Pentecost Alley tp-16

by Anne Perry

  “What’s the area like?” Emily asked with interest.

  “S’all right,” Madge replied, taking a good swig of her scalding tea and sucking her teeth appreciatively. “That’s very civil of you,” she added, nodding her head towards the whiskey bottle. “Can make a fair livin’ if yer prepared ter work for it.”

  “Ada did well, didn’t she?” Emily continued. “She was bright.”

  “An’ good at it,” Madge agreed, taking another slurp.

  “Hope they catch that bastard who killed her,” Emily said fiercely.

  Madge breathed out a long sigh.

  “And poor Nora,” Charlotte put in with a shiver. “Did you know Nora?”

  “Did you?” Madge asked, looking at her narrowly.

  “No. What was she like?”

  “Pretty. Little, sort o’ skinny for some tastes.”

  Considering Madge’s twenty stone that remark was open to personal interpretation. Charlotte felt a momentary desire to giggle, and controlled it only with an effort.

  “But good at it?” she asked, hiccuping.

  “Oh yes!” Madge agreed. “Though some says as she were gonner quit and get married.”

  “Do you think that’s true?” Tallulah spoke for the first time, her voice hesitant, high in the back of her throat.

  “Mebbe.” Madge stopped. “Saw ’er around wi’ Johnny Voss. ’E weren’t bad orff. Could ’a’ married ’er, I s’pose. Although ’e were said ter be keen on Ella Baker, over in Myrdle Street. Mebbe ’e switched ter Nora. Edie said she seen Nora kiss ’im good-night abaht a couple a’ weeks ago.”

  “I’ve kissed people good-night,” Tallulah said in response. “That didn’t mean they were going to marry me.”

  “Did you now.” Madge looked at her more closely. “ ’Ow long yer bin in the trade, duck? Yer wanna watch yerself. This in’t no place for beginners!”

  “I’m … I’m not a beginner,” Tallulah said defensively, then stopped with a little squeak of pain as Emily kicked her under the table.

  “If yer kissin’ people, y’are.” Madge stated it as an unarguable fact. “Kissin’ is fer family, people as yer care abaht. Customers get wot they paid fer, nothin’ more. Yer gotta keep summink as is real, summink as is yer own an’ can’t be bought.”

  Tallulah stared at her, two bright specks of color in her cheeks.

  “Yer need someone ter look aht fer yer, teach yer ’ow ter be’ave,” Madge said gently. “Take the room, an’ I’ll teach yer.”

  Tallulah was speechless. The thoughts racing through her mind could only be guessed at.

  “Thank you,” Charlotte said quickly. “That’s very kind of you. That might be a very good idea. We could always look elsewhere. There must be other places in the neighborhood. I suppose poor Nora’s room is to let now?”

  “I in’t ’eard,” Madge replied. “But yer could ask. If it’s gorn, yer could go an’ ask Ma Baines over on Chicksand Street. She’s usually got summink free. In’t the best, but yer could take it, and then w’en summink better comes up, yer’d be placed ter move on, like. She in’t bin ’ere all that long, but I ’eard say she in’t bad. Gotta get all yer own clothes. Got yer own, ’ave yer?”

  “M-my own clothes?” Tallulah stammered.

  “Yeah. Lor’, you are the beginner, in’t yer?” Madge shook her head. “Still, yer in’t got a bad face. Nice ’air. We’ll make summink of yer yet.” She patted her on the hand comfortingly, then she looked at Charlotte and Emily in turn. “You two can look arter yerselves.” She regarded Charlotte. “You got a bit o’ flesh on yer. Yer’ll do. An’ lots o’ ’air. Yer face in’t bad.”

  “Thank you,” Charlotte said a trifle dryly.

  Madge was impervious to sarcasm. She looked Emily up and down.

  “Yer not so good, bit thin, but yer got a nice enough face, nice skin. An’ men always like yeller ’air, ’specially wot curls like yours do. Look like yer got a bit o’ spark too. You’ll do.”

  “Can you tell us where to find this Ma Baines?” Emily ignored the personal assessment and returned to the point.

  “Yeah, course I can,” Madge responded. “Twenty-one Chicksand Street. Next one up towards Mile End. Anyone will tell yer.”

  It looked as if they were about to be dismissed any moment, and they had learned too little to give up.

