They both sat down with steaming mugs.
'He was strangled,' Pitt said unnecessarily. 'You'll be treating it as murder?'
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'Oh, yes.' The constable pulled a face. 'Not that I suppose it'll make much difference. ' 'Oo knows 'oo killed the poor little beggar? Could, 'ave bin anyone, couldn't it? 'Oo was 'e anyway?'
'Albert Frobisher,' Pitt replied, aware of the irony of such a name. 'At least that's how we knew him. He was a male prostitute.'
'Oh-the one wot gave evidence in the Waybourne case- poor little swine. Didn't last long, did 'e? Killed to do with that, was 'e?'
'I don't know.'
'Well-' The constable finished the last of his tea and set the mug down. 'Could 'ave bin, couldn't it? Then again, in that sort o' trade you can get killed for lots o' different reasons. All comes to the same in the end, don't it? Want 'im, I suppose? Shall I send 'im up to your station?'
'Yes, please.'' Pitt stood up. ' 'We'd better tidy it up. It may have nothing to do with the Waybourne case, but he comes from Bluegate Fields anyway. Thanks for the tea.' He handed the mug back.
'Welcome, sir, I'm sure. I'll send 'im along as soon as my sergeant gives the word. It'll be this afternoon, though. No point in 'anging around.'
'Thank you. Good day, Constable.'
' 'Day, sir.'
Pitt walked toward the shining stretch of the river. It was slack tide, and the black slime of the embankment smelled acrid. The wind rippled the surface and caught tiny white shreds of spray up against slow-moving barges. They were going up the river to the Pool of London and the docks. Pitt wondered where they had come from, those shrouded cargoes. Could be anywhere on earth: the deserts of Africa, the wastes north of Hudson Bay where it was winter six months long, the jungles of India, or the reefs of the Caribbean. And that was without even going outside the Empire. He remembered seeing the map of the world, with British possessions all in red-seemed to be every second country. They said the sun never set on the Empire.
And this city was the heart of it all. London was where your 223
Queen lived, whether you were in the Sudan or the Cape of Good Hope, Tasmania, Barbados, the Yukon, or Katmandu.
Did a boy like Albie ever know that he lived in the heart of such a world? Did the inhabitants of those teeming, rotten slums behind the proud streets ever conceive in their wildest drunken or opium-scented dreams of the wealth they were part of? All that immense might-and they wouldn't, or couldn't, even begin on the disease at home.
The barges were gone, the water shining silver in their wake, the flat light brilliant as the sun moved slowly westward. Some hours hence, the sky would redden, giving the pall-like clouds of the factories and docks the illusion of beauty before sunset.
Pitt straightened up and started to walk. He must find a cab and get back to the station. Athelstan would have to allow him to investigate now. This was a new murder. It might have nothing to do with Jerome or Arthur Way bourne, but it was still a murder. And murder must be solved, if it can be.
'No!' Athelstan shouted, rising to his feet. 'Good God, Pitt! The boy was a prostitute! He catered to perverts! He was bound to end up either dead of some disease or murdered by a customer or a pimp or something. If we spent time on every dead prostitute, we'd need a force twice the size, and we'd still do nothing else. Do you know how many deaths there are in London every day?'
'No, sir. Do they stop mattering once they get past a certain number?'
Athelstan slammed his hand on the desk, sending papers flying.
'God dammit, Pitt, I'll have your rank for insubordination! Of course it matters! If there was any chance, or any reason, I'd investigate it right to the end. But murder of a prostitute is not uncommon. If you take up a trade like that, then you expect violence-and disease-and sooner or later you'll get it!
