Free Bloody Relations by Don Gutteridge Page B

of her trackers, ain’t ya?” Cobb said. “Peter or Donald.”
    â€œWho wants ta know?”
    The scarlet of Cobb’s nose brightened alarmingly. “The police,” he barked.
    Marc put out a restraining hand. “We’re here to find out who killed Sarah McConkey. Please show us where we need to go.” He held out a penny. “Is this your usual fee, Donald?”
    â€œPeter,” the boy answered, and latched on to the penny before it dissolved. “Come with me.”
    â€œYou’ll spoil the little bugger,” Cobb chided, but he followed Marc and Peter without further comment.
    After a left and a right turn, of sorts, they came upon the sturdy brick dwelling that Cobb had visited last night, a structure replete with screened windows, a chimney, and what appeared to be a cistern along the far west wall.
    â€œSarah was the nicest girl I ever met,” Peter said. “But we already know who stabbed her—some toff from the town.”
    Bad news travels faster than good, Cobb thought.
    â€œDo I just knock or do I need the secret code?” Marc said as one man to another.
    Peter grinned, exposing a one-inch gap in the teeth of his upper jaw. “Lemme do it.”
    He gave an intricate sequence of taps with the knocker on the scarlet door. It was almost a minute before it opened reluctantly, like an arthritic hand.
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    â€œBUT I BEEN OVER ALL THIS last night,” said Norah Burgess, a.k.a. Madame Renée. “Can’t your man remember the colour ofhis hat?” She glared at Cobb, who was seated on one of the hard chairs across the room. Cobb glared back but said nothing.
    â€œConstable Cobb has made a full report, in writing and again to me in person. I’d just like you to go over the events of last night, painful as they must be, in the hope that you might recall some detail or other you may have overlooked in the stress and turmoil of the situation.”
    â€œWell, sir, there was plenty of both, and neither me nor my girls has slept more’n an hour since.”
    Norah Burgess had little need to make this point: one look at her devastated face was enough. Her green eyes were bloodshot, the lids swollen and raw from weeping, the indigo pouches below proof of sleeplessness. She had thrown on an ordinary flowered housedress in obvious haste, and her hair, normally a kind of frizzy, pinkish halo that gave her plain features a natural attractiveness, lay upon her scalp in unkempt, greasy coils.
    Her girls, younger and more resilient, had fared better. Their hollow-eyed, tear-stained faces were certain signs of their own grief and anxiety, but their youthfulness and bodily good health (too much of it exposed, perhaps) simply made such distress seem eccentric and temporary. Molly Mason, Carrie Garnet, and Frieda Smiley were draped about their mistress on the arms and back of the padded chair below the parlour window in a variety of wanton poses. Marc had seated himself directly across from them on a hard chair. Cobb was beside him but had angled his chair so that his gaze caught Norah Burgess’s profile and managed to take in as little as possible of the obtrusive female flesh around her. Marc, however, felt he must size up the four women carefully and dispassionately, for all of them were critical witnesses at best, and at worst one or more might be implicated in conspiracy and murder.
    â€œWe ain’t got nothin’ to hide, have we, Mum?” Molly said with a trembling lower lip.
    â€œThat fella seemed like a nice young gentleman, but I hope they hang him twice!” said Frieda from her perch on the other arm.
    â€œPoor Sarah. The doctor come this mornin’ and carted her off to cut her up,” Carrie said, so vehemently that she slipped from the back of the chair and inadvertently advertised more of her leg and less of her slip.
    â€œThere, there, Carrie. The doctor is gonna do no such