Cardington Crescent (31 page)

“Course yer do!” she agreed heartily. “Or yer wouldn’t be ’ere yerself, eh?” She laughed, a rich gurgle in her throat, and looked at him archly.

Pitt could not remember ever having been quite so revolted. He forced an answering smile that must have been sickly.

“’Ave a cup o’tea, wiv a drop o’ suffin?” she invited. “’Ere!” She reached for a grubby bellpull. “I could do wiv one meself. An’ it’s only perlite ter keep yer company.”

Pitt had not had time to decline when the door opened and yet another girl peered round, eyes wide, face gaunt. This one might have been fifteen.

“Yes, Mrs. Mapes, ma’am?”

“Get me a cup o’ tea, Dora,” Mrs. Mapes ordered. “An’ you make sure Florrie is doin’ the pertaters fer supper.”

“Yes, Mrs. Mapes, ma’am.”

“An’ bring the good pot!” Mrs. Mapes called after her, then turned back to smile at Pitt. “Now wot’s yer business, Mr. Pitt? Yer can trust me. I’m the soul o’ discretion.” She held her finger up to her nose. “Clarabelle Mapes ’ears ev’rythin’ an’ tells nuffin’.”

He knew already that if he had hoped to trick her or intimidate her he was foredoomed to failure. She was one of life’s survivors—a venturer, not a victim. Behind all the thrusting flesh and the curls and smiles she was as careful as a miser and suspicious as a dog in strange territory. He decided to appeal to her greed and at the same time see what effect surprise might have on her. Guilt he did not imagine, but there was a measure of fear deeper than mere caution that would have meaning to her.

“I’m afraid Mrs. March is dead,” he said watching her closely.

But her face did not alter by a shadow or hairsbreadth of movement. “Wot a shame,” she said expressionlessly, her black eyes meeting his squarely. “I ’ope as it wasn’t in pain, poor thing.”

“She didn’t go easily,” he parried.

But there was not a tremor in her. “Not many of us do.” She shook her head, and the black curls bounced. “Very civil of you ter tell me, Mr. Pitt.”

He pressed on. “There’ll be a postmortem.”

“Will there? An’ wot’s that?”

“The doctors will examine her body to decide exactly why she died. Cut her open if necessary.” He locked his eyes on hers, trying to see inside her, to get beyond the gross, shining exterior—and failed.

“’Ow disgustin’,” she said without flinching. Her sharp, curved nose wrinkled a little but the distaste was assumed; she had seen infinitely worse—anyone who lived in St. Giles had. “Wouldn’t yer think doctors’d ’ave suffin better ter do than cut up someone as is already dead? Can’t ’elp ’er now, poor thing. Be better ter doctor them as is livin’—not that that’s a lot o’ use, often as not.”

Pitt felt he was losing ground rapidly.

“They have to,” he plunged on. “Something of a mystery about her death.” That was literally true, even if the implication was not.

“Often is.” She nodded again, and there was a rap on the door, followed by yet another girl, of about ten, bringing the awaited tea on a painted lacquer tray, chipped in several places. But in pride of place was a silver teapot, which from his experience on robbery detail Pitt judged to be genuine Georgian. The child staggered awkwardly under its weight, her spindly arms shaking. Even as she left again her eyes were fixed hopelessly on the currant cakes on the china plate.

“’Ave a drop o’ suffin ter refresh yer?” Mrs. Mapes offered when the door was closed, and fished in a cupboard beside her, twisting her huge bulk in the chair till it creaked. She brought up an unmarked green glass bottle from which she poured what from the smell could only be gin.

Pitt refused quickly. “No, thank you. Too early. I’ll just have the tea.”

“Often is a mystery, death,” she said, finishing her previous train of thought. “Please yerself, Mr. Pitt.” And she poured a generous dollop into her own cup before adding tea, milk, and sugar. She passed a good-quality china cup across to Pitt and invited him to help himself as he wished. “But only the rich as gets doctors ter cut them up afterwards. Stupid, I calls it! As if slicin’ up corpuses is goin’ ter tell anyone the secrets o’ life an’ death!”

He gave up on the postmortem. Obviously it did not frighten her, and he was beginning to believe she had no hand in any abortion that could be traced to the March household. And yet Sybilla had kept her address, and there was no conceivable possibility of it being a social acquaintance. What did this fearsome woman do to provide for herself?

