He shrugged, an air of hopelessness filling him as he stared gloomily at the crumbs on his plate. “Not as I can see,” he admitted. “Abel Smith’s girls all swear blind they din’t do it, an’ speakin’ purely for meself, I believe ’em. Not that the higher-ups are goin’ to listen to what I say.” He looked up at her with sudden anger, his face set hard.

“But I’m damned if I’m goin’ to see some poor little cow topped for killin’’im just to satisfy ’is family an’ their like, an’ get business back to normal. No matter whoever says, ever so soft, that they’d like it that way!”

Hester felt a chill. “Do you think anyone would try to do that?”

He caught the doubt in her voice. “You’re a nice lady, brought up proper. You don’t belong ’ere,” he said gently. He glanced around the long room with its iron beds, the stone sinks at the far end and the jugs and pails of water. “ ’Course they would, if it comes to it. Can’t go on like this much longer. Right and wrong gets to look different when you’ve bin ’ungry for a while, or slept in a doorway. I’ve seen ’em. It changes folk, an’ ’oo’s to say it’s their fault?”

She wondered whether to tell him anything about Squeaky Robinson and his very different establishment, apparently somewhere near Reid’s Brewery on Portpool Lane, or close beside. She was only half listening to him as she weighed it up.

“Of course,” she agreed absently. If she told Hart he would feel obliged in turn to tell his superiors, and they would go blundering in, and very possibly warn Robinson without learning anything about Baltimore. After all, Robinson would deny it, just as everyone else was doing. Almost certainly he already had done.

“Not as I’m sure we want to find the truth,” Hart went on dismally. “Considering what it’ll be, like as not.”

Now she did pay attention. “Not find it?” she challenged. “You mean just go on with the appearance until they get tired of it and say they’re giving up? They can’t keep half the London police force in Coldbath forever.”

“Another few weeks at the most,” he agreed. “It would be easier, in the end.”

“Easier for whom?” Without asking, she poured him more tea, and he thanked her with a nod.