Belle Page 6

  Belle was deeply touched. She looked into his tawny eyes and wished she had the right words to tell him how much better he had made her feel about herself. He made hope flicker inside her again, made her feel she could have a good life away from Seven Dials. She thought he might even have the power to erase the memory of the ugly side of men that she’d learned in Millie’s room. She didn’t feel that kind of threat in Jimmy, in fact she wished he would hold her tight again, perhaps even kiss her.

  ‘That’s something nice to think about,’ she said, and leaned forward and kissed his cheek. ‘Thank you, Jimmy, for cheering me up. I’ll do what you said.’

  They hurried back then, aware they’d both be in trouble for being gone so long, but as they parted at the way into Jake’s Court, Belle waved and he blew her a kiss.

  Chapter Five

  ‘Where have you been?’ Mog asked indignantly as Belle walked into the kitchen after saying goodbye to Jimmy. ‘You should have asked me before you went out alone.’

  ‘Sorry,’ Belle said. ‘I only wanted some fresh air.’

  ‘You’re lucky your ma is still in bed,’ Mog said. ‘I’ve got to go out in a minute to arrange Millie’s funeral. The peelers say they’ve had no luck in finding out where her folks live, but I don’t suppose they even tried.’

  ‘Is there anything I can do to help?’ Belle asked. It was clear Mog was a bit overwrought.

  ‘Not really, ducks. It will just be Annie and me going. We don’t want no one else tagging on.’

  ‘Will her family ever find out what became of her?’ Belle asked, thinking how sad it was that such a lively, sunny person should be buried almost in secret.

  ‘Well, they knew where she was when she first come here,’ Mog said with a disapproving sniff. ‘But they’ve never written. I’d say that meant they had no feelings for her.’

  Belle had to agree it looked that way. ‘When’s it to be then?’ she asked.

  ‘Friday afternoon at four,’ Mog said. ‘At Holy Trinity. We’ll have a little tea here for us and the girls afterwards. Just a little send off, nothing fancy. I’ll make a few cakes and sandwiches. It’s all we can do for her.’

  Belle thought witnessing a murder must have made her grow up suddenly, for she sensed Mog was holding in her grief about Millie because everyone always expected her to cope with whatever life threw at her. Belle was used to thinking of Mog as being old, but in reality she was just ten years older than the dead girl, and she’d spent over half her life in this house, rarely going out, at everyone’s beck and call and mostly unappreciated.

  She moved closer to Mog, put her arms around her and hugged her tightly.

  ‘What’s that for?’ Mog said gruffly.

  ‘Because you’re so special,’ Belle said.

  ‘Get off!’ Mog responded, but the playful way she pushed Belle away and the tremor in her voice said she was touched.

  On Friday at three-thirty, Mog and Annie, in black clothes and veiled hats, left the house to go to the undertaker’s in Endell Street. Millie’s body had been taken there after it had been examined at the mortuary. The two women would follow the horse-drawn hearse on foot the short distance to the churchyard for the burial. During the morning two wreaths and a couple of bouquets had been left at the door in Jake’s Court. There were no cards with them, but Mog thought they were probably from gentleman admirers. Annie had bought a wreath of evergreens with wax red roses, which she said would last longer than a wreath with fresh flowers. She had been very spiky during the morning, and Mog said it was to be expected as she’d been fond of Millie. Belle thought it was more likely she was afraid the funeral would draw further unwanted attention to her.

  Lily and Sally, the two eldest of the remaining girls, had been left in charge. Mog told them they were to put the kettle on at four-thirty and lay out the tea things in the kitchen. She and Annie would be back soon after.

  As soon as Mog and Annie were out of sight, Belle put on her cloak and left by the back door. The girls were all upstairs – she could hear them shrieking at one another. Dolly’s necklace had gone missing and she had claimed one of the others must have stolen it.

  They had been bickering constantly since Millie was killed. Mog said it was because they were bored, but whatever was causing it, Belle was sick of hearing their nastiness to one another. She was going out to find Jimmy.

