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By Root 515 0

paper, that curious yellow string before, tied lengthways and widthways twice, knotted at each join and tied with a loop and two raw ends. Suddenly he was ice cold, as if a breath from a charnel house had crawled over his skin. He remembered the blood and the flies, the fat woman with her bustle crooked and her bulging-eyed dog. It was too much to be a coincidence. The paper was common, but the string was unusual, the knots eccentric, characteristic, the combination surely unique. They were at least a mile and a half from Bloomsbury. What of this small parcel wrapped in the off cuts? Where was the first parcel, the larger one? He could see it nowhere in the kitchen.

“I’m going,” he said aloud, surprised by the sound of his own voice. “Yes, Mrs. Mapes, I’ll bring the money myself, now that I know it’s you.”

“When?” She smiled again, oblivious of the parcel on the table and its knots. “I wanter make sure as I’m in, like,” she added in explanation, as if it could mask her eagerness.

“Tomorrow,” he replied. “Sooner, if I get back to my offices in time.” He must get one of these children alone and ask them about the parcels—where they went to, how often, and who carried them. But it must be away from here, where she could not overhear, or the child’s life would be imperiled. “Have you got someone reliable who’ll deliver a message for me, someone you trust yourself?” he asked.

She weighed the advantages against the disadvantages and decided in his favor.

“I got Nellie, she’ll do it fer yer,” she said grudgingly. “Wot is it?”

“Confidential,” he answered. “I’ll tell her outside. Then I’ll be back as soon as I can. You may rest assured of that, Mrs. Mapes.”

“Nellie!” she shrieked at the full power of her lungs; the blast of it shivered the china on the dresser.

There was a moment’s silence, then the wail of a wakened baby somewhere upstairs, a clatter of feet, and Nellie appeared at the doorway, hair straggling, apron awry, eyes frightened. “Yes, Mrs. Mapes, ma’am?”

“Go wiv vis gennelman and do ’is errand fer ’im,” Mrs. Mapes ordered. “Then come back ’ere an’ get on wiv yer work. There’s no food in this life fer them as does no work.”

“No, Mrs. Mapes, ma’am.” Nellie bobbed a half curtsy and turned to Pitt. She must have been about fifteen, although she was so thin and underdeveloped it was hard to be sure.

“Thank you, Mrs. Mapes,” Pitt said, hating her as he had hated few people in his life, aware that perhaps it was only a vent for his rage against poverty itself. She was a creature of her time and place. Should he hate her for surviving? Those who died did so only because they had not her strength. And yet he still hated her.

He went past her to the corridor, along its dank, rush-matted thinness past the children still sitting on the stairs, and out of the front room into Tortoise Lane, Nellie a step behind him. He walked till he was round the corner and out of sight of number 3.

“Wot’s yer errand, mister?” Nellie asked when they stopped.

“Do you often run errands for Mrs. Mapes?”

“Yes, mister. Yer can trust me. 1 knows me way round ere.

“Good. Do you take parcels for her?”

“Yes. An’ I ain’t never lost one. Yer can trust me, mister.”

“I do trust you, Nellie,” he said gently, wishing to God he could do something about her and knowing he could not. If he did, it would be misunderstood, and probably frighten and confuse her. “Did you take the big parcel from the kitchen table?”

Her eyes widened. “Mrs. Mapes told me ter, honest!”

“I’m sure she did,” he said quickly. “Did you take several parcels for her about three weeks ago?”

“I ain’t done nuffin wrong mister. I jus’ took ’em where she said!” Now she was beginning to be frightened; his questions made no sense to her.

“I know that, Nellie,” he said quietly. “Where was that? Around here, and in Bloomsbury?”

Her eyes widened. “No, mister. I took ’em to Mr. Wigge—like always.”

He let out his breath slowly. “Then take me to Mr. Wigge, Nellie. Take me there now.”

12

NELLIE LED PITT through a maze of cramped alleys and steps till they came to a small, squalid