Belle - Lesley Pearse [24]
‘She’ll be all right,’ Amy chimed in as she twiddled a rat’s tail of greasy hair and chewed the end of it. ‘What can happen to her around ’ere where everyone knows ’er ma?’
By eight that evening Annie was down at Bow Street telling the police she thought her daughter had been snatched and maybe even killed. She and Mog had been all over Seven Dials, asking everyone they knew if they’d seen Belle. But to their distress no one had seen her that day.
The sergeant behind the desk, a big man with a bristling moustache, seemed to find Annie’s claim amusing. ‘That ain’t likely, lady,’ he said, a smirk playing at his lips. ‘Girls of that age, they go wandering. Might even have a young feller for all you know.’
‘She wouldn’t go wandering after dark, and surely you know a girl was murdered in my place just a few days ago? It is possible that same man was watching the house and snatched my Belle.’
‘Now, why would he want her? She ain’t a workin’ girl,’ the policeman said. ‘You said yerself she was in her bed at the time of the murder and you never lets her upstairs of an evening. He probably don’t even know you’ve got a young daughter.’
‘He’s done it to mark my card,’ Annie insisted. ‘It’s like a warning he can do whatever he wants. Kill one of my girls, snatch my Belle, what’s he going to do next?’
The sergeant got up from behind his desk, stretched and yawned. ‘Look, lady, I understand you’re worried, but you can bet yer life she went off to meet a pal and forgot the time. She’ll be scared stiff to come home now ’cos she knows you’ll be mad with her. But she will come back when she gets cold and hungry.’
‘Please start searching for her,’ Annie begged him. ‘At least ask about to see if anyone saw her this afternoon.’
‘Fair enough, we’ll do that starting tomorrow if she don’t come home tonight,’ he agreed. ‘But she will come back, you’ll see.’
At eleven that same night Annie and Mog sat together in the kitchen, both too worried to think of going to bed. They had not been reassured by the policeman’s opinion. They both knew Belle would never have willingly missed Millie’s little wake; to her that would have looked as though she didn’t care about the dead girl. If something else had happened to her, if she’d been knocked down in the street or taken ill, she would have made certain a message was sent to them.
‘I don’t know what to do for the best,’ Annie admitted. ‘If I tell the peelers that I knew the murderer and that Belle saw it happen, they’ll think I was somehow in with him and maybe charge me with obstruction. Yet if I don’t tell ’em they aren’t going to take me seriously enough to look for her. But the worst thing is that if I tell ’em it’s the Falcon and he gets word that I’ve fingered him, he’ll kill Belle and then come for me.’
Mog knew Annie could be right. No one else in Seven Dials would kidnap Belle. Annie was part of the community, and however villainous some of their neighbours were, they didn’t rob or hurt their own.
But this man Kent, or the Falcon as he was known, knew his liberty depended on making sure Belle and her mother kept their mouths shut. He had probably got contacts everywhere, in fact Mog would bet he already knew Annie had been to Bow Street tonight. But after the cold-blooded way he’d killed Millie, Mog was only too aware that he wouldn’t even need the excuse that the police were closing in on him to kill Belle.
‘I think you must tell the police the truth,’ Mog replied after weighing it all up. ‘But along with that I think you should call in a few favours and get some help to find out where the evil bastard has taken her.’
Annie was silent for some while, chewing on her nails thoughtfully.
‘I’m scared he might sell her,’ she finally blurted out.
Mog blanched. She knew exactly what Annie meant by ‘selling’. A young and pretty virgin would fetch a high price in some circles. ‘Please God, not that,’ she whispered, crossing herself. Her eyes filled with tears and she reached out for Annie’s hand, for she knew this was what had happened to her friend when she was the same age