“Nothing yet,” he answered, meeting her gaze. She looked frightened and worried, and still her composure was complete. If she wanted or needed comfort there was no sign of it.
“Do you want me to come with you?” she offered. “In case Eudora is very distressed? Some people find the invasion of an autopsy very dreadful … as if in some way the person they loved could know about the … the intimacy of it.”
Instinct told him to decline.
“No, thank you. I think this is something better done with as few people involved as possible. I won’t even take Tellman.” He changed the subject. “How is Gracie? She’s taken this matter of Hennessey very bad.”
“I know,” she said softly, her face bleak with sadness and anger. “It will be hard for her for a while. I think the best thing we can do is say as little as possible. It will just take time.”
“By the way, Charlotte.” He looked very directly at her. “Where did you get the newspaper cuttings that Gracie showed to Hennessey?”
“Oh …” She colored uncomfortably. “I think … all things considered … you might prefer not to know that. Please don’t ask, then I shall not have to tell you.”
“Charlotte …”
She smiled at him dazzlingly, and before he could argue, she touched his hand, then turned and went downstairs.
Charlotte turned in the hall and watched him disappear around the newel at the top. Her momentary happiness vanished. She felt so alone she could have cried, which was ridiculous. She was tired. She seemed to have spent weeks trying to make things run smoothly, to prevent quarrels from becoming permanent rifts, trying to make light conversation when all any of them wanted to do was scream at each other, or weep with grief and fear, and now confusion and anxiety as well, and the dark pain of disillusion as things they thought they had known fell apart.
Emily was still terrified for Jack, and she had good cause. She was looking paler and more tired with each day. It was all pointless anyway; nobody was going to solve the Irish Problem. They would probably still be hating each other in fifty years. Was it worth one more life lost or broken?
And what about Eudora? How was she going to find the strength to comfort Piers when he heard the truth about Justine … whatever that truth was? Could he ever find peace within himself once he knew the woman he loved so much now had been his own father’s mistress—and then murdered him? His world was about to end.
And Eudora had not been close enough to him to give the gentleness, the silent understanding he would need. She had not been a large enough part of his experiences in the past to travel through this with him. He would not be able to allow her. Charlotte knew it already from the small things Eudora had said, but more from the way Eudora had watched him with Justine and not known how he would react, what would make him laugh or touch his emotions. Charlotte had felt Eudora’s sense of exclusion, as she felt the sudden chill of her own now.
She watched Pitt’s back as he reached the top of the stairs and wondered if he would turn and look at her. He must know she was still standing by the newel at the bottom.
But he did not. His mind was on Eudora and Piers, and what he must ask of them. So it should be. Perhaps hers was at least in part on Emily.
Aunt Vespasia’s advice seemed hollow. There was probably honor in it, but very little comfort. She turned away and went back to the withdrawing room. Kezia was alone. She ought to talk to her, not simply leave her.
“What do you need to look at him again for?” Piers asked with a shiver. He looked pale and tired, like everyone else, but in no sense afraid. It was perhaps the last evening he was going to have such an innocence.
“I would prefer to see if I am correct before I tell you,” Pitt replied, looking apologetically at Eudora, who had risen and was standing in front of the boudoir fire. She had not taken her eyes from Pitt’s face since he had come in. Thank heaven Justine was not there. She had apparently chosen to retire early.
“I suppose,” she said slowly. “If you must?”
“It matters, Mrs. Greville, or I would not ask,” he assured her. “I really am very sorry.” He was apologizing not only for the present, but for the future as well.
“I know.” She smiled at him, and there was a warmth in her he found it impossible to disbelieve. If it was indeed Doyle behind Finn Hennessey and the bomb, she was never going to heal from this. It would be a mortal wound. Half of him wanted to stay and offer whatever understanding or compassion was possible, the other half wanted to escape before he said or did something, or what he feared for her was betrayed in his face. He hesitated a moment.
She looked at him with increasing anxiety, as if she read his indecision and perceived the reasons.
He turned to Piers.
“There is no point in delaying what must be done,” he said grimly. “It is best to begin.”
Piers took a deep breath. “Yes, of course.” He glanced at his mother, seemed on the edge of saying something, then it eluded him. He moved to the door ahead of Pitt and held it open for him.
They went together, without speaking again, down the stairs, across the hall, through the baize door and along the passage past the kitchens and servants’ hall. Pitt collected the lanterns and led the way past the stillroom, gameroom, coal room, knife room, and general other storage and workplaces to the icehouse. He put the lantern down and took out the keys. Beside him Piers was standing rigidly, as though his muscles were locked. Perhaps Pitt should not have asked this of him? He hesitated with his hand on the key.
“What is it?” Piers asked.
Pitt still could not make a certain decision.
“What’s wrong?” Piers said again.
“Nothing.” It would not make any difference in the end. He put the key in the lock and turned it, then bent and picked up the lantern and went in. The cold hit him immediately, and the damp, slightly sickly smell. Or perhaps it was his imagination, knowing what was there.
“Is there a light?” Piers asked with a tremor in his voice.
“No, only the lanterns. I suppose they usually get the meat out during daylight,” Pitt replied. “And I expect leave the door open.”
Piers closed it and held the other lantern high. The room was quite large, stacked with blocks of ice. The floor was stone tile, with drains to carry off the surplus water. Carcasses of meat hung on hooks from the ceiling: beef, mutton, veal and pork. Offal sat in trays, and several strings of sausages looped over other hooks.
A large trestle table had been moved in, and the outlines of two human bodies were plainly visible under an old velvet dining room curtain, faded now.
Pitt took the curtain off and saw the white, oddly waxy face of Ainsley Greville. The other face, Lorcan McGinley’s, was so swathed in the remains of the study curtain to hide the blood and the injuries that it looked far less obviously human.
Piers took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“What am I looking for?” he asked.
“His neck,” Pitt replied. “The angle of his head.”
“But he’s been moved. What does it matter now? He was hit from behind. We already know that.” Piers frowned. “What are you thinking, Mr. Pitt? What do you know now that we didn’t then?”
“Please look at his neck.”
“That blow wouldn’t break it.” Piers was puzzled. “But if it had, how does that alter anything?”
Pitt looked down at the body and nodded very slightly.
Piers obeyed. There was a very slight moment of reluctance, the knowledge of who it was he was touching so professionally, then he placed his fingers on the skull and moved it gently, then again, exploring, concentrating.
Pitt waited. The cold seemed to eat into him. No wonder meat kept well here. It was not far above freezing, if at all. The damp from the ice seemed to penetrate the flesh. The taste of dead things filled his mouth and nose.