Kitty Peck and the Music Hall Murders (2 page)

No, we all suspected that something very dark had come across little Alice and across all them girls, but the theatre is a superstitious place at the best of times so no one liked to talk of it. Anyway, Paradise has its own rules and Lady Ginger makes them all.

She watched my face for a moment then continued. ‘I don’t like it when my property is interfered with, Kitty Peck. You, of all people, must know what happens to those who . . . disappoint me. Joseph failed me and that failure cost me dearly. In fact, I rather think your family owes me a considerable debt – and as you are the only one left now, who else to pay it back?’

She grinned widely, showing sticky black gums.

‘In recompense you are going to find out what happened to those girls. It’s not good for business and it’s not good for my reputation when unexpected things happen on my territory.’

Lady Ginger stared up at me, her brilliant black eyes flicking over every part of my face. I could almost feel them move on my skin like a louse. But this time I didn’t look away. There was a challenge in her look, something expectant – and part of me flared up.

‘Whatever Joey did or didn’t do, he paid a heavy price, as you well know. This is none of my business. If you really want to find them girls you need to put the police onto it. Why don’t you just . . .’

‘Why don’t I just
what
, Miss Peck?’

She spat out the words and drummed the pointed fingernails of her right hand so hard on the floorboards that little marks appeared in the wood. I realised then that she was furious. The way she said ‘what’ would have made a pisspot freeze over in July. She might have been tiny as a bird and old as a ’gyptian mummy, but she was terrifying.

‘If you truly imagine that I would allow the police to set foot in Paradise to investigate my affairs, then you have proved yourself to be as foolish as your brother. I am disappointed already.’

She closed her eyes and took a deep shuddering breath. A moment later she continued. ‘However, the dice suggest I should test you. You will work directly for me now, just as your pretty brother did before. Here.’

She opened her eyes and tossed the pouch over to me and I caught it involuntarily. It was full of coins.

‘You’ll need better clothes. That dress is a disgrace.’

I gulped. ‘But I wouldn’t know what to do, Lady. Please, I couldn’t . . .’

‘Silence.’

She scrunched herself up into a knot of skin and bone in the midst of the cushions. ‘This is not a request, Kitty Peck, it is an order. Like your brother, you are my property and I have made plans for you. Fitzpatrick knows what to do. He will explain everything after this evening’s performance. Go.’

The man standing guard at the door stood to one side and shifted the heavy velvet curtain so that I could see the gloomy landing and the top of the staircase.

I stood there for a moment, my heart racing.

Once I get through that door, I thought, I’ll start running and I’ll run until I’m as far away from Lady Ginger’s Palace as it’s possible to be, and even then I’ll keep going. I’m not going to be a second Joey. I started to back towards the door, gripping the coin pouch in my hand. I even had money to help me escape.

The grey parrot started up again with that ‘pretty girl, pretty girl’ racket.

Lady Ginger smiled, leaned back into the cushions and picked up her pipe. Just as I reached the door she called out. ‘By the way, Miss Peck, I think you should know that if you fail me in this you will never see your brother alive again.’

Alive
.

That word kept clanging in my head like the shift bell at the docks. I hardly took in the gloomy warren of rooms off the landings as I skittered around and around the carved oak staircase down to the musty hallway.

At the bottom of the stairs two Chinamen with identical scars on their faces and plaits down their backs pulled open the double doors without a word. I tumbled down the steps of Lady Ginger’s Palace into the frozen alleyway, missed my footing and toppled forward, scraping the palms of my hands on the stones.

My head swam as I pushed myself upright – all this time Joey was alive somewhere and I never knew. What had she done to him?

Joseph failed me and that failure cost me dearly. In fact, I rather think your family owes me a considerable debt – and as you are the only one left now, who else to pay it back?

I stood up, leaned against the blackened brick wall of The Palace and took a deep breath. My heart was beating so hard it felt like a bird trapped under my ribs. After a moment I straightened up and turned to find Lucca staring at me.

‘What happened, Kitty? What did The Lady want you for?’

He stepped forward and offered me a paint-spattered rag. ‘For your hand – it is bleeding.’

