A Tattooed Heart (31 page)

‘How far away's the nick?' she asked.

‘A mile or so,' the sergeant replied.

‘Will we go by cart?'

‘You will not. The track's too sandy. You'll go by shank's pony.'

Friday stood. ‘Take us now, then.'

‘Shut up and sit down. You don't give the orders, I do. You'll go in the morning, shackled and escorted by Privates Durham, Turner and Bassenthwaite.'

Friday's heart plummeted. Fuck it. ‘You can go to hell if you think we're spending the night here with you lot.'

Then again . . . she bit her lip. She'd been doing it for years for returns far more inconsequential than this.

Sergeant Weir said, ‘You'll take the storeroom. We can spare you a blanket each and a bucket. Durham?'

Private Durham, a man with ginger hair and pale, papery skin, took Friday's arm, hauled her none too gently off her chair and led her to a narrow door, which he unlocked with a key hanging from his belt. Easing it open with his foot he shoved her inside hard enough to send her into the opposite wall six feet away. Aria soon joined her, a pair of smelly blankets was tossed in followed by a tin bucket, then the door was slammed shut and locked.

‘Shit,' Friday said in the darkness.

While the door had been open she'd seen that the tiny room possessed no window, that the shelves lining two sides held nothing but a bag of flour, one of potatoes, a tin each of boot and metal polish and a pile of mouldering, empty sacks — making it a very poor storeroom — and that there was no source of light.

‘Yes,' Aria agreed. ‘But they are fools. They did not search me for weapons. I have two knives. I can easily slit their throats.'

Friday's belly did a slow, bilious flip. ‘Oh God, Aria, don't. What if we got found out? We'd hang.'

‘How would we be found out? No one else knows we are here. All there will be when the sun rises is four dead soldiers.'

‘Someone might see us. And folk do know we're here, we've been in the pubs. They'd know it was us, Aria.'

‘I do not see how. Nobody likes the soldiers.'

‘They
will
know. I think I've got a better idea.'

A pause. ‘What?'

‘I'll fuck the sergeant if he agrees to let us go.'

A long silence this time. Then, very tersely, ‘That is
not
a better idea.'

In the little dark room Friday couldn't see Aria's face but she could hear clearly in her voice how angry she was. And hurt. She fumbled for Aria's hand, but she snatched it away.

Friday gave a sigh that was part frustration, and part sorrow for herself. ‘You know it doesn't mean anything to me. You know I can't stand it. But I'll do it. For us.'

‘Do
not
say that. You are
mine
. I will
not
share you.'

Oh God. ‘Aria, sweetheart, listen. I
am
yours, I really am. But we have to get out of here and you can't kill them. You can't. We'd never get away with it. It'd just be this one time and I'll never do it again, I
promise.
'

‘No.'

‘Please
. I don't want to go back to the Factory. I might never see you again.'

‘You are a fool, Friday. He could . . . what is the word with the cross?'

‘Play the crooked cross and tell the superintendent anyway? He might, but he might not. Let me at least try. We've nothing to lose.'

‘Nothing to
lose?
There is your dignity.'

‘Oh, for God's sake, Aria, I lost that a long time ago.'

There was another silence so long that Friday thought Aria might be sulking, but she never sulked. It was beneath her.

Finally, she said, ‘I do not want you to do this, Friday.'

I bloody well don't want to do it either, Friday thought, and swallowed as bile rose in her throat at the very thought. She hadn't been with a man for two months — longer even than the time she'd had the clap — and had hoped not to ever again. But this was an emergency, this concerned Aria, and her ability to be with Aria in the future. She had to do it.

‘Well, I'm sorry, I'm going to.'

She felt her way along the shelves until she found the door, and hammered on it.

After a minute Private Bassenthwaite, the youngest of the soldiers and the one who had made the comment about Aria being Maori, opened it, looking vaguely frightened and standing well back.

‘I want to talk to the sergeant,' Friday said.

‘Sergeant, she says she wants —'

Sergeant Weir, who was peeling an apple with a pocket knife, said, ‘I heard what she said. Well?'

