Thomas & Charlotte Pitt 29 - Death On Blackheath (28 page)

‘You make me sound like a provincial clergyman with more self-righteousness than compassion,’ Pitt said with disgust.

‘No,’ Narraway shook his head. ‘I’m just remembering how I used to be – at your age.’

Pitt laughed outright. ‘When you were my age, you were twenty years older than I am!’

‘In some things,’ Narraway agreed. ‘I’m twenty years behind you in others. It will be far better that I find out, and tell you just what you need, no more.’

Pitt did not argue. ‘Thank you,’ he said quietly.

The following day Pitt received a rather stiff request to meet his brother-in-law, Jack Radley. Since it was apparently about the Kynaston case, Pitt could hardly refuse. He saw Jack alone, if hardly privately, on the Embankment not far from the House of Commons. It was a fresh, windy day with the usual chill of early March. The air was cold off the river, salt-smelling, and too brisk for one to enjoy lingering so they walked along quite quickly together.

Jack came straight to the point.

‘I hear you’ve been asking a lot of rather pointed questions about Dudley Kynaston, Thomas. What business is it of Special Branch if he has a mistress, let alone who she might be?’

Pitt could hear the sharp edge of criticism in Jack’s voice, something he was unused to. They had many differences of view, but they had usually been amicable. The tone of this took Pitt by surprise.

‘If it wasn’t my business I wouldn’t ask,’ he replied. ‘Although I hadn’t realised I was so obvious.’

‘Oh, really!’ Jack was impatient. ‘You’re asking about where he was, who he was with, attendance at different theatres or dinners – then crosschecking. Everybody can work out what you’re looking for.’ He hunched his shoulders against the chill and pulled his white silk scarf a little higher. ‘You don’t suspect him of theft, or embezzling naval petty cash, or cheating at cards, do you? Or even being a little drunk and talking too much. Anyone can tell you Dudley Kynaston is a decent man from a good family who behaves like a gentleman and is intensely loyal to his country and all it means.’

He turned to look at Pitt. ‘If he has a mistress, what of it? Maybe his wife is a crashing bore, or one of those chilly women who would break something if they laughed, or loved!’

Pitt caught him by the arm and swung him round so he was obliged to stop. They stood face to face in the wind.

‘You say that with a lot of feeling, Jack.’ Pitt allowed it to sound like an accusation. He had not entirely forgotten Jack’s reputation before his marriage.

Jack coloured; his eyes under his amazing eyelashes were dark with temper. ‘You’re a self-righteous idiot sometimes, Thomas. You may have been promoted to be the guardian of the nation’s secrets, but no one appointed you arbiter of our morals. Leave the poor man alone, before you ruin him with your suspicions.’

‘I don’t give a damn about his morals,’ Pitt said between his teeth. ‘I’m trying to prove he didn’t murder two women and leave their corpses in the local gravel pit! But I can’t do that if he keeps on lying to me about where he was at the relevant times.’

‘I thought you didn’t know when the second woman was killed,’ Jack retaliated instantly.

‘I don’t!’ Pitt was raising his voice now too. ‘But I know within a few hours when she was dumped at the gravel pit, and I’m pretty certain how she was carried there. If Kynaston would tell me where he was, and I could confirm it, I’d be certain it was not he who did it.’

‘Why the hell would you even suspect him?’

‘You know better than to ask that,’ Pitt replied. ‘You know perfectly well I can’t tell you.’

The anger drained out of Jack’s voice. ‘It must be intensely private …’

‘I need to know for myself!’ Pitt said exasperatedly. ‘I’m not going to tell the world. If he isn’t guilty he’s wasting my time, but I’ll let go of it and allow the regular police to do their job. If this case is no threat to Kynaston, it’s nothing to do with Special Branch.’

Jack looked at him with disbelief. ‘You really think Kynaston’s desperation to hide who his mistress is could be a threat to the security of the state? Come on, Thomas. That looks a hell of a lot like an upstart officer wielding his new powers to embarrass his social superiors, because he can. You’re better than that.’

Pitt was stunned. He stood in the bright light and the cold wind off the water chilled him right through his coat as if it were made of cotton.

