‘Girls like Millie don’t get much choice in what they end up doing for a living,’ Noah said. ‘Annie was the same, she was forced into it. So speak gently about such women, it is men just like us that turn them into what they are.’
‘I know that,’ Jimmy said with indignation. ‘Anyway, the next time I saw Belle was when we went down to the Embankment Gardens and she told me what she’d seen, blurted it all out, and cried about it. I reckon that’s a real bad way for a girl to find it all out.’
‘Were those the only times you met Belle?’
Jimmy nodded glumly. ‘She made a big impression on me, I was so happy she wanted to be my friend. Then she was snatched before I could get to know her better.’
They were approaching the station now and Noah stopped to buy a paper as he wanted to look at a couple of short pieces he’d written which were supposed to be in there today.
‘Have you been on a train before?’ he asked, glad to change the subject for something lighter as he could see Jimmy had become upset by talking about Belle.
‘Just once. Mother took me to Cambridge when she had to do a fitting for a lady she made clothes for. I thought it was marvellous, but it was a very, very long way.’
‘I don’t think Cambridge is much farther than Dover, that’s about sixty-five miles, but when you’re very young, just sitting for an hour can seen interminable.’
‘I’ve never seen the sea before. Will we be able to see it at Dover?’
‘Yes, of course.’ Noah laughed at the boy’s enthusiasm. ‘Shame it will be too cold to paddle.’
It did seem an incredibly long way to Dover and it was very cold in the carriage too. By the time they got there Jimmy’s nose was as red as his hair.
‘You need a warm coat,’ Noah said. Jimmy was only wearing a threadbare tweed jacket and a grey muffler round his neck.
‘I don’t like to ask my uncle,’ Jimmy said. ‘Mog said she was going to broach the subject, and ask for some new boots too – mine have got holes in them – but I guess she’s forgotten.’
‘I’ve got a coat back at my place that’s too small for me,’ Noah said. ‘I’ll bring it round when we get back. But I wear my boots till they fall apart.’
‘You’re a real dandy dresser,’ Jimmy remarked, looking with admiration at Noah’s dark, knee-length coat, his bowler hat and stiff-winged shirt collar.
‘I have to be in my line of work,’ Noah explained. ‘You couldn’t expect the people I have to question about insurance claims to take me seriously if I looked like a costermonger. My mother is always saying “Clothes maketh the man”.’
‘My mother used to say that too,’ Jimmy said as they walked down the road towards the harbour. ‘I was always very well dressed until she got sick. Then we had to spend the money on the important things like her medicine and food. I used to wish I would stop growing so I didn’t need new things.’
Noah put one hand on the lad’s shoulder. ‘She’d be really proud of you,’ he said. ‘I suspect you’ve even got your grumpy uncle to like you!’
Jimmy chuckled. ‘He’s not so bad once you get used to him. His bark’s worse than his bite. My mother told me that he only became the way he is when his woman ran off with another man. I think now Mog is going to stay with us he might even get jolly because he really likes her!’
Jimmy fell silent when he saw the sea. The wind had whipped up huge waves that were crashing on to the shingle beach with immense force.
‘It’s very different on a summer’s day,’ Noah explained, realizing Jimmy felt a little frightened by the sight. ‘It takes its colour from the sky, that’s why it’s dark grey now, but on a sunny day it would be a lovely clear blue and the waves really gentle. Maybe we can come again later in the year for you to see it.’
‘It’s so big,’ Jimmy said in an awed voice. ‘It just goes on and on for ever.’
‘Yet this is the closest bit to France, it’s only twenty-one miles away. People have swum it!’
‘Not on a day like today,’ Jimmy laughed. ‘You can see how cold it is just looking at it.’
Jimmy was very impressed by the way Noah charmed the clerk in the ticket office. He was a thin-faced, rather miserable-looking man who had started out belligerently saying he couldn’t give out any information about passengers. But Noah said that he was an investigator for an insurance company and that he had police approval to continue his investigations, which made the clerk open a ledger and look back on the passenger list for the day in question.
