Pentecost Alley

1

“SORRY SIR,” Inspector Ewart said quietly as Pitt stared down at the woman’s body sprawled across the big bed, at her face swollen in the asphyxia of death. “But this one you ought to see.”

“So I assume,” Pitt said wryly. Since his promotion to command of the Bow Street Station, he no longer dealt with ordinary episodes of violence, theft and fraud. The assistant commissioner had directed that he reserve his attention for those crimes which had, or threatened to have, political implications; those which involved persons of social prominence and might provoke embarrassment in high places if not dealt with both rapidly and tactfully.

So his being sent for at two in the morning to come to this Whitechapel slum over the murder of a prostitute required some explanation. The pale-faced constable who had ridden with him in the hansom had said nothing as they clattered through the August night, the streets narrowing, becoming meaner, the smell of sour smoke, crowded middens and the sharp odor of the river stronger as they moved eastwards.

They had stopped at Old Montague Street opposite the cul-de-sac of Pentecost Alley. The light from the gas lamp on the corner did not reach this far. Holding his bull’s-eye lantern high, the constable had led Pitt past refuse and sleeping beggars, up the steep, creaking steps of the tenement building, in through the deep-stained wooden door, and along the passage to where Ewart was waiting. The sound of weeping came from somewhere farther back, sounding frightened and carrying a rising note of hysteria.

Pitt knew Ewart by reputation, and he nurtured no doubts that there was some very real reason why he had been sent for, and so urgently. If nothing else, Ewart would be highly unwilling to yield command of his case to another officer, especially one who had risen from the ranks as Pitt had and who only a short while ago had been his equal. Like many regulars in the police force, Ewart believed that the only man with a right to such a position was one born to it, as had been Pitt’s predecessor, Micah Drummond, a man of independent wealth and military experience.

Pitt looked at the woman. She was young. It was difficult to tell a prostitute’s age. The life was harsh, often short. But the skin on her bosom where her dress was torn open was still unmarred by drink or disease, and the flesh was firm on her thighs where her red-and-black skirt had been lifted. Her left wrist was tied to the bedpost with a stocking, and there was a garter around her arm just above the elbow, a blue satin rose stitched to it. The other stocking was tied in a noose around her neck, tight, biting into it, almost cutting. The top half of her body, and all the bed around it, was drenched with water.

The sound of weeping was still audible, but it was quieter now, and there were other voices as well, and footsteps in the passage, light and quick.

Pitt looked around the room. It was surprisingly well furnished. The walls had been papered a long time ago, and though they were marked by the incessant damp and mold, and faded where the light had struck them, there was still a recognizable pattern. The fireplace was small, the dead ashes in it gray-white. The fire had been a gesture, something flickering and alive rather than a source of heat. The one chair was a cheerful red with a hand-stitched cushion on it, and there was a rag mat on the floor. An embroidered sampler hung over the shallow mantel, and the wooden chest for clothes and linens was polished. Even its brass handles gleamed.

The washstand held a single ewer and basin.

On the floor beside the bed were the girl’s high black boots, not side by side, but half over each other. The round, shiny buttons of the left one had been fastened through the buttonholes of the right one. A bone-handled buttonhook lay beside them. It was a ridiculous, distorted gesture, and one that could only have been done deliberately.

Pitt drew in his breath and let it out in a sigh. It was ugly, and sad, but there was nothing in it to cause Ewart to have sent for him. Prostitution was a dangerous way to make a living. Murders were not unique, and certainly not reason for scandal in high places, or even in low ones.

He turned to look at Ewart, whose dark face was unreadable in the light from the bull’s-eye, his eyes black.

“Evidence.” Ewart answered the question he had not asked. “Too much of it to ignore.”

“Saying what?” Pitt felt a chill beginning to eat inside him in spite of the mild night.

“Gentleman,” Ewart replied. “Of a very well connected family.”

Pitt was not surprised. He had feared it would be something of the sort, pointless and destructive, something with which there was no graceful way to deal. He did not ask Ewart why he thought so. It would be better to see the evidence and make his own deductions.

There was a noise along the passageway, a creaking of footsteps, and another man appeared in the doorway. He was twenty years younger than Ewart, no more than thirty at the most. His skin was fresh, his hazel eyes wide, his face thin, aquiline. His features had been formed for humor and tenderness, but the marks of pain had scored them deeply already, and in the flickering light he was haggard. He brushed his hair back off his brow unconsciously and stared first at Ewart, then at Pitt. He carried a brown leather bag in his hand.

“Lennox. Surgeon,” Ewart explained.

“Good morning, sir,” Lennox said a little huskily, then cleared his throat and apologized.

There was no need. Pitt had little regard for a doctor who could look at violent death and feel no shock, no sense of outrage or loss.

He stood back a little so Lennox could see the body better.

“I’ve already examined her,” Lennox declined. “I was called at the same time as Inspector Ewart. I’ve just been with some of the other women in the building. They were a bit … upset.”

“What can you tell me?” Pitt asked.

Lennox cleared his throat again. He looked straight at Pitt, his eyes averted from the woman on the bed, even the spread of her hair and the bright rose on her arm. “She’s been dead several hours,” he answered. “I should say since about ten o’clock last night, not later than midnight. It’s cool in here now, but it must have been warmer then. The ashes in the fire still have a little heat in them, and it’s not really a cold night.”

“You’re very precise about ten o’clock.” Pitt was curious.

Lennox flushed. “Sorry. There was a witness who saw her come in.”

Pitt smiled, or perhaps it was more of a grimace. “And midnight?” he asked. “Another witness?”

“That was when she was found, sir.” Lennox shook his head minutely.

“What else can you tell me about her?” Pitt continued.

“I would guess she was in her mid-twenties, and in good health … so far.”

“Children?” Pitt asked.

“Yes … and …”

“What?”

Lennox’s face was tight with pain. “Her fingers and toes have been broken, sir. Three fingers on her left hand, two on her right. And three toes dislocated. Left foot.”

Pitt felt a shiver of ice inside him as if suddenly the temperature of the room had plummeted.

“Recently?” he asked, although he knew the answer. Had they been old wounds Lennox would not have mentioned them. He would probably not even have noticed them.

“Yes sir, almost certainly within the last few hours. Just before death, in fact. There’s hardly any swelling.”

