Girl of Shadows (43 page)

Very clever, Friday thought. They could never take that to the police as evidence of blackmail — it didn’t mean anything. As if they ever would, though: they’d have to admit to why they were being blackmailed.

‘Good enough for you?’ Bella asked.

It was as good as they were going to get, and Friday and Sarah both knew it. Sarah nodded.

‘I’ll ask again, then. What information do you have?’

Sarah gave Friday the satisfaction of answering.

‘Jared Gellar stole your heads, and sold them to collectors in England. Go and talk to Eli Chattoway. He might be able to give you a few more details.’

If it was at all possible, Bella’s skin turned even paler. The white rice powder on her face actually seemed faintly yellow now, and above and below her silk scarf the cords on her neck were sticking out like the roots of a Moreton Bay fig. Her nostrils flared and her fists in her lap were clenched; she looked as though she was about to explode.

Sarah raised Bella’s note. ‘How do we know you’ll honour this?’

‘You have my word. Becky!’

Becky Hoddle appeared immediately.

‘These two are leaving. See them out.’

Just before Becky closed the door on them, Friday and Sarah heard Bella roar, ‘
Furniss!!
’

‘I’m not going back to the Factory,’ Sarah said, ‘and that’s the end of it.’

Harrie was worried. She’d ducked up to Sarah’s after she’d finished helping Nora with the midday meal, to see how she was getting on. ‘But what if Captain Rossi tells the Principal Superintendent? What if they actually come and arrest you? Won’t that make it even worse?’

‘Grab the end of this, will you?’ Sarah passed Harrie the corner of a sheet, and together they draped it over the washing line and pegged it.

‘Sarah? What will you do?’

Sarah grinned. ‘Wait and see what happens. It doesn’t matter. Everything’s good now and Adam’ll be home any day.’

‘But will he? It could take weeks to get him out. Perhaps even months.’

‘God, Harrie, you’re such a worrywart!’

‘I know. But that doesn’t change the fact you’re supposed to be assigned, and at the moment you’re not. You’ll get into terrible trouble.’ Harrie sighed in exasperation: Sarah was in such a jubilant mood and wasn’t listening to anything. ‘And where do
you
think Gellar is? What do you think will happen to him?’

‘Who the hell cares? Good riddance to the bastard.’

Harrie had noted the trunk on the back porch and wondered why he hadn’t come back for his things. But he was probably on the run, hoping to avoid arrest — and now, of course, Bella Jackson. Friday said no doubt he was on a ship halfway back to England by now.

When they’d talked about doing a deal with Bella involving what they knew about Gellar, Harrie had initially felt uneasy. They’d given him their word after all, and they’d double-crossed him almost immediately. But if he had left the colony, their arrangement with Bella couldn’t result in any nasty repercussions for him. He would never return to New South Wales, either, because he’d always be wanted by the police, so as far as she, Harrie, had been concerned, giving his name to Bella to end the blackmail had turned out to be relatively painless. It hadn’t been Gellar she’d been concerned for, because she’d loathed him — it was herself. She never liked to go back on her word, no matter to whom she gave it, but above all she didn’t want the blood from another death staining her conscience. She couldn’t bear that happening all over again. She was feeling better now, quite a bit better, and she desperately wanted to stay feeling that way.

Sarah was looking at her. She was frowning slightly and had
two clothes pegs sticking out of her mouth, which reminded Harrie of a picture she’d seen once of a walrus.

‘What?’ Harrie asked.

‘The other night, when the bat came, did you know that was going to happen?’

‘Not until I heard the scratching noises at the window,’ Harrie said truthfully. ‘Then I did wonder.’

‘Wonder what?’

‘I … just wondered.’

Sarah bent to pick up a pillowslip. ‘Was it a wild bat?’

‘Well, I don’t know any tame ones. Do you?’

‘No, I mean, was it …’ Sarah pegged the linen, then shook her head as though trying to dislodge an unwelcome thought. ‘Never mind. It all worked out in the end, didn’t it?’

Harrie agreed it definitely had. ‘Have you asked Bernard Cole if you can be temporarily assigned to him?’

‘No, but that wouldn’t work anyway.’

‘Why not? He might come and stay here.’

‘He’s away on business for the next few weeks.’

‘You’re just saying that.’

‘I’m not.’

