Grenville looked up, interested. Pomeroy flushed. 'I believe I told you that that was my business, Captain.'
'You did, but the girl is missing. A second missing girl has just turned up dead. I'd like to know everything you know about Bess so that we might find her before she suffers a similar fate. Am I right? Was she paying you in kind?'
'I wouldn't say that, sir.'
'What would you say, Sergeant?'
He bathed me in a light blue glare. 'I would say we wasn't in the army any more and you can leave off bullying me. But I know that will do no good.' He ran his hand through his already slick hair, pushing it behind his ears. 'The thing with Bess, Captain, is she weren't paying me to look the other way. We're sweet on each other.'
'She has a lover,' I said. 'He lives with her near Great Wild Street. I plan to interview him.'
'I know that. Tom Marcus. But Bess didn't like him. He didn't treat her well enough, she said, and he clung to her something fierce. Like having a child about, she said.'
'Did she want to leave him?'
'Don't think so, not yet. She wanted to have something fixed for sure before she left him. He has some brass from working in a brickyard, and he's good at stretching the money both of 'em made.'
'I wish you had told me of this before,' I said. 'She might have threatened to leave him, and he might have grown angry with her, do you not think? Enough to harm her or at least to make her run away?'
Pomeroy's brows lowered. 'Bess wouldn't have run away without coming to me. She knew where to find me. Tom didn't hurt her, because when he came and reported her missing, I shook him up a bit, to find out whether he'd hit her. I'm satisfied he hadn't. Besides, if he'd done her in, he like as not wouldn't come to Bow Street, now, would he?'
'Unless he wanted to direct your attention elsewhere,' Grenville suggested. 'Perhaps he killed Bess as well as Mary, then reported Bess missing to make it look as though he had concern for her. He killed Mary as a blind for the death of Bess, perhaps trying to make it seem as though a madman had decided to start killing game girls.'
'You are reasoning ahead of yourself,' I said. 'We haven't found Bess, and there is no reason to believe the two incidents are connected. Besides, Thompson told us that Mary had gone to Covent Garden to meet a man.'
Pomeroy held up his hands. 'Well, it weren't me.'
I looked at him. 'If you say Bess was sweet on you, why did she not decide to leave Tom Marcus and live with you, instead?'
'Would look fine, wouldn't it, Captain, a game girl living with a Bow Street Runner? She wanted to give up her trade first, find a proper job and become a proper girl.'
I traced the head of my walking stick. 'Felicity told me that Bess allowed you privileges without paying in order to keep you from arresting her.'
I thought that would anger him. I thought Pomeroy would puff himself up, offended, and tell me to go to hell and dance with the devil. Instead, to my surprise, his grin flashed, teeth white in the darkness. 'Thing is about Felicity, Captain, you can't always trust what she says. She's a clever one. Has to be, don't she? But she'll tell a tale, wind a chap around her finger, so to speak. I'm not calling her a liar, but you have to question her version of the truth.'
I mulled this over, realizing that I had been ready to believe Felicity, probably because I felt sorry for her. She exuded confidence in herself and her ability to please men, but because she was a game girl and had black skin, the world thought nothing of exploiting her. She must have come up with plenty of defenses against that.
'What is the truth, then?' I asked.
'What I said. Me and Bess, we like each other. She was working to leave her man and take up with me. I last saw her when your Felicity spied us. I was a-kissing her goodbye.'
'Goodbye? Where was she going?'
'Good night, I ought to have said. She was off home, and I went to Bow Street. Last I ever saw her.' For the first time, he looked troubled. 'So I would thank you, Captain, if you could help find her. I never want to see her like this.' He looked back down at the corpse.
I understood. I did not want to find Gabriella like this either, and by the look on Auberge's face, he shared my fear.
We waited in the warm night for Thompson and the coroner. Grenville had brandy in a flask, which he shared around. After midnight, one patroller returned with a plump man wearing an expression of curiosity, followed not much later by the second patroller and Thompson.
The coroner of the parish seemed in no way distraught that he'd been dragged from his comfortable home to examine a young woman's corpse in a back lane near the river. He spread a cloth on the ground and knelt on it, asking the patrollers to move the rest of the boards out of the way.
Thompson stood looking down at the young woman, his tattered-gloved fingers at his mouth. 'Yes, that is Mary Chester. I'll have to have her Sam tell us for certain, but I am sure it's her.'
The coroner gently untied the sash and removed it from her neck. 'Her initials are on the dress,' the coroner said, pulling back a fold of bodice. 'M.C., embroidered on the seam, nice as you please.'
'Was she strangled?' I asked, leaning down.
'Not a bit of it.' The coroner turned her head, examining the bruises. 'This was done before she died. Maybe a day or two. She's been dead I'd say a few days, but she can't have lain here all that time. Someone would have found her, at least the dogs and the rats.'
'How pleasant.' Grenville took a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his lips.
'So she was killed elsewhere and brought here,' I said. 'If that's so, why wait so long to move her here?'
'Perhaps the gent had hidden the body in one place,' Pomeroy said, 'then had to move it or risk it being discovered.'
Grenville patted his lips again. 'Then why not tip her into the river? He'd carried her this far; the stairs to the river are only a street away.'
'Perhaps he was seen, or thought he was seen,' I said. 'He leaves her at the first place he can find and flees.' I turned back to the coroner. 'Can you see how she died?'
'Well,' the man answered, taking his time. He turned Mary's head again, lifting the hair from the back of her neck. 'So far, I've seen no sign of injury, but I'll have to examine her more thoroughly in better light. She might have suffocated, or been poisoned, or perhaps died naturally. I cannot say until I take her elsewhere.'
'My carriage is at your disposal,' Grenville said.
The coroner climbed to his feet. His hand went to his back, and his face creased in pain. 'Get a bit stiff on the hard ground.' He grinned. 'There's not many a gentleman that would offer his fine carriage to a corpse, Mr. Grenville, but there's no need. I brought my own conveyance. I just need a strong man to lift her.'
The patrollers, with Pomeroy watching, did the job. They moved the rotted boards, hoisted the girl between them, and carried her out of the passage, Her gown trailed to the ground, and neither of the three thought to lift the skirt out of the mud.
Thompson looked about the lane after the coroner had gone, his face somber. 'I believe he is right that she was killed elsewhere and left here. That poor sailor of hers will take it hard. I don't think he murdered her.'
'Would he have tried to throttle her?' Grenville asked.
'Possibly, if she angered him. But the fact that she didn't die of that is a point in his favor, because he stopped himself before he killed her.'
'Or she managed to get away from him,' I said.
'True. But then he would simply have tried again. I doubt he would have come to me, worried, if he'd wanted her dead himself.'
The same argument could be applied to Black Bess's lad. I had the feeling that we'd discover that neither of these girls' lovers were responsible for their disappearances or deaths.
Thompson sighed as we emerged from the passage. 'Have to look up Chester and tell him the bad news. I'm not relishing that. Would you like to come with me, Captain? Not to break the news, but to see if he knows anything
