Anne Perry - Silence in Hanover Close

“Come ter think of it, no I ’aven’t.” His faced relaxed into a grin. “Maybe she married well. Sometimes they do. Maybe she’s a duchess sitting in some grand ’ouse by now, ordering around the likes o’ you an’ me.”

Pitt pulled a face. The chance was slight at best, and they both knew it; it was far more likely she had lost her looks by disease, or assault, in a fight with another prostitute or a pimp who felt he had been cheated, a lover whose demands had become too perverted or possessive; or that she had simply moved downmarket from a hotel such as this to a simple brothel. He did not mention the possibility of treason or murder; that would complicate the question unnecessarily.

The doorman looked at him closely. “Why you after ’er, guv? She puttin’ the black on someone?”

“It’s a possibility,” Pitt conceded. “It’s a definite possibility.” He took out one of his new cards and gave it to the man. “If you see her again, tell me. Bow Street Police Station. Just say you’ve seen Cerise again.”

“That ’er name? What’s it worth?”

“It’ll do. And it’s worth my goodwill-which, believe me, is a lot better than my ill will.”

“You wouldn’t pick on me, just ’cause I ain’t seen someone! I can’t see ’er if she in’t ’ere! An’ you wouldn’t want lies, now, would yer?”

Pitt did not bother to answer. “What theaters and music halls do your clients patronize?”

“Geez!”

Pitt waited.

The man bit his lip. “Well, if ye’re after ’er yer call Cerise, I ’eard she bin ter the Lyceum, an’ I suppose she tried the ’alls, although don’t ask me which ones ’cause I dunno.”

Pitt’s eyebrows rose. “The Lyceum? A lady of courage to ply her trade there.”

“I told yer, she ’ad class.”

“Yes you did. Thank you.”

The man tipped his hat a little sarcastically. “Thank you, guv!”

Pitt left him and went out into the street again. The fog wrapped round him again like a cold muslin, damp and clinging to the skin.

So Cerise had both courage and style. She was certainly not Veronica York on a mere affair with Julian Danver! If it was Veronica, then she led a secret life of the sort to scandalize the Foreign Office to the core of its collective soul. For a diplomat to have a wife who was a practicing prostitute, of whatever price or degree of discrimination, was impossible. He would be dismissed instantly, and ruined.

Neither was she Harriet Danver pursuing her affair with Felix Asherson, although he had never actually thought that. Charlotte had said Harriet was in love; as yet he had no knowledge of whether Asherson returned her feelings. But either way, that answer offered no explanation as to why Cerise should be in the York house.

No, it seemed she was what he had first thought, a woman who used her beauty and unusual quality of allure to trap and then blackmail her Foreign Office lovers for the secrets of their work. Robert York had refused, either immediately or after some time, and as a result either she herself or perhaps her accomplices had had to murder him to avoid betrayal.

It was getting dark and the fog was beginning to freeze, the air filling with tiny pellets of ice, which sent shivers through him as they crept into the folds of his muffler and touched his skin. He began to walk briskly north into Regent Street, then turned left towards Oxford Circus. There were other people he could ask: upmarket prostitutes who would know the competition and be able to tell him more about Cerise, where she plied her trade, what clients she chose, whether she only picked men who were of use to her, and whether she was a real threat to the others by taking general business.

An hour later, after some persuasive argument and the exchange of more money, he sat in an overheated, overfurnished little room off New Bond Street. The woman in the pink chair opposite him was well past her prime, her bosom overflowing from the strict corsets and loose flesh visible under her chin had lost its elasticity, but she was still handsomer than most women ever are. There was an ease about her, from years of being desired, but the bright bitterness in her eyes reflected the underlying knowledge that she had not been loved. She picked at some candied fruit in a pink tissue-lined box. “Well?” she said guardedly. “What do you want, luv? It isn’t my style to tell tales.”

“I don’t want tales.” Pitt did not waste his time or insult her with flattery they both knew he did not mean. “I want a woman who almost certainly tried putting on the black. That’s bad for your trade; you don’t need that sort.”

She pulled a face and ate another piece of fruit, nibbling all round the edges before putting the center whole into her mouth. Had her walk of life been different, led to different dress, less paint on her skin, the hardness of survival out of her eyes and the small lines now clearly formed round the corners of her lips, she might have been one of her generation’s great beauties. The thought passed through Pitt’s mind with irony and sadness as he watched her eat.

“Go on,” she prompted. “I don’t need telling my business. If I wasn’t the best you wouldn’t be ’ere asking me favors. I don’t need your money. I earn more in a day than you do in a month.”

Pitt did not bother to remark that her risks were higher and her time short. She knew it.

“A woman who always wore a shade of cerise, dark or light, anything from plum to magenta, always something that color. She was tall and slender, not much flesh on her, but loads of style, dark eyes and black hair. Have you ever seen her, or heard your girls mention her?”

“Doesn’t sound like she’d ’ave much to offer. Thin, black ’air?”

“Oh, she had something,” Pitt said with certainty, and in spite of himself Veronica York’s face with its high cheekbones and haunting eyes came back to his mind. Could she have been Cerise, and have killed Robert when he discovered that? He looked at the lush, feminine woman in the pink chair opposite him, with her glowing, almost Titian hair and her apple-blossom skin. “She had fire, and style,” he finished.

The woman’s eyes opened wide. “Know ’er well, did yer?”

Pitt smiled. “I never met her. I’m going on the impression she made on others.”

She gave a little laugh, part derision and part genuine humor. “Well, if she put the black on people she was a fool! That’s a sure way ter kill business. In the long run it’s suicide. I don’t know anything about ’er. Sorry luv.”

Pitt did not know if he was pleased or disappointed. He had to find Cerise, and yet he did not want her to be Veronica York.

“Are you sure?” he said automatically. “It may be three years back.”

“Three years! Well, why didn’t yer say so?” She reached for another piece of fruit and bit into it. She had beautiful teeth, white and even. “I thought yer meant now! There was one like that about three or four years ago. Terrible color she wore, but she could carry it. Black ’air an’ eyes, thin as a washboard, need pounds of ’orse ’air to pad ’er out. But she ’ad fire, the sort that comes from inside; yer can’t get it out of a pot or in a glass. All the champagne in London wouldn’t give it yer. Lit up like she enjoyed ’erself every minute, like she was ’avin’ the time of ’er life, on the edge o’ danger and loved it. Mind, she were a real beauty, none o’ yer powder an’ paint jobs. Bones to break yer ’eart, she ’ad.”

Pitt felt suddenly suffocated in this overstuffed room, and at the same time there was a coldness inside him. “Tell me more about her,” he said quietly. “How often did you see or hear of her; where, who with, and have you any idea what happened to her?”