The Hourglass Factory (34 page)

‘But we knew that anyway.’

‘She doesn’t know that.’

Frankie pressed her hands back through her hair, feeling how unkempt and oily it had become over the past few days. Liam was lingering at the edge of the stage, mashing his toothpick to a
pulp.

Milly continued. ‘Annie either stole or borrowed her clothes that night. She must have had a reason.’

‘They were friends,’ Frankie countered.

‘But I don’t lend my friends my clothes willy-nilly.’

‘Wouldn’t want to borrow yours now I know what you’ve got stowed inside those pockets.’

Milly ignored her. ‘She was outside the Rising Sun, by herself, dressed up in a fancy jacket and hat. Is that normal behaviour for a seamstress on a Thursday night?’

Frankie cottoned on. ‘She was meeting someone.’

Milly’s china-pale face lit up. ‘Someone special.’

Frankie chewed on this for a minute. ‘And either they didn’t show, or they came and left. So they might have been the last person to see her alive.’

‘Or worse, they killed her.’ Milly looked sharp now, her eyes glimmering with the challenge. ‘Her family. She must have had sisters she talked to.’

‘But how to get her home address?’

Milly puzzled for a while.

Then Liam’s Irish accent cut through the silence from the wings, distorted slightly by the toothpick. ‘Thought yous two were suppose to be the clever ones.’

Two faces glared at him sourly. He idled for a moment, savouring the knowledge, until Frankie looked like she might rip the toothpick from him and his brown teeth along with it.
‘There’s a very easy way I think you’ll find.’

The woman in the treasury office at Lincoln’s Inn wouldn’t budge an inch. There were rules. There was privacy. What if they had been sent by the police?
Didn’t she see what the police had done to the place?

‘Do I look like I’ve been sent by the police?’ Frankie leant across the desk, directing the woman’s gaze to her wrinkled shirt, her dishevelled tie, the grime on her
collar and hair.

The woman peered intently at her for a few seconds then pointed a finger. ‘I know you,’ she bobbed the finger up and down. ‘You’re the one that drew that
cartoon.’

‘Oh, for the love of God.’

Milly stepped in. ‘Could we please just give you our word that—’

‘Absolutely not.’

Frankie kicked the corner of the table. The sting ran up her leg.

‘I’m going to ask you kindly to leave.’

‘Yes, I did a bloody cartoon. And you know what? I wish I had a copy with me, I’d roll it up and stick it up your nose.’

‘Frankie!’ Milly’s hand went to her forehead.

‘Out. Both of you. Now.’

Frankie whipped a finger of her own to the woman’s face. ‘I’m doing this because a girl who was one of yours was killed. And where are you? Sitting behind a desk like the queen
in the counting house. How do you think the papers would like that? Lend credence to your cause, would it? Make you all look like the martyrs you want to be. You lot don’t give a
donkey’s.’

The woman paused for a moment, looking down the barrel of Frankie’s finger. Then she dropped her eyes to the ground. She made her way behind the desk and pulled out an address book from
the top drawer. ‘Once only.’

Milly glared at Frankie.

‘Thank you,’ said Frankie. And tried to sound as if she meant it.

Down by the wharf at Bermondsey, the winkle-sellers were calling out ‘all alive-o’ and men were rolling barrels of creosote onto horses and carts. The murky tar
smell hit Frankie as soon as she stepped off the tram; the scent of the Thames riverbed and an unpleasant tang coming from a tannery where pigeon shit was curing leather. It was already eleven and
Liam had been instructed to meet them outside the corset shop at noon sharp.

As they walked down the cobbles, children with bare feet came running up to them, their arms full of sticks, noticing Milly’s fine gown, regarding Frankie curiously as if they were an odd
sort to be man and wife.

‘Penny for kindling.’

‘Piss off,’ Frankie said.

Milly reached into her pocket and squeezed sixpence into the child’s warty hand. Her hollow eyes didn’t even light up. Frankie felt suddenly embarrassed as the little girl put her
thumb to her nose and blew a raspberry at her.

They counted off the streets. Down one of them some children were pushing a slumped scarecrow, dressed in a man’s old suit, around in a barrow. A browning carrot hung off its face for a
nose. When they saw Frankie and Milly they came charging towards them. ‘Penny for the guy.’

