Pentecost Alley Read online

  “There were only four of us, Superintendent, and each badge had a name on it.” Thirlstone’s voice was so level it was unnatural. “Are you saying it was my badge you found?”

  “No sir.”

  Thirlstone’s body relaxed and he could not keep a flood of relief from his face.

  “I’m glad. I haven’t seen it for years.” He swallowed. “But one never knows …” He regarded Pitt with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. “Whose was it? I … I cannot believe any of us would be so foolish as to …” He did not complete his sentence, but his meaning hung in the air, unmistakably.

  A young couple walked past a dozen yards away, their footsteps crunching on the gravel.

  “I have already spoken to Mr. FitzJames and Mr. Helliwell,” Pitt said almost casually. “But I have not been able to find Jago Jones.”

  “It would hardly be Jago!” This time there was complete conviction in Thirlstone’s voice.

  “Why not?”

  “My dear fellow, if you knew Jago you wouldn’t need to ask.”

  “I don’t know him. Why not?”

  “Oh …” Thirlstone shrugged, spreading his hands helplessly. “Perhaps I don’t know as much as I imagine. It’s your job to find out, thank God, not mine.”

  “Where would I find Mr. Jones?” Pitt did not expect an answer.

  He did not receive one, only a shrug and a bemused look.

  “No idea, I’m afraid. None whatsoever. In the streets. In the slums. That’s the last thing I remember hearing him say, but I have no notion if he meant it.” Thirlstone lifted his face to the sun again, and Pitt was effectively dismissed.

  He walked back past an army officer on leave, splendidly dressed in red coat and immaculate trousers, buttons gleaming, to the excitement of several young ladies in pastel dresses all muslin and lace, and the envy of a nursemaid in a white starched apron wheeling a perambulator. The noise of a barrel organ drifted from somewhere beyond the trees.

  At four o’clock Pitt had eaten a late luncheon, but he was so tired his eyes felt gritty and his head ached from lack of sleep. He had no real belief that Jago Jones might somehow have dropped Finlay FitzJames’s belongings in Pentecost Alley, but he must prove it, were it only for elimination. It was not impossible.

  He returned to Devonshire Street and asked the genial butler if he could speak to Miss Tallulah FitzJames. He knew it was a time of day when she might quite easily be at home, before dressing for the evening and going out to dine and be entertained.

  She came into the morning room in a swirl of soft fabric of so pale a pink it was almost white, a blush pink rose at her waist, long satin ribbons hanging. Had her face been rounder, less full of intelligence and will, the effect would have been cloyingly innocent. As it was, it presented a challenging contrast, and from the way she stopped just inside the door and leaned against the knob, Pitt was quite certain she knew it.

  “Well!” she said in surprise. “You back again? I heard about that poor creature’s death, but you can’t possibly imagine Finlay could have anything to do with it? It’s too preposterous. I mean, why should he? Mama would like to think he never goes near such places, but then one’s parents tend to be rather like the very best carriage horses, don’t they? Work excellently together as long as the harness lasts, look very good in town, are the admiration of one’s friends, and can’t see a thing except what’s directly in front of them! We blinker ours, to keep their attention from straying or have them take fright at things on the footpath.”

  Pitt smiled in spite of himself.

  “Actually it was the address of Mr. Jago Jones I came for.” He saw her body stiffen under its silk and muslin gown and her slim shoulders set rigid. He could imagine her hands clenched at the doorknob behind her. Very slowly she straightened up and came towards him.

  “Why? Do you think Jago did it? You can’t know how ridiculous that is, but I assure you, I’d sooner suspect the Prince of Wales. Come to think of it—much sooner.”

  “You have a very high regard for Mr. Jones?” Pitt said with surprise.

  “Not … especially.” She turned away and the sunlight caught her unusual profile—nose a little too big, mouth wide and full of laughter and emotion, dark eyes bright.