  She didn’t dare go into the Ram’s Head to look for him, so she walked slowly past it, hoping he might see her. He had said he could usually get out around four o’clock, so she crossed over the road to look in a second-hand clothes shop window while she waited for him to appear.

  The temperature had risen slightly during the day and the heaps of dirty ice in the gutters were melting fast. She waited at least fifteen minutes till it was dark, then, feeling really chilled, she walked down towards Covent Garden market, keeping an eye out for Jimmy.

  As always, the narrow streets were a seething mass of humanity, and Belle’s ears were assaulted by street vendors’ cries, buskers playing accordions, violins and even the rapping spoons on a thigh, rumblings of carts over cobblestones, and people shouting to one another over the din. It was not just her ears, but her nose too. Horse dung, toffee apples, fish, rotting vegetables, hot bread and cakes all mingled together and hung like a stinking, foggy web in the cold air. She dejectedly noticed the buildings all around her in a bad state of repair, the rubbish-strewn street, men and women in various states of drunkenness, and filthy children swarming around wearing nothing more than a few rags. The only places which appeared thriving and well kept were the public houses and pawn shops.

  It seemed odd to her that she’d grown up here, yet until now she’d never really noticed how squalid, depressing and broken down it was. Maybe she wasn’t quite herself, for the noise was making her head ache, the smells were turning her stomach, and she sensed danger lurking in every alleyway and court. She began to walk faster, anxious to get home to safety.

  Belle heard a carriage behind her as she approached Jake’s Court, but she didn’t even turn her head as it was a common enough sound. All at once, however, she felt herself jerked off her feet by someone who had pounced on her from behind. Her arms were caught in a tight grip and twisted up behind her back, and at the same time a hand slapped her mouth to silence her. She struggled and tried to kick out, but her male attacker was a great deal bigger and stronger than she was, and she was lifted bodily into the black carriage which was now alongside her, filling the narrow street.

  As it was dark, the gas street lighting murky, and darker still inside the carriage, Belle didn’t realize there was another man inside, not until he caught hold of her arms while the first man leapt in after her. One of them rapped on the carriage wall to tell the driver to go on.

  Belle was terrified, but she still shrieked as loud as she could, and struggled to reach the carriage door to escape. A hard blow to the side of her head knocked her down on to the seat.

  ‘Another sound from you and I’ll kill you,’ a familiar gruff voice said.

  Belle knew instantly that it was Millie’s murderer. And she had no doubt he’d carry out his threat if she disobeyed him.

  ‘Where is she, Mog?’ Annie asked peevishly. They had been home for some fifteen minutes. As her girls were already in the kitchen when they got back, all clamouring to hear about the funeral, she hadn’t noticed immediately that Belle wasn’t there. It was only as she poured everyone a small glass of sweet wine that she missed her.

  ‘I don’t know. I expect she just went out for a breath of fresh air, you know how she is,’ Mog replied. ‘Did she say anything to any of you?’ she asked the girls.

  ‘Last time we saw her was just afore you went out,’ Lily replied. Lily and the other four girls were only half dressed, with shabby wraps over grubby-looking chemises and drawers. Not one of them looked as if they’d used a hairbrush in days. Lily’s fair hair looked like a bird’s nest.

  The girls’ slovenly appearance, along with th
eir vacuous expressions, made Mog angry. ‘You could have made an effort to look nice to show some respect,’ she snapped at them.

  ‘But we ain’t opening tonight,’ Lily said in an insolent tone. ‘What’s the point of getting done up if there’s no one calling?’

  ‘I just hope someone makes an effort at your wake,’ Mog hissed at her. ‘And you could show more concern over Belle.’

  ‘She’ll be all right,’ Amy chimed in as she twiddled a rat’s tail of greasy hair and chewed the end of it. ‘What can happen to her around ’ere where everyone knows ’er ma?’

  By eight that evening Annie was down at Bow Street telling the police she thought her daughter had been snatched and maybe even killed. She and Mog had been all over Seven Dials, asking everyone they knew if they’d seen Belle. But to their distress no one had seen her that day.

