The Dress Thief
Authors: Natalie Meg Evans
Fashion and Femininity in the Thirties
First published in the UK in 2014 by
Quercus Editions Ltd
55 Baker Street
7th Floor, South Block
London
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Copyright © 2014 Natalie Meg Evans
The moral right of Natalie Meg Evans to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted
in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
PB
ISBN
978 1 84866 588 0
Ebook
ISBN
978 1 84866 590 3
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations,
places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
You can find this and many other great books at:
www.quercusbooks.co.uk
In the late 1970s, Natalie Meg Evans ran away from art college in the Midlands for a career in London’s fringe theatre. She spent five years acting, as well as writing her own plays and sketches before giving it up to work in PR. She now writes full time from her house in rural north Suffolk, where she lives with her husband, dogs and horses.
For Richard, whose presence has been the bedrock of my life.
The double crash that echoed through the timber-framed house killed one man and damned another. The first blow was metal against skull. The second was the crack of the victim’s head against the corner of a stove.
Afterwards all was still but for whirling motes of dust and the sputtering of an oil lamp low on fuel. The young
man dropped the iron bar he held. He wanted the victim at his feet to move, to make a sound, but Alfred Lutzman’s eyes were frozen in their last emotion. The portrait on the easel would never be finished.
He wanted to get out. Why should he pay – perhaps with his life – for the madness of a moment? A muffled cry stopped him at the door. The artist’s wife stood, immobile, beneath a skylight blanketed
with snow. She seemed unaware of the blood trickling from her left temple, but aware of his desire to leave. She said something in Yiddish, her voice rising. He cut her off in the crisp German that was their common language. ‘Frau Lutzman,
listen to me. This tragedy –’ he glanced at the body and nausea passed through him – ‘was a terrible accident.’
She whispered, ‘No accident. We must go to
the police.’
‘Absolutely not.’ He spoke harshly, copying his late father’s way of dealing with inferiors. ‘They’d send us to trial. I wouldn’t be afraid, but could you stand up to questioning? D’you know the penalty for murder? The guillotine. Then what would become of your child? So … we must think of something else. A story that removes suspicion from us both. I will deny I was here.’
‘And
throw me to the wolves?’
‘We’ll say your husband was shut away up here, finishing a painting. Which is true. You were … You were in your kitchen cooking dinner, with the door closed. You saw nobody, heard nobody. You will not mention my name, ever.’
Danielle Lutzman stared at him, repeating his words soundlessly. In the winter light, she looked younger than he’d originally thought, lithe under
her ragged dress, her glossy black hair escaping from her headscarf. Was there understanding as well as desperation in her eyes? It seemed an age before she nodded. ‘I heard nobody, saw nothing.’
‘Keep to that, Frau Lutzman, and I will do the rest. Never tell the truth to a living soul. You swear?’
She nodded once and he saw his chance to leave. The smell of death and lamp oil was growing unbearable.
But it seemed he’d underestimated his own shock – he could not take the first
step. Then, from below, came the clash of a door. Their eyes locked in fear.
A voice piped – ‘Mama! I’m home.’
Danielle Lutzman gasped, ‘It’s Mathilda. It’s my daughter. Don’t let her come up! She must not see – I beg you, stop her!’
He could not move.
‘Mama, Papa, where are you?’ Wooden soles clumped upstairs. ‘I’m
early. They closed school because of the snow. Papa, I’ve brought a drawing I did for you.’
‘Stop her!’ Danielle pleaded.
He found his will to move too late. The door burst open and a small figure, all hair ribbons and bouncing plaits, burst into the studio.
