Silence in Hanover Close (21 page)

The man pulled a slight face as he considered. “Quality,” he said at last. “She ’ad a quality about ’er; never acted like she was ’ustling people, anxious like; it was always them as was after ’er; she didn’t give a cuss.” He shook his head. “It were more’n that, though. It were—it were like she were doin’ it fer fun. Yeah, that’s it—she ’ad fun! She never laughed, not out loud, she ’ad too much class for that. But she were laughing inside, like.”

“Did you ever talk to her?” Pitt pursued.

“Me?” He looked a little surprised. “No, I never did. She didn’t say a lot, and always spoke quiet like. Only saw ’er, oh, maybe ’alf a dozen times.”

“Can you remember who she was with?”

“Different blokes. Elegant—she liked ’em real elegant, didn’t like any scruff. And money o’ course, but then so do they all. No one without a bit o’ real money comes ’ere.” He gave a short laugh.

“Can you describe any of them?”

“Not so’s you’d know ’em again, no.” He smiled.

“Try a little,” Pitt pressed him.

“You couldn’t pay me that much, guv. You goin’ ter give me another job when they throw me out of ’ere an’ black me name?”

Pitt sighed. He had known before he started that describing the woman was very different from being indiscreet about her clients. Clients had money, position, they expected privacy and no doubt bought it for a generous price. Selling the secrets of one would lose the trust of all. “All right,” he conceded. “Be general. Old or young, dark, fair or gray, what sort of height and build?”

“Yer goin’ ter search all London, guv?”

“I can eliminate a few.”

The doorman shrugged. “If yer like. Well, those as I can recall was older, above forty. Don’t think she took ’em fer the money; dunno why, but I ’ad the feelin’ she could afford ter pick and choose.”

“Gray?”

“None I recalls. An’ none ’efty—all on the slim side.” He moved closer to Pitt. “Look, guv, for all I know it could ’ave bin the same gent. It don’t pay me ter peer into their faces! They comes ’ere discreet—that’s what they pays for! Like I said, she could afford ter pick. I always ’ad the feelin’ she was doin’ it fer fun.”

“Did she always wear that color?”

“Shades of it, yeah; it was like—’er trademark. Why you so keen ter know about ’er anyway? She ain’t bin ’ere in, oh, two or three years.”

“Which? Two, or three?”

“Well if yer want it that precise, guv, three, I reckon.”

“And you’ve not seen or heard of her since then?”

“Come ter think of it, no I ’aven’t.” His faced relaxed into a grin. “Maybe she married well. Sometimes they do. Maybe she’s a duchess sitting in some grand ’ouse by now, ordering around the likes o’ you an’ me.”

Pitt pulled a face. The chance was slight at best, and they both knew it; it was far more likely she had lost her looks by disease, or assault, in a fight with another prostitute or a pimp who felt he had been cheated, a lover whose demands had become too perverted or possessive; or that she had simply moved downmarket from a hotel such as this to a simple brothel. He did not mention the possibility of treason or murder; that would complicate the question unnecessarily.

The doorman looked at him closely. “Why you after ’er, guv? She puttin’ the black on someone?”

“It’s a possibility,” Pitt conceded. “It’s a definite possibility.” He took out one of his new cards and gave it to the man. “If you see her again, tell me. Bow Street Police Station. Just say you’ve seen Cerise again.”

“That ’er name? What’s it worth?”

“It’ll do. And it’s worth my goodwill—which, believe me, is a lot better than my ill will.”

“You wouldn’t pick on me, just ’cause I ain’t seen someone! I can’t see ’er if she in’t ’ere! An’ you wouldn’t want lies, now, would yer?”

Pitt did not bother to answer. “What theaters and music halls do your clients patronize?”

“Geez!”

Pitt waited.

The man bit his lip. “Well, if ye’re after ’er yer call Cerise, I ’eard she bin ter the Lyceum, an’ I suppose she tried the ’alls, although don’t ask me which ones ’cause I dunno.”

Pitt’s eyebrows rose. “The Lyceum? A lady of courage to ply her trade there.”

“I told yer, she ’ad class.”

“Yes you did. Thank you.”

The man tipped his hat a little sarcastically. “Thank you, guv!”

Pitt left him and went out into the street again. The fog wrapped round him again like a cold muslin, damp and clinging to the skin.

