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make ter put yer own women out o’ work? Gawd! There’s little enough around now without cuttin’ anyone open. Even a bleedin’ eejut can see that!”
    “Then who would do it?” Hester asked as Margaret poured hot water into a bowl on the other table, then added cold to it to make it bearable to wash in. The carbolic was already to hand.
    Lockhart rolled his sleeves farther up, ignoring the blood on them, and began to wash. Hester followed straight after him and he handed her the towel.
    Margaret made tea for all of them, including herself, and brought it over, hot and very strong. Hester was glad to sit down at last and made no demur when Lockhart carried the bowl away to empty it down the drain.
    Fanny was lying on the main table, her head on a pillow, her face ashen white. It was too soon to think of moving her, even to a bed.
    “Who would do it?” Hester repeated, looking at the woman.
    “Dunno,” the first one replied. “Ta.” She accepted a mug of tea from Margaret. “That’s wot’s got us frit. Fanny’s a good girl. She don’ take nothin’ wot don’ belong to ’er. She does wot she’s told, poor little cow! P’rhaps she was once quite decent.” She lowered her voice. “Parlor maid or summink like that. Got inter trouble, an’ afore yer can say ’knife,’ ’ere she is in the street. Don’ talk much, but she’ad it rough, I’d say.”
    Lockhart came back with the empty bowl and accepted his tea.
    “If I could get me ’ands on the sod wot did that to ’er,” the middle woman said. “I’d slit ’is… sorry, miss, but so I would.”
    “You shut yer mouth, Ada!” her companion warned. “There’s rozzers all over the place. Comin’ outa the bleedin’ woodwork, they are. Don’ wanna be, but they’re gettin’ leant on every which way, poor sods. Someone’s tellin’ ’em ter clear us up. Others is tellin’ ’em ter leave us alone, so they can ’ave their fun. Poor rozzers is runnin’ around like blue-arsed flies, fallin’ over each other.”
    “Yeh! An’ poor little cows like Fanny is gettin’ cut up by some bleedin’ lunatic!” Ada retorted, her face pinched, her voice rising with barely controlled hysteria.
    Hester did not argue. She sat quietly and thought about it, but she did not ask any more questions. The three women thanked them, and after saying good-bye to Fanny and promising to return, they went out into the night.
    After an hour Lockhart looked closely at Fanny, who seemed to be quite a lot easier, at least in her fear. He helped Hester and Margaret carry her over to the nearest bed and laid her on it. Then, promising to come back the following day, he took his leave.
    Hester suggested Margaret take a turn to sleep, and she would watch. Later they would change places. In the morning Bessie Wellington would come to take care of the house for the day and keep it clean. She had once been a prostitute herself, then kept a bawdy house until fiercer competition had driven her out of business. Now she was glad to find a warm room to spend the day, and was gentle enough with such patients as remained in the beds. She asked for no payment, and her knowledge of the area was worth almost as much as her labor.
     
    When Hester returned the next evening, she was met by Bessie at the door, her face red, her black hair pulled back into a screwed knot and poking out at all angles. She was bursting with indignation.
    “That slimy toad Jessop was ’ere arter money again!” she said in a whisper which carried halfway across Coldbath Square. “Offered’im a cup o’ tea, an’ ’e wouldn’t take it! Suspicious sod!”
    “What did you put in it, Bessie?” Hester asked, concealing a wry smile. She came in and closed the door behind her. The familiarity of the room engulfed her, the scrubbed boards still smelling of lye and carbolic, the faint echo of vinegar, the heat of the stove, and over near the tables the pungency of whiskey and the sharper clean tang of herbs.