‘Not very trusting, is he?’ Friday said.

  Sarah ignored her. ‘He’d pieced things together around what happened in the old burial ground, because of Furniss, and he was nearly right. He’d already worked out that Bella’s blackmailing us, though not why, thank Christ.’

  Harrie, who had lain down with her head on Friday’s pillow, groaned at the reminder of their crime. Friday patted her hip comfortingly.

  She asked, ‘So why does he think she’s blackmailing us?’

  ‘I told him she hates us, and that if we don’t keep paying up she’s threatened to tell the governor that you murdered Liz Parker on the Isla —’

  ‘Oh, thanks very much.’

  ‘I told him you didn’t. I also told him Bella’s threatened to shop Harrie and me to the governor for lying on your behalf.’

  ‘And he believed you?’

  ‘I think so. But I can tell you, I didn’t enjoy lying to him,’ Sarah said bitterly. ‘And he’s really shocked at the amount of money she’s been demanding.’

  ‘I bloody well am, too!’ Friday said. She sighed. ‘So is that everyone who knows? Just Adam and Mrs H?’

  ‘And Walter,’ Sarah added. ‘But he’s out of the picture now.’

  Friday gave Harrie’s flank a gentle push. ‘Harrie, have you told anyone?’

  Harrie sat up and looked at her hands, resting in her lap. ‘No.’

  ‘Not even Mrs Barrett or Leo? Not even in confidence?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What about James?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘James?’ Harrie blinked. ‘Why would I tell James?’

  ‘He’s been to see you a few times lately, hasn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, but I wouldn’t tell him that.’ Harrie let out a high-pitched and rather hard-edged laugh. ‘We’re getting along quite well, at last.’

  She stood and moved to the window. In the yard below, the stable boy, Jimmy, was shovelling up horseshit. There were no doubt flies all over it, even in winter. Rowie bloody Harris was a fly, buzzing endlessly around James, being indispensible as his live-in housegirl. Not that James was horse dung, of course, though, honestly, he must be just as thick, Harrie thought, if he couldn’t see how much Rowie’s presence was a thorn in her side. And her heart. There was something about that girl she really didn’t like.

  Oh, she knew James wasn’t sleeping with her — James just wasn’t that sort of man — but the very idea of it still drove her wild with jealousy. Well, she thought she knew it, in the bright light of day, but at night, when she was lying in bed and couldn’t sleep and her room was at its darkest and so was her mind, the nasty, insistent voices in her head would whisper to her, do you really know James that well? Are you sure he isn’t sharing Rowie’s bed night after night? She would imagine their naked, writhing bodies, the sweat from their passion dampening the sheets, and snap! she’d be caught in the trap and round and round her tortured thoughts would go; Rowie was so much prettier than her, so much more self-assured and confident, and, of course, thoroughly at ease with manipulating men. And now she’d taken Harrie’s place — her potential place, at least — in the home of the man for whom Harrie felt so much. Whom she loved. Those were the nights she barely slept at all.

  ‘Harrie?’ Sarah said. ‘Are you still with us?’

  Turning away from the window, Harrie said, ‘Why would I tell him? Why would I tell him I’m being blackmailed because I kicked someone to death?’

  ‘Well, you know, you haven’t been yourself lately,’ Friday said. ‘Er, again.’

  Harrie realised then that Sarah and Friday must have noticed the change in her. Her heart sank. She hadn’t been fooling anyone. ‘No,’ she mumbled. ‘I haven’t said anything to a soul.’

  ‘Will I talk to Mrs H, then?’ Friday asked.

  ‘A hundred and thirty-five quid,’ Sarah said, shaking her head. ‘How will we ever repay her?’

  Friday flapped her hand dismissively. ‘Easy. It’s not that much. We’ll make it a proper business arrangement. She can withhold it directly from my wages.’

  ‘That’s not a business arrangement,’ Sarah said. ‘That’s you getting your pay docked.’

  ‘She won’t take it all. She’s far too soft-hearted. I’ll have plenty left over.’ Friday didn’t care, as long as she had enough in her pocket to get drunk whenever she felt like it. ‘And you can pay your usual contribution to me, Sarah, to pay me back, instead of into the Charlotte fund. That’ll work, won’t it?’

