Girl of Shadows

by Deborah Challinor

  She was also wearing one of Mrs H’s elaborately styled, bright auburn-coloured wigs.

  ‘To hide your identity,’ Elizabeth had said when she’d knocked on Friday’s bedroom door earlier that morning and presented it with a flourish. ‘Just in case something goes wrong. You don’t want him knowing what you really look like. Not with that hair of yours.’

  Bemused, Friday had accepted it but now she was regretting the decision because the bloody thing was making her head sweaty and itchy and she felt like throwing it away. God knew how Mrs H wore one all the time. But she kept it on: if Elizabeth Hislop, who actually knew this Eli Chattoway, thought she should make the effort to disguise herself, then perhaps she should.

  She came to the house Mrs H had described to her. It was new, quite a flash one constructed from sandstone, near a row of terrace houses, also newly built. Chattoway’s home was two-storey, with double chimneys and tall windows on both levels. Obviously he had plenty of chink. She lifted the ring on the door knocker and banged it.

  Eventually, the door was opened by a long-faced, sallow-skinned girl in a housemaid’s costume.

  ‘Mr Chattoway, please,’ Friday said brightly.

  ‘Have you got an appointment?’

  Given Eli Chattoway’s reputation, Friday took a punt. ‘Yes.’

  The girl stepped back to let Friday in. ‘He’s still in his chamber. I expect he’s waiting.’

  God, Friday thought. She wiped her boots on the coir mat, then followed the girl inside and up a smart staircase.

  ‘Where’s Mrs Chattoway?’ she asked.

  ‘In her grave,’ the girl said over shoulder.

  When they reached the upper floor the girl hared off down the hall until she came to a closed door. She turned, said, ‘Rather you than me,’ then knocked loudly.

  Friday felt an unpleasant chill ripple across her buttocks. She’d said exactly the same thing to Sarah, but in reference to Furniss’s mad dogs.

  A cracked voice from within croaked, ‘What?!’

  The girl pushed open the door and fled.

  Friday stepped in. The room was gloomy, the curtains still drawn, and it stank — of unwashed body and whisky, the latter smell no doubt emanating from the unstoppered decanter on the night table. A mound lay in the bed, the nets and drapes looped untidily over the canopy rails. The mound grunted and lifted its head.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’

  ‘Mr Chattoway?’ Friday asked hesitantly. It really ponged in here: this could be a lot nastier than she’d thought.

  He wore a stupid nightcap with a long tail on it, and a voluminous linen gown with a stain of some sort down the front. He was very fat and had ruddy cheeks, intelligent piggy eyes, wet red lips and enormously bushy grey muttonchops.

  ‘Speak up!’ he barked. ‘I didn’t order a girl!’ He reached for his pocket watch on the night table and peered at it. ‘Did I? What day is it?’

  ‘Thursday, sir. I’ve come to ask you for some information.’

  ‘Turn around,’ Eli Chattoway said, pushing himself into a sitting position.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said turn around.’

  Friday did, feeling the old man’s gaze all over her.

  ‘Are you sure you’re not a whore?’

  Friday thought she’d keep that to herself for the moment. She moved closer to the bed, trying not to breathe through her nose. ‘I’ve been told you know something about a man named Jared Gellar.’

  Chattoway snorted. ‘That spigot-sucker.’ Grunting, he leant over and poured himself a tumbler of whisky. ‘I know a lot of things.’

  ‘Something to do with a business deal concerning Clarence Shand? Or his wife Bella?’ Friday prompted. Mentally she crossed her fingers. ‘Maybe something about Gellar playing the crooked cross?’

  ‘You labouring types and your charming vernacular.’ Chattoway sipped his whisky thoughtfully, his eyes never leaving Friday.

  It gave her the shits.

  ‘If I tell you what you want to know, it’ll cost you.’

  She sighed inwardly. ‘What’s your price?’

  ‘You.’

  Now there was a surprise. But she’d already made up her mind she would pay it; Chattoway’s information could be the key to forcing a confession from Gellar. Also, she owed Sarah, for being so jealous of Adam and trying to ruin their blossoming love affair.

  She nodded. ‘But you have to tell me first, or no deal.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ he said with the arrogance of someone accustomed to having things go his way. ‘Open the curtains. I feel like a bloody mole in here.’

