Pentecost Alley - Anne Perry [163]
“You stole a man’s coat, a good one, well-cut, and hitched your dress up so your skirts wouldn’t be seen. You had your hair under the coat. You looked like a man, but your hair was recognized. Not many people have hair like yours, Ella, beautiful, long, gold hair.” He watched her white face. “I found strands of it in Nora’s bed, where you struggled and she pulled some of it out, fighting for her life….”
“Stop it!” she shouted. “Yeah, I killed the greedy little cow! She took my man. Did it deliberate. She knew ’ow I felt abaht ’im, an’ she still did it. Proud of ’erself she were. Gloated. Tol’ me as she would move up ter Mile End an’ ’ave a nice ’ouse, all to ’erself, an’ ’ave kids an’ never ’ave ter be touched by another drunken layabaht or sleazy sod cheatin’ on ’is wife again.”
“So you tied her up, broke her fingers and toes, and then strangled her,” Pitt said with loathing.
Her face was pasty white, but her eyes blazed.
“No I bleedin’ didn’t! I ’ad a row wif ’er an’ I ’it ’er. We fought an’ I ’eld ’er by the throat. Yeah, I strangled ’er, but I never touched ’er fingers an’ toes. I dunno ’oo did that, an’ I dunno why!”
Pitt did not believe her, he could not. Yet his instincts were hard and bright that she was not lying.
“Why did you kill Ada?” he repeated.
“I din’t!” she shouted back at him. “I din’t kill Ada! I never even know’d ’er! I thought it were Bert Costigan, jus’ like you did. If it weren’t ’im, I dunno ’oo it were!”
He remembered with a sickening jolt Costigan’s denials that he had broken Ada’s fingers and toes, his indignation and confusion that he should even be accused. His eyes looked just like hers, frightened, indignant, utterly bewildered.
“But you killed Nora!” he repeated. He meant to sound certain of it. It was not a question, it was a charge.
“Yeah … I s’pose there in’t no use denyin’ it now. But I never broke ’er fingers, an’ I never touched Ada! I never even bin there!”
Pitt had no idea whether he believed her or not. Looking at her, hearing her voice, he felt sure she spoke the truth; but his brain said it was ridiculous. She was admitting killing Nora. Why deny killing Ada? The punishment would be no worse, and no one would believe her anyway.
“I never killed Ada!” she said loudly. “I never did them things to Nora neither!”
“Why did you try to implicate Finlay FitzJames?” he asked.
She looked nonplussed. “ ’Oo?”
“Finlay FitzJames,” he repeated. “Why did you put his handkerchief and button in Nora’s room?”
“I dunno wotjer talkin’ abaht!” She looked totally bewildered. “I never ’eard of ’im. ’Oo is ’e?”
“Didn’t you once work in the FitzJames house?”
“I never worked in any ’ouse. I were never a bleedin’ ’ousemaid ter nobody!”
He still did not know whether to believe her or not.
“Perhaps. But it doesn’t make a lot of difference now. Come on. I’m arresting you for the killing of Nora. Don’t make it more unpleasant for yourself than it has to be. Let the other women see you leave with some dignity.”
She jerked her head up and ran her hands through her glorious hair, staring at him defiantly. Then the spirit went out of her, and she drooped again, and allowed him to lead her out.
“Well, thank God for that,” Ewart said with a sigh, leaning back in his chair in the Whitechapel police station. “I admit I didn’t think we’d do it.” He looked up at Pitt with a smile. All the tension seemed to drain out of him, as if an intolerable burden had been lifted and suddenly he could breathe without restriction, free from inner pain. Even the fear which had haunted him from the beginning was gone. He did not grudge Pitt the respect due him. “I should say you did it,” he corrected. “I didn’t do much, as it turned out.” He folded his hands over his stomach. “So it was Ella Baker all along. I never thought of a woman. Never crossed my mind. Should have.”
“She swears she didn’t kill Ada,” Pitt said, sitting down opposite him. “Or break Nora’s fingers and toes.”
Ewart was unperturbed. “Well, she would, but that doesn’t mean anything. Don’t know why she bothers. Won’t