Long Spoon Lane (27 page)

And the secrecy of it made the possibilities almost endless; there would be no safeguard at all.

He looked up to see Charlotte watching him.

“It’s bad isn’t it?” she said quietly.

“Yes.” He could see in her eyes that she understood the depth of it as far and as clearly as he did. “Yes, it is.”

“What can we do?”

He forced a smile at the inclusion of herself. “I’m going to go back and question the anarchists we’ve got in jail, although I don’t suppose they can help,” he answered. “I really don’t believe it is anyone in their group doing this. This time at least five people were killed. It may make them more willing to talk. You are going to do nothing, unless you go and give Emily a little support.” He searched her face. “Jack is one of the few allies we can rely on. It may cost him dearly.”

“His career?” she asked.

“Perhaps.”

She smiled very bleakly; it barely reached her eyes. “Thank you for not pretending. I wouldn’t have believed you if you’d said it wouldn’t.”

He rose from the table, kissed her lightly, and went to the front door to put on his boots. He knew she was standing in the kitchen, still watching him.

He went to see Carmody first, and found him pacing the floor, so tense he was unable to sit down. He swung around as soon as he heard the key in the big iron lock, and was facing Pitt when he came in. His hair was matted and his over-pale skin with its rash of freckles looked almost gray.

“Who did it?” he said accusingly. “That’s murder! Why didn’t you stop them? What’s the matter with you? Who are they? Irish, Russian, Poles, Spaniards? What?”

“I don’t think so,” Pitt replied as levelly as he could. “Who told you about the explosion?”

“It’s all over the prison!” Carmody shouted, losing control of his fury. “The warders are counting the hours till we get tried and hanged. It’s nothing to do with us. For God’s sake, we told you, so you would get everybody clear. We wanted to get rid of bloody Grover, and police corruption, not kill a whole street full of people.”

“All the evidence is that it’s not foreign anarchists, from Europe or anywhere else,” Pitt replied.

“It’s…not…us!” Carmody roared at him, his voice shaking. “Can’t you hear me? It’s not what we want, or what we believe. It’s bestial! There’s nothing of freedom or the honor or dignity of man in it. It’s just plain murder—and we’re not murderers.”

Pitt believed him, but he was not ready yet to say so.

“Magnus Landsborough’s dead,” he pointed out, leaning against the wall. “You and Welling are in prison. Has it even occurred to you that the purpose behind the Myrdle Street bombing was to get you out of the way?”

Carmody started to speak, then stopped. His face drained of the last vestige of blood. “Oh, God!” he breathed. “You think…no!” He started to shake his head, repeating the word over and over, but there was no belief in it. It was himself he was trying to convince, and his eyes never left Pitt’s.

“Why not?” Pitt asked him. “Maybe there was someone else in your group who wanted to follow a different plan, a more violent, more decisive one. Somebody certainly does!”

“No!” But it was an empty word. Carmody understood, and even as the seconds ticked by it made more and more sense to him. He sat down suddenly on the cot, as if his legs had given way.

“Someone you know killed Magnus,” Pitt went on, speaking quietly and firmly. “Someone planned it. They knew where you would escape to after the Myrdle Street bomb went off, and they were there waiting for you. They shot Magnus, and then escaped out the back way. They went down the stairs and past the police, who thought it was one of us from the front, in pursuit of one of yours. That takes thought, care, and intelligence. It also takes a good deal of knowledge about your plans. Why would any one of you want Magnus dead, except to get rid of him as leader, and take over yourselves?”

Carmody raised both hands up to his face and pushed his hair back so hard it stretched the skin of his brow and pulled his features. “This is a nightmare!”

“No, it isn’t,” Pitt said deliberately. “It’s real and you won’t wake up from it. The only way out is to tell the truth now. Who is the man to take over the leadership if anything happened to Magnus? And don’t tell me you never thought of that. That would be stupid. There was always a chance that any one of you could get caught, or killed.”

“Kydd,” Carmody said in a whisper. “Zachary Kydd. But I would have sworn he believed the same as we did. I’d have put my life on it!”

“Looks as if you would have lost, like the people in Scarborough Street last night.”

Carmody said nothing.

“Where will Kydd be now? Unless you want more like last night, we’ve got to get him.”

Carmody stared at him, his eyes wretched. “You’re asking me to betray my friend.”

