Girl of Shadows (31 page)

Sarah sat very still, watching his face. For a few long seconds all the background noise coming from the prisoners’ barracks seemed to fade away.

‘I haven’t told you this, and maybe I should have. When I opened the shop I borrowed money from him. Quite a lot of money. But with the way Esther was, to date I haven’t been able to pay him back. This morning he informed me that if I didn’t install him as manager, he’d call in the loan. We’re doing quite well now, you and me, but we can’t afford that. It would mean the end.’

‘The bloody liar. He told me you’d asked him!’

‘I expect he thought you wouldn’t get in to see me.’

Sarah felt sick. ‘Oh God, Adam, if you do go to gaol, he’ll take it all. That’s what he does. You said so yourself.’

‘Yes, I know. So I’ll have to make bloody sure I don’t.’

‘But how? You don’t —’ Sarah broke off, realisation draining the blood from her face. ‘Was it him? Did
he
set you up?’

Wearily, Adam nodded. ‘I think so, to get me out of the way. But I can’t prove it. With me gone no doubt he thinks he can just buy up the business when it mysteriously starts to fail.’

‘But why bother framing you? Why not just call in the loan?’ Sarah said. ‘If you owe him that much money, wouldn’t that ruin us just as surely without him having to muck about making sure you go to gaol?’

‘Because he knows Bernard would lend me the money. Bernard’s a very wealthy — and generous — man.’

‘Well, why haven’t you asked Bernard?’

‘Sarah, Bernard is a very good friend and you don’t borrow money from close friends. Would you?’

‘No,’ Sarah said. And she wouldn’t.

‘If you have to, you borrow it from professional moneylenders, like Jared Gellar.’

Sarah thought for a moment. ‘Is that all of it, then?’

‘All of what?’

‘All your secrets. You weren’t really married to Esther, you had an affair, and you made a stupid decision to borrow money off Gellar. Anything else?’

Adam’s mouth twitched in a smile. ‘No, that’s everything now.’

‘Well, I’m not having that two-faced, speeling bloody magsman in my shop. Your shop,’ she amended. ‘Or my home.’

‘You have to, if you don’t want to go back to the Factory. You only have to put up with him until I can prove he framed me. But for God’s sake, be careful. Lock your door at night. If you have to, just leave. Just walk out. But I think you’ll be safe. It’s in his interests to keep you happy. You’re the jeweller — you’re the one who’ll keep the business afloat. He won’t want to destroy things completely, just run the books down. I’ve told him to give you a weekly wage so you can continue paying for Charlotte’s care and he’s agreed. But I want you to watch him, Sarah. Watch everything he does. Go through his things. There must be something I can use.’

‘How can you prove you’ve been set up while you’re stuck in here? You can’t.’

Adam said nothing: they both knew Sarah was right.

She asked, ‘When will you go before the magistrate?’

‘My solicitor, Arthur Hocking, says possibly within the month. The barrister I’ve hired is a fellow named Augustus Evans. Bloody expensive but they’re thin on the ground.’

‘Will it be Rossi?’

‘Don’t know yet. I hope not.’

Captain Francis Rossi, police magistrate and superintendent of police, was known to be hard on recidivist convicts.

Sarah glanced over her shoulder, worried about their time running out. ‘What does your solicitor say?’

Adam’s face was grim. ‘That if I can’t prove I was set up I’ll be convicted. Tell Bernard to find out what he can. I’ve asked Arthur Hocking to put his ear to the ground as well, but I think Bernard’s far better placed to dig out that sort of information.’ He paused. ‘And so are you.’

Sarah nodded. ‘I’ll do everything I can. And so will Friday and Harrie.’

‘But be careful.’ Adam took her hand again. ‘Please.’

‘Are you all right in here?’

‘Hardly. There are a hundred of us jammed in the men’s barracks and it’s so crowded we can’t all lie down at night, we have one bucket to shit in, as you can tell it stinks to high heaven,
I
stink, and I’m starving.’

Sarah remembered she had something for Adam. From the pockets of her dress she took several links of smoked sausage, two bread rolls and half a small cheese.

‘And this,’ she said, passing him two one-pound notes and two half-sovereigns she’d taken from the money drawer. ‘Keep it in your boots or the hem of your trousers.’

Adam wolfed down a sausage in four bites, and hid the rest of the food in his jacket.

The door was thrust open and the young soldier from the gate stuck in his head. ‘Time’s up. Out.’

Sarah stood. Adam rose, too, and embraced her tightly.

‘Hurry up,’ the boy urged.

‘Take care,’ Adam murmured.

‘You too,’ Sarah whispered back. ‘I’ll find out what I can.’

