William Monk 12 - Funeral in Blue

in ’ere like the rent collector, only I don’t owe no rent. This place is me own. So explain yerself. I don’t care ’ow swell yer look, I in’t tellin’ yer nothin’ as I don’t want ter.”
    He tried to put it in terms she would grasp. “I’m a kind of private policeman. I work for people who want to know the truth of something and pay me to find out.”
    “An’ ’oo cares ’oo killed a poor little cow like Sarah Mackeson, then?” she said derisively. “She in’t got nobody. ’Er pa were a navvy wot got killed diggin’ the railways an’ ’er ma died years ago. She’s got a couple o’ brothers someplace, but she never knew where.”
    “The wife of a friend of mine was murdered with her,” he replied. There was a kind of dignity in this woman, with her crooked apron and straggling hair, that demanded the truth from him, or at least no lies.
    “There were two of ’em done?” she said with horror. “Geez! ’Oo’d do a thing like that? Poor Sarah!”
    He smiled at her very slightly, an acknowledgment.
    She sniffed and stood up, turning her back to him. Without explaining, she filled the kettle and put it on the hob, then fetched a china teapot and two mugs.
    “I’ll tell yer wot I know,” she remarked while she waited for the water to boil. “Wot in’t much. She used ter do quite well sometimes, and bad others. If she were in an ’ard patch she’d come ’ere an’ I’d find ’er a bed for a spell. She’d always turn ’er ’and ter cookin’ an’ cleanin’ as return. Din’t expec’ summink fer nuffink. Honest, she were, in ’er own fashion. An’ generous.” She kept her back to him as the steam started to whistle in the spout.
    He did not press her in what way; he understood it from her turned back. She was not willing to put words to it.
    “Anyone in particular?” he asked, quite casually.
    “Arthur Cutter,” she said, bringing the teapot over to the table and putting it down. “ ’E’s a right waster, but ’e wouldn’t ’ave ’urt ’er. It would ’a bin some o’ them daft artist people. I always told ’er they was no good.” She sniffed again and reached for a piece of cloth in her apron pocket. She blew her nose savagely and then poured the tea for both of them, not bothering to ask if he wanted milk or sugar, but assuming both. Monk disliked sugar intensely, but he made no comment, simply thanking her.
    “How did she get in with the artists?” he asked.
    Now she seemed willing to talk. She rambled on, telling and retelling, but a vivid picture of Sarah Mackeson emerged from a mixture of memory, opinion and anger. Fourteen years ago, aged eighteen, she had arrived in Risinghill Street without a penny but willing to work. Within weeks her handsome figure and truly beautiful hair and eyes had attracted attention, some of it welcome, much of it beyond her skill to deal with.
    Mrs. Clark had taken her in and taught her a good deal about caring for herself and learning to play one admirer off against another in order to survive. Within a few months she had found a protector prepared to take her as his mistress and give her a very pleasant standard of living.
    It lasted four years, until he grew bored and found another eighteen-year-old and began again. Sarah had come back to Risinghill Street, wiser and a good deal more careful. She found work in a public house, the Hare and Billet, about half a mile away, and it was there that a young artist had seen her and hired her to sit for him.
    Over a space of a couple of years she had improved her skill as a model, and finally Argo Allardyce had persuaded her to leave Risinghill Street and go to Acton Street to be at his disposal any time he should wish. She kept a room nearby, when she could afford it, but more often than not she had to let it go.
    “Was she in love with Allardyce?” Monk asked.
    Mrs. Clark poured more tea. “ ’Course she was, poor creature,” she said tartly. “Wot do you think? Told ’er she were beautiful, an’ ’e meant it. So she was, too. But she were no lady, an’ she never imagined she were. Knew ’er limits. That were part of ’er trouble. Never thought she were more’n pretty. Never thought no one’d care for ’er once ’er skin and ’er figure went.”
    In spite of himself, Monk was struck with a stab of sorrow for a woman who thought her only worth was her beauty. Had she really no sense of her value for her laughter or her courage, her ideas, just her gift to