Page 55 of Who Will Remember (Sebastian St. Cyr Mystery #20)

S he said her name was Bridget Daniels, and that she was fifteen years old. Her parents were dead, and she had been on her own for more than three years.

“After m’ mother and da died,” she told them, her head bowed and her hands twisting together in her lap, “I tried tattin’ lace for a while. But I was never any good at it. So then I took t’ sellin’ apples in the streets. And when I couldn’t make a go of that, I, well…” She shrugged one shoulder. “You know.”

She had been fourteen when she gave birth to a premature baby girl who took one gasping breath and then died.

“I hadn’t told nobody. Truth is, I didn’t know what was happenin’ to me for the longest time, and once I figured it out, I was too scared to say anything. But I was lucky because when the baby come, the landlady heard me screamin’ and come up to see what was wrong. So she was there when my baby was born, and when they tried to accuse me of murderin’ my own babe, she could tell them she saw my little girl die—that she was just too tiny to live. But they still hauled me up before the magistrates and sent me off t’ the Bridewell for six months for concealin’ a pregnancy. I didn’t even know that was something they did.”

She fell silent, a single tear rolling down her cheek before she brushed it away with a fist.

“When were you released?” Hero asked gently.

“Last month. Father Ambrose, he’d come to see me while I was in there, and then he tried to help me when I got out, to keep me from goin’ back on the streets. But I…I just didn’t think I deserved better, if you know what I mean? It was only a few nights later, when I was working the Haymarket, that this tall, skinny nob with blond hair comes up t’ me. He’s dressed all somber-like, in black, but I can tell his clothes are real fine. So me, I’m thinkin’ he’s gonna want to take me to the back room of a coffeehouse, like they do. But he says no, he likes doing it in alleys—says he thinks it’s excitin’.” She pulled a face. “Some nobs are like that, you know. So I think I know where he’s takin’ me. But as soon as we get around the corner, he wraps an arm around my waist and clamps his hand down on my mouth and starts dragging me toward this old carriage I can see sitting there in the shadows, like it’s waitin’ for us. So I bit his hand and was about to scream when he cuffs me on the side of the head so hard everything goes kinda black. When I come to, I’m in that carriage with a rag tied tight over my mouth, and we’re pullin’ into this dark lane.”

“Do you know where you were?” asked Sebastian.

The girl nodded. “Yes, sir. We was down by the river, where all those warehouses and tenements burned a while back. As soon as we stop, this other cove gets off the box. At first I’m thinkin’ he must be the coachman, but he weren’t dressed like any coachman I ever seen.”

“What did he look like?”

“He was a lot older than the first cove, gray-haired and kinda stout, but he had a kerchief tied over his nose and mouth so’s all I could see was his eyes. I tried fightin’ them, but they dragged me outta the carriage and through this archway into a queer old courtyard where I can see this third cove waitin’ for us. He’s standing beside some stone coffin-lookin’ thing—sorta like you see in old churches, you know? And me, I’m trying to hang back, but they drag me across the courtyard. I can see that stone coffin-lookin’ thing is full of water, and then I realize the cove standin’ next to it is Lord Preston.”

“How did you come to know him?”

She sniffed. “He was the bugger behind gettin’ me sent to the Bridewell.”

Sebastian was beginning to realize there was a pattern here. “But you didn’t recognize either of the other two men?”

“No, sir.”

“So then what happened?” asked Hero.

“Lord Preston, he takes the gag out of my mouth. I managed to scratch the side of his face while he was doin’ it, but then he wraps his hand around the back of my neck and shoves my head under the water.”

She drew a deep, shaky breath. “I fought like the bejesus. At one point I even managed to get my head out of the water long enough to grab a quick breath. But then that older bugger, he comes up to help, and together he and Lord Preston shove me back down under the water and hold me there.”

She stared at the fire for a long moment, as if she were seeing again the moonlight dancing eerily through the churning water, feeling the strength of their hands on her body, hearing the disembodied, cultured voices of the men who were killing her. Then she swallowed and said, “I’d figured out by then that it weren’t no use me tryin’ to fight ’em. So I made myself go all limp and tried just holdin’ my breath, hoping maybe they’d think I was dead and let me up. Then I guess I musta sorta blacked out or somethin’, because the next thing I know, I can feel the breeze off the river against my wet face, and I can hear them laughing. They’re laughing— laughing about how they’ve rid the world of another ‘useless bloody whore,’ and makin’ fun of Lord Preston on account of how I’d scratched his face. One of them—I think it was the old bugger—he says, ‘You need to watch those Irish wenches; they’ll claw your eyes out if you give them a chance. Remember the last one—what was her name?’ And the skinny cove, he says, ‘Gallagher.’ Then the first one laughs and says, ‘That’s right; Jenny Gallagher.’ Then all three of ’em laugh again and Lord Preston says, ‘It’s difficult to keep them straight at this point.’?”

She fell silent again, watching her fingers pluck at the worn cloth of her gown where it draped across her knees. “By then I could hear the rush of the river, and their footsteps started sounding hollow-like, and I knew they were takin’ me out onto that abandoned old dock there. One of ’em takes me by the shoulders while the other has my feet, and Lord Preston, he goes, ‘Heave-ho,’ and they kinda swing me back before letting me fly forward again and letting go.”