And then she was outside again, blinking in the harsh sunlight.

‘All right?’ Friday asked, leaning against the barracks wall.

Sarah nodded.

‘You don’t look all right,’ Friday said as they walked towards the gate.

‘He thinks Gellar did it.’

‘What? Framed him?’ Friday was shocked.

‘And so do I. But we can’t prove it. Well, not yet. How I’m going to tolerate him in my house I don’t know.’

‘Shite, Sarah. Does Gellar know you know?’

‘No. I don’t know. I don’t think so.’

‘Well, I’d keep it that way, if I were you.’

Sarah kicked angrily at the gravel underfoot. ‘God, Adam looked awful. And he stank.’

‘He’s in gaol. We ponged, too, in Newgate. Remember?’

‘It hurts, Friday.’

Friday touched Sarah’s arm. ‘We’ll get him out, don’t worry.’

‘Will we? Really?’

‘We’ll bloody well die trying.’

‘Thanks for taking care of the guard.’

Friday shrugged. ‘Another lonely boy. No skin off my neb.’

Sarah smiled faintly. ‘Have you got rid of your dose of clap?’

‘Not quite, and I have to say I’m sick to bloody death of flaxseed tea and squirting zinc up my minge. But who cares? The 57th are shipping out any day. By the time he notices he’ll be halfway to India.’

Sarah laughed properly for the first time in days, and as they exited the gaol gate Friday blew the young guard a kiss.

Jared Gellar settled into the bedroom Adam had occupied when Esther had been the lady of the house. Sarah remained in the chamber she shared with Adam, the lock now repaired after he’d broken it the day they’d argued about getting married. She made sure she shot the bolt every night.

Jared had not made any physical approaches towards her, but he watched her all the time, and it disturbed her deeply. He’d only been in the house three days, and already she could quite happily do away with him and tip his body into the cesspit in the backyard. While she confined herself to the workshop, he generally stayed in the shop to deal with customers, where he was admittedly very charming and competent, or attended to the paperwork. He complimented her cooking, which she was aware was decidedly average, told her she was a very able housekeeper and a highly skilled jeweller, both of which were true, and said she looked ‘fetching’ in the mornings, which was rubbish as she barely slept and knew she looked rough.

And often, the hairs on the back of her neck would prickle as she bent over her work and she would turn and there he’d be, leaning against the frame of the workshop door, a smarmy little smile on his handsome face, silently observing her. At first she’d asked him what he wanted and he’d only shaken his head, his girlish curls flopping over his forehead in a way that made her want to get up and slap him, so now she just gritted her teeth and ignored him. God help her if Adam didn’t come home soon.

If Jared was aware she strongly suspected he was responsible for framing Adam, or even that she knew he’d blackmailed his way into Adam’s business and home, he gave no indication, and she certainly wasn’t going to mention either. The more oblivious he thought she was, the better.

On the fifth day after he moved in Jared was absent from the shop the entire morning. When he returned he locked the shop door and sat Sarah down in the dining room.

‘I have something to tell you, Sarah.’

His expression was grim and she braced herself for bad news. ‘I’ve been to the magistrate’s court. Adam went up this morning.’

For a moment Sarah couldn’t comprehend what he was saying. ‘
Court?!
He’s been in front of the
magistrate
?’

Jared nodded solemnly.

‘Why didn’t you
tell
me?!’ she almost shrieked.

‘I didn’t know myself until yesterday afternoon. I didn’t want you to worry.’

He’d been to watch Adam in court, and Adam wasn’t here now, and that could only mean one thing.

‘What happened?’ she demanded hoarsely, her heart pounding so furiously she could barely breathe.

‘He was convicted, Sarah. Five years’ confinement at Port Macquarie.’

Five years!
Sarah thought she would faint. She gripped the edge of the table and held on as a wave of dizziness consumed her and pinpoints of light sparkled across her vision. And it was
all
this … this
maggot’s
fault. ‘Rossi?’ she whispered.

Jared nodded.

‘You …
bastard
!’

‘I thought it was for the best. You couldn’t have changed anything, Sarah.’

Dimly, she realised he thought she was cursing at him for not telling her about Adam’s trial. And maybe if she had gone, she might have done something to sway the magistrate. ‘I could have! I could have given a character reference!’

Jared looked genuinely uncomfortable. ‘A character reference, from his own wife, a prisoner of the Crown?’

‘Oh, fuck you, Jared Gellar! And why was the trial brought forwards? Tell me that?’

He appeared wounded. ‘It wasn’t, really. Not by much.’

Sarah lurched up out of her chair. She couldn’t stop her tears, and brushed them angrily from her cheeks. ‘I’m going to see him. They can’t stop me from saying goodbye.’

