‘Have you gone mad?’
Lucca hissed at me as we crouched behind the well. I was taking Giacomo’s boots off.
‘No, and you’d better do this too if you’re coming in there with me. The sound of these boots could wake the dead.’ I thought of Peggy and I bit my tongue.
For some reason we were both whispering, even though the only signs of life in that God-forsaken yard were the rats turning over the bloated bodies of long-dead pigeons in the corners. It must have been the thickness of the walls around us, but you couldn’t hear the machinery out on the basin here.
I winced as I pulled off the left boot. Blood from my blisters was already beginning to seep through the wool, all three layers of it.
‘But there is glass everywhere – and worse.’ Lucca swore under his breath, yet he bent forward to remove his own boots.
‘How are we going to get in, Fannella?’
I pointed at the rope pulley hanging from the loading platform high on the wall.
‘Up there and in through that opening on the right side – second floor. Easy.’
‘Easy for you, maybe, but you forget I have not had the benefit of Madame Celeste’s training.’
Lucca’s face was hidden by his hair as he untied his left boot.
‘And I cannot climb a rope.’
‘You won’t have to. I’ll get in and make my way down to let you in. There must be a door down here out to the yard.’ I scanned the building uncertainly. The only opening onto the courtyard side of the building appeared to be the doors of the loading platform high above us.
Then I saw a way. ‘Look! Over there to the left, just by that spar of wood leaning against the wall. There’s a row of wooden shutters half set into the stones leading to the vaults under the warehouse. If I can get in up there I’ll make my way down to that level and let you in. You can slide through.’
The half-circular openings along the base of the wall looked like a row of eyes staring at us.
Lucca bit the side of his thumb. ‘What are you expecting to find in there?’
Bring me more. Lady Ginger’s voice came sharp into my head. But the old bitch hadn’t even opened her door to me when I came to her with more.
I looked up at the building behind us. If he really was using it as his ‘studio’, Christ knows what we’d find. It would be more all right, but would it be enough?
I clenched my fists. ‘I don’t know exactly, Lucca, and that’s the honest truth. Evidence, I suppose – maybe something more . . .’
I felt my guts coil into a knot as The Lady’s own word sprang from my lips. Admit it to yourself, girl, I thought. You’re expecting to find Peggy’s body in there, her and them others too.
I busied myself with the other boot, not wanting Lucca to see my guilty face.
‘We should just go to the police and end this now. Let them find . . .’ Lucca paused, obviously thinking the same as me and not wanting to share it.
I stared at him. ‘And what about Joey? I can’t bring the rozzers down on Paradise or Lady Ginger, can I? This has gone too far for that. And Verdin would only buy them off, like he’s bought everyone he’s ever come into contact with. Think about Giacomo, Lucca. Do it for him. You still love him, don’t you?’
Lucca took a deep breath and felt into the folds of his coat. ‘I brought this. Take it with you.’
I looked at the little ivory-handled gun in his hand with horror.
‘No!’
I didn’t want to think where he’d got something like that, but the thought came to me that I knew exactly who he might want to use it on. Like I always said, Lucca kept more secrets than one of his Roman father ’fessors. I was beginning to suspect I only knew the half of them.
‘I’m not taking that. You keep it.’
He tried to press it into my hands, but I held them behind my back. ‘No. It’s not for me.’ I’m not sure why, but I was definite on that. I didn’t even want to touch it.
‘Then take these, at least.’ He handed me the box of Lucifers. ‘It will be dark in there. You’ll need them.’ I nodded and stuffed the little box into the pocket of the jacket.
‘I’m going up there now,’ I whispered, pointing at the rope dangling in front of the painted sign. ‘Wait for me over there. I’ll try to get that half-shutter open and then we’ll go through the building together.’
*
Getting inside was easy.
The ropes hanging down from the platform were new and strong. Now I was close to, I realised Rosen’s warehouse wasn’t the forgotten shell it presented to a casual view. The gear connecting the ropes was well oiled – which is why I didn’t make a racket as I climbed – and some of the platform boards overhead had been replaced.
