by Anne Perry
‘We were fighting!’ Pitt protested. ‘He attacked me, but I won!’
‘Which one of them would that be, sir?’ one of the constables asked him. ‘The first one, or the second one?’
‘The second one,’ Pitt answered, but he heard the note of desperation in his own voice. It sounded ridiculous, even to him.
‘Maybe he didn’t like it that you’d thrown the first man off the train,’ the constable said reasonably. ‘’E was tryin’ to arrest you. Good citizen doin’ ’is duty.’
‘He attacked me the first time,’ Pitt tried to explain. ‘The other man was trying to rescue me, and he lost the fight!’
‘But when this second man attacked you, you won, right?’ the constable said with open disbelief.
‘Obviously, since I’m here,’ Pitt snapped. ‘If you undo the manacles, I’ll show you my warrant card. I’m a member of Special Branch.’
‘Yes, sir,’ the constable said sarcastically. ‘They always go around throwin’ people off trains. Very special, they are.’
Pitt barely controlled his temper. ‘Look in my pocket, inside my coat, up at the top,’ he said between his teeth. ‘You’ll find my card.’
The constables looked at each other. ‘Yeah? An’ why would you be pitchin’ people off trains, sir?’
‘Because the man attacked me,’ Pitt said again. ‘He is a dangerous man planning violence here.’ He knew as he said it how absurd that sounded, considering that Gower was dead on the track, and Pitt was standing here alive and unhurt, apart from a few bruises, which were on his body and invisible under his clothes.
‘Look,’ he tried again, ‘Gower attacked me. The stranger came to my rescue, but Gower was stronger than he and he lost the fight. I couldn’t save him. Then Gower attacked me again, but this time I was ready. I won. Look for my warrant card. That’ll prove who I am.’
The constables exchanged glances again. Then one of them very gingerly approached Pitt and held his coat open with one hand, while the other felt inside his inner pocket.
‘There in’t nothin’ there, sir,’ he said, removing his hand quickly.
‘There’s my warrant card and my passport,’ Pitt said with a sense of rising panic. It had to be. He had had them both when he got onto the train at Shoreham. He remembered putting them back, as always.
‘No, sir,’ the constable repeated. ‘Your pocket’s empty, sir. There in’t nothin’ in it at all. Now why don’t you come quietly? No use in causing a lot o’ fuss. Just gets people ’urt, and I can promise you, sir, it’ll be you as comes off worst.’ He turned to the other passenger. ‘Thank you for yer trouble, sir. We got yer name and address. We’ll be in touch with yer when we needs more.’
Pitt drew in his breath to try reasoning further, and realised the futility of it. He knew what must have happened. Either his warrant card and passport had fallen out of his pocket in the fight, which didn’t seem likely — not from a deep pocket so well concealed — or else Gower had taken the precaution of picking it during the struggle. They had stood very close, struggling together. Pitt had been thinking of saving his own life, not being robbed. He turned to the constable closest to him.
‘I’ve just come in from France, through Southampton,’ he said with sudden hope. ‘I had to have my passport then, or they wouldn’t have let me in. My warrant card was with it. Can’t you see that I’ve been robbed?’
The constable stared at him, shaking his head. ‘I only know as you’re on the train, sir. I don’t know where you got on, or where you was before that. You just come quietly, and we’ll get you sorted at the police station. Don’t give us any more trouble, sir. Believe me, yer got enough already.’
Pitt made no protest as they led him away. It would be pointless, he would probably get hurt, and it would be grotesquely undignified. As it was, a crowd was gathering watching him. At this moment it was impossible for him to feel sorry Gower was dead. The other passenger he grieved for with a dull, angry pain. ‘Do you have a telephone at the police station?’ he demanded.
‘Yes, sir, o’ course we do. If yer got family, we’ll call them for yer an’ let ’em know where you are,’ the policeman promised.
‘Thank you.’
But when they arrived at the police station and Pitt was led in, a constable closely at either side of him, he was put straight into a cell and the door locked.
‘My phone call!’ he persisted.
‘We’ll make it for yer, sir. ’Oo shall we call, then?’
