Charlie (44 page)

The men hauled Rita to her feet and pushed her arms into the garment; it was yellow with age and stank of damp. She was too dizzy to feel the pain, but her legs sagged beneath her and the men had to grab her arms to support her.

‘Now, remember what I said!’ Daphne said, wiping blood from her hands on to her white jacket. ‘One word to anyone, and Paul gets it.’

Rita was still gagged, she could only nod weakly in agreement. She glanced down at herself and saw her bloody stomach and thighs and she thought Daphne might just as well have killed her.

‘Rita, are you all right?’ Charlie’s voice seemed to come from a great distance. ‘Don’t tell me any more, it’s upsetting you too much. Let me make you some more tea.’

Rita hauled herself mentally back to the present. She was relieved to find herself in her own bed, sun streaming in through the window. Charlie was holding both her hands, but her face was as white as a sheet, proving that she hadn’t been dreaming and that she had actually told the girl everything.

‘Looks like you need the tea,’ Rita said weakly. ‘Your eyes look like piss-holes in the snow.’

Charlie moved closer then and hugged the older woman to her shoulder. She was so deeply shocked she couldn’t speak for a moment. ‘I don’t know how you survived,’ she whispered eventually. ‘Did they take you home afterwards?’

Rita leaned against the girl. It was a long time since anyone had hugged her and it felt good to feel bodily contact. ‘They dumped me here on my doorstep just as it was getting light. My body felt it was on fire, I’ve never known such terrible pain.’

Charlie went off then and hurriedly made some tea. She was afraid to leave Rita on her own; reliving that nightmare was enough to push anyone over the edge.

‘How did you manage afterwards?’ she asked a bit later. Rita’s normal colour had come back, she was even managing a few of her jokes.

‘It healed remarkably quickly, considering,’ she said. ‘I used to take salt baths and a sleeping pill, then cover myself with towels and get into bed. It stopped hurting as the scabs came. I used to hope that they would fall off and leave no mark, but of course they didn’t.’

‘Weren’t you tempted to go to the police, despite what she said?’

‘No. That woman wasn’t human, Charlie, she wouldn’t have thought twice about carrying out her threat. I stayed in here, eked out the few savings I had, then went through my wardrobe getting rid of all the clothes which wouldn’t cover the scarred parts of me.’

‘Oh, Rita! I don’t know what to say,’ Charlie said, tears running down her cheeks. ‘It makes my troubles seem nothing.’

‘I brought it on myself,’ Rita said stoically. ‘I hate that woman still of course, because she ruined my life. I’ll never fall in love, marry or have another child. She robbed me of my youth. All through the later part of the Sixties I used to look at the dolly birds in their mini-dresses and cry. I couldn’t go out and have fun, I’d lost my confidence. The only consolation was that my parents became nicer to me.’

‘You told them then?’

‘Oh no.’ Rita made a whistling noise as she sucked in breath through her teeth. ‘I meant because of my change of image. I went home one day in the sort of clothes I wear now and it won their approval.’

‘But weren’t they suspicious?’

‘I told them I’d started going to church,’ Rita smirked. ‘Well, it was the truth at the time. If it hadn’t been for that I might have topped myself. Anyway, they let me see more of Paul after that, in fact he used to come for weekends sometimes. That’s why I decorated your bedroom like that.’

Charlie nodded. She thought all her questions had been answered now. ‘Does he still come?’

‘No, he’s got too big to stay with his big sister, he prefers his schoolfriends’ company. He’s sixteen now, at grammar school, and smart as new paint.’

Charlie saw the deep sorrow in her friend’s eyes and hugged her again. ‘He’ll come back to you when he’s older.’

‘Maybe,’ Rita said, and for the first time a tear trickled down her cheek. ‘But he doesn’t seem to like me much now. Last time I visited him he totally ignored me. I’d bought him some new football boots and he wouldn’t even try them on to make sure they fitted.’

‘Have you got a picture of him?’ Charlie asked.

Rita pulled open the drawer of her bedside cabinet and drew out a thin album. She handed it to Charlie without saying a word.

Charlie felt a lump come up in her throat as she looked. There was just one picture for every year, marking his progress from a big, bald smiling baby of perhaps five or six months, right up to a somewhat gawky-looking teenager with straggly hair. They were all poor-quality black and white snaps, probably taken with an old-fashioned box camera. Charlie got the distinct impression that Rita’s parents had begrudgingly given her these pictures, they looked suspiciously like ones they’d rejected.

