Paternoster Page 11

  ‘They’re all right if you dunk them,’ Andy said, bobbing his biscuit enthusiastically, until – predictably – it broke off in his mug.

  ‘Amateur,’ Trev said, shaking his head in mock dismay at the youth of today.

  ‘All right, everyone,’ Aidan said, trying to pull the meeting to order. ‘On Monday we excavated two skeletons from the grounds of the Park School. Lisa,’ he turned to her, ‘you examined them. Can you tell everyone what you found?’

  She ran through her findings with economy: a male and a female skeleton, over a century old and possibly much older. No evidence to indicate how the female, aged late teens, died, but the male had a cut mark on his ribs suggesting he was stabbed.

  ‘We found an object in the ribcage when we excavated,’ Aidan said. ‘Andy, you cleaned it up and x-rayed it. What did you find?’

  ‘Metal tip, probably from a knife,’ Andy said. ‘Probably snapped off in the body.’

  ‘Can you date the knife?’

  ‘I’d estimate a couple of hundred years.’ His mouth drooped as he announced this, evidently hoping for something much more interesting and preferably Anglo-Saxon.

  ‘It could have been an old knife used in the attack,’ Lisa said. ‘The knife isn’t necessarily contemporary with the skeleton.’

  ‘An antique knife used to stab a Victorian man,’ Aidan said, drily. Lisa loved playing devil’s advocate but he wasn’t in the mood for outlandish speculation, especially not from her. He caught the hot flash of anger that crossed her face.

  ‘And no sign of how the female died?’ Trev asked.

  ‘No.’ Lisa tapped her pen on her notebook.

  ‘I’ve done some research into the area, to see whether we should expect more human remains,’ Aidan said, ‘and I found something interesting in the archives. The school was originally called Greville House, and a local diarist heard rumours that it held meetings of the Hellfire Club there.’

  ‘Wow,’ Mandy said, spraying jammy dodger crumbs.

  Andy smirked and made a lubricious face at Trev.

  ‘Orgies, in Cheltenham?’ Trev laughed, rubbing his hands together. ‘Must be something in the water.’

  ‘The diarist didn’t specify exactly what went on there, just that he wasn’t going anywhere near the place, and neither were his wife and daughter.’

  Everyone laughed. The biscuits made another circuit of the room.

  ‘But I did find something relevant,’ Aidan said, as they settled down. ‘There was a plan of the original house and drawings of the grounds. It looked like there was a tunnel that led from the house to the Temple of Venus.’ He turned to Mandy. ‘What did the geophys turn up?’

  Mandy unfurled a huge sheet of paper, marked with dark patches. She used the end of her pen to show patterns under the soil.

  ‘We surveyed the whole site that they’re going to build on,’ she explained, ‘apart from the bit where they’ve already put new foundations. If there were skeletons under there, they’ve been minced to dust by now.’

  ‘Any evidence of other burials in the geophys?’ Lisa asked.

  Mandy shook her head. ‘Nothing conclusive. A few little patches of anomalies, but they could be anything. The ground has been disturbed for some school buildings already – they could be related to that.’

  ‘We didn’t do the whole site,’ Trev added. ‘It would take days to cover the whole thing.’

  ‘However,’ Mandy said, her eyes alight. ‘You can see here there’s a fainter patch in a straight line from the school to the Temple of Venus.’ Her pen traced the route. ‘Something hollow and man-made, and it’s quite a size.’

  ‘Could be talking about me,’ Trev quipped. Aidan ignored him.

  ‘The tunnel is still there?’ Aidan said.

  ‘Looks like it.’

  CHAPTER

  EIGHT

  Cheltenham, August 1795

  It was a long, rattling journey to Cheltenham. Rachel stared out of the coach window at the countryside and yearned for the harsh bounce of light on the Thames, haggling with pedlars, and the scramble of London life. She was going backwards. Back to where she came from – to soft mud and country towns, to people who spoke slowly as if there was no hurry in the world.

  Now her dreams of snagging a rich lover and being set up in a house in Westminster were risible. No one in Cheltenham would set her up in a house. They wouldn’t cart her back to London, not when they probably already had a mistress there. And anyway, who takes the spa waters and hopes to fall in love? Only honest women; not her sort of people. She was nothing but a holiday whore.