Pitt had considered it. If he called Charlotte she would be frightened and very distressed, and there was nothing she could do. Far better he call Narraway, who would straighten out the whole hideous mess, and could tell Charlotte about it afterwards. ‘Victor Narraway,’ he answered.
‘’E related to yer?’ the constable asked suspiciously.
‘Brother-in-law,’ Pitt lied quickly. He gave them the Lisson Grove number. ‘That’s his work. It’s where he’ll be, or they’ll know where to find him.’
‘At this time o’ night, sir?’
‘There’s always someone there. Please, just call.’
‘If that’s what you want, we’ll call.’
‘Thank you.’ Pitt sat down on the hard, wooden bench in the cell and waited. He must stay calm. It would all be explained in a matter of minutes. This part of the nightmare would be over. There was still Gower’s treachery and his death; now, in the silence of the cell, he had time to think of it more deeply.
He should not have been surprised that Gower came after him. The pleasant, friendly face Gower had shown in France, indeed all the time they had worked together over the last few months, might have been part of his real character, but it was superficial, merely a skin over a very different man beneath.
Pitt thought of his quick humour, how he had watched the girl in the pink dress, admiring her, taking pleasure in her easy walk, the swing of her skirt, imagining what she would be like to know. He remembered how Gower liked the fresh bread. He drank his coffee black, even though he pulled his mouth at its bitterness, and still went back for more. He pictured how he stood smiling with his face to the sun, watched the sailing boats on the bay, and knew the French names for all the different kinds of seafood.
People fought for their own causes for all kinds of reasons. Maybe Gower believed in his goal as much as Pitt did; they were just utterly different. Pitt had liked him, even enjoyed his company. How had he not seen the ruthlessness that could kill West, and then turn on Pitt so easily?
Except perhaps it had not been easy? Gower might have lain awake all night wretched, seeking another way and not finding it. Pitt would never know. It was painful to realise that so much was not as you had trusted, and your own judgement was nowhere near the truth. He could imagine what Narraway would have to say about that.
The constable came back, stopping just outside the bars. He did not have the keys in his hand.
Pitt’s heart sank. Suddenly he felt confused and a little sick.
‘Sorry, sir,’ the constable said unhappily. ‘I called the number you gave. It was a branch o’ the police all right, but they said as they’d got no one there called Narraway, an’ they couldn’t ’elp yer.’
‘Of course Narraway’s there!’ Pitt said desperately. ‘He’s head of Special Branch! Call again. You must have had the wrong number. This is impossible.’
‘It were the right number, sir,’ the constable repeated stolidly. ‘It was Special Branch, like you said. An’ they told me they got no one there called Victor Narraway. I asked ’em careful, sir, an’ they were polite, but very definite. There in’t no Victor Narraway there. Now you settle down, sir. Get a bit o’ rest. We’ll see what we can do in the morning. I’ll get you a cup o’ tea, an’ mebbe a sandwich, if yer like?’
Pitt was numb. The nightmare was getting worse. His imagination created all kinds of horror. What had happened to Narraway? How wide was this conspiracy? Perhaps he should have realised that if they removed Pitt himself to France on
a pointless errand, then of course they would have got rid of Narraway as well. There was no purpose in removing Pitt otherwise. He was only a kind of backup: a right-hand man, possibly, but not more than that. Narraway was the real threat to them.
‘Yer want a cup o’ tea, sir?’ the constable repeated. ‘Yer look a bit rough, sir. An’ a sandwich?’
‘Yes. .’ Pitt said slowly. The man’s humanity made it all the more grotesque, yet he was grateful for it. ‘I would. Thank you, Constable.’
‘Yer just rest, sir. Don’t give yerself so much trouble. I’ll get yer a sandwich. Would ’am be all right?’
‘Very good, thank you.’ Pitt sat down on the cot to show that he had no intention of causing any problems for them. He was numb anyway. He did not even know who to fight: certainly not this man who was doing his best to exercise both care and a degree of decency in handling a prisoner he believed had just committed a double murder.
