Death in the Peerless Pool by Deryn Lake Page B

from the depths of her rags, wiping the neck with her sleeve and offering it around. John gingerly took a swig to show there was no ill feeling. Samuel turned pale but did likewise.
    â€˜Now what’s all this about, boys?’ she asked, having taken a deep draught herself.
    Briskly, and with a certain amount of authority, John explained, omitting the fact that Hannah Rankin’s body had been found.
    â€˜So she’s disappeared, has she?’ Mother Hamp asked, echoing the neighbour’s words. ‘Can’t say I’m surprised.’
    â€˜Why is that?’
    The harridan downed a half-pint of gin. ‘’Cos she had no past, that’s why.’
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    â€˜She never spoke of family, friends, places where she used to live, nuffink. She seemed to come from nowhere and know no one.’
    â€˜What about the two men who called on her; the Frenchman and the coachman? She must have known them.’
    Mother Hamp flashed her gums in a silent guffaw. ‘I wouldn’t have called them friends exactly. She was afraid of them, I reckon. That Frenchie, with his white face and black beauty spots, he had some hold on her. She used to see him in her room and talk to him all meek and mild, not like the way she screams at them lunatics.’
    â€˜How do you know that’s the way she treats the patients at St Luke’s?’
    â€˜â€™Cos I sometimes do shifts there, when Mother Richard is away delivering a child.’
    John shuddered at the very thought. ‘Go on.’
    â€˜As for the coachman, she lived in mortal dread of him. He only came here twice but each time she trembled and wept. And one day when she’d had a bottle of spirit, Hannah told me that she might have to run for her life if he came again.’
    â€˜Hare and hounds!’ exclaimed Samuel from the corner. ‘There’s a clue, John!’
    â€˜Indeed. Tell me, how did you know this man was a coachman? Was it merely from the way he was dressed?’
    Mother Hamp let out another soundless, toothless laugh. ‘No. It was on account of his conveyance standing outside my front door.’
    The Apothecary gazed at her. ‘He drove a coach here! Was it a hackney?’
    â€˜No, bless you, it was a gentleman’s carriage. It even had a coat of arms on the door.’
    â€˜And this man was up on the box, not inside?’
    â€˜He was on the box with the reins in his hands.’
    â€˜He was definitely a coachman,’ said Samuel, sniggering at John.
    The Apothecary shot him a black look. ‘Would it be possible, Madam, to look at Hannah Rankin’s room? There might be something there which could tell us more about why she disappeared.’
    â€˜It’s up the stairs on the left,’ Mother Hamp answered, and fell to consuming the gin in earnest.
    It was quite extraordinary. Exactly as if Hannah had actually left home for good on the night she was murdered. No clothes hung in the ancient clothes press and there were no shawls or stockings in the drawers. Nor was there any sign of baggage. It looked just as if Hannah had packed up, taken her belongings with her, and in this state gone to her death.
    â€˜She must have planned to go away with her killer,’ said Samuel, staring around him at the deserted chamber.
    â€˜Not necessarily. If the Frenchman or the coachman, or both, were menacing her, perhaps she ran away.’
    â€˜But not far enough.’
    â€˜Precisely.’
    â€˜I wonder what she had done in the past to have two such sinister characters on her trail.’
    â€˜And to merit such a terrible beating. For someone exacted a terrible revenge when they thrashed Hannah within an inch of her life, then threw her into the water alive to drown.’
    For no reason an image of the beautiful Petronelle came into John’s mind, together with the final words she had said to him. Under his breath he muttered them. ‘I’ll always