The Angel Court Affair

by Anne Perry

  Pitt turned back to him. “If it’s irrelevant to the case, I really don’t care. It is a lie without a purpose, which suggests to me that you are a man with no respect for the truth. You invent in order to make some story in your mind more interesting…”

  Laurence blushed. It startled Pitt, who had imagined him incapable of such a thing. For once he was certain that whatever Laurence felt, it was a real emotion, and painful. For all his manipulations, on some level integrity was important to him.

  “I can’t prove anything against Teague,” Laurence said quietly. “But I know what I know. If I could do so, I’d have ruined him years ago.” For a moment the emotion was naked in his face, both fury and a dire and extraordinary pain.

  Pitt believed him, but was puzzled as to what would have happened in school days that would still bite so deeply inside a man like Laurence, with his worldly wisdom, his intelligence and dry wit.

  “Cheating,” Laurence replied, as if reading his mind, and this time his eyes were absolutely direct and without pretense. “Cheating in games is despicable, a thread woven into the grain of a man’s character, but cheating in the examinations that determine your future career is profoundly more serious. It is a lie to the future, to all the men and women who will trust your ability to practice your skill in their lives. And it is an injury to those who have examined your knowledge and ability and staked their own honor on their word that you have such qualities. You go to a doctor, see his degrees, and believe such an institution of learning has said he is fit to prescribe medicine for you, or even take a knife and cut open your body! Or, with an architect, that the house he designs will stand. If you need a lawyer to defend your life or your liberty, that this man is skilled in the law, and can do so.” He gave a sharp little gesture with his hands.

  Pitt had not thought of it in those terms, but it struck him that Laurence was right. It was a trust one took for granted.

  “You know he cheated?” he said.

  “Of course I do.”

  “How? If you saw it, why did you not report it then?” Pitt pressed. “Were you afraid you wouldn’t be believed? Or of retribution?” He said it in a calm tone, because he knew the words would sting. And yet it truly confused him. Laurence was still deeply angered by the incident, and he had been outspoken enough in his articles to demonstrate that he was not a coward, in any sense.

  “No, Commander,” Laurence said so softly Pitt moved a step closer to be certain of hearing him. “I was not afraid. Although perhaps I should have been. I wondered at the time at the odd friendships, the loyalties and favors I couldn’t understand. The main one of which was why a boy like Hall, studious, physically awkward, what is known unkindly as a swot, should be allowed into First Eleven. He was barely adequate, and yet he remained, while more skilled boys were passed over.”

  Pitt wanted to interrupt with the answer, but he had learned from past errors that patience was key in allowing someone to confess something they might normally not have said.

  Laurence smiled with a harsh turn to his lips, full of regret. “It was a master who saw it and made the mistake of speaking out. At least he told me he had, and I believed him. I still do.”

  “I found no scandal attached to Hall’s name,” Pitt replied. “And we did look.”

  “There was none,” Laurence said bitterly. “The master concerned told me he had been listened to with courtesy, and disbelief. But before he could present his proof there was a fire. His papers were destroyed and he succumbed to the smoke. Died of it. No one was suspicious. He was judged to have let a cigar butt fall into his wastebasket, not appreciating that it was still lit.” His voice was thick with emotion, as if even after all these years he could still have wept, if he would permit himself.

  Pitt felt first a wave of sympathy for Laurence. For that instant he liked the man without reservation. The master’s death was a grief he would have felt himself. And then it was an anger he would also have felt, scalding hot inside him, a rage for justice, and he admitted, for revenge on the arrogance that could destroy with impunity, and move on as if nothing had happened.

  “Hall?” he said.

  Laurence heard the fury in Pitt’s voice, saw the pity in his eyes, and for an instant he knew he was not alone. Then it vanished and the hard humor returned. “Of course,” he answered.

  “For Teague?” Pitt asked.

  Laurence’s smile widened. “I am wise enough not to tell you that,” he replied. “You will have to look for yourself. If you can’t put it together, then I have done Special Branch a favor. Because you are not fit to lead it.”

