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“ ’E don’t know nothin’. I asked ’im.”
Evan began to widen his search, going farther away from where the two bodies had been, walking very slowly, eyes looking down on the ground. He did not know what he was looking for, anything someone might have dropped, a mark, a further bloodstain. There must be other bloodstains.
“In’t rained,” Shotts said grimly. “Those two fought like tigers fer their lives. Gotter be more blood. Not that I know what it’ll tell us if there is. ’Cept that someone else is ’urt, an’ that I can work out fer meself.”
“There’s blood here,” Evan answered him, seeing the dark stain over the cobbles towards the central gutter. He had to put his finger into it to be sure if it was red, and not the brown of excrement. “And here. This must be where at least some of the struggle took place.”
“I got some ’ere too,” Shotts added. “I wonder ’ow many of them there was.”
“More than two,” Evan replied quietly. “If it had been anything like an equal fight there’d have been four bodies here. Whoever else was here was in good enough shape to leave … unless, of course, someone else took them away. But that isn’t likely. No, I think we’re looking for two or three men at the least.”
“Armed?” Shotts looked at him.
“I don’t know. The doctor’ll tell us how they were injured. I didn’t see any knife wounds, or club or bludgeon wounds either. And they certainly weren’t garroted.” He shuddered as he said it. St. Giles particularly was known for the sudden and vile murders by wire around the throat. Any dirty and down-at-heel vagrant could be suspected. There was one notable occasion when two such men had suspected each other and had almost ended up in mutual murder.
“That’s funny.” Shotts stood still, unconsciously pulling his coat a little tighter around him in the cold. “Thieves wot set out ter rob someone in a place like this usually carry a shiv or a wire. They in’t lookin’ fer a fight, they wants profits and a quick getaway, wi’ no ’urt to theirselves.”
“Exactly,” Evan agreed. “A wire around the throat or a knife in the side. Silent. Effective. No danger. Take the money and disappear into the night. So what happened here, Shotts?”
“I dunno, sir. The more I look at it, the less I know. But there in’t no weapon ’ere. If there was one, they took it with them. An’ wot’s more, there in’t no trail o’ blood as I can see, so if they was ’urt theirselves, it weren’t nothing like as bad as these two poor souls the doc and the mortuary van took away. I know they was dead, or as near as makes no difference, wot I mean is …”
“I know what you mean,” Evan agreed. “It was a very one-sided affair.”
A hansom went by at the far end of the street, closely followed by a wagon piled with old furniture. From somewhere in the distance came the mournful cry of a rag-and-bone man. A beggar, holding half an old coat around himself, hesitated at the mouth of the alley, then thought better of it and went on his way. Behind the grimy windows there was more movement. Voices were raised. A dog barked.
“You have to hate a man very much to beat him to death,” Evan said in little more than a whisper. “Unless you’re completely insane.”
“They didn’t belong around ’ere.” Shotts shook his head. “They were clean … under the surface, well-fed, an’ their clothes was good. They was both from somewhere else, up west for certain, or in from the country.”
“City,” Evan corrected. “City boots. City skins. Country men would have had more color.”
“Then up west. They wasn’t from anyw’ere near ’ere, that’s for certain positive. So ’oo around ’ere would know ’em to ’ate ’em that much?”
Evan pushed his hands into his pockets. There were more people passing the end of the alley now, men going to work in factories and warehouses, women to sweatshops and mills. The unknown numbers who worked in the streets themselves were appearing, peddlers, dealers in one thing and another, scavengers, sellers of information, petty thieves and go-betweens.
“What does a man come here for?” Evan was talking to himself. “Something he can’t buy in his own part of the city.”
“Slummin’,” Shotts said succinctly. “Cheap women, money-lenders, card sharps, fence a bit o’ summink stolen, get summink forged.”
“Exactly,” Evan agreed. “We’d better find out which of these, and with whom.”
Shotts shrugged and gave a hollow laugh. He had no need to comment on their chances of success.
“The woman, Daisy Mott,” Evan began, starting towards the street. He was so cold he could hardly feel anything below his ankles. The smell of the alley made him shrink tighter and feel queasy. He had seen too much violence and pain in a short space of hours.
“The doc were right,” Shotts remarked, catching up with him. “An ’ot cup o’ tea wi’ a drop o’ gin wouldn’t do yer no ’arm, nor me neither.”
“Agreed.” Evan did not argue. “And a pie or a sandwich. Then we’ll find the woman.”
But when they did find her she would tell them nothing. She was small and fair and very thin. She could have been any age between eighteen and thirty-five. It was impossible to tell. She was tired and frightened, and only spoke to them at all because she could see no way of avoiding it.
The match factory was busy already, the hum of machinery was a background to everything, the smells of sawdust, oil and phosphorus were thick in the air. Everyone looked pallid. Evan saw several women with swollen, suppurating scabs, or skin eaten away by the necrosis of the bone known as “phossie jaw,” to which match workers were so susceptible. They stared at him with only minimal curiosity.
“What did you see?” Evan asked gently. “Tell me exactly what happened.”
She took a deep breath but said nothing.
“In’t nobody cares w’ere yer was comin’ from,” Shotts interposed helpfully. “Or goin’.”
