Pentecost Alley - Anne Perry [96]
“Yer in’t goin’ ter crop that bastard, so wot’s it matter,” she said contemptuously. “Yer show o’ duty don’t impress me none.”
“Somebody killed Ada,” he insisted. “And he’s still out there. Do you want me to find him, or not?”
“I wanna be young an’ pretty an’ ’ave a nice ’ouse an’ enough ter eat,” she said sarcastically. “W’en the ’ell did wot I want matter a sod ter anyone?”
“I’m not going away, Madge, until I know everything about Ada that I can,” he said levelly. “If you want a little peace to conduct your business and turn a profit, you’ll humor me, whether you think it’s worth it or not.”
She did not need to weigh the issue. Wearily she stepped back and opened the door. She heard him close it with a heavy thud, and led him back into the small room she used as a kitchen, sewing room, and somewhere from which she could listen for calls of distress or sounds of violence.
Pitt asked her every question he could think of about Ada’s life. What time she got up, how she dressed, when she came and went, if Madge knew where to, or where from, who with, whom she had met. He wanted any mention of friends or enemies, however vague, any names of clients or of possible allies. He asked her to estimate Ada’s income from her wardrobe, her behavior, her gifts to anyone else.
“Well,” Madge said thoughtfully, sitting on a stool and staring down at the stained table. “She were generous, w’en she ’ad it, I’ll give ’er that … anyone’d give ’er that. An’ she done well in the last couple o’ months. Got them new boots the day she were killed. Pleased as punch she were wi’ them. Marched up an’ down in ’em showin’ ’em orff. Lifted ’er skirts ter let me see ’em. Mother-o’-pearl buttons they ’ad.” Her face tightened. “But I s’pose yer know that, seein’ as ’ow yer came ’ere that night an’ found ’er!”
Pitt thought back to the boots which had been so laboriously buttoned together. They were beautifully made. He had not given a thought then to their cost.
“Yes, I remember them. Did she usually have boots of such quality?”
She laughed sharply. “Course not! Make do and mend, like the rest o’ us. No, she done well recent, like I told yer.” Her eyes narrowed till the fat in her cheeks almost obscured them. “ ’Ere, are yer sayin’ as she done summink wrong ter get that money?”
“No,” he assured her. He leaned forward, elbows on the table. “But I’d like to know where it came from. Did it start when she changed from her old pimp to her new one?”
“Yeah,” she conceded. “Abaht then. Why? Bert Costigan in’t that much better, if that’s wot yer thinkin’. ’E’s a fancy-lookin’ sod, but ’e in’t that clever. Never liked ’im meself.” She shrugged. “But then I never liked any o’ them. They’re all swine, w’en it comes ter it. Bleed yer dry. An’ w’ere was ’e w’en she needed ’im, eh?” She sniffed and the slow tears trickled down her enormous cheeks. “Gawd knows. Not ’ere!”
He woke Rose and Nan also, and asked them all the same questions, and received the same answers. By that time Agnes was up anyway, and he asked her too, but she contributed nothing to his knowledge, except when he demanded a physical description of Ada, whose face he had never seen except disfigured by death. Her hesitant words were of limited use, but he discovered in Agnes a ready pencil which produced a sketch which was more of a caricature than a portrait, but highly evocative. He could see the character of a woman of humor, even spirit. It was extraordinarily alive, even on the lined notebook page. He could imagine her walk, the angle of her head, even her voice. It made her death immeasurably worse, and her torture something he could not bear to think of.
He went back to Bow Street and ate a cold mutton sandwich and a mug of tea at about six o’clock. He wrote down carefully in order the notes he had taken, and he began to see a pattern in Ada’s behavior. She had obviously worked her own patch in Old Montague Street and then the Whitechapel Road in the early evenings, and sometimes late as well, but there were regular times when she was absent, excellent times