Secret Lament (12 page)

And the knavery must involve Mazzanti; two Italians in town at the same time was too much of a coincidence. The Mazzantis flaunted themselves as if they had plenty of money and that was what
villains like Corelli wanted. Was he simply planning to rob Mazzanti? Or was he involved with the shootings? Suppose Corelli threatened to kill Mazzanti unless he was given money and the shootings
were warnings that he meant business? Or was there something more complicated going on? Could there be an accomplice involved?

I warmed to this latter idea. The unknown accomplice was part of a plot to kidnap Julia and hold her to ransom. A wild idea perhaps but I’d heard of that sort of thing happening in London.
The accomplice had enticed Julia out of the house, perhaps by courting her, but something had happened; she had resisted perhaps, and he had accidentally killed her. That would account for
Corelli’s horror on seeing the body – he had anticipated she would be safe and sound in some hideaway; after all, a dead body is difficult to bargain with.

No, no, none of this would work. Strangling was not an accidental way of killing. And the accomplice, if there was one, had not kept his appointment – Julia had had to go in search of him.
Had her death been the result of a chance encounter after all?

One thing was for certain, Corelli’s behaviour was suspicious and I wanted to talk to him. Even more importantly, he was the only person who could confirm that what I said about
discovering Julia’s body was true.

Mrs Hill’s in the Fleshmarket was still open – only in the middle of the morning would it be quiet. I ducked in through the low door and found a cluster of butchers, still in
bloodstained aprons, shouting drunkenly over a game of nine men’s morris. A youth of no more than twelve years old was drooling over a beer, and one of the serving girls looked inclined to
encourage him. Mrs Hill herself, as fresh as morning dew, was chuckling over a conversation with a friendly spirit; I knew that spirit – never short of a good joke.

The lady turned a smile on me. “Out late, Mr Patterson?” Mrs Hill was fifty at least but she wore well, one of those women whom maturity only improves. “Your usual
beer?”

Landladies, as well as spirits, should never be offended. Tiredness was beginning to make me feel heavy and weary but I made an effort to stifle my yawns. “Looking for one of your lodgers,
Mrs Hill. The Italian gentleman.”

She raised a knowing eyebrow at me. “Now there’s one who’ll never have trouble with the ladies. But he’s gone, Mr Patterson, paid up and left.”

Damn, I should have guessed it.

“When?”

“An hour or two back. Said he was off to Shields for a boat. Had to catch the tide. He left you a note though. Mary!” She raised her voice. “Where’s the note for Mr
Patterson?”

The serving girl tore herself away from the leering youth with a scowl, and hunted through the rags and dirty tankards that surrounded her. Eventually, the note was found, stained with circles
of beer and stinking of ale. A single sheet of paper of the cheapest kind, folded and sealed with a blob of red wax. Corelli had evidently been in a hurry and had inadvertently used too much wax so
that little blobs clung to the paper all over. The ring, or whatever Corelli used as a seal, was engraved with a large ostentatious musical note – a quaver with a flying tail.

I broke open the seal. Inside were scrawled six hurried words in a watery ink that was already fading.

Don’t trust him
, Corelli had scrawled.
He’s a devil
.

Him? Damn it – who!?

Friday we went to the theatre and had moderate entertainment. One actress was tolerable-looking; the others were nothing.

[Letter from Sir John Hubert to his brother-in-law on visiting Newcastle, May 1732]

A bright light was slanting across the bedclothes – the June sun shining in through a gap in the curtains. The room was as stifling as it had been when I stumbled in at
around four o’clock this morning. Downstairs, I could hear the tramp of miners leaving for work and my spirit landlady’s querulous complaints about dirt. I lay staring at the ceiling in
blank incomprehension. It was early morning, I had slept very little and I had a huge hangover. And…

And Julia Mazzanti was dead.

I dragged myself upright. The movement set my stomach roiling. Julia Mazzanti had been raped and strangled and I had found the body. No, Corelli and I had found the body, and now he had left the
town. That made him chief suspect in my eyes.

There was no point in lingering in bed; I knew I would not sleep again. I threw back the blankets and waited for the room to settle. A white rectangle lay on the floor; I bent to pick it up and
the room reeled around me. Damn all hangovers. Why had I drunk so much?

