The Angel Court Affair (Thomas Pitt 30) (6 page)

‘I’m coming.’ Pitt had no choice. There could be any number of reasons why Sofia had gone, willingly or unwillingly: illness; an accident; a quarrel during which someone lost control, possibly something to do with one of the members of her family that she had come to see. That last seemed the most likely, particularly if the person concerned were elderly and perhaps failing in health. But why on earth had she not informed Melville Smith of the reason, and when she would return? It was discourteous, to say the least. Could it be carelessness? A message gone astray?

He was back in the kitchen again and its warmth wrapped around him, the comfortable smell of bread toasting in front of the open grating, a breath of air from the open window over the sink.

‘What is it?’ Charlotte asked quietly.

‘Sofia Delacruz has gone from Angel Court, without explanation,’ he replied.

Charlotte rose to her feet. ‘What on earth do you mean “gone”? Has someone kidnapped her? How could that happen with all those people around her, and your men watching?’

‘Nobody said she was kidnapped,’ he said bluntly. ‘She may have had some urgent call from a member of the family she came to see.’

‘And gone out alone, leaving no message?’ Charlotte said with disbelief.

‘We don’t know what happened,’ he replied. ‘I’m going to Angel Court now. She wasn’t alone. Two of her women went with her.’

Charlotte grasped his wrist, holding it with surprising strength. ‘Is that what you believe, Thomas? It isn’t, is it? She isn’t a foolish woman. If she were in the habit of treating her staff like this, it would become known, and defeat her whole purpose.’

‘Many so-called saints are tyrants at home,’ he said gently. He knew Charlotte had liked the woman, as had many others. If this disappearance were intentional then Sofia was letting them down, and he resented it. ‘People have ideals of goodness they can’t always live up to . . .’

‘Thomas, she hasn’t gone willingly!’ she said with a burst of desperation. ‘You know that as well as I do! You must find her.’ She did not add that she feared Sofia had been hurt, perhaps killed, but it was there in her eyes.

Pitt’s anger boiled up. He touched Charlotte’s hand gently, loosening her hold, but not letting go of her. ‘Of course I’ll find her,’ he said gently. ‘But you have to prepare for the possibility that this is a deliberate piece of melodrama to gain more attention. It’s possible none of the threats to her is real. The fact that two of her women went with her suggests it was planned. She causes unease, asks questions people can’t answer. She shakes some people’s emotions, but threatened Church of England ministers don’t kidnap visiting Spanish saints. It would make them look ridiculous, for a start.’ He forced a smile. ‘And it would ruin their argument that they have a superior type of holiness.’ He leaned forward and kissed her gently.

She smiled, laughter fleetingly in her eyes, and then kissed him back.

But Pitt was far less certain of the answer when he paid the cabby and crossed the pavement to the entrance into Angel Court. It was an ancient courtyard, its surrounding buildings three storeys high and with mullioned windows. At the entrance to the courtyard stood a stone angel, life-size, its wings gigantic, its arms raised as if in benediction. It was imposing and strangely sinister. There was an old stable half-door to the left. The ground was paved with rough cobbles, which were rounded on the surface, green moss between them. An old woman moved rhythmically with a broom back and forth.

Melville Smith had clearly been waiting for Pitt. He strode across the open space towards him, tension in every line of his body.

‘Thank heaven you’ve come,’ he said breathlessly. ‘This is a disaster. It makes us look like . . . incompetents! It’s absurd!’ His voice cracked with the effort to control it.

Pitt felt the sting of the word ‘incompetent’. It applied to him far more than Smith.

Smith clasped Pitt’s hand, then let go of it. He led the way back across the court to the open door of their lodgings, and inside.

Brundage was in the oak-panelled hallway speaking with a dark, gentle-faced man whom Smith introduced briefly as Ramon Aguilar. They were both pale and clearly distressed. Brundage swung round when he saw Pitt.

‘Morning, sir,’ he said grimly.

‘Morning,’ Pitt replied. He might be less civil later, but not now. They needed clear thinking, a logical appreciation of the facts. It might look like kidnapping to the unsophisticated, but there were many other possibilities higher in his mind. Whatever was written in the newspapers yesterday, to Frank Laurence, and any other sceptical observer, this would look very much like a stunt to obtain publicity.

‘Was the front door locked and bolted this morning?’ he asked Brundage levelly.

