The Angel Court Affair (Thomas Pitt 30) (24 page)

But friendships could happen between the most unlikely people – just like marriages. Some of them even prospered.

Again he looked sideways at Vespasia and she turned suddenly and met his gaze, smiling at him, and he was ridiculously pleased. He nearly put out his hand and touched her, then realised how sentimental that would be, as if they were twenty! He felt the heat burn up his face, smiled awkwardly and turned to look out of the window at the wide expanse of countryside speeding past them.

They made a late afternoon crossing of the Channel to Le Havre, from where they were going to catch the train south to San Sebastián, on the northern coast of Spain, then south again to Madrid, and from there finally to Toledo.

It was one of those lazy, early summer days when from the deck of the ferry the whole world was blue. The sky arched over them almost unblemished and the light seemed to brim over and dazzle the breaking water that foamed away at the stern. Gulls followed in their wake echoing its pattern with their wings, swooping, climbing then drifting as if life were all one exquisite pattern of the tide.

The breeze moderated the warmth of the sun, although not its ability to burn, but it was barely strong enough to unravel Vespasia’s hair as they stood together in the stern watching the white cliffs of Dover recede in the distance. It was hard to remember that their mission was urgent and terrible.

‘Victor, what do you make of Dalton Teague’s concern in looking for Sofia?’ she asked. ‘I can’t believe that he agrees with any of her teachings. They go against every privilege of birth or wealth. She regards gifts of any sort as an obligation of service, not a birthright.’

‘The aristocracy originally regarded it so, and the best of them still do,’ he pointed out. ‘Teague is related to several of the old families. The Salisburys, and the Dukes of Devonshire at the very least.’

‘I know,’ she agreed, still staring at the white wake curling over behind them.

Of course she knew. She was related to most of them herself. She was born to her title; she had not married into it. Now that he knew her so much better, and she was real to him in the intimacy of flesh, laughter, physical joy and pain, and he had touched the delicate, private moods of her heart, Society’s world was revealed to be a mirage. Inextricably wound in with incidents he would prefer to forget.

When he had been younger in Special Branch, long before he was its head, he had worked in some of the more complicated areas of personal loyalties and intrigues in the earlier years of the Irish troubles. Narraway had been just into his forties, Teague at the height of his sporting career. Narraway had seen Teague’s charm, and his weaknesses, and he had used both to his advantage to create a dangerous trap, and to spring it. It had accomplished its purpose, but they had both been hurt, as had others who were no more than bystanders, shallow and careless perhaps, but not wicked. The whole fascinating and ultimately tragic episode with Violet Mulhare still lingered in his memory with embarrassment. Perhaps that was the reason why he disliked Teague? He had been able to walk away from it without embarrassment. There was something to be said for a man who could at least feel guilt for the pain he caused.

He would rather not have had Vespasia know anything about it, but he could not evade it without lying to her, and perhaps it mattered to the present case. Probably not, but it was the implicit lie to Vespasia that mattered.

‘I think you are right about Teague, and the last thing he would do is agree with Sofia’s beliefs,’ he said slowly. ‘At first glance I would say he is seeking the limelight as usual. He is posing as the hero, using his money and power to help someone very visibly in trouble. The fact that he does not subscribe to her creed only heightens the nobility of what he is doing.’

Vespasia gave him a wry look, a bleak amusement behind her smile. ‘You really don’t like him, do you! Not that it surprises me.’

He had a sudden, terrible thought that Teague might once have been an admirer of hers, even a lover. His dislike of Teague crystallised into a blaze of hatred.

Then he saw himself as ridiculous, and regained at least some control. He had had affairs. What normal man of his age had not? In some of them he had cared passionately at the time. Only later did he look back and see the flaws, the self-deception, the veneer of romance hiding a more pedestrian, physical reality, and maybe also a loneliness temporarily dispelled, only to close in more tightly afterwards.

‘I didn’t expect you to like him, my dear,’ she said gently, watching the white gulls dip and swerve above the water. ‘He is essentially an opportunist, I think, a man empty of any convictions, except those that serve the moment.’

