‘Yes,’ said Dulcie, caught too unawares to deny it. The fact that the secret was out dissolved her to tears. ‘How is he? I miss him. It’s been so long since I’ve seen him.’
Louisa interjected now. ‘He’s fine. I took him some clothes. He seems quite happy with Mrs Brewster.’
‘But I haven’t sent any money. I can’t. I’ve been afraid she’ll get rid of him and I’ll lose him.’
‘She did mention the money,’ said Louisa, as there was no point in pretending otherwise. ‘Is there someone in your family who could help?’
‘No one,’ said Dulcie. ‘I daren’t let anyone know. If the For—’ She stopped herself in time. ‘No one can know where he is,’ she said, looking Louisa directly in the eye. ‘I mean it.’
‘What about the Curtis family?’ said Pamela.
Dulcie turned to her, her eyes red now. ‘What about them?’
Pamela spoke evenly. ‘Who is this boy’s father?’
Dulcie looked at Louisa who gave her a smile of reassurance. ‘Adrian Curtis,’ said Dulcie at last, and gave a shaky sigh. ‘He knew about Daniel – that’s my boy’s name. He even met him a few times but he couldn’t have anything to do with him. Not really. He’d have been cut off from his family with no money.’ She said the last words bitterly.
‘The point is,’ said Nancy, taking control, ‘if you can prove that Adrian was your boy’s father, then a jury might be less inclined to believe that you were the murderer. At the very least, you might be spared a sentence of execution.’
The word hung heavily between them all.
‘But I can’t,’ said Dulcie, still upset but calmer now. She had had, after all, many lonely hours in her prison cell to think this over and resign herself to her fate. ‘It’s my word against theirs and who will believe me? Especially now.’ She took a breath, and could be seen physically pulling herself together. For a few minutes they sat, muted, before a bell rang and chairs started to scrape. The thirty minutes were up.
‘We’ve got to go,’ said Louisa. ‘I’m sorry, Dulcie.’
‘Go and see my boy, would you? Tell him his mum loves him, give him a kiss.’ Her voice broke.
‘Of course,’ said Louisa, convinced now that Dulcie could not be the murderer and more determined than ever to find out the truth. If it wasn’t Dulcie then who could it be? The Forty? Or one of the guests at the party? After all, they were there that night, and any one of them might have had the opportunity to do it.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
The journey back to Iris’s flat was quiet as Louisa, Pamela and Nancy each digested what they had seen and heard. Louisa knew she had taken them out of their world and though she felt a little guilty about this, there was a part of her that was pleased, too. Perhaps she herself would seem less of an alien to them and just someone who had simply been born into a different set of circumstances. She didn’t want sympathy, pity or even to change who she was, she wanted them to understand.
Pamela was brisk on their return, for once taking charge over Nancy, telling her they needed to get a move on to get back home. She had been the most unsettled by the prison and was anxious to return to ‘normal life’.
‘What is normal anyway?’ snapped Nancy.
‘I’m not sure I know,’ sighed Pamela, ‘but I won’t feel right again until I’m back in the saddle.’
Louisa was packing their suitcases as the two girls bickered when their aunt walked in. ‘Hello, girls,’ she said amiably. ‘I’ve decided to come back to Asthall with you this afternoon. I’ve telephoned to your mother and let her know. London is too much for me in the run up to Christmas – I’d rather be lying on the sofa eating Mrs Stobie’s cake.’
Louisa’s ears pricked up at this. If Iris accompanied Pamela and Nancy on the train, she could stay behind. She wouldn’t win any favours with Mrs Windsor or Lady Redesdale, let alone Nanny Blor, but that felt less pressing than what she needed to do for Dulcie.
When their aunt had left the room, Louisa admitted her plan to the sisters. Nancy merely raised an eyebrow but said nothing while Pamela said all this only made her wish they could get the very next train out.
* * *
When she had waved them off, a note from her to Mrs Windsor in Nancy’s pocket – they had told a puzzled Iris that Louisa had a family emergency – Louisa felt an exhilarating rush of freedom. She decided to take a bus to Piccadilly and hoped that Guy was at Vine Street station before she made her next move. What she wanted to do was to go and see Mrs Brewster alone, to try and find out if there was anything in the boy’s belongings that would prove a connection with Adrian Curtis, and maybe help the dressmaker find an alternative to the workhouse.
