The Hourglass Factory (7 page)

‘Inspector.’

‘I don’t want to know. This woman needs a doctor.’ Two suffragettes came forward and helped her sit up. Her face was swollen from crying. With her shoulders slumped forward and
her legs sticking straight out she looked horribly young.

Barnes swayed on his feet. ‘There is hysteria bacillus in every case of suffragitis. Think of us as doctors, Freddie-boy.’

He looked Barnes in the eye. ‘Chops, was it? On a Wednesday?’

Barnes looked confused. Then a noise in the middle of the road distracted them. The crowd, already dispersing, were turning their attention back to the street.

‘It’s her. Mrs Haverfield,’ whispered one of the suffragettes on the ground.

Primrose turned to watch. With the majority of the window-smashers rounded up, the centre of the road was now clear and was being patrolled by three constables on horseback. As the onlookers
stared, the three horses tentatively stopped, then stepped backwards, swayed, arched their necks, and slumped full force to their knees. The officers on top clutched the reins and their helmets,
kicking the horses with the spurs on their boots, trying desperately to regain control over the animals, who were suddenly behaving as if they were spellbound.

‘What is it?’ Primrose murmured. Barnes nodded towards a woman straight ahead of the horses, kneeling on the dirty, glass-flecked street before them. She wore a top hat and black
velvet-collared coat, a long tweed skirt spread around her on the ground. The horses lowered their heads as if bowing to her, paying homage to the smile on her face. All around had hushed. In the
queer twilight breaths were frozen. Even the police officers had stopped short, prisoners still attached to them by the cuffs.

Barnes leaned closer and Primrose could smell stale beer on him like old garlic. ‘That’s Mrs Haverfield. She charms police horses. It’s witchcraft, pure and simple,
that’s what it is, Freddie. And if we don’t put a stop to it, right now, tonight, who knows what they’ll do next?’

A gust of air greeted Frankie as she opened the door onto the street, cold as buried bones, but a welcome relief. She drank it in. After being stewed in the gem-wood cabinet,
she had been scrubbed with boiled almond bran, rinsed in orange-scented vinegar and doused by Gracie in the bathroom with borax water. The wretched machine had been about as comfortable as sitting
in a coal scuttle. Twinkle of course wanted it lauded as the greatest invention since buttered toast, along with purple suits and starvation fashion.

Frankie shook out her arms and legs and gathered the broken camera back onto her shoulder. Anger and disappointment tugged viciously at her, her stomach raged with hunger. She hadn’t eaten
since breakfast, except for a few claggy sickly rose creams Twinkle had popped in her mouth while she was in the cabinet. Her blood was starting to feel weak. She fought against it. This was what
she had chosen, and she always knew it was going to be harder than fitting machines up in that stinking composition room. She pulled out her pocket-watch. Half past eleven. There was one last thing
she could try before the day was spent. Bending down, she poked a finger into the side of her brogues and sure enough there was the spare half crown that always lived there in case of emergencies
or pickpockets, something her father had shown her when she was a little girl, the place he kept his winnings when he had been at the bookies.

Soho would be alive at this hour.

She doubled back on herself until she came to a junction where omnibuses were still roaring about the empty roads, their golden lamps lighting up the faces of the passengers inside: evening
workers, waiters in white shirts, warehouse men in factory aprons. She thought about taking a motor bus but settled instead for a pirate horse-drawn for the cheaper fare, hopped on the back and
paid her penny. For the first time that day her limbs gave way to the rattling, comforting movement of the bus, the solitude it gave its passengers, all soaked in their own private worlds.

Some still said Soho was the devil’s haunt. The City Council’s twenty-year crusade against ‘disorderly houses’ had cleaned up some of it, cleared out
the slums and set a programme of eviction on the brothel madams that saw them shift their business down Piccadilly to congregate round the little statue of the Angel of Christian Charity (now
nicknamed Eros). But there were still some landlords that preferred the rent a red-light worker could pay, compared to a family of tailors or cobblers. It was its own enclave, a village where the
children were smart, and the shadowy figures of illegal bookies talking in unfamiliar tongues could be taken for menace. Frankie’s father, who had been born and bred in Tottenham,
couldn’t wait to drag her Italian mother out of Soho. Visiting it always had the uncomfortable feeling for Frankie of going somewhere she felt she ought to know but didn’t. Whenever she
saw Wardour Street she would think of her grandfather Lucchese’s funeral, the blurred memory of a gun cart, an open coffin and black horses with sinister plumes.

