Chapter
One
Lily rarely stirred herself before
No one had seen Aimee, none of the other girls nor Madame downstairs, but
despite her growing disquiet Lily could do nothing but get through her day,
resolving that should Aimee not appear for tonight’s show then the comte would
feel the sharp of her own tongue, whether his pale wife was sitting at his side
or not.
At last the evening came and Lily’s second home, the backstage of the Moulin
Rouge, bustled with the familiar sights and sounds of too many women in one
place, a cacophony of sound and colour that made her smile. No matter how tired
she was, the minutes before the curtain went up always had her heart beating
fast, a slightly sick feeling in her stomach, but a deep smile in her very
being. She continued to brush her cheeks with powder, watching her own face
change in the mirror into something else far away from the drabness of the
street. These, it was true, hardly being the discerning audience of the opera,
but all the same, the Can Can was about “being” and at least for those moments
when they were flashing their skirts and their boots, heads held high and proud
of being women, it was an expression of that spirit that all else was
conspiring to squash.
She pouted her lips and ran a finger of red all over them, parting her lips to
see the contrast of rouge and white. Stepping back from the mirror a little she
held her head at an angle, pulling some curls down to fall on her neck; Lily
was never one to pin her hair too tight. Ah, they were never going to be
“ladies” anyhow, and from what she had seen on the sour unhappy faces in the
audience, the wives of the men who came to feel themselves—Lily laughed at her
own thought process—men who came to feel themselves rise at the sight of women
dancing, well their wives might have all manner of sparkle round their necks
but none inside their hearts. With a sigh, she tugged on the laces of her boots
and pulled her dress a little further down her pale shoulders. She would dance
for herself if for nothing else.
With that Lily stepped into the hallway that led to the heavy curtains that
enveloped the stage. The first dance of the night and a favourite with the
audience of men was the Quadrille, threads of an older dance that Lily had made
her own. She reveled in the opportunity to both tease and show the skill she
was renowned for, bending backwards to offer more of her curves, but all the
time keeping the dance encased in a square of four, still as yet contained in
formality but with a hint of the unruliness to come. Tonight she threw herself
into it, so that the hint was more of a promise, the swirl and brush of her
skirts just a little bit more daring, and her chin a little higher while the
loud clamour of the trombones and cornets filled the hall. By the end there was
only a cloud of white lace with just the taste of pink skin as her petticoats
seemed to demand to keep moving despite the stamp of her heels and Lily’s curls
having a revolution all of their own. Her breasts heaving with her panting
breath and just a trace of moisture on her skin, Lily bowed with a quick wink
before running off stage.
The wide smile fell from her face her as she ran back behind the curtain to see
Monsieur Mauriac, the House Manager, pointing in her direction, his as yet
indistinct words directed into the face of a man she couldn’t yet see since his
back was to her. No doubt he had enjoyed an unsurpassed view of the Quadrille
from such close quarters; indeed he very nearly made up a quintet.
“This is Lily, Monsieur Inspector, but before you ask your questions, I have a
few of my own, or maybe they are the same, in which case, I will save you the
trouble of hearing the same excuses twice, and you can take your notebook
elsewhere.”
Lily could feel the hairs on the back of her neck begin to prickle, rising in
the rapidly cooling air around her—a copper, that was all she needed. She
quickly glanced around for a second,
meaning to gauge the method by which she might secure a painless exit
from whatever it was that he wanted. Lily had honed that particular talent—how
to judge what a man wanted in a breath—and she was seldom wrong.
Well she intended to glance for a second, but it might have been two or three.
The man was looking directly at her, anticipating where her face was going to
be before she turned her head as if he meant to catch her. She caught the
slightest flicker of his eyes down to where the sweat was now wet in her
cleavage and sighed, “Ah oui,” she had it now, as if it were to be any
different.
“Lily, the Inspector here wants to know where it is that we might find Aimee
Blanchard. Whatever his reasons, which he has failed to divulge,” Mauriac’s
contempt was barely below the surface of his sneer, “they will of course be of
less import than the knowledge that she will no longer have a job if she fails
to appear within the very next hour.” If the Mauriac had picked a worse way to
challenge all that Lily held dear, he probably would have been in his grave.
Lily burst into a torrent of expletives about how he could sack her too, and
she would see what the organisation for women dancers would say about it,
though in truth she wasn’t even sure there was one, and how she, Lily, would
refuse to dance if he even thought of stopping Aimee’s wages never mind sacking
her, and that if anyone knew where Aimee was it would be that snake the Comte
de Richelieu who would be answering to her any minute now. There was a stunned
silence for a moment before the Inspector stepped up beside her, his hand
resting on the bare skin of her arm.