At the police station, a message was sent to Guy and he came out to the front where she was waiting on one of the wooden benches, hoping she didn’t look like a criminal.
‘Louisa,’ he said, pleased to see her but concerned too. ‘Is everything all right? Has something happened?’
She wasn’t sure how to begin. ‘Can you spare five minutes?’
Guy nodded, ‘Yes, of course. Tell me what it is.’
‘Dulcie has admitted that she had a child with Adrian Curtis.’
‘Can she prove it?’
‘Of course not. No one can.’ Louisa was exasperated. ‘But it all adds up in her favour, doesn’t it? We’re running out of options. It’s almost Christmas and her trial is due to start in the New Year.’
Guy’s quietness revealed neither agreement nor disagreement.
‘I’m sure she’s protecting someone but I don’t know if it’s someone from the Forty or someone else,’ Louisa went on.
‘Can you explain why?’
‘She must have wanted to discuss something about their child with him, possibly blackmail. That would explain why she needed to meet him. I just can’t understand why he would meet her again in the bell tower if they’d had an argument – one where he had hit her, remember.’
‘I agree,’ said Guy. ‘That was always a puzzle to me, too.’
Sergeant Cluttock came out to the front, on his way somewhere, and gave Guy a quizzical look but didn’t interrupt them.
‘Even so, if Dulcie went to meet someone from the Forty, why would Mr Curtis be there too?’
‘I still don’t have an answer for that,’ she admitted.
They sat in silence for a minute. ‘What if the Forty knew about the child?’ said Guy. ‘What if they arranged for Adrian Curtis to be killed as revenge?’
‘Revenge for what?’
‘Fathering the child and then abandoning him, and Dulcie.’
‘I don’t think the Forty are cold-blooded like that. They’re thieves, not killers.’ Louisa knew she was in danger of defending them as her own but she’d seen them in the pub. They had been rowdy lawbreakers, certainly, but they hadn’t struck her as bloodthirsty.
‘If not them, then perhaps the Elephants.’
‘Perhaps.’ She felt reluctant to pin herself to any theory. Everything suddenly seemed so vague and theoretical, one set of words against another. But she had been to that prison, she’d seen Dulcie’s white face. It was life and death, it wasn’t a game of chess.
‘Whatever the answer, Miss Long knows something she’s not telling us,’ said Guy. He knew this was serious, Louisa could be certain of that. ‘Perhaps I could talk to her myself.’
Louisa felt alarmed at this. She didn’t want Dulcie thinking that she had increased suspicion on her. ‘But other things aren’t quite matching up,’ she said hesitantly. ‘With the others who were at the party.’
Guy looked at her, shocked, and then laughed. ‘Don’t tell me one of Nancy’s friends did it!’
‘I don’t think you can rule them out.’ Louisa felt self-conscious now and started picking at stray fluff on her coat. ‘One of them, Miss Phoebe, admitted to me that she faked her ankle sprain so that she could be alone with Mr Atlas. That means she doesn’t have an alibi.’
Guy rubbed at his glasses and pushed t
hem up his nose. ‘I must say that’s a rather worrying admission. But she was with Mr Atlas at the time of the murder, wasn’t she? So it doesn’t really make enough of a difference.’
‘And another time I saw a knife in Miss Clara’s evening bag.’
Guy blinked. ‘They are in another world, aren’t they? Did she say why she had a knife?’
‘She hinted that men, possibly Sebastian Atlas, tried to make her do things but when we’d seen the knife she said they wouldn’t be trying that again.’
‘We?’
‘Pamela and I were there.’
Guy nodded. ‘And which one is Sebastian Atlas?’
‘He’s the tall, thin one with the very blond hair. I can’t say I like him terribly much, though I couldn’t tell you exactly why. He behaves oddly too. I saw him sneak out when everyone was at the theatre, and I was waiting in the foyer. He had a quick meeting with a man in the street and looked as if he was buying something.’
‘It’s an easy guess as to what he’d be buying.’ Guy stood. ‘I’m so sorry but I need to get back to work now. Can I walk you to the door?’
