Kitty Peck and the Music Hall Murders (6 page)

‘The Lady is not happy, so she isn’t.’

Fitzy smoothed the sheet of paper on the desk in front of him and squinted down at the looping black writing through the pair of wire-framed glasses he normally hid in his top pocket. The writing was old-fashioned, very neat, very elegant like, with flourishes and elaborate curls. Even though it was upside down in front of me I could see it was an educated hand – a lady’s hand, I thought.

I watched as he traced down the page with a fat finger until he found the bit he was looking for and began to read aloud:

I reached across the desk and tried to take Lady Ginger’s letter but Fitzy slammed his hand down so hard on top of mine that I yelped. He removed my hand from the paper like it was something dirty and carried on.

Fitzy leaned back, took off his glasses and chewed his lower lip. He thumped the letter again. ‘She’s blaming me, clear as the nose on your face. This letter is a threat to the
both
of us, Kitty. Unless you give The Lady what she wants, it’s not only your precious brother who’s going to lose his bollocks.’

He was right, of course. To most people that letter might have looked as dry as the sawdust on the floor of a carpenter’s workshop, but to Fitzy and me that workshop was stacked with coffins. You only had to bring to mind the old cow’s voice saying those words aloud and you could feel the lights shrivel up in your belly. Still, I have to admit there was a tiny part of me that thought to myself:
I will send my men to Joseph Peck –
he was definitely alive, then, somewhere?

Fitzy clicked his yellow fingers in front of my face – they came so close I could smell the tang of old cigar on them. ‘What have you got to say to that?’

I flinched. What could I say?

‘I . . . I’m doing my best. I’ve been up there for eleven nights now with nothing more than stale smoke and gin-breath between me and the floor. I tell you about everything I see – and I’ve already saved you and The Lady a pretty packet, I know that. What’s more, the halls have never brought in as much trade. Mr Jesmond at The Carnival reckons his takings have increased four times over.’

‘But it’s not enough, Kitty, is it? We both know that The Lady’s reputation is what’s at stake here. Someone is pissing on her patch, so they are, and she can’t afford to ignore that. Think about it. Her name is what keeps me safe. It’s what keeps all of this going.’ He gestured around the cluttered office with its dainty day bed, flowered cushions and china plates.

‘There’s plenty of Barons out there with a keen eye on Paradise. The only thing stopping them from muscling in and making life very . . . uncomfortable for us all is The Lady herself – or the thought of what she might do to them.’ He produced a square of chequered silk from his pocket and dabbed at his big pockmarked face. Fitzy’s forehead was covered with beads of sweat and his left eye was twitching again. He pulled back a drawer and took out a leather flask. He removed the top and swigged several mouthfuls before screwing the silver cap back on again. As he did so, I noticed that his hands were shaking. He wiped his mouth with the silk and tapped the letter.

‘These aren’t idle threats. If you want to see your brother alive again – as much of him as possible, that is – you are going to have to start coming up with the goods, my girl.’

I could feel my heart beating double time under my new bodice. Fitzy was clearly a frightened man – and of a sudden it come home to me, very forcible, that there was a lot more at stake than I realised. If someone like Fitzy was worried, what should the rest of us feel like?

‘Well?’ He stared at me, expectant. His bloodshot eyes were almost lost beneath the forest of ginger bristles that rambled across the bridge of his thick nose. I don’t know why, but as I stood there I brought to mind Ma telling me and Joey some Bible story about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. Very exotic I thought it sounded at the time, although the memory of it now and the sight of Fitzy’s eyebrows made me begin to smile. It’s odd, but when things are black I often get the urge to laugh out loud.

The blow – hard, vicious and faster than you’d credit for a man who looked like a walrus – caught me across the left side of my head. I stumbled forward and felt my teeth tear into skin and crunch against the wood as I slammed into the desk.

‘It’s no laughing matter, girl.’ Fitzy’s face was purple. His breathing came shallow and he coughed as he leaned over and took hold of my hair, dragging my face up so that I could see the spittle catching in the ends of his moustache as he roared. His breath was thicker than the air in a yard privy.

‘You’re nothing more than property, Kitty Peck, and don’t you forget it. You might be a pretty piece up there, night after night, but this is an ugly business. It’s not just your fancy brother whose life is at stake here – it’s all of us. All of Paradise depends on The Lady for protection. She owns you, girl. Give her what she wants.’

I pulled free, leaving a handful of hair in his grasp. I could taste iron in my mouth and when I put my hand to my stinging lip it was wet. I could feel the anger boiling up inside me too and before I thought to stop myself the words came out in a spatter of blood.

