Belle - Lesley Pearse [126]
The policeman said that in any year there were three to four hundred young women going missing, and of that number only around a hundred and fifty were ever seen again. He pointed out that many were probably with a man they’d run off with, some might have been murdered, but he thought the rest were in brothels somewhere. He pointed out that most would be beyond saving, even if they knew where they were, for drug addiction and disease would have taken their toll. Before long they would be yet another body on a mortuary slab.
‘Maybe I’d better make one more trip to Paris, and try bribing Cosette,’ Noah muttered to himself, unable to bear the image of young girls on mortuary slabs.
Chapter Twenty-two
Belle felt quite sick with fear as she walked down the stairs to leave Martha’s for good. It was two in the afternoon, a very hot, sultry day without even a whisper of a breeze.
It was only last night that Faldo came in to tell her he’d found a place for them. He paid for only a short time, just long enough to give her the address and instruct her on what she had to do, leaving her with a severe case of jitters. This hadn’t left her; she’d lain awake agonizing about whether she was doing the right thing: it seemed to her that she was putting all her trust into the hands of someone she knew very little about.
But it was too late to change her mind now, and as Faldo had asked, she was carrying only a small reticule, which held nothing more than her savings, hairbrush and a few rolled-up ribbons. She was wearing her blue dress beneath the green one she’d been given in Paris, and beneath those she had on two sets of petticoats, drawers and chemises. She felt terribly hot with so many clothes on, but she hadn’t been quite able to bring herself to leave all her belongings behind as Faldo had said she must.
Everything Martha had given her she’d left in her bedroom, and she hoped the other girls would be able to share out the few bits of jewellery and other personal things she’d left behind.
Martha came up the passage from the kitchen just as Belle got to the bottom of the stairs. ‘It’s very hot out,’ she said, looking curiously at Belle, as if noticing she looked stouter than usual. ‘The other girls are all out in the back yard drinking lemonade.’
Belle’s stomach turned over. She felt sure Martha had guessed what she was up to. ‘I fancied a walk,’ she said. ‘It’s so easy to get lazy when it’s as hot as this.’
‘Well, don’t overdo it,’ Martha said. ‘I’ve never really understood why the English always seem to want exercise.’
Martha had been making sharp little comments about the English for quite some time. Belle had the feeling she had been trying to goad her into snapping back at her. She certainly didn’t have any intention of rising to the bait now, so she smiled sweetly.
‘I expect I’ll regret it as soon as I’ve crossed the railway line,’ she said. ‘And then I’ll be right back for a sit-down in the cool and a glass of lemonade.’
Martha walked off into the parlour then, and Belle made it to the front door. She was sorry she couldn’t say goodbye to the other girls, for apart from Anna-Maria she had grown to love them all and had been grateful for their company, advice and friendship. She was going to miss them for the laughs they’d had, the lovely chats, and because their presence had helped when she’d felt scared, alone and homesick.
Belle walked quickly across the train tracks into the French Quarter, then zigzagged her way across it, looking over her shoulder now and then to make sure Martha hadn’t sent Cissie or someone else after her to spy on her.
Finally, when she was sure she wasn’t being followed, she hailed a cab to take her down Canal Street.
Belle had rarely been out of the French Quarter and the District, so she had no idea what the Mid-City area was like. The cab seemed to go a very long way along Canal Street