Silence in Hanover Close - Anne Perry [103]
“Now wot yer go an’ do a fing like that fer? In’t yer wife, or anyfink like vat, is she?”
“No, or course not!” Pitt said angrily. Suddenly all the pretense seemed ludicrous. “I’m a police officer, Inspector Pitt from the Bow Street station, and we’ve been looking for this woman for weeks. I tracked her down here, but I was too late to stop her being murdered. She was an important witness.”
The constable looked up and down at Pitt’s knitted muffler, his old coat, rather shapeless trousers, and worn boots. Disbelief was patent in his face.
“Check with Bow Street!” Pitt snapped. “Superintendent Ballarat!”
“I’ll take yer ter Seven Dials; they can send ter Bow Street,” the constable said stolidly. “Yer make no fuss and yer won’t get ’urt. Get nasty an’ I’ll ’ave ter get rough wiv yer.” He turned to Fred. “ ’Oo else ’as bin up ’ere since you seen ’er”—he gestured to the dead woman on the bed— “alive?”
“Geez! A little skinny geezer wiv Newgate knockers,” he said, putting his fingers up in a spiral to describe the cheek curls, “fer Clarrie. But she came down an’ fetched ’em. An’ a bald-’eaded feller, ’baht fortyish, fer Rosie, an’ I brought ’im up ’ere and saw ’im inter Rosie’s room. But ’e’s a reg’lar.”
“So no one else ’as bin up ’ere but ’im?”
“An’ the girls,” Fred finished. “Ask ’em.”
“Oh, I will, you can be sure o’ vat. An’ yer better all be ’ere when we wants yer, or yer’ll be ’unted down an’ arrested fer ’idin’ hevidence in a murder—an’ end up in Coldbath Fields, or Newgate.” He looked at Pitt. “Nah, you comin’ quiet, or do I ’ave ter be unpleasant wiv yer? Gimme yer ’ands.”
“What?” Pitt was startled.
“Yer ’ands, mister! You take me for a fool? I in’t a walkin’ yer back through the streets in the dark wivout the bracelets on yer.”
Pitt opened his mouth to protest, then realized the point-lessness of it, and thrust out his hands obediently.
Two hours later, sitting in the Seven Dials police station, still manacled, he was beginning to feel panic rising hot inside him. A message had been sent to Bow Street, and a neatly written answer had been returned. Yes, they knew Thomas Pitt, who answered the description precisely, but they could not agree that he had been sent to arrest anyone. They knew of no prostitute in a pink dress, and as far as they were concerned there was nothing of the sort connected with the case upon which Pitt was working. He had been assigned to look more carefully into the robbery at the home of Piers York in Hanover Close some three years ago, and the murder by an intruder of his son, Robert York. As far as Superintendent Ballarat knew, Pitt had failed to discover anything of material interest. The officer in charge of this unfortunate murder must handle it with all the justice and dispatch of which he was capable. Of course, Superintendent Ballarat wished, as a professional courtesy, to be kept informed of events as they should transpire, with the profound hope that Thomas Pitt was not guilty of anything except foolishness, and perhaps the kind of immorality that men fell prey to from time to time. Nevertheless, justice must be done. There could be no exceptions.
When Fred had first found him Pitt had only been able to think of Cerise, the futility of finding her when it was too late, the shabby reality of death. That they had mistaken him for the murderer had seemed farcical at the time. But now it was becoming appallingly clear that they did not believe him, and all his protestations, instead of making the truth obvious, were falling uselessly on their ears, like the excuses of any other criminal caught red-handed. And Ballarat had no intention of risking Society’s indignation and his superiors’ displeasure by stepping forward to defend Pitt or his actions. He did not want there to have been treason, he did not want to have to investigate the Yorks or the Danvers, or Felix Asherson, and he was only too happy to be rid of the one man who was