  “Ada and Nora knew each other,” Charlotte plunged on. “Were they at all alike? Did they have friends in common?”

  Madge blinked. “W’y the ’ell der you care?”

  “Because I don’t want to get my fingers and toes broken and end up strangled with my own stockings,” Charlotte answered tersely. “If there’s some lunatic around here, I want to know what sort of women he picks on, so I can be a different sort.”

  “ ’E picks on one sort o’ woman, duck,” Madge said wearily. “The sort o’ woman wot sells theirselves to any man wot ’as the money, ’cos she needs ter eat an’ feed ’er kids, or ’cos she don’ wanna work in the watch factories an’ end up wi’ phossie jaw an’ ’er face ’alf rotted off, or in a sweatshop stitchin’ shirts all day an’ ’alf the night for too little money ter feed a rat! Layin’ on yer back is easy money, while it lasts.” She poured more tea from the pot into the mug, and refilled the others, looking hopefully at Emily.

  Emily topped them up again with whiskey.

  “Ta,” Madge acknowledged it.

  “Course there is danger,” she went on. “If yer wanted life wi’out danger yer should ’a’ bin born rich. Yer’ll mebbe end up wi’ a disease, or mebbe not. Yer’ll get beaten now an’ agin, slashed if yer luck runs aht. Yer’ll get so yer never wants ter see another man in all yer born days.”

  She sniffed. “But yer’ll not be ’ungry, and yer’ll not be cold once yer orff the streets an’ inside. An’ yer’ll ’ave a few good laughs!” She sighed and sipped her tea. “ ’Ad some good times, we did, Nora an’ Rosie and Ada and me. Tol’ each other stories an’ pretended we was all fine ladies.” She sniffed. “I ’member one summer evenin’ we took orff an’ went up the river in one o’ them pleasure boats, just like anyone. All dressed up, we was. Ate ’ot eel pies and sugared fruit, an’ drank peppermint.”

  “That must have been good,” Charlotte said quietly, imagining them, even though she did not know their faces.

  “Yeah, it were,” Madge said dreamily, the tears brimming her eyes. “An’ we tol’ each other ghost stories sometimes. Scared ourselves silly, we did. Course there was the bad times too. But then I s’pose it’s them ’ard times as tells yer ’oo yer friends is.” She sniffed again and wiped her hand over her cheeks.

  “That’s true,” Emily agreed. “I’m sorry about Ada. I hope they catch whoever did it.”

  “Geez, why should they?” Madge said miserably. “They never caught the Ripper. Why should they catch this one?”

  Tallulah shivered. Two years afterwards, his name still chilled the body and sent the mind stiff with fear.

  Charlotte found herself cold as well, even with the tea and whiskey inside her, and the heat of the small, closed kitchen. There was no other sound in the house. All the women were sleeping after their night’s work, bodies exhausted, used by strangers to relieve their needs without love, without kisses, as one might use a public convenience.

  She looked at Tallulah and saw a whole new comprehension dawning in her face. She had seen one new world with Jago, feeding the poor, the respectable women, downtrodden by hunger, cold and anxiety. This was another world, altogether darker, with different pains, different fears.

  “Do you get many gentlemen down here?” she asked suddenly, the words coming out jerkily, as if speaking them hurt her.

  “Men wi’ money?” Madge laughed. “Look, duck, any man’s money is as good as any other.”

  “But do you?” Tallulah insisted, her face tense, her eyes on Madge’s.

  “Not often, why? Yer like gentlemen, yer should go up west. ’Aymarket, Piccadilly, that way. Cost yer ter rent rooms by
the hour, though, an’ competition’s ’igh. Yer’d be better ’ere, beginners like you are. I’ll look after yer.”

  Tallulah was aware of the gentleness in the older woman and it touched her unexpectedly. Charlotte could see it in her face.

  “I … I just wondered,” she said unhappily, looking down at the table.

  “Sometimes,” Madge replied, watching her.

  “Was it a gentleman who killed Ada?” Tallulah would not give up. Her slender fingers were clenched around the cup with its dark tea and odor of whiskey.

  “I dunno.” Madge shrugged her huge shoulders. “I thought as it were Bert Costigan, but I s’pose it couldn’t ’a’ bin, now Nora got done the same.”

