Highgate Rise (5 page)

“That is hardly the point,” Hatch said sharply, his mouth puckering with anger. “Beauty is not at issue, my dear sir. It is the upliftment of souls. It is the saving of lives from sin and ignorance, it is to remind the faithful what journey it is we make, and to what end.” He shook his head a little as if to rid himself of the immediacy of the very solid materiality around him. “Bishop Worlingham was a righteous man, with a great understanding of the order of things, our place in God’s purpose. We permit his influence to be lost at our peril. This window will be a monument to him, towards which people will raise their eyes every Sunday, and through which God’s holy light will pour in upon them.”

“For heaven’s sake, man, the light would come through whatever window you put in the wall,” Shaw snapped at last. “In fact you’d get most of it if you stood outside in the graveyard in the fresh air.”

“I was speaking figuratively,” Hatch replied with suppressed fury in his eyes. “Must you see everything in such earthbound terms? At least in this terrible time of bereavement, lift your soul to eternal things.” He blinked fiercely, his lips white and his voice trembling. “God knows, this is dreadful enough.”

The momentary quarrel vanished and grief replaced anger.
Shaw stood motionless, the first time he had been totally still since Pitt had arrived.

“Yes—I—” He could not bring himself to apologize. “Yes, of course. The police are here. It was arson.”

“What?” Hatch was aghast. The blood fled from his face and he swayed a little on his feet. Lindsay moved towards him in case he should fall. Prudence swung back and held out her arms, then the meaning of what Shaw had said struck her and she also stood appalled.

“Arson! You mean someone set fire to the house intentionally?”

“That is right.”

“So it was”—she swallowed, composing herself with difficulty—“murder.”

“Yes.” Shaw put his hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, my dear. But that is what the police are here for.”

For the first time both she and Hatch turned their attention to Pitt with a mixture of alarm and distaste. Hatch squared his shoulders and addressed Pitt with difficulty, ignoring Murdo.

“Sir, there is nothing whatsoever that we can tell you. If indeed it was deliberate, then look to some vagabond. In the meantime, leave us to bear our grief in private, in the name of humanity.”

It was late and Pitt was tired, hungry and weary of pain, the stench of stale smoke, and the itch of ash inside his clothes. He had no more questions to ask. He had seen the forensic evidence and learned what little there was to be concluded from it. It was no vagabond responsible; it was carefully laid with intent to destroy, probably to kill—but by whom? Either way the answer would lie in the hearts of the people who knew Stephen and Clemency Shaw, perhaps someone he had already seen, or heard mentioned.

“Yes sir,” he agreed with a sense of relief. “Thank you for your attention.” He said this last to Shaw and Lindsay. “When I learn anything I shall inform you.”

“What?” Shaw screwed up his face. “Oh—yes, of course. Goodnight—er—Inspector.”

Pitt and Murdo withdrew and a few minutes later were walking up the quiet street by the light of Murdo’s lantern, back towards Highgate Police Station, and for Pitt a long hansom ride home.

“Do you reckon it was Mrs. Shaw or the doctor they were after?” Murdo asked after they had gone a couple of hundred yards and the night wind was blowing with a touch of frost in their faces.

“Either,” Pitt replied. “But if it was Mrs. Shaw, then it seems so far only Mr. and Mrs. Dalgetty, and the good doctor himself, knew she was at home.”

“Lot of people might want to kill a doctor, I suppose,” Murdo said thoughtfully. “I imagine doctors get to know a lot of folks’ secrets, one way or another.”

“Indeed,” Pitt agreed, shivering and quickening his pace a little. “And if that is so, the doctor may know who it is—and they may try again.”

2

C
HARLOTTE HAD DONE
half the linen and her arm was tired with the weight of the flatiron. She had stitched three pillowcases and mended Jemima’s best dress. Now she had stuffed it in her needlework basket and pushed it all away where it could not be seen, at least not at a casual glance, which was the most Pitt would give the corner of the room when he came in.

It was already nearly nine o’clock and she had long been straining at every creak and bump waiting for him. Now she tried to take her mind from it, and sat on the floor in a most undignified position, reading
Jane Eyre.
When Pitt did come at last she was quite unaware of it until he had taken off his overcoat and hung it up and was standing in the doorway.

“Oh, Thomas!” She put the book aside and scrambled to her feet, disentangling her skirt with considerable difficulty. “Thomas, where on earth have you been? You smell terrible.”

“A fire,” he replied, kissing her, touching only her face with his lips, not holding her where the smut and grime would soil her dress.

She heard the weariness in his voice, and something more, an experience of tragedy.

“A fire?” she asked, holding his gaze. “Did someone die in it?”

“A woman.”

She looked up at his face. “Murder?”

“Yes.”

She hesitated, seeing the crumpled, grimy clothes, still wet in places from the afternoon’s rain, and then the expression in his eyes.

“Do you want to eat, wash, or tell me about it?”

He smiled. There was something faintly ludicrous in her candor, especially after the careful manners of the Clitheridges and the Hatches.

“A cup of tea, my boots off, and then later hot water,” he replied honestly.

She accepted that as declining to talk, and hurried through to the kitchen, her stockinged feet making no sound on the linoleum of the passage, or the scrubbed boards of the kitchen floor. The range was hot, as always, and she put the kettle back on the hob and cut a slice of bread, buttered it and spread it with jam. She knew he would want it when he saw it.

He followed her through and unintentionally stood in her way.

“Where was it?” she asked.

