Year 2. Investigator G Walker, By Alexandra Clifford

Mary-Anne watched as the tall man sat upon her bar stool. He wore a suit and placed his top-hat on the counter next to him. It was unusual for her not to recognise someone in her own tavern. The man ran his fingertips along the wooden bar top, eyes drifting from one jolly person to the other. “Ello darlin’ fancy a pint do ya?” The man looked up to the woman behind the bar taps. She had a mess of blonde curls on the top of her head, and her nose was too big for her face. She wore a dark green dress, cinched in at the waist by a corset. Her cleavage was a little too much on display, and her perfume nearly choked him.

“No thank you.” Mary-Anne smirked a little before leaning her elbows on the counter, her breasts were now harder to ignore. “Ah, I see. You after somthin’ else then my love?” Mary-Anne licked the inside of her parted lips with the tip of her tongue. The man cleared his throat and sat up a little taller.

“I’m afraid you have misunderstood. I’m Investigator G. Walker. I’m here to talk about Penny.”

“What you ‘eard about Pretty Penny?” Mr Walker twisted the end of his moustache and leaned forward ever so slightly. “I think you know Mrs Butcher.”

Mary-Anne shifted empty barrels of ale from one side of the cellar to the other, keeping herself occupied. “She was just one of me workin’ girls. She’d not been workin’ for me long. Only a few months or so. Next thing you know, dead as a rose in winter.” Mr Walker looked around the room, running his fingertips on top of surfaces. “Just turned seventeen the poor soul, engaged to be married, she ‘ad such a pretty face, course that’s why everyone called her Pretty Penny you see.” Mary-Anne paused with her hands on her hips catching her breath. She felt a steam train thumping through her chest. “I didn’t do it, if that’s why you’re ‘ere, Mr Walker.” Mr. Walker didn’t reply. Instead he rubbed his finger and thumb together and analysed the tacky substance he had found. Too thick to be alcohol. Too thin to be adhesive. He knelt down to get a closer look at the inch of crimson dew that had hardened on the staircase. “Mr. Walker? I’m telling you I didn’t do it.”

“I didn’t say you did Mrs Butcher.”

Penny Parker’s body was found in the early hours of Tuesday, December 10^th, 1889. Mr Butcher, aged 45, found the 17-year-old girl laying in an alleyway behind the railway arms. Mr Butcher claimed, ‘I was shocked to see her laying in the gutter.’ He continued to describe the body. ‘She had a bump on her forehead… blood down one side of her face.’

“Ah, Mr Butcher. There you are.” Mr Butcher turned around to see Mr Walker standing with a newspaper under his right arm, and a big umbrella in his left hand. The rain was falling heavy, creating slaps upon the cobbled pavement.

“I already spoke to the papers.” He shouted through the rain, “I ‘avent got anything else to say.” He tipped a metal bucket over a drain, releasing dirty water. Thunder crackled in the distance.

“I’m not a reporter Mr Butcher.” Mr Walker watched as fat raindrops rolled down Mr Butchers face. “I’m Investigator G. Walker.”

Inside was warm. The fireplace crackled as Mr Butcher threw on fresh logs. It was early morning so the tavern was not yet open. They sat opposite each other. Mr Walker sipped his black coffee. “You said you found her there?”

“I was takin’ out the dirty water, like I always do after I’ve mopped the floors, there she was. I checked her pulse. Freezin’ cold she was. Must have been there for hours.” Mr Butcher stared at the dancing flames. “To think if it was my little girl, layin’ out there.” He shook his head unable to finish.

“Your wife told me she was engaged to be married. Is that correct?”

“Yeah that’s right. To our Willy, my sister’s boy.”

“And William did not mind she was a working girl?” Mr Butcher shook his head from left to right.
“No no, she stopped all that, soon as she met our Willy, you see.” Mr Walker put his cup and saucer down on the coffee table in front of them. “Mr Butcher, I think it’s in our best interest that I speak with your nephew.”