Pentecost Alley Read online

  “PERRY’S BEST BOOK SINCE DEFEND AND BETRAY.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  “Unfolds in a masterly fashion, sure to satisfy devotees of the classic puzzle; at the same time its insight into nineteenth-century British character and wealth of period detail ensure that it will please Anne Perry’s many readers.”

  —Houston Chronicle

  “A big pleasure in the arrival of a new Thomas and Charlotte Pitt mystery lies in greeting old friends, learning what changes have come into their lives, seeing how the children have grown, and discovering that Thomas is gaining more confidence with his new responsibilities and status. Pentecost Alley delivers all that, and the fact that there’s a fine mystery included is simply icing on the cake.”

  —Detroit Free Press

  “Demonstrates Perry’s trademark skill for enhancing well-designed mystery plots with convincing historical settings and cleverly drawn relationships among characters … As Perry edges toward her surprise ending, she crafts her tale with elegance, narrative depth, and gratifying scope.”

  —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

  “THIS IS PERRY AT THE TOP OF HER FORM.”

  —Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine

  “The Ripper’s legacy is frighteningly alive in Anne Perry’s satisfying new novel…. Perry is one of the few mystery writers today with the power to evoke so completely the London of 1890: from the wretched, vicious slums to the elaborate—and just as vicious—drawing rooms.”

  —Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

  “Recommended … Perry’s evocation of late-nineteenth-century London is a major reason for reading her mysteries—the sights, smells, and voices of the period all ring true.”

  —Library Journal

  “Tantalizing suspense … A web of intrigue that will stump even the most experienced mystery fan.”

  —Mostly Murder

  “Beautifully crafted, filled with the gaslit atmosphere of a bygone world.”

  —Cosmopolitan

  “INTRIGUING … ATMOSPHERIC … Perry creates her characters with skill.”

  —BookPage

  “[Perry] has outdone herself…. Pentecost Alley is a spellbinding drama that explores the depths man will go to keep things ‘right’ in his world. This story is a shocker, gaining a steady momentum that leads to a dynamite conclusion. Once more, Anne Perry gives the reader an experience that will linger long after the final page is turned.”

  —Romantic Times

  “As always, Anne Perry comes up with a surprise and credible ending to the mystery.”

  —Abilene Reporter News

  “Perry seems to have lost none of her enthusiasm for the Pitts nor for mystery writing. Her intricate plot never slows down…. [A] satisfying resolution.”

  —Arizona Daily Star

  By Anne Perry

  Published by Fawcett Books:

  Featuring Thomas and Charlotte Pitt:

  THE CATER STREET HANGMAN

  CALLANDER SQUARE

  PARAGON WALK

  RESURRECTION ROW

  BLUEGATE FIELDS

  RUTLAND PLACE

  DEATH IN THE DEVIL’S ACRE

  CARDINGTON CRESCENT

  SILENCE IN HANOVER CLOSE

  BETHLEHEM ROAD

  HIGHGATE RISE

  BELGRAVE SQUARE

  FARRIERS’ LANE

  THE HYDE PARK HEADSMAN

  TRAITORS GATE

  PENTECOST ALLEY

  ASHWORTH HALL

  BRUNSWICK GARDENS

  BEDFORD SQUARE

  HALF MOON STREET

  THE WHITECHAPEL CONSPIRACY

  SOUTHHAMPTON ROW

  SEVEN DIALS

  LONG SPOON LANE

  BUCKINGHAM PALACE GARDENS

  Featuring William Monk:

  THE FACE OF A STRANGER

  A DANGEROUS MOURNING

  DEFEND AND BETRAY

  A SUDDEN, FEARFUL DEATH

  THE SINS OF THE WOLF

  CAIN HIS BROTHER

  WEIGHED IN THE BALANCE

  THE SILENT CRY

  A BREACH OF PROMISE

  THE TWISTED ROOT

  SLAVES OF OBSESSION

  FUNERAL IN BLUE

  DEATH OF A STRANGER

  THE SHIFTING TIDE

  DARK ASSASSIN

  EXECUTION DOCK

  The World War I Novels:

