‘I don’t,’ the man said. ‘The name’s Jonah Leary.’

  ‘Ah.’ Leo crossed his arms. ‘I’ve been on the lookout for you.’

  Wiping down her needles, Harrie nodded to herself. So that’s where she’d seen an echo of those facial features — on Malcolm Leary.

  ‘So I’ve heard,’ Jonah Leary said.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry to tell you this,’ Leo said, ‘but your brother’s passed on.’

  Jonah Leary looked faintly disbelieving. ‘Is that so? How would you know? Me brother, both me brothers, are living in England.’

  ‘No, I’m afraid at least one of them was here in Sydney last week.’

  Stony-faced now, Jonah Leary said, ‘Which one?’

  ‘Malcolm.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He’d come in for a tattoo, obviously. He was sitting in that very chair, and, well, he had some sort of seizure and died.’

  Leary cocked his head. ‘Who says it was me brother?’

  ‘He did. He told us he’d come to New South Wales to look for you. He showed us a tattoo of a map on his back. Asked if we’d seen you — another cove with ink like his.’

  Leary was suddenly listening very hard.

  ‘Just before he died,’ Leo went on, ‘he asked us, he asked me, to find you and give it to you.’

  ‘What, exactly, did he say about it?’ Leary demanded.

  ‘Nothing. Nothing at all. Just that he wanted you to have it. I put the word out but nobody seemed to know anything about you.’

  ‘I been working out Parramatta way. Where’s me brother now?’

  ‘He died a week ago. It’s been hot. I had to fetch the undertaker.’

  Jonah Leary was out of the chair in a flash, fists clenched, but Leo was even faster, darting between Harrie and their visitor, a knife suddenly in his hand.

  ‘Settle down. I’ll have no temperamental behaviour in my shop.’

  Reluctantly, Leary sat. ‘Where’s he buried? You had no right to do that. Burial’s a job for next of kin.’

  ‘We had no choice.’ Leo went to the cabinet that held his books and papers and took out the jar containing Malcolm’s skin. ‘I took it off him before the undertaker arrived.’

  Harrie glanced at the jar then quickly away. She hadn’t known he’d done that. Thank God she hadn’t been here when he had.

  Leary took the jar, held it up to the glow of a Sinumbra lamp, and shook it to make the skin unfurl in the solution. After a minute or two of intense study, he lowered the jar to his knee. ‘You did a good job.’ He stood and walked to the door, where he turned, nodded once and said, ‘I’m obliged to you for salvaging it for me.’

  ‘I thought you wanted to know where your brother was buried?’ Leo said.

  ‘No need, now. I’ve got what I wanted,’ Leary said. ‘What was the name of the undertaker?’

  ‘Brownlow and Son. Up the street.’

  Leary nodded again and walked out.

  Harrie said, ‘God, how heartless.’

  ‘I’ll say,’ Leo agreed. ‘Not a lot of love lost there, I suspect. Not from his side, anyway. Lucky we’ve seen the last of the bugger.’

  Jonah Leary wasn’t happy. He tucked the jar containing his brother’s skin awkwardly under his coat so passers-by wouldn’t gawp, and returned to deposit it in the room he’d rented for a couple of nights at the George Inn on Market Street. Then he strode purposefully back along George Street, keeping an eye open for the premises of an undertaker called Brownlow, which he located not far from the gaol.

  Peering through the window, past a display of wooden and black crepe-covered coffins, he saw that the cove behind the counter was occupied with a woman in black weeds snivelling into a handkerchief, and waited until she’d finished carrying on. He raised his hat and held the door open for her as she left, then went in himself.

  ‘Brownlow, is it?’ he asked, approaching the man.

  The cove looked him up and down. ‘Mr Lionel Brownlow, undertaker, yes.’

  ‘I’m told you buried me brother a couple of days ago: Malcolm Leary.’

  Lionel Brownlow looked blank for a moment, then said, ‘Oh, yes. The man who died while being tattooed,’ in a tone that implied that he considered getting a tattoo was the same as being voluntarily sodomised. ‘The tattooist called us in. Most, er, unfortunate.’

  The tattooist had also, Mr Brownlow recalled, paid a bribe of two pounds to secure his silence as, under the Murder Act of 1752, it was a criminal offence to interfere with any corpse other than that of an executed murderer, and that particular corpse had been neither entirely whole nor fresh from the gallows.

