The Silk Thief (6 page)

But she wasn’t tall enough to see inside. Her belly fluttering with apprehension — what would she find? — she fetched a doorless nightstand, tipped it on its side and climbed onto it. Holding the candle high, she screwed up her face, closed one eye, squinted down into the murky shadows of the trunk and saw … nothing. It was empty.

‘Shite.’

She’d been right, though; the trunks
were
lined — with some sort of beaten metal. Well, this one definitely was.

She jumped off the nightstand and examined the lock on the bottom trunk. That, too, had been forced. But why had Walter done that? Surely he couldn’t have moved the top trunk by himself? Bent almost double, holding the candle barely a foot above the ground, she shuffled around until she spied what she was looking for — gouge marks in the hard dirt. What the hell could he have used? And then it came to her — the shelves in the clothes press.

Grunting, she shoved the top trunk back a few inches to make a little ledge against which to lean two of the shelves, wedged their ends firmly into the compacted dirt, then, grunting
and
swearing now, moved to the other end of the trunk and shunted it back again so it stuck out over the makeshift ramp. Straddling the shelves and digging her fingers into the trunk’s riveted seams, annoyingly breaking a fingernail in the process, she strained mightily and hauled it towards her. Everything was fine — it really was — up until the moment the bloody thing tipped over, took off and got the better of her, hitting her in the chest and knocking her flat on her back.
Christ
, it was heavy. How the hell anyone actually travelled anywhere with it packed, she didn’t know. Praying that no one in the house overhead had heard the almighty thump, she struggled to her feet and took a couple of deep breaths to steady her nerves. She’d be black and blue tomorrow.

She eyed the bottom trunk. Now that she
could
open it, she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to. Had Walter hesitated? Had he crouched here, on his knees with the cellar’s shadows rearing over him, wondering what he might find if he lifted the lid? What had made him curious anyway? Had he … smelt something? Cautiously, Friday leant forwards, put her nose near the ruined lock, and took a very hesitant sniff. Nothing. Or perhaps just a hint of something reminiscent of very old boots, or coats or curtains.

Oh God, maybe he hadn’t smelt anything at all — maybe he’d
heard
something. A scratching or a tapping? Or something —
someone —
pleading to be let out?

She was beginning to wish she’d waited until daylight to do this.

‘Oh, you gutless bloody wonder,’ she said out loud.

Before she could change her mind, she yanked up the lid of the trunk, raised her candle and peered in.

Walter had been right; there was a body. Friday knew who it was, of course. Or rather, who it had been. She’d had her suspicions for ages.

It — he — lay curled on his side, facing her, as the trunk wasn’t long enough to accommodate him laid out on his back: he must have been moderately tall when alive. He was still fully clothed, though the fabric of the once off-white trousers was almost universally stained a scabrous brown, as was the linen shirt still neatly in place beneath the crusted, dark waistcoat and heavy coat. Around the neck was wrapped a red neckerchief, also stained. The feet were hidden in solid black boots. The whole ensemble, however, had collapsed, as there was nothing inside it now to give it form but a cage of bones.

The rust-coloured skull still retained remnants of the flesh that once covered it, mummified shreds that curled up like fingernail parings, and long, dried tendons stretched from jaw to neck beneath the neckerchief. The eyes had gone, of course, but the yellowed teeth remained, including two gold incisors in the upper jaw. Some of the hair — cut short, iron-grey — remained on the skull, but most of it was scattered around the bottom of the trunk, and over the neckerchief, so perhaps he’d worn a beard. Also gleaming near the head were two small gold hoop earrings.

His peaked cap had been placed near his belly. His arms had been arranged in front of his chest: several finger bones had become detached from the right hand, but the other was complete, held together by dried tendons, with a gold band hanging loosely from the ring finger. There was very little smell, and obviously the rats hadn’t been able to get at him. If they had, there’d be nothing left at all but bones, a few buttons and the gold.

Friday thought, God, mister, you must have
really
ruffled her feathers.

Chapter Three

Harrie gazed unseeingly at a bin piled with broad beans, the fat pods a bright and poisonous green, trying to get her bearings, trying to focus, trying to work out what on earth she was doing there. The costermonger’s rough voice barked in her ear and she started, the noise of the crowded fruit and vegetable market rushing back into her head to drown out the ringing silence that pulsed there with every thump of her heart.

