Cardington Crescent (34 page)

She was pale beneath her rouge, but she had not yet realized just how much he knew. Her body was tight, hard under the straining taffeta, and her hands shook a little, so little he could barely see it.

“If ’e’s killed some woman it’s nuffin ter do wiv me—an’ if ’e says it is, ’e’s a liar! You go an’ arrest ’im, don’t come around ’ere, bullyin’ me! You don’t look like no naffin’ rozzer—usually I can smell ’em. ’E ain’t murdered nobody from ’ere, so get on wiv yer business an’ leave me alone—’cept fer Mrs. March’s money. I don’t suppose yer got that, eh?”

“There is no money.”

“You lyin’ bastard!” Her voice rose shrilly and she lurched forward out of the chair to stand opposite him, eyes blazing. “Yer lyin’ son of a bitch! Yer bleedin’ swine!” Her hands came up as if she would strike him, but she recollected herself in time. She was a big woman, vastly heavy, but short; Pitt was a good deal taller than she, and strong. It was not worth the risk. “You lied!” she repeated incredulously.

“That’s right,” he agreed. “At first I simply wanted to find out what you knew about Mrs. March. Then I saw the parcel on the kitchen table, and recognized the paper and the knots. You wrapped the parcels that the pieces of the body were found in, not Septimus Wigge. He says he got them from you, and we believe him. Clarabelle Mapes, I am arresting you for the murder of the woman whose body was found in the churchyard of St. Mary’s in Bloomsbury. And don’t be foolish enough to fight me—I have two other constables in the house.”

She stared at him, a succession of emotions in her face; fear, horror, disbelief, and finally, hardening resolution. She was not yet beaten.

“Yer right,” she conceded grudgingly, “she died ’ere. But it weren’t no murder. It were in defense o’ meself, an’ yer can’t ’ardly blame me fer that! A woman’s entitled ter save ’erself.” Her voice grew more confident. “I’ll ignore yer charges against meself an’ me work carin’ fer infants wot their muvvers can’t keep, ’cos they ain’t married, or already got more’n they can feed. It’s a wicked charge, iggerant of all I do fer ’em.” She saw the look on Pitt’s face and hurried on. “But I ’ad no choice, or it’d be me lyin’ dead on the floor, so help me Gawd. Come at me like a mad thing, she did!” She looked up at Pitt, first through her lashes, then more boldly.

Pitt waited.

“Wanted one o’ the babes. Some women is like that. Lorst one of ’er own an’ come ’ere ter get another, like they was new dresses or suffin. Well, o’ course I couldn’t give ’er one.”

“Why not?” Pitt asked icily. “I would have thought you’d be only too pleased to find a good home for an orphan. Save you working yourself to the bone and stinting yourself to care for it anymore!”

She ignored his sarcasm; she could not afford to retaliate, but the anger was there in her eyes, hot and black.

“Them children is in my care, Mr. Pitt! An’ she didn’t want jus’ any one. Oh, no. She wanted a partic’lar one—one as’s mother was aht o’ means temporary, like, an’ jus’ ’avin’ me care for ’er little girl till she was better placed. An’ when this woman goes off ’er ’ead an insists on ’avin’ this one babe an’ no other, I ’ad ter refuse ’er. Well, she flew at me like a mad thing! I ’ad ter defend meself, or she’da cut me throat!”

“Oh, yes? What with?”

“Wiv a knife, o’ course! We was in the kitchen an’ she snatched up a carvin’ knife orff the table an’ went at me. Well, I ’ad ter fight fer me life, an’ I did! It was a sort o’ haccident she got killed—I merely meant ter save meself, like any person would!”

“So you cut her up and wrapped her in parcels, which you took to Septimus Wigge to burn,” Pitt said bitingly. “Why was that? Seems like a lot of unnecessary trouble.”

“You got a cruel tongue, Mr. Pitt.” She was gaining confidence. “An’ a nasty mind. ‘Cause I couldn’t take the risk o’ you bleedin’ rozzers not believin’ me—just like you don’t now. Sort o’ proves I was right, don’t it?”

“Absolutely, Mrs. Mapes. I don’t believe a word of it—except that you probably did stick the kitchen knife into her and killed her. And then carried on with the knife, and maybe a cleaver as well.”

“Yer may not believe me, Mr. Pitt.” She put her hands on her hips. “But there’s nuffin as you can prove. It’s my word ’gainst yours, and no court in Lunnon’s goin’ ter ’ang a woman on the misbelief o’ one o’ your kind, an’ that’s a fact.”

She was right, and it was a bitter taste to swallow.

