Behind the Sun (40 page)

‘Damned wild dogs,’ he said. ‘If it’s not them it’s the damned feral goats eating everything in sight. Come in, ladies.’

The shop was crammed with used goods including furniture, carpets, flatware, pots and pans, tools, clothing and linen. Cabinets displayed fancy pipes, watches and jewellery. Mr Skelton propped his gun in a corner and returned to the carriage clock he was disembowelling on the counter.

‘What can I do for you today, Mrs Dunn?’

‘I have some items that may interest you, Mr Skelton,’ Sarah replied. ‘Unfortunately, my personal financial situation has not improved since we last spoke and to my regret I find myself having to part with even more of my collection.’ She retrieved a velvet bag from her basket and emptied the contents onto the shop counter — a pair of gold drop earrings, a small peridot and a matched pair of even smaller almandine garnets. ‘I never had the stones set,’ she said. ‘I meant to, but there was never the money, and now that I’m widowed there never will be.’

She held Mr Skelton’s gaze, aware that he knew she was lying. But that was the way this game was played, and they were both practised at it.

He held the earrings up to the light streaming through the shop window, then examined them through a jeweller’s loupe. ‘Well crafted,’ he remarked, then produced a grubby handkerchief, spat on it and rubbed at one briskly, checking for black marks.

‘Twenty-two carat,’ Sarah said. ‘It’s not pinchbeck.’

Satisfied, Mr Skelton nodded. He had a close look at the stones. ‘Nice cuts. I can offer you five pounds the lot.’

‘I was hoping for a little more.’

‘I’m afraid that’s the best I can do at the moment, Mrs Dunn.’

Sarah made a show of deliberating. ‘Then I’ll take it, thank you, Mr Skelton.’

He placed the jewels in a metal box, popped it beneath the counter, opened his cash drawer and handed Sarah the money. ‘Come and see me next time you find yourself having to pawn more of your collection, Mrs Dunn. I’m sure we can continue to do business.’

‘Perhaps, Mr Skelton. Good day.’

Outside the shop Friday said, ‘I bloody hope you know what you’re doing there, Sarah. Can you trust him? That wasn’t a good price.’

‘I haven’t got much choice, have I? It’s not as though I can go round interviewing every fence in Sydney.’ Sarah smirked. ‘Anyway, it was pinchbeck. With just a touch of lacquer.’

Friday laughed. ‘And Adam hasn’t noticed anything’s missing?’

‘I’m still working for him, aren’t I?’

‘How are you managing it?’

‘Very carefully. Come on, let’s have that cup of tea.’

The five pounds would go in the bag carefully hidden under the floorboards in Sarah’s room, together with the usual tenner Friday put aside from her own earnings each week. An account at one of the town’s banks might have been more secure, but only men had the authority to open one.

Since the beginning of November the amount in the bag — the ‘Rachel fund’ — had grown to an extremely pleasing figure, though some of the money earmarked for her had gone straight to Harrie at the Factory. Privately Sarah felt guilty because she contributed so little but, short of robbing Adam Green even blinder, there wasn’t much else she could do for now. She could pick the odd pocket while she was out, but she had neither the time nor the crew to operate the sort of lucrative caper in which she’d been involved in London. To her surprise — shock, in fact — she felt rather uncomfortable stealing from Adam, given that he was being decent to her, but if she didn’t, she couldn’t contribute anything to Rachel at all, and she’d feel even worse for abandoning her. Their charge wasn’t
really abandoned, of course, she had Harrie, but Sarah had made a promise to look after her, and she couldn’t renege just because she’d expected to loathe her master and didn’t. Now she felt guilty about that as well. God, she despised guilt — it was such a pointless waste of thought and effort.

They chose a tea shop on the corner of George and Hunter streets, sat down at a table near the window and ordered a pot of tea and a plate of sandwiches and cakes.

‘Who’d have thought we’d be playing ladies like this?’ Friday said, looking around and almost taking Sarah’s eye out with a peacock feather.

‘I’m not playing anything,’ Sarah said. ‘I’m a servant and you’re a tart.’

‘A very well-paid tart, though. Much better money here than in London, even though I’m handing nearly half of it over to Mrs H.’

‘Why’s that, do you think? The money?’

‘Not enough women here. Mrs H says there’s three blokes to every girl. The beauty of supply and demand, she calls it.’

‘You must be busy.’

‘Flat out.’ Friday snorted at her own wit. ‘Except when they want it some other way. My minge is on fire come the end of the night, I can assure you.’