‘Kynaston’s maid ran away the night before the first body was found, Jack,’ he replied, his voice shaking not only with anger but with a degree of hurt. ‘Because she saw or heard something that made her fear for her life. And that’s not a supposition! She’s been seen and spoken to since. Not by us – we can’t find her – but by others with no interest in this affair. Now there’s a second woman dead and mutilated and dumped in the same gravel pit. Physical evidence, which he doesn’t deny, links him to both dead women. Kynaston lies about where he was, and won’t tell us anything except that he’s having an affair. But he must prove it, or allow his mistress, even discreetly to Special Branch, to say where they were. She could just confirm that he was actually with her. He works on highly sensitive state secrets for the navy. Wouldn’t you want something better than an evasive answer?’

Jack looked as if the wind drove through his coat too. The last of the anger drained out of him and his face was pale and tight. ‘Do you think he killed her?’ he asked very quietly.

‘I don’t want to,’ Pitt replied. ‘But he’s hiding something a lot more than the name of a woman he’s having an affair with.’

Jack said nothing.

‘Would you sooner be publicly accused of murder rather than privately of infidelity?’ Pitt demanded.

‘It doesn’t make sense,’ Jack agreed unhappily, his face filled with concern, his shoulders hunched. ‘Is he protecting someone, do you think? He counts family loyalty terribly highly.’

‘Of course he does,’ Pitt agreed sarcastically. ‘That’s why he has a mistress!’

Jack winced as if Pitt had slapped him. ‘Perhaps that is more loyal than leaving a wife and publicly humiliating her,’ he said so softly that the whine of the wind almost took his words away.

Pitt stared at him. It was a possibility that had not occurred to him. Then the worse thought followed hard on its heels. Was Jack speaking of Kynaston, or of himself? Charlotte had told him of Emily’s unhappiness, but he had also seen it. She was without colour, all the fine lines on her face drawn downwards. It was not absurd that Ailsa Kynaston had taken her for Charlotte’s elder sister, not younger. Was that at the heart of it why Jack so resented Pitt’s pursuit of Kynaston’s affair? Sometimes Pitt wished he did not have to know so much. This kind of knowledge could isolate you from all human closeness. He could not tell Charlotte. Her love of Emily, and her own candour, would betray it instantly.

‘I know you’ve been offered a position close to Kynaston,’ he said aloud. ‘Be careful, Jack. Think hard before you accept it. You have a lot to lose.’

‘You said there is physical evidence linking Kynaston to the murdered women?’ Jack asked. ‘Are you certain?’

‘Absolutely. Don’t ask me about it because I can’t tell you. It doesn’t prove guilt, but it’s highly suggestive. If you have any influence with him, Jack, tell him to explain himself. I can’t let it go!’

Jack stared at him long and steadily, then gave a very slight nod, and turned and walked away, back towards the Houses of Parliament and the tower housing Big Ben rising up into the cloud-strewn sky.

Pitt could not tell Charlotte about his conversation with Jack. She knew him far too well: even if she did not ask, she would deduce from his discomfort that there was something he would not discuss. Her imagination would make the worst of it, probably that the rift between Jack and Emily was deeper than she had thought. She and Emily might quarrel at times over all sorts of little things, but underneath it she was intensely loyal. Entwined through all her life’s memories were the images of Emily as the younger sister, the one two years behind whom it was Charlotte’s nature and trust to protect. It had nothing to do with duty, or with need, for that matter. Emily had been supremely able to look after herself – until now.

That evening Pitt sat in his big chair by the fire watching Daniel and Jemima working on a large jigsaw puzzle. After some time he became aware of a pattern, not only in the picture beginning to take form on the card table, but in their behaviour also. There were three years between their ages. Jemima was always those few steps ahead. It would be like that through life, until age began to be a disadvantage. Now it was all in Jemima’s favour, but he saw her mind leap to a recognition, her hand reach for the piece, then fall back again, and she smiled as Daniel saw it and put it in the right space.

He felt a sudden rush of emotion, almost overpowering. He could see something of himself in her, but so very much more of her mother. That moment’s discreet gentleness was exactly what he had observed Charlotte do, the quiet selflessness. Jemima was not yet sixteen, and there it was, the instinct to nurture, to protect.

