Farrier's Lane (44 page)

It reminded Pitt of the men who had been idling near Farriers’ Lane on the night Kingsley Blaine was murdered. He knew their names. They were there on the original records he had read in the beginning. He had read it again, to remind himself.

There was little chance of finding any of them now. They could have moved to other areas, found a better way of life, or a worse one. They could be ill, or dead, or in prison. Mortality was high, and five years a long time.

Had Paterson bothered to look for them? Or for the urchin, Joe Slater?

Surely he would have gone to the flower seller first? If she was still there.

And yet as he was within a few hundred yards, Pitt found himself drawn to Farriers’ Lane.

He quickened his pace, striding over the wet cobbles with urgency, as though he might miss something if he hesitated. He turned the last corner and saw ahead of him, far on the left side, the narrow opening of Farriers’ Lane, a black slit in the wall. He slowed his step. He wanted to see it, and at the same time it repelled him. His stomach clenched, his feet were numb.

He stopped opposite it. As Paterson had said, the street lamp was about twenty yards away. The wind was whining in the eaves of the roofs above him and rattling an old newspaper along the road. The half-light was dimming and the gas in the lamps had already been lit. Still Farriers’ Lane was a dark gulf, impenetrable.

He stood roughly where the idlers had been that night and stared across the street. He could have seen a figure quite clearly, the darkness of a man walking would have been unmistakable. But unless he had stopped and faced him, under the light, he could not have seen his face.

He stepped out across the street and with faster beating pulse and a catch in his throat, went into Farriers’ Lane.

It was narrow, smooth underfoot, but he could see almost nothing ahead of him except the outline of the last wall before the stable yard. There must be a light there; its glow was unmistakable even from the first yard or two. He imagined Kingsley Blaine having come this way as a shortcut to the club where he expected to meet Devlin O’Neil. Had he even thought of anyone as he stepped out of the uncertain light of the street into the shadows of the lane? Had the attack come as a complete surprise?

Pitt’s footsteps rang on the stones, urgent, sharp with fear. The mist caught in his throat and his breath was uneven. He could see the lamp on the wall now illuminating the yard ahead of him. It had been a smithy. Now it was a brickyard. He walked out into it, slowly, trying to imagine what it had been like that night. What had Kingsley Blaine
seen? Who had been waiting there for him? Aaron Godman, the slender, mercurial actor dressed for the theater, a white silk scarf gleaming in the stable lamp, a long pointed nail in his hand? Or a dagger which no one had ever found? Surely that hardly mattered? It would be easy enough to lose such a thing, wouldn’t it? Of course the police had searched and found nothing. All it needed was a drain.

Or had it been someone else? Joshua Fielding? Even Tamar herself—helping, urging him on.

That was a hideous thought and without knowing why he thrust it away from him.

He stood still, staring around him. That must be the old stable over to the left. Half a dozen boxes. One door was different from the others, newer.

He felt a little sick, the sweat cold on his body.

He turned and went back into the darkness of the alley, almost at a run. He burst out into the street again breathlessly, his heart beating in his throat, then stopped abruptly and stood for a minute. Then he walked on back towards Soho Square where the flower seller had her position.

He was traveling so rapidly now he bumped into people as he passed, his feet clattering on the pavement, his breath rasping.

The flower seller was there, a short, fat woman wrapped in a rust brown shawl. Automatically she pushed forward a bunch of mixed flowers and went into her singsong patter.

“Fresh flowers, mister? Buy a posy o’ fresh flowers fer yer lady, sir? Picked today. Look, still fresh. Smell the country air in ’em, sir.”

Pitt fished in his pocket and took out a threepenny piece.

“Yes, please.”

She did not ask if he wanted change, she simply clasped the coin and gave him two bunches of flowers, her face lighting up with relief. It was getting colder with the darkness and it seemed she had had a poor day.

“Been here long?” Pitt asked.

“Since six this morning, sir,” she replied with a frown.

A couple passed by on the way to a party, her long skirts wet from the pavement, his silk hat gleaming.

“I mean have you had this place for many years?” Pitt asked the flower seller.

“Oh. Yeah, ’bout fourteen.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Then it was you who saw Aaron Godman after the Farriers’ Lane murder?”

Somewhere over the far side of the square a horse squealed and a coachman swore.

“Beggin’ yer pardon, sir, but what’s that ter you?” she asked, squinting narrowly at him.

“Did you already know Mr. Godman?”

“I seen ’is picsher.”

“What was he wearing that night, do you remember?”

“Coat, o’ course, that time o’ night. What else would ’e be wearin’?”

“Top hat? White silk scarf?”

“Go on wi’ yer! ’e were an actor, not a toff—poor devil.”

“You sound sorry for him.”

“Wot if I were? That bastard Blaine did ’is sister up proper, poor bitch. ’Anged the poor soul anyway.”

“Was he wearing a white scarf?”

“I already told yer, ’e were dressed for workin’!”

“No scarf. Are you sure?”

“Yeah! ’Ow many times do I ’ave ter tell yer? No scarf!”

“Have you seen Constable Paterson lately?”

“An’ if I ’ave?”

Pitt reached into his pocket and produced a sixpence. “I’ll have some more flowers.”

Wordlessly she took the sixpence and handed him four bunches. He had to put them half in his left-hand pocket to hold them all. A couple of gentlemen in evening dress passed him, top hats gleaming, and looked at him with amusement.

“Have you seen Paterson in the last few days?” he said again.