“I see. Thank you.” Pitt turned back to the bed. He did not want to look at her face, but he knew he must. He must see what and who she had been, and what had been done to her here in this shabby, lonely room. It was his job to learn why and by whom.

She was handsomely built, of roughly average height. As far as he could tell her features had been regular, pleasing in their way. The bones under the puffy flesh were difficult to see, but the brow was good, the nose neat, the hairline gently curved. Her teeth were even and only just beginning to discolor. In another walk of life she might have been a married woman looking forward to a comfortable maturity, perhaps with three or four children and thinking of more.

“What is this evidence?” he asked, still looking down at her. Nothing he had seen so far suggested anything more than some man’s taste for pain and fear having gone too far.

“A badge from a gentleman’s private club,” Ewart answered, then stopped and drew in his breath. “With a name on it. And a pair of cuff links.”

Pitt swiveled around to look at him.

Lennox was watching, his eyes wide, almost mesmerized.

“What name?” Pitt’s voice fell into the silence.

Ewart put up his finger and eased his collar, his face white.

“Finlay FitzJames.”

Outside the constable’s footsteps creaked on the floorboards and river fog dripped beyond the dark windows. The weeping in the other room had started again, but fainter, muffled.

Pitt said nothing. He had heard the name. Augustus FitzJames was a man of considerable influence, a merchant banker with political ambitions, and a close friend of several noble families who had held high office. Finlay was his only son, a young diplomat rumored to be in line for an embassy in Europe in the not-too-distant future.

“And witnesses,” Ewart added, his eyes on Pitt’s face.

Pitt stared back at him. “To what?” he asked guardedly.

Ewart was obviously profoundly unhappy. His body was tense, his shoulders tight, his mouth dragged down at the corners.

“He was seen,” he answered. “Not by people who know him, of course, and the description could fit more than him. Ordinary enough. But it was obviously someone of position….” He seemed about to add something more, perhaps about gentlemen who frequented such places, then decided it did not matter. They both knew there were men bored with their wives, frightened of censure or commitment if they used women nearer their own class, or simply excited by the forbidden, the frisson of danger. Or there were a hundred other reasons why they might choose to purchase their pleasures in alleys and rooms like this.

“And the cuff links as well,” Lennox added from the doorway, his voice still husky. “Gold.” He laughed abruptly. “Hallmarked.”

Pitt looked slowly around the room, trying to imagine what had happened here only a few hours ago. The bed was rumpled, as though it had been used, but nothing was torn that he could see. There was a slight smear of blood close to the center, but it could have come from anyone, tonight or a week ago. He would ask Lennox, after he had examined it, if he thought it meant anything.

His gaze moved around the walls and the sparse furniture. Nothing else was disturbed. But unless a fight was very violent, and between people of something like equal weight or strength, it would hardly mark this ancient wallpaper or overturn the chair or the wooden washstand with its bowl and cracked and mended blue jug.

As if reading his thoughts, Ewart broke in.

“There’s nothing interesting in the wardrobe, just half a dozen dresses, petticoats and an outdoor cape. There are underclothes, two towels, and a clean pair of sheets and pillow covers in the chest. Chamber pot under the bed, and one black stocking. Daresay she dropped it some time ago and couldn’t see it in the dark. We wouldn’t have found it without two of us, and the bull’s-eye.”

“Where did you find the cuff links and the badge?” Pitt asked. “Not under the bed?”

Ewart pushed out his lip. “One cuff link, actually—at least the two halves for one sleeve. Behind the cushion in the chair.” He pointed towards it. “Jammed down between the seat and the upright. Suppose he took off his shirt and put it over the back, and maybe it got caught. Perhaps he sat on it or something. Left in a panic, and never thought of it until too late. Of course, there’s nothing to say it was left here last night….” He looked at Pitt, waiting for his answer.

“Possibly,” Pitt agreed. They both knew how unpleasant it would be if they had to pursue a man of FitzJames’s rank. It would be so much easier if it could be some ordinary man, someone local, with no defenders, no power behind him.

Yet the evidence was there and had to be followed, and it was Pitt who would have to do it. Ewart’s trying to evade the issue was understandable, but it was no real help.

“It proves someone was here with expensive tastes,” Pitt said wearily. “And the badge proves either that FitzJames was here himself, at some time, or someone who knew him was. Where did you find it? Was that down the chair as well?”

Suddenly Ewart’s urgency evaporated, leaving him sad and anxious, his face heavily lined, weariness in every crease. His dark eyes were almost black in the candlelight, puckered at the corners.

“On the bed,” he replied, his voice little more than a whisper. “Under the body.” There was no need to add that it could not have been there before. It was too wretchedly obvious.

Pitt put out his hand.

Ewart fished in his coat pocket and brought out a small, round piece of gold, enamel faced, a pin across the back of it. He dropped it into Pitt’s open palm.

Pitt turned it over, looking at it carefully. It was about half an inch across, the sort of thing a man might wear on his lapel. The enamel was gray, discreet, easily lost against the fabric of a suit. On it were written in gold two words, “Hellfire Club,” and the date “1881”—nine years ago. He turned it over towards the light. Even so it took him several moments before he could discern the very faint, hair-fine writing on the back, behind the bar of the pin—“Finlay FitzJames.” But once he read it there could be no argument.

He looked up at Ewart, then at Lennox, still standing just inside the doorway, his face white, drained of life and color, his eyes full of pain.

“Did you find it?” Pitt asked Ewart.

“Yes. The constable didn’t move her. He says he didn’t touch anything. He could see she was dead and he raised the alarm.”

“Why did he come in? What brought him here in the first place?” It might not matter, but he should ask. “Did he know her?”

“By sight,” Ewart replied with a shrug. “Her name’s Ada McKinley. Worked this area the last half dozen years or so. Constable Binns says he saw a man come running out in a panic and he stopped him. There could have been something wrong. Made him go back in, thinking he may have got mixed up in a scuffle, tried to cheat one of the girls, or something. Seems that he was a customer of one of the other girls, Rose Burke, and on his way out from her saw Ada’s door open, and being a nosy sort of bastard, took a look in. Hoping to catch someone in the act, I suppose. Anyway, saw more than he bargained for.” Ewart’s nose wrinkled in disgust. “Came running out as if the devil were after him. But he couldn’t have done it. He was with Rose till seconds before Constable Binns saw him. Rose’ll swear for that. She’s one of the witnesses who saw the man go in, whoever he was. We’ve got her waiting for you.”

