Belle

by Lesley Pearse

  Belle had been afraid of him pressing her in some way, but the flippant way he’d made that remark made her giggle. ‘A girl is supposed to agree to marry someone for much deeper reasons than changing her name,’ she said.

  ‘That’s true,’ he said equally lightly. ‘But if we all moved to Blackheath where it’s terribly respectable, I’d have to pretend to be your brother to avoid people talking. And that would become very complicated. It would be much easier to introduce you as my wife. And easier for you to get a shop – landlords are very prejudiced against lone women taking on a lease.’

  Belle thought she ought to be nervous at the way this conversation was going, yet she wasn’t. Everything he’d said was quite true.

  ‘I meant husband and wife in name only,’ he said quickly, before she’d even thought how to reply. ‘I do realize after what you’ve been through that the last thing you would want is another man taking over your life.’

  She felt his complete sincerity and was deeply touched by it. ‘That wouldn’t be fair on you, Jimmy,’ she said quietly.

  ‘You mean if you didn’t want to share my bed?’ he asked bluntly.

  ‘Well yes, and not feeling that way about you,’ she said awkwardly. ‘I like you such a lot Jimmy, I trust you too and we could be the best of friends, but …’ She paused, not knowing how to round it off.

  ‘Listen to me,’ he said, taking one of her hands in his. ‘I’ve made a suggestion, nothing more. All I really want is for you to recover from what you’ve been through. To be your friend and support whatever you decide to do.’

  She looked into his tawny eyes then and saw exactly what she’d seen the first time they’d met. Honesty.

  They walked on up through Greenwich Park right to the iron gates at the far end, and he told her that the huge expanse of grass in front of them was Blackheath. There were some children sailing boats on the pond, the boys in sailor suits, the girls in pretty dresses, watched by their mothers, some with perambulators, sitting on benches.

  Beyond the Heath she could see a church with a spire. The scene was so far removed from the hurly-burly and squalor of Seven Dials that she felt choked up.

  ‘My mother brought me here once when I was about that boy’s size.’ Jimmy pointed out a boy of about seven. ‘She never said, but I felt she wished we lived somewhere like this and I could sail boats instead of playing in the street. She had to work so hard to keep us. But she never complained.’

  ‘Is that why you’d like to come and live here?’ Belle asked.

  ‘I suppose it is, well, partly. I’d like to have children one day and bring them over here to sail boats and play cricket with them. But mostly I’d like to live in a place with wide open spaces like this, to wake up each morning and hear birds singing, and just be happy.’

  ‘I think that’s a lovely ambition,’ Belle said, and it struck her that she shared it.

  In the days that followed, in between helping Mog with the chores, Belle often found herself thinking of the sun-drenched Heath, the pond and the sailing boats. She had already realized it would prove risky trying to open a hat shop anywhere close by Seven Dials, when there were already so many places to buy a hat in Oxford Street and Regent Street. Blackheath sounded perfect, and imagining her shop lifted her away from thinking about how she’d lived for the past two years, and what the immediate future had in store for her once Kent and Sly were arrested.

  But so far the police had failed to catch the men, and every day Belle was growing more tense because of it. She knew it was perfectly possible that if Kent had heard she was back in England, he’d seek her out and kill her. She knew this was on Garth and Jimmy’s mind too, just by the vigilant way they locked up at night and insisted she was accompanied every time she went out.

  Jimmy was kept busy most of the day and evenings, but when the bar closed, he and Belle would sit by the stove in the kitchen and talk. Bit by bit, Belle told him about New Orleans, Faldo, and going to Marseille. At first she censored it, telling him only the amusing parts, or related it as if she’d been a mere bystander. But gradually, as she realized he wasn’t easily shocked, she told it as it really was.

  ‘That lad’s got a wealth of understanding,’ Mog remarked on the day Jimmy had accompanied Belle to Bow Street police station to read and sign her statement. ‘I suppose working in the bar he’s got to hear all sorts – living around here you don’t stay innocent for long. But he don’t judge, I think that’s what I like about him the most.’

  Belle could only agree. She even teased Jimmy that he would make a good priest.

