The youth shoved past Nellie and knocked her hat askew, causing her to stagger back. She clutched at the thick veil draped over her face as the boy guffawed and ran after the rest of his gang. The night market was far more crowded and boisterous than she’d anticipated. Booths and carts had sprung up like mushrooms out of the packed dirt, their wares displayed by the flickering light of torches and lamps. Sellers of pies, oysters and sheep’s trotters jostled with those hawking knives, matches, buttons and second-hand boots. All manner of people pressed past her, some in rags, some dressed in hard-wearing labourers’ clothing.
“’alloo preety gurl.” A man lurched towards her, attempting to tweak at her veil.
She drew back from his gin-soaked odour and pushed past him. His was not the first foreign accent she’d heard tonight. This part of London teemed with new arrivals who’d fled from the upheaval on the Continent and now found themselves scraping for survival in an overcrowded and ruthless city.
The youth and the foreigner had distracted her from her mission. She threaded her way through the crowd, fearing she’d lost her quarry. No, there he was up ahead. The smell of roasting chestnuts wafted after her as she pursued him. Dampness beaded her brow, and her scalp itched beneath the cumbersome hat. How good it would be to feel the fresh air against her cheeks, even this greasy, noisome atmosphere around her. One day she’d have the nerve to travel about without the hat and veil, but not yet.
The man she was tailing paused outside a mean little gin shop. Nellie stopped behind a tottering pile of crates filled with rotting cabbages. Now she was nearer she could make out the man’s fair curls peeping below the brim of his fashionable top hat. He dithered on the threshold of the shop, then plunged in and emerged a minute later, shuddering and wiping his mouth after his quick dram. His Savile Row suit and polished boots attracted a few sidelong glances and mutters, but he appeared not to notice as he hurried down a side street.
Nellie skulked after him. This secondary road was darker, quieter, the cacophony of the night market gradually subsiding to a low hubbub. Fog wreathed the dwellings and dulled her ears. The heels of her boots clicked on the cobblestones. From an alleyway, a cat yowled. Up ahead, the man dipped past a hazy pool of gaslight from a lone streetlamp.
Footsteps sounded behind her. She glanced over her shoulder. Nothing but wraiths of mist. It must have been those rats rooting through a rubbish heap she’d heard. She pushed on. A moment later the footsteps behind her resumed. This time she spun round, the hairs on her nape standing on end as she scanned the length of road she’d just crossed. Through the gathering fog, she could make out nothing. Then, from one of the nearby houses, an enormously fat crone meandered out, bunched up her skirts and squatted in the gutter to relieve herself.
Nellie expelled a deep breath and turned around just in time to see the object of her pursuit enter the last house of a row of terraces. Well, she’d suspected this was his destination as soon as she’d realised he was heading for Aldgate. This would be the third visit she’d witnessed; who knew how many times he’d come before? She edged her way to the shadow of a high, blank wall opposite the house and settled down to wait. A few minutes ticked by. On the upper floor of the house, the light shining from the windows faded and remained dim for a further five minutes. Slowly the windows brightened, and moments later the young man clattered out of the house.
As he approached her, Nellie’s heart beat faster. He was so close! She had just to step out of the shadows and call out his name.
He drew nearer, and she opened her mouth, but at that moment she caught a glimpse of his face and slowly shut her mouth. She’d never seen such a confusing mix of emotions on someone. Pip seemed to be simultaneously stricken and relieved, as if he was suffering some terrible pain and had just received a temporary respite. So dazed and euphoric was he, if she didn’t know better she might have suspected he’d been drugged.
She gazed after him as he wove his way down the road.
She crossed the road and slipped into the house. From previous inspections, she knew it was divided into tenements. The hallway and stairs were deserted, and no one seemed to be home on the ground floor. She hurried up the staircase and quickly knocked on the first-floor door before her courage could desert her.
“Come,” a guttural voice spoke from inside.
Her every nerve tingled as Nellie entered the apartment. She found herself in a small sitting room crammed from ceiling to floor with furniture, every surface crowded with cheap knickknacks. In the centre of the room was a round table where a woman sat facing the door.
“Come, seet down,” the woman instructed in her thickly accented voice. She was a heavyset woman of indeterminate age, clad in a profusion of colourful shawls, with a crimson scarf draped over her hair. Her skin was pasted with powder, her eyes heavily kohled, and her ears and wrists dripped with pinchbeck jewellery.
Nellie cleared her throat. “Are you…Madame Olga?”
“I am.” The woman inclined her head. “Madame Olga at your service, spiritual intermediary between ze living and ze dead. How may I assist you zis evenink?” Her bangles jingled as she waved Nellie towards the empty chair on the other side of the table.
Nellie slipped into the seat. An embroidered cloth of Eastern design covered the table, and on it were an unlit candle and a small plate containing a chunk of bread. A vague scent of Oriental spices mixed with cheap incense hung in the air. Behind the spiritualist was a gaudy velveteen curtain covering a doorway which led to the back offices. Madame Olga sat like an impassive sphinx, her magpie eyes studying Nellie’s appearance.
“You veesh to remove ze veil?”
Nellie started. “Oh, no. I prefer to keep it on, if you don’t mind.”
Madame Olga shrugged. “Ze fee is five shillings, payable in advance.” She stretched out a palm towards Nellie.
“Five…?” Nellie gaped at the medium. “Isn’t that an exorbitant sum?”
The medium pursed her carmine lips. “Vhat price can you put ven you can talk to ze dead through me?”
“Talk to the dead?” Nellie glanced around at the cluttered, nondescript room, the cheap furnishings, the frowsy woman. Was Pip so gullible he’d been taken in by this tawdry show? “Is that really what you do?”
“You are an unbeliever. Tell me, do you believe in ze afterlife?”
“I suppose so,” Nellie reluctantly conceded.
“Vell, vhy is it so impossible to believe that communication between this life and ze next can exist?”
“Through you?”
“Ze spirits move in mysterious ways. I did not choose to be their intermediary, but I bow to zer wishes. I am zer servant.” Madame Olga rested her elbows on the table, her indolence dissipating as her gaze sharpened on Nellie. “Tell me, ’as someone important to you died?”
Nellie instantly thought of her mother. “Yes.”
“Your mama, per’aps?”
A cool breeze skittered across the back of Nellie’s neck. Her heart skipped several beats. This woman was a mere sham, but nevertheless there was something chilling and unnatural in the atmosphere. Ghostly spirits clamouring to be heard through the medium? Perhaps. Perhaps her dead mother was indeed here, waiting patiently to tell her something. The fingers of her maimed hand twitched, causing the mechanical digits to cramp in sympathy. No, it could not be. Madame Olga had simply taken a calculated guess about her mother. Gripping her hands, Nellie nodded.
“Vould it not be a comfort to you to be able to contact her, to speak to her? She vorries about you. Vould you not like to reassure her?”
She tensed. “How do you know she worries about me?”
The medium’s eyes lit up. “I sense a great unease in you. You are deeply troubled, are you not?”
Nellie shuffled her feet beneath the table. This was not what she’d intended when she walked in here. She didn’t believe in spiritual mediums and talking to ghosts. The coolness on her nape had been just a stray eddy of night air. There were no phantoms here, and Madame Olga was a fraud who made money off susceptible people’s miseries. Nellie’s only purpose coming here was to uncover the truth about Pip.
Nellie leaned forward. “The man who left here a few minutes ago. Did he want to speak to a spirit?”
Madame Olga’s dark eyebrows beetled into a deep frown. “I do not talk about my clients.”
