The Married Girls Read online

  ‘And you, too.’

  Harry grinned. ‘I’m his right hand. He knows he can trust me.’

  Denny had grown his business slowly, with a few illegal grog shops, a string of working girls and an illegal betting ring, but he’d been careful not to tread on too many toes.

  ‘Too old to start any aggro out here,’ he said to Harry. ‘Too old and too tired.’

  Harry could see that there was something wrong with Denny, he was beginning to lose his touch, and with an eye to the future, Harry found himself a lieutenant; one Monty Redfern. Redfern had flown with the Australian air force during the war, and on returning to civilian life, found it decidedly dull. A large, pugnacious man with a lived-in face, he was the sort who tended to hit first and ask questions after. Harry had met him in a backstreet bar on the wrong end of a broken bottle, but once that little matter had been sorted out, ending with Monty on the wrong end of the bottle, they came to an agreement which suited them both. Monty joined the firm; Denny and Harry supplied the brains, Monty supplied the brawn and they all made money.

  When Harry had returned to London to collect Dora and Bella, he’d left Monty to keep an eye on the failing Denny.

  ‘No funny business,’ he’d warned Redfern, ‘and you and me’ll have a future. Anything happens to Denny, you’d better make sure I never find you. Capeesh?’

  Harry spent another hour with Dora and Bella before slipping out into the night. He had told them what they needed to know about Denny and they were eager to travel to Australia to see him.

  ‘Sit tight,’ Harry said as he left. ‘Don’t trust no one, particularly Mick, and don’t tell no one else that I’m here nor that Denny’s ill. We don’t know if Mick heard me tell you about his cancer, but if he didn’t, the longer he don’t know nothing about it, the better, cos I’ve got some other business to see to before we go. OK?’

  ‘Don’t you worry, Harry,’ Dora said. ‘I haven’t survived as Denny’s wife without knowing how to keep my mouth shut.’ And Harry believed her.

  When Harry had gone and Bella had locked and bolted the door behind him, she went back into the sitting room.

  ‘Well,’ she said as she dropped into the armchair Harry had just vacated. ‘What do you think of him, Mum? Can we trust him?’

  ‘I think we have to, Bella, pet. There’s no one else and we need to get to your dad as quick as we can.’

  ‘Yeah, but what I mean is, d’you think Dad really is ill?’

  ‘Yeah, I think so,’ said her mother quietly. ‘I don’t think there’s any point in Harry making that up. Your dad sent him to get us, so we’ll have to go.’

  ‘But we’ll come back.’ Bella sounded uncertain.

  Dora shook her head. ‘I doubt it, pet. Once we’re there, we’re there. There won’t be nothing left for us here. One way or another Maxton and Shadbolt’ll take us over and that’ll be it. Reckon that toerag Derham has already jumped ship, so remember what Harry just said, not a word to him or anybody else about our plans.’

  ‘So we’re going to live in Australia for ever,’ Bella said.

  ‘Reckon so.’

  ‘And that Harry’ll be living there too?’

  ‘Probably.’

  ‘An’ he’ll look after us when Dad dies?’

  Dora winced at Bella’s casual acceptance of her father’s death sentence, but remembering that Bella hadn’t seen her father for over ten years, she simply said, ‘I expect so.’

  Bella smiled. ‘Well, that’ll be all right then,’ she said. ‘He’s a good-looking bloke, don’t you think?’

  6

  When Harry left Dora and Bella, he returned to his hotel and made his plans for the next few days. The first thing he had to do was to find Freddie, the forger who had produced passports and other necessary documents for himself and Denny. Freddie’s work was first class, as had been proved when their papers had allowed them easy access into Australia. There had been no suggestion at any time that they weren’t genuine, even when Harry had used his to apply for an Australian passport.

  Freddie could usually be found at the Crooked Billet on the Isle of Dogs. He had a photography studio nearby, where he carried on his creative trade. Harry had been there before, but decided to approach Freddie in the pub in case things had changed in the last four years, in case he, or the studio, were compromised. That meant he couldn’t see Freddie, at the earliest, until the following evening.

