The Angel Court Affair (Thomas Pitt 30) (16 page)

‘
William Tell
,’ Sir Walter agreed. ‘Not one of my favourites. Prefer Verdi, myself. Teatro Lyceo. Chucked the damn bombs off the balcony into the crowd. Fifteen killed instantly. Rest panicked. Hysterics. Fought each other like animals to get out. Blood all over the place. Twenty-two dead altogether. Another fifty wounded.’

Pitt could imagine the reprisals for that, but he let Sir Walter tell him. The violence and the loss were spreading more and more widely.

‘Police raided every damn place they could think of,’ Sir Walter continued. ‘Thousands were arrested and thrown into the dungeons of Montjuïc. That’s that huge fortress seven hundred feet above the sea. So full they had to shackle the rest in warships in the harbour below. Tortured them.’ The skin across his face seemed to be pulled tight and his voice shook. ‘Burned them with irons. Forced them to keep walking for fifty hours at a time. Even dug out some of their more inventive tortures from the Inquisition. God forgive them. Their people won’t!’

Pitt was numb. He tried to force the pictures out of his mind, but they would not leave. If Sofia Delacruz knew of these things – and surely she had to if here in London Sir Walter did – then she might well crusade against them. How could she not, if they affected anyone she had taken into her group, any friend, relative or dependant?

Sir Walter was staring at him, watching the emotions in his face, waiting for his response.

‘I’ve already sent a couple of men to Spain; see what they can learn of the political situation. And I’ll ask Melville Smith if he knows of the unrest.’ Pitt found the words slowly. ‘He may lie. If he does, I don’t blame him. How could they trust any police, anywhere? But I might learn from his silences, whatever he doesn’t tell me.’

‘Good point,’ Sir Walter agreed. ‘Never thought of all this before. Thought the woman was quite a troublemaker, religious crackpot, and all that. But with these damn disgusting murders, it begins to look a good deal darker. Don’t tell your men this yet, Pitt. Tell one or two, maybe, but not the rest. Maybe nothing to do with it. If what’s her name – Sofia – is fighting alongside the anarchists, or they think she is, then God only knows what they’ll do to her, poor creature. I just wish to hell they didn’t do it in England!’

Pitt said nothing. He was feeling numb. This was a tale of terror, violence, courage and pain beyond anything he had ever seen.

‘Get on with it, man!’ Sir Walter said suddenly.

Pitt found his voice, hoarse and tight in his throat. ‘Yes, sir.’ There was no point in saying that they were already doing all they could. Results were all that counted. ‘I’m going to see them at Angel Court first. Someone must know more than they’ve told us so far.’

‘And Barton Hall?’ Sir Walter asked.

‘When I know all that Angel Court can tell me.’

‘Yes. Good. If you need anything, say so.’

‘Yes, sir. I will.’

‘Right. Then get on with it!’

Angel Court was quiet and dusty in the sunlight and there was no one in sight inside the arched entrance except the old woman who seemed to spend her time sweeping the cobbles, scrubbing the few steps into the kitchen and scullery, or tending the ancient pots holding herbs such as mint, chives, spiky-leaved rosemary and a clump of purple sage.

She looked up as Pitt passed her.

‘Good morning,’ he said with a slight nod.

Her eyes were watchful, her face brown and the skin worn with exposure to sun and wind. She cannot ever have been beautiful, but there was humour and strength in her features. But this time, looking more closely, Pitt saw also a consuming fear. Was it for Sofia, or for herself?

She had been snipping off small pieces of rosemary and sage, and the pungent smell of it was in the air. Now she turned away from him, without answering, and went back to the plants. He noticed her drab skirts were a little short for her, exposing bony ankles. Her shoulders were bent, hunched protectively over her flat chest.

Pitt wondered if she were a servant, a believer, someone rescued from one kind of misfortune or other, one of Sofia’s projects. He was curious. She might have observed much of the people here, seeming almost invisible herself, but she clearly did not want to talk. He would mention it to Stoker.

He knocked on the door and it was answered by Henrietta. As soon as she recognised him the demand was in her eyes. She read the lack of news without waiting for his words.

She pulled the door open.

‘Thank you.’ He stepped inside. ‘Is Mr Smith in?’

