Belle - Lesley Pearse [16]
But she wasn’t calm this time, for as she took the cups from the cupboard they rattled because her hands were shaking; even her walk across the kitchen was slightly unsteady. When she opened the drawer under the table to take out the teaspoons, she dropped one on the floor. Belle guessed that she was struggling to control her emotions, and that she was every bit as confused, afraid and perplexed as she herself was.
Mog was just putting the red knitted tea cosy over the filled teapot when they heard Annie come through the door at the top of the basement stairs. They both jumped as if they had been caught red-handed in some wrongdoing.
‘It’s all right, I’m not going to bite,’ Annie said. She sounded bone-weary. ‘A cup of tea is just what I need, I’m all in.’
Belle hurried to get another cup and saucer from the cupboard.
‘Are we open tonight?’ Mog asked cautiously.
Annie sat down, looking thoughtful for a second or two. ‘No, I think we’ll stay closed. Out of respect. Millie was a good girl and we’re all going to miss her.’
‘What about her folks?’ Mog asked. ‘I know she had a family. Who’s going to tell ’em?’
Belle noted the sharp tone to Mog’s voice and sensed she had things she wished to say to Annie, so she took the tea poured for her and went over to sit in the easy chair by the stove to let the two women talk.
‘Not me, I suppose the police will,’ Annie replied, and for once she sounded very unsure of herself. ‘Will they have to tell the truth about how and why she died? That’s a terrible thing for a mother to hear.’
‘It certainly is,’ Mog agreed.
Now that Belle understood what Millie was, and that her mother made a business out of girls like her, she found it somewhat surprising that Annie cared about what Millie’s family would be told.
‘Maybe you could write a few words to them?’ Annie asked Mog.
‘Even if I knew where they lived, what could I say that would make it any better for them?’ Mog asked plaintively, and Belle saw that a tear was rolling down her cheek. ‘I did write a letter for Millie once when she first come here making out she were my housemaid and that she was a good girl. Millie begged me to do it as her mother would worry about her and she couldn’t write herself. But her ma never wrote back and although Millie was always saying she was going to go home when she’d saved some money, she always spent it.’
‘I was thinking you could say she took a fever, or was knocked down by a cab,’ Annie suggested. ‘But if you don’t remember where her folks lived you can’t do that anyway.’
‘This is the kind of gory story that gets slapped on the front page of all the newspapers,’ Mog reminded her in a sharp tone. ‘They’ll find out the truth anyway!’
‘Don’t be like that, Mog,’ Annie said reprovingly. ‘I feel bad enough about this without you sniping at me.’
‘That’s right, you feel so bad about it that you won’t let your daughter tell the police what she saw, and told them a pack of lies about what that killer was like too.’
Belle was astounded that Mog could be so bold and brave. She looked ready for a real fight, sticking her chin out defiantly. Luckily Annie just looked crumpled, as though she hadn’t got the energy to make a scene.
‘I didn’t say a word to Mog,’ Belle blurted out, afraid her mother would blame her for telling tales. ‘Mog guessed.’
‘That’s right, I did. As soon as I saw Belle I knew – she can’t lie convincingly like you can.’
‘Watch what you’re saying,’ Annie warned.
‘What are you gonna do? Throw me out? I could go to the police and tell them what I know, and you’d be for the high jump then. Just tell me why you are shielding this man. I take it he is the one the girls call Bruiser?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it in front of