‘Mr Kent and Mr Braithwaite,’ he said. ‘I remember them now because they wanted a cabin.’
‘Did they have a young girl with them?’
‘Oh no! It was just the two of them.’
‘Can you remember what Braithwaite looked like?’ Noah asked.
The clerk frowned. ‘He had curly hair and he was more pleasant than the other man, but that’s all, it was dark, the light in here isn’t too good.’
‘Is there any way they could have smuggled a girl on to the ship without anyone noticing?’
‘No. Passengers’ tickets get checked again as they go up the gangway to the ship. We’re all vigilant for that.’
‘How did the men arrive at the ferry, do you know?’
‘I can’t see from here, but I imagine it was in a cab or a carriage as they had a trunk with them.’
‘A trunk!’ Noah exclaimed. ‘How big was it?’
‘I don’t know, they didn’t bring it in here. I just heard one of the porters ask if they wanted help with it.’
‘So that was it, they had her in a trunk,’ Noah said as they left the ticket office.
‘You can’t be sure of that,’ Jimmy said.
‘I am,’ Noah insisted. ‘Men don’t take a trunk unless they are emigrating, they’re more for women’s things and household linens. A man would just take a suitcase or bag.’
‘Would she be alive in the trunk?’ Jimmy asked fearfully.
Noah sucked in his cheeks as he thought. ‘I’d say so,’ he said eventually. ‘Would anyone take the risk of being caught leaving the country with a body? That wouldn’t make any sense. But if that is how they got her out, then they must have drugged her to keep her quiet.’
‘That means they had something special lined up for her,’ Jimmy said with a tremor in his voice. ‘What could that be?’
Noah didn’t need to give a reason, he could see that Jimmy already knew the answer. He reached out and squeezed the lad’s shoulder, wishing he could think of a less horrifying alternative. ‘You said Belle has guts and spirit, so she might very well outwit her captors,’ he said. ‘Let’s get to Kent’s house and see if we can find any clues there to where he’s taken her.’
‘You mean break in?’ Jimmy asked, his eyes lighting up.
‘I guess so,’ Noah smiled.
At just after eleven that same night, Noah and Jimmy got back to the Ram’s Head. Garth was chasing out the last few drinkers from the bar and he told Jimmy to go through to the back and get Annie and Mog to join them in the bar.
The two women came rushing out, their faces bright with expectation. Noah wished he had more to tell them.
He went through what they’d discovered at Dover and then moved on to how they took the train back to Charing and broke into Kent’s house.
‘But it revealed nothing unusual but a brace and bit left in the hall,’ Noah said gloomily.
‘It wasn’t the kind of house we expected though, was it?’ Jimmy said, looking at Noah. ‘It was all nice and perfect, not the kind of place you’d expect for a man that owns slums.’
Noah smirked at Annie. ‘He’s right, it made me think of a doll’s house. Every bit of furniture, every ornament, rug and cushion looked as though it had been picked and put in place with great care. Jimmy’s a good little burglar, he prised a small window open round the back and wriggled in like an eel. But when he came and opened the back door for me, I was almost afraid to go in, it was so neat.’
‘Funny though, it looked more like a woman’s house,’ Jimmy said. ‘I used to deliver clothes Ma had made to two women in Islington. Their place was like that, like no man had ever walked in there. It gave me the creeps. We checked upstairs but there was no women’s stuff anywhere.’
‘What’s a brace and bit?’ Annie asked.
Noah demonstrated with his hands that it was a tool for making screw holes, mostly used by carpenters. ‘All his other tools were in the shed in the garden, placed neatly in a strap with leather loops to hold them. I think he used the brace and bit to drill breathing holes in the trunk. But we didn’t find anything else. So I think he may have taken Belle there just to collect the trunk and put her in it, then went on to Dover.’
‘Did you look through his papers?’ Annie said.
