‘But it’s been a long time since that Cass has been with us. The one we’ve got now is sad; desperate and sad. I forgot, or I hoped, who knows? But I shouldn’t have done. It’s not fair. It’s unfair to her and it’s unfair to Rosie. Poor Rosie dreams of her mother and me … well, let’s just say she longs to be a bridesmaid.’

  I tried to sound bracing. ‘Well, it still might happen, you never know. If you love her …’

  T.C. shook his head. ‘No, that moment has long passed – if it was ever there in the first place. Cassie and I weren’t made for a domestic life together. Well, she’s not made for it anyway. She’s a party girl and I’m a boring old slippers man. I like quiet evenings in, listening to the wireless, maybe half a pint at my local and roast beef on Sundays.’

  I nodded in understanding. ‘And she likes dancing at the Ritz, gambling in Mayfair, and gallons of gin and caviare daily.’ I winced slightly at my bitchiness.

  He laughed. ‘That’s about it,’ he agreed.

  I was saved from falling into further unkindness by the arrival of two number 15 buses. ‘You take one and I’ll take the other and we’ll meet at the next stop,’ T.C. suggested and I agreed.

  My conductor, however, was unable to help. ‘No, love. I didn’t get no Chinks on Saturday night, not going towards Limehouse. I did get a whole load going the other way mind, four blokes, but that was earlier, much earlier, around six maybe.’

  I thanked him and hopped off the bus at the next stop. A few moments later T.C. arrived, but he’d gleaned even less information from his conductor than I had from mine. We waited for the next number 15 and I took my courage in both hands and continued the conversation we’d been having when the buses had arrived.

  ‘So, you don’t think you and Cassie can make a go of it, despite Rosie’s fond hopes?’ I tried for a light tone. Half of me was disgusted with myself. Here I was pumping T.C. for his feelings towards Cassie when I should be concentrating on finding Peace. But I couldn’t help it. He had begun the conversation, after all. The opportunity to clarify things was there and I simply couldn’t let it go.

  T.C. shook his head sadly, then his face lit up. ‘Ah, here comes the bus.’ He stuck his arm out to make sure that it stopped for us.

  ‘Yerse,’ the conductor said, scratching his head slowly and dislodging his uniform cap slightly, so that it settled at a rakish angle. ‘I do remember them. Two got on and one of the girls stayed behind. She was saying something to the geezer, didn’t sound very friendly. The other girl looked a bit scared, I thought. But she seemed to be with the bloke willingly, so it was none of my business.’

  ‘Where did they get off?’

  ‘Limehouse, right down near the docks. Last I saw of ’em, he was leading the way and the girl was following, carrying the case.’ The conductor sniffed disapprovingly. ‘Didn’t seem right – tiny little slip of a thing like her.’

  T.C. fished the passport out of his pocket. ‘Is this the girl?’ he asked, holding the little book open at the right page. We held our breath.

  ‘Yerse. I reckon it is,’ the conductor confirmed. T.C. and I breathed freely again. At last, a sighting!

  We jumped off the bus at the next stop and caught one heading back to base. I was so thrilled at what we’d learned at the depot, our first real lead, that I even forgot to finish off my conversation with T.C. about Cassie.

  Freddy was filling Antony in on our detecting as I walked through the shop door that afternoon. ‘I think I’ll stick to the rag trade; it’s easier on the feet and you get to keep warm. I’ve trolled bloody miles asking questions. Lily Law are on the case now, though, so with luck and all those lovely boys in blue, they’ll get further than we did.

  ‘Ah, here comes “Robbins of the Yard” now,’ Freddy sang as I came into view. ‘I’ve just been telling Ant what a whiz you’ve turned out to be on the detecting front. It’s your eye for detail, I’m sure it is. T.C. says you have a gift for noticing things. What do you notice about me, Lizzie dear?’ He fluttered his eyelashes.

  I smiled, ‘I notice that you’re taking the mickey, for one thing, and judging by all that fluttering, you’re parched and could do with a nice cup of tea for another.’ I headed for the kettle.

  ‘See! Right on the nail! Sherlock Holmes has nothing on her, Ant. It’s like she was born to it.’

  As we enjoyed our tea I told Freddy and Antony about how Freddy’s vital clue had led us to Limehouse. ‘So at least we know roughly where she is, if not exactly. All we have to do now is work out how we find her. If a Chinese person wishes to disappear, Limehouse or Liverpool are the places to do it, according to T.C.’

  Antony smiled lazily. ‘Speaking of T.C. – what’s this I hear about you having a bit of a “thing” for him?’

  I blushed deeply and Freddy cried, ‘Ooh, you pig, Ant! I told you in strictest confidence.’ Freddy glared at his friend.

