Death in the Devil's Acre - Anne Perry [21]
“Where would Max get women like that?” Pitt spoke his thoughts aloud. “Society is quite capable of providing its own diversions, if some of their women want a little adultery.”
Parkins looked at Pitt with interest. He had worked all his professional life in the Acre or areas like it: White-chapel, Spitalfields, places where he never even spoke to “the Quality.” “Is that so?” Parkins glimpsed a world beyond his own.
Pitt tried very hard not to sound condescending. “I’ve known a few cases that have shown it,” he answered with a small smile.
“Not women?” Parkins was shocked.
Pitt hesitated. Parkins worked in the Devil’s Acre amid its filth and despair; most of its inhabitants were born to live hard and die young. We all need to believe in some ideal, even if it is forever out of reach—dreams are still necessary.
“A few.” He spoke less than the truth. “Only a few.”
Parkins seemed to relax, and the anxiety died out of his face. Perhaps he also knew it was fairyland he imagined, but he wanted it all the same. “Do you want to know where to find Ambrose Mercutt?” he offered.
“Yes, please.” Pitt noted the address Parkins gave him, talked a little longer, then took his leave into the bitter evening. The sky had cleared and the east wind was so sharp on his face that it stung his skin.
The following day, he went first to his office to see if there was any further information, but there was nothing beyond the autopsy report on Hubert Pinchin, which told him only what he already knew. Then he went back to the Acre to find Ambrose Mercutt.
It proved a less easy task than he had first supposed. Ambrose supervised most of his business himself; at eleven o’clock in the morning he was not up, nor did he wish to receive visitors of any sort, least of all from the police. It was half an hour before Pitt prevailed upon his manservant, and Ambrose was brought, protesting, into the pale-carpeted dining room, with imitation Sheraton furniture and erotic paintings from the new “decadent” artists on the walls. He was lean and elegantly effete, clad in a silk dressing robe, his wavy hair falling over half his face, hiding rather wispy eyebrows and pale, puffy-lidded eyes.
Pitt could see instantly why Max had succeeded him as the proprietor for the carriage trade. Max had had a sensuality himself that would attract the women who worked for him, and a taste of his own to appreciate and select the best new whores for the trade—perhaps even teach them a little? Nature had given him an advantage that Ambrose, with all his intelligence, could not hope to emulate.
“I’ve never heard of you!” Ambrose said, his eyes wide, looking Pitt up and down. “You must be new in the Acre. I can’t imagine what you want here. I have some very good custom. You’d be foolish to make life—awkward—for me, Inspector.” His paused as if to see if Pitt had the mental agility to understand him.
Pitt smiled. “I believe you do have some very good custom,” he agreed coolly. “But perhaps not as much as you had before Max Burton moved into the trade?”
Ambrose was shaken. His hand moved down his body and tightened on his silk robe, pulling it a little further around himself. “Is that what you’re here about, Max’s murder?”
So he was not going to pretend to be stupid. That was a relief. Pitt was not in the frame of mind to play games with him. “Yes. I’m not interested in your other affairs. But Max took a lot of your business, and maybe some of your women as well—and don’t waste time in denying it.”
Ambrose shrugged and turned away. “It’s a chancy trade. You do better one year, worse another—depends on your girls. Max was doing well now—his girls would have left in time. High-class women always do. Either they get bored, or settle their debts, or they marry someone and get out of it altogether. He wouldn’t have lasted.”
Perhaps Ambrose had talked himself into believing this, but personally Pitt thought Max would have been well able to replace any women that