  “I imagine he cheated for several people,” Pitt replied, watching Laurence’s smile. “Which opens up some appalling ideas.”

  “Oh, yes, indeed,” Laurence nodded. “The power is appalling, at least potentially. It’s odd how the uselessness one sees in school can dog all one’s adult life, not only in your own memory, but even more dangerously in the memories of others.”

  “But you have one person in mind,” Pitt pointed out. “You would not have come here, to catch me in the street, now, to make a general observation, no matter how enormous.”

  “Of course not,” Laurence agreed. “That is where your much-praised detective skills will come in handy. I’ve heard you’re brilliant. Can’t remember who said it, but I’m sure someone must have.”

  “Not recently,” Pitt let a touch of his own bitterness into his voice.

  They matched paces for a dozen yards or so before Laurence spoke again.

  “Can you imagine the hatred between the two of them, the cheat and the man who owes him?” he said with a curious mixture of relish and disgust. “The loathing for their own dependence: ‘I was a poorer boy than you, I hadn’t your grace or skill, above all your popularity, so I bought acceptance from you, at the price of becoming a cheat! I prostituted my academic intelligence to buy your friendship!’ ” He gave a little shudder of bitter pity and revulsion. “ ‘You didn’t make me into this, but you gave me the chance to make myself this way, and I took it.’ ”

  They walked a few more steps before he went on.

  “And from the other man’s view. ‘I had the skill and grace. I could make almost anyone like me, but I couldn’t pass the damn examinations. I hadn’t the brains. I was obliged to let you see my failure and buy your intelligence to cheat for me and get my degree. I had to walk up there in cap and gown, with you watching me, knowing I hadn’t earned it—you had chosen it for me! All my life I shall look at you, and wonder who you told, who laughed at me because of it!’ ”

  His voice was thick with his own emotions. “Can you think of it, Pitt? Can you smell the stench of that hatred, like acid burning in the gut?”

  Laurence was waiting for a reply.

  “Yes, I can imagine it,” Pitt answered him. “With a lot of different possible outcomes, all of them ugly. You said he cheated on exams for several boys. Do you think they would know of one another? Or might they all believe they were the only one?”

  “Hadn’t thought of that one,” Laurence admitted with surprise. “I think they might have suspected. You develop a sense of how much a boy has his brains sharpened and applied, and who really are either stupid—or clever enough but lazy. But it’s only a guess. There are surprises, I mean honest ones. Why?” He glanced sideways at Pitt curiously. “You think they would protect one another? I doubt it. Far more likely they’ll lie through their teeth about it, and steer well clear of anyone they think might know. If it was me, I’d take very great care not to show it—at least until I could protect myself, and strike back lethally. Rule of hunting, you don’t wound the prey and leave it to come after you. You either kill it, or leave it alone.”

  “Doesn’t sound like you, Laurence,” Pitt said with a wry smile. “I thought you were the fearless crusader for truth!”

  “Sarcasm ill becomes you, Commander.” Laurence’s tone was light again, if a little forced. “You know perfectly well that this is real, and I
have no more wish to be burned alive in my armchair than you have! I have no desire for you to avenge my murder, I want to be alive to taste my…‘revenge’ is such an ugly word, don’t you think? Whatever—I want to survive this, and I would like to see Sofia Delacruz come out of this alive too, even if she is touched with a little madness. The world needs a few of its better lunatics, even if only to relieve the tedium of the eminently sane. Even if forever doing the predictable is actually sanity. I have philosophical doubts about that, at times.”

  “Kill it, or leave it alone,” Pitt said thoughtfully. “Of course if you can find anybody fool enough to fire your bullets for you, then you will be in no danger.”

  Laurence laughed. “You are a cynic, Commander, and not as innocent as I presumed. Yes, indeed, I would like you to fire my bullets for me, and I would have preferred you not to have realized it. But only because I think your aim is much better than mine.”

  “Really,” Pitt said with skepticism. “Then you’ll have to be a little more honest about where I am to point the gun.”

