by Mike Crowson
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Lucy did not usually talk about the specifics of her job to Julia, but she had already talked about Alice Dent and Ellen Barnes because of the similarity between their relationship and her own and Julia's. Now she told Julia of Rosie O'Connor, doing no more than thinking out loud.
"You don't think she did it, do you?" Julia remarked.
"This bloke had led her a dance," Lucy said, "got her hooked on heroin, lost her a job and then tossed her aside. Here she was, still breaking the law for him after all that. He takes the stuff and gives her the brush off. It would have been easy to omit to tell him the stuff was purer than usual and let him give himself an overdose." She paused and thought about it, then added, "Funny though, I don't feel she did that and we'd never prove it anyway, even if she did."
"If she didn't forget on purpose to warn this nasty little get," Julia remarked, "Who gave him the overdose?"
"That's the problem. Either, one: Rosie didn't tell him. Two: he forgot the warning and it was an accidental death. Three: he did it on purpose, which is suicide, or four: some one swapped doses and murdered him. It's going to be the very devil to prove which."