The Death Beat

by Fiona Veitch Smith

  Jones skirted very quickly over the events leading up to him falling into the gears, saying only that the girl “misunderstood something”; that she “got upset” and in the confusion he fell – or perhaps was pushed – into one of the machines. After that he remembered nothing until he woke up here at Bellevue Hospital in New York where the staff were “lovely people” and where he had “no complaints whatsoever”.

  Poppy took the now finished tea cup from Jones and put it down beside her own.

  “Did you not think of laying a charge against the young woman? If she pushed you into the machine? You could have died!”

  Jones lowered his eyes. “I could have, yes, but – well – I didn’t want to get her into trouble.”

  Poppy smirked. “That was good of you.”

  Before Poppy could say anything further, a nurse came in to change the dressing. Jones looked at the young reporter beseechingly. “What are you going to do now, miss?”

  Poppy buttoned her coat and straightened her hat. “I’m going to try to find them, Seaman Jones, and then I’m going to help them. But beyond that…” She paused as the nurse pulled back the covers to reveal the bandaged, bloody stump. “I think, perhaps, you’ve suffered enough.”

  Jones looked as if he was about to cry. “Are you all right, Harry?” asked the nurse.

  He sniffed. “Yes, nurse, I am. Thanks to Miss Denby, I am.”

  Poppy left Seaman Jones’s room not quite knowing what she was going to do with the information he had given her. She genuinely did believe he had suffered enough, but on the other hand, if she didn’t speak up and expose the corruption of the manifest clerk and his colleagues, other poor people might suffer more. She would have to mull it over for a while. She needed to find a way to stop the injustice without getting Jones into more trouble. As a handicapped man, stripped of his livelihood, with no wife to help him, he would need all the support he could get from his employer. But if she named and shamed him, he would be cut loose without any means.

  She was pondering this moral dilemma when a voice cut through her thoughts. “Poppy? What are you doing here?”

  Poppy turned to see the white-coated figure of Toby Spencer holding a clip chart. He signed something with a flourish and passed it to a nurse. Poppy waited for him to finish, although for a split second she had thought of slipping away while he was distracted.

  “I’ve just been to visit Seaman Jones. He’s looking a lot better than the last time I saw him. Would you say he’s on the mend?”

  Toby looked over her shoulder to Seaman Jones’s room. “Yes, I would say so. He’ll need a lot of therapy to help him get back to health, but he looks like he’s over the worst of it. With amputations it’s either blood loss or infection that people die of. But he seems to be through that now.”

  Poppy nodded. She wondered if Toby knew about how the accident had happened. Or the shipping company. She was curious to find out what story Jones had told, but didn’t want to mention the Yazierska girls to him. She needed to think it all through first. “Terrible accident,” she said instead.

  “Yes,” said Toby. “It happens too often though. I’ve seen it in factories as well. Sometimes it’s the worker’s fault for not being careful enough – which is what I think happened here with Jones – but sometimes it’s the employers to blame for making people work long shifts or not having the right safety precautions in place.”

  He chuckled and Poppy noticed the fine wrinkle lines around his blue eyes.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Poppy as he held her in his gaze.

  “Nothing, nothing,” said Toby. “Just that I’m sounding like your socialist friends. My folks would have a cadenza if they heard me talking like that.”

  “Oh?” said Poppy. “I thought your parents were in favour of workers’ rights.”

  He shook his head. “They’re in favour of a woman’s right to vote – the right sort of woman – but, like many business people, they’re scared of the power of the unions.”

  He put his hands on his hips and appraised Poppy. “You really are a remarkable young woman, Poppy Denby. I don’t know any other girls I can talk politics with and know they’ll understand.”

  Then you don’t know the right sort of “girls”, thought Poppy, but kept her opinion to herself.

  Toby was looking at her earnestly. “I was just due for a break. Would you care to join me? I’m sure I could rustle up a pot of coffee – or tea if you prefer.”

  As Poppy had just had a cup, she was going to decline, but she realized Toby was offering more than a beverage. Nothing in his demeanour suggested he was still angry with her about events at The Lodge. Her heart softened. “Yes, that would be lovely, thank you.”

