Pentecost Alley (7 page)

“She didn’t say anything.” Pitt looked from one to the other. “She was dead, her fingers and toes broken. She was drenched with water and then strangled with her own stocking.”

Finlay gagged and went putty gray, his body slack.

FitzJames took a very slow, deep breath and held it while he steadied himself, then let it out in a sigh. He was white around the mouth and there were two spots of color in his cheeks. He met Pitt’s eyes with a cold, defiant stare.

“How regrettable.” He had difficulty keeping his voice level and under control. “But it has nothing to do with us.” He did not take his eyes from Pitt’s, as if by strength of will he could mesmerize him. “Finlay, you will give the Inspector the names and addresses of all those you know to be members of this unfortunate association. Beyond that, we cannot be of assistance.”

Pitt looked at Finlay. “The badge we found has your name on it.”

“He has already told you that he has not associated with them for years,” FitzJames said, his voice rising. “No doubt the badge was handed back to whoever was the president in charge of the … club … and he has since misplaced it. It has nothing to do with the identity of whoever killed this unfortunate woman. I imagine with an occupation like hers it is a natural hazard.”

Pitt waited to allow his anger to subside, to make some remark that would crush the unthinking arrogance of the man and make him see Ada McKinley, and the women like her, as he did himself: not beautiful, not witty or innocent, but at least as human as anyone else. She had
been as capable of hope or pain as his own daughter sitting in the dining room in her gorgeous muslin dress with its lace embroidery, her life before her in which she would probably never know hunger or physical fear, and her worst social sin wearing the same gown as her hostess or laughing at the wrong joke.

But there was nothing he could say that would hold any meaning. In all the ways they could understand, Ada McKinley was exactly what FitzJames thought she was.

“Of course,” he said coldly. “But police do not have the luxury of choosing whose murder they will investigate or where that investigation will lead them.” He allowed it to be as double-edged as he intended, even if neither man grasped it.

“Naturally,” FitzJames agreed with a frown. The conversation seemed to have become pointless. It was obvious from his expression. He turned to Finlay. “When did you last see this badge, if you can recollect?”

Finlay looked wretched. His extreme discomfort could be attributed to half a dozen possible reasons: his distress at being drawn into the murder of a woman of the streets, his embarrassment at having been so drunk he could not account for his movements last evening, fear at now being in a position where he was going to have to name his friends and draw them in also. Perhaps it was even the suspicion that one or several of them might actually be involved. Or simply anticipation of what his father would say to him once Pitt had gone.

“I … really … don’t know.” He faced Pitt squarely, but still sitting with his arms folded across his upper stomach. Perhaps it hurt after his indulgence. Certainly the skin around his eyes was puffy and Pitt could well believe his head ached. “It’s years ago. I’m sure of that,” he said unwaveringly. “Five at least.” He avoided his father’s cold gaze. “I lost it then. I doubt any of my friends had it, unless it was accidental, a jape or something.”

Pitt was perfectly sure there was a lie in it somewhere,
but when he looked at FitzJames he met a blank wall of denial. There was not a shadow or flicker of surprise in him. He had expected this answer as if he had known the precise words. Was it rehearsed?

“The names of the other members?” Pitt asked wearily. Now his lack of sleep was catching up with him, his inner tiredness from too much misery, dark streets and alleys which smelled of refuse and hopelessness. “I require their names, Mr. FitzJames. Someone had that badge last night and left it under the body of a woman he murdered.”

FitzJames winced with distaste, but he did not move, except his fingers tightened a fraction on the arm of his chair.

Finlay still looked very pale, and white around the mouth, as if he might be sick.

In the corner a standing clock ticked steadily with a heavy, resonant tone. Outside the footsteps of a maid clicked softly across the parquet floor.

“There were only four of us,” Finlay said at last. “Norbert Helliwell, Mortimer Thirlstone, Jago Jones and myself. I can give you Helliwell’s last address, and Thirlstone’s. I have no idea where Jones is. I haven’t seen or heard of him in years. Someone said he’d taken up the church, but they were probably joking. Jago was a damn good fellow, as much fun as anyone. More likely gone abroad to America, maybe. He’s the sort of chap who might go west—Texas or the Barbary Coast.” He tried to laugh, and failed.