“It seems to me, Monsieur, that we both have our answer,” a nod to Lily, “and a
very full and colourful one, wouldn’t you say? Now if I may indulge your
kindness, I will need to question Lily for myself.” It didn’t seem to be a
request. Lily was determined not to let those angry trickles at the corners of
her eyes descend her cheeks and turned round to face him. There was to be no
end it seemed, caught between the sort of manager who only cared that the
chorus line was full and now a copper. Jesus, what she wouldn’t give to be
almost anywhere else.
“Is there somewhere we can go?”
Lily took a long slow look at the policeman in front of her, who, with his hair
falling across dark brown eyes and almost touching his cheek, had the look of a
slightly ill-groomed dog, pedigree and mongrel all mixed up, and one that had
been allowed to run free. No amount of smart collars or ties could make it
otherwise. “To talk?” Oh, and he had a smile, when he did, even when it was
just in the purse of those lips, that made her want to ruffle his hair some
more. It took just a moment before she remembered who this curious man with the
even more curious French accent was, “If you insist, Inspector.” With a nod he
followed her down the lamp-lit corridors to the sewing room where, at the very
least, there was quiet.
Once seated on an enormous roll of heavy red silk Lily looked expectantly at
his face, all soft in the dark. “If you want me to tell you where she is, I can
only say that she left with the Comte de Richelieu last night. That’s common
knowledge, any one of the girls will tell you that. I have not seen her since.”
“But you do know her well? The Madame told me she is often to be found in your
company in the early hours.” If he was trying to unseat Lily it wasn’t going to
work. He felt her stiffen from where he sat on blue damask, and he retreated
quickly. “I simply thought you might have some clues as to what she would do,
Lily, where she would go. Your business is your own. If I can be candid…” he
was looking straight at her now and she wondered if he was ever anything else,
“she is accused of stealing a Fabergé egg.”
Now that had the effect he expected, unequivocal denial in her eyes and a panic
that was already a mile ahead; cells, court appearances, and worse already in
her mind. “Where is she? The bastard! He is lying!” Lily was on her way to
standing before his hand caught her.
“I don’t know yet…sit Lily…please.” Fred Abberline leaned back against the wall
to reach into his waistcoat, his fingers emerging with a small silver flask,
the metal and its contents warmed by his body. Small squeaks were all that
could be heard as he unscrewed the top and held it out for her.
Lily frowned as she took a large swig, the warmth of his body easing the
licquor’s passage down her throat while she listened to the details he wanted
her to know. Details about how he had visited the Comte and Comtesse de
Richelieu that very day and heard how Mademoiselle Blanchard had been left
alone in the parlour for only one minute while they went to instruct the maid
in the fetching of food, warm clothes, and a small purse for the unfortunate
who had talked her way into their goodwill at the Moulin Rouge, only to find
her gone on their return along with the egg.
They sat in silence for some minutes before Lily spoke, an edge to her voice
that was pure white anger, “I won’t speak for myself, Inspector, but she is no
thief. I swear to you on my mother’s grave. And she weren’t begging from the
comte neither, he paid for her!” Despite herself her eyes were filling up, and
it was a cascade of thoughts that was as dizzying as Lily herself, “Merde...I
watched her walk away, after he asked for her especially to join him in the
box. I would put money on it that she never even heard of a Fabergé egg, and if
she had, she would have thought they were ones you could crack to have the
richest breakfast ever.” She stopped just for a second to take a breath. “Don’t
tell me you believe that bloody rat! Aimee has nowhere to go except here,
Monsieur. If you were doing your job, you would be out there looking for her!
If he has hurt her, I will see him in hell!” He wasn’t answering, nor asking
neither. In his many years as a copper he had never seen a less likely thief,
but the reasons he had been assigned this case were becoming clearer even in
the gloom of the sewing room.
A loud bang on the door made them both jump, for a moment united in that same
panic of having done something wrong, and Lily handed the flask back to him
with a dismissive wave. “I have to go or Monsieur Mauriac will have my wages
too.” He felt himself almost drowning in a surf of petticoats and then she was
gone, the door swinging closed with a dull thunk.
In fact, if she had the first idea where to even begin to look for Aimee, she
would have told Mauriac which place exactly he could stick his wages in and
have run out into the cold herself. But she did not. Aimee had arrived at the
Moulin Rouge as had so many, penniless and eager to leave a past behind, not
dwell on it. They had spoken a little of their childhoods, but the Moulin Rouge
and Montmartre was their world now and there seemed little outside of it to
these women who lived and breathed greasepaint and dancing. Even Gabrielle for
once had no bright ideas. Before the Inspector left the building the news was
in every corner—Aimee had been kidnapped or worse.
Lily hid herself a little at the back of the troupe as she danced, despite the
glare of Monsieur Mauriac. She needed to think, to find ways to explain to
herself why she had ignored her own intuition and waved Aimee goodbye, but, as
she dug deeper and deeper into that precise well, she could only curse herself.