The Silk Thief (49 page)

Sarah said, ‘You’re always fed up with your job.’

‘I know.’ Friday poured herself a generous drink. ‘Well, most of it. Mr Meriwether’s all right, I suppose. I don’t mind doing that.’

Adam said, ‘Is he the old goat with the whips?’

Friday frowned at Sarah. ‘That was supposed to be private. It’s business.’

‘Sorry.’ Sarah went pink. ‘Anyway, you shouldn’t have told me if it’s private.’

‘Oh, who cares?’ Friday waved a dismissive hand. ‘Anyway, I’m here to talk about Harrie. I’m worried.’

‘So am I.’ Sarah moved her plate aside.

‘She seems all right to me,’ Adam said.

‘But you don’t know her like we do. She still seems … what’s the word I’m looking for?’ Sarah looked at Friday.

‘Haunted?’

‘That’s it. Or maybe even “hunted”. That feels closer. She should be happy now but it’s as though she can’t rest, as if something’s driving her to … well, I’m not sure what. And I think she might be losing weight again.’

‘I wonder if Rachel’s back. She said she isn’t,’ Friday said doubtfully.

‘Oh God, don’t start that bloody ghost business again.’

‘Come on, Sarah, even you weren’t sure. The bat?’

Adam, who’d stopped eating, looked from Sarah to Friday, and back to Sarah again. ‘What bat?’

‘Oh, it was something that happened when Gellar was here. Nothing important. Not now, anyway.’

Friday, who’d been slouching in her chair, sat up straighter, took a humongous gulp of her drink and rubbed the back of her neck. ‘I have to say something. I said a bit of a mean thing to Harrie the other day. I sort of asked her if she thinks Rachel knows she’s got Charlotte.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Friday!’ Sarah said. ‘You know how guilty she feels about everything. What did you do that for?’

‘I don’t know. It was just before the wedding and I was feeling —’

‘Jealous?’ Sarah shot a meaningful look at Adam, who was busy staring intently at his half-eaten supper. For a while, he’d also suffered the effects of Friday’s jealousy.

‘It slipped out,’ Friday said. ‘I didn’t mean it. I said I was sorry.’

‘Too late then. You’d have already put the idea in her head!’

‘If it wasn’t already there. You know what she’s like.’

Looking hugely confused, Adam said, ‘Are you talking about an actual ghost? Because you don’t believe in them. I know you don’t.’

‘No,’ Sarah said. ‘But Harrie does. She’s the one who thinks she can see Rachel. But she can’t really. It’s part of her illness.’

‘I didn’t believe her when she said she hadn’t seen her,’ Friday said. ‘You know what a rubbish liar she is. I think we should talk to James. Because if she does think she’s back, she could be getting really sick again.’

When Friday got back to the Siren’s Arms, Elizabeth told her a letter had arrived for her; she’d put it under her bedroom door. Friday raced up the stairs and along the hall, fumbling in her reticule for her key. Could it be from Aria? If it was, she’d never drink, or swear, or say another mean thing about anyone ever again. She unlocked the door and threw it open, and there the letter lay.

Snatching it off the floor, she sat on her bed and scrabbled at the seal, but already her heart was sinking. The letter’s condition was far too good for it to have come all the way from New Zealand. And then she knew what it must be.

‘You scabby, fucking old bitch,’ she said out loud as she unfolded the single sheet, the disappointment of it making her dizzy.

To Friday Wolfe, Sarah Morgan, and Harrie Clark

You didn’t think I’d forgotten, did you?

£250. If you don’t want to feel the hangman’s rope around your worthless necks, be at the stable yard of the Harp and Angel on York Street, this Sunday night at six o’clock. Someone will be waiting for you.

B

The rotten, bloody cow. She
still
couldn’t spell their names right, and didn’t she know Sarah and Harrie were married now? She must do.

This was Bella’s third demand, and each time the amount went up. They had the money — they hadn’t heard from her since they’d paid Rowie Harris, so it had been accruing in the bank — but that wasn’t the point. After this, they would have paid her six hundred pounds: a fortune, and not even a small one, for most folk.

Today was Monday. There’d be plenty of time during the week to ask Matthew to withdraw the money. He was a good man, Friday reflected. He never pried, and never asked what the money was for.

