‘They didn’t have to—they only needed one body for a conviction.’
‘I wonder if Walters ever worked for other women?’ Josephine said as they headed back to the car. ‘Her share of the money was very small in comparison to Sach’s, and it crossed my mind that she might have had a few clients on the go at the same time. Baby farming obviously wasn’t an unusual crime.’
‘It certainly wasn’t, although there were different degrees of it. Some women—like Sach and Walters—had a thriving business going, but others were tarred with the same brush for much less.’
‘Yes—I read about another woman who was in court while Sach and Walters were on remand. The stories ran side by side for a bit in the press. Eleanor Vale?’
Fallowfield shook his head. ‘Doesn’t ring a bell, Miss.’
‘No—she wasn’t as notorious because she didn’t kill the babies, just abandoned them in railway carriages where they were sure to be found. But reading about her brought home to me how profitable the baby trade must have been.’
‘Surely they didn’t hang her for that?’
‘No—two years’ hard labour, I think. But it seemed ironic to me that the barrister prosecuting her was the same one who defended Sach.’
‘That’s the legal system for you, Miss—nothing if not consistent.’
She laughed. ‘Bill, you mentioned finding me some other people to talk to—who did you mean?’
‘Well, I could probably find someone who knew the coppers involved at Walters’s lodgings. Seal, one of them was called—I think he’s gone now, but he had a son who took after him and went into the force. Shouldn’t be too difficult to track down, and he’ll remember what the house was like even if he never met Walters.’
‘That would be wonderful. And what about a barrister? It doesn’t have to be the men involved in the trial— that’s too much to hope for, I suppose—but it would be really helpful to get a legal opinion on the case. There’s so much that seems odd to me, but that’s probably just because I don’t understand the system.’
‘Inspector Penrose will help you there, Miss,’ Fallowfield said, opening the car door for her. ‘It’s way before his time, obviously, but he’ll be able to fix you up with the top brass.’ He looked at his watch. ‘He should be back at the Yard by now—do you want to come and talk to him?’
‘Oh no, I don’t want to bother him while he’s at work.’
The sergeant smiled as he started the engine. ‘You know as well as I do that he won’t mind. You don’t have to stay long—just let him know what you need and arrange …’
The rest of his sentence was lost as the police wireless crackled into life and a familiar voice barked angrily down the line. ‘Fallowfield? Where the bloody hell are you?’
Josephine looked at him and raised an eyebrow. ‘Perhaps now isn’t the best time after all,’ she suggested as Fallowfield hurriedly put the car into gear.
‘Perhaps you’re right, Miss,’ he said, fumbling for the radio as he drove. ‘All right if I drop you at Holborn?’
The clock on the steeple of St Mary’s was just striking four when Annie Walters trudged across Whitechapel High Street towards Lockhart’s Cocoa Rooms, her eyes fixed on the double row of painted white letters which left no one in any doubt as to what was served inside. The broad thoroughfare was busy—she had never seen it any other way—but she cut a determined path through the clutter of a Friday afternoon and hurried the last few yards to avoid a tram which was moving more quickly than she had anticipated. Safe on the pavement, she leaned against a lamppost for a moment to catch her breath and watched the tram go past, wishing her own life were as anchored to a fixed route as those wheels were to the curling lines in the road.
There was a smoky, dingy quality to the November air and Lockhart’s—while it was never going to be the most coveted of eating places—looked welcoming enough from the outside. Having walked the streets for most of the day, Annie was glad to step out of the cold for a bit before getting rid of the baby. She shifted the weight of the bundle on to her left arm and pushed open the door, adding her own marks to the layers of grease and dirt which gathered relentlessly on the brass, a reminder that the restaurant catered for people who worked with their hands and weren’t likely to stand on ceremony where food was concerned. The downstairs rooms were already full but, in any case, she preferred the comparative anonymity of the first floor and chose a table in the corner, as far from the counter as she could get. It was the usual mix of clientele—dockers, cab-drivers, stall-holders, street women and a few people who, like her, seemed not to have a job as such but who could always find the price of a meal. She sat down, nodding to one or two familiar faces, confident that her business was her own.
The service at Lockhart’s was reduced to its bare essentials, and a mug of cocoa was slapped down on the table in front of her as soon as she was settled at her table. ‘Anything to eat?’ the woman asked gruffly, hardly seeming to care what the answer was.
‘Just the usual,’ Annie said, and the woman nodded.
The cocoa was sweet and hot enough to burn her lips. Annie sipped it absent-mindedly, wondering if she had imagined the knowing look that passed between the women at the counter, but when the waitress returned a few minutes later with her meal, the plate of sausage and mash was delivered without a word and she was left to eat in peace. The food was the same as it always was, straightforward and tasty, but she ate with less enjoyment than usual, conscious of the weight on her lap and sensing that the unspoken rules of the establishment were about to be broken: the staff at the counter were chatting amongst themselves, apparently oblivious to their customers, but somehow Annie sensed that she would not be allowed to leave the premises without some sort of confrontation. Sure enough, no sooner had she laid down her fork than the younger of the two women came over.
‘What’ve you got there?’ she asked, picking up Annie’s empty plate but making no move to return it to the kitchen.
Annie put her arm protectively across the baby but, in so doing, unwittingly dislodged the shawl that she had wrapped so carefully around the tiny body. She looked down in horror at the face which was now revealed, still and pale under the bright lights. ‘It’s a baby,’ she said, knowing it was pointless to lie.
‘Not very lively, is it?’
Annie laughed—an unnatural, stifled sound—but, in her panic, it was all she could manage. ‘No, poor little thing, but he’ll be right as rain soon enough. I’m a nurse, you see,’ she added, as the woman’s disbelieving eyes tore into her. ‘I’m taking him back to Finchley—that’s where his mother’s been confined.’ She stood up and fumbled in her pocket for the money that Sach had given her on Wednesday night. ‘I’d better be on my way.’
‘I’d like to see him awake,’ the waitress said, and went to stroke the baby’s cheek.
Hurriedly, Annie turned away. ‘Oh, I don’t think you would,’ she said, tidying the shawl. ‘He’d be screaming the place down, and I don’t know what your customers would think to that.’
A handful of coins spilled out on to the table, more than enough for the meal, but Annie made no attempt to retrieve the surplus change. Instead, she drew the baby closer to her and walked towards the door, trying not to hurry. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw the younger girl take a step towards her, but she had reached the stairs by then and flew down them as fast as she could, no longer caring if she drew further attention to herself. Once out in the street, she headed east towards St Mary’s, scarcely thinking about where she was going but desperate to get as far as possible from the searching eyes of those women. When she got to the crossroads, she turned left into Commercial Street and leaned heavily against the wall of the building on the corner. Her heart was pounding so fiercely that she almost believed it capable of throwing life back into the dead child which was clutched to her chest, and she had to take several deep breaths to calm herself. She knew she had said too much, and it was stupid to have mentioned Finchley, but her nerves had got the better of her. Anyway, why should she protect Sach? Annie had been a martyr for too much of her life, and there was no way that she was going to carry the blame for this on her own.
When she was feeling calmer, she walked on down Commercial Street. The vegetable market had long since