‘Yes, but there wasn’t much, only tradesmen’s bills for that place, all in the name of Mr Waldegrave, and I looked at every last one,’ Jimmy said earnestly. ‘You know you said Belle heard Kent asking Millie to go away with him? Well, do you reckon he did that place up for her? ’Cos that’s what it looked like.’
Annie shrugged her shoulders. ‘Who knows? You can’t imagine a man who strangles a woman for saying the wrong thing caring enough about her to make his home nice for her. Maybe he never intended to keep her living with him. He might have been planning to ship her out somewhere else too.’
Noah looked thoughtful. ‘Maybe that’s why he keeps his house like that. A good place to take girls to so they think they’re going to be on easy street, then he sells them on.’
‘Was there any sign of Belle being kept there? Dirty dishes, things out of place, unmade beds?’ Annie asked.
Noah shook his head. ‘Nothing. Not a dirty cup and saucer or a rug that had been rucked up. Beds all neat with quilts just so. He must have a housekeeper. No man would keep it like that. But it didn’t feel damp or cold, like no one had been there for ages. So maybe someone goes in and lights a fire now and then for him?’
‘Did you ask around in the village about that?’
‘We didn’t dare. It was such a small place we were afraid we’d look suspicious,’ Jimmy said.
‘Strange that a man could live in a perfect house and earn his living from a place like the Core,’ Mog said thoughtfully. ‘If they didn’t keep Belle there, then maybe they stayed at the other man’s home. Braithwaite, was that his name?’
Garth suddenly looked animated. ‘I’ve just remembered that I know of a man called Braithwaite,’ he said. ‘I don’t know him personally, just stories about him. He’s a gambler. Goes by the name of Sly!’
‘You’ve seen him?’ Noah asked.
‘Nah.’ Garth shook his head. ‘Just heard men in here mention him. But I can ask around about him.’
‘It might not be the same Braithwaite,’ Mog said.
‘It’s not that common a name,’ Annie pointed out. ‘What’s the chances of there being another around here?’
‘But Kent might not know this man from here,’ Mog argued.
Annie pursed her lips. ‘Well, I can’t see him recruiting help for a kidnap down in a little village. Can you?’
Mog ignored Annie’s sarcasm. ‘What now?’ she asked. ‘I mean, if Belle’s in France we’ll never find her.’
‘I’ve got a few ways of getting Kent and Braithwaite to talk,’ Garth said darkly. ‘Kent won’t stay away from here for long while he’s got rents from the Core to bank. I’ll get word when he reappears, don’t worry about that.’
‘What if he gets someone to start a fire here?’ Jimmy said in a small, frightened voice. ‘He’s not going to give in easily, is he? After all, he’ll hang for killing Millie.’
‘The one thing a bully is scared of is a bigger bully,’ Garth said with a tight little smile. ‘Trust me, I’ll make that bastard squeal when I get hold of him.’
‘But how long have we got to wait?’ Mog said, wringing her hands. ‘Every day Belle is gone she’s in more danger. I can’t bear the thought of what might be happening to her.’
‘Nor can I,’ Jimmy said in a small, tense voice. ‘Come what may, I’m going to find her and bring her home.’
All the adults turned to look at him and saw determination written across his freckly face. Garth opened his mouth to scoff, but saw steel in the lad’s eyes and only nodded approval.
‘Good for you!’ Noah exclaimed. ‘If I had acted on what was in my heart about Millie, maybe she would be alive now.’
‘Bless you,’ Mog said softly. ‘You, Jimmy, and Noah and Garth have redeemed my faith in men.’
Chapter Thirteen
‘Tell me where I am, Lisette, and what’s going to happen to me,’ Belle begged. ‘I know you are a kind woman, so please tell me the truth.’
On the face of it there seemed little to be worried about. Her room was bright and comfortable, a fire was lit each morning, Lisette brought her food and drink three times a day, there was even fruit in a bowl to eat, and she’d been given some English books to read and new clothes. But outside the window, farmland in its drab winter colours of grey, brown and black stretched into the far distance without a house in sight, and the door of her room was always kept locked.