‘They can, I’m afraid. He’s already gone. On a ship about an hour ago.’

That night, as Sarah lay in bed unable to sleep, she heard stealthy footsteps approaching along the short hallway from Jared’s room. She held her breath as a weak flicker of lamplight appeared beneath her bedroom door.

A gentle knock. ‘Sarah?’

Oh God.

‘Sarah, I would be delighted if you’d let me in.’

You dirty, treacherous pig.

‘He need never know, you know. And I’d make it worth your while.’

The door rattled, but as usual she’d locked it.

‘Sarah?’

She stared at the ceiling, a single tear trickling into her hair, her heart feeling flayed by grief.

After a while she heard Jared go away.

Late March 1831, Sydney Town

‘Where is he now?’ Friday asked.

They were having a council of war — her, Sarah and Harrie, around Sarah’s dining table. Sarah had just told them about Jared’s attempt to get into her bedroom the previous night.

‘I don’t know and I don’t care,’ she said.

‘Well, you should care,’ Harrie declared. ‘He’s sneaky. You should keep an eye on him all the time.’

Friday raised a brow. ‘That’s not like you. What’s happened to “all folk have their good points”?’

Harrie was a picture of bitter resignation. ‘I think I’ve finally learnt my lesson. And he
is
sneaky. And … menacing.’

‘Menacing!’ Sarah’s lip curled. ‘He’s rotten to the core.’

‘You could go back to the Factory, you know,’ Harrie said. ‘You’d be safe from him there.’

Friday leant away from the inevitable explosion.

‘
No!
’ Sarah whacked her hand on the table. ‘I won’t! If I’m not here there’ll be absolutely nothing to stop Gellar stealing Adam’s business.’

‘I know this isn’t much comfort,’ Friday said hesitantly, ‘but at least Adam was only sent to Port Macquarie. It could have been worse. He could have ended up at Moreton Bay. Or Norfolk Island.
He probably won’t be worked to death where he is. I mean, he’s good with letters and numbers. He might get a clerk’s job.’

‘No, it isn’t much comfort,’ Sarah shot back. ‘Five
years
, Friday. He could still die of some disgusting disease. And he’s
innocent
!’

Friday busied herself tamping tobacco into her pipe. Port Macquarie had recently been opened to free settlement, and the convict population in the gaol there no longer consisted of the hardened recidivists of earlier years, but five years was a very long time if Adam for some reason remained confined to the gaol, or was assigned to a labourer’s job, or did fall ill.

‘Are you sure Gellar wants to take over the shop?’ she asked.

‘Of course he bloody does! That’s how he makes his money! And how can I pay my share of the Charlotte fund if I’m stuck in the Factory or scrubbing someone else’s dirty floors? I can’t, can I? And what about Bella’s next demand?’

‘I would’ve thought Bella Jackson’d be the least of your worries right now.’

‘Well, that’s bloody short-sighted of you. We
have
to pay up next time, and we might not have the money if I’m not earning any.’ Sarah’s body was stiff with tension. ‘If we don’t pay she’ll dob us in. How’s that going to look for Adam, already in gaol? I was assigned to him when we killed Keegan, remember. What if the police get it into their heads he was involved? They’ll hang him, right next to us.’

‘We do have the money,’ Friday countered. ‘Not that I want to sodding well give it to her, of course.’

‘For the next demand we do,’ Harrie said, ‘but what about after that? You said yourself she won’t stop until we’re ruined.’

Friday nodded reluctantly, because she had.

‘So I
have
to stay here,’ Sarah declared. ‘And I’m going to. Bugger Gellar.’

They fell silent while they absorbed this.

Eventually Friday asked, ‘Has he tried anything else on, apart from last night?’

Sarah frowned, remembering. ‘There was one little incident, when Esther was still here.’

‘You didn’t tell us that,’ Friday said accusingly.

Sarah waved a dismissive hand, because it hadn’t really mattered then. ‘He was here one night for supper and he and Esther were swapping ghost stories and he put his hand up the back of my skirt. I thought it was a spider.’

‘Christ, he fancies himself, doesn’t he?’ Friday remarked. ‘Mind you, he isn’t a bad-looking cove.’

‘
You
have him, then,’ Sarah said.

‘No, thanks. Not my cup of tea.’

Harrie said crossly, ‘This isn’t a joke, you know, Friday.’

‘I know it isn’t.’

‘So what are we going to do to keep him away from Sarah?’ Harrie demanded.