  ‘And I told you nothing of the kind, Freddy!’ I prot
ested loudly. ‘You shouldn’t start rumours like that. Say it got back to T.C.? It isn’t even true!’ I wailed.

  ‘If you say so, ducky, if you say so,’ murmured Freddy as he examined his immaculate manicure once again. ‘But you should see the way you look at him. I can’t see as how it would hurt, anyway. You’re both footloose and fancy free. Never be the one to stand in the way of true romance – or even a quick knee-trembler – that’s what I always say.’

  I blushed so deeply I thought my eyebrows would spontaneously combust. ‘I’m still married to Sid, remember.’ It was true, I was; and what’s more, I had no idea where he was.

  ‘But in name only, and I’d say that didn’t count! Of course, I’m not the law,’ Freddy conceded.

  ‘No you’re not – and the law takes a dim and expensive view of divorce,’ I pointed out.

  Antony nodded. ‘It’s true, they’re difficult to get even if your other half’s caught with his trousers down and wearing the co-respondent. Trickier still if he’s missing altogether. It’s just a question of waiting out the time then.

  ‘Anyway, I agree with Freddy. Why not wait as a pair and blow the marriage part? It’s only a formality, after all. Us queer folk manage without it all the time.’

  ‘Because I am not after T.C.,’ I said firmly, between gritted teeth. ‘And even if I was, he’s still interested in Cassie and she is still interested in him. So there!’ I almost stuck my tongue out; it felt so much like the sort of conversation I had in the playground when I was at school.

  ‘Yes, but Cass isn’t the settling down kind, whereas you are,’ Freddy patiently went on, echoing my thoughts eerily as he so often seemed to do. ‘And T.C. has “married man” stamped all the way through him, like a stick of Brighton rock.’

  ‘Anyway,’ said Antony, ‘I don’t see why you shouldn’t look just as good as Cassie any day. You don’t try very hard, that’s the only problem. Look at your hair and those nails! Have you even heard of nail polish?’ he asked severely.

  ‘Yes, I’ve heard of it,’ I snapped back. ‘I simply have more important things to spend my meagre wages on.’

  ‘Oh! Touché, Ant, touché,’ Freddy giggled.

  ‘What do you say we make the baggage our project, Freddy? We’ll procure the necessary, where possible, and we’ll create an overall look for her. Something coherent, vibrant, something altogether different from the Chapel Look she’s got at the moment. Let’s see what we can make of her.’

  ‘I like it, Ant,’ enthused Freddy.

  ‘But I don’t.’ I was mortified. ‘You make me sound like a pathetic old bag of rags!’

  ‘Not an old bag of rags, Lizzie dear, a young bag of rags. Own up,’ Freddy asked gently, ‘apart from that pink gown we made, have you changed your style or bought new clothes since your Jenny passed away?’

  To my horror, I burst into tears.

  Freddy’s arm found its way around my shoulder and gave me a squeeze. Antony handed me my tea and a spotless hanky and smiled sympathetically.

  ‘We may not win any subtlety competitions, but we mean well,’ Antony assured me. ‘We don’t mean to upset you, but there’s no other word for it: you are a teensy bit drab and it’s time for a change.’

  Freddy nodded eagerly. ‘And we promise it won’t cost a fortune. We’ll get the girls and boys on to it.’

  My stomach clenched. By ‘girls and boys’, Freddy meant the theatrical crowd. I tried not to imagine what they would make of me. Antony must have read my mind: ‘He doesn’t mean let them loose on you. He means to supply the wherewithal; you know, make-up, hair, that sort of thing.’

  ‘I’ve got my own hair, thank you,’ I said with as much dignity as I could muster.

  ‘He doesn’t mean actual new hair, he means a riah shusher, a hairdresser, somebody to do something with that barnet of yours. Do you cut it yourself with a pair of nail scissors?’ Freddy asked severely.

  ‘No.’ It was almost a lie; I didn’t use nail scissors.

  ‘Well, it certainly looks like it, ducky,’ he replied, rather unkindly I thought.

  ‘So what do you say, Elizabeth? Let us tart you up, so you are at least a contender for the affections of T.C., and in return, we’ll get to turn you from duckling to swan. What do you say?’ Antony’s elegant frame leaned against the counter as he eyed me speculatively, as if I were a lump of clay just waiting to be moulded. ‘And in return, we’ll let you abandon the counter to help T.C. whenever he asks, how about that?’ he added.

  ‘I thought you were going to let me go anyway,’ I said indignantly.

  ‘We were, but I just cheated and changed the rules.’ Antony smiled smugly.

  ‘I bet you were an insufferable little boy,’ I told him.

  ‘I was, and what’s more, I’ve grown up into an insufferable man as well,’ he said without a trace of regret or remorse. ‘Ask Freddy.’