“And the man?”

“Him too.” Ewart let out his breath in a little grunt. “Cross as two sticks, but still here. Swearing fit to turn the air blue. They’re all cross, for that matter. Bad for business.” He pulled a sour face.

“Isn’t it a bit late for business?” Pitt asked ruefully. “When did all this happen?”

“When Binns saw him come out.” Ewart’s eyes widened. “About midnight. I got here just after one. I took a look around, then as soon as I saw that badge I knew we were going to have to get you in, so I sent Constable Wardle for you. Sorry, but the way I see it, it’s going to get nasty whatever we do. No way out of it.” He took a deep breath. “Of course FitzJames may be able to give us a proper explanation, and then we can look elsewhere.”

“Maybe,” Pitt said doubtfully. “What about money? Do you know if anything was taken?”

Ewart’s face brightened. A light flickered for a moment in his eyes and he hesitated before he replied, considering as he spoke. “Her pimp? That would be a very much easier answer. I mean, easier to understand … to believe.” He stopped.

“So was there money?” Pitt pressed.

“There was a small leather purse in the linen box,” Ewart said reluctantly. “About three guineas in it.”

Pitt sighed, not that he had really hoped. “If she’d been keeping it from him, it wouldn’t be there now. First place he’d look,” he said sadly.

There was a shrill whistle from a kettle towards the back of the house, and someone swore.

“Perhaps they quarreled and he killed her before he searched.” Ewart’s voice was keen again. “He panicked and ran. It’d make more sense. Teach the other girls a lesson they’d not forget. More reason to kill her than a customer like FitzJames.”

“What about the boots?” Lennox asked from the doorway, his voice thick. “I could see him torturing her, but why would someone killing her for money fasten her boots together like that? Or put the garter ’round her arm?”

“God knows,” Ewart said impatiently. “Perhaps that was the client before he came? He knew she was salting away too much of what she earned, and he came as soon as he saw the customer leave. She had no time to undo the boots or take off the garter.”

“I can understand her not having time to undo the boots,” Lennox said with harsh sarcasm. “But did the customer go, leaving her tied to the bed by one hand, and she stayed like that while she argued with her pimp?”

“I don’t know!” Ewart said. “Maybe the pimp tied her up while he searched for money. He would do, to torture her.”

“And didn’t find it?” Lennox’s eyebrows rose.

“Maybe there was more, perhaps under the mattress or something? Anyway, why would a man like FitzJames kill a woman like that?” Ewart eyed the body in the bed with a strange mixture of pity and distaste.

“Probably for the same reason he used her in the first place,” Lennox said bitterly. He turned to Pitt. “I haven’t moved her. Do you need to see her any more, or can I at least cover her?”

“Cover her,” Pitt answered, seeing the urgency of distress in his face, and liking him so much more than he did Ewart, even though he understood Ewart’s feelings, his weariness, his familiarity with such scenes and lives and the people who lived them. If he had ever had romantic delusions about young women in the streets, they were long since destroyed by reality. He was not unfeeling. It was simply that for his own sanity he must limit his emotions. And more immediate than that, to do his job and be of any use, his brain must be clear, driven by thought, not emotion. Ada McKinley was beyond human help, but other women like her were not.

But Pitt still preferred Lennox’s vulnerability. It sprang from some kind of hope and a different sort of care.

Lennox shot him a look of gratitude, then came forward across the room. First he pulled down the dead woman’s skirt to cover her legs, then took the quilt from the bed and spread it over her, hiding her distorted face as well.

“Did you find anything else you haven’t mentioned yet?” Pitt asked Ewart.

“Do you want a list of her belongings?” Ewart said tartly.

“Not yet. I’ll see Constable Binns, then the other witnesses in order.”

“Here?” Ewart looked around, his eyes avoiding the bed.

“Is there anywhere else?”

“The other women’s rooms, that’s all.”

“I’ll see Binns here, and the women in their own rooms. I need some idea of the geography of the house.”

Ewart was satisfied. It was what he would have done.

Binns was about thirty, fair-haired, blunt-faced, still looking shaken and rubbing his hands. He was not used to standing motionless on guard. His feet were numb; Pitt knew from the careful, clumsy way he walked.

“Sir?” He stood facing Pitt, his eyes studiously away from the bed.

“Tell me what you saw,” Pitt directed.

Binns stood at attention. “Yessir. I were following me usual beat, which is Spittalfields, end o’ Whitechapel Road, up ter beginnin’ o’ Mile End Road, an’ north ter ’Anbury Street and back again.” He took a deep breath, still staring straight ahead. “I gets ter corner o’ Old Montague Street and sees this feller come boltin’ out o’ the entrance o’ Pentecost Alley lookin’ like ’e’d seen a ghost or summink. ’E were abaht ter scarper orff westwards, towards Brick Lane way, but I reckoned as there must be summink wrong or ’e’d ’a’ walked normal, instead o’ keep dartin’ a look over ’is shoulder like ’e were afraid someone was arter ’im.” He swallowed. “So I nabbed ’im sharp by the back o’ ’is collar and brought ’im up short. ’E squealed like the devil ’ad ’im. So then I knew ’e’d like seen summink bad. ’E were scared witless.”

Pitt nodded in commendation. Neither Ewart nor Lennox moved, standing back in the shadows, listening.

“I made ’im go back,” Binns continued, moving a little to ease his cramped feet as the circulation returned. “I thought it’d be one o’ these rooms up ’ere. Other side’s a sweatshop. ’E could ’a’ nicked summink, but ’e didn’t ’ave nuffink with ’im, so I came in ’ere.” His eyes wandered momentarily, but ignored Ewart and Lennox as if he did not see them. “This is the first room. The door were ’alf open, so I come in.” His voice dropped almost to a whisper and he glanced at the bed. “Poor little cow. I knew straight orff as she were dead, so I didn’t touch nuffink. I shut the door an’ took ’im wif me, and raised the alarm wif me whistle. Seemed like ferever till someone ’eard me, but I s’pose it weren’t no more’n five minutes. P.C. Rogers were passing along Wentworth Street, an’ ’e come runnin’. I sent ’im for Mr. Ewart.”

“What time was that?” Pitt asked.

