We stood by the well in Skinners Yard. Looking back, it’s the colours I remember most – green, flecked with sudden spurts of dazzling orange and gold going off like rockets on Guy Fawkes. It was something to do with that paint I supposed, all them medical fluids that Chaston used to make his Sicilian Gold.
The yard began to fill with smoke and even though it made my eyes smart and forced its way deep into my throat, I was rooted to the stones. I couldn’t drag my eyes from the roof timbers of the old warehouse as they burned against the pale dawn sky. Lucca gathered up our boots, grabbed my hand and dragged me into the alleyway. When we got out to the basin we gulped the clean air.
‘How did you get in – how did you find me?’ My words came in ragged gasps.
‘I heard your voice – and the others too.’
Lucca coughed and wiped his mouth. ‘The well – the sounds seemed to echo from the stone. I looked over the edge and saw iron rungs set into the side so I decided to go down a little way. But it’s not a well, Kitty, it’s a sort of chimney with passages leading off towards all the warehouses in the yard. Once I was inside I could hear you speak quite clearly so I knew which opening to take. And then I heard him.
‘The passage opened out into the vaults under Rosen’s warehouse. I think there must have been a fire pit there once. I hid in the shadows and watched as he carried you upstairs and I followed. He was too busy making preparations to notice me as I slipped behind the canvas and it was easy to hide there in the shadow while I thought about what to do.’
I was quiet for a moment.
‘And you shot him?’
Lucca stared at the black water of Limehouse Basin. ‘I did not mean to. At the end it was an act of mercy, even if he was, truly, a Verdin.’
I didn’t say anything, but I knew he was telling the truth. I don’t think I’ll ever forget the sound Edward Chaston made as the paint and the flames consumed him.
‘Fire!’
The shout of warning brought us up sharp. We heard more calls and whistles too as others took up the alarm and then the sound of heavy work boots thundering on stone as men ran towards the flames. We ran too – in the opposite direction, skirting round the basin and shrinking into the shadows to hide from the men rushing towards the blaze.
As we crouched behind some wooden stairs beside one of the warehouse buildings, I gripped Lucca’s arm.
‘I have to go to The Palace. I have to tell The Lady it’s over. I’ve done what she wanted.’
Somewhere behind us there was a huge explosion as the brilliant burning carcass of Rosen’s warehouse collapsed upon its secrets.
Lucca nodded, took my hand and together we fled.
*
The sky was light overhead as I hammered on the double doors, calling her name. Lucca tried to stop me, but I kept on battering until my knuckles were raw.
‘Give me my brother!’ I shouted that too, over and over, but my voice was hoarse and cracked from the smoke. Soon I was just mouthing the words.
I felt Lucca’s arm about my shoulders. He pulled me round to face him. ‘You must stop this, Fannella. It’s obvious she will not let you in.’
‘Why not?’ I could feel my eyes burning now, but it wasn’t the fire. ‘I’ve done everything she wanted.’
There was a clicking noise behind me as the doors to The Palace opened at last.
But it wasn’t Lady Ginger who looked out at us. She’d sent down another one of her old Chinamen and there were a couple of dark-skinned barrel-chested lascars with him this time.
The Chinaman shuffled forward, hawked some black stuff onto the steps and bowed, first to me and then to Lucca.
‘Lady knows all and is grateful.’
That’s all he said – his peculiar voice was thin and high. He reached into his sleeve just like the last time and knelt to place a square of paper on the step. As he did so I noticed that he never took his hooded black eyes off me. He straightened up, bowed once again, turned his back on us and began to shuffle inside.
‘Grateful! Is that all the old bitch has to say? Well, I’ve got plenty to say to her.’ Lucca caught my sleeve and tried to pull me back, but I darted up the steps and tried to push my way past the Chinaman and into the hall.
‘Joey. I’m here!’ I kept calling out his name as if he was a prisoner in there. I kicked and struggled as the silent lascars closed ranks and blocked the way. From a great distance I heard myself scream and spit and swear at them like an alley cat, as – gently but firmly – they forced me back out and onto the step.
The door closed in my face and I crumpled to the stones. A ringing noise began to fill my head. The sound pulsed and clanged so loudly that I crouched low and covered my ears to block out the pain of it. Then everything went black.
*
When I woke I was in Lucca’s bed.
Sunlight streamed across the shabby blankets and just above me a fat bluebottle buzzed against the glass of the little window, battering the same pane again and again until it dropped, exhausted, onto the pillow. I brushed it away and sat up. The sudden movement made me cry out and fall back again; my head felt as if it was split in two. Lucca was hunched at the other end of the bed, watching. His arms were wrapped around his knees and his narrow shoulders were level with his ears. He’d pulled his hair back from his face and caught it up at the neck like one of the old-time sailors round the docks. He reminded me of an owl.
