‘I couldn’t let you do that. But I’ll send someone round to Greek Street, just to check you haven’t left a man dying in that room. And we’ll read Dora the riot act while we’re at it. By the time it’s daylight, you might be able to think of someone you can turn to for help.’
‘There isn’t anyone.’ Molly dried her eyes and blew her nose.
‘Well. I’ll put my thinking cap on, too,’ he said gently, and smiled at her. ‘Maybe one of the churches round here has contacts with people who can help those in your position. Now come with me and we’ll get some blankets and try to make you comfortable in a cell.’
An hour later, as Molly lay on the narrow bench in the cell covered by a blanket that smelled of feet and vomit, she wept again, this time in utter despair. She could hear a drunk shouting and singing further along the passageway, and every now and then another man would shout at him to shut up.
It seemed that she had no choice but to go home and throw herself on her father’s mercy. Was his nastiness any worse than walking the streets with nowhere to go? Were his clouts as bad as attempted rape or being accused of theft? She didn’t think he’d believe that she’d stolen any gloves; after all, she’d never stolen anything from him. But she would have to put up with an endless litany of ‘I said you wouldn’t be able to cope with London.’ How he was going to enjoy that!
Molly woke with a start to find the sergeant shaking her shoulder. ‘Come upstairs with me for a little chat,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to go off duty soon, and these cells are no place for a lady when the other occupants start to wake up.’
He led her back into the same small room where they’d been the night before. He told her to sit down while he got her a cup of tea.
‘Have you had any more thoughts about someone you could go to?’ he asked when he got back, putting a mug of tea and a couple of ginger biscuits in front of her. ‘Surely you know someone in London?’
Molly was just about to tell him she’d decided she had no choice but to go home when she suddenly thought of Constance.
‘Well, I do know a lady in the Church Army in Whitechapel,’ she said cautiously. ‘I don’t know her terribly well, but she’s kind and she might have some useful contacts.’
The sergeant nodded. ‘Those Church Army ladies are good sorts,’ he said. ‘You know, Miss Heywood, I don’t believe you stole anything, and I think your friend will believe you, too. You’ve had a nasty shock with Dora. I sent a couple of men to shake her up. As expected, the fat man had gone and Dora claimed no strangers had been in her house. But the men found the window pole still on the bed upstairs, and there was blood on it and on the blankets. Dora blustered that two of her girls had had a fight up there, but she knew as well as my men did that, without the fat man, we couldn’t charge anyone with anything.’
‘Isn’t what she does against the law?’ Molly asked.
‘Soliciting on the street is.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ‘So is living off immoral earnings, which is what she’s doing. But we can’t prove that, or do anything about what goes on in private property.’
That seemed crazy to Molly, but then so did giving someone the sack for stealing when there was no proof.
‘Can I stay here till a more reasonable hour?’ she asked. ‘I can’t go knocking on someone’s door at seven or eight in the morning.’
‘No, you can’t,’ he said. ‘As I already told you, I’m off in a minute, but I’m going to take you upstairs now to our canteen and get them to give you some breakfast. Then I’m going to get one of my men to drive you to your Church Army lady. If she can’t take you in, he’ll take you on to someone else we fall back on at times like this. How would that be?’
Molly’s heart swelled up with gratitude and her eyes prickled with tears. She hadn’t expected such kindness. ‘Thank you so much,’ she managed to say, and had to cover her face to hide the tears.
A couple of hours later, after a breakfast of bacon, egg and sausage washed down by two large mugs of tea, PC Stanley delivered Molly to Constance’s door in Myrdle Street. Stanley was a big, craggy-faced copper in his early fifties, and on the drive to Whitechapel he had tried to make her laugh with some awful jokes.
Molly’s mother had always claimed that men telling jokes was a way of concealing that they couldn’t hold a real conversation, and she was probably right in this instance, as Molly had learned nothing personal about PC Stanley.
When they stopped outside Constance’s house PC Stanley said he would go and speak to her alone first. ‘Sarge said I should, as it will sort of oil the wheels if I tell her you were in real danger last night and assure her we don’t believe you stole anything. If she really can’t help you, it’s easier for her to tell me that without you there.’
Molly watched PC Stanley disappear into the house and hoped he wouldn’t try to tell Constance any terrible, unfunny jokes. She wasn’t happy about putting the old lady in a position where she’d feel obliged to help her. It wasn’t fair. Neither did she think she could bear to live in this terrible, grimy area for more than a couple of days.
PC Stanley came back to the doorway and beckoned for her to come in. Molly got out of the car with her suitcase and walked hesitantly towards the policeman.
‘It’s okay. She’s happy to put you up,’ he said. ‘She said she likes you a lot and was shocked at what has happened to you. So go on in and I’ll go back to the station.’
Molly thanked him and asked him to thank the sergeant, too, for his kindness. Then, as the policeman drove away, she made her way in to see Constance.
‘You poor love,’ the old lady said as soon as she saw Molly. ‘Come and sit down by the fire and tell me all about it.’
Constance was sitting by the fire in her wheelchair. She didn’t get out of it to hug her, she didn’t even hold out a reassuring hand, yet just the way she spoke it felt to Molly as if someone had just wrapped a warm, soft blanket around her. All at once she didn’t care how squalid Whitechapel was, or that she’d have to cope with no bathroom and an outside lavatory here. She felt safe and wanted.
All her other visits here had been on a different footing. She had been, to all intents and purposes, like a distant relative doing her duty in coming to see an old lady, staying just long enough to be polite, then leaving. Yet by one o’clock on Christmas morning, after wheeling Constance home in her wheelchair from the midnight service, Molly felt that fate had smiled on her. It wasn’t just a temporary place of refuge, somewhere she would want to leave as soon as she could. She felt that coming to the East End might actually be a really good thing for her.
All day, people had been dropping into Myrdle Street with food, offers of a shared Christmas dinner, to see if Constance needed any help, or just for a chat. These were nice people. They might be very poor, and often loud and coarse, but they had warm hearts.
Constance wasn’t bound to the wheelchair; she could walk well enough with a stick to get to the lavatory, to stand up to wash and dress herself and make a cup of tea. But she was frail and her neighbours clearly wanted to show how much they loved her by doing as much as possible for her.
They didn’t see Molly as some kind of interloper but as company for their friend, and when the story was told about her experiences the previous day, they were all in total sympathy with her. In fact, they were all impressed that she had got the better of the fat man in Greek Street.
Molly had spent the day not only meeting all the neighbours but decorating a small Christmas tree someone had brought round, helping wrap some toys for various small children Constance cared about, making up a narrow truckle bed for herself in the corner of the room and stowing her clothes away in a linen press.
Molly had always been involved with the church at home, not just going to services but singing in the choir and flower arranging, but she’d never been to a midnight service before. When Constance asked her to go with her, she agreed out of politeness, but she would rather have gone to bed. So it was a real surprise to find herself uplifted by the service. The carols, candles and flowers played a part, but it was more than that: she felt as if a burden had been taken from her shoulders and that whatever path she took after Christmas would be the right one.