Anne Perry - Cardington Crescent

He must force himself to think more clearly; anger would solve nothing. She had a flourishing business and considerable possessions in Tortoise Lane. What would he seek to do in her place? Attack! Get rid of the only man who knew her crime. Would Clarabelle think that far? Or would escape be all that mattered now? Was panic greater than cunning?

He remembered the brilliant black eyes and thought not. If he looked vulnerable, offered himself as bait, she would come back to finish him; her instinct was all to attack, to kill.

“Wait!” he said curtly to the sergeant.

“But she’s not ’ere!” the sergeant hissed back. “She can’t ’ave got far, sir! I’d ’ate something rotten to lose this one! A right wicked woman.”

“So would I, sergeant, so would I.” Pitt looked up, searching the grimy windows in the flat walls above. It was growing dimmer, closer to true twilight. He had not long. Then he saw it-the pale glimmer of a face behind a window-and then it was gone again.

“Wait here!” he said tersely. “In case I’m wrong.” He turned and went in the nearest door, past the inhabitants, up a rickety stairway and along a dim passage. He heard movement at the end and a rustle of taffeta; a fat body squeezing through a narrow way. He knew it was her as if he could smell her. Only a few yards ahead of him she was waiting. What would she have? She had killed Prudence Wilson with a knife, and carved up her body as if it had been a side of meat.

He moved after her quietly now, walking on the sides of his feet; even so, the boards were rotten and betrayed him. He heard her ahead-or was it her? Was she crouched behind some half concealed door, waiting, all the weight of her thick body balanced to thrust the knife into his flesh, deep, to the heart?

Without realizing it he had stopped. Fear was tingling sharp, his throat tight, tongue dry. He could not stay here. He could hear someone further and further ahead of him, going on upwards.

Unwilling, pulse racing, he crept forward, one hand outstretched to touch the wall and feel its solid surface. He came to another flight of stairs, even narrower than the last, and knew she was close above him. He could feel her presence like a prickle on his skin; he even thought he could hear her breath wheezing somewhere in the gloom.

Then suddenly there was a thud, a cry of anger, and her footsteps at the top of the stepladder above him. He started up and saw for a moment her bulk bent over the square of yellow light at the top, where the attic opened out. She was half in shadow, but he could still see the shining eyes, the curls loose like bedsprings, the sweat gleaming on her skin. He almost had her. He was forewarned, expecting a knife. She moved back, as if she were afraid of him, startled to find him so close.

He could make the last four steps easily, in two strides, and be beside her before she had time to strike. If he moved to one side as soon as he was through that square-

Then with horror paralyzing him quite literally, leaving him frozen on the step, he remembered the secret of these old warrens-and deliberately let go the rail and fell backwards down to the floor, bruising and battering himself, just as the trapdoor came down with its spearsharp embedded blades slicing the air where he had been the instant before, followed by her shrill scream of laughter.

He scrambled to his feet, blood surging through him, pain forgotten, and swarmed up the stairs, striking his hand between the blades and shooting the trap open. He fell up and out of the hole onto the attic floor only a yard away from where she crouched. Before she had time even to register shock he hit her as hard as he could with his clenched fist-and all the stored up anger, the pain and loss of her victims-and she rolled over and lay senseless. He did not give a damn about the difficulty of getting her down, or even whether his superiors would charge him with breaking her jaw. He had Clarabelle Mapes, and he was satisfied.

It was late the following morning when Pitt returned to Cardington Crescent. The euphoria of capturing Clarabelle Mapes had vanished, and in the dull, warm daylight he remembered that he had gone to Tortoise Lane to find out what Sybilla March had wanted there. And he had learned nothing. No amount of questioning was going to get anything more from Clarabelle, and none of the children had ever seen a lady like Sybilla.

The butler let him in and he asked that Charlotte be sent for. He was permitted to wait in the morning room. It was oppressive, curtains half drawn, pictures draped with black, black crepe fluttering in unlikely places like cobwebs stained with soot.

Charlotte came in, dressed in exquisitely fashionable lavender; it flickered through his mind that it was a gown of Aunt Vespasia’s altered a little at the bosom to fit Charlotte. Vespasia never wore black, even for death.

Charlotte was pale; there were smudges of tiredness under her eyes. But her face lit up with pleasure as she saw him, and he found it extraordinarily good. In a sense deeper than walls or possessions, wherever she was, he would be at home.

“Oh, Thomas, I’m so glad you’ve come,” she said immediately. “Everything is getting worse. We are looking at each other with terrible thoughts in our eyes and strings of words we want to mean, and can’t.” She turned and closed the door behind her and stood leaning against it, staring at him, biting her lips, her hands clenched tightly. “It isn’t Tassie. I’ve discovered what she does at night, where she goes and gets splashed with blood.”

A monstrous anger welled up inside him, sharp as a dagger, because it was principally fear, not only for her but for himself, fear of losing all that was most precious to him, all the deep, warm safety that supported every other courage and dream he held.

“You what?” he shouted involuntarily.

She closed her eyes, her face tight. “Don’t shout, Thomas.”

He strode forward and took her by the arm, pulling her away from the door and around to face him in the center of the room. He was hurting her and he knew it.

“You what?” he repeated fiercely. The very fact that she had remained by the door instead of coming to him and kissing him, that she had not replied with any righteous anger of her own, meant that she was conscious of her guilt. “You followed her!” he accused with certainty.

Her eyes opened wide and there was no apology in them.

“I had to find out where she went,” she explained. “And it was perfectly all right-she goes to help deliver babies! A lot of poor women, or unmarried women-girls-can’t afford a midwife. That’s why so many die. Thomas, it’s a wonderful thing she’s doing, and the people love her.”

He was too angry at the idiotic risk she had taken to be relieved that Tassie’s conduct was so innocent, where he had feared such horror. Without realizing it he was shaking Charlotte.

“You followed her to some woman’s home, alone, at night?” He was still shouting. “You … you fool! You imbecile! She could have taken you anywhere! What if she had been responsible for the woman whose body was found in bloody pieces in Bloomsbury? You might have been the next one!” He was so furious he could have slapped her, as one does a beloved child who has just escaped falling under the carriage wheels. In the rush of relief one dares to imagine all the possible dangers so narrowly missed. Memory of Clarabelle Mapes and the appalling labyrinth he had so lately left were stronger in him than this comfortable, civilized house. “You stupid, irresponsible woman! Do I have to lock you up before I can leave the house safely and be sure you’ll behave yourself like an adult?”

What had begun as guilt in her was now overridden by a sense of injury. He was being unjust and she was correspondingly angry in her own right. “You are hurting me,” she said coldly.