She stuck out her lower lip and looked seductively at him from under her lashes. His expression changed from lechery to disbelief, then back to lechery. Putting her hands on the table, Ellen leant forward. Danny’s eyes rested on her breasts momentarily, then returned to her face.
‘I’m not all women, Danny. You should know that,’ Ellen said, smiling warmly at him.
Danny grabbed the coat on the chair behind him and slid the ledger into an inside pocket.
‘What do you want?’ he asked, trying to maintain his belligerent expression while his gaze continued to devour her breasts.
‘Just a word, that’s all.’ Ellen glanced at Mike. ‘In private.’
‘Do you hear that Mike? Lady Ellen here wants a private word,’ Danny said.
For one awful moment Ellen thought she would have to carry out her plan in full view of Danny’s bully boy, but then Danny’s lips became slack and he took Ellen’s hand.
Remembering why she was standing in the White Swan a foot away from Danny Donovan, Ellen let her hand remain in his.
‘If it’s a private word you’re being after, well then, I’ve been after that myself since I first set eyes on you,’ he said, lifting her hand to his mouth and kissing it slowly.
With his eyes fixed to her face he drew her towards him until their legs touched, then ran his free hand up the outside of her thigh, ruffling up the fabric of her dress as he did so.
He watched for her reaction but Ellen remained unshaken by his fondling. Steeling herself to play the part she had to, Ellen rubbed her leg against Danny’s stout knees. For one split second, as his expression registered total surprise at her actions, he actually looked boyish, then the venal expression returned.
‘Get us another bottle, Mike, and don’t rush back,’ Danny told his man, without taking his eyes from Ellen’s face.
Black Mike shrugged and ambled over to the bar.
Ellen slid onto the chair next to Danny and forced tears into her eyes. Laying her hand on his arm she looked beseechingly up at him.
‘Oh, Danny,’ she said, with a quiver in her voice.
Ellen didn’t have to pretend to be afraid and shaking because so close to Danny, she was.
A tear rolled slowly down her right cheek. If he had looked surprised at her caressing his knee, he was positively astounded now. He had never seen her cry before. ‘I’ve been such a fool,’ she told him.
‘You, and every other fecking woman I know,’ he said, reaching up and tracing his index finger down her cheek.
Every bit of her wanted to dash for the door but Ellen shoved the urge aside.
‘I should have listened to you. You were right about Rob... Doctor Munroe,’ she said, as Danny smoothed his finger over her jaw and down her neck. ‘He promised me a house and an allowance, and I, soft-hearted fool that I am, believed him. But it seems he only wanted a ...’ She trailed off.
His first finger slid across her collarbone while his other fingers trailed across the top of her breast. If she didn’t stop his hand travelling over her skin she would vomit so, shifting away, she drew a handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed her eyes. ‘I’m finding it a bit of a struggle at the moment. Josie’s only young and she can’t do the work Mammy could.’
‘What’s that to me?’ Danny asked, in an indifferent tone that was belied by his heavy eyelids.
He placed his hand on her thigh and squeezed. Ellen gave him a shy smile and ran a finger around on the back of his hairy hand.
‘I thought you had a soft spot for me, Danny,’ she said, wondering if she had gone too far.
Loosing his hand from under hers, he moved it up to her hip and then around to her buttocks. The impulse to brush him off her as she had done many times before came over her, but knowing that she must, Ellen endured his roving fingers. He shuffled forward until his face was a mean inch or two from hers.
Up close, Ellen could see the little flecks of brown in Danny’s pale eyes. She could also see the unruly way his eyebrows grew, smell the dankness of his sweat and the spirit on his breath.
A strange needy expression settled in his eyes. ‘You’re a grand, lovely woman so you are, Ellen O’Casey,’ he said. ‘I would have made you my special gal long since but you thought yourself too good for the likes of me.’
‘Oh, Danny,’ Ellen said, dabbing her eyes again in an attempt to keep what little distance there was between them.
