Anne Perry - A Christmas Promise

She understood, so she did not answer quickly, knowing her response would dictate where they would begin to look, and it might make the difference in terms of finding Minnie Maude in time to save her. It was silly to think Minnie Maude couldn’t be hurt. Alf was dead—and they knew the toff was out there. She could well believe that the powder he was addicted to had driven him mad to the point where he had tasted evil, and now could not rid himself of it.

“’e were funny,” she said, measuring her words and still skipping the odd step to keep up with him. “’e made ’er laugh. ’e liked ’orses an’ dogs, an’ donkeys, o’ course. An’ ’ot chestnuts.”

“And ale?”

“Cider.” She struggled to recall exactly what Minnie Maude had said. “An’ good pickle wif ’am.”

“I see. A man of taste. What else? Did she ever speak of his friends, other than Jimmy Quick? Tell me about Bertha.”

“I think as Bertha is scared.”

“She may well have reason to be. Who is she scared of, do you think? Stan? Someone else? Or just of being cold and hungry?”

She thought for a few moments. “Stan… I think.” She thought back further, into her own earlier years, to when her father was alive. She remembered standing in the kitchen and hearing her mother’s voice frightened and pleading. “Not scared ’e’d ’it ’er, scared o’ wot ’e might do that’d get ’em all in trouble,” she amended aloud.

“And Bertha is frightened and tired and a little short of temper, as she has much cause to be?”

“Yeah …”

“Come, Gracie. We must hurry, I think.” He grasped her hand and started to stride forward so quickly that she had to run to keep up with him as he swung around the corner and into a narrower street, just off Anthony Street—the way Jimmy Quick’s route would have taken them. They were still two hundred yards at least from where Alf’s body had been found. Balthasar looked one way, then the other, seeming to study the bleak fronts of the buildings, the narrow doorways, the stains of soot and smoke and leaking gutters.

“Wot are yer lookin’ fer?” she asked.

“I am looking for whatever Alf was seeking when he came here,” Balthasar replied. “There was something, someone, with whom he wanted to share this casket he had found. Who was it?”

Gracie studied the narrow street as well. There was no pavement on one side, and barely a couple of feet of uneven stones on the other. Yet narrower alleys that led into yards invited no one. The houses had smeared windows, some already cracked, and recessed doorways in which the destitute huddled to stay out of the rain.

“It don’t look like nowhere I’d want ter be,” she said miserably.

“Nor I,” Balthasar agreed. “But we do not know who lives inside. We will have to ask. Distasteful, but necessary. Come.”

They set out across the road and approached the old woman in the first doorway.

Later, they were more than halfway toward the arch and gate at the end of the road when they found something that seemed hopeful.

“Took yer long enough,” a snaggletoothed man said, leaning sideways in the twelfth doorway. He regarded Gracie with disfavor. “I ’ope yer in’t expectin’ ter sell ’er? Couldn’t get sixpence for that bag o’ bones.” He laughed at his own wit.

“You are quite right,” Balthasar agreed. “She is all fire and brains, and no flesh at all. No good to customers of yours. I imagine they like warm and simple, and no answer back?”

The man looked nonplussed. “Right, an’ all,” he agreed slowly. “Then wot der yer want? Yer can’t come in ’ere wif ’er. Put people off.”

“I’m looking for my friend, Alf Mudway. Do you know him?”

“Wot if I do? Won’t do me no good now, will it! ’e’s dead. Yer wastin’ yer time.” The man stuck out his lantern jaw belligerently.

“I know he is dead,” Balthasar replied. “And I know he was killed here. I am interested that you know it too. I have friends to whom that will be of concern.” He allowed it to hang in the air, as if it were a threat.

“I dunno nuffink about it!” the man retaliated.

“One of my friends,” Balthasar said slowly, giving weight to each word, “is a tall man, and thin, as I am. But he is a little fairer of complexion, except for his eyes. He has eyes like holes in his head, as if the devil had poked his fingers into his skull, and left a vision of hell behind when he withdrew them.”

The color in the man’s face fled. “I already told ’im!” he said in a strangled voice. “Alf come in ’ere ter see Rose, an’ ’e went out again. I di’n’t see nuffink! I dunno wot ’e done nor wot ’e took! Nor the cabbie neither! I swear!”

“The cabbie?” Balthasar repeated. “Just possibly you are telling the truth. Describe him.” It was an order.

“’e were a cabbie, fer Gawd’s sake! Cape on for the rain. Bowler ’at.”

Gracie knew what Balthasar had told her, but she spoke anyway.

“Wot about ’is legs?” she challenged. She knocked her knees together and then apart again. “Could ’e catch a runaway pig?”

Balthasar stared at her.

“Not in a month o’ Sundays,” the man replied. “Bowlegged as a Queen Anne chair.”

Balthasar took Gracie by the arm, his fingers holding her so hard she could not move without being hurt. “We will now see Rose,” he stated.

The man started to refuse, then looked at Balthasar’s face again and changed his mind.

The inside of the house was poorly lit, but surprisingly warm, and the smell was less horrible than Gracie had expected. They had been told that Rose’s was the third room on the left.

“I’m sorry,” Balthasar apologized to her. “This may be embarrassing for you, but it will not be safe to leave you outside.”

“I don’ care,” Gracie said tartly. “We gotta find Minnie Maude.”

“Quite.” Unceremoniously Balthasar put his weight against the door and burst it open.

What met Gracie’s eyes was nothing at all that she could have foreseen. What she had expected, after Balthasar’s words, was some scene of lewdness such as she had accidentally witnessed in alleys before, men and women half-naked, touching parts of the body she knew should be private. She had never imagined that it would be a half-naked woman lying on the floor in a tangle of bedclothes, blood splashed on her arms and chest, staining the sheets, bruises all over her face and neck.

Balthasar said something in a language she had never heard before, and fell onto the floor on his knees beside the woman. His long brown fingers touched her neck and stilled, feeling for something, waiting.

“Is she dead?” Gracie said in a hoarse whisper.

“No,” Balthasar answered softly. “But she has been badly hurt. Look around and see if you can find me any alcohol. If you can’t, fetch me water.”

Gracie was too horrified to move.

“Gracie! Do as I tell you!” Balthasar commanded.

Gracie tried to think where she should look. Where did people keep bottles of whisky or gin? Where it couldn’t be seen. In the bottom of drawers, the back of cupboards, underneath other things, in bottles that looked like something else.

Balthasar had Rose sitting up, cradled against his arm, her eyelids fluttering as if she were going to awaken, when Gracie discovered the bottle in the bottom of the wardrobe, concealed under a long skirt. She uncorked the top and gave it to him.

He said nothing, but there was a flash of appreciation in his eyes that was worth more than words. Carefully he put the bottle to Rose’s lips and tipped it until a little of the liquid went into her mouth. She coughed, half-choked, and then took in a shaky breath.

“Rose!” he said firmly. “Rose! Wake up. You’re going to be all right. He’s gone and no one is going to hurt you again. Now breathe in and out, slowly.”