Cardington Crescent - Anne Perry [3]
“I am she,” she said somewhat unnecessarily.
Pitt had met many Mrs. Peabodys before, and he knew not only what she felt now but what nightmares were to come. He sat down on the bench beside her, a yard away.
“You must be extremely distressed”—he hurried on as she drew in a gasp of breath to tell him precisely how much—“so I will trouble you as little as possible. When was the last time you walked your dog past the churchyard?”
Her carefully arched eyebrows shot up into her rather sandy hairline. “I don’t think you understand, young man! I am not in the habit of finding such ... such ...” She could frame no words for the quite genuine horror that seized her.
“I’m sure,” Pitt said grimly. “I assume that if it had been there the last time, your dog would have found it then.”
Mrs. Peabody, in spite of her shock, was not without common sense. She saw the point immediately. “Oh. I came this way yesterday afternoon, and Clarence did not ...” She trailed off, not liking to complete such an unnecessary remark.
“I see. Thank you. Do you know if Clarence pulled the parcel out from under the bushes, or was it already out?”
She shook her head.
It did not matter, except that had it been in the open it would probably have been noticed earlier. Almost certainly, whoever had put it there had taken the time to hide it also. There was really nothing else to ask her but her name and address.
He left them and went outside again into the heat and began to think about organizing a search. It was half past four.
By seven o’clock they had found them all. It was a grim business; going down the steps into disused areaways, sifting through refuse in rubbish cans that could be reached from the street, poking under bushes and behind railings. Parcel by parcel the rest were retrieved. The worst was in a narrow and fetid alley just over a mile from the churchyard, in the sour tenements of St. Giles. It should have provided the first clue to her identity, but as with two of the others, feral cats had discovered it first, led by scent and their ever devouring hunger. There was nothing recognizable now but long, fair hair and a crushing injury to the skull.
The long summer day did not darken till ten in the evening. Pitt trudged from door to door asking, pleading, occasionally bullying an unfortunate servant into an admission of guilt for some domestic misdemeanor—perhaps an illicit flirtation that had held them on the back steps longer than usual—but no one admitted to having seen anything remotely relevant. There had been no costermongers but those on long known and legitimate business, no residents or strangers carrying mysterious parcels, no one hurrying furtively, and no one reported missing.
Pitt was back at the police station as the sun set cherry-red over the roofs, and the gaslights came on in the fashionable thoroughfares like so many straying moons. Inside, the station smelled of closed doors, heat, the sharpness of ink, and brand new linoleum on the floor. The police surgeon was waiting for him, shirt sleeves still rolled up and stained, his waistcoat done up on the wrong buttons. He looked tired, and there was a smear of blood across his nose.
“Well?” Pitt asked wearily.
“Young woman.” The man sat down without being asked. “Fair hair, fair skin. As near as one can tell, she might have been quite good-looking. She certainly wasn’t any beggar. Hands were clean, no broken nails, but she’d done a bit of housework. My first guess would be a parlormaid, but it’s only a guess.” He sighed. “And she’d had a child, but not within the last few months.”
Pitt sat down behind his desk and leaned on his elbows. “How old?”
“For God’s sake, man! How do I know?” the doctor said angrily, his pity, disgust, and sheer helplessness spilling over at the only victim available. “You present me with a corpse in half a dozen pieces, like so much offal from some