When I got to the opening I’d pointed out to Lucca I shifted my weight and swung forward catching the brick sill with my foot.
The gap was tall and thin and not glazed over and when I managed to pull myself inside I realised why. It led direct to a wooden staircase. The opening was the only source of light and air.
A warehouse owner wouldn’t spend a penny to keep his workers warm, but he’d like them to breathe, ’specially given the fumes coming off some of them goods.
Joey had taken me with him to a skin house once when they were unloading a cargo of hide. I’ll never forget the stench of it, worse than a sewer it was. All around us were bins full of horn sorted for shape. Some of them were black and twisted, others were creamy white – ivory, I guessed. The sour smell coming off the horn bins was worse than the hide. It got into your nose and worked its way down into your throat so that everything you put in your mouth for hours afterwards tasted of death.
I felt into the pocket for the box of Lucifers and struck one against the wall.
The wooden stairs were broad and strong. Like the ropes and pulleys outside they were good, none broken or missing as far as I could tell.
The match sputtered and died. I shook the box in my pocket – plenty there. I was about to strike another when I noticed that I could make out the outlines of the steps below. The opening allowed a gash of faint grey moonlight to fall across the twisting stairwell.
I stood there for a moment allowing my eyes to grow accustomed and then I began to go down, keeping one hand on the wall to guide me. At every ninth step the stairs turned and led to another level below.
It got colder as I went down. After three or four turns the air changed. The tarry wood and sawdust smell of the stairs faded and now there was a metallic, bitter scent in the air.
It was pitch black. The moonlight couldn’t reach this level so I struck up another of Lucca’s matches and held it high. I was in the store vaults beneath the warehouse.
The floor beneath my feet was stone and just ahead of me a row of great brick arches leaned into the shadows. I counted three of them, but I knew that old storage cellars like these often followed a different plan to the buildings above them. Some of the vaults under the docks stretched for miles. People said there were passages too where it was easy to move your gear out from under the eye of the Customs men.
The match burned down to my fingers and I dropped it. By my reckoning, the row of half-moon windows where Lucca would be waiting outside should be just behind me to the right. I felt my way back to the steps and struck up another match. There was nothing – just a blank wall of greasy brick. I must have gone down too far. The match fizzled out in my fingers.
I sat on the lowest step, dipped into the pocket again and fumbled with the box, but just as I was about to strike I realised that there was another light down there with me.
I stood up and took a step forward; perhaps it was a trick of the mind or an optical illusion like one of Swami Jonah’s magic tricks?
The light disappeared, but then it came again when I moved a couple of steps back to the right. There was a faint light far across the cellar – when I moved, the curved stone pillars blocked it from view.
I dodged behind a span of arches and carefully followed their line across the cellar, slipping from one black space to another until the light was clear ahead. It came from a partly open door – a great wide metal thing covered with studs and straps. It put me in mind of the box in the wall in Fitzy’s office where he stashes the takings of an evening.
The sour smell was stronger here and there was something else: the air was thick with a sickly sweetness. It wasn’t the fragrance of flowers, nor even like Lady Ginger’s opium smoke; it was a harsh, unnatural scent and I’d known it before – that night in St Paul’s.
I froze. Was he down here now?
I dodged under an arch and flattened myself against the ice-cold bricks. You should go back now, girl, I told myself, you can’t do this alone. You need Lucca . . . and his gun.
I took a deep breath but that stink coiled into my lungs and made me want to gag. I heard a scrabbling sound at my feet and looked down to see a rat staring up at me. The sheeny black creature blinked, snuffled at my foot and skittered away across the stones when I kicked out. It watched me warily for a moment, then it pressed its body close to the wall and slunk to the open door. I watched in disgust as its thick, grey, hairless tail slipped around the metal and disappeared.
‘Oh Jesus! Another one. Get it away from me, please.’
I heard a muffled scraping as if something was dragged across the floor.
‘No! Please!’
‘It’s no good, I can’t move, Peggy. Keep still and it might . . .’