Binns flushed. “I dunno, sir. First I were too busy ’oldin’ the witness ter take out me watch, and then w’en I saw ’er I never thought ter. I know that’s right unprofessional, but I knew ’er, y’see, an’ it fair shook me.”

“What can you tell me about her?” Pitt asked, watching the man’s face.

He shifted his weight, but still remained at attention.

“Bin ’ere six year, or thereabouts. Dunno w’ere she come from. Pinner way, I think. Country, any’ow. Miles from ’ere. Pretty she were, then. All roses and cream.” He shook his head, his face crumpled. “Said she were a parlor maid in one o’ them big ’ouses up Belgravia way. Lorst ’er character.” He said it almost expressionlessly, as if it were an old tragedy, too familiar to arouse anger anymore. “Butler got ’er inter trouble. She told the lady o’ the ’ouse, an’ they kept the butler an’ sent ’er packin’. Child come early. Didn’t live, poor little beggar. Though that could ’a’ bin fer the best.” His face pinched and his eyes looked far away. “Death is better than the work’ouse, or some o’ them baby farms. So she took ter the streets. Smart, she were, an’ I guess she were bored and angry too.” The gentleness ironed out of his features. His face set. “She’d ’a’ liked ter’ve got even wi’ that butler.”

Pitt had no doubt that if she had, Binns for one would have been blind that moment. As a constable, Pitt might have too. Now he could not afford such a luxury.

“Maybe she tried blackmail on the butler?” Ewart spoke for the first time and there was a lift in his voice. “And he killed her?”

“Why?” Lennox said slowly. “His employer already knew her story and didn’t care.”

“It’s irrelevant,” Pitt cut across them. “No one would have taken her word against his. Not now.” In a sentence he had reduced her to what she was, and he knew it. The only reason he had been called to her murder was because of Finlay FitzJames’s name on the badge. Some men in Ewart’s position would have suppressed it and gone through the motions of searching for her killer, then simply marked the case unsolved and left it. Perhaps if Lennox had not been there he would have. But Lennox had seen him find the badge under the body, and he would not have remained silent. There was no discretion in his face, no cynicism, only an aching, worn-out hurt.

There was silence in the rest of the house, but the sound of the first traffic could be heard in the street outside, and the smear of dawn paled a little beyond the windows.

Pitt turned to Binns. “Is that all?”

“Yessir. I waited till Mr. Ewart come, then I told ’im what I saw an’ done, an’ ’anded it over to ’im. That were a little arter one o’clock.”

“Thank you. You acted well.”

“Thank you, sir.” He turned to leave with straighter shoulders, his head high, his feet still numb.

“We’d better see the witness.” Pitt nodded to Ewart. “In here.”

A few moments later another constable escorted in a lean, narrow-shouldered man with a brown jacket and dark trousers concertinaed over his boots, hand-me-downs from someone taller. His face was gray-white and twitching with fear. Whatever the pleasure he had purchased that night, it had been at a price he would never willingly have paid.

“What’s your name?” Pitt asked him.

“Ob-badiah S-Skeggs,” he stuttered, his face twitching. “I never touched ’er. I swear to Gawd I never did!” His voice was rising in what he intended to be sincerity, and was all too obviously terror. “Ask Rosie!” He gestured to where he imagined Rosie was. “She’ll tell yer. Honest, Rosie is. She’d never lie fer me. She don’t know me from nuffink.” He looked at Pitt, then at Ewart. “I swear.”

Pitt smiled in spite of himself. “Rosie doesn’t know you?”

“No.”

“Then how do you know her?”

“I don’t! I mean …” He saw the trap, but he had already stepped into it. He breathed in and tried to swallow, choking himself.

“You don’t have to make up your mind,” Pitt said dryly. “I’ll ask Rosie anyway. She’ll no doubt know whether you’re a regular or not.”

“She wouldn’t lie fer me,” Skeggs said desperately, gasping between splutters. “She don’t even like me.”

“No, I don’t suppose she does,” Pitt agreed. “Do you know what time you got here?”

“No.” He was not going to risk any more traps. “No. I were leavin’ w’en that rozzer nabbed me. An’ that were unjust, it were. I never done nuffink as is agin’ the law.” He became plaintive. “A man’s allowed a little pleasure. An’ I always paid fair. Rosie’ll tell yer that.”

“How would she know?” Pitt raised his eyebrows.

Skeggs’s face tightened venomously.

“You thought you’d entertain yourself a little more,” Pitt continued. “So when you saw Ada’s door open, you peeped ’round. Only instead of finding her fornicating with a customer, you saw her lying dead, sprawled over the bed, tied to it, her stocking wound ’round her throat and the garter on her arm.”

Skeggs let out an agonized blasphemy.

“And you fled, when Constable Binns caught you,” Pitt finished.

“I were going ter raise the alarm,” Skeggs protested, glaring at Pitt, and then at Ewart, as if to bear out his story. “Call the p’lice, like I should! Fast as me legs’d carry me. That’s why I were runnin’!”

“So why didn’t you tell Constable Binns about Ada?” Pitt enquired.

Skeggs looked at him with murder in his eyes.

“Did you see anyone else?” Pitt went on.

Outside the light was broadening. There was more noise in the street. People coming and going, calling to each other. The sweatshop opposite was opening up.

“Yer mean like ’im wot done it?” Skeggs demanded indignantly. “Course I didn’t, or I’d ’a’ told yer. Fink I’d stand ’ere bein’ suspected if I knew ’oo’d really done it? Wot yer fink I am, stupid?”

Pitt forbore from answering, but Skeggs read the silence as affirmative and bristled with offense. He followed the constable out, glancing over his shoulder still searching for something cutting to say.

Pitt saw Rose Burke in her own room, two doors farther along. It was a different shape, and perhaps a foot or two wider, but essentially similar. A large bed occupied most of the space, also rumpled and obviously lately used. The sheets had a gray look down the center and were heavily creased. There was a stale smell of sweat and body dirt. Apparently Skeggs had had his money’s worth, at least up to that point.

Lennox looked ashen-faced. There was no need for him to have followed, and Pitt wondered why he had. Perhaps he thought Rose might need him.

But Rose was of sterner stuff. She was broad-shouldered, handsome-bosomed, of no more than average height. Her hair was dark brown but had been bleached in a paler streak across the front. It was startlingly becoming. In fact she was a beautiful woman, even if her skin had coarsened from its youthful duskiness and her teeth were already going. She might have been anything between twenty-five and forty.

