The Angel Court Affair (Thomas Pitt 30) (10 page)

‘He can’t if she’s already dead,’ Daniel said reasonably. ‘But she’s probably perfectly all right, just lost, or someone knows where she is and is playing a stupid trick, not telling anyone.’ He pushed his chair back and stood up. ‘What matters is whether there’s going to be a war or not, a big one. Like with the Americans and the Spanish, but with us.’ He gave a shrug and walked out of the room.

‘Yes, we’ll find her,’ Pitt replied to Jemima and Charlotte. ‘I’ll do everything I can for it to be soon enough.’

AT NOON the next day Brundage came into Pitt’s office. His blunt face was pale, almost bruised-looking. He was clearly discouraged.

Pitt had been reading reports of a group of anarchists in east London who had suddenly gone quiet, as if they were preparing for some decisive action. He turned the top sheet down and pushed the whole pile away. He would return to it later.

‘Sit down,’ he directed. He knew Brundage would not do so until he was asked.

Brundage did not obey.

Pitt leaned back in his chair. ‘No trace at all?’

‘No, sir. I’ve spent all morning questioning Ramon, Henrietta and Smith about all the possible threats they knew of, or even might suspect. I got nothing new, certainly nothing helpful. I did as you said and asked as much as I could about enemies, rivals in Spain, money, how the Catholic Church treated them. Learned nothing of use.’ Brundage moved his weight from one foot to the other. ‘Melville Smith held a meeting yesterday evening, as Sofia had planned to.’ His face was bleak. ‘The place was crowded. You couldn’t have fitted more people in with a shoe horn. He made the most of it.’

Pitt could see the unhappiness in him, and he realised with surprise how little he knew of Brundage beyond the record of his abilities and his service. He had no idea about his personal life, or if he had any faith that could be bruised by Sofia’s ideas, or her disappearance. Looking up at him now, he saw something in his face deeper than professional embarrassment, but he was not certain if it was disillusion, or merely his own misery at their failure.

‘Stop crawling around it, Brundage,’ Pitt said quietly. ‘Sit down and tell me what he said. Is Smith behind her disappearance, or is he just capitalising on it?’

Brundage sat in the large, comfortable chair opposite Pitt’s desk. ‘I’m not sure if he’s trying to hold the group together and keep an audience,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘He’s being very open about her disappearance since none of them has any idea where she’s gone, or why, or if she’s safe. If he knows, he’s damn good at hiding it. But then he could be.’ He smiled a little self-consciously. ‘I’ve often thought the best preachers were also the best actors. They get carried away by the story. They’re playing a part they may believe in, but they don’t have to. They’re watching, listening, carrying their audience with them, and they feel it. It’s a kind of power, for a little while.’ He gave a brief smile. ‘The difference is that their audience is there because they believe they should be, and some of them at least need to hear what is said.’

Pitt was surprised. Brundage was far more perceptive than he had expected.

‘You look out at them and you can’t tell who’s desperate inside,’ Brundage went on. ‘Who’s crippled by fear, or guilt, or loneliness. Do you think he knows? Smith, I mean? He played a hell of a part!’

‘As good as Sofia?’ Pitt asked curiously. Could this all be a plan they had created together? It was a curiously repulsive thought.

‘No,’ Brundage said without hesitation. ‘I’ve been thinking about it, turning over the possibilities as I listened to him. He’s not giving exactly the same message. The changes are very small, but they’re there.’ He stopped and looked at Pitt, waiting for his response.

Pitt knew exactly what he was thinking. The same thought was taking shape in his own mind, the lines of it clearer with each new piece of evidence and, as was plain in Brundage’s face, with a sense of disappointment.

‘How is the message different?’ Pitt asked.

Brundage smiled slightly, with just a faint turning down of the corners of his mouth. ‘More comfortable, easier to accept than hers because the price is less,’ he replied. ‘It’s more a matter of the parts he left out, like God once being as we are now. That’s a big thing to swallow. Doesn’t make us more, or God less. What he said is all more manageable to the imagination. Less risk.’ He leaned forward a little. ‘I couldn’t put my finger on it exactly, but I watched the faces of the people listening. There was much less fear in them. They didn’t fidget and sneak glances at one another the way they did when she was speaking. I saw some of them nod. It was as if he promised rather than challenged. He made a lot less out of the price of failure, almost as if success were not expected, and there would be no blame. Like . . . like speaking to children.’