There was a sharp scream.
Without thinking, I ran forward and pushed the door further open to reveal a long, narrow chamber with a barrel ceiling and another studded, barred door at the far end. The walls were plastered and whitewashed over. An oil lamp placed on the stones about halfway down cast a flickering circle of light across the three kneeling women whose hands were tied above their heads and roped to great metal hoops in the walls. Their bodices gaped open and their skirts were soiled and ripped. Even in the gloom I could see the scratches and bruises on their skin.
But they were alive – all of them.
I stepped into the circle of light. The women moaned and shrank back against the walls, lowering their heads.
‘Please, not now. Not again.’ The cracked voice came from a woman behind me.
I turned and found myself looking down at Peggy. Her lovely thick hair was matted into a filthy knot and there were long scratches down her arms. The cord at her wrists had cut into her flesh and the wounds were crusted and weeping.
‘Peggy!’ I fell to my knees and gently lifted her head.
Her eyes were sunk so deep into their sockets that they were almost closed over and her bottom lip was split and swollen.
She didn’t look at me, but she whispered the words, ‘Don’t. Please, sir.’
‘Oh Peggy.’ My eyes filled with tears. ‘I’m not him.’
I ripped Giacomo’s hat off and pulled my hair free. ‘Look. You know me – I’m Kitty.’
Peggy slowly raised her eyes to mine. At first she didn’t seem able to focus. Her blank eyes rolled across my face as if trying to find something there she recognised.
After a moment, she whispered, ‘Kitty? Is that really you? Oh thank God. Thank God.’
*
The ropes binding the women at their wrists were tied so firmly that I had to burn them with Lucca’s matches to make them break. When I’d finished on Polly Durkin she slumped onto the stone floor and kept repeating the name of her boy, Michael, over and over.
‘It’s all right, Polly.’ I crouched next to her and stroked her hair, knowing full well that it was not all right in this stinking pit. ‘You’ll see him again, soon. I promise. But we have to get you out of here first. All of us, we’ve got to go.’
I’d never seen the other girl before. I reckoned she was about the same age as me, maybe a year or so younger. She was a redhead with that fine chalk-white skin that bruises like a peach. She wasn’t as badly hurt as the other two – so far as I could tell. There was a welt on her shoulder and blood at her wrists where the rope bit too deep, but he’d left her face alone.
The veins in the skinny arms stretched above her head showed blue as I burned the rope.
She winced when the flame licked too close.
‘What’s your name?’ I tried to distract her.
‘Anna. Anna March.’ She flinched as I struck a new Lucifer. I knew that name – Tally March was a comic singer at The Carnival.
‘You Tally’s girl?’
She nodded and tears came into her eyes.
‘How long have you been here, Anna?’
‘I . . . I’m not sure. Not long . . . not as long as the others.’ She looked across at Peggy and I saw a tremor go through her.
‘There’s no daylight, see. Just the lamp and he lets that go out sometimes, so we’re left in the dark.’
‘When was he last here?’
Anna shook her head. ‘I don’t know. When he comes to take one of us he gives us all something to drink and then it’s like everything in your head goes wrong. He could have been here a day ago or . . .’
The rope burned through and Anna fell forward. Like the others she cried aloud as she moved her arms again and the blood came rushing back, but she was more alert.
‘Anna, listen. I need you to help me. We have to get out of here before he comes back, but Peggy’s in a bad way and Pol’s not much better.’
Anna rose stiffly to her feet. She pulled the ripped material of her dress together at the neck, folded her arms around her and rubbed her aching muscles.
‘You’re Kitty Peck, aren’t you? Mum says you’re a wonder. The bravest thing she’s seen.’
‘Most foolish, more like. Do you think you can let Pol lean on you?’
Anna nodded.
‘Peggy.’ I ran over to where she sat against the wall and gripped her hand. ‘We’re getting out. You’ve got to try to stand. Can you do that?’
Peggy pushed herself up from the stones, held my arm and hauled herself up. I felt her grip tighten and I knew she was in agony. I reached down for the oil lamp.
