‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ Stoker said, regaining a little of his composure. ‘It’s pretty plain from what she said to Dobson that she thought someone had come after her, and she wouldn’t tell Dobson who. But nobody does that about an affair, whoever it’s with.’
‘No,’ Pitt conceded. ‘In fact I wonder now if Kynaston confessed to one at all only in order to satisfy our curiosity and get us to stop looking for anything further.’
Stoker bit his lip. ‘Can’t get away from that one, sir.’
‘For heaven’s sake, sit down!’ Pitt told him. ‘We’ve got to go back to the beginning on this. Did Dobson say if the blood and hair on the areaway steps were hers? If they were, how did they get there? I assume he didn’t fight with her? Were they put there to mislead? Did someone try to stop her? Who? It’s hard to believe it was any kind of coincidence.’
Stoker coloured again. ‘I didn’t ask him. I’ll go back and do that. Most likely seems to me that it was some kind of accident. Maybe she tripped.’
‘One accident I can believe in,’ Pitt answered. ‘Two I can’t. Whose body was it in the gravel pit? The local police can’t find anyone missing, and they’ve checked for several miles around. Whoever it is, poor woman, she died violently, then was kept somewhere for several days between the time of her death and the time she was found in the gravel pit. And she was appallingly mutilated. There’s no accident whatever in that.’
‘No, sir. Someone’s playing a very funny game with us. The stakes must be high.’
‘Very high,’ Pitt said gravely. ‘And I’m not sure we even know who the players are.’
‘Is Mr Carlisle a player, or a pawn?’ Stoker asked.
‘That’s another thing I don’t know,’ Pitt replied. ‘I’ve known him a long time. I think it will be wise to assume he’s a player.’
‘On whose side?’
‘Ours — I hope.’
‘And Mr Kynaston?’
‘I think that is where we begin. Delegate everything else for the time being.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Chapter Eleven
Pitt had sat up very late the previous evening, rereading all the papers he had on the Kynaston case. He thought of it in those terms because the root of it lay in Kynaston’s house. He had finally gone to bed at about half-past one, when the pages were swimming before his eyes and he was only wasting time looking at them.
He was jerked out of sleep by Charlotte’s hand on his shoulder, gentle but quite firm, shaking him. He opened his eyes and saw pale grey daylight in the room. It was the first of March. The sun was rising earlier every day. The equinox was less than three weeks away, the first day of spring.
‘Sorry. I slept in,’ he mumbled, sitting up reluctantly. His head felt thick and there was a dull ache at the back of his neck.
‘It isn’t all that late,’ she said quietly. Her voice was soft, but he had known her too long and too well to miss the strain in it.
Suddenly he was truly awake. ‘What’s happened?’ His mind raced over thoughts first of his children, then of Vespasia, or even Charlotte’s mother. Now he was cold, clenched up.
‘They’ve found another body in one of the gravel pits up on Shooters Hill,’ she answered. Her face was anxious, her brow furrowed.
All he felt was a wave of relief, as if the warm blood had started to flow in his body again. He threw off the covers and stood up.
‘I’d better get dressed and go. Who called you? I didn’t hear the telephone.’
‘Stoker’s here waiting for you, with a hansom. I’ll make him a cup of tea and a slice of toast while you’re dressing, and there’ll be some for you when you come down.’
He drew in his breath to argue, but she was already at the door.
‘And don’t tell me you haven’t time!’ she called. ‘The tea will be ready to drink, and you can carry the toast with you.’
Fifteen minutes later he was washed, dressed, hastily shaved, and sitting beside Stoker in the cab. They were going as fast as possible through the broadening daylight, rattling over the cobbles heading south.
‘Local police called me,’ Stoker told him. ‘Haven’t been there yet, came straight for you. They said this one’s worse. A lot worse.’
‘Another woman?’ Pitt asked.
‘Yes. But with fair hair.’ Stoker did not look at Pitt as he said it. Perhaps he was ashamed of it, but there was relief in his voice.
‘Does anyone know who she is? Any of the local police recognise her?’ Pitt asked.
Stoker shook his head. ‘Not at the time they called. Maybe they’ve got further now.’
Neither of them spoke for the rest of the journey as the hansom slowed a little going up the incline through Blackheath and then beyond on to Shooters Hill. Here the countryside was bare, the wind raking the grass between the few clumps of trees, which were none of them yet in leaf. Some of the gravel pits were filled with water after the winter rains.
Pitt prepared himself for the blast of the wind, which would be heavy and damp when he got out. He tried to imagine the sight that was waiting for them, as if foreknowledge could blunt the edge of the impact.
‘I ain’t waitin’ for yer,’ the cabby said gravely, his face windburned, half hidden by the muffler around his neck and chin. ‘I’nt fair ter me ’orse.’
‘Wouldn’t think of asking you.’ Pitt climbed out a little stiffly and paid the man generously more than he had asked for.
The driver found a sudden change of manner. ‘Thank you,’ he said with surprise. ‘Good o’ yer … sir.’ Then, before Pitt could have the chance to change his mind, he urged his horse on, turned in a circle, and headed back down towards Greenwich to find another fare.
Pitt and Stoker walked into the wind towards the group of men they could see huddled about a hundred yards away. The tussock grass was rough and the ground between littered with small stones and weeds. In moments their boots were covered with pale, sandy mud.
Some movement must have caught the eye of one of the men because he turned, and then started to walk towards them, the loose ends of his scarf flapping. Before he reached them he stopped, nodding to Stoker, then speaking to Pitt.
‘Sorry, sir. Looks too much like the last one not to let you know. Over this way.’ He started to walk back, head bent, feet making no sound on the spongy earth.
Pitt and Stoker followed, each consumed in their own thoughts.
The sergeant in charge was the same man as before. He looked tired and cold. ‘Mind those tracks there,’ he directed, pointing at what there was of a pathway. ‘Looks like a pony and trap, or something of the sort. Might have nothing to do with the body, but more than likely it was what the swine brought her here in.’
‘So she didn’t die here?’ Pitt asked.
The man bit his lip. ‘No, sir. Looks just like the other one back a few weeks ago. Even got the same kind of hair, same sort of build. From what you can tell, she must a’ bin real ’andsome when she were alive. We’ll need the doc to tell us for sure, but I reckon that wasn’t all that lately. Week or two, at any rate.’
‘Hidden from view?’ Pitt asked.
‘That’s it,’ the sergeant replied, ‘she wasn’t. She was right out there for anyone passing to see. Couldn’t hardly miss her, poor creature.’
‘So she was put there very recently?’
‘Last night. That’s why the wheel tracks are worth something, or might be.’
‘Who found her?’ Pitt asked.
‘Young couple.’ The sergeant pulled a grim face. ‘Bin out all night. Walking the girl home so she could pretend as she’d been in ’er own bed, like. Not fooling anyone now!’ He gave a bark of laughter.
‘At least they reported it,’ Pitt observed, keeping pace with him. ‘They could have just kept going. Then it might have been a lot longer before we found her. Could have been more wind and rain, and we wouldn’t have found the cart tracks. How far do they go?’
‘Far as the main track over there,’ he pointed. ‘Then they get lost in all the gravel ruts. But then it’s reasonable that’s the way he came. Isn’t really any other way.’