Belle - Lesley Pearse [61]
It was two days since Mog took Annie to task for not fighting back, and finally this morning Annie had agreed to come down to Bow Street to stir the police into action. But as she wasn’t being anywhere near assertive enough, Mog felt she had to take over.
‘We have already called at both Mr Kent’s home and office. He’s out of the country, so he couldn’t have set the fire.’ The fat, red-faced sergeant smirked as he relayed this information, clearly thinking that would make Mog back down.
‘Oh really!’ she sneered. ‘As if I’d believe that!’
The policeman’s face darkened. ‘You should believe it because we have evidence he was a passenger on a boat leaving Dover on the fourteenth of January.’
‘That’s the day after Belle was snatched,’ Annie exclaimed. ‘So he took her out of the country! Where to?’
‘He was travelling to France with another man, no child with them,’ the sergeant said airily.
Mog gasped. ‘Then he must have killed her,’ she said.
‘There is absolutely no evidence that he abducted the girl, killed her or set the fire.’ The sergeant rolled his eyes and looked wearily at the ceiling. ‘Mr Kent’s rent collector confirmed he is still out of the country. Now, be off with you, I’ve got work to do.’
Annie turned away, but Mog wasn’t going to give up that easily. ‘Have you got a heart?’ she asked. ‘How would you feel if your daughter was stolen and your house burned down? It is a fact that Millie was murdered by this man Kent, an act witnessed by our Belle. So don’t you try to tell us he didn’t take her, or that he didn’t burn our house down to try and scare us into silence. And what is even more frightening is that you are taking the word of a man who owns some of the worst slum properties in London. He’s hardly likely to be reliable!’
‘Whores are even less so,’ the sergeant snapped back at her. ‘Now, get out before I think up something to charge you both with.’
If Annie hadn’t grabbed Mog’s arm and pulled her out of the police station, Mog would have tried to slap the policeman’s face.
‘Did you hear what he said?’ she spat out as they reached the street. Her face was purple with fury.
‘Yes, I heard it, and I didn’t like it any more than you did,’ Annie said, taking hold of both Mog’s arms and shaking her gently to try to get her to snap out of it. ‘But he was spoiling to lock us up for something, and that wouldn’t help anyone. Noah will be round later, let’s talk to him and see what we can do next.’
Mog slumped against Annie. She knew she was beaten for now and getting herself arrested would serve no purpose.
It was another very cold day and the icy wind whipped even more colour into Mog’s cheeks as they walked back towards the Ram’s Head. Annie glanced sideways at Mog and saw by the way her mouth was set in a straight line that she was still angry, and that some of that anger was directed at her.
Annie knew that Mog didn’t think she felt as deeply as she did about all the recent events, but she was wrong. It was just that Annie found it impossible to talk about her feelings. She wished she could be different, she would have liked to be able to spill out her anger and fear, but she couldn’t. Instead, Millie’s murder and Belle’s abduction were locked inside her head, going round and round, paralysing her so she felt unable to do anything. That was the reason why she stayed in bed for so long following the fire.
If everyone thought she was suffering from shock at being trapped by the fire, she was glad of that, for she certainly didn’t want to admit how guilty she felt that she’d failed to protect her own daughter. Not once, but twice. She’d failed to check where Belle was on the night of the murder, and then failed to foresee that Kent might try to silence her permanently because she’d seen it.
Why on earth did she try and hush it all up instead of reporting who killed Millie immediately and sending Belle away to a place of safety?
There was no real answer to that question. She’d behaved like an ostrich, hiding her head in the sand, imagining it would all blow over, and she