through that door, looking for a drink, a woman and a fight in that order. I keep very busy.’
‘Could you not spare some time to assist me?’
‘I’m not sure that I can, Mr Colbeck. I’ve no idea what this man looks like and not a clue where to start looking.’
‘I can help you on both counts,’ said the detective. ‘When I finally persuaded his wife that I needed to track him down, she gave me a good description of William Ings. He’s living with a woman somewhere. But the place to start is among the moneylenders.’
‘Why — did he borrow from them?’
‘He must have Brendan. He lost so much at the card table that he had to sell or pawn most of the furniture in his house. The only way he could have carried on gambling was to borrow money — probably at an exorbitant rate of interest.’
‘There are no philanthropists in the Devil’s Acre.’
Colbeck leant in closer. ‘I need to locate this man.’
‘So I see. But tell me this — does that black-hearted devil, Superintendent Tallis, know that you’re here?’
‘Of course not.’
‘What about Sergeant Leeming?’
‘There’s no need for Victor to be told,’ said Colbeck. ‘That way, he can’t get into trouble with Mr Tallis. This is my project, Brendan. You’ll only be answerable to me.’
‘And there’s money in it?’
‘If you can root out William Ings.’
Mulryne pondered. Before he could reach a decision, however, he saw a drunk trying to molest one of the prostitutes who lounged against the bar. When she pushed the man away, he slapped her hard across the face and produced a squeal of outrage. Mulryne was out of his seat in a flash. He stunned the troublemaker with a solid punch on the side of his head before catching him as he fell. The man was lifted bodily and hurled out of the door into the alleyway, where he lay in a pool of his own vomit. The Irishman returned to his table.
‘I’m sorry about the interruption,’ he said, sitting down.
‘You have a living to earn, Brendan.’
‘I do, Mr Colbeck. Mind you, I can always do with extra money. Since I became forty, my charm is no longer enough for some of the girls. They expect me to buy them things as well — as a mark of my affection, you understand.’
‘I don’t care how you spend what I give you.’
‘That’s just as well,’ said Mulryne. ‘Before I agree, promise me there’ll be no questions about any friends of mine here who might accidentally have strayed from the straight and narrow.’ His eyes glinted. ‘I’m not an informer, Mr Colbeck.’
‘The only man I’m interested in is William Ings. Will you help me?’
‘As long as my name never reaches Mr Tallis.’
‘It won’t,’ said Colbeck, ‘I can assure you of that.’
‘Then I’m your man.’
‘Thank you, Brendan. I appreciate it. Though I’m afraid it won’t be easy to find Ings in this rabbit warren.’
Mulryne was confident. ‘If he’s here — I’ll find the bastard!’
Polly Roach was much older than she looked. By dyeing her hair and using cosmetics artfully, she lost over a decade but her body was more difficult to disguise. She had therefore placed the oil lamp where the spill of its light did not give too much away. As she lay naked in his flabby arms, she made sure that the bed sheet covered her sagging breasts, her spindly legs and the mottled skin on her protruding belly. She nestled against his shoulder.
‘When are you going to take me away from here?’ she asked.
‘All in good time.’
‘You said that we’d have a home together.’
‘We will, Polly. One day.’
‘And when will that be?’
‘When it’s safe for me to leave here,’ he said, unwilling to commit himself to a date. ‘Until then, I’ll stay with you.’
‘But you told me that I didn’t belong in the Devil’s Acre.’
‘You don’t, Poll.’
‘You promised that we’d live together properly.’
‘That’s what we are doing,’ he said, fondling a breast and kissing her on the lips. ‘I left a wife and children for you, remember.’
‘I know, Bill.’
‘I changed my whole life just to be with you.’
‘I simply want you to get me out of the Devil’s Acre.’
‘Be patient.’
William Ings was a plump man in his forties with large, round eyes that made him look as if he was in a state of constant surprise, and a tiny mouth that was out of proportion with the rest of his facial features. It was lust rather than love that had drawn him to Polly Roach. She offered him the kind of sexual excitement that was unimaginable with his prudish and conventional wife and, once she had a hold on him, she slowly tightened her grasp. During the first few days when he moved in with her, he was in a state of euphoria, enjoying a freedom he had never known before and luxuriating in sheer decadence. It was worlds away from the humdrum routine of the Post Office.
The shortcomings of his situation then became more apparent. Instead of having his own house, he was now sharing two small rooms in a fetid tenement whose thin walls concealed no sounds from the rest of the building. Ings soon learnt that his immediate neighbours, an elderly man and his wife, had ear-splitting arguments several times a day and he had been shocked when he heard the prostitute in the room above them being beaten into silence by one of her more brutal customers. In the room below, a couple had made love to the accompaniment of such vile language that it made his ears burn. In the past, paying an occasional brief visit to Polly Roach had been exhilarating. Living with her in a place of menace was beginning to have distinct drawbacks.
‘What are you thinking, Bill?’ she asked, gently rubbing his chest.
He sat up. ‘I’ve decided to go out again.’
‘
‘There are places that never close.’
‘You don’t want to play cards again, surely?’
‘Yes, Poll,’ he said, easing her away from him. ‘I feel lucky.’
‘You always say that,’ she complained, jabbing him with a finger, ‘yet you always manage to lose somehow.’
‘I won this week, didn’t I?’ he said, peevishly.
‘That’s what you told me, anyway.’
‘Don’t you believe me?’
‘I’m not sure that I do.’
Anger stirred. ‘Where else would I have got so much money from?’ he said. ‘You should be grateful, Polly. It enabled me to leave my job and move in here with you. Isn’t that what you wanted?’
‘Yes, Bill. Of course.’
‘Then why are you pestering me like this?’
‘I just wanted to know where the money came from,’ she said, putting a conciliatory hand on his arm. ‘Please don’t go out again. I know that you feel lucky, but I’d hate you to throw away what you’ve already earned at the card table. That would be terrible.’
‘I only play to win more,’ he insisted, getting up and reaching for his clothes. ‘This is my chance, don’t you see? I can play for higher stakes.’
‘Not tonight.’
