Murder in the East End - Jennifer Ashley Page 0,59

Nurse Betts.”

“I will do my best,” I promised her.

The killer might have been any ruffian in the East End who objected to Nurse Betts walking past him or not answering him, or whatever reason he’d decided to be angry with her. London had too many of those toughs, as I’d discovered myself. Then again, I knew that her disappearing and turning up dead could not be a coincidence.

A door banged. Mrs. Compton and I jumped then flattened ourselves against the wall as Bessie herself charged past us, wrapped tightly in a woolen shawl.

“Bessie?” Mrs. Compton called after her. “Where are you off to?”

Bessie threw an angry glance over her shoulder. “It’s me day out, innit?” She swung away and kept marching.

“She’s got a foul temper, does that one,” Mrs. Compton muttered. “In any case, Mrs. Holloway, if you can help, I’d be so grateful.”

“I’ll do my best, Mrs. Compton.” I bid her a hasty good afternoon and started down the passageway after Bessie. I decided to be very curious as to where Bessie was going and didn’t want to lose sight of her.

I heard Mrs. Compton retreat, the door thudding as she returned to the warmth of the kitchen. I quickened my pace, listening for Bessie’s footfalls, but they’d already faded into the distance.

The passage ended at a gate that led to the burial ground, a peaceful stretch of green in the middle of the noisy metropolis. A gate rested in the wall on the other side, the only exit Bessie could have taken.

I hastened down the path across the green and out through the gate. A church sat opposite, but I saw a flash of Bessie’s faded brown shawl to my right.

I followed her to the main thoroughfare, Gray’s Inn Road. She turned south here, moving quickly through the carts and people, past the great edifice of the Royal Free Hospital and darting down another street.

I believed I knew where she headed. The road she’d turned to, Lower Calthorpe Street, led to the prison of Coldbath Fields, also known as the Steel. Her young man was there, Mrs. Compton had told me, banged up for theft.

However, I did not see Bessie as I neared the high walls that surrounded the prison. A gate stood not far from me, guarded by four men, but Bessie was nowhere in sight.

As I continued along Lower Calthorpe Street, skirting the prison, I heard rapid footsteps behind me. Before I could turn, I was slammed forward, straight into the prison’s high wall.

“What you doing?” Bessie asked me fiercely, as the rough stone scraped my cheek and tore into my gloves. “Spying on me?”

I wrenched myself from Bessie’s hold and spun around, putting my back to the wall and my rigid basket between us. “My dear girl, I am only heading for the train.” I kept my voice steady, trying not to let on she’d badly frightened me. “There’s a station in Farringdon Road.” I pointed to the end of the next street.

“You’ve been at the Hospital, asking questions, poking your nose in. I heard you mention the police.”

She glared at me, backing off and holding her shawl closed with one hand. Her other hand was hidden in the shawl’s folds, and I wondered if she had a weapon in it.

“Mrs. Compton was telling me the police had been there about Nurse Betts,” I said. “She’s been killed.”

Bessie’s eyes flickered. “I know, and I’m right sorry, but it’s nothing to do with you.”

I glanced at the wall beside me. Behind it lay a prison that, if what I’d read was true, was filled with dreariness. The men were made to march on a treadmill that turned a great wheel all the day long, and to do so in utter silence.

“Your young man is here?” I asked. “Are you allowed to visit him?”

Bessie’s eyes filled with sudden and abject terror. She came at me, but in panic, not rage.

“You leave him be,” she shouted. “Never you mind about him. He’s nothing to do with you. Go on. Run for your train.”

The words tumbled out rapidly, becoming incoherent as she yelled them at me. She clearly wanted me away from there, and quickly.

As I opened my mouth to ask her why, a large boom! tore through the waning afternoon. A huge cloud of dust and rubble burst upward behind the wall, rising into the wind as Bessie and I gaped. The cloud spread as the bits and pieces of stone reached their apex and then began to