She was too composed to offer any remark before she was asked. She stood in the middle of the room ignoring Lennox and looking at Pitt, waiting, arms folded, only a slightly rapid rise and fall of her chest betraying that she was under any stress at all. Pitt did not know if it was indifference to Ada’s fate or courage. He thought perhaps at least some of the latter.

“Rose Burke?”

“Yeah?” Her chin lifted.

“Tell me about your evening from eight o’clock onwards,” Pitt commanded, then as her face lit with a contemptuous smile, “I’m not interested in doing you for prostitution. I’m after who killed Ada. He’s been here once. If we don’t get him, he could come again. You might be next.”

“Jeez.” She sucked in her breath, respect and loathing bright in her eyes.

“Do you want me to tell you it never happens?” he asked more gently. “It’s not true. He broke her fingers and toes, then he strangled her with her own stocking, like a hangman’s noose.” He did not mention the garter or the boots. Better to leave something unspecified. “You think he’ll do it just the once?”

Lennox winced and seemed about to say something, then changed his mind and silently went out, pushing the door closed behind him.

Rose breathed the Lord’s name in what might even have been a prayer, because almost as if she did not register what she was doing, she crossed herself. Now the blood was gone from her face, leaving the rouge garish, though it was skillfully applied.

Pitt waited.

She began slowly. “I ’ad someone at ten. D’jer ’ave ter ’ave ’is name? S’bad fer business.”

“Yes.”

She hesitated only a moment. “Chas Newton. ’E were ’ere till near eleven.”

“Generous, aren’t you?” Pitt said dubiously. “A whole hour? Is business slow lately?”

“ ’E paid double!” she snapped, her pride stung.

He could believe it. She was a handsome woman and there was an air of knowingness about her, as if little in the way of tastes or skills would be outside her capacity.

“And when he’d gone?” he prompted.

“I dressed an’ went out, o’ course,” she said tartly. “Wot jer think I was gonna do? Go ter sleep? I went down ter the alley an’ was turnin’ ter go between the ’ouses ter Whitechapel Road, an’ I saw this geezer comin’ in on the other side—”

“The other end?” Pitt interrupted. “You mean Old Montague Street?”

“No, I mean the other side o’ Ol’ Montague Street,” she said impatiently. “Could ’a’ bin Springheel Jack or Farver Christmas from all I saw, if it’d bin the end o’ the alley, w’ere I were. There i’nt no lamp there. Don’t yer notice nuffink?”

“You saw him pass under the lamp?” Pitt’s voice quickened in spite of himself.

“Yeah.” She was still standing in the middle of the room with arms folded.

“Describe him,” Pitt directed.

“Taller ’n me. Less ’n you. Bit more ’n usual, mebbe. Well built. Kind o’ young.”

“Twenty? Thirty?” Pitt said quickly.

“Not that young! Thirty. In’t easy ter tell wi’ a toff. Life in’t so ’ard fer them. Live soft, live longer.”

“How was he dressed?” He must not put words into her mind.

She considered for a moment.

“Decent coat. Must ’a’ cost a quid or two. No ’at, though, ’cos I saw the light in ’is ’air. Fair, it looked, an’ thick. Wavy. Wish my ’air waved like that.” She shrugged. “Wouldn’t want ’is face, though. Sort o’ mean. Summink abaht ’is mouf. Good enough nose. Like a good nose on a man.” She looked at Pitt speculatively, then changed her mind. Physical relationships were a matter of business for her. There was no pleasure in them.

“Ever seen him before?” he asked, ignoring the glance.

“Can’t say.”

“Why not?”

“ ’Cos I dunno, o’ course!” she snapped, her face pinched, fear and sorrow struggling with each other. “If I knew ’oo’d ’a’ killed Ada, I’d tell yer. Be there ter watch yer string the bastard up. ’Elp yer, fer that. Poor little cow. She were a greedy bitch, and thought ’erself a bit above some o’ us, but she din’t deserve that.”

“You don’t know if you’ve seen him before,” he challenged.

“In the dark all cats are gray.” She made a gesture of disdain. “I’nt you never ’eard that before? I don’t look at men’s faces, only the money. But ’e don’t jog me mem’ry none. I don’t think as I’ve seen ’im. Sure as ’ell’s on fire, I don’t know ’is name, or I’d tell yer.”

“Hell’s on fire.” He repeated the words carefully. “What makes you say that?”

“ ’Cos it’s abaht the one thing as I’m sure of,” she retorted, looking him up and down. “Wot jer spec’ me to say? Sure as ’eaven’s sweet? I wouldn’t know.” She looked away from him at the tawdry, overfamiliar room. “Don’t believe in it. In’t fer me, fer Ada, if it was. Ask the preachers. They’ll soon tell yer, women like me is gonna burn in ’ell fer corruptin’ an’ leadin’ astray the likes o’ gentlemen!” She gave an oath so coarse even Pitt was jolted by hearing it from her still-beautiful mouth.

“Have you ever heard of the Hellfire Club?” he asked.

Amusement flashed across her face. “No, wot’s that? Them as is gonner burn—or them as is gonner stoke? Believe me, that sod’s gonner burn, if I ’ave ter carry the coals meself—gentleman or no.”

“Was he a gentleman?” he asked after a moment’s hesitation.

Her eyes met his squarely. “Looked like it. ’E weren’t ’ard up. An’ as sure as ’ell’s on fire, mister, ’e come just about the time poor Ada were croaked. I were along the Whitechapel Road fer ’alf an hour, an’ I didn’t see no one else go past, till I got another gent meself an’ come in again.”

“You didn’t see the other end,” Pitt pointed out.

“In’t my pitch,” she said reasonably. “Ask Nan about that.”

“You said Ada was greedy,” Pitt prompted. “Did she take from you?”

“I never said she stole.” Rose was annoyed again. Her eyes were sharp and bright. “I said she were greedy. Always wanted more. Always thinkin’ o’ ways to get a bigger cut, not jus’ for ’erself, but for us too. I never knew nobody so angry. Ate ’er up at times.”

“Did she say who with?”

She shrugged and her lip curled.

“Lousy butler wot took ’er character, I s’pose. Then lied abaht it. Dunno what she expected! Bit green, she were.” Her face pinched and the sorrow returned. “Poor little cow.”