  ‘Where’re his things?’

  ‘His effects?’

  ‘His clothes, his purse. The things he had with him.’

  ‘The trousers we had to, ah, burn. They were soiled. I believe we have everything else. In cases such as this we keep items for three months. One moment, please.’ The undertaker disappeared out the back, returning almost immediately with a cloth-wrapped bundle.

  Leary took a folding knife from his pocket, startling the crap out of Mr Brownlow, flicked it open, and cut the string. Grasping one end of the cloth, he gave it a yank, dumping everything on the counter. There were a pair of boots, socks, a jacket, a shirt, a waistcoat, a neckerchief, a flattened hat, a pipe and fixings, and a purse, all accompanied by a powerful waft of meat gone over. No room key. That was odd. His brother must have been staying somewhere. Leary opened the purse.

  ‘Is this all the money there was?’

  Mr Brownlow looked at him as though he’d farted. ‘I have no idea. We never interfere with a deceased person’s effects.’

  ‘What was he buried in?’

  ‘A shroud. I’m afraid your brother was buried as a pauper, in the Devonshire Street cemetery.’

  Leary put the purse in his pocket. ‘Just the shroud? Not with any other possessions?’

  ‘No. What you see here was all he had on his person.’

  Waving his hand over the pile of clothing, Leary said, ‘You can keep all this. I don’t want it.’

  There was nothing here. Shit.

  ‘You may wish to consider making a contribution towards the costs of your brother’s burial,’ Mr Brownlow suggested, but Leary was already halfway out the door.

  In Friday’s opinion, Minnie Thompson’s brothel on York Street wasn’t half as nice as Mrs H’s. It was smaller, for a start, but then Mrs Thompson’s girls only catered to a very specific sort of customer. It was dramatically decorated in dark colours and heavy fabrics, with furniture of rich rosewood and paintings everywhere depicting naked women. Also, there was no salon and only two work rooms, both upstairs. Friday was in the largest, having her first lesson. The walls of the chamber were papered with a pattern of black lilies on an oxblood-red background, swathes of heavy black velvet framed the windows, and the floorboards were polished to a high sheen. There were no hooks and pulleys in the ceiling with which to hoist customers, the likes of which Friday had seen in several of London’s flogging brothels, but there was a set of wrist irons bolted to a wall, an iron bedstead and mattress draped with oilcloth, a sort of wide leather stool over which a body could be bent for flogging, and a glass-fronted cabinet displaying assorted whips, birches, straps, paddles, manacles and ropes, and beautiful little cut crystal bottles containing smelling salts. If Mrs Thompson’s house were ever raided, Friday thought, she’d be for it. On the other hand, perhaps she was immune; she could just see Clement Backhander Bloodworth creeping in through the back door, quivering with excitement.

  At the moment, one of Mrs Thompson’s girls, named Violet, was bent naked over the stool, and Friday was practising her whipping on her. Violet enjoyed being flogged, and was paid extremely well by the men who visited Mrs T’s house for allowing them the privilege to do so. She felt, however, that Friday hadn’t quite got the hang of it, and that she was also holding back.

  ‘Well, I don’t want to hit you too hard,’ Friday said.

  Though the sight of Violet’s bare and lushly round bum presented over the stool really was quite appealing, the idea of thrashing her silly with the whip wasn’t. Violet, however, was proving to be physically very tough, belying her appearance. Her name suited her. She was fair-haired and very pale-skinned, and had genuinely violet eyes with mauve shadows beneath them. She looked imminently bruisable, and Friday imagined some men would thoroughly enjoy laying into her.

  ‘You’re not supposed to beat the living shit out of ’em,’ Mistress Ruby said, puffing on her pipe and taking a swig from her tumbler of gin. ‘That’s not the point. You’re supposed to “tickle” ’em with the very end of the thong, so it’s just painful enough to drive ’em mad with excitement. You don’t want to send ’em home lookin’ like a side of raw beef. ’Course, some coves want you to go real hard, and that’s fine, long as they say so first. But there’s more skill needed when you’re going soft.’

