3

IN THE MORNING, I awoke with a sore neck and a throbbing head.

I had lain awake for an hour or more thinking about that poor girl, left in open sight on the beach. It wasn’t up to me to uncover her killer, yet somehow I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Born to fly. Fly where, and how? Fly as in ‘flee’, from wherever she came from to wherever she was going? Or was she a balloonist? She didn’t seem like one, though I had no idea what one would seem like.

My attempts at sleep had been interrupted by Peregrine, who returned full of elation at the encore his play had received, including, he claimed, a particular blooming of the applause as he took his own bow. To celebrate, he produced a bottle of perhaps the nastiest liquid I had ever tasted, which he insisted was Danish schnapps. Unlike most drinks, it failed to improve after four or five glasses, retaining a sickly sweetness that made my tongue swell. Now, with the sun shining through the curtains and piercing the backs of my eyeballs, I dearly wished I’d been more temperate.

A rush from my stomach prompted an urgent grovelling under the bed for a chamber pot. I located it just in time for a thorough and purple evacuation. Thus relieved, I managed to stand, clutching the bedpost as the room tipped and slid around me. I reclothed myself, taking an age with each button and buckle, stuck my hat firmly on my head and stumbled down to the privy to empty my chamber pot and my bowels.

On my way back through the house, I passed the open door of the sitting room and caught sight of Peregrine’s landlady, a woman in her forties. She was dressed in masculine riding attire and tending to what appeared to be a legless horse supported on a wooden frame. For a moment I wondered whether last night’s excesses had permanently sundered my mind from reality. But no, it truly was half of a horse: a head, neck and back, complete with saddle, withers and tail, but no legs or, I now noticed, belly. Behind it, a bucolic scene had been painted on the wall showing trees, fields and a distant house, smoke rising from its chimney. As I watched, the woman climbed on to the abridged beast and sat in the saddle, bouncing up and down as if the thing were trotting, occasionally flicking its rump with her crop.

I climbed the stairs again.

Peregrine was in his room wearing a quite hideous shirt, with stripes that reminded me of the recent contents of my chamber pot.

‘Dear God,’ he said. ‘Have you died? Are you a walking corpse?’

I ignored him. ‘Your landlady … ’

‘Mrs Mackay. Don’t talk to her.’

‘Yes, but she has a … ’ My hands made the inadvertent motion of a rider holding reins, though the only horse I’d ever mastered was a rocking one in the vicarage as a child.

‘I know. I did the backdrop for her. Do you like it?’

I was briefly dumbfounded. My brain seemed to be malfunctioning. In fact, it seemed to be trying to beat its way out of my skull.

‘But why?’

He smiled patiently. ‘It’s for portraits. People like to be captured on horseback. Mrs Mackay does photographs, but it can’t be with a real horse, obviously. Sometimes I paint them instead. Look, I’ll show you.’

He pulled aside a sheet, revealing five small canvases leaning against the wall. Four of them portrayed men apparently cantering through the countryside. They were identical with respect to the background, the horse’s flowing mane and their grip on the reins, each of their jackets billowing behind them. Even their delighted smiles were eerily similar. The last canvas was much like the others, except the rider was nothing more than an outline, a blank space, yet to be filled.

Peregrine bowed sarcastically low, showing considerable grace for so large a man. ‘It’s my talent.’

As he wrapped them up again, I noticed one further canvas, bigger than the others, that he hadn’t shown me.

‘What’s that?’ I asked, ever eager to tease my friend. I knew he didn’t mind hackwork to augment his actor’s salary, but he retained higher artistic ambitions as well. He’d once compared his work to that of George Frederick Watts.

‘That’s nothing. A portrait.’

My mind slipped unwillingly back to my childhood, sitting in our parlour with my hair tied fiercely back, trying to stay still while one of my father’s parishioners, who fancied himself an artist, wielded a brush and snapped at me to stop damn well fidgeting. The resulting artwork resembled a monster of Mary Shelley’s imagination and was banished to the maid’s quarters. I still shuddered at the memory.

