A Tattooed Heart (6 page)

And so far they had. The girls in particular were quite charming, once they'd overcome their initial mistrust and shyness. Sophie was naturally quiet and studious, and, to Lucy's delight, had a flair for learning. She'd been busy with piecework twelve hours a day at the ‘shithole' (ten-year-old Anna's word — Lucy would have to do something about their language, which actually was quite dreadful) in which they'd been living, and it had been Sophie who'd written all the letters to their sister, Harrie.

Anna was extremely sweet, when she wasn't swearing. She had a problem with her eyesight and hadn't been able to sew the tiny stitches required by the demanding garment merchants, so she'd sold fruit at Covent Garden with Robbie. At first, on the
Florentia
, she hadn't let Sophie out of her sight, not even when Sophie needed to use the foul-smelling privies, but after a fortnight at sea she'd relaxed. Sophie began to trust Lucy to care for Anna, and Anna began to enjoy being with Lucy. Which was fortunate, as their cabin — generously paid for by Dr Downey — was really rather small for four people, as Lucy assumed most ships' cabins probably were.

Robbie, however, was a different matter. None of the children had said as much, but she'd gained a strong impression that hawking apples, pears and lemons hadn't been his only source of income. Intellectually he was very quick, but he seemed by nature to be wily: it was almost impossible to fathom what he was thinking. Lucy was fairly sure he didn't yet trust her, and she knew she probably shouldn't trust him, though she'd made a point of
not
taking her purse every time she left the cabin. Foolhardy, perhaps, but she was convinced any unlawful activities on his behalf had been driven by his need to provide for and protect his sisters, whom he very obviously adored. And none of her money had yet gone missing.

All three children seemed very excited to be going to Australia and seeing their sister after being separated for almost four years. Their conversations were peppered with comments such as, ‘Remember when Harrie . . . ?' and ‘Harrie always says . . .' Clearly, Harriet Downey had kept up a regular correspondence with them, and Lucy only hoped that, now that she had married her doctor, the social gap between her and her siblings hadn't widened too far. But that wasn't her problem, she supposed. She quite possibly wouldn't set eyes on them again, once she'd delivered them to Mrs and Dr Downey. Which was a shame.

She glanced at her little carriage clock. It was a relatively inexpensive one — brass, not gilt — but her mother and father had given it to her as a farewell gift, and she loved it. It had fallen off the tiny table every time they encountered rough seas, so she'd asked the ship's carpenter for a hammer and nails, and made a hook on the wall on which to hang it. Squinting, she saw that it was just after nine o'clock. Time to get the children in. Well, the girls, anyway. Robbie would come in when it suited him, or spend the night asleep on deck. He'd taken a liking to the ship's boy, a lad named Walter Cobley, who had apparently already been to New South Wales once in his young life.

All four children would be hanging over the ship's rail, freezing cold, watching the bow slice through the swathes of dazzlingly luminous, greenish-blue plankton floating on the rolling sea. Sophie had told Anna it had fallen down from the moon and Lucy hadn't corrected her because that's exactly what it looked like — as though the moon had shed its skin.

Friday leant on the windowsill in her room at the Siren's Arms, smoking her pipe and looking down onto the stable yard, watching Jack telling off Jimmy Johnson the stable boy. It was raining, Jack was waving his arms around and Jimmy had his head down. Already in a bad mood, Friday felt like opening the window, leaning out and telling Jack to shut the fuck up. Jimmy seldom put a foot out of line — well, if he did he made sure no one caught him at it — and Jack could be a bit of a bully at times.

But just as she was about to yank up the sash she caught sight of Fast Eddie, the boy from the carter's barracks, ambling into the yard, and cheered up. It had been three weeks since she'd talked to him and she was beginning to think she'd been wrong about Bella being in a hurry to put a monument on Clarence's grave.

