Tiger Bay Blues (18 page)

‘I came to see Reverend Slater. My train was held up in Bridgend. I didn’t get into Cardiff until after midnight and then I was attacked by a crowd of women outside the church. These officers seem to think I did something to deserve it.’

‘Surely not?’ Micah Holsten turned to the Inspector.

‘You can’t blame us, Pastor. Bute Street after midnight is not the usual haunt of decent young ladies.’

‘It appears there are extenuating circumstances, Inspector.’ Micah brushed his hair out of his eyes.

‘You can vouch for this girl?’ the inspector asked.

‘I can, and I believe Reverend Slater will be extremely displeased when he hears of her ordeal.’ He rolled down his shirtsleeves. ‘Mrs Brown is helping me at the mission this evening. She could chaperone Miss Evans until morning. Miss Evans
is
free to leave?’

Pugh looked to the Inspector, who shrugged his shoulders.

‘It appears she is,’ Pugh replied.

Edyth could see the officers were relieved to be rid of her. She rose to her feet. ‘There is still the matter of my handbag and overnight case. You haven’t even taken a description of them.’

‘White leather handbag and red plaid Gladstone,’ Murphy said to the clerk, and Edyth realised that he had listened to her after all.

‘You’d better give me a list of the contents, Miss … Evans,’ Pugh suggested. ‘Just in case something does turn up. But don’t hold out too much hope.’

‘There was a five-pound note and some coins in a purse in the bag and a bank book.’

‘Colour of purse?’ Pugh didn’t look up from the book.

‘White leather, the same as the handbag. There was also a blue leather pocket diary, a bristle hair brush, American cloth cosmetic bag with a gold lipstick case and powder compact, a bottle of essence of violets and a pocket edition of Emily Brontë’s
Wuthering Heights.’

‘And the contents of the overnight case?’

‘A white cotton nightdress trimmed with lace, a matching white cotton robe, a green American cloth toilet bag with soap, toothpaste and face cream, and a pair of white slippers. A green cotton print frock, underwear and stockings.’

‘Was the bag labelled?’

‘Yes’, Edyth hesitated. ‘With my name and address. And my diary also had my address inside.’

‘Any keys that fit locks at the address?’

‘No.’

‘We’d still better have it.’

Edyth hesitated.

‘You won’t contact the lady’s parents until she has had an opportunity to do so first thing in the morning?’ Micah Holsten asked.

‘We won’t.’

‘You promise?’ Edyth demanded.

‘You have our word, miss.’

Edyth went to the desk, scribbled her name and address on the slip of paper Constable Pugh handed her and gave it back to him. He glanced at it. If he recognised her father’s name he didn’t comment.

‘Put out a report to all the beat constables. Ask them to keep a look out for a white leather handbag and a red plaid Gladstone,’ the Inspector ordered. ‘If anything is handed in before morning, Miss Evans, where can we contact you?’

‘The Norwegian mission before breakfast and afterwards the vicarage?’ Micah looked to Edyth for confirmation.

‘Yes, please.’

‘Enjoy what’s left of the night, Miss Evans. I trust it will be less eventful than it has proved so far.’ Inspector Cummings walked into his office. ‘Night, Pastor,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘Thanks for the help.’

‘Any time, Inspector. Goodnight everyone.’ Micah looked at Edyth, ‘There’s a lavatory down the corridor if you want to put that shirt on.’

‘Thank you.’ She darted self-consciously inside. After locking the door she examined her face in the mirror. There were bright red scratches down both cheeks and around her mouth and forehead. Her left eye was half-closed, red and swollen, and her arms were as bloody and battered as her face. Tearing a piece from her bodice, she wiped her face and arms. They hurt, but Constable Pugh was right, her injuries were superficial. The dizziness she was feeling had to be down to shock. Then she caught a glimpse of the right side of her head.

Holding the rag she’d torn from her frock under the tap, she soaked it and rubbed her scalp. There was an unmistakable bald spot.

‘Miss Evans, are you all right?’ Micah Holsten knocked the door.

‘Fine, Mr Holsten, I’ll be out in a minute.’ She threw the rag into the toilet pan, flushed it and buttoned the shirt, which was far too large for her, over the ragged remains of her dress. She rolled up the sleeves and, feeling like a child in dressing-up clothes, returned to the reception area.