I snatched up the canvas before he could stop me. It was quite beautiful. Pastel swirls and touches of paint suggested a woodland setting, but it was indistinct, framing the subject and casting a halo of light about her face. Her hand was at her chest, caressing a red jewel hung on a chain around her neck. She was older than me, though not by much, with a blush in her cheeks and hair curling to her shoulders. Her stare was frank, and her expression relaxed, though also in the set of her mouth curious, as though she were trying to work out what to make of me.

Peregrine grabbed it out of my hands. ‘It’s not for … ’ He paused and hugged the picture to his chest. ‘It isn’t finished. And you shouldn’t look at people’s private things.’

‘But it’s lovely.’

His face fought a brief battle with itself, indignation giving way to a kind of simpering assent. ‘It was a commission. No one you know.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘Definitely not someone you want to know.’

‘Why not? Who is she?’

‘It doesn’t matter.’ He patted his stomach. ‘All this talk is making me hungry.’

I couldn’t say the same. I was feeling nauseous.

‘We’ll have to be quick. I want to know more about the girl who was killed. Where did she come from? And what does “Born to Fly” mean?’

‘What?’

‘It’s the translation of her tattoo.’

He thought about it for about a second before returning to pulling on his trousers. ‘Who knows? Probably nothing.’

‘Then why did she choose it? Those exact words. It must mean something.’

‘Must it?’ He waved a dismissive hand. ‘I knew a fellow once who wanted a tattoo of his wife’s name on his back. The tattooist was drunk and put his own wife’s name there instead, and the poor fellow had a terrible time explaining the mistake. His wife tried to burn it off with bleach and he ended up in the infirmary.’

I didn’t have time for Peregrine’s narrative perambulations. ‘That cannot be true.’

‘But it should be, don’t you think? And my point stands. You can’t assume much about the poor thing from a tattoo. She may have kept birds in her spare time or enjoyed looking at butterflies. Girls can be romantic like that.’

I supposed he had a point, at least about us not knowing the origins of the tattoo. But it was the only clue we had. Fortunately, I knew someone who might be able to discern its meaning. She was a genius when it came to understanding people, especially young women.

‘Get dressed,’ I instructed Peregrine. ‘We’re going out.’

‘Excellent. I’m starved.’

‘Breakfast can wait. First, we’re going to fetch Rosie.’

Once Peregrine had prepared himself – including oiling his hair, polishing his shoes and twice trying on a different jacket, but not, despite my urgings, changing his shirt – we headed out of the front door.

I was feeling more perky. The air was pleasantly warm, though it wasn’t yet nine in the morning, and the volcano in my stomach had become dormant.

We had barely gone twenty yards before a hansom cab pulled up and Rosie herself climbed out.

‘I left the children with Viola,’ she announced, though neither of us had asked. She looked me up and down, the beginnings of a frown forming on her forehead. ‘What happened to you?’

‘We celebrated.’

‘Ah, I see.’

Peregrine cleared his throat. ‘I know a wonderful place for breakfast.’

Over an insipid pot of tea, I described the murder scene to Rosie. As usual, she asked questions about things I simply hadn’t noticed.

‘That poor girl. Did she have a bag with her?’

I looked at Peregrine, who pulled a don’t-know face while munching on his sausage. Having been bilious earlier, I was now starting to wish I’d ordered food. Rosie had almost finished her porridge.

‘I didn’t see one,’ I replied.

‘Did her jacket have pockets?’

‘I don’t know. Why didn’t you have breakfast with Viola?’

‘I left early. She wasn’t up.’

‘We were on our way to you.’

She finished her mouthful, swallowed and wiped her mouth before answering. ‘Then I saved you a trip, didn’t I?’

Peregrine glanced at each of us in turn. ‘Are we discussing your morning’s travel arrangement or a murder?’

I drained my tasteless tea. ‘Very well. I don’t know if she had a bag or pockets. She seemed as if she’d been ill-treated at some point in the past. A healed elbow and graze on her upper arm.’

Rosie pondered for a few seconds, staring at the walls. Peregrine had, typically, picked a theatrical tea-room, plastered with posters for plays, poetry readings and other highbrow entertainments. My embroidered place mat pictured a ballet dancer in épaulement, her hand reaching out towards Peregrine’s fried bread.