Bella had been smart this time choosing a public meeting place just on dusk — even smarter than she usually was. Amos Furniss had been murdered and robbed, and Rowie Harris had been thumped; they’d both met Friday in a lonely part of town late at night. This time there’d be folk around, otherwise known as witnesses. Whoever collected the money on Sunday — no doubt either Louisa or Becky — would be fairly safe from attack, which, as far as Bella was concerned, meant they wouldn’t lose it.

Friday put the letter aside and fetched her gin from the dressing table, noticing with a start that the bottle was nearly empty. She’d only opened it the night before. She’d have to get a couple more. Bella’s demand was bloody annoying, but, to be honest, it felt like just one more stinking turd on the great, steaming heap of shit her life was becoming. She hated her job, nobody had murdered Bella yet, Harrie still wasn’t right, and most achingly painful of all was the gaping hole left in her heart by Aria’s absence. Except for the gift at Christmas, she’d heard nothing from her. Either she couldn’t get a letter past her mother, a possibility Friday, perversely, was praying for, or everything she’d written in the note accompanying her gift had been lies, and Friday could hardly bear to think of that.

She opened another drawer and took out the note, which she kept carefully wrapped in the linen handkerchief with the comb, feathers and the lilac ribbon, and read it for at least the hundredth time.

My beautiful Friday,

Here are my precious huia plumes. They are my right to wear as befits my status as a princess of high rank. You are
my
princess.

Our time together was so short, but I will never forget it. I will never forget you, and I will do everything I can to come back to you. You live forever in my heart.

Aria Moehanga Te Kainga-mataa

No, Aria hadn’t been lying when she’d written that. Friday suspected Aria never told lies. But to have heard nothing at all was agony. After making Leo give her Tumanawapohatu’s address in New Zealand she’d written half a dozen letters of her own, and still there had been only heartbreaking silence.

Perhaps she should go and see Serafina Fortune again. Serafina had said she’d find love with someone tall, dark and strong, and that must be Aria, surely? But is that really what she’d said? Or had Friday only dreamt that?

It was getting hard to tell, these days.

Sarah and Friday stood outside James’s surgery, hogging the shade under the eaves of the small porch and staring out at the other patients suffering in the stark, bright heat of the gravelled front yard. Sarah had taken an hour off work and Friday hadn’t yet started. The morning was almost unbearably warm already, the heat made worse by a thick, hot wind. In the west enormous sepia and white clouds drifted across the sky, and the smell of smoke tainted the air.

Friday pulled out the neck of her bodice and blew down it. Sweat was trickling down her sides and her shift stuck clammily to her skin.

‘He does know we’re here, doesn’t he?’ Sarah asked.

Friday nodded. ‘He’s got someone in there, but he saw me and waved when I banged on the window.’

‘Christ, it’s hot.’ Sarah took off her bonnet and used the brim to fan her face. ‘We got bugger-all sleep last night. And the mosquitoes! The Tank Stream’s full of them. We had to shut every single window. It was murder.’

‘At least you haven’t got the horrors. I can’t decide whether to spew, shit or pass out.’

‘Well, whose fault’s that?’

‘Oh, shut up.’

‘Shut up yourself. Have you been to the bank yet?’

Friday stifled an acidic burp. ‘Tomorrow.’

‘You haven’t told Harrie, have you?’

‘No. Have you?’

‘No, and I don’t think we should. Not at the moment.’

A window opened and James stuck his head out. ‘Come on, in you come.’

Friday and Sarah scooted through the door of the surgery and down the narrow hallway, passing a deathly pale, glassy-eyed and profusely sweating man with his arm in a sling. The fingers poking out of it were swollen and a greenish-black colour. The stink was appalling. Friday retched, clapping a hand over her mouth.

The smell wasn’t any better in James’s office.

‘Christ almighty,’ Friday said as she sat down, dug a handkerchief out of her reticule and applied it to her lower face.

‘My apologies,’ James said as he lit a candle infused with oil of lavender. ‘My last patient — you may have passed him in the hall? I’ve just sent him off to the hospital. The poor fellow pricked his finger on a rose bush and now has a gangrenous hand and forearm, and will most certainly lose the arm. And, I expect, his life. You wanted to talk to me? I assume it’s about Harrie, or you would have come to the house.’

‘Yes, it is,’ Sarah said. ‘How do you think she’s getting on?’ She made a fist and rapped on her head, as though she were knocking to be let in.

For a moment, James said nothing. ‘I don’t know,’ he answered eventually.

‘Because we don’t think she’s doing very well at all,’ Friday mumbled through her handkerchief.