She hopped off the bus at Leicester Square and made her way up Greek Street, where the markets were still going, auctioneers selling off the last of their antiques, costermongers tossing
half-rotten veg to children with wicker baskets. French laundresses walked the streets with panniers of pressed linen bound to their hips. The public houses spilled out onto the streets, and the
steamed windows of French bistros and Hungarian restaurants were full of well-dressed men being served rich-smelling stews. There were men and women of all hair and skin colours bustling about,
speaking a mixture of languages, that seemed to shift with each street corner you turned. Tailors’ houses and patisseries of sweets and cakes had closed their doors for the night. A man in a
chef’s hat was smoking in the doorway of a trattoria. Frankie asked him in broken Italian if he knew Jojo’s Cocoa Bar. He gestured down the street, pointing away from Soho Square
towards Duck Lane.

Several slick-dressed men were smoking clove cigarettes and laughing on the corner of the junction, and because of them she almost missed it. They were standing in front of a painted sign with
an arrow pointing down the lane. Beyond them, a curved staircase led down to a basement door, open just a chink, where warm red light spilled up, deep and inviting, A glazed poster flapped against
the railings in the night breeze, showing a carnival of harlequins, tumblers, exotic barely-clothed people, bearded ladies and a woman with two heads, all clustered around one figure hanging in the
centre, as if her trapeze strings were being held up by the clouds: Ebony Diamond.

A sweep of wind pushed the basement door open and Frankie blinked as two figures standing beside the poster were suddenly lit up. She recognised the shape and stance of one of them, an older
woman, and her mind cast back to the previous summer. She had seen her outside the Palace Theatre. Lady Thorne, leader of the National Vigilance Association, notorious for causing fuss outside
theatres with her pamphlets. She wore a long blue cloak with a fur-trimmed hood, showing off her sharp little features. She was waving a bunch of papers in the other woman’s face.

The other woman, as Frankie clocked her, was slight and young, shiny with greasepaint and shockingly, or so it appeared from the back, wearing nothing at all on her top half. Frankie did not
consider herself a prude and knew that strange things went on in Soho – she had once seen a gentleman in a shirt and morning coat and nothing else running down the street howling for his
breeches – but she blushed and looked at her feet as soon as she clapped eyes on the muscles of the girl’s back. As the girl shifted, Frankie saw that in fact a looped bunch of shells
and coins was just about protecting her modesty. Her hair was covered by a velvet turban. The girl launched a hand for Lady Thorne’s face, making the shells on her top hiss. The old lady
darted backwards with impressive speed. Now the men who had been lounging at the sidelines were taking an interest.

‘Will you leave us be? People will think you’ve escaped from St Barnabas.’ The younger woman tried to grab Lady Thorne’s cloak but instead ended up with a fistful of the
pamphlets. A sea of papers fell over the cobbled street like giant confetti.

‘Jezebel!’ the woman cried. ‘Sharper than a serpent’s tooth!’

The girl looked ready to launch another attack, but then she put her face in her hands and took a deep breath. ‘François, call one of the cabbies over.’

A man in a bowler hat took his cigarette out of his mouth long enough to whistle and in a few seconds a bony horse appeared, leading a hackney into the yard. Frankie darted back as the horse
passed her. The girl had her arm on the old woman’s cloak and with a surprising strength managed to manhandle her into the cab, but not before the old lady had grappled up a few of her
pamphlets from the mucky ground. Her shoulders were hunched now; she looked as if she had woken from a bad dream and was willing herself to vanish. The young woman in the turban muttered something
in the driver’s ear. He frowned, and asked if she was sure.

‘Don’t worry, she’ll pay.’

Frankie leaned out of the way as the cabbie lashed his horse and the vehicle lumbered off back into Soho.

The young woman leaned against the railings and wiped a hand across her face. When she took it away a trail of smeared make-up had been left in its wake, black kohl and green eye paint. Frankie
only realised she was staring when the girl looked across at her. She ran her eyes up Frankie’s body, from the dark brogues on her feet to her trousers, jacket and short hair.
‘Haven’t I seen you in the halls?’ She had a cool educated voice.

Frankie shook her head. ‘No, I’m . . .’ she hesitated. ‘I’m a reporter.’

The girl’s eyes rolled back in her head. Her face was familiar-looking; the large cold features. ‘How did you find out?’

