Girl of Shadows (39 page)

It suddenly occurred to Friday that Ralph Kidd could be more than just a cully with fresh breath. ‘Jared Gellar. Oily bugger fancies himself rotten? Has businesses all over town and does a bit of importing.’

Her heart sank as she felt Ralph shake his head.

‘I don’t know him personally. I have heard his business dealings are somewhat shady, however.’

‘But you know Evans?’

‘Yes. But I did hear Gellar’s name mentioned recently.’

Friday sat up and faced Ralph, her heavy breasts bouncing. He raised a lazy hand to stroke a nipple.

‘To do with what?’

‘I was at a private soirée the other night and I wasn’t actually part of the conversation, but I did happen to overhear something to the effect that he may have played a little fast and loose concerning some import deal involving Bella Shand. Or was it her husband?’

Friday’s pulse quickened. ‘Who was saying this?’

‘Eli Chattoway. You won’t know him. Oh, actually, you might.’

‘Don’t think so. And how did everyone react?’

‘There wasn’t an “everyone”, there were only two people having the conversation, Eli and someone else. But they both laughed. At Gellar’s expense, I gathered, not Mrs Shand’s.’

‘Do you think this Eli cove would talk to me?’

Ralph ran his fingers down Friday’s belly to her pubic hair. ‘Possibly, but you might have to pay a price. He’s a bit of a roué, old Eli. Have you got another customer after me?’

‘No one booked.’

‘Do you want another five pounds?’

‘That’d be nice,’ Friday said, trying at that moment, but failing completely, to see a difference between Ralph Kidd and dirty old Eli Chattoway.

When she finally went downstairs, she went straight to Elizabeth’s office.

‘Do you know someone called Eli Chattoway?’

‘Why?’

‘I need to talk to him.’

Elizabeth gave her a suspicious look. ‘What about?’

‘It’s … I just do. Do you know him or not?’

‘I hope you’re not in some sort of trouble, Friday.’

‘Do you
know
him?’

‘Unfortunately, yes.’

‘Where would I find him?’

‘Either drunk somewhere, or stuffing his face, or terrorising some poor girl. A deeply unpleasant man, Eli Chattoway. I banned him from here years ago. I don’t think you do want to talk to him, Friday.’

‘I do. Where does he live?’

Elizabeth sighed, and told her. ‘I’m not happy about this, Friday. And don’t go into his house. The man’s a pig.’

Friday didn’t waste time. The following day she wasn’t due to start work until one in the afternoon, so at ten she set out to walk over the hill above the Rocks to Fort Street on the other side, overlooking Darling Harbour, where Chattoway lived. It had been raining all morning and the road had turned to shite, but she was wearing her sturdy boots and took care to avoid the worst of the mud and puddles, though once she almost ended up on her arse.

She was also wearing one of Mrs H’s elaborately styled, bright auburn-coloured wigs.

‘To hide your identity,’ Elizabeth had said when she’d knocked on Friday’s bedroom door earlier that morning and presented it with a flourish. ‘Just in case something goes wrong. You don’t want him knowing what you really look like. Not with that hair of yours.’

Bemused, Friday had accepted it but now she was regretting the decision because the bloody thing was making her head sweaty and itchy and she felt like throwing it away. God knew how Mrs H wore one all the time. But she kept it on: if Elizabeth Hislop, who actually knew this Eli Chattoway, thought she should make the effort to disguise herself, then perhaps she should.

She came to the house Mrs H had described to her. It was new, quite a flash one constructed from sandstone, near a row of terrace houses, also newly built. Chattoway’s home was two-storey, with double chimneys and tall windows on both levels. Obviously he had plenty of chink. She lifted the ring on the door knocker and banged it.

Eventually, the door was opened by a long-faced, sallow-skinned girl in a housemaid’s costume.

‘Mr Chattoway, please,’ Friday said brightly.

‘Have you got an appointment?’

Given Eli Chattoway’s reputation, Friday took a punt. ‘Yes.’

The girl stepped back to let Friday in. ‘He’s still in his chamber. I expect he’s waiting.’

God, Friday thought. She wiped her boots on the coir mat, then followed the girl inside and up a smart staircase.

‘Where’s Mrs Chattoway?’ she asked.

‘In her grave,’ the girl said over shoulder.

When they reached the upper floor the girl hared off down the hall until she came to a closed door. She turned, said, ‘Rather you than me,’ then knocked loudly.