So Cerise had both courage and style. She was certainly not Veronica York on a mere affair with Julian Danver! If it was Veronica, then she led a secret life of the sort to scandalize the Foreign Office to the core of its collective soul. For a diplomat to have a wife who was a practicing prostitute, of whatever price or degree of discrimination, was impossible. He would be dismissed instantly, and ruined.

Neither was she Harriet Danver pursuing her affair with Felix Asherson, although he had never actually thought that. Charlotte had said Harriet was in love; as yet he had no knowledge of whether Asherson returned her feelings. But either way, that answer offered no explanation as to why Cerise should be in the York house.

No, it seemed she was what he had first thought, a woman who used her beauty and unusual quality of allure to trap and then blackmail her Foreign Office lovers for the secrets of their work. Robert York had refused, either immediately or after some time, and as a result either she herself or perhaps her accomplices had had to murder him to avoid betrayal.

It was getting dark and the fog was beginning to freeze, the air filling with tiny pellets of ice, which sent shivers through him as they crept into the folds of his muffler and touched his skin. He began to walk briskly north into Regent Street, then turned left towards Oxford Circus. There were other people he could ask: upmarket prostitutes who would know the competition and be able to tell him more about Cerise, where she plied her trade, what clients she chose, whether she only picked men who were of use to her, and whether she was a real threat to the others by taking general business.

An hour later, after some persuasive argument and the exchange of more money, he sat in an overheated, overfurnished little room off New Bond Street. The woman in the pink chair opposite him was well past her prime, her bosom overflowing from the strict corsets and loose flesh visible under her chin had lost its elasticity, but she was still handsomer than most women ever are. There was an ease about her, from years of being desired, but the bright bitterness in her eyes reflected the underlying knowledge that she had not been loved. She picked at some candied fruit in a pink tissue-lined box. “Well?” she said guardedly. “What do you want, luv? It isn’t my style to tell tales.”

“I don’t want tales.” Pitt did not waste his time or insult her with flattery they both knew he did not mean. “I want a woman who almost certainly tried putting on the black. That’s bad for your trade; you don’t need that sort.”

She pulled a face and ate another piece of fruit, nibbling all round the edges before putting the center whole into her mouth. Had her walk of life been different, led to different dress, less paint on her skin, the hardness of survival out of her eyes and the small lines now clearly formed round the corners of her lips, she might have been one of her generation’s great beauties. The thought passed through Pitt’s mind with irony and sadness as he watched her eat.

“Go on,” she prompted. “I don’t need telling my business. If I wasn’t the best you wouldn’t be ’ere asking me favors. I don’t need your money. I earn more in a day than you do in a month.”

Pitt did not bother to remark that her risks were higher and her time short. She knew it.

“A woman who always wore a shade of cerise, dark or light, anything from plum to magenta, always something that color. She was tall and slender, not much flesh on her, but loads of style, dark eyes and black hair. Have you ever seen her, or heard your girls mention her?”

“Doesn’t sound like she’d ’ave much to offer. Thin, black ’air?”

“Oh, she had something,” Pitt said with certainty, and in spite of himself Veronica York’s face with its high cheekbones and haunting eyes came back to his mind. Could she have been Cerise, and have killed Robert when he discovered that? He looked at the lush, feminine woman in the pink chair opposite him, with her glowing, almost Titian hair and her apple-blossom skin. “She had fire, and style,” he finished.

The woman’s eyes opened wide. “Know ’er well, did yer?”

Pitt smiled. “I never met her. I’m going on the impression she made on others.”

She gave a little laugh, part derision and part genuine humor. “Well, if she put the black on people she was a fool! That’s a sure way ter kill business. In the long run it’s suicide. I don’t know anything about ’er. Sorry luv.”

Pitt did not know if he was pleased or disappointed. He had to find Cerise, and yet he did not want her to be Veronica York.

“Are you sure?” he said automatically. “It may be three years back.”

“Three years! Well, why didn’t yer say so?” She reached for another piece of fruit and bit into it. She had beautiful teeth, white and even. “I thought yer meant now! There was one like that about three or four years ago. Terrible color she wore, but she could carry it. Black ’air an’ eyes, thin as a washboard, need pounds of ’orse ’air to pad ’er out. But she ’ad fire, the sort that comes from inside; yer can’t get it out of a pot or in a glass. All the champagne in London wouldn’t give it yer. Lit up like she enjoyed ’erself every minute, like she was ’avin’ the time of ’er life, on the edge o’ danger and loved it. Mind, she were a real beauty, none o’ yer powder an’ paint jobs. Bones to break yer ’eart, she ’ad.”

