Kitty Peck and the Child of Ill-Fortune (21 page)

I read on.

With gravy, cabbage and a steaming pile of boiled potatoes, I thought. Old William couldn’t wait to pass on some highly titillating information. I flipped the page, noting that the handwriting sloped more violent to the right as he scribbled out his tattle.

I’ll lay a bet it was something more than interest. If my understanding of the letter was right, Old William’s ears must have been on fire.

That was true enough. If it hadn’t been for the fact that fat George’s daughter – Princess Charlotte in the letter – had died giving birth to a son, we wouldn’t have the benefit of Her Majesty on the throne. I knew all that from Nanny Peck who had an interest in the doings of the royalty, despite cordially hating them all for ruling over Ireland. In Church Street she used to read aloud stories about them from the newspapers lingering most particularly over descriptions of what they’d eaten.

I turned to the next page. At some point someone had spilled something, water perhaps, over the top part of the paper so the first two paragraphs were obscured. William’s story picked up clearly again halfway down.

He’d underlined that last word twice.

After dropping his incendiary remarks, the old chaunter put in another two pages’ worth about his wife, his children, his medical colleagues at the college – he didn’t think much of them – and his gardener, Fossett, who had a lovely way with plums, but I knew that wasn’t the point of it.

Sir William called Denman’s Aunt Margaret a gossip? The man should have been ashamed of himself. I’ve heard herring girls with tighter tongues in their heads. No wonder my grandmother kept his letter in a bank vault.

As far as I could make out, William Jenner was sinuating – no, it was more than a sinuation, after all it was there in blue and white – that Queen Victoria’s father wasn’t actually related to her at all and that the condition affecting her son, Prince Leopold, might well have been passed down from someone who was.

Tell truth, I didn’t understand all of it, but I knew it was dangerous. I looked at the other papers strewn across the desk – all them names, all them titles. I guessed they all told the same story, or parts of it.

Poor little Leopold, Sir William didn’t hold out much hope for him, did he? And yet Queen Victoria’s eighth child and fourth son was still alive and . . . Well, he was alive. That was something.

I flicked the page back and re-read a couple of lines of Jenner’s scrawl, the bit about binding the boy’s limbs, the swelling and the blood in the joints. Dr Pardieu was wrong. Robbie hadn’t reacted to the parrot – there was something already wrong inside him, something he shared with the little boy in the letter.

My grandmother’s voice sounded clear in my head:
He is your blood, he is your family. Think on those words.

Blood and family – she hadn’t been talking about me and Joey, had she?

There was a rap on the door and Lucca walked into the office. If it had been anyone else I would have gathered up the letters and locked them away, but I wanted to show them to him.

‘Sit down.’ I nodded at the spindly chair. He shook his head.

‘You must come with me, Fannella. Come now.’

I held out Jenner’s letter and flicked through the pages on the desk searching for the one that might have been Italian. ‘I haven’t got time for a walkabout, Lucca. I need you to look at—’

‘No!’ His voice was harsh. I looked up. His face was grey. There were lines stretched around his mouth and eye on the good side.

‘It’s Peter, Fannella, Old Peter. He is dead. It was not an accident.’

I almost had to run to keep pace with him.

‘Why are we going to your place, Lucca? Surely we should be going west?’

He didn’t answer. He paused at the corner of White Horse Street. The traffic on the Commercial was tight as cod in a Billingsgate box. There was a roaring sound overhead. The bolts in the viaduct rattled as a train veered off towards the Blackwall Extension. The street disappeared from view for a moment as the steam rolled down and folded over the bus and the dray cart blocking our way over.

I rubbed my left eye with the back of my glove as a smut lodged in the lashes. As we stood there Lucca’s hand tightened round my wrist. I felt the bag with the letters stuffed inside bump against my leg through the cotton of my skirt.

‘You said it wasn’t an accident – what do you mean?’

We stepped into the street and dodged round the back of the dray.

