Free Kitty Peck and the Music Hall Murders by Kate Griffin Page B

Gardens of Babylon. Very exotic I thought it sounded at the time, although the memory of it now and the sight of Fitzy’s eyebrows made me begin to smile. It’s odd, but when things are black I often get the urge to laugh out loud.
    The blow – hard, vicious and faster than you’d credit for a man who looked like a walrus – caught me across the left side of my head. I stumbled forward and felt my teeth tear into skin and crunch against the wood as I slammed into the desk.
    ‘It’s no laughing matter, girl.’ Fitzy’s face was purple. His breathing came shallow and he coughed as he leaned over and took hold of my hair, dragging my face up so that I could see the spittle catching in the ends of his moustache as he roared. His breath was thicker than the air in a yard privy.
    ‘You’re nothing more than property, Kitty Peck, and don’t you forget it. You might be a pretty piece up there, night after night, but this is an ugly business. It’s not just your fancy brother whose life is at stake here – it’s all of us. All of Paradise depends on The Lady for protection. She owns you, girl. Give her what she wants.’
    I pulled free, leaving a handful of hair in his grasp. I could taste iron in my mouth and when I put my hand to my stinging lip it was wet. I could feel the anger boiling up inside me too and before I thought to stop myself the words came out in a spatter of blood.
    ‘I can’t make up what’s not there, can I? I don’t know what’s happening to them girls any more than she does. It’s all very well for her, but she’s not the one with her breakfast hanging out every night over half of Limehouse, is she? Don’t you think I’d tell you if I knew what was going on? I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be looking for.’
    I stood there opposite him, my hands on my hips. I could feel the blood trickling down my chin now, but I wasn’t going to cry. I knew from Peggy how much he liked that.
    Fitzy’s eyes glimmered and he settled back into his leather chair. I heard it breathe out as his big body squeezed into its padded embrace. Then that nasty grin began to twist across his face again.
    ‘That’s just it. You see it’s not you, exactly, who we need to be doing the looking.’ His stubby finger worked down the curling lines of Lady Ginger’s letter again and stopped near the end.
    ‘Here it is. “ I believe it is time to make the true nature of her task plain. ”’ He looked up at me from beneath his eyebrows, the muscle still working in the corner of his left eye. ‘Now what do you suppose that means?’
    I shook my head. My ears were ringing and the room was beginning to spin from the blow.
    ‘Remember that little talk we had about you leaving the hall so early after every performance?’
    There seemed to be two of him sitting in front of me now and they were both speaking.
    ‘From now on, Kitty, you will stay on and admit callers to your dressing room. I want you to be a little more friendly with your admirers. You start at The Comet on Friday and I want you to entertain the gentlemen. Do you understand?’
    His slug-like lips disappeared into the straggling ginger hairs of his moustache as the smile spread even wider. ‘The Lady wants results, Kitty. Jesus alone knows why you’re so devoted to that brother of yours . . .’, he spat to one side of the desk, ‘. . . but if you want to keep him alive and the rest of us safe it looks like you’re going to have to put yourself out, so it does.’
    The room swam. The thought of allowing any of the Johnnies near enough to breathe on me, to paw at me, to . . .
    Fitzy continued, ‘Let them in, let them make free with you – I think you know what I mean – and let one of them give himself away.’ He tapped the letter. ‘The Lady’s just reminded me of a very important fact. You’re not just up there to watch, you’re our bait .’
    *
    It was only when I reached the workshop that the tears came. Danny took one look at me and