There was a bang outside and a clatter of hooves. Someone shouted. There were footsteps in the corridor and a door slammed somewhere upstairs, the vibrations shivering through the room.

“Did she ever mention this butler’s name?” Pitt asked.

Her eyes widened. “You reckon it was ’im as did ’er? Why would ’e? She couldn’t do nuffink to ’im. Safe as Big Ben ’e were. Still is.”

“No, I didn’t think so,” he conceded. “What time did you see this man?”

“Dunno. Ten p’raps.”

“Then what?”

She was uninterested.

“I got another couple o’ jobs, nuffin’ special. ’Alf hour each, mebbe. The next were Skeggs, sorry little bastard that ’e is. Takes ’im an hour to get ’isself goin’. Likes ter look at other people.” Her voice was thick with disgust. “ ’E left me and went snoopin’ on Ada ter see if ’e could catch some other stupid sod wif ’is pants orff makin’ a fool of ’isself, and maybe doin’ it good.” She put her hands on her hips. “ ’Oo knows? Anyway the little swine got more’n ’e bargained for. Saw Ada dead, an’ damn near wet ’isself!”

“Time?”

“I know that ’cos this time I looked. I were ’ungry, and reckoned as I’d done well enough as I could get summink decent ter eat. I were goin’ down ter the pie stand on the corner o’ Chicksand Street, till the rozzer come back and all the row started. ’Ad ter stay ’ome, and I’m fair starvin’ now.”

Pitt said nothing.

She stared at him with sudden anger.

“Think I’m an ’eartless bitch, don’cher?” she demanded, her voice hard, full of resentment. “Well, I felt sick as you at first, but that’s two hours ago, or like, an’ I ain’t eaten proper since yest’day. Death comes often ’ere, not like up west w’ere it’s all soft an’ folk die easy. An’ that doc were real fair. ’E told me as she probably din’t feel much fer long. Made Nan put on a kettle and get us all a cup o’ tea. An’ ’e laced it wif a drop o’ brandy. Never known a bloke be so …” She was lost for a word. She had no term of praise to convey what she meant, the sudden warmth, the feeling that for a moment her emotions and her grief had been truly more important to him than his own. It eased the bitterness out of her face, till Pitt could see the woman she might have been had time and circumstance been different.

Nan Sullivan was at least ten years older than Rose, and long hours and too many bottles of gin had blurred her features and dulled her hair and eyes. But there was still a softness in her, some spark of memory left a gentleness behind it, and when she spoke there was an echo of the west of Ireland in her voice. She sat on her bed, frowsy, tearstained and too tired to care.

“Sure I was at the other end o’ the alley,” she agreed, looking at Pitt without interest. “Took me a while to find anyone. I had to walk along to Brick Lane.” It was obviously a defeat she no longer bothered to hide. “I got back just as Ada come indoors.”

“So you saw the man who went in?” Pitt said eagerly.

“Sure I did. Least I saw the back of his head, and his coat.” She sighed and the ghost of a smile touched her mouth. “Lovely coat it was. Good gabardine. I know good gabardine when I see it. Used to work in a sweatshop. Master o’ that had a coat o’ gabardine. His was brown, as I recall, but it sat on the shoulder the same way. Neat and sharp it was, no rumples, no folds where there shouldn’t be.”

“What color was this one?” He was sitting in the one chair, about a yard away from her. This room opened onto the midden, and he could not hear the sounds of the street.

“This one?” She thought for a moment, her eyes far away. “Blue. Or mebbe black. Wasn’t brown.”

“Anything about the collar?”

“Sat fine. Sort o’ curve you don’t get in a cheap coat.”

“Not fur, or velvet?” he asked. “Or lambskin?”

She shook her head.

“No, just wool. Can’t see the cut with fur.”

“What about his hair?”

“Thick.” Unconsciously she brushed her fingers through her own hair, thinning with time and abuse. “An’ fair,” she added. “Saw the light on it from the candles in Ada’s room. Poor little bitch.” Her voice dropped. “Nobody should have done that to her.”

“Did you like her?” he asked suddenly.

She was surprised. She had to think for a moment. “I s’pose I did. She brought trouble, but she made me laugh. An’ I had to admire her fight.”

Pitt felt a moment’s irrational hope.

“Who did she fight with?”

“She went up west sometimes. Had nerve, I’ll say that for her. Didn’t often sell herself short.”

“So who did she fight with, Nan?”

She gave a sharp, jerky little laugh.

“Oh, Fat George’s girls, up near the Park. That’s their patch. If it had bin a knife in her, I’d ’ave said Wee Georgie’d done it. But he’d never have strangled her, or done it in her own room either. He’d have done it in the street and left her there. Besides, I know Fat George when I see him, and Wee Georgie.”

That was unarguable. Pitt knew them both too. Fat George was a mountain of a man, unmistakable for anyone else, let alone Finlay FitzJames. And Wee Georgie was a dwarf. Added to which, whatever the trespass into their territory, they would have beaten her, or crippled her, or even disfigured her face, but they would not have brought down the police upon themselves by killing her. It would be bad for business.

“You saw this man going into Ada’s room?” Pitt returned to the subject.

“Yes.”

He frowned. “You mean she opened the door for him. She didn’t take him in? She didn’t bring him from the street?”

Her eyes widened. “No! No, she didn’t, come to think on it. He must have come here on his own—sort of reg’lar, or like that.”

“Do you get many regulars?” Then he saw instantly from her face how tactless the question was. Ada might have, but she did not.

A flicker of understanding crossed her features, and knowledge of all the nuances of failure and his perception of what it meant, and his momentary regret.

She forced herself to smile, made it almost real. “Not reg’lar, like calling. See the same faces, but nobody makes appointments. Might come on the chance, sure enough. Ada was popular.” Her face crumpled, her shoulders sagged, and suddenly her eyes filled with tears. “She was quick with her tongue, poor little beggar, and she could make you laugh.” She took a deep, shaky breath. “And people like to laugh.” She looked at Pitt. “She gave me a pair of boots once. We had the same size feet. They had a real pretty heel. She’d done better than me that week, and it was me birthday.” The tears spilled over her cheeks and ran down the paint on them, but she did not contort her face. There was a strange kind of dignity in her, a genuineness of grief which made nothing of the shabby room with its unmade dirty bed, the garish clothes, the smell of the midden coming up from the yard, even her weary body, too often used, too little loved.

