Belle - Lesley Pearse [45]
Chapter Nine
After his talk with Jimmy and Garth, Noah Bayliss spent the rest of the day in their neighbourhood talking to people. The girls at Annie’s were disappointing; they knew nothing personal about Kent, they couldn’t even agree in their descriptions of him. But they were all unanimous in that he was a cold, hard man who thought nothing of knocking women around.
Elsewhere Noah had been told that the man mostly known as the Falcon managed properties near Bethnal Green, and the tenements here in Seven Dials known as the Core. Everyone looked nervous even saying that much about him and several people told Noah he shouldn’t go looking for trouble.
Later, at five in the evening, Noah called into the Herald offices in Fleet Street and had a word with the sub-editor, Ernie Greensleeve. He had always admired the wild-haired, skeletally thin man for his enthusiasm for investigative journalism. Ernie liked nothing better than digging out sordid truth, and the more gruesome or tragic that truth was, or the better-known those involved were, the more excited he became.
Noah told him the gist of the story about Millie’s murder and Belle’s disappearance and asked Ernie where he could go next for information about Kent.
‘I’ve heard rumours about the man,’ Ernie said, scratching his head and making his wild hair even wilder. ‘A couple of years ago there was a whisper that he was involved in trafficking girls. But I drew a blank in every line of enquiry. That could’ve meant the whisper wasn’t true, or that he had friends in high places, or even that he’s just smart enough to leave no trail. But I’ll ask around again and see if there’s any change.’
‘Have you got any way of finding out if the police are investigating properly?’ Noah asked. ‘After all it is a murder, and now an abduction which may lead to a second murder. Surely a serious crime can’t just be brushed under the carpet, not even if the murder victim was a prostitute?’
‘One of the biggest problems this country needs to face is the incompetence of the police force,’ Ernie said with a sigh. ‘It makes it so easy for corruption to flourish. We’ve got fingerprinting now, which should have doubled the number of convictions a year, but so far it’s not happening. I’ll see what I can do though, and you carry on trying to get folk to talk around Seven Dials.’
When Noah came into the Ram’s Head at seven in the evening, Jimmy thought he looked tired and dejected.
‘No luck then?’ he said.
‘Well, I did discover he’s involved in some slum housing in Bethnal Green and the Core. As both places are hell come to earth, that’s at least evidence he’s got no scruples about human suffering.’
The Core was the name given to the terrible tenement building here in Seven Dials. Jimmy had a kind of horrified fascination with the place. It was said there were as many as twelve people sleeping in many of the rooms and the sanitation consisted of a tap in each yard and a latrine which was a health hazard. He had always wondered why the place was known by such an odd name, but no one seemed to know. Uncle Garth had said he thought someone had just said it was ‘rotten to the core’ and the name had stuck.
Jimmy couldn’t imagine how anyone could bear to live in such a dreadful place. They might be the destitute, the old, the drunks, the sick and the feeble-minded who lived there, plus a fair proportion of criminals and children who had either run away or been turned out of their homes, but no one should have to live that way. They begged on the streets, scavenged or picked pockets and the place was a hotbed of disease.
‘What d’you mean he’s involved?’ Jimmy asked. ‘Is he the landlord, or just a rent collector?’
‘That I don’t know,’ Noah said. ‘But I’ve got someone at the paper looking into it.’
Noah stayed in the bar talking until around half past nine, and after he’d gone home, Jimmy went to help Peg Leg Alf as he washed up some glasses. Alf had lost his leg in the Crimea War back in the 1850s,