He glanced round the room. By St. Giles standards it was comfortable bordering on luxurious, and Mrs. Mapes herself all too clearly ate well. But the children he had seen looked half starved and were dressed in shabby hand-me-down clothes, ill-fitting and iller kept.

“You set a good table, Mrs. Mapes,” he began cautiously. “Mr. Mapes is a fortunate man.”

“There ain’t no Mr. Mapes these ten years.” She looked at him with brightening eyes. Then she caught sight of the neat mending on his jacket sleeves and breathed in sharply, pinching her nostrils. That was a wife’s work, if ever she saw it. “Died o’ the flux, ’e did. But ’e thought well o’ me when ’e was ’ere.”

“My mistake,” Pitt said immediately. “I thought with all the children ...”

Her eyes were hard and her hand tightened very slightly in her fat lap.

“I’m a soft ’earted woman, Mr. Pitt,” she said with a guarded smile. “Takes in all sorts to care fer ’em, when they ain’t got nobody. Looks after ’em fer neighbors an’ cousins an’ the like. Always carin’ fer somebody, I am. All Tortoise Lane’ll tell yer that, if they’re honest.”

“How commendable.” Pitt could not keep all the sarcasm out of his voice, although he tried; he was far from finished with Mrs. Mapes. There was the beginning of an ugly idea in his mind. “Mr. Mapes must have left you very well provided for that you have the means and the time to be so charitable.”

Her chin came up, and her smile widened, showing hard, yellow-white teeth. “That’s right, Mr. Pitt,” she agreed. “Thought the world o’ me, did Mr. Mapes.”

Pitt put down his cup and remained silent for a moment, unable to think of another line of attack. She was no longer afraid and he could see it in every curve of her strong, bulging body. He could smell it in the hot air.

“Good o’ yer ter come all this way ter tell me o’ Mrs. March’s death, Mr. Pitt.” She was preparing to dismiss him. Time was short; he had no cause to search the premises, and what was he to look for even if he returned with men and a warrant?

Then a lie occurred to him that might work. Forget her fear, try the paramount urge in her character—greed.

“No more than my duty, Mrs. Mapes,” he replied with only the barest faltering. Please heaven the Metropolitan Police would honor the debt he was about to contract. “Mrs. March remembered you in her will, for—services rendered. You would be that Clarabelle Mapes, wouldn’t you?”

The caution fighting avarice in her face was grotesquely comical, and he waited without interruption while she sought a compromise with herself. She let out her breath in a huge, gusty sigh. Her eyes gleamed.

“Very good of ’er, I’m sure.”

“You are the right person?” he persisted. “You performed some service for her?”

But she was not outmaneuvered so easily—she had already seen that trap. “Private,” she said, staring at him boldly. “Between ladies, as I’m sure yer’ll unnerstand, and not pry, as would be indelicate.”

He allowed a look of doubt to cross his face. “I have a responsibility—”

“Yer got my haddress, or yer wouldn’t be ’ere,” she pointed out. “There ain’t no Clarabelle Mapes ’ere but me. I gotta be the right one, ain’t I? An’ I can prove ’oo I am, never you fear. Wot I done forrer ain’t none o’ your business. Mighta bin no more’n a kind word when she needed it.”

“In Tortoise Lane?” Pitt smiled back dourly.

“I ain’t always bin in Tortoise Lane,” she said, instantly regretting it. She knew she had made a mistake, and it was marked in the sudden slackness in her face, an alteration in the way she sat. “I goes out sometimes!” she said, trying to make good the damage.

“Not to Cardington Crescent, you don’t.” His confidence was growing, although he still had no idea towards what end. “And you’ve been here for some time.” He looked about him. “Certainly since she wrote to you. As you pointed out, she had this house in her address book.”

This time she really did pale; the color blanched from her predatory face leaving the rouge standing on her cheeks, the spot on the left cheek an inch higher than the spot on the right. She said nothing.

Pitt stood up. “I’ll see the rest of the house,” he announced, and went to the door before she could stop him. He opened it and went out into the dogleg of the passage, walking swiftly towards the kitchens, away from the front door. One of the girls he had seen before was on her hands and knees on the floor with a bucket of water and a brush. She moved out of the way for him.

