risks of her trade and had met with a fate no one would have wished on her; but at the same time, no one was surprised, and only a few grieved. Pitt saw Rose Burke there the first day, and Nan Sullivan, surprisingly handsome in black. He did not see Agnes. If she came, he missed her in the crowd. Nor was old Madge there. Perhaps, as she had said, she never left the house.
None of the FitzJameses attended, but then he had not thought that they might. As far as they were concerned, as soon as Finlay was exonerated that was the end of the matter. Thirlstone and Helliwell had never wanted anything to do with it from the first.
But Jago Jones was there, his startling face with its intensity making him extraordinary, in spite of his faded clothes, and no mark to distinguish him as a priest, no high white collar, no cross or sign of office. His cheeks were gaunt, hollowed under the high bones, and his eyes were shadowed as if he had slept badly for weeks. He listened intently to every witness. One might have thought from the attention he gave it that judgment was his, not the jurors’, and he in the end must answer for it.
It crossed Pitt’s mind to wonder if Jago was the priest chosen to try to save Costigan’s soul before his last, short walk. Would he be the one to seek a confession from him in the hours before execution, then to go those terrifying final steps to the gallows at eight o’clock in the morning? It was a task he would not have wished on anyone at all.
What were they to say? Something about the love of God, the sacrifice of Christ for all men? What would the words mean to Costigan? Had he ever in his life known what love was-passionate, unconditional, wide as the heavens, love which never faded or withdrew and yet was still just? Did he even understand the concept of sacrificing in order that someone else might benefit? Would Jago be speaking in a language that Costigan had never heard, of an idea as remote to him as the fires that burned in the stars?
Perhaps there was nothing more to do than speak quietly, look at him and meet his eyes without contempt and without judgment, simply as another human being aware of his terror and caring about it.
As Pitt stared across the courtroom at the inexorable process of the law, there was a ruthlessness about it which frightened him also. The wigs and gowns seemed as much masks for the men behind them as symbols of the majesty of justice. It was supposed to be anonymous, but it seemed merely inhuman.
There was very little defense Costigan’s lawyer could offer. He was young, but he made a considerable effort at suggesting mitigating circumstances, a woman who was greedy and who cheated, even by the standards of behavior accepted by her own trade. He suggested it was a quarrel which had gone beyond control. Costigan had not meant to kill her, only to frighten her and dissuade her from her behavior, bring her back to their bargain. When he saw that she was insensible, he had panicked and thrown water over her to try, vainly, to bring her back to consciousness, not realizing at first that he had killed her.
The broken bones, the dislocations?
The cruelty and perversion of a previous customer.
No one believed it.
The verdict was never truly in doubt. Pitt knew that, looking at the jurors’ faces. Costigan must have known it too.
The judge listened, picked up his black cap and pronounced the sentence of death.
Pitt left the courtroom without any sense of achievement, simply a relief that it was finished. He would never know all that had happened, never know who had placed Finlay FitzJames’s belongings in the room in Pentecost Alley or why so many lies were told about them. He would never know what thoughts were so harrowing in the mind of Jago Jones.
After the statutory three weeks Albert Costigan was hanged. The newspapers reported it but made no further comment.
The Sunday after that Pitt was in the Park with Charlotte and the children. Jemima was dressed in her very best frock, Daniel in a smart new navy-and-white suit. It was mid-October and the leaves were beginning to turn. The chestnuts, the first to break into bud in spring, were already limpid gold. The softer sunlight of early autumn flickered through them. The beeches showed fans of bronze amid the green. It would not be long till the first frosts, the raking up of leaves and the smell of wood smoke as bonfires consumed the waste. In the country, rose hips would be scarlet in the hedges, and hawthorn berries crimson. The grass would not need cutting anymore.
Pitt and Charlotte walked slowly side by side, indistinguishable from a hundred other couples enjoying one of the last really warm days of the year. The children ran around, laughing and chasing each other, largely pointlessly, simply because they had energy and it was fun. Daniel found a stick and threw it for a puppy that was dancing around them, apparently lost by its owner, at least for the time being. The dog ran for it and brought it back triumphantly. Jemima seized the stick and took a turn, hurling it as far as she could.
Over in the distance near the road a barrel organ was playing a popular tune. A running patterer abandoned the news and sat on the grass eating a sandwich he had just bought from a peddler a hundred yards farther along. An old man sucked on a pipe, his eyes closed. Two housemaids on their day off told each other tall stories and giggled. A lawyer’s clerk lay under a tree and read a “penny dreadful” magazine.
Charlotte took Pitt’s arm and walked a little closer. He shortened his step so she could keep pace with him.
It was several minutes before Pitt recognized in the distance, striding across the grass, the upright, military figure of John Cornwallis making his way purposefully between the strollers. When he was within twenty yards the expression on his face made Charlotte stop and turn anxiously to Pitt.
Pitt felt a chill run through him, but knew of no reason why he should be afraid.
Cornwallis reached them.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Pitt,” he apologized to Charlotte, then looked at Pitt, his face pale and tight. “I’m afraid I must interrupt your Sunday afternoon.” He obviously intended it to be the cue for Charlotte to excuse herself and leave them alone, withdraw to a discreet distance, out of earshot.
She did not do so, but instead held more tightly to Pitt’s arm, her fingers curling around and gripping.
“Is it a matter of confidence of state?” Pitt enquired.
“Dear God, I wish it were!” Cornwallis said with passion. “I am afraid by tomorrow everyone else in London will know.”
“Know what?” Charlotte whispered.
Cornwallis hesitated, looking at Pitt with concern. He wanted to protect Charlotte. He was unused to women. Pitt guessed he was acquainted with them only at a distance. He did not know other than convention taught him to expect.
“Know what?” Pitt repeated.
“Another prostitute has been murdered,” Cornwallis said huskily. “Exactly like the first … in every particular.”
Pitt was stunned. It was as if suddenly he had lost his balance, and the grass and trees and sky dissolved and shifted around him.
“In a tenement on Myrdle Street,” Cornwallis finished. “In Whitechapel. I think you had better go there, immediately. Ewart is on the scene. I shall find Mrs. Pitt a hansom to take her home.” His face was ashen. “I’m so sorry.”
8
Pitt stood in the doorway of the room where the body had been found. Ewart, gray-faced, was already there. From down the corridor came the sound of hysterical weeping, shock and terror still in the rising, desperate tones, long drawn out as a woman lost control.
Pitt met Ewart’s eyes and saw in them reflection of the horror he felt himself, and the sudden knowledge of guilt. He looked away.
On the bed lay a young woman, small, almost like a child. Her hair spilled out around her, one arm flung over her head, her wrist tied With a stocking to the left corner bedpost. There was a garter with a blue ribbon around her arm. Her yellow-and-orange dress was drawn up, exposing her thighs. Her legs were naked. Like Ada McKinley, there was a stocking knotted tightly around her throat. Her face was purple, mottled and swollen. And like Ada, the
