A Metropolitan Murder (27 page)

‘No,' she says, though her lips still suggest a smile.

‘Very well, then. I know this is not the best of moments, but I merely wanted to say that, if I have not offended you too much, I would still like your help.'

‘I cannot go back to Wapping,' she replies, her voice suddenly losing its warmth.

‘No, not that. Not at all. But I would still like to talk to you, about your history and so forth. We never had a proper chance, and I confess, you interest me greatly. As a study, I mean to say.'

She looks at him doubtfully.

‘Please,' he continues, ‘let me at least take you for some food. I am sure we can find a chop-house or some such when we get back upon the road.'

‘It ain't proper, you being seen with me.'

‘Then we will find somewhere suitably disreputable. We are in Limehouse, after all. And you look half starved in any case.'

‘I'll be missed.'

He smiles, seeing the steps that lead up to the Commercial Road.

‘Not, my dear girl, if we take a cab. Will you come?'

She hesitates for a moment.

‘If you like.'

The chop-house is almost empty. None the less, its booths, separated by rickety oak partitions, smell of roasting, burnt toast, and spilt porter, and everywhere there is the all-pervasive scent of tobacco smoke.

‘So, Clara, where shall we begin?'

‘Where would you like?'

‘Well, you were born in the public house which you showed me. When is your birthday?'

‘The twelfth of March, I think.'

‘You are not sure?'

‘There was only my ma to remember it. And she was never that good at marking days.'

‘I see. And where did you live at first?'

‘In different places, then with my grandma.'

‘In the house by the river?'

‘Yes.' She looks down, frowning.

‘I am sorry,' says Cotton. ‘If it is, well, awkward to talk of it now . . . I did not mean to . . .'

‘I do not mind.'

‘What about the other places? Were they lodging houses?'

‘If ma could afford the doss.'

‘If not?'

She shrugs. ‘Doorways, alleys, any place. There was a boat for a while.'

‘You slept in a boat?'

‘When it moored up, at night. My sister was good as born in it.'

‘Really?'

‘I ain't making it up.'

‘I am sorry. It merely sounds rather, well, colourful.'

‘It weren't.'

Step back.

A small boat floats upon the river, tethered to the pier at Hermitage Stairs; in it are a woman and child, curled together under a heavy canvas, a makeshift bed of folded sails and twisted rope beneath them. The woman has a round belly, and turns uneasily, this way and that. The little girl is awake and watches her shifting about.

Now the little girl is dragged to her feet, and they are up once more on the pier. She looks up at the woman. Her back is bent double and she holds her stomach, repeating an inaudible prayer, again and again.

The woman squats on the muddy shore. She groans like an injured animal, and the girl watches her closely, remembering a horse she once saw fall on the Ratcliffe Highway, with its hind leg quite broken. She does not know how long it takes to come: an awkward, squeezed bundle of skin and bones, wriggling and bloody-blue, that appears between her mother's thighs.

Some stranger hears the noise: a coal-heaver, his hands black as soot; the woman begs him for a knife and cuts the baby's cord.

‘Clara?'

‘Clara, say halloa to your sister. Ain't she a beautiful little thing?'

‘Clara?'

‘Your toast is getting cold.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘That is quite all right. What became of you after your sister was born?'

‘That was when we went to my grandma's.'

‘But you had not lived there before? Why was that?'

‘They never got on, her and my ma. They used to argue.'

‘I see. Your grandmother did not, how shall we say, approve of your mother? Was she a very moral woman?'

Clara laughs. ‘No. She kept the worst cadging-house north of the river.'

‘Then what was the source of the trouble?'

‘I don't know,' she says, buttering another slice of bread. ‘I think they were too alike. It's often the way in families, ain't it?'

‘Perhaps. How were they similar?'

‘Both hard and stubborn, the pair of them. Ma would storm out after some row, and we'd be back on the street until the next time.'

Cotton smiles. ‘Are you, then, hard and stubborn too?'

‘Don't tease me.'

‘I'm sorry. But you did not think much of your poor mother, I would say?'

She shrugs. ‘I looked after her. She would have gone to the workhouse if it weren't for me talking round Dr. Harris. That's enough, ain't it?'

‘I suppose so. And she is at peace now.'

‘I hope so, for her sake.'

‘Tell me about the rest of your family. Your grandmother?'

‘She's dead. Three years last Christmas.'

‘I'm sorry.'

‘No-one else was.'

‘Not even you?'

‘Not much.'

‘And what about your sister? She is still alive, is she not?'

‘She is.'

‘What does she do now?'

A pause; Clara looks away.

‘She's gone the same way as ma, except she went and got herself married first.'

‘She is married, but on the streets?'

Clara nods, not meeting Cotton's glance, looking down at her plate.

‘The man she married, does he not object to it?'

‘Him? I very much doubt it.'

‘Ah, I see. It is like that?'

Tom Hunt. Clara can picture his face.

How old was she when they first met?

Seven years. Her mother brought him to meet her.

‘Clarrie, this is Tom. You're to go with him today and be a good girl, do as he says.'

She looks up from her dinner and sees a boy, fifteen years old. A handsome boy, dressed in a neat waistcoat and jacket, though of cheap cloth, with a narrowbrimmed tall hat, cocked casually to one side of his head. He scrutinises the little girl standing in front of him.

‘Ain't you pretty? Show us your hands.'

She stretches out her arms.

‘Good hands. But you'll need nimble fingers for this game, my little darlin'.'

‘Go on, Clarrie, go with the nice man.'

She looks at her mother.

‘Don't you worry, Aggie,' says the young man,
winking. ‘I'll teach her how to prig a man's pocket at twenty paces. She'll be a little goldmine, this one.'

He looks down at her.

‘A little treasure with a face like that, eh? Butter wouldn't melt.'

‘Tom Hunt? So it was this man Hunt who taught you how to thieve, at your mother's request?'

Cotton looks at Clara intently, assessing her response. She merely nods.

‘I declare,' he continues, looking down to scribble in his notebook, ‘it is like some penny serial! I never thought such things to be arranged quite so romantically.'

‘Please, keep your voice down.'

‘Bless you, Clara, no-one here imagines either of us to be particularly respectable. Besides, it is so intriguing a story.'

A pause.

‘It is not a “story”. I should like to go now, if you please.'

‘You have not finished your meal.'

‘Mrs. Harris will be waiting. You promised me a cab.'

‘And you shall have one, you have my word. But there is one thing I would ask.'

She sighs. ‘What now?'

‘I would very much like to meet your sister, and this fellow, this Tom Hunt.'

‘U
SELESS
.'

‘Useless, sergeant?'

‘A waste of time, sir, this diary business, even now we have the blasted transcript. It's all the same, ain't it? Here's one, “November the fifteenth 1863”:

‘Went for walk along the Haymarket; it was a cold night, quite bitter, but I confess that the area quite lives up to its reputation, and not merely around the night houses and such. I was immediately accosted by two girls; asked me directions, then enquired if I wished to go with them; one had a broad West Country brogue, and said she was new to the city. The other, I believe, was a native, though she affected ignorance of the streets (claimed they were both quite lost!). For all that, I am quite sure both would know of a house-of-call within walking distance, but I did not pursue the matter. For some reason I took a dislike to both of these females.