Anne Perry - [Thomas Pitt 05]

by Bluegate Fields

  “Oh, yes, sir, from time to time. River police brings ’em in ’ere quite a lot—’ere an’ Greenwich. And o’course Wapping Stairs—sort o’ natural place, that is.”

  “Murdered?” Pitt asked.

  “Some o’ them. Although it’s ’ard to tell. A lot o’ them is drowned, and who knows whether they were pushed, or fell, or jumped?”

  “Marks?” Pitt raised his eyebrows.

  “Gawd ’elp us, most of ’em is pretty marked anyway, long before they gets as far as the water. There’s some people as seems to get their pleasure out o’ beating other people, instead o’ what any natural man would. You should see some o’ the women we get, and no more’n bits o’ kids, lot o’ them—younger than my wife was when I married ’er, and she was seventeen. Then, o’ course, some o’ them girls gets beat by their own pimps, if they’ve bin ’olding back on the money. All that, and wot with the tides and knockin’ around the bridges, some o’ them yer’d ’ardly recernize as they was ’uman bein’s. I tell yer, it’d fair make yer weep sometimes. Turns me stomach, it does, and it takes a deal ter do that.”

  “A lot of brothels in the docks,” Pitt said quietly after a moment’s silence while they pursued their private memories of horror. It was more an observation than a question.

  “Course,” the constable agreed. “Biggest port in the world, London.” He said it with some pride. “What else d’y’expect? Sailors away from ’ome, after a long spell at sea, and the like. An I s’pose when yer gets the supply o’ women, and boys, fer them that’s that way inclined”—he grimaced— “then it’s natural yer gets others come in from outside the harea, knowin’ as they’ll find whatever they wants ’ere. There’s a few times yer’ll see some smart gents get down from a cab outside some very funny ’ouses. But then I reckon yer knows that fer yerself, bein’ near that kind o’ harea, too!”

  “Yes,” Pitt said. “Yes.” Although since his promotion to inspector he had had to do with more serious cases, and the ordinary, rather pedestrian duties of keeping a modicum of control over vice had not fallen his way.

  The constable nodded. “It’s when I sees children involved that I gets the sickest about it. I reckon most adult people can do as they wants, although I ’ates ter see a woman lower ’erself— always make the think o’ the muvver—but kids is diff’rent. Funny, yet know, they was two ladies—and I mean ladies, all dressed and spoke like real quality they was, and ’andsome as duchesses. They came in ’ere just yesterday, a-sayin’ as they wanted ter do somethin’ about child prostitution. Wanted ter make people sit up and take notice. Don’t reckon as they’ve much chance.” He smiled wanly. “It’s a lot the quality as pays the money that makes it worth the procurer’s while—up the better end, any’ow. No good pretending the gents wot matters don’t already know about it! Still, yer can’t tell ladies as their own kind does that kind o’ thing, can yer? I never saw them meself, but Constable Andrews, as was on duty at the time, ’e said they wanted ter look at the corpse what was brought out o’ the river—the one as yer come about. White as sheets, they went, but never lorst their nerve, nor fainted. Yer’ve gotta admire them. Just looked and thanked ’im, polite as yer like, and went out again. Yer’ve got to ’and it to ’em, they got spirit!”

  “Indeed!” Pitt was startled. Half of him was furious, the other half idiotically proud. He did not even bother to ask if the ladies had left any names, or indeed what they had looked like. He would reserve his comments on the matter until he got home.

  “Reckon as yer’d like ter see Sergeant Wittle?” the constable said matter-of-factly, unaware of Pitt’s thoughts, or even that they had left the immediate subject. “ ’E’s just up them stairs, first door you comes to, sir. Can’t miss it.”

  “Thank you,” Pitt said. He smiled and left the constable, who picked up the mug of tea again, before it lost the last of its warmth.

  Sergeant Wittle was a sad man, with a dark face and remnants of black hair draped thinly across the top of his head.

