Margo couldn’t say anything, could scarcely swallow. She clenched her teeth over the memories welling up from her own past. No, they didn’t care, damn them . . . The cops never cared when it was a prostitute lying dead on the street. Or the kitchen floor. They didn’t give a damn what they did or said or how young the children listening might be . . .
“I knew Polly,” a new voice said quietly, grief etched in every word. “Kinder, nicer woman I never knew.”
The speaker was a woman in her fifties, faded and probably never pretty, but she had a solemn, honest face and her eyes were stricken puddles, leaking wetness down her cheeks.
“Saw her that morning, that very morning. She’d been drinking again, poor thing, the bells of St. Mary Matfellon had just struck the hour, two-thirty it was, and she hadn’t her doss money yet. She’d drunk it, every last penny of it. How many’s the time I’ve told her, ‘Polly, it’s drink will be the ruin of you’?” A single sob broke loose and the woman covered her face with both hands. “I had fourpence! I could’ve loaned it to her! Why didn’t I just give her the money, and her so drunk and needing a bed?”
A nearby woman put an arm around her shoulders. “Hush, Emily, she’d just have drunk it, too, you know how she was when she’d been on the gin.”
“But she’d be alive!” Emily cried, refusing to be comforted. “She’d be alive, not hacked to pieces . . .”
This was Emily Holland, then, Margo realized with a slow chill of shock. One of the last people to see Polly Nichols alive. The two women had been friends, often sharing a room in one of the area’s hundreds of doss houses. How many of these women knew the five Ripper victims well enough to cry for them? Twelve hundred prostitutes walking the East End had sounded like a lot of people, but there’d been more students than twelve hundred in Margo’s high school and she’d known all of them at least by sight. Certainly well enough to’ve been deeply upset if some maniac had carved them into little bits of acquaintance.
Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201 202 203 204 205 206 207 208 209 210 211 212 213 214 215 216 217 218 219 220 221 222 223 224 225 226 227 228 229 230 231 232 233 234 235 236 237 238 239 240 241 242 243 244 245 246 247 248 249 250 251 252 253 254 255 256 257 258 259 260 261 262 263 264 265 266 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 277 278 279 280 281 282 283 284 285 286 287 288 289 290 291 292 293 294 295 296 297 298 299 300 301 302 303 304 305 306 307 308 309 310 311 312 313 314 315 316 317 318 319 320 321 322 323 324 325 326 327 328 329 330 331 332 333 334 335 336 337 338 339 340 341 342 343 344 345 346 347 348 349 350 351 352 353 354 355 356 357 358 359 360 361 362 363 364 365 366 367 368 369 370 371 372 373 374 375 376 377 378 379 380 381 382 383 384 385 386 387 388 389 390 391 392 393 394 395 396 397 398 399 400 401 402 403 404 405 406 407 408 409 410 411 412 413 414 415 416 417 418 419 420 421 422 423 424 425 426 427 428 429 430 431 432 433 434 435 436 437 438 439 440 441 442 443 444 445 446 447 448 449