A Tattooed Heart (22 page)

‘Aye, lass, I'm sure you can do both. But I've a bone to pick with Jonah Leary. So, if you don't mind?'

Aria gave a queenly nod of consent.

‘Be careful!' Harrie called as the door shut behind them.

‘Bloody Friday,' Sarah muttered.

Adam said, ‘If Leary's as smart as Leo and James think, he might
not
turn up on Sunday, but on the off-chance he does, Robbie should have Charlotte at the gate, waiting.'

‘No!'

‘I'm sorry, Harrie, but it's the only way to draw him out. She'll be all right. She'll be safe with Robbie.'

‘But what if Leary snatches her!'

‘He won't,' Robbie said, moving from the floor to sit at the table. ‘I won't let him get that close.'

‘And we'll have nabbed him by then,' Adam said.

‘Who's we?' Harrie demanded.

‘All of us. We'll . . . I don't know, hide somewhere.'

‘Don't be ridiculous! There's nowhere
to
hide on Hunter Street!'

‘Well, if there's nowhere for us to hide, there's nowhere for him to hide either,' Sarah said.

‘No! I can't allow it. I won't!'

James scooted his chair across to Harrie's, making a horrendous noise on the floorboards, and pulled her to him. ‘My dearest, please, don't fret. It
will
be all right. She won't come to any harm, I promise. But you do agree we have to do
something
to put an end to this business. Don't you?'

‘Yes, but how?
How
will we end it?'

And that was the very essence of the matter, wasn't it? How were they going to make sure that Jonah Leary never threatened Charlotte ever again?

‘Fuck!' Friday went down again. Scrambling to her knees and peering at her scraped palms in the moonlight, she swore on, cursing George Street's potholes, its gradient, and any stones bigger than a pebble.

‘Will you be quiet?' Leo growled.

‘It's this bloody road. Getting worse by the day.'

‘
We're
not falling over. But then we haven't guzzled half a pint of gin. Aren't you supposed to be laying off it?'

‘Ah, shut up.' Friday's right hand — her strongest whip hand — was bleeding quite heavily. She licked it. Lucky she was too mashed to feel anything.

‘Shut up yourself.'

‘No, you shut up.'

‘You
shut up, if you want me to start your new tattoo on Thursday.'

‘Maybe I don't. Maybe I'll go somewhere else. You're not the only tattooer in Sydney, you know.'

‘I'm the only good one. And it's “tattooist”, you fool, not “tattooer”.'

‘Stop it,' Aria demanded, spinning around and glaring. ‘I am sick of listening to both of you. You,' she said, pointing at Friday, ‘have drunk too much again. And you —' Leo this time ‘— are legging her on.'

‘“Egging”,' Leo said. ‘It's “egging” her on.'

They turned into Hunter Street. ‘And yes, you are right,' Aria went on, ‘she is not supposed to be drinking alcohol. She has promised to stop but she has not.'

‘I've cut down, but,' Friday insisted.

A couple passed and Leo politely raised his hat, muttering, ‘Doesn't look like it.'

They walked in silence until they reached Harrie and James's house. The drapes were drawn in several rooms but in those in which the windows remained uncovered, waxy yellow light shone both upstairs and downstairs. Nothing
seemed
amiss.

‘What is the time?' Aria asked.

Leo checked his watch. ‘Can't quite see. A quarter past nine?'

They crossed the street and walked up the carriageway towards the silent house. James's horses — two now for the carriage and one for riding — snorted and stamped quietly in their stables.

As they passed the carriage house, a tall figure materialised suddenly out of the shadows, barring their way and growling, ‘Who goes there?'

Friday leapt a foot into the air. ‘Shit!'

Isaac Longbone lowered his pitchfork. ‘Beg pardon, Miss Friday.' Touching the peak of his tatty old cap, he added, ‘Miss Aria, Mr Dundas.'

‘What the hell are you doing?' Friday demanded. ‘You bloody near scared the shit outta me.'

‘Beg pardon,' Isaac said again. ‘Someone were sneaking round out here not long ago. Thought he were back.'

‘Around the house? Did you get a good look at him?' Leo asked.

‘Not me. I just saw the arse of him when he run off. I b'lieve Mr Matthew saw him better.'

‘Isaac? Is that you?' Matthew himself appeared out of the dark.

‘'Tis. Mr Dundas and Miss Friday and Miss Aria are here.'

‘What a relief. I thought it was that fellow again,' Matthew said.

Leo asked, ‘Did you see his face?'