  “So it could have been a gentleman?” Emily looked from one to the other of them. “But would it be likely? Wouldn’t it maybe be someone who knew them both?”

  “Maybe it was a gentleman who knew them both.” Charlotte took it a step further. “One who was a bit bent in his ways.”

  Madge finished the last of her tea and set the mug down with a bang on the hard tabletop.

  “Don’t you go startin’ talk like that ’round ’ere,” she said sharply, pointing her finger. “Yer’ll only get everyone all scared witless, an’ it don’t do no good. We all gotta work whether there’s a lunatic out there er not. Yer go see Ma Baines. She knows ’er job. She’ll find yer a place. An’ don’t yer go makin’ a noise as you leave. My girls is still sleepin’, like yer’d be if you’d worked all night.” She looked at Emily. “Ta fer the drink. That were nice manners of you.” Her face softened as she looked lastly at Tallulah. “I’ll ’old the room for yer till termorrer, duck. Can’t ’old it arter that, if I gets an offer.”

  “Thank you,” Tallulah answered, but as soon as they were outside beyond the alley she shivered violently, and walked so close to Emily she almost pushed her off the narrow footpath into the street.

  They followed directions up to Chicksand Street and found the huge shambling tenement where Ma Baines kept her establishment. They had expected someone else like Madge-obese, red-faced, suspicious. Instead they found a cheerful woman with a large bosom, but narrow hips and long legs. She had rather a plain face and a mass of fading yellow hair tied up loosely in pins which were in imminent danger of falling out.

  “Yeah?” she said when she saw the three young women.

  “We understand you might have rooms,” Charlotte began without hesitation. It was getting towards the time in the afternoon when women began to work.

  “This is a workin’ ’ouse,” Ma Baines said warningly. “Rent is ’igh. I got no place fer sweatshop girls. In’t even enough fer a night, let alone a week.”

  “We know that,” Charlotte replied, making herself smile. “Do we look like seamstresses?”

  Ma Baines laughed, a sound of generous amusement without bitterness.

  “You look like West End tarts ter me, ’cept fer yer dress. They look like maids on their day orff. Terrible respectable, an’ abaht as darin’ as a vicar’s wife.”

  “We’re off duty,” Emily explained.

  “Aren’t never orff duty, luv,” Ma Baines responded.

  “Are if you haven’t a room,” Charlotte pointed out. “I don’t do my business in the street.”

  Ma Baines stepped back. “Then yer’d better come in.”

  They followed her. The place was narrow and stale-smelling, but quite clean, and there was an old carpet on the floor, making their footsteps quiet as they were led to a small sitting room at the back of the house, again reminding Charlotte ridiculously of the housekeeper’s room in the house where she had grown up.

  Ma Baines invited them to sit, and she herself took the largest and most comfortable chair. It was as if she were interviewing prospective servants. Charlotte felt the desire to giggle coming back, a sort of wild hysteria at the insanity of it. A few years ago her mother would have fainted at the very thought of her daughter’s even knowing about such a place, let alone being there. Now she might conceivably understand. Her father would simply have refused to believe it. Heaven only knew what Aloysia FitzJames would think if she knew Tallulah was here.

  Ma Baines was talking about rent and rules, and Charlotte had not been listening. She tried to look as if she were paying attention, fixing her eyes on Ma’s face.

  “That sounds all right,” Emily said dubiously. “Although we’re not absolutely sure about the area.”

  “Cost yer more up west,” Ma pointed out. “Yer can always go up west from ’ere, long as yer bring back yer share o’ yer take an’ don’ cheat.” Her face was still pleasant, but there was a relentless ice-gray in her eyes, cold as a winter sea.

  “It wasn’t that,” Charlotte explained. “It was the murders you’ve had here. We’d want a place where if we got a bad customer there we could be sure there were other people about to hear us yell.” She did not add that she knew there were other people close enough to have helped Ada and Nora, but no scream was heard, and no one came.

  “Don’t make no difference w’ere yer are,” Ma said with a bitter laugh. “There’s lunatics everywhere, all depends on luck.”

  “But there’ve been two pretty horrible murders here in Whitechapel,” Tallulah said, staring at Ma Baines, her voice low and shivery. “That hasn’t happened anywhere else.”

  “Course it ’as!” Ma said abruptly. “Were one just like these w’en I were in Mile End. Six year ago, mebbe seven.”

