The Silent Cry - Anne Perry [3]
“Not yet,” Evan answered, although he knew they might never have.
Riley closed the door and banged on the wall for the driver to proceed, and the ambulance pulled away.
The mortuary van took its place and the other body was removed, leaving Evan and Shotts alone in the alley.
“It’s light enough to look,” Evan said grimly. “I suppose we might find something. Then we’ll start searching for witnesses. What happened to the woman who raised the alarm?”
“Daisy Mott. I know where ter find ’er. Daytime in the match fact’ry, nights in that block o’ rooms over there, number sixteen.” He gestured with his left arm. “Don’t suppose she can tell us much. If them what done this’d bin ’ere when she come, they’d ’a killed ’er too, no doubt.”
“Yes, I suppose so,” Evan agreed reluctantly. “Since she screamed, they’d have silenced her at least. What about old Briggs, who fetched you?”
“ ’E don’t know nothin’. I asked ’im.”
Evan began to widen his search, going farther away from where the two bodies had been, walking very slowly, eyes looking down on the ground. He did not know what he was looking for, anything someone might have dropped, a mark, a further bloodstain. There must be other bloodstains.
“In’t rained,” Shotts said grimly. “Those two fought like tigers fer their lives. Gotter be more blood. Not that I know what it’ll tell us if there is. ’Cept that someone else is ’urt, an’ that I can work out fer meself.”
“There’s blood here,” Evan answered him, seeing the dark stain over the cobbles towards the central gutter. He had to put his finger into it to be sure if it was red, and not the brown of excrement. “And here. This must be where at least some of the struggle took place.”
“I got some ’ere too,” Shotts added. “I wonder ’ow many of them there was.”
“More than two,” Evan replied quietly. “If it had been anything like an equal fight there’d have been four bodies here. Whoever else was here was in good enough shape to leave … unless, of course, someone else took them away. But that isn’t likely. No, I think we’re looking for two or three men at the least.”
“Armed?” Shotts looked at him.
“I don’t know. The doctor’ll tell us how they were injured. I didn’t see any knife wounds, or club or bludgeon wounds either. And they certainly weren’t garroted.” He shuddered as he said it. St. Giles particularly was known for the sudden and vile murders by wire around the throat. Any dirty and down-at-heel vagrant could be suspected. There was one notable occasion when two such men had suspected each other and had almost ended up in mutual murder.
“That’s funny.” Shotts stood still, unconsciously pulling his coat a little tighter around him in the cold. “Thieves wot set out ter rob someone in a place like this usually carry a shiv or a wire. They in’t lookin’ fer a fight, they wants profits and a quick getaway, wi’ no ’urt to theirselves.”
“Exactly,” Evan agreed. “A wire around the throat or a knife in the side. Silent. Effective. No danger. Take the money and disappear into the night. So what happened here, Shotts?”
“I dunno, sir. The more I look at it, the less I know. But there in’t no weapon ’ere. If there was one, they took it with them. An’ wot’s more, there in’t no trail o’ blood as I can see, so if they was ’urt theirselves, it weren’t nothing like as bad as these two poor souls the doc and the mortuary van took away. I know they was dead, or as near as makes no difference, wot I mean is …”
“I know what you mean,” Evan agreed. “It was a very one-sided affair.”
A hansom went by at the far end of the street, closely followed by a wagon piled with old furniture. From somewhere in the distance came the mournful cry of a rag-and-bone man. A beggar, holding half an old coat around himself, hesitated at the mouth of the alley, then thought better of it and went on his way. Behind the grimy windows there was more movement. Voices were raised. A dog barked.
“You have to hate a man very much to beat him to death,” Evan said in little more than a whisper. “Unless you’re completely insane.”
“They