“What’s up with you?”
“Touch of stomach flu, I expect,” said Edith, striking an offhand note, although her stomach was heaving from the lingering smell of herring. She would never tell him the truth. She would solve her problem without him ever knowing about it. If she didn’t, she would never be free of him.
“Do you think I’m attractive?” she asked after an interval of watching him shovel in the bombe. He was a surprisingly inelegant eater. Lately she had begun to notice nothing but flaws. She supposed that was how love died, although was “love” the right word for what they had shared? The question was not posed in the simpering manner that some women might adopt. Edith had never simpered in her life. It was more a case of simple curiosity. She knew her worth to him and it was not founded on vanity.
“Do I think you’re attractive?” he said. He considered the question a little too long. （Just say yes, she thought irritably.） “I would say handsome.”
Wrong answer, she thought bitterly. “Handsome is as handsome does,” her mother was wont to say. Nellie was full of empty phrases. “I have to go,” Edith said abruptly.
“So do I,” he said, from which we might presume a family waiting at home, and although this was true, he was usually on one nefarious quest or another in the evenings. He was a Catholic, he would never leave his wife. Edith took some comfort from that.
“Well, I expect I’ll see you soon,” she said as he called for the bill.
“I expect so,” he said.
Lately she had been trying to keep him at arm’s length. It amused him. She wondered if this was the last time that she would see him. Even if she broke it off, she feared he would still pursue her. He couldn’t afford to let her go, she knew too much.
There had been a time, not so very long ago, when Edith had been in thrall to him. He was good-looking, complicated and devious, all three adjectives had made him interesting in her eyes, especially compared to the pleasure-seeking buffoons who populated her working life. Even the clever ones seemed to succumb to idiocy once they were inside a nightclub. Now, however, she understood that “interesting” was the last thing one should look for in a lover. He wielded a lot of power, more than she could, but nonetheless Edith was strong. I must be on my mettle, she thought. If they were to go into battle with each other it would not be an easy victory for him.
“You should go home,” he said. “You’re not at all yourself.”
“Tell me about it,” Edith said. She had a plan. （She was her mother’s daughter.） It was time to execute it.
* * *
—
Edith left Pinoli’s quickly and hailed a cab while he was still inside paying the bill. She didn’t want him to know where she was going. It certainly wasn’t home.
“Bedford Street,” she said to the cab driver, unwilling to share her actual destination. On Bedford Street she alighted, paid the fare and walked the rest of the way.
From what she had managed to glean beforehand, the whole thing would be over pretty quickly. With any luck, all would be done and dusted and she would be back in Hanover Terrace in time for supper.
She walked along Henrietta Street, checking the street numbers, looking for number four. There was no number on the door, but as the house was shouldered by two and six she presumed she had found it. There was an ugly iron knocker on the door, wrought in the image of a demon, or maybe the devil himself. Well, that was fitting, she thought as she lifted it and rapped firmly. The door flew open, seemingly into a void, and Edith said, “Mrs. Darling?” In answer, a bony arm shot out, grabbed Edith by the wrist and pulled her inside.
A Kidnap, a Raid and a Small Fire
Kitty had been abandoned as usual, leaving her free to wander through her sisters’ bedrooms in Hanover Terrace. When Nellie had been away in prison Kitty had already thoroughly investigated her room several times, but, disappointingly, the only thing she had been able to find had been a tatty little bag beneath her mother’s mattress. It held a tooth, a lock of hair, the mouldy old foot of some animal and other bits and pieces. Kitty recognized witchcraft when she saw it. She had thrown the bag in the canal in case it was used against her and claimed blank ignorance when questioned later by Nellie.
She appropriated a fox-fur tippet from Betty’s wardrobe and wound it round her neck and then applied Shirley’s blood-red Molinard lipstick. In Edith’s room she “borrowed” two shillings from a little porcupine-quill box that Edith kept on her dressing table. Kitty was rarely encouraged to come into this room and so it was interesting to investigate Edith’s things. There was a bottle of Shalimar on the dressing-table. Kitty sprayed her wrists with it, intrigued. Edith was not known for wearing perfume.