Micah did just what her brother, Harry, would have done under the circumstances: slipped his arm around her shoulders and led her outside, relinquishing his hold on her only to open the door of the police station. She walked past him, stepped into Maria Street, staggered, and would have fallen if he hadn’t caught her.

‘Are you up to walking?’ Micah asked solicitously. ‘If not, I could leave you here and fetch my van.’ He wrapped his arm around her shoulders again.

‘No, thank you. Please, I’m just stiff from sitting on that chair. I can walk.’

‘You should see a doctor to get those cuts dressed.’

‘No, thank you. I looked at them in the mirror. There are a few scratches and bruises but nothing serious.’

‘Or more than fingernail deep?’ he guessed.

‘Frankly, Mr Holsten, my pride sustained the most serious injury. And my hair. A clump was torn out by the roots.’

‘It will grow again.’

‘I sincerely hope so.’ She took a deep breath. The air was heavy and stale despite their proximity to the sea. Emotionally as well as physically drained by the train journeys, the effort it had taken to, if not exactly lie to her parents, mislead them, the women’s assault on her, and her subsequent ordeal in the police station, it was as much as she could do simply to remain upright.

Although it had happened less than an hour before, the attack already seemed more nightmare than reality. She tried to push it, and the humiliating scene in the police station, from her mind. But guilt prevented her. She had been incredibly stupid to continue her journey to Tiger Bay so late at night. She should have either taken the last train to Pontypridd or booked into a hotel in Cardiff city centre. Now, when she thought of it, she didn’t know why she hadn’t done just that when she’d had enough money in her purse to rent a room for the night. Money, she suspected, she would never see again.

She was also confused by the cavalier way the Inspector had entrusted her to the care of a man with whom she had only the briefest acquaintanceship, not that she wasn’t grateful to Micah Holsten for vouching for her. But then Micah Holsten was a Pastor, and – she smiled when an image of Peter rose in her mind, a smile that cost her dear when it opened a scratch on her face – church ministers, of whatever denomination, were almost always considered respectable by people in authority.

‘Are you absolutely certain that you are up to a ten-minute walk?’ Micah intruded on her thoughts.

‘Yes. I’m just a bit shaky.’ She took the arm he offered her and forced herself to put one foot in front of the other.

‘I’m not going too fast for you, am I?’ Micah asked after a few minutes.

‘Not at all.’ She quickened her pace, not wanting to admit that was finding it difficult to keep up with his long-legged stride.

‘The sooner we get to the mission, the sooner I can see to those cuts on your face, and the sooner you can rest.’

‘I thought you were a pastor, not a doctor.’

‘I studied medicine for a while,’ he informed her briefly in a tone that didn’t invite further questioning. He propelled her down a double terrace of modest ‘two-up two-down’, which reminded her of the mineworkers’ homes around the collieries in Pontypridd, before diving down a narrow, dark alleyway that separated back yards crammed with wooden outhouses, coal sheds and, judging by the smell, poultry coops.

Snatches of music rose to meet them, fading as they passed: the strains of a homesick violin playing an Irish air; a Spanish guitar strumming a flamenco that set her mind dancing, even though her body hurt too much to follow; brass instruments belting out American jazz; and voices – deep, resonant Negro baritones – that reminded her of the recordings of Spirituals her father bought despite his avowed aversion to all things religious; scurrilous comic songs delivered in the distinctive Welsh lilt; an Italian imitating Caruso’s
Ave Maria,
and, in the distance, high-pitched, drunken caterwauling she failed to recognise as any language.

The hands on the clock in the police station had pointed to half past one when they’d left, yet the streets were as crowded as Pontypridd on market day. Micah continually tipped his white felt trilby; to women sitting in groups on chairs that they had carried out of their homes; to men rolling dice and playing cards on the pavements on street corners; and others who were simply loitering and gossiping.

Micah took Edyth’s hand and, wrapping his fingers around hers as though she were a small child, led her across a large square. A Catholic priest in a cassock scurried towards a terrace that led off one corner. He was deep in conversation with a small boy at his side.

Micah released Edyth’s hand, ran across the road and intercepted them. ‘Mrs King?’ he asked urgently.

The priest crossed himself. ‘God bless and help her in her hour of need.’

