by Anne Perry
‘There seem to be conflicting lines of evidence, sir,’ Stoker answered. ‘One of them regarding Kynaston having a mistress and being guilty of murdering the maid who found out about it, but that doesn’t make a lot of sense – unless there’s a major piece missing. And then why four different women?’
Pitt was puzzled for a moment.
‘Kitty Ryder, the first woman in the gravel pit, the second woman in the gravel pit, and the mistress,’ Stoker counted. ‘There’s no way any two of those could be the same person.’
‘I can’t think of anything that makes sense of that,’ Pitt admitted. ‘And yet the two women in the gravel pit are linked by several circumstances: the place they were found, but not necessarily where they were killed; the fact they had been kept somewhere before being put in the gravel; the mutilations, which were hideous and seem to serve no purpose at all, because they were inflicted after death, but were not effective in hiding their identity, because we don’t know them anyway. They both appear to have been maids, but no one has come forward to claim them. Not to mention Kynaston’s watch on one and his fob on the other.’
Stoker nodded. ‘So what about it all being nothing to do with who the women are, but to do with Kynaston – to try to blackmail or coerce him into doing something? Or not doing something? Perhaps he’s behaving so stupidly about this whole thing because he had some evidence that would ruin someone, and he’s being blackmailed into silence?’
‘Possible,’ Pitt agreed. It was possible indeed – and Somerset Carlisle did not fit into that story at all. That was why, much as he longed to believe it, Pitt did not.
‘You got another idea, sir?’ Stoker asked.
‘Only a possibility,’ Pitt answered. He could not shut it out any longer. He was lying to Stoker, and to himself. Somerset Carlisle was as sharp as an open razor in his brain. But Carlisle would not kill – surely? What would he care about enough to do all this: the bodies stolen from somewhere, the mutilation, which must have been hideous, almost unbearable to him, and yet he had performed this – if indeed it was him?
The only answer that fitted it all was something as serious as treason.
‘Sir?’ Stoker’s voice broke through his thoughts.
‘To force us to dig until we find the greater crime,’ Pitt answered.
‘Greater than murder?’ Stoker’s tone was hard with anger and disbelief.
‘Yes, worse than murder,’ Pitt answered levelly. ‘Treason.’
Stoker sat rigid. He gulped. ‘Yes, sir. I never thought of that – not – not in all this …’
‘Please God, you have no need to,’ Pitt said, staring straight ahead of him. ‘It’s only an idea …’
‘No, sir,’ Stoker turned to face the front also. ‘It’s our job.’
Whistler met them in his office in the morgue, a place that had become unpleasantly familiar to Pitt in the last few weeks. This time Whistler was busy and in no mood to offer the hospitality of tea.
‘Newspapers got it,’ he said curtly. ‘Just want you to know it wasn’t me.’ He glared at Pitt as if already Pitt had doubted him. ‘Like bloody dogs sniffing out the smell of death!’ he said bitterly. ‘Don’t know what the hell they’ll make of this one – probably anything and everything.’ He started to shake his head, and ended up with his whole body shuddering, as if he had been dropped in cold water. ‘The mutilations were all after death. Told you that before. When I looked at them closely, so were the broken bones. Only a few made when she was alive, most importantly, the fracture of the skull. Bruises were made at the same time. Can’t bruise after you’re dead. No blood flow.’
Pitt stared at him. ‘Was it the blow to the head that killed her?’ He did not know what he wanted Whistler to say. It was a nightmare. All that would make it any better was to wake up.
‘Blow,’ Whistler repeated the word, turning it over in his mind, examining it.
‘Was it?’ Pitt snapped.
‘Large, flat object,’ Whistler said slowly. ‘Lot of bruises, can’t define them exactly. Too long dead now. My opinion? She fell downstairs and cracked her head on the floor at the bottom. Nothing to think it wasn’t accidental.’
Pitt felt relief wash over him with an intensity that was close to the sort of pain you get when a frozen limb comes back to life. ‘So she wasn’t murdered?’
‘No reason to think she was,’ Whistler agreed. ‘But what bloody, God-awful lunatic then cut half her face off – that’s another question – yours, not mine!’