  “You won’t shoot until you know,” Laurence said with absolute conviction. “That’s my advantage. I trust you.” He smiled suddenly, a gesture of great charm, then he turned and walked away at surprising speed.

  Pitt went on toward Lisson Grove, so lost in thought that several times he only just stopped himself going in the wrong direction.

  How sincere was Laurence? Surely by now Pitt had more sense than to believe any journalist, particularly one as openly manipulative as Frank Laurence.

  Yet there was something honest in him that Pitt did believe, in spite of all the experiences, and the warnings inside him. All that Laurence said made sense. Of course he was far too intelligent to do less than that. All the same, Pitt would have Brundage check on the public facts. Had there been a master who had died in a fire in his lodgings, while Hall was a senior and Laurence a new boy? Had this master, if he existed, both taught Laurence and been in a position to know if Hall had helped anyone in their exams in a way that amounted to cheating?

  Instinctively he believed Laurence, but he would be a fool not to check.

  If the boy who had cheated had both possessed and kept any proof then the possibilities for blackmail were enormous. Except, of course, that in ruining the boy for whom he cheated, he would also be ruining himself. That would be a very powerful incentive indeed for the boy he cheated for to make very sure indeed either that his benefactor had a rich and successful life, or a very short one! The master who knew had refused to be bought—he had probably not imagined the possibility of murder. Maybe that was the warning that the cheater needed, and it had proved horribly effective.

  Like the murders of Cleo and Elfrida. The similarity leaped to his mind with a sickening immediacy. He all but gagged at remembrance of the house on Inkerman Road.

  Barton Hall might be the next Governor of the Bank of England! Was that the prize he was playing for? But then Pitt wondered how Sofia had learned anything of it.

  He could think of no way in which that would make sense. Hall was as English as tea and scones, if rather less agreeable.

  He reached the offices in Lisson Grove and went in, to find Brundage waiting for him, looking awkward. Pitt’s heart sank.

  “What is it, Brundage?” he asked apprehensively.

  “Mr. Teague is here to see you, sir,” Brundage replied. “He said he wants to give you his report personally.”

  Pitt swore. He was in no mood for Dalton Teague today.

  “He won’t see anyone else.” Brundage cut off Pitt’s answer. His usually pleasant face was strained, the shadows around his eyes deeper. “I think he wants to see what you have to say, sir. He’s here more to ask than to tell…I think…sir.” Now Brundage looked worried, as if he thought he might have overstepped the mark.

  Pitt smiled reluctantly. “I’m sure of it. But before I see him, I’ve got a job here for you.” Briefly he told Brundage the essence of what Laurence had said.

  “Is that true, sir?” Brundage said in amazement. “It could mean…” He stopped, overwhelmed by the ugly possibilities that opened up before him.

  “That’s what I intend you should find out,” Pitt answered. “And, Brundage!”

  “Yes, sir?” Brundage stood up straight.

  “For heaven’s sake, be discreet.”

  Brundage smiled widely, and went out with barely a lifted head in acknowledgment.

  Teague was in the room outside Pitt’s office. The door to the office was locked, as he always left it that way when he was out. As soon as Pitt came in Teague rose to his feet. He did it in a graceful movement as if he gave it no thought, but for the first time since Pitt had met him, he looked tired. He would never be ungroomed, or untidy, his valet would see to that. But there were shadows in his face as if he was strained, and his usually thick hair looked a trifle flat, as though the vitality had been leached out of it. He held out his hand to Pitt.

  “This must be hellish for you,” he said with a degree of sympathy Pitt would have preferred not to hear.

  “It’s unpleasant,” Pitt conceded, taking Teague’s hand briefly, then unlocking his office door and inviting Teague in.

  The moment they were seated Teague began.

  “I never believed that Sofia Delacruz had disappeared of her own will,” he said earnestly. “But of course that avenue had to be explained. We would have appeared absurd if it had been a simple, rather grubby affair.” Teague’s clear sea-blue eyes never wavered from Pitt’s. “I’ve wondered occasionally if some supposed saints have grown tired of their own images and longed to escape them and behave just like anyone else. Are saints allowed to laugh? Or to make mistakes like the rest of us, do you suppose? Or is it a relentless regime of being right, fair, just and sober?”

