The Lights of London (37 page)

‘That’s all he did?’ asked Tibs, steering her into the dressing-room. ‘Touched you with his hand?’

‘
All
?’

‘You know what I mean. He didn’t …?’

Kitty shook her head.

‘Thank Gawd for that.’ Tibs had been dreading having to tell her friend about Tressing’s disease. ‘And if he’s been smoking what I think he has,’ she said, kicking the door closed behind them and tossing her mask to the ground, ‘he’ll be asleep for a good while yet and with a bit of luck he won’t even remember whether he’s done the business or not. Which means,’ she said, stepping out of her dress, ‘we won’t have to pay him back the money and be left with just an old mop to suck on for our trouble.’

‘He can have the lot back for all I care.’ Kitty pulled off her costume so roughly that she ripped one of the seams. ‘He said things to me. They scared me.’

Tibs tried another smile. ‘Well, we knew he wasn’t the sort who only likes discussing the weather, now didn’t we, girl?’

Kitty started putting on her underthings, throwing them on anyhow as long as she got them on quickly. ‘I don’t mean just saucy talk. I’ve got used to that from the men at the Dog. This was different.’

Tibs stood there with her costume in one hand and her drawers in the other. ‘What sort of things?’

‘Really horrible. How it’s so easy to get rid of things. People. People that are in the way. And worse.’ She stared down at the ground, her hands shaking. ‘What he’d like to do to me. I’m scared, Tibs. I’m scared he’ll come after me.’

Tibs’s face and throat flushed with anger. ‘I won’t be a minute, Kit, I’ve forgotten something back there.’

‘Don’t leave me, Tibs.’

‘I promise I’ll be no time at all. You just wait here. Wedge that chair under the doorknob like before and I’ll let you know when it’s me outside.’

Pulling the muslin slip over her head, without even bothering with her underwear, Tibs dashed back into
the ballroom. As she edged quickly along the wall, trying to keep in the shadows, a man grabbed her and pulled her to him.

‘And which character have you come as?’ he asked, leering at her breasts through the fine, almost transparent gauze.

‘I’ve come as this girl who kicks drunken old bastards what can’t keep their hands to themselves right in their privates. Now fuck off,’ she hissed and shoved the man away.

‘What did you say?’

Tibs stuck her fists into her waist and jutted out her chin. ‘I’ve had just about enough of men scaring me and making my baby’s life a misery. And I ain’t having some jumped-up toff frightening me mate neither. All right? Or d’you wanna make something out of it?’

The man, none the wiser, decided quite sensibly that if he wanted to keep his testicles intact, a simple nod was his best option. The good doctor always did have strange tastes, but he could keep this one for himself.

Tibs peered round three sets of the heavy drapes before she found Tressing. He was still drugged senseless and didn’t even flinch or moan as she expertly dipped his wallet and took one of his visiting cards. She was about to relieve him of his money for good measure, but stopped herself when it occurred to her that he would immediately blame Kitty.

If she’d had time, though, she wouldn’t have minded going back for that bastard Mayerton’s wallet – it was probably lying under the table where he’d thrown most of his clothes – but she wasn’t going to risk it. And anyway, revenge was a dish best eaten cold. She knew where he worked; what he did. She’d have her day with Lucian Mayerton. Just like she was going to with Tressing.

Tibs slipped the wallet back into his robe, slid down off the divan and made her way back to Kitty.

She’d get something on the pair of them.

Archie might have killed a bloke and that was wrong, especially when Tibs thought about how he’d killed him. But Archie had done it for all the right reasons. He’d got rid of Albert just like a rat catcher makes the world a safer place by getting rid of flea-carrying vermin.

It was ironic, but it was what Archie did that meant she could have her child with her without having to worry about the bogeyman lurking in every alley and shop doorway – and she would always be grateful for that – but it was also having Polly with her that meant Tibs would always have to be wary of him. Pity it had to be Archie who’d done it.

But these bastards. These were different. Everything they did, they did for themselves. There was Mayerton, who was too ignorant even to acknowledge she was a human being; all he was interested in was his own gratification. And as for Tressing … Well, he was something else. There was no other word for it: he was evil.

Jack opened the cash box and let the coins pour in a stream on to the bed. ‘That’s it, Tess, every single penny. Take it and go. I want to get on with my life.’