“I shall still charge you with disposing of the body,” he said flatly. “And you’ll go down for a nice stretch for that.”

She let out a coarse expletive of denial. “’Alf the poor doesn’t tell the pigs o’ every death in places like St. Giles. People’s dyin’ all the time.”

“Then why didn’t you simply have her buried, like all these others you’re talking about?”

“Because she was knifed, o’ course, fool! Wot priest is goin’ ter bury a woman as ’as bin knifed? An’ she didn’t come from St. Giles. She was a stranger ’ere. There’d a’ bin questions. But the law’s the same—if yer charge me wiv that yer’ve gotta charge all the others. I reckon when the judge ears ’ow she came at me, an’ ’ow terrible sorry I was when she haccidental-like fell on the knife ’erself in the struggle, ’e’ll unnerstand why I lorst me ’ead an’ got rid of ’er.”

“Well, we’ll find out, Mrs. Mapes, I promise you,” he said bitterly. “Because you’ll have your chance to tell him.” He raised his voice. “Constable!”

Immediately the door opened and the burlier of the two constables came in. “Yes, sir?”

“Stay here with Mrs. Mapes and see she doesn’t leave—for anything. She’s a rare one with a knife—has accidents in which people who threaten her end up carved in little bits and dropped in parcels round half of London. So watch yourself.”

“Yes, sir.” The man’s face hardened. He knew St. Giles, and not much surprised him. “I’ll take good care of ’er, sir. She’ll be ’ere, safe as ’ouses, when yer gets back.”

“Good.” Pitt went out into the corridor and along to the kitchen. There were five girls sitting round, the other constable in their midst. He stood up as Pitt came in, and the girls did too, out of habit towards adults—not from respect, but from fear.

Pitt wandered in and sat casually on the edge of the big central wooden table, and one by one the girls resumed their seats, huddled together.

“Mrs. Mapes has told me a young woman came here about three weeks ago wanting a baby girl, and became very upset when she couldn’t have a particular one. Does anybody remember that?”

Their faces were blank, eyes wide.

“She was nice-looking,” he went on, trying to keep the anger out of his voice, the rasping edge of desperation. He had never wanted to convict anyone more than Clarabelle Mapes, and she would escape him if he did not prove murder. The story of self-defense he was almost sure was a complete fiction, but it was not impossible. A jury might believe it. His superiors would know that as much as Clarabelle herself. She might never even be charged. The thought burned like acid inside him. Seldom had he given in to personal hatred in his work, but this time he could not suppress it. If he was honest with himself, he was no longer trying.

“Please think,” he urged. “She was young and quite tall, with fair hair and a pretty skin. She didn’t come from round here.”

One of the girls nudged the girl next to her, avoiding Pitt’s eyes.

“Fanny ... !” she whispered tentatively.

Fanny looked at the floor.

Pitt knew what troubled her. Had he been a child in Mrs. Mapes’s care he would not have dared risk her anger.

“Mrs. Mapes told me she came here,” he said gently. “I believe her. But it would help if someone else could remember.” He waited.

Fanny twisted her fingers together and breathed deeply. Someone coughed.

“I remember ‘er, mister,” Fanny said at last. “She came ter the door an’ I let ‘er in.” She shook her head. “She weren’t from ’ere—she were all ‘andsome and clean. But terrible upset she was when she couldn’t ’ave the little girl. Said as she were ’er own, but Mrs. Mapes said she were mad, poor thing.”

“What little girl?” Pitt asked. “Do you know which one.

“Yes, mister. I remember ’cos she was real pretty, all fair ’air and such a smile. Called ’er Faith, they did.”

Pitt took a deep breath. “What happened to her?” he said so quietly he had to repeat it.

“She were adopted, mister. A lady wiv no children come and took ’er.”

“I see. And was this young woman who asked after Faith still upset when she left here?”

“Dunno, mister. None of us saw ’er go.”

Pitt tried to make his voice sound casual, gentle, so as not to frighten her, but he knew the edge was still there. “Did she tell you her name, Fanny?”

Fanny’s face remained glazed, her eyes faraway.

Pitt looked at the floor, willing her to remember, clenching his hands inside his pockets where she could not see.

“Prudence,” Fanny said clearly. “She said as ’er name were Prudence Wilson. I let ’er in an’ told Mrs. Mapes as she was ’ere. Mrs. Mapes sent me back ter aks ’er business.”

“And what was her business?” Pitt was buoyed up by a surge of hope, and yet at the same time, giving a name to the hideously used corpse, learning of her loves and hopes, made her death so much deeper an offense.

Fanny shook her head. “I dunno, mister, she wouldn’t say, ’cept to Mrs. Mapes.”

