The Hourglass Factory (10 page)

‘We lady smokers stick together, don’t we?’ Frankie let the cigarette hang from the corner of her mouth, enjoying the taste of the paper. ‘I mean, watching that in there,
why shouldn’t we enjoy a little smoke or a glass of brandy? Only time you ever get given brandy as a woman is if you’re a toff or you’re sick.’

The woman gave a slight laugh. ‘To be honest, I wouldn’t mind a brandy myself. My husband has just been sent to prison.’ She laughed nervously again and Frankie realised she
was the woman who had gasped when the magistrate said ‘Pentonville’.

‘That was him was it? Handsome fellow.’

‘It should be me really,’ she said quickly. ‘Silly, I know. But I’m not quite brave enough.’ She shrugged. ‘Don’t know what possessed him; my family
would be quite embarrassed if they saw him up there. Still, they won’t know, will they? I’ll tell them we’re off to Bath or something.’ She gave a fragile smile. ‘My
husband loves women, you see. In the most incredible way.’ There was more to her than nerves. There was a wateriness in her dark eyes and a bitterness in her voice. Frankie watched her
carefully for a few seconds. Then she remembered why she was there in the first place.

‘I’m actually looking for someone in particular.’

‘Oh yes?’ The woman looked at her.

‘Yes. She’s a sort of stunt woman.’

The lady turned her face away and went back to sucking on her cigarette. ‘That wouldn’t be Ebony Diamond would it?’

‘That’s right. Know her, do you?’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Who doesn’t? She was the talk of the suffragettes once upon a time. So I hear.’ She looked at Frankie and there it was again, that distance in her eyes.
‘He actually bought us tickets to see her at the Coliseum tonight.’ She nodded towards the court. ‘That’s why she’s not in there. Not stupid enough to go getting
herself arrested.’

Frankie remembered with a weary feeling and a jab of self-reproach that the Coliseum was the very reason Stark had wanted her to portrait Miss Diamond in the first place.

The woman smiled a scornful smile. Frankie was starting to dislike her. She wasn’t worried about her husband, she was bitter about him. ‘It’s hot ticket of the night.’
She blew out her smoke. ‘I think it’s the Coliseum, or maybe the Palace Theatre.’ The lady looked up but Frankie was nowhere to be seen.

Something had struck Frankie’s memory from the day before. ‘If it doesn’t fit,’ Smythe had said, ‘by the time she comes to pick it up . . .’ If she really had
missed the smash because of her Coliseum performance, there was one place she would have to be.

Frankie was ten feet away from Smythe’s corset shop when she spotted Teddy Hawkins idling outside the Maid in the Moon, and couldn’t stop her nose from crinkling in
distaste. He was smoking a cigarette with a look of intense concentration on his face. She followed his gaze across the road to see, to her fright, Ebony Diamond stretched backwards on the lap of a
police constable, her lips a ghastly shade of blue, her chest heaving like a fish pulled from the water. Her head was thrown back, her eyes were rolling. A shocking shade of teacup-white had spread
over her face.

Over near a black police car, a small crowd of policemen and journalists had gathered. Some of them were pointing at the corset shop door, talking in whispers. Deals were being struck. Money and
favours were changing hands, secrets exchanged for exclusives. Frankie looked back at Ebony. She shifted position and Frankie saw, underneath her full underskirts, a newspaper flapping in the
gentle breeze.

‘Cut the laces, quick,’ the man holding her was saying. His own cheeks were puce, his black boiled egg hat pushed back on his forehead.

‘I don’t have a knife,’ a young officer standing above them said.

‘Use a key, man, do you want a repeat of what happened in there?’ The beetroot constable pointed at the door of the corset shop, then snapped his fingers at his young colleague. The
young man’s hands trembled as he reached underneath Ebony’s waist.

‘Use a match, damn it, just burn them loose.’

Frankie watched Teddy Hawkins step coolly forward, reach into his pocket and toss them a cigarette lighter. The red-faced constable struggled to light it in his clammy hand, then held it
gingerly to the small of Ebony’s back, waving the little flame back and forth. The laces crackled as they singed down to threads.

Suddenly Ebony came to, lashed out with the back of her hand and caught him on the nose. The cigarette lighter skidded into the street; the constable caught his bruised face in his hand.
‘Damned vanity,’ he hissed. ‘You see how dangerous those things are.’

Ebony looked around wildly.

‘Teddy,’ Frankie whispered.

