Behind the Sun

by Deborah Challinor

  As they backed down the street, nostrils flaring, Friday lunged towards the curricle, jumped up onto the little iron foot step and grabbed hold of Bella’s fashionably puffed silk sleeve.

  ‘Murderer!’ she screamed. ‘Bloody stinking murderer!’

  She lashed out with her other hand and caught Bella across the side of the head, sending her hat flying.

  ‘Get off!’ Bella shrieked. ‘Get the fuck off me!’

  She wrenched her arm away and retaliated with an enormous roundhouse punch to the jaw that knocked Friday off the step and sent her sprawling in the dust. The horses, still retreating in panic, responded to a fierce crack of the whip and leapt forwards, narrowly avoiding Friday, their hooves slashing and trampling the spilled produce. Onlookers scattered as a moment later the curricle cut the corner and turned onto George Street at speed.

  Friday slowly got to her feet, gingerly feeling around her jaw for loose teeth. Everyone was looking at her, including the man with the barrow.

  ‘What are you staring at?’

  ‘You pushed me!’

  ‘I did not.’

  ‘What about my sweetcorn and my onions?’

  ‘Oh, fuck your onions.’

  Friday and Harrie stood on the corner of Bridge and George streets, Friday with a shawl draped over her head hiding her distinctive hair and Harrie wearing a plain bonnet.

  Friday had gone to see her yesterday and told her what she and Sarah were going to do: it wasn’t fair, she’d decided in the end, to leave her out. They were all in this together and had been from the very beginning — and Harrie should be able to choose whether she wanted to be involved or not. To Friday’s surprise, Harrie had said straight away she was in. There had been no dithering, none of Harrie’s usual ‘what ifs’, just a hard, flat, ‘I’ll be there.’

  And she was, looking nervous but determined.

  ‘You didn’t have any trouble getting out of the house?’ Friday asked.

  ‘No, I didn’t.’ Harrie sounded surprised. ‘I worried myself sick all last night and today about it, whether to pretend I was poorly and go to bed early and climb out of the window, or just disappear for a few hours and hope I wouldn’t be too badly punished for it. But in the end I decided to say I had a sick friend and could I have an hour off to visit, and Mrs Barrett said yes. It was that easy and now I feel guilty.’

  ‘Well, do something nice to make up for it tomorrow, then.’ Friday waved an enormous mosquito away from her face. If that made Harrie feel guilty, how might she feel after tonight?

  It was just on the cusp of true darkness when she spotted Keegan ambling along George Street, twirling his cane and lifting his hat to passersby. Ignoring her suddenly pounding heart, she pulled Harrie into the shadows and they waited until he’d crossed the road where it opened onto the plaza in front of St Philip’s Church and turned down Bridge Street.

  He didn’t notice them. When he was roughly five yards ahead they stepped out and followed him, walking casually but confidently, two women out for an evening stroll. The moon was in its first quarter and partly occluded by scudding cloud and did little to help them avoid the potholes, and street-lamps were few and very far between, but tonight’s activities were best performed in shadow.

  At one point Keegan glanced over his shoulder, and raised his hat. ‘Good evening, ladies!’ he called. ‘Pleasant night for a walk.’

  ‘Good evening, sir,’ Friday replied, almost crapping herself.

  Still following him they turned into Bent Street and crossed the road where, to allay suspicion and catch their breaths after the steep incline, they stopped to admire a bush in a front garden.

  Unfortunately there was a pig tethered beneath it: it grunted at them and they almost died of heart failure. Nerves and fear conspired to make them burst into snorts of hysterical, mirthless giggles.

  Keegan had by now also crossed Bent Street and turned into Phillip Street.

  Friday and Harrie, recovered, followed.

  Ahead, a short distance along Phillip Street, a barely discernable figure materialised, the shape resolving itself into Sarah as she stepped out of the shadows.

  Keegan strode on obliviously, houses and cottages on large plots lining both sides of this end of the street, interspersed with sheds, several small warehouses and a lumber yard. Weak lamplight glowed in several of the dwellings, but the commercial properties were dark and silent.

