Pentecost Alley - Anne Perry [159]
“But there’ve been two pretty horrible murders here in Whitechapel,” Tallulah said, staring at Ma Baines, her voice low and shivery. “That hasn’t happened anywhere else.”
“Course it ’as!” Ma said abruptly. “Were one just like these w’en I were in Mile End. Six year ago, mebbe seven.”
“What do you mean … just like these?” Charlotte’s voice came out huskily, as if she had something in her throat.
“Jus’ the same,” Ma repeated. “ ’Ands tied, fingers and toes broke or pulled out o’ joint, garter ’round ’er arm, an’ soaked in cold water … all over the place, ’ead, shoulders, ’air.”
Tallulah gasped as if she had been struck.
Emily turned and stared at Charlotte.
For seconds there was icy, pricking silence. The floorboards creaked overhead as someone walked across them on the story above.
“Who did it?” Charlotte forced the words out at last between frozen lips.
Ma shrugged. “Gawd knows. ’E weren’t never found. Rozzers stopped lookin’ arter a while. Jus’ like they will this time, w’en they don’ find no one.”
“What … what kind of a girl was she?” Emily asked, her voice also hoarse.
Ma shook her head.
“Dunno ’er name. Forget it. Jus’ young, though, a beginner. Probably ’er first week or so, poor little thing. Pretty, ’bout sixteen or seventeen, so they said.” Her face pinched with momentary pity. “Funny, but they never made that much fuss about it. Papers din’t write it up too much. O’ course that were before the Ripper an’ all. Still, they’re sure as ’ell burns takin’ it out on the rozzers this time. Wouldn’t wanna be one o’ them now.” She lifted one broad shoulder. “But then ’oo wants ter be a rozzer anyway?” She looked at Emily. “D’yer want the rooms or not, luv? I in’t got time ter sit an’ talk wif yer.”
“No thank you,” Charlotte answered for them. “Not at the moment. We’ll think a bit harder. Maybe it’s not what we’re looking for right now.” And she rose to her feet, steadying herself on the arm of the chair a moment. Her knees were wobbling. She made her way back along the corridor and out into Chicksand Street with Emily at her elbow and Tallulah, moving as if in a dream, a pace behind. The cold air hit her face like a slap, and she barely noticed it.
Pitt had slept badly the previous night. It seemed as if half the night he lay motionless in bed, afraid to move in case he woke Charlotte. When she was troubled she slept lightly. When one of the children was ill, the slightest noise reached her and she sat up almost immediately. Since the second murder she had been aware of his nightmares and of the fact that he could not rest. Even if he turned over too frequently, she would be disturbed and waken.
He lay in the dark, eyes wide open, watching the faint pattern on the ceiling from the distant gas lamps in the street through the bedroom curtains. If he slept he dreamed of Costigan’s despairing face, his self-loathing and his fear. Why had he all but admitted killing Ada, if he did not? Were his words—“I done ’er”—intended only to mean that in some way he felt responsible for her behavior, and thus for her death, but only indirectly? He had confessed to a quarrel, to striking out at her. Was it possible he had knocked her insensible but not actually been the one to kill her? He had always denied the cruelty, the fingers and toes. He had even denied the garter, which was hardly an offense, and the water.
Why, if it was true? It could hardly make any difference. He would be hanged exactly the same either way. And since the wardens believed it of him, it would not mitigate their treatment of him either.
Certainly he could not have been guilty of killing Nora Gough.
Who was the fair-haired man who had been seen going into Nora’s room shortly before she was killed? How could he possibly have left without any one of the dozen or so people around having seen him?
Jago Jones’s words swirled around in his head. Surely they had to be the answer … either when he left he had looked so different no one had recognized him as the same