Page 23 of Murder in Blackfriars

“You have a cheek,” Hannah said once we were under the station’s awning. She shook out her wet umbrella. “Butter wouldn’t melt in your mouth, would it? Charming an obvious villain like Ramsay.”

“I thought it better to be polite to him than rile him up,” I said. “Thank you for not provoking him.”

“I ain’t fool enough to vex a man who probably had six knives in his pockets. Besides, you were doing such a fine job of smarming him, I could only watch admiringly.”

“I was hardly smarming anyone,” I said with indignation. “At least he told us something useful.”

“If he weren’t a liar,” Hannah pointed out.

“True, but I do not see what he would gain by telling us porkies. Though I am sorry to learn that Mr. Banks knew nothing of Daniel’s mum and dad. He will be downhearted to hear that.”

“IfRamsay ain’t a liar,” Hannah repeated with more emphasis. “What’ya going to do now? Run off to Bethnal Green? In this weather, with night coming on? Tell me you have more sense.”

“No, I must go home,” I said in regret. “I will have to leave my search of Bethnal Green for another day. I will go with Daniel on my next afternoon out.”

“You think you can spring him, then?” Hannah sounded as skeptical as Ramsay.

I tamped down my misgivings. “I am certainly going to try. Daniel did not kill Mr. Banks, and Scott will see reason. He is an intelligent man. They’d not have made him acting inspector otherwise.”

“Ooh, it gives me the shivers to hear you talk about the peelers like you’re friends and all.” Hannah exaggerated a shudder. “They ain’t like us, the police. No fellow feeling.”

She was only partly right about that, but I did not argue. While I’d come to know constables like Caleb Greene and inspectors like McGregor as people with their own worries, I agreed with her that many in the Metropolitan Police could be brutal. If they decided the person they had hold of was a criminal, whether that was true or not, they’d treat them remorselessly.

We waited without further chatter until the rain began to let up, then we walked swiftly from the train station back across the bridge. Fog swirled around us, becoming inkier as we lost the evening’s light.

When we reached Ludgate Hill, Hannah found a cab, declaring she wasn’t about to walk all the way back to Portobello Road. I offered to share it and pay half the fare, and we both climbed aboard, grateful to be out of the weather.

“Now then,” Hannah began as the hansom rumbled into Fleet Street. “Are you really going to let your daughter out of London without you?”

I tried not to bristle at the abrupt question. “There isn’t much I can do. It is only temporary, and Grace will be better off going with Joanna and Sam.”

“I can see you’ve talked yourself into it.” Hannah rolled up her umbrella and rested it in the corner beside her. “I’m sure Grace would rather live rough in London with you than be in a comfy house with your friends. I saw it in her face when she was explaining to me what a lovely time she’d have in the country.”

Grace’s wish to stay in London was not far off what Hannah claimed, so I couldn’t deny the truth of it.

“Well,Idon’t want her living rough,” I said. “She’ll have a happy year with Joanna and her daughters and then move in with me and Daniel after we marry. Living rough, as enjoyable as she believes it to be, could ruin her chances.”

“Chances of what?” Hannah asked in surprise. “She’s a girl from the working classes. She lives with respectable people, but they’re the working classes all the same. Plus she ain’t got a father, and her mother’s in service. I’m not trying to be cruel, Katie. I’m just stating facts. What chances?”

“To live a better life than I’ve had,” I answered. “The chance at a decent job. Women are doing more these days than being maids and cooks. Even the chance of a good marriage. Grace is a sweet girl, and I don’t wish to see her turn hard and desperate.”

“Like me, you mean?” Hannah had an impish twinkle in her eye, so I knew she was not offended.

“Like the pair of us. You stealing what you could before you were able to set up on your own. Me working my fingers to the bone and putting up with unreasonable employers to keep my daughter fed and clothed. I donotwant Grace in service. It is perilous for girls in the houses of gentlemen who believe they can do whatever they wish with their staff. They are correct—no one arrests them for it.”

I was lucky that Mr. Bywater would never dream of having inappropriate relations with the female servants of his home. I did not think the man had interest in relations with anybody, including his own wife, but he was an exception.

I’d avoided such lewd attentions in other houses by keeping myself to the kitchen as much as possible and making certain to have my knives close.

No matter what, I would keep Grace away from such a situation.

“That’s why I threw my man over and took on his business,” Hannah said cheerfully. “And why you didn’t move into a home for impoverished widows to wither into nothing. We don’t need men to tell us what to do, and Grace won’t either.”

“I am preparing to marry again,” I reminded her.

“That’s different. McAdam is potty about you and will move heaven and earth to keep you well. If, after a few years, he becomes a lazy, demanding layabout, you can sling him out and keep running your food stall at the market. Which you do need to nab. I’m not joking.”

“I told you, I’ll bring the deposit on Monday and sign the papers,” I said. “Do cease going on about it.”