  “He’s … he’s rather proper, actually. Something of a bore.” She still looked studiously out of the window at the sun on the leaves beyond. “But he couldn’t do anything like that,” she went on. “He’s about Finlay’s age, and when Finlay was in his twenties and I was about sixteen, Jago was fun. He could tell the best jokes, because he could make his face look like all the different characters, and his voice too.” She shrugged elaborately, as if it could be of no possible interest to her. “But he’s religious now. All good works and saving souls.” She swung around to look at Pitt. “Why does the Church make people such crashing bores?”

  “The Church?” Pitt did not hide his surprise.

  “Didn’t you know? No, I suppose you didn’t. Finlay was stupid, pretending he didn’t know the Hellfire Club anymore. I suppose it might be his idea of protecting them. It must be Norbert Helliwell or Mortimer Thirlstone, if it’s any of them.” She shook her head slightly. “It wouldn’t be Jago, and of course it wasn’t Finlay. Most likely the woman stole it, and then someone else killed her. It seems fairly obvious, doesn’t it?” Her eyes challenged him. “Why would one of the other members have Finlay’s badge, anyway? If they wanted one, they had their own.”

  “Not on purpose,” Pitt explained. “But the engraving on the back is very small and very fine. It would be easy enough to pick up someone else’s in error.”

  “Oh.” She breathed in deeply, the sheer silk draped across her shoulders and bosom rising, the light gleaming in it. “Yes, of course. I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “Where would I find Mr. Jones?”

  “Saint Mary’s Church, Whitechapel.”

  Pitt drew in his breath sharply. He knew St. Mary’s. It was a few hundred yards from Pentecost Alley. Old Montague Street ran parallel to the Whitechapel Road before it turned into Mile End.

  “I see. Thank you, Miss FitzJames.”

  “Why do you look like that? Saint Mary’s means something to you, I can see it in your face. You know it!”

  There was no point in lying to her.

  “The woman was killed in an alley off Old Montague Street.”

  “Is that close?” She was too anxious to be offended that he might think her familiar with such an area.

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.” She turned away again, presenting a silk-swathed shoulder to him. “Well, you won’t find Jago Jones involved. He couldn’t be after a woman like that except to save her soul.” There was a sudden hurt in her voice, almost bitterness. “I presume she wasn’t bored to death?”

  “No, Miss FitzJames, she was strangled.”

  She winced. “If I could help you, I would,” she said quietly. “But I really don’t know anything.”

  “You’ve given me Mr. Jones’s address, which I appreciate. Thank you for seeing me at what must be an inconvenient time. Good evening.”

  She did not reply, but stood in the middle of the floor staring at him as he went to the door and let himself out.

  It took him until after six to get back to Whitechapel and the church of St. Mary’s. When he did, the verger told him the vicar was out, somewhere down Coke Street way, helping the sick. If Pitt did not find him there, he could go in the other direction and try Chicksand Street.

  The lowering sun was hidden by the high, grimy tenement houses, but the pavements still gave back the claustrophobic heat and the sour smells of the day. The gutters ran sluggish trickles of waste. This was Whitechapel, where two years ago, about this season, a madman had murdered and ripped open five women, leaving their bleeding bodies in the street. No one had ever found him. He had disappeared as completely as if hell had opened up and swallowed him back.

  Yet walking towards Coke Street Pitt could see women standing in
doorways and alleyway entrances with that peculiar air of readiness that marked them as prostitutes. It was a directness in their eyes, an angle to the hips quite different from the weary dejection of women at the end of a day’s labor in a sweatshop or factory, or bringing wet laundry in and out of boilers, twisting the dolly, and heaving and wringing the sheets.

  Were they afraid, but so hungry they did not care? Or had they already forgotten the Ripper and the terror of him which had paralyzed London?

  A young woman approached him, her wide brown eyes looking him up and down, her skin still country fresh. He felt suddenly sick and angry for her that she was reduced to this, whether by circumstances beyond her or immorality within. He controlled himself with an effort.

  “I’m looking for the Reverend Jones,” he said grimly. “Have you seen him?”

  Her face settled in resignation. “Yeah, ’e’s ’round the corner.” She jerked her hand to indicate the direction. “Want your soul saved too, do you? Good luck to yer—I can earn me own dinner, and cheaper at the price.” And with that he lost her attention and she sauntered off towards the Whitechapel Road, and some likely custom.

