‘Blow,’ Whistler repeated the word, turning it over in his mind, examining it.
‘Was it?’ Pitt snapped.
‘Large, flat object,’ Whistler said slowly. ‘Lot of bruises, can’t define them exactly. Too long dead now. My opinion? She fell downstairs and cracked her head on the floor at the bottom. Nothing to think it wasn’t accidental.’
Pitt felt relief wash over him with an intensity that was close to the sort of pain you get when a frozen limb comes back to life. ‘So she wasn’t murdered?’
‘No reason to think she was,’ Whistler agreed. ‘But what bloody, God-awful lunatic then cut half her face off — that’s another question — yours, not mine!’
Pitt thanked him with a nod, and they left.
First Pitt would go and speak with Somerset Carlisle. If he had continued all this horror in order to force Pitt into investigating Kynaston, then it was time to face him and demand what crime he believed him guilty of.
He was undecided at first whether to warn Carlisle of his coming. Surprise had many advantages, and if he were to make it a formal appointment then he would have to state his reason for it. But if he did not, the chances were high of finding that Carlisle was not at home. And perhaps it would be a deceit that would only make him look absurd if he attempted deviousness. He picked up the telephone and made the appointment. Carlisle made no argument at all; in fact he had sounded as if Pitt were welcome.
As it was, a soberly dressed manservant welcomed Pitt at the door and ushered him into a pleasant and very individual sitting room where Carlisle spent the few evenings he had at home, in the winter by the fire now warming the whole room. For the summer there was a well-curtained french door.
‘This must be important,’ Carlisle said with a wry smile. ‘It’s a filthy night. What price spring, eh? Still, I suppose it will be the more welcome when it comes. Sit down.’ He indicated a whisky glass on a table beside the chair from which he had risen. ‘Whisky? Sherry?’ He winced very slightly. ‘Tea?’
‘Later, thank you,’ Pitt replied. ‘If you still feel like offering it.’ He found his throat tight and his mouth dry with the prospect of the unpleasantness to come, and a good whisky would have warmed him. Since he rose in rank, and income, he had learned the difference between good whisky and average. But he needed a clear head tonight. He could not afford to give Carlisle any advantage at all.
‘That bad?’ Carlisle indicated an armchair, then sat back down in the chair opposite. His keen face showed a similar tension to that that Pitt felt knotting inside him.
There was no point in being evasive. ‘I think so,’ he replied.
Carlisle smiled, as if they were playing some desperate parlour game. ‘And what is it that you think I can do? I know no one who murders women and leaves them in gravel pits. Believe me, if I did, I would already have told you.’
‘Actually, it is not so much that they died that concerns me at the moment,’ Pitt smiled back. ‘It is what appears to be their connection with Dudley Kynaston.’ He glanced around the room with sharpening interest. He took time to notice the naval memorabilia more closely. The beauty of one of the paintings suggested a very fine artist, and perhaps worth a great deal of money. If not, then it had been chosen with some diligence. Perhaps it was inherited from someone who had long loved the sea.
Carlisle was waiting for him to continue. How direct should he be?
‘Kynaston’s gold watch was found on the first body,’ he said, watching Carlisle’s expression and seeing only the slightest change. ‘And the fob on the second woman. Among other things perhaps less tangible.’
Carlisle hesitated. Quite clearly he was debating within himself whether to banter or to face the real battle. He must have decided on the latter because the amusement died out of his eyes and suddenly in the firelight and the softer glow of the gas brackets above him, the lines in his face seemed deeper. He was older than Pitt, perhaps into his fifties. It was his energy that occasionally made one forget that. Now the sun and windburn from his years of climbing, the lines around his eyes where he had peered into far distances, marked his features.
‘A very marked connection. How did he explain it?’ Carlisle asked.
‘That his watch was stolen by a pickpocket,’ Pitt replied.
‘And you believe him?’
‘I’m inclined to. It is not beyond your abilities to have had someone take it for you.’
‘Good heavens! Rather a back-handed compliment to my abilities. A dangerous undertaking, don’t you think?’
‘Extremely,’ Pitt agreed. ‘Therefore you had a very good reason. I cannot imagine any love affair he could have which would stir your anger or passion to the degree where you would use these women like this in order to draw me in.’
‘He has at times allowed his heart to rule his head,’ Carlisle answered sharply, weighing his words. ‘Not to love is to die by inches. Or perhaps it is worse than that. Maybe it is to hesitate on the shore of life and never step into its waters. But take it too far, and one can not only drown oneself, but take others with you.’
‘True,’ Pitt agreed. ‘But I believe you have something very specific in mind.’
Carlisle’s eyebrows rose in a sharp double V shape. ‘Verbally, perhaps. But you are calling upon me, not I on you.’
‘Really?’ Pitt said softly. ‘I had the idea that perhaps you were calling upon me, and that it was time I answered.’
Carlisle hesitated barely a second. ‘Indeed? What gave you that idea, or are we past that particular point?’
‘We are past it.’
‘I see. And your answer is?’ Carlisle sat motionless, his whisky forgotten. In fact, he had not drunk more than a couple of sips. Its colour reflected gold in the firelight, in the cut crystal it looked like a jewel itself.
‘You have my attention,’ Pitt replied. ‘I am listening.’
Carlisle did not answer.
‘Come on!’ Pitt said more sharply than he had intended. Carlisle was stretching his nerves. He could not afford to lose this game. Nothing in all of his experience with Carlisle suggested he had ever acted lightly or taken crazy risks that could cost him his freedom, even his life, unless the stakes were high enough to warrant it.
‘I investigated Kynaston, and found nothing,’ Pitt continued. ‘Kitty Ryder is still alive, but she left at night, and without taking her belongings. She must have been very afraid of something. I can’t see it as being the fact that apparently Kynaston has a mistress, unless she were an extraordinarily powerful man’s wife?’ Even as he said it, he did not believe it himself.
‘That’s not worthy of you, Pitt,’ Carlisle sounded disappointed. ‘Why the hell should I care who Kynaston’s in bed with?’
‘You don’t,’ Pitt agreed. ‘So I wonder what it is you do care about — sufficiently to step into this macabre farce. And it is a farce, isn’t it?’
Carlisle’s eyes did not leave Pitt’s face. ‘Is it?’ he whispered.
‘If I don’t find the truth of it, yes it is!’ Pitt responded sharply, his own nerves taut.
He saw a flicker of fear in Carlisle’s eyes, just for a moment, so brief he was not even certain he had seen it at all.
‘I don’t believe you killed either one of them,’ he added. ‘In fact you probably never saw them alive.’
Carlisle breathed out slowly. Something within him eased, but only a fraction.
‘And put the pieces of the watch there as well,’ Pitt continued. He did not mention the mutilations; that was a hideous lacuna between them. ‘And probably the cupboard key. You must have been damn sure I wouldn’t connect it up, and charge you!’
‘You’re the best detective I know,’ Carlisle replied, his voice a little hoarse, as if his lungs were starved, his throat tight.
‘So what is it you want me to find?’ Pitt leaned forward. ‘You left those women up there for the animals to eat! What matters that much to you, Carlisle? Murder? Multiple murder?’ He said the last word very carefully. ‘Still not enough! It has to be treason!’