quiet to carry beyond the table where they sat. “ ’E’d been in a fight. Scratch marks on ’is face that never came from any fall. Look like a woman’s fingernails. An’ he were dead after ’e hit the ground, all them broken bones an’ a bash on the head. Wouldn’t ’ave moved after that. An’ there’s blood on ’is ’ands, but they wasn’t injured. It weren’t no accident, Mrs. Monk. At least not entirely.”
“I see.”
He sighed. “It’s going to cause a terrible row. The family’s going to raise ’ell! They’ll ’ave us all out patrolling the streets and ’arassing any women we see. They’re going to ’ate it… an’ then customers is going to ’ate it even more. An’ the pimps’ll ’ate it worst of all. Everybody’ll be in a filthy temper until we find whoever did it, an’ probably ’ang the poor little cow.” He was too wretched to be aware of having used a disparaging term in front of her, or to think of apologizing.
“I can’t help you,” Hester said softly, remembering the women who had come to the house the previous night, all of them injured more or less. “Five women came, but they all went again and I have no idea where to. I don’t ask.”
“Their names?” he said without expectation.
“I don’t ask that either, only something to call them by.”
“That’ll do, for a start.” He put down his mug and fished in his pocket for his notebook and pencil.
“A Nell, a Lizzie and a Kitty,” she answered. “Later a Mariah and a Gertie.”
He thought for a moment, then put the pencil away again. “ ’Ardly worth it,” he said dismally. “Everybody’s a Mary, a Lizzie, or a Kate. God knows what they were christened-if they were, poor souls.”
She looked at him in the sharp morning light. There was a dark shadow of stubble on his cheeks and his eyes were pink-rimmed. He had far more pity for the women of the streets than he had for their clients. She thought he did not particularly want to catch whoever had pushed the man down the stairs. The murderer would no doubt be hanged for something which could have been at least in part an accident. The death may not have been intentional, but who would believe that when the woman in the dock was a prostitute and the dead man was rich and respected? What judge or juror could afford to accept that such a man could be at least in part responsible for his own death?
“I’m sorry,” she said again. “I can’t help.”
He sighed. “An’ you wouldn’t if you could… I know that.” He rose to his feet slowly, shifting his weight a little as if his boots pinched. “Just’ad ter ask.”
It was nearly ten o’clock in the morning when the hansom pulled up at her house in Fitzroy Street.
Monk was sitting in the front room he used to receive those who came to seek his services as a private agent of enquiry. He had papers spread in front of him and was reading them.
She was surprised to see him and filled with a sudden upsurge of pleasure. She had known him for nearly seven years, but had been married to him for less than three, and the joy of it was still sharp. She found herself smiling for no other reason.
He put the papers aside and stood up, his face softening in response.
There was a question in his eyes. “You’re late,” he said, not in criticism but in sympathy. “Have you eaten anything?”
“Toast,” she replied with a little shrug. She was untidy and she knew she smelled of vinegar and carbolic, but she wanted him to kiss her anyway. She stood in front of him, hoping she was not obvious. She was sufficiently in love that it would have embarrassed her to be too easily read.
He undid her bonnet and tossed it casually onto the chair, then he put his arms around her and kissed her rather more warmly than she had expected. She responded with a whole heart, then, remembering the lonely and rejected women she had treated during the night, she kept her arms around him and held him more closely.
“What is it?” he asked, his voice demanding, knowing the difference in her.
“Just the women,” she replied. “There was a murder last night. That’s why I’m late. The police came to the house this morning.”
“Why? What would you know about it?” He was puzzled.
She knew what he was imagining: a prostitute beaten and bleeding coming to the house, then returning to her brothel and being beaten again, this time to death. “No. At least not the way you mean,” she answered. “It was a man who was killed, a client, if you can call him that. They think he fought with one of the women and somehow or other she pushed him downstairs. They wanted to know about women who came in cut and bruised as if they had been in a struggle.”
“And you had seen some?” he said.
“Of course. Every night! It’s mostly that and disease. I couldn’t help because I don’t know how they got hurt, or where to find them again.”
He pushed her back a little, looking more closely at her face. “And would you help the police if you could?”
“I don’t think so,” she admitted. “I don’t know…”
He smiled very slightly, but his eyes read her perfectly.
“All right…” she agreed. “I’m glad I can’t help. It relieves me of having to decide if I would or not. Apparently he was, in Constable Hart’s words, ’a toff,’ so the police are going to make everyone suffer, because the family will make sure they do.” She grimaced with disgust. “They’ll probably tell us he was a philanthropist walking the back streets and alleys trying to save the souls of fallen women!”
He lifted his head and very gently pushed back the hair that had fallen across her brow. “Unlikely… but I suppose it’s possible. We believe what we need to… at least for as long as we can.”
She rested her head against his chin. “I know. But I can’t excuse persecuting a lot of women who are wretched enough anyway, or the pimps who will only take it out on them. It won’t change anything.”
“Someone killed him,” he said reasonably. “They can’t ignore that.”
“I know!” She took a deep breath. “I know.”
CHAPTER TWO
Hester had foreseen that the area around Coldbath Square would suffer an added diligence from police harrying women who were either prostitutes or who could not prove their legitimate occupations, but when it happened she was still taken aback by the reality. The very next evening in the house she saw immediate evidence of it. Margaret was not in; she was mixing with her more natural society, endeavoring to elicit further donations of money toward the rent of the house and the cost of bandages and medicines necessary to treat those who came to it. There were also other expenses to be met, such as fuel for the stove, and carbolic and vinegar for cleaning, and, of course, food.
The first woman to come to the house was not injured but ill. She had an intermittent fever which Hester judged to be a symptom of venereal disease, but there was little she could do for her beyond offering comfort and an infusion of herbs to lower her temperature and give her some sense of relief.
“Are you hungry?” Hester asked, passing her the steaming mug. “I have bread and a little cheese, if you like.”
The woman shook her head. “No, ta. I’ll just ’ave the medicine.”
Hester looked at her wan face and hunched shoulders. She was probably not more than twenty-five or twenty- six, but she was weary, and sleeplessness, poor food, and disease had robbed her of all energy.
“Would you like to stay here for the night?” Hester offered. It was not really what the house was for, but in the absence of those in greater need, why should this woman not use one of the beds?
A spark flared for a moment in the woman’s eyes. “Wot’ll it cost?” she said suspiciously.
“Nothing.”
“Can I go in the morning, then?”
“You can go any time you wish, but morning would be good.”
“Yeah, ta. That’d be fine.” She still did not quite believe it. Her mouth pulled tight. “In’t no point out there,” she said grimly. “No trade. Rozzers all over the bleedin’ place-like flies on a dead rat, they are. In’t nothin’ fer no one, even them wot’s still clean.” She meant free from disease, not like herself.