  “Ah,” he sighed when Pitt explained his call. “Ah—well, I don’t think we’ll get much there. ’Appens all the time, poor sods! Can’t tell you ’ow many I’ve seen, over the years. O’ course, most aren’t murdered, leastways not directly—just sort o’ sideways, like, by life. Sit down, Mr. Pitt. Not that it’ll do you any use.”

  “It’s not official,” Pitt said hastily, pushing the chair closer to the stove and settling in it. “The case is yours. Just wondered if I could help—off the books?”

  “You know suffin’, then?” Wittle’s eyebrows rose. “We know where ’e lived, but that don’t tell us anything at all. Anonymous sort o’ place. Anyone could come or go—part o’ the whole thing! Nobody wants ter be seen. Who would—frequenting a place like that? An’ all the other residents pretty much mind their own business. Anyway, they’re inside plyin’ their own trade, which by its nature ’as ter be private. Like bitin’ the ’and that feeds you, letting anyone know who goes in and out o’ that place.”

  “Do you have anything at all?” Pitt asked, trying not to hope.

  Wittle sighed again. “Not much. Treating it as murder, o’ course at least for a while. It’ll probably get filed with all the other unsolveds, but we’ll give it a week or two. Seems like ’e was a plucky little bastard—spoke out more’n most. ’E was known. Kept some ’igh-class company, according to some, if they’re tellin’ the truth.”

  “Who?” Pitt leaned forward urgently, his throat tight. “Who was this high-class company?”

  Wittle smiled sadly. “Nobody as you’d know, Mr. Pitt. I read the newspapers. If it ’ad bin anyone in your case; I’d ’a’ sent and told you—just a matter o’ politeness, like. Not that I can see as it’d do you any good. Already got yer man. Why d’ya still care?” He screwed up his eyes. “Reckon as there’s more?” He shook his head. “Always is, on these things, but you’ll never find it. Very close, the quality, when it comes to ’iding their family problems. Reckon young Waybourne was doin’ a spot o’ slummin’ of ’is own, do you? Well—what does it matter now? Poor little sod’s dead, an’ provin’ there was a few lies told ’ere an’ there won’t ’elp no one now.”

  “No,” Pitt said with as much grace as he could muster. “But if you find proof he kept company with anyone in our area that you want to know about, there may be something useful I could tell you that is only suspicion—and not on record.”

  Wittle smiled, for the first time showing genuine amusement.

  “Ever tried proving a gentleman ’ad even a passin’ acquaintance with somebody like Albie Frobisher, Mr. Pitt?”

  There was no need for an answer. They both knew that such a piece of professional crassness would be without point; indeed, the officer who made the charges would probably suffer for his foolishness more than the gentleman he made it against. Although of course there would be embarrassment all around, not least to his superiors in the force for having employed so clumsy a man, an oaf so unaware of what may be said, and what may only be supposed, that he would voice such a thought.

  “Even if it’s proof you can’t use,” Pitt said at last, “I’d like to know.”

  “Just fer interest, like?” Wittle’s smile widened. “Or do you know suffin’ as I don’t?”

  “No.” Pitt shook his head. “No, I know frighteningly little. The more I learn, the less I think I really know. But thank you anyway.”

  It took him ten minutes’ walking in the cold before he found another cab; he directed it and climbed in, then realized his mind had translated into words the thought that had barely played itself into his consciousness. He was going back to Abigail Winters’s rooms to see if any of the girls knew exactly where she had gone. He was afraid for her, afraid she too was lying dead and bloated in some dark backwater of the river, or perhaps already washed out with the tide into the estuary and the sea.

  Three days later, he received word from a police station in a little town in Devon that Abigail Winters had gone there to stay w
ith a cousin, and was alive and in every appearance of health. The one girl at the brothel who could write had told him where she was, but he had not accepted her unsubstantiated word. He had telegraphed six police districts himself, and the second reply gave him the answer he wanted. According to the constable whose careful, unaccustomed wording he read, Abigail had retired to the country for her lungs, which suffered from the London fog. She thought the air in Devon would suit her better, being milder and free from the smoke of industry.

  Pitt stared at the paper. It was ridiculous. It came from a small country town; there would be little market there for her trade, and she knew no one but a distant relative—a female at that. Doubtless she would be back in London within a year, as soon as the Waybourne case was forgotten.

