A Metropolitan Murder (23 page)

‘Lizzie, you ain't serious? How could you?'

‘Easy enough; you know as well as I do, you've seen ma do it often enough. Besides, it don't matter, I've got Tom, ain't I? It don't matter if you love someone.'

‘You think Tom Hunt loves you?'

‘I know he does. He went and married me. With a preacher, and all.'

Clara laughs; it is a sarcastic laugh that makes her sister glare at her angrily. There is a pause before either of them speaks.

‘I should go,' says Lizzie. ‘I don't want you to get into trouble, not on my account.'

‘Don't be like that. Look, you know ma's gone off somewhere?'

‘Has she?' says Lizzie, surprised. ‘I only saw her a couple of days ago. She told us where to find you.'

‘Did she say anything to you?'

‘About what?'

‘Anything.'

Lizzie shrugs. ‘She didn't seem too good; she weren't saying much at all.'

‘Do you know about the railway murder?'

Lizzie nods.

‘The girl that shared the room with ma, she was the one that was killed. You probably even saw her. Anyhow, the police have been sniffing round. They even came here, asking after her.'

Now it is Lizzie's turn to laugh.

‘The crushers think ma did it?'

‘I didn't say that. But all the same, it ain't good, is it, if they think she's mixed up in it?'

‘Perhaps she is,' replies Lizzie, with a hint of drollery in her voice.

‘Lizzie, don't be stupid.'

‘Well,' she says, picking up her wet shawl, hardly much drier than when she left it, ‘I am sorry if I am too stupid for you, Clarrie dear. I hadn't meant to be such a bother, I'm sure. I was going to tell you, my sister, some good news, as it happens, but if I ain't good enough to be in your company . . .'

‘Go on then, what was it?'

‘Just something.'

‘What?'

Lizzie falls silent, wringing out the water from her shawl, looking down at the floor. Suddenly she seems more serious and less confident. When she does speak, it is in a soft whisper. Unconsciously she puts her hand to her belly.

‘I'm think I'm carrying.'

Clara looks at her in astonishment.

‘You stupid girl. That's good news, is it?'

‘Don't call me stupid! And I ain't a girl no more, neither. I knew you'd be like this. I knew it. I should never have come.'

Lizzie takes up her shawl, and throws it back over her shoulders as she talks.

‘Spite, that's all it is. You think you're special, sitting there, do you, Clarrie? Better than me? Well, you ain't.'

‘At least I ain't got myself bloody knocked up by . . . well, Lord knows who.'

‘It's Tom's baby,' replies Lizzie emphatically. ‘And if you think you're so much better than me, how did you swing this set-up anyhow? You in your pretty little Abigail's outfit, like you were born to it. That's a joke, ain't it?'

‘I didn't go and sell myself, if that's what you mean.'

Lizzie is at the door now, her face flushed with frustration and anger.

‘Well, ain't that bully for you. But you're no better
than us. And,' she says, her voice petulant and childlike, ‘come the summer, I'll have Tom, and my babby, and what will you have to show for it, skivvying here?'

She does not wait for a response. She is gone, rushing up the area steps, the door slamming behind her.

If she was in her normal state of mind, Clara White might worry that the sound of raised voices would wake those sleeping upstairs and bring down the wrath of Mrs. Harris for the second time in as many hours.

As it is, she merely slouches forward on the kitchen table, her head in her hands.

Outside, the rain still descends, persistent and flecked with the evening's soot. It is a familiar companion for Lizzie Hunt as she walks through the city streets, and she barely notices it, her head swimming. As she approaches Saffron Hill, however, a man approaches her. Perhaps he mistakes the tears on her face for raindrops, or perhaps he just has something else on his mind.

‘How much, love?'

‘Not tonight.'

‘Go on, I'll see you right.'

‘I said no! Not tonight.'

I
NSPECTOR
W
EBB SITS
in his office at Marylebone police station, looking over the notes upon his desk, scraps of paper that he has been arranging and rearranging for a good hour or more. There is also a book,
Uses of Opium, in Tincture and Solution
. His contemplation is once again disturbed by the appearance of sergeant Watkins at the door.

‘Burning the midnight oil, sir?'

‘I think you will find it is gas, Watkins.'

‘That don't have the same ring to it, though, does it, sir? You been here all day? Seems like it.'

‘You have news, I hope, sergeant? Or did you merely lack for conversation in the mess?'

‘We're still waiting on the transcript of the diary, sir.'

‘I know that all too well. I thought it was to be today?'