He cocked his head to indicate the graze across my right palm. As he moved, the long black hair that poked out from under his hat to cover the right side of his face parted for a second revealing melted skin that sealed one eye into perpetual dark. I took the rag and dabbed at the torn skin. I can’t deny I was relieved to see him, but I was angry too.

‘You shouldn’t have followed me. Lady Ginger’s spies are everywhere, they’ll have you marked now . . .’

Lucca shrugged. ‘I am a marked man anyway. Come, what did she want? The Lady never asks for anyone by name.’

‘Not here – and keep your voice down.’

I frowned and nodded up at the doors. They were closed and the rows of windows were shuttered, but all the same – men said that in this part of Limehouse every cobble was one of Lady Ginger’s eyes.

We set off down the alleyway and twisted through the maze of filthy passages. Every so often we stopped and scanned behind in case she’d set a lascar on our tails, but as the streets grew broader and brighter and the crowds grew thicker and louder it was impossible to tell if we were being followed. I didn’t even notice the midwinter cold, even though my best dress is made from thin stuff. I suppose fear kept me warm. Eventually we came to the river and I sat down, suddenly exhausted, at the top of a flight of narrow stone steps leading down to the greasy water.

A dead cat, all bloated and muddy, bumped against the foot of the steps as they disappeared into the scum of the Thames.

Fitzpatrick tells me you are a bright little puss. He tells me you have . . . potential.

Lady Ginger’s words swam into my head as the cat in the river bobbed past. It was only then that I allowed myself to cry.

Lucca squeezed in beside me on the step and put his arm around my shoulders. I leaned against him and sobbed even harder when he produced another paint-spattered cloth and pressed it into my hands.

‘He’s alive. Joey’s not dead. The Lady says so.’ I gulped out the words and twisted the cloth. I felt Lucca’s body tense beside me.

‘But it’s not possible. You would have known – he would have come to you, Fannella.’

His light, accented voice was full of confusion as he continued rapidly. ‘They came to the theatre to tell you, remember? I was there when they gave you his Christopher.’

I reached into the neck of my dress and held the little gold medal that was all I had left of my brother.

Two of The Lady’s men had come to the theatre that day. I was on stage humming through a mouthful of pins as I adjusted Mrs Conway’s Britannia costume and Lucca was painting a circle of wood to look like a shield.

Fitzpatrick came in first and the lascar boys followed.

Now, Fitzpatrick, he looks shifty on the best of days, but that morning he couldn’t seem to catch my eye as he mumbled something about terrible news. He stared at Mrs C and she must’ve known something was up because, quick as you like, she hoiked up her breastplate and rustled off stage left.

I don’t remember exactly what Fitzpatrick said next. Something about a fight on the quay, the boat, the water . . . the ‘crushed and mangled’ body too horrible for a sister to see.

He shuffled away while I just stood there staring at the boards.

It’s a peculiar thing, but what I remember most clear about that morning is that as I looked down I caught sight of the fraying straps of Mrs Conway’s abandoned Britannia sandals and thought to myself, ‘They’ll need a stitch before tonight or she’ll take a tumble into the pit.’

A moment later, one of the lascars came up. He tossed Joey’s Christopher onto the stage and it skittered over the boards until it came to the edge of one of the sandals. I bent to pick it up and when I stood up again he was gone.

I turned the little Christopher in my fingers now and looked out over the water. A fog was coming up.

‘The thing is,’ I said after a minute, ‘I believe her. It’s always been wrong this business with Joey. God alone knows what he got himself into when he took Lady Ginger’s shillings – he never told me.’

I took a deep breath.

‘I know my brother was no angel, Lucca, even though Nanny Peck always said he had the face of a cherub . . .’ I smiled and gripped the Christopher tight. ‘But Joey wasn’t bad. He was just like everyone else round here, and better than most I’d say. There is something, though – that week before he . . .
died
. . . one night I woke up and he was sitting on the floor by the door just watching me in the dark.’

I stopped myself telling Lucca another thing about that night. My brave, handsome brother was weeping like a child.

Lucca was quiet next to me on the river steps, but I could hear all those clever cogs and gears shifting around in his head.