The kitchen itself was enormous for a house of this size, two rooms knocked into one, either deliberately or by a rotten wall collapsing and being removed. The floor was wooden, scrubbed till the planks were worn uneven, nails in little islands humped above, grit driven into the cracks. Two large stoves were covered with a variety of cauldrons, and one kettle spouted steam, presumably to refresh Mrs. Mapes’s teapot. Beside the stoves were scuttles of coal dust and coke refuse, close enough for the spindly-armed girls to lift them and restoke. By the far wall sank sacks of grain and potatoes and a bundle of grubby cabbages. Opposite was a huge dresser decked with dishes and pans and mugs, drawers ill-fitting, papers poking out. A ball of string, partly unwound, lay on the floor. There was a half wrapped parcel on the kitchen table, and a pair of scissors. Above them, winched to the ceiling, was an airing rail, hung with all manner of ragged clothes and linen collecting the kitchen smells.

There were three more girls working at various chores; one at the sink peeling potatoes, one stirring a cauldron of gruel on the stove, the third on her hands and knees with a dustpan. None of them could have been more than fourteen—the youngest looked more like ten or eleven. Obviously the establishment was intended to cater to a considerable number of people on a regular basis.

“How many more are there of you?” he asked before Mrs. Mapes could catch up with him. He could hear her skirt swishing and rattling behind him.

“I dunno,” a white-faced girl whispered. “There’s all them little ones, the babes. They comes and goes, so I dunno.”

“Shush!” the oldest warned fiercely, her eyes black with fear.

Pitt did all he could to keep his expression from betraying him. Now he knew what this place was, but he was helpless to change it. And if he showed his fury, pity, or disgust, he would only make it worse. Nature fueled the need and poverty necessitated the answer.

“What do yer want in ’ere, Mr. Pitt?” Mrs. Mapes demanded from behind him, her voice shrill. “Ain’t nothin’ ’ere as ’as ter do wiv you!”

“No, nothing at all,” he agreed grimly, without moving. There was no point at which he could even begin, let alone accomplish anything. He would do more harm by starting, and yet he was loath to leave.

“’Ow much?” she asked.

“What?” He had no idea what she was talking about. His eyes roamed over the cauldrons: gruel, easy and cheap for the children, potatoes to fill out a stew with no meat.

“’Ow much did Mrs. March remember me wiv?” she said impatiently. “You said as she remembered me!”

He looked at the floor and the large wooden table. They were unusually clean—that at least was something in her favor. “I don’t know. I expect it will be sent to you.” It would depend on what he could persuade out of his superiors. He might even forget it altogether.

“Ain’t you got it?”

He did not answer. If he did he would have no excuse to remain, and there was something at the back of his mind that held him here, a sense that there was meaning, if only he could find it.

What could Sybilla March possibly have wanted with this woman? A child taken for a maidservant in trouble? It seemed the only reasonable thing. Was it worth pursuing, following to Sybilla’s house and seeing if any maid there had been unaccountably absent, perhaps due to a confinement? Did it matter? Life was full of such domestic tragedies, girls who had to earn their livings and could not afford to keep a child born out of wedlock. And servants hardly ever married, precisely for that reason; they lived in their masters’ houses, where there was no room for families.

Mrs. Mapes’s voice grated behind him. “Then yer’d best be abaht yer business, an’ leave me ter mine!”

He turned slowly, looking over the room for a last time. Then he realized what it was that held him: the parcel—the brown paper parcel on the kitchen table, half tied, next to the scissors. He had seen that paper, that curious yellow string before, tied lengthways and widthways twice, knotted at each join and tied with a loop and two raw ends. Suddenly he was ice cold, as if a breath from a charnel house had crawled over his skin. He remembered the blood and the flies, the fat woman with her bustle crooked and her bulging-eyed dog. It was too much to be a coincidence. The paper was common, but the string was unusual, the knots eccentric, characteristic, the combination surely unique. They were at least a mile and a half from Bloomsbury. What of this small parcel wrapped in the off cuts? Where was the first parcel, the larger one? He could see it nowhere in the kitchen.

“I’m going,” he said aloud, surprised by the sound of his own voice. “Yes, Mrs. Mapes, I’ll bring the money myself, now that I know it’s you.”

“When?” She smiled again, oblivious of the parcel on the table and its knots. “I wanter make sure as I’m in, like,” she added in explanation, as if it could mask her eagerness.

“Tomorrow,” he replied. “Sooner, if I get back to my offices in time.” He must get one of these children alone and ask them about the parcels—where they went to, how often, and who carried them. But it must be away from here, where she could not overhear, or the child’s life would be imperiled. “Have you got someone reliable who’ll deliver a message for me, someone you trust yourself?” he asked.

She weighed the advantages against the disadvantages and decided in his favor.