Along the pavements on either side of the wide road sat every sort of business establishment, from hairdressers to ethnic restaurants to failed ventures with their front grilles pulled down and tagged in a multiplicity of colours. The ubiquitous rug shop was having its expected Going Out of Business sale, and a Chinese takeaway was accepting the delivery of an impressive number of cardboard boxes featuring green dragons shooting nostril flames. Next to this, a fish and chip shop was offering a two-for-the-price-of-one discount. There was no indication what the product was, aside from its being edible, but that was good enough for Barbara. She made a mental note to stop inside the place once she’d concluded her trawling for details at Orchid House. Meantime, the sun beat down on everything, as if getting its own back on people who’d spent decades complaining about the grey, damp weather of summer in England. Barbara could see shimmering waves of something rising up from the Mini’s bonnet. She frowned and held to the hope that it was just the day’s heat.
As Deborah had warned, Barbara saw the statues before she located Trinity Green. The Booths stood facing each other on the greenway between the pavement and the road. Catherine Booth, gowned and bonneted and clutching what had to be a Bible, was positioned so close to the traffic that she might have been hitchhiking. William Booth, arm raised and preternaturally long index finger pointing towards the heavens, appeared to be preaching. The building in front of which they stood bore a sign identifying it as Tower Hamlets Mission. Just beyond it the greenway widened, and Barbara pulled onto it.
On foot, she headed in the direction from which she’d come. Trinity Green turned out to be a short distance to the south-west. It stood off the road and behind the tall brick wall that Deborah had mentioned. This was easy to overlook because only a small, enamelled metal sign on this wall indicated Trinity Green’s existence beyond it. There were two means of access to the place: through a set of large wrought-iron gates that were at present padlocked and through a smaller pedestrian gate that was standing open. Both sets of gates were painted bright green.
The almshouses comprised two terraces of small cottages facing each other, with the eponymous green in the middle, its dried-up lawn shaded by two lines of moptop trees. To one side of the pedestrian gate, a bronze memorial plaque announced that the seventeenth-century buildings therein were houses built originally for “decay’d masters and commanders of ships or widows of the same.” The cottages themselves were redbrick with white dog-tooth cornices along the rooflines and decorative corbels holding up narrow porch roofs that offered scant protection from the elements. Stone quoins punctuated each end of both terraces; worn steps led up to each front door. To the side of these steps were small patios that acted as individuation for the dwellings: some were filled with plants, others with toys, still others with barbecues and seating for outdoor summertime meals.
Barbara reckoned that the chapel she sought was the distinguished-looking building at the far end of the lawn, facing in the direction of the road and featuring a handless blue clock face with golden numbers to indicate the hours. Access to Orchid House was up a wide flight of stone steps and through open chapel double doors, above which a curved pediment was going green and black from years of ignoring moss, mold, and mildew.
Barbara entered an octagonal vestibule. Here four large noticeboards were hung with a variety of posters indicating upcoming diverse events in the neighbourhood: from a performance by an acrobatic group to a weekly class on meditation given somewhere in this building. Just inside the chapel proper, a table of the sort one found in school lunchrooms held boxes of stationery, filing folders, and office supplies, along with a hand-lettered poster board name plate upon which someone had neatly printed reception. There was, however, no receptionist present.
Barbara looked round to see if anyone was lurking nearby. Finding no one, she wandered farther into the chapel, which, while serving at one time as a place of worship, was subdivided now with unappealing temporary walls some nine feet tall, behind which voices could be heard. Still, the chapel had managed to retain a few decent features, no doubt in keeping with its age: A carved and gilded wooden cornice as well as cream-coloured paneling were the most noticeable. At one time there had been chandeliers as well—crystal, brass, silver . . . who knew?—but they’d been removed, with only their chains hanging disconsolately from the ceiling to mark the place where each had hung. The lighting now consisted of grim fluorescent strips, two of which were flickering badly, and whatever the flooring once had been—stone or oak or tiles—it was now institutional carpet of a particularly depressing shade of blue. This was, admittedly, one step above carpet squares, but it was equally hideous nonetheless.