Page 60 of A Treacherous Trade
“Strange because of what he did to you?” I asked when she seemed lost in an unpleasant memory.
“Because of what he wouldn’t do.”
I wrinkled my nose, trying to make sense of what she was saying.
“He only got to Alys and me in The Orchard. He would pose us. Force us to wear his costumes. Tie us up and the like.”
“Doesn’t that kind of thing… happen regularly?” I scratched at an imagined itch on my scalp.
She rolled her eyes. “Well, surely, if someone fucks us after. He never did. Just looked and took pictures. Didn’t even touch himself. Now tell me what sort of twisted bastard does a thing like that?”
I shrugged, mostly because I didn’t understand. She found this man odd because he didn’t want to pay her for sex? Only lewd photographs? One would think that was easier than giving him the entire business.
“Bea was well furious, but even after she gave him the boot, we’d see him lurking about Fleet Street with his camera ’round his neck. Leering at us. Always kept a bit of rope on him, may the blighter hang himself with it.” She brightened with an idea, or a memory. “I saw him talking to Alys once on the street, and she spat on his shoe. We both know men who would kill over less. Even the Hammer, who’s not wont to raise a hand to us, might put us in the ground for such disrespect.” She spritzed herself with a heavy fragrance as if she hadn’t just said her boss might kill her for insulting him.
I wasn’t the only one who feared such things from him.
I held my glove under my nose, fighting a mighty sneeze. Once I’d beat it back, I asked, “Do you know where I could find this Charles Hartigan?”
She shook her head, somber for once. “And I wouldn’t go looking, neither. Men like him, they go to church on Sunday and still have bodies buried in their root cellars and bones in their coal boxes.”
“I have to look,” I said, with just as much gravitas. “But I’ll not go alone.”
Standing, she smoothed her hands down her dress, looking fresh and lovely in the soft light. “He’s close enough to The Orchard, has to be, because he always walked and never took a hackney.”
“You think he works on Fleet Street?” I asked.
“Maybe. Prattles on about formulas and medicines. A chemist or a physician, like I said.”
A chemist. Or a doctor. They’d know exactly how to administer a poison… or even a medicine that was toxic in large doses. I needed to go to the coroner, Dr. Phillips, and see what he thought of Dr. Bond’s assessment of Alys’s death.
And to ask if he would give me access to Jane’s autopsy report.
“Thank you, Sophia—you’ve beensohelpful.”
“Wasn’t nothing.” She opened the door to usher me out, and we made our way toward the cacophony of the grand ballroom. “Will you give Izzy my best if you see her? She always seemed so young for her age, you know, sweet. I felt a bit protective of her.” Sophia nudged me. “Just don’t tell the others I have a heart after all.”
“I will, of course,” I promised with a genuine smile.
She paused at the end of the hall that would lead us to the grand ballroom stairs and looked down, reaching into her bodice to adjust her breasts. That accomplished, she threw her shoulders back and faced the grand ballroom head-on, taking in as deep a breath as her corset would allow.
“Sometimes I wonder why the sun bothers to shine at all on this world.” She said the bleak words in a sprightly tone, though she visibly fought to find her smile. “Ah well. There’s work to be done.”
“Always,” I said with a conspiratorial wink.
She put a hand on my elbow, squeezing it softly. “I hope you find him, Fiona.”
“I’ll do my best not to let Alys and Jane down,” I vowed.
“No. I hope you find him. The Ripper. For Mary, Elizabeth, Martha, Catherine, Annie… for all of us who are afraid to be done like them.”
“I hope I find him too,” I said, and my voice was as hard as I’d ever heard it.
“When you do, I remember that justice and revenge can be one and the same. I hope you do what needs doing. There’s no call for a man like that to walk the world.”
I looked after her as she stepped from the shadows beneath the glitter of the ballroom.
“No,” I whispered. “No, there is not.”
