Belle - Lesley Pearse [185]
As for Annie, her boarding house had become so successful she’d taken over the house next door too, but she had little contact with Mog now. Noah had written another article about Belle and the other missing girls just last December, hoping that after such a long time someone might come forward with new information. He had interviewed several of the mothers for this article, Annie included, and it had struck him that although she appeared hard and cold, in fact she probably grieved for Belle as strongly as Mog, but just couldn’t articulate her feelings.
From time to time Noah had heard whispers about the Falcon. A young girl was found dead in a field on the outskirts of Dover, her death attributed to a large dose of sedative. She came from a village in Norfolk and was last seen at a local fair, talking to a man who fitted the description of Mr Kent. Noah had managed to get a look at the inquest report, and there had been rope marks on her wrists and ankles as if she’d been tied up, but the rope was removed after her death. Noah was convinced Kent was responsible and that he’d been planning to get her over to France the same way he had taken Belle, but when he found she’d died he just dumped her body and hoped the police might think she’d killed herself.
There were other girls missing too, several of them from Suffolk and Norfolk. Many of the policemen Noah talked to were in agreement that Kent was involved, and that he’d just moved his operation to a different area. But there was no evidence, and on the several occasions they had taken him in for questioning, he always had a watertight alibi. One senior police officer had told Noah that if they could just find one of the missing girls and get her to testify against him, he was sure other people would come forward with further information about his crimes.
But now this woman in Paris had news of Belle. Noah knew The Times would happily pay his expenses to go over there, and also get their French counterparts to offer him every assistance in the hope that he would find her and bring her home to testify about Kent and his operation. Noah’s heart thumped with delight, not only at the prospect of seeing her reunited with Anne and Mog, but also because of what it would mean to him personally to get a lead story of human trafficking that every newspaper in the land would want.
And maybe he’d see Lisette again too.
In less than an hour after opening the telegram, Noah was on his way to Charing Cross to catch the last train of the evening to Dover. He considered stopping off at the Ram’s Head to tell Mog the news, but decided against it in case things didn’t work out as he hoped. He had telephoned his editor who, as he had expected, gave him his blessing and promised to telegraph ahead and ask the office in Paris to stand by to offer him assistance and an interpreter if necessary.
Gabrielle was laying up the breakfast tables at nine in the evening when the bell on the front door rang. She hurried to it, to find Marcel there.
‘Did you find out anything?’ she asked, and beckoned for him to come in.
‘My brother does know where Etienne is, but it’s a few miles from Marseille out in the country. Pierre promised me he’ll go out there on his bicycle at first light tomorrow to see him and give him your message.’
‘Bless you, Marcel,’ she said, and impulsively leaned forward to kiss his cheek. ‘Did he think Etienne might come?’
‘All he said was that Etienne was the kind of man who would always help a friend. But he added that he hasn’t been himself since the fire. So all we can do is hope.’
‘Stay and have a glass of something with me?’ Gabrielle asked. For the first time in years she didn’t relish being alone. She had grown more and more terrified for Belle as the hours passed. She had pictured her body being thrown in the Seine or lying in a back alley. Even if Belle was still alive she couldn’t bear