Kitty Peck and the Music Hall Murders (18 page)

You are safe now.

That’s what Lucca had said when he’d got me into the box. But he was wrong.

Danny held the rope out. ‘See the end there – half of it’s frayed and torn, but if you feel here . . .’, he ran his fingers over the ragged cords, ‘you can tell where it’s been cut through smooth with a knife – not all the way, mind, but enough to make it break when your cage began to pull into place. Someone cut into all the guide ropes like this – I’ve checked them.’

The three of us were alone in the workshop behind The Gaudy. Lucca examined the rope in silence as Danny continued. ‘At first I blamed myself, I didn’t check over the chain and the hooks like I promised, but what with . . .’

I reached for his hand. ‘It’s all right, Danny, I know, with Peggy being . . . away and everything?’

He nodded. ‘And that’s not all, Kit. I went up to the crawl space above the hall between the plaster ceiling and the roof. I wanted to take a look – the way that plaster came down wasn’t right. It’s only been up six years and it was a craftsman job. The Lady brought in people from France special.’

‘What did you find?’ Lucca’s voice was sharp.

‘It’s usually dark up there so I took a candle, but I needn’t have bothered. It was like the sky at night in the crawl space, what with all the little lights twinkling up through the boards.’

‘What do you mean lights?’ I didn’t catch him at first.

‘There were holes, Kitty, bored down through the struts – right down into the plaster – dozens of them, all in a ring round that central hook where the chain connects up.’

I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise. ‘So the plaster work and the boards over my head were deliberately weakened too, like the guide ropes?’

Danny nodded. ‘The only thing that kept you up last night was the fact the hook goes right through an oak beam at least a foot thick running across the centre of the hall. Like iron it is. When you aren’t up there in the cage there’s usually a big old chandelier hanging off it so it has to be strong. That’s why we knew The Comet was always going to be the safest place for . . .’

He stopped again and I had a sudden revelation of just how dangerous my act really was at the best of times. I wasn’t scared of heights, but I was scared of a murderer.

I looked at the boys; Danny was rolling the fraying rope end between his big hands and Lucca was gnawing the skin at the side of his thumb. They weren’t going to say it, so I did.

‘That break-in yesterday – Fitzy told me that nothing was taken – did you two hear that?’

Lucca nodded. ‘The Lady believes it was a challenge,
si
? The reason nothing was taken was because nothing
needed
to be taken. It was a show. The Barons want to try her. She is old, Kitty – surely her time . . .?’ He shrugged and raised his hands.

I pictured Lady Ginger on the stage while Frances and Sukie had knelt before her. Silent and still she’d been, the only movement the glittering of her jewels and the flint-strike of her dark eyes. She was a coil of vengeful fury and no one in that hall could match her. Lucca was wrong – The Lady wasn’t old, she was ageless.

I shook my head. ‘That wasn’t a challenge to The Lady’s power. Someone broke into The Comet yesterday, but the only reason they did was to kill me. They did their best to make bleedin’ sure my cage went crashing to the ground with me inside it – and if it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t be here now talking about it. Don’t you see, this isn’t about The Lady. It’s about me and it’s about
The Cinnabar Girls
.’

Lucca frowned and shot an anxious look at Danny whose face was a blank. I caught his meaning immediately. Poor Dan hadn’t got a clue about that painting and with Peggy gone missing I didn’t want to start explaining anything to him.

‘Look, Dan,’ I thought fast. ‘Could you do something? I won’t feel safe until I know that someone I trust has looked over that cage again and checked all the ropes and the links in the chain. I know you’re right about what happened at The Comet and, I’ll be frank with you, I’m frightened. You remember the other day when you said how I’d got guts? Well, this has shaken me up bad. I’m scared and I need friends like you and Lucca here to look out for me. You’ll go and check it all, now, won’t you? Please?’

I caught sight of Lucca’s expression as I finished up and I hated myself for being such a competent liar. I knew Danny Tewson’s weak spot and it was kindness. He wasn’t what you’d call the academic type, but he was a natural gentleman. Even if he had any suspicions about what I’d said to Lucca about
The Cinnabar Girls
, he didn’t show it now.