A pair of middle-aged women at the next table stared at Friday, cake forks suspended between mouth and plate, faces frozen in shock.

Sarah said, ‘That came out a bit loud.’

‘Anyway,’ Friday said, ‘you’re not a servant. You’re a jeweller.’

The tea and cakes arrived. Sarah poured. ‘All right then, a jeweller who scrubs floors, empties chamber pots and polishes furniture. That bloody Esther: I could quite easily throttle her. Every time I think I’ve finished she finds something else for me to do, anything to stop me being in the workroom with Adam.’

‘She probably thinks you’re lifting your leg for him.’

‘I know she does.’

Friday reached for a jam tart. ‘Are you?’

‘Really!’ First one woman stood, then the other. Leaving their afternoon teas unfinished, they swept from the shop.

‘No, I’m not. What I said earlier, though, about Adam not noticing, I can’t just keep stealing bits and pieces. He will notice soon and then I’ll be buggered. And what I’m taking isn’t even worth much, especially by the time it gets to Skelton. A fence will never give you the full price of what a piece is worth. If I could get my hands on some good paste I could replace some of the better stones Adam has, then fence the genuine ones.’

Friday eyed her shrewdly. ‘But you don’t really want to do that.’

Sarah felt her face grow warm, as though she’d just been caught telling an enormous lie. ‘How do you know I don’t?’

‘Because you like him, don’t you?’

‘I do not!’

‘And
I
say you don’t want to because if you’re caught you’d get another seven years for it. It isn’t worth it because you don’t need to. I’m already making piles of money.’

Sarah was silent for a while, scraping the jam out of the middle of a tart with her fork. Finally she said, ‘I
could
always pick a few pockets on my day off, I suppose. Just to keep my hand in.’

Friday shrieked with laughter at Sarah’s pun.

They finished their tea and paid. Outside, a very smart curricle, lacquered midnight blue with a raised black hood and pulled by a matched black pair, went past. The driver wore livery and carried a long whip, while the face of his passenger was almost hidden beneath a large hat. The shape of her nose was very familiar, however, and when she turned her head towards them, Harrie and Friday both recognised her.

She looked away quickly, but it was clear she had also recognised them.

‘I saw Bella Jackson this afternoon,’ Friday said to Elizabeth Hislop. The shock of it was still making her heart thump.

‘I’d like to see Bella Jackson or Shand or whatever her bloody name is myself,’ Mrs Hislop said as she viciously jabbed a knife into the hinge end of an oyster and prised it open. ‘The cheek of the woman!’ She tipped the oyster into her mouth, tossed the empty shell out of her office window and reached for yet another from the huge bowl on her desk. The oysters came from Sydney Cove and were fresh this morning. ‘Fancy one?’

‘No thanks.’ Friday hated them. ‘Why?’

‘I thought you might have a taste for them.’

‘No, why do you want to see Bella Jackson?’

‘To give her a piece of my mind, that’s why. I wouldn’t be bothered if she was hiring out a handful of scabby whores from some rat-infested hovel, but she’s set up in direct competition with me. She’s leased a house in Princes Street —
Princes Street
, for Christ’s sake! — and tricked it out with velvet wall hangings and fancy carpets and chaise longues and God knows what else, and the next thing you know she’ll have my clientele sidling through her back door, thinking her girls are better than mine!’

‘Are they?’

‘Her girls? How would I know? I haven’t seen them. I doubt it. My house has had a reputation for the best girls on the Rocks for years, and that’s because I do have the best girls. Unless she’s suddenly conjured a dozen exotic beauties out of thin air, which I can’t see, myself.’

‘But you know what men are like. They’ll have to try it out.’

Mrs Hislop nodded in weary resignation, because she did know what men were like.

‘And she’ll undercut you,’ Friday added.

Mrs Hislop looked alarmed. ‘Will she? Like that, is she?’

‘Hard as a box of nails and cunning as a shithouse rat.’

‘Crossed swords already, have you?’

‘Crossed swords? I’ll kill the bitch if I ever get the chance. I don’t understand though, Mrs H, how she can set up a bawdyhouse when she’s just got off a convict ship. Isn’t she supposed to be assigned like the rest of us?’

