Girl of Shadows (34 page)

‘Well, obviously I was wrong. It seems word has spread of your …’ Elizabeth flapped a hand in Friday’s direction, ‘bodily decorations, and it appears they have a certain erotic appeal.’

‘That’s not why I get them, you know,’ Friday said. ‘They’re for … well, they’re for me. And I’m not stopping, either. When this dragon on my arm’s finished I’m getting one on my leg, and after that I’m thinking about a great big one on my back. Except I might have to wait for that because I want Harrie to do it, and she isn’t ready.’

‘She doesn’t do any actual work with the needles, though, does she?’

‘Not yet, but I’ve got a feeling Leo’s going to start her. He reckons she’s born to it.’

‘Well, Leo Dundas always did have an eye for a business opportunity.’

Friday was suddenly alert. ‘D’you think he’d take advantage?’

‘Leo? Not at all, not of someone like your Harrie. He’s far too decent. And soft-hearted. But if she’s as talented as he seems to think she is, they’ll be run off their feet with custom, the sailors that come through this port, and I hear he’s already busy.’

‘Actually, so is Harrie.’ Friday considered how much she wanted to tell her. ‘You know Sarah, whose man’s just been sent up to Port Macquarie?’

Elizabeth nodded.

‘Well, it turns out the cove managing the shop and supervising Sarah is as crooked as a dog’s hind leg. Jared Gellar?’

‘Never heard of him. What does he do?’

‘When he’s not being a lech he buys up ailing businesses and does a bit of importing,
without
bothering to pay the customs duties.’

‘And Sarah’s husband put him in charge of her?’ Elizabeth was horrified.

Friday decided to tell her everything. ‘Keep this under your hat, but Sarah thinks he’s the one who framed Adam. Adam owes him money and he threatened to call in the loan if he wasn’t put in to manage the business when Adam was arrested. Sarah hates him. He’s slobbering all over her, the dirty bastard, and she and Adam are convinced he’s going to skim the profits off the shop until it goes bankrupt, then buy it up cheaply. Or something. I don’t really understand it myself.’

‘I do,’ Elizabeth said.

‘But she won’t leave. She could go back to the Factory, but she won’t.’

‘Good on her. She’s a strong girl, that Sarah. But what’s this got to do with Harrie?’

‘We’ve both decided, me and Harrie, that we have to help her.’

‘Of course you do. You’re her friends.’

‘So we’re going to scare the shit out of Gellar by pretending the ghost of our mate Rachel’s come back from the dead to haunt him. That’ll keep the bugger in line.’

Elizabeth looked sceptical. ‘And how do you propose to do that?’

‘There’re ways. You’d be surprised. A lot of work, though, so I’ll be pretty busy as well.’

‘I hope you know what you’re doing, Friday. This Gellar sounds like quite an unpleasant character.’

‘He is. That’s why we’re doing it.’

‘Well, as long as it doesn’t interfere with your duties here.’

‘It won’t.’

‘Good. Will you start back today?’

Friday nodded. ‘I’ll go and get dressed.’

She went to her room in the hotel to change into her work costume, wash and make up her face, then returned to the brothel to wait in the salon. Lou appeared and folded herself elegantly into an armchair, her tiny satin-slippered feet tucked under her backside.

‘Back from your holidays, then?’ she asked.

‘Don’t be a bitch, Lou,’ Hazel said. ‘She had the clap. She couldn’t work.’

‘That’s what
she
says.’

‘No, I definitely had it,’ Friday said. ‘And I’m sure I caught it off one of your cullies. Still, that’s what happens when you hang around the Black Rat. Isn’t it, Lou?’

‘I wouldn’t know. I’ve never been to the Black Rat in my life.’

‘Are you sure? Didn’t I see you there on Christmas Eve?’

‘Certainly not. But perhaps that’s where
you
caught it?’

Friday said, ‘Oh, shut up, Lou. You’re getting on my goat.’

Hazel, Molly and Esmerelda roared, because they’d all observed the little drama in the yard through the house’s rear windows.

Too busy glaring at each other, however, Lou and Friday barely noticed.

Sarah had just scrambled down from the attic when Jared arrived back from one of his frequent visits to the bank. She’d been up there drilling tiny holes alongside the beams in the ceiling of his bedroom with an auger she’d purchased from Mr Skelton, and hoped there weren’t tell-tale cobwebs in her hair or clinging to her clothes.

