Eva, February 1934
The cigarette machine was a big prize. Eva had taken to creeping into the hotel in York Road in the afternoon on the way back from school to look at it, just when the receptionist had gone through half a bottle of gin and was snoring in the back room. Lumps had told her this would be the case, but getting that ciggy machine out of the hotel was going to be too much for her to manage on her own so she’d recruited her little brother Frankie onto her scheme. He was a willing accomplice and was happy to take a small share of the profits – enough to buy a few marbles from the kids in Tenison Street. He was planning to use them as ammo for his catapult.
Mum was still running short every week and Eva had made a promise to get Kathleen a piano. What if she got sick again and died, never having played a note of it? The way little Billy was taken so quickly had scared the living daylights out of her. The last of her dad’s compensation money had been spent paying for a headstone for little Billy. The whole neighbourhood had a whip-round to avoid the shame of the baby being buried on the parish. Nobody wanted Mary and Joe to go through that, having lost their only child, but the cost of the headstone on top of the ten pounds for the funeral was too much to ask. Her parents had stepped in because they were the only ones with any savings. Billy got his headstone and was properly remembered but it had left the family in dire straits again.
And then there was Lumps, who had taken to appearing on the street corner near their home, giving Eva a little wave when she was playing outside with Gladys, just to let her know that she knew where she lived. The last thing she wanted was to have to explain to her parents why the local drunk seemed to be her new best mate.
Eva was beginning to regret getting into this game but if she could just get the ciggies for Lumps this once, that would be the end of it and she would go back to nicking a bit of cash from the till when she needed to. She had planned the raid on the hotel as best as she could, agreeing to meet Lumps around the back of Waterloo Station with the loot later that evening. She’d picked up a couple of old sacks lying in the gutter outside the wastepaper factory around the corner to carry it all.
With the receptionist snoring soundly in the back room, Eva and Frankie moved quickly. The machine was situated in the little hallway by the rear, which led up to the bedrooms. Eva knew this because her mother had cleaned here in the past. With Frankie standing guard, she threw a sack over the machine and then signalled for him to come and lift it with her.
She tilted it backwards and he took the bottom end of it. ‘It’s bleeding heavy, Eve,’ he hissed through gritted teeth. There were indents on the claggy old carpet, where it had stood.
‘Come on, Frankie, we can do it,’ she said, as they lugged it up the hallway. There was no going back now. It was already getting dark outside, which was a mercy because they did look a very odd sight – two kids struggling to carry something very heavy in an old sack. It would be just the sort of thing to attract the attention of the cozzers. They managed to take it a good fifty yards before they had to stop for a rest.
‘I can’t take this into Waterloo Station,’ said Eva. She really hadn’t thought this through.
‘You’ll have to find a way to get the fags out,’ said Frankie. ‘I’ve got an idea.’
They half dragged, half carried it back along York Road and up a side street, to a little health clinic, which was in a mobile hut, on stilts.
‘Me and the boys like to hide out under here,’ said Frankie conspiratorially. ‘But don’t tell Jim or he’ll want to use it for his mates.’
‘I won’t,’ said Eva, rolling her eyes. As if she was ever likely to want to come here again or tell her big brother! They shuffled themselves underneath the building, pulling the heavy sack with them. Once they were underneath, they pulled the machine out of its sack and Frankie picked up a half brick and started to bash away at it, breaking the glass. Eva followed suit and soon they were able to put their fingers in and grab packet after packet of cigarettes.
‘You go home,’ Eva ordered. ‘I’m going to meet Lumps.’ She gathered her haul into the sack, slung it over her shoulder and marched off towards Waterloo Station.
Lumps was hanging around the steps at the back of the station, with her grimy shawl pulled tightly around her shoulders. She smiled when Eva approached, flashing a row of blackened stumps where her teeth should be.
‘Looks like quite a haul,’ she said, fishing some coins out of her pocket to give to Eva.