‘More or less. Anna and Sophie and I were playing draughts in the parlour — I've been teaching them, you know — and Anna said she thought she heard someone out on the verandah, the front one, I mean, so I came out and had a look and was just in time to see someone whipping round the side of the house. So I went round the other way and pretty well banged into the bugger just outside the kitchen. Then he shot off and I heard Isaac shouting round by the carriage house, but by the time I got there, he'd disappeared.'

‘What did he look like?'

‘Well, it was dark and he had his hat pulled down, but I'd say his hair was black, and he was fairly scruffy-looking. You know, unshaven. And he had quite a prominent nose. A bit taller than me, I suppose.'

Leo nodded. ‘Sounds like him all right.'

‘Who?'

‘Jonah Leary.'

‘The fellow who gave Harrie all that trouble last year? Oh.
Oh
.'

‘Oh's right,' Friday said. ‘He's offered Robbie twenty quid to hand Charlotte over to him on Sunday.'

‘What?' Matthew was aghast. ‘Robbie wouldn't do that. Would he?'

‘'Course not. He told Harrie straight away.'

‘So what was Leary doing here tonight?'

‘We think looking for Charlotte,' Aria said.

Matthew looked confused. ‘But . . .'

‘Long story,' Friday said. ‘Let's go inside. I need a drink.' Her hand was starting to sting now and she was sure that nothing but more alcohol would make it stop.

The back door was locked.

‘That's funny,' Matthew said, digging out his key to let them all in.

In the parlour they found Sophie and Anna crouching behind a sofa, each gripping a brass candlestick for protection, their big eyes staring up out of the shadows.

‘Oh, you poor little things,' Matthew said, yanking the sofa away from the wall so they could crawl out. ‘It's all right. Out you come.'

Sophie said, ‘We thought he'd come back. We were going to bash his head in if he got in here.'

‘What brave girls,' Aria said, nodding. ‘I am very impressed.'

Helping herself to James's brandy (while ignoring Aria's and Leo's pointed scowls), Friday asked, ‘Where're Daisy and Elsa?'

Anna said, ‘We said they should go and lock all the doors and windows.'

Friday took an almighty swig of brandy. ‘You poor wee sausages. You've been looking after yourselves for a long time, haven't you?' she said, then burst into tears.

Everyone stared at her, nonplussed.

‘Sorry,' she said after a minute, wiping her eyes on her sleeve. ‘Don't know why that happened.'

She did, actually, but she'd never be able to put it into words. They reminded her so much of her younger self — always on edge, always looking over her shoulder, always having to be ready to defend herself. It was such an exhausting way to live. It made you old before your time.

Aria gave her a quick hug and a handkerchief.

Leo had just finished explaining what they'd assumed to be Leary's ploy that evening, when James, Harrie, Charlotte, Robbie, Walter and Clifford arrived.

‘Isaac said the damn fellow
was
here,' James said as he threw his hat onto an armchair. ‘Is everyone all right?'

‘The girls got a bit of a fright,' Matthew replied, ‘but yes, we're all fine. He ran off.'

‘Do you think he was trying to break in?'

‘Who knows? He didn't get the chance. I'm just glad I was in. And Isaac, of course. He was marvellous.'

‘I'm glad you were here, too, Matthew,' Harrie said, giving him a big kiss, which made him blush. ‘Thank you. I thought you might have gone to visit Lucy to tell her about the cottage.'

‘No. I . . . no, not tonight.'

James said, not unkindly, ‘Lose your nerve, did you?'

‘Something like that.'

‘Never mind. Always tomorrow. Well, we've decided we're going to need everyone's help on Sunday, though I still think we should bring the police in.' Shouted down by at least four people, he raised his hands in resigned agreement. ‘All right, all right. Then this is what we're going to do.'

And he told them.

Friday crouched practically in the middle of a big bush in the front garden of someone's property, not quite opposite Harrie and James's house. She was horrendously hung over and had been all day, and wished she were anywhere else but where she was. The weather was unseasonably — and unfairly — warm for mid-September, and sweat trickled down her sides and back like armies of ants. Or maybe there
were
armies of ants tramping around under her clothes.

She'd been in the bush for probably only three-quarters of an hour, waiting for Leary to show his ugly face, but it felt like at least three, and all she could think about was how sick she felt. A vomit wasn't far away, surely. Aria had made her eat before they'd come out, nagging her all the while about how irresponsible she was to have got so swattled last night, but that'd made no difference to how roughly the bread and cheese had gone down. And now it was about to come back up; she could feel it, jammed just under her ribs, waiting to fly out at any moment. Which meant she'd have to sit next to it till either Leary did turn up and try to steal Charlotte,
in which case she'd need to run down the street and tackle him, or he
wouldn't
and she'd be forced to squat here in it for God knew how long, till James decided to call the whole thing off.