‘Is his hair red like yours?’ she asked. She could see no similarity to Rita in Paul; his hair looked dark, he was skinny and foxy-faced.

‘No, fortunately for him it’s brown, he’s a lot like my dad, tall, thin and wiry. I favour my mum, I suppose – her hair is red too, though more chestnut than mine. All Paul got from his real father was his nose, you can’t see in any of those pictures, but it’s kind of snub, like a boxer’s.’

Charlie found the pictures too sad to look at any longer. They underlined the bleakness of her friend’s life and her parents’ lack of compassion. She closed it up and put it back in the drawer. ‘Did you ever see that woman again?’ she asked.

‘I didn’t ever see her, thank God, but then I haven’t been to any of the old haunts or kept in touch with anyone from then. But I did read something in the papers about her. She owned some clubs in Soho during the late Sixties, the sort of places that cropped up like mushrooms when Flower Power was all the rage. One of them was raided by the police and she was charged with supplying drugs.’

Charlie’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Did she go to prison?’

‘Did she hell!’ Rita said scornfully. ‘She wriggled out of it somehow. Her sort always does.’

‘Do you think she’s still around Soho?’

‘I doubt it, she’s probably moved on to somewhere with richer pickings.’ Rita looked hard at Charlie. ‘You wondered last night what I had on my mind. Well, it was this. You see, the last thing Andrew said to me yesterday was that he was going to find out about your father, with or without you. I’m afraid for him going around that area asking questions.’

‘You don’t have to be. He’ll be careful,’ Charlie said lightly.

Rita didn’t reply. She was looking off into space as if deep in thought.

‘What is it? Do you know something?’ Charlie’s heart quickened, suddenly realizing that during Rita’s time in the West End she might very well have known people who did know her father.

Rita turned towards Charlie, saw that glimmer of excitement in her eyes and guessed its source. Her heart plummeted. She knew she must warn the girl and try to dissuade her from digging around. She caught hold of Charlie’s hands. ‘Did I tell you what the woman’s name was?’

‘Yes, Daphne.’ Charlie frowned. She wondered why Rita should ask that.

‘Daphne Dexter,’ Rita said slowly and deliberately. ‘Her initials are D.D.’

Charlie’s mouth fell open. ‘You mean that woman was my dad’s mistress?’

‘I don’t know,’ Rita said in a very low voice. ‘It might be just a wild coincidence, but she’s the right age, I believe she was once a stripper, and she had interests in several clubs. I hope for your sake that I’m letting my imagination run away with me.’

Charlie didn’t speak for a moment, her mind whirling with all the fragments of information she had about DeeDee, and she tried to match it with what Rita had said about Daphne. She couldn’t really believe her father could love someone capable of maiming another woman, yet Sylvia, who had known DeeDee well, was scared of her; she almost certainly knew who the two men were who attacked her too. Could they have been those two brothers?

She shook her head. ‘She can’t be the same person.’

‘I hope she isn’t,’ Rita said, shrugging her shoulders. ‘Because if the woman I know got your dad away from your mother, and you or Andrew cross her path, heaven only knows what might happen.’

Chapter Fourteen

Andrew felt very self-conscious as he walked up Wardour Street. It was only six-thirty, he thought far too early in the evening for Soho’s night life to start, but there were girls and women watching him from almost every doorway.

It was the Monday after he’d seen Rita, and as he’d been given the whole day off he’d decided to make a start on finding out something about Jin Weish. He was very disappointed that there had been no telephone call from Rita over the weekend. On Friday evening he’d been so certain he’d won her round, but maybe Charlie hadn’t contacted her yet.

Over the weekend he’d borrowed the pub typewriter and made a kind of handout, presenting himself as a freelance researcher requiring assistance in compiling information about Soho’s characters during the Fifties. He’d used his friend John’s Hampstead address as a temporary measure as he didn’t have a permanent one of his own.

His first stop this morning had been at a small printer’s where he had a hundred photocopies run off. Since then he’d been calling on every small business, cafés and shops, talking to people and leaving one of the handouts where they expressed any interest.