‘The way he was found. It was very clear.’

‘Clear in what way?’

On the other side of the Commercial we headed left and pushed along to the Caroline Street turn.

‘In a way I cannot bear to imagine, Fannella. His body was
. . . mutilare.
His stomach had been ripped open, the organs . . . placed.’ Lucca pushed his hand through his hair. ‘It is enough for you to know he had been tortured in his room.’

I stopped. Something squirmed about in the pit of my stomach. I tried to swallow the lump in my throat. I thought of Old Peter in his bright, comfortable lodgings. I saw the yellow knobs of butter dissolving in the fiery tea he’d served up and I thought of the story he told us about his life in Russia. He was happy in London. He fitted – that’s what he told us.

‘Who . . . who found him?’

‘Tommy and Isaac. They went to Pearmans Yard this morning. They were concerned that Peter hadn’t joined them at The Lamb last evening as was usual.’

‘They went together? I thought those two hated each other?’

Lucca shook his head. ‘It is a game, a front. The orchestra is like this.’ He loosened his grip and clasped his hands together, ‘
La famiglia.
Professor Ruben is talking to the police now.’

‘The rozzers!’

Lucca stared at me, his expression unreadable. ‘
Sì
– it is a crime, a murder.’

‘But I can’t . . . they can’t . . .’ I faltered as he turned away. I could read his face now – he was angry.

‘Don’t worry, Fannella. They won’t come to you. I am certain. Pearmans is a . . .
nido di corvi
– you would say a rookery? Such things are not unknown there. Death is commonplace.’

I gripped the handle of the bag. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—’

‘I think it was clear what you meant.’ Lucca pushed forward and I ran to catch him. I pulled his sleeve.

‘It was our fault, wasn’t it?’ When he didn’t answer I carried on. ‘We brought that man straight to his door. I’m right, aren’t I? You think it too? He went back there after that business on the roof to find out what we’d said. Peter didn’t stand a chance.’

Lucca nodded curtly. I blinked as tears started to glaze up my eyes. Peter had always been kind to me. A fortnight back it was him who had made me see straight.

I’ve known you a long time, Kitty Peck – you have a good soul. You need to let them see that the girl they knew hasn’t changed.

But he was wrong, wasn’t he? The first thought of the girl he knew would have been for her friend, not her own skin.

‘What should we do now, Lucca? I can’t let this go any further. What if he comes for Peggy . . .’

‘She is safe at The Palace with Robbie.’ He turned to look at me now and the hard lines of his face softened as he saw the tears. He reached forward and brushed my cheek.

‘It was not your fault. You weren’t to know.’

‘All the same, it was me who brought him to Pearmans. We need some answers, Lucca. Robbie and Peggy are safe behind the doors and shutters at The Palace – God knows my grandmother had it set up like a fortress. But that baby is . . .’ I trailed off. Who exactly was Robbie Lennox? More precisely, who was his mother? What was it David said that night he and Joey jumped me into taking the kid? I dipped for the exact words.

I didn’t realise until just before Robbie was born who his grandparents were. They are an old family – a . . . powerful family.

‘All I know is . . . this is something big, Lucca, something very big. And it’s deadly.’

He took my hand and glanced along the street behind me. I realised then that he’d been keeping a watch out all along to make sure we weren’t being tailed.

‘I know. And that is why there is someone I want you to meet, Fannella.’

Lucca’s new lodgings were in a good house with tall, wide windows overlooking the river. It had been built for an old-time merchant who liked to keep a watch on his ships. Lucca said the light was good for painting. I’d been there just once before, when he moved his gear in.

We rounded the stairs and came out onto a broad landing. Lucca tapped three times on his door. We stood there for a moment in silence and he knocked again. There was a sound from inside and a voice fired off something in rapid Italian.

‘
Sì!
’
Lucca followed that up with something else that included my name. I heard the sound of a bolt being drawn back. When the door opened I froze. The man standing just inside was the last person I expected to see.