  “Good God, I hope not!” Pitt said impetuously, then instantly regretted it when he saw Teague smile. “Is that sanctity?” he asked. “Nothing I’ve seen in nature is so…self-righteous, or essentially absurd!”

  Teague sighed and sat back in his chair. “I don’t know the woman. But if she had wanted to escape that, I wouldn’t blame her. However, all that I’ve been able to gather—and it’s a great deal—indicates that she did not go willingly, either before her pathetic followers were killed or after. In fact from what my men have reported, I don’t believe she left the area of London within a mile or two of Inkerman Road.”

  Suddenly it was no longer a matter of polite conversation, to be got over with as soon as possible. Pitt found himself tense, listening not only to Teague’s words but to the tone of his voice, and watching his face, the strong hands in his lap, even tension in his shoulders.

  “Why do you believe this?” Pitt asked as levelly as he could.

  “Diligence,” Teague answered, his voice almost expressionless. “I have a large number of men I can call on, Commander. Not just servants of one sort or another, but old colleagues, other sportsmen in social disciplines, not just casual. Men I knew in school, county players when I was in my twenties. I played for Surrey for a while, all around the Home Counties. Teammates, opponents, grounds men, lovers of the game, all kinds of people are willing to help. Damn it, she was a good woman as far as she knew how, and a guest in our country. A word here and there, friend of a friend, you know? Different from being questioned by police. There is no sign of her anywhere. She couldn’t have walked. I don’t doubt she put up a fight! Do you?” He looked at Pitt closely, watching his eyes, his posture, just as Pitt was watching him.

  “No, I don’t,” Pitt admitted. “You think she was hurt, even then?”

  Teague’s eyelids flickered. “Even then? You think she has been hurt since? You have heard something? Found something?”

  Pitt wondered for a moment whether to lie or not. Should he tell this man the truth?

  Teague was waiting, watching.

  “I wish I could say I had,” Pitt answered. “But as you said, it is very likely she put up a fight. In fact I have to face the poss
ibility that she is dead.”

  Teague’s jaw tightened and he ran his tongue over his lips. “Have you given up already?” There was a very faint note of contempt in his voice or perhaps he would call it disappointment, as if Pitt had let him down.

  “Possibility,” Pitt said the word slowly. “Not probability. I think she was taken alive for a reason.”

  Teague’s eyebrows rose. “Indeed? A deduction or a guess?”

  Pitt gave a half smile. “A deduction, and a hope. As you said, she is a remarkable woman.”

  “From what do you deduce it?” Teague demanded.

  Pitt made a decision, his muscles aching from the tension of fear that he was being rash. “From the fact that we have not found her body, and yet the other two women were killed immediately and brutally,” he answered. “I think whoever took her did so for a reason.”

  Teague thought for a moment, and then spoke slowly. “What…reason…Commander? Money?” He was still watching Pitt intently.

  Pitt had no intention of telling Teague of the demand.

  “I don’t think so,” he replied. “None has been asked for. If that were what was wanted, why wait so long?”

  Teague considered for a moment. “To heighten the tension?” he suggested. “Her followers are bound to be distressed, and increasingly so with time.”

  “They were distressed by the deaths of the other two women,” Pitt pointed out. “I think if they had been asked for money they would have given it immediately.”

  “You may be right.” Teague nodded very slightly. “Then what could the kidnapper want? A denial of her faith, do you think? Or to force her to change her message?”

  Pitt kept his face totally impassive.

  “Do you think she would do that?” He turned the question back to Teague.

  Teague thought for several moments, and then a thin smile touched his lips. “Even if she would, why kill the other two women? That makes little sense. Surely it would have been more effective to take the other two and tell her that if she doesn’t publicly repudiate her beliefs, they would pay with their lives?”