Anne Perry - Pentecost Alley

“This one?” She thought for a moment, her eyes far away. “Blue. Or mebbe black. Wasn’t brown.”

“Anything about the collar?”

“Sat fine. Sort o’ curve you don’t get in a cheap coat.”

“Not fur, or velvet?” he asked. “Or lambskin?”

She shook her head.

“No, just wool. Can’t see the cut with fur.”

“What about his hair?”

“Thick.” Unconsciously she brushed her fingers through her own hair, thinning with time and abuse. “An’ fair,” she added. “Saw the light on it from the candles in Ada’s room. Poor little bitch.” Her voice dropped. “Nobody should have done that to her.”

“Did you like her?” he asked suddenly.

She was surprised. She had to think for a moment. “I s’pose I did. She brought trouble, but she made me laugh. An’ I had to admire her fight.”

Pitt felt a moment’s irrational hope.

“Who did she fight with?”

“She went up west sometimes. Had nerve, I’ll say that for her. Didn’t often sell herself short.”

“So who did she fight with, Nan?”

She gave a sharp, jerky little laugh.

“Oh, Fat George’s girls, up near the Park. That’s their patch. If it had bin a knife in her, I’d ’ave said Wee Georgie’d done it. But he’d never have strangled her, or done it in her own room either. He’d have done it in the street and left her there. Besides, I know Fat George when I see him, and Wee Georgie.”

That was unarguable. Pitt knew them both too. Fat George was a mountain of a man, unmistakable for anyone else, let alone Finlay FitzJames. And Wee Georgie was a dwarf. Added to which, whatever the trespass into their territory, they would have beaten her, or crippled her, or even disfigured her face, but they would not have brought down the police upon themselves by killing her. It would be bad for business.

“You saw this man going into Ada’s room?” Pitt returned to the subject.

“Yes.”

He frowned. “You mean she opened the door for him. She didn’t take him in? She didn’t bring him from the street?”

Her eyes widened. “No! No, she didn’t, come to think on it. He must have come here on his own-sort of reg’lar, or like that.”

“Do you get many regulars?” Then he saw instantly from her face how tactless the question was. Ada might have, but she did not.

A flicker of understanding crossed her features, and knowledge of all the nuances of failure and his perception of what it meant, and his momentary regret.

She forced herself to smile, made it almost real. “Not reg’lar, like calling. See the same faces, but nobody makes appointments. Might come on the chance, sure enough. Ada was popular.” Her face crumpled, her shoulders sagged, and suddenly her eyes filled with tears. “She was quick with her tongue, poor little beggar, and she could make you laugh.” She took a deep, shaky breath. “And people like to laugh.” She looked at Pitt. “She gave me a pair of boots once. We had the same size feet. They had a real pretty heel. She’d done better than me that week, and it was me birthday.” The tears spilled over her cheeks and ran down the paint on them, but she did not contort her face. There was a strange kind of dignity in her, a genuineness of grief which made nothing of the shabby room with its unmade dirty bed, the garish clothes, the smell of the midden coming up from the yard, even her weary body, too often used, too little loved.

All Pitt could offer was to lend Ada McKinley the same worth.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly and without thinking, placing his hand for a moment over hers. “I’ll do everything I can to find who did this to her, and I’ll make him answer, whoever he is.”

“Will you?” she asked, swallowing awkwardly. “Even if he’s a gent?”

“Even if he’s a gent,” Pitt promised.

He went through the same questions with the third woman in the house, whose room was next to Ada’s. Her name was Agnes Salter. She was young and plain with a long nose and wide mouth, but there was a vitality to her which would probably serve her well enough for at least another ten years. With the bloom gone from her skin and the firmness from her body, she might find it much harder to make her way. Most probably she was as aware of that as he.

“ ’Course I knew Ada,” she said matter-of-factly. She sat straight in a hard-backed chair, her skirts hitched up almost to her knees. Her legs were excellent, her best feature. No doubt she knew that too. She was not regarding Pitt as a man. He could see in the total disinterest in her expression that it was merely habit, and possibly quite comfortable. “Bit cocky, but not bad,” she went on, referring to Ada. “Willin’ ter share. Lent me a garter once.” She smiled. “Knew I ’ad better legs ’n ’er. Not that ’ers were bad, mind. But money’s money. I did well wi’ that. Some geezers get ’igh on garters. Guess fancy ladies don’t wear ’em. All whalebone stays and cotton drawers.”

Pitt did not comment. It was now daylight outside and there was traffic on the street beyond the alley and the sweatshop opposite was hard at work.

“Can’t tell yer nuffink,” Agnes went on. “Don’t know nuffink. I’d see the bastard quartered if I could. There’s risks-and there’s risks.” Her fingers were clenched, knuckles white, belying her studied casual air. “Yer ’spect ter get beat up now’n again. It’s part o’ life. An’ mebbe the odd cuttin’, which can go too far if yer man’s had a skinful. But this in’t right, poor sow. She never asked fer this.” She pushed out her large lower lip and her face was filled with anger. “Not that I s’pose any o’ you lot give a toss. Just another tart got done. There’s more’n enough tarts in London anyway. Mebbe it’s some ’oly Joe cleanin’ up the place?” She gave a laugh, a little high and sharp, and Pitt heard the fear in it.

“I doubt it,” he said sincerely, although it was a possibility he had not thought of in this instance. It should not be ruled out.

“Oh yeah?” She was curious. “Why not? Ada were a tart, just like the rest of us.”

He did not quibble the use of words. He answered honestly.

“There are evidences which suggest it could have been a man of wealth, and possibly position. She didn’t bring him up. According to Nan, he came here and Ada let him in. Sounds as if he’d been here before.”

“Yeah?” She was surprised, and at least to some degree comforted. “Mebbe ’e were someone as she knew?”

“Who did she know?”

She considered for a while. Pitt had asked only out of diligence. He still believed it would prove to be Finlay FitzJames. There was no other likely explanation for the Hellfire Club badge under the body.

“Someone as’d kill ’er?” she said thoughtfully. “I s’pose anyone ’oo quarreled wiv ’er. I’d ’a’ said some other tart as she pinched a customer from, ’cept she’d ’a’ fought and there’d ’a’ bin one ’ell of a row, an’ I never ’eard nuffink. Anyway …” She shrugged. “Yer might scratch someone’s eyes aht. Or, if yer was real vicious, take a knife ter their faces ter mark ’em, but yer’d do it in the street, wouldn’t yer? Yer’d ’ave ter bin a real mad bitch ter foller ’em ’ome an’ do it cold, like. An’ Ada weren’t that bad.”

“That bad?” he asked. “But she did take other people’s customers?”

Agnes laughed sharply. “Yeah! Course she did. ’Oo wouldn’t? She were pretty, an’ smart. She ’ad a quick tongue, made ’em laugh. Some toffs like ter laugh. Makes ’em feel less like they’re in the gutter. Feel like it’s a real woman. Them as can’t laugh wiv their la-di-da wives ’oo are all corsets and starch.” She lifted her lip in a sneer which still had a remnant of pity in it. “Poor cows prob’ly never ’ad a decent laugh in their lives. Ain’t ladylike ter laugh.”