Midnight at Marble Arch (18 page)

She blinked her dark eyes. “What happened? A young man who has a twisted soul raped my daughter, and then made light of it. He sought out opportunities to mock her in public with pretended courtesies, and when she retreated from him, he taunted her all the more, until in hysteria she backed away as far as she could, and beyond, crashing through a window to her death. I saw it, and was helpless to
do anything to save her. That is what happened.” She stared at him, almost challengingly.

“Forsbrook?” He breathed the name rather than speaking it. He had known from Vespasia and Charlotte, who had witnessed Angeles’s final moments, and yet there was still a monstrousness about it.

“Yes,” Isaura said simply.

“Neville Forsbrook?” he repeated, to be certain. “You knew? When did it happen, and where?”

“Yes, Neville Forsbrook, the son of your famous banker who is responsible for so much investment for your countrymen,” she answered. “I knew because my daughter told me. It happened at a party she attended. Forsbrook was there, among many other young people. He found Angeles alone in one of the apartments looking at the art there. He raped her and left her terrified and bleeding. Here at home one of our maids found her weeping in her room and sent for me.”

“She said she had been raped, and who it was?” He hated pressing her. It seemed pointlessly cruel, and yet if he did not he would only have to come back later to ask.

“She was bleeding,” Isaura replied. “Her clothes were torn and she was bruised. I am a married woman, Mr. Pitt. I am perfectly aware of what happens between a man and a woman. If it is anything like love, or even a heat-of-the-moment weakness, a hunger, it does not leave bruises such as Angeles had.” She lifted her chin. “Do I know it was Neville Forsbrook? Yes, but I cannot prove it. Even if I could, what good would it do?”

She gave a tiny, hopeless shrug. “Angeles is dead. He would only say she was willing, a whore at heart. And his father would turn the goodwill of the people he knows against us. They would close ranks, and we would find ourselves outcast for making a fuss and exposing to the public what should have remained a private sin.”

Pitt did not argue. His mind raced to find a rebuttal, but there was none. Politically, socially, and diplomatically it would be a disaster. The most that would happen to Neville Forsbrook would be that he might marry less fortunately than otherwise. Even that was not certain.
He might continue to make people believe that it was all the imagination of a hysterical young foreign girl who had stepped willingly into disgrace, like Eve, possibly even gotten pregnant, then blamed him for it. And there would be no way to prove him a liar.

Even the testimony of the maid who had found Angeles crying and bleeding would hardly be viewed as impartial. The girl’s humiliation would be painted in detail for everyone, and branded in their memories even more deeply than it was now. Isaura was right: they were helpless.

Forsbrook would never allow his son to be blamed, and he had the power to protect him. He would use it. Perhaps it was Pitt’s job to see that it did not come to such a thing.

What would he tell Castelbranco? That England was powerless to protect his daughter’s reputation, or bring to any kind of justice the young man who had raped her and driven her to her death? Not only that, but they felt it better not to try to seek any kind of justice, because it would be uncomfortable, raise fears and questions they preferred to avoid?

And if Castelbranco then thought them barbarous, would he be wrong?

“What about his mother?” Pitt said aloud, casting around for any other avenue at all. “Do you think …?”

She shook her head. “Eleanor Forsbrook died a few years ago, I’m told. There was a terrible carriage accident in Bryanston Mews, just off the square where they live. People speak very well of her. She was generous and beautiful. Perhaps if she were still alive this would not have happened.”

“Probably not,” he conceded. “But the loss of a mother does not excuse this. Most of us lose people we love at some time or other.” He thought of his own father, taken from him when he was a child, unjustly accused of theft and deported to Australia. It was a long time ago now. Nobody was deported anymore. His father had been one of the last. Pitt had no idea if he had even survived the voyage, or what had happened to him if he had. He might still be alive, but he would be old, close to eighty. Pitt wasn’t sure if he even wanted to know his father
still lived. He had never returned, or made any contact. It was an old loss better left alone.

“Most of us have wounds of some sort,” he said quietly.

“Of course,” Isaura agreed. “But you see, there is nothing you can do. I am grateful for your kindness in coming to me in person rather than sending a letter.”

He did not want to accept her dismissal.

“I would still like to speak to your maid, Senhora,” he said grimly. “I will be discreet, I give you my word, but I want to know for myself all that I can. Special Branch has a long memory.”

Her eyes flickered for a moment. With hope?

“Of course,” she agreed. “I shall ask her to come.” She turned and left, going out of the door with her head high, her shoulders awkwardly stiff.

Pitt wondered how rash his promise was, and when Isaura Castelbranco would tell her husband the truth. Probably when she was sure he would not take his own revenge. She had faced more than enough grief already.

8

N
ARRAWAY WENT TO
L
ISSON
Grove reluctantly. It had been his office, his domain, for so many years that going back as a visitor heightened his sense of being superfluous. He did not belong anymore. He looked much the same as he always had, not even noticeably any grayer, certainly not heavier or stiffer. His mind felt just as sharp—in fact, in some ways more so. It was emotionally that he felt different. Surely gentleness, an awareness of others, a greater humanity, was part of wisdom?

He had time in which to do anything he wanted, to travel anywhere, if he wished. It wasn’t possible that he had forgotten how to enjoy himself. He could go to the beautiful cities of Europe he had only visited in haste before. He could admire the architecture, steep himself in the history of the cultures, the music, the great art created through the centuries. He could stop and talk to people purely for the pleasure
of it. He could ignore or forget anything that bored him. There were no boundaries, no responsibilities.

