The Silk Thief (2 page)

He shook his head.

Harrie allowed herself a sigh of relief, and slipped the pouch into her skirt pocket. ‘Did you tell Leo what you heard?’

‘Hell no. He would’ve clipped me ears for listening at the door.’

‘Oh, love, he’s going to do more than clip your ears. Do you not realise how much trouble you’re in?’

‘He’ll tan me hide, won’t he?’

‘Probably.’ Instead of following Suffolk Lane down to George Street, Harrie turned into Harrington.

‘Where are we going?’

Harrie patted Walter’s arm reassuringly. ‘To make sure Friday got home all right and to tell her what’s happened. Then we’ll get you back to Leo’s.’

It only took them a couple of minutes to arrive at the Siren’s Arms, the hotel owned by Friday’s boss, Elizabeth Hislop. A lamp burnt outside the pub’s front door, but the windows on the upstairs accommodation floor were all dark. Harrie and Walter followed the carriageway around to the stable yard at the back, and stood staring up.

‘Which one’s Friday’s?’ Walter asked in a loud whisper.

Harrie wasn’t sure; it was hard to tell from outside on a dark night. ‘I think it’s that one,’ she said, pointing. ‘Throw something. See if we can wake her.’

Walter tossed a small stone towards the mullioned window. It hit the glass with a clack and bounced off.

Nothing happened. He threw another one. And another. Finally the window opened and a tousled head appeared. ‘Who the hell’s throwing bloody stones?’

‘Friday!’ Harrie called up as loudly as she dared. ‘It’s me. Let us in!’

‘Harrie?’

‘It’s me and Walter. We have to talk.’

The window banged shut. ‘Don’t worry,’ Harrie assured Walter, ‘she’ll let us in.’ And then she realised that Walter wouldn’t understand why it was so important she tell Friday what had happened, and that when he did understand, he’d feel even worse than he did already. But that couldn’t be helped. Not now.

Clifford growled, then a voice behind them said, ‘Oi!’

Harrie almost jumped out of her boots and Walter started so wildly he fell to one knee.

‘What d’you think you’re doing?’ It was Jack Wilton, Elizabeth Hislop’s coachman and factotum, and he was hefting a wood splitter in one brawny hand.

‘Jack, it’s me, Harrie Clarke. And Walter, from Leo Dundas’s.’

Jack took a step forwards on stockinged feet and squinted. ‘Christ, it is, too. What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?’ He glanced at Walter. ‘And why’s he wearing a woman’s shawl?’

The back door of the pub opened and Friday Woolfe appeared, a robe thrown over her nightdress, her wild hair unbound and falling almost to her waist. She carried a lamp, its flame illuminating her bare feet. ‘Harrie? What’s wrong? What’s happened?’

‘Are you all right?’ Harrie demanded.

‘Me? I’m fine. Why?’

Harrie glanced at Jack. ‘We need to talk. It’s important.’

Friday understood immediately. ‘Thanks, Jack.’

‘Sorry we woke you,’ Harrie added.

Jack shrugged, yawned, said, ‘I’ll get back to me pit then, shall I?’ and trudged off to his room above the stables.

‘Come upstairs,’ Friday said.

Harrie, Walter and Clifford followed her. She locked the door to her room and dug around in her dressing table drawer for a small bottle of gin. ‘What’s going on, Harrie? What’s Walter doing here? And why’s he wearing your shawl?’

As Walter sat on the chair before the dressing table, Harrie sank onto Friday’s bed, relieved beyond words to be sharing the awful predicament caused by what he’d done. ‘Walter overheard us at Leo’s the other day and last night he followed you.’

‘You sneaky bugger,’ Friday said. ‘You must have kept your head down. I didn’t see you.’

‘Weren’t meant to,’ Walter mumbled.

‘He waited until you gave Furniss the money,’ Harrie went on, ‘then he killed him.’

Friday choked on a mouthful of gin, shooting it out of her nose like a whale’s blow and coughing until her face turned puce.

Harrie talked on over her racket. ‘And then he took the money back.’ She removed the pouch from her pocket and dropped it on the bed. ‘He thought he was doing the right thing, but now Bella’s going to think we killed Furniss. So she’ll either kill us in revenge, or she’ll tell the police what we did and we’ll hang.’ Her voice rose and she was powerless to stop it. ‘It’s over, Friday. We’re going to die and we’ll all go to hell for our sins.’

Friday gave one last cough and wiped her mouth on her sleeve. ‘Calm down, love. Here, have a drink.’

‘I don’t want one,’ Harrie said, her mind darting back to the dreadful episode with the wine in Hyde Park last year.

‘Just drink it, will you?’ Friday thrust the bottle at her. ‘Call it medicinal.’