  Her spirits sparked as they clattered into Cheltenham itself. At least there were houses here, and a long road of shops. They dined and rested the first night at the Plough on the High Street, the next day taking occupancy of their new home. They were to reside in Coffee House Lane, squashed between a malt house and the theatre. It was an old house, with sloping floors and beams low enough to crack the heads of the unwary, and with doors that either stuck and needed a kick to open, or else swung wide as though a ghost were announcing himself. It was well furnished, though: the Cheltenham tradesmen eager for the rub of Mrs Bedwin’s money and none too pernickety about the source of the revenue. She’d brought ten girls with her, including Rachel and Roseanne, whose black skin was certain to be a novelty in provincial Cheltenham. The girls ran from room to room, clucking with approval, as Mrs Bedwin stood in the hallway and calculated her profits.

  They opened for business that afternoon. Gentlemen taking the waters for gout, nerves and skin complaints shuffled into the opulent room that served as the seraglio and gawked to think they weren’t in London. A painted frieze around the room advertised the delights on offer – a nervous gentleman had just to point and it would be his. And what delights! Mrs Bedwin was no bucolic bawd: her board of fare was the same as in the city, outlandish and foreign enough to ensure there was soon a brisk trade.

  ‘Get in first, girls, that’s my motto,’ she sang, as the bell rang and another gentleman was shown upstairs. ‘The best brothel in Cheltenham. All tastes catered for. Front, back or sideways, we aim to please.’

  Rachel shared a bed with Emma Trulove, a sallow-faced girl of seventeen who was known to be amusing to ladies. Mrs Bedwin had brought her from London with the others, and each night she and Rachel hunkered under the covers and sketched their futures.

  ‘I shall find myself a rich husband who adores me and who allows me as many gowns and gloves and bonnets as I wish,’ Rachel said, her fair hair tangling with Emma’s auburn tresses on the pillow. ‘And I shall have a little dog who sits in my lap and feeds off a saucer, and a bird in a cage to sing to me while I lie on my sofa.’

  Emma sighed. ‘I’ll have a rich, handsome husband, but he’ll be quite old, maybe even forty, and he won’t be interested in bed so I can take as many young lovers as I like.’

  ‘Men?’ Rachel asked, slyly.

  ‘Some of them,’ Emma giggled, ‘it’s as well to have variety.’

  They tugged the blankets up to their mouths to smother their sniggers.

  ‘But what do you do?’ Rachel said, rising on her elbow so she could look down at Emma’s face. ‘With a woman, I mean?’

  ‘All sorts of things.’

  ‘But there’s nothing to go anywhere!’

  ‘Oh there is,’ Emma said, pinching Rachel playfully. ‘Anyway, you’ll see for yourself soon enough.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Suddenly Rachel went cold. Servicing the men was one thing, but surely Mrs Bedwin wasn’t going to sell her to a woman? She’d never live down the shame. Rachel Lovett, with her legendary maidenhead, a plaything of fat rich ladies? She’d rather die. ‘I’m not a … Mrs Bedwin wouldn’t … would she?’

  Emma laughed. ‘No, silly. But Mrs Bedwin’s been asked to take some of us to a party, and she told me there was a woman who particularly wanted to meet me.’

  Relief flooded through her. ‘So, am I to go to this party, too?’

&nb
sp; Emma nodded. She snuggled down under the covers for a moment, and then asked, ‘What hold has Mrs Bedwin on you, Rachel?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You could’ve left her place in London, but you didn’t. And now you let her bring you here, when you obviously hate it.’

  ‘I don’t hate it.’ Rachel sighed. That wasn’t true. She did hate Cheltenham. The initial pleasure at seeing the town had soon waned. The water running down the middle of the streets and the stepping stones to cross from the butcher to the grocer. The local women in their drab dresses; the fine women with their haughty expressions. She was a long way from the hustle and grime of London, and she missed it with an ache that penetrated deep into her soul. And right now, she feared she’d end her days in dull, genteel Cheltenham.

  ‘Rachel?’

  Rachel puffed out her cheeks. ‘Don’t tell anyone.’

  ‘Course not.’

  ‘I thieved some gloves and Mrs Bedwin knows about it. I’ve got to keep her sweet or she’ll sell me to the thief-taker.’

  Emma gave a low whistle. ‘Would she really sell you?’

  ‘If I crossed her, or if it was to her advantage. You know what she’s like.’

  ‘At least the thief-taker won’t find you here.’