Jimmy saw Eddie, raised a hand in greeting and went to meet him. That was interesting — Friday hadn't realised they were acquainted. Jack called after him and Jimmy gave him the fingers. Cheeky sod.

She opened the window. ‘Eddie! Are you looking for me?'

The boy looked around, then finally up, and waved. ‘Got some news!'

‘Wait there. I'll come down.'

Without bothering to put on her boots even though it was wet, Friday grabbed her purse and trotted downstairs, through the back of the hotel and out to the stable yard.

Jack had disappeared, no doubt in a black mood now at having been cheeked, but Jimmy was still there.

‘I didn't know you two knew each other,' she said.

Jimmy nodded. ‘Yeah. We were in Hyde Park Barracks together.' He nodded at Eddie. ‘And now, with him at old Mr Coombs's and me here, we're in the same line of business.'

‘You're not in business,' Friday said. ‘All you do is shovel shit.'

Jimmy tapped his nose. ‘Shows what you know.'

Eddie laughed and Friday wasn't sure she liked the sound of it. ‘You'd better not be up to any capers round here, Jimmy Johnson. I'll have your guts for garters if I find out you are, and so will Jack.'

Jimmy looked genuinely offended. ‘Course not! Mrs H is the best boss I ever had!'

‘And don't you forget it.' Friday gave him her best shitty look. ‘Now hop off: I've got business with your mate.'

Jimmy said goodbye to Eddie and wandered off towards the stables.

‘Well?' Friday demanded. ‘What have you got for me?'

Eddie stuck out his hand. ‘You owe me two quid.'

‘The gen first,
then
I'll pay you.'

‘God, you're a hard lady.'

‘Oh, get on with it.'

‘This morning, before I done the mucking out, I went over to the burial ground and I seen some coves with a horse and cart, so I hid and watched what they was doing.'

‘And? Come on, I haven't got all day.'

‘I'm
telling
you! Anyway they dragged these slabs of stone off the cart, sandstone I think it were — they were bloody heavy, 'cos they were grunting and swearing the whole time — and set them up over the grave.'

‘Are you sure it was the right one? The one I showed you?'

Eddie gave her a withering look. ‘Course I'm sure. Then they mortared it, you know, along the edges at the corners, but then it started to piss down and they buggered off.'

‘They didn't put the lid on?'

‘They did, but it's not stuck down. It's just sitting there, on top.'

Friday started to grin. Things couldn't be more perfect if she'd arranged them herself. Thank God for the rain — what a stroke of luck. But she'd have to move very fast. She opened her purse. ‘You've done well. Here you go.'

As Eddie ogled the five-pound note in his palm, Friday could see he was struggling mightily with his conscience, and tried not to laugh.

Finally, he said, with obvious reluctance, ‘This is a fiver. You only owe me the two.'

‘I know. The extra is to keep your mouth shut. This has to stay
strictly
between me and you. Am I being clear?'

‘As . . .' His brow furrowed as he tried to think of something exceptionally clear. ‘Anything.'

‘Good,' Friday said. ‘Good lad.'

After almost an hour of dithering and citing weak arguments against the idea, Elizabeth finally agreed to let Friday move Gil's remains.

‘You won't regret it,' Friday said. ‘You never know, one day it might even save your life.'

Sighing and blotting the tears on her plump, powdered cheeks with a handkerchief, Elizabeth said, ‘I know. You're right. It was foolish of me to keep him here all that time. Foolish and dangerous. But I just couldn't bear to be parted from him. I still can't.'

‘You won't be parted from him. You'll just have to go up the road to talk to him, that's all.'

Elizabeth nodded, still not entirely convinced, but Friday had made it very clear it had to be done tonight. ‘What do I have to do?'

‘Nothing. Leave it to me. I'll sort it as soon as we close. You just go to bed and forget about it, all right?'