  ‘No, it won’t. We need my money going into the bank. We can’t not support Janie and the girls.’

  ‘Shit. That’s true.’ Friday hadn’t thought of that.

  ‘I can give what I make from my flash straight to you,’ Harrie said, referring to the money she earned drawing tattoo designs for Leo Dundas. ‘Except for what I send home.’

  What Harrie made from her flash wouldn’t make much of a dent in a one hundred and thirty-five pound debt, but Friday and Sarah were far too sensitive to Harrie’s feelings to say so.

  Instead, Sarah, who had the best head for figures and whose job it was to balance the Charlotte fund, said, ‘No, that should go into the bank as well, otherwise we’re going to get very confused. We should make repayments to Friday from the account.’

  ‘So am I talking to Mrs H or not?’ Friday asked.

  Sarah said, ‘Let me think about it for a couple of days.’

  ‘Well, you’d better hurry up. We’ve only got four more days before we have to bloody well pay the bitch.’

  Leonard Dundas finished washing his breakfast dishes, dried them and put them away on the shelf. Then he stoked the fire, opened the window in the small room that was his kitchen-cum-parlour, and tossed out the dirty water from the washing basin. He wondered how Walter was getting on, and he wondered, too, where Clifford was. He was fairly confident that one of the girls would have taken her home — he just wasn’t sure who’d been brave enough.

  It was so quiet without Walter. He missed him desperately, and Clifford, regardless of her nasty temper. Perhaps he’d get himself a cat. Cats were more independent than dogs. Far more self-serving and arrogant as well, that was true, but more able to look after themselves. There’d always been at least one cat on every ship he’d sailed in all the years he’d been at sea, taken aboard as both ratter and mascot. Yes, that’s what he needed — a cat.

  He sat on the cot under the open window and tamped tobacco into his pipe. No, he didn’t need a cat, and he knew it, though he still might get one. He needed human company. He was lonely. It was time to visit Serafina Fortune, and not just for a glimpse into his future. He’d lost track of the number of times he’d asked her to move in with him, but she wouldn’t. She said she liked her independence. She was just like a bloody cat herself, Serafina was. Sleek, moody, mysterious and more than a little bit arrogant. He told her that if she looked into her own future, she’d see in it a perfectly nice existence for the two of them, even if she was twenty-five years younger than he was, but she refused. She swore she’d never poke around in her own future, but sometimes he suspected she already had, and that’s why she wouldn’t share her life with him.

  He’d never married, though he’d loved several women and slept with many more. When he was younger and a sailor, he’d believed it unfair to marry then leave a wife ashore by herself for such long periods, but now, when he slid into the cold and empty bed in his little room upstairs, he wondered if he might have made a mistake. He’d fathered several children that he knew of. He had a daughter in Japan, where he’d lived for some time, and a son in England, long grown now, whom he’d not seen for more than fifteen years, and a son born in Sydney to a woman with whom he’d had a short fling while he’d been in port, before he’d settled in New South Wales. He’d offered to make provision for that child on a subsequent visit, but the mother had declined. The boy had gone to sea at a very young age and Leo rarely saw him, though he’d heard he was quite the young gamecock, and he did occasionally run into the boy’s mother, with whom he remained on friendly terms. In Leo’s opinion, finding Walter huddled among a stack of barrels behind a pub in Harrington Street, his arms wrapped around that scruffy little dog, had been a blessing — a last opportunity to raise a child properly.

  Then Walter had killed that devil Furniss, and Leo had known that the only thing he could do for the lad was put him on a ship back to England, even though it had almost broken his heart. He was sorry about what had happened — to the very marrow in his bones — and regretted it immensely. He should have killed Furniss himself. Walter would have been robbed of the satisfaction, but no twelve-year-old boy was equipped to shoulder that sort of moral burden. He would pay for it one way or another as he grew up.