  Why had she gone? What was she afraid of? That she had lied, and if she stayed in London someone would press her until it was discovered? Pitt felt he knew already; the only thing he did not know was how it had come about. Had someone paid her to lie—or had it been a slow process through questioning by Gillivray? Had she realized—by implication, gesture, guess— what he wanted, and, in trade for some future leniency, given it to him? He was young, keen, more than personable. He needed a prostitute who had venereal disease. How hard had he looked, and how easy had he been to satisfy once he had found someone, anyone—who filled that need?

  It was a shocking thought, but Gillivray would not have been the first man to seize a chance for evidence to convict someone he sincerely believed to be guilty of an appalling crime, a crime likely to occur again and again if the offender was not imprisoned. There was a deep, natural desire to prevent hideous crime, especially when one has only recently seen the victims. It was easy to understand. Yet it was also inexcusable.

  He called Gillivray into the office and told him to sit down.

  “I’ve found Abigail Winters,” he announced, watching Gillivray’s face.

  Gillivray’s eyes were suddenly bright and blurry. There was a heat inside him that robbed him of words. It was the guilt Pitt might not have found in an hour of interrogation, no matter how many of his suspicions he pressed or how many verbal traps he laid. Surprise and fear were so much more effective, putting the onus of reply on Gillivray before he had time to conceal the guilt in his eyes, to grasp what it was Pitt was saying.

  “I see,” Pitt said quietly. “I would rather not believe you openly bribed her. But you did, tacitly, lead her into perjury, didn’t you? You invited her, and she accepted.”

  “Mr. Pitt!” Gillivray’s face was scarlet.

  Pitt knew what was coming, the rationalizations. He did not want to hear them because he knew them all, and he did not want Gillivray to make them. He had thought he disliked him, but now that it came to the moment, he wanted to save him from self-degradation.

  “Don’t,” he said quietly. “I know all the reasons.”

  “But, Mr. Pitt—”

  Pitt held up a piece of paper. “There’s been a robbery, a lot of good silver taken. This is the address. Go and see them.”

  Silently, Gillivray took it, hesitated a moment as though he would argue again, then turned on his heel and left, closing the door hard behind him.

  11

  PITT STOOD UNDER the new electric lights along the Thames Embankment and stared at the dark water brilliantly dancing in the reflections, then sliding away into obscurity. The round globes along the balustrade were like so many moons hung just above the heads of the elegant and fashionable as they paraded in the wintry night, muffled in furs, their boots making little high, chiplike sounds on the ice-cold footpath.

  If Jerome were hanged, whatever Pitt found out about the murder would be academic. And yet there would still be Albie. Whoever had killed him, it was not Jerome; he had been safely entombed in the heart of Newgate when that had happened.

  Were the two murders connected? Or was it just gross and irrelevant mischance?

  A woman laughed as she passed behind Pitt, so close her skirts brushed the bottom of his trousers. The man beside her, his top hat rakishly sideways on his head, leaned and whispered something. She laughed again, and instinctively Pitt knew what he had said.

  He kept his back to them and stared out into the nothingness of the river. He wanted to know who had killed Albie. And he still felt that there were other lies concerning Arthur Waybourne, lies that mattered, although his brain could not tell him how, or what the answer was.

  He had been back to Deptford tonight, but hadn’t learned anything that really mattered, just a lot of detail that he might as easily have guessed. Albie had some wealthy customers, men who might go to a considerable length to keep their tastes from becoming known. Had Albie been foolish enough to try enhancing his standard of living by a little selective blackmail, an insurance against the time when he could no longer command a price?

  But still, as Wittle had pointed out, far more likely he had had some sort of lovers’ quarrel and been strangled in the heat of jealousy or unsatisfied lust. Or perhaps it was as commonplace as a fight over money. Maybe he had simply been greedy.

  Yet Pitt wanted to know; the untidy ends trailed across his mind, irritating his thoughts like a constant nagging pain.