Sarah slumped visibly. ‘God almighty. The day I lift my leg for Jared Gellar will be the day I … God, the thought just absolutely makes me sick. If he made me, I’d —’ She retched and put her hands over her mouth. ‘Sorry. Every time I think about it I think of poor Rachel.’

They fell silent again, lost in their own sad memories.

Suddenly Friday asked, ‘What sort of ghost stories was he swapping?’

Sarah said, ‘What?’

‘You said he was swapping ghost stories. With Esther. What sort of stories?’

‘Oh, she was going on about being haunted by Rachel.’ Sarah frowned again, trying to remember. ‘Actually, no, I think it was Adam who raised the subject, and Gellar said he’d once had to sell a house because it was haunted. And no one local would buy it because they all knew.’

‘So he believes in ghosts?’ Friday asked.

‘Well, he said he did.’

Friday sat back in her chair, a grin spreading across her face. ‘Then let’s haunt
him
. I had a great time scaring the shit out of Esther. It was a real hoot. What d’you reckon?’

Sarah stared at her, then started to smirk. ‘It might work, though Gellar isn’t unhinged like Esther was. But if we did it right, if we’re really clever, we could use his fear against him.’

‘Well, we
are
clever, aren’t we? Well, you are.’ To Harrie, Friday said, ‘How does that sound? Are you in? Shall we bring Rachel out of retirement?’ Then immediately regretted it.

‘I’ll ask her,’ Harrie replied.

‘Sarah, I need to go along to the bank,’ Jared said. ‘Will you be all right here by yourself?’

Well, I have been every other time you’ve ponced off, she thought. ‘Yes. How long will you be?’

‘I don’t know. Possibly an hour or so?’

She nodded and turned back to her work. She was resetting a pendant containing a rare and costly pink topaz. The piece was around forty years old and the claws had worn down to the point that the gem was loose, and the owner was quite rightly concerned that it may fall out and be lost. It was a lovely stone and she was tempted to replace it with paste, but even just the thought of all that would entail — consulting with Bernard regarding a perfect strass replica, lying to the customer, falsifying the valuation documents — exhausted her. Adam had always played an essential role in the scams they’d operated and while he was away she didn’t have the energy or heart — or frankly, at the moment, the nerve — to carry on by herself. Also, Gellar wasn’t aware she and Adam had been on the flash, and she had no desire to provide him with anything else he could use against them.

She waited a good ten minutes after Gellar had gone to ensure he didn’t return unexpectedly, then locked the shop door and belted up the stairs to his bedroom. The door, as she’d half expected,
wouldn’t open, so she fetched the spare key, unlocked it, and started searching. She found some interesting items — several bottles of tincture of opium on the night table; a purse containing nearly two hundred English pounds wedged under the chest of drawers; and stuffed beneath the mattress a book of rather well executed drawings depicting naked men and women doing extremely rude things to one another (dirty bugger) — but not what she was looking for. Unless he’d hidden it elsewhere in the house, which she doubted, it could only be in one other place. She climbed on the bed and jumped — and saw it, shoved out of sight on top of the tall clothes press.

She moved a chair over and stood on her tip-toes, just managing to grab the trunk’s handle and almost knocking herself out swinging it down. She dragged it over to the window where the light was better. Two thick straps enclosed the trunk, and a solid-looking lock fastened the lid. Undoing the straps she pulled on the lid but it remained firmly shut. Locked, of course.

Undiscouraged, she fetched her burglary satchel from her room and got to work. A few minutes later the trunk was open and its contents — a thick bundle of papers tucked into the silk lining of the lid — spread across the bed. There was a lot of stuff she wasn’t interested in; documents pertaining to a printery business Gellar owned in York Street, a butchery in King Street, and a tea warehouse, a boot and shoe warehouse, and an ironmongery in George Street. No wonder he had plenty of dosh. But there were also papers relating to the importation of wine, spirits and tobacco, and these were far more interesting because the more she read, the clearer it became that Jared Gellar had not paid customs duties on a fair proportion of those goods, thereby making a significantly more handsome profit when he sold them on.

So he wasn’t just immoral — he was bent.

She shuffled through the papers — invoices, receipts, letters, several ships’ manifests relating to voyages across the Tasman to
New Zealand — until one document in particular caught her eye, a short letter ending with the signature
Augustus A. Evans, Esq
.

The same Augustus Evans who had stood for Adam in court? Surely there couldn’t be two barristers of the same name, not in a town this small. She skimmed through the note, which thanked Gellar for his
much appreciated contribution
, and assured him that the usual arrangements had been made to facilitate the seamless progression of Gellar’s latest delivery of goods from England via the usual channels. On one hand it said nothing, but on the other it told Sarah everything she needed to know: Gellar was bribing Customs officers to look the other way when ships carrying his goods arrived in Sydney, and that this Evans cove was involved in the racket.

