Cardington Crescent - Anne Perry [122]
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