“Highgate,” he said as she walked around him to get the mugs.

“Highgate? That’s not your area.”

“No, but they are sure this was arson, and the local station sent for us straightaway.”

Charlotte had deduced that much from the smell of smoke and the smudges on his clothes, but she forbore from mentioning it.

“It was the home of a doctor,” he went on. “He was out on a call, a woman in childbirth unexpectedly early, but his wife was at home. She had canceled a trip to the city at the last moment. It was she who was burned.”

The kettle was boiling and Charlotte heated the pot, then
made the tea and set it to brew. He sat down gratefully and she sat opposite him.

“Was she young?” she said quietly.

“About forty.”

“What was her name?”

“Clemency Shaw.”

“Could it not have been an accident? There are lots of accidental fires, a candle dropped, a spark from an unguarded hearth, someone smoking a cigar and not putting it out properly.” She poured the tea and pushed one of the mugs towards him.

“On the curtains of four separate rooms, downstairs, at midnight?” He took his tea and sipped it and burned his tongue. He bit into the bread and jam quickly.

“Oh.” She thought of waking in the night to the roar and the heat, and knowing what it was, and that you were trapped. How much more dreadful to think someone else had lit it deliberately, knowing you were there, meaning to burn you to death. The thought was so fearful that for a moment she felt a little sick.

Pitt was too tired to notice.

“We don’t know yet if they meant to kill Mrs. Shaw—or her husband.” He tried the tea again.

She realized he must have felt all that she was now imagining. His mind would have conjured the same pictures, only more vividly; he had seen the charred rubble, the heat still radiating from it, the smoke still filling the air and stinging the eyes and throat.

“You can’t do any more tonight, Thomas. She isn’t in any pain now, and you cannot touch the grief,” she said gently. “There is always somebody hurting somewhere, and we cannot take their pain.” She rose to her feet again. “It doesn’t help.” She brushed his hand with hers as she passed. “I’ll get a bowl of hot water and you can wash. Then come to bed. It will be morning soon enough.”

Pitt left as soon as he had eaten breakfast, and Charlotte began the routine of domestic chores. The children, Jemima
and Daniel, were seen off to their respective lessons at the same school along the road, and Gracie the maid began the dusting and sweeping. The heavy work, scrubbing floors, beating the carpets and carrying the coal and coke for the cooker, was done by Mrs. Hoare, who came in three days a week.

Charlotte resumed the ironing, and when she had finished that, began on pastry baking, the daily making of bread, and was about to begin washing and preparing jars for jam when there was a clatter at the door. Gracie dropped her broom and ran to answer it, and returned a moment later breathless, her thin little face alight with excitement.

“Oh, ma’am, it’s Lady Ashworth back—I mean, Mrs. Radley—back from ’er ’oneymoon—an’ lookin’ so grand—an’ ’appy.”

Indeed, Emily was only a few steps behind, laden with beautiful parcels wrapped in paper and ribbons, and swirling huge skirts of noisy taffeta in a glorious shade of pale water green. Her fair hair showed in the fine curls Charlotte had envied since childhood, and her skin was rosy fair from sun and pleasure.

She dropped everything on the kitchen table, ignoring the jars, and threw her arms around Charlotte, hugging her so fiercely she almost lost her balance.

“Oh, I have missed you,” she said exuberantly. “It’s wonderful to be home again. I’ve got so much to tell you, I couldn’t have borne it if you had been out. I haven’t had any letters from you for ages—of course I haven’t had any letters at all since we left Rome. It is so boring at sea—unless there is a scandal or something among the passengers. And there wasn’t. Charlotte, how can anyone spend all their lives playing bezique and baccarat and swapping silly stories with each other, and seeing who has the newest bustle or the most elegant hair? I was nearly driven mad by it.” She disengaged herself and sat down on one of the kitchen chairs.

Gracie was standing rooted to the spot, her eyes huge, her imagination whirling as she pictured ships full of card-playing aristocrats with marvelous clothes. Her broom was still
propped against the wall in the passageway and her duster stuffed in the waist of her apron.

“Here!” Emily picked up the smallest of the packages and offered it to her. “Gracie, I brought you a shawl from Naples.”

Gracie was overcome. She stared at Emily as if she had materialized by magic in front of her. She was too overwhelmed even to speak. Her small hands locked onto the package so tightly it was fortunate it was fabric, or it might have broken.

“Open it!” Emily commanded.

At last Gracie found words. “Fer me, my lady? It’s fer me?”

“Of course it’s for you,” Emily told her. “When you go to church, or out walking, you must put it ’round your shoulders, and when someone admires you, tell them it came from the Bay of Naples and was a gift from a friend.”

“Oh—” Gracie undid the paper with fumbling fingers, then as the ripple of blue, gold and magenta silk fell out, let her breath go in a sigh of ecstasy. Suddenly she recalled her duty and shot off back to the hallway and her broom, clutching her treasure.

Charlotte smiled with a lift of happiness that would probably not be exceeded by any other gift Emily might bring, even for Jemima or Daniel.

“That was very thoughtful,” she said quietly.

“Nonsense.” Emily dismissed it, a trifle embarrassed herself. She had inherited a respectable fortune from her first husband, the shawl had cost a trifle—it was so small a thing to give so much pleasure. She spread out the other parcels and found the one with Charlotte’s name on it. “Here—please open it. The rest are for Thomas and the children. Then tell me everything. What have you done since your last letter? Have you had any adventures? Have you met anyone interesting, or scandalous? Are you working on a case?”