  ‘It’s true, I can bear witness to that. Once he gets a notion in his noggin, it’s the devil’s own job to get it out. It’s best to let him have his own way. It’s simpler in the end.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ I conceded, still in a bit of a huff. But they had a point. I was dowdy, even I could see that. I might have had a lively appreciation of colour and style, but I hadn’t been brought up to see it in terms of me, somehow. I think I was a bit afraid of trying things out on myself. It had always been discouraged with the most withering scorn.

  ‘Oh, I shouldn’t, dear, you haven’t the hips for it. You could rest a tea tray on that backside, I’d wear something to cover it, if it was mine,’ Mother would suggest. Or, ‘Ooh no, not with your complexion. I don’t know why you’re so sallow; it doesn’t run in my side of the family, you know.’ It wore away the will to experiment as a young woman, and what with one thing and another, I’d never really got it back.

  I sneaked a peek in the salon mirror when I thought no one was looking, but Freddy swept into view behind me and joined me in my contemplation.

  ‘You’ve got good basic colouring, you know. What you call “rich mouse”, I call ash blond. Do something to lift that colour a bit, that’s what I suggest. Your bones are good. A bit of emphasis here and there would take your mind off the weakish chin. Pluck your eyebrows. They’re too heavy for a little face like yours.

  ‘Colours? Blues, pinks, reds, obviously, and coral would be good, but not grey, absolutely not! You look bloody awful in grey. I’d knock all those browns on the head as well. They’ve never suited. I’ve never known anyone who could find so many shades of bloody brown, and not one of them of any use to you. You just weren’t made for it. You can’t carry it. It washes you out, the same way grey does.’

  ‘My mother always said they were my best colours!’ I protested.

  ‘Well, she was a lying bitch then, is all I can say. What I can’t understand is why, when you look in a mirror, you can’t see it? If it was anyone else, a customer say, you’d be on it quicker than a rat up a drainpipe.’ I thought about it. I was good at seeing what suited other people, it was true, but I couldn’t seem to extend the knack to my own appearance. I thought I was as plain as ninepence, and nothing on this earth was going to do anything about that. I did have a big backside and my colouring was a little on the sallow side. My hair was straight and mousy; I couldn’t see where the ‘ash’ came into it and certainly not the ‘blond’. I wanted to see it, though, I wanted to see it very much indeed, but still couldn’t make the leap and come out and say so. I didn’t need to. Freddy was planning anyway.

  ‘I think we should start with her day clothes and move on to evening wear when she’s got somewhere to go – and someone to go with,’ he said brutally, as if I wasn’t there. He reached for a pad to make a list of my requirements.

  ‘Yes, and her hair,’ Freddy continued. ‘The riah must be shushed forthwith and given some proper shaping. We’ll need an expert to sort it out. Who do we know who gives estimates?’

  I was stricken. ‘And who do we know who will pay for it all, pray?’
I asked, with more than a drop of acid.

  ‘That’s easy. You! You can pay on the instalment plan. We’ll stop a modest sum weekly from your wages and, before you know it, it’ll be paid for.’ Antony had obviously been giving the plan some serious thought.

  ‘With our connections in the schmutter business, we’ll get the discount for trade.’ So had Freddy, bless him. ‘Oh come on, what do you say? Give that Cassie a run for her money, why don’t you? Give it a whirl at least. It’s not natural to hide yourself and your assets away, the way you do.’

  Finally, I nodded. It had nothing to do with T.C., I told myself. I simply needed a change.

  Freddy and Antony went into action immediately. ‘I’m getting on to that nice buyer we know from Bourne and Hollingsworth, to see what he’s got in cashmere,’ said Freddy, grabbing the telephone.

  My blood ran cold. ‘C-c-cashmere?’ I stammered. ‘I can’t afford cashmere!’

  ‘Trade, ducky, trade. Never forget the magic word “trade”,’ Freddy reminded me from the telephone as he waited for the operator to come on the line. ‘And you have no idea how pleasant it is to slip an arm around a cashmered waist and to rest a cheek on a cashmered shoulder. There is nothing like it in this world. Hello, operator?’

  The wheels had been set in motion, and I knew, with a certain trepidation, that nothing on this earth was likely to stop them. I sighed with resignation. I might as well give in to it. It’d take up some of those many hours when there was nothing I could do about Peace but worry.

  26

  I went home after work, changed and presented myself at the club for a progress report. T.C. was still out asking questions in Limehouse, but was expected back any minute. I felt as if every second should be spent searching for Peace, but it seemed as if the police didn’t agree with me.

  Bandy was far from happy. ‘She went missing on Saturday, and there’s still not a word of her whereabouts from our famed constabulary. T.C. says it’s because her departure was obviously voluntary. They won’t be putting many men on the job because, in their wisdom, they’ve decided she’s old enough to know her own mind and as there’s no evidence of abduction, well, what’s the hurry?’