And that's exactly what Elizabeth did, which was unfortunate because Friday forgot to ask her for the key to the cellar. It would be, she knew, on the chatelaine Elizabeth always wore, probably at present on her dressing table. Not wanting to wake her, she went looking for Jack, who was still up, waiting to drive her to Devonshire Street. She could have driven herself if she absolutely had to, but the truth was she was frightened of horses. They were so big, and sometimes they did exactly the opposite of what you wanted them to do. If she drove herself tonight, it'd be just her luck if thunder or something scared the shit out of the beast and made it bolt and she ended up in Parramatta. No, she'd feel better with Jack in charge. She found him in the hotel kitchen.

‘God, how can you eat steak and oyster pie at two in the morning?'

‘Easy,' Jack said, pastry crumbs flying out of his mouth. ‘It's been bloody hours since supper.'

Friday made a face. She didn't like oysters at the best of times. ‘Do you know where Mrs H keeps her spare set of keys?'

‘You could try her desk in her office.'

Bloody hell. The brothel was locked now — with the keys on Mrs H's chatelaine. ‘I don't suppose there's any anywhere else?'

Jack nodded, took another huge bite of pie, and pointed at a blue and white ginger jar high on a shelf, inside which Friday found two keys. A few minutes later, she let herself into Mrs H's office and began to go methodically through her desk. In the bottom drawer she found a wooden box containing a collection of keys, one of which, to her relief, was labelled
Cellar.

She also found something else that at first confused her — a gold ring with pearls and a pink stone. It had belonged to her friend Molly Bates, who'd drowned while swimming drunk the previous year. What was it doing here? Molly had worked in the
brothel, despite the fact she and Mrs H hadn't got on because Mrs H had constantly blamed Molly for Friday's drunken sprees. What a load of bloody rubbish that had been — Friday had never needed an accomplice to go on a spree. For some reason, though, Mrs H hadn't given Molly the boot.

She slipped the ring on her finger and observed the stone glittering in the lamplight. Had Molly been wearing it the night she'd died? She couldn't recall. That was the evening she'd been arrested for fighting, and she'd been that drunk she could barely remember anything.

A horrible thought occurred to her, raising the hairs on her arms — had Mrs H been with Molly when she'd drowned, and taken the ring off her? This was swiftly followed by an even worse notion. Surely to God Mrs H wouldn't do something like that.

Would she?

But she already had. She'd shot her husband.

Friday stood for a long moment staring down at her finger, feeling sick and dismayed. And then it came to her: Mrs H had organised Molly's funeral. Molly must have been wearing the ring, and the undertaker would have given it to Mrs H when he'd prepared Molly's body for the grave.

She let out a huge sigh of relief, dropped the ring back in the drawer and let herself out of the house, uneasily ignoring the vexing little voice in her head demanding to know why Mrs H had kept the ring if she'd disliked Molly so much.

In the cellar she set down her lantern and stood looking at the trunk concealing Gilbert Hislop's remains. There were two, one stacked above the other. The corpse was in the bottom trunk, and when she'd last moved the one above it she'd had a hell of a job. This time, thank Christ, she wouldn't have to bother putting it back.

Accompanied by a fair bit of grunting and swearing she shoved the top trunk off, wincing as it crashed to the ground, and opened
Gil Hislop's makeshift tomb. He was still in it, of course, grinning ghoulishly up at her with big yellow and gold teeth.

‘God,' Friday muttered, and shuddered.

Really, she didn't want to touch him, but unfortunately she was going to have to. She opened the canvas sea bag she'd brought with her, and arranged it on the ground beside the trunk. Reaching in, she grasped a boot, still containing foot bones, then hesitated and glanced at the eye sockets gaping from the brown-stained skull. They were empty, of course, but still somehow accusatory. Did she really want him watching her while she dismantled him?

