by M. J. Tjia
I smile. “I was lucky.” I don’t want to boast of my good fortune – how a wealthy older son had led to a rich man of business and then to a peer of the realm and ultimately to a state of financial stability – so instead I gossip about well-known Londoners with a fascinated Tilly.
“Ooh, listen to you with your dandy accent,” says Tilly. “You’ve lost most of your dirty Liverpool lilt.”
“Well, I had to learn to speak proper English if I was going to be on the stage, Till,” I answer, with dignity. “Bu’ shut yer forkin’ yap, cos I can still tork out of me arse when I wanna.”
Forkin’. Now there’s a word I haven’t managed to mould away from my past, no matter how many elocution lessons I take.
Henry re-fills our glasses, as Tilly points out a French girl and a Dutch girl working the room. We try out those accents with each other too. I’m good at the French one, having lived with a Frenchman for a year or so in Paris. We’re talking so loud an older man with whiskers frowns at us and Tilly pokes her tongue out at him.
“What do you think of our Henry?” she asks.
“Where did he come from?” I glance over at the barman-lady. He puts an apron on over his green gown and touches up his wig. “He could teach me a thing or two regarding hair styles, at any rate,” I grin.
“He just turned up one day,” says Tilly. “He’s Silvestre’s man.”
“No!”
“Yes, he is.”
“How on earth would they both fit in the same bed?” I squint a little as I try to imagine it. “One so stout and one so long.”
“I’d wager he is long too,” snickers Tilly.
We smoke in silence for a few moments. “But you didn’t come here just for a cosy chat with me, Hell,” says Tilly. “Ol’ Silvestre says you’ve been asking about that washy little girl I brought home to her last week.”
I nod as I pick tobacco from my tongue. “Yes. Some people I know have asked me to find her. But I’m struggling. Have you any idea where she could be?”
“No idea, Hell. She could be anywhere,” says Tilly.
“Where did you find her in the first place?”
“She was sitting in the park, crying over a cup of coffee. It was Katie Sullivan – you remember her? From the coffee stand down the street? – who pointed her out to me.”
“Do you know where she was staying before she came here?”
“No. She had her case with her. Been pushed out of her last doss-house for not having enough money, I think. It was difficult to understand her under all the blubbering.” Tilly lights a fresh cigarette from the last one. “Mind you, one of the girls thought she was pregnant so she might’ve told her where she could be fixed up.”
“Do you know where?”
“The only scraper we use is that Dr Mordaunt.”
I can’t stop myself from grimacing. “I can’t believe you still use him.”
Hearing his name makes my stomach clench in remembered fear and pain, and I can almost smell the pungent smoke from the cigar that he puffed upon throughout the procedure.
“Just used to him, I suppose,” says Tilly. “But there’s a new doc in the area, so I’ve heard. I don’t know if he’s a scraper though. That Dutch girl over there had to see him about the pox, and she said he’s ever so handsome and young and very sympathetic.”
“Really? I might have to meet him.”
Tilly laughs. “He’ll be too poor for the likes of you, Hell.” She throws the remainder of her cigarette into the fireplace.
I smile but I’m already thinking of other things. “Till, I stayed at Silvestre’s house on Frazier last night and someone slipped a nasty note under my front door. Have you heard of anything like that happening lately?”
Tilly’s mouth pulls down on each side as she shakes her head. “I mean, you know how sometimes we get spat upon or growled at, but I haven’t heard of notes being sent.”
“It’s just that I don’t know if the note is for me or for a previous tenant of Silvestre’s house.” I look at Tilly. “And I’m a bit worried because apparently horrible things have been happening to the girls around here.”
“What things?”
“Girls being… I don’t know… cut up and suchlike.”
Tilly laughs again. “You’re starting to sound like stupid old Mrs Hawes, rabbiting on about girls dying in pools of blood.”
“Who’s Mrs Hawes?”
“She’s this old cow who runs a few girls in the hovels behind the bridge.” She stares at me, in disbelief. “You’re not going to take her seriously, are you?”