  NO GRAVES AS YET

  SHOULDER THE SKY

  ANGELS IN THE GLOOM

  AT SOME DISPUTED BARRICADE

  WE SHALL NOT SLEEP

  The Christmas Novels:

  A CHRISTMAS JOURNEY

  A CHRISTMAS VISITOR

  A CHRISTMAS GUEST

  A CHRISTMAS SECRET

  A CHRISTMAS BEGINNING

  A CHRISTMAS GRACE

  A CHRISTMAS PROMISE

  Books published by The Random House Publishing Group are available at quantity discounts on bulk purchases for premium, educational, fund-raising, and special sales use. For details, please call 1-800-733-3000.

  A Fawcett Book

  Published by The Random House Publishing Group

  Copyright © 1996 by Anne Perry

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Fawcett Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  Fawcett Books and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 96-90697

  eISBN: 978-0-307-76776-9

  v3.1

  To Jonathan, Sylvia, Frances and Henry, with love.

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  1

  “SORRY SIR,” Inspector Ewart said quietly as Pitt stared down at the woman’s body sprawled across the big bed, at her face swollen in the asphyxia of death. “But this one you ought to see.”

  “So I assume,” Pitt said wryly. Since his promotion to command of the Bow Street Station, he no longer dealt with ordinary episodes of violence, theft and fraud. The assistant commissioner had directed that he reserve his attention for those crimes which had, or threatened to have, political implications; those which involved persons of social prominence and might provoke embarrassment in high places if not dealt with both rapidly and tactfully.

  So his being sent for at two in the morning to come to this Whitechapel slum over the murder of a prostitute required some explanation. The pale-faced constable who had ridden with him in the hansom had said nothing as they clattered through the August night, the streets narrowing, becoming meaner, the smell of sour smoke, crowded middens and the sharp odor of the river stronger as they moved eastwards.

  They had stopped at Old Montague Street opposite the cul-de-sac of Pentecost Alley. The light from the gas lamp on the corner did not reach this far. Holding his bull’s-eye lantern high, the constable had led Pitt past refuse and sleeping beggars, up the steep, creaking steps of the tenement building, in through the deep-stained wooden door, and along the passage to where Ewart was waiting. The sound of weeping came from somewhere farther back, sounding frightened and carrying a rising note of hysteria.

  Pitt knew Ewart by reputation, and he nurtured no doubts that there was some very real reason why he had bee
n sent for, and so urgently. If nothing else, Ewart would be highly unwilling to yield command of his case to another officer, especially one who had risen from the ranks as Pitt had and who only a short while ago had been his equal. Like many regulars in the police force, Ewart believed that the only man with a right to such a position was one born to it, as had been Pitt’s predecessor, Micah Drummond, a man of independent wealth and military experience.

  Pitt looked at the woman. She was young. It was difficult to tell a prostitute’s age. The life was harsh, often short. But the skin on her bosom where her dress was torn open was still unmarred by drink or disease, and the flesh was firm on her thighs where her red-and-black skirt had been lifted. Her left wrist was tied to the bedpost with a stocking, and there was a garter around her arm just above the elbow, a blue satin rose stitched to it. The other stocking was tied in a noose around her neck, tight, biting into it, almost cutting. The top half of her body, and all the bed around it, was drenched with water.

  The sound of weeping was still audible, but it was quieter now, and there were other voices as well, and footsteps in the passage, light and quick.

  Pitt looked around the room. It was surprisingly well furnished. The walls had been papered a long time ago, and though they were marked by the incessant damp and mold, and faded where the light had struck them, there was still a recognizable pattern. The fireplace was small, the dead ashes in it gray-white. The fire had been a gesture, something flickering and alive rather than a source of heat. The one chair was a cheerful red with a hand-stitched cushion on it, and there was a rag mat on the floor. An embroidered sampler hung over the shallow mantel, and the wooden chest for clothes and linens was polished. Even its brass handles gleamed.

