He felt a sudden rush of emotion, almost overpowering. He could see something of himself in her, but so very much more of her mother. That moment’s discreet gentleness was exactly what he had observed Charlotte do, the quiet selflessness. Jemima was not yet sixteen, and there it was, the instinct to nurture, to protect.
How could he protect Jack, or Emily, in this wretched business, without crossing the boundaries of his own morality?
Jack had made a bad error of judgement with his loyalties once before. There would be those very happy to remind his superior of it, and throw his wisdom into doubt. The safety of the state was Pitt’s duty, above and beyond that to those he loved. No one in the public trust could favour their own family. It was, perhaps, the ultimate betrayal of the oath he had taken, and the faith in him he had accepted.
And yet he learned secrets he did not want to know, vulnerabilities he could not protect. He had his own network of debts and loyalties; it was what made life precious: the honour, and the caring. Without such things it was empty, a long march to nowhere.
Carlisle had done favours for all of them, in one case or another, especially for Vespasia. Could Pitt ever trust Vespasia in this, if Carlisle were involved, and he was becoming increasingly afraid that he was? She needed innocence of what he was doing, complete innocence, not an excuse for it.
Perhaps Victor Narraway was the only one he could trust without placing an intolerable burden on him.
But thinking back on their last meeting, perhaps he too was now compromised? He cared for Vespasia far more deeply than mere friendship. After all the fancies and hungers of his youth, and adventures since then, even his care for Charlotte, was this to be the love of his life, the one that touched him too deeply to heal over, or pass by?
What were Vespasia’s feelings for him, more than friendship, interest, affection? No man, especially one so sensitive under the shell as Victor Narraway, could settle happily for that! If you love you want it all.
None of that should affect Pitt. Why should he interfere, except to make the decision not to place Narraway into such temptation again regarding the Kynaston case?
Pitt was alone in whatever action he took, or refrained from. He was more truly alone than he could ever recall. Whatever he did about Somerset Carlisle, it was solely his judgement to make. Was he really the right man for this job? He had the intelligence and the experience to detect. He had pursued and found the truth on many occasions where others had failed. On that his promotion was deserved. But had he the wisdom? Did he understand people with money and power, ancient privilege of history and title, pride and loyalty stretching intricate webs into all the great families in the land, and in some cases beyond into Europe?
Was he himself free from all debt and loyalty, all emotional pity that could corrupt? He looked at his family around him in the twilight. And it reached much further than that: to Vespasia, Narraway, Jack and Emily; further still to Charlotte’s mother and her husband. To Somerset Carlisle, even. To all the people who had shared the moments of his life, helped or hurt, to whom he owed if not compassion, then at least honesty.
He did not want to know if Carlisle had placed those dead women in the gravel pit, but he knew he could no longer evade the issue.
If Carlisle had placed the bodies, then where had he obtained them? Pitt refused even to imagine that he had killed them himself, or for that matter paid someone else to. That meant they were already dead. Where would he find corpses that he could take? Not a hospital. He could hardly claim to be a relative because that was unbelievable. Nor, for that matter, could he prove he was an employer or other benefactor.
Therefore he had done it secretly, but certainly with some help. Possibly he had a manservant of some sort that he trusted, or even more likely, someone much closer to the edge of the law whom he had helped in the past, and who was now willing to return the favour.
There were always unclaimed bodies in a morgue, people who had no close relative willing to bury them. It would not be difficult to claim some past association, or previous servant, or relative of a servant, and offer to provide a decent burial, out of pity. Then what? Bury a coffin full of bags of sand, or anything else of the appropriate weight.
That would answer the question of where the bodies had been kept so chilled and clean. It would also explain the timing of discovery of them — only when Carlisle could find one that was suitable. They needed to be young women of the servant class, unclaimed by anyone else, and who had died violently. He must have combed all London for them!
If, of course, he had done it at all!
There was no evidence, only Pitt’s previous knowledge of Carlisle and his belief about his character.
What proof could he find? He could have his men look through all the records of recent deaths of women in the London area, those that were violent and resulted in the kind of injuries the gravel pit corpses had sustained. Then see which were unclaimed by family, and if some benefactor had offered to pay for a funeral.
Then what? Exhume them to see if the corpses were there, or bags of sand instead? Perhaps, but only as a last resort, and he would need far more to justify it than a desperate imagination.
He would have the enquiries made, discreetly. No exhumations until he had evidence.
He must learn more about Carlisle, the opinions of people who had encountered him in other contexts than those Pitt knew for himself. What were the man’s private interests apart from politics and social reform, the numerous battles against injustice. Who were his friends, other than Vespasia? Was there anyone in particular he might have turned to for help in this extraordinary undertaking? Did he know Kynaston personally? Were there any other connections that were worth exploring?
He must do it with great care, and disguise his reasons for asking. If he spoke to more than a very few, Carlisle would undoubtedly hear of it and know exactly what he was doing.
One friend of Carlisle’s whom Pitt spoke to was a highly respected architect by the name of Rawlins. Pitt took him to luncheon at a discreet and expensive restaurant. He gave the pretext of making a check on Carlisle in order to trust him with Special Branch information in order to engage his help in Parliament. Asking about Carlisle’s friends in the past came quite naturally.
‘Erratic,’ Rawlins agreed. ‘I wanted to build towers and spires that reached to the sky,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘Somerset wanted to climb them! I liked him enormously; still do, although I don’t see him so often. But I never understood him. Never knew what he was thinking.’ He sipped the very good red wine they were having with their roast beef.
Pitt waited. He knew from the look of inner concentration on Rawlins’ face that he was searching memory, struggling to understand something that had long eluded him.
‘Then he went off to Italy without finishing his degree,’ Rawlins spoke slowly. ‘Couldn’t understand why at the time. He was in line for a first; he could have been an academic.’
‘A woman?’ Pitt suggested. So far there had been no mention of any love affair, only dalliances, nothing to capture the heart.
‘I thought so at the time,’ Rawlins conceded. He gave a slight shrug and sipped at the wine again. ‘I learned long after that it was to fight with some partisans who were struggling for Italian unification. He never spoke of it himself. I only heard it from a woman I met in Rome, years later. She spoke of him as if his exploits were woven through the best and most fulfilling part of his life. I think she might have been in love with him.’