‘Anyway, a couple of days before Molly disappeared she wrote to me. She said she thought she’d tracked down Cassie’s mother, someone called Christabel Coleman, who had a daughter called Sylvia, who was the same age as Cassie, and it was rumoured she’d had a black baby. She said she was going there in the morning to see her.’
‘And how did you discover that Miss Heywood had gone missing?’
‘Mrs Bridgenorth phoned me; she found my number in Molly’s address book. She said that no one here at the nick had taken her seriously when she reported that Miss Heywood hadn’t come home, so I think she rang me in desperation. As I was on leave I came straight away, asking my mother to inform you.’
‘I sense an implication that you didn’t trust us to act immediately?’
George looked the sergeant in the eye. ‘Wouldn’t you have done the same if you were in my shoes?’
The sergeant scratched his head, but didn’t answer the question. ‘Well, it was very high-handed of you. You might have made the situation very much worse, or put yourself in danger. Thankfully, Miss Heywood was very resourceful. We found the cellar room she was kept in, and the child had been imprisoned in an attic room.’
‘All the time?’ George asked, horrified at the thought.
‘We can’t be sure one way or the other until she’s ready to talk, or one of the women does. There’s an old doctor’s surgery in the house, full of drugs and medicines, so it’s possible they gave the child something to keep her quiet. We found a pair of baby reins in the room, too, so we think they used them to walk her around the garden sometimes. She was fed sporadically but, judging by her weight, not nearly enough. As for bathing her or washing her hair, that appears not to have been done for some weeks.’
‘But that woman is her grandmother!’ George said angrily. ‘How could she treat a child that way? And just how long was she intending to keep her like that?’
The sergeant shook his head. ‘Mrs Coleman was taken straight to an asylum. She’ll be seen by a psychiatrist and, in due course, we might have a better idea of what her intentions were. Miss Gribble may give us some answers; she is, by all accounts, devoted to Mrs Coleman. She’s something of a dragon but, it appears, not insane. Her injuries are superficial and later today she’ll be taken to Holloway Prison, where she’ll be held on remand while we ascertain the full extent of her crimes.’
‘Then, if I may, I’ll be off to see Molly and Petal. I’ll be staying another night in Rye. I’ll be at the George if you need me.’
‘Before you go, do you have an address for the Church Army lady? We might need to contact her as a character witness.’
‘She died back in winter,’ George said. ‘Just as Molly got the job here. If you need a character witness there are dozens of people back in Sawbridge who’d be happy to tell you what a good, honest person Molly is.’
‘Well, thanks for the statement,’ said Sergeant Wayfield. ‘Please pass on to Miss Heywood that we’re all hoping she’ll get well soon.’
‘I’ll thank her for doing your job for her, too, shall I?’ George asked, unable to resist making a jibe.
Wayfield looked him up and down, his mouth bent into a sneer. ‘If she’d come in here with that photo and explained to us that she felt the girl’s mother lived near here, we would have checked it out. As it happens, we’ve already found the child’s birth registration, and her name wasn’t Petal March but Pamela Coleman. It was a home birth and the father’s name is marked as unknown, as the mother wasn’t married.’
George decided to quit while he was ahead, and said goodbye. The police here seemed to be annoyed with him for muscling in on their territory. It didn’t seem to have occurred to them that, if he hadn’t acted as he did, Molly and Petal might be dead now.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Ted Bridgenorth arrived at Charley Sanderson’s address in Bethnal Green and winced when he saw how squalid it was. It was a shabby, three-storey terraced house in a row of eight equally run-down ones. The other side of the street had fared even worse for, though the bomb sites between some of the houses had been cleared of rubble, weeds had taken over, and only partially covered the piles of dumped rubbish.
As it was a pleasant day a great many people were sitting out by their front doors on boxes or chairs, and dozens of children were playing in the street. A gang of children had surrounded the car as he drove into the street and, though they appeared to be admiring it, Ted wished he’d come on a school day instead of a Saturday, as they might just let his tyres down while he was talking to Charley.
He rapped on the door of number twelve.
‘There’s no one in. Who you after?’ a strident female voice called out from the street.
‘Charley Sanderson,’ he called back. ‘Do you know him?’
‘Well, I do ’is washing, so I ’ope I do.’ A woman with red hair broke away from a group of other women and came towards him. She was in her twenties, an attractive, shapely woman with a look of Rita Hayworth.
‘Are you his girlfriend?’ Ted asked. He really hoped Charley hadn’t been playing fast and loose with other women, but he wasn’t the kind to tell tales or to cause trouble for another man.
‘No fear,’ she laughed.
‘Well, that’s good, as I came to tell him that Molly’s in hospital. I sent him a telegram, but I think he must’ve been away as he didn’t get back to me. Do you know how I can get hold of him?’
She moved in much closer to him. ‘Is it an emergency?’ she whispered.
‘Well, yes, something really nasty has happened to Molly, and she needs him.’ Ted thought the woman was being a bit odd, but then he wasn’t used to London girls of her class.
‘Then you’d better go round and knock him up at Balaclava Street,’ she said. ‘’E’ll be at number five, it’s only a couple of streets away. ’E’ll be with ’is mate Alan.’
She gave him directions and, as he was getting back in the car, she leaned forward to speak to him through the window. ‘Is Molly ’is sister?’
‘No, his girlfriend,’ Ted replied.
To his surprise, the woman spluttered with laughter.
Ted drove off, a little puzzled by the woman’s attitude, but found Balaclava Street easily. It was almost identical to the first street he’d been to, and equally squalid, except that the houses here were only two storeys.
He rapped at the door of number five and was just about to rap again when the door was opened by a very attractive young blond man wearing a pair of trousers but with his chest and feet were bare.
‘What can I do for you?’ the young man said.
Ted was taken aback by his effeminate manner, and the way he spoke. If this was Alan, he understood why the red-haired woman had laughed. ‘Are you Alan?’ he asked.
‘Yes, who wants to know?’
‘I was told that Charley Sanderson is your friend. Is he here?’ Ted asked. ‘I have a message for him.’
‘Charley!’ Alan yelled, still looking at Ted. ‘Someone to see you.’
Ted heard someone’s feet coming down the stairs. When the man got to the hall he was buttoning up his shirt. His feet were bare, too.
‘I sent you a telegram,’ Ted said hesitantly, so shocked he wanted to drive off in his car. ‘You didn’t reply.’
Charley looked puzzled for a moment, and then suddenly apprehensive. ‘Oh, couldn’t place you for a moment,’ he said, then flashed that wide smile of his. ‘It’s Mr Bridgenorth, from the George in Rye. I haven’t been home, so I haven’t seen a telegram. Don’t tell me something has happened to Molly?’
‘It has, I’m afraid.’ Ted hastily told him the bare bones of it. ‘We heard this morning she was going to be all right, but I’m sure she’d appreciate a letter, a phone call or visit from you.’