Sally Spencer - Blackstone and the New World

‘So how was it that you were able to describe the ring he was wearing so accurately?’

For a moment, Trixie was lost for an answer. Then she said, ‘I didn’t say I hadn’t seen him — I only said I hadn’t seen him in the club.’

‘Then where did you see him?’

‘Out on the street.’

‘On the street ?’

‘That’s right, I was out shopping, one day last week, when he stopped me and said he wanted to know about the club. It was when he was showing me his shield that I noticed the ring.’

It was more than obvious to Blackstone that the girl was lying.

Inspector O’Brien had stopped her in the street and asked her about the brothel!

O’Brien had shown no curiosity about the place at all until after he’d had his conversation with Senator Plunkitt. And even then, he’d known so little about the establishment — and this according to what Trixie herself had said the day before — that he hadn’t been able to ask for the madam by name, and had felt distinctly uncomfortable even being there.

But though Blackstone knew that Trixie was lying — and though she knew that he knew she was lying — they both also knew that it would be almost impossible for him to ever prove it.

‘Shall I tell you what I think happened?’ Blackstone suggested.

Trixie shrugged again. ‘Tell me if you want to. I don’t mind — one way or the other.’

‘I think that after we left last night, your madam started to ask herself where we could have got our information from. And being a smart woman, it didn’t take her too long to work out that it could only have come from one of three people — you, Imre or the other girl.’

‘Lucy.’

‘Lucy. But she trusts Imre, so it had to be one of you two girls who’d been talking. Did Imre beat both of you up to get a confession or were you the only one who got the pounding?’

‘Nobody got beaten up.’

‘So if I was to scrape all that paint off your face, I wouldn’t find any bruising?’

‘You might find a couple of bruises,’ Trixie admitted. ‘But that’s only because I walked into a door.’

‘If you stick to your original story — the true one — we’ll protect you,’ Blackstone promised.

‘Like you did last night?’ Trixie asked bitterly.

She had a point, Blackstone thought.

‘We made a mistake by showing your madam that we knew too much of what had gone on,’ Blackstone said — although the mistake had been all Meade’s, because he himself would have never have been anything like as explicit. ‘I’m sorry for that, but it won’t happen again. We’ll put you in a hotel, somewhere they won’t be able to get at you.’

But his heart was only half in it, because he knew even if she did stick to her original story, it would do very little to help the investigation now.

‘And how would I earn a living if you were hiding me away?’ Trixie asked.

‘We’d give you some money.’

‘But nothing like as much as I earn by doing what I do now,’ Trixie pointed out.

‘Probably not,’ Blackstone agreed.

‘Do you know why I asked to see you instead of the boy who gave me the money?’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘It was because you were older — and maybe wiser — and I thought you’d understand the position I’m in.’

I do, Blackstone thought sadly. I understand it only too well.

But still, he heard himself say, ‘The position you’re in?’

‘I don’t exactly like being a whore,’ Trixie said seriously, ‘but it’s the only job that’s open to a girl like me where you can make a decent living. And I want to get on in the business. By the time I’m Madam’s age, I want to own a place like hers. And I won’t get that by taking money off the police — I’ll get it because I’ll be earning enough to give the police money.’

‘Listen, Trixie, things will change — things will get better,’ Blackstone said. ‘The world won’t always be as corrupt as it is now.’

But again, his heart was not in it, because he knew there had been corruption — and prostitution — for over five thousand years before he’d been born, and he was sure they’d still be around five thousand years after he died.

‘Take the money back, Trixie,’ he urged, sliding the ten-dollar bill back across the table.

‘No,’ the girl said firmly.

‘Why not?’

‘Because if they find out that I’ve still got it, they’ll think I didn’t do what they told me to.’

The door swung open, and the desk sergeant entered the room.

‘Sergeant Meade’s called again,’ he said.

‘Is he feeling any better?’ Blackstone asked.

‘Wouldn’t know about that. He didn’t say. But what he did say was that you should get yourself over to the New York Hospital, which is on 15th Street, as quick as you can.’

‘As quick as I can?’ Blackstone repeated.

‘Yeah,’ the desk sergeant agreed. ‘He seems to think that somebody you want to talk to is dying.’

The building was five storeys high and had a sloping slate roof. There were small mock-turrets at each end of the roof and a larger one over the principal entrance. It could easily have been part of a prestigious university, or perhaps the home office of a successful insurance company. But it was neither of these things. It was, instead, the New York Hospital, and when Blackstone finally burst through the front door, he had been running so hard that it felt as if his lungs were on fire.

‘Meade!’ he gasped at the nurse behind the reception desk. ‘Detective Sergeant Meade. He sent me a message to come here.’

The nurse — who had seen so many dramas from behind her desk that they now scarcely seemed like dramas at all — merely nodded.

‘He’s waiting for you on the third floor,’ she said and pointed. ‘Use those stairs.’

Who was it that was dying? Blackstone asked himself, as he took the stairs three at a time.

Not the sergeant himself, obviously.

But whoever it was, it had to be somehow connected to the investigation, or Meade would never have called him.

He passed the second floor, his heart beating out a furious tattoo, his head pounding.

Could it be Mrs de Courcey? he wondered.

Or Senator Plunkitt?

Was he about to hear a deathbed declaration from one of them which would crack the Inspector O’Brien murder case wide open?

He had reached the third floor and paused to catch his breath.

Ahead of him was a long corridor which smelled strongly of both carbolic soap and desperation.

And halfway along the corridor, shrouded in their own misery, sat a man and a woman.

As they saw him approaching them, Alex Meade and Mary O’Brien stood up.

‘What happened?’ Blackstone asked.

‘It’s Jenny!’ Mary O’Brien moaned. ‘Poor little Jenny. She’s slashed her own wrists.’

Blackstone felt his stomach knot.

‘But she’s not dead, is she?’ he asked.

And even as he was speaking the words, he was thinking to himself, of course she’s not dead, you bloody fool! If she was dead , there’d be no reason for us to be here.

‘No, she’s not dead — but she is in a pretty bad way,’ Alex Meade said grimly.

‘How did it happen?’ Blackstone demanded.

‘I–I took the children out to Central Park this morning,’ Mary O’Brien sobbed. ‘I thought it might cheer them up a little. I thought that the fresh air would be good for them. I asked Jenny if she wanted to come, too, but she said that she didn’t.’

‘You mustn’t blame yourself, Mary,’ Meade said soothingly.

‘I should have made her come with us, shouldn’t I?’ Mary said, ignoring him. ‘I’m the mistress of the house and she’s the servant. I should have insisted that she came.’