“You can’t be loyal to your friend and your principles. You have to choose. Even remaining silent is a choice.”

Carmody closed his eyes. “He has a place about halfway down Garth Street, in Shadwell, down near the docks. I don’t know the number, but it’s on the south side, with a brown door.”

“Thank you. Just one more thing. The old man who kept on speaking to Magnus Landsborough, tell me as much about him as you know.”

Reluctantly, and with more emotion than he could mask, Carmody described Magnus’s meeting with the man who could only have been his father, and the heated exchanges they had had. The older man was begging for something, and being refused. Afterwards, Magnus was always quiet. He would not discuss it, it was quite clearly something that pained him. Twice Carmody had also seen a younger man some way in the distance, as if following the old man, but so discreetly that Carmody was not certain. It clearly distressed him to recall it, and when Pitt left he was quiet, drawn into the pain of his own memories.

Voisey had agreed that the next time that he and Pitt met it should be at the memorial to Turner, and as before, at noon. Surely, after last night’s bombing, Voisey would be there?

Pitt was five minutes late, and strode across the black-and-white marble floor. When he saw Voisey looking unnaturally around, fidgeting from one foot to the other, he was annoyed and also very slightly amused to feel such an intense relief.

Voisey was expecting him to arrive from the opposite direction, and spun around to face him only at the last moment. His eyes lit with relief. “Is it as bad as the newspapers say?” he demanded.

“Yes. In fact it will get worse.”

“Worse?” There was a bitter edge to Voisey’s tone. “What have you in mind?” he asked sarcastically. “Two streets destroyed? Three streets? Another great fire of London, perhaps? We were damned lucky that it only went as far as it did. At low tide and with only a little rain, we could have lost half of Goodman’s Fields last night.”

“Wait until Parliament meets this afternoon,” Pitt answered him. “We won’t need any more explosions to make them demand immediate passage of the bill, together with the provision to be able to question servants. Did you read Denoon’s editorial?”

Voisey turned away and started to walk as if he could not bear to stand still. “Yes, of course I did. This is his chance, isn’t it? They’ll use this to get the bill through!” It was really more of a statement than a question. He did not need Pitt’s answer. He knew before he came, he had been avoiding acknowledging the fact of defeat.

Pitt needed to walk swiftly to keep up with him, as if he had a purpose.

“If they burn down half of London again, do you suppose we can produce another genius to rebuild it like this?” Voisey said grimly. “They began this in 1675, you know.” He gestured at the vast cathedral around him. “Only nine years after the fire. Finished it in 1710.”

Pitt said nothing. He could not imagine London without St. Paul’s.

They had reached the plaque to Sir Christopher Wren. Voisey read from it. “‘Lector, si monumentum requires, circumspice,’” he said. “I don’t suppose you know what that means.” His voice was hushed, there was admiration and bitterness mixed in it. “‘Reader, if you seek a monument, look around you.’” There was pain and awe in his face; his eyes were bright.

Suddenly Pitt caught a different and startling glimpse of Voisey as a man aching to make a mark in history, to leave behind him something uniquely his. He had no children. He had inherited, but he would not bequeath. Was part of his hatred envy? When he died, it would be as if he had not existed. Pitt looked at his face as he stared upwards, and saw in it for a few moments a bone-deep and naked hunger.

It was an intrusion to see it, like catching a man in a private act, and he looked away.

His movement caught Voisey’s attention, and the mask was replaced instantly. “I don’t suppose you know anything about who placed the bomb?” he said.

“Possibly,” Pitt replied. He could feel Voisey’s hatred, it had a new depth to it, as if it were a palpable thing in the still air and the near silence. No one else was near them, and the slight murmur of footsteps in the distance was so soft it faded into the background. They could have been alone. “The man to take on the leadership if anything happened to Magnus Landsborough is called Zachary Kydd. It’s possible it was he who killed Magnus.”

“An internal rivalry?” The contempt in Voisey’s face was scalding.

Pitt felt his own temper rise. “It was someone who knew him, one of the anarchists.”

“Why?” Voisey was incredulous. “He didn’t need to get rid of Landsborough in order to blow up Scarborough Street!”

“How do you know that?” Pitt asked.