  There was one thing he could still do for the lad, though. He went to the mantel above the fireplace and took down a wooden box, opened it and withdrew a folded sheet of paper, which he’d found tucked into his jacket pocket after Walter’s ship had sailed. Walter must have scribbled it out at Serafina’s — she’d hidden him that first day after the murder. It was untidily sealed with three fat blobs of her distinctive pale rose sealing wax — one over the long join and one at the fold at each end — which was a bit excessive. Three blobs were also quite rude, implying that the bearer of the letter could not be trusted not to peep inside and read the contents. Leo, however, knew that Walter had trusted him implicitly, therefore that much wax must mean the lad was trying, in a clumsy way, to protect him.

  Accompanying the note had been another, this one not sealed. It said:

  Deer leo

  Plees giv this lettar to Bella shand on Cumbarlind street. It wil save Harry and fryday and Sara. I wil not forget yu.

  Walter

  Leo wouldn’t forget Walter, either. Every time he read the note, especially the last sentence, his eyes teared up. He’d deliver the sealed letter this morning. But Bella Shand? What the hell did the girls think they were doing getting involved with that nasty piece of work?

  Leo stood several feet back from the gates, eyeing the dogs with distaste and more than a touch of fear. Muscles bunched with hostile tension, they stood with their snouts pushed though the wrought iron pickets, strings of spit hanging from their jaws, growling like hellhounds. He wondered if there was another way in. Surely visitors didn’t have to run the gauntlet past these beasts every time they called? Or, given the rumours he’d heard about some of the unpleasant characters Bella did business with, perhaps that was the point? Still, he wasn’t standing out here shouting himself hoarse until someone came to let him in.

  He crunched across the gravel at the back of the house, which actually faced the street, past tidy garden beds and a statue of a naked cherub wielding a trumpet, until he came to a small door in the far end of the building, fortunately on this side of the fence. He knocked and waited. Eventually a shifty-eyed woman opened it.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Mrs Shand, please.’

  ‘Who’s asking?’

  ‘My name is Leonard Dundas.’

  ‘What’s your business?’

  Leo made a well-educated guess concerning the subject of Walter’s letter. ‘Amos Furniss.’

  The woman stared at him sourly for a moment. Then she said, ‘Hold on,’ and shut the door in his face.

  Leo had a horrible few minutes of wondering if she was letting the dogs out so they could race around the house and surprise him.

  She opened the door again. ‘Come in.’

  He followed her down a hallway, then past a staircase and into a light-filled reception room. French doors led to a verandah with a stunning view of Sydney Cove, though this morning the doors were closed against the briskly cool winter weather.

  Bella Shand sat at an expansive writing desk against the wall opposite the French doors. Leo, who had never met her, had expected her to be old and ill-favoured, perhaps even grotesque — physical traits that would be commensurate with her reputation — but she wasn’t. She was quite attractive in a sharp, hawkish sort of way, though extremely thin. She was possibly in her thirties, though her thick face paint made it difficult to judge her true age. Her coal-black, heavily ringletted hair gleamed (surely such shine and abundance signified a wig?) and she was certainly beautifully dressed, even Leo could see that. He could also see why Clarence chose to marry her: privately, Clarence might prefer men, but she would make a good foil.

  Inherently, however, there was something deeply unpleasant about her. She seemed … reptilian. Also, a very fierce intelligence burnt behind her eyes. Leo decided he would do very well not to cross her, and prayed he wasn’t about to do just that.

  ‘Mr Dundas,’ she said. She didn’t smile.

  She had an unusual voice, too. Low, but very rich and full. Alluring and quite mesmerising.

  ‘Mrs Shand.’ Leo offered his hand.

  She rose to meet him. ‘Amos Furniss,’ she said without preamble.

  ‘Aye. I’ve been asked to deliver to you a letter. I gather it concerns him. Or rather, his death.’ Leo retrieved Walter’s note from his jacket pocket, hoping like hell it did. He would look an absolute fool if it didn’t.

  Bella took the letter, returned to her chair, broke the seals and read it quickly. ‘Who wrote this?’ she demanded. ‘A half-trained monkey? Who’s this Walter Cobley?’

  ‘Writing isn’t his strong suit.’

  ‘Is this true, what he’s said?’ Bella held up the letter.

  ‘I don’t know. I haven’t read it.’

  Bella looked as though she didn’t believe him, but said, ‘He says he killed Furniss, not Friday Woolfe and her crew. Who is he? Why would he kill Amos Furniss?’