He stuck his head into the workshop. ‘I’m back. You can prepare my dinner now, thank you.’

She went out to the kitchen and arranged on a plate a cold collation of meat loaf, hard-boiled eggs, shop-bought pork pie, bread and cheese, and took it in to the dining room, together with a tankard of ale.

‘It’s on the table,’ she told Jared in the shop.

‘Thank you, Sarah. I’ll lock up for thirty minutes.’ He regarded her reflectively. ‘I’ve the most raging appetite today.’

Sarah ignored him, opened the cupboard beneath the stairs, found the feather duster and headed for the parlour, which hadn’t been dusted since Adam had been taken away.

‘Aren’t you eating?’ Jared asked from the doorway.

‘Not hungry,’ Sarah replied.

She leant across the sofa to flick dust off a vase on a table behind it, when suddenly she was shoved face down onto the couch and her skirts hauled up over her back. Jared’s hands were all over her bare bottom and she felt the pressure of his knee as he attempted to separate her legs. Twisting like a cat, she curled up, turned over and struck out at him with the duster, jabbing him in the eye with the wooden handle.

He clapped a hand to his face, stared down at her for a second, then lurched out of the room.

Slowly Sarah sat up, shaking wildly. She thought she might vomit, and where his hands had been on her bum felt …
filthy
.

She hiccupped, swallowed hard, and held her hand over her mouth for the longest time until she was sure nothing was going to come out. No spew, no sobs, no crying out for Adam.

When her heart had slowed and she knew she could walk without her legs failing, she made her way out to the dining room. Jared was at the table, eating his pork pie. His eye was watering furiously.

He paused, a forkful of pie halfway to his mouth, and looked at her.

Sarah pointed the duster at him. ‘If you ever touch me again, I swear to
God
I’ll kill you.’

The following day both Sarah and Jared were attending to customers in the shop when Walter arrived. He waited quietly just
inside the door, his scruffy little dog at his feet, until Sarah was free, then wordlessly handed her a note across the counter and left.

It said simply,
News. L
.

‘Not bad tidings, I hope?’ Jared asked, trying to look over her shoulder. All morning he’d behaved as though yesterday’s horrible incident had never occurred.

Sarah refolded the note and slid it down her bodice. ‘Not at all. But I do need to go out, just for an hour. Harrie needs my help. May I?’ It stuck in her craw to have to ask permission, but in practice Gellar was her master, so ask she did.

Jared withdrew his watch from his pocket. ‘Well, it’s almost midday. I suppose I can find myself something to eat. Yes, go on.’

Sarah shot off to grab her bonnet and reticule, and was out the door before he could change his mind. She hurried down George Street, arriving at Leo’s shop at the same time as Walter. As he politely stepped back to let her through the door first, his dog nipped at her heels as though she were a tardy sheep, however one sharp look from Walter sent it scampering into the back room.

Leo was finishing with a customer. ‘Won’t be a minute. Go through, put the kettle on.’

Sarah didn’t want a cup of tea so she stood in front of the hearth, making menacing faces at Walter’s horrible, growling little animal.

‘You’ll only aggravate her, doing that,’ he remarked as he put the kettle over the fire.

‘Doing what?’

‘Making them ugly faces. If you want her to settle, you have to make a nothing face.’

‘Who says?’

Walter shrugged. ‘Dunno. Just works.’

Sarah settled her features into what she thought was a perfectly neutral expression. The dog exploded into a fusillade of barks.

From the other room Leo shouted, ‘Shut that bloody dog up!’

Walter giggled. ‘No, like this.’ His young face went smooth and blank.

The animal immediately stopped barking and rolled over on the floor.

‘Walter the dog boy,’ Sarah said sarcastically. ‘Has it got a name?’

Walter nodded. ‘Clifford.’

‘
Clifford?
But isn’t it a bitch?’

‘She is.’

‘Clifford’s a man’s name.’

‘I know.’

‘Well?’

‘I like it. And it suits her.’

Sarah shook her head.

Leo appeared. ‘Right, I’ve another customer shortly, but I heard something last night you could well be interested in, Sarah.’ He lifted the teapot, only to find it empty. ‘Walter, where’s my cup of char?’

Bugger the tea, Sarah thought. ‘What was it? What did you hear?’