Pitt thanked him with a nod, and they left.
First Pitt would go and speak with Somerset Carlisle. If he had continued all this horror in order to force Pitt into investigating Kynaston, then it was time to face him and demand what crime he believed him guilty of.
He was undecided at first whether to warn Carlisle of his coming. Surprise had many advantages, and if he were to make it a formal appointment then he would have to state his reason for it. But if he did not, the chances were high of finding that Carlisle was not at home. And perhaps it would be a deceit that would only make him look absurd if he attempted deviousness. He picked up the telephone and made the appointment. Carlisle made no argument at all; in fact he had sounded as if Pitt were welcome.
As it was, a soberly dressed manservant welcomed Pitt at the door and ushered him into a pleasant and very individual sitting room where Carlisle spent the few evenings he had at home, in the winter by the fire now warming the whole room. For the summer there was a well-curtained french door.
‘This must be important,’ Carlisle said with a wry smile. ‘It’s a filthy night. What price spring, eh? Still, I suppose it will be the more welcome when it comes. Sit down.’ He indicated a whisky glass on a table beside the chair from which he had risen. ‘Whisky? Sherry?’ He winced very slightly. ‘Tea?’
‘Later, thank you,’ Pitt replied. ‘If you still feel like offering it.’ He found his throat tight and his mouth dry with the prospect of the unpleasantness to come, and a good whisky would have warmed him. Since he rose in rank, and income, he had learned the difference between good whisky and average. But he needed a clear head tonight. He could not afford to give Carlisle any advantage at all.
‘That bad?’ Carlisle indicated an armchair, then sat back down in the chair opposite. His keen face showed a similar tension to that that Pitt felt knotting inside him.
There was no point in being evasive. ‘I think so,’ he replied.
Carlisle smiled, as if they were playing some desperate parlour game. ‘And what is it that you think I can do? I know no one who murders women and leaves them in gravel pits. Believe me, if I did, I would already have told you.’
‘Actually, it is not so much that they died that concerns me at the moment,’ Pitt smiled back. ‘It is what appears to be their connection with Dudley Kynaston.’ He glanced around the room with sharpening interest. He took time to notice the naval memorabilia more closely. The beauty of one of the paintings suggested a very fine artist, and perhaps worth a great deal of money. If not, then it had been chosen with some diligence. Perhaps it was inherited from someone who had long loved the sea.
Carlisle was waiting for him to continue. How direct should he be?
‘Kynaston’s gold watch was found on the first body,’ he said, watching Carlisle’s expression and seeing only the slightest change. ‘And the fob on the second woman. Among other things perhaps less tangible.’
Carlisle hesitated. Quite clearly he was debating within himself whether to banter or to face the real battle. He must have decided on the latter because the amusement died out of his eyes and suddenly in the firelight and the softer glow of the gas brackets above him, the lines in his face seemed deeper. He was older than Pitt, perhaps into his fifties. It was his energy that occasionally made one forget that. Now the sun and windburn from his years of climbing, the lines around his eyes where he had peered into far distances, marked his features.
‘A very marked connection. How did he explain it?’
Carlisle asked.
‘That his watch was stolen by a pickpocket,’ Pitt replied.
‘And you believe him?’
‘I’m inclined to. It is not beyond your abilities to have had someone take it for you.’
‘Good heavens! Rather a back-handed compliment to my abilities. A dangerous undertaking, don’t you think?’
‘Extremely,’ Pitt agreed. ‘Therefore you had a very good reason. I cannot imagine any love affair he could have which would stir your anger or passion to the degree where you would use these women like this in order to draw me in.’
‘He has at times allowed his heart to rule his head,’ Carlisle answered sharply, weighing his words. ‘Not to love is to die by inches. Or perhaps it is worse than that. Maybe it is to hesitate on the shore of life and never step into its waters. But take it too far, and one can not only drown oneself, but take others with you.’
‘True,’ Pitt agreed. ‘But I believe you have something very specific in mind.’
Carlisle’s eyebrows rose in a sharp double V shape. ‘Verbally, perhaps. But you are calling upon me, not I on you.’
