The Twisted Root

by Anne Perry

  Pitt wished now that he had made some kind of a provision to see she was informed, or even made a telephone call from Southampton. But to do that, he would have had to leave the ship, and perhaps lose Wrexham. He thought with surprise that he did not even know if Gower was married, or living with his parents. Who would be waiting for him to get home? This thought in his mind, Pitt drifted off to sleep.

  He awoke with a jolt, sitting upright, his mind filled with the image of West’s body, head lolling at an angle, blood streaming onto the stones of the brickyard, the air filled with the smell of it.

  “Sorry, sir,” the steward said automatically, passing a glass of beer to the man in the seat next to Pitt. “Can I get you something? How about a sandwich?”

  Pitt realized with surprise that he had not eaten in twelve hours and was ravenous. No wonder he could not sleep. “Yes,” he said eagerly. “Yes, please. In fact, may I have two, and a glass of cider?”

  “Yes, sir. How about roast beef, sir. That do you?”

  “Please. What time do we get into St. Malo?”

  “About five o’clock, sir. But you don’t need to go ashore until seven, unless o’ course you’d like to.”

  “Thank you.” Inwardly Pitt groaned. They would have to be up and watching from then on, in case Wrexham chose to leave early. That meant they would have to be half awake all night.

  “Better bring me two glasses of cider,” he said with a wry smile.

  PITT SLEPT ON AND off, and he was awake and on edge when he saw Gower coming toward him on the deck as the ferry nosed its way slowly toward the harbor of St. Malo. It was not yet dawn but there was a clear sky, and he could see the outline of medieval ramparts against the stars. Fifty or sixty feet high at the least, they looked to be interspersed with great towers such as in the past would have been manned by archers. Perhaps on some of them there would have been men in armor, with cauldrons of boiling oil to tip on those brave enough, or foolish enough, to scale the defenses. It was like a journey backward in time.

  He was jerked back to reality by Gower’s voice behind him.

  “I see you are awake. At least I assume you are?” It was a question.

  “Not sure,” Pitt replied. “That looks distinctly like a dream to me.”

  “Did you sleep?” Gower asked.

  “A little. You?”

  Gower shrugged. “Not much. Too afraid of missing him. Do you suppose he’s going to make for the first train to Paris?”

  It was a very reasonable question. Paris was a cosmopolitan city, a hotbed of ideas, philosophies, dreams both practical and absurd. It was the ideal meeting place for those who sought to change the world. The two great revolutions of the last hundred years had been born there.

  “Probably,” Pitt answered. “But he could get off anywhere.” He was thinking how hard it would be to follow Wrexham in Paris. Should they arrest him while they still had the chance? In the heat of the chase yesterday it had seemed like a good idea to see where he went and, more important, whom he met. Now, when they were cold, tired, hungry, and stiff, it felt a lot less sensible. In fact it was probably absurd. “We’d better arrest him and take him back,” he said aloud.

  “Then we’ll have to do it before we get off,” Gower pointed out. “Once we’re on French soil we’ll have no authority. Even the captain here is going to wonder why we didn’t do it in Southampton.” His voice took on a note of urgency, his face grave. “Look, sir, I speak pretty good French. I’ve still got a reasonable amount of money. We could send a telegram to Narraway to have someone meet us in Paris. Then we wouldn’t be just the two of us. Maybe the French police would be pleased for the chance to follow him?”

  Pitt turned toward him, but he could barely make out his features in the faint light of the sky and the dim reflection of the ship’s lights. “If he goes straight for the town, we’ll have no time to send a telegram,” he pointed out. “It’ll take both of us to follow him. I don’t know why he hasn’t noticed us already.

  “We should arrest him,” he continued with regret. He should have done this yesterday. “Faced with the certainty of the rope, he might feel like talking.”

  “Faced with the certainty of the rope, he’d have nothing to gain,” Gower pointed out.

  Pitt smiled grimly. “Narraway’ll think of something, if what he says is worth enough.”

