Treachery at Lancaster Gate (17 page)

“Yes, I think so,” Emily answered. “Is it impossible?”

Charlotte took a breath to answer, and then let it out again silently.

Emily waited.

At last Charlotte smiled, picking her words carefully, and reluctantly.

“I think Thomas is afraid that there is some pretty deep corruption, at least where those particular men are concerned. He doesn't want to investigate it, but he's going to have to. The trouble is, as soon as he starts it will become clear what he's doing, and why. There's going to be anger and, worse than that, fear. Suspicion can make people do all sorts of stupid things.”

“What are you thinking?” Emily was uncertain, her imagination darting in several directions. “Lies? Blaming others, innocent people? Thomas isn't in any danger, is he? They wouldn't try to—” She saw Charlotte's face and stopped herself, but it was too late.

“I don't think so,” Charlotte said slowly. “Of course it's possible, especially when the people who are the victims could also be part of the crime. Nobody wants to believe it, but when we're frightened we can act without thought. We lash out at the people who are telling us what we don't want to know.”

Emily wanted to say something helpful, but no words would come. There was no point in suggesting the corruption could be slight. It was the fear of it, the possibility, that was poisonous.

Charlotte sat up straight. “We are way ahead of any reality. We still have time to find out who the bomber is, and deal with him. Even if it's Alexander Duncannon. Actually, it does seem more likely that someone who is against this contract, for whatever reason, probably financial, is trying to make it look like Alexander, so as to discredit his father. Apparently the success of the negotiations depends a great deal upon him.”

“That's what Jack says,” Emily agreed. “He's not only gifted but he has all the right contacts. People like him, and trust him, and the trust is what matters. Alexander being even suspected, never mind charged, might affect that pretty badly.”

“We don't have a really good alternative theory of who is behind the bombing,” Charlotte said unhappily, “except police corruption of who knows what quality. I think Thomas is going to find this far more painful than he expects. I've watched him…I can see it in his face. Emily, I'm frightened too. It's the destruction of things we've believed in all the time I can remember.”

Emily did not argue; there was no denial to be made.

P
ITT RETURNED HIS ATTENTION
to the physical evidence of the bombing again, hoping that the break would bring him fresh perception. He concentrated on that which was incontrovertible and had no alternative interpretations.

“Sorry, sir,” Stoker said when they had reexamined everything, all the fragments from the building, sketches and photographs of what was left of the house at Lancaster Gate, and the architect's drawings of what the house had been like before the bomb.

They reread every report from the police who had survived, and from the fire brigade. Separately they went through the medical reports on those alive, and the police surgeon's autopsy reports on the dead.

They checked the information provided by the informer who called himself Anno Domini, and went over every noted time so there were no discrepancies. Was Anno Domini—A.D.—actually Alexander Duncannon? Trying yet another way to force police attention? It looked like it to Pitt.

They could trace the dynamite from the quarry from which it had been stolen, through the foreman and to the first man to whom he had sold it. From then on it disappeared. “An anarchist” was all the description they could gain. Dark-haired, young. It could apply to Alexander Duncannon—but also to three-quarters of all the anarchists, nihilists, and fugitives from European and Russian law that they knew of.

“We're no closer to solving this,” Stoker said when they had finished. “And we are as sure as we ever can be that we know them all. I've even looked at all the odd military or would-be military groups, or arrogant young would-be generals. We can't hide it anymore, sir. We've got to look at Duncannon. I don't care who his father is.” Stoker stood facing Pitt, his lean shoulders square, his eyes undeviating. Every angle of his body said he disliked the task as much as Pitt did, and therefore he was bent on getting it over with.

Neither of them had said so, but both of them knew that the rather delicate relationship between Special Branch and the police would be strained by even the suggestion that the murdered men were in any way responsible for their own appalling deaths, or the burns that Bossiney would carry for the rest of his life, or Yarcombe's lost arm. To look into the possibility at all would be seen as a slur on the maimed and the dead, and an insult to every other officer or man who daily worked to keep the law and serve the public.

