Pentecost Alley - Anne Perry [99]
Costigan remained standing also, looking resentfully down at Pitt. “Oh yeah? What’s that then?”
“We think it’s something to do with her going up towards Hyde Park,” Pitt replied.
Costigan stopped fidgeting from one foot to the other and stared at Pitt.
“ ’Oo said she went up there? I never did.”
“Are you going to tell me you didn’t know?” Pitt asked innocently. “Not very efficient of you, Mr. Costigan. One of your girls going up to the expensive end of town, getting custom up there, and you didn’t know about it? Don’t suppose you saw much of the money then?” He smiled. “That would be good for a few laughs around here!”
“Course I knew!” Costigan said quickly, lifting his chin a little. “Take me for a fool! I’d beat the ’ell out o’ any girl wot cheated me like that! But I wouldn’t kill ’er! That’d be stupid. Can’t sell a girl wot’s dead, now can yer?” His large, bright eyes did not leave Pitt’s. They were aggressive and triumphant, as if he had won some contest between them.
Pitt glanced around the room and back at Costigan again. It was not difficult to believe he had made a good deal of money out of someone. He could be telling the truth, except for what Fat George had said, and that could be a lie, simply to damage a business rival.
“Did you send any other girls up there?” Pitt asked, his hope beginning to fade.
Costigan hesitated, trying to decide whether to lie or not.
“No … just Ada. She ’ad class, she ’ad.” He looked sorry for himself. He glanced at Binns in the doorway, scribbling down what he said.
“Class?” Pitt said dubiously.
“Yeah!” Costigan’s head jutted forward. “Dressed nice. ’Ad ’er ’air nice. Could make men laugh. They like that. Some girls is pretty, but stupid. Ada ’ad brains, an’ a quick tongue.” He squared his shoulders, staring at Pitt, bragging. “An’ like I said, she dressed nice. Good enough fer up west. Not like some o’ them tarts around ’ere wot look like they in’t got no idea wot a lady looks like.”
At the doorway Binns let out a grunt. Costigan took it for disbelief.
“She did, an’ all!” he said angrily. “Red an’ black dress, she ’ad, good as any o’ them tarts up the ’Aymarket way, an’ new boots wi’ pearly buttons on ’em. Cost a fortune, boots like that. Tarts around ’ere don’t ’ave nothin’ like them.”
“Boots?” Pitt said very slowly, a sudden lift of excitement in his chest, at the very same moment as the weight of tragedy struck him.
“Yeah, boots,” Costigan snapped, quite unaware of what he had said.
“When did you see them, Mr. Costigan?” Pitt asked, glancing at Binns to make sure he was writing everything down.
“Wot? I dunno. Why?”
“Think!” Pitt ordered. “When did you see the boots?”
“ ’Oo cares? I seen ’em.” Costigan was flushed now, his eyes overbright. His hands were clenched at his sides and there was a thin line of perspiration on his upper lip.
“I believe you saw them,” Pitt accepted. “I think you went up to the Hyde Park area, perhaps with a view to breaking into trade there, or perhaps you already suspected Ada was doing a little independent work, and you saw Fat George. And Fat George told you that Ada was indeed working up there, and doing quite well. You realized she was cheating you, and you came back here and faced her with it. She told you she didn’t need you and to whistle for your share. You tried hurting her a little bit, only she defied you. You lost your temper and in the quarrel you killed her. Possibly you didn’t intend to when you started, but your vanity was wounded. Maybe she laughed at you. You held her too hard, and before you thought about it, she was dead.”
Costigan stared at him, too appalled to speak, his face contorted with fear.
“And when you realized she was dead,” Pitt went on, “you put a garter ’round her arm and buttoned the new boots to each other, to make it look like some customer with a fetish, a taste for sadism or ritual, and you left.”
Costigan swallowed convulsively. His mouth and lips were dry, his skin ashen.
“You were seen,” Pitt went on, wanting now to finish it as quickly as possible. “I think if we ask Rose Burke,