‘Do you suppose that Pitt sees that in him?’ he asked.

‘Thomas is not as naïve as you fear,’ she answered. ‘Gentlemen don’t impress the servant class nearly as much as they like to think they do.’

‘The servant class?’ he said incredulously. He had never thought of Pitt in that way.

She smiled patiently. ‘His mother was a laundress in one of the great houses in the Home Counties. Sir Arthur Desmond, I believe. A very good man, but human, nevertheless, with his flaws and eccentricities. Thomas was a policeman many years. He has seen the frailties of the rich and powerful more than most of their fellows imagine. It’s not the wealth or the breeding of Teague that bothers me; it is his grace and courage on the cricket field. Out there in the white flannels, and the sun in your eyes, you become a demi-god to millions. That tends to make people imagine you are innocent to the limitations of the rest of us.’

Narraway considered that for minutes, looking into the distance where the chalk cliffs were beginning to fade into the skyline. She was right. That was where Teague differed from other men of position and wealth.

‘Why do you dislike him?’ she interrupted his thoughts.

‘I don’t know. Completely unfounded suspicion,’ he admitted, then realised she would know he was evading the issue. ‘I ran across him in a case, a long time ago. Twenty years, at least. He was on the fringes of it.’

She remained with her face half turned away, still looking at the gulls. ‘I know that many things must remain secret, Victor. I am not asking for confidences, only to know if Thomas is in a danger that he is not aware of. It is the present that matters, not the past. Is your reason for doubting Dalton Teague anything that may affect Thomas now?’

There was no sound but the swirl of the water and the whisper of it against the sides of the ferry, and now and then a cry of birds.

‘It was an old case,’ he said at last. ‘I didn’t behave very well. I was in love with Violet Mulhare. At least I thought so at the time. I used Teague, and then I caught them both. Teague betrayed her so that he escaped and she was caught, as was the man I was after. Teague told me afterwards that he knew all the time.’

Vespasia said nothing.

‘I know,’ he admitted. ‘I used both of them.’

‘Did you believe Teague?’ she asked.

‘No. I think he lied. He changed sides at the last moment, when he knew I would turn them both in. But I can’t prove it.’

‘Of course,’ she said wryly. ‘Teague is far too careful for that.’

Did Vespasia care if he had loved Violet or not? He looked at her and had no idea. It mattered to him in a way he could not explain. It should not do, not now. That past happened to different people, more impulsive and so much shallower than now.

Slowly Vespasia turned to face him, searching his eyes. He felt uncomfortably stripped of pretence. He was not accustomed to being so vulnerable.

‘I think your judgement of Teague is probably correct,’ she said gently. ‘I knew him very little, but I chose not to. I felt I was being very unfair about it, but what you have said makes me feel less guilty of prejudice. Possibly it was a better instinct than I thought.’ She took a last look at the pale gleam of cliffs in the distance, almost vanished as the sun lowered. The long summer dusk was beginning to fade. They would disembark in Le Havre in the early morning and catch the first train south.

Vespasia wanted to stay up here on the deck until there was no light to see any longer, perhaps until the first stars pricked the sky. It was not that she did not wish to relax, or to be alone with him in the small cabin. That would be a pleasure. She had been married before, and borne children, but that seemed like another life. Long, long ago, when she was very young, she had fought at the barricade in Rome, in the Revolutions of ’48. She had loved Mario Corena, and thought that she would never love like that again.

Her first marriage had been one of affection, but never passion. The long years afterwards had held romances of differing kinds. She had not expected to care beyond her ability to savour, and lose without unhealable wounds.

At first she had seen Victor Narraway as an ally in the desperate battles that Pitt had faced. Gradually she had come to think of him as a friend. Perhaps that was the difference that mattered. He was not a lover whose fire had tamed itself into a kind of friendship; it had been a companionship in a common cause, which had deepened into one that had changed everything in his life. He had accepted it and swallowed whatever trepidation he had felt. And she knew that he had felt fear, even though it had been deep, and very private, the sort one hides inside oneself.