It was ridiculous. Leary wasn't going to turn up. No self-respecting kidnapper would take a kid in broad daylight, then stroll casually down the road with it screaming its head off. If she knew Leary, and admittedly she didn't, he'd've planned to take Charlotte on Friday night, except Matthew and Isaac had scared him off.

On the other hand, he
might
be stupider than everyone was giving him credit for, which was why they were all hiding in various places around Hunter Street, waiting. And maybe he was that stupid, because he hadn't known Charlotte wasn't at home on Friday night, had he?

She shifted uncomfortably — a particularly sharp branch was poking into the small of her back. Suddenly her mouth filled with spit, her stomach clenched and she let out a sharp, crackling burp: oh God, here it comes. She turned her head, branches scratching her face, and tried to lean over, but she was trapped. Trapped in a cage of sticks and twigs and about to be covered in spew! If she kicked the bucket in here, she might never be found. When the bush eventually died and they chopped it down they'd find her skeleton, branches growing through her ribs and poking out of her eye sockets, nothing left to show who she'd been except maybe the faded tatters of her dress, her pocket watch and her gold earrings, just like Gil Hislop.

She burped rancidly again but the urge to vomit gradually subsided and her insides settled back into place. Christ. She didn't know what was worse — needing to spew, or not being able to. What was the time? Surely it must be nearly five o'clock? She pressed down a branch, giving herself a view of the street. Empty. No, here came someone. With difficulty she manoeuvred herself off her backside onto her knees, in the process letting out a silent but reeking fart beneath her skirts. Vindictively she thought, that'll get
rid of the ants down my back. Then her guts rumbled ominously. Oh, for fuck's sake.

The cove on the street wasn't Leary. She tried to see if she could spot any of the others. She hoped not, because if she could, Leary would, too. Isaac was up in his little room over the carriage house, with an unimpeded view of Harrie and James's front yard and the gate, James was waiting in the front hall of the house peering through the leadlights, and Harrie was a dithering mess upstairs. Sarah, Adam, Leo and Walter were concealed in various places along the street in both directions — not that there
were
many places to hide, as most property-owners had industriously cleared their sections, but there were trees and bushes, and a few piles of lumber and what have you lying about — while Aria had made herself invisible farther down where Hunter intersected with Bligh and then Castlereagh streets, and Matthew, who'd drawn the short straw, was no doubt holding his nose on the corner of Pitt Street, not far from the Tank Stream.

Was this ever going to end? Sighing, she closed her eyes in despair, then, feeling dizzy and even more ill, quickly opened them again. God, she was thirsty.

She had another look out at the street. Something was happening: Robbie was coming out with Charlotte. Now he was wandering down the carriageway with her, chatting away and pointing at a pair of crows. Or were they ravens? Charlotte shouted at them but they didn't fly away. Cheeky buggers.

Robbie reached the gate and sat Charlotte on the wall, her little legs dangling.

This was it.

Robbie said something to Charlotte and she laughed.

There was no one on Hunter Street. Wait, yes there was, a couple on Harrie and James's side of the road, approaching their house. Could that be Leary in disguise? He'd got a lot taller if it was. But what if he'd sent someone else to grab Charlotte? Shit.

Friday craned for a glimpse of any of the others. Were they thinking the same thing? She moved into a crouch, her feet buzzing with pins and needles, and held her breath as the couple stopped before Robbie and Charlotte. God, if one of them grabbed Charlotte and ran, could she get to her in time?

The woman bent over, said something to Charlotte, patted her on the head, and straightened again before they continued on their way.

Just passers-by, then. Friday relaxed slightly but remained in a squat, though soon changed her mind after a particularly violent gurgle from her nether regions.

Sitting beside Charlotte on the wall, Robbie fished a piece of knotted string from his pocket and showed her how to play cat's cradle.

Minutes dragged past and Friday, wiping beads of sweat off her top lip and forehead, thought it was pretty obvious now that Leary wasn't going to turn up. After a while James came out of the house, marched down the carriageway and picked up Charlotte, the signal to everyone to come out of hiding. Heaving a massive sigh of relief, Friday began to extricate herself from her prison of twigs and branches, grateful beyond words that she hadn't had to vomit — or worse — in such an uncomfortable, inconvenient little spot.

Sarah trudged towards her, picking hay out of her hair. ‘Do you think he came anywhere near? I don't. I wouldn't've, if I were him.'

‘But you're not him, are you?' Leo said, coming up behind Friday. ‘Or rather, he's not you. You're a damn sight smarter.'

As if to illustrate this very fact, a figure flashed across Hunter Street, just east of the intersection with Castlereagh. In close pursuit, running like the wind with her skirts up around her brown thighs, went Aria.