Louisa smiled gratefully. ‘Of course.’
But as they walked, Guy whispered, ‘The murder case isn’t one I’m supposed to get involved with – it’s not on my patch – but I’ll try to find the reports from the inquest and take a look at who was at the party and what their alibis were. I do agree with you that if Dulcie is innocent, we need to prove it. If she was supposed to meet a man at the bell tower that night, then we need to find him, too.’
As Louisa stepped out into the street she wondered what it was she was feeling, this different, sunnier mood, despite the grey sky and sharp wind. Then she realised: she had somebody on her side. It felt good.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
Louisa turned into Mrs Brewster’s road feeling almost giddy with happiness. Perhaps it was no more than being able to walk along with no small child beside her, no errand ordered by Mrs Windsor, no need to be somewhere other than where she wanted to be. Her work in service had been largely easy and comfortable, she knew that, and she was still grateful for the money and the security. Nothing she did was back-breaking or filthy and everyone treated her fairly, if peremptorily at times. But in London one was only too aware of the young women who went out to work for themselves in modern, exciting jobs, before going home to their own flats to change for a night out dancing or being taken for supper. Perhaps that would never be her world but it had come close enough for her to taste. She was fired by something else now – not fear, which had kept her moving for so long, but ambition. That was a grand and brave word for a girl like her, but yes! Ambition was what she had.
She pushed open the front door – it never seemed to be locked – and practically ran up the stairs to the flat, ringing on Mrs Brewster’s doorbell in three short staccato bursts. Mrs Brewster opened the door and looked at her in surprise.
‘Hello,’ said Louisa, ‘can I come in?’
‘Si, si. Come in but I am sorry, I was not expecting you…’ Her voice trailed off and her hand waved to her workroom, which was not messy – the materials were neatly stacked – but it was clear she had been at work. There was a dress half done on the machine and odd snippets of material and thread on the floor. Daniel was on the floor with a set of building blocks, stacking them up high before gleefully knocking them down. When Louisa put her head into the room he turned and, seeing her, smiled and waved.
‘I have been to see his mother,’ said Louisa.
Mrs Brewster did not react outwardly to this but she went and picked Daniel up from the floor. ‘Come,’ she said. ‘We will have tea.’
Louisa followed them both to the kitchen, where Mrs Brewster boiled a kettle and gave Daniel a crust of bread to chew on. When the seamstress opened the cupboard to pull out the box of tea Louisa saw that it was almost empty. It didn’t quite add up, somehow, that she should have such a lot of sewing work from presumably well-heeled clients, if the likes of Miss Charlotte were commissioning her, yet had absolutely no money at all. Still, she had said something before about Mr Brewster and gambling debt. Perhaps she was having to cope with a nasty situation. And Louisa knew there was nothing so exhausting as being poor. She felt guilty about the money she had spent on her haircut when she could have given some to Mrs Brewster.
Louisa put Daniel on her lap and stroked his soft hair. She gave him a kiss on his forehead and smiled at him. ‘That’s from your ma,’ she said but he did not respond, concentrating hard on the bread he had clamped in his fist.
The old woman was swirling hot water around in the teapot before emptying it and spooning out the leaves carefully, when she said with a sob, ‘I don’t want to give up the bambino but…’ Tears sprang unbidden to her eyes and she wiped them away quickly.
‘I know,’ said Louisa. What more could she say? She was powerless.
There was a sudden ring at the doorbell, followed by three loud knocks. Mrs Brewster jumped and almost dropped the cups and saucers she was carrying to the table. ‘Stay in here,’ she warned and left quickly.
Louisa kept hold of Daniel but he whimpered when Mrs Brewster left the room and started to wriggle off her lap. ‘Stay with me…’ she was saying, when she heard raised voices in the hallway outside. Mrs Brewster was speaking in a shrill, rapid combination of Italian and English, even more so than usual, pleading that she had nothing to pay them with.
The other voices were male, with strong south London accents and a brusqueness that could be detected even on the other side of the door. Louisa couldn’t be sure how many there were – two, three? Daniel had dropped his crust and his lower lip was quivering, his whimpering getting louder. ‘Sshh,’ said Louisa, but he started pulling on the door handle. Louisa was trying to listen to what was going on but the voices were muffled now. They must have gone into the workroom, though Mrs Brewster’s incessant talk could only mean she wanted them to leave.
