‘Can you find whomever killed Lucy Loveless? See him hang?’
‘I can try. If she knew her killer, as you suspect, it will prove an easier task. I simply need to find out who had sufficient cause.’
‘The magistrate says it cannot be one of her clients, because the crime was too savage to be committed by a gentleman. Is that also your view?’
‘I think monsters who wear the masks of men are as likely to be found in the clubs of St James’s as they are in the slum-rookeries of St Giles. Whether this is the former or the latter, I cannot yet say.’
She nodded, apparently satisfied by his response. ‘How would you proceed?’
‘I’d visit her home, talk to her friends, her clients, if I can find them. Go to Vauxhall, talk to Bow Street, and anyone who was in the bowers at the time. Yet without the force of the law behind me, I must offer sufficient incentive for people to talk.’
Her reply was as direct as any Turk in a bazaar. ‘How much do you want?’
Enough to get Finn Daley off his back for good – plus a little something to console himself in Sophie’s absence. ‘A hundred guineas for an arrest, twenty up front.’
‘Do you take me for a fool, sir? You can have ten up front, and sixty upon conviction.’
Christ, she was as bad as Jenny Wren. Her kid gloves must cost more than ten guineas. Dimly he recalled that her father had founded the Craven Bank. The old man had certainly taught her to wring the value out of a sou.
‘Fifteen and eighty,’ he countered.
‘Then we have no more business to discuss.’ She rose from the table, gesturing to her footman. Child was tempted to tell her to sod off and take her imperious tone with her, but there were other thief-takers out there, and none so desperate.
‘Twelve and seventy-five,’ he said. ‘But upon arrest, not conviction. The cost of taking the case through the courts must be yours alone.’
‘Very well.’ Unsmiling, she took a purse from her panniers and counted out a stack of guineas on the table as if they were pennies.
Five days to find the killer. Five days before Finn Daley came looking for blood. A murder with no witnesses and few promising paths of inquiry, only a glimpse of a man in a plague doctor’s mask who might simply have been a passing reveller. Child reached for his ledger and inkpot to make notes, trying to summon an appearance of confidence.
‘Do you remember anyone else in the vicinity of the bowers other than the lamplighter and Lord March?’
‘None who waited around for the constables – and they seemed more interested in that poor lamplighter than anyone else. He told them he saw nothing suspicious.’
‘And Lord March?’
‘The same.’
‘I should speak to them both. Your brother too – the one who first introduced you to Lucy.’
‘No,’ Caro said sharply. ‘The lamplighter you can talk to all you like. But I cannot have you speaking to gentlemen of my acquaintance – questioning their movements, their motives.’
‘If you want the murderer caught, I cannot afford to be so fastidious. These men are witnesses.’
‘My brother, Ambrose, witnessed nothing. He is in Switzerland and has been abroad for almost a year.’
‘And Lord March? If he was in the bowers for an assignation, it would give him every reason to lie to the magistrate.’ Child could imagine how Sir Amos would have questioned a rich, young nobleman. With every deference and courtesy. ‘He might even have committed the crime himself, moments before.’
‘Impossible. I have known Lord March since I was in ringlets.’
Child wondered if her attitude was coloured by whatever it was she’d been up to in the bowers. The state of Corsham’s marriage was no business of his, but it could complicate matters. ‘I am not entirely without subtlety, madam. I have questioned gentlemen before. Even assuming he is innocent, Lord March might have information that is important to my investigation.’
‘Then I will talk to him. Find out what, if anything, he saw.’
Did she think this was to be a collaborative enterprise? ‘Madam, that is not the way I work. This is a murder inquiry, not some drawing-room riddle.’
‘Lord March is a peer of the realm. Heir to the earldom of Amberley. Do you imagine you could walk in off the street to Amberley House and put him to the question? His footmen would slam the door in your face. Whereas I know him. He will talk to me.’
‘Men lie, madam. It is a skill to divine those lies.’
She gave a hollow laugh. ‘I assure you it’s one I’ve learned.’
Child muttered beneath his breath: ‘Barba non facit philosophum.’