‘Yes.’ Resentment flared inside her, but she found no ready words to ask why he wanted Melville, and not her, or Ramon. How many times had such a distinction been made before, the implicit slight?

Pitt changed his mind. ‘I see he has been busy keeping up the schedule of speaking that Señora Delacruz had planned.’ He watched her expression, the moment of anger, taken over by helplessness, then something he thought was a deep disgust. He wondered again what story lay behind her joining Sofia’s group. What had she not found in the Church in which she grew up? Was Melville Smith aware of how she despised him, the depth of her anger? Or the reason for it?

They were still standing in the hall. She would not invite him further in. She was regarding him now with frustration and disappointment. How much of it was religious, how much personal affection for Sofia? He could not imagine living in what amounted to a religious order with its closeness, the discipline, the passion and the lack of privacy, the watchfulness for error.

‘Will she be grateful to him when she comes back?’ he asked suddenly.

Henrietta’s eyes widened, then she smiled bitterly. ‘She will be furious,’ she said with a bitter smile. ‘If you don’t know that, then you are a fool.’ She controlled herself with an effort, struggling to hope that he was not so deluded as to have missed all that mattered so much to her. ‘You want me to say it!’ she challenged him. ‘Yes, Melville Smith is taking the chance while she is gone to twist all that she taught so that it faces another way. It is all gentler, without the edge that cuts through hypocrisy and the easy answers. It has a sweet smell, like something that is beginning to rot! Is that what you wanted me to say?’ She stood with her body all at sharp angles, as if she would be rigid to the touch, bones and muscles locked.

‘Did he create the chance, or only seize the opportunity?’ Pitt asked.

Some of the anger drained away from her. She seemed to tire to hold on to it. ‘I don’t know. I think he hasn’t the courage or the imagination to have made it happen. He is just using it . . . and I hate him for that! You see, don’t you? It’s in your face. I have allowed him to make me into what I do not want to be! Perhaps it is myself I hate. Sofia would say he holds up a mirror to me and I see the worst in myself. The mirror she held showed me the best.’ Her eyes filled with tears.

For a moment Pitt had no answer. A memory came to him of Sofia Delacruz standing in the hall talking, her face alight with the passion of her faith. For that brief time in her presence he had believed what she was saying. Now in the emptiness afterwards, with the confusion of stories about her, the ugly tale that Barton Hall had told, and the mutilated bodies of Cleo and Elfrida, all her fire of purpose had disappeared.

Then he recalled himself to the reason he was here, and Henrietta watching him.

‘Why did she come to London?’ he asked. ‘Was it Smith’s idea?’

She looked startled. ‘No. He was against it, but she said she had to come. There was no choice.’

‘Why?’ he repeated. ‘Did she think she would find more followers here?’

Her lips curled with distaste. ‘You make it sound as if she were collecting votes for some office! I don’t know why she came. It happened quite suddenly, and she never told anyone what it was about.’

‘Did she think she would interest us in her beliefs?’ he persisted.

Again the anger flared in her eyes. ‘You are far too . . . too comfortable inside yourselves for that, too certain of your isolated, rigid ideas to listen to anyone. She’s English herself, she knows you.’

‘But she came,’ he argued.

Henrietta closed her eyes. ‘Yes,’ she said quietly. ‘I could not dissuade her, it was pointless because she had decided. Preaching had nothing to do with it. But there is no point in asking me over and over again. I don’t know why she came! Helping someone, but I don’t know who. She was always helping someone in trouble. This was bad. She was scared. I’d never seen her so scared.’

‘Did Melville Smith know about it?’

‘I don’t know! But he didn’t want her to come either. I told you, he is an opportunist, no more. Always looking for the chance, that one.’

‘A chance to take over the leadership? For that Sofia would have to be gone,’ Pitt pointed out.

She blinked, indecision in her eyes. For seconds she fought it, then overcame the temptation. ‘I’ve known him for five years,’ she said quietly. ‘He would not do that, not . . . not to kill anyone, not ever anything so . . . violent. His feelings are . . . as if he had swallowed them. They don’t reach his face, or his . . . hands.’

He understood. ‘And Ramon?’

This time her reaction was instant. ‘Never! He might do something against her will, to protect her, but never to hurt someone else. He was always for helping. Sometimes I think he is too soft.’

‘Too soft how?’ he asked. ‘Softer than Sofia?’

