“I’m certain you can, madam. But surely you have in your possession something of value which you might sell, instead of yourself?”
Her cheeks flushed, the right one bruised from the fist fight she’d been in with the other whore earlier in the week. “I’ve already sold everything of value I own,” she said softly.
“Everything?” He stepped closer. Dropped his voice to a mere whisper. “Even the letters?”
Annie’s blue eyes widened. “The letters?” she breathed. “How—how did you know about the letters?”
“Never mind that, just tell me one thing. Will you sell them to me?”
Her mouth opened, closed again. From the distant tower of the Black Eagle Brewery, the clock struck five-thirty A.M. “I can’t,” she finally said. “I haven’t got them any longer.”
“Haven’t got them?” he asked sharply. “Where are they?”
Misery pinched her face, turned her complexion sallow. “I’ve been ill, you see, with a cough. I needed money for medicine. So I sold them, but I could get them back or tell you who bought them, only . . . could you give me a few pence for a bed, if I do? I need to sleep, I’m so unwell.”
“You could maybe get them for me?” he repeated. “Will you?”
“Yes,” she answered at once. “Yes,” she whispered, leaning against the brick wall in visible weariness, “I will.”
He dropped his voice to a whisper and asked, “Who’s got them?”
“I sold them to Elizabeth Stride and Catharine Eddowes . . .”
Footsteps behind him told Lachley they were not alone. He swore under his breath, careful not to turn his head, and listened with a trip-hammering pulse until whoever it was continued on their way, rather than interrupt what must look to any observer like a whore and her customer in serious negotiations. When the footsteps had died away again in the distance, Lachley took Annie Chapman by the arm, pressed her back against the shutters of the house they stood in front of, bent down to whisper, “All right, Annie, I’ll give you the money you need for your bed . . . and enough to re-acquire the letters.”
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