‘H . . . how long have I been asleep?’
It was difficult to speak. My mouth was dry and my throat burned.
‘Six hours. And that’s not enough. You need to rest.’
I struggled to get out of the bed, pushing at the tangle of blankets. ‘No. I have to see her. I have to tell her it’s over before it’s too late – Joey . . .’
‘You don’t have to do anything, Fannella.’
Lucca handed me a square of paper. I opened it out and tried to make sense of the black curling lines. My head swam as the writing gradually came together in my eyes. Lady Ginger’s elegant hand looped across the page.
Miss Peck
It has come to my attention this evening that you have concluded your part of our recent business agreement. I write to relinquish you from your bonds and to assure you that you will receive full recompense as previously agreed.
Joseph Peck is safe and, if it is still your wish, you will be reunited. Do not come to me. I will send word when the time is right.
Your contract to perform at my theatres is now rescinded. Mr Patrick Fitzpatrick will be informed of this in due course.
There was an unreadable flourish at the end of these lines – her signature I supposed – and then a postscript.
It may be of interest for you to note that your colleagues Miss Margaret Worrow, Miss Polly Durkin, Miss Anna March and Mr Daniel Tewson have also been fully remunerated for their part in this matter. Like you, they will never speak of it again.
*
‘You cannot go alone, Fannella.’
Lucca twisted his hat around again and picked at the frayed band.
‘I have to. That’s what the message said. And I don’t want you following me this time.’ I stared out across the flat, stone-grey water. It’s a funny thing – the Thames is never the same twice, not quite. Sometimes it’s crumpled and green, sometimes heavy mud-brown waves wallop and suck at the stones, sometimes it’s yellow, bound at the edges with a froth of dirty cream lace and sometimes, not often mind, it’s silver-blue and shot through with ripples of light.
I watched as the wooden lid of an old packing crate from the docks floated past the base of the steps. There were some odd, foreign letters stamped diagonal across it in red and next to them a picture of a dog’s head, or perhaps it was meant to be a fox or a wolf.
The lid got caught up in a little eddy of weed and sticks. It twisted round and round in the same spot for a minute or so and then it bobbed free, twirling gracefully away into the smooth silent water. I found myself wondering where it had been and where it was going. That old crate lid had probably seen more of the world than me, I thought. But that was going to change. Once I had Joey back, we were leaving. All three of us were getting out of Paradise – and I didn’t much care where we went next.
I squeezed Lucca’s hand.
‘I’ll be all right. After all, I did everything she wanted, didn’t I? “You will receive full recompense”, that’s what Lady Ginger said. Do you think that means she’ll bring Joey with her today now she’s called for me?’
Lucca frowned and picked at the hat band again. ‘Who can tell? For three days you’ve heard nothing and now, this morning, a summons – to that place? At least let me come part of the way – please.’
I shook my head. Tell truth, I wanted to do this alone. Why would The Lady demand to meet me there if she wasn’t bringing my brother? It was probably some twisted joke, I thought, another one of her bleedin’ mind traps – reuniting the Peck family of puppets with a final twitch of the strings. I knew her ways now and I wasn’t frightened no more. All the same, if she really was giving Joey back I wanted him for myself. Just me and him, even for the shortest time, like the old days.
I pushed up closer to Lucca and leaned forward so that I could see his face properly through all that hair.
‘Look. You saved me once already, Lucca Fratelli, and don’t think I’m not grateful that you came after me in that warehouse and . . .’ I broke off. I didn’t want to think about that night, let alone speak of it.
‘Thing is – it’s over. I’ve got to do this on my own. He’s my brother. Do you understand?’
‘But The Lady . . .’ Lucca rolled the brim of his hat over his knees.
‘The Lady is playing a game, putting on a show, that’s all. You know what she’s like.’
Lucca sighed and shifted on the step. ‘As you wish, Fannella.’ He smiled ruefully. ‘At least she has already granted you one thing. Fitzpatrick has been complaining that the takings are down.’
*
I’d never been to Ma’s grave before. Not since the day we buried her. It was cold then and it was cold now.
I remember the frost covering the mound of earth about to be shovelled back over her coffin after we left. There weren’t many of us there that day. Me, Joey, a couple of Joey’s friends and a legal all got up in shiny black with a tall hat bound with a crêpe band. The trailing ends of the band fluttered about behind his head as he stood there grim-faced and silent.
