Resurrection Row - Anne Perry [94]
By the time he came back to the police station at nine o’clock, rain soaking his trousers and boots and running down the back of his neck, he had found only two exceptions. One was an ambitious and rebellious little maid who had dreams of becoming rich and starting her own hat shop. The other was completely different, a very practiced woman of nearer thirty, handsome, cynical, and obviously doing very well at the better end of the professional market. She admitted quite freely to posing for the pictures and defied Pitt to make a crime of it. If certain gentlemen liked pictures, that was their affaire. They could well afford it, and if Pitt were foolish enough to pursue the matter and make a nuisance of himself, he would very likely find his fingers burned by some gentlemen of considerable means, not to mention social standing.
She had rooms at a comfortable address; she made no trouble, paid her rent, and if she had gentlemen callers, what of it? She would admit to no husband, lover, or protector, still less to anything resembling a pimp or a procurer, and the confidence with which she said it made it impossible for Pitt seriously to doubt her.
He walked into his own office weary and disappointed. The best hope seemed the ambitious little maid, and she admitted to the existence of no man who might have cared, except perhaps her employer. Certainly she would be anxious, even desperate not to lose her position and the roof over her head.
The constables were waiting for him.
“Well?” Pitt sat down heavily and took his boots off. His socks were wet enough to wring out. He must have trodden in a puddle, or several.
“Not much,” one of them replied grimly. “Only what you’d expect, poor devils. Can’t see any of them murderin’ anyone, least of all the only bloke what paid ’em a decent bit o’ money. Reckon ’e was like Christmas to them.”
The other one sat up a little straighter. “Mostly the same, but I turned up a couple o’ really experienced bits, addresses what I wouldn’t mind even visitin’, let alone livin’ in. Reckon any feller what goes to them for ’is fun must ’ave money to burn.”
Pitt stared at him, one wet sock in his hand, the dry ones in the drawer forgotten. “What addresses?” he demanded.
The constable recited them. One was the same as that of the women Pitt had found; the other was different, but in the same area. Three prostitutes in business for themselves, and a coincidence? Or at least one very discreet bawdy house?
Up to that point Pitt had had every intention of going straight home. In half his mind he was already there, feet dry, hot soup in his hand, Charlotte smiling at him.
The constables saw the change in his face and resigned themselves. They were constables and he was an inspector; there was nothing else they could do. Brothels did their trade largely at night.
Charlotte had long ago disciplined herself to accept Pitt’s late and erratic hours, but when he was not home by eleven o’clock she could no longer pretend to herself that she was not worried. All sorts of people had accidents, were struck down in the street; policemen especially invited attack by interfering in the affairs of those who made a business of violence. A murdered body could be dumped in the river, dropped down a sewer, or simply left in the rookeries where it might never be found. Who would know one pauper corpse from another?
She had almost convinced herself that something appalling had happened when at midnight she heard the door. She flew down the hallway and flung herself at him. He was thoroughly wet.
“Where have you been?” she demanded. “It’s the middle of the night! Are you hurt? What happened to you?”
He heard the rising fear in her voice and swallowed back his instinctive answer. He put both arms around her and held her close, ignoring the fact that he was wetting her dress with the rain still sliding off him.
“Watching a very high-class brothel,” he replied, smiling into her hair. “And you’d be surprised who I saw going in there.”
She pushed him away but