‘In private, if you don't mind.'

‘In private?' The sergeant laughed unpleasantly. ‘There is no private here.'

There was so — Friday could see at least one more door leading off the main room.

‘It's personal.'

‘Say your piece and be done with it.'

Friday, who had no shame, thought, oh well, suit yourself. ‘I'm prepared to do a deal with you. I
am
a whore, and a bloody expensive one. You book me and you'll be paying five pounds an hour. If you let me and my friend walk out that door, Sergeant, I'll shag you for free. Everything and anything you want. The lot. Now.'

Turner's and Durham's eyes lit up, poor little Bassenthwaite's face turned scarlet, and Sergeant Weir kept on peeling his apple. ‘Do you really think a bribe like that's likely to appeal to a man like me?'

‘I do.'

A long, curly ribbon of apple skin fell on the table.

‘What do you think, lads?' the sergeant asked.

Durham said, ‘We think you should share, Sergeant. We been working hard, we have.'

‘No, you haven't. Not a bad idea, though.' Weir looked at Friday. ‘What about your mate? Is she part of the deal?'

Fear stabbed Friday's heart. ‘No. Just me.'

‘Mmm.' Weir quartered his apple and sliced out the core. ‘All of us, then.'

Revulsion puckered the skin on Friday's belly and buttocks. ‘If it's all of you, it's nothing extra, just a straight fuck, and not all at once. And my friend waits outside.'

Weir said, ‘Close enough, lads?'

‘Close enough,' Durham replied.

Friday turned to Aria, waiting in the semi-darkness behind her. ‘Go! Go and find the others. I won't be long.'

‘What if they do not release you?'

‘I don't know. Just go, before he changes his mind.'

Aria pushed past Friday and strode across the room, on her way spearing Weir with a look of such ferocious vitriol that he twitched and shifted in his seat. Then she paused and glared at Durham, Turner and Bassenthwaite, as though committing their faces to memory, then went outside, closing the door behind her.

In the yard, as her eyes grew accustomed to the dark again and anger raged through her body, she walked around and around in small circles, the hem of her skirt pressed over her mouth and nose. Forever after, she knew, whenever she smelt lavender, she would think of this horrendous night. At one point she heard rough laughter in the cottage and vowed that if Friday were hurt, or Weir did not keep his side of the bargain, she would claim the worst sort of utu. Perhaps she would regardless.

She tried to read her watch and could not see the face properly. She thought that surely hours must be passing, but knew how fear could slow the passage of time. Finally she sat down near the door, her knees drawn up and her back pressed against the wall, to wait.

At last the door opened and Friday stepped out. In the spill of light Aria saw that her eye and lip were swollen and the collar of her dress had been torn. She leapt to her feet.

‘Your face.'

‘Let's get out of here.'

‘Are you hurt?'

Friday said, ‘I've had worse. The ginger-haired bastard was a bit free with his fists, but the lad just wanted a cuddle and the other two only took a couple of minutes.' She hoicked and spat, then waggled her head from side to side until her neck made a loud cracking noise. ‘Where were we before all that?'

Aria was shocked. Surely she didn't mean to carry on as though she had not just been abused and assaulted by three men? How could she so effortlessly brush off such an affront to her dignity and mana?

Friday answered her own question. ‘That's right, looking for houses with fences and lavender. Come on,' she said and set off up the hill.

Aria stared after her for a moment, then hurried to catch up. ‘How can you pretend nothing has happened?'

‘I'm not pretending anything. I know what happened.'

‘But are you not —?'

‘Am I not what, Aria?' Friday snapped. ‘Look, if you had slit those bastards' throats like you wanted to, would you be swooning around needing a lie-down and a cup of tea? I doubt it. We didn't do it your way, we did it mine, and I don't need a cup of tea either. I'm used to it, remember? I might not like it but I'm used to it. So let's just get on with finding Charlotte and getting her back. I don't want to talk about it any more.'

‘Good, neither do I. And do not get shitty at me.'

‘You're the one being shitty. What about this place? That's lavender, isn't it?'