  Mistress Ruby’s name, Friday had discovered, really was Ruby — Jones — and she was a bonded convict originally from Wales. Ruby was about four feet ten inches tall, stocky and well muscled; and she could wield a whip like a professional bullocky. Her very long hair was dyed the colour of pitch except for a single white stripe, had the texture of straw, and was piled up, making her look as though she had a badger dozing on her head, though she said she usually wore it down when she was working.

  She was the only professional flagellant in Sydney Town, and Friday had been wary of meeting her, aware of just how vicious the jealousy among women in the sex trade could be. She and Molly had had a nasty fight with a handful of tarts from Nellie McShera’s bawdyhouse in the Black Rat Hotel the year before. But she’d been pleasantly surprised by both Ruby’s and Violet’s open and generous natures. As far as Ruby was concerned, Sydney was no different from London: it was full of Englishmen, and Englishmen were always wanting someone to beat and humiliate them. Another female flagellant hanging out her shingle wasn’t going to make much difference to her.

  Friday laid the whip on the floor and flexed her right arm. Whipping was hard work and her shoulder muscles were aching. She was sweating heavily, too, and had already stripped down to her skirt and shift, the tattoos on her bare arms gleaming. It didn’t help that the day was warm and the drapes across the windows were stifling the meagre breeze.

  Ruby put aside her pipe and drink. ‘I’ll show you again. It’s a bit like pullin’ your punches. Pay attention to my wrist this time.’

  She picked up the whip handle, the leather thong trailing on the floor like a skinny black snake, positioned herself behind Violet, and raised her arm. A crack rent the air; the thong flew out and connected with Violet’s buttock, once on the left, then again on the right, leaving two marks like slashes of crimson wax on the pale flesh.

  ‘See?’ she said, and handed the whip to Friday.

  Friday made sure she was grasping the handle in the manner Ruby had demonstrated, widened her stance for balance, raised her arm, let fly and took two candles out of the brass ceiling candelabra.

  ‘Shit. Sorry.’

  ‘The wrist action was better,’ Ruby said, ‘but your aim was way off. And it’s more of a sideways flick than an overhead one. Have another go.’

  Friday did, and succeeded in hitting Violet this time, but on the back of her calf, making her swear.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ Friday said. ‘I can’t do this. Not to a girl. It might be different if I was walloping the hell out of some arsehole cove.’

  ‘No, you’re gettin’ there,’ Ruby said encouragingly. ‘It takes time. It’s not as easy as it looks. And it’s not to do with anger. You have to remember that.’

  Violet stood up, her face red from dangling over the stool, rubbed her stinging calf, then stretched and shook out her arms. ‘Do we need to get a man, do you think? Will all your customers be coves?’

  ‘I’ve only got the one.’ Friday fetched her bottle of gin from her reticule. ‘I’m learning this just for him.’

  Violet and Ruby exchanged amused glances. ‘We wondered why Mrs T agreed to let us teach you,’ Violet said as she pulled on a robe. ‘We’re not bothered, but we thought she’d be worried all our cullies’ll go galloping down to Argyle Street if they hear there’s a new flagellant in town. But if you’ve only got the one, who cares?’

  Ruby said, ‘Wouldn’t matter, anyway. Like I said, there’ll never be a shortage of coves wanting their arses whipped. What are you going to call yourself?’

  Friday took a staggeringly large swig from her bottle and wiped her mouth. ‘Dunno. Friday, I suppose.’

  ‘No, you need a special name, to add to the theatre. You know, Mistress or Madame Something-or-other. Then the cove can go, “Mercy, Mistress Ruby, please don’t beat me,” or, “Whip me, Mistress Ruby, I’ve been a bad boy,” dependin’ on whatever gets him goin’.’

  ‘You use your normal name,’ Friday said.

  Ruby said, ‘That’s not the point.’

  Friday thought about it. Unsuccessfully. ‘Dunno. What do you think?’

  ‘Why don’t you ask him?’ Violet suggested, peeling an apple with a fruit knife, the skin coming off in one long, curling piece.

  ‘That’s a good idea. And what am I supposed to wear? Anything special?’

  ‘Well, he obviously fancies you,’ Ruby said, ‘so somethin’ that plays up what you’ve got. But it’s the pain and submission he’ll be after, not so much your body. Is he askin’ for actual sex?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, a lot of ’em don’t. He’ll still make a mess, but at least it won’t be all over you. How old is he?’