  Pitt did not know what he expected of Jago Jones—perhaps some dilettante priest, seeking a dramatic gesture; or a younger son unsuited for the military who had chosen the Church instead. This might be a first step towards a major preferment in the future.

  Whatever dim prejudgment had been in his mind, he was unprepared for the man he met in Coke Street, ladling hot, thick soup out of a churn into tin mugs for a crowd of skinny children, several of them dancing from one foot to the other in anticipation.

  Jago Jones was dressed in shapeless black clothes. No flash of white clerical collar was visible, but such things were immaterial anyway. His face was too arresting for a uniform of any sort to matter. He was lean to the point of being almost gaunt. His thick hair swept back above dark brows and eyes of extraordinary intensity. His nose was strong, high-bridged; his cheekbones accentuated by the deep lines around his mouth. It was the face of a man burning with his own emotions, and so certain of his course that nothing would deflect him. He looked across at Pitt with interest.

  “Jago Jones?” Pitt asked, although he had no doubt.

  “Yes. What can I do for you?” He did not stop ladling the soup and passing the full tin mugs to the children. “Are you hungry?” It was an offer, but not really an enquiry. One glance at Pitt’s clothes, not only their quality but their cleanliness and the fact that they were in good repair, placed him beyond the kind of need Jones’s parishioners knew.

  “Thank you,” Pitt said. “But it would be better used as it is.”

  Jago smiled and continued. He was nearly at the bottom of his supply and the end of his queue. “Then what is it you need me for?”

  “My name is Thomas Pitt.” Then the minute he had said it he wondered why he had introduced himself that way, as if it were a friendship he was expecting, not a policeman on duty interviewing a witness, possibly a suspect.

  “How do you do?” Jago Jones bowed very slightly. “Jago Jones. Reverend, at least in spirit, if not in manner. You don’t belong here. What brings you?”

  “The murder of Ada McKinley in Pentecost Alley last night,” Pitt replied, watching his face.

  Jago sighed and dispensed the last of the soup to a grateful urchin. The boy’s large eyes were on Pitt’s face, but hunger was more pressing than curiosity, even though he could sense a rozzer when he saw one.

  “I was afraid so,” Jago said sadly, seeing the urchin off. “Poor creature. It’s a hard occupation, destructive of both body and soul, although not usually as quickly or as violently as this. And it seems on this occasion, at least, as if it were someone else’s soul in greater jeopardy than hers. She was not a bad woman. A little greedy at times, but she had courage, and laughter, and a kind of loyalty to her own. I’ll see she has a decent burial.”

  “You’ll bury her from Saint Mary’s?” Pitt said with surprise.

  Jago’s face hardened. “If you object to that, Mr. Pitt, I suggest you take it up with God. He will decide who can be forgiven their faults and weaknesses and who cannot. It is not your prerogative, and I know it is not mine.”

  Pitt smiled quite honestly. “For which I am profoundly grateful,” he said. “But you are unusual, Mr. Jones. I hope your parishioners will not cause you difficulty. But perhaps they are too close to the questionable lines of survival and morality to judge one another.”

  Jago snorted and made no comment, but his anger softened and he released the tension in his body as he put away the ladle and the soup container into the handcart behind him. Half a dozen urchins, mugs in hand, were creeping back to stand on the corner staring. The word had gone out there was a rozzer asking questions. Information was precious.

  “Did you come to ask me about Ada?” Jago said after a moment or two. “I don’t know what I can tell you that would be of use. It was probably some customer whose own inner devils broke from their usual control and temporarily overcame him. Many of us deal badly with our pain or our need to feel as if we are in control of the world, even if we cannot control ourselves.”

  Pitt was taken aback, not by the remark, but by the fierceness with which it had been made. There was a depth of feeling behind it, a perception, as if he were not angry with such a man for the senseless moment’s outrage but from a deep thought which had lain within him a long time. Was it perhaps a self-examination? The idea was suddenly and violently repugnant to Pitt, but he could not avoid it.