Friday felt an unpleasant chill ripple across her buttocks. She’d said exactly the same thing to Sarah, but in reference to Furniss’s mad dogs.

A cracked voice from within croaked, ‘What?!’

The girl pushed open the door and fled.

Friday stepped in. The room was gloomy, the curtains still drawn, and it stank — of unwashed body and whisky, the latter smell no doubt emanating from the unstoppered decanter on the night table. A mound lay in the bed, the nets and drapes looped untidily over the canopy rails. The mound grunted and lifted its head.

‘Who the hell are you?’

‘Mr Chattoway?’ Friday asked hesitantly. It
really
ponged in here: this could be a lot nastier than she’d thought.

He wore a stupid nightcap with a long tail on it, and a voluminous linen gown with a stain of some sort down the front. He was very fat and had ruddy cheeks, intelligent piggy eyes, wet red lips and enormously bushy grey muttonchops.

‘Speak up!’ he barked. ‘I didn’t order a girl!’ He reached for his pocket watch on the night table and peered at it. ‘Did I? What day is it?’

‘Thursday, sir. I’ve come to ask you for some information.’

‘Turn around,’ Eli Chattoway said, pushing himself into a sitting position.

‘What?’

‘I said turn around.’

Friday did, feeling the old man’s gaze all over her.

‘Are you sure you’re not a whore?’

Friday thought she’d keep that to herself for the moment. She moved closer to the bed, trying not to breathe through her nose. ‘I’ve been told you know something about a man named Jared Gellar.’

Chattoway snorted. ‘That spigot-sucker.’ Grunting, he leant over and poured himself a tumbler of whisky. ‘I know a lot of things.’

‘Something to do with a business deal concerning Clarence Shand? Or his wife Bella?’ Friday prompted. Mentally she crossed
her fingers. ‘Maybe something about Gellar playing the crooked cross?’

‘You labouring types and your charming vernacular.’ Chattoway sipped his whisky thoughtfully, his eyes never leaving Friday.

It gave her the shits.

‘If I tell you what you want to know, it’ll cost you.’

She sighed inwardly. ‘What’s your price?’

‘You.’

Now there was a surprise. But she’d already made up her mind she would pay it; Chattoway’s information could be the key to forcing a confession from Gellar. Also, she owed Sarah, for being so jealous of Adam and trying to ruin their blossoming love affair.

She nodded. ‘But you have to tell me first, or no deal.’

‘Fair enough,’ he said with the arrogance of someone accustomed to having things go his way. ‘Open the curtains. I feel like a bloody mole in here.’

Friday did, noting he was even more repulsive with sunlight spilling across his puffy face. She perched expectantly on the end of the bed.

‘Jared Gellar is your basic crook dressed up in fine clothing. Always was, always will be,’ Chattoway said. ‘For the last twelve months or so, until very recently, he’s been sailing between Botany Bay and New Zealand with a cargo of, among other things, preserved and tattooed Maori heads hidden in the hold of that schooner of his. Some purchased, and some stolen. And not just any old heads — the very best. Heads that once sat on the shoulders of exceedingly royal New Zealanders.’

A terrible itch sprouted beneath Friday’s wig, but she dared not scratch it in case the sodding thing shifted. Or even worse, fell off. ‘And Bella Jackson? Shand, I mean? What about her?’

‘Mrs Shand, Clarence’s
delightful
new wife, takes orders from collectors of such items, ethnologists and what have you, and arranges for their acquisition. Forwards the payments, has the
graves dug up, liaises with whomever does the killings if necessary, that sort of thing. Her and that henchman of hers, Amos Furniss.’

Friday knew her mouth had sagged open; she snapped it shut and almost bit her tongue.

‘Gellar, however, apparently wasn’t happy with his cut of the proceedings so he stole four of the heads and sold them himself to collectors in England. Bella Shand is aware, of course, that they’re missing, but not who took them.’ Chattoway smirked. ‘It’ll be
his
head separated from his shoulders when she finds out. And she will, eventually.’

‘How do you know all this?’ Friday was delighted. This was
exactly
the leverage they needed.

‘I have my methods. This whole grubby little town operates on deceit, favours owed and backroom deals. I doubt it will ever change. Look at its genesis. Now, I think we’ll start with a bit of fellatio. Come here.’ He threw back the bed covers and pulled his nightgown up to his middle. The smell in the room suddenly got worse.