  He also had to set up a meeting with Maxton and Shadbolt. He had definite instructions from Denny about his approach to them and he would need to tread carefully. He would make his move with them only once the passports were delivered, so that nothing could prevent Dora and Bella from leaving the country.

  This left Harry free to follow an agenda of his own, and the next morning, he’d begin looking for Lisa.

  She was special, Lisa was. She and Harry had come from the same town, Hanau, near Frankfurt. They hadn’t known each other there, but they’d been on the same Kindertransport train that brought them safely out of Nazi Germany in 1939. Despite the fact that she was a refugee from Hitler, Lisa was still German and when war was declared, she’d had a tough time at school. One afternoon, Harry saw her backed into a corner, surrounded by Roger Davis and his cronies, and decided to step in. He despatched the bullies, and he was soon recognised as her protector and the bullying stopped. They became friends, but the bond between them ran deeper than simple friendship. As Jews they’d both suffered the horrors of Nazi persecution and each understood what no one else could unless they’d been there: the horror of living in Hitler’s Germany. They had so much in common: loss of family, loss of home, loss of everything familiar. Lisa had clung to the desperate hope that her family were still alive and one day they would all be reunited, but Harry dismissed this as a vain hope. He was far more pragmatic about their situation; determined to leave his past behind him and carve himself a new life in this new country.

  ‘We got to make our own lives now,’ he’d said. ‘I learned that the hard way. Got to look after number one. We ain’t kids no more. So, we get on with it.’

  It was four years since Harry had last seen her and he had no idea where she might be now, but he was determined to find her, and the obvious place to start was the place she’d been working then, the Livingston Road children’s home.

  Four years ago, on VE Day, they’d been among the crowds out celebrating in London, and when he’d taken her back to Livingston House he’d promised her he’d come back next day, but Denny Dunc had intervened. His plans for them to sail for Australia had prevented Harry from keeping his promise. When Harry had protested that he must visit Lisa before they left, there had been veiled threats with regard to her safety, a suggestion that Mick Derham might pay her a visit, and Harry had quickly backed off. He wanted Mick Derham nowhere near Lisa.

  As Harry stepped out of his hotel and headed for Livingston Road, a nondescript young man in workman’s clothes who’d been waiting at a bus stop opposite seemed to give up on his bus. He folded the newspaper he’d been reading while he waited and drifted off along the street, wandering aimlessly behind Harry. Hound, as he was known to his friends, had long ago learned to work as a tail, reporting back to whoever had employed him on where the mark went and what he did. He was the best in the business, or so Mick Derham thought. As soon as Harry had appeared at Dora’s that first evening, Mick had realised that there were plans afoot of which he knew nothing. He went hotfoot to Rat Ratcliffe to warn him something was going on, and the Hound had been employed.

  Unaware of his shadow, Harry took a bus that dropped him at the end of Livingston Road. As he walked along the street looking at the houses on either side, he thought how grey and depressing post-war London looked, so different from the buzz and optimism of life in Sydney. The houses huddled together wearily as if for support, surviving the Blitz but patched and mended and tired.

  The children’s home, when he reached it, looked exactly as when he’d seen it on VE Day: a rather
forbidding three-storey stone house, set back from the road behind a grey stone wall. A flight of steps from an overgrown patch of garden led up to a heavy front door in dire need of a coat of paint and the whole house looked ill-kept and shabby.

  Harry paused at the gate for a moment, wondering if the Morrison woman, who’d been in charge of the place, would still be there. Well, now was the time to find out. He’d had a run-in with her about Lisa before and if necessary he was ready to do battle again. He pushed open the gate, marched up the steps and rang the bell. It took a while for someone to come to the door, but when it opened Harry found himself facing a small, dark-haired woman of about thirty. She wore a harassed expression and had tired brown eyes that looked at Harry expectantly.

  ‘Yes?’ Her tone abrupt. ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Good morning, madam—’ Harry began, but the woman interrupted him.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘we don’t buy at the door.’