After a moment he sighed and for a second his breath clouded the freezing air. ‘So, if you are to see Joey again what must you do in return? What does she want from you, Kitty? No one is summoned to The Palace without bad reason.’

He pulled off the floppy-brimmed hat he wore to cover his scars and began to turn it in his hands. ‘I was worried when Fitzpatrick sent you to her this afternoon – that’s why I followed, but now . . .’

For the first time that day I found myself laughing. ‘And what were you planning to do to save me from Lady’s Ginger’s boys, Lucca? Drown them in whitewash, perhaps? Duel for my honour with a loaded paint brush?’

I grinned up at him, but his expression stopped me.

‘I’m sorry, that was hard. I’m glad you came for me and you’re right – she . . . she wants me to work for her. And if she’s got Joey, then I haven’t got a choice in the matter, have I?’

Lucca fiddled with the hat and pulled at some frayed bits on the edge of the brim.

‘But you already work for her at the theatre. I don’t understand. What else does she want?’

‘She wants me to work direct for her, I think. Like Joey did.’

He turned his hat around again and muttered something in Italian. I stared down at the water where the dead cat was bobbing past again surrounded by a raft of filth trapped by the incoming tide. I knew how it felt.

I watched it twisting round and round, bumping against the stones, and I never took my eyes off it as I told Lucca everything Lady Ginger said. He nodded when I listed the missing girls.

‘We all knew that they hadn’t run off. And Alice – she is just a child,’ he crossed himself, ‘but I’m surprised to hear that The Lady herself wasn’t behind it. Who would dare to meddle in Paradise? I don’t know if this makes me feel better or worse.’

I snorted. ‘And how do you think it makes me feel, seeing as how I’m supposed to find out what happened to them all? Fitzpatrick’s in on it too. Apparently, “he will explain everything”.’ I mimicked Lady Ginger’s peculiar fluting voice.

Lucca stared at me with his good brown eye. He probably would have been a handsome lad if it wasn’t for the accident – three years ago now – with the limelight flare.

‘You say she asked you if you had a head for heights?’ he asked.

I nodded. ‘And she looked at my legs and asked if I could sing.’

He scratched at some paint caught under his thumbnail and looked out over the river. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. The six o’clock shift bell started clanging down at the docks and a fog horn mourned across the river. Lucca jumped up and jammed the hat back on his head so that it shaded the scar. He held out a hand.

‘Come, Fannella, we’ll be late. I’m afraid I have a very good idea of what Fitzpatrick’s going to do with you.’

The birdcage was about six foot high and maybe four foot wide. It was made of gold-painted metal and threaded with diamond-studded ribbons that looped between the bars and glittered in the lamplight. I say ‘diamond-studded’, but actually, the ribbons were decorated with paste glass jewels like the ones I sew onto Mrs Conway’s bodices.

‘In you get then, girl. Let’s try it out for size.’

Fitzy tipped the cage back so that I could crawl inside. It didn’t have no door and it didn’t have no bottom. What it did have was a swinging perch suspended on chains attached to a hook driven into the canopy at the top.

I just stared.

‘Come on, Kitty. I haven’t got all night.’

Fitzy was irritated. The show hadn’t gone well earlier. There’d been trouble with a group of sailors in the gallery throwing things at the toffs in the boxes. While Mrs C was on stage doing her Nightingale Serenade at the close of the first half, a dozen men were at it like fighting cocks at the back of the hall.

A big French mirror was smashed and one of the gin barrels had been knocked over – leaking a night’s takings through the boards down to the cellar below.

Even though we closed up early, setting things to rights had taken a couple of hours. I’d been sent up to the gallery. Now, people always like to say that sailors hold their liquor well on account of them training their guts at sea, but from my experience – at the end of a mop – there is no job as bad as slopping out the gallery of The Gaudy after we’ve had a party of shipmates in.

The stink of it!

I was lugging the third bucket of vomit water back down the stairs when Fitzy came to the front of the stage. He shielded his eyes from the flares – we always kept a couple going after an incident so we could see what we were dealing with – and squinted out into the hall.

‘Kitty? Is that you with the bucket at the back there? I want a word.’