Pitt felt suddenly suffocated in this overstuffed room, and at the same time there was a coldness inside him. “Tell me more about her,” he said quietly. “How often did you see or hear of her; where, who with, and have you any idea what happened to her?”

The woman hesitated, her eyes wary.

“I’ll be very unpleasant if I have to,” Pitt said levelly. “It’s murder. I’ll turn over this entire place and make such a fuss none of your clients will dare come back.”

“All right!” she snapped angrily. But there was no outrage in her; that required the element of surprise, and she had known the dangers too long and felt them too often for that. “All right! I an’t seen or ’eard of ’er in three years, an’ only a few times before that. She weren’t reg’lar. In fact, for what it’s worth it’s my opinion she weren’t professional anyway; that’s why I never took no trouble to find out more about ’er. She weren’t no rival. She didn’t take gen’ral trade; just paraded around, showed off, and picked up one or two. All in all she were good fer us, ’cause she drew attention, stirred up appetites, and then left. More for us.”

“Did you see her with anyone you can remember? It’s important.”

She considered for several minutes and Pitt did not hurry her.

“Seen ’er once with a real elegant gent, good-looker. One of the other girls said she’d seen ’er with ’im before, because she’d tried to pick ’im up ’erself, but ’e ‘ad eyes for Cerise and no one else.”

“Did you ever learn her name?”

“No.”

“Anything about her?”

“No, ’cept what I told yer.”

“All right, you know the world, and the business. What’s your best guess? What sort of woman was she, and what happened to her?”

The woman laughed abruptly, then the bitterness softened into pity, for herself and all those who shared her lot, even peripherally. “I dunno,” she said. “Could be dead, for all I know, or more like come down in the world. Life in this business can be short. ’Ow the hell do I know what ’appened to ’er, poor bitch?”

“She was different, you said that; so did the others who saw her. What’s your best guess as to where she came from? Come on, Alice, I need to know, and you’ve the best chance of being right.”

She sighed. “My guess is she was Quality out slumming it, God knows why. Maybe she was just bent that way. Some is. Although why any woman that’s got a roof over ’er ’ead and food for the rest of ’er life should want ter risk it is beyond me. Still, I reckon insanity can ’it the Quality like the rest of us. Now that’s all, I in’t got nothing else to add to it. You ’ad your time; I got things to do. I bin more’n fair— an I ’ope you’ll remember that.”

Pitt stood up. “I will,” he promised. “As far as I know, you keep a lodging house. Good day.”

He spent two more days going from one place to another in the haunts of the demimonde, the theaters and restaurants where such women plied their trade, and he heard occasional mention of Cerise or someone who might have been her or might not, but he learned nothing that added to what he already knew. No one remembered who she had been with, whether it was several men or only a few, although it was certainly more than one in every account. No one knew her name nor where she came from. She was tolerated because she came very seldom and robbed them of little business. It was a hard world and they expected competition. If a man preferred one woman to another there was nothing to be done about it except in extreme cases; usually it was better to take defeat gracefully. Scenes embarrassed the clientele.

Whether any of the men with her had been Robert York it was impossible to say. She frequented places where he was likely to have been, but then so had half London Society, at least among the men. The descriptions of her companions were general enough to have fit him, or Julian Danver, or Garrard Danver, or even Felix Asherson—or just about anyone else with elegance and money.

In the early evening of the second day, a little after six, as the fog cleared at last, leaving only a few dark pockets, Pitt took a cab to Hanover Close, this time not to the York house but further along, to where Felix Asherson lived. Pitt had chosen to see him at home in order to form a more complete impression of the man, to make some judgment as to his circumstances and possibly his character. Away from the formal and rather intimidating atmosphere of the Foreign Office he might be more inclined to relax his caution. In his own home he would feel safer and could be certain none of his colleagues would interrupt, perhaps suspecting him of indiscreet disclosures to the police. Also, inside the house Pitt might form a more precise picture of his financial situation. There was still the possibility that Robert York had surprised a friend burgling his house and his recognition had sparked a murder. Pitt had not forgotten that possibility.