Hawkins turned round, saw who it was, frowned and went back to writing in his notebook. She crept closer. ‘Mr Hawkins,’ she said a little louder.

He looked up and made a point of focusing as if he had just noticed her. ‘Ah, Georgie.’ His lips bulged, giving him a cruel look. He touched the brim of his hat and continued
scribbling.

‘It’s Frankie,’ she sighed. ‘What’s happening?’ She pointed at Ebony.

‘Surprised to see you up and about. All those late-night social gatherings, portraiting openings of envelopes and such haven’t taken their toll.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. What’s the matter with her?’

He snapped shut his notebook. ‘There’s been a nasty accident.’

Frankie pointed at the shop. ‘In there?’

He nodded. ‘Um-hum.’

‘Well, can you tell me any more? Who was it? Him that wears the corsets?’

Teddy Hawkins turned to her, taking in her face very carefully. His eyes were dark-rimmed like a beagle’s and he wore a doggish expression that made him look both simple and dangerous.
‘Look, Miss George, it’s really not the kind of thing a woman would be interested in. I assume you’ve been sent to cover the suffragette damage. That’s further down, beyond
Fenwick’s.’ He nodded his head towards the end of the street.

‘Why do you lot all think I . . .’ she began to growl. ‘I mean, what are you doing? Are you on a news piece?’

‘Georgie, I don’t have time for this.’ He began tucking his pencil back into his pocket.

‘Oh, I know, you don’t have time for this. You’re on every blooming story in London.’

He shoved his notebook in his breast pocket. ‘As a matter of fact, I do have somewhere else to be.’

Frankie could feel dignity slipping from her as the jealousy rose. She tried to push it back down. ‘Where?’

Teddy’s lips twitched into a furtive smile. ‘You’ll see in the five o’clock special. Copy deadline’s in an hour so I’d better . . .’ He made to
move.

‘Well, why don’t you let me cover this one? Take the pressure off.’

‘Really, Miss George?’ his soft lips splurged at her.

‘But that’s two stories. Go on, Teddy, let me cover this one.’ She was about to protest that she already had quotes from Ebony Diamond that might help with a news piece, when
Hawkins moved her gently out of his way by the shoulders.

‘That’s not the way the world works and that’s not what Mr Stark wants, is it? You do the bits and bobs for the Ladies’ pages, I do the hard news for the front pages. Mr
Stark wants a hard news piece, doesn’t he? You should think yourself lucky those suffragettes are giving you something to write about besides bran baths and parlourmaid-taming. Now, excuse
me.’ He tipped his hat and made to move off.

‘Well, you could at least tell me what the story is; it’s not as if I’m going to swipe it.’ She glanced over to where Ebony was bent double over the pavement, looking as
if she might be sick onto the policeman’s shoes. Someone had, perhaps ill advisedly, passed her a brandy bottle.

Teddy Hawkins must have felt a little penitent at his smugness for he stopped and turned. ‘It’s nothing terribly exciting. Just a showgirl murdered off Tottenham Court Road.
It’ll most likely turn out to be an ex-lover or a landlord and the whole thing will have dropped by tomorrow. As for him, it’s page seven stuff. Titbits.’ He smiled
unconvincingly, ‘I’m sure the suffragette damage will get far more inches.’

Frankie tossed her head. ‘Who was the showgirl? Anyone famous?’

He checked his notebook. ‘Says here the
Pall Mall Gazette
named her as Ebony Diamond. Isn’t that the one you were portraiting? Oh well, I suppose he’ll want that dropped
now. Mind, if you have any quotes you could leave them at the news desk.’ He paused. ‘Wasn’t she the suffragette threw herself at Asquith in March?’

‘April,’ Frankie corrected him instinctively, for a split-second feeling it on the tip of her tongue to tell him that Ebony Diamond couldn’t be murdered because she was over
there, dribbling sick onto a police constable’s navy blue trousers. She turned briefly to stare at the woman on the pavement, to check that it was Ebony. There was absolutely no doubt –
the black eyes, the lips; even her scent was pervading the air. Then Frankie remembered the other girl who had stood in the shop, with the glossy black hair and the linen dress. A thought crossed
her mind. Vindictively she decided to say nothing. Let him get the wrong name, serve him right.

Hawkins’s face had resumed its pitying pout. ‘I’ll see you in the Cheese, shall I? Thursday night?’ He wrinkled his lips into a grin.

‘Yeah, Thursday.’ She wanted to slap him but the satisfaction of hoping he might file a goose of a story temporarily quelled the urge.