  He raised his hat to Sarah, who nodded in reply, but as she passed him she swung around and struck him hard across the back of the head with the cosh she’d concealed at her side.

  His hat flew off and he went down like a sack of spuds, knocked senseless.

  ‘Quick,’ Sarah urged, ‘get him off the street.’

  Harrie and Sarah took an arm each, Friday his feet, and together they hauled him down to the far end of an alleyway between a long shed and piles of stacked timber, and dumped him on the ground.

  Where he immediately began to come around.

  He moaned, his body curling up defensively and his hands going to the back of his head. He peered blearily up at them but it was clear he didn’t recognise them. Friday lowered her shawl to give him a clue.

  ‘You don’t remember us?’ she demanded.

  ‘Should I? What the fuck do you think you’re doing? I’ll be reporting this straight to the police.’ In the diluted moonlight his face was bleached of colour, and the blood on his hands looked black.

  Friday felt a savage fury rise up in her. ‘Go on, do it! And we’ll report how you raped Rachel Winter, then shoved her off the foredeck of the Isla and nearly killed her!’

  ‘Oh. That.’

  ‘Yes,’ Friday said, aiming a good, solid kick at his thigh, ‘that!’

  He winced but replied, ‘Do your best. No one will listen. Why would they? Whores and bitches, the lot of you.’ He clutched the back of his head again and grimaced. ‘Including your stupid little friend.’

  Harrie moved closer and Friday could see she was almost incandescent with rage. ‘Don’t you call her that! She doesn’t deserve that! Who the hell do you think you are?’ Then she deliberately stepped behind Keegan and booted him in the kidneys. He arched backwards like a slater in a hot fire grate, his face contorted with pain.

  Friday, to be honest, was shocked. She shot a look at Sarah, who gave the tiniest shake of her head. What did that mean? Let Harrie get on with it, or stop her?

  While Keegan’s spine was bent Sarah took the opportunity to kick him in the crotch. The impact made a satisfying thud. He whiplashed the other way, clamping his hands over his groin. Then he vomited.

  He didn’t shout for help, though. He was so bloody arrogant, Friday thought, he still didn’t think he needed to shout for help.

  He muttered something and Harrie leant in. ‘What?’

  ‘She was useless anyway.’ He coughed and spat. ‘I paid well over the odds.’

  Friday yanked his head off the ground by the hair, her face inches from his. ‘Who? Who did you pay?’

  ‘The whoremonger.’

  Harrie gave a small cry, as though she’d been physically hurt, then, her teeth bared, kicked Keegan again, this time in the chest. His hands flew up and he rolled into a ball.

  ‘Harrie!’ Friday grabbed her sleeve and yanked her away. ‘Don’t! What are you doing?’

  Harrie jerked her arm out of Friday’s grip. ‘Paying him back!’

  ‘No, this is for me and Sarah to do.’

  ‘No, it’s for all of us, because this is for Rachel, and she was ours. She’ll always be ours.’

  It was simple and it made sense: Friday stepped back and raised her hands in a gesture of surrender.

  Harrie aimed another kick at Keegan: he’d attempted to crawl away and it landed against his ribs. She tried again, connecting solidly with his spine, and followed up with another to his shoulder.

  And then they were all doing it, a flurry of boots driving into him, no noise except for muffled thuds that grew increasingly wet, a
nd the occasional breathed-out grunt.

  At last, long after he’d stopped moving, they stood back, panting and gazing down at him. He was on his side and his eyes were open. Or one was: the other was a mass of pulp. He stank like shit and his pale trousers were stained.

  Then Sarah went out onto the street, fetched his hat and cane, and left them with the cosh beside his body.

  There didn’t seem to be much to say. Together they walked down Phillip Street and along Hunter Street, where they splashed in the stinking shallows of Tank Stream to wash the gore off their boots. Sarah veered off and followed the stream until she came to the rear of Adam Green’s shop, and at the George Street intersection Friday and Harrie turned right and headed towards the Rocks.

  Above them, a lone bat swooped and soared.

