Pentecost Alley - Anne Perry [54]
“Have you!” Pitt asked. “And what did you discover?”
Ewart looked profoundly unhappy. His face was puckered and the sweat on his skin gleamed wet.
“She was cheeky. A bit too much brass for her own good,” he said slowly. “Changed her pimp a short while ago. Chucked him over and got someone new. Now he could be taking it hard. She was a nice bit of income for him. And he could have had a personal interest. Not impossible. She was handsome.”
“What did he look like?” Pitt asked, trying to quell the flicker of hope inside him.
Ewart’s eyes avoided his. “Thin,” he answered. “Dark …” He tailed off; the pimp was nothing at all like the man Rose Burke and Nan Sullivan had described. It was pointless to discuss it any further. Of course they must know all they could about Ada’s life, and then about Finlay FitzJames’s as well.
“Well, you’d better follow up the new pimp,” Pitt said wearily. “I’ll speak to these women again.”
In fact, Pitt had considerable trouble raising anyone, but a quarter of an hour later he was sitting on a hard-backed wooden chair in the kitchen with Nan Sullivan, who looked exhausted, blowsy and bleary-eyed. Every time he changed his balance the chair tilted and threatened to tip over. He asked her to tell him again what she remembered of the night Ada had been killed. It was not that he expected any new evidence; he wanted to weigh up what impression she might make on a jury and whether anyone would believe her rather than Finlay FitzJames.
She stared at Pitt, her eyes blinking, unfocused.
“Describe the man you saw going into Ada’s room,” Pitt prompted, steadying himself on the chair again. A couple of flies droned lazily around the window. There were two pails standing with cloths over them. Probably water.
“Fair hair, he had,” Nan answered him. “Thick. And a good coat, that’s all I can say for sure.” She looked away, avoiding Pitt’s eyes. “Wouldn’t know him again. Only saw his back. Expensive sort of coat. I do know a good coat.” She bit her lip and her eyes filled with tears. “I used to work in a shop, making coats, after me man died. But you can’t keep two little ones alive on what they pay you. Worked all day and half into the night, I did, but still only made six shillin’s a week, an’ what’ll that get you? Could’ve kept me virtue, an’ put the baby to one o’ them farms, but I know what happens to them. Sell ’em they do, into Holy Mother knows what! Or if they’re sickly, let the poor souls die. Leave them to starve, so they do.”
Pitt said nothing. He knew what she said was true. He knew sweatshop wages, and he had seen baby farms.
There was no sound in the rest of the house. The other women were out or asleep. From outside in the street came the distant noise of wheels and hooves on the stones, and a man calling out. The sweatshop opposite was busy, all heads bent over the needle. They were already five hours into their day.
“Or I could have gone to the workhouse,” Nan went on slowly. “But then they’d have taken the little ones away from me. I couldn’t bear that. If I went on the streets I could feed us all.”
“What happened to your children?” he asked gently, then instantly wished he had not. He did not want to be compelled to share her tragedy.
She smiled, looking up at him. “Grew up,” she answered. “Mary went into service and done well for herself. Bridget got married to a butcher out Camden way.”
Pitt did not ask any more. He could imagine for himself what two girls would do to keep the precious gift their mother had given them. They might think of her now and again, might even have some idea of what their well-being had cost, but nothing would bring them back here to Pentecost Alley. And it was probably better so. She could imagine their happiness, and they could carry only early memories of her, before she became worn out, shabby and stained by life.
“Well done,” he said, and meant it profoundly,