Joey said afterwards that the legal put him in mind of a beetle. Neither of us knew who he was and we didn’t much care. Tell truth, I suspected he was at the wrong funeral but I couldn’t talk to him. I couldn’t talk to anyone that day.
By the time the vicar had said his piece and Joey had rattled a handful of earth down onto Ma’s box, the man had gone. I reckoned he realised his mistake and felt embarrassed.
That drab winter day was five years ago.
A keen wind whipped down the avenue of cypress trees now as I made my way to her plot. The bell in the little chapel of rest at the entrance had gone off just after I came through the gates. Three strikes. I was early. The Lady wasn’t due until the quarter.
For some reason I’d dressed myself up. Not in one of them bright, blousy outfits I’d bought with Lady Ginger’s purse, but something plain and decent. Dark blue with a high neck, buttons and good gloves. My hair was tied back and away from my face and I was wearing a hat with black feathers at the side and a scrap of net across my eyes. I had Nanny Peck’s shawl pinned around my shoulders too. That seemed the right thing to do.
I counted the avenues until I came to the right one – number 50, west side. Ma’s grave was over to the left somewhere ahead. I remembered the hatchet-faced angel with wrestler’s wings who stood as a perpetual body guard to some poor soul whose family had more money than taste.
We couldn’t afford a stone for Ma. But I remembered at the service there was a wooden cross with her name on a tin plate stuck into the earth mound at a jaunty angle. I thought they’d use it as a marker after we’d gone and I looked for it now.
I didn’t feel sentimental about the spot. As far as I was concerned she wasn’t there. Anyone who’s been at the deathbed of someone they love will tell you the same. One minute there’s a person with you, next minute they’re gone. It’s like a candle flame going out and the sudden absence is shocking. But there’s an odd sort of comfort in that because you know they must have gone somewhere else.
I don’t claim to be a divinity but one thing I do know is that Ma, the best of her, went off somewhere that night and she wasn’t here with me now in the cemetery.
I stepped off the gravel path and walked along the tree-lined row beyond the winged prize-fighter. It was one of these, I was certain.
Henry Trott had a nice big stone with a carving of a flaming urn set into the top. It came back to me now. Ma’s grave was three plots further along. I paused, confused. They all had stones here – fine ones at that. Not a single grave in this row had a simple wooden cross.
I stepped forward to check. After Henry Trott came Martin Benyon, brewer, then Hannah Dyson, beloved wife and mother, then Mary Clifford – a pillar the size of a man, but not much more there than her name and a couple of dates – and then a tall grey triangular block set on a plinth. Simple it was, but elegant, the corners carved sharp and clean. Must have cost someone a year’s wage, but they’d set it up in the wrong place. This was Ma’s grave. I was sure of it.
There was some lettering on the base hidden by greenery. I knelt down and pushed the leaves and grass aside.
Elizabeth? Ma’s name had been Eliza. I tugged at the weeds growing up round the base of the stone and a clump came away from the ground, roots and all.
ELIZABETH REDMAYNE
1836–1875
BELOVED DAUGHTER AND MOTHER
SHE TOOK LITTLE BUT WAS OWED MUCH
Redmayne? I straightened up and stared at the stone. It was good work, quality marble, beautifully cut letters filled in gold. The dates were right too, but the name was all wrong. If this was a mistake it was an expensive one. I clenched my fist over the weeds, furious that some family had taken Ma’s grave and planted a stone to a stranger on top of it.
I heard a crunching noise as someone came towards me down the gravel pathway. The noise grew louder, heavier. It was more than one person, perhaps two or three. Joey?
My heart pounded under the starched blue bodice as I flung down the weeds and darted back to the cypress avenue.
Four Chinamen set down Lady Ginger’s chair.
It was that same black one I’d seen before, carved with dragons. Their hooked talons gripped at the feet and at the ends of the arms. The men carried the chair on long poles set through metal hoops at the sides.
Lady Ginger sat there like a queen. For a moment she was still, then she nodded, raised her hand and the Chinamen bowed and moved off silently, melting into the garden of stones.
Today her grey hair was coiled in a plait on the top of her head and I could see the strands of pure white winding through it. She was dressed in heavy black lace sewn over with tiny glittering beads of jet so that she seemed to shimmer in the pale winter light. Like before, her face was painted white, although her cheeks were daubed with bright, unnatural spots of crimson.
Ma had an old doll – a wooden one with real human hair and glass eyes – that put me in mind of Lady Ginger now. That doll still gave me nightmares.
She watched me for a moment and then she moistened those cracked black lips that looked like something sewn onto her face.
