Highgate Rise (23 page)

Clitheridge was floundering over towards them, a look of dedication and terror on his face. He obviously had not the faintest idea what to say or do, except that he was determined not to flinch from his duty. At the last moment he was saved by events. The horse in the trap took flight as a piece of burning debris shot past it and it reared up and twisted around.

That at least was something Clitheridge understood. He abandoned Shaw, for whom he could do nothing and whose grief appalled and embarrassed him, and reached instead for the horse, holding the rein close to its head and throwing all his considerable weight against the momentum of its lunge.

“Whoa! Steady—steady now. It’s all right—steady, girl. Hold hard!” And miraculously for once he was completely successful. The animal stopped and stood still, shuddering and rolling its eyes. “Steady,” he said again, full of relief,
and began to lead it across the road, away from the roar and heat, and away from Shaw.

“The servants.” At last Shaw spoke. He twisted around on one foot and swayed a little. “What about the servants? Where are they? Are they hurt?”

“Not seriously,” Pitt replied. “They’ll be all right.”

Clitheridge was still across the street with the horse and trap, leading it away, but Oliphant the curate was coming towards them, his thin face lit by the glare from the flames, his figure gawky in a coat whose shoulders were too big. He stopped in front of them and his voice was quiet and certain.

“Dr. Shaw; I lodge with Mrs. Turner up on West Hill. She has other rooms and you’d be welcome to stay there as long as you choose. There is nothing you can do here, and I think a strong cup of tea, some hot water to wash in, and then sleep would help you to face tomorrow.”

Shaw opened his mouth to argue, then realized that Oliphant had not offered facile words of comfort. He had offered practical help and reminded him that there was another day ahead, and regardless of pain or shock, there would be duties, things to do that would be useful and have meaning.

“I—” He struggled for the practical. “I have no-nothing—it is all gone—again—”

“Of course,” Oliphant agreed. “I have an extra nightshirt you are welcome to, and a razor, soap, a clean shirt. Anything I have is yours.”

Shaw tried to cling to the moment, as if something could still be retrieved, some horror undone that would become fixed if he were to leave. It was as though accepting it made it true. Pitt knew the feeling, irrational and yet so strong it held one to the scene of tragedy because to move was to acknowledge it and allow it to be real.

“The servants,” Shaw said again. “What about them? Where are they to sleep? I must—” He turned one way and another, frantic for some action to help, and saw none.

Oliphant nodded, his face red in the flames’ reflection, his voice level. “Mary and Mrs. Wiggins will stay with Mr. and Mrs. Hatch, and Jones will stay with Mr. Clitheridge.”

Shaw stared at him. Two firemen went past supporting a third between them.

“We shall begin to search for new positions for them in the morning.” Oliphant held out his hand. “There are plenty of people who want good, reliable help that has been well trained. Don’t worry about it. They are frightened, but not hurt. They need sleep and the assurance that they will not be put on the street.”

Shaw looked at him incredulously.

“Come,” Oliphant repeated. “You cannot help here—”

“I can’t just—just walk away!” Shaw protested. “My friend is in that—” He stared helplessly at the blaze, now redder and sinking as the last of the wood crumbled away inside and the masonry collapsed inward. He searched for words to explain the tumult of emotions inside him, and failed. There were tears in the grime on his face. His hands clenched at his sides and jerked as if he still longed to move violently, and had no idea where or how.

“Yes you can leave it,” Oliphant insisted. “There is no one left here; but tomorrow there will be people who need you—sick, frightened people who trust you to be there and use the knowledge you have to help them.”

Shaw stared at him, horror in his face turning to a slow amazement. Then finally, without speaking, he followed him obediently, his shoulders sagging, his feet slow, as if he were bruised, and intensely, painfully tired.

Pitt watched him go and felt a racking mixture of emotions inside himself; pity for Shaw’s grief and the stunning pain he obviously felt, fury at the fearful waste of it, and a kind of anger because he did not know who to blame for it all, who to cherish and who to want to hunt and see punished. It was like having a dam pent up inside him and the pressure of confusion ached to burst in some easy and total action, and yet there was none.

The building crashed in sparks again as another wall subsided. Two firemen were shouting at each other.

Finally he left them and retraced his own steps to look for Mundo and begin the miserable task of questioning the closest
neighbors to see if any of them had seen or heard anything before the fire, anyone close to Lindsay’s house, any light, any movement.