The note was the one I had found at Mrs Hill’s; I must have dropped it as I crawled into bed.
He’s a devil
. Did
he
mean the murderer? I remembered the look of shock on
Corelli’s face when we found Julia. It had been a surprise certainly. Surprise that she was dead? Or just that the body was not where he had expected it to be? And – a worse idea
occurred to me – could it all have been part of a plot by Corelli? Had he arranged for me to be there when he found the body? Had I been as credulous as Bedwalters?

The voice must have spoken two or three times before I registered it. My landlady, Mrs Foxton was outside the door, asking if she could enter. I grabbed for a blanket, for I had stripped before
going to bed to try and cool myself.

When I called entrance, the spirit came creeping in, hanging on one of the door hinges. There was a dullness about Mrs Foxton’s spirit these days, a lack of sharpness, a certain lack of
caring; in the old days before the seamstress’s death, for instance, she would never have allowed miners to lodge in her house. Now she grumbled and argued but took them in nevertheless.
“Money’s money,” she’d said to me not so long ago in a dull sort of way.

So I was pleased to detect a note of disapproval in her voice, which reminded me of her old self. I had a clear conscience; I had paid the next quarter’s rent before times, thanks to the
money beneath the mattress, and did not fear her annoyance.

“You have a message, Mr Patterson.” One that had been passed from spirit to spirit across the town, clearly. “From a young person. By name of Catherine.” Mrs Foxton
pronounced the name with disdain.

I sat up, grabbed the blanket as it threatened to slip. We had agreed that if Esther needed to send me a message she could use her maid Catherine as courier to avoid speculation. There must be
something wrong.

“She would like you to call, urgently,” Mrs Foxton said coldly. “And if you don’t mind, Mr Patterson, I would request that in future you avoid implicating me in your
affairs.”

She probably thought Catherine was pregnant. I suspected something much worse than that. Had the burglar tried to gain entry again?

I pacified Mrs Foxton and she slid out of the room again. I threw on some clothes, splashed my face with cold water and grabbed some music books to suggest a reason for my visit. A church clock
was striking six when I tumbled out into the street; the air was already thick with heat and clamped itself around my aching head.

Six o’clock. No one had a music lesson so early – I would have to hope that no one saw me arrive. But of course all the servants in Caroline Square were up and about, and half of
them were on the doorstep shaking out cloths or looking for someone to gossip to; six or seven pairs of eyes followed my progress across to Esther’s door. There was nothing for it but to walk
straight up the steps to the door and to tell Tom as loudly as I could that I had come to give Mrs Jerdoun her music lesson. I raised my hand to the knocker –

The door swung open.

Alarmed, I walked in – and was assailed by the sharp stink of mildew. A strong aroma of beer too. The sweeping stairs in front of me were chipped and cracked, the varnish on the curving
banister scratched. Plaster had fallen from the ceiling and been casually kicked aside into corners; the old elegant wallpaper was curling from the wall, showing black mould underneath.

I had stepped through into that other world.

Cursing, I stood still to listen. I could hear voices distantly, and the barking of a dog. God knows, I was fascinated by this intersection of worlds; it was a puzzle and I have always been
partial to puzzles. But for this to happen at this moment, when I was worried about what might have happened to Esther!

The voices were sharp and angry. Two women. A high childish voice – that one I knew belonged to the young seamstress, and was subdued and humble. Then a lower voice, almost contemptuously
amused. A grown woman who enjoyed impressing on her social inferiors how low they really were. A woman who was demanding information – I could hear the words ‘want to know’ and
‘tell me’ but beyond that nothing much more. I recognised the voice, however.

Julia Mazzanti.

A dead woman talking. The thought sent shivers through me in this cold house. I had to remind myself that I was not in my own world any longer; there, Julia Mazzanti lay dead. Here…

Here, a door opened, and Julia paused in the open gap, caught by surprise when she saw me. In her hands was a folded package wrapped in tissue; behind her, the young girl was curtseying with
pathetic gratitude.