  The washstand held a single ewer and basin.

  On the floor beside the bed were the girl’s high black boots, not side by side, but half over each other. The round, shiny buttons of the left one had been fastened through the buttonholes of the right one. A bone-handled buttonhook lay beside them. It was a ridiculous, distorted gesture, and one that could only have been done deliberately.

  Pitt drew in his breath and let it out in a sigh. It was ugly, and sad, but there was nothing in it to cause Ewart to have sent for him. Prostitution was a dangerous way to make a living. Murders were not unique, and certainly not reason for scandal in high places, or even in low ones.

  He turned to look at Ewart, whose dark face was unreadable in the light from the bull’s-eye, his eyes black.

  “Evidence.” Ewart answered the question he had not asked. “Too much of it to ignore.”

  “Saying what?” Pitt felt a chill beginning to eat inside him in spite of the mild night.

  “Gentleman,” Ewart replied. “Of a very well connected family.”

  Pitt was not surprised. He had feared it would be something of the sort, pointless and destructive, something with which there was no graceful way to deal. He did not ask Ewart why he thought so. It would be better to see the evidence and make his own deductions.

  There was a noise along the passageway, a creaking of footsteps, and another man appeared in the doorway. He was twenty years younger than Ewart, no more than thirty at the most. His skin was fresh, his hazel eyes wide, his face thin, aquiline. His features had been formed for humor and tenderness, but the marks of pain had scored them deeply already, and in the flickering light he was haggard. He brushed his hair back off his brow unconsciously and stared first at Ewart, then at Pitt. He carried a brown leather bag in his hand.

  “Lennox. Surgeon,” Ewart explained.

  “Good morning, sir,” Lennox said a little huskily, then cleared his throat and apologized.

  There was no need. Pitt had little regard for a doctor who could look at violent death and feel no shock, no sense of outrage or loss.

  He stood back a little so Lennox could see the body better.

  “I’ve already examined her,” Lennox declined. “I was called at the same time as Inspector Ewart. I’ve just been with some of the other women in the building. They were a bit … upset.”

  “What can you tell me?” Pitt asked.

  Lennox cleared his throat again. He looked straight at Pitt, his eyes averted from the woman on the bed, even the spread of her hair and the bright rose on her arm. “She’s been dead several hours,” he answered. “I should say since about ten o’clock last night, not later than midnight. It’s cool in here now, but it must have been warmer then. The ashes in the fire still have a little heat in them, and it’s not really a cold night.”

  “You’re very precise about ten o’clock.” Pitt was curious.

  Lennox flushed. “Sorry. There was a witness who saw her come in.”

  Pitt smiled, or perhaps it was more of a grimace. “And midnight?” he asked. “Another witness?”

  “That was when she was found, sir.” Lennox shook his head minutely.

  “What else can you tell me about her?” Pitt continued.

  “I would guess she was in her mid-twenties, and in good health … so far.”

  “Children?” Pitt asked.

  “Yes … and …”

  “What?”

  Lennox’s face was tight with pain. “Her fingers and toes have been broken, sir. Three fingers on her left hand, two on her right. And three toes dislocated. Left foot.”

  Pitt felt a shiver of ice inside him as if suddenly the temperature of the room had plummeted.

  “Recently?” he asked, although he knew the answer. Had they been old wounds Lennox would not have mentioned them. He would probably not even have noticed them.

  “Yes sir, almost certainly within the last few hours. Just before death, in fact. There’s hardly any swelling.”

  “I see. Thank you.” Pitt turned back to the bed. He did not want to look at her face, but he knew he must. He must see what and who she had been, and what had been done to her here in this shabby, lonely room. It was his job to learn why and by whom.