  ‘That’s all right then,’ said Harry cheerfully, ‘cos I’m not selling anything. I was hoping to catch up with someone who works here, an old friend, Lisa, Lisa Becker.’

  The woman shook her head. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘There’s no one works here called Lisa anything, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Come to think of it,’ said Harry, who hadn’t thought of it before, ‘I think when she came to work here she was called Charlotte.’

  ‘Was she?’ The woman looked a little sceptical. ‘Well, we haven’t got anyone called Charlotte here, either. Sorry.’ She made a move to shut the door and Harry put a hand out to stay her. ‘She was working here during the war.’

  ‘Was she? Well, that was years ago, and I’m afraid she’s not here now.’

  There was nothing for it, Harry was going to have to talk to Miss Morrison if he was going to discover Lisa’s whereabouts. He knew she didn’t like or trust him, but it was the only chance he had.

  ‘Is Miss Morrison here today?’ he asked. ‘Miss Caroline Morrison? Could I have a word with her?’

  ‘No, I’m afraid not.’

  ‘When will she be? Will she be here tomorrow?’

  ‘Miss Morrison has resigned as superintendent and has left to get married,’ stated the woman firmly. ‘My name is Audrey Acton and I am superintendent here now.’

  ‘Oh, I see.’ Harry felt deflated. ‘Is there anyone else who was here during the war? Anyone who might remember Lisa, I mean Charlotte?’

  ‘Look, I’m very sorry Mr...’

  ‘Black, Harry Black.’

  ‘Mr Black, but I really can’t let you in to go interrogating my staff about some girl who might have worked here during the war.’

  ‘She certainly did work here for almost three years. If I could just ask someone who was here too, if they know where she is now...’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s impossible, Mr Black,’ said Mrs Acton firmly. ‘Good morning to you.’ And with that she closed the front door, leaving Harry standing fuming on the doorstep. He thought of ringing the bell again, but knew that the door would not be reopened to him. He turned and walked slowly down the steps, thinking hard. Would it be worth lying in wait in the street, hoping to catch one of the staff as she came out for some reason? Or wait for the children to come home from school and try asking one of them? Reluctantly, he decided that neither was a good idea. Either course of action might lead to Mrs Acton summoning the police, and his mission for Denny Dunc was too important to risk being arrested for making a nuisance of himself at a London children’s home. He’d have to think of some other way of finding Lisa.

  What about those foster parents of Lisa’s, who’d lived in Kemble Street? he wondered.

  When they’d been bombed out, Harry had appropriated their cellar to store his black-market goods. What was their name? Freeman? Freidman? It would come to him. If he could find them again, they’d be sure to know where Lisa was. Where had they gone? Somewhere in Suffolk, Harry was sure, but where in Suffolk he’d never bothered to find out. It hadn’t been important, then. Still, Kemble Street was a lead. He could go back there and see if the foster parents... Federman... that was it, Dan and Naomi Federman... see if they’d returned after the war, and if not, whether any of their neighbours knew where to find them.

  Harry glanced at his watch. He had time enough to go to Kemble Street before searching out Freddie. There might be someone there who could help him. With one final glance at the closed front door of Livingston Road children’s home, and the wry thought that it was the second time that a superintendent had virtually pushed him back out into the road, he set off for Shoreditch.

  From one of the front windows of the home, Audrey Acton watched him go. She’d called Matron down as soon as she’d shut the door.

  ‘D’you know that man?’ she asked. ‘The one just going out of the gate?’

  Chloe Burton had been matron ever since she, Caroline and Mary Downs, the cook, had been bombed out of St Michael’s, the children’s home where they’d worked before. She was a small, sturdy woman with piercing blue eyes, the sort of eyes the children in her care were sure could see round corners and never missed dirt behind the ears or under the fingernails. Her iron-grey hair was cut short, tucked behind her ears, making her look sterner than she really was. She loved her charges dearly, but she stood no nonsense from any of them. Now she peered out of the window at the man’s half-turned face and shook her head.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘What did he want?’