Was that what troubled him? He needed boundaries? What for—an excuse? Responsibilities, or he felt unimportant? Did that mean there was little to him except the job? He had started in the army at eighteen, straight from Eton, where he had excelled academically. The military had been his father’s idea, much against his own intention.

He had arrived in India almost coincidentally with the beginning of the Mutiny, and seen firsthand the horrors of war. It had been brutal and desperate—innocent men, women, and children slaughtered as well as soldiers. It was there that he had first become aware of the unnecessary human errors—“stupidity” would not be too strong a word in some cases—that caused such tragedy. It had sparked his appreciation for military intelligence and, even above that, the understanding of people and events, of political will, the perception of social movement that had eventually matched him with his true gifts, Special Branch. He had given the rest of his life to it.

Was it the loss of purpose that hurt now, or the loss of power? Who was he without those things? It was the question he had avoided asking himself, but now that it was in his mind in so many words, he could not sidestep it anymore. He had never been a coward before. He could not be one now. There was still something left to play for.

He had brought Pitt into Special Branch, originally as a favor to Cornwallis when Pitt got himself thrown out of the Metropolitan Police because he knew too much about a particular area of corruption. Now Pitt was head of Special Branch and Narraway was retired to kick his heels in the House of Lords, very much against his will. After the miserable Irish business he had had no chance of remaining in office.

He walked up the steps and in the door self-consciously, aware of the surprise and then discomfort of the men who used to snap to attention and call him “sir.” Now they were uncertain how to greet him. He could see in their faces the indecision as to what to say. He should have the grace to relieve them of that.

“Good morning,” he said, giving a very slight smile, which was not
familiarity, just good manners. “Would you please inform Commander Pitt that I am here, and would like to speak with him regarding a matter in which my advice has been requested. He is already aware of it.”

“Yes, sir … my lord,” the man replied, relief filling his face that Narraway seemingly knew his place. “If … if you’ll take a seat, sir, I’ll deliver that message.”

“Thank you.” Narraway moved back from the desk and obeyed, feeling ridiculous, slightly humbled in what had been his own territory, asking favors of men he used to command. Would Pitt feel obliged to see him, however inconvenient it was? Might he even feel a slight pity for him, a man with no purpose? He was too tense to sit down. Perhaps he should not have come to the office, but rather, met Pitt at some other location.

He was not old; he was still more than capable of doing the job. He had been dismissed because of a scandal deliberately and artificially created in one of the most dangerous plots of the decade, perhaps of the century. But he had made enemies. The very nature of Special Branch made it impossible for Narraway to justify himself without also telling the truth as to what had happened. And that he could never do. He acknowledged with a bitter irony that the very act of talking to the public would have made him unfit for the position.

And Pitt was a worthy successor. He would grow into the job. He had both the intelligence and the courage. With luck he would last long enough to gain the experience. The only quality in doubt was the steel in his soul to make the decisions where there was no morally clear answer, where other men’s lives were at stake and there was no time to weigh or measure possibilities. That required a particular type of strength, not only to act, but afterward to live with the consequences. Narraway could not count the number of times he had lain awake half the night, second-guessing himself, regretting. There was no other loneliness quite like it.

The man returned. Narraway remained where he stood, waiting for the response.

“If you’ll come with me, my lord, Commander Pitt has a little free time and would be happy to see you,” the man said.

Narraway thanked him, wondering whether the “little free time” was Pitt’s wording or the messenger’s. It was very faintly patronizing and did not sound like Pitt.

“Morning.” Pitt rose to his feet as if Narraway were still the superior. “The Quixwood case?” he asked as Narraway closed the door.

“Yes,” Narraway replied, accepting the seat offered him. He felt a touch of surprise at Pitt’s serious tone, and the fact that he had brought up the subject so quickly. “You’re not interested in the Quixwood case, are you? I mean officially?”

“Not quite. As far as I know, thus far it’s an ordinary tragedy, no political implications. But I’m just beginning to realize what a complicated, misunderstood, and horrible crime rape is. I was actually thinking of Angeles Castelbranco, before you came.”

Narraway blinked. “The Portuguese ambassador’s daughter who died in that appalling accident?”

“I think it was probably an accident, to some degree,” Pitt answered. “At least on her part. On his, I don’t know.”

“His?” Narraway raised his eyebrows. “What are we talking about?”

Pitt’s face creased with distaste. “It was a public taunting—baiting, if you like—that led to her fall, largely orchestrated by Neville Forsbrook. I don’t think she had any intention of going out the window, as is now being suggested.”

Narraway frowned. “What are you saying, that she was raped too? By Forsbrook?”

“I think so. But I have no way of proving it. But this isn’t why you came. What can I do to help you with Catherine Quixwood?”

There was a horrible irony in Pitt’s sudden switch from Angeles to Catherine. Narraway tried to marshal his thoughts.

“Knox is a good man,” he began. “But he doesn’t seem to have gotten anywhere beyond the fact—which now seems inescapable—that she let the rapist in herself.” He watched Pitt’s face closely, trying to see if his thoughts were critical, or open. He saw no change in Pitt’s eyes at all. “I can see that he hates it, that he believes she had a lover,” he went on.

“What do you think?” Pitt asked.

Narraway hesitated. “I’ve done a lot of digging into her actions over the last six months or so.” He measured his words carefully. When he had been in Pitt’s job he had not allowed emotions to touch his judgment. Well, not often. Now he was thinking of Catherine Quixwood as a woman: charming, interested in all kinds of things, creative, probably with a quick sense of humor, someone he would have liked. Was it because the whole tragedy had nothing to do with danger to the country, no issues of treason or violence to the state, that he allowed himself to really visualize the people involved? People with dreams, vulnerabilities like his own? He could not have afforded to before.