Gazing back at him, Locke removed his spectacles and the handkerchief from his sleeve and began to clean each lens with slow, circular motions. After several seconds of concentrated thought, he put away the handkerchief, placed the spectacles back on the bridge of his nose, and stared at Hawkwood.
“Oh, yes,” he said. “Almost certainly.”
“That’s it?” Jago said, unable to hide his disbelief. “You want to know if any working girls have gone missing? You’re bloody joking, right? Know how many there are in this city? Bloody ’undreds – hell, thousands, more like. And you want to track down one of them?”
“I don’t need to track her down. I know where she is. She’s on a slab in a dead house; what’s left of her. What I don’t know is her name. I’m hoping it’s Rose.”
“Because of a tattoo? Jesus, that’s a bloody long shot.”
“You may be right. Most likely you are right, but that doesn’t mean I have to send her to Cross Bones to be tipped into another bloody ditch.”
Jago frowned. “So, what the hell makes this one so special? Bawds and pimps beat their molls all the time. Kill ’em too, when they’re in the mood.”
“Not like this,” Hawkwood said.
Jago sat back. “That bad?”
“Worse.”
Hawkwood described the scene in Quill’s dead house.
Jago remained silent throughout the telling. He winced at the mention of the carved wounds. “Jesus,” he muttered finally.
“Quill asked me the same question,” Hawkwood said.
“What? Oh, you mean, why this one?”
Hawkwood nodded. “I told him it was because one of John Moore’s veterans didn’t think it right that someone tossed her into a hole without due ceremony and I didn’t want the bloody resurrection men getting to her.”
“Sounds good enough to me,” Jago said.
“There is another reason,” Hawkwood said.
“Which is?”
“The bastards who put her there thought they could get away with it. They’re mistaken.”
Jago sighed and sat back. He stared into his drink and then looked up. “You want me to ask Connie if she’s heard anything.”
Hawkwood nodded.
“You do know the old one about needles and haystacks, right?”
“You’re all I’ve got,” Hawkwood said.
Jago gave a wry smile. “Now, where’ve I heard that before? All right, I’ll ’ave a word. But I wouldn’t get your hopes up. It’s likely you’ll never know who she was. She’ll be just another nameless lass set for a pauper’s grave.”
“She’s somebody’s daughter.”
“Who you think might be a moll, which means there’s a good chance she’s either been disowned or discarded.”
“Even so,” Hawkwood said.
After a second’s lapse, Jago acknowledged Hawkwood’s response with an understanding nod. “Aye, even so.”
Jago lay with his arm around Connie Fletcher’s shoulder. Her head rested on his chest, her ash-blonde hair loose about her face.
“Need to ask you something,” Jago said.
“You want to go around again?” Connie chuckled throatily as she ran her lips across the still raw wounds in his shoulder. “I’ll be gentle.”
Jago gasped as her hand began to slide south beneath the bedcover. “Bloody hell, woman, give us a chance. I ain’t caught my breath from last time.”
Connie removed her hand with an exaggerated sigh and snuggled closer. “All right, what then?”
At the angle they were lying, Jago couldn’t see Connie’s face, but he sensed she was still smiling. It made him wonder if she was expecting the question, the one that tended to end up with a ring and the services of a vicar. He felt a twinge of guilt. He’d been with Connie longer than he’d been with any woman, but marriage? Not that the thought hadn’t crossed his mind. Connie’s too, he suspected, even though they’d never discussed the possibility. He waited until his pulse had settled down and then said, “There’s been a killing. Captain’s investigating. He reckons she might have been a workin’ girl.”
Connie lifted her head. “Why’s that?”
“She was young, she weren’t dressed in rags and she has – had – a tattoo.”
The bedcover slid away as Connie sat up. “That’s his definition of a working girl? Someone who’s young, dresses decent and has a tattoo? He needs to get out more.”
“How many ladies you know have tattoos?” Jago asked.
“Can’t say as I know that many ladies,” Connie said deftly. Then she frowned. “Hang on. What about my tattoo? What’s that make me?”
Jago gazed back at her. “You don’t have a tattoo.”
Connie raised one eyebrow. “Might have.”
“No,” Jago said. “I’d have found it. Trust me.”
“Just checking,” Connie said, patting his chest. “But it proves that not every working girl has one.”
Jago pulled his head back to look at her. “You still see yourself as a workin’ girl?”
“Well as sure as God made little green apples, I’m no lady.”
“You’re my lady,” Jago said.
Connie smiled. “Good answer, but I was a working girl, before I went into management, which doesn’t say much for your theory, now, does it?”
“All right, point taken. But like I said, it weren’t my theory.”
“Which means it’s just as likely there are proper ladies out there who do have tattoos.”
Jago realized he’d been outsmarted. Connie’s still-arched eyebrow and her naked breasts swaying enticingly in front of his nose weren’t helping.
“What kind of tattoo?” she asked, after a considered pause.
“A rose.” Jago tapped Connie’s upper right arm. “On her shoulder. Told him the chances were slim to none, but the captain thinks it could be her name.”
Connie
