CHILD FOUND HECTOR leaning against the gatepost of the King’s Mews, watching the cavalry officers riding in and out. Lights wove around Charing Cross: footmen with torches leading sedan chairs; carriage lamps bouncing with the movement of the horses; link-boys escorting whores from job to job. Hector held his own torch in front of him suggestively, reminding Child of Simon’s statue of Priapus.
‘That wasn’t funny back there.’
‘A little bit, it was. You follow me and we’ll talk. Agreed?’
Child took an uneasy glance around, thinking about Finn Daley again. The boy might be leading him into a trap. ‘Where are we going?’
‘Got to look the part, sir. Anyone sees us together, I don’t want them thinking it’s information you’re buying.’
Reluctantly, Child followed him down Cockspur Street. ‘Lucy thought it was all odd from the start,’ Hector said softly, his words drifting back to Child. ‘The girls who are usually invited to the Priapus Club are women of the town: young and beautiful, but experienced. This particular night, they wanted a virgin and Lucy wanted to know why. It wasn’t usual for them to meet like that either, just a few of them. The masquerades are normally held at full moon, a dozen or more gentlemen, perhaps two dozen whores. This night, Lucy suspected they were up to something they didn’t want the rest of the club to see.’
‘Something involving Pamela.’ Child’s face was grim.
Hector nodded. ‘Lucy said Stone trusted the others, the Dodd-Bellinghams and Lord March, because they owed him money and he knew their secrets.’
‘I heard there was a fifth man. Did you ever hear anything about that?’
‘Lucy asked me about him too. She was trying to find out who he was.’
‘When was this?’
‘A little while after Kitty moved out.’
‘What did you tell her?’
‘That the girls talked about a fifth man the morning after the masquerade.’
‘Go on.’
‘The lieutenant dropped the girls off at Kitty’s rooms at about nine. It was earlier than I was expecting – I wasn’t long in bed. Kitty had twisted her ankle and the others helped her up the stairs. They were acting strange, quiet, like something was up. While I was making them tea, I heard them talking. One of the girls, I think it was Rosy Sims, asked the others about the fifth man – “the one with Pamela”. Well, everyone got angry then, and Ceylon Sally said that Rosy should never speak of it again. Then Kitty saw that I was listening, and told me to go and buy more tea, though we didn’t need any. When I came back, the girls were gone and she gave me a hug, a little tearful. Told me she’d buy me a present for being so good, but she never did.’
The fifth man, the one with Pamela.
‘This girl definitely wasn’t with them?’ Child showed him Pamela’s picture.
Hector shook his head. ‘Is that her? Kitty talked about Pamela sometimes, when she’d come home from Mr Agnetti’s. She liked her, but then Kitty liked everyone.’
‘Did you ever hear any talk about a document? Some papers? Or a letter? From Kitty or Lucy or anyone else?’
Hector turned, his eyes blazing in the light of his torch. ‘They asked me about that too. I told them I didn’t know anything about it.’
‘They?’
‘A couple of coves came to see me last week, asking me questions about Kitty. Big. Well dressed. Knew the law.’
Official sorts. Like the men who’d been looking for Kitty at her rooms. Like the late Richmond Baird, agent of the Home Office.
‘Were you telling them the truth?’
‘Don’t you start. Took me an age to convince them. They held a knife to my balls. Most fun I’ve had in months.’ Despite his bravado, Child could tell the episode had rattled him.
They cut through an alley that brought them out on the fringes of St James’s Park. Ahead of them stretched the Mall, a wide, gravelled path flanked by lamps, park-walkers and their customers flitted in and out of the shadows like bats. Hector headed away from the lights, towards the Horse Guards parade ground, the night air pierced by a shriek from the waterfowl patrolling the pond.
‘Tell me about Lucy and Kitty, their falling out,’ Child said. ‘Was that because of Pamela?’
‘That’s obvious, isn’t it? Kitty tried to talk Lucy out of doing what she was doing – she said Pamela had left town, she was alive and well. Lucy didn’t believe it, not for a moment. Kitty had come into some money lately and Lucy wanted to know where it had come from. Kitty said her duke had given it to her for old times’ sake, but Lucy called her a liar and Kitty cried.’
‘Were you in the room when they argued?’
