Long Spoon Lane - Anne Perry [27]
Pitt believed him, but he needed more information—and he could not expect Carmody to trust him. He tried to keep his own emotions from his face. “And you know this for certain?”
“Yes, I do!” Carmody leaned forward a little. “And you believe me. You know damn well I’m telling the truth. You can get me hanged for Magnus’s murder, if you lie enough, and get your men to lie too, but you’ll not silence all of us. There’s proof, and you’ll never find it. Whoever killed Magnus won’t stop his work from going on.”
“What did Magnus want?” Pitt asked. “Apart from chaos, no rules, no safety to grow food, or move it to the cities, no transport, no heat or light, no protection for the weak…”
“No, of course he didn’t want that!” Carmody said in disgust. “None of us wanted real chaos, just an end to oppression.” He shifted position a little. The air in the cell was clammy. “You can mock us all you like, but Magnus was a reformer, not a revolutionary. You asked me who would want to kill him? Not us. We believed in what he was doing and we were prepared to give everything we had to help. We still are!” He jabbed his finger towards the steel door. “Ask who has something to lose—motive. Isn’t that what detectives are supposed to look for? Who was Magnus going to hurt? Corrupt police. There’s your answer.”
“In Cannon Street?” Pitt said quietly.
“And Bow Street, Mile End, Whitechapel.”
“Who has the proof?” He did not expect an answer, but he had to ask.
Carmody snorted. “You think I’d tell you? If you really don’t know, start with Myrdle Street, and work west. Try Dirty Dick’s Tavern, at Bishopsgate. Or Polly Quick up at the Ten Bells by the Spitalfields Market.”
Pitt accepted that he would get no more than that, no matter how long he pursued the subject. He was compelled to prove or disprove it by following the trail of accusations.
He straightened up. “I will,” he answered.
“They’re all over the east end of the city,” Carmody added, a strange, naive note of hope in his voice. “If you want to, you’ll find them.”
Pitt went back to Keppel Street again before he followed Carmody’s directions. If he were going to learn anything in the East End he needed to be less conspicuously dressed. He kept clothes at home that were frayed at the hems, mud-spattered and ill-fitting, and boots that were scuffed and resoled several times, much to Charlotte’s distaste.
It was while wearing these that he arrived at Bishopsgate at about midday, mixing in with the peddlers, clerks, and laborers in the street. In this area men, women, and children worked all their waking hours to scrape enough to survive by making cheap furniture, weaving baskets, stitching clothes, trading in anything people would buy. The streets were crowded, noisy, and dirty. The smell of refuse, old soot, and close-pressed humanity clung in the nose and throat. A few gaunt cows and pigs rooted among the market refuse for anything edible. Dogs sniffed around hopefully and cats followed the trails of vermin.
Pitt had already removed anything of value from his pockets, and he walked up Bishopsgate without concern for petty theft. He passed Camomile Street, Wormwood Street, and then Houndsditch till he came to Dirty Dick’s. During the reign of Louis XVI of France, the tavern had been known as the Gates of Jerusalem. It had definitely come down in the world.
The door was open and a thickset man with hair plastered across his head was wheeling a barrel over the pavement to the trapdoors opening on the cellar.
Pitt stopped next to him.
The man looked up. “There’s someone inside ter serve yer,” he said with a nod.
“I don’t want ale,” Pitt answered, remaining where he stood.
The man straightened his back slowly. “ ’Oo are yer?” His voice was heavy with suspicion. He looked Pitt up and down, his eyes narrowing.