SHE BEGAN THAT DAY, walking the busy streets of the Rotherhithe area in the sharp winter sun. She was close to the river and she could smell the salt and fish odors on the wind, and hear the cry of the gulls. Occasionally as she turned north she saw the light on the water, glinting sharp between the rows of houses, or the dark lines of masts and spars against the sky.
She asked at small grocery shops, apothecaries, and tobacconists, and was surprised at the number of people who sold some preparation that contained an unspecified amount of opium. Of course she herself had used it at the clinic in Portpool Lane, but they had bought it in pure form and given it out very carefully measured, and as sparingly as possible. She would not have argued with anyone that it was not only the best remedy for pain, but in most cases the only one.
She began to ask the shopkeepers for advice as to how much to take, and how often. She inquired whether age or weight of the patient made any difference, and what other circumstances might alter its effect. Was there anything that would make it dangerous, such as taking other medicines at the same time, or having certain illnesses?
“Look, lady, either take it or don’t,” one busy man said to her exasperatedly, glancing at the queue of customers behind her. “Please yerself, just don’t stand ’ere arguing wi’ me. I in’t got time. Now do yer want it or not?”
“No thank you,” she replied, and went out of the cramped shop, past several strings of onions, dried herbs, and bins of flour, wheat, and oatmeal.
She did not need to spend a second day walking up and down the streets and calling at every likely shop. If it was so easy to buy opium in Rotherhithe, it would be the same anywhere else in London, and probably in every other city and town in England.
She did not mention her activities to Monk when he came home late in the evening, having spent most of the day on the river dealing with thefts, and the murder of a sailor during a brawl. It was one of those senseless, drunken arguments that got out of hand. Abuse had been shouted, tempers high and out of control. The next moment a broken bottle had slashed a man’s artery and he had bled to death before anyone could gather their wits and even think of helping him. The guilty man had run, and it had taken Monk and three of his officers most of the afternoon to catch him and arrest him without any further injury.
It had been late when he joined Orme, still searching for the “Limehouse Butcher,” as the newspapers were calling him.
Hester went in to the clinic in the morning, but only to ask the help of Squeaky Robinson, the reformed bookkeeper who had owned the buildings of the clinic when they had been one of the most profitable brothels in the area. A clever trick of Oliver Rathbone’s had manipulated Squeaky into saving himself from prison by giving the buildings to charity. Highly aggrieved, Squeaky had been suddenly made homeless, and with careful supervision and no trust at all, he had been permitted to remain in residence and manage the property in its new function.
Over the years since then he and Hester had come to respect each other, and now-at least in certain areas-Squeaky was both liked and trusted. This was a circumstance he enjoyed very much, to his own confusion. He would have denied it indignantly had anyone suggested such a thing.
Hester walked into the office where Squeaky had his files and ledgers. He was sitting at the desk looking almost like a clerk. Lack of anxiety and now regular nights had filled out some of the hollows in his face, but he was still long-nosed, slightly gap-toothed, and his hair was as straggly as always.
“Morning, Miss Hester,” he said cheerfully. “Don’t worry about money, we’re not doing bad.”
“Good morning, Squeaky.” She sat down in the chair opposite him. “It isn’t about money today. I need information about someone. Not here-in Limehouse. Who should I go and ask?”
“You shouldn’t,” he said instantly. “I know you. It’s about that poor cow as was found on the pier, isn’t it? Don’t even go looking. A lunatic like that is trouble you don’t need.”
Hester had expected an argument and was prepared.
“She lived in the area,” she told him conversationally, as if he had asked. “Someone must have known her apart from Dr. Lambourn. If she worked the streets at all, the other women would at least have known something about her. They won’t tell the police, but they’ll talk to each other.”
“What is there to know?” Squeaky said reasonably. He looked her up and down and shook his head. “She was a tart, knocking on a bit and just about past it. Her steady bloke topped hisself, Gawd knows why, so she were broke, and she got careless. What else is there to know?”
“Maybe why he went to her in the first place?” she suggested.
“Now that’s something you really don’t want to know,” he said sharply. “If he were bent enough that he had to go all the way from Greenwich over the river to Limehouse to get whatever it was he wanted, then it’s something no lady needs to know about, nurse in the army or not.” He frowned. “Which does make you wonder why she wasn’t fly enough to deal with some bleeding lunatic what wants to cut her up, don’t it? I mean you’d think she’d smell he was a bad ’un and leave him alone, not go clarting off onto the pier with him. She got real, real careless. Damn stupid place to go fornicating, anyway! But that still don’t matter to you.”
“Or she was desperate,” she said quietly. “Who do I ask, Squeaky?”
He sighed with exasperation. “I told yer! Leave it alone. Yer can’t help her, poor cow. What’s Mr. Monk going to do if you go and get yerself cut up, eh? For that matter, what are we all going to do? Sometimes I think you haven’t got the wits of a tuppenny rabbit!”
She smiled at him, ignoring the insult. “Then come with me, Squeaky.”
He sighed heavily and put away everything on his desk with more care than necessary. Then he followed her out of the door into the hallway, and then the street.
He grumbled all the way to the omnibus, and when they got off on Commercial Road in Limehouse he stayed so close to her she all but tripped over him half a dozen times. But, walking along the narrow, dank, rain-chilled backstreets, she was very pleased to have his presence.
“Told yer,” he said after the fifth person they had spoken to had, like all the others, denied ever having seen or heard of Zenia Gadney. “They’re all too scared to say anything. Want to pretend they never heard of her.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Hester retorted sharply. “They worked in the same streets. They have to have heard of her. And what do they think I want to know for, except to help catch the man?”
They continued for several more hours, but all they could learn of Zenia Gadney was what Monk already knew. She had been a quiet woman, well spoken. If you listened to her, she did not sound like the local prostitutes, or even like the shopkeepers, laundresses, and slightly more respectable housewives. No one they spoke to owned to particularly liking or disliking her. Certainly none of the prostitutes considered her a threat.
“ ’Er?” one coarse-faced blond woman said indignantly. “Too old, fer a start. I’m not sayin’ as she were downright ugly or nothin’. In fact, not bad, if yer took the time ter look, but dull. Dull as a bucket o’ mud, if yer know wot I mean?” She put her hands on her hips. “Got no fight in ’er, an’ no fun. A man wants yer ter more’n just stand there! If yer ain’t got looks, yer gotta ’ave something else, ain’t yer?” She looked Hester up and down, making her judgment. “Ye’re too skinny by ’alf, but yer’ve got fire. Yer might make enough ter get by.”
“Thank you,” Hester said drily. “If I need to fall back on it, it’d better be soon.”
The woman’s face split into a wide grin. “Ye’re right about that, love. Yer in’t got too many years left ter ’ang around.”
“Did she use opium much?” Hester asked suddenly.
The woman was startled. “ ’Ow the ’ell do I know? But if she did, what of it? P’raps she’d got pains. ’Aven’t we all? She don’ sell it, if that’s wot yer mean. Quiet, she was. I ’eard someone say she read books. If yer want the truth, I think she were all right once, an’ she fell on ’ard times. I’d say ’er ’usband died, or went ter jail. Left ’er ’igh an’ dry. Got by the best way she could, poor cow. Until some bleedin’ madman got to ’er. If the rozzers were any good at all, they’d ’ave ’anged the bastard by now.”