  That much was true, at least. She was safe in Cheltenham. May as well sit it out until she was well and truly forgotten. If she went back to London now, it could be Australia for the rest of her life, or dangling on the end of a rope with the crowd yanking on her ankles.

  Yes, she was safe in Cheltenham.

  ‘Best gowns, girls, and plenty of rouge!’ Mrs Bedwin stood, flustered, her hairpiece awry, as girls scurried about with armfuls of silk and petticoats. ‘And make sure you all washes your downstairses,’ she added, with a grimace at Daphne, who was notoriously slatternish.

  The girls lined up in front of her: Daphne, Emma, Roseanne and Rachel, each in a gaudy dress of magenta or lime or marigold; bosoms pushed high; faces transformed by paint and powder. Mrs Bedwin paraded up and down the line, tweaking a ribbon here, smudging a triangle of rouge there until she was satisfied.

  ‘Do me proud, girls,’ she exhorted them, as they all clambered into the carriage waiting outside. Squashed in together, their skirts a tangled flowerbed, the five of them were driven through the streets of Cheltenham to the outskirts of the burgeoning town and through a set of high iron gates, up a long driveway lined with weedy saplings, until the carriage came to a halt outside a huge amber portico.

  ‘This is it, girls,’ Mrs Bedwin breathed. ‘This is where we makes our fortunes, doing what we knows best. Eh, girls?’

  Her cheeks were flushed beyond the reaches of rouge, and Rachel realised with a start that Mrs Bedwin was nervous. She glanced again at the imposing house.

  ‘Where are we?’

  ‘Greville House,’ said Mrs Bedwin with a gasp, as if the mere name were explanation enough.

  Emma pulled a face at Rachel and tugged her up the wide stone steps and into a magnificent two-storey atrium. Rachel barely had time to marvel at her surroundings before she and the other girls were hustled upstairs and into a grand salon furnished with plush sofas and drapes of gold. Tables were burdened with baskets of fruit and flowers. Double doors, the height of the ceiling, stood closed at the far end of the room.

  ‘Now, girls, get ready,’ Mrs Bedwin said. ‘Daphne, you’re to lie here.’

  ‘On the table?’

  ‘That’s it. Quick smart.’

  Daphne hoisted up her skirts and clambered on to the table and lay down. Mrs Bedwin flew across the room and smacked the girl’s thighs.

  ‘Not like that, you fool! Get your clothes off first. No one wants a plate of ribbons and lace.’

  ‘Plate?’ Daphne said.

  Mrs Bedwin tutted and started undoing Daphne’s gown, her lips working constantly with instructions, imprecations and curses on all the girls. Roseanne was to strike a pose; Rachel was to drape herself enticingly on one of the sofas; Emma to mirror her; and Daphne was to be eaten alive.

  She lay naked and squirming as Mrs Bedwin bustled about, placing oysters along her collarbones and draping grapes over her ears. Sliced pineapple lay from her chin to her groin. Cherries festooned her legs, miniature pies balanced on her arms, sweet puddings decorated her thighs. After she’d giggled so hard one of the puddings fell on to the carpet, and been rewarded with a pinch, Daphne lay subdued and submitted to being covered from head to toe in tasty morsels. By the time Mrs Bedwin had finished, only her face was bare.

  ‘Just in time,’ Mrs Bedwin breathed, as she placed the final oyster. Speaking sharply to Daphne, she said, ‘Now you lie still, my girl. You hear me?’

  Daphne’s silence was evidently taken as assent, as Mrs Bedwin clapped her gaze round the other girls, then nodded at the servant standing nearby. He swung the double doors wide, and announced, ‘Supper is served.’

  There were four men and one woman. Well-dressed but no aristocrats, Rachel’s finely tuned eye for detail informed her. New money. On the up. Still. A guinea’s a guinea. They swept into the room, their eyes raking from sofa to sofa, from girl to girl, before resting on Daphne, lying as still as death on the table.

  Mrs Bedwin dropped a deep curtsey. ‘Mr Ellison,’ she said.

  ‘Mrs Bedwin, and your young ladies, I see.’

  ‘Only my finest for you, sir, and your friends.’

  Mr Ellison was tall and had a thin, flat face with a Roman nose. His friends were in their early thirties, sporting gay waistcoats and silly grins. The woman was in her fifties, and had a mouth that was more used to scolding than kissing.

