Death of a Stranger - Anne Perry [6]
Two other women came in before morning. The first needed two stitches in her leg, which Hester did quickly and efficiently. The second was cold and angry and badly bruised. A mug of hot tea, again mildly laced with brandy and a little tincture of arnica, and she felt ready to return to her room and face the coming day, probably most of it asleep.
Dawn came clear and quite mild, and by eight o’clock Hester was eating toast and drinking a cup of fresh tea when the street door opened and a constable was silhouetted against the sunlight. Without asking, he came in.
“Mrs. Monk?” His tone was heavy and a little sharp. The police hardly ever came to the house. They were not welcome, and had been told so in unmistakable terms. Largely they respected what was done there, and were happy enough, if they wished to speak to any of the women, to wait and do it in some other place. What could have brought him there this morning, and at eight o’clock?
Hester put down her mug and stood. “Yes?” She had seen him several times on the street. “What is it, Constable Hart?”
He closed the door behind him and took off his helmet. In the light his face looked tired, not merely from a sleepless night on duty, but from an indefinable weariness within. Something had bruised him, disturbed him.
“You’ad any women in ’ere last night that were knocked about, cut mebbe, or beat bad?” he asked. He glanced at the teapot on the table, swallowed, and looked back at Hester.
“We do most nights,” she replied. “Stabs, broken bones, bruises, disease. In bad weather the women are sometimes just cold. You know that!”
He took a deep breath and sighed, pushing his hand through his receding hair. “Someone in a real fight, Mrs. Monk. I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t ’ave to. Jus’ tell me, eh?”
“Would you like a cup of tea?” She evaded the answer for a moment. “Or toast?”
He hesitated. His exhaustion was plain in his face. “Yeah . . . ta,” he accepted, sitting down opposite her.
Hester reached for the teapot and poured a second mug. “Toast?”
He nodded.
“Jam?” she offered.
His eyes went to the table. His face relaxed in a rueful smile. “You got black currant!” he noticed, his voice soft.
“You’d like some?” It was a rhetorical question. The answer was obvious. Margaret was still asleep, and making the toast would give Hester a little more time to think, so she was happy to do it.
She came back to the table with two slices, and buttered one for herself and one for him, then pushed the jam over to him. He took a liberal spoonful, put it on the toast and ate it with evident appreciation.
“You’ad someone,” he said after several moments, looking at her almost with apology.
“I had three,” she replied. “At about a quarter to one, or about then. One later, three o’clock or so, and another an hour after that.”
“All in fights?”
“Looked like it. I didn’t ask. I never do. Why?”
Hester waited, watching him. There were hollows under his eyes as if he had lost too many nights’ sleep, and there was dust and what looked like blood on his sleeves. When she looked further, there was more on the legs of his trousers. His hand, holding the mug, was scratched, and one fingernail was torn. It should have been painful, but he seemed unaware of it. She was touched by both pity and a cold air of fear. “Why did you come?” she asked aloud.
He put down the mug. “There’s been a murder,” he replied. “In Abel Smith’s brothel over in Leather Lane.”
“I’m sorry,” she said automatically. Whoever it was, such a thing was sad, the waste of two lives, a grief to even more. But murders were not unheard of in an area like this, or dozens of others in London much the same. Narrow alleys and squares lay a few yards behind teeming streets, but