  Friday did, noting he was even more repulsive with sunlight spilling across his puffy face. She perched expectantly on the end of the bed.

  ‘Jared Gellar is your basic crook dressed up in fine clothing. Always was, always will be,’ Chattoway said. ‘For the last twelve months or so, until very recently, he’s been sailing between Botany Bay and New Zealand with a cargo of, among other things, preserved and tattooed Maori heads hidden in the hold of that schooner of his. Some purchased, and some stolen. And not just any old heads — the very best. Heads that once sat on the shoulders of exceedingly royal New Zealanders.’

  A terrible itch sprouted beneath Friday’s wig, but she dared not scratch it in case the sodding thing shifted. Or even worse, fell off. ‘And Bella Jackson? Shand, I mean? What about her?’

  ‘Mrs Shand, Clarence’s delightful new wife, takes orders from collectors of such items, ethnologists and what have you, and arranges for their acquisition. Forwards the payments, has the graves dug up, liaises with whomever does the killings if necessary, that sort of thing. Her and that henchman of hers, Amos Furniss.’

  Friday knew her mouth had sagged open; she snapped it shut and almost bit her tongue.

  ‘Gellar, however, apparently wasn’t happy with his cut of the proceedings so he stole four of the heads and sold them himself to collectors in England. Bella Shand is aware, of course, that they’re missing, but not who took them.’ Chattoway smirked. ‘It’ll be his head separated from his shoulders when she finds out. And she will, eventually.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’ Friday was delighted. This was exactly the leverage they needed.

  ‘I have my methods. This whole grubby little town operates on deceit, favours owed and backroom deals. I doubt it will ever change. Look at its genesis. Now, I think we’ll start with a bit of fellatio. Come here.’ He threw back the bed covers and pulled his nightgown up to his middle. The smell in the room suddenly got worse.

  His belly bulged over his lap but Friday could still see his cock, lying limply on sparse grey pubic hair. God, it would be one of those ones she’d have to work on forever, she could tell, with her jaw getting cramp and her lips chafing and dribble going everywhere. His legs were fat as well, the skin mottled like that pink and white marble you got in the houses of the very rich, and a brown-stained bandage covered his right leg from his toes to his knee. Gout, obviously.

  ‘Come here, my love,’ he crooned. ‘Come closer.’

  She moved around the bed to stand beside him, noting the cheesy excrescence oozing out from under his foreskin, and dry yellow flakes littering the surrounding hair and skin. Her stomach roiled and she stifled an acidic burp. No wonder he stank.

  ‘Ah, I …’

  ‘Hurry up,’ he said, his voice as sharp and ragged as oyster shells now.

  He grabbed her arm and jerked her down towards his groin, but she twisted out of his grasp, relieved he hadn’t taken hold of her hair, which would have come off in his hand.

  ‘Let me just prepare first,’ she said. ‘If I’m to lie with you, there’s something I need to do.’

  ‘Do it here, in front of me,’ Chattoway countered, idly stroking himself, without any discernible effect. ‘I like watching that sort of thing.’

  Blocking her nose from the inside, Friday bent down and tickled him beneath his chin. ‘No, let’s keep a sense of mystery, shall we? Do you have
a room for ablutions?’

  ‘There’s probably water in the kitchen, if that’s what you want,’ Chattoway grumbled. ‘Ask Ivy.’

  ‘I won’t be long.’ Friday blew him a kiss and flitted out the door, closing it behind her.

  Outside, in the hall, she retched repeatedly. Wiping her watering eyes on her sleeve, she rushed to the stairs and trotted down, heading for the front door.

  But it was locked; that stupid girl must have the key.

  She hurried through to the back of the house, past the indoor kitchen — clearly Chattoway was very well off — and into what appeared to be the back porch. She tried the door there, and that was locked, too. Bugger. Ducking into a small room off to one side containing several trunks, a heavy coat on a hook and two pairs of Wellington boots, she dragged a trunk over to the single tiny casement window, climbed up and looked out. Ivy, the servant girl, was in a narrow yard behind the house, hanging laundry.

  Friday unlatched the window, set her palms on the sill, thrust her head and shoulders through the opening — and discovered the rest of her was too big to fit through.

  Fuck.

  She scrabbled her boots against the inside wall and felt herself wriggle through the gap a few more inches, but that was it: she was well and truly jammed.