  In the alleyway a bull ant crawled over Keegan’s head, its feet sticking to the blood congealing in the hair and in the shattered hollows of the skull.

  Candlelight suddenly flickered in the shed next door, a door opened and a figure descended the wooden steps. Crossing to Keegan’s body the woman prodded it with her boot, watching as it rolled part way over before flopping heavily onto its side again. She crouched, holding the candle close to the ruined face, examining it for signs of life and finding none.

  Bella Jackson straightened, thought for a moment, picked up the cosh then walked away.

  Sarah climbed stealthily over the fence at the rear of Adam Green’s yard and, keeping to the shadows, crossed the rough cobbles to the back of the shop. There she removed her boots, sloshed them about in the overspill from the rain barrel, tied the laces together and slung them around her neck. She had always known Keegan would go unpunished by the authorities for what he had done to Rachel, but now that had been addressed. She had no regrets.

  On her way out earlier in the evening she’d climbed down the drainpipe — now she spat on her hands for grip and began to climb back up. Curling her feet around the pipe, she worked her arm and shoulder muscles as her hands pulled upwards. It was easy going, especially now she was getting fit again, and certainly something she was familiar with, due to breaking into houses in London.

  When she reached the level of her bedroom window she extended one foot to rest on the sill, a hand to grip the window frame, then launched herself across the two-foot gap and ducked through the open lower sash.

  She landed with a light thump on the bare floorboards and remained still, listening for signs that her return had been detected, but nothing stirred in the house.

  She checked to make sure her bedroom door was still locked — it was — set her boots on the floor by her bed then lit the candle. And that’s when she saw them: a fancy drinking glass and a plate on her bedside cupboard. The plate contained three biscuits and the glass some sort of cordial. There was also a note. It read simply: A.

  Harrie felt sick and light-headed; and coming up the stairs she’d been struck by the horrible notion there might be spots of blood — or worse — on her face or clothes.

  It wasn’t the right or wrong of what they’d done, or even the violence of it, because he’d deserved every painful second. She hadn’t meant for him to die — she knew none of them had — but Rachel had died, so in a way he actually had paid a just price.

  Still, she couldn’t believe she’d done it.

  She opened the door on the landing, hoping everyone had gone to bed and the parlour would be empty.

  Rachel stared back at her from the sofa.

  Harrie’s knees buckled and she clung to the door knob.

  Mrs Barrett said, ‘Harrie? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’

  It was the hair, the hair and the big belly. Nora Barrett had honey-coloured hair streaked with grey and in the lamplight it looked silver-white.

  ‘Harrie?’

  Harrie closed the door behind her, moving on legs that felt like jelly.

  ‘Are you all right? You don’t look well.’

  ‘I’m a little tired, but thank you.’

  ‘Where are your boots and stockings?’

  ‘Downstairs. I slipped in a drain.’

  Mrs Barrett put aside her embroidery. ‘How was your friend? Not suffering, I hope?’

  ‘No,’ Harrie replied. ‘Not now.’

  Friday didn’t go straight home. She dropped her boots into the cesspit behind the Bird-in-Hand on Gloucester Street, then went inside and proceeded to get drunk.

  Harrie’s behaviour had shocked and frightened her. But, thinking about it, she realised this wasn’t a new Harrie made hard and vicious by a year spent with felons, lunatics and London street dross, this was just a side of Harrie they’d never properly seen before. This was the side that had driven Harrie to work for a bitch of a boss for years just to keep her family fed, that had compelled her to steal a bolt of cloth against all her principles, and that had inspired her to care for Rachel so lovingly and so ferociously. This was the side that Keegan had finally pushed too far. And look what had happened. He’d pushed them all too far.

  And so, it was clear now, had Bella Jackson.

  After an hour or so she picked up a sailor and took him around the back and had sex with him against a wall, charging him a pound, which he thought was a bit pricey for a pub whore who could barely stand up. He paid it, though, because he liked her hair and she made him laugh. She did it not because she wanted the money or the sort of comfort a man could give, but because her own behaviour had frightened her and she needed to feel she was in charge of herself again, even if she was mashed.