“If you would write the other two addresses for me,” Pitt requested.

“I don’t suppose they can help you!”

“Perhaps not, but it will be somewhere to start.” Pitt smiled. “The man was seen, you know? By at least two witnesses.”

He had expected to rattle Finlay, perhaps even to break him. He failed utterly.

Finlay’s eyes widened. “Was he? Then you know it
wasn’t me, thank God! Not that I know such a woman,” he added hastily. It was a lie, and not even a good one. This time he colored and seemed about to withdraw it.

It was FitzJames whose face tightened with a lightning flash of uncharacteristic fear, gone again the instant it had come. His look at Pitt now was one of anger, perhaps because he thought Pitt might have recognized it. After all, he had caused it, and that he would not forgive.

“I doubt it was Helliwell or Thirlstone either,” Finlay went on to cover the silence. “But if you insist, then you’ll discover that. Jago Jones I can’t answer for, because you might find him a great deal harder to trace. I don’t even know if he has family. One doesn’t always ask these things, if it isn’t obvious. Kinder not to, if a fellow comes from nowhere in particular, as he seemed to.”

There was not a great deal more Pitt could do. He considered asking to see the coat Finlay had worn yesterday evening, but unless he destroyed it, the valet could always answer that later.

“There is the matter of a cuff link,” he said finally. “A rather distinctive one, dropped down the back of a chair in the woman’s room. It has ‘F.F.J.’ engraved on it, and is hallmarked. Not the sort of thing I think her average customers would possess.”

FitzJames went white, his knuckles shone where he gripped the chair arms. He swallowed with some difficulty. His throat seemed to have contracted as if his collar choked him.

Finlay, on the other hand, was totally at a loss. His handsome, blurred face showed nothing but confusion.

“I used to have a pair like that….” he mumbled. “My sister gave them to me. I lost one … but years ago. Never liked to tell her. Clumsy of me. Felt a fool, because I knew they were expensive. Always meant to get another one made, so she wouldn’t know.”

“How did it get in Ada McKinley’s chair, Mr. FitzJames?” Pitt said with a faint smile.

“God only knows,” Finlay answered. “As I said, I don’t frequent places like that! I’ve never heard of her! She is the woman who was killed, I presume?”

FitzJames’s face was dark with anger and contempt.

“For God’s sake, boy, don’t be such a damn fool. Of course you’ve used women like that in your time!” He turned to Pitt. “But that cuff link could have been there for years! You can’t connect it to last night or anything that happened then. Go and look for these other young men. See if you can find out something about the damned woman. She was probably killed in a quarrel over money, or by a rival in her trade. That’s where your job is.” He rose to his feet, his joints momentarily stiff, as if he had been constricting himself with such a tension of muscles his bones had locked. “We will write these addresses for you. Now I must be about my own affairs. I am overdue in the City. Good day to you, sir.” And he walked out without looking behind him, leaving Pitt alone with Finlay.

Finlay hesitated awkwardly. He was embarrassed by having not only been caught in a lie but reprimanded for it in front of Pitt. It was stupid and he had no excuse. It was an instinctive act of cowardice, the instant will to deny, to escape, not something for which any man could be proud. Now he was about to give his friends’ names and addresses to Pitt, and that also was something he could not avoid, and yet it sat ill with him. It would have been so much more honorable, more gentlemanly, to have been able to refuse.

“I’ve no idea where Jago Jones is,” he said with satisfaction. “Haven’t seen him for years. He could be anywhere. He was always a bit of an odd one.”

“I daresay someone will know,” Pitt replied with a bleak smile. “Army records, or the Foreign Office, perhaps.”

Finlay stared at him, his eyes wide. “Yes, possibly.”

“Mr. Helliwell?” Pitt pressed.

“Oh … yes. Taviton Street. Number seventeen I think, or fifteen.”

“Thank you.” Pitt took out his notebook and pencil and wrote it down. “And Mr. Thirlstone

“Cromer Street. That’s off the Grey’s Inn Road.”

“Number?”

“Forty-something. Can’t recall what. Sorry.”

Pitt wrote that as well. “Thank you.”