‘A beard doesn’t make one a philosopher,’ Mrs Corsham said sharply. ‘Nor does a little Latin make you Cicero, Mr Child.
We will do it my way, or not at all.’
‘Fine,’ Child said, which reminded him of Sophie Hardcastle, and he experienced a sudden pang of loss. To mitigate it, he rose from the table and went to the dresser where he kept his books and papers. Taking a pamphlet down from the shelf, he flicked through it until he found what he was looking for.
‘Here,’ he said, handing it to Mrs Corsham. ‘Lucy Loveless.’
She studied the page, and then turned the pamphlet to see the cover. ‘What is this?’
‘Harris’s List. A guide to London’s leading prostitutes.’
Frowning, she read the entry aloud:
Miss L––e––s, No. 9 Harley Street
Artful ways beguile the implicit rake
The above line is highly descriptive of Miss L—y L—e––s, who is a fine, brown-haired, lively girl of about twenty-nine. Her beauty is by no means inconsiderable: clear skin, full breasted, and an agreeable rasp to her speech; her eyes, however, are of no great advantage, as they are small and brown and unremarkable. A small mole mars her upper lip, which she does not trouble to disguise, though her smile is fine enough and, we concede, can prove infectious.
She has little education, but much sharpness of wit, which her company will easily discover. She understands a great deal of her business, and rarely fails to please, though her principal defect is a lack of care in hiding her displeasure should it occur. Just as a lady of the town should be conscientious to paint and patch her face, so she should disguise her imperfections of temper, namely boredom and dismay. How such a piece of goods came to our market, we struggle to guess, for she likes to cultivate an enigmatic air. She will partake in all but the Grecian vice. As such, not less than five guineas will content her.
‘It’s like a review of a play,’ Mrs Corsham said, with a grimace. ‘Or as if she is a piece of furniture in a cabinetmaker’s catalogue.’
‘I’ll make Harley Street my first port of call,’ Child said. ‘Followed by Bow Street to talk to my man there.’
‘Her child,’ Caro said. ‘The magistrate said there wasn’t one living at her rooms. He said he thought it must have died or been adopted. I’d like to be certain.’
Child studied his client cautiously, as though she was some new and exotic species, trying to fit her into his study of people. Haughty, spoilt, and too clever by half, was his conclusion, and yet there were some discordant notes, not least the question of her motives.
‘Is that why you’re doing this? Because there is a child involved?’
‘Does it matter why?’
‘I like to understand my client’s purpose. You met her, you liked her. I understand that. But she lied to you.’
For a moment, she didn’t respond, staring down at the pamphlet in her hand. ‘I won’t deny it hurt. For two days I mourned Lucia di Caracciolo, and now I find no such person ever existed. The magistrate, my brother, the newspapers . . . they see only a harlot now and harlots matter not. Yet a woman still died in that bower. I held Lucy’s hand as she breathed her last. They’d like me to forget that I ever met her, but I find I cannot.’
Child examined her sceptically, wondering if there was more to it than that. Then he thought of Finn Dale
y’s axe and Mrs Corsham’s seventy-five guineas, and decided to let the matter drop.
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHILD BREAKFASTED AT a little after midday, and then walked across the city to shake off his headache. The skies over north London threatened rain, but Harley Street was always busy whatever the weather. Porters and servants on errands mingled with residents taking the air, and clients calling on the barristers, architects and society physicians who made the streets of Marylebone their home. Child surveyed the women he passed, trying to pick the harlots out from the wives. It was no easy task. They bought their silks and satins from the same mantua-makers, their plumed hats from the same milliners, and, of course, they fucked the same men.
Number nine was five storeys high, the bricks shiny and yellow in their newness. Child had to knock several times before he heard a step in the hall. The door was thrown open to reveal a man of middling years, wearing a nightcap and banyan robe that showed off his brawny chest. His chin bristled with white stubble, his face round and red as a pickling cabbage.
Child introduced himself. ‘Are you the owner of this property?’