  At midnight she staggered back to the Siren’s Arms, her bare feet filthy, reeking of alcohol and pipe smoke and missing her shawl and jacket.

  Mrs Hislop fined her three pounds for coming home drunk.

  May 1830, Sydney Town

  Reading from the newspaper, Sarah said, ‘Listen to this. Foul Murder Remains Unsolved. Sydney constabulary regret to report that no arrest has yet been made regarding the disgraceful and cowardly murder of Gabriel Ambrose Redman Keegan, late of Knightsbridge, London, discovered bludgeoned to death in Phillip Street on 6th April. However, the Superintendent of Police has stated that Sydney’s public may rest assured that robust inquiries will continue into this heinous crime for as long as necessary until the killer is safely behind bars.’

  Friday threw a piece of bun at the pair of crows loitering hopefully on the plaza. Soon, someone would come along and tell them they weren’t allowed to sit on the steps of St Philip’s Church on a Sunday afternoon, but until that happened it was a nice sunny spot. ‘He’ll be bloody busy.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The superintendent. There’s been three murders since then.’

  Harrie pulled her shawl closer around her shoulders. ‘Will they have found anything, do you think? During their inquiries?’

  ‘Hard to say,’ Friday replied.

  They watched the crows attempting to steal the bun off each other.

  ‘Are you worried?’ Harrie asked.

  ‘A bit,’ Sarah admitted.

  ‘A bit?’ Friday muttered. ‘I’m crapping myself. Every time someone knocks on the door at Mrs Hislop’s, I think it’s the beaks.’

  Harrie nodded. ‘I am, too. I dream about it.’

  ‘Well, don’t,’ Sarah said. ‘It’s not good for you. Take a sleeping draught or something. Look, there goes your Mr Downey.’ She gestured towards James Downey as he walked up George Street on the far side of the plaza, head bowed, still traipsing around in mourning black.

  ‘Stop saying that,’ Harrie said sharply, deliberately not looking. ‘I don’t even want to hear his name.’

  Anticipating her response, Sarah sighed. ‘Go and say hello.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Harrie, you’ll have to one day. You’re bound to run into him. Sydney’s a small town.’

  ‘No, I won’t.’

  ‘You will. We’re looking at him now!’

  ‘I won’t,’ Harrie replied stubbornly.

  Sarah shook he
r head. She knew Harrie liked James Downey very much. She also knew that what he’d done had hurt her deeply and that Harrie just couldn’t forgive him. It was a prickly thing to watch, because she was clearly unhappy about the situation, but would not allow herself to change it. ‘Shall we go and have a cup of tea?’ she suggested, wishing now she’d let the subject lie.

  ‘Not me,’ Friday said. ‘I have to start work soon.’

  ‘I will,’ Harrie said, ‘if you promise to shut up about that man.’ She finally dared to look in the direction Sarah had indicated, but James Downey had disappeared, swallowed by the afternoon’s lengthening shadows.

  Friday hurried down George Street past Middlesex Lane, the autumn wind gusting off the harbour, tangling her skirt around her legs and whipping her hair in all directions. At the sound of approaching hooves she moved onto the footway: the road wasn’t wide, the ironstone surface badly potholed, and not really suitable for vehicles moving at speed.

  The curricle rattled past. Then slowed. Then stopped.

  Friday, of course, recognised it and the familiar acid of hatred flooded through her. But now was not the time for settling scores, not in full view of dozens of witnesses. She could say her piece, though. She had always said her piece.

  Fists clenched, she strode towards the gig.

  Bella’s painted face was turned towards her, waiting. But before Friday could spit out a single word, the whoremonger gave a smirk of such reptilian triumph that Friday stopped dead. And then Bella slowly raised into view an object that at first Friday didn’t recognise. When she did, her blood turned to ice.

  It was Sarah’s cosh.

  Then, with a snap of the reins, the horses surged ahead, scattering loose ironstone with their hooves, and the curricle was gone.

  Friday stood frozen, her heart racing, blood roaring in her ears, drowning out all other sounds.