‘I can’t make up what’s not there, can I? I don’t know what’s happening to them girls any more than she does. It’s all very well for her, but she’s not the one with her breakfast hanging out every night over half of Limehouse, is she? Don’t you think I’d tell you if I knew what was going on? I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be looking for.’

I stood there opposite him, my hands on my hips. I could feel the blood trickling down my chin now, but I wasn’t going to cry. I knew from Peggy how much he liked that.

Fitzy’s eyes glimmered and he settled back into his leather chair. I heard it breathe out as his big body squeezed into its padded embrace. Then that nasty grin began to twist across his face again.

‘That’s just it. You see it’s not you, exactly, who we need to be doing the looking.’ His stubby finger worked down the curling lines of Lady Ginger’s letter again and stopped near the end.

‘Here it is. “
I believe it is time to make the true nature of her task plain.
”’ He looked up at me from beneath his eyebrows, the muscle still working in the corner of his left eye. ‘Now what do you suppose that means?’

I shook my head. My ears were ringing and the room was beginning to spin from the blow.

‘Remember that little talk we had about you leaving the hall so early after every performance?’

There seemed to be two of him sitting in front of me now and they were both speaking.

‘From now on, Kitty, you will stay on and admit callers to your dressing room. I want you to be a little more
friendly
with your admirers. You start at The Comet on Friday and I want you to entertain the gentlemen. Do you understand?’

His slug-like lips disappeared into the straggling ginger hairs of his moustache as the smile spread even wider. ‘The Lady wants results, Kitty. Jesus alone knows why you’re so devoted to that brother of yours . . .’, he spat to one side of the desk, ‘. . . but if you want to keep him alive and the rest of us safe it looks like you’re going to have to put yourself out, so it does.’

The room swam. The thought of allowing any of the Johnnies near enough to breathe on me, to paw at me, to . . .

Fitzy continued, ‘Let them in, let them make free with you – I think you know what I mean – and let one of them give himself away.’ He tapped the letter. ‘The Lady’s just reminded me of a very important fact. You’re not just up there to watch, you’re our
bait
.’

It was only when I reached the workshop that the tears came. Danny took one look at me and called out for Lucca.

‘What’s happened to you, love?’ Danny asked, stuffing a bit of turps rag into my hand. ‘Your bottom lip’s the size of an egg and split too.’

I could feel the blood crusted on my chin and even on my neck. When I looked down I could see spots of red on the white mounds of flesh crushed upwards by the bodice. I didn’t think the Johnnies would make much of me now.

‘Lucca!’ Danny called again, and after a moment Lucca’s head appeared over the rail of the workshop loft. I heard him swear in Italian and a moment later he was down the ladder and pushing the hair back from my face.

‘Who did this to you?’ His face was tight with fury as he took the rag from my hand, spat on it and started to wipe the blood stains. I winced as he dabbed at my lip and my fat, hot tears fell on the back of his hand.

‘F . . . Fitzpatrick,’ I gulped. It wasn’t so much the pain as the humiliation that got me.

‘Bastard!’ Danny spat on the floor. ‘Hit a woman, would he? Someone needs to teach that bloated bag of horse shit a lesson.’ I was glad he didn’t know the half of it.

‘
Pezzo di merda
,’ Lucca muttered as he touched my cheek gently. ‘You have a bloom coming here too, Fannella.’

I must have looked blank so he corrected himself. ‘A bruise. What else has he done to you? Has he . . .? Are you . . .?’ Lucca looked over to Danny who nodded, gathered up some stage bits and headed for the door.

‘I’ll let Peggy know,’ he called back. ‘She’s going to need a lot of paint tonight to cover that mess. Sorry, Kitty, I didn’t mean . . . I meant . . . well, you know.’ He shrugged uncomfortably and disappeared into the yard.

Once we were alone I broke into great noisy heaving sobs and Lucca folded his arms round me until, eventually, I stopped. My head was aching now from the crying and from Fitzy’s blow.

‘What happened?’ Lucca looked down at me; his jaw was clenched with anger and the scars across his face appeared stretched and white. We sat down on a pile of sacking and he held my hands in his as I explained about the letter. When I got to the bit about the ‘
choice cut
’ I felt his grip tighten.

‘And that’s not all. Fitzy wants me to put out for them all now. Entertain them – you know what that means. But I’ve never . . .’ I paused and looked down at my hands in Lucca’s. ‘He says that’s the way to flush out the . . . well, whatever it is that’s going on. I’m to be the bait.’

Lucca jumped up. ‘This madness has to stop. You cannot continue . . .
che farsa!
I will go to him now.’

