Snap Shot: An atmospheric historical thriller (Julia McAllister Victorian Mysteries Book 1) by Todd Marilyn

Author:Todd, Marilyn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sapere Books
Published: 2019-07-29T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 19

The despondent young clerk in the pinstripe suit, he of the nervous condition that made him polish his spectacles over and over, held open the door of the tea rooms. Julia thanked him, but was pretty sure he didn’t hear. Hardly surprising. Half of Willow Walk’s regulars came here out of loneliness, the other half to submerse themselves in muted chatter and sponge cake, poached eggs and bone china, to cushion themselves from the pain of reality.

That afternoon, she understood why. She, too, needed to lose herself. To think. To plan. To kick herself for not asking who this Pandora was and where she could find her, then kick herself harder for not leaving tonight.

‘The full tea, please.’

You’d think a mix of anger, revulsion and nerves would leave a girl queasy. Julia was nothing short of ravenous, which only a mountain of savoury puffs and dainty sandwiches was going to cure. Especially when they were followed by rock cakes and scones piled with jam and rich, clotted cream.

‘With extra shortbread.’

Frussian spies were notoriously unreliable when starved.

She turned her chair for a better view of the door, because if you’re going to draw up a strategy, you might as well do it watching for ‘T’. Unfortunately, the only thing in Julia’s line of vision was the clerk dragging his black patent shoes through the revolving doors of the bank, to a job he obviously hated. Small wonder he’d developed a nervous condition. The poor sod fell into both categories of Willow Walk’s patrons.

Right then. Down to business. Tomorrow night — no ifs, no buts, no matter how strong the pull — she would flag down that hansom, and come what may, the woman who called herself Julia McAllister would vanish. The big decision was how to best spend her one remaining day. Trying to prove her innocence? Or work to closing down Tarrant’s operation?

Pimping didn’t evolve with the Industrial Revolution, and Julia wasn’t naïve enough to imagine shutting off his oxygen would be the end of it, or that another wouldn’t spring up to take its place. But it broke her heart to see vulnerable sixteen-year-olds duped into believing they were doing well out of engaging in incestual sex, simply to satisfy High Court judges, who should — and did — know better.

Ting! Two elderly widows in black bombazine.

Julia’s eyes wandered over the same old crowd taking the same old tea and eating the same old Madeira cake at the same time every day. The spinsters, the old men, the widows, the close friends who sat talking about one another behind each other’s backs, wearing smiles as wide as the ocean.

Why is it dogs always race to the front door when somebody knocks? Lily’s giggle echoed in her memory. I mean, it’s never for them, is it?

Such vibrancy, such vitality, such youth, those girls. But what they’d give now, eh, to take boring tea and tasteless Madeira, moving from one empty day to the next.

Julia’s throat tightened at the injustice of it all.

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