Belle - Lesley Pearse [49]
The victim passed out on the floor when the young boy gleefully tried to show off his trophy to everyone in the wholesalers. Eventually the spider was transferred into a pot with a lid, and a message was sent to London Zoo for someone to come and collect it.
All this had happened early in the morning, but by the time the story had reached Fleet Street and Noah had been dispatched to interview the people involved, the spider had been collected and the victim had downed so many brandies he wasn’t making a great deal of sense. But the boy was the hero of the story anyway and was thrilled he was going to be mentioned by name in the newspaper.
As Noah was in Seven Dials he decided to go and talk to Annie Cooper before he went back to Fleet Street. He had spoken to her briefly the previous day, along with everyone else in the house, but now, as he had some new developments to tell her of, thanks to Jimmy, he hoped that by passing them on, she might respond with something she had kept back before.
He went round to the back of the house in Jake’s Court and knocked on the door. It was opened by Miss Davis wearing a flour-splattered apron.
‘Good morning, Miss Davis,’ Noah said politely. ‘I’m sorry to trouble you again so soon, but I’ve found out a bit more about this man Kent. I wanted to tell Mrs Cooper about it.’
‘Call me Mog, no one calls me Miss Davis,’ she said, urging him to come in. ‘Annie’s in a bad way, I’m afraid.’
Judging by Mog’s red-rimmed eyes she had been crying a great deal herself, but despite this she said she’d just made a pot of tea and offered Noah a cup. She had been in the middle of rolling out pastry on the table, and there was a good smell of stewing beef filling the room. She urged him to sit by the stove and asked him if she could get him something to eat.
Sitting there in the warm kitchen with Mog fussing round him, Noah could now understand why Belle hadn’t become fully aware of the nature of her mother’s business. The basement was entirely separate from the rest of the house, a cosy, homely place, and Mog a kindly, motherly woman. On the previous day she had shown him Belle’s little bedroom, where there were old dolls, books and games on a shelf, the bed covered with a colourful quilt, and though it was a dark room with only a tiny window, it was pretty and reflected that she was a well-loved and cared-for girl.
‘Annie ain’t normally one for letting her feelings show,’ Mog said as she offered him an iced bun with his tea. ‘But this has hit her so hard I’m frightened for her. She needs to talk to someone about it, and if you’ve got a bit of news, that just might help her to open up.’
Leaving Noah to drink his tea, Mog went up the stairs to speak to her mistress. She returned a few minutes later and said he could go up.
Annie was in the room behind the parlour, which Millie had always referred to as ‘the office’. It was in fact Annie’s bedroom, but the room was L-shaped and the bed was in the smaller section and hidden by a fancy screen. It was a very feminine room, with a rose pink velvet couch in front of the fire. The small round table, the chairs and Annie’s desk were all of dainty black lacquerware and hand-painted with pink and green flowers and leaves. There were many pictures on the walls, all romantic ones, whether they depicted a soldier and his lass taking a walk across a cornfield, or a woman waiting on the quay to meet her sweetheart off a ship.
Millie had said she often had tea in here by the fire with Annie in the afternoons and she’d said when she had a home of her own she wanted a room just like it. Noah could understand why now. It was a warm, welcoming room which hinted that Annie was not as stern, cold and humourless as she appeared.
But the Annie sitting here by the fire, barely able to turn her head to greet him, was changed from the elegant, haughty woman he’d met on several occasions while visiting Millie before. Even the previous day she’d managed to maintain her cold and aloof manner and indeed her elegant