As Harrie took a tiny, hesitant sip, Friday turned to Walter, whose pale, narrow face had gone even whiter, and said, ‘Really? You actually killed him?’

Walter nodded miserably. ‘But I didn’t think … I’m sorry. I just wanted to make Furniss pay, and get the money back. For Harrie. For all of you.’ He swallowed anxiously. ‘Why will you hang?’

‘Best you don’t know. Where’s Furniss now?’

‘In the burial ground, where I left him.’

‘Christ. Does Leo know?’ Friday asked Harrie.

‘Not yet. We’re on our way.’

‘Do you want me to come with you? I’ll never get back to sleep now.’

‘Oh, would you?’ Harrie felt teary with gratitude. She really wasn’t looking forward to Leo’s reaction when he discovered what Walter had done.

‘Nearly morning anyway.’ Friday slipped out of her robe and drew her nightdress up to her waist, revealing long white legs and a very shapely bare bottom.

‘Friday!’ Harrie inclined her head towards Walter.

‘Oh. Right. Look away, love,’ Friday said.

But Walter, utterly exhausted, had nodded off, his chin on his chest, a dangling hand resting on Clifford’s head.

Friday tut-tutted. ‘Look at him. Twelve years old and a murderer already. What a bloody tragedy. It’s all Furniss’s bloody fault. The only real crime is poor Walter had to top the bastard himself. Someone should have shoved him off his twig ages ago.’ She pulled her nightdress off over her head and unselfconsciously stooped to rummage through a pile of clothes on the floor. ‘Where the hell are my boots?’ she exclaimed, loud enough to startle Walter awake again. He gawped at her nude form for a moment, then quickly looked down at his hands.

‘Hurry up and put something on,’ Harrie urged. ‘Was that them at the bottom of the stairs?’ She’d noticed an abandoned pair as they’d come up.

Friday sniffed the armpits of yesterday’s shift, made a face and put it on anyway. ‘Could be. I was in a bit of a state when I got in last night. Had a couple of drinks.’ She stepped into her skirt then struggled into the fitted bodice, swearing under her breath as she did up the fiddly little buttons down the front.

Harrie snapped, ‘For God’s sake, will you hurry up!’

‘Christ, I’m not giving you gin again,’ Friday muttered.

A sharp knock came at the door — everyone froze.

‘Friday? What’s going on in there?’

‘Shite,’ Friday hissed. ‘It’s Mrs H.’

‘Friday! Let me in!’

Elizabeth Hislop’s master key rattled violently in the door and it opened, revealing her enveloped in a shapeless woollen robe, with a frilled nightcap atop her grey hair, which during the day was concealed by a luxuriant auburn wig. The candle she carried cast shadows across her face, making enormous cavities of her nostrils, accentuating the bags beneath her eyes and turning her plucked brows into evil flaring wings. Walter let out a squeak of fear. Clifford growled.

‘Morning, Mrs H,’ Friday said.

‘Barely. Harrie, what are you doing here?’ Elizabeth demanded. ‘And who’s this?’

Walter lifted his feet onto the seat of his chair, laid his head on his knees and curled himself into a ball.

‘We’re just leaving, Mrs Hislop.’ Harrie prayed she hadn’t noticed the blood on Walter’s jacket.

But Elizabeth had. She marched over to him, her candle’s flame flickering madly, and levered up his unwilling head. ‘You’re that boy of Leo Dundas’s, aren’t you?’ Clifford aimed a snarling nip at Elizabeth’s ankle, but she kicked out with a velvet slipper and sent her flying.

Wretchedly, Walter nodded.

‘And does he know you’re here, in the boudoir of one of my girls, covered in blood?’

‘No, he doesn’t,’ Friday said. ‘We’re just about to take him home.’

Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed and her mouth puckered like a cat’s bum as she waited for an explanation. When none came, she let out a great, worried sigh. ‘I hope you’re not in trouble. Any of you.’

‘Nothing we can’t sort out,’ Friday lied as she pulled on her jacket. ‘Back soon.’

Dawn still hadn’t arrived but the darkness had diluted somewhat in expectation, and there were a few more folk abroad. They walked the short distance from Harrington Street down to George, turning into the narrow alleyway alongside the Sailors’ Grave Hotel. A faint light glimmered across the uneven cobbles from the window of one of the two downstairs rooms in Leo’s tattoo shop.

‘Is he normally up this early?’ Friday asked.

Walter shook his head. ‘He’s going to kill me.’

‘No, he isn’t,’ Harrie soothed.

The door was on the latch; they pushed it open, went through the darkened room where Leo did his tattooing, and found him next door, sitting at the table drinking tea in a fug of tobacco smoke.

