“There were rival gangs in the club, you see,” she continued blithely, “and they got into a bit of a gunfight.”
“Gunfight?” Frobisher knew this from Cobb, of course, but he was surprised how easily the word sat on her lips. She was battle-hardened, perhaps not just by the war.
“I’m not entirely sure what happened, but Pierrots were involved.”
“Pierrots?” Frobisher echoed. Dear God, was there no end to the dratted creatures?
“Yes, there was a gang, in fancy dress, apparently they had been out a-robbing. The something Huns.”
“Hackney.” She seemed to have reduced him to single-word responses, but at least now he had an explanation for the Pierrot that had been trawled from the Thames this morning.
“Yes, that’s it, Hackney Huns. One of them was shot—”
“Shot? A Pierrot? You’re sure?” This morning’s Pierrot had had his throat cut. How many murdered Pierrots were there, for heaven’s sake?
“No, one of the other lot. The Frazziniellis—is that their name?”
“Frazzini.”
“A Pierrot started the whole thing though, I think. The injured Frazzini man—his name was Aldo—was in quite a bad way. I don’t know if he survived. I helped them patch him up. One of the Pierrots was carted off, protesting very loudly—some kind of expiation, I think, gangs are quite keen on vengeance, apparently. Tit for tat, you know? Eye for an eye. I’ve no idea what happened to him but I didn’t fancy his chances. Anyway, to cut a very long story short, Inspector” (Oh, dear Christ, call me John, Frobisher thought), “the matriarch offered me the position of manager—I should say manageress—of one of her clubs—the Crystal Cup.”
He was startled. “I’m sorry, Miss Kelling, could you repeat that?”
“All of it?”
“No, just the last bit.”
“I am to work for Nellie Coker. Isn’t that perfect? I shall be able to report back to you from the inside. A secret agent!” Her eyes shone with excitement. He hadn’t realized just how headstrong she was. Frobisher feared for her. What had he started? He sensed it would be unstoppable.
* * *
—
“Oh, good Lord, I almost forgot,” she said, as she got up to leave.
What now? Frobisher wondered with trepidation.
“This morning’s post brought the requested photographs of both Freda and Florence. From my friend Cissy.”
“Yes, Freda’s aunt.”
“Sister, actually, but it makes little difference.” She passed an envelope across the desk. “I’m afraid Freda’s photograph is one of her ‘professional’ ones, in stage costume and make-up. They seem to be the only ones there are of her. They make her look much older than she is. To be honest, Inspector, I haven’t seen her for a couple of years. I doubt very much I would be able to recognize her now.”
Frobisher slid the photographs out of the envelope and studied them. It was true, Freda seemed more woman than child, attired in some kind of insubstantial stage costume that looked rather risqué to his eyes.
Gwendolen laughed once more. “An amateur production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I believe. Freda was part of Titania’s fairy retinue. I’ve never liked Titania—so imperious and capricious, to boot. Don’t you think?”
Frobisher, who had never found himself needing an opinion about the character of Titania, gazed at Gwendolen rather stupidly before venturing, “Well, I suppose she is a queen.”
“And queens are by their nature imperious. Yes, of course—you’re right, Inspector.” (I am?, he thought.)
She seemed to be completely ignoring his concerns over her extraordinary plan to work for the Cokers. How vexing she was. She was treating it like a “lark,” he admonished, when it was clearly a venture fraught with jeopardy. “They’re not what they seem, Miss Kelling. I don’t think you know what you’re getting yourself into.”
“Just a few days, then, Inspector,” she mollified him. “Surely it’s too good an opportunity to pass up. I shall find out as much as I can about the Coker enterprise and before you know it I’ll be back on the train home to York.”
“York?” Frobisher echoed, trying to disguise the disappointment in his voice. “To the Library?” he said. “Of course you must.” She had a life elsewhere, he reminded himself, a life he knew nothing of beyond the Library. Perhaps she had a beau (or several) waiting for her, or a loving family. In truth, he knew nothing about her, only that she had a quiet magnificence that he both admired and feared and the idea of her leaving so soon gave him a hollow feeling in his chest. Was her working for Nellie Coker the price he had to pay for her not leaving London?
“Nellie Coker is an astute woman,” he said. “She will see through the deception, and when she finds out that you are a viper in her nest then I don’t like to think what she might do.”
“Rip my heart out, I expect, Inspector,” she said cheerfully.
He sighed his surrender and returned to the photographs. Unlike Freda, Florence still looked like a child. Hers was a school photograph—pinafore and plaits. Spectacles, too. Impossible to see if there was a crucifix beneath the blouse and tightly knotted tie. It was possible that she was the girl in the mortuary, but a drowned exsanguinated girl looked very different to a robust schoolgirl.
“Catholic?” he murmured, more to himself than to Gwendolen.
“You can tell simply by looking? What an extraordinary gift, Inspector! I imagine the Inquisition would have made wonderful use of you.”
He wished she wouldn’t tease. “I think you said she went to a convent school.”
“Did I? I don’t remember.” She paused and then more soberly said, “You sent me a note about a locket. It implies you have a body, Inspector.”
Frobisher flinched inwardly at her bluntness. She seemed lacking the usual boundaries. Again, the war, he supposed. He wished now that he had gone out and not been in a reserved occupation—he had tried to go but had been ordered to stay. He felt a lesser man for it. Alive, though. That was something, he supposed.
“A body?” he said. “No, not at all. It’s just one of the questions we ask.”
“Well, the good news is that the Ingrams say no, Florence did not wear a locket. So that’s something to be thankful for, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“She wore a crucifix, apparently.”
* * *
—
After she had left, he sat at his desk and took some moments to gather his thoughts. He wished he smoked. Nothing to stop him starting, he supposed.
Lunch with Miss Kelling being off the menu now, he ate the table d’h?te menu at the Charing Cross hotel—a plate of liver and onions that sat heavily in his stomach so that yet again his thoughts drifted uninvited back to Shropshire, and, for some reason, the crumbly white cheese produced by the farm dairy. At fifteen he had been very keen on one of the dairymaids. She had the same clean, sour smell as the cheese that she made. Gwendolen Kelling reminded him a little of that dairymaid—not that she smelt of cheese, he had caught a hint of lily of the valley when she had bent over his desk to pass him the photographs of the two girls. But the dairymaid had had the same strength, the same…he searched for the word. Transparency, he eventually came up with. No—translucency. She was who she was, no dissembling. So few people were like that, in Frobisher’s experience.
He couldn’t remember the dairymaid’s name. It was strange how something that had once been so important could just slip away down the stream of memory, the waters muddied by time. He could have followed the metaphor further (drowning in nostalgia, and so on) but thankfully his thoughts were interrupted by the waiter from the Charing Cross hotel, who had chased him down halfway along the Strand. Frobisher had been so carried away by his reverie that he had forgotten to pay for his liver and onions. “I was about to call the police,” the breathless waiter gasped when he caught up with him.