“And Mrs. Mapes didn’t tell you?”

“No.”

Pitt stood up. “That’s fine. Thank you, Fanny. Stay here and look after the little ones. The constable will stay too.”

“’Oo are yer, mister, an’ wot’s ’appenin’?” the eldest girl asked with her face screwed up. They were frightened of change; it usually meant the loss of something, the beginning of new struggle.

Pitt would like to have thought this time would be different, but he could not delude himself. They were too young to earn their way in any legal occupation—not that there were many for women except domestic service, for which they had no references; sweatshops barely afforded survival. And without Clarabelle Mapes to connive and cheat monthly money out of desperate women, on the pretense of minding children they were unable to keep themselves, there was no means to support this present group of infants in Tortoise Lane. It would probably mean the workhouse for most of them.

He did not know whether to lie to them and keep fear at bay a little longer, or if that only added to the patronage, the robbery of dignity. In the end cowardice won; he had simply worn out all the emotion he had.

“I’m a policeman, and until I’ve made a few more calls I don’t know for certain what’s happening. I’ve got to discover more about Prudence Wilson. Fanny, did she say where she came from?”

Fanny shook her head. “No.”

“Never mind, I’ll find out.” He went to the door, giving the constable instructions to remain there until he returned or sent relief.

Outside in Tortoise Lane he walked smartly towards Bloomsbury. It was the obvious place to begin. It was a reasonable assumption that Prudence Wilson had walked to the nearest such place as Mrs. Mapes’s, that she lived in at her own employment as housemaid or parlormaid, as the police surgeon had suggested.

Therefore Pitt went to the Bloomsbury Police Station, and by ten past eight he was facing a tired and short-tempered sergeant who had been on his feet all day and was so thirsty for a pint of ale he could taste dust in his mouth.

“Yes, sir?” he said without raising his eyes from the enormous ledger in front of him, where he was writing in a careful copperplate hand the details of a charge of vandalizing a fence, brought against a small boy.

“Inspector Pitt, Metropolitan Police,” Pitt said formally, to give the man time to correct his attitude accordingly.

“Not ’ere, sir. Don’t belong to this station. I’ve ’eard of ’im, does murders an’ the like. Try Bow Street, sir. If they don’t ’ave ’im, they maybe know ’oo ’as.”

Pitt smiled wearily. This pedestrian misunderstanding had a kind of sanity about it that was vaguely comforting. “I am Inspector Pitt, sergeant,” he replied. “And I am here about a murder. I would be obliged for your attention, if you please.”

The sergeant blushed a hot pink and stood up smartly, not even wincing as he banged the toe of his boot against the chair leg, aggravating his corns. He faced Pitt with wide eyes, inarticulate with apology.

“I am looking for record of a Miss Prudence Wilson, probably a maid in domestic service, maybe in this area. I am hoping she has been reported missing, about three or four weeks ago. Does the name sound familiar to you?”

“People don’t usually report ’ousemaids missin’, Mr. Pitt, sir.” The sergeant shook his head. “Terrible suspicious in their thoughts, people is—and usually right, too. Thinks they’s run off wiv some man, an’ like as not they ’ave, an’ ...” He let the sentiment remain unexpressed; it was indiscreet. Personally he wished them luck. His own marriage was a happy one, and he would not willingly have seen anyone bound to a life of service in someone else’s house rather than having their own. “But could ’a bin.” He showed his agreeability by going for the ledger where such things were noted and pulling it out. Dutifully he turned it back four weeks and began to read forward. After six pages he stopped with his finger on an entry. He looked up at Pitt, his eyes surprised and sad.

“Yes, sir, ’ere it is. Young man by the name o’ ’Arry Croft came an’ says as she was ’is betrothed, an she’d gone ter fetch ’er little girl from someone as was keepin ’er, lookin’ after ’er, like, an’ never came back. Terrible upset ’e was, sure as somethin’ ’ad ’appened to ’er, since they was ter be married and she was real ’appy about it. But o’ course we couldn’t do nuffin. Young women don’t ’ave ter be found by a man they ain’t married ter, ain’t daughters of, and ain’t employed by, not as if they don’t want ter. An’ we didn’t know different as she’d gone off on ’er own with the little girl.”

“No,” Pitt agreed. It was fair, and even if they had known, by then it was already too late. “No, of course you couldn’t.”

The sergeant swallowed. “Is she dead, sir?”

“Yes.”

The sergeant did not take his eyes from Pitt’s face. “Was she—was she the body wot was found in—in the parcels, sir?”

“Yes, sergeant.”