“Why the hell would he? Landsborough was going to stop him?” His disbelief was scathing. “How? Warn the police, get them out in force? Are you suggesting that someone in their group trusted the police?”

Pitt allowed an exaggerated patience into his voice. “To set off explosions like that, you need a great deal of dynamite, and planning, and people prepared to risk their own lives. Maybe Kydd didn’t know that, until he’d taken over Magnus’s leadership.”

Voisey struggled for a few moments. Pitt was right, and he knew it. He met Pitt’s eyes and saw the understanding in them. If he denied it, he would add one error to another. He gave in quickly, while he had the chance. “Kydd,” he said aloud. “Why did he do it? What does he want?”

“I don’t know,” Pitt admitted, smiling very slightly.

A shadow crossed Voisey’s eyes.

Pitt waited.

“Wetron used the Scarborough Street bombing perfectly,” Voisey said. “Nothing could have served his purpose better. Do you really believe that is coincidence?”

Pitt had a coat on, and it was not cold in the cathedral, but still he felt a chill inside. He would like to have escaped that conclusion, found at least one compelling reason why it could not be true, but he could find none. “Do you think he is behind it?” he said very quietly.

It was Voisey’s turn to smile. “Your ability to think well of people never fails to surprise me, Pitt. It shouldn’t do. In spite of all that’s happened to you, to your father before you, your years of solving God knows how many murders, and now dealing with political fanatics, you are still naive. You refuse to look at the realities of human nature.” His face darkened. “Of course Wetron is behind it, you fool!” he said savagely. “He put poor, stupid, essentially harmless Landsborough up to setting off the first bomb. He told the group no one would be hurt. Idiotic young anarchists, who have no idea what they’re doing, except protesting against corruption, would easily agree to something like that. You caught at least some of them, which was doubtless what he intended, and the pump is primed. The second time it looks similar, but it’s far worse. Everyone assumes, quite naturally, that it is an escalation of the same thing, and blames the same people. What will be next? Fear is ignited and Denoon fans the flames. If Wetron didn’t do it, he is the most incompetent and the luckiest man alive. What do you think, Pitt? What does your police intelligence think? What does your Special Branch brain make of it?”

“Exactly the same as you do,” Pitt replied. “But how much of it he used and how much he created doesn’t really matter, as long as we can connect him to enough of it to stop him.”

“Ah! Pragmatic at last! Thank God. And how do you propose we do that?” Voisey hesitated only a moment. “We have Tellman, of course. A man on the inside.”

He looked at Voisey and saw in his face an exquisite awareness of all the emotions and the cost, and of Pitt’s dilemma. He was waiting for Pitt to say he could not do it, and then his contempt would be complete. Either way he had entire control over it, and the relish of the power shone in his eyes.

Pitt ached to have some other solution, equally as good, which would offer him escape. But there was nothing.

“I’ll ask Tellman to see if he can trace the money back to Wetron,” he agreed reluctantly.

“Money!” Voisey said with contempt. “We know he’s extorting money! You’ll only trace it as far as Simbister, anyway. We need dynamite, connections that prove complicity, knowledge of what it was to be used for.”

“First the money,” Pitt said patiently. “Trace it to Wetron, then look for the purchase of the dynamite. If it tracks back to Simbister that’s good enough, as long as we can tie Simbister to Wetron. I’ve followed the money as far as Simbister’s right-hand man.”

“Have you?” Voisey’s eyebrows shot up. “You didn’t say so.”

“I’ve only just done it. I was in the process of doing it when the bomb went off in Scarborough Street. I was only a few hundred yards away.”

Voisey froze. “You were there? You saw it?” He looked at him more closely, noting the scratch marks on his face and where his hair was singed. “You were there,” he said with respect. He grudged giving it, but felt it in spite of himself. “I thought you had just been called afterwards.”

“I spent half the night trying to get the injured and homeless out of the way,” Pitt told him, trying not to let the memory swamp him. “I expect they’re still looking for the dead. Believe me, you are no angrier with Wetron than I am.”

Voisey breathed out very slowly. “No, I imagine I’m not. If there is anything that could snap that very elastic tolerance of yours, this would be it. Good. Connect Wetron to the dynamite, and let’s see him hang!” He said the last word with a sudden passionate viciousness that Pitt knew had more to do with the Inner Circle than the dead of Scarborough Street.