‘I feel for you,
ma chérie
,’ the Frenchwoman replied, her pretty face full of sincerity. ‘But I am just a maid, and I was told to tell you nothing. I can tell you that you are in a village near Paris, but that’s all.’
‘Paris!’ Belle exclaimed.
Lisette nodded.
‘I don’t want to get you into trouble,’ Belle said. ‘But surely you can tell me if men are going to come here and rape me again?’
‘No, no, not that, not here.’ Lisette looked horrified at the suggestion. ‘Thees house is like hospital, for sick women.’
‘But I am not sick now. What do they intend to do with me?’
Lisette glanced round at the door as if half expecting someone to be eavesdropping. ‘You must not tell I told you. But they plan for you to go away to America soon.’
‘America!’ Belle exclaimed in disbelief. ‘But why?’
Lisette shrugged her shoulders. ‘They buy you, Belle, you are, how I say, their property.’
Belle suddenly felt sick. She knew what ‘their property’ meant.
‘What shall I do?’ she asked.
Lisette didn’t answer immediately but looked down at Belle sitting on the low chair before the fire. ‘I think,’ she said eventually, ‘that it is best for you to be what they want.’
Belle looked up, her eyes sparking with anger. ‘You mean I have to be a whore?’
Lisette frowned. ‘There are worse things,
ma chérie
. To be starving, to ’ave no home. If you fight them they will punish you; one girl brought here had her arm cut off. Now she cannot do any job but let men take her in alleys for a few centimes.’
Belle’s stomach churned at the graphic picture Lisette had painted for her. ‘They’d do that?’ she asked in a horrified whisper.
‘They’d do worse too,’ Lisette replied. ‘My ’eart goes out to you, but listen to what I say. If you go along with what they want, learn to play the game the gentlemen want, they will not watch you so closely.’
‘I don’t know how you can tell me to do this,’ Belle cried out.
‘It is because I like you, Belle, and must tell you the best way to save yourself. I get taken to ’ouse when I am young just the same as you. I know ’ow bad it is. But in time I don’t mind no more. I make friends, I laugh again.’
‘Do you still do it now?’
Lisette shook her head. ‘No more, I work here, nurse the sick people. I have a little boy of my own.’
‘You are married?’
‘No. Not married. I tell people my ’usband die.’
Belle silently digested all this information as Lisette tidied her room. The thought of any man even coming near her, let alone doing that awful thing to her, made her shudder, but common sense told her that most women didn’t fear sex, or loathe it, or there would be no romance or marriage. She didn’t remember any of the girls back at Annie’s Place saying they hated men; some of them even had sweethearts they went to meet on their nights off.
‘How can I learn to tolerate it then?’ she asked after a little while.
Lisette came closer to her and put her hand on her shoulder. ‘You might have a young man you like, then it is very different. Many of the girls will share their tricks to make the men so excited it is all over quickly. But I promise you, it won’t ever hurt the way it did the first few times.’
Tears came up in Belle’s eyes because she sensed the woman really did care about her. ‘I miss my mother and Mog who used to look after me,’ she blurted out. ‘They must be so worried. Can’t you help me to escape?’
Lisette looked stricken. ‘I weesh I could be brave enough, but they would hurt my Jean-Pierre. A mother with no ’usband must not take risks,’ she said. ‘But listen to me, Belle, even if you could get out somehow, without money you couldn’t get ’ome. Maybe very bad people get you, worse than here.’
Belle was far from stupid, and from what she’d already been through she realized that her ‘owners’ would turn very nasty to anyone attempting to set her free. So it was entirely understandable that Lisette should fear for her son’s safety. She knew too that even if she could find her way to the coast, she couldn’t get across the English Channel without money. ‘It’s all right,’ she said, giving Lisette a weak, sad smile. ‘You’ve been so kind to me, and I wouldn’t wish to get you into trouble. But why will they take me to America? That’s so far!’