What would it do to the future cooperation between the forces that Special Branch in particular relied on? The whole idea of a police force, with power to search a man's house, question his servants or even his family, was a relatively new idea among the general public, and, with some, still unpopular.

Special Branch, on the other hand, was accepted by patriotic men, so long as they did not bother people too much and did not intrude into any man's private affairs. It was agreed that there had always been spies, recognized and dealt with discreetly, since the days of Queen Elizabeth and her spymaster, Walsingham. It was something one did not refer to, except in private with one's most trusted friends. Best to keep on the right side of the fellow in charge of it, who was usually a gentleman anyway, more or less.

It was the regular police whose toes Special Branch trod on occasionally, and whose cooperation they needed a sight too often.

Pitt was angry, mainly with himself.

“Looking into this will turn the whole force against us,” he pointed out, staring at the papers spread out on the table between them.

“You think Tellman's wrong?” Stoker said with raised eyebrows.

“No,” Pitt admitted. “He hates this even more than we do.”

“I don't hate it,” Stoker contradicted him. “Any policeman who thinks it's all right to tamper with evidence, pick and choose what bits he'll show and what he'll hide, lie about things, change times and records, take money if he thinks he can get away with it, or beat the hell out of a few witnesses or villains if he's in a bad temper, is a disgrace to the force and should be got rid of, before he poisons everyone. When they're no better than the men they're chasing, we've all had it! I don't care how much they resent it. If they'd got rid of those practices themselves, then we wouldn't have to.”

Pitt gave him a long, cold look. “You want them to come and take a close look at us?”

Stoker colored faintly. “That's not exactly fair, sir. If you caught any one of us doing anything like that we'd be charged with treason, and be out in a day. It's a much tougher service, and you know that.”

“Yes, it is,” Pitt conceded. “But the police still have to trust each other. You don't want to go into any sort of a fight if you can't trust the man who's always there beside you, watching for you.” He looked at Stoker's face. “All right, I know: I just made your point for you. But this is still going to cause a hell of a lot of ill feeling. The next time we need police help, we may be damn lucky to get it!”

Stoker's hard, blue eyes widened. “We may clear their good name, sir!”

“Don't be so damn stupid,” Pitt snapped, hating himself for the situation he had walked into, and Stoker for his perception of it. He was even annoyed with Tellman for caring so much, and still having gone on and on after Ednam and his men. “I've got to know more, with proof, before I face them with it. I wish to hell there were a way out of it, but there isn't.”

Pitt needed to talk about it with someone who understood what damage it might do, both if he did as Stoker had suggested—and he knew he must—or if he did not. He had long ago learned what good and honest argument could do. At the very least it would force him to defend his decision and see the flaws in it before it was too late.

In times past, with ordinary civilian murder cases, he had talked things through with Charlotte, but this was different. There was only one person who would understand it perfectly and be willing to counteract him with both reason and passion. That was Victor Narraway. He might even have faced a similar situation himself, although Pitt had looked through the records of Narraway's years, and found nothing especially comparable.

But then he himself had made no written notes on the possibility of police corruption. It was not something he wanted to have on paper. Narraway might have felt the same.

V
ESPASIA WAS OUT WHEN
Pitt visited her home. It was now only three days before Christmas, but this was the first moment he was touched by the joy of the season. There was a tree in the hall, decorated with colored balls and golden tinsel. Delicate angels of spun glass hung from the upper branches, their gossamer wings seeming to trap and hold the light.

In the sitting room Narraway poured Pitt a very small portion of brandy, ignoring his protests, and they sat on either side of the fire, smelling the faint fragrance of burning applewood. There was a plate of warm mince pies on the small table beside them.

Pitt explained the situation and watched Narraway's face grow more and more serious.

“And you're going to start digging into this trial of Dylan Lezant tomorrow?” Narraway said finally.

“I would be delighted to escape it,” Pitt replied ruefully. “But I don't see how I can.”

“What do you expect from me?” The firelight accentuated the shadows on Narraway's face, the concentration in his expression.

“An analysis of the political fallout,” Pitt replied immediately. “And any advice you have as to how best to go about it. What procedure do I use if the evidence is there and I need to contain it?”