She looked up, her face pinched, her soft blue eyes haunted. “I managed to suck in a big gulp of air right before I went under. I wanted t’ scream, but I knew I couldn’t, so it was like I was screaming in my head—if you know what I mean? It was all I could do t’ keep from clawing my way back up to the air, but I knew I couldn’t let ’em see I was still alive. So I just let the river take me—take me away from them. When I couldn’t hold my breath any longer, I had t’ come up. But I was careful to only work at keepin’ my head above water—I didn’t dare try to swim at first ’cause I was afraid they’d see me. I can swim a little,” she said proudly. “I grew up in Kent, and there was this old millpond near our cottage. But it weren’t nothin’ like tryin’ to swim in that river. I thought I was gonna drown for sure. To tell the truth, I don’t know how I managed t’ make it to the riverbank. But then, when I hauled myself out and looked back, those men, they weren’t even out on the dock anymore. I guess it didn’t make no difference to them where my body went.”

She fell silent again, her head bowed, her breath coming hard and fast.

Hero said quietly, “What did you do then?”

Bridget looked up. “At first, I was too scared t’ do anything, ma’am, ’cept lay there coughing and cryin’ and tryin’ t’ breathe. But I was wet through, and so cold I thought I might die if I didn’t get movin’. I thought about goin’ back to the room I was sharin’ with some other girls, but then I realized I couldn’t do that. I mean, those men knew I’d seen their faces—well, Lord Preston’s and that other cove’s. If they ever figured out I was still alive, they’d kill me—kill me for sure next time.”

There was no point, Sebastian knew, in asking the girl why she hadn’t gone to the authorities; who would have believed her? He said, “Where did you go?”

“To Father Ambrose. I knew he wouldn’t tell nobody. But when he heard what those men had said about Jenny Gallagher, he said it would be a kindness if I could bring myself to let her brother know what had really happened to her. At first I didn’t want to, but Father, he has a way of makin’ you do things you really don’t want t’ do because he makes you see it’s what’s right. So, in the end, I did.”

She glanced over at Jamie. “Father made him promise he wouldn’t tell nobody. But Jamie, he said we couldn’t just let Lord Preston and his friends go on killin’ people, that we needed to stop ’em. And Father, he said Jamie was right. Only, I told Jamie he could accuse Lord Preston of killin’ his sister all he wanted, but he couldn’t say nothin’ that’d let those men guess that one of the women they thought they’d killed was still alive.”

“And you’ve been with Father Ambrose ever since?”

“Oh, no, sir. With Sister Anne Marie,” she said. Then she sucked in a quick breath, her cheeks flaming with color as Jamie shot her a warning look.

“Ah,” said Hero, glossing over that telling exchange. “I know Sister Anne Marie. She is very kind.”

Bridget and Jamie stared at her. Jamie said, “You know her, ma’am?”

“Yes. She—” Hero broke off, a strange expression darkening her eyes. Then she changed what she’d been about to say to “She’s a very interesting person” and left it at that.

“So who is this Sister Anne Marie?” Sebastian asked after they’d sent Bridget and Jamie off to the kitchens for something to eat.

Hero went to stand at the window, her gaze on a tinker in the street below. “She’s a French nun who works with the poor. Mainly Irish and French Catholics, but anyone, really.”

“A French nun?” repeated Sebastian.

Hero turned to look at him. “I know what you’re thinking, but surely she can’t be the woman they call Angélique. That was my first thought, too, but there must be hundreds of French nuns in this country, if not more. They’re not visible because they’re not allowed to wear their habits, but they’re here, and Father Ambrose must surely know many of them.”

“Anne Marie could be her religious name—the name she adopted when she took her vows—while Angélique is her birth name or a name she chose to use during the revolutionary years. How old is this Sister Anne Marie?”

“It’s hard to say, really. Forty-five? Perhaps more. She’s a very striking woman; she must have been beautiful when she was younger. But she’s so gentle and good, I can’t see her as a violent revolutionary.”

“I don’t think Angélique was a violent revolutionary. She was a nursing sister, and then she supported her brother’s efforts to push through some desperately needed reforms. But the Bourbons had prevented reforms for so long that once the changes started, they lost control of everything and it turned into the stuff of nightmares.”

“But how in the world does Angélique—whether she is Sister Anne Marie or not—fit into any of this?”

“That I can’t begin to fathom. But Jamie obviously didn’t want Bridget mentioning her.”

Hero was silent for a moment. “From the sound of things, the ‘stout old cove’ is probably Sir Windle Barr, don’t you think? Unless it’s the Chief Magistrate of Bow Street himself.”

“Sir Nathaniel Conant?” Sebastian considered this. “Yes, I can see that, too. Or even the clerk, John Stafford. The trouble is, there must be any number of affluent, stout older gentlemen in London who share Lord Preston’s attitudes toward ‘the frail sisterhood.’?”

“But how many of them do you think Lord Preston was friendly with? So friendly that they would be comfortable killing together?”

“You have a point there.”

“And the ‘tall, skinny cove’ is Mr. Crispin Carmichael?”

“I think it very likely,” said Sebastian thoughtfully. “We need to find a way for Bridget to see him—without being seen herself.”

Hero glanced at the clock. “It’s Tuesday, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I have an idea.”