Eva tightened her grip on her loot. ‘The price is two quid, there’s hundreds of fags in here. I ain’t taking a penny less.’
Lumps laughed. ‘Show me what you’ve got first.’
Eva opened the bag and Lumps peered inside. She smelt so bad, Eva wondered if she had ever had a bath in her life. She probably never used the Manor Place Baths like decent folk.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘I reckon I can get the Daleys to take them and sell them on at their stall in the station. Meet me here tomorrow and I will pay you.’
‘But . . .’ Eva began.
‘That’s how it works with Old Liz,’ said Lumps, as her dirty fingers closed around the bag and took it from Eva’s grasp. ‘I ain’t got that much cash about me but I give you my word that I will get it for you. And as a thank you, come after school tomorrow; there’s someone I know who will want to meet you.’
Eva was so nervous she could barely sleep that night and woke up too late to go up to the bakery in Covent Garden before school. She felt such a fool for letting Liz English, the old soak, take away the cigarettes without giving her any money. That was a mistake she wouldn’t repeat. She managed to get through the day but got told off twice for napping in class, as her eyelids closed while the teacher droned on. When the other kids ran out of school and home to play, she trudged around to Waterloo Station to meet Lumps and to try to get at least some money for her effort.
Lumps gave her a smile and a wave and produced a ten-shilling note from beneath her shawl and wafted it at her.
‘I asked for two quid,’ said Eva, with a steely glare.
‘Well, this is all you’re getting,’ said Old Liz, snatching the note away from Eva’s grasp. ‘But there’s half a crown in it if you’ll come with me down the Borough and I think you will thank me for it.’
‘But that’ll take ages and I don’t want to go anywhere with you!’ cried Eva, who had no intention of going to the Borough with this old drunkard. She probably wanted her to nick a bottle of gin for her.
Lumps looked at her. ‘Nah,’ she said. ‘Maybe you are right. You ain’t much of a tea leaf.’
‘I’m the best thief around here!’ Eva said, before she could stop herself.
‘In which case,’ said Lumps, ‘you will want to meet the Queen of the Forty Thieves, won’t you?’
Eva gasped. She’d heard talk of the Forty Thieves, of course she had, with their raids on the big shops over the water up in Oxford Street and their fights with policemen, but she’d only half believed it all. Was Lumps serious or was this just another one of her drunken antics? Eva wanted the rest of her money; she had a piano to pay for. She set out, walking a few paces behind Lumps, in case anyone she knew spotted her and thought they were friends.
They caught the bus down the Waterloo Road and on to Webber Street, before hopping off and walking down Scovell Road, a side street filled with looming tenement blocks. If Eva’s family was poor, the people living here were poorer, with their tiny flats and their laundry hung across from one balcony to another to dry. The screams and shouts of children playing echoed up the walls and bounced back, creating such a din that Eva wanted to stop up her ears.
‘In here,’ said Lumps, pulling her into a doorway. She clambered up three flights of stairs, her heart beating nineteen to the dozen as her footsteps echoed up the tiled walls of the dark, dank stairwell.
‘I’m not afraid,’ Eva kept saying under her breath. In truth, she was terrified. Greying, holey woollen stockings peeked out through the split leather of Lumps’s boots as she climbed the stairs in front of Eva, huffing and puffing all the while. At times Lumps grasped the wrought-iron stair-rail for dear life and Eva wondered whether the old drunk had the strength to make it up those stairs. They stopped at a door painted sludge green; it swung open and they were greeted by a tall woman with a broad face and piercing green eyes, with her thick hair piled up on top of her head.
Eva instinctively stuck out her hand and said, ‘How do you do?’ as her mother had told her to do, when she needed to be polite.
The woman smiled at her. ‘Lovely manners!’ She didn’t look in the least bit scary. ‘So, you must be Eva. I’m Alice. Come on in, love. Cup of tea?’
Eva and Lumps entered the tiny flat, peering into the living room, which was stuffed with bags and had a clothes rail full of coats and expensive-looking dresses.