Tess lifted up the blankets, careful not to disturb the money, and got out of bed. She fetched her bag from the chair and began to count the coins into it. Eventually she said, ‘You’ve kept your side of the bargain at last, Jack Fisher. So I’ll be gone by the morning. Don’t you worry yourself about that.’

‘That can’t be Joe’s Aunt Sarah back, surely?’ whispered
Tibs. She was staring out of the window, wearing only her underclothes, trying to see who was knocking on the street door at this time of night. ‘We’ve only just stuck her in a cab.’

The knocking continued.

‘Bloody hell!’ She stood on tiptoe, craning her neck. ‘Get it, will you, Kit, or they’ll wake up Polly.’

Kitty just stood there. ‘Say it’s Tressing? Say he’s come to and realised I’ve gone?’

‘He was unconscious, Kit, he couldn’t … Aw, all right, give us me coat and I’ll go.’

Tibs hurried down the stairs, doing up her buttons as she went, and opened the door just a crack. ‘Yeah? Who are you?’

‘My name’s Tess. Tess Hawtry.’

‘You’ve got the advantage over me, darling, now if you don’t mind …’

She tried to close the door, but Tess was too quick and too big for her. She shoved it back on its hinges and stepped inside the hallway.

‘What d’you think …’

‘I’ll just come inside for a moment if you don’t mind. It’s cold out there. Not as cold as up in the north-east, mind.’

‘Listen, I dunno what you want, but …’

‘I’ve come to have a word with that great tall thing who lives here,’ she said, trying to push past Tibs. ‘So if you’ll just excuse me.
Miss
.’

Kitty appeared on the stairs. ‘Is everything all right, Tibs?’

‘And there she is. The lovely Dandy.’ Tess smiled maliciously. ‘I’ve come to say that if you’re stupid enough to want a man, then Jack Fisher is yours.’ Her smile became a grin. ‘You haven’t got a clue what I’m talking about have you? He
loves
you.’ Tess said the
word as though it were poisonous. ‘You know, it’s interesting seeing the look on your face. I always wanted to see what a fool looked like close to.’

It was early evening, with just a few days left until Christmas and over a month since the night of the ball. The sky was a strange, leaden yellow, signalling the snow that had been threatening to fall all day, and Tibs was standing at a coffee stall in the shadow of the Tower, with her gloved hands wrapped tightly round a thick china mug of scalding tea, but despite her heavy coat, hat and shawl she was still shivering. The wind blowing across the river was bitter.

But she had to be there, she had made a decision: enough time had passed since she had taken Tressing’s card for there to be no chance of linking anything that happened now to that night, so, with not quite an hour to go until the first show, instead of being in her room getting ready, Tibs had slipped out to meet someone.

She had been relieved to find that the stall holder and Spiky Bill – the man she had come to meet – were the only people there. Bill was the last person she wanted anyone to see her talking to. He was a criminal known for his greed, his cunning and his complete lack of scruples. ‘Honour among thieves’ wasn’t a saying that had much meaning for him, but his greed gave him courage to steal and the woman he lived with gave him the need.

When Tibs had seen him coming towards her over the bridge, hunched against the cold, looking about him as though he were being trailed, she had asked herself if she really was mad enough to be using the likes of him
to do this job for her, but it was too late for that now.

‘So, Bill,’ she repeated, her patience wearing thin, ‘you just go over there, crack his crib and take what you like. And I guarantee, he’s loaded.’

Spiky Bill digested this with a frown. ‘And you just wanna know what sort of place it is?’ he said, his voice low so that the stall holder couldn’t hear. ‘There’s nothing you want me to nick for you? Just see if there’s anything
interesting
about it?’

‘That’s right,’ she said, nodding at him. This was harder work than she’d imagined. And finding out if there was something odd about the man that she could use against him just by looking at his house didn’t make as much sense as it had when she’d planned it. ‘Look, d’you want this job or not?’

He held out his arms in submission. ‘Course I do.’

‘Well, get on and do it then. And don’t go getting no ideas about farming it out to no one else, so you can stay in the warm in the boozer. I’m not having you sending Limpy Mick or any of your other useless mates in your place. Right?’

Bill looked offended. He placed his hand on his heart. ‘I swear, on me old grandmother’s life, Tibs.’