‘Really?’ Pitt said softly. ‘I had the idea that perhaps you were calling upon me, and that it was time I answered.’
Carlisle hesitated barely a second. ‘Indeed? What gave you that idea, or are we past that particular point?’
‘We are past it.’
‘I see. And your answer is?’ Carlisle sat motionless, his whisky forgotten. In fact, he had not drunk more than a couple of sips. Its colour reflected gold in the firelight, in the cut crystal it looked like a jewel itself.
‘You have my attention,’ Pitt replied. ‘I am listening.’
Carlisle did not answer.
‘Come on!’ Pitt said more sharply than he had intended. Carlisle was stretching his nerves. He could not afford to lose this game. Nothing in all of his experience with Carlisle suggested he had ever acted lightly or taken crazy risks that could cost him his freedom, even his life, unless the stakes were high enough to warrant it.
‘I investigated Kynaston, and found nothing,’ Pitt continued. ‘Kitty Ryder is still alive, but she left at night, and without taking her belongings. She must have been very afraid of something. I can’t see it as being the fact that apparently Kynaston has a mistress, unless she were an extraordinarily powerful man’s wife?’ Even as he said it, he did not believe it himself.
‘That’s not worthy of you, Pitt,’ Carlisle sounded disappointed. ‘Why the hell should I care who Kynaston’s in bed with?’
‘You don’t,’ Pitt agreed. ‘So I wonder what it is you do care about – sufficiently to step into this macabre farce. And it is a farce, isn’t it?’
Carlisle’s eyes did not leave Pitt’s face. ‘Is it?’ he whispered.
‘If I don’t find the truth of it, yes it is!’ Pitt responded sharply, his own nerves taut.
He saw a flicker of fear in Carlisle’s eyes, just for a moment, so brief he was not even certain he had seen it at all.
‘I don’t believe you killed either one of them,’ he added. ‘In fact you probably never saw them alive.’
Carlisle breathed out slowly. Something within him eased, but only a fraction.
‘And put the pieces of the watch there as well,’ Pitt continued. He did not mention the mutilations; that was a hideous lacuna between them. ‘And probably the cupboard key. You must have been damn sure I wouldn’t connect it up, and charge you!’
‘You’re the best detective I know,’ Carlisle replied, his voice a little hoarse, as if his lungs were starved, his throat tight.
‘So what is it you want me to find?’ Pitt leaned forward. ‘You left those women up there for the animals to eat! What matters that much to you, Carlisle? Murder? Multiple murder?’ He said the last word very carefully. ‘Still not enough! It has to be treason!’
Carlisle took a long, deep breath. ‘Do you know Sir John Ransom?’
‘Not personally. I know who he is.’
‘Precisely,’ Carlisle agreed. ‘It was a rhetorical question. If the head of Special Branch did not know the name of the man who leads scientific inventions regarding the navy, and naval warfare, then we have very deep problems indeed.’
‘What about Ransom?’ Pitt asked.
‘He is a friend of mine. A couple of years ahead of me at Cambridge,’ Carlisle replied.
Pitt allowed him to continue, knowing that this much preamble must be necessary. A log of wood collapsed in the fire, sending up a shower of bright sparks, but Carlisle apparently did not notice it.
‘He came to me two or three months ago,’ Carlisle resumed. ‘He had no proof at all, but he believed that certain highly sensitive facts regarding a new step forward in submarine warfare were being offered to another naval power. He did not say which because I believe he did not know.’
‘From the department where Kynaston works,’ Pitt concluded.
‘Precisely. Ransom was very worried because he had little doubt in his own mind that it was occurring, but no idea who was responsible. But it rested between three men. The other two have since been exonerated …’
‘Leaving Kynaston …’ Pitt said unhappily. ‘But there is no proof, or you would not be discussing it. You would simply have handed over the evidence to us.’
‘Yes. Without proof, allowing Kynaston to know that we are aware of what he is doing would only alert him, and perhaps make the matter worse,’ Carlisle agreed.
‘So you make it appear that he murdered his wife’s maid, over some real or imagined love affair, and hope that I will pull your chestnuts out of the fire!’
