They both looked at him narrowly, then at each other.
“Ye’re soused as an’ ’erring,” the older of the two replied. “An’ ’oo like that’d be lookin’ fer the likes of ’er, then?”
“Someone whose husband she had been taking money from,” Monk replied without hesitation.
“There y’are, Lil!” the fair-haired woman said jubilantly. “Told yer, din’t I? She weren’t up ter no good. I knew that, an’ all!”
Monk felt his throat tighten. He would so much rather have been wrong.
“You saw her then?” he asked. “A woman looking for Mrs. Gadney? Are you certain?”
“Nah! But I ’eard about ’er from Madge up the street.” The woman jerked her head to indicate the direction. “She were in ol’ Jenkins’s shop when it ’appened.”
“When what happened?” Monk said quickly.
“When that woman were ’ere askin’ questions about ’er that got ’erself killed, o’ course. In’t that wot ye’re asking? Tight as a newt, she were, so they say. Poor cow.” She looked at Monk narrowly. “Yer sayin’ as it were ’er wot cut that other poor mare ter pieces an’ left ’er on the pier? Listen, she might ’a bin off ’er ’ead, but one woman don’t do that ter another, I’m tellin’ yer.”
“ ’E din’t say as she did it!” her friend responded. “Yer got bleedin’ cloth ears, an’ all? ’E said as she might know ’oo did.”
“Thank you,” Monk cut in, holding his hand up to stop her continuing. “I’ll go and ask at the grocer’s shop.” He turned and walked briskly across the street and up Copenhagen Place. It was drier here than in the center of the city, but the wind off the river was cold. He pulled his coat a little closer around him.
He stopped at the grocer’s and went in. There were three people ahead of him in the queue at the counter, a man and two women. He waited patiently, listening to their conversation, but learned little from it except that they were angry and frightened, because a crime had happened that they did not understand, and no one had solved it.
“She were ’armless,” one of the women said with rising outrage. Her white hair was pulled back so tight into its pins that the strain of it all but obliterated the lines around her eyes. “Kept ’erself to ’erself all the years she were ’ere. Dunno wot the world’s comin’ ter when a poor creature like that gets cut open like a side o’ meat.”
“A pity they done away wi’ drawin’ an’ quarterin’, I say,” the old man nodded sagely. “Course, they gotter get the bastard first.”
“Yer’ll be wanting oatmeal, sugar, and a couple o’ eggs as usual, Mr. Waters?” Jenkins interrupted from behind the counter.
“Don’t act like yer don’t care!” Mr. Waters was offended. “She got all ’er groceries right ’ere in this store!”
“It must be very distressing for you all.” Monk intruded into the conversation before it got any more heated.
All three of them swung around to stare at him. “An’ ’oo are you, then?” Jenkins asked suspiciously.
“ ’E’s the police,” the other woman said with contempt. “You’d forget yer own name next, you would.” She faced Monk. “Well, wot yer ’ere for this time, then? Ter tell us yer give up?”
Monk smiled at her. “If I had given up, I’d be ashamed to come and tell you so,” he answered. Then before she could think of a suitable response to that, he went on. “The day Zenia Gadney was killed, or possibly the day before, was there a tall, dark woman in here asking about her?”
Both women shook their heads, but Jenkins looked at Monk with a frown. “So what about it? Sad ter see an ’andsome woman crazed like that.”
“Oh, but it’s all right if it’s some ugly ol’ bitch like us, eh?” the women said furiously. “Well, if that’s wot yer think, don’ expect me ter come back ’ere fer me tea an’ ’taters.” She slammed a shilling and two pennies down on the counter. She swung a large bag in one hand, knocking it against the door on her way out and swearing savagely.
“I’m sorry,” Monk apologized to Jenkins. “I didn’t mean to lose you your customers.”
“Don’t worry about it, sir,” Jenkins replied, wiping his hands on his apron. “She’s always losin’ ’er ’ead about something or another. She’ll be back. Can’t walk farther than this an’ carry ’er potaters anyway. Now, what can I do for you?”
“Tell me about this woman who was so upset in here, the day before Zenia Gadney was killed.”
“You don’t want ter take any notice of ’er, sir. She weren’t from round ’ere. She were beside ’erself, poor thing. Raving an’ mumbling, she were. Talking to ’erself somethin’ rotten. Reckon she were lost.”
“Can you tell me what she looked like, and as much as you can remember of what she said?”
“Didn’t make no sense,” Jenkins said dubiously.
“That doesn’t matter. First, what did she look like, please?”
Jenkins concentrated, clearly seeing her again in his mind’s eye. “Tall, fer a woman,” he began. “Dark ’air, what I could see of it. Not black, like. She ’ad this old shawl ’alf over ’er ’ead. Proper ’andsome face. Told yer, she didn’t come from ’ere, nor sound like she did neither. But the poor soul were ’alf out of ’er head. Too much o’ that opium, I’d say. Now an’ again it don’t do no ’arm. Fact, it ’elps when mebbe nothing else does. But get too much of it an’ it addles yer brain. It’s smokin’ the stuff that really does yer in. I reckon as mebbe that’s what she’d bin doing. Lot of it, down by the docks, there is. It’s mostly them Chinese. Got it something wicked out east, so they say.”
Monk clenched his teeth and took a deep breath. “What was she mumbling about? Do you remember?”
Jenkins was oblivious to his impatience.
“Sort of,” he said thoughtfully. “Couldn’t make a lot of sense of it, but mostly about suicide an’ whores an’ things like that. But like I said, she were out of ’er ’ead. She weren’t no whore. I’d lay money on that.” He shook his head. “She was quality, even if she were ’alf daft. She went on about lyin’, an’ betrayal an’ all sorts. I dare say if she were come to ’er senses, she’d be a different person. Yer shouldn’t take ’er word for nothin’, sir. An’ I don’t reckon as she knew Mrs. Gadney anyway. Yer couldn’t think o’ two women less like each other.”
“Did she ask for Mrs. Gadney? Ask where she lived, or if you knew her?”
“Not as I recall. Just came in for penny twists, raved on about people killin’ theirselves, and then went out again.”
“Thank you. You’ve been most helpful.” Monk bought a tin of treacle, in the hope that Hester might make a treacle sponge pudding for him and Scuff, and then went back out into the street again.
He asked the same questions in the other shops along Copenhagen Place. It was the tobacconist who finally told him that a tall woman with dark hair had been in looking for Zenia Gadney; apparently when she had been in his shop, she had been more or less composed, and he had told her that Mrs. Gadney lived farther along, toward the middle of the lane.
Monk spoke to others as well. Two more people had seen the woman, but they could add nothing further. Monk had all he needed to oblige him to go and face Dinah Lambourn.
He was loath to do so, so he delayed the task and went back to the station at Wapping and checked that everything was under control there. Then he put on his coat and went out onto the dockside. The quickest way to Greenwich would be along the north bank of the river, where he was, and then a boat from Horse Ferry across to Greenwich Pier. It would take some time. Hopefully, the chill late afternoon breeze in his face and the familiar sounds of the river would help him compose in his mind what he would say.
He stood on the dockside and looked across the busy water, which was getting a little choppy on the turning tide. The sky was darkening already, the light fading. In a little over a fortnight it would be the winter solstice, and, shortly after, Christmas. He could put it off; go home now, leave Dinah one more evening unchallenged, in her own home with her daughters. Poor girls, they had already lost so much. He wondered if they had anyone else-apart from Amity Herne. He could not imagine Amity giving them any warmth or comfort in the desperate time that might so easily be ahead.