“Yeah. ’e came ’ere day afore yesterday,” she replied. “Asked me all the same questions again, ’e did. An’ I answered
’em the same. Then the clock struck.” She jerked her head backwards towards the building behind her. “An’ ’e asked me about that.”

“What about it? Wasn’t that the clock that told you he was here at a quarter to one?”

“That’s what Mr. Paterson said to me. ’e were positive it were. Couldn’t shake ’im. In the end I could see as it must ’ave bin. But first off I said as it were quarter past midnight, as that’s wot I thought it were! Yer see …” She squinted at him, making sure he was giving her his full attention. “Yer see, it’s a funny kind o’ clock, that. It don’t ring once fer the quarter past, twice fer the ’alf, an’ then three times for the quarter to, like most, but only once at the quarter to as well. ’e said it must ’a bin quarter past, cos of ’ow much I’d sold. But I first thought it were quarter to one, cos w’en that clock’s bin cleaned, like it ’as now, it rings funny. Makes a kind o’ whirring sound on the quarter to. Didn’t do it that night.” She opened her eyes very wide and suddenly frightened. “That means it were a quarter past midnight, don’t it?”

“Yes …” Pitt said very slowly, a strange almost choking feeling welling up inside him, excitement, horror and amazement at once. “Yes, it does mean that, if you are sure. Quite sure? Did you see him take the hansom?”

“Yeah—from that corner there.” She pointed.

“You sure?”

“ ’Course I’m sure! I told Mr. Paterson that an’ ’e looked sick. I thought ’e were goin’ ter pass right out in front o’ me. Poor bastard looked fit to drop dead ’isself.”

“Yes.” Pitt took out the rest of the change from his pocket and offered it to her, about two shillings and nine-pence halfpenny.

She stared at it incredulously, then put out her hand and grabbed it, pushing it deep into her pocket, holding her hand there.

“Yes, he would,” Pitt said quietly. “If Aaron Godman bought flowers from you at quarter past midnight, and took a hansom cab straight home to Pimlico, then he could not
have been the one who murdered Kingsley Blaine in Farriers’ Lane at half past.”

“No,” she said, shaking her head fractionally. “Come ter that, I don’t suppose ’e could, poor little swine! Still, ’e’s ’anged now—can’t bring ’im back. God rest ’im.”

10

P
ITT ARRIVED HOME
a little before eleven o’clock, wet through from the steady rain, his face white, hair plastered over his brow. He took off his outer clothes in the hall and hung them on the hook, but the weight of the water in them pulled them off, and they lay in a sodden heap on the linoleum. He ignored them and went down the corridor towards the kitchen and the warmth of the stove where he could take off his soaking boots and thaw out his feet.

Charlotte met him at the kitchen door, her face startled and her hair loose around her shoulders. She had obviously been asleep in the rocking chair waiting for him.

“Thomas? Oh, you’re wet through! What on earth have you been doing? Come in! Come—” Then she saw his face, the expression in his eyes. “What is it? What’s happened? Is—is somebody else dead?”

“In a way.” He slumped down in the chair beside the stove and began to unlace his boots.

She knelt in front of him and started on the other one.

“What do you mean, ‘in a way’?”

“Aaron Godman. He didn’t kill Blaine,” he replied.

She stopped, her fingers curled around the wet laces, staring up at him.

“Who did?”

“I don’t know, but it wasn’t him. The flower seller was
wrong about the time, and Paterson discovered it the day he died. Maybe he knew who it was, and that was why he was killed.”

“How can she have been wrong about the time? Didn’t they question her properly?”

He told her about the clock, and the malfunction when it was cleaned. She finished undoing his boots, took them off and put them close to the stove to dry out, then his socks, and rubbed his frozen feet with a warm towel. He wriggled his toes in exquisite relief, explaining how Paterson had misunderstood, how he had pressed until his conviction that Godman was guilty had overridden the woman and she had given in.

“Poor Paterson,” she said quietly. “He must have felt dreadful. I suppose it was his guilt over that which made him reckless for his own safety. He must have wanted desperately to put things right.” She went to the kettle which was singing quietly on the back of the stove, and pulled it forward onto the hot plate to bring it right to the boil, reaching with the other hand for the teapot and the caddy.

“Why did he write to Judge Livesey and not to you, or to his own inspector?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” He continued rubbing his cold feet, rolling up his trousers to keep the wet fabric from his legs. “I suppose he thought Livesey had the power to reopen the case. I certainly hadn’t, without some absolutely conclusive evidence, and even then I could only take it to the courts. Livesey could do it much more directly. And he was involved with the original appeal; in fact he was in charge of it. It was he who presented the judgment.”

Charlotte poured the scalding water onto the tea and closed the lid of the pot. “I suppose he couldn’t be … at fault, could he?”

“He had nothing to do with the original case,” he replied. “He certainly couldn’t have killed Blaine—and he couldn’t have killed Paterson. He was at a dinner all evening until well into the small hours of the morning. By which time Paterson was dead. We can prove all that by the medical
evidence, and also by the landlady’s testimony of the time the outer doors were locked.”

She brought the teapot to the kitchen table, and cups, milk from the pantry, and a large slice of brown bread, butter and pickle. She poured the tea, gave him his, and sat down opposite him as he began to eat hungrily.

“I suppose it must have been whoever killed Blaine,” she said thoughtfully. “Paterson must have told them he knew, which means that he had worked it all out. I wonder how.” She frowned. “I don’t see how knowing it couldn’t have been Godman tells him who it was.”