‘Good afternoon, Kitty Peck. I trust you are well?’
That light girlish voice, so sweet yet so sour.
I nodded curtly. I could feel my palms sweating in my gloves.
‘Come closer.’
I walked slowly to the chair and stood just in front of her. She stared up at me. Her eyes flickered across my face like they were reading the lines in a book.
‘As I remarked once before, you are so very alike – you and your pretty brother, Joseph.’ Her eyes half closed. ‘But he was weak, Kitty. And you are strong.’
‘Was?’ I couldn’t stop myself. ‘You promised me, Lady, you told me he was alive. “Full recompense” – that’s what you said.’
She began to laugh, but it became a cough that wracked her tiny body and made her lean forward. I could see her skinny shoulder blades all knotted up beneath the lace.
When she straightened up she took a square of cotton from her sleeve and dabbed it at her mouth. There was a black stain on the material as she folded it away.
‘Forgive me. It was a figure of speech. You brother is still very much alive. But I am afraid he is not here with me today.’
I knelt down in front of her, gripping the arms of the chair. One of the Chinamen appeared just to the right but The Lady flicked a hand and he shuffled back into the shadows.
‘Where is he? You owe me, Lady. The things I did – they was for Joey, nothing else.’
She was silent for a moment and then she smiled.
‘Do you really mean that? Look into your heart, can you honestly tell me that you did not revel in your fame? I watched you, girl. You were the perfect choice. It has been most diverting.’
She reached into her sleeve and pulled out a thin black roll.
‘I knew a girl very like you once. You will light this. Here.’
She handed me a small silver box full of matches. My hands shook as I lit her opium stick. It was smaller than her usual pipe, but I’d seen enough men in the backstreets dragging on a tarry stub to know what it was.
Lady Ginger inhaled deeply and the tip of the black stick glowed. A trail of sweet smoke coiled around us. I saw a tremor go through the old woman’s frail body and her eyes rolled back in her head, then, of a sudden, they snapped open again.
‘I will return your brother to you . . . in due course. But whether you will accept him, now, that is another matter.’ She grinned, showing her black gums. ‘You will find him much altered.’
I thought of that finger and felt the bile rising. The cemetery seemed to spin around us. What else had the old bitch done to him?
‘If you want your brother you will come to The Palace tomorrow at noon. Not a moment before. You may bring the Fratelli boy with you, it will be useful.’ She paused and held her head to one side, like a crow sizing up a morsel of carrion. ‘There – you see, I know all about you, Kitty Peck.’
She made my last name sound like something you’d want to spit out of your mouth.
I stood and took a step back. The wind gusted through the cypress trees and a little storm of dust and gravel blew around my feet lifting the edge of my skirts and billowing them out around me. I didn’t know what to think any more. Was she lying again, playing a game?
I curled my fingers tight around her silver strike box. ‘Why are we here, Lady? Why couldn’t you just bring Joey here with you today and let us be? What have we ever done to you?’
She brought the stick to her lips again and sucked greedily. Then she threw it down onto the gravel beside her chair.
‘Pain comes in many ways. I find that the opium helps. You will do well to remember that. Now, you will help me, please. I cannot walk without assistance.’
She raised herself from the chair and I saw her mouth twist with pain as she forced herself to her feet. She shook a little as she gripped the left arm of the chair and reached out towards me. I took her gloved hand and felt the lumpy knots of rings and bones through the leather.
‘Walk with me to your mother’s grave.’
She leaned heavily on me as we went the little way back to Ma’s grave. I realised then how frail she was. The great Lady Ginger was fragile as a baby bird fallen from the nest.
‘It’s here. I know it is.’ I pointed at the stone. ‘But it’s all wrong, someone’s made a mistake. She was Eliza, not Elizabeth – and her name was Peck. We didn’t put that thing there.’
She was silent for a moment. ‘No, you did not. I did. When she was born I gave her my own name, because, at the time, it was all I had left.’
Lady Ginger looked at me and her eyes glittered. I couldn’t tell if she was on the edge of tears or if it was malice there.
‘Elizabeth Redmayne was my daughter.’
*
I handed the paper to Lucca without a word and watched his face as he read to the bottom, and then read it again. I stood and went over by the window where something standing on the floor and covered in a slump of dusty velvet propped open the shutter. I passed Lady Ginger’s dice box from hand to hand. The shagreen case was rough to the touch and I could hear the dice rattling inside.
I looked out across the jumbled roofs and smoking chimneypots of Paradise. It was a fine day.