  He escorted her to the staff canteen and ordered a pot of tea and some muffins.

  “I thought you Americans only drank coffee,” observed Poppy. “Rollo drinks gallons of the stuff.”

  Toby chuckled as he placed the tea strainer over Poppy’s cup and poured. “We drink both. The Boston Tea Party didn’t totally eradicate the brew. Lemon or milk?”

  “Milk please,” said Poppy. Suddenly she had a flashback to the first time she and Daniel had shared a pot in a tea room in Windsor. She blinked twice to rid herself of the memory, then to change the hair colour of the man in front of her from brown to auburn, and his eyes from grey to blue.

  Toby offered her the milk jug. Their fingers brushed against one another. For a moment he did not retract. Neither did she.

  “Look, Poppy, I want to apologize for the way I behaved on Saturday. You were perfectly within your rights to question what was going on with that poor girl. And after you left, I did a bit of investigating myself – speaking to some of the guests who were still there and telephoning some of the others. It turns out four – how can I put this tastefully? – four professional girls were indeed brought to the house. They had been ordered…”

  Poppy raised her eyebrows.

  “Yes, I know it’s an unpleasant word, but I don’t know how else to put it… They were requested by the film producers Miles had invited over. They asked him to – er – provide some ladies for them while they were there. Seems like that’s what they do in Hollywood.”

  He opened his hands in apology. “I’m sorry, Poppy. You should never have had to see that. I’ve asked Miles to ensure it never happens again.”

  Poppy put down her teaspoon on her saucer and looked at Toby. “One of the girls was assaulted, Toby. Surely a criminal charge should be laid. Did you find out which of the men did it?”

  Toby shrugged. “I didn’t, I’m sorry. And none of them – nor anyone else at the party – was called Cameron, first name or surname. I’m afraid unless the girl herself lays a charge – and positively identifies the man in question – I don’t think there’s much we can do.”

  Poppy tapped a finger on the edge of the saucer, making a tinkling sound. “Well, for a start we can ask Miles where he ‘ordered’ the girls from and then get him to call again and ask for Mimi.”

  “Mimi?” asked Toby, his head cocking to one side.

  “Yes, Mimi. She told me her name.” She decided not to mention the surname just yet.

  “Could just be a stage name,” observed Toby.

  Poppy nodded. “It could. But we could ask to see the girl who calls herself Mimi. And then describe her. Curly black bobbed hair. Probably Jewish. Ukrainian…”

  “Ukrainian? How do you know that?”

  Poppy shrugged. “The accent.”

  “That’s very specific,” Toby observed. “Most people would just have said Russian.”

  Poppy shrugged again. “I have a good ear for accents.” She picked up her cup and took a sip of the tea, looking at Toby over the brim and hoping he had bought her explanation for how she knew Mimi was from the Ukraine. She didn’t want him to know she’d been doing investigations of her own. She needed him to think he was in control of this. Helping her. Making up for his failings on Saturday. “So,” she said, “d
o you think you can ask Miles to follow it up?” She held her breath. This would be a test for Toby. If he agreed, she could dismiss the nagging doubts that he was somehow involved in all this. And that would be an immense relief. But if he didn’t…

  “Yes, I can do that,” smiled Toby and took another sip of his tea.

  Ten minutes later Toby was called away to see a patient. He had asked Poppy if he could take her out to dinner on Wednesday night. She had readily agreed. Her heart was warm and there was a spring in her step as she left the hospital. She said goodbye to the receptionist, who smiled at her knowingly and waved. “Oh, Miz Denby,” the woman said as an afterthought. “Sorry I was called away earlier. You asked who else had visited Seaman Jones. It was Mrs Amelia Spencer, Dr Spencer’s mother. She came on Saturday, I think. She said she wanted to see the man her son had saved. She’s a lovely lady, so gracious. Have you met her?”

  Poppy absorbed the information, tucking it away for future reference. “Yes, I have,” she said. “And I agree; she’s very gracious. Very gracious indeed.”