  Mrs Bedwin bowed herself out of the way, and watched proceedings from the small chair at the side of the room, as the friends selected a girl each and hoisted her on to his lap, while Mr Ellison selected the choicest morsels from Daphne’s spread. Her eyes were huge as his face dipped to her collarbone, his lips snatching up an oyster. He tipped back his head and guzzled it down, then turned his attention to the pies and cherries.

  I’m glad it’s not me, Rachel thought, as she caught Daphne stiffen as Mr Ellison’s teeth nipped her flesh.

  ‘You’re a table,’ Mrs Bedwin had told her. ‘And tables don’t move, don’t giggle and don’t flinch. Got it?’

  Rachel realised the gentleman who was fondling her breast was taking very little interest in it. His hand was clammy and his breath stale, huffing down the side of her neck, but like her, his eyes were fixed on Daphne.

  Mr Ellison stood up from Daphne’s spread. ‘Hungry?’ he said to Roseanne’s paramour. He galloped up to the table and was soon gobbling away, mouth slobbering, his saliva juicing along Daphne’s increasingly exposed body. Rachel twisted her head away from the sight.

  The men took it in turns to eat from Daphne’s body. When her gentleman got up to eat, Rachel found herself in slobber mouth’s arms. His rubbery lips worked over her neck and down the front of her gown, sluicing her with the salty fishy smell of oysters. She found herself thinking of the pigs on her uncle’s farm, and of the pig killer who came each year to split their bellies open and catch the blood in a bucket ready to be made into puddings.

  The woman took her turn, too, nibbling at Daphne’s instep as though shy, then suddenly plunging into the pineapple that covered Daphne’s groin. Mr Ellison laughed as one of the men groaned.

  ‘Too slow, my friend. Mrs Hardcastle has beaten you to the prize.’

  When all the food was either eaten or trodden into the floor, Mr Ellison helped Daphne down from the table. Rachel disentangled herself from a pair of arms, thinking the evening was done, but it was just beginning.

  Mr Ellison led the dance with Emma, and was soon joined by Roseanne and Rubberlips, and then by Rachel and a short, fair-haired man. In the manner of dances, partners twirled and moved on a step, and a new partner followed. The dance became raucous and drunken, a tangle of skirts and bosoms, sweating palms and avaricious lips. As the heat rose, Rachel realised that M
r Ellison and Daphne had disappeared. She twisted her head to scout round the room, but there was no sign of them, only Mrs Bedwin at the far end, licking her finger as she counted banknotes.

  Daphne wasn’t in the carriage that took them back to Coffee House Lane, either. They slumped against each other as the carriage rattled them back in the early hours of the morning, and Mrs Bedwin tucked them up in bed and ordered them to sleep as long as they wished in the morning.

  ‘But where’s Daphne?’ Rachel asked, though her eyelids were drooping with fatigue.

  ‘Never you mind,’ Mrs Bedwin replied, and blew out the candle.

  Daphne returned late the next day, and Mrs Bedwin immediately set about drawing her a bath in front of the fire, and called for hot wine and sweet cakes to restore her. Rachel was allowed in to sponge Daphne’s back and wash her long dark hair. The girl was exhausted.

  ‘Where did you go? Why didn’t you come back with us?’ Rachel hissed.

  Daphne turned black-rimmed eyes on her. Checking Mrs Bedwin was out of earshot, she whispered, ‘I went through the tunnels. To a place you won’t believe.’

  CHAPTER

  NINE

  Wednesday, 25 February 2015

  17:30 hours

  Eden stopped short when she arrived back at her office. BITCH was painted in red across the door.

  ‘Who done that, Eden?’ Tony, who ran the sandwich shop just along from her, was locking up. Balding, he over-compensated with a thin ponytail like a liquorice strap. ‘Unhappy client?’

  ‘I hope not.’ She clipped along the walkway to him. ‘Hey, Tony, do you know when it was done? I haven’t been in my office since yesterday afternoon.’

  He shrugged. ‘Last night, I think.’ He rattled his keys into his pockets. ‘It was there when I opened up this morning. Bloody vandals.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She sighed and went back to her office, calling goodbye as Tony headed off down the stairs. She’d been called some names over the years, but somehow this single word, scrawled on her door, unsettled her much more. The letters dripped red, like a Hollywood vampire caught mid-suck. Not a great advert for her business.