‘No! Wait . . .’

Last thing I wanted was for Lucca to square up to Fitzy. The old bruiser might have been half-cut and more than twice his age, but he’d make catsmeat of him. Besides, if what Fitzy said about people eyeing up Lady Ginger’s patch was true we were all in trouble. There were worlds beyond Paradise where the Barons were every bit as ruthless as The Lady herself. And if they moved in, they’d want to bring their own in with them.

I grabbed his hand again and tried to smile, but stretching my lips broke the skin and I could feel blood starting to flow again.

‘Lucca, can I come over and visit you at The Wharf tomorrow? They’re taking the cage to The Comet after the performance tonight so I’ve got one day off while they’re fixing. That’s your regular afternoon off, isn’t it – Thursday?’

He nodded as I continued. ‘You get some coal in and I’ll bring a meat pie and a bottle and we can talk. We’ll go through it all again. Like you said, there must be something I’m missing, something I’ve seen but not seen.’

Lucca pulled at the scar on his face. It was a habit of his when he was thinking. Then he smiled. There was a glint of mischief in his eye as he spoke.

‘As a matter of fact, I already have an appointment tomorrow afternoon. But I think you might like to come with me. In fact, I know you will . . .’

Them breeches itched something rotten. I don’t know how men can walk around all day with their legs and parts all crying out for air. I kept wanting to have a good scratch, but looking around me, it seemed that real men didn’t seem to find it too bothersome, so I tried to resist the urge.

I looked at other men a lot. I noted the way they walked, confident like – wider than they really was, if you get my meaning? They kept their chins up and they looked oncomers in the eye, instantly sizing them up as a threat, an equal or someone to despise.

When you’re a girl – unless you’re a dabber out for trade – you keep your eyes low, your shoulders hunched and you walk small. You don’t want to draw unwanted attentions on yourself so you keep to the side of the street, by the wall. The last thing you do is strut down the middle like a bantam cock.

But that’s what Lucca made me do.

‘Watch them, Fannella, and copy them exactly. You are an actress,
si
? It will be easy.’

I wasn’t going to go at first. When I got to his room at The Wharf and saw all the gear laid out on his bed for me I was for turning on my heels and going straight home.

‘What kind of a rig is that?’ I asked, scandalled. Tell truth, we all knew a type hanging out round Limehouse of an evening. These girls catered for a different sort of clientele – and you’d be most surprised if you knew quite how fancy the ladies looking for boys who were really girls actually were.

Anyways, I didn’t have anything against the Toms – they were only making a living like the rest of us. But that doesn’t mean I wanted to join them.

‘Is this some sort of a joke, Lucca?’

My voice came out all tight and high.

He cocked his head to one side. ‘You wanted us to talk and I am very happy to listen. But I have a life too, Kitty, and I have already made plans. If you want to come with me today, you have to be a man. No woman will be allowed to go where I am about to take you. And we will talk later.’

He smiled. On the good side of his face a dimple appeared, but the other side drew itself into a knot of bumpy flesh between his nose and lip.

‘It’s your choice.’

Well, I wasn’t going to turn down an offer like that, was I?

No woman will be allowed to go where I am about to take you.

We’ll see about that, I thought.

Lucca stepped out of the room while I changed into the clothes on the bed. It was fine stuff – breeches, a shirt, a jacket – all a bit on the large size for me, but neat for a man.

I tucked the shirt tails into the waistband and fastened the buttons on the fly and at the collar. Very odd it was – like being trapped. I read once about the jackets with all the ties and flaps that they use on the poor creatures at Bedlam over in Southwark and I wondered if that’s what it felt like.

Lastly, I bound up my hair tight as I could stand it and pinned it to the back of my head. Didn’t do much good, though. Anyone would know I was a girl, I thought, as a springy blonde curl wriggled free and dangled over my eyebrows.

I called Lucca back in.

‘What do you think then?’ I turned and faced him, my hands on my hips.

‘
Madonna mia
.’ The words came as a whisper. He stopped at the door for a moment and then took a step back.

I’ll admit it, I was disappointed. ‘It’s not going to work, is it? I still look like a girl, don’t I?’

Lucca shook his head. ‘No, it’s not that. It’s . . . Kitty, look at yourself.’

I went over to the foot of the bed where Lucca had propped up against the wall a bit of broken mirror he’d taken from The Gaudy. I adjusted the slant so that I could see more of myself and stepped back.

I was quite surprised. If it wasn’t for the hair and a certain roundness in a crucial area under the shirt, I could have passed for a lad – quite a pretty one, mind – if you didn’t look too hard.