  “What do you mean … just like these?” Charlotte’s voice came out huskily, as if she had something in her throat.

  “Jus’ the same,” Ma repeated. “ ’Ands tied, fingers and toes broke or pulled out o’ joint, garter ’round ’er arm, an’ soaked in cold water … all over the place, ’ead, shoulders, ’air.”

  Tallulah gasped as if she had been struck.

  Emily turned and stared at Charlotte.

  For seconds there was icy, pricking silence. The floorboards creaked overhead as someone walked across them on the story above.

  “Who did it?” Charlotte forced the words out at last between frozen lips.

  Ma shrugged. “Gawd knows. ’E weren’t never found. Rozzers stopped lookin’ arter a while. Jus’ like they will this time, w’en they don’ find no one.”

  “What … what kind of a girl was she?” Emily asked, her voice also hoarse.

  Ma shook her head.

  “Dunno ’er name. Forget it. Jus’ young, though, a beginner. Probably ’er first week or so, poor little thing. Pretty, ’bout sixteen or seventeen, so they said.” Her face pinched with momentary pity. “Funny, but they never made that much fuss about it. Papers din’t write it up too much. O’ course that were before the Ripper an’ all. Still, they’re sure as ’ell burns takin’ it out on the rozzers this time. Wouldn’t wanna be one o’ them now.” She lifted one broad shoulder. “But then ’oo wants ter be a rozzer anyway?” She looked at Emily. “D’yer want the rooms or not, luv? I in’t got time ter sit an’ talk wif yer.”

  “No thank you,” Charlotte answered for them. “Not at the moment. We’ll think a bit harder. Maybe it’s not what we’re looking for right now.” And she rose to her feet, steadying herself on the arm of the chair a moment. Her knees were wobbling. She made her way back along the corridor and out into Chicksand Street with Emily at her elbow and Tallulah, moving as if in a dream, a pace behind. The cold air hit her face like a slap, and she barely noticed it.

  Pitt had slept badly the previous night. It seemed as if half the night he lay motionless in bed, afraid to move in case he woke Charlotte. When she was troubled she slept lightly. When one of the children was ill, the slightest noise reached her and she sat up almost immediately. Since the second murder she had been aware of his nightmares and of the fact that he could not rest. Even if he turned over too frequently, she would be disturbed and waken.

  He lay in the dark, eyes wide open, watching the faint pattern on the ceiling from the distant gas lamps in the street through the bedroom curtai
ns. If he slept he dreamed of Costigan’s despairing face, his self-loathing and his fear. Why had he all but admitted killing Ada, if he did not? Were his words-“I done ’er”-intended only to mean that in some way he felt responsible for her behavior, and thus for her death, but only indirectly? He had confessed to a quarrel, to striking out at her. Was it possible he had knocked her insensible but not actually been the one to kill her? He had always denied the cruelty, the fingers and toes. He had even denied the garter, which was hardly an offense, and the water.

  Why, if it was true? It could hardly make any difference. He would be hanged exactly the same either way. And since the wardens believed it of him, it would not mitigate their treatment of him either.

  Certainly he could not have been guilty of killing Nora Gough.

  Who was the fair-haired man who had been seen going into Nora’s room shortly before she was killed? How could he possibly have left without any one of the dozen or so people around having seen him?

  Jago Jones’s words swirled around in his head. Surely they had to be the answer … either when he left he had looked so different no one had recognized him as the same man or else, simpler still, he had not left!

  Was the fair wavy hair a wig? Had he actually left with a different coat on, and different hair? Then what had happened to the coat? Did he carry it? And the wig? His own hair could be any color or texture at all.

  Pitt needed to go back and question all the people again, to see if they remembered anyone at all leaving who could have been disguised with a wig.

  How could they know that? You can carry a wig in a pocket. Then they would have to have a pocket. A trouser pocket would be too small, it would make a bulge. Perhaps they might remember the coat. Not many people in Myrdle Street had full-length overcoats, let alone well-cut ones.

  What about the other possibility, that he had not left at all but had gone to another floor in the same building? He had not thought of looking upwards, to the women on the floor above. They may have continued doing business with whoever was already in the building. The police presence on the floor below would deter new custom, but those already there might well fill in their time pleasantly. They could not leave until the police had gone, from the very natural desire not to be identified. That would need no further explanation.