A very high-pitched whistle sounds. Mr Critchley throws open the door and clangs a bell. “It’s a raid, it’s a raid. The Brown boys have let off the signal.”
“’Ow far?” shouts the French girl.
“Coming down the street right now,” he bellows back as he helps Henry slide open the false backs of the drinks’ cabinets to push the liquor through to their hiding spot. Glass tinkles as the girls shove glasses into pot-plants and china rattles as tables are set with tea things. The gentlemen stand around in the bustle, cheerfully calling out encouragements to the girls, who are pulling robes over their scanty underwear. They are all seated in companionable silence, decorously drinking tea when the first of the policemen enters the room.
“I thought alcohol could be served until midnight,” I whisper to Tilly.
“But it’s Sunday. No grog on Sundays. The buggers thought they would catch us with our pants down,” Tilly answers with a smirk. She takes another one of my cigarettes and lights it, blowing smoke defiantly in the direction of the first policeman to reach the back of the room. He is a gaunt, fair young man with pale blue eyes. He glances at Tilly, and then stares a little harder at me, seeming to notice my full, sober attire compared to Tilly’s frills. I gaze back at him.
Mme Silvestre stomps into the room at that moment and claps her hands. “What is all this ruckus about?” she asks. “You, police officer.” She points at the oldest constable in the room. “Are you in charge? As you can see, we are ‘aving a quiet, informal evening, with nothing more ‘armful than tea and sandwiches. Why do you ‘ave to burst in like this? It is quite an embarrassment.” She smiles graciously at some of the gentlemen who are seated quietly around the tea tables.
She watches as the policemen continue to take a cursory glance around the room for alcohol, not moving her bulk when they need to pass. She then escorts them to the door, and discreetly presses a wad of notes into the hand of the leading police officer.
LI LEEN
She has been gone two days. I do not understand why she will not take me when she is doing these investigations for Sir Thomas. I do not like it. I am stuck in this large, empty house and the only distractions are the number of gentlemen who knock at the door, asking for the ravishing Mrs Chancey. Bundle turns them away, and from the window I watch them leave slowly, trudging down the front steps, their hopes ruined for the evening. She thinks she has power over these men, that her skills in pleasure and the charms of her body are enough to keep her safe, but when will she realise she has no real power? They hold all the power, over her money, over her body, over her beauty.
And what do they know of beauty? Her beauty is nothing compared to that of my mother’s beauty. What are her curled tresses compared to Mother’s black, silken hair? And her face, pretty as it is, with the brazen dimple in the cheek, what is it compared to the perfection of my mother’s oval face, with her dewy, porcelain skin? Grandfather told me that my mother could have had any man she chose. Any man. The rich Chinese of Makassar, the Dutch, the Malays. They all desired her. But she chose my father. A British man. A gweilo.
CHAPTER FOUR
The alleys near the bridge are even more inhospitable than the slum area of Liverpool where I’d spent some of my early years. No rambunctious children, playing and weaving through the crowd; no spruce vendors selling coffee or pickled oysters and whelks. It’s early in the morning and the narrow lanes, crusty wi
th dry mud and manure, are inhabited by only a few emaciated women. I draw my cream, merino shawl close and smile in a friendly manner at the women, who stare past me, the languor of boredom heavy upon their limbs. Spying a girl of perhaps thirteen or fourteen years sitting in a doorway, a little away from the other women, I ask, “Do you know where I can find Mrs Hawes?”
The girl stands up. She is very thin and pale. Her wavy, brown hair is loose and as she speaks, her thin top lip can barely reach over her bucked front teeth. “I’ll take you there,” she replies.
As we walk the girl gazes upon me, and even touches the silk of my gown and the soft wool of the shawl. At the end of the road we enter a building and climb a set of rickety steps. The stench of cat piss, boiled vegetables and sewerage is overpowering. As we approach the first landing, the girl points to a door and then turns around to walk back down the stairs leaving me alone. I knock on the door several times, but receiving no answer, pull a special blade from my bag and jiggle it in the key lock until I hear it click open – I’ve had a vast and varied education over the years. Turning the handle carefully, I peer into the room. The landing is shadowy, but the windowless room is in almost total darkness.
