Tellman was tired and his head ached. The hot tea had eased his sore throat a little, but his face ached across the bones of his cheeks. He was in for a really heavy cold.
Gracie looked at him with a rueful smile.
“Yer should take a day in bed,” she told him. “Just sleep as much as yer can. It won’t send it away, but it’ll ’elp.”
“I can’t,” he answered firmly, mostly to convince himself. Nothing sounded better than bed just now. “I’ve got to find out all I can about this bombing.”
“What can you find if it’s anarchists?” she asked reasonably. She sat down sideways on one of the hard-backed chairs at the kitchen table. The room reminded him a little of the Pitts’ kitchen. It had the same colored china, although it was a different pattern. It was still blue and white. And there was a copper saucepan hung on the wall by its handle. Gracie seldom used it, but she liked the beautiful, gleaming color of the metal. He had seen her polish it countless times. The fact that it was hers always made her smile.
On the dresser, where most people would have had special plates, there was a little brown china donkey. He had bought it for her in a market one day, and she had loved it. She said it reminded her of a real one she had known, and she called it Charlie. He looked at it now and smiled. This was home, and he longed to be able to stay here until his cold was better. It would almost certainly be wet tomorrow, and the sting of the east wind could slice through even the best woolen coat and scarf.
“If it’s anarchists then it isn’t crooked police,” he answered. “I’d give a week’s salary-a month’s-to be able to find that.”
“Do you think it could be?” she asked. Gracie never ran away from a problem; at worst she would creep around and attack it from another angle. She was the bravest, and the most stubborn person he knew. He admired it in her, even loved it, but it still frightened him. She might be only the size of a ninepenny rabbit, but she had more fight in her than a weasel.
She passed him a soft cloth rag and he blew his nose fiercely.
“That means you think it could be,” she said very quietly.
“That means I don’t know how to prove it wasn’t,” he argued. “We make mistakes, but we aren’t corrupt. Gracie…if you’d seen them, you’d want to put a spit through whoever did it and slow roast them over the fire!”
“You knew them, didn’t you, Samuel?” she said, biting her lip.
“It could have been me leading that raid on the house.” He met her eyes and saw the pain in them, as she imagined what the other men’s wives must be feeling now.
“But yer weren’t,” she said flatly. She sniffed. “Do yer know what it were about?”
“No. It looks like an opium sale.”
“That’s not what you do, opium!”
“What difference does that make?” he demanded. Why was she arguing? “What if it’d been paintings, or jewelry? Then it could have been me!” he said sharply.
She sat absolutely still, her face tight with pain. “I know that. Ye’re scared for next time they send you somewhere?” She reached forward to touch his hand, and then changed her mind. “I wouldn’t blame yer.”
“No, I don’t think so,” he answered quite honestly. “I think I feel sort of guilty, because they’re in the morgue, blown to pieces, or in hospital burned and broken-and I’m sitting in my own house in a warm kitchen complaining ’cos I’ve got a cold. What makes me different, Gracie? How come I’m alive an’ they’re dead? Or maybe dying! Yarcombe lost his arm.”
“I dunno,” she admitted. “But it ’appens all the time. Mrs. Willetts down at number twenty-three died when her babe was born. An’ I’m as fit as the butcher’s dog. Nobody knows the reasons, Samuel. Least not yet. Maybe one day. I got one reason…”
“Like what?” he said after a moment. He really did not want to know, but she seemed to be waiting for him to ask.
“We’re goin’ to ’ave another baby…”
Suddenly a wave of emotion swept through him, as if there were a fire inside him, filling him up. All the rest of the kitchen melted into shadows and all he could see was Gracie sitting sideways on the chair, the lamplight on her face, a little flushed, her eyes bright.
This was his home, his family, more precious than anything else in the world. It was all he needed for happiness. He must look after them, keep them safe, see that they were always fed, sheltered, happy. Whatever job he had to do, he must do it well. This was his greatest calling in life. He must always look after them.
“Say something!” she urged him. “Are yer pleased?”
Tears choked him. “Of course I’m pleased,” he said, reaching for the cloth and blowing his nose again. “I’m…I’m happier than any man has a right to be.”
“Then get up to bed and sleep,” she ordered. “Sleep termorrer too.” She gave him a quick hug, which he returned, tightly, but he still argued.
“I can’t, I’ve got to go to work. I need to prove to Pitt that this is anarchists, and nothing to do with the police!”
Tellman felt thickheaded and his throat was sore when he woke up, but he pretended he was better. However his first words to Gracie were punctuated by a hacking cough, so her total disbelief was understandable.
“Go back to bed,” she said gently. “I’ll bring yer up an ’ot drink and a nice crisp slice o’ toast. I got some good, sharp marmalade.”
For an instant he hesitated. He could hear the rain against the kitchen window, even though it was warm inside. She must have been up for some time, because the cooker was hot and the whole kitchen was comfortable, the air soft to the skin.
“Yes,” he said huskily. “But I’ll have it down here. Got to go and see more about the injured men again.” He knew he must look into whatever they had in common. Was the bomber aiming at them in particular? Or police in general? At anybody to pay for the one he thought was corrupt? He sat down at the kitchen table. He could see by the clock on the dresser that he was late already, but he could afford ten or fifteen minutes more. Perhaps the rain would ease.
Gracie opened the door to the hot coals and put a slice of bread on the toasting fork. While he waited he poured himself a large mug of tea.
She brought him the toast, crisp and perfect. He thanked her for it, and reached for the butter. Then he spread the marmalade on and bit into the slice. It was delicious and piquant enough to taste, even thickheaded as he was and totally robbed of the sense of smell.
“What are you looking for?” she persisted. She never gave up.
“Lots of things, maybe,” he answered, swallowing the first mouthful.
“Like what?”
“Why those particular men,” he said to begin with. “Do they usually work together, or was it for a special case?”
“Why does that matter?”
“So we know if it was the case they were attacked for, or if it was them the bomber wanted,” he explained.
“Would an anarchist care who it was?” she asked, taking a second piece of toast off the fork and putting it back on so the other side faced the coals.
“They wouldn’t,” he answered with his mouth full.
“So yer think they was after them police in particular?” she concluded.
“I have to make sure that isn’t the case.” He evaded the question.
“So what’ll you do? Give it back to Mr. Pitt, then?” She was not going to leave it alone.
“If it was anarchists, I suppose so. That’s his job.” He realized he was not sure if that was what he wanted to do. There was a discomfort at the back of his mind, a need to defend his own men from the smear of corruption that had been suggested. And more than that, the victims were police. They deserved justice.
“Except I don’t want to,” he said instead. “I want to follow it all the way, and see the end of it.” He looked up at her and saw the anxiety in her sharp, bright little face. Although she was married and expecting her second child, there was so much in her that was still like the quick, brave, confrontational girl he had first met years ago, when he was Pitt’s sergeant and she was his opinionated little housemaid. She had challenged Tellman, contradicted him, and far too often been right. He had tried very hard not to fall in love with her, and failed utterly. It had taken him years even to catch her attention, let alone her respect. At least that was how it seemed.