It was a long and wretched night. He slept little, and when he did his dreams were full of fear, shifting darkness and sudden explosions of sound and violence. When he woke in the morning his head throbbed, and his whole body was bruised and aching from the fight. It was painful to stand up when the constable came back again with another cup of tea.
‘We’ll take yer ter the magistrate later on,’ he said, watching Pitt carefully. ‘Yer look awful!’
Pitt tried to smile. ‘I feel awful. I need to wash and shave, and I look as if I’ve slept in my clothes, because I have.’
‘Comes with being in gaol, sir. ’Ave a cup o’ tea. It’ll’elp.’
‘Yes, I expect it will, even if not much,’ Pitt accepted. He stood well back from the door so the constable could place it inside without risking an attack. It was the usual way of doing things.
The constable screwed up his face. ‘Yer bin in the cells before, in’t yer,’ he observed.
‘No,’ Pitt replied, ‘but I’ve been on your side of them often enough, as I told you. I’m a policeman myself. I have another number I would like you to call, seeing that Mr Narraway doesn’t seem to be there. Please. I need to let someone know where I am. My wife and family, at least.’
‘’Oo would that be, sir?’ The constable put down the tea and backed out of the cell again, closing and locking the door. ‘You give me the number and I’ll do it. Everyone deserves that much.’
‘Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould,’ Pitt replied. ‘I’ll write the number down for you, if you give me a pencil.’
‘You jus’ tell me, sir. I’ll write it down.’
Pitt obeyed; there was no point in arguing.
The man returned ten minutes later, his face wide-eyed and a trifle pale.
‘She says as she knows yer, sir. Described yer to a T, she did. Says as ye’re one o’ the best policemen in London, an’ Mr Narraway’s ’oo yer said ’e were, but summink’s ’appened to ’im. She’s sending a Member o’ Parliament down ter get yer out of’ere, an’ as we’d better treat yer proper, or she’ll be ’avin’ a word wi’ the Chief Constable. I dunno if she’s real, sir. I ’ope yer understand I gotter keep yer in ’ere till this gentleman comes, wi’ proof ’e’s wot ’e says ’e is, an’ all. ’E could be anyone, but I know I got two dead bodies on the tracks.’
‘Of course,’ Pitt said wearily. He would not tell him that Gower was Special Branch, and Pitt had not known that he was a traitor until the day before yesterday. ‘Of course I’ll wait here,’ he added. ‘I’d be obliged if you didn’t take me before the magistrate until the man arrives that Lady Vespasia sends.’
‘Yes, sir, I think as we can arrange that.’ He sighed. ‘I think as we’d better. Next time yer come from Southampton, sir, I’d be obliged if yer’d take some other line!’
Pitt managed a lopsided smile. ‘Actually, I’d prefer this one. Given the circumstances, you’ve been very fair.’
The constable was lost for words. He struggled, but clearly nothing he could think of seemed adequate.
It was nearly two hours later that Mr Somerset Carlisle, MP came sauntering into the police station, elegantly dressed, his curious face filled with a rueful amusement. Many years ago he had committed a series of outrages in London, to draw attention to an injustice against which he had no other weapon. Pitt had been the policeman who led the investigation. The murder had been solved, and he had seen no need to pursue the man who had so bizarrely brought it to public attention. Carlisle had remained grateful, and become an ally in several cases since then.
On this occasion, he had with him all his identification of the considerable office he held. Within ten minutes Pitt was a free man, brushing aside the apologies of the local police and assuring them that they had performed their duties excellently, and found no fault with them.
‘What the devil’s going on?’ Carlisle asked as they walked outside into the sun and headed in the direction of the railway station. ‘Vespasia called me in great agitation this morning, saying you had been charged with a double murder! You look like hell. Do you need a doctor?’ There was laughter in his voice, but his eyes reflected a very real anxiety.
‘A fight,’ Pitt explained briefly. He found walking with any grace very difficult. He had not realised at the time how bruised he was. ‘On the platform at the back of a railway carriage travelling at considerable speed.’ He told Carlisle very briefly what had happened.