‘I’m sorry? I’m looking for Ebony Diamond.’

She paused, then something like relief flooded her face. ‘She didn’t turn up tonight. Matter of fact I’m doing the finale.’

‘Any idea when she’ll next be on?’

The girl nodded towards the entrance. ‘Ask Lizzy. She’s the dwarf. Does the rotas. I’ve no idea.’

‘What do you mean?’

The girl shrugged. ‘You’re a reporter. You should know.’

Frankie shrugged back.

The girl sighed. ‘She’s been in and out of prison. She’s never here. I’m surprised Jojo keeps her on.’ Shivering, she gathered her arms round her shoulders.
Something in her pockets moved. She dipped a hand into the fabric and to Frankie’s horror produced a heavy curled pink snake. Struck by the mawkishness of what she thought must be an
automaton, Frankie peered closer. The snake flicked its tongue and she jumped back. It began to travel round the girl’s hands in a slow dance.

She didn’t seem to notice Frankie’s revulsion. ‘Look, you can come in and watch the finale if you want. It’s tuppence tonight, and for sixpence more you get devilled
kidneys and potatoes.’ The snake licked the air again.

Frankie shuddered. Another wasted trip. She glanced at the covering of pamphlets sticking to the ground and bent to pick one up. In black dripping letters it read, ‘This way to the Pit of
Hell’. Below were listed the dangers of going to the theatre. There was a grotesque drawing of a group of prostitutes lurking like cats behind the Alhambra in Leicester Square.

‘That woman. That was Lady Thorne, wasn’t it?’

‘I have no idea who she is. Will you excuse me.’ The woman moved away from the railings, stroking the head of her snake as she went.

‘Wait. Can you tell me anything else about Ebony Diamond? When was the last time you saw her?’

She stopped and turned. ‘I don’t remember. Last week probably.’

‘But I thought . . .’ Frankie’s gaze shifted to the poster where Ebony Diamond was the centrepiece.

‘Things change, don’t they?’

‘What’s your name?’

She hesitated. ‘Salome. My name is Salome.’ With a seashell rattle she disappeared down the stairs into the gaping red door.

Frankie stood thinking for a few seconds. Did she want to part with eight pence? It would cost her at least that to fix the camera. There were still two more days before Saturday’s cheque.
And her bed was beckoning.

What would the girls on the society pages do? They would go in, of course. Teddy Hawkins would. But then none of them had just spent two hours having their skin purged by Twinkle and being
offered bull testicles for refreshment. She peered closely at the poster, still flapping against the railings. There were a few names on it: ‘Eloise, the two-headed chan-teuse’,
‘Jojo the wolf-man’, ‘The Black Diamond’. And there was the other woman tucked behind a pair of conjoined twins, ‘Salome Snake dancer, Princess of Egypt’.
Frankie stared for a second, then turned her nose up. That well-spoken girl with her hair all piled up in a Paul Poiret turban had never set a foot near Egypt, she would bet all the riches in
Mayfair on it. She began to skulk back towards the main street and was almost there when a child ran up to her, blocking her path. ‘Tuppence for a Lady Thorne doll.’ From behind his
back he thrust out a hand, full of half-inflated balloons with eyes and mouths sketched on in feathery traces. ‘Look,’ he put on a hoity-toity voice, ‘“This way to the pit
of hell!” Look at her faint in the face of the demons.’ He let the air out of the balloon and it farted to a flop.

‘Enterprising bag of little shits, aren’t you?’ She prised the boy out of the way and disappeared off down Greek Street, heading back on foot towards Clerkenwell.

Primrose was helping two junior constables book in a couple of suffragettes when his Chief appeared, brandishing a telegram. Bow Street Police Station raged with the noise of
furious women and hoarse constables. Behind the front throng, queues of prisoners were lining up waiting to be registered; conversations were breaking out between bored policemen and the
well-dressed ladies attached to them by the wrist.

Chief Inspector Stuttlegate was Primrose’s immediate superior in the suffragette branch, and had been in the role as long as the unit existed. At five foot seven he was just under the
regulation height for new recruits. Common folklore had it that his wits had got him through the training rather than his brawn, but those who knew him suspected ‘wits’ was a generous
word for brass neck. He had a pointy nose like a sniffer dog and wiry ginger hair twisting from his head in separate threads. He pulled Primrose’s elbow.