  ‘He wanted to find someone called Lisa who’d worked here during the war. Then he changed his mind and said her name was Charlotte. It all seemed very odd to me. When I said there was no Lisa or Charlotte working here, he asked to speak to Miss Morrison.’

  ‘Did he indeed?’ Matron said sharply. ‘Did he tell you his name, by any chance?’

  ‘Black,’ replied Mrs Acton. ‘Harry Black. I told him Miss Morrison had left to get married and I sent him away.’

  ‘Harry Black,’ repeated Matron. ‘Well, I’m glad you got rid of him. He’s always caused trouble. He and Lisa were both German refugees, but he was a scamp. Caroline didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him. She thought he had some hold over Lisa, but wasn’t quite sure exactly what. She sent him away one evening, but he said he needed to talk to Lisa and he’d be back in the morning. Lisa was her German name, we knew her as Charlotte.’

  ‘This all sounds very confusing,’ said Mrs Acton, shaking her head.

  ‘It’s a long story,’ Matron agreed. ‘Suffice it to say, he didn’t turn up. Charlotte was very upset, it was the second time he’d promised to come and see her and then disappeared. We were all pleased. She was better off without him. Anyhow, he seemed to vanish into thin air, and we all thought good riddance; even Charlotte herself after a while. She’s happily married now, with two lovely kiddies. We certainly don’t want that Harry Black to reappear and rock the boat.’

  ‘No, I see that,’ said Mrs Acton thoughtfully. ‘Well, he’ll learn nothing of her from anyone here, will he?’

  ‘No, he won’t,’ agreed Matron, while thinking privately that if Harry ran true to form, he wouldn’t give up so easily.

  When the children were in bed that evening, she sat in her work room and wrote to Caroline, care of St Mark’s Vicarage, Wynsdown, to warn her that Harry was back and looking for Charlotte.

  Harry, meanwhile, still unaware of his shadow, caught the bus to Shoreditch High Street, from where he walked to Kemble Street. It was almost unrecognisable as the street where the Federmans had lived and where he had inhabited their cellar for several months before he’d been arrested as a black marketeer. Most of the houses along the right-hand side were still habitable, though many had roofs patched with corrugated iron and the occasional window was still boarded up, awaiting new glass.

  How could all the repairs take so long? Harry wondered as he walked down the road. The war had ended four years ago; surely people must have been able to rebuild their homes by now.

  The opposite side o
f the road, where the Federmans’ house had been, was a building site. The terrace of houses that stood there from Victorian times was gone. Destroyed by fire in the Blitz, their blackened remains had now been razed to the ground, and in their place a block of flats was being constructed, rising to four storeys. Blank-faced, built of yellow London brick, they were ugly, utilitarian, towering over the rest of the street, but they would provide homes for twice as many families as the earlier terrace had done, and Harry realised that housing must be at a premium since the end of the war. Something Denny might have taken an interest in, Harry thought, had he been here to see the opportunities. He’d bear that in mind when he finally got to talk to Maxton and Shadbolt.

  He stood for a moment and looked up at the half-finished building and wondered if the Federmans were planning to come back to live in one of the flats when they were finished.

  ‘If you’re looking for one of them places, you’ll have to be quick cos they’re nearly all took,’ said a voice behind him. He turned round to find a woman standing on the step of the house opposite.

  ‘Aren’t they going to be for the people who lived here before?’ Harry asked innocently. ‘I mean,’ he added, ‘don’t they get first chance to have one?’

  ‘No, all owned by one landlord, then rented out. First come first served.’ She looked at Harry speculatively and asked, ‘So you ain’t looking to rent one, then?’

  ‘No.’ Harry smiled. ‘I’m Australian,’ he improvised. ‘I’ve just come round here to see if I can find a relative that used to live in this street. Cousin of my mother’s, she is, but Ma lost touch with her during the war and hasn’t heard from her since. I was over here on business and Ma asked me to look her up.’

  ‘Oh?’ The woman looked interested. ‘An’ who was that then?’

  ‘She’s called Naomi Federman,’ said Harry. ‘Ma’s afraid something might have happened to her during the Blitz.’