William Monk 18 - A Sunless Sea

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 particularlyliking 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