Which meant Augustus Evans was also crooked.

April 1831, Sydney Town

‘What’s this?’ Leo Dundas jammed the cork back into a bottle of raw alcohol. ‘A delegation of pretty girls? Well, I’ve no complaints about that.’ He raised his voice. ‘Put the kettle on, Walter!’

‘We’re here on business, Leo,’ Friday said as she turned the sign outside the shop to read
CLOSED
, then shut the door. ‘Don’t forget my appointment’s at three, but.’

This afternoon Leo was starting on the outline of the new tattoo to cover the ugly, smudged anchor and initials on her upper right arm: a Chinese dragon to begin on her shoulder and extend all the way down, the tail wrapping around her forearm and ending on the inside aspect of her wrist. They’d debated the design for hours, discussing colours and patterns specific to the shape and lines of Friday’s arm, and Harrie had completed the flash last week. Friday couldn’t wait.

‘I could hardly forget, could I?’ Leo said wryly. ‘Business, you reckon? That sounds serious.’ He wiped the last of the needles he was cleaning and carefully slotted them back into their mother-of-pearl case. ‘Come through.’

Walter was in the other room, getting cups down from the shelf and lining them up on the old table. A loaf of fresh bread sat on a chopping board, its hot, crusty smell filling the room. Walter’s dog was sprawled across the end of the cot, and immediately began to growl, though it didn’t bother to get up.

‘Yous’re just in time,’ Walter said. ‘I been to the bakery.’

‘You look well, Walter,’ Harrie said.

He did. He’d had a proper haircut and was wearing a new blue shirt tucked into his trousers, which had been neatly patched, and a decent pair of boots.

Walter ducked his head, blushing. ‘Thank you.’

Sarah picked up a cup and peered into it, frowning at the brown rings staining the china.

‘Ignore it. It won’t kill you,’ Friday said.

Leo gestured at the chairs. Friday and Sarah took them, while Harrie perched on the little cot, as far from the dog as she could manage. Humming, Leo sliced the loaf, then sat in the remaining chair at the table.

As Walter filled the teapot with boiling water from the kettle, Leo asked through a mouthful of buttered bread, ‘Can the boy stay?’

Sarah nodded, and Walter grabbed a bit of bread and shyly settled himself next to Harrie. The dog immediately snuggled next to him.

‘So, what’s this about, then?’ Leo asked.

Friday helped herself to a slice of the loaf. ‘Sarah’s in the shit,’ she began, and explained what had happened to Adam.

Leo, who had only met Sarah twice and barely knew her, listened in silence, wading his way through the bread and drinking several cups of tea.

‘We were hoping,’ Harrie said when Friday had finished, ‘that with all the people you know, you might be able to help us.’

‘How?’ Leo asked.

Friday said, ‘We thought you might be able to ferret out some dirt on Gellar. We know he’s crooked.’

‘You said that.’ Leo wiped buttery fingers on his trousers. ‘But
how
do you know?’

Friday hadn’t gone into detail regarding this. She glanced at Sarah, who nodded. ‘Sarah broke into his trunk and went through his papers. He’s been dodging the customs duty on imports.’

Leo’s craggy gaze fixed on Sarah. ‘Interesting.’

‘That Gellar’s bent?’ Friday said.

‘No, this one being a female cracksman. You don’t get many of those.’

Sarah rolled her eyes. ‘Can you help us or not?’

‘Can I help
you
, you mean,’ Leo said mildly.

‘No. If Sarah goes back to the Factory she can’t earn money,’ Harrie said. ‘Which means we’ll be short for the Charlotte fund, which means B —’

‘Harrie! Shut up!’ Friday glared at her.

Harrie clapped her hands over her mouth, horrified by what she’d almost let slip.

‘Is there possibly something you lasses aren’t telling me?’ Leo asked. Silence. He buttered another piece of bread. ‘Well, another day, perhaps. But I’m not lifting a finger unless I get the answer to this question.’ He pointed at Sarah. ‘From you, this time. Is your husband guilty as accused?’

‘No, he bloody is not! He was framed by Jared bloody Gellar!’ Sarah stood, the legs of her chair scraping the floor. ‘I’m going. I don’t have to listen to this.’ To Harrie she exclaimed, ‘I told you expecting anything useful from a decrepit bloody old sea dog was a stupid idea!’

Leo sighed and gestured with the butter knife. ‘Sit down, lass. If you want my help, I’m entitled to an honest answer.’ In a very loud whisper he said to Friday, ‘You’re right, she isn’t a very trusting soul, is she?’