Charlotte pushed through the tavern’s door and was immediately enveloped in the sweaty fugue of stale ale and unwashed bodies. A merchant ship must have sailed in on the earlier flood tide, for the taproom was packed with a raucous crowd of warrant officers, who were drinking, laughing . . . and groping at the passing serving wenches.
Slipping into a shadowed niche, she squinted through the haze of smoke, watching and waiting....
The minutes slid by, but with no sign of Annie Wright.
Charlotte waited until one of the kitchen girls cut toward the kitchen with a tray of empty mugs, and darted out to block her path.
“I’m looking for Annie,” she murmured.
The girl paused to rebalance her load. “Annie musta done a runner. She ain’t shown up fer work in three days.”
“Any idea where she might have gone?”
“Naw.” The girl scowled. “Why ye asking?”
“I’m a friend. It’s important that I find her.”
“Yeah?” A frown pinched the girl’s flushed face. “Annie suddenly seems te have friends crawling like rats outta the sewers.”
A frisson of alarm slithered down Charlotte’s spine. “Have there been others asking for her?”
The girl retreated a step. “Like I said, I dunno nuffink.” Charlotte muttered a thanks and turned away, but not before she saw the girl sidle over to the bar counter and exchange a hurried whisper with the man behind it.
Damnation.She ducked out into the night, cursing her own stupidity in letting Annie slip through her fingers without pressing her for answers regarding the murder. The barmaid had scarpered, and Charlotte didn’t need a mathematical Engine to compute the chances of finding her again.
They were virtually nil.
Overhead, the scrim of clouds had blown off to reveal a crescent moon, but the here-and-there glimmer of stars did little to lighten the skeins of vapor swirling in the alleyway. Charlotte turned up her coat collar to ward off the damp-fingered gusts. It was low tide, and the stench of decay deepened her sense of failure.
Mather, and now Annie . . .
Shallowing her breathing, she hesitated as the narrow passageway opened onto a lane leading over to Ratcliff Highway. Turning left would take her home, while turning right . . .
She decided there was nothing to lose by paying a call on Squid, her dockland informant. His tavern was a squalid hellhole, but despite his untidy habits, he was surprisingly observant and his information was usually accurate.
Her special knock drew a quick answer.
“Come in, Magpie. What shiny little baubles of dirt are ye seeking tonight?” A flash of yellowed teeth and a rumbled laugh at his own witticism. “Whatever yer seeking, I’m always happy te oblige.” He leered. “Including me.”
In no mood to banter, Charlotte stepped inside and jingled the purse in her pocket. “Annie Wright seems to have disappeared. Any idea of where she’s gone?”
The clink of coins brought Squid to full alert. “Oiy, I heard she’s scarpered.” He thought for a moment. “Kat thought she mitta seen her get into a hackney wiv a fancy cove, but she couldn’t say fer sure it was Annie. Ye want me te ask around?”
Could it have been Mather who had taken Annie away? she wondered.
“Ask Kat if she can describe the cove she saw,” replied Charlotte. “But do itveryquietly. And don’t share the information with anyone else.”
Squid mimed locking his lips.
Preoccupied with her own brooding, she gave a wordless nod and turned to let herself out.
“Wait, I just remembered sommink!”
Charlotte looked around.
“Alice the Eel Girl stopped by here looking fer ye yesterday afternoon. Said te tell ye if I saw ye.” He grimaced. “But she wouldn’t tell me why.”
She reached into her purse and pulled out a coin. Candlelight winked off the shiny metal as it spun through the air. “That’s because, like you, Alice knows on which side her bread is buttered.”
