Page 9 of Silence of Deceit
“Oh,” she said, blinking as if to absorb the news. “What happened to her?”
“She was found in the river. A blow to the head.”
The woman’s cheeks paled. Hugh wanted to take advantage of her shock and continued, “I’d like to talk to Winnie.”
Mrs. Roy snapped to attention. “I already said she wasn’t here.”
“And if I were willing to pay for her time? Would she be at home then?”
The woman’s eyes flashed. Then tempered. “I don’t want no trouble from Bow Street—”
“Your business doesn’t interest me. All I want is to speak to Winnie and see what she can tell me about Delia.”
Mrs. Roy, still looking suspicious, nodded. She allowed Hugh inside and led him into a shabby sitting room. “Wait here,” she said, and then exited.
Hugh took in the room. Though clean, the rug was aged with scorch holes near the hearth, and the furnishings were mismatched and threadbare. He did not have to wait very long before the landlady returned with a young woman at her side. She had dark brown skin and curly hair, and she wore a dress that revealed a generous figure. Her eyes were wide and fearful.
“You are Winnie?” he asked.
She nodded, then darted a hesitant look toward Mrs. Roy, who held out her palm. “A shilling. Up front.”
Had Sir asked for his payment up front, Hugh would have told him to peel off. But the rules were different in a brothel. He palmed the coins in his pocket, next to the waterlogged calling cards, and handed them over.
Winnie waited until Mrs. Roy had stepped out before she spoke. “Is it true? Delia is dead?”
Hugh nodded, and the young woman stared around the room, gaping in shock.
“Were you close?”
She sat limply on the arm of a sofa. “We roomed together two years.”
He wasn’t certain that was an answer but decided to leave it for now.
“What can you tell me? Had Delia been seeing anyone? Any regulars who might’ve given her trouble?”
Winnie shook her head. “No. She had a few regulars, but they were all nice enough. One bloke brought her a hand pie every time he came ‘round.” She smiled, thinking of it.
“Why did she clear out her things? Did she say where she was going?”
Winnie’s smile dropped. “She didn’t say nothing to me about it. I came back from the dance hall one night and her things were all gone. No goodbye, nothing. She’s gone off before, a week here and there. But she’d never taken her things.”
The timing of her hasty departure from her lodgings and her death suited. Had she been running from someone?
Winnie continued, “I knew she didn’t much trust me, but I thought she liked me a little. At least enough to say so long.”
“Why didn’t she trust you?” he asked.
“She thought she was being sly about it, but I knew she was sewing her money into the linings of those fancy dresses she kept getting. Didn’t trust me not to steal it.”
That explained the cambric pouch Audrey pointed out at the bone house.
“Fancy dresses?” he repeated, pulling on that loose thread to see what more Winnie might know.
She snorted. “Aye. Said an old friend had started giving ‘em to her. I dunno. I think she might have nicked ‘em.”
As Mrs. Roy had thought as well. And why shouldn’t either of them think that? Delia had been a prostitute. Poor, with little opportunity. She had been killed and pushed into the river. While reprehensible, it wasn’t exceptional. The women who lived their lives this way, whether they wished to or not, were perpetually at risk. But the card case, and the different cards he’d found among Audrey’s was one route he wanted to follow.
“Do the names Simpson, Rumsford, or Fournier mean anything to you?”