  The sergeant behind the desk, a big man with a bristling moustache, seemed to find Annie’s claim amusing. ‘That ain’t likely, lady,’ he said, a smirk playing at his lips. ‘Girls of that age, they go wandering. Might even have a young feller for all you know.’

  ‘She wouldn’t go wandering after dark, and surely you know a girl was murdered in my place just a few days ago? It is possible that same man was watching the house and snatched my Belle.’

  ‘Now, why would he want her? She ain’t a workin’ girl,’ the policeman said. ‘You said yerself she was in her bed at the time of the murder and you never lets her upstairs of an evening. He probably don’t even know you’ve got a young daughter.’

  ‘He’s done it to mark my card,’ Annie insisted. ‘It’s like a warning he can do whatever he wants. Kill one of my girls, snatch my Belle, what’s he going to do next?’

  The sergeant got up from behind his desk, stretched and yawned. ‘Look, lady, I understand you’re worried, but you can bet yer life she went off to meet a pal and forgot the time. She’ll be scared stiff to come home now ’cos she knows you’ll be mad with her. But she will come back when she gets cold and hungry.’

  ‘Please start searching for her,’ Annie begged him. ‘At least ask about to see if anyone saw her this afternoon.’

  ‘Fair enough, we’ll do that starting tomorrow if she don’t come home tonight,’ he agreed. ‘But she will come back, you’ll see.’

  At eleven that same night Annie and Mog sat together in the kitchen, both too worried to think of going to bed. They had not been reassured by the policeman’s opinion. They both knew Belle would never have willingly missed Millie’s little wake; to her that would have looked as though she didn’t care about the dead girl. If something else had happened to her, if she’d been knocked down in the street or taken ill, she would have made certain a message was sent to them.

  ‘I don’t know what to do for the best,’ Annie admitted. ‘If I tell the peelers that I knew the murderer and that Belle saw it happen, they’ll think I was somehow in with him and maybe charge me with obstruction. Yet if I don’t tell ’em they aren’t going to take me seriously enough to look for her. But the worst thing is that if I tell ’em it’s the Falcon and he gets word that I’ve fingered him, he’ll kill Belle and then come for me.’

  Mog knew Annie could be right. No one else in Seven Dials would kidnap Belle. Annie was part of the community, and however villainous some of their neighbours were, they didn’t rob or hurt their own.

  But this man Kent, or the Falcon as he was known, knew his liberty depended on making sure Belle and her mother kept their mouths shut. He had probably got contacts everywhere, in fact Mog would bet he already knew Annie had been to Bow Street tonight. But after the cold-blooded way he’d killed Millie, Mog was only too aware that he wouldn’t even need the excuse that the police were closing in on him to kill Belle.

  ‘I think you must tell the police the truth,’ Mog replied after weighing it all up. ‘But along with that I think you should call in a few favours and get some help to find out where the evil bastard has taken her.’

  Annie was silent for some while, chewing on her nails thoughtfully.

  ‘I’m scared he might sell her,’ she finally blurted out.

  Mog blanched. She knew exactly what Annie meant by ‘selling’. A young and pretty virgin would fetch a high price in some circles. ‘Please God, not that,’ she whispered, crossing herself. Her eyes filled with tears and she reached out for Annie’s hand, for she knew this was what had happened to her friend when she was the same age as Belle.

  Annie’s lips were trembling. She squeezed Mog’s hand and tried hard to prevent herself recalling the horror of what had happened to her twenty-five years earlier.

  It was the most painful, disgusting and humiliating experience, and even now, after so many years, she could smell that man’s sweat, the whisky on his breath, and feel once again that sensation of being crushed alive by his heavy body on top of her. She screamed, it hurt so much, but he seemed to like that, and when it was finally over he examined her private parts and took pleasure in seeing blood.

  She was just a child then. She had no breasts – just a skinny little body like a boy’s!

  Annie knew now that she was just one of thousands of children snatched from the streets. All over London unscrupulous brothel keepers paid people, often motherly-looking women, to procure pretty young girls for this trade. Mostly the girls were treated much like Annie, imprisoned and semi-starved to make them compliant. Sometimes they were beaten too until their spirit was completely broken.