  “He might not go for the train,” Gower said quickly, moving his weight to lean forward a little. “We were assuming he’ll go to Paris. Perhaps he won’t? Maybe whoever he’s going to meet is here. Why come to St. Malo otherwise? He could have gone to Dover, and taken the train from Calais to Paris, if that was where he wanted to be. He still doesn’t know we’re on to him. He thinks he lost us in Rope-maker’s Field. Let’s at least give it a chance!”

  The argument was persuasive, and Pitt could see the sense in it. It might be worth waiting a little longer. “Right,” he conceded. “But if he goes to the railway station, we’ll take him.” He made a slight grimace. “If we can. He might shout for help that he’s being kidnapped. We couldn’t prove he wasn’t.”

  “Do you want to give up?” Gower asked. His voice was tight with disappointment, and Pitt thought he heard a trace of contempt in it.

  “No.” There was no uncertainty in the decision. Special Branch was not primarily about justice for crimes; it was about preventing civil violence and the betrayal, subversion, or overthrow of the government. They were too late to save West’s life. “No, I don’t,” he repeated.

  WHEN THEY DISEMBARKED IN the broadening daylight it was not difficult to pick Wrexham out from the crowd and follow him. He didn’t go, as Pitt had feared, to the train station, but into the magnificently walled old city. They could not risk losing sight of him, or Pitt would have taken time to look with far more interest at the massive ramparts as they went in through an entrance gate vast enough to let several carriages pass abreast. Once inside, narrow streets crisscrossed one another, the doors of the buildings flush with footpaths. Dark walls towered four or five stories high in uniform gray-black stone. The place had a stern beauty Pitt would have liked to explore. Knights on horseback would have ridden these streets, or swaggering corsairs straight from plunder at sea.

  But they had to keep close to Wrexham. He was walking quickly as if he knew precisely where he was going, and not once did he look behind him.

  It was perhaps fifteen minutes later, when they were farther to the south, that Wrexham stopped. He knocked briefly on a door, and was let into a large house just off a stone-paved square.

  Pitt and Gower waited for nearly an hour, moving around, trying not to look conspicuous, but Wrexham did not come out again. Pitt imagined him having a hot breakfast, a wash and shave, clean clothes. He said as much to Gower.

  Gower rolled his eyes. “Sometimes it’s easier being the villain,” he said ruefully. “I could do very well by bacon, eggs, sausages, fried potatoes, then fresh toast and marmalade and a good pot of tea.” He grinned. “Sorry. I hate to suffer alone.”

  “You’re not!” Pitt responded with feeling. “We’ll do something like that before we go and send a telegram to Narraway, then find out who lives in number seven.” He glanced up at the wall. “Rue St. Martin.”

  “It’ll be hot coffee and fresh bread,” Gower told him. “Apricot jam if you’re lucky. Nobody understands marmalade except the British.”

  “Don’t they understand bacon and eggs?” Pitt asked incredulously.

  “Omelet, maybe?”

  “It isn’t the same!” Pitt said with disappointment.

  “Nothing is,” Gower agreed. “I think they do it on purpose.”

  After another ten minutes of waiting, during which Wrexham still did not emerge, they walked back along the way they had come. They found an excellent café from which drifted the tantalizing aroma of fresh coffee and warm bread.

  Gower gave him a questioning look.

  “Definitely,” Pitt agreed.

  There was, as Gower had su
ggested, thick, homemade apricot jam, and unsalted butter. There was also a dish of cold ham and other meats, and hard-boiled eggs. Pitt was more than satisfied by the time they rose to leave. Gower asked the patron for directions to the post office. He also inquired, as casually as possible, where they might find lodgings, and if number 7 rue St. Martin was a house of that description, adding that someone had mentioned it.

  Pitt waited. He could see from the satisfaction in Gower’s face as they left and strode along the pavement that the answer had pleased him.