‘It’s oh, Danny, is it now,’ he said, his eyes hardening to their usual pitiless expression. He took hold of the back of her head and forced her to look at him. ‘I wasn’t good enough before, but now this bastard Munroe’s finished jiggy-jigging, you come back to good old, kind-hearted Danny, telling me things are a bit of a struggle?’
Holding herself rigid, Ellen held his gaze.
He shifted the chair and his coat, hanging over the chair, flapped back with the movement. Out of the corner of her eye Ellen saw Danny’s ledger poking out from the inside pocket.
Taking a deep breath and praying her courage would hold, Ellen threw herself into Danny’s arms.
‘Please, Danny, can I have my job back?’ she asked, looking at him imploringly.
‘Maggie’s replaced you,’ he said, indicating the stage where the woman in question was bidding farewell to a disinterested crowd.
Swallowing hard, Ellen slid her arm around Danny’s rotund figure. ‘Please, Danny,’ she said again in a low sensual voice. His eyes fastened on her and a shudder crawled along her spine.
She watched as he studied her, calculating the advantages of the situation to himself without warmth or compassion.
On the pretext of snuggling up to him, Ellen felt along the silk lining of the jacket hanging on the back of the chair. Her fingertips touched the hard spine of the ledger but as she went to close her hand around it Danny dragged her across his lap.
One of his hands held her around the waist while the other fastened on her leg. ‘Let’s see how grateful you are.’
Flicking the frills of her skirt up, he placed his hand on her calf, then moved his hand up. Ellen squirmed, but his iron grip held her fast. His hand reached her drawers and he delved up her flimsy underwear. Ellen suffered his probing fingers while she searched through the coat pocket for the ledger.
Stay calm, stay calm, she ordered herself.
Just as she thought she could stand no more of Danny’s violation Ellen felt the soft leather of the slim notebook. This time she grasped it firmly and, giggling, twisted out of Danny’s arms.
Her palms were moist and she could feel beads of perspiration springing out on her forehead. If he saw she had his ledger, she was dead. She feigned a stumble against the chair where the heavy opera cloak lay and swiftly slid the ledger inside the velvet layers.
She staggered up and swept the cloak up and held it firmly to her. She wagged her finger playfully at Danny.
‘I’ve shown how grateful I am prepared to be, now you let me have my job back,’ she said, patting her hair back into place and tucking the cloak under her arm.
Danny rubbed his hand over his crotch and grinned. ‘Aren’t I known as a benevolent sort of a fellow, Mike?’ he said to his henchman, who had returned carrying a fresh bottle of brandy.
‘That you are, Danny, none more so,’ Mike said, taking up his usual position behind his boss.
‘Well, then, Ellen. Although many would call me soft in the head after the way you’ve treated me, you can have your old spot at the Angel on Thursday nights,’ Danny said with a show of munificence.
‘And right glad my ears will be to hear you again,’ Mike added with some feeling.
Danny reached out for Ellen again. She stepped aside, but his hand grabbed her. ‘Now get back on my lap and show your gratitude again.’
He dragged her towards him. If he took her in his arms, he would surely feel the ledger in the lining of her cloak and, even if he didn’t, she could not take another minute of Danny clawing and jabbing at her.
‘Dirty Mary and Chi
na Rose?’ Mike said.
While Danny’s attention was on Mike, Ellen twisted away from him.
‘Tomorrow,’ Danny snapped, looking hotly at Ellen.
‘Tomorrow we is up west,’ Mike reminded him.
Danny’s face grew dark. He lurched forward and for one ghastly moment Ellen thought he was going to demand that she sit back on his lap. But, as if sent by heaven, a waiter brought another bottle of brandy and he turned his attention to the fresh spirit. He pulled the cork off with his teeth and spat it on the floor.
He sent Mike a curt nod and poured another drink.
‘Until Thursday then, Ellen,’ he said, watching her with calculating eyes. Planning, no doubt, what he would make her do to show her gratitude.
With a pleasant smile fixed on her face Ellen turned to the door. She looked at Danny over her shoulder. He and Mike were now sitting close with their heads together. Mike pulled out his knife and turned it in his hand as he spoke.
God help Dirty Mary and China Rose, whoever they are.