“Mr Patterson,” Julia said, coyly. She waved a hand to dismiss the girl and the child obediently shut the door behind her. Julia strolled forward. “Have you come to see Flora
too?”

I reddened. There was no mistaking what she meant by that. Her gaze was fixed steadily, mockingly, on my face. The Julia in my world had been demure, all cast-down eyes and coy, darting glances;
this Julia was taunting and direct, her mocking gaze meeting mine as equals. It was that kind of directness of gaze that attracted me to Esther. But there was something else there too, a kind of
contempt.

“Or her father?” Now there was something else; I saw a tension in her, a watchfulness.

“Flora’s father.” Dear God, yes, yes, Flora had said he was a musician. “Yes, indeed. Have you seen him?”

Her gaze flickered over the music books I held, which I suppose gave credence to my story.

“Not for several days,” she said. Her manner was strained; I frowned and she smiled sweetly on me. “I believe he has gone out of town. But I do not keep watch over every poor
musician in Newcastle.” She reached out a daring hand and drew a caressing finger across my shoulder. “Only the rich ones… ”

One of the less welcome aspects of this world is the knowledge that my counterpart is a wealthy man, far more successful than I. I reflected wryly that this Julia at least was plainly not an
inexperienced girl; no innocent could have infused her voice with just that perfect edge of invitation – sufficient to make her meaning clear, yet not sufficient to make a withdrawal, if
spurned, embarrassing for either party.

“Why do you wear such shabby clothes?” she murmured and lifted a contemplative gaze from my coat. The sharp intelligence in her eyes was alarming. “It’s almost as if
– ”

“Yes?”

Now she was frowning in puzzlement. “Sometimes, Mr Patterson, I think you are quite a different man altogether.”

“I – I can’t imagine – ”

“I like this version better,” she said meditatively. “The other you is all politeness and genteel manners and ‘don’t you worry your head, my dear’. As if I
was still a child. Do you think I am a child, Mr Patterson?”

She was talking as if I was quite a different person from my counterpart. Surely she could not suspect the truth?

“Not in the least,” I said, my mouth dry.

“Then why do you sometimes treat me as if I am?”

I foundered. “Nothing but the good manners a gentleman is taught to show to a lady.”

She laughed softly. “A lady, Mr Patterson? Not in the least. I am nothing but a singer and an actress, and you know what society thinks of such creatures.”

It thinks that they are prostitutes; all too often young women who wish to pursue a singing career can only get apprenticeships by being ‘friendly’ to their teachers. First society
offers only one course of action, then it condemns.

“But we are flesh and blood,” she said. I almost imagined I saw tears sparkling in her eyes. “We hurt when we are insulted. We fear when we are forced against our will.”
She must have caught my frown. “Oh yes, Mr Patterson,” she said with a nod. “Yes, that is what I mean. And the most unexpected of men too. Can you blame me for having a low
opinion of your sex?”

I could not stand for that. In that mildewed, sour-smelling hall, I went as far as I could and said, “We are not all cut of the same cloth.”

She stood, head on one side, contemplating me. “Indeed.”

“I am a musician myself. A mere tradesman. I have suffered some small indignities.” But how, I thought, reddening, could those compare with what she had suffered?

The door opened behind her. The young girl, Flora, came out of the room, with her basket over her arm and a shawl thrown about her shoulders. Julia Mazzanti cast a quick look back at her, then
leant towards me. Her whole body, her smile, her knowing look suggested flirtation. What she said, however, was a desperately urgent: “I must talk with you.
Please.
Tonight, midnight,
outside Mrs Baker’s house.”

“But…” I saw the girl looking at us. Was that contempt in her expression? I said lightly, “People will think we’re eloping!”

Now she raised her voice so the girl could hear. “Elope? Me? Now, Mr Patterson, you know I am a respectable young woman.”

And she swept past the girl with head held high and a smile of wicked mischief.

The girl stared after her with a private little smile of contempt. Even the poorest members of society can find reasons to despise their social superiors; all too often, I reflected wryly, they
are given just cause. “Do you want to see Papa again, sir? He is not back yet.”

I had no wish to see her papa, whoever he was, but I did not wish to rouse too much suspicion so I entered into the conversation dutifully. “Do you know when he will be back?”