  Mostly, once children had been abused in this way, they felt ruined both mentally and physically, and they stayed in prostitution because they couldn’t face going home. Annie was the same; she knew that if her mother learned what had happened to her, she’d never get over it. So she lost her family for ever; she thought it was preferable for them to think she didn’t care about them than know what kind of work she did.

  She did find enough spirit a couple of years later to run from the evils of that brothel, and luck shone on her in as much as she found the comparative safety of the Countess’s place in Jake’s Court. There she learned to tolerate, if not like, the profession she’d been thrown into. Sometimes, in the company of the other girls, she was even happy.

  At the time the Countess passed the house on to her, Annie did consider selling it and using the money to open a shop in a respectable area. But it was all she knew by then, and if she started another business and failed, losing all her money, how would she and Belle live?

  She thought about it long and hard and it seemed to her that as long as men had the urge for sex, there would always be people making money from it. So she made the decision to stay in the business but promised herself that her house would be a good one. She would only ever take on willing, experienced girls. She would feed them well, check their health and cleanliness, and not take all the money they earned. That seemed to be the perfect compromise.

  She had never, and would never, offer a child to anyone. Men had often asked her to find them one, but she had always showed such men the door, making them quite aware what she thought of such sick practices.

  Now that Belle was missing and maybe on the verge of being molested by a brute, she realized how stupid she’d been not to have foreseen something like this. How could she have imagined she could keep Belle safe when she lived in a brothel?

  ‘You were right, I should’ve sent her away to a boarding school,’ Annie said, her voice cracking with emotion. ‘It was stupid to keep her here with me.’

  Annie knew exactly why she hadn’t sent Belle away. It was because she was the one good thing in her life, in truth her only reason for living. She had felt that by keeping her close she could prevent any harm ever coming to her daughter.

  She looked at Mog with tear-filled eyes. ‘Even if this hadn’t happened, sooner or later she would’ve become aware what was going on.’

  ‘Stop blaming yourself and start thinking who we can get to help us.’ Mog took no pleasure in being right about sending Belle away. Besides, although she’d pushe
d for it, she had felt nothing but relief when Annie refused to do it. Belle was so precious to her that even a day without her was too long.

  ‘What’s the name of that man that was sweet on Millie? The youngish one with the red cheeks. Wasn’t he some kind of investigator?’

  Annie frowned. ‘Noah Bayliss! I think you’re right. Millie said he wrote for a newspaper too. But how will we find him?’

  ‘We can start by looking in the house book,’ Mog said. ‘I know they all put false names, but Noah weren’t what you’d call a regular gaming man, he might have put his real address.’

  Chapter Six

  A rapping at his door penetrated Noah’s deep slumber and made him open his eyes cautiously. He couldn’t see anything; the heavy curtains were drawn. ‘What is it?’ he called out feebly, for he’d drunk a great deal the previous night.

  ‘There’s a lady to see you,’ Mrs Dumas, his landlady, called back. ‘She said she was sorry to call so early, but she wanted to catch you afore you went to work.’

  ‘I haven’t got any work today,’ Noah murmured. ‘What’s this in connection with?’ he asked in a louder voice.

  ‘She said it was Millie.’

  Noah was suddenly wide awake. He knew only one Millie, and although he couldn’t imagine why anyone would be calling on him here about her, he was intrigued. ‘I’ll be right down,’ he called as he threw back the bedcovers.

  Noah Bayliss was thirty-one, unmarried and living a somewhat precarious life financially because although he was both a freelance journalist and an investigator for an insurance company, neither paid very much or even offered work on a regular basis. Journalism was Noah’s real love; he dreamed constantly of getting the big scoop, so that The Times would offer him a permanent position on their staff. Often he projected that daydream even further to becoming editor of the paper. But to his disappointment he was never sent to cover exciting or important news stories like a sensational trial or an inquest. Mostly he only got ordered to report on very dull council meetings, or other news stories that would be given less than an inch of space at the back of the paper.