‘Anna, can you take Pol now?’ The pale girl slipped down beside Polly Durkin and whispered. Polly nodded and staggered to her feet. Anna put her arm around her shoulders and looked across at me. ‘Where are we going?’
*
The lamp made things easier.
Me and Peggy went first and Anna and Polly stuck close behind. It was slow going, but as we went back across the cellar Peggy became more herself with every step. I imagined she’d given up hope in that prison and now every yard away from it put a little piece of her spirit back.
The stairs were the hardest bit. Polly’s leg was bad and climbing the wooden steps made her cry out loud.
We got Peggy up first and then me and Anna went back.
As we supported Polly up the two flights, one of us on either side of her, I hoped to God that Lucca was still waiting.
I was right about the half-moon windows. At the top of the next flight of steps the lamp showed a row of them set into the wall at head height. They were shuttered from the inside but not glazed. If you removed the lock bar you could open them out to the yard.
I placed the lamp on the boards and looked around. We’d need to stand on something to get out that way. Against the wall there was a bench and an old crate. The faded letters OSEN4 on the side suggested that a long time ago the crate had been packed with Rosen’s goods.
I pushed it over to the first half-moon window, clambered on top and freed the lock bar, pushing the shutters outward.
‘Lucca.’ I called his name softly and then again when there was no answer.
‘Lucca, you there?’
Nothing. I leaned forward and scanned the yard. ‘Lucca!’ This time there was a movement in a corner but it was only a mangy old cat poking around for rats. I looked down at the women standing around the crate.
‘He came with you then?’ Peggy tried to smile despite her broken lip.
I nodded. ‘He was supposed to be waiting here for me.’ I looked out into the shadowy yard again. It was deserted.
I couldn’t worry about that now.
‘Polly – you first. Me and Anna can help you through.’
I hauled Polly onto the crate and together we pushed her up and out through the window onto the stones.
‘You next, Anna. I can push you through and then you can help pull Peggy out into the yard after that if I support her from below.’
Anna nodded and pulled herself up. I pushed her from below as she struggled to clear the last inches.
‘Just you and me now, Peg.’ I tried to smile at her.
Peggy shook her head. I couldn’t see her face properly in the shadow as she spoke. ‘The others, Kitty. They’re still there. Alice, Martha, Jenny, Maggie – all of them. They’re in the other room.’
At first I didn’t understand what she was saying. ‘They’re all alive – the Cinnabar Girls?’
Peggy didn’t answer. She had no idea about that picture.
I started again. ‘All them girls who went missing from Paradise – you’re saying they’re still here?’
She nodded and looked back down the stairs. ‘Maggie – she was here when he brought me. Only fourteen. Like Alice.’
The thought of that faded scrap of a thing came to me then. I remembered the last time I saw her trying to dodge round the tables in The Gaudy while I watched her from the cage.
‘And she’s still in that room – the one beyond the place I found you?’
Peggy nodded.
‘I’m going back.’
‘No!’ Peggy gripped my hand. ‘You can’t, Kitty. It won’t make no difference, not now.’
I wasn’t listening properly as I shook her off. I’d failed Alice, but if I could still save Maggie . . .
All that time I’d been up in that cage lapping up attention like a kitten in a whorehouse and imagining myself to be a proper little victim when Maggie and all the others had been here.
I owed little Alice Caxton that at the very least.
‘Listen, Peggy.’ I pulled her up onto the crate and turned her face towards me. ‘I know you’re in a bad way, but when you are out in that yard you’re going to run. I want you to run through the gap in the wall opposite and out onto the basin – all three of you. Run without stopping. Go to The Gaudy, find your Dan and get him to take you to The Lady. Tell her everything you know about this place, every single thing you can remember happening to you here.’
Peggy shrank back. ‘Not Lady Ginger. I couldn’t go there.’
I took both her hands in mine.
‘You can, Peggy, and you must. I won’t be far behind. And this is important: you must tell her that I’ve got more, just like she wanted.’