‘Innocent,’ she replied with a smile. ‘Saw what he thought should be there, whether it was or not. Like his own family.’ Then seeing Pitt’s surprise she instantly regretted it. ‘I shouldn’t have said that. That’s what we should be . . . family. Not that you’ve got to like family! Sometimes they’re the worst . . .’

He considered pressing the thought, but he saw in her eyes that she was angry with herself for giving away a confidence. He did not want her to transfer that blame to him. He needed her trust now.

‘I know,’ he agreed. ‘You said Sofia was more . . . practical?’

She let her breath out with relief. She was too frightened to smile, but the ease in her face was back. ‘She took risks with people, but she did it with her eyes open,’ she answered.

‘What kind of risks?’ He asked it mildly, as if it were of no great importance.

‘Protecting them, giving them second chances. Helping to make bad things right again. She helped many people burdened by guilt for their past mistakes. There was a constant stream of penitents of all kinds to her door.’

‘Was there something like that before she came to London?’ He thought of all those labelled as anarchists, because they wanted a living wage, and were driven to violence because no one would listen to them. Hunger changed people. He had seen it often enough in the backstreets of London too. It could create a kind of madness. Who could watch their children starve, and stay reasonable?

Henrietta stared at him. Why should she trust him? He was the law. At least he was supposed to be. He should have no sympathy with madness, whatever the cause. Would Henrietta tell him if Sofia had been hiding someone wanted by the same police who tortured people in the dungeons Sir Walter had spoken of? Would he himself?

‘There was one poor man in terrible fear – for his life or his soul, I don’t know which, but Sofia had to leave him to come here. I told you, she was hellbent on seeing Barton Hall,’ Henrietta reminded him. ‘But she wouldn’t tell any of us why. Melville was furious, but it made no difference. They quarrelled about it. She won.’ She said that last with considerable satisfaction, even though she knew nothing of the issue at stake.

‘So Cleo or Elfrida didn’t know?’ he asked.

‘No.’ She blinked rapidly but it did not stop the tears, or the sudden pallor of her face. ‘None of us did.’ She did not add any words of certainty, no oaths, and it was the more powerful because of its simplicity.

He thanked her and then went to look for Melville Smith. He found him in the room that had been Sofia’s study. He was sitting at the desk, clearly deep in thought, a pen in his hand and a sheet of paper half covered with neat handwriting. He looked up as Pitt came in, in spite of the fact that the door had been almost closed. It occurred to Pitt that Smith had it like that intentionally, so he could hear without being seen.

Pitt closed it behind him with a sharp click of the latch.

Smith looked up, his face creased with annoyance. It was a long, silent moment before he decided not to express it in words.

‘Have you news, Mr Pitt?’ he said with a sudden eagerness, which was better prepared than Pitt had expected; it forced him into immediate apology.

‘No, I am sorry. The police seemed to have learned very little, except that the murderer was not any of the people already known to them for violence, and there was nothing taken of significance.’ He sat down in the chair opposite the desk.

‘We
have
nothing of significance,’ Smith said tartly. ‘Except our lives! They certainly took those!’

Pitt felt the sting of the rebuke, but he did not acknowledge it. ‘Why did they go to Inkerman Road, Mr Smith? Surely whatever the threat, they would have been far safer to have remained here at Angel Court with the rest of you, and where we were aware of their presence?’

Smith looked at him steadily. ‘Of course they would! Who knows why Sofia did half the things she did?’ He smiled bleakly, merely a twitch at the corner of his lips.

Pitt refused to be put off, or to allow his irritation at Smith’s disloyalty to distract his attention from his purpose. He smiled back.

‘You are too modest, Mr Smith. I think you know Señora Delacruz very well indeed. I don’t believe you could have worked so closely with her for five years or that she would have trusted you were she not certain of your loyalty and your grasp of the fundamentals of her faith.’

Smith sat rigid, a faint colour slowly staining his cheeks. ‘I do what I can,’ he said awkwardly. ‘But . . . but I find her behaviour difficult to understand sometimes . . .’ He left the words hanging, unable or uncertain how to finish.

‘You told me of the threats she had received,’ Pitt went on. ‘You were afraid that not all of them were idle. She must have been aware of that possibility as well, even if she hid it from some of her other followers.’