‘Of course. I’ll get straight to it.’ He jumped up and reached for his coat. It was a bright day, but cold with it. ‘They’re getting ready for your run-through inside. We’ve had new ropes delivered this morning so I’ll go over every inch of them before you’re needed.’

When he’d gone Lucca didn’t look at me. ‘You’ve become quite a performer, haven’t you?’ he said quietly after a moment. I felt a guilty flush creep up my neck and spread across my face as he continued. ‘Tell me then, how is what happened at The Comet last night connected to
The Cinnabar Girls
?’

So I went through everything and as I spoke I realised that most of it – no, all of it – was about James Verdin.

I told Lucca about James and his mates from The Artisans Gallery coming to my dressing room, about that picture and the flowers he’d sent me, about meeting him again on my way back from The Comet the night Peggy went missing, about getting drunk on that stuff he’d given me and about taking him back to my lodgings.

Lucca sat in silence while I talked. He leaned forward and rested his head on his hands so I couldn’t see what he was thinking. When I got to the bit about my lodgings, he stood up and walked over to the far end of the workshop. Then he stepped back and kicked at the wood suddenly and viciously. He spat on the floor twice and I heard him mutter ‘Verdin’ followed by something in Italian.

The workshop was completely silent.

‘The worst thing is that when I was with him and . . . under the influence, I think I told him about the painting and the missing girls. Next morning, before he went off to his club, he told me I said “extraordinary things” when I was . . .’ I paused and looked at Lucca’s back. ‘I . . . I’ve been stupid, haven’t I?’

There was no answer. I felt into the deep pocket in the folds of my skirt. I’d taken the drawing of me in the cage from The Comet and I’d brought it with me today, along with the sketch of my head and shoulders James had sent to the theatre.

I’d pinned them to the wall of my room at Mother Maxwell’s last night and I’d sat cross-legged on the boards staring at them for a long time. Now I spread them out in the sawdust on the workshop floor, tracing the lines of writing with my finger. In the clear winter sunlight, I was sure. The drawings were by the same hand, and there was something else about them too.

‘Lucca, come and have a look at these.’

He didn’t move, just stood there with his back to me. I felt even shabbier now than I did when James had left me in my room. ‘It wasn’t my fault. You must believe me. It wasn’t . . .’

‘It wasn’t what?’

He span round. The mottled, scarred skin of his face pulsed red and white and his eye blazed. ‘From the moment you first saw him at the gallery you’ve been panting after him like a bitch on heat. No – don’t deny it. I know you. When you saw him your eyes – they shone like stars. I have seen it before – I know the signs. What did you expect? Did you think he would take you away from all this? Dress you in fine clothes, tempt you with rich food, offer you champagne? Or did you think he would marry you and make you a lady? Look at yourself. Look at your cheap clothes and your threadbare life. Look at our world.’

He laughed harshly and gestured round the workshop. ‘Those people, they are all the same. You are a bigger fool than . . .’ He stopped short.

‘
Puttana!
’ He spat out that last insult – I knew what it meant – and a little slick of spittle came to rest on the boards near the drawing of my head. I’d never heard Lucca so bitter and so passionate before. The words tumbled over his lips and his accent almost disappeared. He was shaking with anger.

I stood and took a step towards him.

‘A bigger fool than who, Lucca? What you’ve just said, that wasn’t about me, was it?’

Something flickered across the handsome side of his face and he dropped his head so that his dark curls fell forward. ‘You aren’t angry with
me
, Lucca, are you? All that stuff about fine clothes, fancy food . . . and champagne?’

I remembered that time when Lucca told me he liked the taste of the stuff and I’d wondered how a lad like him came to know about it. I thought of that now as I watched him. His head hung low and he’d hunched his shoulders up and forward like he was trying to fold himself away.

He didn’t reply so I took a step closer. ‘For your information, James Verdin got me drunk with something . . . something that made Kitty go away and replaced her with someone else. I didn’t know what I was doing that night, so I certainly wasn’t thinking about any of those things you said. I won’t deny it, there
was
something about him that took me right from that first time. I thought of him a lot as it happens. And then when he came to see me with his mates he was very charming with it, kinder than them and cultural. He told me he was interested in me as an artist – he lapped up everything I said about that picture and I was flattered. Before he drugged me and made me a whore I . . .’