  He straightened up and began to walk along the row of lights. He walked faster than the strollers, muffled against the bitter air, carriages beside them to pick them up when they were tired of their diversion. It was not long before he hailed a hansom and made his way home.

  The following day at noon, a constable anxiously knocked on Pitt’s door and told him that Mr. Athelstan required him to report upstairs immediately. Pitt went unsuspectingly, his mind currently engaged on a matter of recovering stolen goods. He thought Athelstan would be inquiring into the likelihood of a conviction in the case.

  “Pitt!” Athelstan roared as soon as Pitt was inside the door. He was already standing and a cigar lay squashed in the big polished stone ashtray, tobacco bursting out of its sides. “Pitt, by God I’ll break you for this!” His voice rose even higher. “Stand to attention when I talk to you!”

  Pitt obediently drew his feet together, startled by Athelstan’s scarlet face and shaking hands. He was obviously on the edge of completely losing control of himself.

  “Don’t just stand there!” Athelstan came around the side of the desk to face him. “I won’t have dumb insolence! Think you can get away with anything, don’t you? Just because some jumped-up country squire had the ill-judgment to have your educated with his son, and you think you speak like a gentleman! Well, let the disabuse you, Pitt—you are an inspector of police, and you are subject to the same discipline as any other policeman. I can promote you if I think you are fit, and I can just as easily put you down to sergeant—or to constable, if I see a reason. In fact, I can have you dismissed altogether! I can have you thrown out onto the street! How would you like that, Pitt? No job, no money. How would you keep your lady wife then, with her highborn ideas, eh?”

  Pitt almost laughed; this was ridiculous! Athelstan looked as if he might have a fit if he wasn’t careful. But Pitt was also afraid. Athelstan might look ludicrous standing in the middle of the floor with crimson face, bulging eyes, neck like a turkey’s over his strangle-stiff white collar, but he was just close enough to the borders of his control that he might very well dismiss him. Pitt loved his job; untangling the threads of mystery and discovering truth—sometimes an ugly truth—held a certain value. It gave him his sense of worth; when he woke every morning, he knew why he got up, where he was going, and that he had a purpose. If anyone stopped him and asked “Who are you?” he could give them an answer that summed up what he was, and why—not merely the vocational label, but the essence. To lose his job would rob him of far more than Athelstan could comprehend.

  But, looking at Athelstan’s purpled face, he knew that some measure of its importance to him was very well understood. Athelstan meant to frighten him, meant to cow him into obeying.

  It had to be Albie again, and Arthur Waybourne. The
re was nothing else important enough.

  Athelstan suddenly reached out his hand and slapped the flat of his palm across Pitt’s cheek. It stung sharply; but Pitt felt foolish to have been surprised. He stood perfectly still, hands by his sides.

  “Yes, sir?” he said steadily. “What is it that has happened?”

  Athelstan seemed to realize he had lost every shred of dignity, that he had allowed himself to indulge in uncontrolled emotion in front of a subordinate. His skin was still suffused with blood, but he drew in his breath slowly and stopped shaking.

  “You have been back to the Deptford police station,” he said in a much lower voice. “You have been interfering in their inquiries, and asking for information about the death of the boy prostitute Frobisher.”

  “I went in my own time, sir,” Pitt replied, “to see if I could offer them any help, since we already know a good deal about him and they do not. He lived nearer our area, if you remember?”

  “Don’t be insolent! Of course I remember! He was the perverted whore that that man Jerome patronized in his filthy habits! He deserved to die. He brought it on himself! The more vermin like that that kill each other off, the better for the decent people of this city. And it is the decent people we are paid to protect, Pitt! And don’t you forget it!”

  Pitt spoke before he thought. “The decent ones being those who sleep only with their wives, sir?” He allowed the sarcasm to creep into his voice, although he had intended it to sound nave. “And how shall I know which ones those are, sir?”

  Athelstan stared at him, the blood ebbing and flowing in his face.

  “You are dismissed, Pitt,” he said at last. “You are no longer in the force!”

  Pitt felt the ice drench over him as if he had toppled and fallen into the river. His voice replied like a stranger’s, involuntarily, full of bravado he did not feel.