When we’d got to The Palace the doors were wide open. Two of The Lady’s Chinamen stood waiting in the hall at the base of the broad oak stairs. One of them took his right hand out of the opposite sleeve and pointed to the floors above; the yellowed nail on his first finger was long and curled.
As we passed, he bowed. They both did.
I felt Lucca’s hand tighten on my arm as we made our way up. On every landing corridors lined with china pots and oriental rugs stretched away into the depths. Every time we halted, uncertain where to go, another of The Lady’s men stepped out of the shadows, bowed and pointed the way upwards.
At the top of the stairs the doors to The Lady’s receiving room stood open.
Lucca caught my hand. ‘What if this is another trap, Fannella? We have walked into it.’
I shook my head. ‘It’s too late for that now.’
I pulled him forward across the threshold and into the room.
In daylight The Lady’s chamber was a dreary, musty place. The ceiling and walls were stained, cobwebs hung in garlands in the corners as if no one had ever noticed them to clear them away and the air was heavy with the sickly smell of her. Only she wasn’t there.
The room was empty apart from a square of red cloth set out in the middle of the bare boards. There were three things on the cloth arranged in a triangle.
I went forward and knelt down. My fingers tingled as I reached for the small, gilt-edged card nearest to me. It was an address: 17 rue des Carmélites, Paris. I turned it over.
Two words in Lady Ginger’s looped hand scrawled across the back.
Full recompense
I flipped it back and stared at the address again. I felt for Joey’s Christopher and his ring in the neck of my dress as Lucca crouched next to me.
‘The letter is for you, I think, Fannella?’
I looked down at the name written neatly in the centre of the folded paper on the cloth – Katharine Redmayne. Was that really who I was?
Elizabeth Redmayne was my daughter.
God forgive me, but when Lady Ginger said that in the cemetery, I began to laugh. There was a furious wildness in the sound that I could barely control and I brought my hands to my mouth to stop it and to stop myself from lashing out at her chalk-white face.
All the while she had just stared at me, her doll-black eyes dead and unblinking.
After a moment she raised her hand and one of her Chinamen appeared from nowhere. She reached for his arm and turned her glittering back on me as he guided her to the chair.
I called out to her then. Now it was my turn to demand more – just as she’d done, but she never looked back, not once – and she didn’t speak another word to me.
Katharine Redmayne – if I touched the letter would that make it true?
Lucca decided. He leaned across the square of red silk, took up the letter and handed it to me. For a moment I stared at the name and then I ripped it open.
February 14th 1880
I have tested you, Katharine Redmayne, and found you worthy, better than your brother, whom I return to you in full recompense.
I knew a girl like you once who came to London with nothing more than a child in her belly, a purse full of coins and a loyal servant called Bridie Peck. That girl built an empire for herself where all worlds meet. She gave up her own daughter, but she became a mother to many.
When she is gone her family will still need a careful parent to guide them. For a long time I thought Joseph would be the one, but I was wrong. Your brother has a weakness that can be exploited and a Baron must be strong.
You are strong, Katharine.
When you leave this room today you will find my solicitor, Marcus Telferman, waiting for you in the entrance hall. I believe you met him once before at the burial of my daughter, your mother. Telferman knows my wishes and will be ready to act for you should you decide to accept my terms. The documents of transfer must be signed within the day or this offer will be rescinded.
The choice is yours, Katharine. You can walk from this room today and live a small, narrow life or you can build your own empire. Perhaps a better one. You have proved yourself capable in more ways than you know.
Before you decide, think carefully on this: men like Sir Richard Verdin are not unreachable.
You have only to give the word and your will shall be done. I believe Mr Fratelli will have an interest in this matter.
Her signature wound across the bottom of the page, underlined twice. Like before there was a postscript.
The dice and the other are yours, no matter your decision today.
Lucca looked up from the letter. The good side of his face was lit from the window.
‘What will you do, Fannella?’
I turned Joey’s Christopher and his ring between my fingers and looked at the dingy room around me. The stains up the far wall where Lady Ginger had leaned into her nest of silken cushions and smoked her opium pipe was a dirty ghost of the past.
The whole place needed a good clear-out and a lick of paint.
‘I’ll deal with it,’ I said, turning to push the shutter back further to let more light into the room. There was a scratching noise at my feet and the sound of something rasping on metal. The noises came from beneath the mound of velvet that was propping open the shutter. I pulled the fabric free and found myself staring into the glinting black eyes of Lady Ginger’s parrot. The bird fluffed out its tatty grey wings and held its head to one side.
‘Pretty girl, pretty girl, pretty girl, pretty girl, pretty . . .’