  ‘Ancient. Easily in his sixties.’

  ‘Jesus, girl, you’d better have the smelling salts ready.’

  Friday turned to Violet. ‘I don’t understand it. How can you actually like being flogged? How can anyone? Doesn’t it hurt?’

  ‘Yes, and that’s the point. That, and knowing someone else has complete control over me.’ Violet pointed at Friday’s tattoos with her fruit knife. ‘How can you tolerate that? That must hurt like a bastard.’

  ‘Well, yeah, but it’s a good sort of pain. Intense. After a while I sort of float off and nothing seems to matter any more. It’s like being mashed, but without all the fighting and having to suffer the horrors the next day. I can’t explain it.’ She faltered, because she couldn’t. ‘You’ve got no idea.’

  ‘And you’ve got no idea what it’s like being flogged,’ Violet said, but she didn’t say it nastily.

  Ruby peered into the bowl of her pipe, then sucked vigorously on the stem to get it going again. ‘Sounds to me like it’s two sides of the same coin.’

  ‘Do you like what you do?’ Friday asked her. Violet obviously did.

  ‘I don’t give a shit either way. But the money’s good, and I never have to lift my leg for anyone. Can’t ask for much more than that.’

  ‘Never?’ Friday said, astonished. ‘But what if they ask for it?’

  ‘There’s two other girls here that do that side of things. I just do the flogging and the like, though sometimes we’ll work together. But I never even have to touch the buggers.’

  ‘Really?’ Friday thought that sounded fantastic.

  Unfortunately, Leo and Harrie hadn’t seen the last of Jonah Leary. He appeared again the following Monday, sidling in the door just as their first customer of the morning walked out.

  Leo swore under his breath, and gestured at Harrie to position herself to run out of the shop if things became unpleasant.

  ‘What do you want now?’ he said. ‘Our business is finished.’

  Leary shook his head. ‘No, it isn’t. I want to know exactly what me brother told you about the tattoo you took off him.’

  ‘I already told you.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘You can believe what you bloody well like. He said nothing at all, other than to find you and give it to you, which I’ve done.’

  ‘You said he showed it to you.’

  ‘Aye, he did. He said his tattoo was like yours, and showed me. He thought I might know you, because of it. I also saw it when I flayed it off him. Obviously.’

  ‘What else did he say about it?’

  Leo’s fists curled. ‘How many times do I have to say this? Bugger all! And I didn’t ask anything, either.’ He leant towards Leary. ‘Do you know why? Because I don’t give a shit.’

  Leary didn’t flinch. ‘Did he give you another tattoo?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Another one, like the one you took off Malcolm. Preserved. Did you keep that one for yourself?’

  ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

  ‘Me and Malcolm had another brother,’ Leary said tersely. ‘By the name of Bennett. I was thinking, Malcolm might have had Bennett’s tattoo with him.’

  In the hope that it would satisfy the ghoulish bastard and get rid of him, Leo made a concerted effort to remember exactly what Malcolm Leary had said. ‘He showed me his tattoo, said you had one like his, and mentioned that another brother had something similar. I think he did say the name Bennett.’

  ‘Said what about him, exactly?’

  ‘Just that he had a similar tattoo,’ Leo said, his temper ratcheting up a level. ‘That’s it. For Christ’s sake, does it matter?’

  Leary gave Leo a foul look. ‘Yes, it bloody does. Did me brother say where he was lodging?’

  ‘A pub called the Black Rat.’

  ‘Did you steal the key to his room?’

  ‘No, I did not! Now get the hell out of my shop!’

  Leary stood motionless for a moment, then said, ‘If I find out you’ve lied, I’ll be back, and you’ll bloody regret it.’ He glared at Leo, took a good hard look at Harrie, and left.

  His next stop was the Black Rat Hotel. Having got the publican’s attention, he informed him that Malcolm Leary was dead and that he had come for his brother’s belongings. He had to show his certificate of leave to prove his surname was Leary, but eventually he was shown to the room Malcolm had rented, a poky, rancid-smelling little chamber with mouldy walls far inferior to Leary’s modest accommodation at the George Inn. His brother must have been short of brads. But then, he’d never been any good at managing his money. Useless bugger. At least he’d had the decency to die in the presence of someone who knew how to wield a flaying knife.