My stomach clenched tighter than an oyster’s shell. Since Lucca and I had got back late to The Gaudy there hadn’t been time for anything except pinning and fussing over Mrs C’s costumes for the evening. She hadn’t been too happy about my absence.

Fitzy’s gin-thickened voice rasped out again. ‘Come on, girl. Chop chop.’

Fitzpatrick knows what to do. He will explain everything after this evening’s performance.

This was it, then. Whatever it was that Lady Ginger and Fitzpatrick had cooked up between them, it looked like I was about to find out. I noted that he’d left it until after I’d done the clearing.

I set down the bucket and propped the mop against a twisted column. When I got to the stage Fitzy had come round the side and was waiting for me at the curtained-off door that led direct from the hall to his offices. It was evident from the dark stains on his striped waistcoat – a garment that strained to contain the consequence of his appetite – that even he had been involved in the aftermath of the evening’s trouble.

He was a big man, Fitzy, and generally I did my best to keep out of his way. There was talk that in the old days – after the circus and before he’d got into the halls – he’d been one of the hardest bare knucklers on the streets, but these days it was women he liked to hit. He had a ripe reputation among the Gaudy girls.

‘This way.’ He pushed the fringed red velvet curtain aside with the end of his cane and opened the door. I’d never been in here before and I was surprised to see it was more like a lady’s parlour than an office – all flowers, china, cushions and bits of fancy material hanging over screens. There was even a fat day bed covered with tasselled bolsters stretched out in front of the fire.

‘In you go.’

He must have seen my expression, because he started to laugh. ‘Nothing like that, my girl. You’re not my type – too scrawny.’

He pushed me through the door and walked over to the far wall where a shawl-draped screen all carved like a Chinese dragon stood in front of another door.

‘We’re going round to the workshop. I need you to . . .
try
something.’

I followed him through a passage that led round to the back of the theatre and then out across the little cobbled yard to the outbuildings where Lucca usually worked on The Gaudy’s painted sets and backdrops.

It was late now and the fog that had come off the river earlier had a sharpness to it that promised snow. Fitzpatrick unlocked the wide door and rattled it back letting the familiar smell of paints and turpentine leak out into the night. The workshop was black as a cell at The Fleet, as Nanny Peck liked to say, but Fitzy soon lit a couple of lamps and several candles, and as he did the giant golden birdcage was revealed smack in the centre of the sawdust-strewn floor. He walked over to it and patted it affectionately as you would a favourite dog.

‘Marvellous, ain’t it? Lovely workmanship. The Lady, she’s called in what we might describe as a favour from some friends at The Whitechapel Foundry. It’s light as a sparrow, but strong as an anchor.’

He rapped once on the side with his cane and a long, low musical note rang out.

‘Lovely tone.’

He paused in admiration as the note died away. ‘It arrived on Tuesday on the back of a dray. Took delivery late at night, so I did. Doesn’t do to let the competitors see your next attraction.’

He looked over at me and his eyes narrowed.

‘Now, as I understand it, Kitty, you and The Lady have had a little tête-a-tête today about some business.’

I swallowed hard and nodded. If anyone was likely to know what had happened to Joey, Fitzy would – after all, he was The Lady’s right fist. I felt my heart start thumping under my bodice.

‘When I went to The Palace this afternoon, she, that is, The Lady, said my brother was . . .’

‘Enough!’

Fitzpatrick’s voice was suddenly very sharp. ‘I don’t want to hear another word about that degenerate.’

‘But I have to know. She said he was . . .’

‘Dead . . . to the world that young man is. And a good thing too. You, on the other hand, are very much alive and we would like to make use of your . . .
potential
to ensure that all our Gaudy girls and the girls at our sister establishments stay that way too. I know The Lady has already talked to you about this.’

I took a step back. I was angry at what he’d said about Joey, but relieved too. So he was alive then? That was what Fitzy meant, wasn’t it? I couldn’t stop myself. The old bruiser could be quite handy with his cane when the mood took him, but the words came tumbling out.

‘Where is he then? The Lady said I had to help her find them girls if I wanted to see Joey again. I think I’ve got a right to know what’s happened to my brother.’

The workshop went completely silent for a moment. You couldn’t hear the creaking of the timbers and you couldn’t even hear the rats scratching in the walls, which was unusual because the place was infested with the scabby things.