Finlay swallowed. “But they won’t have had anything to do with this, you know. I don’t know where that damned badge came from, but… but I’ll swear it wasn’t anything to do with them. It was a damn stupid club in the first place. A young man’s idea of a devilish good time, but all very silly, really. No harm in it, just … oh …” He shrugged rather exaggeratedly. “A little too much to drink, gambling rather more than we could afford to lose, drinking too much … that sort of thing. Immature … I suppose. But basically quite decent fellows.”

“I expect so,” Pitt agreed halfheartedly. A lot of people one presumed decent had darker, more callous sides.

“As I said, the badge could have gone missing years ago,” Finlay went on, frowning, staring at Pitt with a degree of urgency. “I can’t remember when I last saw mine. God knows.”

“Yes sir,” Pitt said noncommittally. “Thank you for the addresses.” And he bade him good-bye and took his leave, shown out by the still-genial butler.

Norbert Helliwell was not at home. He had gone riding in the Park early, so his butler informed Pitt, and after a large breakfast had decided to spend the morning at his club. That was the Regency Club, in Albemarle Street, although the butler expressed his doubt—not in his words, but in his expression—that it would be acceptable for Pitt to call upon him there.

Pitt thanked him and took a cab south, and then west towards Piccadilly. The more he thought about it, the
less did he feel he would be likely to learn anything of use from Norbert Helliwell. There were aspects of his visit to the FitzJames house which had surprised him. He had expected evasion, anger, possibly embarrassment. He was not unprepared to find Augustus FitzJames a domineering man, willing to defend his son, guilty or innocent.

He sat back in the hansom as it bowled along the busy streets, passing all manner of other carriages in the mid-morning. It was now pleasantly warm, the breeze balmy. Ladies of fashion were taking the air, seeing and being seen. There was more than one open landau and several gigs. A brewer’s dray lumbered past, great shaggy horses gleaming in the sun, brasses winking, coats satin smooth. Businessmen about their affairs strode along the pavements, faces intent, raising their tall hats now and again as they passed an acquaintance.

It was Finlay FitzJames who confused Pitt. He was lying, of that he had no doubt at all, but not as he had expected him to lie. Of course he had known women like Ada McKinley. To deny it was merely a reflex reaction, a self-defense in front of a stranger. And he was profoundly afraid, but not of the things he should have been. The mention of Ada’s death produced no reaction in him at all, except the shallow regret such a thing might have evoked in any such young man. Could it really be that he regarded her as barely human, and the act of killing her produced no shame at all, not even the fear that he could in any way be brought to pay for it?

Was the use of a prostitute a little like riding the hounds, a gentlemanly sport—the chase was all, the kill merely the natural outcome? And perhaps foxes were vermin anyway?

His thoughts were interrupted by his arrival at the entrance of the Regency Club. He alighted, paid the cabby and crossed the pavement to go up the steps.

“Are you a member, sir?” the doorman enquired. His face was expressionless, but the overemphasized enquiry
in his voice made it profoundly plain that he knew Pitt was not.

“No,” Pitt replied, forcing himself to smile. “I require to speak to one of your members about a matter of delicacy and extreme unpleasantness. Perhaps you would convey that message to him and then find some place where I may do it in private, and avoid the embarrassment for him of approaching him in public?”

The doorman regarded him as if he were a blackmailer.

Pitt kept his smile. “I am from the police,” he added. “The Bow Street Station.”

“I see.” The doorman did not see at all. Pitt was not what he expected of such persons.

“If you please?” Pitt said a trifle more sharply. “My business is with Mr. Norbert Helliwell. His butler informed me he was here.”

“Yes sir.” The doorman could see no other way of dealing with a deplorable situation which was threatening to get completely out of hand. He instructed the steward to show Pitt to a small side room, possibly kept for such needs. He could not be left in the hallway where he might speak to other members and make the matter even worse. The steward did so, then turned on his heel and went to inform Helliwell of his visitor.

Norbert Helliwell was in his early thirties, of very ordinary appearance. He could have been mistaken for any young man of good family and comfortable means.

“Good morning, sir.” He came in and closed the door. “Prebble tells me there has been some unpleasantness with which you think I can help you. Do sit down.” He waved directly to one of the chairs, and sat comfortably in the one opposite it. “What is it?”