‘My man had some business at the Commons suddenly, sir. Says he can't neglect his work.'

‘Tomorrow?'

‘Almost definitely, sir.'

‘I hope there is more, Watkins. I can see from your face there is. Please tell me.'

‘Wapping has just sent us word about Agnes White,' says Watkins.

‘They've found her?' asks Webb, interrupting the sergeant.

‘Well, in a manner of speaking. They found her dress washed up near the Tower. They reckon she's drowned. Quite fortuitous, as it happens; some mudlark or scavenger found it, took it to some clothes-man, and the fellow there had heard we were looking for her.'

‘One moment, sergeant; it is remarkable, but I confess you are racing ahead of me. How do they know this article is White's dress?'

‘Ah, now that foxed me, sir, until I saw it. It's the refuge's uniform, a sort of gown, ain't it? Got her name sewn inside.'

‘We have it here?'

‘They sent it over, sir. No use to the Thames boys, really, is it?'

‘Well, for God's sake, bring it in, Watkins, show me.'

Watkins leaves the room, and swiftly returns with a bundle of cloth wrapped in brown paper. He loosens the paper, and lays out the refuge's distinctive blue and white uniform upon a nearby desk. It is sullied by mud and dirt, and slightly torn in several places, but the pattern is quite clear, and the sergeant pulls up the hem, showing his superior the neat name tag that has been stitched on to it.

‘What do you make of that, sir?'

‘It has not been in the river long, I suppose.'

‘I suppose not. Why do you think she did it, sir?'

‘What?'

‘Killed herself,' says Watkins.

Webb looks at him, raising his eyebrows skeptically.

‘“Deeds to be hid which were not hid.”'

‘Sir?'

‘It is a quotation, Watkins. Never mind. How do
we know she did kill herself? We only have the clothing, after all. Doesn't it strike you as curious that a dress became detached from the body so easily? It is pretty much of a piece, after all,' he says, fingering the still-damp material.

‘It could happen, sir.'

‘It could. But what of the body itself?'

‘Might have sunk down. Or drifted further on. We don't find 'em all, do we, sir?'

‘True.'

‘You don't seem convinced yourself either way, if I may say so, sir.'

‘You may, Watkins, because I am not at all sure of anything at present. Except that we are still quite in the dark.'

‘Come now, sir,' replies the sergeant. ‘I wouldn't say that. I'd say you should go home and get yourself some sleep.'

‘That is my intention. By the by, did you hear anything from the refuge about the other matter, sergeant?'

‘The refuge? Sorry, sir, I forgot to mention it. You were bang on there. At least one bottle is missing of a patent mixture – containing laudanum, as it happens.'

Webb smiles. ‘I thought as much,' he replies, looking at the tattered clothing. ‘I do not think we will find Agnes White, sergeant.'

‘If she's in the river, you mean?'

Webb shrugs. ‘I do not think she is in the river. Check with Miss Sparrow if she had a regular outfit of her own clothes, as well as the uniform. I should think she did, and I'll warrant she took them. She wants to give us the slip, sergeant. I do not think she wants to be found at all.'

Wapping.

The alley is a dark, foetid place, a narrow path with a watery channel running along the middle that serves as collective sewer for the surrounding buildings. It runs from Wapping High Street to the London Dock, but ends as a cul-de-sac, against the dock's high brick wall, which protects the warehouses and ships within. Agnes White knows it well enough; she follows the man halfway down, as the location is his choice, to an abandoned doorway with a nearby window-ledge on which she can balance herself against his body. She looks at his face, trying to remember what he looked like in the gas-light of the main road, as he raises her skirt with grubbing hands; he is dark and tanned, she remembers that much. She wonders idly if he is a Greek, or perhaps the son of some Ottoman pirate, the sort that kidnap decent girls and place them in some distant harem for the amusement of a brooding sultan; she has seen them in the three-act plays at the penny gaffs in Whitechapel.

It is over quickly enough. But he turns away too soon for her liking. She pulls at his sleeve.

‘A shilling?'

She says it; he will know the word after all, even if he does not speak English. He turns away, and she grips his arm more firmly. He slaps her and pushes her away, so that she falls to the ground, amidst the rotting detritus and thick brown mud.

She does not get up immediately; she knows better than that. She waits until he has gone and then feels for the wall with dirt-soaked hands, clambering against it until she can support herself on two feet.

No-one will have her now, covered in muck. Not unless she is lucky.

She will have to stay in Gravehunger Court for at least one more night.