‘I bet you’d like to have a good poke around in there, wouldn’t you?’ said Alice with a laugh. ‘Later, maybe, but let’s have a chat first.’ She took a knitted cosy off the most enormous teapot that Eva had ever seen and poured the brew into a dainty bone-china teacup covered with flowers, with a saucer underneath. Eva’s eyes went wide. ‘Nice, isn’t it? I do have my standards; I like a nice bit of china,’ said Alice. ‘Why don’t you wait outside, Liz? The girls will be back in a minute and I need you to keep look-out.’
It was more of an order than a question and Lumps grumbled under her breath but did as she was told and ambled back down the corridor and out into the draughty stairwell.
‘Now,’ said Alice, pulling out a chair for Eva and one for herself. ‘Sit down, that’s right. Old Liz tells me you are making yourself quite handy on the rob, down in Waterloo.’
‘S’pose so,’ said Eva, with a defiant look in her eye. ‘I’m just doing what I can to help my mum make ends meet.’
‘That’s admirable,’ said Alice. ‘But you’re already attracting attention from the cozzers, from what I hear, which ain’t so great.’
‘Yes,’ said Eva, bowing her head.
‘And the thing is, I don’t know whether our friend Liz has put you right on this or not, but I am in charge of all the girl thieves this side of the water.’
‘Oh,’ said Eva. ‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Well, you do now. You need my protection or the cozzers will come for you and that wouldn’t be very nice, would it?’
‘No,’ said Eva, her heart thumping in her chest. ‘So do you mean I have to give you some of what I steal?’
‘That’s how it works,’ said Alice. ‘It’s like a business. You can’t just set up on your own, even if you are only – how old?
‘Twelve,’ said Eva, swallowing hard. Well, she was nearly.
‘But the good news is, I am going to reward you for your work so far,’ Alice went on. She reached into the pocket of her cardigan and pulled out half a crown.
She held the coin between her thumb and her forefinger.
‘Ever seen one of these before?’
‘Yes,’ said Eva, ‘but not very often.’
‘Starting young, then. That’s keen. Well, there’s one of these a week just for being in my gang,’ said Alice. ‘And the thing is, I am always on the look-out for clever girls, just like you. I can teach you plenty and show you how to make better money, real money, to make a job out of it. Nicking from the till is a mug’s game, ain’t it?’
‘Yes.’ Eva found herself agreeing with Alice; she was scared not to.
‘Alice Diamond knows how to look after her girls. Maggie and Ada will tell you as much, won’t you, girls?’
Right on cue, two smartly dressed women in long coats and hats appeared in the doorway, laden with bags.
‘How did you get on?’ said Alice, taking a sip of tea.
‘Selfridges have got some new walkers but we managed to give them the slip,’ said Maggie, taking off her hat and running her hand through her red hair. She turned to Eva. ‘Who have we got here, then?’
‘This is Eva, the little magpie from down Waterloo I’ve been telling you about,’ said Alice. ‘Why don’t you take the weight off and have a cuppa? Are you still carrying?’
Eva’s mouth fell open as Maggie opened her coat and lifted her skirt to reveal the most voluminous knickers, stuffed full, with elastic at each knee. She proceeded to pull a fur coat from each leg of her drawers. She unrolled each coat carefully and laid it on the kitchen table, still on its hanger. She then rummaged in one of Alice’s cupboards and pulled out a bottle of rum, which she sploshed into her tea.
Ada, meanwhile, took off her hat to reveal a secret pocket inside, in which she had stashed a necklace and some diamond rings. She started to yank silk stockings, knickers and nighties out of pockets sewn into the lining of her coat. Alice’s eyes lit up. ‘Nice work,’ she said. ‘I bet you’ve never seen tom like this, have you, Eva?’
‘No,’ said Eva. ‘I ain’t.’ Her knowledge of jewellery extended to her mother’s thin gold wedding band.
‘Well, look,’ said Alice, flashing a row of twinkling diamond rings on each of her hands. ‘I’m Diamond by name and diamond by nature.’