‘Kitty, let me introduce you properly to my friend, Misha Raskalov.’

Lucca stepped back to let me go inside, but I just stood there. Misha bowed and came forward. Taking my hands in his, he lowered his silver-white head to kiss my fingers. He straightened up and smiled.

‘The honour is entirely mine, mademoiselle.’ His voice was clipped, but his English was perfect.

I looked over at Lucca.

‘I . . . I don’t understand, he’s . . .’

‘He is not a child murderer, Fannella. Go in, please.’

Lucca and Misha gabbled together in Italian.

I stood and went over to the window. Today the river was green as David Lennox’s eyes, ripples of silver flitted over the water as weak sunlight caught at the waves. The rain had stopped at last, but a wind was blowing from the east. Over to the left the masts of ships moored in rows four deep across the Thames swayed like a forest. They towered over the rooftops at the bend. Even from here I could hear the wailing as the wind cut through the cat’s cradle of ropes.

I turned to watch the pair of them. Lucca nodded energetically as Misha pointed at the pages laid out on the table in between them. The large square room was furnished simple. The grandest thing in it was a marble fire surround clustered with carved fruits and flowers. It put me in mind of the one I’d seen in the long hallway at my grandmother’s house.

Apart from the table, a tall cupboard and a bed over in the corner, there wasn’t much in the way of furnishings. The room smelt of paint and turpentine. There were drawings – fine ones – pinned to the walls and half-finished canvases stacked in the corners. It was like the little space he’d made for himself over the workshop at The Gaudy. Them days seemed very long ago and far away now.

A large black book bound with ribbon was propped against the window next to my foot. I recognised it immediately. Last time I’d opened it out to look inside I’d found my naked brother staring back at me from a page. That was when I first began to get an inkling about Joey, even though I shut it away as soon as it had come. He’d brought trouble again now.

I turned away from the window. ‘You’ve been here in London for two weeks?’

The pair of them looked up from the letters. Misha nodded. ‘We took rooms at The Langham and made appointments.’

‘We?’

He smoothed out the page in front of him. ‘Ilya insisted on accompanying me. He said it was important for the performer to understand the stage – to feel the spirit of the place. But then . . .’ Misha clicked his fingers. ‘He went. It was as if he had never been there. His clothes were gone, his room was cleared. There was nothing, not even a message.’

I glanced at Lucca. He was watching me to see that I understood. He raised his eyebrow. I nodded.

‘And you didn’t think that was unusual, Misha?’

‘Yes and no. Ilya Vershinin is well known for his capricious nature.’

‘His what?’ I joined them at the table.

Misha smiled, his clever blue eyes slanting up over his carved cheekbones. I could understand why Lucca thought so highly of him. He wasn’t slight like the ballet boys I’d seen at rue des Carmélites. Misha was tall and masculine and his full lips had something of the generous curve to them that brought to mind the angels in Lucca’s painting books. Although, on the quiet, I reckoned a celestial being would probably wear more in the way of clothes.

He smelt of lemon cut with incense – like the stuff them Romans use in their churches. He was beautifully dressed too – his shirt was whiter than his collar-length hair and his coat flung over the unmade bed was finished with sleek black fur at the collar.

‘Ilya is an artist, a performer of great power and passion, but his temperament runs like the water out there.’ Misha nodded at the river through the window. ‘He follows his own rules. When I found he was gone it was not, at first, so surprising. I simply thought he had tired of the meetings with petty bureaucrats at the theatres and gone back to Paris. It is his way, always.’

He paused and stared at me. His lips parted as if he was forming a question in his mind and trying it out for size.

‘Besides, Miss Peck, in Paris . . . he and your brother—’

‘I know – and call me Kitty, please.’ I cut him off. ‘How long had you been here when he took off?’

‘Two days.’

‘But you’ve been here a fortnight, Misha. Why didn’t you . . . I mean, you could have . . .’