Murdo was amazed by how tumultuous were his feelings about accompanying Pitt to the Lutterworths’. Away from the immediate heat of the fire his face hurt where the skin was a little scorched, his eyes stung and watered from the smoke, even his throat ached from it, and there was a large and painful blister forming on his hand where he had been struck by a flying cinder. But his body was chilled, and inside the coat Oliphant had found for him, he was shivering and clenched with cold.

He thought of the huge, dark house of the Lutterworths, of the splendor inside it, carpets, pictures, velvet curtains bound with sashes and splayed on the floor like overlong skirts. He had only ever seen such luxury at the Worlinghams’ themselves, and theirs was a lot older, and worn in one or two places. The Lutterworths’ was all new.

But far sharper in his mind, and making him clench his sore hands before he remembered the blister, was the memory of Flora Lutterworth with her wide, dark eyes, so very direct, the proud way she carried her head, chin high. He had noticed her hands especially; he always remarked hands, and hers were the most beautiful he had ever seen, slender, with tapering fingers and perfect nails, not plump and useless like those of so many ladies of quality—like the Misses Worlingham, for example.

The more he thought of Flora the lighter his feet were on the frosty pavement, and the more wildly his stomach lurched at the prospect of Pitt knocking on the front door with its brass lion’s head, until he disturbed the entire household and brought the footman to let them in, furious and full of contempt, so they could stand dripping and filthy on the clean carpet till Lutterworth himself was roused and came down. Then Pitt would ask him a lot of intrusive questions that would all be pointless in the end, and could have waited until morning anyway.

They were actually on the step when he finally spoke.

“Wouldn’t it be better to wait until morning?” he said breathlessly. He was still very wary of Pitt. At times he admired him, at others he was torn by old loyalties, parochial and deep rooted, understanding his colleagues’ resentment and sense of having been undervalued and passed by. But most often he was lost in his own eagerness to solve the case and he thought of nothing but how could he help, what could he contribute to their knowledge. He was gaining a measure of respect for Pitt’s patience and his observation of people. Some of his conclusions had escaped Murdo. He had had no notion how Pitt knew of some of the exchanges between Pascoe and Dalgetty—until Pitt had quite openly recounted how Mrs. Pitt had attended the funeral supper and repeated back: to him all her impressions. In that moment Murdo had ceased to dislike Pitt; it was impossible to dislike a man who was so candid about his deductions. He could easily have pretended a superior ability, and Murdo knew a good many who would have.

Pitt’s reply was unnecessary, both because Murdo knew perfectly well what it would be, and because the front door swung open the moment after Pitt knocked and Alfred Lutterworth himself stood in the lighted hall, hastily but fully dressed. Only his neck without a tie and his ill-matched coat and trousers betrayed that he had already been up. Perhaps he had been one of the many who had crowded around the edge of the fire, anxious, curious, concerned, some offering help—or to see the job done to its bitter conclusion.

“Lindsay’s ’ouse.” He made it a statement rather than a question. “Poor devil. ’E was a good man. What about Shaw—did they get ’im this time?”

“You believe it was Shaw they were after, sir?” Pitt stepped in and Murdo followed him nervously.

Lutterworth closed the door behind them. “Do you take me for a fool, man? Who else would they be after, first ’is own ’ouse, and now Lindsay’s? Don’t stand there. You’d best come in, although there’s nowt I can tell yer.” His northern accent was more pronounced in his emotion. “If I’d seen
anyone you’d not ’ave ’ad to come seekin’ me, I’d’a gone seekin’ you.”

Pitt followed him and Murdo came a step behind. The withdrawing room was cold, the ashes of the fire already dark, but Flora was standing beside it. She was also fully dressed, in a gray winter gown, her face pale and her hair tied back with a silk kerchief. Murdo felt himself suddenly excruciatingly awkward, not knowing what to do with his feet, where to put his painful, dirty hands.

“Good evening, Inspector.” She looked at Pitt courteously, then at Murdo with something he thought was a smile. “Good evening, Constable Murdo.”

She had remembered his name. His heart lurched. It had been a smile—hadn’t it?

“Good evening, Miss Lutterworth.” His voice sounded husky and ended in a squeak.

