“Tell me about her.”
What could he tell the man when there were only those few brief seconds?
He had followed, then watched her.
“She has dark hair...” He thought about what he remembered. “And blue eyes. She’s pretty enough and well-spoken, not what one expects in a place like the market.” He thought back to the encounter and struggled to remember more.
“She’s strong. She didn’t scream like others might. And when she fought back...”
There had been that moment...no less than that he remembered, thinking back on it.
“What?” the old man demanded. “What was it?”
The stocky man before him twisted his cap in his hands.
“It might have been my imagination.” But even now he could feel the burn on his skin beneath his clothes.
There was no explanation for it. He was not drunk at the time. The mark was there...as if he had been burned in those few seconds after he struck her, usually hard enough to subdue any man, much less a woman small as she was and with nothing in her hand!
The old man stared at him as he listened, his hand slowly clenching into a fist once more.
“I swear,” the man before the desk told him. “I never saw nothing. It was as if...”
As if what, he thought? That bleak gaze, once a shade of blue, now faded with age, met his across the desk.
“Did she say anything?”
He shook his head. “Not a word, but there was a sound...”
“What do you mean?”
He tried to describe it as best he could.
“I thought it was the wind, comin’ up the way it does end of day, but this was different. It was over the marketplace, and the damned birds were everywhere.”
“Birds?” the old man replied, looking up. “What the devil are you talking about?”
“Crows. Musta been a dozen of ’em. They swarmed the place right before.”
He had been surprised. He didn’t like them. The old man frowned.
“What else?”
“She was at the poulterer’s stall for some time, then disappeared behind it when the man was with a customer.”
The old man’s eyes sharpened. “Continue, Mr. Elias.”
“She was there for some time and then left. That’s when I tried to get the bag from her.”
The man behind the desk nodded. “And failed.”
There was a long silence. “Where can she be found?”
“At Albany Street, a flat occupied by the sister of Police Inspector Landry, when she is not at the lawyer’s office.”
That watery pale gaze narrowed. He shook his head.
“This is not to involve the police, or the law.” It was not a request.