I sidled a look at Lucca who was now engrossed in the faded script of one of the letters my grandmother had sent over – it was written in Italian from a marchesa. Misha cottoned on immediately. He reached across the table and caught Lucca’s hand. Lucca looked up and I saw the good side of his face flush. I noted that around Misha he didn’t try to hide the scars.

‘I didn’t know how to contact him. At the hotel there was a mistake – at least I thought it was a mistake – with the bags. Ilya took one of mine. It contained a wallet of documents and addresses. Lucca’s was among them. I was furious when I found the error. There were important names there – people I needed to approach, venues and, of course, my . . . friend.’ I saw him tighten his grip on Lucca’s hand.

‘I went to Sam last night, Kitty.’ Lucca put the letter back on the table. ‘I knew he’d be able to tell me where Misha was staying. After I left you I went to Holborn, to the offices of
The London
Pictorial
.’

Misha grinned. ‘Your journalist friend was very full of his talents, Kitty. He thinks most highly of himself.

Hadn’t Sam said much the same of Misha Raskalov? They were two clever street cats, fluffing out their fur and arching their backs at each other. Sam Collins was right about Misha’s talents, mind. He’d identified the origin of all but three of the letters from the bank vault, recognising the languages at a single glance.

‘So, what do you make of them?’ I nodded at the pages strewn across the table.

‘You are right, the answer is here, Fannella.’ Lucca took up Sir William Jenner’s letter and handed it to Misha. ‘This one is the key, but the others tell much the same story. What do you say?’

Misha rubbed his chin. In the sunlight the stubble grazing his angular cheeks had a red-gold tinge. ‘I always wondered why your queen did not use her given name. Perhaps now I begin to understand?’

‘Her given name?’ I frowned. ‘She’s Victoria – always has been.’

He shook his head. ‘To you, but not to us. She was baptised Alexandrina Victoria. Her godfather in absentia was the Czar. In Russia there was offence when the name was so quickly forgotten.’

Of an instant, it bumped into place. That was a name in the letter – Alexan
drina
.

I watched Misha sort through the pages on the table until he found it.

He pulled it free from the pile and nodded to himself. ‘But now it seems there are many things left forgotten. Her true parentage, for example? According to this letter sent from her aunt to her mother . . .’ He pointed at the yellowing page dated 1821 and signed ‘
Juli – Ihre liebevolle Schwester
’. ‘Your queen’s father is not the Duke of Kent, but someone . . . else. It’s not clear who, that part is missing, but my guess is that the man is a Russian of noble birth – a sick Russian.’

‘How would she know that?’ I stared at my grandmother’s note at the top of the page:

Something else fell into place. ‘So, she . . . married a Russian – Queen Victoria’s aunt is the duchess?’

Misha nodded. ‘But Russian was not her first language – it would be natural for sisters to communicate in their mother tongue. He turned the page round and pointed at some words near the bottom, reading them aloud ‘“
Diese schreckliche Krankheit
”.
It means, “this terrible disease”. She is warning her sister to be alert for the condition in her little daughter, here: “
ihre kleine Tochter, Drina
”
–
I believe it is a pet name, from Alexan
drina
? See here, she goes on to call her “
meine liebste Nichte
”
–
“my dearest niece”.’

I scanned the letters. ‘And the rest of them – all these others?’

Misha sat back. ‘There is a canker at the heart of the great houses of Europe. A sickness. They are all related by marriage – dynasty linked to dynasty. Look at the names here at the top of each page. From Russia in the east to Portugal in the west they are joined. It is like a dance – the partners change but the music goes on. It has been like this for centuries. The same blood flows in all their veins.’

‘And that blood is corrupted!’ Lucca took up the marchesa’s letter again. ‘Here – this one is more than a hundred years old, but it is the same thing. A sickness passed from mother to child, swelling, pain, bleeding. She calls it “
maledizione del sangue
”, the “blood curse”.’