‘Yes, sir,’ Brundage replied. ‘So was the back door into the delivery area. I can’t find anything to indicate a jemmied window, but there is a window open on the second floor. It’s right near the bathroom downpipe, but I can’t see three women dressed in long skirts climbing down the wall in the small hours of the morning.’

Pitt could imagine Sofia Delacruz doing it, if the cause were important enough to her, but he did not say so.

Smith glared at him. ‘Someone could have climbed up it,’ he pointed out angrily. ‘They could have broken in and taken Sofia and . . .’

‘The two other women also?’ Pitt raised his eyebrows. ‘Only with help. And extremely difficult to do silently. I cannot imagine Sofia Delacruz going unwillingly and without a fight. Can you? You know her well.’

Smith glared at him. ‘Are you suggesting she went willingly?’ he said between his teeth, anger staining his cheeks pink.

‘Is it possible?’ Pitt responded. ‘You know her better than most people do. You have supported her for over five years. You have stated publicly, many times, that you believe her philosophy.’ He smiled very slightly. ‘You certainly appear to admire her.’

‘Of course I do,’ Smith said instantly, then stiffened as if he regretted committing himself so far, and without equivocation. He moved his feet uncomfortably on the wide oak floorboards. ‘We have our differences,’ he went on, aware of now being intensely awkward. ‘On minor points only.’

Pitt allowed the silence to grow heavy before he replied. Footsteps echoed across the yard, uneven on the cobbles, and somewhere in the kitchen a saucepan was dropped.

‘She was in danger!’ Smith said angrily. ‘That’s why your people were supposed to guard her! Where were your men when she was taken? Why aren’t you asking them these questions? Where were you yourself?’

‘Asleep, as I imagine you were,’ Pitt said softly. ‘I am not attacking you, Mr Smith. I am trying to rule out impossibilities, so that we can concentrate on what is possible. A window three storeys up is open, but all the doors to the outside were locked and bolted. It seems hard to think of a way in which Señora Delacruz and both the other women were taken by force without a sound being heard. There has been nothing broken, nothing stolen and no one here was hurt.’

Now Ramon spoke for the first time, his face flushed with anger. ‘If you are saying that the señora went willingly and has left us, then you are a fool! You know nothing of my people.’ His accent was very slight but his voice was husky with anger. ‘You spoke with her, I know that, and I know she told you what her belief is because she said so to me. Do you see that woman stealing out in the night like an eloping maid? Why? What for? Her faith is her life . . .’

‘There are different kinds of faith, Mr Aguilar,’ Pitt said very gently. The man’s distress was clear in his pale face and clenched body. ‘What about coercion or trickery?’ he suggested. ‘Or an emergency of some kind? A message from her family that someone was ill, perhaps dying, and time was short.’

Ramon hesitated. ‘I suppose it is possible,’ he said with a flicker of hope. ‘But why did she not leave a message? And why take both Cleo and Elfrida?’

Smith’s mouth was drawn in a tight, thin line. ‘If she had gone to see her cousin, Barton Hall, then she would certainly have told us,’ he answered for Ramon. ‘The situation between them is . . . unpleasant. He has no understanding whatever of her mission. I have no idea why she wished to see him. And I am certain that she has not done so yet.’

Ramon gave him a withering look. ‘Her business is private. She would certainly have gone alone, but not in the night, and not without telling anyone.’

‘An emergency?’ Pitt was still looking for an answer that displayed thoughtlessness possibly, but not danger.

‘What emergency?’ Smith said bitterly. ‘We have no idea why she wanted to see her cousin in such a hurry, or even at all! They were not close. Her family has treated her very badly. Without understanding. They are steeped in their own past, their own knowledge, their own importance! Rigid . . .’ He stopped and flushed very slightly, aware that both Pitt and Ramon were staring at him. He cleared his throat. ‘I apologise. I have never met Barton Hall. I know only what she told me, and what I read between the lines of her words.’

Ramon was irritated. ‘How can you know this much about a man that, by your own admission, you have never met? I do not believe she spoke ill of him, whatever she thought.’ He turned to Pitt. There was anger and warning in his eyes.

His blind defence of Sofia was possibly hampering the investigation, but nevertheless Pitt admired it, which was unreasonable in itself. If any woman looked capable of defending herself, and willing to do so, it was Sofia Delacruz.