  CHAPTER 31

  Poppy was swimming in the sea at Whitley Bay. Her brother was with her. The waves lifted them up and down, their legs kicking frantically under the water to keep them afloat. Their mother called to them from the shore: “Be careful! Don’t go too far out!” and their father waved to them, a peas-pudding and ham sandwich in hand. It was getting dark and a light swept over them in a wide arc: it was coming from St Mary’s lighthouse.

  Suddenly her brother cried out and disappeared under the waves. Poppy waited for him to pop back up or to grab her ankle and pull her down, pretending he was a shark. She waited. And she waited. The light from St Mary’s was sweeping from left to right faster and faster. She looked to shore but could no longer see her parents. She thought she could still hear her mother’s voice, distantly calling: “Come back, Poppy; come back!” But she couldn’t leave without her brother. So she dived under the water to find him.

  As her eyes adjusted to the murk, she saw him below her, face down, his arms and legs splayed like a tortoise in his red-and-white striped bathers. His blond hair was spread out like a halo. She dived down further and grabbed his collar and pulled him up. His body rotated until he faced her, his eyes and mouth wide and lifeless.

  The light above her was getting brighter. She dragged her brother towards it but as she burst through the surface she lost her grip and he drifted away from her, back below the waves. She flipped herself over to dive again but then someone grabbed her shoulders and pulled her upwards. She fought, she screamed, then she stared into the face of Daniel, who was mouthing, “I love you!”

  She calmed and sank into his arms, feeling the warmth of his embrace. Then she was being lifted onto the beach and laid out on the warm sand. Her body ached for him. She raised herself towards him and opened her mouth to receive his kiss – but it wasn’t Daniel; it was Toby.

  A surge of guilt shot through her but her desire was too strong. She closed her eyes and gave herself to Toby’s lips, until she felt something running down her chin and onto her neck. She touched it and brought her fingers to her lips to taste. Blood.

  Her mouth was filling, gagging; she pulled away from Toby, pushing with all her might. She threw her head back to scream, and blood gushed out like a water geyser. Children were playing around her, jumping in and out of the bloody fountain; and in their midst was Alfie Dorchester, like the Pied Piper, playing a tune on a champagne flute, a Victoria Cross hanging around his neck.

  And the children became soldiers; and the soldiers became corpses with amputated legs; and each of them had the face of her brother.

  Someone was filming it on a hand-wound camera and she was in a cinema, watching. In the seats next to her were young women, immigrant girls, while the Statue of Liberty walked across the screen, turned to the audience, and screamed.

  “Poppy, Poppy, wake up! You’re having a dream.”

  Poppy, her nightgown drenched in sweat, opened her eyes to see the pale, worried face of Delilah. She blinked a few times to test that she was really awake. She was. Her heart was still racing, the images of the old recurring dream of Whitley Bay still fresh in her mind, overlaid by new images that she could not quite grasp. She closed her eyes and scrunched up her face, trying to give them conscious form, but as sleep fell from her, so did the dream.

  “I’m sorry – did I wake you? I was dreaming. It was Whitley Bay again, and…”

  Delilah passed Poppy a glass of water and waited for her to drink. “I thought you’d stopped having that dream.”

  Poppy sipped at the water, swilling it around her mouth and allowing it to trickle down her throat, erasing the taste of blood.

  “It’s been awhile,” said Poppy and put the glass on the side table. She sat up, propping the pillows behind her. Delilah was fully dressed, her fur coat unbuttoned, revealing a silver and black sequined ensemble beneath.

  “You just getting in?” asked Poppy, peering through the gloom to try to see the clock. It was one o’clock in the morning.

  Delilah chuckled. “I am. I would have just gone to bed and seen you in the morning but I heard you crying in your sleep. Thought I’d come in and see if you were all right.” Delilah stared intently at her friend. “You are all right, aren’t you?”

  Poppy reached over to the bedpost and unhooked her bed jacket. “I am, yes, thanks.”

  Delilah shrugged out of her coat and laid it on the bed beside her.

  “Listen, Poppy, I want to say sorry for what happened on Saturday. I should have come home with you. You were upset. I shouldn’t have let you leave on your own.”

  Poppy smiled. “That’s all right; no harm done… to me, anyway.”

