The Silk Thief Read online

  Dedication

  This one is for my beautiful great-nephew, Oscar Jack Anderson, born on 16 January 2014

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Map

  Part One: When the Melancholy Fit Shall Fall

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Part Two: Let Her Rave

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Part Three: And Drown the Wakeful Anguish of the Soul

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Author’s Notes

  Bibliography

  Acknowledgements

  Excerpt from A Tattooed Heart

  About the Author

  Other Books by Deborah Challinor

  Copyright

  Map

  Part One

  When the Melancholy Fit Shall Fall

  Chapter One

  Early Monday morning, 11 July 1831, Sydney Town

  Harrie Clarke hadn’t slept at all well. She’d tossed and turned, worry nipping at her like a hungry rat, her dreams getting as twisted as her sheets; and when Angus the cat had come in he’d selfishly spread himself across half the mattress. And now someone was tapping on her window. Except that was impossible — her room was high up in the attic.

  Grateful for the rag rug on the cold floorboards, she crossed to the window and peered down past the shingled slope of the roof. Dawn was still several hours away and there was hardly any moon — she couldn’t see a thing. During the day her eyrie at the top of the Barretts’ two-storey house afforded her a view of the roofs, privies and dank yards of those who lived below on Harrington Street (and, unfortunately, of the gallows within the walls of Sydney Gaol), of the streets of the town to the south and west, and of Sydney Cove and the governor’s enormous private gardens to the east. Now, however, in the velvet darkness, her ears and nose were more use to her than her eyes. She heard the susurration of small waves on the cove’s shore, the strident call of a night bird and the tuneless singing of a drunk somewhere down near George Street. As always, the nearby cesspits tainted the air even up here, undercut by yesterday’s rendered tallow from the soap and candle works in the next street, mixed with wood smoke from hearth fires and the pleasant briny tang of the sea.

  But as her eyes adjusted to the night’s shifting shadows, she made out the barest outline of a lone figure standing below in the backyard, its pale face turned up towards her. A raised arm drew back and something small and hard bounced off her window, making Harrie flinch. A pebble?

  Her visitor was a boy, and she guessed from the way he held himself it was Walter Cobley. But what had gone wrong, to make him rouse her so early on a Monday morning? Had something happened to Friday in the night? No: Walter knew nothing about her gruesome midnight errand.

  Harrie lit the bedside lamp, keeping the flame low. Angus, awake now, gave a soft meow as she slid her feet into slippers. The air was chilly but she didn’t bother with a robe. She made her way downstairs, treading gently on the creaky risers so she wouldn’t wake anyone, and let herself out through the back door.

  He was waiting for her, his lanky form detaching from the yard wall as though he were made of smoke.

  She whispered, ‘Is that you, Walter?’

  ‘I need help, Harrie.’ His voice cracked and he cleared his throat, the sound close to a sob. ‘I’ve done something bad.’

  She lifted the lamp, and almost dropped it. Walter’s shirt, jacket, face and hands were splattered with some dark substance.

  ‘Walter! Is that blood? Are you hurt?’ She took a step towards him, but his scruffy little dog, Clifford, crouching protectively in front of him, growled menacingly.

  ‘Shut up, Cliffie. It’s not mine. It’s Amos Furniss’s.’ Walter swallowed audibly and stared down at his hands — held before him palms up, fingers spread — as though they belonged to someone else. ‘I killed him, Harrie.’

  Her heart stopped, then lurched into a wild, thumping rhythm. ‘Amos Furniss? You’ve killed Amos Furniss?’

  Walter nodded.

  ‘But … where?’

  ‘In the old burial ground.’

  Harrie went dizzy as the enormity of what he’d done overwhelmed her. She was confused, too — Friday had gone to the cemetery, not Walter. She had the most hideous thought. ‘Is Friday all right?’

  ‘I suppose. I dunno.’ Walter wiped a trembling hand over his face, smearing tacky blood across his cheek.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Desperate to hear about Friday, she wanted to grab his shoulders and shake a useful answer out of him, but he was clearly suffering from shock and she knew it wouldn’t do any good. ‘What happened, Walter? Tell me.’

