Part 29 (1/2)

*Can't be too careful,' she said. *That mad dago what did for Alice could come back any time for all I know.'

Her dress was a patchwork of different materials, torn rags st.i.tched clumsily together with string, and her feet were bare, black and scarred with two toes missing from the left. Her baby was parcelled in a piece of shredded cloth, only the back of its scabbed head visible.

*How do you know he was a dago?' my guardian asked and the girl rolled her eyes.

*Everyone knows 'e is.'

*Have you seen him?'

She broke into a violent coughing fit, bending double to catch her breath. *Wouldn't be 'ere to tell if I 'ad.'

*Did you see or hear anything on the day she was killed?'

*What day was that then?'

Sidney Grice took a step backwards and scrutinized her.

*When did you last see Alice?' I asked.

She tucked the knife into the rope belt around her waist and pulled her hair away from her face, pocked by disease.

*Weeks ago.'

*How many?'

She twisted her mouth up.

*'Oo counts? The weeks don't mean nuffink to me. Oh yeah, I remember. It was just after we went to tea with the queen of China.'

Sidney Grice looked heavenwards.

*Do you live upstairs?' I asked.

*Sort of.'

*How well did you know Alice?'

She picked her ear.

*She was too posh for me, 'ad her own room and a regular job she did. Always saying she was going to save up and get out of 'ere. Well, she got out all right, didn't she? Cow.' She bent over in another coughing fit. *When I was so starved I couldn't do no milk she wouldn't give me a penny to feed myself or the baby. p.i.s.sing cow.' She spat on to the floor, white worm casts floating in a dark froth of blood.

*What sort of work did she do?' I asked.

*Shopgirl.'

Sidney Grice jerked to attention. *Where?'

The girl looked at her finger and wiped it on her hair. She sneered her smeared lips and said, *Well, you ain't much of a detective, are you? She worked in Finnegan's.'

Sidney Grice's cheek ticked.

*The curio shop on Mangle Street?'

*That's the one.' She spat again.

*h.e.l.l,' he said and tugged at his ear.

*Your baby is very quiet,' I said and she looked blank, her eyes almost as dead as the child she was holding.

44.

The Curious Curio Shop of Childe Finnegan The doors and windows of the Ashbys' shop were boarded over now and there was no policeman on guard as we went into the curio shop across the road.

My guardian picked up a stuffed monkey and said, *Are you the proprietor of this shop?' The man behind the counter nodded enthusiastically.

*Childe Finnegan.' He bowed. *At your service, sir.'

Sidney Grice put the monkey down and said, *Alice Hawkins.'

*Now there is a coincidence.' Childe Finnegan straightened the funnel of a tin model steamer. *For I had a girl by that very same name work here until quite recently.'

Sidney Grice rolled his eye and said, *And how long did Alice Hawkins work for you?'

*Why from eight in the morning until eight in the evening.' Childe Finnegan pulled the funnel up again and Sidney Grice groaned.

*Is the whole world full of imbeciles?'

*I myself have often thought so, sir.' The mast collapsed.

*How long ago did she start working here?' I asked.

*Last October as I recall,' Childe Finnegan said. *The piece you are holding now is a magnificent shrunken head all the way from the Cannibal Islands of darkest Portugal.'

I put it down. *And when did she leave?'

Sidney Grice picked up a spear.

*Oh, but she herself did not leave as such, miss.' Childe Finnegan pushed the steamer away and put a Toby jug in its place. *She just never came back. That, sir, is a rhinoceros hunting spear from the island of Armenia.'

*And I shall plunge it into your heart if you do not start making sense,' Sidney Grice said.

Childe Finnegan laughed. *You can try, sir, and are most welcome to do so, but I have to tell you that I have no heart and never did for I was born without one.'