Harrie didn’t believe her. Matthew, perhaps? she wondered. Would he agree to live at Sarah’s house for a short while? ‘There must be something we can arrange.’

‘There’s no need. He’ll be home in no time, just you wait and see.’

The following day Sarah received a letter from Police Magistrate Captain Francis Rossi informing her that the formal process that would culminate in the quashing of Adam’s conviction for receiving stolen goods had begun. He would be released from the convict penitentiary at Port Macquarie as soon as this process had been completed, in approximately a month’s time, and passage would be
secured for him aboard a ship bound for Sydney. The whereabouts of Jared Gellar was currently being sought.

Sarah screwed the letter into a tight ball and threw it across the shop. It bounced off the wall then rolled under the cabinet displaying watches and snuff boxes.

A month! A month was a bloody
eternity
away!

Harrie chose a pear, squeezed it, frowned when her thumb sank immediately into the overripe flesh, then selected another. This one was better — firmer, and its fragrance was delicious. How you could get hard, and perfectly ripe, and near-rotten pears in the same bin, and be asked to pay the same (overinflated) price for them all, she didn’t know.

‘You buying, or just mauling ’em to death?’ the costermonger demanded.

‘I wouldn’t have to “maul” them, as you so colourfully put it,’ Harrie shot back, ‘if I could trust that they were all of the same high quality. But they so obviously are not.’

‘Don’t blame me, blame them bloody farmers out at Parramatta. Not enough rain, too much rain, too many possums, birds, worms, aphids, you name it.’

‘Possums aren’t responsible for pears picked too early.’

The man heaved a sigh. ‘You want any or not?’

‘Yes, I’ll have this half dozen, thank you.’

Harrie paid and moved through the shed to the vegetable stalls, where she selected a cabbage, a bunch each of spinach and silverbeet, a bright orange pumpkin (though not a really big one as she had to cart it all the way down to Gloucester Street), carrots and a swede, much of which would go into a soup for tomorrow. She’d stop in at her favourite butcher for beef bones on her way home.

She left the markets via the George Street exit and headed off, her loaded basket hooked over her arm. Glancing across the street,
she glimpsed James and quickly looked away, hoping he hadn’t seen her.

But he had: she heard him calling out to her. Damn. She kept walking.

And then he was beside her, a hand under her elbow.

‘Harrie, stop, please.’

She looked at the ground, saying nothing.

‘I wanted to see you. I need to know how you are,’ he said.

‘Am I still mad in the head, do you mean?’ she said, and wasn’t sure why. She wasn’t even angry with him any more. He’d only been trying to help. Of course he wasn’t going to understand about Rachel — he was a man of science, not supernaturalism.

‘I never said that, Harrie. And I never would. I care about you very much. Surely you must know that by now.’

This was an uncharacteristically revealing and personal thing for James to say, and it made Harrie distinctly uncomfortable. She felt herself blushing. ‘Shouldn’t you be at your surgery?’ she asked, trying to change the subject.

‘I have to see my tailor. New shirts.’

‘Oh.’ Say something else! she thought. Anything. ‘Sarah’s husband is coming home. His conviction’s being quashed.’

James’s fair eyebrows went up. ‘Well, that’s good news, isn’t it?’ And Harrie had an idea.

‘James, would you do something for me? A favour? It’s quite a big one.’

‘For you?’

She nodded. Then, without even asking what the favour was or what it might cost him — which was utterly contrary to the cautious and measured James she knew — he said yes.

And something in her shifted.

On the pretext of helping him pack, Harrie went with James to his little house on York Street, delighted at last to have a legitimate
excuse to see where he lived. His new shirts, he said, would have to wait another day. She wondered if Rowie Harris would be there, and felt exceedingly prickly at the prospect of seeing her again. But of course she’d be there. That was her job.

James’s house, or rather cottage, turned out to be rather sweet. Someone had spent a good few hours in the garden — probably not James; according to him his wife had been the one with green thumbs — which contained tidily pruned camellias, daphnes and lavender, and fuchsias peeping from shaded corners like rubies and amethysts on holly-green velvet.

When they arrived Rowie Harris was standing at the table in the main room up to her elbows in flour, a smudge on the end of her adorable little nose.

‘Dr Downey!’ she exclaimed. ‘What are you doing home?’

What a cheeky question, Harrie thought. This is James’s house, not yours.

