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By Root 470 0

face beardless. He had probably grown up on such scraps of food as he could beg or steal, until he had been old enough to be sold or to find his way into the care of a procurer. By then chronic malnutrition had doubtless already taken its toll. He would always be undersized. He might become soft in old age—although the chances of his living to reach it were negligible—but he would never be rounded, plump. And he was probably worth far more in his profession if he kept this frail, almost childlike look. There was an illusion of virginity about him—physically, at least—but his face, when Pitt regarded it more carefully, was as weary and as bleached of innocence as the face of any woman who had plied her trade in the streets for a lifetime. The world held no surprises for Albie, and no hope except of survival.

“Sit down,” Pitt said, closing the door behind him. He balanced himself unhappily on the red plush seat as if he were the host, yet it was Albie who made him nervous.

Albie obeyed without moving his eyes from Pitt’s face.

“What do you want?” he asked. His voice was curiously pleasing, softer, better educated than his surroundings suggested. Probably he had clients from a better class of person and had picked up their tricks of speech. It was an unpleasant thought, but it made sense. Men of Bluegate Fields had no money for this kind of indulgence. Had Jerome unintentionally schooled this child as well? If not Jerome, then others like him: men whose tastes could only be satisfied in the privacy of rooms like this, with people for whom they had no other feelings, shared no other side of their lives.

“What do you want?” Albie repeated, his old woman’s eyes tired in his beardless face. With a shiver of revulsion, Pitt realized what he was thinking. He straightened up in the chair and sat back as if he were at ease, although he felt furiously uncomfortable. He knew his face was hot, but perhaps the lights were too dim for Albie to see it.

“To ask you about one of your customers,” he answered. “You told Sergeant Gillivray yesterday. I want you to repeat it to the today. A man’s life might depend on it—we have to be sure.”

Albie’s face stiffened but there was too little color in the skin to see, in this yellow gaslight, if he paled even more.

“What about him?”

“You know the man I mean?”

“Yes. Jerome, the tutor.”

“That’s right. Describe him for me.” He would have to allow some leniency. Customers to places like these often did not wish to be seen closely. They preferred the lights dim, and came in heavily muffled even in summer. It would be cool enough down in these dark, riverside streets any night. It would not be remarked. “Well?”

“Fairly tall.” Albie did not seem hesitant or confused. “On the lean side, dark hair that was always short and neat, mustache. Sort of pinched face, sharp nose, pursed-up mouth as if he smelled something bad, brown eyes. I can’t describe his body because he always liked the lights off before that part, but he felt strong, and sort of bony—”

Pitt’s stomach lurched, his imagination was too vivid. This boy had been thirteen when it started!

“Thank you,” he stopped Albie. It was Jerome, exactly; he could not have phrased it better himself. He took half a dozen photographs out of his pocket, including one of Jerome, and passed them over one by one. “Any one of these?”

Albie looked at them each until he came to the right one. He hesitated only for a moment.

“That one,” he said with certainty. “That’s him. I’ve never seen any of the others.”

Pitt took it back. It was a picture taken in the police cells, stiff and unwilling, but it was a clear likeness.

“Thank you. Did he ever bring anyone else with him when he came?”

“No.” Albie smiled very slightly, a wan ghost of expression full of self-knowledge. “People don’t, when they come to places like this. With women they might—I don’t know many women. But they come here alone, especially the gentry, and they’re mostly the ones who can afford it. Others with that sort of taste exercise it with whoever they can find with the same inclination. Usually