All Pitt could offer was to lend Ada McKinley the same worth.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly and without thinking, placing his hand for a moment over hers. “I’ll do everything I can to find who did this to her, and I’ll make him answer, whoever he is.”

“Will you?” she asked, swallowing awkwardly. “Even if he’s a gent?”

“Even if he’s a gent,” Pitt promised.

He went through the same questions with the third woman in the house, whose room was next to Ada’s. Her name was Agnes Salter. She was young and plain with a long nose and wide mouth, but there was a vitality to her which would probably serve her well enough for at least another ten years. With the bloom gone from her skin and the firmness from her body, she might find it much harder to make her way. Most probably she was as aware of that as he.

“ ’Course I knew Ada,” she said matter-of-factly. She sat straight in a hard-backed chair, her skirts hitched up almost to her knees. Her legs were excellent, her best feature. No doubt she knew that too. She was not regarding Pitt as a man. He could see in the total disinterest in her expression that it was merely habit, and possibly quite comfortable. “Bit cocky, but not bad,” she went on, referring to Ada. “Willin’ ter share. Lent me a garter once.” She smiled. “Knew I ’ad better legs ’n ’er. Not that ’ers were bad, mind. But money’s money. I did well wi’ that. Some geezers get ’igh on garters. Guess fancy ladies don’t wear ’em. All whalebone stays and cotton drawers.”

Pitt did not comment. It was now daylight outside and there was traffic on the street beyond the alley and the sweatshop opposite was hard at work.

“Can’t tell yer nuffink,” Agnes went on. “Don’t know nuffink. I’d see the bastard quartered if I could. There’s risks—and there’s risks.” Her fingers were clenched, knuckles white, belying her studied casual air. “Yer ’spect ter get beat up now’n again. It’s part o’ life. An’ mebbe the odd cuttin’, which can go too far if yer man’s had a skinful. But this in’t right, poor sow. She never asked fer this.” She pushed out her large lower lip and her face was filled with anger. “Not that I s’pose any o’ you lot give a toss. Just another tart got done. There’s more’n enough tarts in London anyway. Mebbe it’s some ’oly Joe cleanin’ up the place?” She gave a laugh, a little high and sharp, and Pitt heard the fear in it.

“I doubt it,” he said sincerely, although it was a possibility he had not thought of in this instance. It should not be ruled out.

“Oh yeah?” She was curious. “Why not? Ada were a tart, just like the rest of us.”

He did not quibble the use of words. He answered honestly.

“There are evidences which suggest it could have been a man of wealth, and possibly position. She didn’t bring him up. According to Nan, he came here and Ada let him in. Sounds as if he’d been here before.”

“Yeah?” She was surprised, and at least to some degree comforted. “Mebbe ’e were someone as she knew?”

“Who did she know?”

She considered for a while. Pitt had asked only out of diligence. He still believed it would prove to be Finlay FitzJames. There was no other likely explanation for the Hellfire Club badge under the body.

“Someone as’d kill ’er?” she said thoughtfully. “I s’pose anyone ’oo quarreled wiv ’er. I’d ’a’ said some other tart as she pinched a customer from, ’cept she’d ’a’ fought and there’d ’a’ bin one ’ell of a row, an’ I never ’eard nuffink. Anyway …” She shrugged. “Yer might scratch someone’s eyes aht. Or, if yer was real vicious, take a knife ter their faces ter mark ’em, but yer’d do it in the street, wouldn’t yer? Yer’d ’ave ter bin a real mad bitch ter foller ’em ’ome an’ do it cold, like. An’ Ada weren’t that bad.”

“That bad?” he asked. “But she did take other people’s customers?”

Agnes laughed sharply. “Yeah! Course she did. ’Oo wouldn’t? She were pretty, an’ smart. She ’ad a quick tongue, made ’em laugh. Some toffs like ter laugh. Makes ’em feel less like they’re in the gutter. Feel like it’s a real woman. Them as can’t laugh wiv their la-di-da wives ’oo are all corsets and starch.” She lifted her lip in a sneer which still had a remnant of pity in it. “Poor cows prob’ly never ’ad a decent laugh in their lives. Ain’t ladylike ter laugh.”

He said nothing. A dozen images crowded through his mind, but she would understand few of them, and it would serve no purpose trying to explain to her.

In the house, somewhere above them, a door slammed and feet rattled down the stairs. Someone shouted.

“And o’ course there’s them as likes the gutter,” Agnes went on, frowning. “Like pigs in muck. Somethink in it excites ’em.” The contempt was thick in her voice. “Jeez! If I din’t need their bleedin’ money, I’d stick the bastards meself.”

Pitt did not doubt it. But it led him nowhere nearer to who had killed Ada McKinley without a fight. There was no blood in the room, and her body was hardly marked, except for the coldly, deliberately broken fingers and toes. There were no scratches, no bruising such as would have been caused by a drawn-out fight. One fingernail on her right hand had been torn, that was all.

“Who did she know that would have called on her here?” he repeated.

“I dunno. Tommy Letts, mebbe. ’E’d come ’ere. Or ’e would ’ave. She don’t work for ’im no more. Got someone better, she said. Bragged about it, jammy bitch.”

“Could the man you saw have been Letts?”

“Nah!” She swung her feet. “ ’E’s a dirty little weasel, black ’air like rats’ tails, an’ abaht my size. This geezer were tall, an’ thick ’air, wavy, all clean like a gent. An’ Tommy never ’ad a coat like that, even if ’e stole it.”

“You saw him?” Pitt was surprised.

“Nah, I never did. But Rose did. An’ Nan. Taken bad, Nan were. Soft cow. That doc were good to ’er. For a rozzer ’e were ’alf ’uman.” She pulled a face. “Young o’ course. ’E’ll change.”

There was little more to learn. He pressed her about having heard anything, but she had been busy with her own clients, and the fact that she claimed to have noticed no sounds at all was only indicative that there had been no screams or crashes of knocked-over furniture. Pitt had already assumed as much from the nature of the death and the comparative order of the room. Whoever had killed Ada McKinley had taken her by surprise, and it had been quick. It had been someone she had trusted.