  ‘I could do the listening in the confessional all right,’ he laughed. ‘But I couldn’t cope with all that praying and stuff.’

  Belle wondered if by ‘stuff’ he meant being celibate. She knew he had walked out with a couple of young women while she was away, but she suspected he was still a virgin. His proposal lurked at the back of her mind, popping up at the oddest times. She thought it would be the easiest thing in the world to accept it; at a stroke she’d make everyone happy, even herself in many ways because as each day passed she liked him more. But while she was still thinking about Etienne and hoping against hope he’d come to claim her, it wasn’t fair on Jimmy to lead him on to think she might be coming round to it.

  But there had been no letter from Etienne. She had been back in London for two weeks now, and although she told herself mail from France might take longer than that to arrive, in her heart she knew there was no letter on its way.

  Garth didn’t allow women in his pub. His attitude wasn’t unusual; except in hotel bars, or saloons close by theatres, most landlords were the same. Mog occasionally helped serve at lunchtime, but never in the evening, and Garth referred to the women who sometimes tried to come in as ‘ladies of the night’ and refused them entry.

  His euphemism wasn’t apt, for in Seven Dials they didn’t wait for night, they were out there on street corners from nine in the morning. They had been on the street corners all of Belle’s childhood, yet she had barely noticed them then. But she not only noticed them now, she felt deeply for them: dirty, raddled, some with wrinkled breasts barely covered, hair that hadn’t seen a wash for weeks, and thin because they chose to buy cheap gin instead of food for the oblivion that came with it.

  So when Belle and Mog heard strident female voices coming from the bar one evening as they were sitting in the kitchen, Belle looked up from her sketchpad in surprise.

  ‘What’s going on in there?’ she asked.

  Mog put her sewing down and looked out of the window. ‘Well, it’s not raining, that’s when they usually try to make Garth let them in. Something must’ve happened out on the street. I’ll go and see.’

  She only went as far as opening the door through to the bar and peeped round it. ‘Jimmy!’ she called. ‘What’s going on?’

  Belle couldn’t hear his reply, but Mog came back and sat down. ‘He said he’d come through in a minute and explain. But there’s a crowd of girls in there, they look like the ones from Pearl’s, and Garth’s given them all a drink. So something must have happened there.’

  Pearl’s was a brothel a couple of streets away. Mog had mentioned it a day or two ago because it was rumoured to be owned by Kent.

  ‘Maybe the police raided it to find him?’ Belle suggested.

  ‘If it was that, surely they’d have taken all the girls down to the station,’ Mog said, and frowned anxiously.

  It was frustrating hearing the voices growing louder and louder, but not knowing what was happening. Mog went over to the door several times to listen but couldn’t make head or tail of what was being said. Then they heard the bell ring to warn everyone to drink up as it was closing time, and gradually the noise abated as everyone began to leave.

  Finally Garth came through. His face was grim.

  ‘What happened?’ Mog said, going over to him and putting her arms around his waist.

  ‘The police raided Pearl’s,’ he said. ‘Kent was in there, but h
e had a gun and shot one of the policemen and legged it out the back window. The whole of Seven Dials is in an uproar. The girls came here to tell me because of Belle.’

  Chapter Thirty-seven

  Belle tossed and turned all night, very aware of Mog in the bed beside her, and that Jimmy and Garth were taking it in turns to stand guard downstairs.

  Jimmy had pointed out before they went to bed that having shot a policeman there would be little point in Kent trying to kill Belle too, for he’d hang regardless of whether she was a witness to his crimes or not. Garth said that Kent would be much more concerned with getting out of the country, and both men were being logical. But Belle felt logic didn’t come into it with men like Kent or Pascal.

  They had looked out of the bedroom window before they turned in and seen two policemen patrolling Monmouth Street. Mog had said there would be more all over Seven Dials and pointed out how quiet it was everywhere, none of the usual drunks and whores wandering around.

  Belle must have dropped off to sleep eventually for she woke with a start at someone knocking on the door downstairs, and she saw it was daylight.