‘Pardon?’ she said, flexing her tingling hands. Her chest burnt and she could barely breathe.

‘Them beans. Do you want any more or not?’

She glanced into her basket. She’d already bought some. She shook her head and managed to croak, ‘No, thank you.’

The costermonger rolled his eyes and turned his attention to someone else. Harrie hurried away, her head down, mortified that she’d had one of her ‘turns’ in such a public place. If this kept happening, soon she would be scared to leave the house at all. It was too noisy here in the market sheds and there were so many people. She’d give anything to be at home in her attic bedroom, safe in bed with her head under the blankets.

Tears stung her eyes. She’d been doing so well, she really had, especially while Sarah had needed her when Adam was away. But now … she was feeling as poorly as she ever had. She was having trouble sleeping again, though sometimes during the day she could barely keep her eyes open; the voices in her head were back; and her stomach roiled with dread, gnawing away at her like rats trying to eat their way out of her belly. She was full of rats now, the most vicious and hungry being Gabriel Keegan. He never stopped chewing at her.

Still clammy and sweaty and wondering if she was going to be sick, she stood near one of the shed’s exits to get away from the smell of not entirely fresh produce, and fanned her face with the piece of paper on which she’d written her shopping list. Three months ago she could easily have kept a list of everything she needed in her head, but not now. It wasn’t necessarily that she forgot; it was more that she became confused. Twice lately she’d come out and bought what she’d already purchased just the day before. She dared not tell anyone. She was terrified her master, George Barrett, would send her back to the Factory, though she knew Nora, his wife, would defend her staunchly. She would hate to leave the Barretts. George and Nora’s children — Abigail, Hannah, Sam and baby Lewis — were dear little things, and she would miss them dreadfully. Not to mention that if she was returned to the Factory, she’d be an additional drain on Friday and Sarah, who’d have to support her as well as Janie and the girls.

For now, she just had to get home with the shopping. She closed her eyes and drew deep breaths in through her nose, filling lungs that felt constricted by iron bands, then slowly let the air out through her mouth. She did that ten times, and finally her heartbeat began to slow. After a minute, she opened her eyes and looked at her shopping list. Carrots and a cabbage, that was all she had yet to buy.

She made her way back into the shed. As she did, a knot of four scruffy-looking boys, dodging and weaving around other shoppers, appeared out of the crowd and deliberately kept pace with her. They were perhaps nine or ten years old, all barefoot and wearing their caps pulled down low. Two were smoking pipes, the cheeky sods. Her throat tightened again and panic rose like vomit in her chest. She veered hard right and hurried down a wider aisle. The boys wheeled with her, like gannets above a school of fish, and closed in. Harrie wanted to scream out for help: could no one else see what was about to happen? As they approached, she plucked her purse from her basket and tucked it inside her bodice. Suddenly she was briefly surrounded, the stink of tobacco smoke and sour, unwashed bodies flooding her nostrils, and then they were gone.

She checked that she still had her purse, and the silver and black enamel locket containing Rachel’s hair was safely around her neck. Relief melted through her. Nothing had gone from her basket either, though something had been added: instead of one note, now there were two. Dumbly, she stared at the new addition — a single folded and sealed sheet — then picked it up, her heart thumping wildly. Her name was written on one side — no surname, just
Harrie
.

She opened it with trembling hands, cracking the seal and sprinkling shards of red wax over the broad beans in her basket. It said:

To Friday Wolfe, Sarah Morgan, Harrie Clark,

I know you killed Furniss. That is now two murders.

You now owe me £400.

Be at the Kent Street entrance to the old burial ground at ten o’clock this Friday night with the money, or I will immediately inform the police and you will all HANG.

B

Harrie only stopped herself from fainting by biting her cheek so hard that her mouth filled with blood.

Sarah peered down into the trunk. ‘How long do you reckon it’s been here?’

‘About five years,’ Friday said.

