Death On Blackheath (Thomas Pitt 29)

by Anne Perry

  ‘Appears to have,’ Pitt replied, taking the tea and thanking him for it. He realised he was actually grateful. After the first sip, he appreciated that he was hungry as well. ‘She had a gold watch chain and a highly unusual gold fob, which Kynaston admitted was his, from the watch he claims was stolen from his pocket in Oxford Street. He made no insurance claim because its sentimental value was irreplaceable. It used to belong to his late brother, Bennett.’

  Narraway stopped eating for a moment and looked at Pitt closely, trying to read whether he was thinking the same as he was himself. There was no time to waste. The whole matter was escalating.

  ‘Do you believe Kynaston about the robbery?’ he asked, not taking his eyes from Pitt’s.

  ‘I have no idea,’ Pitt admitted. ‘It seems extremely fortuitous, and yet he does not seem to me to be lying. Somebody could have stolen it, and left it on the body – like the watch left on the first body. The question is why. Is this personal or professional?’

  ‘Any reason why it should be personal?’ Narraway asked the question without hope that Pitt would have found any such reason. They were both working towards the answer they did not want, perhaps even for the same cause.

  It was Pitt’s job to find this truth, whatever it turned out to be. It was not Narraway’s; the Government had dismissed him. He owed no more loyalty towards them than the average citizen did. No – that was not true, not completely. Old loyalties could not be disregarded.

  ‘Carlisle.’ Narraway said what they were both thinking.

  Pitt nodded. ‘It is he who is drawing attention to Kynaston in Parliament. What is the disappearance of Kynaston’s wife’s maid to Carlisle unless he has some deeper motive for raising the subject? Why would he do that?’

  ‘Have you spoken to him?’

  The manservant came in silently with Pitt’s breakfast: eggs, bacon, fried bread, and fresh toast.

  Pitt thanked him and began to eat with relish.

  ‘No,’ he answered after a few minutes. ‘I’ve been putting it off …’

  ‘You don’t want to know,’ Narraway said drily. ‘Neither do I, but I think you have to.’ He smiled very slightly. ‘I don’t …’

  Pitt looked at him steadily. The amusement died out of Narraway’s eyes and he coloured very faintly, just a flush across the bones of his cheeks.

  It told Pitt all he was seeking to know. Narraway loved Vespasia enough to blind himself deliberately so he could protect Carlisle, because he was her friend. Pitt felt a sudden wave of emotion, a happiness that surprised him. But he would say nothing of that now, even though he was aware of a strange aloneness where he had counted on an ally. And yet it also pleased him. It was something he had not thought Narraway to be capable of, and from the awareness of it now, neither had Narraway himself.

  ‘But I will have to do it soon,’ Pitt continued aloud. ‘I will be happy if he has some believable story to explain it.’

  ‘Very subtle,’ Narraway said sarcastically. ‘Really, Pitt, you could do better than that!’

  Pitt raised his eyebrows. ‘Do I need to?’

  ‘No – no, you don’t. And I dare say I would have criticised you if you had. I would have seen it a mile off. Have some toast.’

  Pitt accepted.

  ‘I think Kynaston is the key,’ he said after he swallowed the first bite. ‘He seems to be prepared to lie, even if it brings him into suspicion of having dumped this second body in the gravel pit.’

  ‘You had better be careful about it,’ Narraway warned. ‘Have all your reasons ready to explain why you’re digging into the very private life of a man whose skills at invention are extremely important to the country.’

  ‘If it’s really just an affair, why won’t he tell me and clear himself from suspicion of murder?’ Pitt argued. ‘I don’t approve of him being in bed with another man’s wife, but it isn’t my concern, unless he’s endangering the security of the country. I’m not going to expose it. Good heavens, I’ve spent all my adult life in the police! Does he imagine I haven’t seen every kind of affair you can think of, and a few you wouldn’t have?’

  Narraway smiled. ‘I know. You can’t leave the job half done. I’m just warning you to be careful. Talbot already dislikes you …’

  ‘I hardly know him!’ Pitt protested.

  Narraway shook his head very slightly. ‘You are naïve sometimes, Pitt. Talbot doesn’t need to know you to resent your rise to a position usually occupied by someone of considerable social standing, and frequently military or naval background as well. The fact that you’re the best man for the job is irrelevant to him.’

  ‘Why on earth—’ Pitt began.

  ‘Because he’s from the same sort of background, you fool!’ Narraway said with exasperation. ‘And he knows Society’s closed to him. You don’t care, and that gives you a kind of grace, God help me, that allows you to be accepted. Added to which – and believe me I understand it – you know too many people’s secrets for anyone to risk offending you.’

  ‘And you?’ Pitt asked.

  ‘Or me either,’ Narraway admitted. ‘And neither do I care.’ He stopped suddenly.

  ‘And I have never minded that I married above me,’ Pitt added wryly. ‘Or hardly ever …’

  Narraway drew in his breath, then let it out again soundlessly.

  ‘It’s not an insult,’ Pitt said gently. ‘I don’t think there are any royal princes left for Vespasia to marry upwards, nor would she want to.’

  ‘I hope not,’ Narraway said with emotion. Then he changed the subject abruptly, a slight pinkness colouring his cheeks. ‘Be careful of Talbot. Carlisle will not be there the next time to risk his neck rescuing you. You owe him a debt on that – which I suppose you are acutely aware of?’

  ‘Yes … but …’ He had been going to say that it would have no effect upon his actions in confronting Carlisle over the bodies in the gravel pits; then he wondered if that were true. He had evaded it partly because disgracing him, possibly prosecuting him, would carry other dangers as well. But he had not forgotten his own debt to Carlisle either.

  ‘I suppose I shouldn’t have—’ he began.

  ‘Don’t be a fool, Pitt,’ Narraway snapped. ‘You can’t go through life without owing anybody. The real debts are hardly ever a matter of money: it’s friendship, trust, help when you desperately needed it, a hand out in the darkness to take yours, when you’re alone. You give it when you can, and don’t look for thanks, never mind payment. You grasp on to it when you’re drowning, and you never forget whose hand it was.’

  Pitt said nothing.

  ‘Carlisle won’t call you on it,’ Narraway said with conviction. ‘You’ve turned a blind eye to his misdemeanours a few times.’

  ‘And he’s helped me more than once,’ Pitt answered. ‘Of course he won’t call me on it! But I’ll be aware of it myself.’

  ‘It’s more than that.’ Narraway reached for the teapot and refilled both of their cups. ‘It will be impossible to hide the fact that you’re digging into Kynaston’s private life. Are you certain you are prepared to deal with whatever you find? Ignorance is sometimes a kind of safety. And with the reactions of other people whose personal habits wouldn’t bear being made public, you could lose some valuable allies. That sort of knowledge will earn you more enemies than any value it is likely to be to you. You’ll find out enough you don’t want to know in this job, without adding any more gratuitously. It’s a balancing act: know, but pretend that you don’t. You need to be a better actor than you are, Pitt, and less of a moralist, at least on the surface. Your job is to know, not to judge.’

  ‘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 twen
ty 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. Aft
er 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?