His belly bulged over his lap but Friday could still see his cock, lying limply on sparse grey pubic hair. God, it would be one of those ones she’d have to work on forever, she could tell, with her jaw getting cramp and her lips chafing and dribble going everywhere. His legs were fat as well, the skin mottled like that pink and white marble you got in the houses of the very rich, and a brown-stained bandage covered his right leg from his toes to his knee. Gout, obviously.

‘Come here, my love,’ he crooned. ‘Come closer.’

She moved around the bed to stand beside him, noting the cheesy excrescence oozing out from under his foreskin, and dry yellow flakes littering the surrounding hair and skin. Her stomach roiled and she stifled an acidic burp. No wonder he stank.

‘Ah, I …’

‘Hurry up,’ he said, his voice as sharp and ragged as oyster shells now.

He grabbed her arm and jerked her down towards his groin, but she twisted out of his grasp, relieved he hadn’t taken hold of her hair, which would have come off in his hand.

‘Let me just prepare first,’ she said. ‘If I’m to lie with you, there’s something I need to do.’

‘Do it here, in front of me,’ Chattoway countered, idly stroking himself, without any discernible effect. ‘I like watching that sort of thing.’

Blocking her nose from the inside, Friday bent down and tickled him beneath his chin. ‘No, let’s keep a sense of mystery, shall we? Do you have a room for ablutions?’

‘There’s probably water in the kitchen, if that’s what you want,’ Chattoway grumbled. ‘Ask Ivy.’

‘I won’t be long.’ Friday blew him a kiss and flitted out the door, closing it behind her.

Outside, in the hall, she retched repeatedly. Wiping her watering eyes on her sleeve, she rushed to the stairs and trotted down, heading for the front door.

But it was locked; that stupid girl must have the key.

She hurried through to the back of the house, past the indoor kitchen — clearly Chattoway was
very
well off — and into what appeared to be the back porch. She tried the door there, and that was locked, too.
Bugger
. Ducking into a small room off to one side containing several trunks, a heavy coat on a hook and two pairs of Wellington boots, she dragged a trunk over to the single tiny casement window, climbed up and looked out. Ivy, the servant girl, was in a narrow yard behind the house, hanging laundry.

Friday unlatched the window, set her palms on the sill, thrust her head and shoulders through the opening — and discovered the rest of her was too big to fit through.

Fuck.

She scrabbled her boots against the inside wall and felt herself wriggle through the gap a few more inches, but that was it: she was well and truly jammed.

‘Oi!’ she called to the girl at the washing line. ‘Oi, I’m stuck!’

Ivy looked to her left, then her right, then shrugged and bent to pick up another huge pair of white drawers.

‘Behind you!’ Friday yelped. ‘The window!’

Finally, Ivy turned — and dropped the drawers on the muddy ground. ‘What are you doing up there?!’

‘Pomading the hair on my minge. What does it look like? Come and give me a hand.’

Ivy crept closer. ‘Where’s Mr Chattoway?’

‘Upstairs lying in bed like a big fat toad playing with himself and expecting me back any minute. Here, grab my hands and pull.’

Ivy wiped her hands on her apron, took hold of Friday’s and pulled.

Friday grunted in pain and tossed her head. Ivy shrieked as the wig fell off.

‘Shut up, he’ll hear us!’

‘It’s all right — he can’t move fast with his bad leg.’ Ivy started to giggle, revealing several missing bottom teeth, and clamped her hand over her mouth. ‘Can you go backwards?’

Friday tried. ‘Not now, I can’t.’

‘Is it your skirts? Are you wearing a dress or an ensemble?’

‘Bodice and skirt. Undo the buttons, will you?’

While Friday supported her weight on her hands against the wall — she felt like she was being cut in half now — Ivy struggled with the buttons on her skirt.

‘Hurry up, I’m passing out here.’

Ivy tore open the last two buttons, grabbed Friday’s hands again and gave an almighty yank. Friday shot out, leaving her skirts behind, and landed on the ground, naked from the waist down except for her boots and a pair of pretty, pale blue stockings.

Blushing fiercely, Ivy ran to the back door, unlocked it and disappeared inside. She reappeared a moment later with Friday’s skirt.

‘Hurry, he’s coming down the stairs! I can hear him! I’ll tell him I haven’t seen you.’

Quickly she relocked the door, darted over to the washing line and resumed hanging laundry.

Friday stepped into her skirt, did up the top button, snatched up Mrs H’s wig and asked, ‘What’s over the back fence?’