A Tattooed Heart

by Deborah Challinor

  ‘Was it?’

  Friday looked away, trying to avoid Aria’s gaze, but Aria stopped, gripped her chin and stared into her eyes.

  ‘Ow, Aria, that hurts!’

  ‘Do not turn away from me. What is it that you are not telling me?’

  ‘Nothing!’

  ‘You cannot tell lies to me, Friday. I will always know.’

  ‘I had a drink. Of whisky.’

  ‘I know. I can smell it. There is nothing else?’

  Friday shook her head. ‘Can you let go of my face?’

  Aria did. They started walking again.

  ‘She’s dying,’ Friday said, rubbing her jaw. Sometimes Aria forgot how strong she was. ‘If we’d waited a bit longer, we wouldn’t have had to do any of this.’

  ‘Did she say she is dying?’

  ‘Yes. Becky wouldn’t confirm it, but.’

  ‘It could be a ruse.’

  ‘Don’t think so. She looks like shite. What’s the time?’

  Aria produced her watch. ‘Almost half past five.’

  ‘Christ, is it? We’d better hurry up and get back to the Siren. Harrie and Sarah’ll be there soon.’

  On the way home, Friday pondered her unexpected reluctance to tell the others about Bella’s secret, and thought perhaps she might know what was behind it. It was Bella’s comment about being unable to bear the shame if folk found out. She hated to admit it, even to herself, but she and Bella had a very similar cross to bear. Because of her liking for girls, shame had been a constant presence in her own life, together with a grinding, ever-present fear that she would be found out and publicly ostracised for being a degenerate. It must be so much worse for Bella, though. It was awkward but certainly not impossible to explain away sharing a bed with a woman, especially when accommodation was at a premium, and it often was, but to be caught wearing a dress, rouge and kohl when you were a man — there wasn’t much you could say in defence of that, was there?

  For the hundredth time at least, she thanked a God in whom she didn’t believe for Elizabeth Hislop, who didn’t care a jot that she was a tribade, for Sarah and Harrie and the girls she worked with at the brothel, most of whom didn’t care either, and everyone at the Siren’s Arms, who, if they did care, turned a blind eye.

  But Bella had no one, did she? Becky Bitchface and Lardarse Louisa certainly weren’t trustworthy. Friday had known them longer than Bella had, since Newgate Gaol in London, and if they did know what she was, they’d’ve been down the road and blackmailing her before the front door had slammed. No, Bella had to lie constantly and hide who she was from everyone, all the time, night and day, year after year. No wonder she was always in such a foul bloody mood.

  Shocked at herself, Friday suddenly wondered why the hell she was defending their most devoted enemy. The bitch had been utterly vile since the moment they’d met. What was wrong with her? She must need a gin, that’s what.

  At the Siren, Jack said, ‘Sarah and Harrie are here. I let them into your room.’

  ‘You go up,’ Friday said to Aria. ‘I need the bog.’

  But instead of the privy it was the linen cupboard she visited, for several large swigs from her stash of gin. Suitably fortified, she trotted upstairs.

  Sarah and Harrie greeted her with expectant faces.

  Harrie said, ‘Aria says it’s good news?’

  ‘Certainly is,’ Friday said, grinning and flopping onto the bed next to Aria. ‘She’s agreed to stop the blackmail. It’s over. We’re free!’

  ‘Well, thank God for that,’ Harrie said, beaming. ‘I feel . . . Oh, I don’t know how I feel, actually. Quite strange.’

  ‘Do you believe her?’ Sarah asked, ever mistrustful.

  ‘That is what I asked, too,’ Aria said.

  Friday said. ‘I do.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘God, Sarah, you’re such a doom-monger,’ Friday complained. ‘You can never accept good news, can you? Does it give you hives or something?’

  ‘I can if I believe it. Was it the letters?’

  ‘Yep.’

  ‘She was actually genuinely worried that the police finding out about her smuggling would trump us kicking Keegan to death?’

  ‘Well, if you didn’t think it was going to be enough, why did we waste our time fucking about burgling Bloodworth’s house and visiting Clayton and all that?’

  ‘Because we had to do something.’

  ‘She’s dying, Sarah,’ Friday said. ‘Maybe she’s, I don’t know, making amends or something.’

  ‘Dying from what?’

  ‘She doesn’t know. She’s the size of a matchstick and coughing blood and her hands are all warty.’