‘Remember remember,’ Frankie muttered to herself, ‘the fifth of November.’ How could she have forgotten? It was Guy Fawkes night. And she wasn’t even going to a
bonfire. She thought briefly of the bonfires she and Harry Tripe had used to light in the back square. Once they had thrown an old damp pack of cards onto the pyre only for them to explode and
Harry’s father to angrily explain that playing cards had gunpowder in their ink that would go off when wet. It became a secret tradition after that, she and Harry dousing the cards, hiding
them somewhere in the kindling and waiting for them to go boom. She dug in her pocket, mindful of Milly’s earlier charity, and found a filthy penny. Holding it up she said, ‘Right,
whichever one of you can tell me where Mill Street is gets the penny.’

An older boy had a sneer on his face. ‘You’re on it, nincompoop.’ He grabbed the coin out of her hand. The children guffawed, then seized up the barrow and began skipping back
down the street.

Frankie looked round at the row of red brick houses, the shabby corner shops and market sellers parked up. The curtains were all drawn, the street, apart from the children tearing up and down,
was silent. At the opposite end a public house on the corner had a black sash draped across the doors. Outside it a man was dismantling a greying horse from a splintered gun carriage.

‘Her funeral,’ Milly said quietly.

‘Shit,’ Frankie murmured. She blew air up into her hair and turned slowly around, taking in the street, then pulled her pocket-watch out and looked at the time.

‘What do you want to do?’ Milly asked. Frankie looked back up the street.

‘What number was her house?’

Milly pulled the note out of her pocket. ‘Nine. It’s that one,’ she pointed at a broken door, skewed on its hinges, the wood warped in the doorjamb.

‘They’ll all be in there, won’t they?’ Frankie nodded towards the public house. Gentle sea shanties and tempered laughter were spilling out from behind the doors. She
began walking directly to number nine.

Milly gathered her skirts and hurried after her. ‘That’s intrusive.’

Frankie dropped her voice and pulled out the Queen of Swords. ‘Who was she meeting that night again?’

Milly pouted.

‘You’re coming with me, like it or not.’

‘What if there’s someone in there? Her mother, her sister?’

‘We came to pay our respects.’

Milly let out her breath. ‘Fine. But tact, Frankie. Tact.’

Frankie dropped open her mouth, then closed it again. ‘When have you seen me not . . . ? Fine, tact.’

The rickety door to number nine was so splintered Frankie had to wrap her handkerchief round her hand to protect it. She knocked a couple of times then called gently through the gap.
‘Hello?’

There was no response, only the quiet of the street and the creaking and cracking of an old salt-battered house. Frankie pulled the door, gently at first, then firmer until it scraped open just
enough for a person to slip through. From inside came a mild fishy scent, dinner cooked the night before. She wedged herself sideways into the hall, and heard the threads of Milly’s silk
dress catch behind her followed by a gentle curse.

Off the hall lay a small parlour where a mean fire hissed charcoal smoke behind a metal grate. At the window end, looking onto the street, an empty rocking chair moved gently in the suck of air
from the chimney. Frankie heard a noise, the dry pull of breath, and turned to see a box bed at the other end, with a girl sitting on it whose black curls were the spit of Annie Evans’s. She
was bent over, bawling quiet sobs into her fists. Sensing the intrusion she snapped her head up and her rich brown eyes focused.

Frankie raised two palms. ‘It’s all right. We’re only come to pay our respects. I’m Frankie George. I knew Annie.’

The salty white straps running down the girl’s blotched cheeks made her feel a slap of guilt for the lie. But hearing Annie’s name seemed to soften the girl. She blew her nose into
her soggy sleeve. Her tears quickly ceased, she dried herself up, buttoned herself back in again, a hasty return to form and propriety, the sorrow stowed. She had the same luxurious hair, the same
handsome brow as Annie, though from her movements she seemed much younger. Not yet packed off to service or seamstressing. She moved her eyes over their clothing, Frankie’s suit and
Milly’s gown.

‘They’re making up songs about her. Annie Evans, danced with the devil, Jack the Ripper cut her up.’ She shook her head, making her curls sway. ‘She never did nothing to
no one.’

‘I know,’ Frankie said.

The girl leaned forward and stood up. ‘I forget my manners.’

‘That’s all right.’

‘I’m Beth Evans.’

‘Frankie George,’ Frankie said again. ‘This is Milly Barton.’

Beth Evans looked at Milly and her mouth pursed. ‘Friends of Annie’s?’

Milly looked hesitantly at Frankie then said, ‘Suffragettes. We were with Annie in prison.’

