it too many times before. âYou know what they say, donât you? If a woman sees a hare when sheâs carrying the child, itâll be born with a harelip. Well, I never saw one when I was big with Lucy, Iâll tell you that for nowt.â She shook her head angrily. âAll those bloody tales and sheâs had to pay for it her whole life. Theyâve allus made fun of her.â
âIs there anywhere else she could have gone?â
âOnly to her brother. Thereâs just been the three of us since my man died, and they were just bairns then. But our Peter would have brought her back here if sheâd turned up, I know he would.â
âWhere does he live?â Nottingham asked.
âQueen Charlotteâs Court, up off Lady Lane. Him and his girl have a room up there.â
âHow tall is Lucy?â
âThereâs not much to her,â Alice Wendell said tenderly. âThin as a branch and smaller than me.â
He looked at her, seeing the love for the girl in her eyes, and knew he had to tell her. âYouâd better sit down, Mrs Wendell.â She looked at him curiously.
âWe found a body in the fire last week,â he began. Heâd spare her the brutal details. âA girl who was pregnant. From what I could see, she might have had a cleft lip. It looks as if someone killed her before the blaze.â
For a moment he wasnât certain sheâd understood him. Then slowly, by small degrees, her face crumpled and she brought up her worn hands to cover it.
âIâm sorry,â he told her.
âWhy?â she asked eventually, her words muffled. âWhat was she doing there? Whoâd do that to my Lucy?â
âI donât know. But Iâll find out.â
He stood, knowing there was no solace he could give now, then he closed the door quietly behind him, leaving the woman to a lifetime of mourning.
Back at the jail he sat and stared. The girl had been gone four weeks, and a little more than seven days had passed since theyâd found the bodies after the fire. Now he had a name for her: Lucy Wendell. Pregnant and with a harelip, who else could it have been? He had somewhere to begin.
But that meant sheâd been somewhere for three full weeks before she was murdered. Twenty-one days was a long time.
Five
Lister was yawning, barely awake after the long Saturday night. Thereâd been something in the air; heâd lost count of the fights theyâd broken up, men filled with ale and looking for violence. Theyâd cracked heads, put some in the cells to face the Petty Sessions, and taken blows. His cheek ached where someone had hit him and he had a kerchief wound round his hand to staunch the blood from a cut to his palm. At least no one had died, although one seemed unlikely to survive, cut deep in the chest with a long tannerâs knife.
A light, misting ran had drifted in with the dawn, softening the outlines of the buildings through the window of the jail. Soon the bells of the churches would begin to ring for Sunday services, the carillons echoing around to remind the faithful, and the people would parade around in their best clothes. Heâd be home and in his bed, trying to rest before calling on Emily in the afternoon.
He stretched out his legs on the flagstone floor and looked at the Constable.
âSounds like it could have been worse,â Nottingham said.
âMaybe,â Rob agreed cautiously.
âYou wait until theyâre a real mob,â Sedgwick told him. âItâs been a while since we had that.â
âI have a name for the girl who died in that fire down on the Calls,â the Constable said. âLucy Wendell.â
This was the reason heâd come in early this Sabbath morning, Lister realized. He and the deputy both shook their heads. The name meant nothing.
âIt looks like she was missing for three weeks before the blaze. Sheâd been working as a
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