The man whipped a horn trumpet from his pocket and held it to his ear. ‘What’s that, sir?’ he asked in a Cornish accent.
‘The owner,’ Child repeated more loudly.
‘You’re looking at him. Boscastle, at your service.’
‘I’d like to talk to you about Lucy Loveless.’
Boscastle gave a heavy sigh. ‘I’m afraid she’s dead, sir. Up there in Saint Peter’s bordello. Though her memory will live on in the minds of many a young gentleman.’ He ran his eye over Child, sizing him up. ‘And many an older one too. I’ve another girl upstairs who could inspire just as fine memories.’
Child guessed that as well as Lucy’s landlord, this man had been her ‘bully’: doorkeeper, protector and ejector of unwelcome clients – all in exchange for a cut of the profit.
‘I don’t want a girl. I’m a thief-taker, here about Lucy’s murder.’ Child gave him his card. ‘I’d like to ask you a few questions, if I may?’
‘I already told Bow Street everything I know.’
‘My client doesn’t find Bow Street as conscientious as they could be. I’d also like to take a look inside her rooms.’
Boscastle gave him a pitying smile. ‘Perhaps you confuse this establishment with a philanthropic enterprise, sir?’
‘Don’t you want the man who killed your tenant caught?’
‘Aye, sir, I do. But if you’re making a profit from this dreadful business, I don’t see why some of it shouldn’t be mine.’
It was hard to argue with that logic. A silver crown proved enough to satisfy him, and then Boscastle ushered Child into a hall hung with a dusty chandelier, and up a flight of stairs painted with Bacchanalian murals. The landlord unlocked a door on the first-floor landing, and Child followed him into a large bed-sitting room with three arched windows overlooking the street. The place was furnished ostentatiously: a four-poster bed with silk curtains; a chinoiserie screen; a French-style dressing table with a swing looking-glass; two plush armchairs before the fireplace; and a separate dressing room fitted out with painted armoires and drawers. When lit by candles, the ivory silk wallpaper must sparkle, and the heavy yellow curtains would give the room a lustrous glow. A stage set for love, or the facsimile of it.
‘How long had Lucy lived here?’ he asked.
‘About three years,’ Boscastle said. ‘Though she’d been in London long before that. She came from Norfolk originally. Used to send the boy out for flounder and samphire when it was in season, because it reminded her of home.’
‘And she never had a child living here?’
‘No dogs, no children. I make that very plain. Lucy never even mentioned a child in my hearing.’
‘She had been branded upon the hand for thievery at some point in her life. Do you know anything about that?’
‘Aye, she said she got taken up years ago, not long after she came to London. A lot of girls mix whoring and picking pockets before they find their feet. As long as they’re prompt with the rent and cause no trouble, I don’t judge.’
Lucy had certainly found her feet. The shelves of the presses and armoires held a rainbow of satin bodices, brocaded skirts, lace petticoats, silk stockings, soft woollen cloaks and fur-trimmed capes, each carefully pressed, folded and laid in tissue-paper. The linens were white, the stays were whalebone, and the parasols were painted silk with ivory handles. Hat- and wig-boxes were stacked on top of the armoires, and a japanned chest was packed with fans, indispensables, and feathers.
‘She loved her clothes, Lucy did,’ Boscastle said. ‘She was selling off her things to pay the bills, but I think these would have been the last to go. They’ll have to go now. I’m owed three months’ rent, and there’s a lot of unhappy tradesmen need paying.’
‘Wasn’t she making good money? Harris’s List says she charged five guineas a night.’
‘Aye, but that was before all the trouble.’
Child looked up. ‘What trouble?’
‘First, someone gave her a hiding – beat her all shades of blue. Next, she got the boot from that artist fellow she sat for, Jacobus Agnetti. Then she fell foul of the Whores’ Club – they threw her out. She’d already lost half her clients by then, because someone had put it about town that she had the pox. This was another nail in the coffin – if you’ll pardon the phrase. She lived off her savings until they ran out, then she was forced to sell her things.’
‘When was she attacked?’