Elizabeth Hislop’s cellar looked somewhat different during daylight hours. Needles of bright, white sunlight pierced the gloom at random angles, admitted by cracks in the rough mortar dashed across the sandstone rubble walls, themselves riddled with tiny gaps. Motes of dust floated in the still air, momentarily illuminated as they passed through splinters of light, and rats, spiders and cockroaches — at night only audible but unfortunately during the day all too visible — scuttled about their business.

‘Then why hasn’t it all rotted away?’ Sarah said. ‘Why isn’t it just bones? It’s still got bits of dried skin and stuff stuck to it.’

Friday shrugged. ‘Maybe because it’s dry down here? Or because the trunk’s lined with tin? I don’t know. Just be grateful he doesn’t stink.’

‘Not tin, lead.’

‘That’ll be why the bloody things are so heavy.’

‘And you’re sure it’s Mrs H’s husband?’

‘Who else could it be? Look at the earrings and the teeth: the cove was obviously a sailor. Mrs H’s man was a sea captain. She told me herself she’d had enough of him beating the shit out of her when he was drunk. And …’ Friday leant into the trunk and tilted the skull to reveal a ragged hole in the centre of a web of cracks ‘… she does own a pistol. And this is her cellar.’

‘So he hasn’t been at sea forever and a day like she says,’ Sarah remarked. ‘He’s been mouldering away down here?’

‘Looks like it.’

‘What are you going to do about it?’

‘You’re going to help me put this trunk back where it was, because it’s too bloody awkward for me to lift by myself, then we’ll lock the cellar door behind us with your special keys, then we’re going to forget about it.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I don’t care. Do you?’

‘It’s none of my business.’

‘Good.’ Friday closed the lid on the bottom trunk. ‘Come on, help me lift the end of this other trunk onto these bits of wood. If you hold it so it doesn’t fall off, I’ll push it up.’

‘What about the locks? Anyone looking properly will see they’ve been forced.’

‘Can you fix them?’

‘I pick locks, I don’t repair them.’

‘Too bad, then. We’ll just have to hope Mrs H never comes down here.’

Sarah’s eyebrows went up. ‘“We”? I wasn’t the one poking my nose into someone else’s business.’

Friday suddenly raised her hand; they both froze. Above them, two sets of feet crossed the floor and someone called Friday’s name.

‘Mrs H,’ Friday whispered.

Nothing happened for several seconds, Elizabeth called out again, then the footsteps moved towards the rear of the house. The back door opened.

‘Friday, are you out here?’ Mrs H called.

Sarah and Friday dared not even breathe. Friday prayed she’d closed the cellar door properly.

Then Mrs H’s muffled voice said, ‘I’m sorry, Harrie. She’s not rostered on this morning. Are you sure Jack said she was over here?’

Harrie? Friday and Sarah stared at each other. What was Harrie doing here?

Harrie said something inaudible.

Mrs H said, ‘Well, if she was, perhaps she’s gone back to her room. Is it urgent? I’ll come over with you, if you like.’

She and Harrie descended the back steps. Their footsteps receded across the cobbled backyard and the bolt on the gate rattled as they passed through into the alleyway.

‘Quick, help me get this bloody thing back where it belongs,’ Friday urged.

After a bit of shoving and swearing, both trunks were finally back in their original places. Friday swept her boot over the gouge marks in the dirt floor where the shelves had been — a waste of time, really, given the tell-tale state of the locks on the trunks — shoved the shelves back inside the clothes press, and crept up the steps to the cellar door. She paused.

‘Sarah?’

‘What?’

‘How the hell did Walter move that top trunk back all by himself?’

‘I don’t know,’ Sarah said, ‘and right now I don’t care. Has Mrs H gone?’

Friday opened the cellar door a crack. ‘Can’t see or hear them. Got the keys ready?’

‘Yes. You go down the alleyway after them, I’ll lock up.’

‘No, I’ll wait for you,’ Friday said.

‘Why? So we can both get caught?’

‘I
said
I’ll wait.’

‘Christ. Hurry up, then,’ Sarah snapped. ‘Open the door.’

They slipped out. Friday stood with her back to Sarah, her gaze darting between the gate, the house’s back door, and also the privy, in case someone unexpectedly materialised from its whiffy depths.

‘Done,’ Sarah said. ‘Let’s go.’