  “Belongs to an Englishman called Frobisher,” he said with a smile. “Bit of an odd fellow, according to the patron. Lot of money, but eccentric. Fits the locals’ idea of what an English upper-class gentleman should be. Lived here for several years and swears he’ll never go home. Give him half a chance, and he’ll tell anyone what’s wrong with Europe in general and England in particular.” He gave a slight shrug and his voice was disparaging. “Number seven is definitely not a public lodging house, but he has guests more often than not, and the patron does not like the look of them. Subversives, he says. But then I gathered he was pretty conservative in his opinions. He suggested we would find Madame Germaine’s establishment far more to our liking, and gave me the address.”

  In honesty, Pitt could only agree. “We’ll send a telegram to Narraway, then see if Madame Germaine can accommodate us. You’ve done very well.”

  “Thank you, sir.” He increased very slightly the spring in his step and even started to whistle a little tune, rather well.

  At the post office Pitt sent a telegram to Narraway.

  Staying St. Malo. Friends here we would like to know better. Need funds. Please send to local post office, soonest. Will write again.

  Until they received a reply, they would be wise to conserve what money they had left. However, they would find Madame Germaine, trusting that she had vacancies and would take them in.

  “Could be awhile,” Gower said thoughtfully. “I hope Narraway doesn’t expect us to sleep under a hedge. Wouldn’t mind in August, but April’s a bit sharp.”

  Pitt did not bother to reply. It was going to be a long, and probably boring, duty. He was thinking of Charlotte at home, and his children Jemima and Daniel. He missed them, but especially Charlotte, the sound of her voice, her laughter, the way she looked at him. They had been married for fourteen years, but every so often he was still overtaken by surprise that she had apparently never regretted it.

  It had cost her her comfortable position in Society and the financial security she had been accustomed to, as well as the dinner parties, the servants, the carriages, the privileges of rank.

  She had not said so—it would be heavy-handed—but in return she had gained a life of interest and purpose. Frequently she had been informally involved in his cases, in which she had shown considerable skill. She had married not for convenience but for love, and in dozens of small ways she had left him in no doubt of that.

  Dare he send her a telegram as well? In this strange French street with its different sounds and smells, a language he understood little of, he ached for the familiar. But the telegram to Narraway was to a special address. If Wrexham were to ask the post office for it, it would reveal nothing. If Pitt allowed his loneliness for home to dictate his actions, he would have to give his home address, which could put his family in real danger. He should not let this peaceful street in the April sun, and a good breakfast, erase from his mind the memory of West lying in the brickyard with his throat slashed open and his blood oozing out onto the stones.

  “Yes, we’ll do that,” he said aloud to Gower. “Then we will do what we can, discreetly, to learn as much as possible about Mr. Frobisher.”

  IT WAS NOT DIFFICULT to observe number 7 rue St. Martin. It was near the towering wall of the city, on the seaward side. Only fifty yards away a flight of steps climbed to the walkway around the top. It was a perfect place from which to stand and gaze at the ever-changing horizon out to sea, or watch the boats tacking across the harbor in the wind, their sails billowing, careful to avoid the rocks, which were picturesque and highly dangerous. In turning to talk to each other, it was natural for them to lean for a few minutes on one elbow and gaze down at the street and the square. One could observe anybody coming or going without seeming to.

  In the afternoon of the first day, Pitt checked at the post office. There was a telegram from Narraway, and arrangements for sufficient money to last them at least a couple of weeks. There was no reference to West, or the information he might have given, but Pitt did not expect there to have been. He walked back to the square, passing a girl in a pink dress and two women with shopping baskets. Ascending the steps on the wall again, he found Gower leaning against the buttress at the top. His face was raised to the westering sun, which was gold in the late afternoon. He looked like any young Englishman on holiday.

  Pitt stared out over the sea, watching the light on the water. “Narraway replied,” he said quietly, not looking at Gower. “We’ll get the money. The amount he’s sending, he expects us to learn all we can.”

  “Thought he would.”