  Mog leapt out of bed like a scalded cat, pulling a shawl around her shoulders. ‘Stay here,’ she ordered Belle. ‘I’ll just go out on to the stairs and see if Jimmy or Garth is answering the door.’

  Belle looked at the clock and saw it was six-thirty. Knowing she wouldn’t be able to go back to sleep anyway, she got up and dressed.

  Mog came back into the room. ‘It’s Noah,’ she said. ‘Jimmy has let him in.’

  Belle hurried downstairs to find Jimmy fully dressed in the kitchen with Noah, and Garth wearing only his trousers and vest, yawning sleepily.

  ‘Noah’s been at the police station getting the latest news,’ Jimmy said.

  Belle put the kettle on. Sometimes she thought she was turning into Mog, because she always did that in a crisis.

  ‘Sorry to call so early, but I thought you’d want to know. Sly was arrested yesterday afternoon,’ Noah said. ‘I suspect he sang his heart out because it’s the only way the police would’ve known Kent was due to go to Pearl’s last night to collect the takings. Why they didn’t catch him before he went in is anyone’s guess, damn fools. Anyway, they charged into Pearl’s like the cavalry. To be fair to them, I don’t suppose they’d expected him to be armed with a gun. Kent was in an upstairs room he apparently uses as an office. He heard the noise, tried to climb out the window, and as the constable went in, he shot him.’

  ‘Is he dead?’

  ‘As a door nail,’ Noah said glumly. ‘A young man with three small children too. You can imagine the confusion in there, by all accounts the place is like a rabbit warren with narrow passages and small rooms. What with all the girls screaming, men trying to get back into their clothes and get out before the police questioned them, it must have been mayhem. Kent succeeded in getting away through the window and on to the roof, and from there it seems he went along the whole street and escaped the police who were stationed outside Pearl’s.’

  ‘So he’s still at large?’ Belle asked nervously.

  ‘Yes, but there’s a huge manhunt going on. Every policeman in London is out; there’s nothing that motivates them quite as much as one of their own being down.’

  ‘If they knew he owned Pearl’s, why didn’t they stake it out before?’ Jimmy asked.

  ‘I don’t think they did know that. Pearl has been arrested. I dare say we’ll find she was too scared to turn him in.’

  Mog had come into the kitchen, her face was pale with fright. ‘Where have all Pearl’s girls gone?’ she asked.

  Noah shrugged. ‘No idea, but as I came past there the police had it cordoned off. If the girls have got any sense they’ll stay away for a while.’

  ‘That’s their home, Noah,’ Belle reminded him, remembering how it was when Millie was murdered: so much hysteria and fright, yet at least the girls were allowed to stay in the house. ‘All their belongings will be in there and most won’t have anywhere else to go.’

  ‘Do you think we should go away somewhere?’ Mog asked.

  Garth looked at her, saw how scared she was and went over to her and put his arms around her protectively. ‘I can’t leave here even if I wanted to,’ he said. ‘The place would be broken into as soon as we’d left the street, and I’m not letting you or Belle out of my sight. But Kent won’t dare come here. He’s not a fool or he’d have been caught days ago. So we stay, business as usual, only we keep vigilant.’

  ‘We’ll all sit down and have breakfast,’ Belle said. She lifted the frying pan down off the hook, knowing that would spur Mog into laying the table.

  Some fifteen minutes later they were all sitting around the table eating bacon and eggs, and calm had returned.

  ‘I meant to come round last night,’ Noah said as he took another slice of bread. ‘We got a telegraph yesterday at the office from Paris saying the police have found the other girl’s body. But I was there so late working on a piece about it, it got too late to call here.’

  ‘Was she buried in Pascal’s garden?’ Belle asked. She could feel goose bumps popping up all over her.

  ‘No, they dug all that up but found nothing. It was on some waste ground round the back of the Sacré-Coeur. A workman found it when they were levelling out the ground to pave it. They identified her by a necklace her grandmother had given her.’

  ‘How did she die?’ Garth asked.

  ‘Must we talk about this as we eat?’ Mog said, her voice shaking.

  Noah apologized, but went on regardless to say the girl had been strangled.

  ‘But can they prove Pascal did it?’ Belle asked.