‘You wouldn’t,’ Smith said with an edge of contempt. ‘Your views of her are tinged with affection, even though at the moment only the truth is of any help to us.’ He turned from Ramon back to Pitt. ‘Their differences are an old wound to Barton Hall’s family pride. To his standing in the world, if you like.’

‘He has no standing in the world,’ Ramon snapped back. ‘He is a banker and a layman in the Church of England. He is important in his community, that’s all. When he retires someone else will take his place, and he will sink into obscurity. The señora will be remembered for ever. The world will be changed because of her.’ His dark face with its gentle lines was filled with a passionate enthusiasm that made him momentarily beautiful.

Pitt was a little taken aback. He saw emotion transcending the trivial details of Sofia’s preaching or healing a family rift. It momentarily ignored even the hierarchy of this odd sect whose differences he was beginning to appreciate.

Then common sense returned like a cold wind erasing words written in sand. Sofia had gone away, unaccountably. Judging from his face, Smith’s feelings were very mixed. He seemed too angry to be frightened for her yet, and was denying to himself the possibility that she had come to harm. Was that because he knew perfectly well where she was? Or was he unable to contemplate something serious having happened to her?

Ramon’s expression was different. He looked fearful of the worst, as if in his vision she was important enough that all the power of evil, human or otherwise, would quite naturally gather against her. It was there in the panic to his voice, the intensity of his speech.

Pitt clung on to the details of fact and reason.

‘The two women who went with her,’ he said, returning to the issue, ‘Cleo Robles and Elfrida Fonsecca – tell me something of them. I remember seeing them at the meeting. They seemed to be close to her, but why would she take both of them, in the middle of the night?’

Smith and Ramon began speaking at the same time, and then both stopped. It was Smith who began again, asserting his seniority.

‘Cleo Robles is very young, twenty-three. She is well-meaning, full of enthusiasm, but she has much yet to learn of the way to teach people.’

‘There are as many ways as there are people to teach,’ Ramon interrupted. ‘And often enough it takes more than one person to do it.’

‘He was asking about Cleo, not about teaching,’ Smith corrected him. He turned back to Pitt and, with an effort, resumed his formal voice. ‘She is like a child, eager and friendly. If you imagine she has guile in her, then you know nothing of people.’

Pitt was used to being in the centre of a disagreement. In the circumstances, fear and self-defence were natural also. He disliked using the emotional weaknesses of people, but if there really were something wrong, Sofia’s wellbeing might depend upon his finding the truth sooner rather than later.

‘Do you mean that she is also gullible?’ he asked, looking from one to the other of them.

‘Yes,’ Smith said without hesitation. His eyes darted at Ramon, then back again to Pitt.

‘No,’ Ramon contradicted him in the same breath. ‘Not . . . gullible. Perhaps innocent. She has dreams . . . we die without dreams . . .’

‘Gullible,’ Smith repeated, looking away from him. ‘But she is loyal. Ramon is right: she has dreams of saving the world, and she believes that Sofia can do it.’ This time his voice did not give away his own feelings, only that he was struggling to hide them.

Pitt wondered what had made a man like Melville Smith join Sofia’s group. It must be alien to him in every way: to his family background, his culture and all his upbringing. The reason must have been compelling, but was it a need for what Sofia taught, a hunger he could not deny, even at the cost of giving up all that was familiar? Or was it a flight from something he could no longer bear? Was his will to lead because he had a different direction in mind, or simply a natural assumption of power because he was arrogant by nature, unknowingly overbearing?

If Sofia did not reappear soon, Pitt would have Brundage look into the man’s background.

‘And Elfrida Fonsecca?’ he asked. ‘Is she gullible too?’

This time both other men hesitated.

‘I don’t know,’ Smith admitted. ‘She is extremely capable, in administrative matters. We could be in trouble without her, which I am sure she is aware of. It would be very unlike her to absent herself from any of her duties. It . . . it mattered to her belief of herself.’

‘She is much needed,’ Ramon agreed quietly, a flash of anger was in his eyes at Smith’s betrayal of vulnerability, and then something that could have been pity. ‘Which she is aware of,’ he went on. ‘I cannot believe Elfrida would go away from Angel Court willingly. Mr Pitt, I fear very much that there is cause to be concerned . . . even afraid.’