  She was handsomely built, of roughly average height. As far as he could tell her features had been regular, pleasing in their way. The bones under the puffy flesh were difficult to see, but the brow was good, the nose neat, the hairline gently curved. Her teeth were even and only just beginning to discolor. In another walk of life she might have been a married woman looking forward to a comfortable maturity, perhaps with three or four children and thinking of more.

  “What is this evidence?” he asked, still looking down at her. Nothing he had seen so far suggested anything more than some man’s taste for pain and fear having gone too far.

  “A badge from a gentleman’s private club,” Ewart answered, then stopped and drew in his breath. “With a name on it. And a pair of cuff links.”

  Pitt swiveled around to look at him.

  Lennox was watching, his eyes wide, almost mesmerized.

  “What name?” Pitt’s voice fell into the silence.

  Ewart put up his finger and eased his collar, his face white.

  “Finlay FitzJames.”

  Outside the constable’s footsteps creaked on the floorboards and river fog dripped beyond the dark windows. The weeping in the other room had started again, but fainter, muffled.

  Pitt said nothing. He had heard the name. Augustus FitzJames was a man of considerable influence, a merchant banker with political ambitions, and a close friend of several noble families who had held high office. Finlay was his only son, a young diplomat rumored to be in line for an embassy in Europe in the not-too-distant future.

  “And witnesses,” Ewart added, his eyes on Pitt’s face.

  Pitt stared back at him. “To what?” he asked guardedly.

  Ewart was obviously profoundly unhappy. His body was tense, his shoulders tight, his mouth dragged down at the corners.

  “He was seen,” he answered. “Not by people who know him, of course, and the description could fit more than him. Ordinary enough. But it was obviously someone of position….” He seemed about to add something more, perhaps about gentlemen wh
o frequented such places, then decided it did not matter. They both knew there were men bored with their wives, frightened of censure or commitment if they used women nearer their own class, or simply excited by the forbidden, the frisson of danger. Or there were a hundred other reasons why they might choose to purchase their pleasures in alleys and rooms like this.

  “And the cuff links as well,” Lennox added from the doorway, his voice still husky. “Gold.” He laughed abruptly. “Hallmarked.”

  Pitt looked slowly around the room, trying to imagine what had happened here only a few hours ago. The bed was rumpled, as though it had been used, but nothing was torn that he could see. There was a slight smear of blood close to the center, but it could have come from anyone, tonight or a week ago. He would ask Lennox, after he had examined it, if he thought it meant anything.

  His gaze moved around the walls and the sparse furniture. Nothing else was disturbed. But unless a fight was very violent, and between people of something like equal weight or strength, it would hardly mark this ancient wallpaper or overturn the chair or the wooden washstand with its bowl and cracked and mended blue jug.

  As if reading his thoughts, Ewart broke in.

  “There’s nothing interesting in the wardrobe, just half a dozen dresses, petticoats and an outdoor cape. There are underclothes, two towels, and a clean pair of sheets and pillow covers in the chest. Chamber pot under the bed, and one black stocking. Daresay she dropped it some time ago and couldn’t see it in the dark. We wouldn’t have found it without two of us, and the bull’s-eye.”

  “Where did you find the cuff links and the badge?” Pitt asked. “Not under the bed?”

  Ewart pushed out his lip. “One cuff link, actually—at least the two halves for one sleeve. Behind the cushion in the chair.” He pointed towards it. “Jammed down between the seat and the upright. Suppose he took off his shirt and put it over the back, and maybe it got caught. Perhaps he sat on it or something. Left in a panic, and never thought of it until too late. Of course, there’s nothing to say it was left here last night….” He looked at Pitt, waiting for his answer.

  “Possibly,” Pitt agreed. They both knew how unpleasant it would be if they had to pursue a man of FitzJames’s rank. It would be so much easier if it could be some ordinary man, someone local, with no defenders, no power behind him.