Lisette shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe English girls are special there. But you will be with people who speak your language, that is good.’
Belle nodded.
‘If you keep your ’ead, you act sweet and good, while you watch the people around you. You find their weakness, and you use it,’ Lisette added.
Belle remembered how Mog claimed Annie discovered people’s weaknesses, then played on them. At the time it hadn’t made much sense to her, but now it was beginning to.
‘Is it Madame Sondheim that is sending me to America?’
‘
Non
.’ Lisette shook her finger. ‘She sell you on when you are sick. She made much money already, she have no weesh to keep you in her house.’
Belle struggled against bursting into tears for it was horrible to think she was being passed around like a side of beef in Smithfield market. ‘Then my new owner could be worse?’ she asked.
‘Your new owner pay for you to be here. They see you get good food, soft bed and nursed back to health. You are valuable to them, they will not harm you unless you fight them.’
Belle was too dismayed to ask any further questions. She couldn’t believe that anyone who could buy a sick young girl who had been systematically raped by several men and then plan to ship her to America to be a whore, could have even a shred of decency.
She hung her head and cried.
Lisette put her hand on her shoulder. ‘I have taken care of many girls like you in this house, but already I can see you are one of the strong ones. You are beautiful too, and I think a clever girl, so use your head. Talk to the older girls, learn from them, and wait for your chance.’
She left the room then, swiftly and silently, leaving Belle crying.
Belle had lost track of exactly how long it was since the day of Millie’s funeral when she was snatched from the street. She remembered that it was 14 January, and she supposed she could ask Lisette for the present date, but she hadn’t done so because knowing exactly how long it had been might make her believe she’d never see her mother or Mog again.
She missed everything about London so badly her heart ached. There was Mog, the smell of baking in her kitchen, that snug feeling when she tucked her into bed at night with a kiss, the knowledge that she’d always love her. And her mother too, she might not have had Mog’s warmth, but there was that little smile she’d give sometimes when Belle had made her proud. And her pretty, tinkling laugh that Belle knew was a rare sound, yet she got to hear it more than anyone else because her mother found her funny.
But it wasn’t just the people she missed, it was the cries of the street vendors, the way people spoke, the noise, the crowds, the smells. Paris might well be a fine city, but it wasn’t her city. She wanted to be with Jimmy again in the flower market, or racing down to the Embankment Gardens sliding on the ice. She had felt something special about him that day when he’d held her to comfort her, and she had no doubt he would have become her sweetheart if she hadn’t been snatched away.
That was almost the worst part of this: they’d taken all those simple things away from her, a sweetheart’s kiss, her daydreams of owning a hat shop, of marriage and children. All rubbed out, never to happen, for there would never be another boy like Jimmy looking at her in that special but innocent way which had told her she was the girl of his dreams.
As she stood at the window watching snow falling over the fields as the afternoon light faded, she guessed she’d been gone at least a month. Therefore it must be nearly the end of February.
She suspected it was the snow which was preventing them sending her on to America. She had woken the day after that talk with Lisette to a heavy snowfall, and for three days it had remained below freezing so the snow hadn’t melted. Now that it was snowing again the roads would probably be impassable.
Maybe she ought to be glad she couldn’t be moved, but she wasn’t. Being locked in this room, however comfortable it was, still felt like a prison cell. She wanted to move on, for there at least was a chance of escape, far better than looking out at frozen fields and wondering what was in store for her.
The move, when it came, was sudden and frightening. One minute she was sound asleep, the next she was being shaken by a woman she’d never seen before, and ordered to dress. It was pitch dark outside, and the woman kept saying, ‘
Vite
,
vite
,’ as she stuffed Belle’s spare clothes and nightdress into a bag.
For a brief moment Belle thought the speed was required because the woman was rescuing her, but that hope was soon dashed. As the woman was rushing her down the stairs, the housekeeper who sometimes came up to the room with Lisette came into the hall to hand over a basket which appeared to contain provisions for the journey.