‘It’s not that bad. If it’s the hair I could wear a hat?’

He swore under his breath and came to stand next to me. ‘Look again. Who do you see?’

I looked again and when I got what he was driving at I caught my breath. ‘Bloody hell! I’m Joey, aren’t I?’

It was true. The boy staring back at me from the mirror was a smaller, softer version of my brother.

Lucca dipped to fold back the hem on the breeches. ‘It’s all too loose on you. We need to pin those cuffs too and we can hide your hair with a hat, as you say.’ He was suddenly very busy around me, fiddling with the material of the shirt, adjusting the shoulders and poking escaped ringlets back into place.

‘You need to stand tall and remember to keep your shoulders back, like this.’ He stood behind me and squared my shoulders, then he carried on fussing. I noticed he didn’t look at me in the mirror again, but I did and it was very peculiar seeing Joey staring back.

‘Now the last things.’ Lucca had a little wooden box in his hands now. He flipped back the lid and I saw it was a paint box. He ducked down in front of me and began to dip his fingers into the tablets of colour. Then he squinted up at me like he was about to produce a masterpiece and started to dab at my chin, at my broken lip and at the skin around my eyes.

‘Get off!’ I yelled. ‘I’m not having you daubing that stuff on my face. I know what’s in it, remember? You told me all about it – arsenic and anti-whatsit.’

I pushed him away, but he just grinned.

‘You mean antimony, I think? But this is theatrical make-up, like Mrs Conway uses. You need to have the shadow on the chin like a man and your eyes are too, too . . . female. There!’

He stepped back and assessed me. After a moment he nodded. ‘Now, try this coat.’ He went to the door where a jumble of clothes hung from a hook. He rifled through and selected a dark grey overcoat. ‘Maybe a little too long, but I don’t think that will matter.’

Lucca held it open and I pushed my arms into the sleeves. The coat was made of expensive stuff and it smelt of good quality cologne.

‘Lucca, where did you get this clobber?’ The question popped into my mind. I’d been so excited about all the play-acting that I hadn’t stopped to think about how odd it was that my friend had a wardrobe fit for a toff stashed away in his gaff. He didn’t answer. Instead he pulled a flat trunk out from under his bed and began laying out another good shirt.

‘Did you hear me? Where’s all this from?’

He carried on flattening the shirt out and brushing bits of lint off it. Then he mumbled something about borrowing it all from an old friend. He didn’t look at me.

Well, like I said before, Lucca had his secrets. Didn’t we all? So I left it.

I pretended to be very interested in an old newspaper when he started changing into his own gear, but I won’t deny I took a quick look in the mirror. He was lovely, apart from his face. His skin was dark and golden, and quite exotic, I thought, compared to all the other men I knew. They mostly looked like something shipped up to Billingsgate.

‘Have you found it yet, Kitty?’

He adjusted the collar of the white shirt and came over to sit on the bed next to me.

‘Found what?’

‘The place I am taking you to this afternoon. Here, let me show you.’ He took the newspaper – it was
The London Pictorial News
again – and flattened it out on the floor in front of us. Then he began to flick through the pages until he came to the one he was looking for.

‘Here it is, Fannella – read it out, you are better than me.’

Now, I was proud of my reading. Joey taught it me and I picked it up real quick. Just occasionally I stumbled over an unfamiliar word, but I always stashed them ones away in my head for future use.

So I began, following the lines with my finger.

‘Blimey, Lucca, you’re taking me to a flesh show!’

He looked pained and rolled his eye. ‘No, I am taking you to see the work of an unknown master. Look, here . . .’ He stabbed at the newsprint. ‘The writer compares the artist to Titian, to Raphael, to
Michelangelo
!’

I knew how Lucca felt about all them Italian painters, ’specially old Micky, so I bit my tongue.

‘Well, why do you need me to go with you then?’

‘Because you might learn something, Fannella, and because you need to get away from that theatre, away from that cage and away from yourself, just for a short time. Come on.’

He handed me a tall hat and helped me tuck the last straying ringlets up beneath it. Then he took another coat from the hook on the door and put it on, wound a thick scarf around the lower half of his face and reached for his own hat.

He took my hand and led me over to the cracked mirror at the foot of the bed.

‘Well?’

I laughed in amazement. We looked like a couple of young swells out on the flash.

He grinned and dropped my hand.

‘Remember, when we are out on the street you must walk like a man. Watch the men around us and copy them – no dainty little steps. It is also a matter of the mind, Fannella.’ He tapped his hat. ‘When we leave this room you must think like a man.’