‘Back in March. Poor girl was laid up for two weeks. She wouldn’t tell me who done it. It’s my job to protect my tenants, and I pressed her. All she would say was that it wasn’t one of her clients. It was personal, not business.’
‘If not a client, then who? A lover?’
‘Maybe, but I don’t think so. Lucy didn’t seem interested in men that way. She didn’t want a keeper, nor a husband. That’s how she got her name: Lucy Loveless. “Men like to tell you what to do, Boscastle, and I cannot be told.” She just wanted to get rich and retire.’
‘Do you think it was the same person? The one who beat her and the one spreading these rumours?’
‘Don’t ask me. I only know the rent was late.’
Child closed the final drawer in the dressing room, and walked back into the bedroom. He spent the next ten minutes poking about while they talked. A washstand held a porcelain jug and bowl, sponges, ointments, soap, and a chamber pot. The drawers of the dressing table held a curling iron; jars of lard, powder, red pomatum, whitening paint, and rouge; a patch-box; perfume; and cosmetic water. To Child, who found washing a chore best avoided, being a celebrated harlot looked like hard work.
‘Can you give me a list of her clients’ names?’
‘Are you mad, sir? This is a confidential house. I won’t have you pestering my customers, not without some evidence of wrongdoing.’
‘How can I get evidence, if I don’t know who they are?’
‘That’s your job, sir, not mine. In any event, I think you’re whistling at the wrong dog. I told you the man who beat her wasn’t one of her clients. Well, I think he came back for a second go.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘Only a few days before she was killed, my other tenant saw her arguing with a soldier in the street. Not a man she recognized from this house. Not a client.’
‘Can I talk to her?’
‘As long as you make it worth her while, you can do what you like.’
Here and there, during his search, Child caught glimpses of the woman behind the cosmetics and the stage set. A watercolour painting of the Norfolk Broads – her home, Boscastle had said. A memento mori locket containing a lock of soft brown hair. Child wondered if that was proof that Lucy’s child was indeed dead.
In one of the bedside cupboards he found a box of almonds in caramel and several rolled pig intestines with ribbon ties, to guard against pregnancy and disease. Also
a small glass bottle. Child uncorked it and took a sniff. A waft of old cheese greeted him, instantly recognizable: valerian, a sleeping draught.
‘Did Lucy have other visitors? Friends? Family?’
‘These girls don’t see their families, sir. Not unless they’re paying the bills. I got the impression Lucy broke with hers long ago.’
‘Friends, then?’
‘Her dearest was a girl called Kitty Carefree, a lovely redhead from the Whores’ Club. Thick as thieves, she and Lucy were, but there must have been a falling out, because she stopped coming a few months back.’
‘Do you think their quarrel was related to her other troubles?’
‘Maybe. You should ask them at the Whores’ Club.’
‘Did she have any other friends that you remember?’
‘The wife of the artist, Mrs Agnetti, used to call sometimes on her husband’s business. Her and Lucy – sometimes Kitty too – they’d talk, and I often heard them laughing. But you know the story about the Agnettis, I’m sure. It wasn’t long after Mrs Agnetti left town that Lucy and Kitty had their falling out. I think Lucy was lonely, truth be told. She took up with an old friend – not the sort you’d find in the Whores’ Club, that’s for sure.’
‘Go on.’
‘I never caught the woman’s name, but she called several times in the last few months – until I had words. She conveyed the wrong impression for a house like this. My tenants’ clients expect the best, not to encounter some rookery moll on the stairs.’
‘Can you describe her?’
‘Not quite a penny bunter, but she wasn’t far off it. Dark curly hair, wild as a gypsy. Scrawny, her cheeks all pox-scarred, yellow teeth. She’d been branded upon the hand too, which made me wonder if she was a friend from Lucy’s thieving days. Walked with a limp – no wonder Bow Street caught up with her. After I had words, she stopped coming. I presume they met elsewhere. Lucy was out until all hours in the weeks before she was killed. Sometimes she was dropped off in a hired carriage. Still spending, despite her debts. I had words about that too.’
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