The Dazzle of the Light (eBook)

Georgina Clarke (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2022
320 Seiten
Verve Books (Verlag)
978-0-85730-831-3 (ISBN)

Infos

A sparkling new historical novel set in the 1920s, inspired by the notorious all-female crime syndicate known as the Forty Thieves who operated out of the slums of south London.

Ruby Mills is ruthlessly ambitious, strikingly beautiful - and one of the Forty Thieves' most talented members.

Harriet Littlemore writes the women's section in a local newspaper. She's from a 'good' London family and engaged to an up-and-coming Member of Parliament - but she wants a successful career of her own.

After witnessing Ruby fleeing the scene of a robbery, Harriet develops a fascination with the elusive young thief that extends beyond journalistic interest. As their personal aspirations bring them into closer contact than society's rules usually allow, Ruby and Harriet's stories become increasingly intertwined.

Their magnetic dynamic, fraught with envy and desire, tells a compulsive, cinematic story about class, morality and the cost of being an independent woman in 1920s London.

Textauszug

1

London, February 1920

Saturday morning

Ruby Mills runs her knuckles along the mink collar, enjoying the softness of the fur. The coat is perfect. She will look like a queen.

‘I’ll try this one.’ The words are addressed to the shop assistant, but she talks to the coat.

She doesn’t need to see the girl. She’s already noted everything about her: lank hair, too many teeth and a badly picked spot on her chin. Trussed up in soulless navy – the uniform of one of London’s smartest stores. Ruby is indifferent to her. But if she bothered to turn her attention from the coat, she would observe the assistant staring, open-mouthed, at the shiny black bobbed hair, the powdered face, the deep red stain on the lips.

Ruby Mills, although barely older than the girl at the counter, could be a film star.

Ruby knows the shop assistant will be staring. She is used to the stares. It’s part of it. Part of the fun. She swings around now to repeat her demand, adding a hint of impatience.

‘This one?’

The girl starts out of her daydream, snaps her mouth shut and hurries from behind the wide mahogany counter to remove the coat from the hanger. She helps Ruby put it on, taking her own surreptitious stroke of the fur as she smooths the shoulders and breathes in the waft of expensive French scent.

Ruby admires her reflection in the full-length gilt mirror. Yes, this will be the one.

She frowns.

‘No. There’s something not quite right.’ She keeps her words crisp and clipped – a world away from the Cockney drawl she ordinarily uses. ‘It needs… It needs…?’ There’s a querying lilt in her tone now as she draws the girl into the game, stretching her neck to reveal a triangle of bare flesh at her throat.

‘A scarf of some sort, madam?’ The girl ventures. ‘We have silk…’

Ruby tilts her head, considering. It’s quiet in this corner of the store. She can take her time. Just the two of them in the side room and all these beautiful things laid out on the table and counter for her to look at. Scarves, gloves of buttoned silk, a chinchilla stole with light brown ribbons.

‘Yes… I think you might be right, you clever thing. Something in scarlet, perhaps.’

‘Scarlet silk?’ The girl repeats, more earnest now, wanting to get it right. Her manager will be most impressed. She imagines the commission.

Scarlet is a daring shade for a store like this, and, although they sell them, Ruby knows that there is no scarlet silk scarf on open display. The girl will need to go to the back room to fetch one.

She pulls a face, turning this way and that to examine how the coat hangs.

‘I have the perfect thing next door, madam, if you don’t mind waiting.’

Ruby smiles now at the reflection of the girl standing next to her. It’s her signature, her trick, the smile. Conspiratorial. She smiles as though she is sharing a secret.

‘I really mustn’t delay. My husband is expecting me home soon. Do you think you can find it quickly?’ She touches the curl of hair behind her ear with her ungloved left hand, making sure that the girl sees the size of the diamonds on the ring she’s borrowed.

The girl grins, delighted to be sharing the confidence. Her teeth are like disorganised tombstones.

‘You won’t know I’m gone.’

She scurries back behind the enormous counter and disappears through the door.

Ruby Mills pulls five pairs of silk stockings from the countertop and pushes them into the cotton bag that is secreted under her skirts. She folds her old coat and loops it through the thick belt she is wearing along with the chinchilla stole from the table. She grabs a handful of the silk scarves that are on display – not scarlet, but greens and blues, and someone will want them – and shoves them up the sleeves of her new full-length mink.

She buttons up the coat, pausing for a fraction of a second before sliding several brooches from the countertop into the pockets.

She reaches for a fur muff on the table. She has one at home, but this is sable and too tempting. It’s also useful. She presses three pairs of kid gloves into the hand space. She acts quickly, in one easy, fluid movement, with the poise of a dancer.

She takes a last look at herself in the mirror, wrinkling her nose at the bulkiness that she’s added; it’s spoiling the line of the coat. Then she shrugs, checks her wristwatch, and makes her way from this section of the department store towards the impressively gilded doors that will lead her to the street. She glides through them, safe in the knowledge that no one will stop her while she’s dressed like this. She doesn’t look like a thief.

