Would he have sense, when it came to Jemima marrying someone?
Not necessary to think of now. It was years away! Years and years!
They were moving steadily south towards the river. No doubt the driver would take them along the Embankment, then over one of the bridges on to the south bank.
Pitt regarded Stoker with a new respect. He had not thought him capable of such human observation. It came to him in a rush of clarity that he did not know Stoker very much at all. Outside his skill and intelligence in the job, and his well-proven loyalty, he was almost unknown!
‘So you think Rosalind Kynaston is not having an affair?’ he asked.
‘That’s right, sir. She looks like a woman who has very little to be happy about,’ Stoker agreed.
‘Do you think she knows of Kynaston’s affair?’
‘Probably. In my experience people do know, especially women, even if they can’t afford to admit to themselves that they do. Of course, when they’re not in Society, and there’s not much money or a nice house to lose, there’s not the same need to fix a smile on your face and pretend you’ve seen nothing. And I’ll bet you anything you like,’ he added, ‘she’s not the one who killed anyone and laid them out in the gravel pits — or slashed their faces to bits!’
Pitt shivered. ‘Quite. But you agree that whoever is doing it, the whole thing is connected to the Kynaston house?’
‘No question,’ Stoker agreed. ‘I just don’t know how! I’ve been turning it over and over, but nothing makes complete sense. For a start, why these mutilations? What kind of a person cuts the flesh on the face of someone who’s already dead? The only reason I can think of is to disguise who it is. But we’ve got no idea, anyway.’
‘Or to draw our attention to it,’ Pitt said, thinking aloud.
‘You mean two dead women dumped in a gravel pit isn’t going to make us stop and think?’ Stoker asked with heavy disbelief.
‘Doesn’t make as big a headline as two that are mutilated in exactly the same way,’ Pitt pointed out.
‘What’s the point of that?’ Stoker was now looking at Pitt curiously, as if he expected an answer. He stared more intently. ‘You mean it’s to draw our attention even more to Kynaston? Like the handkerchiefs?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Why?’ Stoker repeated.
‘That’s what I am struggling with,’ Pitt told him, trying to find words that were honest, and yet did not tell him about Somerset Carlisle. Not naming him would be easy, but Stoker would know the answer was being evaded, and that was an insult he did not deserve. It would also damage the trust between them, which was one of Pitt’s greatest assets. Without the trust of his men he was alone. He was increasingly aware of the lack of confidence from people like Talbot, and possibly others in the Government. Even in Lisson Grove he had yet to earn the kind of respect they had had for Victor Narraway.
‘One thought that came to me,’ Pitt went on as they crossed over the river and turned east, ‘is that if Kynaston is suspected and the net seems to be closing around him, he would be extremely grateful to anyone who could prove his innocence …’
‘He won’t thank us for long, sir,’ Stoker said with an odd gentleness, as if he were protecting a younger man from disillusion.
Pitt avoided looking at him, suddenly both moved and amused by his desire to prevent a pain that afflicted everyone from time to time. It was reality, bitter and as sharp as the icy edge of the spring winds that so often take the early flowers.
Pitt had to speak quickly, dispel the mistake before it had taken shape.
‘I know that, Stoker. I was considering the possibility of someone else offering him rescue, at a price — someone who owes him nothing, but to whom he might then owe a very great deal.’
Stoker’s eyes widened, sharp and bright. ‘I see! At a price he would then go on paying indefinitely! That would be very clever indeed. And we would look stupid. We might find ourselves listened to rather less the next time we suspect someone!’
Pitt had not even thought of that. He wished that he had. It was a powerful and dangerous possibility.
‘Indeed,’ he said softly, barely heard above the noise of the traffic along Rotherhithe Street. ‘It grows uglier, doesn’t it? At least the possibilities do. The question arises again — who?’
‘There seem to be conflicting lines of evidence, sir,’ Stoker answered. ‘One of them regarding Kynaston having a mistress and being guilty of murdering the maid who found out about it, but that doesn’t make a lot of sense — unless there’s a major piece missing. And then why four different women?’
Pitt was puzzled for a moment.
‘Kitty Ryder, the first woman in the gravel pit, the second woman in the gravel pit, and the mistress,’ Stoker counted. ‘There’s no way any two of those could be the same person.’
‘I can’t think of anything that makes sense of that,’ Pitt admitted. ‘And yet the two women in the gravel pit are linked by several circumstances: the place they were found, but not necessarily where they were killed; the fact they had been kept somewhere before being put in the gravel; the mutilations, which were hideous and seem to serve no purpose at all, because they were inflicted after death, but were not effective in hiding their identity, because we don’t know them anyway. They both appear to have been maids, but no one has come forward to claim them. Not to mention Kynaston’s watch on one and his fob on the other.’
Stoker nodded. ‘So what about it all being nothing to do with who the women are, but to do with Kynaston — to try to blackmail or coerce him into doing something? Or not doing something? Perhaps he’s behaving so stupidly about this whole thing because he had some evidence that would ruin someone, and he’s being blackmailed into silence?’
‘Possible,’ Pitt agreed. It was possible indeed — and Somerset Carlisle did not fit into that story at all. That was why, much as he longed to believe it, Pitt did not.
‘You got another idea, sir?’ Stoker asked.
‘Only a possibility,’ Pitt answered. He could not shut it out any longer. He was lying to Stoker, and to himself. Somerset Carlisle was as sharp as an open razor in his brain. But Carlisle would not kill — surely? What would he care about enough to do all this: the bodies stolen from somewhere, the mutilation, which must have been hideous, almost unbearable to him, and yet he had performed this — if indeed it was him?
The only answer that fitted it all was something as serious as treason.
‘Sir?’ Stoker’s voice broke through his thoughts.
‘To force us to dig until we find the greater crime,’ Pitt answered.
‘Greater than murder?’ Stoker’s tone was hard with anger and disbelief.
‘Yes, worse than murder,’ Pitt answered levelly. ‘Treason.’
Stoker sat rigid. He gulped. ‘Yes, sir. I never thought of that — not — not in all this …’
‘Please God, you have no need to,’ Pitt said, staring straight ahead of him. ‘It’s only an idea …’
‘No, sir,’ Stoker turned to face the front also. ‘It’s our job.’
Whistler met them in his office in the morgue, a place that had become unpleasantly familiar to Pitt in the last few weeks. This time Whistler was busy and in no mood to offer the hospitality of tea.
‘Newspapers got it,’ he said curtly. ‘Just want you to know it wasn’t me.’ He glared at Pitt as if already Pitt had doubted him. ‘Like bloody dogs sniffing out the smell of death!’ he said bitterly. ‘Don’t know what the hell they’ll make of this one — probably anything and everything.’ He started to shake his head, and ended up with his whole body shuddering, as if he had been dropped in cold water. ‘The mutilations were all after death. Told you that before. When I looked at them closely, so were the broken bones. Only a few made when she was alive, most importantly, the fracture of the skull. Bruises were made at the same time. Can’t bruise after you’re dead. No blood flow.’
Pitt stared at him. ‘Was it the blow to the head that killed her?’ He did not know what he wanted Whistler to say. It was a nightmare. All that would make it any better was to wake up.