“Mrs Hawes?” I call lightly, moving towards where I can hear rasped breathing. The room is not overly large and is crammed with furniture. I bump into various tables and cabinets before I grope my way around a bed to the slumbering figure upon it. Although my eyes are becoming accustomed to the bleakness of the room, I light the candle on the bedside table and look down at Mrs Hawes by its ghostly light. The old woman is on her back, her mouth wide open, showcasing a mouth missing most of its teeth. Her skin is a sickly, greyish hue, and her hair is tucked into a filthy cap which has slipped to the side in her sleep.
I prod her on the arm a couple of times and call her name again until slowly, grunting and wiping dribble from her chin, the old woman comes around. The stench of stale gin is heavy on her breath as she grumbles, “What the ‘ell you wakin’ me fer? And ‘ow the feck did you get in ‘ere?”
“Mrs Hawes, my name is Heloise Chancey. I’ve come to ask you about the women who have been dying around here lately. I heard you were concerned that someone was harming the girls on purpose.”
The old woman tries to sit up. She places her feet on the floor, but holds her head in her hands and groans. She takes hold of a green bottle on the bedside table and swigs from it, sighs, then breaks into a gagging cough. I step back in case she vomits.
She then stares up me, her eyes bleary and confused. “’Oo are you?”
“I’m Heloise Chancey. I’ve come to ask about the prostitutes who have been dying.”
“Murdered they be,” she says, sucking her cheeks in and nodding slowly. “Murdered.” She looks around on the floor. “Where’s me pot?”
Reluctantly I glance under the bed, and seeing where the chamber pot is, slowly nudge it towards the old woman with my foot. Mrs Hawes places her feet on either side of it, slides her bottom off the bed, lifts her skirts a fraction and squats over the pot, still leaning against the bed as she relieves herself. I turn away and see that the tables are covered with an assortment of goods, from snuff tins to cheap jewellery to silver utensils. Probably stolen, ready to be fenced. Mrs Hawes flops back onto the bed and her foot knocks the chamber pot so that its contents slop over the sides.
“What are you doin’ ‘ere?” Mrs Hawes asks irritably as she lies back onto the bed.
“I’m here to ask you about the girls.”
“What girls?”
“The girls who are dying,” I repeat, exasperated. “You just said they were murdered.”
The other woman looks frightened for a moment and clutches a blanket to her. “So much blood.”
“Whose blood?”
“Countless of ‘em,” she says. “The last one was poor Nell. Poor little Nell.” Her face crumples as if she is going to cry, but then she closes her eyes and falls asleep.
I grab hold of her scrawny arm again, and shake her awake. “Who was Nell?”
Mrs Hawes opens her eyes a fraction. “Nell? She’s dead.”
“Yes, but who was she?”
“Just a poor young thing. They’re all poor young things. Lucky they ‘ave me to watch over ‘em.” The old woman rolls onto her side again and before long she’s snoring.
The young girl who had given me directions giggles from behind. She must have come back up the stairs to follow me in.
“She just watches over us to make sure she gets her share of the ready, the old cow.”
“But she said that some of the women around here are being murdered,” I say, leaving the room and closing its filth and stench behind me. I accompany the girl down the stairs. “Is that true?”
The girl shrugs. “I only saw the last girl, that Nell. Mrs Hawes was right, though. There was a lot of blood.”
“Did you know Nell?”
“Nah. But I don’t know many of the other renters. I’ve only been here a short while.”
“Where are you from?”
“Basingstoke,” she answers. A slow blush creeps up her face from her neck.
I feel a pang of compassion, which surprises me, for I’ve seen all this before. I look around at the other women propped up against the wall, gossiping and smoking or drinking from bottles of gin. All of them would have their own unfortunate, particular yet similar, stories to tell. I have one myself.
“So you don’t know of any other women who’ve died like Nell?” I ask.