No, she didn't, so she gripped the skull. There was a crack as a last flimsy tendon snapped and the thing separated from the neck bones. Trying not to gag, she laid it in the sea bag. The skull felt disgusting, not quite dry — though surely it had to be by now. The peaked cap went into the bag next, then the boots; then she gathered together the hems and the waistband of the stained trousers and lifted, trapping the pelvis and leg bones inside. Giving the trousers a bit of a shake, she dropped them into the bag. Next she folded the sleeves of the long coat, full of arm bones, into the middle and rolled the whole garment up around the top half of the skeleton, handily picking up all the little bones that had fallen out of the trousers.

She stepped back and stretched, easing her back, then fetched the lantern. Most of the hand bones remained in the bottom of the trunk, plus a neckerchief, two gold earrings, and quite a lot of hair. She gathered up the bones and earrings, then used the neckerchief to sweep up the hair as best she could.

Would Mrs H want the earrings as a memento? Probably not. If she had, she'd have taken them off old Gilbert when she'd shot him. Thoughts of rings put her on edge again and she dumped everything, including the hair, into the sea bag and pulled the string tight.

After closing the trunk, she made sure nothing had missed the bag and ended up on the ground, then hauled it up the cellar
steps and outside. It was heavier than she'd expected, though she thought some of that might be due to the winter coat.

In the kitchen Jack had fallen asleep at the table, his head on his arms. Friday woke him.

‘Jesus,' he said. ‘What time is it?'

‘Nearly three. Come on, I have to get a move on.'

‘Where are we going?'

‘Devonshire Street. The cemetery.'

Jack stared at her. ‘What the hell for?'

‘Don't ask. I mean it.'

It was still raining steadily. Friday waited in the shelter of the stable doorway as Jack led the horse out of its stall already harnessed and backed it into the traces, its iron-shod hooves making a hell of a racket on the cobbles. Nervously, Friday glanced up at the first floor of the pub, but no lights appeared at the windows. Jack raised the gig's hood and offered her his hand. She passed him a shovel.

‘What's this for?'

‘Never mind. Just put it under the seat,' Friday said as she heaved the sea bag into the gig and climbed up after it.

Jack took so long to walk around to the driver's side that Friday thought he'd gone off somewhere. Finally, he swung up beside her and took up the reins, but the horse didn't walk on.

‘Friday?'

‘What?'

‘We're off to the cemetery, and you've got a shovel and Christ knows what in that bag. What's going on?'

Friday sighed but said nothing.

‘It's a body, isn't it?'

‘I told you not to ask.'

Jack glanced down at the sea bag with extreme reluctance, one eye screwed shut. ‘Is it a kid?'

‘No, it is not! Christ almighty, Jack!' She dug in the pocket of her cape for her gin flask and took a huge swig. For God's sake.
This was turning into enough of a drama without him making accusations like that.

Jack held out his hand for the flask. Friday gave it to him.

He took several deep swallows, handed it back and said, ‘Well, I'm not taking you anywhere till you tell me, and that's that.'

She could see he meant it. She took another drink and put the flask away. ‘God. It's not a child; it's what's left of a cove who died years ago. All I'm doing is moving it. As a favour.'

She waited for Jack to say something, but he didn't. He stared at her for quite a long time, then just nodded. He wasn't stupid. He flicked the reins and drove down the carriageway beside the Siren's Arms and out onto Harrington Street.

As they turned onto Argyle, Friday gazed down towards the sea. The rain was so persistent she could hardly see the mast lights on the ships at anchor in the cove. It wasn't the best of nights to go mucking about in a burial ground. But then, what night was?

George Street was dark and deserted, except for a goat standing on the corner of Market Street. The carriage lamps on the gig barely lit their way. It was very late, or early, depending on your point of view, and cold and miserable out, and anyone with sense would no doubt be at home in bed. By the time they reached the top of Brickfield Hill the horse's breath was billowing out in great clouds, and Friday was shivering and wet despite her cape.

‘Nearly there,' she said. ‘Keep going a bit, then turn left into Devonshire, just before you get to the carter's barracks.'