‘She’s –’

‘Clinging on, or so I understand from what the boy told me, but it won’t be long now,’ the priest murmured.

‘Tell Jed, Ron, Tony and Judy I’m thinking of and praying for them and Pearl.’

‘I will.’

‘And if they need any earthly help they only have to send word.’

‘I’ll tell them, Micah, but they already know that.’

‘My sister will call on Judy in the morning.’

‘No doubt Judy has women with her. But she will be needing help with the funeral – and afterwards.’

‘She’ll get it,’ Micah promised.

‘Thank you for your charitable thoughts, Micah. You’re a good friend to the family.’

‘They’re good friends to me, Father.’

An elderly matriarch was perched on the narrow window sill of a terrace house, smoking a clay pipe. A crowd of younger women had gathered around her, a few of them nursing babies ‘Welsh fashion’ with shawls wrapped around them and their infants. They watched in silence as the priest and the boy entered the house. The door was open, and they didn’t close it behind them.

‘The Bay rarely sleeps, especially in times of sickness and death,’ Micah said when he saw Edyth looking at the small terrace.

She hit the toe of her shoe on a kerb, stumbled and would have fallen if Micah hadn’t saved her.

‘Careful.’ He slipped his arm below her elbow and steadied her.

‘As you probably gathered from what my brother, Harry, told you, I’m naturally clumsy and have been all my life.’

‘I’d rather you didn’t break your neck when you’re with me. Especially as we’re almost at the mission.’

‘I take it Mrs King is related to the King brothers and Judy Hamilton, who played at Bella’s wedding?’

‘The brothers’ mother and Judy’s grandmother.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Mrs King is very ill. Death will come as a release for her but a tragedy for Judy. Her mother, Pearl King’s only daughter, died shortly after she was born, and her father abandoned her. She has her three uncles but they all have large families of their own and their houses are full to overflowing. Her grandmother’s house is rented and the landlord’s already found another family to put in it. But we have to bury the poor woman before thinking of Judy. And there’s nothing any of us can do tonight except pray for Pearl King and her family.’

They crossed a second, more imposing square that bordered a fenced park ringed by four- and five-storey late-Georgian and Victorian edifices, which would have graced the most fashionable areas of London. Beyond it was a bridge and Edyth cried out in surprise at the sight of a perfectly proportioned wooden Norwegian church that gleamed white in the darkness. It looked as though a giant had plucked it from a Scandinavian forest and dropped it incongruously on Cardiff docks.

‘It’s beautiful, just like the one in Swansea.’

‘You’ll find Norwegian seamen’s mission churches in ports all over the world, and all built to the same design, Miss Evans. This one also happens to be my home. You’re welcome to spend what’s left of the night in my room.’

‘I couldn’t possibly deprive you of your bed,’ she protested, embarrassed by the trouble she had caused him.

‘If you’re worried about your reputation, my sister is working tonight. She’ll chaperone you,’ he reassured her.

‘She works for your church?’

‘In a voluntary capacity. We have a lot of helpers; wives, widows, sisters, mothers, daughters and grandmothers of seamen who do all they can to ensure that the Norwegian sailors are well looked after when they’re ashore, in the hope that someone will do the same for their men in a port elsewhere in the world. Not that we cater only for Norwegians – or Scandinavians. Our doors are open to everyone.’

‘Even wayward girls,’ she commented drily.

‘Especially wayward girls.’ He smiled. ‘In my experience they are our most interesting guests. But in your case I’d say ill-advised is a more apt word than wayward.’ He waited for her to walk up the steps that led to the main door.

‘You hold services here?’

‘We do.’ He pushed open the door and they entered a small hall. ‘But that’s not the main purpose of the mission or why most of our visitors come here.’

The first thing that struck her was the hubbub of conversation and laughter echoing from the floor above. She breathed in deeply. ‘There’s the most gorgeous smell. Vanilla and cream and –’

‘Waffles,’ he informed her succinctly. ‘The staple of all Scandinavian cooking and the principal attraction of every Norwegian mission. Every seaman knows he can get coffee, waffles, a welcome, a comfortable chair and all the books and magazines he can read in a mission. We try to make everyone a home away from home. But as you hear from the noise, word has travelled and we don’t cater exclusively for mariners.’