  Harrie shuddered. ‘Ew. I hope you didn’t touch her.’

  Sarah said, ‘Knowing her, and we do, I’d’ve thought that if she knows she’s dying, she’d want to wreak as much havoc as possible before she does. Making amends, my arse.’

  ‘Friday is not telling the truth,’ Aria said.

  Sarah looked at her. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Something happened in the house. She will not tell me what.’

  Sarah turned her gaze to Friday, her crossed leg beneath her skirt jiggling agitatedly. ‘Well?’

  Oh God, Friday thought. Thanks a lot, Aria. Why did you have to say that? She felt two-faced and dirty, and hated that it bothered her. This was nasty, evil, vicious Bella after all. ‘We had a fight. I belted her and she went arse over tit and her shift went up round her ears. She had nothing on underneath. I saw . . . she had . . . she’s got a cock.’

  Sarah, Harrie and Aria all gaped at her.

  ‘What?’ Sarah exclaimed, astounded.

  ‘She’s a cove. A man. She’s not a woman at all.’

  ‘Bloody hell! She kept that well hidden.’ Sarah frowned. ‘She? Or he?’

  ‘Can you do that?’ Harrie asked, her eyes huge. ‘That’s . . . what about her beard?’ She looked utterly bewildered. ‘But she’s got a woman’s voice. And all those lovely frocks. And she’s such a cow.’

  ‘That’s why she’s agreed to stop blackmailing us, isn’t it?’ Sarah said. ‘I mean he. So you wouldn’t tell. It wasn’t the letters at all.’

  Friday shrugged. ‘Does it matter, as long as it has stopped?’

  ‘But you have told,’ Aria said.

  ‘I know, and now I feel —’ Friday shut up just in time.

  ‘What?’ Sarah demanded. ‘Bad? For God’s sake, why?’

  ‘I dunno.’

  ‘You fool.’

  Friday was getting a bit sick of misery-guts Sarah. ‘Don’t call me a fool. Look, who cares about any of that? It’s her business, not ours.’

  ‘Don’t you mean his?’ Sarah said.

  ‘No, I mean her. Don’t be a bitch. She honestly feels she’s a woman, and she can’t help that. It’s just . . . a mistake of nature. It does happen sometimes, you know. I’ve seen it before.’

  ‘It’s bloody unnatural, that’s what it is,’ Sarah said, ‘and an offence in the eyes of God.’

  Harrie gasped. ‘Sarah Green, what a hypocrite. You don’t even believe in God.’

  ‘Sarah, for fuck’s sake, put yourself in her shoes,’ Friday said. ‘It must be bloody terrible for her.’

  ‘Why the hell should I? She’s . . . he’s . . . she —’

  ‘See? You can’t stop calling her “she”, can you? That’s because that’s what she is. A she.’

  ‘Why are you defending her?’ Sarah almost shouted. ‘What’s wrong with you? She’s been an absolute bloody bitch to us. She doesn’t deserve any sympathy at all. None! If there’s something amiss with her, she should just put up with it and get on with life like everyone else has to, and not prance around making a deviant of herself.’

  ‘Stop it!’ Harrie blurted. ‘We’ve just had the best news we’ve heard in ages, and you two are having a go at each other!’

  Friday leant back on the bed, forcing herself to relax. ‘Sorry, Harrie love. You’re right. We should be celebrati
ng. There’ll be no more blackmail and Bella’s doing the decent thing and kicking the bucket, so our problems are over. What more could we ask for?’ Then: ‘Shit, that’s right. Do you know who she was before she turned into Bella Jackson?’

  Sarah said, ‘Napoleon Bonaparte?’

  ‘Bennett Leary, that arsehole Jonah’s brother.’

  Harrie let out a little squawk. ‘So he’s been here all along, right under everyone’s noses?’

  ‘She,’ Friday said. ‘She’s got the map tattooed on her back and everything. But the treasure the three tattoos were supposed to lead to’s long gone. It was a stash of gold. Bella’s mother nicked it and gave it to her when she left Liverpool.’

  ‘How do you know all this?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘She told me.’

  ‘You two had a right old chin-wag, didn’t you?’

  ‘When Bella was not firing a pistol at her,’ Aria said. ‘Which I heard with my own ears.’

  Flapping a hand as though getting shot at barely mattered, Friday said, ‘She missed. She’s got this palsy thing as well as the warts. Though I admit I just about shat myself.’