  ‘Oi!’ she called to the girl at the washing line. ‘Oi, I’m stuck!’

  Ivy looked to her left, then her right, then shrugged and bent to pick up another huge pair of white drawers.

  ‘Behind you!’ Friday yelped. ‘The window!’

  Finally, Ivy turned — and dropped the drawers on the muddy ground. ‘What are you doing up there?!’

  ‘Pomading the hair on my minge. What does it look like? Come and give me a hand.’

  Ivy crept closer. ‘Where’s Mr Chattoway?’

  ‘Upstairs lying in bed like a big fat toad playing with himself and expecting me back any minute. Here, grab my hands and pull.’

  Ivy wiped her hands on her apron, took hold of Friday’s and pulled.

  Friday grunted in pain and tossed her head. Ivy shrieked as the wig fell off.

  ‘Shut up, he’ll hear us!’

  ‘It’s all right — he can’t move fast with his bad leg.’ Ivy started to giggle, revealing several missing bottom teeth, and clamped her hand over her mouth. ‘Can you go backwards?’

  Friday tried. ‘Not now, I can’t.’

  ‘Is it your skirts? Are you wearing a dress or an ensemble?’

  ‘Bodice and skirt. Undo the buttons, will you?’

  While Friday supported her weight on her hands against the wall — she felt like she was being cut in half now — Ivy struggled with the buttons on her skirt.

  ‘Hurry up, I’m passing out here.’

  Ivy tore open the last two buttons, grabbed Friday’s hands again and gave an almighty yank. Friday shot out, leaving her skirts behind, and landed on the ground, naked from the waist down except for her boots and a pair of pretty, pale blue stockings.

  Blushing fiercely, Ivy ran to the back door, unlocked it and disappeared inside. She reappeared a moment later with Friday’s skirt.

  ‘Hurry, he’s coming down the stairs! I can hear him! I’ll tell him I haven’t seen you.’

  Quickly she relocked the door, darted over to the washing line and resumed hanging laundry.

  Friday stepped into her skirt, did up the top button, snatched up Mrs H’s wig and asked, ‘What’s over the back fence?’

  ‘A bit of a drop then the military hospital and the fort. If you go hard right along the fence you’ll get to Windmill Street. It’ll take you up to —’

  ‘Princes Street, I know. Thanks, love,’ Friday said. ‘You want to get yourself someone decent to work for.’

  ‘Can’t. I’m assigned.’

  ‘Tell them he’s raped you.’

  ‘He bloody has.’ Ivy’s face was scarlet again.

  Christ almighty. Friday scrambled onto the high fence. ‘Go to the Siren’s Arms on Harrington Street. Ask for Elizabeth Hislop. She might be able to help. I’ll tell her to expect you.’

  Ivy gave a little wave, then Friday was over the other side, tumbling down a long greasy slope until her progress was halted by a soggy clump of bushes. She stood up, wiped herself off, and headed towards Windmill Street, wondering what Mrs H was going to say about the state of her wig.

  Saturday, 28 May 1831

  Sarah and Friday were walking north along Cumberland Street, their skirts held high to avoid the muck; it had been raining heavily for several days and the deluge hadn’t improved the condition of the streets any. But the sun had shone for several hours this afternoon, and now that evening was approaching the air felt a little drier and the autumn wind a tad less fractious.

  Sarah half turned and called, ‘Come on, keep up!’

  ‘It’s not me, it’s her,’ Walter replied, gesturing at Clifford, who was stopping every ten feet to lift her leg.

  ‘God, how can such a small dog be so full of piss?’ Friday said.

  Walter caught up. ‘I don’t think she’s weeing, I think she’s marking her territory.’

  ‘Well, she must own all of Argyle and half of Cumberland Street by now,’ Sarah grumbled. Then she said, ‘Harrie wanted to come today, but I said she couldn’t.’

  ‘While you break into Bella’s? She’d fret herself to death.’

  ‘She’s worried about Walter.’

  ‘Oh, you’ll be all right,’ Friday said to him. ‘You’re a tough little bugger, aren’t you?’

  Walter shrugged, his ears turning red.

  ‘I told her that,’ Sarah said.

  Friday pointed. ‘We’d better stop here. That’s Bella’s house over there.’

