“My father passed away when I was young.” Again, the lie flew off Emmy’s tongue with hardly a moment’s thought.
“I’m so sorry for ye, lass. Truly I am.”
Emmy did not want his sympathy. “Where is she?”
Again he consulted his clipboard, and then he checked a ledger on a nearby desk. When he looked up, he shook his head. “We aren’t able to keep the unclaimed bodies more than a few days. We always make what inquiries we can. I am so sorry.”
An odd sensation rippled through Emmy. Fear? Emptiness? Dread? “What did you do with her?” she said, restrained emotion thickening her words.
He consulted his clipboard yet again. When he looked up, he rubbed his chin with his hand, the gesture of one about to say something he was afraid to say. “She was buried proper; I can tell you that. In Tower Hamlets. Just this morning.”
Emmy needed a moment to understand what the man was telling her. Mum had been buried already. She was buried. Buried. “What is Tower Hamlets?”
“It’s the public cemetery, miss. Not far from Charing Cross. They were all given proper burials.”
She swallowed a lingering sensation of loss and fear. “‘They’?”
“There were others what no one came for and who had no kin near as we could tell. They were buried proper. A vicar and everything.”
“A vicar,” Emmy echoed.
“Yes.”
Emmy started to teeter and she steadied herself against the wall.
“Miss?” he said.
“Where—where was she found?”
The man checked the ledger; a different page this time. “In the basement of the Sharington Crescent Hotel. The place took a direct hit, I’m afraid. The upper floors collapsed into the basement, I hear. No one sheltering in the basement survived. I’m sorry.”
A hotel. She was at a hotel.
“Where is this place?” Emmy said evenly.
“I’m sure it was quick, miss. I’m sure she didn’t suffer.”
He could be sure of nothing and he and Emmy both knew it. “Where is it?”
“Near Covent Garden, I think.”
“And there were others?”
“Others?” He blinked, wide-eyed.
“Others in the basement? Was she with someone?”
He blinked again. “Oh, aye, there were other victims, I hear. A dozen or so.”
“And they all came here?”
The man was trying to piece together why Emmy was asking so many questions. He stared at her. “No. Not all.”
“Just the ones no one came for,” Emmy finished for him.
He half nodded, embarrassed for her, possibly.
“We have what she was found with,” he said. “Her handbag and such. Those haven’t been stored away yet. Hold on.”