  ‘They found some items of her clothing in his house,’ Noah said. ‘They were ones she was wearing on the night she disappeared. That seems to be enough to convict him.’

  ‘If I was one of the police there I’d beat a confession out of him,’ Garth said darkly.

  ‘I would be surprised if they hadn’t already done that,’ Noah smirked. ‘His trial will be set any day now. I shall go to Paris to cover it.’

  ‘Will I have to go too?’ Belle asked.

  ‘I doubt it very much. Philippe said when we were there that your statement was enough for them. They have arrested Madame Sondheim too. They might need you there for her trial, but that’s a way off yet. They are still gathering more evidence about her crimes and of course the others’ in the chain.’

  ‘What about Lisette?’ Belle asked. ‘Will she give evidence?’

  ‘You’ll be able to talk to her about that yourself, she’s on her way here.’ Noah smiled broadly, excitement showing in his eyes. ‘I got a letter from her just two days ago. She and her son were in Normandy then with her aunt, and they will be arriving in Dover in a week’s time. I’m going to look at a place for her later today. It’s close to where I live.’

  ‘Will Etienne know all about this?’ Belle had to ask about him, she just couldn’t help herself. She felt Jimmy’s eyes on her and hoped he hadn’t picked up on her eagerness and guessed he’d got a rival.

  ‘He might not have been told about the body by the church, but he’ll know about Madame Sondheim – by all accounts he’s been of great help to the French police. He’s a brave man, and a marked one now. But he struck me as a man with a mission to stop the vile trade in young girls, and I suspect he’s long given up on concerning himself with his own safety.’

  Belle expected Jimmy to make some kind of waspish remark, but he didn’t. He went up another peg in her estimation.

  Later that night, when the bar had closed, Jimmy reported back that all the conversation in the bar had been about Kent shooting a policeman.

  ‘They all make out they know Kent so well,’ Jimmy fumed. ‘But when we were trying to find him two years ago, not one of the gutless halfwits knew anything about him.’

  Belle just laughed. She found it funny to see mild-mannered Jimmy getting so het up. ‘I doubt they know him at all, that’s just what people are
like. I bet half the population in London is claiming to have a relative or friend that went down on the Titanic too.’

  Jimmy agreed with her. ‘The day that news broke it was all we heard. I bet when Jack the Ripper was up to his tricks there were hundreds of girls who claimed they’d managed to escape his clutches too.’

  ‘Are the police still patrolling the street?’ Belle asked. Garth had forbidden her even to put her nose outside the door.

  ‘Yes, they are everywhere, and people are even complaining about that. The shopkeepers are saying it’s stopping people shopping, the street girls can’t get punters, and the pickpockets have got no pockets to pick.’

  ‘Has the pub had fewer customers then?’

  ‘No, that’s a funny thing, we’re busier than ever. We even got folk in tonight that don’t live around here.’

  ‘We got a surge of extra business at Annie’s when Queen Victoria died,’ Mog said impishly. ‘Now, you tell me why anyone would get a surge of lust because the monarch is dead.’

  All three of them started to laugh, and once started they couldn’t stop. For Belle it was especially funny because she could imagine the frantic behind-doors scenes in the brothel. She wasn’t sure what tickled Jimmy so much.

  But having a good laugh made them all feel better.

  Since getting back to London Belle had taken it upon herself to clean the bar each morning, leaving Mog to do other chores. One of the advantages of the job was that she always got to pick up the mail. She was aware Jimmy might be hurt if she received a letter from Etienne, and Mog would probably want to know too much, so she’d rather they didn’t see any letter.

  Now, still without one over two weeks since her return to London, she was almost at the point of giving up on Etienne. But when she went into the bar that morning and saw a white envelope on the floor beneath the letter box she flew over to it. To her delight it was for her. Putting it in her apron pocket, she nipped upstairs to read it in her room.

  There was no stamp on it, French or otherwise, but she ripped it open eagerly, half expecting that Etienne had come to England and was letting her know. But she was disappointed to see the address at the top of the single sheet of paper was in King’s Cross. It was from her mother, and she felt a bit guilty at her disappointment.