‘That’s about right,’ Carlisle admitted. ‘But you’re damn slow about it!’ He gave a harsh, twisted smile. ‘You like the man …’
‘Yes, I do. But that has nothing to do with it,’ Pitt said angrily. ‘Whatever I think of him, I can’t charge him with anything at all until I have evidence to prove it. And since Kitty Ryder was seen alive and well after the first body was found, and the second body doesn’t even resemble her, I have no reason to accuse Kynaston!’
‘I slipped up there,’ Carlisle admitted, wincing at his own failure. ‘But I didn’t know Kitty had been seen. Are you sure?’
‘Yes. I have a highly diligent assistant …’
‘Ah! The redoubtable Stoker. Yes. An excellent man.’ Carlisle smiled very slightly. ‘If he could actually find the woman, then she would testify as to what it was she saw, or heard, and why she ran away. Although it would be better to have something rather weightier than the word of a runaway lady’s maid.’
‘I’ll widen the search for her,’ Pitt promised. ‘Who else is involved? He must be passing the information to someone? And why, for God’s sake?’ Even giving words to the question and speaking it aloud was painful. He had not thought Kynaston more than perhaps self-indulgent with his mistress, certainly not a man to betray his own country. He had become used to disillusion but this still hurt.
Carlisle pulled his mouth into a gesture of apology. ‘I have no idea. But I have no doubt he will have plenty of defenders simply because no one will wish to believe that he could have betrayed them, or that they could have let him! The Prime Minister will be displeased, to say the least of it!’
‘I’m getting rather accustomed to displeasing the Prime Minister,’ Pitt said tartly. ‘It seems to be a function of the job. But catching Kynaston, even proving what he has done, is far from the end of the task …’
‘Oh, I know that!’ Carlisle agreed. ‘You need to know all of it! More than anything else, you need to know exactly how much information he has given, and to whom. Preferably, you also need to know how he came into such a position, and everyone else who is involved. And then, naturally, you need to deal with him so that as few people are aware of it as possible, in the circumstances. To have a trial and exposure would be almost as damaging as the act itself.’
‘Thank you, Carlisle! I am aware of that!’ Pitt snapped. ‘I also would prefer not to be obl
iged to prosecute you! I accept that you did not kill either of the women, but you took their bodies from wherever they were kept – a morgue of some sort, I imagine – and you laid them out in the gravel pits. I prefer not to know that you also mutilated them in identical ways so we would be forced to conclude they were killed by the same person, and the link to Kynaston was too clear to ignore. Well, I have your message, and I understand it. You have succeeded.’
Carlisle was pale, even in the firelight. ‘I am not proud of it,’ he said very quietly. ‘But Kynaston is betraying my country. He must be stopped.’
‘I will do all I can to stop him,’ Pitt promised. ‘And you will help me, if I can think of a way. And from now on you will do exactly what I tell you to … so I can find a reason not to charge you with body-snatching, mutilating the dead, and generally being a damn nuisance!’
‘Would you—’ Carlisle began.
Pitt glared at him. ‘Yes I would! And if you involve Lady Vespasia in this I’ll see you pay for it with your seat in Parliament!’
‘I believe you,’ Carlisle said very quietly indeed. ‘I give you my word I have not done so, and I will not.’
‘Thank you.’ Pitt stood up. ‘I thank you for at least this much truth. Now I wish I’d had the whisky!’
‘It’s still available …’
‘No, thank you. I must go home. It’s late, and I need to think how the hell I’m going to clear this up, starting tomorrow morning. By the way, where did you get the bodies? I assume you took them from some morgue?’
‘Yes. But I’ll see they are decently buried, when you’ve finished with them. As I promised in the first place,’ Carlisle replied.
Pitt stared at him for a moment, trying to find words for what lay between them, and failing. He turned and left.
Outside the rain had stopped but the wind was even colder. Pitt thought, seeing the hard, brittle glitter of the stars, that there could be a frost.
Walking briskly along the pavement he thought again of Carlisle. The man infuriated him, but he could not dislike him. This time he had seen beyond the wit and the imagination to someone who dared to believe in things further than he could see himself, and who reached, however crazily, for the sublime. A lonely man.