She thought back to her own life, the loves great and smaller, the good times and the pain. She and Mario Corena had had no time together except in the hectic battles of youth. She would never know how much she had idealised it in her mind.

Victor Narraway was real, witty and resolute, cynical in worldly matters, startlingly vulnerable at heart. And for all his experience in the Indian Army, the Government and the secret services, Special Branch with its secrets and betrayals, he had little day-to-day understanding of women. Part of him expected her to be so much more fragile than she was, idealistic, unaware of the grubbier realities of life. It was part of the myth that women were gentler than men, purer and so more delicate. She would have to disenchant him of that very carefully. Some dreams are hard to let go of.

There was a moment’s silence then she continued. ‘Why do you think Teague is so interested in this case, Victor?’

‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘But I’m certain he has a reason. There’s something he wants.’

‘Revenge?’ she suggested quietly.

‘No. No, it’s far too long ago.’ But even as he said it he knew that time would make no difference. Teague might have been waiting for the perfect opportunity. He would not damage Narraway; he would deliberately injure the man who has taken Narraway’s place, his friend and protégé, which would wound him far more painfully and add guilt to the depth of it. There was an elegance to it that was exactly Teague’s nature.

‘Is it?’ Vespasia asked.

‘Yes.’ He tried to sound far more certain than he was. He would fight this case to the end. He must not let Sofia be destroyed or the murder of the two women go unsolved, but above all, he must not let Teague revenge himself on Pitt.

She moved a little closer to him and linked her arm through his.

They landed in Le Havre and went straight to the train. It was a long journey to Madrid where they spent the night before going on the following day, arriving at Toledo a little before sunset. It was a magnificent walled city dating from the great days not only of Spain’s growing world-wide power, but of its medieval splendour. Tolerance had reigned supreme, Christian, Muslim and Jew had lived and worked side by side, sharing the wonders of art and knowledge freely and all profiting from its glory. Of course that was before 1492, and the expulsion of both Moors and Jews, and the rise of the Inquisition, when to be different became a sin and all questioning was forbidden.

They went straight to the hotel they had booked in advance of their arrival. They had discussed all the plans they had made and all the possible variations they could think of beforehand. Now they sat back in the carriage in silence and enjoyed the ride through the ancient streets. Many of the buildings were as they had been centuries ago.

It brought back memories to Vespasia and the years slipped away until she felt the same sense of exhilaration she had when she had first come here, seeking excitement, novelty and adventure. She had found at least some. It had been a good time.

Now she was happier than she could ever remember, even in the heady days of youth. The fact that she and her husband had come in an attempt to avoid a tragedy did not sour the underlying sense of peace.

The hotel was excellent, and after an early dinner they returned to their room.

‘I have a message from Pitt’s man,’ Narraway said quietly. ‘He followed up on a lot of the threatening letters, but didn’t find anything except angry people who have nothing else about which to feel articulate or important. The mean thing is that he did actually find all of the ones who put their names to their words. There are more of them in England. Once they put their rage on paper that seemed to be enough for them.’

He sighed, knowing he had her attention at last. He stood with his back to the light, but not directly in front of the great window with its view over the ancient city.

‘I don’t think this has anything to do with Sofia’s rather eccentric religious views,’ he said quietly. ‘Deeply as they will offend some people, their weapons of choice are not likely to be the murders of people like Cleo and Elfrida.’

Vespasia frowned. ‘Was that not so vile in order to make us believe that Sofia really will be killed in the same way if her husband does not ruin her cause by denouncing her? That sounds religious to me, even if it is a creed of the devil.’ She took a breath. ‘That’s melodramatic, isn’t it? I’m sorry. But I think both you and Thomas have underestimated the power of the belief people have as to who they are in the universe. People have died for it before, tens of thousands of them.’

‘I know that,’ Narraway said gently, moving a step closer to her. ‘But there’s something more behind this. Pitt says Barton Hall is deeply afraid, and it’s not of losing a religious battle. There is something real and measurable that’s frightening him. And he daren’t tell Pitt what it is, which means that it’s illegal, or it’s a scandal that would ruin him, or someone he cares about.’