Andrew was elated by the response. Many of the older shopkeepers had been keen to chat to him, if only to pour out their complaints about the changing face of Soho. They were concerned by a rising tide of violence in the streets at night, the blatant prostitution and how decent shopkeepers like themselves were being squeezed out in favour of people selling pornography. They described Soho during the Fifties as glamorous, and spoke with some nostalgia of gentlemen frequenting the clubs, rather than the seedy riffraff who came here now.

Two sixty-plus market traders in Berwick Street had been a great deal more specific. They had reminisced eagerly about the Maltese Messina brothers who ran most of the prostitution, the Sabina brothers who specialized in ‘protecting’ bookmakers, Billy Hill and Jack ‘Spot’ Comer who were undisputed gang leaders at that time, until they were ousted by the Kray twins.

Andrew found it quite amusing that these two garrulous old chaps were quite prepared to natter on about these thugs who had run Soho in those days, indeed to speak of people having their faces slashed with razors, kneecapping and other atrocities, yet when he asked if there were any major players at that time who were Chinese, they looked askance at him and said, ‘Those Chinks are dangerous, son, you don’t want to be messing with them.’

But one of the old men had given him the name of a man he thought might prove invaluable to Andrew, and he was on his way to the Black and White Café in Carlisle Street now, in the hopes of catching ‘Spud’ having his evening meal.

‘Oih, son! Got time for a quickie?’

Andrew’s head jerked round at the bawled question. It came from a grinning peroxide blonde in a short red dress with a low neck. She was standing in a doorway he’d just passed. She was over the hill, at least thirty-five, and he had a feeling it wasn’t a serious attempt at soliciting, but more of a joke.

Andrew stopped, looked back at her and smiled. ‘I can’t do quick ones,’ he said with a comic shrug. ‘And I’m just off to meet someone.’

She laughed, and despite her somewhat desperate appearance – she had thick pink makeup, her dress was unbecomingly tight – it was a nice, jolly laugh. ‘Story of me life,’ she said. ‘I spots a real tasty one and they’re always in a ’urry’.

Andrew hadn’t dared even think of speaking to any prostitutes, they scared him witless. But now this one had approached him, and seemed to have a sense of humour, he thought it might be worth his while to be friendly. ‘I’ll be back,’ he grinned. ‘Not for your body but to talk to you. I’m collecting information for a book, you see.’

‘What about? Working girls?’ She took a few steps closer to him, her face was alight with interest.

‘Not just that, everything about Soho, you know, the characters, strippers, villains and stuff,’ he said.

She looked at him appraisingly. Andrew guessed she’d been very pretty when she was younger, it was kind of still there, but camouflaged by extra weight and the awful thick makeup. ‘I could tell you enough stuff to fill a suitcase, let alone a book,’ she said. ‘But you go careful, son, Soho ain’t the kind of place to ’ang around when you’re a bit green. Know what I mean?’

Andrew did. He’d been kind of aware all day that he was slightly out of his depth. ‘Will you talk to me then?’ he asked impulsively. ‘I could meet you one afternoon and take you somewhere for tea?’

She smiled; one of her front teeth was broken, and it gave her mouth a slightly lopsided look. ‘You sweet talker,’ she said. ‘Take me to Lyons Corner ’Ouse and buy me a Knickerbocker Glory and you’re on!’

‘Okay,’ Andrew agreed. If she’d suggested taking him up to her room he would have been daunted, but a public place sounded safe enough. ‘What about tomorrow afternoon at half past four?’

‘Okay,’ she grinned.

‘I’ll meet you outside,’ he said. ‘You’re a diamond!’

Andrew was halfway up the street before he remembered he hadn’t asked her name. He wondered if she really would come.

The Black and White Café would have been more aptly named Grey and Greasy. It was like a narrow corridor, stools along the counter; at the far end it opened up wider with half a dozen or so small tables. There were three men in total in there, two together at one table, the other alone. All three were middle-aged working men, so Andrew asked the woman behind the counter for a glass of milk and asked her if any of the men was known as ‘Spud’.

‘Over there,’ she said, pointing to the one alone. ‘He’s just about to have his dinner.’

Andrew made his way over to the man, apologized for disturbing him and explained who had directed him to him and why.

Spud was as strange-looking as his name. His nose was more like a huge growth, purple in colour and with lumps everywhere. His eyebrows were like an overgrown hedge, and he had extremely thick, wet lips, hardly any teeth and a bald head. He smelled of sweat and his shirt was filthy, but he was friendly, and insisted Andrew was welcome to sit down and ask whatever he liked.