Belle - Lesley Pearse [105]
‘I don’t think the white slave trade exists, at least not in the way it has been portrayed in the press,’ Mog said gently. ‘But I do think your Amy may have been taken by the same people that took our Belle.’
She didn’t want to say too much. ‘You see, a friend of mine has been doing some snooping to try and find Belle, and he came across a list of names and addresses. Your Amy’s was on it, that’s why I called on you.’
‘We must take it to the police then,’ Lizzie said.
Mog became a little frightened then; she didn’t know if she could trust Lizzie Stewart. She was a respectable woman, and if Mog began telling her about a girl being murdered in a brothel she’d probably run down the street squealing like a stuck pig.
‘We think the man behind this has the police in his pocket,’ she said. ‘So I daren’t go to them until I’ve got real proof that he’s snatching young girls. But I’m going to call on the other addresses on the list, and if all the girls have disappeared then we’ll have a case that the police won’t be able to ignore.’
‘Are you saying the police are corrupt?’ Lizzie’s pale blue eyes opened wide with childlike innocence.
‘Let’s just say they look the other way sometimes, especially if villains are strong, powerful men,’ Mog said, not wishing to disillusion the woman entirely. Lizzie was comfortably off, and although she lived close to Seven Dials she was probably blissfully unaware of what went on there. ‘Do you have a picture of Amy you can show me?’
Lizzie went straight over to the dresser and brought over a framed family group picture taken in a studio. She was sitting on a couch with her husband, a tall, slender man with a large moustache, and Amy was sitting on a low stool by their knees.
‘Amy was twelve then.’ Lizzie’s voice trembled. ‘Isn’t she pretty?’
‘She is indeed,’ Mog agreed. The girl was slender like her father, her fair hair plaited and wound round her head like a crown.
‘When I took her hair down it reached her waist.’ Lizzie’s eyes filled with tears and her lip trembled. ‘The day she disappeared she was wearing a cornflower-blue coat, the same colour as her eyes, I made it for her myself. Larry, my husband, he said it was a daft colour for a coat because it would show the dirt. But I didn’t care, she looked so pretty in it …’ She stopped short, overcome by emotion.
Mog put her hand on the other woman’s arm in silent sympathy.
‘She’s my only child. The pain of losing her was so bad I thought I’d die,’ Lizzie sobbed. ‘Sometimes I wish I had died because there’s nothing else left in this life for me.’
‘I’ve felt the same way about Belle,’ Mog admitted. ‘It’s the not knowing if they are alive or dead which makes it even worse. But I’m staying strong because I don’t believe Belle is dead, not in my heart. And I’m going to find her. How about you? Do you think Amy has been killed?’
Lizzie shook her head. ‘No, I’m sure I’d sense it if she was. Larry doesn’t trust my intuition, he says it’s just wishful thinking, but I think he’s wrong.’
‘Then there’s hope,’ Mog said, and put her arms around the other woman and hugged her. Lizzie hugged her back and they stood that way for some little while, two strangers united because of fear for their girls.
Mog broke away first, her eyes damp with tears now. ‘I can’t promise you anything, but I will come and tell you if I find out anything at all. If you think of something that might help us, or you just want to talk to me, you can find me in the Ram’s Head in Monmouth Street.’
The second name on the list was Nora Toff of James Court. Mog knew that it was over by Drury Lane, and she remembered people often called it Gin Court for it was said to be home to hard drinkers. But, unconcerned whether this was true or not, she hurried off there, anxious to have some kind of case to put before Garth and Noah.
James Court was very squalid. Mog picked her way carefully through refuse, ignoring the stares from snotty-nosed urchins wearing only rags and found her way to number