he?”
“I dunno!” The man’s voice rose indignantly. “ ’E scarpered two years gorn. But ’e never done no murder as I knows of.”
“Mary Smith,” Pitt said tersely.
“ ’Oo?” The man’s eyes widened. “C’mon! D’yer know how many Mary Smiths there are ’rahnd ’ere? Every tart wot tries ’er hand is Mary Smith.”
“Not all of them end up tortured, strangled and tied to a bed,” Pitt grated between his teeth.
“Geez! That Mary Smith.” The man paled under his stubble beard. “Bit late, aren’t yer? That were six, seven years gorn.”
“Six. I need to see the original witnesses. Get in my way and I’ll find something to arrest you for.”
The man turned away and yelled into the dim passageway behind him. “ ’Ere! Marge! Come ’ere!”
There was no reply.
“Come ’ere, yer lazy sow!” He raised his voice even more.
There was another moment’s silence, then a fat woman with ginger hair emerged from one of the back rooms and came forward.
“Yeah? Wot yer want?” She looked at Pitt with minimum curiosity.
“Weren’t yer ’ere six years ago?” the man asked her.
“Yeah,” she answered. “So?”
“This rozzer wants ter talk to yer. An’ be nice to ’im, Marge, or ’e’ll do the lot of us.”
“Fer wot?” she said with a sneer. “I in’t done nuffink agin the law.”
“I don’t care,” the man replied, coughing hoarsely. “Jus’ tell ’im, yer stupid mare. Yer was ’ere. Tell ’im!”
“Are you Margery Williams?” Pitt asked her.
“Yeah.”
“You were one of the witnesses the police spoke to about the murder of Mary Smith six years ago?”
She looked uncomfortable, but her eyes did not waver. “Yeah. I told ’em everythin’ I know. Wot yer want ter know fer now? Yer sure as ’ell in’t gonna catch him.”
“You said ‘him.’” He looked at her closely. “Are you taking it for granted it was a man who killed her, or could it have been a woman?”
Contempt filled her face. “Wot kind o’ woman does that ter ’nother woman? Geez, where do you come from, mister? Course it were a man! Din’t yer look at wot I said? They wrote it all down on their little bits o’ paper. Always scribblin’, they was.”
The man stood beside her, looking from her to Pitt and back again.
“They can’t have kept it,” Pitt said, realizing with surprise how much must have been thrown away once it was regarded as of no use, and the case marked “unsolved” and forgotten. “Tell me what you can remember of the man you saw, and with as much detail as possible.”
“Wot in ’ell do it matter now?” She screwed up her face, eyeing him with suspicion and curiosity. “Yer never sayin’ yer got someone, ’ave yer? After all them years?” She hesitated another moment, deep in thought. “ ’Ere! You sayin’ as it were the same one wot done Mary Smith as done the other women in Whitechapel?”
For a moment it seemed such a glaringly obvious conclusion Pitt wondered at the woman’s stupidity. Then he remembered with a jolt that the details of this first death had not been published in the newspapers. If she had not seen the body herself, and the police, specifically Ewart, had not told her, then maybe she was unaware of the exact sameness of the method, even to the most bizarre detail.
“Yes,” he said simply. “It is possible.”
“I ’eard as it was a woman wot done ’em. In’t that true then?” She swung around to the unshaven man. “That Davey Watson’s a liar! ’E said as it were another tart wot done ’em. Wait till I catch ’im, the bleedin’ little sod!”
“It was a woman who killed Nora Gough,” Pitt said soothingly. “Now please describe this man for me as closely as you can remember, but don’t add anything or leave anything out. Please.”
“Right.” She shrugged heavy shoulders. “There were four of ’em. All come together. One were dark an’ kind o’ fancy, arty-lookin’, nothin’ special abaht ’is face as I can remember. Jus’ ordinary, ’cept ’e fancied ’isself or summink. Painter, mebbe!”
There was a clatter somewhere inside the building. A woman swore.
“The second man?” Pitt prompted.
“Pompous as a prater, ’e were, all airs like ’e thought ’e were summink.”
“What did he look like?” Urgency was mounting inside him.
“Nuffin’ much. Orn’ry as muck, w’en it comes ter it.” She stared at him, trying to work out why he cared so much his voice was cracking. “Wouldn’t know him agin if he walked in be’ind yer.”
“And the third?” he pressed.
“ ’Nother self-satisfied sod wot thinks ’e runs the world,” she answered. “ ’Andsome, though. ’Andsome face, lov’ly ’air, all thick an’ waves. Would o’ done a woman good, that ’air.”
“Fair or dark?” Pitt felt a curious sensation of anticipation as he said it, a clenching in his stomach. Ewart had known all this. He had heard this six years ago. What terror or stupidity had kept him silent?
“Fair,” she said without hesitation.
“A gentleman?”
“Yeah, if talk an’ clothes makes a gent, then ’e was a gent. I wouldn’t ’a’ give yer tuppence fer ’im. Nasty little swine. Summit mean abaht ’im, sort o’ … excited, like ’e were … I dunno.” She gave up.
“And the last one?” Pitt did not want to know, but he had to, there was no evading it. “Can you remember him?”
“Yeah. ’E really were diff’rent.” She shook her head a little, the ginger hair waggling from side to side. “On the thin side, but wi’ one o’ them faces as yer never forgets. Eyes like ’e were on fire. Inside ’is ’ead …”
“You mean a little mad? Or drunk? What?”
“No.” She waved a fat hand impatiently. “Like ’e knew sommat inside ’isself wot were so important ’e ’ad to tell everyone. Like ’e were a poet, or one o’ them musicians, or summink. ’E din’t belong wi’ them lot.”
“I see. And what happened? Are you saying they came together, or one by one, or how?” He asked even though he knew the answer.
“All come together,” she replied. “Then all went ter different rooms. All went orff tergether arter. Close, they was. White as paper. Thought they was sick drunk, till I knew wot they done … or wot one o’ them done. Reckon as they all knew abaht it, though.”
“I see. And do you know which one went in to Mary Smith?”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “They all started tergether wif ’er. Then the one wi’ the ’air stayed wif ’er. Then they all went back agin. I dunno which one o’ them killed ’er, but I’d lay me money it were the one wi’ the ’air. ’E ’ad a look in ’is eyes.”
“I see.” Pitt felt numb, a little sick. “Thank you, Mrs. Williams. Would you testify to that, if necessary?”
“Wot, in a court?”
“Yes.”
She thought about it for a moment. She did not consult the man, who stood by sullenly, unimportant.
“Yeah,” she said at last. “Yeah, if yer wants. Poor Mary. She din’ deserve that. None o’ my girls ever did, nor anybody else’s neither. I’ll see the bastard ’ang, if yer can get ’im, that is!” She gave a harsh, derisive laugh. “That all, mister?”
“Yes, for now. Thank you.”
Pitt walked away slowly. It was now nearly six in the evening, and growing dark with the heavy clouds moving in from the east, a sharper wind behind them, smelling of the river, salt and dead fish and human effort.
There was no evasion possible. Margery Williams had described the four young men too precisely for there to be any but the faintest doubt, driven by hope, not reason. It had been the Hellfire Club: Thirlstone, Helliwell, Finlay and Jago Jones. Pitt was crushed by an inner misery. He walked slowly away from Mile End and towards Whitechapel. It would take him half an hour to reach Coke Street. He wished it could be longer.
He was passed by all sorts of people on their way home from offices: clerks with ink-stained fingers and stiff shoulders, some with squinting eyes after staring all day at the black letters on the white page. Shop clerks passed