‘And if she’d been a man,’ said Rosie, ‘would you assume that he’d been ill-treated in the same way? You might have thought he’d been in bar fights or had a dangerous occupation.’

Rosie had, over the past year, become involved with the suffragist movement, and was prone to making such comparisons.

I shook my head. ‘Men and women are not the same.’

She blinked four times quickly and sat back, speechless, while Peregrine choked on his sausage. Several of our fellow patrons looked round, and our waitress, who had hitherto spent most of her time preening herself in the mirror, came rushing over to check we had no complaints, a copy of Robert the Devil poking conspicuously out of her apron pocket.

I waited for my companions’ hilarity to pass. ‘What I mean is, people’s attitude to men and women is different. Their position in society.’

Rosie raised her eyebrows, her eyes fixed somewhere over my left shoulder.

‘So, your summary is that she was very strong, a bit bruised, or grazed, with formerly broken bones. Otherwise, she seemed well and had been chatting with a local shopkeeper. And she possessed enough money to buy a brooch she liked. Is that right?’

‘I suppose so.’

I was aware that I was sounding peevish, but I was famished, and still feeling a pinch of resentment at her sudden arrival, once again keeping me from meeting her sister. Also, I had the remnants of a headache and my tea tasted as if the same leaves had been used two dozen times before. All things considered, I was out of sorts.

‘Was there anything else of note? Any scars on her hands or feet?’ Rosie’s eyes were still focused on something behind me. I looked over my shoulder, but there was no one there.

‘Yes. The skin on her palms was hard and blistered.’

Peregrine applauded Rosie, using just the ends of his fingers. ‘Ah, yes, of course, Mrs Stanhope. I see what you’re thinking. How clever of you. It’s the only explanation.’

I stared from one to the other. ‘What is?’

Rosie produced a self-satisfied smirk. ‘It’s often the way, Mr Black, between myself and Mr Stanhope, though my contributions usually go uncredited.’

I threw up my hands. ‘What are the two of you talking about?’

She smiled and pointed her spoon, wafting the smell of porridge in my direction. ‘See there, Leo? On the wall behind you.’

I looked back and there was a poster picturing two women. One was flying through the air, her flimsy skirt rising to reveal shapely calves, while the other was dangling upside down, her teeth gripping a rope from which was hanging, despite all the rules of common sense, a full-sized cannon.

‘You think she was a circus performer?’

‘It would explain her injuries, don’t you think?’

I shrugged, unwilling to admit that she might be right. ‘No one could hold on to something that heavy. She’d pull out all her teeth.’

Rosie rolled her eyes. ‘Artistic licence, Leo. And it’s worth investigating, isn’t it?’ She produced her spectacles from her bag and put them on, squinting at the poster. ‘Quinton’s New Hippodrome. We should go there later and make enquiries.’

Peregrine finished his last mouthful. ‘Why not now?’

Rosie smiled. ‘Because, Mr Black, my husband has a clear case of the collywobbles and he needs to get some food into his belly before he becomes even more unbearable.’

Peregrine declined to go with us, declaring, as if the matter were self-evident, that circuses were vulgar and lacked aesthetic merit. This, from a man who, when I first met him, sang in the music halls dressed as a shepherdess with a live lamb in his arms.

So, Rosie and I were alone, her arm looped in mine as we strolled along the pavement in the sunshine. For the first time since arriving in this place, I was feeling almost normal, having consumed a plateful of toast and jam, followed by two boiled eggs and another pot of awful tea. Rosie’s reluctance to introduce me to her sister now seemed, to my eyes, less a product of embarrassment than an unfortunate, yet understandable reticence. After all, we were married only in name.

I hoped we might leave this very afternoon and be home by the evening. Tomorrow, I could file a story about an unsolved murder in Portsmouth that would appear on page 14 if I was lucky. My mind was already wandering to an announcement by a doctor in India, who had apparently discovered a cure for venomous snake bites.

One final stop and we would be on our way.

