Eventually, a grim-looking librarian advanced on Freda and Freda knew her time was up and she sighed and gathered her belongings. The kindly gentleman was still taking notes from his own weighty and dull-looking tome and Freda bobbed him a little curtsey of thanks as she passed him. He would probably have given her a shilling if she had asked, but that would have made her feel cheap. （“We’re all cheap in the eyes of the gods,” Duncan said. “He means the war,” Vanda said.）
The kindly gentleman smiled back at her and acknowledged her curtsey with a little dip of his head and then he reached a hand out towards her and she thought maybe this would be a shilling after all, but no, he was trying to fish beneath her skirt with his bony old hand. Not so kindly after all! Freda shook him off in disgust. If she hadn’t already reshelved Jane’s Fighting Ships she would have hit him over the head with it.
Sometimes Freda felt as though everyone in the world wanted to take a bite out of her.
* * *
—
Freda made her way back towards the familiarity of Covent Garden, hoping she might be able to beg an apple off one of the stallholders.
Without realizing, she found herself on Frith Street, the home of the Vanbrugh Academy of Dance. As she neared the dance school her legs began to wobble and her heart to pound. The idea of a chance encounter with Miss Sherbourne was too much. Miss Sherbourne had not had her best interests at heart. How many other girls had she sent to “audition” at the Adelphi, or indeed any theatre? Freda turned and fled.
In Bow Street she passed the huge police station that took up half the street opposite the Royal Opera House. She should report Florence’s disappearance. A policeman in uniform was loitering nearby, smoking a cigarette in a rather shifty way, as if he shouldn’t be. It gave him a criminal air. Freda had never spoken to a member of the force before and wasn’t sure how you addressed one. Eventually she approached, rather nervously, and said, “Excuse me, sir?”
“Yes?” he snapped.
She persisted, despite his bad manners. “A friend of mine has gone missing and I wondered if I should tell someone. In case something’s happened to her.”
“Happened?” he said.
“Well, the day before yesterday I think she got into a car.”
“People get in cars all the time.”
“But she doesn’t know anyone in London.”
“How do you know—？” But then his eye seemed to be caught by the sight of someone leaving the police station and he hastily cupped his cigarette in one hand and with the other gave a little salute and said, “Sir,” to someone who was hurrying past.
“Oakes,” the man muttered in acknowledgement as he passed. He glanced back and, pausing in his stride, he looked at Freda. She felt inspected.
“Everything all right here, Sergeant?” he asked, turning to the policeman, who said, “Yes, sir, just a tart looking for business.”
“From a policeman in uniform outside Bow Street police station?”
Oakes laughed. “They’re brazen, Chief Inspector.”
The man, the Chief Inspector, set off again, and again he hesitated before returning and, after rummaging in his pocket, came up with a half-crown. Handing it to Freda, he said, “Get yourself a hot meal.” He marched off before she could even say thank you.
Freda’s spirits had been lifted by the kind half-crown and she was already dreaming about a chop or a pie when the sergeant snatched the coin out of her fingers. “You can forget that,” he said. Without thinking, she lunged after the coin, but he produced a pair of handcuffs and, laughing again, said, “Shall I arrest you?” Freda shook her head （meek, not cheek, she reminded herself） and the policeman said, “But if you want to earn money, then I know a way. Do you? Want to earn money?”
Freda had always known that she had a price waiting to be put on her own head, but she hadn’t been expecting to have to pay it quite so soon.
* * *
—
Florence! Freda was certain it was her! She had been traipsing around Green Park with no goal other than finding a drinking fountain—it was a toss-up to see if she would die of thirst or hunger first—when she spotted Florence. Although she could only see her from the back, she was sure it was her—the broad, rather stooped shoulders, the plodding walk, the crocheted beret. “Florence!” she bellowed. （“Project your voice!” she heard the director of A Midsummer Night’s Dream say in her head.）
Again, “Florence!” And again. People were looking at Freda but she didn’t care. They would have heard her at the back of the stalls, in the gods, too, but it was to no avail. The sturdy figure plodded on. One more “Florence!” at the top of her lungs just in case. Her voice was hoarse, she had drunk nothing since the cup of tea in the café in Neal Street this morning.