‘No, but I have ears, and doors have keyholes. They didn’t speak after that. It upset Kitty. She and Lucy had been friends for years. I think that had a lot to do with her moving out. She didn’t tell me where she was going. I think she thought I might tell Lucy. Lucy came looking for her, you see, after she left.’
‘Could it be true what they say on the street? That she found herself a new keeper?’
‘Not one I ever met. She’d only been seeing her regulars.’
‘Where else could she be?’
‘Sometimes she’d leave town to take the waters, used to say she needed a rest from all the men. Given how she’d been acting lately, that’s what I presumed.’
‘How had she been acting?’
‘Anxious, distracted, upset about Lucy. She’d always been that way – the sort who’d cry after the men went home – but this was worse. She was praying a lot. She’d always done that too. But lately, she’d been doing it more – and going to church, over at St Andrew-by-the-Wardrobe.’
‘Had she ever dismissed you before when she went away?’
‘No, but usually she only went for a week at a time.’
Four months was a long rest. And Kitty had been anxious, praying. Perhaps guilty about whatever had happened to Pamela.
‘Did Kitty ever talk about giving it up? Prostitution?’
‘Sometimes. I didn’t take it seriously though. What else would she do? Where would she go?’
Throw herself upon the charity of the Magdalen Hospital for Penitent Prostitutes? Child was thinking about the card he’d found in Lucy’s rooms. Had Lucy guessed that Kitty had decided to change her life for good, perhaps motivated by remorse? Had she gone looking for Kitty at the Magdalen? That would explain why no one had seen her out on the town.
They had reached the corner of the park, the black hulk of the abbey looming large over the old houses. Birdcage Walk stretched off to the right, a darkened promenade of trees. Ragged boys of Hector’s age stood in little clusters by the shrubbery, talking and smoking pipes. A man sidled up to them, coins were exchanged, and one of the boys led the man into the bushes.
‘Oh no, you bloody don’t.’ Child grabbed Hector’s collar, pulling him up short.
He grinned. ‘You never know, you might find out you like it down here, sir.’
‘A man can hang for what they’re doing in those bloody bushes.’ Child resented the distraction, still trying to think everything through. ‘What did Ceylon Sally mean at the Whores’ Club, when she said Lucy had used up all her chances already?’
‘They’d tried to blackball her once before. About a month before they threw her out for good.’
‘Who did?’
‘Sally, Rosy and Becky. Kitty had already left town by then.’
‘They targeted her because of Lucy’s inquiry?’
‘Looks that way, don’t it?’
‘You don’t know?’
‘It was before they took me on as secretary.’ Hector looked at him askance. ‘I could find out, though. Take a peek in the club minutes. For the right price.’
‘I’ll give you another half-guinea,’ Child said, ‘but I want you to do some other things for me too. Ask around at the Whores’ Club, find out if any of my suspects have a taste for young girls.’ He produced a list of names that he’d made earlier in the jelly-house. ‘I also want to know if any of them have a reputation for violence. You’ll see Agnetti’s name on that list too. I want to know what he does with his sitters – what he does with Cassandra Willoughby. Whether he did anything with Pamela or Kitty or Lucy. And anything the girls witnessed between him and his wife. Arguments, flying fists, that sort of thing.’
‘Don’t want much, do you?’ But Hector took the list. ‘It’ll take me a couple of days. You know St Bennet’s, by the river? Meet me there at midnight, the day after tomorrow.’
Child gave him the first half–guinea, and the flash of gold attracted the attention of the boys by the bushes. One made a move towards them, but Child stopped him with a look.
‘I liked Lucy,’ Hector said, perhaps feeling the need to justify the money. ‘I had to take the news to her when the Whores’ Club threw her out. She’d lost almost everything by then. Her job sitting for Agnetti. Most of her clients. She said the lieutenant had got Jonathan Stone’s man of business to look into her past – that’s how they’d found out about Bridewell. I asked how she was going to survive, and she said: “How I always do, H. I am Lucy.” Only this time she didn’t, did she?’
‘She was playing a dangerous game,’ Child said, gazing back across the park towards Covent Garden.
‘I told her to stop,’ Hector said. ‘Her inquiry, I mean. I said the Whores’ Club might take her back, make an exception. I asked how she expected to beat them, even if she did find out the truth. Those gentlemen were important, powerful, protected. She smiled then, like she knew something that I didn’t. “They think they are,” she said, “but their greatest strength is their greatest weakness.” Don’t even ask me what she meant. I’ve no idea.’