  “It could have been,” he said quietly.

  Jago was still looking at him, his eyes steady.

  “Is that what you’re following?”

  “It seems the most likely.”

  “But not the only possibility?” Jago leaned against the cart. “Why are you telling me this, Mr. Pitt? All I can tell you about Ada is what you probably already guess. She was an ordinary prostitute, like a hundred thousand others in London. When girls are thrown out of domestic work, or unfit for it in the first place, can’t take the sweatshops and match factories, or don’t want to, then they sell the only thing they’ve got, their bodies.” His eyes did not waver from Pitt’s. “It’s a sin to me, a crime to you: but to them it’s survival. I don’t know whose fault this is, and frankly I’m too close to it to care. All I see is individual women battling for the next meal, this week’s roof, and not to get beaten by their customers or their pimps, or slashed by a rival from another patch, hope to God they can put off the time they get some disease. They’ll probably die young and they know it. Society despises them, half the time they despise themselves. Ada was just one more.”

  A woman walked past with a bag of laundry on her hip.

  “Did you know her personally?” Pitt moved over and leaned on his elbow, resting his weight on the other end of the barrow. He was appallingly tired. He should have accepted the soup.

  “Yes.” Jago gave a tight smile. “But I’m not privy to her client list. Most of them are casual anyway. The one you’re looking for could be from anywhere. Occasionally she’d go to the West End. It’s not so far. She was handsome. She could have picked up someone from Piccadilly, or the Haymarket. Or for that matter it could be a sailor from the Port of London, passing through.”

  “Thank you!” Pitt said tartly. It was time he said what he had really come for. The longer he evaded it, the harder it would be. “Actually, I came to you because you used to belong to a gentleman’s association called the Hellfire Club….”

  Underneath his shapeless jacket Jago was rigid. His face in the waning light was curiously stiff.

  “That was a long time ago,” he said quietly. “And not something of which I am proud. What has it to do with Ada’s death? The club disbanded six or seven years back. Ada wasn’t even here then.”

  “When did she come?”

  “About five years ago. Why?”

  “I don’t think it really makes any difference,” Pitt confessed. “I think it
is exactly as you say … a man whose violence and need is his own, and has nothing to do with her, except that she was the one to provoke it. Or perhaps she was merely there at the wrong time, and it would have happened to whoever the woman was. It might have been her face, her hair, a gesture, a tone in her voice that jarred loose some memory in him, and he lost control of the hatred there was inside him, and destroyed her.”

  “Fear,” Jago said, his mouth tightening. “Fear of failure, fear of not being what you want, what other people want.” He saw Pitt’s face and thought he read something in it, or perhaps he expected to. “I don’t mean a simple fear of impotence. I mean a spiritual fear of being weak, to the very soul, the fear which makes you hate, because you are too self-obsessed to love, too consumed by rage that you are not what you wished, that the road is harder, the price tougher than you thought.”

  Pitt said nothing. Ideas raced through his mind as to how much Jago Jones was speaking of himself, his demands and expectations of his role as priest. Had he needed a woman, and used a prostitute because all decent women were closed to him in his chosen role? Had she then mocked him in her own disillusion? He could hardly be the vehicle of God to her when she had seen his fall from his self-imposed virtue.

  Was this strange confrontation a kind of admission of guilt?

  “We found a Hellfire Club badge under her body,” he said in the pool of silence in the street. Noises of wheels, horses and a man shouting from beyond the crossroads sounded remote, in another existence.

  “Not mine,” Jago said carefully. “I threw mine in the river years ago. Why have you come to me, Mr. Pitt? I don’t know anything about it. If I did, I should have come to you. You would not have needed to look for me.”

  Pitt was not sure if he would or not. Jago Jones had the face of a man who followed his own conscience, whatever the law, and whatever the cost. Had it been one of his parishioners, confessing in terror or remorse, he doubted Jago Jones would have come with it to Bow Street, or anywhere else.

  “I know it wasn’t yours,” he said aloud. “It was Finlay FitzJames’s.”