don’t take it out on me, love - “If it isn’t important, I’ll be back drawing pints faster’n Jack Sprat.”’ She bent down so that her hair brushed Denton’s face. ‘His bark’s worse’n his bite.’ She giggled again, straightened, winked at Janet Striker and whirled away.
They toyed with the glasses, sipped - neither wanted the ale - tried to make the time pass. Janet Striker said, ‘Don’t jump at its being the Satterlees.’
‘I know, I know. We have to be dead certain. I want to be certain, that’s the trouble - it’s tempting to jump ahead.’
‘Don’t jump.’
He studied her face, saw its intelligence, its hardness, wondered if he could ever get past that. She looked at him, looked away, then back; their eyes joined and held. It was disturbing: long, shared looks were supposed to be examples of intimacy, thus with her were embarrassing. He knew he was getting red, face warm; she looked cool and detached. He wanted to say something, to do something like touch her hand, but he didn’t dare.
‘Now then,’ a big voice bellowed next to him, ‘who wants to see me?’ He was a wide, solid man, shorter than Denton, confident and even brassy. Ex-military, Denton thought; he put on more assurance than he felt and said, ‘My name’s Denton.’ Taking the chance, he added, ‘Exsergeant, infantry. Sit down, will you?’
He was holding out his hand; the other man took it, gripped it hard. ‘Penrose, gunner. Like calls to like, eh?’ He let go. ‘Can’t sit down, no time.’ Then, to Mrs Striker, ‘Evening to you, ma’am.’
‘Janet Striker,’ she said, holding her own hand out. He touched it but turned back to Denton; men were for business, he seemed to say. ‘What’s up, then?’
‘We’re trying to locate a family named Satterlee.’
Penrose tipped his head back as if to have a better look at Denton. ‘This the personal or the historical?’
‘Little of both, I expect. We were told they used to live here.’
‘In aid of what?’
‘An enquiry.’
‘You got do better than that, ex-sergeant. American, are you? What army?’
‘Union. Our Civil War.’
‘Oh, that one. Saw a lot of it, did you? Yes, I think you did. I was lucky - thirteen years in South Africa, I never got so much as a stone thrown at me. All right, ex-sergeant, tell it to me straight what you want - I’ve a lot of thirsty people waiting.’
Denton looked at Janet Striker, saw her nod, said, ‘A girl is dead. We think she might be a Satterlee.’
‘The little one or the big one?’
Janet Striker jumped in. ‘There were two? Only two, or more?’
Penrose drew a chair from another table and sat, opening his attention to include her. ‘You’re not the police,’ he said. ‘Not that it’d matter if you were; we’re clean here. There were two girls, Alice, the bigger one, and a younger one named - now let me think - Eadie - that’s what they called her, but it wasn’t Edith - Edna. Edna! Alice and Edna.’ He leaned a forearm on the table. ‘They didn’t live in the pub itself; I and the missus live upstairs and always have. The Satterlees lived in the extension next door - other people in there now. When they put these buildings up, they build on the extension for the company’s business - works manager, engineer, whatever it is - and then it becomes the sales office when the houses are ready to sell. When all the houses are sold, they rent it out.’
‘Satterlee was the works manager?’
‘Nothing quite so fancy. More like the work gangs’ foreman. ’
There was a silence. Denton, fearing the man would run off, said quickly, ‘What were they like?’
‘Weren’t like nothing, because you never saw them. I saw the girls now and then in the back, playing out there, but him only when he wanted me to. And her, never. See, they kept to themselves and shut the rest of us out - curtains always closed, never going about or chatting like normal folk, wouldn’t hardly open the door to the postman’s knock. My missus said we ought to extend the hand of neighbourliness; I said they could go to the hot place, pardon me, miss. I mean, here we was, two families marooned in the only building in the middle of a bleeding metropolitan desert, and they wouldn’t offer to share a cup of cold tea!’
Janet Striker leaned forward. ‘What were the girls like?’
‘Pathetic. Not out of want, I don’t mean pathetic that way, but