  Walter squatted so suddenly Harrie thought for a second he’d collapsed. But he was only crouching to pat Clifford, his blood-sticky hands running along the dog’s hairy back, drawing in comfort stroke by stroke.

  ‘I followed her to the burial ground.’

  ‘Friday? Or Clifford?’ she asked. Clifford was actually a bitch despite her masculine name, and Harrie wanted to be very clear about who was who in Walter’s story.

  ‘Friday. And I seen Furniss so I hid while she gave him the money. Then when she’d gone I followed him to the Bathurst Street gate and I stabbed him. To death.’ He raised his head, his teeth bared in something not even close to a smile. ‘And I’m bloody glad I did, Harrie. He deserved it.’

  She nodded: she knew why Walter had killed Furniss. The shock of his news had for some reason heightened her sensory perception — she could taste the cold in the air and feel the darkness on her skin, and she fancied she could actually hear the bones in her neck grating together. She shivered.

  ‘And I thought I’d feel … I dunno, happy or something,’ Walter said. ‘But I don’t. I feel funny. I feel sick.’

  As if to demonstrate this, he retched and, narrowly missing Clifford, heaved up a little puddle of watery vomit.

  Harrie patted his back as he spat out a long string of saliva, and this time Clifford didn’t growl at her proximity. This close, Walter smelt like a freshly slaughtered cow and she felt her own gorge rise. ‘Where’s Furniss now?’

  ‘Still at the burial ground.’

  Harrie waited until he’d spat some more and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Then she said, ‘Walter, listen to me. Did anyone see you leave? Or on George Street near the burial ground gates? Is that the way you came here?’

  He shook his head. ‘I come back along York Street.’

  ‘But did anyone see you?’

  He shrugged and settled his hand gently on Clifford’s head. She licked his mucky fingers. ‘Maybe,’ he said. Then he nodded miserably and started to cry.

  Harrie dressed hastily, not caring that her shift was on backwards, and wrapped her shawl around her shoulders. She glanced at the rocking chair under the eaves, but it was disappointingly empty. She felt sick, and a leaden, almost painful, sense of doom had settled in her belly.

  She’d despised Amos Furniss herself, but now there’d be another dead soul to creep around in her mind and torment her. Liz Parker and Gabriel Keegan, then Jared Gellar and now Furniss. And poor, darling Rachel, of course, though unlike the others she’d been a tremendous comfort since she passed. So many folk whose paths she and Sarah and Friday had crossed had died. Is it us? she wondered. Are we somehow responsible for all those deaths? Am I?

  She crept bac
k downstairs. Walter was still there, hunched against the wall in a crouch, head resting on his arms, Clifford at his feet. The dawn was still a good hour or so away. Harrie knew she’d have time to get to Friday’s, then Leo’s, then back again before the Barretts awoke.

  ‘Come on.’ She offered Walter a hand up. ‘Let’s get you home. Leo’ll know what to do.’

  Walter extended his own hand; in the light of Harrie’s lamp they both eyed the blood staining his skin and the rims of his fingernails. He withdrew it, and pushed himself off the cobbles.

  ‘Quickly, love, have a wash.’ Harrie indicated the bucket beside the rainwater overflow barrel, and wondered why he hadn’t done so already. The shock, probably.

  ‘I lost me hat,’ he said forlornly.

  ‘Never mind, we’ll get you another,’ Harrie said, as though she were talking to a five-year-old.

  Walter splashed his face with cold water and scrubbed at his hands while Clifford helped herself to a noisy drink from the bucket.

  ‘Why did you come here?’ Harrie asked as they hurried along Gloucester Street towards the turn into Suffolk Lane. Worried that someone out early would see the state of Walter’s clothes, she’d given him her spare shawl to wrap around his shoulders. ‘Why didn’t you go straight home?’

  ‘Oh.’ Walter stopped, dug around inside his jacket and brought out a pouch. ‘This is for you.’

  Harrie didn’t have to look inside to know what it contained. Her heart sank yet again. ‘The money?’

  He nodded.

  ‘How did you know to follow Friday last night? How did you know who she was meeting?’