Just beyond the doorway, another woman is waiting for her on the pavement. She nods to Ruby and tucks an arm through hers, squeezing her, and starts to walk immediately.

‘Nice coat, Ruby.’

Ruby smirks. ‘Thought I needed a new one.’

‘Why not?’ the woman says. ‘A girl deserves a treat now and again, don’t she?’

They merge with the crowds on the pavement, walking briskly east, towards Knightsbridge, but not so fast as to attract attention.

‘What else you get? You didn’t just pull the coat, did you?’

‘Course not. The pockets are enormous. I’ve got silk scarves, stockings, brooches – paste, but good. A fur stole. And there’s this.’ She lifts the sable muff.

‘Quality.’

‘Handy, too. I’ve got three pairs of gloves shoved in here. How about you, Maggs?’ Ruby tips back her head, to get a better view from under the rim of her hat. Maggs pulls her along, almost imperceptibly increasing the pace, staring only ahead, eyes fixed on the street and the direction they are heading.

‘Blouses. Silk underthings. They’re in my skirts. And there’s more than one hatpin holding down this hat. It’s like a pincushion right now.’

Maggs always does this: keeps her face rigid while trying to make Ruby laugh.

‘Shame it’s not windy at all, then,’ Ruby says.

‘I could do with a pin in my bloody knickers,’ Maggs grunts. ‘One of the blouses is slipping. Might have to stop and hitch it up before we reach the river.’

‘Are we doing anywhere else? It’s not afternoon yet.’

Maggs shakes her head. ‘Not today. We’ve done well enough between us, but word’ll soon be out that we’re in town and there’s no point risking getting caught. We’ll get these goods over to the warehouse for Grace to sort. And then I think we might deserve a trip to the pictures.’

‘Smashing.’ Ruby loves the picture house. She knows all the film stars. ‘Passion’s Playground is showing. Norman Kerry and Rudolph Valentino! And Katherine MacDonald – she was so good in Turning Point…’

Maggs lets her prattle on but ignores her. Ruby’s a dreamer, and someone has to stay alert. They turn the corner and she slackens her walk, her arm still linked through Ruby’s. Buckingham Palace is not far now.

Ahead of them, two women push through the doors of another store. One of them glances down the street and catches sight of Maggs and Ruby, but she makes no sign that she knows them. Instead, she nods to her friend and the pair set off towards the bridge. Neither Maggs nor Ruby passes comment as they follow at a distance.

They won’t acknowledge one another until they’ve crossed the river into Lambeth and they know they’re nearly home. That’s how it’s done. They all know the game. Hoisting. Lifting. They’ve been playing it since they were children, one way or another. Say nothing until you’re safe.

Ruby can see that Alice Dunning is limping. Her hip is causing her pain again and slowing her down. She says she fell off a ladder and injured herself trying to climb into someone’s house, or climb out of it. She laughs it off and says she can’t remember which way around it was, and anyway, everyone knows that’s not the truth. On her own, Alice looks like any other smartly dressed woman browsing the shops. Apart from the broken nose that makes her face look squashed. But next to Edith, she is clumsy, lumbering along.

Edith Lennox is wearing her new coat. It’s been specially made, lined with small pockets, so that she doesn’t have to push anything into her skirts. She’s not going to make herself uncomfortable. She’ll only have hoisted one or two items. Ruby watches Edith’s feet criss-cross as she walks. This makes her body sway, and the coat skimming her dainty frame swings at just the right length to show off her ankles. Edith is as vain as she is lazy.

Maggs is watching Edith, too, as she tries to hold the blouse between her thighs. She lets go of Ruby’s arm and clutches her skirt to keep the silk garments in place. It doesn’t matter, though. The bridge is in sight, and they are a long way from the store now.

The lank-haired shop girl emerges from the storeroom, holding up the red silk scarf in triumph: a tribute for the goddess of the silver screen. Her arm falls as she surveys the disruption of her station. The goddess, along with the mink coat and several items from her counter and carefully arranged table, have disappeared into thin air.

Later, wiping her nose on the stiff cuff of her sleeve, she will try to remember exactly what the customer had looked like and tell her story to her manager and several policemen. Over her head, the inspector...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 4.11.2022
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Historische Romane
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror ► Historische Kriminalromane
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror ► Krimi / Thriller
• Schlagworte: 1920s roaring twenties jazz age gatsby • fast paced fiction mystery thriller page turner • historical fiction twentieth century • peaky blinders female gang crime syndicate • rivalry betrayal jealousy ambition envy • south london elephant and castle british fiction • womens fiction feminism suffragette gender
• ISBN-10: 0-85730-831-9 / 0857308319
• ISBN-13: 978-0-85730-831-3 / 9780857308313