“No, although some of the others have started talking about it, especially late at night when the streets are empty. They say there’s a devil after us.” She’s thoughtful for a moment. “I sometimes wonder about a woman I met when I first came ‘ere. She was nice to me, let me share ‘er bed if I pulled enough Charlies for the night. But she’s gone. Just gone. I don’t know where.”
I take some coins and press them into the girl’s hand. “Thank you for your help.” I want to say something encouraging, something to keep the young girl safe, but it’s pointless.
It’s late into the afternoon before I return to the hospital mortuary. I linger by a coffee stall and eat a piece of currant cake, watching for Mrs Dawkins. Finally, not having seen the older woman, I approach the side door of the mortuary and knock. Before long, Mrs Dawkins’ grey head pops around the doorway. Her eyes glance around the lane quickly before she pulls me into the building.
“Mr Pike has just gone home. I was afraid he might have returned,” she whispers loudly. She picks up her bucket and sponge and guides me down the corridor, pausing in front of a large room. The floor is covered with large white floor tiles, which are slightly discoloured, while smaller tiles, the grout worn and dark, cover the walls. Lining one side of the room is a long sink, its work bench laden with dark bottles and in the middle of the room is a large, rectangular slab of porcelain the height and width of a standard dining table, which has a sink hole at one end. The room smells strange, a mixture of astringent carbolic and the sweetness of a butcher’s shop. The cake shifts and swells in my stomach.
“That’s the room where the gentlemen cut up some of the more interesting bodies. They cut them open to find out how they died,” Mrs Dawkins says, with a knowledgeable nod. She eyes a small smudge on the surface of the porcelain table and darts forward, scrubbing it with her sponge. She wipes her hands on her damp, grubby apron as she leads me to the next room.
“This is where we keep the bodies,” she says.
The narrow room is plain and untiled. Four benches line the middle of the space, with only two of them occupied. One bench is taken by a large man, with dark hair and a moustache, dressed in a dirty white shirt and dark breeches. His arms are stiff and awkward by his chest, his head at an uncomfortable angle. Next to him is an old man, who, besides the blue tinge around his lips, appears to be asleep.
“There’s no female body here,” I say.
Mrs Dawkins shakes her head. “No. Mr Pike and Mr Wilston got r
id of her yesterday. She had started to go off.”
“Where did they take her?”
“She’d be under the ground now, dearie.” She takes me by the elbow and leads me to a table. “Here’s one of them photographs of your Nell. There’s none of the other women who had bits cut out of them, but by the time this poor girl came along, the police started to take some notice. Her body is covered with a sheet. Mr Pike keeps the grisly photographs in his desk.”
I gaze down at the dark photograph the older woman places in front of me. There’s a mania for images of loved ones who are recently deceased. I’ve actually seen examples of these in which the departed are dressed in his or her finest raiment. They’re positioned in what appears to be a natural pose, sometimes next to a troubled looking sibling or held in the arms of a mournful parent. It’s amazing how life-like the deceased appear to be. But this young woman looks more like a badly composed wax figure, lifeless and featureless. Nonetheless, I can see that this photograph of Nell is not of young Eleanor – this poor soul had a longer face, darker hair.
I let out a loud sigh, not realising I’d been holding my breath. “No, that is not my Eleanor.”
Mrs Dawkins rubs me on the back. “That must be such a relief to you, Mrs Chancey, I must say.”
There’s footfall behind us, and we both turn just as a young man stops in the doorway.
Mrs Dawkins clutches her hand to her chest. “Ooh, you did give me a turn, Mr Chapman. I thought it was Mr Pike or Mr Wilston returned.”
“No, just me, Mrs Dawkins,” he replies to her, although his eyes are on me.
It only takes me a moment to realise that this is the policeman who had stared at me in the raid at Mme Silvestre’s brothel. He’s no longer in uniform, but I well remember those pale eyes. He’s not a handsome man, but there is something arresting about the uneven plains of his face, and although his voice is deep and gravelly, he’s well-spoken. A bowler hat tops his fair curls and he’s attired in a sober, brown waistcoat and suit.