How could he protect Jack, or Emily, in this wretched business, without crossing the boundaries of his own morality?

Jack had made a bad error of judgement with his loyalties once before. There would be those very happy to remind his superior of it, and throw his wisdom into doubt. The safety of the state was Pitt’s duty, above and beyond that to those he loved. No one in the public trust could favour their own family. It was, perhaps, the ultimate betrayal of the oath he had taken, and the faith in him he had accepted.

And yet he learned secrets he did not want to know, vulnerabilities he could not protect. He had his own network of debts and loyalties; it was what made life precious: the honour, and the caring. Without such things it was empty, a long march to nowhere.

Carlisle had done favours for all of them, in one case or another, especially for Vespasia. Could Pitt ever trust Vespasia in this, if Carlisle were involved, and he was becoming increasingly afraid that he was? She needed innocence of what he was doing, complete innocence, not an excuse for it.

Perhaps Victor Narraway was the only one he could trust without placing an intolerable burden on him.

But thinking back on their last meeting, perhaps he too was now compromised? He cared for Vespasia far more deeply than mere friendship. After all the fancies and hungers of his youth, and adventures since then, even his care for Charlotte, was this to be the love of his life, the one that touched him too deeply to heal over, or pass by?

What were Vespasia’s feelings for him, more than friendship, interest, affection? No man, especially one so sensitive under the shell as Victor Narraway, could settle happily for that! If you love you want it all.

None of that should affect Pitt. Why should he interfere, except to make the decision not to place Narraway into such temptation again regarding the Kynaston case?

Pitt was alone in whatever action he took, or refrained from. He was more truly alone than he could ever recall. Whatever he did about Somerset Carlisle, it was solely his judgement to make. Was he really the right man for this job? He had the intelligence and the experience to detect. He had pursued and found the truth on many occasions where others had failed. On that his promotion was deserved. But had he the wisdom? Did he understand people with money and power, ancient privilege of history and title, pride and loyalty stretching intricate webs into all the great families in the land, and in some cases beyond into Europe?

Was he himself free from all debt and loyalty, all emotional pity that could corrupt? He looked at his family around him in the twilight. And it reached much further than that: to Vespasia, Narraway, Jack and Emily; further still to Charlotte’s mother and her husband. To Somerset Carlisle, even. To all the people who had shared the moments of his life, helped or hurt, to whom he owed if not compassion, then at least honesty.

He did not want to know if Carlisle had placed those dead women in the gravel pit, but he knew he could no longer evade the issue.

If Carlisle had placed the bodies, then where had he obtained them? Pitt refused even to imagine that he had killed them himself, or for that matter paid someone else to. That meant they were already dead. Where would he find corpses that he could take? Not a hospital. He could hardly claim to be a relative because that was unbelievable. Nor, for that matter, could he prove he was an employer or other benefactor.

Therefore he had done it secretly, but certainly with some help. Possibly he had a manservant of some sort that he trusted, or even more likely, someone much closer to the edge of the law whom he had helped in the past, and who was now willing to return the favour.

There were always unclaimed bodies in a morgue, people who had no close relative willing to bury them. It would not be difficult to claim some past association, or previous servant, or relative of a servant, and offer to provide a decent burial, out of pity. Then what? Bury a coffin full of bags of sand, or anything else of the appropriate weight.

That would answer the question of where the bodies had been kept so chilled and clean. It would also explain the timing of discovery of them – only when Carlisle could find one that was suitable. They needed to be young women of the servant class, unclaimed by anyone else, and who had died violently. He must have combed all London for them!

If, of course, he had done it at all!

There was no evidence, only Pitt’s previous knowledge of Carlisle and his belief about his character.

What proof could he find? He could have his men look through all the records of recent deaths of women in the London area, those that were violent and resulted in the kind of injuries the gravel pit corpses had sustained. Then see which were unclaimed by family, and if some benefactor had offered to pay for a funeral.

Then what? Exhume them to see if the corpses were there, or bags of sand instead? Perhaps, but only as a last resort, and he would need far more to justify it than a desperate imagination.