  Gower did not turn either, and barely moved his lips. He could have been drifting into sleep, his weight relaxed against the warm stone. “There’s been some movement while you were gone. One man left, dark hair, very French clothes. Two went in.” His voice became a little higher, more tightly pitched. “I recognized one of them—Pieter Linsky. I’m quite sure. He has a very distinctive face, and a limp from having been shot escaping from an incident in Lille. The man with him was Jacob Meister.”

  Pitt stiffened. He knew the names. They were both men active in socialist movements in Europe, traveling from one country to another fomenting as much trouble as they could, organizing demonstrations, strikes, even riots in the cause of various reforms. But underneath all the demands was the underlying wish for violent revolution. Linsky in particular was unashamedly a revolutionary. Interesting, though, was that the two men did not hold the same viewpoints, but instead represented opposing sides of the socialist movement.

  Pitt let out his breath in a sigh. “I suppose you’re sure about Meister as well?”

  Gower was motionless, still smiling in the sun, his chest barely rising and falling as he breathed. “Yes, sir, absolutely. I’ll bet that has something to do with what West was going to tell us. Those two together has to mean something pretty big.”

  Pitt did not argue. The more he thought of it the more certain he was that it was indeed the storm Narraway had seen coming, and which was about to break over Europe if they did not prevent it.

  “We’ll watch them,” Pitt said quietly, also trying to appear as if he were relaxed in the sun, enjoying a brief holiday. “See who else they contact.”

  Gower smiled. “We’ll have to be careful. What do you think they’re planning?”

  Pitt considered in silence, his eyes almost closed as he stared down at the painted wooden door of number 7. All kinds of ideas teemed through his head. A single assassination seemed less likely than a general strike, or even a series of bombings; otherwise they would not need so many men. In the past assassinations had been accomplished by a lone gunman, willing to sacrifice his own life. But now . . . who was vulnerable? Whose death would really change anything permanently?

  “Strikes?” Gower suggested, interrupting his thought. “Europe-wide, it could bring an industry to its knees.”

  “Possibly,” Pitt agreed. His mind veered to the big industrial and shipbuilding cities of the north. Or the coal miners of Durham, Yorkshire, or Wales. There had been strikes before, but they were always broken and the men and their families suffered.

  “Demonstrations?” Gower went on. “Thousands of people all out at once, in the right places, could block transport or stop some major event, like the Derby?”

  Pitt imagined it, the anger, the frustration of the horse-racing and fashionable crowd at such an impertinence. He found himself smiling, but it was with a sour amusement. He had n
ever been part of the Society that watched the Sport of Kings, but he had met many members during his police career. He knew their passion, their weaknesses, their blindness to others, and at times their extraordinary courage. Forcible interruption of one of the great events of the year was not the way to persuade them of anything. Surely any serious revolutionary had long ago learned that.

  But what was?

  “Meister’s style, maybe,” Pitt said aloud. “But not Linsky’s. Something far more violent. And more effective.”

  Gower shivered very slightly. “I wish you hadn’t said that. It rather takes the edge off the idea of a week or two in the sun, eating French food and watching the ladies going about their shopping. Have you seen the girl from number sixteen, with the red hair?”

  “To tell you the truth, it wasn’t her hair I noticed,” Pitt admitted, grinning broadly.

  Gower laughed outright. “Nor I,” he said. “I rather like that apricot jam, don’t you? And the coffee! Thought I’d miss a decent cup of tea, but I haven’t yet.” He was silent again for a few minutes, then turned his head. “What do you really think they have planned in England, sir—beyond a show of power? What do they want in the long run?”

  The sir reminded Pitt of his seniority, and therefore responsibility. It gave him a sharp jolt. There were scores of possibilities, a few of them serious. There had been a considerable rise in political power of left-wing movements in Britain recently. They were very tame compared with the violence of their European counterparts, but that did not mean they would remain that way.

  Gower was still staring at Pitt, waiting, his face puzzled and keen.

  “I think a concerted effort to bring about change would be more likely,” Pitt said slowly, weighing the words as he spoke.