CEYLON SALLY, ONE of the four girls on the list that Child had been given by Cecily, was the same pretty lascar who’d spoken out against Lucy at the Whores’ Club. A hard-eyed, hard-bitten little meretrix, about eighteen years old, her arms jingled with silver bracelets, signalling her irritation with Child’s questions. He had already spoken to two of the other whores on the list, Rosy Sims and Becky Greengrass, tracking them down in Soho and Covent Garden respectively with Harris’s List as his guide. Sally’s replies were proving depressingly familiar.
‘Pamela?’ she said, in soft, accented English. ‘I remember her. She came with us to a masquerade. Virgin.’ Her finger traced ancient graffiti in the tavern tabletop. Around them young gentlemen diced and drank and sang bawdy songs.
‘Did Lucy Loveless come to speak to you about that night?’
‘Three times.’ She yawned. ‘Dull questions on a dull subject.’ Her black eyes flashed. ‘Must be contagious.’
‘Then you’ll know that Pamela hasn’t been seen since. Do you know what happened to her there?’
‘She cracked her pipkin. Sold it for two hundred and fifty guineas. Then she slept with the smile of Venus, as did we all. One of the gentlemen dropped us back in Soho the following morning. Last time I saw Pamela, she was off to collect her money. She’s probably in the arms of a handsome swain, sipping the finest Lisbon by the sea.’
‘You’re sure that’s all that happened?’
Another fierce jangle of her bracelets. ‘Quite sure.’
‘I know that the lieutenant and his brother picked you up in Soho and that the masquerade took place at Mr Stone’s estate. Lord March was there too. Which one of them took Pamela’s virginity?’
‘I don’t recall. There was wine, hashish.’ She made a vague gesture. ‘You pay attention to the man you’re with if you want to be invited back.’
‘So who were you with?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t recall.’
Child sighed. ‘Tell me about the fifth man. Could he have been the one with Pamela?’
Her eyes were unreadable, the pupils dilated, perhaps with laudanum. ‘What fifth man?’
The other girls had given him much the same story, and Child didn’t believe a word of it. They hadn’t asked for money to answer his questions – that was the first clue they were lying. And their stories were too similar, often word for word. They’d been paid off, was his best bet. Either that, or they were scared. Perhaps both.
Yet he still wanted to find Kitty Carefree, the fourth woman on the list. Until a few months ago, she had been Lucy’s dearest friend. Even if she’d also been paid for her silence, Lucy’s murder might be enough to prick her conscience.
Child spent the next few hours touring the Covent Garden fleshpots, buying drinks, talking to whores and their clients. He never stopped watching out for Finn Daley, still baffled that the moneylender hadn’t yet paid him a visit. Was it too much to hope that he’d dropped dead?
In the course of his tavern travels, he discovered that Kitty was well known and well liked, the toast of the Bedford Coffeehouse in her youth, her past a long trail of titled gentlemen and wealthy merchants who’d loved her then discarded her when they’d grown bored. Nobody could tell him who was keeping her now, only that she’d not been seen out on the town since the spring, which was when the footman at the brothel in Soho had said she’d moved out.
‘Kitty Carefree?’ one young gentleman said, lifting his head from his tankard just long enough to squint at Child. ‘Girl has a cunt like a split fig.’
Which sadly wasn’t going to help Child find her.
Pamela: missing, presumed dead. Kitty Carefree: missing, presumed alive. Theresa Agnetti: missing, presumed alive, murdered, dead by suicide – depending on who was doing the presuming.
Too many missing women to Child’s mind. They’d all known one another, all spent time in Agnetti’s house – just like Lucy Loveless. He was convinced that the fates of those four women were connected.
As day slid into dusk, and he was walking past a jelly-house in Maiden Lane, he glimpsed a familiar face through the curved window. Pushing open the door, he squeezed past the counter of blancmanges and jellies, sparkling like jewels in the candlelight.
‘Remember me?’
Hector grinned. ‘How could I forget?’ His pert, knowing voice was all at odds with his downy cheeks, expressive eyes and tousled blond hair. The boy dipped his spoon into his glass – a ribbon jelly set in coloured layers – and sucked on it suggestively.
Child took out the invitation. ‘Did you put this in my pocket?’
‘Felt sorry for you, didn’t I? Blundering around like that. Inspire pity in a Puritan, you would.’
Child sat down at the table, lowering his voice. ‘Lucy believed a girl named Pamela had been murdered. She thought Jonathan Stone or one of his friends might have been responsible. Is that why the Whores’ Club wouldn’t help me? Because the girls risk losing their money from his masquerades?’
‘You learned something then.’ Hector gave Child a round of mocking applause.
‘Do you know anything about Lucy’s inquiry? From your time working for Kitty?’
He took another mouthful of jelly. ‘I might do.’
‘I take it you didn’t put this in my pocket out of civic duty?’
‘Now you come to mention it, I do like a present, sir. A silver nutmeg, a golden pear.’
‘The King of Spain’s daughter?’
‘I’d rather have the King.’
‘I’ll give you five shillings – but only if I consider your information worth it.’
‘Oh, I’m always worth it. I’ll take a golden guinea in lieu of that golden pear.’
‘Half a guinea. Take it or leave it. Your choice.’
‘You old skinflint.’ But he was smiling. ‘Meet me by the entrance to the King’s Mews in half an hour.’
‘Why can’t we talk here?’
‘Because I have no great desire to have my belly cut open at Vauxhall Gardens. Never know who’s watching, do we?’ Hector scraped back his chair, raising his voice: ‘No, I won’t talk to you, you dirty old goat. Stop touching me.’
People looked round. ‘Nasty pederast,’ someone said.
Flushing, Child turned an indignant face on Hector, but he’d already danced out the door, laughing.