Fitzpatrick took a step forward and I really thought he was going to land one on me, but instead he just smiled – not in a friendly way.

‘Good. I like a bit of spirit and so do the punters. That, Kitty, is just one of the reasons The Lady and I have selected you. But as to talk of rights now, I think you’ll find you don’t have much say in the matter. Your brother belongs to The Lady, you belong to The Lady, I belong to The Lady. We all do – that’s just the way of it.’

The smell of gin rolled off him and fugged the cold air of the workshop. I noticed his right eyelid twitched as he spoke. We all knew Fitzy liked to end his day with a drop of the hard stuff, but word was out that recently he liked to begin his day that way too.

Paradise was never a rosy Garden of Eden, but in the last few weeks it had become sour as a tanner’s pit. As I stared up at him now I realised that it wasn’t just the smell of the gin coming off him, there was something else too. Fitzy reeked of fear and that wasn’t reassuring.

I stared at the cage.
The Lady and I have selected you.
What for?

I took a deep breath.

‘Look, I want to know what’s happened to them girls. We all do. Alice Caxton – she’s almost like a little sister to me and Peggy. But I don’t see what I’m supposed to do. It’s a job for the rozzers, not someone like me.’

He started to laugh and I could feel my cheeks going red.

‘Come on now, girl, you must know that the very last people Lady Ginger would want to
consult
would be representatives of the law. Paradise has its own rules, so it does. I would have thought your brother would have explained that to you.’

Fitzy came a step closer. ‘She always liked a pretty boy, Kitty. I was pretty once, can you believe that?’

He reached forward and caught at a ringlet that had come loose from the knot of hair at the back of my neck. I turned my face away from the stench of his breath. Then I yelped when he pulled hard. ‘You look very like him, did you know that, now? But don’t flatter yourself. I wouldn’t want to touch you, not after . . .’

He broke off and looked over at the cage. ‘If you want to see Joseph Peck again you’d better follow the rules.’

I clenched my fists. Keep thinking about Joey, I told myself; he’s alive and this is your chance to find him.

I stared up into Fitzy’s tiny bloodshot eyes. ‘Well, what do you want me to do then? And what, exactly, is that ridiculous thing?’

I braced myself for a slap, but he didn’t seem to notice. He rolled the strand of my hair between his finger and thumb for a moment, dropped it, then turned his back on me and walked over to the cage.

I pulled my shawl tighter round my shoulders. It was freezing in the workshop, but that wasn’t why I huddled myself up like that. Of a sudden I had a strong premonition about where this was leading.

Fitzpatrick turned back to face me and spread his arms wide with a theatrical flourish. As he did so, one of the shiny buttons that strained across the front of his waistcoat popped off and clinked away into a gloomy corner.

‘This, Miss Kitty, is
your
cage and when we have worked with you on your new act for The Gaudy – an act that I confidently predict will be the envy of every hall in London – you will hang seventy foot above the heads of our audience six nights a week and you will twirl and sing for them like a little linnet.’

Do you have a head for heights?

Lady Ginger’s peculiar questions suddenly made sense.

‘But I’m no turn, Mr Fitzpatrick. I’m just a wardrobe girl. I’ve never been on stage in my life.’

‘I’ve heard you sing, Kitty Peck – your voice is sweet. Your figure is good – for those what like that sort of thing. I know from the hands that you don’t mind the gantry and, of course . . .’ , his fat lips squirmed into a nasty smile under his faded red bristles, ‘. . . you have to do this if you want to see your beloved brother again.’ He spat out those last words as if they tasted bitter.

‘While you’re suspended above the theatre singing pretty songs and performing pretty acrobatic tricks you will be our eyes. From your unique vantage point you will keep note of the comings and goings in the hall below – not just The Gaudy, mind, all of them in turn. And if you see anything that might be helpful, you will report back to us.’

He turned back to the cage.

‘You’ll have to be careful with the paintwork just here on the right, it’s still tacky. I’ve had your boyfriend painting it for the last two days. Nice job he’s done too, for an I-tie. In you get then, girl. Let’s try it out for size.’