Narraway did not answer for several minutes. There was no sound in the room except the crackle of flames in the hearth. Somewhere outside, beyond the window and its curtains, came the distant sound of carol singers in the street.

Pitt noticed how much more masculine the room had become since Narraway had moved in. Vespasia's paintings were still on the walls, scenes from her youth and from generations even earlier. But there were some of Narraway's favorite charcoal drawings of bare trees as well. They were a total contrast, and yet they complemented each other. It completed the sense of balance in the room, and Pitt liked it.

A log settled in the hearth, sending up a shower of sparks. Narraway leaned over and took a fresh one from the box, putting it on top of the others. The flames leaped up quickly to accept it.

“If what Tellman says is true,” he said at last, “then you have to start immediately. And Tellman is a good man. I think he would not say this if he could escape it. I assume he has no history with Ednam? Or any of the others? No, I assumed not. You have to know if it is just bad practice at that station, petty corruption that you can discipline the men for, perhaps get rid of the worst of them…although, God help us, it rather looks as if young Duncannon may have done that for you.”

“Of course Tellman hates it,” Pitt agreed. “I could think of a strong argument for dealing with it as discreetly as possible, with some acceptable story for the public, if I were sure there was no more than Tellman found. But if it has any connection at all with the shooting for which Lezant was hanged, then it can't be left. For a start, Duncannon will open it up again, whatever else we do on a smaller scale.”

“If it is Duncannon,” Narraway pointed out. “Better find out about Ednam and his men on one hand, and about Lezant on the other. Put them together only if you have to. I assume you've gone over the bombing evidence with a fine-tooth comb?”

“Of course. There's nothing definitive in it.”

“And this ‘Anno Domini'?” Narraway gave a wry smile. “You think that's Alexander Duncannon?”

“No way to be sure,” Pitt replied. “But I think so, and I have to investigate his story about Lezant.”

“I can't see a way out of it either,” Narraway said unhappily. “But the cost could be high, and I think it will be. For God's sake, be careful, Pitt. You don't know how far this goes.”

Pitt felt the coldness close up tightly inside him, like a lump of ice. New possibilities took form in his imagination: corruption deeper than merely that of Ednam and his men. If it was someone higher than Ednam conniving at an appalling murder, then they would react powerfully, perhaps violently, to Pitt's attempt to expose them all.

Narraway was watching him intently. “Be prepared for the worst. This may go very deep. If Alexander really believes his friend was innocent—”

“He does,” Pitt interrupted. “Right or wrong, he believes it.”

“Then be prepared for what that means,” Narraway warned.

“He may be right,” Pitt agreed a little tartly. “I know that!”

“Not only that.” Narraway's face was bleak. “It means the police lied under oath to get Lezant convicted and hanged. That's not only a particularly terrible and deliberate kind of murder, it's a perversion of the law that affects everyone in England. It is the safeguard for all of us, of the system itself. Those who offend against it have to be recognized, and punished. Surely I don't have to explain the core of that to you?”

“No, you don't!” Pitt heard the sharpness in his own voice and regretted it, but he resented Narraway telling him as if he might not have understood.

“The Lezant case was a couple of years ago,” Narraway went on.

For an instant Pitt thought that he was referring to the fact that Narraway himself had been in charge of Special Branch then, not Pitt. Did that make any difference? Was he saying, obliquely, that he had known something about it?

“Did it involve Special Branch?” Pitt asked sharply. Was this even blacker than he had thought? What could possibly have concerned Special Branch that would have made Narraway connive at such an abysmal miscarriage of justice? What would be important enough to pervert justice to hang an innocent man? Who had Dylan Lezant been that they destroyed him that way?

“No, it bloody well did not!” Narraway was staring at him incredulously. “But if Alexander Duncannon always believed Lezant was innocent then you need to know why, and who he believed was guilty. Is he so far over the edge that he had no reason beyond his own emotions to think so? If that's true, why didn't his father have him put away? Or has Godfrey no idea what's going on? Did Alexander tell him, or not? How is the relationship between them? What does the mother know, and what did she do, if anything?”