Before leaving the house Belle was given a dark brown fur coat, knitted mittens, and a bonnet which was lined with rabbit fur and came right over her ears. They smelled musty and looked old, but it was so cold she was very glad to have them.
A man was waiting in the carriage outside, and although he spoke in French to Belle’s companion, and took her hand to help her in, he didn’t say anything to Belle, not even to introduce himself. It was too dark to see him clearly but Belle thought him to be middle-aged as he had a grey beard.
The couple spoke to each other just occasionally on the very long drive. Belle remained hunched up in the fur coat, a rough blanket over her knees, but she was unable to sleep for the cold.
As it grew light the woman opened up the food basket. She handed Belle a large chunk of bread and a piece of cheese. She said something sharply, and although Belle couldn’t understand her French, she thought it was an order to eat it up as she might not get anything later on.
There was less snow in this part of France, and it was more hilly than the place they’d come from, but it appeared to be just as sparsely populated, for she only saw the odd cottage here and there. Belle spotted a signpost at a crossroads, and saw the road they were taking led to Brest. She seemed to remember seeing that name on a map of France and she was sure it was up on the left-hand side, by the sea. She supposed they were to go on a ship from there.
She tried not to panic at the prospect of a long sea journey in mid-winter, and made herself daydream of finding a friendly sailor on the ship who could be persuaded to help her, if not to escape, at least to get a message to her mother and Mog. She accepted another lump of bread and cheese gratefully, smiling at the couple in the hope of winning their trust, but they did not reciprocate.
The carriage came to a stop in a harbour, and the door was opened by a tall man with cold blue eyes wearing a black greatcoat and a homburg hat. He stared at her for a few moments as if puzzled, then looked at the couple. ‘
Je ne savais pas qu’elle était aussi jeune
,’ he said.
Belle didn’t know what he’d said except for the word
jeune
– Lisette had used it sometimes and she knew it meant ‘young’ – so she surmised that as he looked puzzled he had said he hadn’t expected her to be so young.
The couple gabbled something back and shrugged their shoulders as if that had nothing to do with them.
‘You will come with me to the ship,’ he said to Belle in perfect English with just a slight French accent. He held out his hand to help her down. ‘My name is Etienne Carrera, you will call me Uncle Etienne all the time we are on the ship. I will tell anyone who asks that you are my brother’s daughter, brought up in England, and that I am taking you to my sister because your mother is dead. You understand?’
‘Yes, Uncle Etienne,’ Belle answered cheekily, hoping to disarm him because he looked grim-faced.
‘I would say before we take another step,’ he said, catching hold of her wrist in a grip that felt like a vice, his icy blue eyes boring right into her in a chilling manner, ‘that if you make a fuss, try to get anyone to help you escape, or anything else I don’t like, I will kill you.’
Belle’s blood ran cold, for she sensed he meant it.
It seemed the steamship was sailing to Cork in Ireland first, to pick up more passengers and to refuel, then on across the Atlantic to New York.
Etienne led Belle down a companionway on the ship, along a short corridor and then down more stairs to their cabin.
‘This is it,’ he said brusquely as he opened the door. Belle stepped into the tiny space, which was less than eighteen inches from the narrow bunk beds to the small porthole. Beneath the porthole was a foldaway washbasin, a narrow shelf and mirror above it. At the end of the bunks were a couple of hooks to hang up clothes and beneath the lower bunk was a cupboard for everything else.
Belle didn’t mind that it was so small, but she was horrified that she was to share it with Etienne.
‘There is no reason to fear me touching you,’ he said, as if reading her mind. ‘My job is to deliver you without sampling the merchandise. You can have the top bunk and pull the curtain across to give you privacy. I will only come back here to collect you for meals, to take you for some exercise and fresh air, and of course to sleep.’
He took from his shoulder her bag and his own. He handed Belle’s to her and put his own on the lower bunk. ‘I will leave you to settle in. We sail very soon. I’ll come for you when we are underway.’