Mrs Hislop selected another oyster, thought better of it, and dropped it back in the bowl with a clatter. ‘She
is
assigned — to her husband. Clarence Shand is fifty-six years old, an importer and exporter with warehouses and lumber yards on Sussex Street and Phillip Street and down on the waterfront, and filthy rich. Well, by Australian standards. A bit shady, and a bit of a bastard by most accounts. His wife of some years died twelve months ago.’

‘So Bella
is
his servant?’

‘Hold on, let me finish. A man who marries a woman still serving her sentence becomes responsible for her, so she comes off the stores, which is one reason marriage is encouraged here. But she’s still a bonded convict, so no, she can’t run a business. Marriage to Clarence Shand, however, means Bella can quietly dabble in whatever venture takes her fancy under his protection, because their marriage itself was a business deal. It was brokered by a woman who arranges these sorts of things for the wealthy. Very discreet and charges a hell of a fee. I expect it’s quite a suitable set-up for old Clarence. He gets what he wants, and Bella gets what she wants.’

‘How do you know all this?’

Mrs Hislop tapped the side of her nose. ‘I’ve lived on the Rocks for nearly eighteen years now, love. I’ve got all sorts of people owe me favours. And a few I owe, too. There’s not much goes on here I don’t know or can’t find out about.’

‘So what
does
Shand want?’ Why anyone would choose to marry Bella Jackson was a complete mystery. It would be like taking an adder to your bed.

‘A woman who scrubs up reasonably well and keeps her mouth shut.’

‘About what?’ And then Friday realised. Honestly, she was so dim sometimes. ‘He’s a mandrake, isn’t he?’

Mrs Hislop nodded. ‘And it’s much easier to be one of those with a loving wife on your arm.’

Friday snorted. ‘He won’t get much loving out of Bella Jackson.’

‘Luckily he won’t want it.’ They laughed. ‘But will she?’

‘Doubt it. She’ll be too busy counting her money and scheming to expand her criminal empire.’

‘Is she really that flash?’

‘She really is. If I were you I’d watch my back. If I were
Clarence
I’d watch my back.’

‘Mmm. Perhaps I won’t go round to Princes Street and throw bricks through her windows then. You should watch your back, too, Friday, if you’ve already had run-ins with her. You really don’t like her, do you?’

‘Like I said, I’m just waiting for my chance.’

Mrs Hislop gave Friday a worried glance. ‘Really? You’d swing for it, you know. Even if she is as rum as you say.’

‘Be worth it.’

‘Will you tell me why?’

It might be a relief to tell someone older and wiser about Keegan’s crimes against Rachel, and how Bella very likely orchestrated them, and for a second Friday considered confiding the whole story to her. But only for a second. ‘One day I will. But not now. I’m sorry.’

‘Does it involve your friend? The one still in the Factory?’

Friday nodded.

‘Well, I’ll not pry,’ Elizabeth Hislop said. ‘God knows we’ve all got secrets. I have to tell you, though, love, I can’t allow you to bring trouble into my house. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, Mrs Hislop,’ Friday said. ‘I do. Very well.’ And she did.

February 1830, Parramatta Female Factory

Janie sat on the floor in the hospital, Willie in her lap. His skin was pale and clammy and his blind eyes half open, eyelids fluttering fitfully. He was naked except for his clout, the rapid rhythm of his tiny heart visible in his sunken belly.

Harrie set a cloth and a fresh bowl of water on the floor. Willie’s head lolled in her direction, then his arms flew out, fists clenched and his spine arched as he was taken in another fit. Janie slipped one hand beneath his buttocks and the other behind his neck, supporting his rigid little body until the spasm passed.

She looked at Harrie helplessly, tears welling. ‘I know it’s a terrible thing to say, but if I could put an end to his misery and get away with it, I would. It’s so cruel, Harrie.’

‘It can’t be long now, Janie, surely. Mr Sharpe doesn’t think so.’

‘Mr Sharpe doesn’t know his arse from his elbow. I’ve seen babies like this go on for weeks and weeks until they starve to death. And so have you, so don’t deny it.’

It was true: Harrie had. If a convulsion didn’t kill him, Willie could die from lack of food. He was taking very little nourishment from Janie now; his bowels had stopped; he was barely conscious much of the time; he was blind; and he seemed in constant pain. She dipped the cloth into the water and gave it to Janie.

‘And he still can’t keep the tincture of opium down?’

‘I’ve even tried mixing it with some of me milk in a spoon, but he just spews it everywhere.’

‘Keep trying, Janie.’ Harrie turned to go; she had to check on Rachel. ‘It will help him, even just a little bit.’