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KlappentextLimehouse, 1880: Dancing girls are going missing from 'Paradise' - the criminal manor with ruthless efficiency by the ferocious Lady Ginger. Seventeen-year-old music hall seamstress Kitty Peck finds herself reluctantly drawn into a web of blackmail, depravity and murder when The Lady devises a singular scheme to discover the truth. But as Kitty's scandalous and terrifying act becomes the talk of London, she finds herself facing someone even more deadly and horrifying than The Lady. Bold, impetuous and blessed with more brains than she cares to admit, it soon becomes apparent that it's up to the unlikely team of Kitty and her stagehand friend, Lucca, to unravel the truth and ensure that more girls do not meet with a similar fate. But are Kitty's courage and common sense and Lucca's book learning a match for the monster in the shadows? Their investigations take them from the gin-fuelled halls and doss houses of the East End to the champagne-fuelled galleries of the West End. Take nothing at face value: Kitty is about to step out on a path of discovery that changes everything...

Details

Weitere ISBN/GTIN9780571302703

ProduktartE-Book

EinbandartE-Book

FormatEPUB

Format HinweisePub Wasserzeichen

FormatE101

Verlag

Faber & Faber

Erscheinungsjahr2013

Erscheinungsdatum25.06.2013

AuflageMain

Seiten368 Seiten

SpracheEnglisch

Dateigrösse946 Kbytes

Artikel-Nr.1276069

Rubriken

Genre9201

Inhalt/Kritik

Leseprobe

Chapter Three

The birdcage was about six foot high and maybe four foot wide. It was made of gold-painted metal and threaded with diamond-studded ribbons that looped between the bars and glittered in the lamplight. I say diamond-studded´, but actually, the ribbons were decorated with paste glass jewels like the ones I sew onto Mrs Conway´s bodices.

In you get then, girl. Let´s try it out for size.´

Fitzy tipped the cage back so that I could crawl inside. It didn´t have no door and it didn´t have no bottom. What it did have was a swinging perch suspended on chains attached to a hook driven into the canopy at the top.

I just stared.

Come on, Kitty. I haven´t got all night.´

Fitzy was irritated. The show hadn´t gone well earlier. There´d been trouble with a group of sailors in the gallery throwing things at the toffs in the boxes. While Mrs C was on stage doing her Nightingale Serenade at the close of the first half, a dozen men were at it like fighting cocks at the back of the hall.

A big French mirror was smashed and one of the gin barrels had been knocked over - leaking a night´s takings through the boards down to the cellar below.

Even though we closed up early, setting things to rights had taken a couple of hours. I´d been sent up to the gallery. Now, people always like to say that sailors hold their liquor well on account of them training their guts at sea, but from my experience - at the end of a mop - there is no job as bad as slopping out the gallery of The Gaudy after we´ve had a party of shipmates in.

The stink of it!

I was lugging the third bucket of vomit water back down the stairs when Fitzy came to the front of the stage. He shielded his eyes from the flares - we always kept a couple going after an incident so we could see what we were dealing with - and squinted out into the hall.

Kitty? Is that you with the bucket at the back there? I want a word.´

My stomach clenched tighter than an oyster´s shell. Since Lucca and I had got back late to The Gaudy there hadn´t been time for anything except pinning and fussing over Mrs C´s costumes for the evening. She hadn´t been too happy about my absence.

Fitzy´s gin-thickened voice rasped out again. Come on, girl. Chop chop.´

Fitzpatrick knows what to do. He will explain everything after this evening´s performance.

This was it, then. Whatever it was that Lady Ginger and Fitzpatrick had cooked up between them, it looked like I was about to find out. I noted that he´d left it until after I´d done the clearing.

I set down the bucket and propped the mop against a twisted column. When I got to the stage Fitzy had come round the side and was waiting for me at the curtained-off door that led direct from the hall to his offices. It was evident from the dark stains on his striped waistcoat - a garment that strained to contain the consequence of his appetite - that even he had been involved in the aftermath of the evening´s trouble.

He was a big man, Fitzy, and generally I did my best to keep out of his way. There was talk that in the old days - after the circus and before he´d got into the halls - he´d been one of the hardest bare knucklers on the streets, but these days it was women he liked to hit. He had a ripe reputation among the Gaudy girls.

This way.´ He pushed the fringed red velvet curtain aside with the end of his cane and opened the door. I´d never been in here before and I was surprised to see it was more like a lady´s parlour than an office - all flowers, china, cushions and bits of fancy material hanging over screens. There was even a fat day bed covered with tasselled bolsters stretched out in front of the fire.

In you go.´

He must have seen my expression, because he started to laugh. Nothing like that, my girl. You´re not my type - too scrawny.´

He pushed me through the door and walked over to the far wall where a shawl-draped screen all carved like a Chinese dragon stood in front of another door.