  Shocked, Leo thought, Friday? Why does she think Friday murdered Furniss? But, keeping his face neutral, he said, ‘Walter was a victim of Furniss’s thoroughly unpleasant habits. He had the great misfortune of sailing with Furniss on the Isla.’

  ‘That child?’ Bella looked vaguely startled. ‘The ship’s boy?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘But how do you know him?’

  ‘He jumped ship. I took him in. He’s been lodging with me ever since.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘Long gone.’

  ‘Back to England?’

  ‘Let’s just say he’s gone,’ Leo said. ‘I care for the lad.’

  Bella drummed her manicured fingernails on the polished surface of her desk, then said, ‘Well, I have to say, Furniss reaped what he sowed.’ She glanced at Leo. ‘But we all do, don’t we? I’d like you to take Friday Woolfe a message, if you will.’

  ‘How do you know we’re even acquainted?’

  Bella stared at him unblinkingly. ‘I know a lot of things, Mr Dundas. Will you take her a message or not?’

  Leo briefly considered agreeing, providing Bella told him why she thought Friday had killed Furniss, but suspected he’d have more luck getting the answer from Friday herself. Bella Shand would probably lie. She clearly didn’t like Friday — he’d heard it in her voice when she’d said Friday’s name.

  ‘I will,’ he said, ‘but I won’t be involved in any transaction that might cause Miss Woolfe or her friends harm.’

  Bella shrugged nonchalantly. ‘Of course not.’

  Lighting a taper, she slotted a nib into a silver holder and wrote a short note, blotted the ink, then folded it. From a flat wooden box she selected a stick of jade-green wax, and held one end over the taper’s flame, turning it around and around so each side warmed evenly. Finally the wax melted sufficiently and, not bothering with a wafer, she placed a blob across the join and pressed down with a seal.

  Then she started all over again.

  Oh, for God’s sake, Leo thought, get on with it.

  In the end she sealed the letter four times.

  ‘You’re even ruder than Walter,’ Leo said.

  Bella’s eyes narrowed unpleasantly. ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You can assume I won’t look. I have more integrity than that.’

  And he wouldn’t look. He’d find out some other way.

  Elizabeth opened the front door. ‘Good afternoon. May I help you?’

  ‘Aye, I’d like to see Friday Woolfe, if you please.’ The man smiled.

  He was probably her age, tall, had fair hair greying to silver tied back in a neat cue, a moustache and a short beard, gold earrings and a gold tooth. Obviously a sailor. The tars loved Friday.

  ‘I’m afraid she’s fully occupied for the next few days. If you’ll give me a moment, I’ll check the appointment book. She might have something on Saturday.’

  Apparently amused, the man shook his head. ‘You’ve got the wrong end of the stick. I’m not a customer. I just need to talk to her.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t believe I caught your name.’

  ‘I haven’t said it. It’s Leo Dundas.’

  ‘Oh, you’re the tattooist!’ Elizabeth offered her hand. ‘You know, I can’t tell you what your tattoos have done for my bank balance. The gentlemen love them. Friday’s my most popular girl.’

  ‘Aye, well, I don’t think that’s the reason she has herself tattooed.’

  ‘No, but still, every cloud.’

  ‘You’re not keen on the art of tattoo?’

  ‘I wasn’t. I must admit I did think they were, well, cheap. But lately I’ve come to appreciate them.’

  ‘Now that you’ve seen the contribution they make to your coffers?’

  ‘Something like that, yes,’ Elizabeth confessed. ‘Friday can probably see you for fifteen minutes, if you don’t mind waiting.’

  Leo didn’t. Elizabeth gave him the choice of sitting in her office, or in the salon with a waiting customer and three of her girls. Leo, never averse to the sight of an attractive young lady, chose the salon.

  ‘Afternoon,’ Leo said to the cove already settled on the sofa, his top hat balanced on his knee.

  ‘Good afternoon.’

  ‘Proper weather for staying indoors,’ Leo remarked as he sank into an armchair by the robustly banked fire.

  ‘It is that.’

  A blonde girl with lovely brown eyes and a temptingly full bosom gave him a welcoming smile. ‘Good day, sir. I’m Connie. Do you have a specific appointment or would you like to choose?’