Sarah said, ‘Put that away. We can’t hear you.’

‘I can’t. I’ll be sick. The smell.’

James wafted the air above the candle towards her. Friday stuffed the handkerchief up her sleeve and breathed through her mouth. ‘We thought with being married and getting Charlotte she’d come right, but she hasn’t.’

‘She’s a lot better than she was,’ James said.

‘Yes, she is,’ Sarah agreed. ‘But she’s not the way she used to be. She’s still not the old Harrie, is she?’

James sighed heavily. ‘No, she isn’t.’

Friday thought he looked incredibly sad.

‘You must have an opinion, though?’ Sarah said. ‘You live with her.’

James let out another sigh. ‘This isn’t a medical opinion, it’s just … my personal observation. I feel as though some sort of essential spark within her has been extinguished.’

Friday and Sarah exchanged a glance; he’d described it perfectly.

‘But the physician at the asylum,’ James continued, ‘said it could take quite some time for her to recover, so we shouldn’t expect miracles.’

‘We’re not,’ Friday said. ‘Except I think she’s seeing Rachel again.’

James seemed almost to flinch. ‘Has she told you that?’

‘No. I did ask her, but she denied it. But I know her. I know when she’s lying.’

‘
Is
it happening again?’ James said to Sarah.

That’s right, Friday thought. Ask Sarah, because I can’t be trusted to tell the truth.

‘If Friday thinks she is, she probably is,’ Sarah said. ‘Friday knows her as well as I do, and I know Harrie bloody well. We both do.’

Friday felt so overcome with gratitude her eyes stung.

‘How would I tell?’ James asked. ‘What should I look out for?’

‘She might talk about her,’ Sarah said. ‘She did, to us. And Nora Barrett said she used to hear her talking to someone in her room, at night.’

‘I haven’t heard anything like that, I’m sure I would have. What do you think it means?’

Friday said, ‘Well, Rachel turned up when Harrie started getting sick, didn’t she?’

‘Did she?’

‘Yes. So
we
think she comes when Harrie’s worried. Or frightened.’

James said, ‘But I just don’t understand what it is she’s so worried about! I mean, we have Charlotte now, and she told me that Leary fellow’s left Sydney, so it can’t be that.’

‘She worries constantly about her brother and sisters in London,’ Sarah said. ‘Especially now her mother’s died.’

‘Yes, well, that’s understandable. That’s why I —’ He stopped.

‘You’ve what?’ Sarah demanded.

James said, ‘Damn. I wanted it to be a surprise.’

Friday leant forwards, almost setting her hair on fire over the lavender candle. ‘Oh, go on, tell us.’

So he did, after extracting sworn promises from them that they wouldn’t breathe a single word. They grinned at him like fools.

‘You’re such a sweetie, James,’ Friday said.

Sarah agreed.

Blushing fiercely, James said, ‘I really am at my wits’ end. I’ll do
anything
to try to make her happy.’

‘Will you tell us if she says anything about Rachel?’ Sarah asked.

‘Why? I mean, yes, of course I will, but why?’

Sarah thought for a moment before she spoke. ‘Well, she has Charlotte, and now Rachel might have come back.’ She paused for emphasis. ‘Charlotte, and Rachel. Do you see? We’re wondering if the two things are connected in Harrie’s head. And we’re worried.’

Alarmed, James asked, ‘Do you think she might harm Charlotte?’

‘Hell no, we’re worried about Harrie,’ Friday said. ‘She might be feeling guilty. Christ, she’s
always
feeling guilty.’

‘Guilty about what?’

Friday rolled her eyes. ‘For being Charlotte’s mother, when Rachel can’t. Even though it’s something she really wants.’

James nodded. ‘So what, exactly, are you telling me?’

‘Keep a close eye on her,’ Sarah said bluntly. ‘A
very
close eye.’

The weather had cooled a little by the following Sunday, but the stable yard behind the Harp and Angel Inn still wasn’t a pleasant place to be on a warm summer’s evening. A carriage had arrived only fifteen minutes earlier and the yard reeked of horse sweat and swarmed with flies buzzing manically between the fresh shit on the ground and the inn’s evil-smelling privies. Sarah and Friday sat on a pair of upturned barrels, keeping out of the way of the small crowd of travellers milling about, waiting for their luggage to be handed down from the roof of the carriage. The horses had already been unharnessed and led into the stables.