For half a minute Louisa turned her attention away from Daniel when she realised he was already out of the door bawling loudly. She froze, unsure whether she should try to grab him back, but it was too late.
‘Who’ve we got here then?’ she heard through the door, open just a few inches but enough to make the voices clear.
‘He’s just a boy,’ said Mrs Brewster, her rising panic clear.
‘Not yours though, is he? Unless medical science has started miracles,’ laughed one man.
There was definitely a second younger man. ‘Started baby farming, have yer?’
Daniel had stopped crying now. Either Mrs Brewster had picked him up or he was silenced by the atmosphere. Louisa had learned from the nursery that children were sensitive to the moods of adults, even if they couldn’t understand the reasons.
‘’Ere,’ said the first man. ‘You earning money for looking after this one?’
Mrs Brewster didn’t reply, or at least Louisa couldn’t hear her say anything.
‘Could be useful to us,’ said the second. ‘Tell you what, if the next time we come back you still ain’t got that money you owe us, we’ll take him instead. There’s plenty as want a nice pretty boy like him. Fair enough, don’t you think?’
Still, there was nothing to be heard in reply. Moments later, the door slammed shut and only then did Louisa step out into the hall. She went quickly to the workroom and saw Mrs Brewster clutching on to Daniel, no longer crying but not looking like the happy child he had been when she had arrived only half an hour earlier. On the table by the sewing machine was a large brown paper parcel.
‘They will come back,’ said Mrs Brewster, the dark rings under her eyes even more pronounced.
‘Who were they?’
The dressmaker’s shoulders hunched forward and she dipped her head, avoiding Louisa’s eyes. ‘The Elephants. Usually it is another who comes, who brings me the materials, but I owe them money. These are nasty men and they frighten me.’
‘You mean the material you work with, it’s supplied by these
men?’ Louisa knew what she was asking: did she knowingly receive stolen goods?
Mrs Brewster could hardly bear to admit it but she did. She looked up now, beseeching. ‘I had to, I cannot afford to buy it from the shops. His mother, she introduce me to them. And it is good stuff, you know. What do I do? I must pay them.’
‘We’ll think of something,’ said Louisa, ‘I promise.’ Truthfully, she knew she had no right to make such a pledge but she could not abandon that boy, not if he was in danger from the Elephants. Daniel, after all, had brought none of this upon himself but had been born into an unlucky situation. She knew how that felt, at least. The most important thing was to get him out of there, but where could she take him?
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
Taking Daniel from Mrs Brewster’s hadn’t been a struggle in so many words but the old woman had been overcome at the moment of departure. The seamstress had given Louisa a rather pathetic cloth bag of Daniel’s things – a few clothes, some toys – which also included a photograph of Dulcie, not in a frame but pressed between two pieces of plain card and bound with a ribbon. Of Adrian Curtis there was nothing.
There was deep sadness in Mrs Brewster’s face as she turned towards the room Daniel was in. ‘I shall miss him.’
‘I know,’ said Louisa. ‘I’m sure Dulcie will be in touch to thank you for everything that you’ve done. You’ve been kind to look after him so well.’
To this, Mrs Brewster said no more. Daniel was playing with his blocks, paying no attention to the conversation above his head. Even when Louisa bent down beside him and touched his arm, he continued to concentrate on his task, carefully balancing a red wooden brick upon a yellow one. Mrs Brewster called over, ‘Bambino, listen to the lady.’
Only then did he turn around to Louisa and she saw herself reflected in the pools of his pale blue eyes.
‘Daniel, I’m going to take you back to your family to look after you.’
He said nothing but turned back and picked up another brick.
‘Come along now. I’ll buy you some cake for tea, a chocolate one. Do you like chocolate cake, Daniel?’ Louisa felt her voice faltering. If Daniel refused to come with her, she wasn’t sure what she could do. In the end, she firmly picked the boy up, holding him under his arms and then tucking his legs around her waist. He squirmed and tossed out his arm, his starfish hand clamping open and shut, his eyes shut. A wail hovered on the edge of his trembling lips.
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