Pentecost Alley - Anne Perry [161]
And so it went on. He questioned every woman meticulously, but no one had seen any man who could have answered the description Edie had given of Nora’s last customer.
He went back down again, and found Edie herself, by now almost ready to consider getting up in the normal course of her day. It was three o’clock in the afternoon.
“Describe him again,” he said wearily.
“Look, mister, I din’t even see ’is face, just ’is back as ’e went in!” she said in exasperation. “I din’t take no notice. ’E were jus’ anuvver customer. I din’t know ’e were gonna kill ’er, let alone …” She stopped and shuddered, her fat body tight under her robe.
“I know. Just close your eyes and bring back what you saw, however briefly. Take a moment or two. You saw the man who killed her, Edie.” He spoke gently, trying not to frighten her. He needed her to clear her mind so she could concentrate. “Describe exactly what you saw. You may be the only way we shall catch him.” He tried to keep the desperation out of his voice.
She caught it, in spite of his effort.
“I know,” she whispered. “I know I’m the only one wot saw ’im, ’ceptin’ them wot ’e killed.” She stopped, leaning over the kitchen table, her fat elbows resting on it, pulling her robe tight, her black hair over her shoulders, her eyes closed.
Pitt waited.
“ ’E were quite tall, like,” she said at last. “Not ’eavy—in fact, ’e looked sort o’, well, not thickset. I reckon as I thought ’e were young. Jus’ the way ’e stood.” She opened her eyes and looked at Pitt. “But I could be wrong. Tha’s just wot I felt.”
“Good. Go on,” he encouraged. “Describe his coat, the back of his head, whatever else you saw. Tell me exactly. What was his hair like? How was it cut? Was it long or short? Did he have side-whiskers, did you see?”
She closed her eyes obediently. “ ’Is coat were sort o’ gray-green. The collar were … were turned up ’igh, over the bottom of ’is ’air, so I reckon ’is ’air must ’a’ bin quite longish. I couldn’t see the ends of it. Could’ve bin cut any’ow. Come ter that, could’ve gorn all down ’is back!” She gave an abrupt, jerking laugh. “An’ I din’t see no side-whiskers. Reckon ’e din’t turn ’is ’ead enough. Beautiful ’air, ’e ’ad, though. Wouldn’t mind ’air like that meself. Makes me think o’ Ella Baker, wot lives up the street. She got gorgeous ’air, just like that.” She opened her eyes and looked at Pitt again. “Mebbe she ’as a bruvver?” she said jokingly. “An’ mebbe ’e’s a lunatic an’ all.”
Pitt stared at her.
“She in’t got a bruvver!” she said in amazement. “Yer can’t think as … I don’ mean …” Then she stopped, her eyes widening with a slow, terrible horror.
“What?” Pitt demanded. “What is it? What do you know, Edie?”
“She an’ Nora did fall out summink awful over Johnny Voss….”
“Why? Who’s Johnny Voss? Is that the man Nora was going to marry?”
“Yeah. On’y ’e were goin’ ter marry Ella first … at least she thought ’e were. Actual—I thought ’e were too. Then Nora come along … an’ ’e fancied ’er instead, an’ she made the most of it. Well, yer would, wouldn’t yer? ’Oo wouldn’t sooner be married ter a decent sort o’ bloke than make yer way like this?” She barely looked around her, but her gestures drew in the whole shabby, shared room, the tenement, its occupants and their lives.
“Yes,” Pitt agreed. There was no need for more words than that. “Thank you, Edie.” He left the kitchen and went back to the room in which Nora had died. It was still as she had left it, bed unmade, sheets rumpled, only the pillows were in the center where he had tossed them after finding the handkerchief.
He stood in the center of the floor for several moments, wondering what he was looking for, where even to begin. The bed. The floor around it.
He bent down and began with the floor, peering for anything at all that would bear out his theory. There would be nothing here to prove it, only small things that might help.
There was nothing.
He stood up and threw the bedcovers aside, running his hands gently, very slowly, over the sheets.
He found it on the top sheet, first one, then another,