‘I was in the Crown and Angel yarning to a cove, and he was telling me he’d had a very interesting chat with someone in the Welch Harp concerning your mate Gellar. So I trotted along there and found said cove, bought him a tankard or five and God knows how many Jamaica rums, and got the story out of him. This cove, who could barely stand up by the time I left him, reckons he’s paid now and then by that barrister fellow Augustus Evans to do the odd bit of dirty work, rent collection and evictions and the like, and the scuttlebutt coming from that quarter is Gellar did frame your man.’

Sarah wasn’t at all surprised: it confirmed her and Adam’s suspicions and did fit with what she already knew about Gellar. Still, she was puzzled.

‘I’m still not sure when he could’ve done it.’

Leo raised an ink-stained hand. ‘Hold on. This cove could have been talking through his arse. Thank you, boy,’ he said as Walter set a steaming cup of tea in front of him.

‘Well, was he, do you think?’ Sarah’s mind was racing.

Leo shook his head. ‘No, to be honest, I suspect he was telling the truth. The poor bugger couldn’t keep his trap shut in his cups if his life depended on it. Likely he’ll be discovered floating face down in the harbour before too long.’

‘Ah!’ Sarah almost shouted. ‘I know when it was!’

‘Gellar?’

‘Yes! At our wedding — he must have hidden the brooch in the back of the drawer then.’

‘There’s more, though,’ Leo said. ‘The cove in the Crown and Angel also dropped a few hints about some import deals Gellar was heavily involved in, to do with these upoko tuhi from across the Tasman.’

‘These what?’

‘Upoko tuhi. Preserved, tattooed Maori heads. The Maori are the native people of New Zealand. It’s their heads being traded and stolen.’

Sarah made a disgusted face.

‘Do you not the read papers? Listen to this.’ Leo reached for the
Sydney Herald
lying on the table and ran his finger down the front page. ‘Here we are.’ He cleared his throat. ‘
Whereas it has been represented to His Excellency the Governor, that the masters and crews of vessels trading between this colony and New Zealand, are in the practice of purchasing and bringing from thence human heads, which are preserved in a manner peculiar to that country: And whereas there is strong reason to believe, that such disgusting traffic tends greatly to increase the sacrifice of human life among savages, whose disregard of it is notorious, His Excellency is desirous of evincing his entire
— Christ, what’s this word?’ He shoved the paper under Sarah’s nose.

‘Disapprobation.’

‘ —
disapprobation of the practice abovementioned, as well as his determination to check it by all the means in his power; and with this view, His Excellency has been pleased to order, that the Officers of the Customs do strictly watch and report every instance which they may discover of an attempt to import into this colony any dried or preserved human heads in future, with the names of all parties concerned in every such attempt
.’ He heaved a sigh at the effort of reading such a formal passage of text. ‘And it goes on to say there’ll be
certain and dreadful consequences
if the practice continues. Aye, and this bit:
His Excellency further trusts, that all persons who have in their possession human heads, recently brought from New Zealand, and particularly by the schooner
Prince of Denmark,
will immediately deliver them up for the purpose of being restored to the relations of the deceased parties to whom those heads belonged
, etcetera, etcetera.’ Leo smiled at Sarah. ‘So that’s Gellar buggered, unless he plans to smuggle the things in now.’

‘God, that’s … revolting.’

‘Apparently Gellar’s just shipping them — someone else is arranging for them to be stolen to order. It’s to do with the tattoos, or moko. The higher the rank of the owner of the head, the more valuable it is to collectors.’ Leo tapped the newspaper. ‘You might be able to use this to your advantage. I’m not sure how, though.’ He lowered his voice. ‘I
have
heard it said Bella Jackson’s masterminding the racket.’

‘Really?’ Sarah sat quietly, thinking. Then she said, ‘Well, I can’t say I’m particularly shocked about any of it. Gellar’s such a shite.’

‘It’s only hearsay,’ Leo said, ‘and from a tosspot at that.’

‘No, he did it,’ Sarah said. In her heart, she knew it. ‘And he’ll be right in the middle of this head-smuggling business. Well, thank you very much for your help. I really do appreciate it.’ She reached for her reticule. ‘How much do I owe you?’

‘Don’t insult me, lass. I don’t want paying.’

‘I insist.’

‘And I insist you don’t. Any friend of Harrie’s is a friend of mine.’ Leo put his elbows on the table and leant forwards conspiratorially. ‘Mind you, if one of these days I’m ever in need of a master crackswoman, I’ll know who to come to, won’t I?’ He grinned and gave her a wink.