‘But how do you do all that thieving without getting caught?’ said Eva incredulously.
‘That’s what we will teach you, isn’t it, Maggie?’
Maggie nodded, in between sips of tea, then she stood up and began to roll the fur coat, nimbly, into a tight little roll. ‘You have to do it on the hanger and quickly or the shop assistants will spot you,’ she said. ‘You can have a go, if you like.’
Eva took the garment and tried to copy Maggie, rolling it, but it ended up look like a fat, furry sausage. Maggie laughed at her effort.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Alice. ‘You will get plenty of practice around here with me and the girls before we let you do your own hoisting. But you can come along for a shopping trip to help us in the meantime.’
‘Can I?’ said Eva. ‘When will that be?’
‘Soon as you like,’ she said. ‘In fact, I’m planning a little trip up to Whiteley’s in Bayswater tomorrow. Why don’t you come with me?’
‘I’m supposed to go to school . . .’
‘Tell me, what can they teach you in school that is going to be more use than this?’ said Alice, crossing her arms and fixing Eva with a steely glare.
‘Nothing, I suppose,’ said Eva, wondering what her parents would do if they found out.
‘I will meet you outside Waterloo Station at nine o’clock. Don’t be late. Now, hadn’t you better get off home?’
Dad was having tea of bread and dripping when Eva got back. She could tell by the look on her mum’s face that something was amiss.
‘Where have you been?’ he said, brushing a stray crumb from his moustache.
‘I was just out with friends and we played around Roupell Street and it got late . . .’ she ventured.
‘Don’t lie to me.’
‘I ain’t lying,’ she said, putting her hands on her hips.
‘What have you been doing? And don’t you give me any cheek!’
‘Nothing,’ said Eva, looking at the floor.
‘Well, if you can’t confess to it, I’m going to beat it out of you.’
Mum started to cry and rushed over from the kitchen sink. ‘Please, James, don’t . . .’ she said, tugging at his sleeve, but he brushed her hands away and slapped her face for good measure.
‘Don’t interfere, Margaret,’ he said. She recoiled from the force of the blow. Then he seized Eva by the arm. ‘I have had questions from the police, Goddamn you!’ She knew better than to resist. He shook her like a rag doll. ‘Why is my child known to the police?’
‘I ain’t, it’s all lies!’ she shouted but he was already pulling off his belt.
He seized her by her long black hair and yanked her down, over his lap, pulling up her pinafore.
Mum ran sobbing into the back yard.
Eva’s nose was just an inch from the red-tiled floor. She studied it, trying to take her mind off what was to come, as her father folded his belt and grasped it in his right hand. He pulled down her knickers, the cold air of the scullery bringing goose pimples to her naked skin. She resolved not to kick her legs, as she had hidden the half-crown from Alice Diamond in her shoe and didn’t want to have to explain where that had come from.
He struck her and she felt the leather bite. ‘You will not break the law in my house!’ he shouted, bringing the belt down again and again on her backside and her thighs, until she felt hot tears of anger and shame spilling down her nose and sploshing onto the tiles. ‘I didn’t, I didn’t,’ she cried. Pain burned her like a fire and with every stroke she hated him more.
‘Goddamn you, Eva!’ He wielded the belt with such a fury that it cut into her, making her scream.
Just as suddenly as it had started, it was over. He thrust her off his lap in a sobbing heap, onto the scullery floor. Then he stood up without speaking, put his belt back on and left the house, slamming the door behind him.
Through her tears, Eva saw Mum approaching and felt her warm, familiar embrace. ‘I’m sorry, love,’ was all her mother said. There was nothing else to say, they both knew that. It would never stop. She reached down into her shoe and pulled out the half-crown. She handed it to Mum, who smiled and tucked it into her apron pocket. Eva’s mind was made up. Her father was a mug, he went to work and earned a pittance. She was going shopping with the Queen of the Forty Thieves tomorrow.