Frankie felt the guilt left over from the first lie harden.

‘It was prison that did for her,’ Beth Evans sniffed. ‘She weren’t happy after that last time. Weren’t happy at all.’

She sat back down and gestured to a small settee and a box by the fire. Frankie took the box. After a few moments her attention was slowly caught by a strange smell, smoked and perfumed. She
looked over at the snivelling fire and saw to her curiosity that someone had stuffed a new bouquet of flowers between the coals. The fresh white petals of the lilies had just begun to smoulder, the
edges singeing to a brown crisp. It was a strange place for an offering to end up. Beth noticed her staring at it.

‘My Mam would offer you tea if she was here,’ she said suddenly, drawing Frankie’s attention back. ‘But I can’t do anything at the moment. My legs is just so
heavy.’ She started to cry again and Frankie thought about venturing closer but considered it a deceit too far.

‘She was at the window smash that night?’ Frankie said. ‘I thought I saw her.’

‘No, she didn’t do the windows no more. She said no more, after last time in prison. And she got thrown out of service.’

‘She was in service?’

Milly nodded pointedly.

‘Of course,’ Frankie said, remembering what the suffragettes had told Milly. ‘I remember now. I mean she didn’t mention she’d been thrown out. She just said
she’d left service. Got new work.’

Beth gazed at Frankie with an unnervingly cool stare. Frankie couldn’t work out whether she had been suddenly rumbled or whether the girl was moved by the insensitive line of conversation.
She looked away, at the curling daguerreotypes on the wall, the framed verse from the Bible, and those peculiar lilies, still smouldering away.

Eventually Beth said in a weak voice, ‘It’s all his fault.’ She pointed to the fire in the grate. ‘You think anyone goes to be a seamstress when they been a parlourmaid?
And her, mistress, the cheek to send flowers, once she chucked her out.’

Frankie peered closer into the fire. The ribbon was tucked between two lumps of unlit coal; attached to it was a card, but she couldn’t make out the name. She sat back again. ‘The
family Annie worked for, they let her go because they didn’t like her going to prison for the suffragettes?’

Beth almost smiled. Her shoulders shook bitterly. ‘No. He bloomin’ encouraged it. Master of the house. She came home one Sunday for supper, told us she spent all day in the garden
with him, telling him all about suffragettes and he said he’d give her Tuesdays off for meetings. He were so excited, he were even going to get involved hisself.’

Frankie frowned, thinking she had misheard. ‘Sorry, the master said this or the mistress?’

‘Master,’ Beth croaked into her sleeve then coughed. ‘Mistress were a vixen. Mistress were what let her go. Mind you, who can blame her. Master takes an eye for you. But it
weren’t Annie’s fault. She’s got a pretty face is all.’ Beth’s eyes filled up again. ‘She had a pretty face.’

The tear gates opened and a fresh stream rolled down until it dripped from her chin. Milly leaned across and placed a hand on the girl’s knee. Beth looked at the hand and Milly withdrew it
gently.

‘What you do about it? She told me she were in love with him.’ She leaned on the greasy wall and her voice started to rise. ‘She were soft for him. He took a curl of her hair,
she kept his handkerchief. I said, “He’s never going to marry you, Annie Evans. You see.” But she thought she would one day be in the big house, and they’d both have a vote,
and all them smashes they did together, they’d be worth it.’

Frankie sat up. ‘What did you say? Smashes they did together?’ Her eyes darted to the fireplace. The flames were spreading now, catching the coals either side of the ribbon in
tendrils of smoke. She moved closer, tilting her head until she could just make out the writing on the card. ‘Reynolds.’

‘Reynolds.’ Beth spat. ‘Mr Reynolds. He were her sweetheart. But it were Mrs Reynolds put her out. And had the cheek to send them flowers.’ Beth looked at the fire for a
few seconds. ‘Still, better to bleed your fingers in a clothing factory than have the mistress try to trip up your every move.’

Frankie’s memory stirred. She knew that name. It swam around for a second, like a fish, then snapped at her. The day in court, the suffragette man that had ended up in Pentonville.

‘Did she still see Mr Reynolds?’ Milly probed quietly.

Beth nodded and rubbed her eyes. ‘Tried not to but she were soft on him.’

‘She dress up nice when she went to see him?’ Frankie asked.

Beth looked confused and peered out of the window. The noises from the street grew momentarily louder. They heard the swinging of doors and a surge of tin whistle. Voices filtered out from the
public house.