His lean bouncing form made earnestly for the tube station and Frankie turned back to Ebony. The policeman had sat her up and confiscated the brandy. It was only when she looked up that Frankie
saw her ravaged face, her drained cheeks streaked with tears. Ebony raised a gloveless pale hand and pressed her finger and thumb into her eyes as if she might staunch her crying.

Frankie took a couple of breaths and walked over. ‘Miss Diamond.’

The policemen with her exchanged a glance. ‘Do you know this woman?’

Ebony shook her head.

Frankie dropped to her haunches feeling the fabric of her trousers strain uncomfortably. She tried to look beyond Ebony through the glass of the shop window but two police officers, one in
uniform, one plain-clothed, were chatting closely, blocking the view. ‘What happened in there? Is Mr Smythe all right?’

The question set Ebony shaking and Frankie rose to her feet with an involuntary groan for her calf muscles. She took a few steps towards the shop.

‘Oi, hold it there,’ the policeman beside Ebony cried. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

‘Press,’ Frankie muttered at him and kept walking.

‘No, hang on, you need to show a card.’

She cursed herself for forgetting her card. Although thinking carefully about it she wasn’t sure she had ever had one for the
Evening Gazette
to begin with, and her
Tottenham
Evening News
one rarely held much currency. She walked on.

‘Hold it, miss, mister, whatever you are.’

Frankie felt the blood rising in her as she nudged past the two officers with their backs to her. What she saw stopped her dead.

Smythe, the man she had spoken to yesterday in the shop, was spread out across the floor. Across his legs a rack of peach corsets had spilled to the ground framing him with frilly patterns. His
shoulders were bare, and bloomed a rich livid. Deep indigo ringed his eyes, mouth and the crest of his Adam’s apple. He looked peaceful and unreal, painted in crude colours like a drawing by
a child. Frankie’s eyes moved down his body to his chest and she stifled a dry gag. He was wearing a black corset, shiny, with a trim of magpie feathers in black and white, laced grotesquely
tight, so that the little fat he had was pushed out over the top along with the skin-covered lump of one of his skewed rib bones. His flesh had swelled outside the corset, making him look even more
freakishly minuscule at the waist.

She felt a hand on the small of her back and jumped. ‘I think I should be moving you along.’

Instinctively, she slapped out, but in doing so lost her balance and toppled precariously close to the corpse. The smell hit her and made her retch as she steadied herself. The policeman
didn’t have to ask her to leave again. She pegged it out of the shop, gulping fresh air.

Ebony was still on the pavement.

Frankie stared at her until she had her gaze. ‘Mr Smythe . . .’ she began, but couldn’t bring herself to say it. Ebony looked white as a fish belly, her eyes bloodshot. What
she said next made Frankie’s flesh go cold.

‘I must be a cat. I must have nine lives.’

‘What do you mean?’

Ebony shook her head at the ground.

‘What do you mean? Do you know what happened to Mr Smythe?’

‘Ollie . . .’ She looked towards the door of the corset shop, then with a sudden movement clutched Frankie’s wrist like she would crush it. ‘Will you meet me somewhere? I
could tell you things. I want folk to know I’m on the right side.’

‘Right side of what?’ Her eyes were wild, the whites showing. Frankie tried to extricate her hand gently, but Ebony kept hold of it. She picked up the newspaper flapping underneath
her and pressed its crumpled grey pages between Frankie’s fingers. Frankie saw it was the
Pall Mall Gazette
.

‘Third page. Look at it.’

‘What? Of course I’ll meet you. I could take you somewhere now.’ Frankie looked round at the Maid in the Moon where the landlord, Tommy Dawber, was keeping a crafty eye on the
police and journalists through the window. He gave her a quick salute. She was about to turn back to Ebony and suggest they go in there, but Ebony sprang to her feet and began fleeing down the
street, stumbling as she ran.

‘Miss Diamond, where are you going? Wait . . .’

‘Outside the Coliseum,’ Ebony called out behind her. ‘Afterwards. Meet me there.’

‘After what? Your show? Miss Diamond, wait!’ Frankie gave chase for a few more steps but Ebony was in the back-streets quick as a fox and no more than a dart of black in the shadows.
Frankie bent down to catch her breath. She was still grasping the newspaper, the loose pages threatening to flutter out of her hand and all over the street. The headline was about a Lord who had
committed suicide over increased death duties. Carefully she turned the crumpled pages one by one. On page three she spotted a small headline: ‘Is Jack back?’