Pentecost Alley - Anne Perry [115]
“Who was that?”
“Wot?”
“Who was he? What does he look like?”
She hesitated only a moment, glancing at Edie, then at Mabel.
“Jimmy Kale,” she answered. “ ’E come ’ere most Sundays. Not always ter me. Sometimes one o’ the other girls.”
“And what does he look like?”
“Tall, skinny. Got a long nose. Always sniffin’.”
“Did he come to Nora?” Pitt asked.
“Yeah, I reckon so. But ’e wouldn’t’ve ’urt ’er! W’y would ’e? ’E don’t even know ’er, ’cepting ter …” She stopped.
Pitt accepted that that was not knowing her in any sense that mattered.
“Go on. How long was Jimmy Kale with you?”
“ ’Alf hour.”
“Then what?”
“I ’ad a cup o’ tea wi’ Marge over the road. She come ’ere sometimes. ’Er old man knocks ’er around summink terrible.”
“Was she here between four and five o’clock? Would she come in through the door at the front and past Nora’s room?”
She shook her head.
“Nah, she come across the wall an’ up them areaway steps on the outside. That way ’er ’usband don’ see ’er, and nob’dy takes ’er for one o’ us.” She laughed abruptly. “Poor cow. She’d be better orff if she was! Anybody beat me like ’e do ’er, I’d stick a shiv in ’is guts.”
“When did she go?” Pitt ignored the reference to knives.
“When Mabel started ter yell. Rest o’ the noise don’t matter, but she knew that were different. We all did….”
She swallowed and her throat tightened. She started to cough and Lennox moved to her side, taking her hand and patting her firmly on the back. The human contact seemed to comfort her, the warmth of touch which demanded nothing of her. She took a shuddery breath. For a moment she hovered on the edge of abandoning herself to the comfort of weeping and clinging to someone.
Lennox removed his hand and passed over the cup of tea.
She straightened up again.
“We knew as summink were terrible wrong,” she said levelly. “Nora ’ad Syd Allerdyce wif ’er. ’E come ter the door wif ’is pants rahnd ’is ankles. Proper fool ’e looked too, fat as a pig and red in the face. In’t ’alf so la-di-da caught like that, ’e weren’t.” The dislike was heavy in her face. She did not forget a condescension, or forgive it. “Angie from upstairs were at the end o’ the alley wi’ a pail o’ water. She dropped it and it went all over the place. I suppose someone cleared it up. I dunno. I din’t. An’ Kate come out o’ ’er room wif a shawl rahnd ’er. S’pose ’er customer were still there. Edie went inter Nora’s room an’ saw ’er there, an’ Mabel still yellin’. Edie ’it ’er rahnd the face ter stop ’er, then come out an’ sent Kate fer the rozzers.”
“Did you see Nora’s customer?”
“Nah. I were busy meself.”
“Where is your room, compared with hers?”
“Next ter it.”
“What did you hear?”
“ ’Ear? Everythink! ’Eard Syd wheezin’ an’ groanin’ like ’e was climbin’ a mountain. ’Eard them two bloody cats fightin’ in the alley—”
“Do you mean cats or women?” Pitt interrupted.
She glared at him. “Cats! Furry thin’s wot eat mice an’ squeals like all the devils in ’ell ’alf the night. Geez! Don’t they ’ave cats up west w’ere you come from? ’Ow d’yer keep the mice down? Or don’t you ’ave them neither?”
“Yes, we have them. I have two cats, actually.” He thought with a sudden surge of pleasure of Angus and Archie curled up asleep in their basket by the kitchen range. But they didn’t have to battle anyone for their food and milk. “What else?”
“ ’Eard Shirl upstairs screamin’ at someone out the front,” Pearl replied. “Yellin’ like a stuck pig, she were. Worse’n the cats. Reckon someone bilked ’er. An’ someone dropped a tray down the stairs. ’Ell of a row. Then there was Mabel an’ ’er customer, laughin’ like fools they was. Reckon as ’e were drunk out o’ ’is wits. ’Ope yer got paid well, Mabel?”
“Course,” Mabel said with conviction.
It flicked through Pitt’s mind that she had probably taken all the man had, but that was his affair, if he chose to take chances. He imagined the cacophony of sound that must have gone on during the hour Nora Gough was murdered. She