  Sarah said, ‘Why has she told you these things? You, of all people? She hates you.’

  ‘How should I know?’

  ‘Does she know her brother’s looking for her?’ Harrie asked.

  Wincing, Friday nodded.

  ‘She does?’ Harrie burst out. ‘Then why the hell didn’t she call him off? Then he might have left poor Charlotte alone! And me.’

  ‘I don’t think she wanted to. She ran away from her family ten years ago. They all hate her for being

  ‘A cove in a dress?’ Sarah offered.

  ‘Yes, except for her mother. And Jonah’s such a bastard. We know that. I don’t blame her for not wanting to have anything to do with him, do you?’

  ‘Peas in a pod,’ Sarah muttered.

  ‘Well, I’m going to tell him,’ Harrie said.

  Friday turned to her. ‘You can’t.’

  Harrie almost levitated off her chair with outrage. ‘Why not? What is wrong with you? Charlotte’s my child. What do you expect me to do? If telling him means he’ll leave her alone, then I will.’

  ‘’Cos you’ll be telling Leary his brother’s going round as a woman, and our deal with Bella will be off. We’ll be back in the shit again, if not in gaol or swinging from the gallows if she decides just to tell the police.’

  ‘Oh, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!’ Harrie swore with such spitty vehemence her face went scarlet.

  Everyone stared at her: she hardly ever said that word.

  ‘I’m sorry, love,’ Friday said. ‘She’ll be dead in a few weeks, a month at the most. You can say what you like then.’ Though she felt uneasy about Leary seeing Bella in her woman’s shroud, should he inspect her tattoo before she was buried, and she had no doubt he would see her. He would mock even though she was dead: Bella would absolutely hate that.

  Harrie’s eyes glittered with tears. ‘But it’s so tiring watching Charlotte every second of the day. I worry all the time. She doesn’t like it, either. She thinks she’s done something wrong.’

  Sarah said, ‘Don’t worry, I promise the minute Bella kicks the bucket, I’ll come with you and we’ll tell him, all right?’

  Harrie nodded, got out her hanky and honked into it. ‘Are you sure she’s dying?’

  ‘Bloody positive,’ Friday replied.

  ‘In a few weeks?’

  ‘I don’t know, to tell the truth, but honestly, she did look like shite today. It can’t be far away. She had a coughing fit and all this blood and stuff flew out.’

  ‘Well, I’ll just have to wait, then, won’t I?’ Harrie said, giving a final sniff and popping her hanky into her sleeve. ‘But I’m warning you, if she’s not dead in a month I’m going up to her house and putting a pillow over her face myself.’

  Sarah and Friday looked at her, alarmed, and Aria grinned.

  Harrie shrugged. ‘What? I’m just taking care of my family. And speaking of families, we’re having a supper this Friday to celebrate Matthew and Lucy’s betrothal. Will you all come?’

  ‘Hell, I’d forgotten all about Matthew getting married,’ Friday said.

  Aria suggested, ‘Perhaps you should spend less time in the linen cupboard.’

  ‘I haven’t forgotten,’ Sarah said. ‘We’re making the rings.’

  ‘We haven’t got them a gift.’ Friday looked at Harrie, who knew about those sorts of things. ‘What should we get?’

  ‘Something for the house.’

  Sarah said, ‘Three dozen sea sponges and a lemon tree.’

  Friday frowned. ‘Eh?’

  ‘Lucy said once she doesn’t want babies till she’s older. That should do the trick.’

  ‘You can’t give them that,’ Harrie said, scandalised. ‘What about a nice tea set, or some linen? Sheets or a pretty comforter?’

  Friday said, ‘I’m not shopping for a tea set. I wouldn’t know where to start.’

  ‘God, you’re such a peasant,’ Sarah scoffed.

  Aria said, ‘I am not a peasant. My mother has two very beautiful Worcester porcelain soup tureens we purchased here four years ago, though she does not put soup in them. We will go shopping tomorrow, Friday, after you have finished work, and choose something.’

  ‘What are you giving them?’ Friday asked Sarah.

  ‘A hefty discount on Lucy’s rings.’

  ‘That’s romantic.’

  ‘It is, isn’t it?’

  ‘When are they getting married? I’ve forgotten.’

  ‘January.’

  Friday’s eyebrows went up. ‘That’s quick. Are you sure Lucy’s not knapped already?’