‘But it worked?’ Pitt pressed him.

‘Depends on what you count as success,’ Brundage replied. ‘More people. But not a better meeting. He doesn’t have the fire she does, nothing like the passion. But perhaps that’s more comfortable for the majority.’

Pitt was startled at Brundage’s insight. He had not seen him as so thoughtful. It was a mistake. He had broken his own rules and judged a man on the superficial evidence, his bluff appearance, his slight country accent, his very clear physical fitness, the occasional comment on sports.

‘You’ve given it a lot of consideration,’ he observed. ‘You have a faith of your own?’

Brundage blushed. ‘Not really, sir. I’ve seen all this sort of thing before. My father’s a country vicar . . .’

‘You never mentioned it,’ Pitt said in surprise.

Brundage looked uncomfortable. ‘It’s not the sort of thing you talk about. Ragged about it pretty hard when I was a boy. Thought a lot of my father, but I didn’t want to be like him. Couldn’t keep up the front, even if I had wanted to. I haven’t the patience with people. But I saw a lot of what he did. And the sort of people who come to church. I suppose I should be grateful. Best lesson in human nature, watching a village.’

Pitt smiled wryly. ‘Perhaps I owe your father a word of thanks too. Tell me about Sofia Delacruz. If she comes back, is she going to find her place usurped? Will she have to adopt Smith’s alterations, or lose a significant part of her cause?’

Brundage bit his lip. ‘Maybe. He might have organised this in order to make a kind of coup. But what happens if she comes back and accuses him of having deliberately had her kidnapped in order to step into her place? He’s ambitious. He’s played second fiddle to her for a long time.’

‘Any number of things,’ Pitt said bitterly. ‘The whole organisation will fracture into pieces, a kind of civil war. It might be ugly, and if neither of them wins quickly then it will drag on until it destroys any credibility in giving a moral leadership, and everyone loses. Or else it simply disintegrates and disappears. Or maybe she’ll go on alone.’

‘Why would anybody be so stupid?’ Brundage asked. ‘What could they gain?’

‘People don’t always think ahead,’ Pitt said with a touch of bitterness. ‘If we could see the end of the road, half the time we’d stop before we took the first step. Sometimes if we knew what something would cost, our courage would fail.’

‘You make it sound both good and bad,’ Brundage pointed out.

‘I meant to,’ Pitt answered.

‘Maybe Sofia doesn’t know who is her abductor?’ Brundage suggested. ‘And they’ll all go back to Spain before we find out,’ he added hopefully.

‘Or her disappearance has nothing to do with Smith, and he’s simply an opportunist?’ Pitt added. ‘One thing is certain: if she reappears now, she’ll have to have a remarkably good explanation of where she’s been, or she will destroy any credibility she has.’

‘Do you think she knew Smith was intending to alter the message, and she did this deliberately in order to smoke him out?’ Brundage suggested. ‘She’s taking a bit of a chance, isn’t she?’

‘I’ve no idea,’ Pitt admitted, knowing as he said it that he believed Sofia Delacruz perfectly capable of taking any chance at all, if she believed the prize worth the risk. ‘I wish to hell she’d chosen somewhere else to do it!’

‘Perfect place,’ Brundage said miserably. ‘Get us running around in circles, and blame any loose ends on us and our general incompetence.’

Pitt felt the sting of that and knew that Brundage was reflecting his own failure in not having kept Sofia safe, even if it was from herself. Should he attempt to comfort him? Any remark at all was fraught with layers of meaning. Pitt was his commander, not a fellow officer. Commiseration would make them equals, and that was not what Brundage wished for. It would have been so much more comfortable for Pitt, but also wrong.

‘It may well have begun that way,’ he said. ‘But if so, it’s changed. Something has gone wrong. The publicity was moderately positive in the first day or two. Now it’s becoming much less pleasant. She can’t have been unaware of the furore she’s created. She’s frightened people, and they’ll hate her for that.’

Brundage looked bleak. ‘Yes, they will. They’ll feel she made fools of them. That’s a kind of contempt and it hurts.’