Pitt left Agnes and went back to the corridor outside, where Ewart was waiting for him. Ewart glanced at him and saw from his expression that there was no escape, no new knowledge to free them from the necessity of going to Finlay FitzJames. A glimmer of hope faded from his black eyes and he looked smaller, somehow narrower, although he was a solid man.

Pitt shook his head fractionally.

Ewart sighed. The air blew up the stairs from the open door out to the alley. Lennox waited at the bottom in the shadows, his face lit yellowly by the constable’s bull’s-eye lantern.

“FitzJames?” he said aloud, a curious lift in his voice.

Ewart winced, as if he had caught an eagerness in it. His teeth ground together. He seemed on the edge of saying something, then changed his mind and let his breath out in a sigh.

“I’m afraid so,” Pitt answered. “I’ll see him at breakfast. There’ll just be time to go home and wash and shave, and eat something myself. You’d better do the same. I shan’t need you for several hours, at least.”

“Yes sir,” Ewart agreed, although there was no relief in his voice. The time was put off, not removed.

Lennox stared up at Pitt, his eyes wide, shadows on his face in the darkness, unreadable, but there was a tension in his thin body under the loose jacket, and Pitt had a momentary vision of a runner about to move. He understood. His own anger was intense, like a white-hot coal somewhere deep inside him.

He left Ewart to post a constable in Pentecost Alley. The room had no lock, and it would have been futile to trust to that anyway. There were enough picklocks within a hundred yards of the place to make such a gesture useless. Not that there was much evidence to destroy, but the body would have to be removed in a mortuary wagon, and Lennox would have the grim duty of a closer examination. It would be very unlikely to produce anything helpful, but it must be done.

He wondered as he rode home through the early-morning streets—hectic with traffic, drays, market carts, even a herd of sheep—whether Ada McKinley had any relatives to receive the news that she was dead, anyone who would grieve. She would almost certainly have a pauper’s grave. In his own mind the decision was already made that he would go to whatever form of funeral she was given, even if it was simply an interment.

He rode west through Spittalfields and St. Luke’s, skirting Holborn. It was quarter past seven.

Bloomsbury was stirring. Areaways were busy with bootboys and scullery maids. Smoke trickled from chimneys up into the still air. Housemaids were starting the fires in breakfast rooms ready for the day.

When he reached his own house in Keppel Street, and paid off the cabby, there was a streak of blue sky eastwards over the City, and the breeze was stirring. Perhaps it would blow the clouds away.

The front door was already unlocked, and as soon as he was inside and had hung up his coat, he smelled the warmth and the odor of cooking. There was a scamper of feet and Jemima arrived at the kitchen door.

“Papa!” she shouted happily, and started towards him at a run. She was eight years old now and quite conscious of her own dignity and importance, but not too ladylike to love to be hugged or to show off. She was dressed in a blue underfrock with a crisp white pinafore over it and new boots. Her hair, dark brown and curly, like Pitt’s, was tied back neatly and she looked scrubbed and ready for school.

He held out his arms and she ran into them, her feet clattering with amazing noise for one so slim and light. He was still mildly startled by how loud children’s feet were.

He hugged her and picked her up quickly. She smelled of soap and fresh cotton. He refused to think of Ada McKinley.

“Is your mother in the kitchen?” he asked, putting her down again.

“ ’Course,” she replied. “Daniel lost his stockings, so we’re late, but Gracie’s making breakfast. Are you hungry? I am.”

He opened his mouth to tell her she should not repeat tales, but she was already leading him towards the kitchen, and the moment was gone.

The whole room was warm and full of the smells of bacon and new bread, scrubbed wood and steam from the kettle beginning to sing on the stove. Their maid, Gracie, was standing on tiptoe to reach the tea caddy, which Charlotte must inadvertently have put on the middle shelf of the dresser. Gracie was nearly twenty now, but had not grown appreciably since they had acquired her as a waif of thirteen. All her dresses still had to be taken up at the bottom, and usually lifted at the shoulders and tucked at the waist as well.

She made a final jump and succeeded only in pushing it to the back of the shelf.

Pitt walked over and picked it up.

“Fank you, sir,” she said almost abruptly. She had immense respect for Pitt, and it grew with each new case; and she was perfectly used to being helped in such manner, but the kitchen was her domain, not his. One must keep an order in things.

Charlotte came in with a smile, her eyes bright to see him but also searching. They had been married too long and too closely for him to be able to hide from her the nature of the call he had received or how it had affected him. The details he could and would refuse her.

She looked at him carefully, his tired eyes, his unshaven cheeks, the sadness in the lines around his mouth.

“Can you eat?” she asked gently. “You should.”

He knew he should.

“Yes, a little.”

“Porridge?”

“Yes, please.” He sat down on one of the smooth, hard-backed chairs. Jemima carried the milk jug over from the larder, carefully, using both hands. It was blue-and-white-striped, and the word milk was written on it in block letters.

The door burst open and six-year-old Daniel came in, waving his socks triumphantly.

“I’ve got them!” He saw Pitt with delight. Too often he was already up and gone before the children came for breakfast. “Papa! What’s happened? Aren’t you going to work today?” He looked at his mother accusingly. “Is it a holiday? You said I have to go to school!”

“You do,” Pitt said quickly. “I’ve already been to work. I’ve only come back for breakfast because it’s too early to call on the people I have to see. Now put your socks and boots on, and then sit down and let Gracie bring your porridge.”

Daniel sat on the floor and pulled on his socks, then considered his boots carefully before deciding which one went on which foot. Finally he climbed onto his chair, still regarding his father. “Who are you going to see?”

Charlotte was looking at him too, waiting.

“A man called FitzJames,” Pitt answered them both. “He has his breakfast later.”

“Why?” Daniel said curiously.

Pitt smiled. Half of Daniel’s conversation consisted of whys.

“I’ll ask him,” Pitt promised.

A marmalade-striped kitten came running in from the scullery, then stopped suddenly, its back arched, and took half a dozen steps crabwise, its tail bristling. A coal-black kitten charged in after it and there were squawks and squeals as they tumbled with each other, spitting and scratching harmlessly, to the children’s entertainment. Porridge was ignored, and no one argued.

Pitt sat back as Jemima disappeared under the table to watch, and Daniel pushed his chair back so he could see too. It was all immensely comfortable, trivial and a different world from Pentecost Alley, and the people who lived and died there.