  ‘I were listening when you and her were talking about it at Leo’s,’ Walter confessed. ‘When she were getting her new tattoo?’

  Oh God. Harrie felt as though her insides were turning to water. After all these months, was their secret finally out? What had she and Friday said that day? She really couldn’t remember. She was having trouble remembering all sorts of things lately. Nervously, she asked, ‘What, exactly, did you hear?’

  ‘Friday said something about Bella and two hundred quid. And that the money were to be delivered to Furniss at the old George Street burial ground last night. At midnight. And something about a lady called Janie and some babies missing out? You said you haven’t got much money to give. So I got it back for you.’

  He didn’t appear particularly pleased with himself — unsurprisingly he still looked like a boy shocked silly after stabbing a man to death — but Harrie knew him well enough to understand that he needed acknowledgment for retrieving the money, whatever other awful thing he’d done. So she said, ‘I’m grateful for that, Walter. We all are. Thank you.’ Though there would be hell to pay when the blackmail money remained undelivered and Bella discovered that Furniss was dead. She would immediately assume that Friday, Sarah or herself had killed him. Bella already knew, after all, that they were capable of murder. God, why hadn’t Walter thought of that? But he was only a boy.

  ‘Walter, when Friday and I were talking, did we say why we were being blackmailed?’

  He shook his head.

  Harrie allowed herself a sigh of relief, and slipped the pouch into her skirt pocket. ‘Did you tell Leo what you heard?’

  ‘Hell no. He would’ve clipped me ears for listening at the door.’

  ‘Oh, love, he’s going to do more than clip your ears. Do you not realise how much trouble you’re in?’

  ‘He’ll tan me hide, won’t he?’

  ‘Probably.’ Instead of following Suffolk Lane down to George Street, Harrie turned into Harrington.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  Harrie patted Walter’s arm reassuringly. ‘To make sure Friday got home all right and to tell her what’s happened. Then we’ll get you back to Leo’s.’

  It only took them a couple of minutes to arrive at the Siren’s Arms, the hotel owned by Friday’s boss, Elizabeth Hislop. A lamp burnt outside the pub’s front door, but the windows on the upstairs accommodation floor were all dark. Harrie and Walter followed the carriageway around to the stable yard at the back, and stood staring up.

  ‘Which one’s Friday’s?’ Walter asked in a loud whisper.

  Harrie wasn’t sure; it was hard to tell from outside on a dark night. ‘I think it’s that one,’ she said, pointing. ‘Throw something. See if we can wake her.’

  Walter tossed a small stone towards the mullioned window. It hit the glass with a clack and bounced off.

  Nothing happened. He threw another one. And another. Finally the window opened and a tousled head appeared. ‘Who the hell’s throwing bloody stones?’

  ‘Friday!’ Harrie called up as loudly as she dared. ‘It’s me. Let us in!’

  ‘Harrie?’

  ‘It’s me and Walter. We have to talk.’

  The window banged shut. ‘Don’t worry,’ Harrie assured Walter, ‘she’ll let us in.’ And then she realised that Walter wouldn’t understand why it was so important she tell Friday what had happened, and that when he did understand, he’d feel even worse than he did already. But that couldn’t be helped. Not now.

  Clifford growled, then a voice behind them said, ‘Oi!’

  Harrie almost jumped out of her boots and Walter started so wildly he fell to one knee.

  ‘What d’you think you’re doing?’ It was Jack Wilton, Elizabeth Hislop’s coachman and factotum, and he was hefting a wood splitter in one brawny hand.

  ‘Jack, it’s me, Harrie Clarke. And Walter, from Leo Dundas’s.’

  Jack took a step forwards on stockinged feet and squinted. ‘Christ, it is, too. What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?’ He glanced at Walter. ‘And why’s he wearing a woman’s shawl?’

  The back door of the pub opened and Friday Woolfe appeared, a robe thrown over her nightdress, her wild hair unbound and falling almost to her waist. She carried a lamp, its flame illuminating her bare feet. ‘Harrie? What’s wrong? What’s happened?’

  ‘Are you all right?’ Harrie demanded.

  ‘Me? I’m fine. Why?’

