Free A Christmas Hope by Anne Perry

was going to tell her Dai Tregarron was guilty.
    “Yes, certainly,” she agreed. “If you please.”
    “Tregarron drinks more than your average fish, enough so he should be as soused as a herring half his life,” he said. “Takes his women where he finds them. Some o’ the stories I heard I can’t repeat to you. You pass out, I can’t pick you up off the floor! He knew Winnie Briggs, all right. Liked ’er. Went both ways, from the sound of it. But she was a long way from being the only one.”
    He waited for her to argue, all but daring her to.
    “Is that all?” she said a little shakily. She had been half expecting this, trying to prepare herself. It should not come as a surprise. It was exactly what Wallace had said, not to mention the Foxleys and the Crostwicks.
    “No, o’ course it’s not all,” he said irritably. “I just wanted to make certain you got that. But I ain’t telling you any more o’ the details because it’s the kind o’ thing ladies like you shouldn’t hear.”
    She was surprised, and in spite of herself a little touched, that he was protecting her. She had heard enough tales from street women here to think there was not much left that would shock her. But all the same, she did not want to hear them about Tregarron.
    “Thank you,” she said, being careful not to smile, in case it hurt his feelings.
    He went on. “I can’t find ’ide nor ’air of the stupid sod, which means the police probably can’t either. So he’s likely run for the hills. But I don’t think he done what they’re saying. He’s a drunk, but I couldn’t find nobody who’d say he was vicious, like. He’d fight a man, if he were pushed to it, and pretty likely knock ’im senseless—unless he fell over hisself first. Which has happened. But nobody ever saw him hit a woman. Use them, make love to them, then throw them away, surely!But when I say ‘make love,’ that’s what I mean. Lot of talk, lot of courting them like he actually cared.”
    Squeaky shrugged, his expression mystified. “Maybe he did fall in love, or kid himself as he did. Every time! God help us. New one every few days.”
    Claudine was not quite sure what she felt—relief, confusion—and she was completely at a loss to know what to do next.
    “But all three of the other young men said he did it,” she pointed out.
    “Whose side are you on?” Squeaky demanded indignantly.
    This time she was obliged to smile, in spite of the bittersweet quality of it. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I think I’m on Mr. Tregarron’s. And it sounds as if you are now, too.”
    His face was twisted with emotion from somewhere deep inside himself. “I don’t go for hitting women, ‘less they really asked for it. But if there’s anything I hate like poison, it’s some bleedin’ wealthy little sod committing a crime and then blaming someone else for it, someone who can’t defend himself, while he plays all righteous and walks away with his skin untouched.”
    “What do you think happened?” she asked, suddenly finding she respected him. In spite of his lurid past, hehad a code of ethics, and he despised those who trespassed across it.
    “I think those three little bleeders were playing with her, and when she couldn’t take them all on, one o’ them lost his temper an’ hit her,” Squeaky replied. “ ’Cos she was ill, like, she took it harder than he meant. He got scared an’ thought he’d really finished her. But she were still alive, and he panicked. Then he had to do her in for real. I think Tregarron tried to stop him, and all three o’ them set on her an’ beat the hell out of her and then blamed him for killing her. They’re all out o’ the same box, so they stuck by each other. Poor bastard doesn’t have a chance against them, and they know that.”
    It was hideous, but it fell into place, fitting exactly. Claudine could see it again in her mind’s eye: Dai bent over Winnie, the bruises on her face and the blood, the