‘Rowie,’ James said. ‘Have you met my friend Harriet Clarke? Harrie, this is Rowie Harris, my maid of all work, I suppose you’d call her.’

‘Yes, we have met, at George Street market. Lovely to see you again, Rowie,’ Harrie lied.

Rowie extended a floury hand, then changed her mind. ‘You, too, Harrie.’

‘Well, I’d better hurry up,’ James said. ‘I need to get back to work shortly. Rowie, where’s my small trunk, do you know?’

‘Why? Where are you going?’ Rowie sounded alarmed.

‘To stay at the home of Harrie’s friend Sarah Green while her husband is away. She’s assigned to him and doesn’t want to go back to the Factory, so I’ll be supervising her until he returns.’

‘Oh.’ Rowie tugged at the ties on her apron. ‘Well, wait for me. It’ll only take me a minute to get my things together.’

Harrie said, ‘What for? You don’t need to come.’

Rowie stared at her, her floury fingers touching her throat. ‘But who’ll look after Dr Downey?’

‘Sarah will,’ Harrie replied. ‘She’s very capable.’

‘But I do everything for him.’

I bet you do, Harrie thought, a wave of jealousy crashing through her. ‘You won’t be needed, thank you, Rowie.’

‘James?’ Rowie said, gazing at him pleadingly.

James, James, bloody
James
! Harrie felt her jaw clench.

‘I could cook all your favourite meals,’ Rowie wittered on. ‘And do your laundry just the way you like it.’

James was embarrassed now. ‘Really, Rowie, I know Sarah Green quite well, and I’m sure she runs a perfectly comfortable house. And it will only be for a month or so. Why don’t you make the most of my absence and have some time to yourself? Visit with friends, perhaps? Now, I really must pack.’ And he hurried into his bedroom and shut the door before she could protest any further.

Rowie turned back to her baking, picking up a mound of dough and slamming it onto the table so violently an explosion of flour puffed into the air.

Harrie wondered what on earth was wrong with her. What an extreme reaction. It wasn’t as though they were married and James had just announced he was sailing around the world for the next ten years. Was she jealous? But she didn’t even know Sarah. Did she?

And what was Sarah going to say when she discovered James was to be her new master?

Harrie met James on the street outside Sarah’s house at six o’clock that evening. Nora Barrett had kindly given her an hour off, and he’d arrived straight from the surgery on Pitt Street, having paid a boy to transport his trunk on a barrow.

‘Are you ready?’ she asked him.

‘Yes, though I do wish you’d discussed this with her beforehand.’

‘I couldn’t. I only thought of it when I saw you today, and I didn’t have time this afternoon.’

Harrie opened the shop door and went in. Sarah was at the till, cashing up.

‘Hello, Harrie.’ Sarah’s eyes widened slightly as she noticed Harrie’s companion. ‘Good evening, Dr Downey.’

‘Good evening, Mrs Green,’ James said, removing his hat.

‘Look, it’s still just Sarah. I’ve only got married, not ascended to the throne.’

Ignoring her sarcasm, James said politely, ‘I’m pleased to hear your husband will soon be home.’

‘Yes. Thank you. I’m very pleased myself.’

‘Have you found yourself a temporary master yet?’ Harrie asked eagerly.

‘No. Why?’

‘Good, because I’ve found one for you!’

Sarah eyed her suspiciously. ‘Who?’

‘James! Isn’t that kind of him? So now you won’t have to go back to the Factory.’

Her mouth open, Sarah stared at him. ‘You?’

James nodded.

‘You do understand I can’t stay here by myself? You’d have to live here?’

Another nod.

‘But we hardly know each other.’

‘Sarah, I expect we know each other rather better than do many bonded convicts and their masters at first meeting.’

This was true and Sarah couldn’t deny it. ‘I’m very busy in the workshop
and
with the customers. There’s only me to do both jobs. So I won’t have time to cook fancy meals or muck about starching shirts.’

‘I’m sure your everyday cooking is more than adequate,’ James replied.

‘You could send your laundry home to Rowie. It would give her something to remember you by,’ Harrie suggested.

‘I work long hours myself,’ James said. ‘You’re therefore unlikely to find me under your feet.’

‘And I certainly won’t be under yours.’

‘Would it be a suitable arrangement, then, do you think?’ James asked. ‘Just until your husband returns?’

Slowly, Sarah nodded. ‘Yes, actually, I think it might.’