‘Bill, you ain’t got a grandmother.’

‘Look, it’s started snowing,’ Bill said, changing the subject. ‘Give us the address of this bloke’s drum and you can get back home before the weather gets too bad.’

After a final moment of hesitation the now swirling snow decided her. ‘Here,’ she said, thrusting a card into his hand.

‘You’ll have to read it to me, won’t you,’ he said, rolling his eyes at Tibs’s stupidity.

Tibs had long since gone back to her room to get ready, but Bill was still at the stall, busily working his way
through a steaming baked potato and chatting to the owner – he could afford to treat himself with a job like this dropping in his lap. ‘Don’t suppose you do much business on a night like this, eh, Jim?’

‘Not really, Bill,’ replied the gloomy-looking man.

‘Why don’t you get off home then and set yourself up all snug with that missus of your’n?’

Jim shuddered at the thought. ‘You just answered your own question, mate. I’d rather be out here with me tea urn and taters and chatting to you than be stuck indoors with her bending me ear’ole all night about her old witch of a sister’s lovely sodding home in Bow and how we should move out there. Bow! What does she think, that me mother’s sold her mangle? How can I afford to move to Bow? I ain’t the sodding Prince of Wales, am I? Now, let me treat you to another cuppa and you can tell me all about what that little darling wanted with the likes of you. And I promise I won’t let on to Dutch Bet.’

Bill grinned, baring the few teeth he still had left in his head, wiped his mouth on the newspaper that had wrapped his potato and tossed it over his shoulder. ‘Sorry, no time, Jim, I’ve gotta be off before me glue pot comes unstuck. And as for me talking to Tibs, if you’re brave enough to tell my Bet about it – if you’re brave enough to tell her
anything
for that matter – then you’re welcome, ’cos you’d be a braver man than me.’ He swung a small hessian sack over his shoulder and winked. ‘See you later, eh, Jim?’

‘Yeah, see you, Bill. Be lucky.’

‘I always am, thank Gawd.’ Bill wasn’t kidding either. He was lucky all right. He was about to turn over a doctor’s gaff. In bloody Belgravia!

Bill pressed himself flat against the wall of the house
and banged one boot against the other, knocking out the snow that was packed into the ridges of the soles. Even though there were only lights on in the porch – which probably meant no one was in – he didn’t want to risk slipping on the window ledge and making a noise. He just hoped he’d picked the right room to break into.

He figured that if anyone was at home then there’d be servants in the basement kitchens; and any one of the dining-rooms, drawing-rooms or sitting-rooms, or whatever these toffs called them, on the ground and first floors could be in use at this time of night – or so Tibs reckoned, Bill wasn’t used to screwing this type of place. So, even though it had meant a bit of a slippery climb, he’d gone for the second floor, the bedrooms.

Bill let go of the thick branch of the chestnut tree that had been his ladder – he was always amazed at how sloppy people were about security, not that he was complaining, mind – took a jemmy from his sack and inserted it expertly into the frame. It took no more than the pressure of a single hard shove downwards to have the window loosened. The wooden internal shutters were even less trouble. A tap with the side of his gloved fist and they gave way.

He held his breath, this was always the nerve-racking bit. Was there anyone in there?

There were no lights on in the room. A good sign.

He lowered himself to the floor and whistled softly as his feet sank into the luxuriously deep pile of a very expensive carpet. ‘Nice,’ he breathed. ‘But don’t get carried away now, Bill. Be a professional. Let your eyes get used to the dark, have a quick shufty around in here, then get yourself up to the top and work down.’

With the jemmy still in his hand – it served as a weapon as well as a tool – Bill went to work.

He moved stealthily about the room looking for
saleable bits and pieces, and for anything
interesting
, as Tibs had put it. Not that he had any idea what she had meant, of course, but perhaps he’d know it when he saw it.

This really was the poshest room he’d ever been in. It was bulging with stuff he could shift with no trouble at all – including that carpet – but he had to be selective. It was no use piling himself up with so much gear that he wouldn’t be able to leg it if he had to.

Bill grinned to himself. He could always pay another visit. Maybe he should start specialising in this sort of gaff.

He picked up an ashtray. Lovely. Silver by the look of it. He weighed it in his hand. Heavy too. He dropped it into the sack.