Lucca looked up. The fire had gone out of him now. He was about to say something, but I reached out and put my fingers to his lips. ‘Oh yes, that’s what he made me that night and don’t think I’m proud of it. Before he made me a whore I’d thought about the smell of him, how smooth his skin was, how his lips might feel on mine, how his hands . . . Well – there you are. Perhaps he was right about me after all. But
you
are wrong, Lucca Fratelli, so wrong. I’m no liar and I don’t have any secrets. But maybe you do?’

The sliding door rattled open. ‘Kitty, they’re ready.’ Danny stood in the sunlit yard, his shirt covered with greasy black marks. ‘I’ve been over every inch of ropes and oiled the chain too. It won’t make a squeak now. You’re in safe hands.’ He held up his stained palms and added softly, ‘Let’s hope Peggy is too, eh? Wherever she is.’

That cut home. Lucca and I were spitting like a couple of yard cats fighting over a sparrow, when there was so much else at stake. I pulled my hair back and began to wind it into a tight knot. I was hard on myself as I forced it into a ball and stabbed it with a pin.

‘I’ll be with you in a minute. Me and Lucca are just finishing up here.’

‘Fitzy wants you now. His mood’s fouler than a tanner’s pit so I wouldn’t keep him if I were you.’ Danny frowned. ‘You two all right?’ We must have looked odd standing close there, rigid as a couple of hop poles.

I tried to smile. ‘I’m fine as any girl who’s come within a feather’s breadth of dashing her brains out, Dan. Tell him I’m coming.’

Through the open door, we watched his shadow disappear across the yard. His feet crunched on the ice-crusted cobbles and then we heard the back door to the theatre swing shut behind him.

‘Forgive me.’

Lucca’s voice was thick and muffled. He slid down the wall and wrapped his arms round his legs.

‘What’s there to forgive then?’ That came out tighter than I intended.

He began to laugh, but it wasn’t a happy sound. I sat down next to him, the swishing of my skirts stirring motes of sawdust into the golden air. They danced around us as we sat there in silence. He didn’t look at me, but he took my hand and squeezed it.

‘Lucca, I’ve got to go. You heard Danny? Fitzy’s got the bear’s head on him. And I need to change into my practice gear.’

He nodded, dropped my hand and pulled his arms tighter round his knees like he was trying to make himself as small as possible. ‘I am not a liar, but there are things . . .’ He broke off, leaned his head back against the slats and sighed.

‘After the run-through, eh? I’ll come to your studio up there.’ I nodded at the wooden ladder leading up to the space above the workshop where he sketched and painted.

I stood up. ‘There’s another thing. Joey – the Lady’s given me seven days more before she . . . well, I don’t know what she’s going to do to him, but the end will be the same. Someone will find him in the river.’

Lucca stared up at me. ‘Seven days?’

‘Less now. I can’t see my way through this. I don’t want to fall out over nothing, Lucca, I need you. You’re all I’ve got left.’

Of a sudden I felt raw and I didn’t want him to see my face. I brushed down my skirt. The drawings were on the floor where I’d left them. I walked over, picked them up and took them back to him.

‘While I’m gone, have a look at these.’ Now it was my turn to laugh bitterly. ‘James sent them. He’s done a lovely flattering job on my head here, but that was before he had me.’

I handed the first drawing to Lucca. Then I smoothed out the picture of me in the cage and looked at it again. It was a wretched thing, twisted with spite and hate. The lines carved through the paper like a knife through flesh. The person who’d drawn this was furious. Just touching it made me feel sick, but not as sick as the thought that I’d had him in my bed.

‘Whoever broke into The Comet last night knows that I know about
The Cinnabar Girls
. Look at this.’ I held the drawing out to Lucca.

‘See that line there –
At night your cagebird sings an ugly song
. That doesn’t mean my act; I think it means what I said to James about the painting and the missing girls. And there’s something else. I reckon the person who drew this and the sketch in your hand is the person who painted
The Cinnabar Girls
. Look at the way he’s drawn my face in the first one. It’s beautifully done – and he makes the flesh of my shoulders seem real, warm, almost like you could feel it. Even this one . . .’, Lucca took the drawing of me in the cage from my hand, ‘. . . has a horrible sort of . . . power. I’m right, aren’t I?’