Carlisle nodded. ‘It’s a very dark situation. I don’t know the whole story, but I’d be very careful what you do, Pitt. Vespasia told me to get you to her house, not Lisson Grove. In fact, she advised very strongly against going there at all.’
Pitt was cold. The sunlit street, the clatter of traffic all seemed unreal. ‘What’s happened to Narraway?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve heard whispers, but I don’t know the truth. If anyone does, it’ll be Vespasia. But I’ll take you to my flat first. Clean you up a bit. You look as if you’ve spent the night in gaol!’
Pitt did not grace the observation with a reply.
Two hours later, he was washed, shaved and dressed in a clean shirt, provided by Carlisle, as well as clean socks and underwear. Pitt alighted from the hansom cab outside Vespasia’s house and walked up to the front door. She was expecting him, and he was taken straight to her usual favourite sitting room, which looked onto the garden. There was a bowl of fresh narcissi on the table, their scent filling the air. Outside the breeze very gently stirred the new leaves on the trees.
Vespasia was dressed in silver grey, with the long ropes of pearls he was so accustomed to seeing her wear. She looked calm, as she always did, and her beauty still moved him with a certain awe. However, he knew her well enough to see the profound anxiety in her eyes. It alarmed him, and he was too tired to hide it.
She looked him up and down. ‘I see Somerset lent you a shirt and cravat,’ she observed with a faint smile.
‘Is it so obvious?’ he asked, standing in front of her.
‘Of course. You would never choose a shirt of that shade, or a cravat with a touch of wine in it. But it becomes you very well. Please sit down. It is uncomfortable craning my neck to look up at you.’
He would never have seated himself before she gave her permission, but he was glad to do so, in the chair opposite her.
The formalities were over and they would address the issues that burdened them both.
‘Where have you been?’ she asked. She gave no thought even to the possibility that he might consider it confidential from her. She knew more about the power and danger of secrets than most ministers of government.
‘In St Malo,’ he replied. He was embarrassed by his own failure to see through the subterfuge more rapidly. However, he did not avoid her eyes as he told her about himself and Gower chasing through the streets, their brief parting, then their meeting and almost instantly finding Wrexham crouched over the corpse of West, his neck slashed open and blood covering the stones.
Vespasia winced, but did not interrupt him.
He described their pursuit of Wrex
ham to the East End, and then in the train to Southampton, and on the ferry across to France. He found himself explaining too fully why they had not arrested Wrexham until it sounded miserably like excuses.
‘Thomas,’ she interrupted gently, ‘common sense justifies your actions, as seen at the time. You do not need to dot the i’s and cross the t’s for me. You were aware of a socialist conspiracy and you believed it to be more important than one grisly murder in London. What did you learn in St Malo?’
‘Very little,’ he replied. ‘We saw one or two known socialist agitators in the first couple of days. . at least I think we did.’
‘You think?’
He explained to her that it was Gower who had made the identification, and he had accepted it.
‘I see. Who did he say they were?’
He was about to say that she would not know their names, then he remembered her own radical part in the revolutions of ’48, which had swept across every country in Western Europe except Britain. She had been in Italy, manning the barricades for that brief moment of hope in a new freedom. It was possible she had not lost all interest.
‘Jacob Meister and Pieter Linsky,’ he replied. ‘But they didn’t come back again.’
She frowned. The tension increased in the rigidity of her shoulders, the way her hands in her lap gripped each other.
‘You know of them?’ he concluded.
‘Of course,’ she said drily. ‘And many others. They are dangerous, Thomas. There is a new radicalism awakening in Europe. The next insurrections will not be like ’forty-eight. It is a different breed. There will be more violence: I think perhaps it will be much more. The Russian monarchy cannot last a lot longer unless it learns to change. The oppression is fearful. I have a few friends left who are able to write occasionally — old friends, who tell me the truth. There is desperate poverty. The Tsar has lost all sense of reality and is totally out of touch with his people — as are all his ministers and advisers. The gulf between the obscenely rich and the literally starving is so great it will eventually swallow them all. The only thing we do not know is when.’