In London, he told Miss Kelling, dancing girls were an industry, “churned out like steel or coal, I’m afraid.” There was an enormous number of dance schools on Frobisher’s patch. The majority of girls who “graduated” had no hope of making it into a theatre and finding the fame they craved so badly. Instead, they were siphoned off into the nightclubs or sent abroad to dance and were often never heard from again. Some ended up on the street, of course. Or washed up on the banks of the Thames, fished out at Wapping and Deptford. Or Tower Bridge. He didn’t mention those ones to Miss Kelling.
“And what do the girls do in the nightclubs?” she asked. “I’m from York—I’m not sure we have nightclubs.”
“The girls are paid to dance with the customers,” Frobisher said. “They’re called ‘hostesses’。”
“That sounds rather like…”
“Exactly. The worst are Nellie Coker’s clubs. They seem to eat girls. Mrs. Coker’s ‘Merry Maids,’ as they’re known. Interpret that as you will.”
And that was when Frobisher was struck by an idea.
“Miss Kelling? I have a proposition for you.”
* * *
—
“Infiltration, Chief Inspector?”
“Well, I don’t know if that’s the word I would use. It seems a little dramatic—perhaps ‘reconnoitring’ would be more accurate. Just for one evening, Miss Kelling. In the Amethyst, Nellie Coker’s biggest club. Her command post, you might say. I’ve no female constables in Bow Street at the moment. I need someone who wouldn’t look entirely out of place.”
“Entirely?”
“Be my eyes and ears for the night. Tell me if you see anything untoward. And, who knows, perhaps you’ll spot one of your missing girls.”
She barely wavered. “Very well, why not? With you?”
“Me?” He was alarmed by the idea and said hastily, “No, no, not me. I’ll arrange for someone to escort you. I must warn you, Miss Kelling, the club is a den of iniquity, you may come across behaviour that might shock you.”
“I nursed throughout the war, Chief Inspector, I doubt there is anything left on earth that could shock me any more. Shall I assume a false name, an alias?”
He had not expected her to be quite so eager. “That won’t be necessary, Miss Kelling. You must exercise caution, it is very easy to be seduced by these people.” He hesitated and then said, “If you are willing, the matriarch, Nellie Coker, the so-called Queen of Clubs, is being released from Holloway prison tomorrow morning. Why not accompany me to watch the spectacle?”
“Will it be a spectacle?”
“Almost certainly.”
“Excellent. I am keen on spectacles, I have not had enough lately. And now I should go,” she said. “I have taken up enough of your valuable time. I am off to do some shopping and sightseeing.”
“Sightseeing? Do you have a Bartholomew’s? You will need one. Oh, and…”—a thought struck him—“you will need an evening gown for the Amethyst, Miss Kelling. Do you have one with you?”
“Absolutely, Chief Inspector.”
“Just ‘Inspector’ will do, Miss Kelling.” He imagined her calling him John. It distracted him so much that he stood up abruptly and said, “I shall make arrangements, then. I shall send word to…？”
“The Warrender. In Knightsbridge. I am all anticipation, Inspector.”
Nightbirds
“Where’s Ma?” Shirley asked, joining Betty and Kitty at the dining table.
“Search me,” Betty said. “Am I my mother’s keeper?” Niven’s dog pricked up his ears, in vain. His thoughts were always on Niven.
Hanover Terrace had no Bradshaw’s timetable to keep them on track, there was no pull or push to their days, they simply drifted into them. Edith alone was propelled, although not today. They rose at their leisure in the late morning or early afternoon and ate a meal that meant something different for each of them. Shirley, for example, was contemplating the boiled eggs that had just been delivered by the cook, while Betty was tackling some kind of salad in aspic. （“Shrimp, I think, but it could be anything, really.”） Salads were not the cook’s speciality; this one looked as if it would have been more at home in an aquarium.
“I heard Ma go out earlier,” a jam-smeared Kitty said. She was sitting on the window seat entertaining herself by reading out loud from the gossip columns in the papers. She had recently been expelled from boarding school （arson, vehemently denied） and no one seemed to know what to do with her, so Nellie had tasked her with being the one who kept an eye on the papers for useful snippets of information—Lady Melchior has departed from Durban on the Windsor Castle and is homeward bound to Southampton, for example. Then a head waiter in one of the clubs could murmur, “Welcome home from South Africa, Lady Melchior, good to have you back,” as he presented her with a bottle of champagne that would appear to be free but would be cunningly rolled into the bill at the end of the night. Nothing was free in Nellie’s world, not even love. Perhaps especially not love.