The circus was adjacent to the railway station, housed in what was clearly a former industrial building. Its modest brickwork and plain windows might have retained some pleasantness of form, or at least dignity, had it been left that way, but sadly someone had attached to the front wall a gold awning and three flags, above which was written ‘Quinton’s New Hippodrome’ in gold lettering. The whole ensemble gave the impression of a plain man in a prodigious blond wig. The doors were locked, and the blinds pulled down, so we couldn’t see inside. Rosie knocked on the windows, but there was no reply.

‘We’ll have to wait till this evening,’ she said.

‘Or forget the whole thing.’

We were deafened as a train came in on the other side of the high wall, the roar and spit of its engine pierced by a shrill whistle. I wondered if the poor dead girl had screamed that way too, her voice lost in the wash of the waves.

Looking up, I was surprised to see a fellow staring at us from the other side of the road – not huddling in a porch or in the shadow of the railway bridge, but simply standing in the sunshine, his gaze locked on to us. I caught his eye, and he didn’t look away.

‘What is it?’ asked Rosie.

‘Nothing, I’m sure.’

The fellow was already striding away along the pavement, but he glanced back at me from under the brim of his hat. I didn’t know him, but I recognised the style of that gait, regular as a clock. My impression was reinforced by his dark, well-pressed suit, which could only be described as civilian. My guess was that his more usual garb was a naval officer’s uniform.

Rosie gave me a wifely look – a mix of disbelief, irritation and tolerance – and issued a sigh that seemed to come all the way from her feet. ‘You’ve been grumpy since we got to this place. I would’ve thought a trip to the seaside would be fun, but you’re drooping like a lost puppy.’

‘I’m not.’

‘You are.’

I was about to explain that I was still slightly hungover, that I had slept badly in a strange bed and that I disliked this place and everything about it, when a young lad appeared from our left, pelting headlong down the pavement, leaping out of the way of other pedestrians, his hand pressed on to his flat cap to stop it flying off.

We didn’t have time to react. He arrived, breathless and red-faced, and started tugging furiously on the handle of the doors to the building, so hard I thought he might pull out the screws. We watched, mouths open, but he didn’t take the slightest notice of us. He was my height or a fraction taller and his cheeks were red from his exertions. He glanced back the way he’d come and balled his fists, seeming to reach a decision, and then rushed around to the side of the building. My curiosity overcame my bad mood, and I followed him. He pulled on a side door, which was also locked, and on the window next to it, managing to prise his fingers under the frame and lever it open. In one movement he hoisted himself up and tipped inside, his feet being the last parts of him to disappear from view.

We had no time to make sense of the lad’s sudden arrival and even more sudden exit. A man approached, and I recognised him immediately: the naval fellow who’d been watching us earlier. He, too, was panting, though he was making a strong effort not to appear to do so, tightening his shoulders and taking long, slow breaths through his nose. He tried the main doors, with equally little success, and then turned to face us. ‘Did you see where he went?’

He seemed like a man who rarely had need of being polite.

Rosie looked him squarely in the eye. ‘I didn’t see anyone.’

Inwardly, I smiled. Rosie, Rosie, Rosie. Not for one second did I think she would give the lad away to a fellow such as this.

He clenched his teeth, glancing up at the garish frontage of the building as though his prey might be clinging to the awning like a monkey.

‘I’ll come back later,’ he said, apparently of the view we would take a note of his movements and prepare accordingly.

We watched him march away, his boots pounding on the wooden paving: tock, tock, tock. Rosie raised her eyebrows at me. ‘You know there’s only one thing we can do now, don’t you?’

I grinned, all thoughts of leaving this place melting away.

We headed around the side of the building to the window the boy had opened. My better mind was insisting that this was folly. We would certainly be caught and, even if we weren’t, how would we question anyone, having broken in? They would assume we were thieves. But another part of me relished this adventure with Rosie, regardless of the consequences. We were at our best at such times.

We looked up at the windowsill together. She claimed to be five feet tall, but I had my doubts, and she always refused my offers to fetch a tape measure and prove the matter one way or another.

‘You’ll have to go first,’ she declared.