Shaking inwardly, her legs feeling as they were about to buckle beneath her, Ellen managed to get them working sufficiently to escape from the bar room. Hugging the cloak tight around her, she dashed along Shadwell High Street towards her home.
As the sounds of the White Swan faded behind her, she slowed her pace and stopped at the corner of Cannon and Cable Streets. Leaning on the rough stone wall of someone’s backyard she took a deep breath. Forcing her fingers into action Ellen pulled out a sheet of waxed paper and a length of string from her bodice and hastily wrapped Danny’s ledger in it. Then, taking another long breath, she stepped out from the shadow, tucked the parcel under her arm and dashed towards St George’s church.
Although Mike was still talking, Danny turned his head and watched Ellen as she left the public room of the White Swan. Wiping his nose with his sleeve, he visualised squeezing the breath out of her by fixing her under him and ramming home.
‘What did I tell you, Mike? They all come crawling back,’ he said.
Forgetting his planned nocturnal visit to the two madams in Neptune Street, Danny let his mind race on to extracting in full measure what Ellen owed his pride. His cock valiantly tried to rise to the occasion, but the three bottles of brandy had taken their toll.
Mike pulled out a large gold hunter from his waistcoat fob. ‘We had better be on our way in a while, Danny,’ he said, folding his knife closed and tucking it back inside his jacket.
‘And so we shall, so we shall,’ Danny said, biting off the end of the cigar and spitting the end on the floor. He grinned widely and leaned back on his groaning chair. ‘I was just giving Mrs O’Casey a moment or two in my thoughts.’
‘I can imagine,’ Mike said, and inserted an index finger into a circle made with the finger and thumb of his other hand. With graphic lewdness, he pushed it back and forth.
Satisfaction puffed out Danny’s chest. He wasn’t used to waiting, but now—
He leered across at Mike. ‘That would be the way, eventually. But I was thinking that, seeing she wants her job back so bad, she might want to show me how in other ways,’ Danny replied, putting his index finger into his mouth.
‘That’s rare,’ Mike said.
Both men adjusted the contents of their front-flaps.
Through the haze of cigar smoke Maggie tottered towards Danny and Mike with a coy expression on her flushed face. Mike’s arm shot out and grabbed her across his lap. With a flourish of lace petticoats she made a half-hearted show of indignation.
‘If you’re busy with Ellen, you’ll not mind me keeping Maggie company then,’ he said, delving his hand down the front of her dress and fondling her breast. Maggie giggled.
‘Not at all,’ Danny said. ‘But as you said a moment ago we have a couple of business visits to make before we can turn our minds to pleasure.’
Danny stood up and so did Mike, spilling Maggie off his lap in a dishevelled heap.
Danny shrugged on his jacket and put his hand in his pocket to fetch out his ledger. The pocket was empty. He tried the other pocket, but again, other than his red handkerchief, there was nothing. He stared around dumbly for a moment. It must be there. He had tucked it away not half an hour ago.
‘What’s the crack, Danny?’
‘My ledger. It’s gone.’
‘It can’t be gone,’ Mike replied, now searching through Danny’s breast pockets. ‘It must have fallen on the floor.’
Mike kicked back the chair and started to search on the floor. Danny did the same. There was the usual debris but no ledger. Frantically, they scoured the floor either side of the table, pushing customers off their chairs in the process. Those around them were on their feet now and moved away as Danny searched the whole area around his table. But, despite clearing the entire floor, the slim, leather-bound ledger was nowhere in sight.
The full horror of the situation swept over Danny. All his debts were in there. The neat columns listed everyone who owed him money, showing who had paid and who had not. There was a list too of the various officers of the port who turned a blind eye to missing goods and what he paid them. All his interests in the highways, and the brothels that paid him, were noted. But most worrying of all were the names scrubbed out. What if the police got hold of the ledger?
Whoever has it will want money for it, Danny thought, and for one second was actually relieved. But who?
Then the vision of Ellen throwing herself on his lap floated into his mind and he knew. The ledger was not on the floor or anywhere else in the White Swan and no one would be trying to sell it back to him, because Ellen had slipped it away.
