A Scandal in Battersea (Elemental Masters #12)(74)

She was watchin’ ’im, she was. ’E was up to no good, no good at all.

She hadn’t seen him nor his “man” since nuncheon—such airs! “His man,” indeed. Their flat had been dark when she’d gone to get the bit of warm milk with a little rum in it that Jilly begrudged her, but now it wasn’t. There was light showing through gaps in the curtains. Granny had a feeling. He was up to no good again. This was a night she had best watch.

Besides, it wasn’t that late. No more than an hour past full dark. The babbies wouldn’t be up till it was light anyways. Granny watched the flat, narrowing her eyes when the occasional shadow passed in front of a light, but as usual, unable to make anything out through the curtains. He had mortal thick curtains, he did. No one had curtains that thick unless they had something to hide.

Snow . . . oh, snow was coming down so thick now. And frost-flowers were creeping up the window, and she had to keep breathing on a spot to melt them, rubbing a clear spot with the corner of a shawl so she could continue to watch. And still, nothing.

She was about to give up and go to bed after all, when the front door opened, and out he came. And with a girl!

Another of his hoors, no doubt! She rubbed the spot in the frost clear again and watched avidly as he led her down to the street, and right into the middle of the street, turned her so she was facing up it, and gave her a little push.

Oooo, ’e’s gi’en ’er opium! I knewed it! I knewed it! She walked like a sleepwalker, paying no heed to anything around her, taking one plodding, mechanical step after another through the snow. ’E’s gi’en ’er opium, so’s ’e won’t haveta pay ’er! And, more likely than not, the poor hoor would fall down in the snow and die of the cold. And he knew that, and he was counting on it, and that was pure, cold-blooded murder! I knewed ’e weren’t up to no good!

Jilly did for two or three bachelors along this street, which was why Granny had to watch her babbies, and she always brought home the papers from two days before, faithful as faithful. Granny knew how to read and write, and proud she was of it, and never mind that Jilly and her foolish man saw no need of anything of the sort. She’d be watching the papers for a girl froze to death in Battersea, oh, she would, and as soon as she saw it, she’d go straight to the perlice, and give her evidence, and there he’d go, with his high and mighty ways, and his man, and his fornicatin’ on Christmas Eve!

She watched the girl until she was out of sight in the distance and the snow. He had gone back in almost immediately of course. When she could see nothing else, she got up—

—and squinted a little in surprise. Had Jilly left the wardrobe door open? There was a black rectangle where the pale painted wood of the door should have been. That door needed to be kept closed, or the older babby would pull all the clothes down and make a nest in them.

She detoured the three steps it took to get to the wardrobe and fumbled around, trying to find the edge of the door.

She was still trying when black tentacles seized her, wrapping around her face and smothering her screams, and pulled her into the black void where the wardrobe door should have been.





14





ALF stopped shoving eggs and bacon into his mouth for a moment and looked at Alexandre from across the kitchen table. Alexandre’s mother and father would have dropped dead of shock if they had seen him eating in the kitchen like a servant—but Alexandre saw no reason not to. The food was piping hot, right off the stove or out of the oven, the kitchen was clean and tidy, and much more cheerful than the dining room. “Guv, Oi got an hideer,” Alf said, looking expectant.

Alexandre looked blearily up from his newspaper. He’d had a restless night. He should have been relieved that the unpleasant task of rounding up the weekly pair of virgins was over, and he had been until he’d gone to bed. Yet somehow that relief had not translated over into sleep. He’d tossed and turned, and the eight-day clock had struck midnight before he’d been able to drop off.

And even then, he hadn’t slept well, not well at all. He’d had disturbing dreams, and still remembered parts of them. It had put him in a bad mood, on which the fragrance of breakfast had not had its usual positive effect.

He really wasn’t in the mood to listen to Alf’s suggestions for whores, a feast, or a visit to the music hall, the three things that Alf usually proposed over breakfast. Often, all three at once.

But when he looked up at Alf’s expression—it didn’t look as if Alf was going to suggest any of those things. “Let’s hear it,” he said, instead of telling Alf he wasn’t feeling well (which was true) and that he was going to go back to bed with a sick headache (which was near enough to the truth).

“Wut if we c’n git three’r more girls at once?” Alf asked. “Oi mean ter say, ye said the thing tol’ ye we got t’get four more pairs. But wut if we c’n get three or four at a time, ’stead’a two? Ye think th’ thing’ll be set? Give us wut we wants and go ’bout its bizness?”

“I . . . don’t know,” he replied, struck by the question. “But how would we manage to acquire more than a pair at a time?”

Alf grinned. “Oi ’appens t’ ’ave found out th’ ’irin’ ’all where yer fav’rite madame gits ’er virgins,” he said in triumph. “She gits country girls; she checks ’erself t’make sure they’re virgins. An’ ’ell, Oi c’n git as many boys as ye want. An’ we know, now, thet the thing’ll take boys fer feedin’. Hit’ll take money fer the girls,” he added, warningly. “Virgins ain’t cheap.”