Acceptable Loss (45 page)

He was still down near the docks when he stepped in at a small tobacconist who also sold a few groceries and the local newspaper.

“I dunno anything about it,” the man denied vigorously as soon as Monk told him who he was. He refused to look at the picture, brushing it away with his hand.

“It’s not when she was dead!” Monk said testily. “That’s what she looked like before. She could be a local married woman.”

“Fine, ’ere,” the old man held out his hand to take the picture again. Monk gave it to him and he studied it more carefully, before passing it back. “She could, an’ all,” he agreed. “But I still don’ know ’er. Sorry. She din’ work around ’ere, married or not.”

Monk thanked him and left.

For the rest of the morning he walked miles through the gray streets, narrow and busy, all within the sight and sounds of the river. He spoke to several prostitutes but they all denied knowing the woman in the drawing. He had not expected them to admit it. They would want to avoid all contact with the police, whatever the reason, but he had hoped to see a flicker of recognition in someone’s face. All he saw, though, was resentment—and always fear.

He was inclined to believe that the dead woman was not one of their number; she was too different from them. She was at least fifteen years older than they were, perhaps more, and there was a gentleness in her face. It looked more aged by illness than coarsened by drink or life on the streets. He thought her more likely to be a married woman ill-used.

He had asked the police surgeon if she had had children, but Overstone had told him that the mutilations had been so violent he could not tell.

It was Orme who stumbled on the answer, farther inland. At a small general store just over Britannia Bridge he had found a shopkeeper who stared hard at his version of the drawing, then blinked and looked up, sad and puzzled.

“Said she looked like Zenia Gadney, from up Copenhagen Place,” Orme told Monk when they met up at one o’clock for a quick lunch at a public house.

“Was he certain?” Monk asked. Learning her name and where she lived made her death sharper, more real somehow.

“Seemed it,” Orme answered ruefully, meeting Monk’s eyes, understanding the same dread. “It’s a good picture.”

An hour later he and Monk were knocking on the doors at Copenhagen Place, which was just over a quarter of a mile from the river.

A tired woman with two children clinging to her skirts looked at the picture Monk held out for her. She pushed the stray hair out of her eyes.

“Yeah. That’s Mrs. Gadney from over the way. But yer shouldn’t be after ’er, poor thing. She in’t doin’ anyone no ’arm. Maybe she do oblige the odd gentleman now an’ again, or maybe not. But if she do, wot’s that hurtin’? In’t yer got nothin’ better ter do? Why don’t you go an’ catch that bleedin’ madman wot cut up the poor creature you found on the pier, eh?” She looked at Monk with contempt in her pale, tired face.

“Are you sure that’s Mrs. Gadney?” Monk said quietly.

She looked at him again, then saw something in his eyes, and her hand flew to her mouth. “Gawd!” she said in no more than a sigh. Her other hand instinctively reached for the younger of the children and gripped his hand. “That … that wa’n’t ’er, was it?”

“I think it may be,” Monk answered. “I’m sorry.”

The woman seized the boy and picked him up, holding him close to her. He was perhaps two. Sensing her fear, he began to cry.

“What number did she live at?” Monk persisted.

“Number fourteen,” the woman replied, nodding her head in the direction of the house opposite and to the left.

“Has she family?”

“Not as I ever saw. She were very quiet. Didn’t bother no one.”

“Who else might know more about her?”

“I dunno. Mebbe Mrs. ’Iggins up at number twenty. I seen ’em talking once or twice.”

“Do you know if she worked anywhere?”

“In’t none o’ my business. I can’t ’elp yer.” She held the child tighter and moved to close the door.

“Thank you.” Monk stepped back and he and Orme turned away. There was nothing further to ask her.