She had come to find him deliberately so as to get her hands on it. She knew what was in there and how it could damn him. She had sought him out, feigned regret and wriggled on his lap - for Munroe.
Danny’s mind roared with fury. Ellen had stolen his ledger from under his very nose for the man who had sworn to expose him and who was working against him.
‘The bitch,’ he ground out, as those around him backed away.
‘Ellen?’ Mike asked in a voice of disbelief. ‘Surely she wouldn’t—’
At her name Danny exploded. ‘She’d do anything for that bastard doctor.’ He took hold of the bottle on the table and hurled it on the floor. It smashed and the contents spilled over the floor. No one moved. ‘She never let me touch her before. Never. But she’d suffer me touching her just to get the ledger for him.’
Grabbing the table before him in his paw-like hands, Danny raised it over his head. A couple of women screamed, men left their drinks and made for the door. Henry Forster had come out from his parlour to see what the rumpus was about, but stood still by the bar watching, like everyone else, as Danny stood for a few seconds with the pine table aloft then heaved it towards the mirror that covered the wall behind him.
The table met the shiny surface of the glass, shattering it into hundreds of shards.
As the last tinkle of glass faded, Mike crunched over the wreckage towards Danny. ‘You’ll have to get it back off her, Danny,’ he said in a tense voice. ‘Or we’ll swing.’
‘I’ll get it back, that I will,’ Danny said, breathing hard, with flecks of spittle around his mouth and on his chin. ‘Mike, go and see if she goes to Munroe and I’ll go to her home.’ His lips drew back into a demonic grimace. ‘And seeing as our Ellen has a liking for doctors, the surgeons at Bart’s Hospital can have her corpse when I’m done with her.’
Eighteen
Where is that girl? Ellen thought, as she ran into her small front parlour. She had told Josie specifically not to go out, to wait for her at home. Ellen put her hand on the stove. It was still warm but hadn’t been attended to for an hour or so by her reckoning.
She bit her lip fearfully. So far everything had gone to plan. The ledger was safe and now she had to make sure she and Josie would be safe, too, by getting to Robert’s rooms at the hospital as soon as possible. They needed to be out of Danny’s reach because when he fo
und his precious ledger was missing it wouldn’t take him long to realise who had taken the slim book. And his fury would be deadly.
But now Josie was out somewhere and what if Danny found Josie?
Fear, panic and terror coursed through Ellen. For the love of Mary, Josie, come home.
Dashing upstairs, Ellen gathered together the bundle of her books, marriage lines and poor pieces of jewellery that she had packed in her old carpet bag before leaving for the White Swan two hours earlier. She returned downstairs hoping that Josie would appear.
Her hopes were dashed as she looked again around the deserted lower room.
She’ll feel my hand when she does arrive, Ellen thought, as panic at her precarious situation swirled around her. She didn’t have time to waste.
The front door rattled for a second, then the latch lifted up as the string outside was pulled. Relief swept over Ellen.
The front door opened, but it was Danny Donovan, not Josie, who stepped into the small front room.
He closed the door behind him and smiled artlessly at her.
‘Ellen, me darling girl, I thought seeing as we were getting on so famously a little while back I’d pop by. It’s not too late, I hope?’ He spoke in a convivial tone and tilted his head to one side.
Although her heart was galloping in her chest, Ellen matched his smile. ‘I thought you were out visiting with Mike,’ she replied, noticing that despite her best efforts her hands plucked nervously at the fabric of her skirt.
He moved forward, his leather boot shedding slurry from the street outside onto her rag carpet. Ellen stepped back and found herself backed against the table. Danny stopped just in front of her and put his hands on both hips. His smile widened, crinkling the small lines around his eyes.
‘He can handle the night’s business by himself so I thought why wait until Thursday before I had you bouncing on my lap showing your, gratitude,’ he said, winking at her.
Ellen relaxed a little.
When she had seen him in her doorway her heart had nearly jumped out of her mouth. She felt sure that he would have discovered the ledger was missing by now, but maybe he hadn’t... and he was, after all, just coming to get what she’d promised him in the Swan.
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