We´re going round to the workshop. I need you to . . . try something.´

I followed him through a passage that led round to the back of the theatre and then out across the little cobbled yard to the outbuildings where Lucca usually worked on The Gaudy´s painted sets and backdrops.

It was late now and the fog that had come off the river earlier had a sharpness to it that promised snow. Fitzpatrick unlocked the wide door and rattled it back letting the familiar smell of paints and turpentine leak out into the night. The workshop was black as a cell at The Fleet, as Nanny Peck liked to say, but Fitzy soon lit a couple of lamps and several candles, and as he did the giant golden birdcage was revealed smack in the centre of the sawdust-strewn floor. He walked over to it and patted it affectionately as you would a favourite dog.

Marvellous, ain´t it? Lovely workmanship. The Lady, she´s called in what we might describe as a favour from some friends at The Whitechapel Foundry. It´s light as a sparrow, but strong as an anchor.´

He rapped once on the side with his cane and a long, low musical note rang out.

Lovely tone.´

He paused in admiration as the note died away. It arrived on Tuesday on the back of a dray. Took delivery late at night, so I did. Doesn´t do to let the competitors see your next attraction.´

He looked over at me and his eyes narrowed.

Now, as I understand it, Kitty, you and The Lady have had a little tête-a-tête today about some business.´

I swallowed hard and nodded. If anyone was likely to know what had happened to Joey, Fitzy would - after all, he was The Lady´s right fist. I felt my heart start thumping under my bodice.

When I went to The Palace this afternoon, she, that is, The Lady, said my brother was . . .´

Enough!´

Fitzpatrick´s voice was suddenly very sharp. I don´t want to hear another word about that degenerate.´

But I have to know. She said he was . . .´

Dead . . . to the world that young man is. And a good thing too. You, on the other hand, are very much alive and we would like to make use of your . . . potential to ensure that all our Gaudy girls and the girls at our sister establishments stay that way too. I know The Lady has already talked to you about this.´

I took a step back. I was angry at what he´d said about Joey, but relieved too. So he was alive then? That was what Fitzy meant, wasn´t it? I couldn´t stop myself. The old bruiser could be quite handy with his cane when the mood took him, but the words came tumbling out.

Where is he then? The Lady said I had to help her find them girls if I wanted to see Joey again. I think I´ve got a right to know what´s happened to my brother.´

The workshop went completely silent for a moment. You couldn´t hear the creaking of the timbers and you couldn´t even hear the rats scratching in the walls, which was unusual because the place was infested with the scabby things.

Fitzpatrick took a step forward and I really thought he was going to land one on me, but instead he just smiled - not in a friendly way.

Good. I like a bit of spirit and so do the punters. That, Kitty, is just one of the reasons The Lady and I have selected you. But as to talk of rights now, I think you´ll find you don´t have much say in the matter. Your brother belongs to The Lady, you belong to The Lady, I belong to The Lady. We all do - that´s just the way of it.´

The smell of gin rolled off him and fugged the cold air of the workshop. I noticed his right eyelid twitched as he spoke. We all knew Fitzy liked to end his day with a drop of the hard stuff, but word was out that recently he liked to begin his day that way too.

Paradise was never a rosy Garden of Eden, but in the last few weeks it had become sour as a tanner´s pit. As I stared up at him now I realised that it wasn´t just the smell of the gin coming off him, there was something else too. Fitzy reeked of fear and that wasn´t reassuring.

I stared at the cage. The Lady and I have selected you. What for?

I took a deep breath.

Look, I want to know what´s happened to them girls. We all do. Alice Caxton - she´s almost like a little sister to me and Peggy. But I don´t see what I´m supposed to do. It´s a job for the rozzers, not someone like me.´

He started to laugh and I could feel my cheeks going red.

Come on now, girl, you must know that the very last people Lady Ginger would want to consult would be representatives of the law. Paradise has its own rules, so it does. I would have thought your brother would have explained that to you.´

Fitzy came a step closer. She always liked a pretty boy, Kitty. I was pretty once, can you believe that?´

He reached forward and caught at a ringlet that had come loose from the knot of hair at the back of my neck. I turned my face away from the stench of his breath. Then I yelped when he pulled hard. You look very like him, did you know that, now? But don´t flatter yourself. I wouldn´t want to touch you, not after . . .´

He broke off and looked over at the cage. If you want to see Joseph Peck again you´d better follow the rules.´

I clenched my fists. Keep thinking about Joey, I told myself; he´s alive and this is your chance to find him.

I stared up into Fitzy´s tiny bloodshot eyes. Well, what do you want me to do then? And what, exactly, is that ridiculous thing?´

I braced myself for a slap, but he didn´t seem to notice....

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