  ‘Yes, I do know where she lives.’ Suddenly Sarah almost tore off Friday’s sleeve, dragging her behind a hedge. ‘Keep your head down, Furniss is opening the gates.’

  Crouching behind someone’s manicured shrubbery, they watched as Amos Furniss dragged wide first one and then the other of the carriage gates at the side of the Shand residence. Nothing happened for a minute or two, then a vehicle appeared, presumably from the stables behind the house — not Bella’s smart curricle, but a roomier landau lacquered a deep forest green with a coat of arms on the door — and parked in the carriageway.

  A minute later Bella and Clarence, both attired extremely elegantly, appeared on the verandah at the rear of the house (actually the front), and climbed aboard. Or at least Friday assumed it was Clarence Shand; she’d never encountered him until now. Shorter than Bella, and older by a good twenty years or more, he had a bit of a belly above thin, bandy legs. His face she couldn’t see clearly from their vantage point in the bushes. He held himself well, though, and managed to exude an air of authority bordering on arrogance as he handed Bella into the landau.

  Furniss shut the gates again after the carriage had departed, then vanished from view himself. A moment later the two dogs appeared, racing wildly up and down the carriageway, clearly delighted at being let out of wherever they’d been confined.

  ‘Shit,’ Sarah said.

  ‘Can they smell us?’ Friday asked nervously.

  ‘Maybe,’ Walter said. ‘I could smell that filthy bastard Furniss,’ he added, the cords in his neck stretched tight and his fists clenched.

  Friday eyed him with alarm, startled by the anger rolling off him. She knew Walter disliked Furniss — Harrie had told her — but she’d never said why.

  Clifford’s bristly hackles were up and her short little legs splayed as she eye-balled the dogs still bounding around across the street. A dreadful, low growl emanated from her throat. Walter lay a hand on her head, and the growling subsided to a barely audible rumble.

  ‘You’ll never get past Furniss and the dogs,’ Friday said.

  Sarah’s hand tapped up and down on her knee. ‘Just wait a while.’

  They did.

  Half an hour later, as the late afternoon light began to decay, tinting the rain-rinsed sky a vivid pink and oran
ge, Furniss appeared once more, let himself out through the hand gate, and strode off down Cumberland Street.

  From the bushes, his face pinched with loathing, Walter watched Furniss walk past.

  ‘Now?’ he asked when Furniss was out of sight.

  ‘Not yet.’ Sarah raised her eyebrows at Friday. ‘I’ll give it fifteen minutes. What about you?’

  ‘Ten, I’d say.’

  Betraying his nerves, Walter snapped, ‘Now what?’

  ‘Servants,’ Friday said.

  They were both wrong. Barely five minutes passed before two more figures appeared, sidling along the carriageway, backs to the wall of the house, doing their best to keep their distance from the dogs.

  ‘Bugger me, look who it is,’ Friday said. ‘I didn’t know they were working for Bella. She must have got Clarence to have them assigned.’ But hadn’t Sally Minto said something about the pair of them coming into her bakery? Friday hadn’t realised she’d meant they’d come in with Bella.

  Louisa Coutts and Becky Hoddle were evidently as frightened of Furniss’s animals as were Friday and Sarah. Clearly dying to sprint the last few yards to the hand gate, they restricted themselves to a brisk walk, the dogs stalking them closely, then let themselves out. Once through and with the gate safely closed again, Becky gave the dogs the finger with both hands before she and Louisa hurried off.

  ‘Still at her beck and call, washing her filthy smalls and doing her dirty work. Haven’t they gone up in the world,’ Sarah remarked.

  ‘Better than Liz Parker,’ Friday said, referring to Louisa and Becky’s previous boss.

  ‘Barely.’

  ‘Do you think there’s anyone else in there?’

  ‘If there is, it’ll only be some poor little house girl,’ Sarah said. ‘I’ll be all right. Walter? Are you ready?’ She slipped out of her jacket and skirt to reveal her burglary outfit of trousers and sleeveless shirt, and settled her satchel over her shoulder.

  He nodded. ‘Someone’ll have to hold Clifford. She can’t come with me.’

  ‘Christ,’ Friday grumbled, ‘that’ll be me, obviously. Give her here.’

  As Walter picked up Clifford, her legs paddled furiously and she wriggled and squirmed, but he managed to thrust her into Friday’s arms.