“Can we help, Inspector?” She turned to Pitt again. “Does anyone … need shelter?” Her eyes pleaded with him to tell her the answer to the question she had not asked.

Murdo drew breath to tell her, but Pitt cut across him and he was left openmouthed.

“Your father thinks the fire was deliberately set, in order to kill Dr. Shaw.” Pitt was watching her, waiting for reaction.

Murdo was furious. He saw the last trace of color leave her face and he would have rushed forward to save her from collapsing, had he dared. In that instant he loathed Pitt for his brutality, and Lutterworth himself for not having protected her, he whose duty and privilege it was.

She bit her lip to stop it trembling and her eyes filled with tears. She turned away to hide them.

“No need to cry for ’im, girl,” Lutterworth said gently. “ ’E was no use to you, nor to ’is poor wife neither. ’E was a greedy man, with no sense o’ right nor wrong. Save your tears for poor Amos Lindsay. ’E was a good-enough chap, in ’is own way. A bit blunt, but none the worse for that. Don’t take on.” Then he swung around to Pitt. “Mind you
could’a chosen your time and your words better! Clumsy great fool!”

Murdo was in an agony of indecision. Should he offer her his handkerchief? It had been clean this morning, as it was every morning, but it must smell terrible with smoke now; and anyway, wouldn’t she think him impertinent, overfamiliar?

Her shoulders were trembling and she sobbed without sound. She looked so hurt, like a woman and a child at once.

He could bear it no longer. He pulled the handkerchief out of his pocket, dropping keys and a pencil along with it, and went forward to give it to her, arm outstretched. He no longer cared what Pitt thought, or what detective strategy he might be using. He also hated Shaw, with an utterly new emotion that had never touched him before, because Flora wept for him with such heartbreak.

“He in’t dead, miss,” he said bluntly. “He was out on a call somewhere an’ ’e’s terrible upset—but he in’t even hurt. Mr. Oliphant, the curate, took him back to his lodgings for the night. Please don’t cry like that—”

Lutterworth’s face was dark. “You said he was dead.” He swung around, accusing Pitt.

“No, Mr. Lutterworth,” Pitt contradicted. “You assumed it. I am deeply sorry to say that Mr. Lindsay is dead. But Dr. Shaw is perfectly well.”

“Out again?” Lutterworth was staring at Flora now, his brows drawn down, his mouth tight. “I’ll lay odds that bounder struck the match ’imself.”

Flora jerked up, her face tearstained, Murdo’s handkerchief clasped in her fingers, but now her eyes were wide with fury.

“That’s a terrible thing to say, and you have no right even to think it, let alone to put it into words! It is completely irresponsible!”

“Oh, and you know all about responsibility, of course, girl,” Lutterworth retorted, by now regardless of Pitt or Murdo. His face was suffused with color and his voice thick in his emotion. “Creepin’ in and out at all hours to see ’im—
imagining I don’t know. For heaven’s sake, ’alf Highgate knows! And talk about it over the teacups, like you were some common whore—”

Murdo gasped as if the word had struck him physically. He would rather have sustained a dozen blows from a thief or a drunkard than have such a term used of Flora. Were it any other man he would have knocked him to the ground—but he was helpless.

“—and I’ve nothing with which to call them liars!” Lutterworth was anguished with impotent fury himself, and anyone but Murdo would have pitied him. “Dear God—if your mother were alive she’d weep ’erself sick to see you. First time since she died I ’aven’t grieved she weren’t ’ere with me—the very first time …”

Flora stared at him and stood even straighter. She drew a breath to defend herself, her cheeks scarlet, her eyes burning. Then her face filled with misery and she remained silent.

“Nothing to say?” he demanded. “No excuses? No—what a fine man he is, if only I knew ’im like you do, eh?”

“You do me an injustice, Papa,” she said stiffly. “And yourself also. I am sorry you think so ill of me, but you must believe what you will.”

“Don’t you come high and mighty with me, girl.” Lutterworth’s face was torn between anger and pain. Had she been looking at him more closely she might have seen the pride as he gazed at her, and the shattered hope. But his words were unfortunate. “I’m your father, not some tomfool lad following after you. You’re not too big to send to your room, if I have to. An’ I’ll approve any man that sets ’is cap at you, or you’ll not so much as give ’im the time o’ day. Do you hear me, girl?”