  Delilah bit her lip. “Did you find out any more? About the girl? Toby told me he’d made some enquiries and couldn’t find her.”

  Poppy pulled the cashmere bed jacket over her shoulders. “When did he tell you that? Because I spoke to him earlier today” – she looked at the clock – “earlier yesterday, and he said he would investigate further. He said he would ask Miles.”

  Delilah’s brown eyes widened. “What could Miles possibly know about it?”

  Poppy cleared her throat. She didn’t want to suggest Miles was involved in any way – not without evidence and certainly not while Delilah and he seemed to be starting out on a relationship – so she considered for a moment how best to phrase her answer. “It seems… it seems that Miles invited the girls there as companions for some of the other guests – the film producers.”

  “The producers! Oh my! You mean they were there in a – a – professional capacity? The girls were prostitutes? The ones in the library?”

  “It seems that way, yes.”

  Delilah flicked her fringe away from her eyes and sighed. “It happens. Unfortunately. I wouldn’t have known, though, by looking at them. They were very well turned out.”

  Poppy considered how well turned out Mimi had looked the next morning in the bathtub. “Yes, well, not everything is as it first appears.”

  Delilah picked a bit of fluff off her fur coat and flicked it onto the floor. “We mustn’t judge though, Poppy. If that’s how those girls make a living, then that’s their business. In some parts of the world it’s perfectly legal.”

  “It is,” Poppy agreed, “as long as they did genuinely choose to do it.”

  Delilah’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean? Do you have any proof that they weren’t there by choice? Did you speak to them? Did they tell you that?”

  “Well, no,” Poppy admitted, “but the girl I found in the bathroom told me one of the men had hurt her.”

  Delilah nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, you said.” Then she shook her head. “It makes me so mad! Did she say which one it was? I met the four of them the next day and they all seemed like perfect gentlemen.”

  Poppy raised an eyebrow. “On their best behaviour, were they?”

  “Oh yes,” said Delilah. “They were kind and patient, and no
t one of them suggested I do something… improper in front of the camera.”

  “They had cameras?”

  “Just one. Miles had it. They did some test shots of me. They all agreed I’d be perfect for the role.” Delilah’s face lit up, all thoughts of the bruised girl in the bathtub seemingly left behind. “So they’ve invited me to Hollywood for a proper screen test. Hollywood! Can you believe it?”

  Poppy’s brows furrowed. “Which film company did you say they were from?”

  “Black Horse Productions. Miles works for them too. His Uncle Theo is a major shareholder.”

  “Oh?” said Poppy, her ears pricking at the mention of Senator Spencer’s name. “I didn’t know Theo was in the film business.”

  “He’s not really. Not any more. Apparently he dipped his toe in five or six years ago. Bought the company. Turns out he didn’t have much of a talent for it, though. But that’s how Miles got his start. He went to California with Uncle Theo and had a go. Turns out he has got talent for it. You’ve seen Baby and the Bluebird, haven’t you?”

  Poppy nodded. She and Daniel had seen it together at the Electric Cinema in Chelsea.

  “Well, that was one of his! Amazing! I never realized when I first saw it. And now he’s asked me to try out for one of his films.”

  Outside, in the New York sky, a cloud that had covered the moon shifted, and silver light filtered through the crack in Poppy’s bedroom curtains. It lit up Delilah’s face like a spotlight: her doe eyes, her rose-bud mouth, her long elegant neck, her sleek, black bobbed hair… oh yes, Delilah would be perfect for Hollywood.

  But then a shadow fell across her visage. “But now you’re telling me Miles might be involved in hurting this girl.”

  Poppy shook her head firmly. “Oh no! That’s not what I’m saying at all. I’m just saying that he was the one who telephoned to ask for the girls to come. I’m sure he had nothing to do with what actually happened. So, I was hoping he could tell me who he telephoned so I can speak to them to find out if Mimi – that’s the girl I met – is all right. And if it turns out she is, and she did go there of her own free will, then that will be the end of it – assuming she doesn’t want to lay charges, of course. And from what I’ve heard about how prostitutes operate, she might very well not. But if she does…”