‘Do you think that’s what Melville Smith intended?’ Pitt remembered Smith’s face, the intonation in his voice when he spoke of Sofia. There had been admiration in it, but also something else. Envy? Criticism? Fear that she was mishandling the most important belief in his life? Why did a man like Melville Smith abandon the faith of his family and his youth, and publicly embrace something so different and controversial? For that matter, why did anybody? Pitt was gaining a far deeper respect for Brundage’s judgement.

‘We need to look much more closely at the rest of the disciples, or whatever they call themselves,’ he said. ‘What do you know so far?’

Brundage recited details of birth, family, different places where each of the followers had lived and worked. He added the dates they had joined the group, and the positions they had held, including the little that was known of their relationships with each other. He added any facts that might link into whether they physically could have had anything to do with Sofia’s disappearance. He included what he had been able to learn of both Cleo and Elfrida also: more specifically of their devotion to Sofia, and any tales of quarrels or disappointments, however inviolate-seeming.

‘It’s not enough,’ Pitt said when Brundage finally fell silent. ‘We’re missing what brought them here, and what keeps them.’ He thought for a moment, and then when there was still no answer he looked up. ‘Why do people change religion, Brundage? I want your opinion. Tell me what you think!’

Brundage was startled.

‘I don’t know, sir, but it must be something pretty profound. You don’t just change everything at this sort of cost for no reason, no matter how persuasive someone is. There’s no money involved. I did look into that. There’s no trace of money changing hands at all. Sofia Delacruz has enough to get by, but no luxury.’

‘I understand her, at least I think so . . .’ Pitt was thinking aloud. ‘At best, she really believes what she’s saying, whether she has the right way of making other people listen, or not. But what draws them to her? Why the change of faith, the way of life altogether? They are stepping outside the path they’d followed before, and losing friends, even the safety in the ordinary day-to-day life. What are they gaining?’

Brundage frowned. ‘Does it matter? Are you thinking someone was so disillusioned that they attacked her?’ He bit his lip. ‘Are they all covering up a murder?’

Pitt felt a chill run through him, as if he had been touched by ice. ‘Oh God! I hope not. But I suppose it’s possible. Some people care passionately about religion, about faith. It defines who they are, maybe what they hope for in eternity. We need to know why they joined her,’ he said to Brundage. ‘Each of them. It’s the key to who they are, and why any of them might have helped her or hurt her.’ He stood up. ‘There’s no trail to follow, no corpse, no sign of her at all. At least one of them at Angel Court knows something.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Brundage agreed, standing as well. ‘I’ll go on trying to find any places they have connections with. If they are the ones who are keeping her, there has to be a house, or rooms, something we can find.’

Pitt nodded. ‘Good.’

Angel Court looked desolate rather than peaceful, the sightless angel forbidding. The early May sun was hazy, blurring the shadows. The cobbles were swept but they were still dusty – they always would be – and uneven in places where cracked ones had been replaced.

Pitt walked past the old woman standing with her back to him as she pulled weeds out of the wooden tubs where she was nurturing parsley, chives and purple sage.

He had not reached the door when it opened in front of him and Henrietta Navarro stood expectantly, her dark eyes searching his face. As she saw no response in him, hope faded.

‘What do you want now?’ she said bitterly. ‘I’ve already told that young man of yours everything I know. You should be out there looking for her!’ Her voice quivered slightly.

‘He’s out there looking,’ Pitt answered. ‘But we would do better if we knew more about Señora Delacruz.’

‘Better?’ she said scathingly. ‘Better than what? Better than nothing?’ Then she relented, perhaps realising she was wasting her own time as well as his. ‘You’d better come in, then. Come on!’ She stepped back and turned to lead him into the hallway where he had spoken with Ramon and Smith previously. She allowed the heavy front door to close itself.

Thinking of what Brundage had said about people’s need for faith, he followed her. She led him through the short passage into a small sitting room. The furniture was spare but meticulously clean. There were two hard-backed wooden chairs, a straight-legged table, three upholstered chairs, all well used and different from each other, and a sofa with thick cushions on it. The light slanted in through mullioned windows, but there was no view beyond except another, smaller yard.

Pitt sat down where she indicated. To him she was the most interesting of the three followers who remained here. It was difficult to tell how old she was, but he guessed her to be in her late fifties at least. She was tall for a woman, square-shouldered and lean, but in her youth she might have had grace, possibly even beauty. Her features were well-proportioned and her iron-grey hair was still thick. Now she glared at him out of coal-black eyes.