It was gloomy in the church, and the usual smell of polish and damp had a layer of rose scent added to it from the two very large vases of roses either side of the altar.
She looked around, including in the vestries, calling out Petal’s name, but to no avail.
On an impulse she sank down on to her knees at the altar rail and prayed that Petal would be found unharmed.
As she got up she remembered that the last time she’d made a plea to God was when Emily said she was leaving home after their father had given her that beating. They were in the bedroom. Emily was sobbing; her face was swollen and red where he’d slapped it, but that was the least of her injuries: he’d hit her again and again on her back with a cane. As she was only wearing a thin blouse, her back was a mass of weals, and some were bleeding.
‘I hate him!’ Emily sobbed out. ‘I’m going and I’m never coming back and, what’s more, I’m going to steal the week’s takings to teach him a lesson.’
Molly had always looked up to her big sister, because she consistently stood up to their father and had stuck up for Molly hundreds of times. But this beating wasn’t just because Emily had carried on seeing Bevan Coombes, ‘the lout’, as her father called him, after she’d been warned she wasn’t to but because she’d dared to tell Jack Heywood he was a deranged bully who ought to be locked up in a loony bin.
Molly did everything she could that night to sooth Emily’s wounds, gently applying antiseptic cream, cuddling her sister and stealing some of their father’s brandy to help her sleep. Later, she got on her knees to pray for a miracle; that Jack would wake up a changed man and beg Emily not to go. It didn’t work, of course: her father was still as nasty the next morning. Emily waited until Saturday night when he’d gone to the pub, opened the shop safe and pocketed the week’s takings, then picked up her suitcase and went to catch the last bus into Bristol.
She didn’t tell Molly or their mother when she was going, and neither of them knew she’d found out what the combination number for the lock on the safe was. Jack found a note from her inside it. It said, ‘Treat people badly and they’ll behave badly. You deserve this and more.’
That last defiant act of Emily’s still impressed Molly. Time and again when her father hit her, she wished she could find her older sister’s guts. Now, as she walked from the church to her home, she thought about the prayers she’d just offered up. They were simply that she wanted God to keep Petal safe, and that if someone was holding her to let her go without harm. She hadn’t prayed that her father would be pleasant when she got home, because she knew he wouldn’t be.
News travelled fast in the village so, by now, even people who hadn’t been at the hall or in the pub would know exactly what had happened. Her parents may have even watched from the window as Molly passed the shop with the men as a search party.
Molly let herself in the side door, passed along the corridor by the stock rooms and went up the stairs to the flat. She was tempted to go straight to her bedroom instead of going into the sitting room where her parents would be, but if she did that her father would only come in and ask her what she was playing at. So there was nothing for it but to join them and get it over with.
Opening the door to the sitting room, she found her parents sitting just as they always did. Her father was in the wing-back armchair to the right of the fireplace and closest to the new, small, cube-like television placed on a table in the alcove. Her mother was on the left side, her back to the window overlooking the high street. Her chair was smaller, and rather hard, but she claimed it supported her back well. Neither of them ever sat on the couch, and the cushions on it were arranged with precision.
Jack turned his head as Molly came in, his mouth already twisted into a sneer rather than a welcoming smile.
‘I always knew that little tart would come to a sticky end,’ he said, his accent broad Somerset. ‘Good riddance to bad rubbish, that’s what I say.’
Molly’s eyes prickled with tears at his nastiness. She hadn’t expected him to show any concern for Cassie but, even so, delighting in her death was appalling.
‘That’s very cruel, Dad,’ she replied, wishing she had the courage to say something stronger. But she could see the glint of malice in his eyes, and knew by the way his mouth was twisted that he had plenty more to say on the subject and that one wrong word from her could make him flare up. She always promised herself that the very next time he was horrible she would tell him what she thought of him, but the truth was she was far too scared of him, so much so that she usually fled when she thought he might be about to hit her.
Mary, her mother, put her finger to her lips to warn Molly. With her back to the light from the window, she looked younger than her fifty-five years, but that was only because she’d had her brown hair permed recently and was wearing a flattering duck-egg-blue twinset and a little powder and lipstick for what was a special day. Close up, her face was very lined, and there was a deep sadness in her eyes that was very aging.
Jack Heywood was sixty and, although her mother always said he’d been a fine-looking man and old photographs bore this out, bitterness, thinning hair, bad teeth, a paunch and a greyish tinge to his complexion had taken those good looks.
Molly felt bad that she didn’t like him, much less love him, but then he’d never been a real father. He’d never played with her and Emily, never taken an interest in their schoolwork or hobbies. All they’d ever got from him was criticism and scorn. Maybe if he’d had a son he might have been different, but he saw all females as his inferiors, and there to be used and abused.
Even the decor of their flat above the shop was evidence of his laziness and lack of interest in the home.
Paint and wallpaper had been in very short supply after the war, and most ordinary working people didn’t have the money to spend on non-essential things. The more affluent people soon began making an effort to spruce up their homes and businesses, but not Jack Heywood, even though he could easily afford it.
The parade of shops in which his business stood had been built back in about 1850, and in 1910 the previous owner had extended his shop, Greville’s, into the one next door and the flat above. The older residents in the village often said what a high-class establishment it was. The installation of a bathroom and a large kitchen and other renovations to the living quarters had made it an attractive and spacious home. But it hadn’t been redecorated since then, and the Edwardian wallpaper, although probably once lovely, was now stained and shabby. All the furniture – a mixture of handed-down and wartime utility pieces –looked as if it had seen better days.
‘Cruel! I’ll give you cruel,’ Jack snarled at Molly, rising in his chair a little as if about to strike her. ‘Everyone but you knew that girl was a wrong’un. You’re just too stupid to see it.’
‘Yes, I suppose I am stupid,’ she said meekly, thinking she must be stupid to work so hard for him for nothing. She moved out of his reach as a precaution. ‘But even if you didn’t approve of Cassie, I’m sure you feel some concern for Petal. She’s missing, you know, and for all we know she could be dead, too.’
‘Petal!’ he exclaimed. ‘What sort of a name is that to give a child?’
Molly knew it was an odd sort of name but she’d never known one that had fitted a child better, and anger rose up inside her that just this once he couldn’t show a little concern for a child in danger.
‘The name suits her beautifully,’ she said in a quiet voice. ‘I can’t believe that you can’t say you hope she’ll be found soon, and how terrible it is that a young woman should be murdered in our village.’