  Harrie said, ‘I knew you were going to say that.’

  Friday giggled. ‘Poor Matthew, he must be absolutely bursting for a shag. I don’t think he ever got one off Sally Minto.’

  ‘Well, I think it’s really lovely,’ Harrie said. ‘I think they make a lovely couple, don’t you? I’m so pleased. It’s about time he found someone.’

  ‘Yeah, good on him,’ Friday agreed. ‘He’s not a bad old stick, Matthew. And Lucy’s a decent sort, though why the hell she wants to spend her days teaching bloody kids is beyond me.’

  ‘Why you want to spend your days flogging men’s hairy, sweaty arses is beyond me,’ Sarah said.

  ‘It’s a job.’

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ Harrie said, standing. ‘Daisy’s got Charlotte but she and Elsa will be serving supper as soon as James gets home.’

  Sarah rose as well. ‘Me, too. Adam’s threatened to cook if I’m late. I don’t fancy carbonised sausages.’

  Friday got off the bed. ‘Come here, everyone.’ She held out her arms and drew Aria, Sarah and Harrie into a hug. ‘Well, we finally did it, didn’t we? We’ve beaten the bitch. We’re free.’

  Just as Friday and Aria were about to leave for Matthew and Lucy’s party later that week, Ivy brought a letter upstairs.

  ‘Who delivered it?’ Friday asked as she turned it over. She had a very bad feeling; the writing on the front was unpleasantly familiar and so was the colour of the sealing wax. Had Bella reneged already?

  ‘I didn’t see. Al asked me to bring it up. Is something the matter?’

  ‘No, don’t worry. Thanks, love.’

  Her stomach churning and dreading another visit to Bella’s house, Friday broke the triple seals and opened it.

  ‘What does it say?’ Aria demanded.

  Friday frowned. What it said was (the names all correct for a change):

  26 October 1832

  Friday Woolfe, Sarah Green, Harrie Downey,

  I am not well. I am making amends. I wish to apologise for any pain, distress and financial inconvenience I have caused you.

  I particularly, and genuinely, wish to apologise for my role in the demise of Rachel Winter. Had I not ‘introduced’ her to Gabriel Keegan, I believe she would still be alive today. I will go to my grave with Rachel Winter�
�s death resting heavily on my conscience.

  BS

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Friday breathed. ‘She must have taken a proper turn for the worse since I saw her.’

  Aria said, ‘But surely she is mistaken? You said your friend did not die because of what the man Keegan did to her. You said she had an illness in her head.’

  ‘She did, but he made her pregnant, and that made her head worse when Charlotte was born. Anyway that’s not the point. The point is she’s said sorry.’

  ‘Saying sorry does not mean anything now,’ Aria growled. ‘Anyone can bleat out an apology on their deathbed. Where is the life of your beloved friend? Where is the upoko tuhi of my kinsman? Where is all the money she took off you? These are the things that matter, not a hollow “sorry”.’ She jabbed an angry finger at the letter. ‘Look! My name is not even in the note. She does not even care about the pain and tremendous loss of mana she has visited upon my family.’

  That was true, but not exactly unexpected, Friday thought. In her experience professional criminals were a callous lot, and it’d be especially unlikely that a queen of the Liverpool underworld would give a toss about the sensibilities of a few New Zealand natives she’d robbed.

  ‘She doesn’t understand.’

  ‘Do not defend her!’ Aria roared.

  ‘I wasn’t.’

  Aria strode to the door, skirts rustling and boot heels ringing, and wrenched it open. ‘She is an evil woman who deserves to die a messy and painful death, and if she was not dying already, I would kill her myself.’

  ‘God, keep your hair on,’ Friday said, alarmed at her vehemence.

  ‘I will not keep my hair on.’ Aria glared at her. ‘It is you who should keep your hair on. You have gone very strange lately.’

  ‘I have not.’

  ‘Ever since you went to Bella’s house and found out that she is not a woman. It is almost as though you have forgiven her for what she has done.’

  ‘I have not forgiven her!’

  That wasn’t it at all — she hadn’t — but Friday felt her face heat up all the same, and the moment she did, she went even redder.

  ‘And I am sick of you drinking your gin,’ Aria went on, in full flight now. ‘You said you would not but you do, all the time.’

  ‘Christ, not this again.’

  ‘Yes, this again. You promised.’