The house before them was even smaller than the soldiers' cottage, and beyond the low fence rows of lavender — not yet in flower but still pungent on the night air — flanked a pebble path leading to the door.

Aria stifled a sneeze.

‘This
must
be it,' Friday whispered.

They stepped over the fence and crept around the house but the thin curtains had been drawn, letting out no more than a muted glow. Finally, in the window that faced down the hill towards the river, they found a gap where the curtains did not fully meet, though the view inside was only of one wall. Also, the bottom pane of glass in the window was missing. Just as Aria was contemplating
very
carefully moving aside the curtain to see better, Friday did exactly that, and not exactly discreetly.

‘Why not stick your whole head in?' Aria mouthed.

‘Eh?'

Aria bent and peered through the enlarged gap. A man and a woman were seated at a table in the centre of the room. The woman was holding Charlotte, who was wrapped in a blanket and appeared to be dozing. Aria felt Friday next to her.

‘That's Leary, isn't it?' she whispered. Although she'd chased him down the street not so long ago, she hadn't managed a proper look at his face.

A nod. ‘That must be Iris Kellogg.'

‘Good,' Aria said. ‘We will get the others.'

Aria had sent Robbie and Walter back to the river to collect the
Katipo's
rowboats and land them closer to the wharf. They would not want to be stumbling along the river's edge looking for them, in the dark, carrying Charlotte, while perhaps being pursued by an irate Leary.

So Robbie and Walter went down to the Ship Inn near the bottom of Watt Street, turned right and walked along the riverbank towards the little beach where they thought they'd left the boats. And walked, and walked, and walked.

‘I'm bloody sure it wasn't this far,' Robbie said eventually.

Walter said, ‘There was some other boats pulled up near ours, remember? Well, I think we might have passed them a while ago.'

Robbie looked at him. The clouds were back, blotting out the
moonlight like pounce. He could barely see his mate's face. ‘Why didn't you say?'

‘Thought I must've got it wrong and they was the wrong boats.'

They stared at each other in the darkness.

‘So . . . where the fuck are ours?' Robbie said.

But they both knew the answer. Someone had taken them.

They were stranded.

‘We've found them,' Friday said.

Sarah snapped, ‘Where the hell have you two been? We've been waiting for you for ages.'

‘Do
not
criticise,' Aria growled. ‘We were held up.'

‘Held up doing what?'

Friday flapped her hand. ‘Tell you later. It's not important right now.'

‘Did you see Charlotte?' Harrie asked. ‘Is she all right?'

She'd been leaning against a wall, arms folded across her chest because it wasn't exactly warm, but now she was just about hopping from foot to foot with anticipation.

‘She was asleep,' Aria said. ‘The woman was holding her.'

‘She looked all right to me,' Friday confirmed, doing her best to calm Harrie's nerves. ‘She was all bundled up in a rug. And Iris Kellogg looked quite kind. And pretty. I thought she'd be a scrag-end.'

‘And Leary?' Sarah asked.

‘Drinking.'

‘Shit. That won't help.'

Friday said, ‘It will if he's completely swattled.'

‘Did he look it?'

‘Not really.'

‘Bugger. What's the plan?' Sarah asked, deferring to Aria.

‘Simple. There is only one door in the house. We will knock and when it is opened we will go in.'

‘What if Leary stops us?' Harrie asked.

‘He won't,' Aria said.

‘Why not?'

Bluntly, Aria replied, ‘We are armed.' Lifting her skirt, she revealed the two knives tucked into her boots. ‘And so is Sarah.'

Sarah stuck out a leg, flashing the blade strapped to her ankle.

‘What about you?' Friday asked Harrie.

‘Me? I never go about with anything like that.'

‘Well, three knives is plenty. And it's hard for you, after Keegan and everything.'

‘It's not that,' Harrie said slowly and very deliberately. ‘I thought if I really had to, I'd just use my bare hands. I mean, this is Charlotte. This is my daughter.'

They all stared at her, Sarah and Friday a little alarmed, and Aria with a new respect. So much for trying to calm her, Friday thought; she's so cool and determined she sounds like she's had a big pile of snow for supper.