‘Where the hell have you been?’ he barked, his normally sun-weathered face almost as pale as his silver-grey hair and short beard. ‘I’ve been out looking for you everywhere. And what’s that all over you? Good God, don’t tell me it’s blood!’

‘I … I’ve …’ Walter stammered.

‘Would you like me to tell him?’ Friday offered.

‘Tell me what?’ Leo demanded.

Walter scooped up Clifford and held her as though burping a baby. She licked his face, leaving a shiny trail on his cheek. ‘I followed Amos Furniss to the burial ground tonight. Last night. And I killed him. I had a knife and I killed him.’

Leo sat in stunned silence for a long moment, then shot to his feet and slapped Walter hard across the face. Clifford whipped her head around and bit Leo’s hand. Leo grabbed her by the scruff of the neck, tore her from Walter’s arms and tossed her yelping and growling across the room onto the cot beneath the window, then clutched Walter to him in a tight embrace. Walter, his face pressed against Leo’s wiry chest, burst into tears.

‘You stupid bloody boy,’ Leo muttered as he rocked Walter. Blood from his hand soaked into the back of Walter’s filthy jacket.

Friday searched for something to staunch the flow, snatched up a grubby tea towel from the table and tapped him on the shoulder. ‘You’re bleeding everywhere.’

Leo let go of Walter, wrapped the tea towel around his hand, resumed his seat and gestured to Walter to sit opposite. Friday wondered vaguely if Leo would get rabies from bad-tempered Clifford.

‘Where’s Furniss now?’ Leo asked.

Walter sniffed loudly and wiped his nose on his sleeve. ‘Everyone wants to know that.’

Leo shot an alarmed glance at Harrie and Friday. ‘Everyone? Who the hell else knows?’

‘Just us,’ Friday said. She didn’t think Mrs H counted, as she didn’t actually know what had happened. She raised her eyebrows at Harrie for confirmation.

Harrie bit her lip. Her face was nearly as bloodless as Leo’s. ‘He thinks he might have been seen, on the way back from the burial ground. Don’t you?’

‘Maybe,’ Walter said. ‘On York Street, after I come out. It were really dark, but.’

‘Did you speak to anyone?’ Leo asked.

‘No. I kept me head down.’ Walter hesitated, then added reluctantly, aware he was admitting to an error of judgment that could only make the situation worse, ‘And I made really sure Cliffie were quiet.’

‘You had the dog with you,’ Leo said flatly. ‘Christ. So when Furniss’s body gets found they’ll call for witnesses, who’ll come forwards saying they saw a boy near the burial ground with a hairy little dog. You never go anywhere without that bloody animal, lad. Everyone knows you. Why didn’t you think?’

‘There’s hundreds of dogs in this town,’ Friday said. ‘And surely dozens of boys with dogs.’

Leo shook his head. ‘Not that look like her.’

That was true. They all stared at Clifford, who turned around on the cot and presented her arse.

Leo sighed: a small one, but it was filled with tremendous sadness and regret. ‘You can’t stay here now, lad. You’ll have to go back to England. Preferably on the next ship out of port.’

Walter looked desperate, and as though he were only now realising the true consequences of his actions. ‘I can’t. I’ve no money. I can’t afford the passage.’

‘I can,’ Leo said.

‘But I want to stay here, with you.’

‘You can’t. Not now.’

‘But —’

‘No!’ Leo was adamant. ‘If you stay, you’ll hang. I’m not having that on my conscience. I’ll go down to the docks this morning.’ He stared for a long moment at the bloodstained tea towel around his hand, then made a fist with his other hand and slammed it on the table. No one said anything. At last he unwound the towel and poked at the ragged, weeping punctures in the flesh below his thumb and muttered, ‘Bloody dog.’ Then he sighed again and said, ‘I know why you killed him, and I don’t blame you, but how did you know where he’d be? Last night?’

Walter’s eyes flicked to Friday and Harrie, then quickly away. He knew he’d already caused them enough trouble. ‘I followed him.’

Leo shook his head. ‘Walter, lad, I can always tell when you’re not telling me the truth. Pass me that brandy on the shelf, will you, Harrie? And a bit of clean rag from the cupboard?’ Harrie did as asked. While Leo poured the alcohol — perfectly good drinking brandy, Friday noted — over the wound on his hand, he said amiably, ‘Now, I’ll ask again. How did you know where to find him?’

‘I did follow him,’ Walter said. ‘I waited outside where he lives, in the bushes, and I followed him.’

Leo made a sceptical face. ‘How did you know he’d be abroad?’

‘Didn’t. I were going to wait there every night till he were.’

‘But … why now?’

Walter shrugged. ‘Dunno. It were time.’