  Harrie glanced at Jack. ‘We need to talk. It’s important.’

  Friday understood immediately. ‘Thanks, Jack.’

  ‘Sorry we woke you,’ Harrie added.

  Jack shrugged, yawned, said, ‘I’ll get back to me pit then, shall I?’ and trudged off to his room above the stables.

  ‘Come upstairs,’ Friday said.

  Harrie, Walter and Clifford followed her. She locked the door to her room and dug around in her dressing table drawer for a small bottle of gin. ‘What’s going on, Harrie? What’s Walter doing here? And why’s he wearing your shawl?’

  As Walter sat on the chair before the dressing table, Harrie sank onto Friday’s bed, relieved beyond words to be sharing the awful predicament caused by what he’d done. ‘Walter overheard us at Leo’s the other day and last night he followed you.’

  ‘You sneaky bugger,’ Friday said. ‘You must have kept your head down. I didn’t see you.’

  ‘Weren’t meant to,’ Walter mumbled.

  ‘He waited until you gave Furniss the money,’ Harrie went on, ‘then he killed him.’

  Friday choked on a mouthful of gin, shooting it out of her nose like a whale’s blow and coughing until her face turned puce.

  Harrie talked on over her racket. ‘And then he took the money back.’ She removed the pouch from her pocket and dropped it on the bed. ‘He thought he was doing the right thing, but now Bella’s going to think we killed Furniss. So she’ll either kill us in revenge, or she’ll tell the police what we did and we’ll hang.’ Her voice rose and she was powerless to stop it. ‘It’s over, Friday. We’re going to die and we’ll all go to hell for our sins.’

  Friday gave one last cough and wiped her mouth on her sleeve. ‘Calm down, love. Here, have a drink.’

  ‘I don’t want one,’ Harrie said, her mind darting back to the dreadful episode with the wine in Hyde Park last year.

  ‘Just drink it, will you?’ Fri
day thrust the bottle at her. ‘Call it medicinal.’

  As Harrie took a tiny, hesitant sip, Friday turned to Walter, whose pale, narrow face had gone even whiter, and said, ‘Really? You actually killed him?’

  Walter nodded miserably. ‘But I didn’t think … I’m sorry. I just wanted to make Furniss pay, and get the money back. For Harrie. For all of you.’ He swallowed anxiously. ‘Why will you hang?’

  ‘Best you don’t know. Where’s Furniss now?’

  ‘In the burial ground, where I left him.’

  ‘Christ. Does Leo know?’ Friday asked Harrie.

  ‘Not yet. We’re on our way.’

  ‘Do you want me to come with you? I’ll never get back to sleep now.’

  ‘Oh, would you?’ Harrie felt teary with gratitude. She really wasn’t looking forward to Leo’s reaction when he discovered what Walter had done.

  ‘Nearly morning anyway.’ Friday slipped out of her robe and drew her nightdress up to her waist, revealing long white legs and a very shapely bare bottom.

  ‘Friday!’ Harrie inclined her head towards Walter.

  ‘Oh. Right. Look away, love,’ Friday said.

  But Walter, utterly exhausted, had nodded off, his chin on his chest, a dangling hand resting on Clifford’s head.

  Friday tut-tutted. ‘Look at him. Twelve years old and a murderer already. What a bloody tragedy. It’s all Furniss’s bloody fault. The only real crime is poor Walter had to top the bastard himself. Someone should have shoved him off his twig ages ago.’ She pulled her nightdress off over her head and unselfconsciously stooped to rummage through a pile of clothes on the floor. ‘Where the hell are my boots?’ she exclaimed, loud enough to startle Walter awake again. He gawped at her nude form for a moment, then quickly looked down at his hands.

  ‘Hurry up and put something on,’ Harrie urged. ‘Was that them at the bottom of the stairs?’ She’d noticed an abandoned pair as they’d come up.

  Friday sniffed the armpits of yesterday’s shift, made a face and put it on anyway. ‘Could be. I was in a bit of a state when I got in last night. Had a couple of drinks.’ She stepped into her skirt then struggled into the fitted bodice, swearing under her breath as she did up the fiddly little buttons down the front.