Stoker had been a merchant seaman before joining Special Branch. He was used to authority, but he despised a leader who put his own men in jeopardy unnecessarily. Like most sailors, he had intense respect for the sea. He had the same respect for the terrain over which a battle might be fought, and for the men who fought it beside him.
“I’ll look into it, sir. He’s certainly arrogant enough-and stupid, in his own way. Plenty of cleverness, and damn all wisdom.”
“Thank you,” Pitt said. “I’m going to go back over the victims again. See what they might have done together. Just in case…”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good men, all of them,” Chief Superintendent Cotton said an hour later as Pitt sat in his office. He was superior to Whicker, whose responsibility was only at local level.
Cotton tipped his chair back a little and stared at Pitt. He was about Pitt’s own age, and sunken-cheeked with black, hooded eyes. “Why the devil are you asking?”
“To clear their names,” Pitt said with slight surprise, as if the answer should have been obvious. “You’ve no doubt heard what the newspapers are suggesting, even if you haven’t read them.”
Cotton’s smile did not reach the steady eyes, which were unreadable because they were so shadowed by his brows. “You think they were targeted deliberately?”
“It’s possible. I have to explore it. Disprove it, if I can.”
“Why? Because you were once in the police yourself?”
“Because I want to find the man who did this,” Pitt told him. “And for that I need to know why. It’s not any of the anarchists and general troublemakers we know.”
“Sure of that, are you?”
“Yes.”
Cotton let out his breath. “Bad business.” For the first time he regarded Pitt with some respect. “Those five men had worked together on and off for several years. No better or worse than most. Ednam, poor devil, was a bit self-important, bossy, wouldn’t be told what to do if he thought different. Army background, I suppose. But he wasn’t often wrong. His men looked up to him. He was loyal to them, good or bad. It was appreciated.”
“Good or bad?”
“He turned a blind eye to a few mistakes, or even a few things done on purpose.”
“What sort of things?” Pitt pressed.
“For God’s sake, man!” Cotton said violently, slamming his chair back on all four feet. “The usual sort of things! A bit too much to drink…the odd brawl…laying into a suspect to persuade him to stop lying…one or two arrests a bit rougher than necessary. Find me the policeman that hasn’t crossed the line some time or other, and I’ll show you a boss that doesn’t know his men.”
“Were they disciplined?” Pitt tried to keep his tone neutral, but with difficulty.
Cotton raised his black brows. “I have no idea. I didn’t ask, and neither will you, if you’ve any sense.”
“What about losing evidence? Accepting the odd gift from someone to turn the other way?” Pitt could not let it go yet.
Cotton stared at him.
“Or helping themselves to a little evidence, like a bottle of whisky or a box of cigars?” Pitt went on. “Petty theft a member of the public wouldn’t know? Or care about? Being beaten into giving false testimony or disabled during a violent arrest is a different matter. And being framed for a crime they didn’t commit is another matter altogether. Is that what we’re talking about?”
“No!” Cotton said angrily. “Not in my command, and not that I know about. Do you?”
Pitt was startled. “No I don’t!”
“Swear for all your men, would you? Tellman, for example?” Cotton said, meeting Pitt’s eyes with a totally unreadable expression.
“I would swear for his honesty, yes,” Pitt said without hesitation. “Or any of my men in Special Branch.”
“For his honesty? Interesting,” Cotton observed. “Then what would you not swear for?”
Pitt had to think for a moment. Cotton would remember every word he said, and trip him on them if he could. He would repeat them where he thought it served his purpose. If Pitt denied any possible fault it would mark him as absurd, incompetent, or a deliberate liar.
“He’s an idealist,” he chose his words. “And loyal. He might see what he hoped to see, and be blind to something uglier. I don’t know if he would necessarily report a man’s error, if he believed it to be genuine. Trust goes both ways. If you take advantage of a man’s error, he’ll take advantage of yours, and we can none of us afford that.”
“Naive? Is that what you’d call him?” Cotton smiled, showing his teeth. “A loyalty that inclines him to look the other way? An idealist who doesn’t see his men’s weaknesses? Dangerous, don’t you think? Do you operate like that, Pitt? Special Branch Commander Pitt? Is that who has our country’s safety in his hands? A man who puts protecting his men from their faults before catching the bombers who would sink our country under a tide of violence and chaos?”
Cotton had taken a step too far, and he knew it the instant he saw the change in Pitt’s face.
“My junior officers make mistakes,” Pitt answered. “If they don’t learn not to, they stay junior. What about yours? You say Ednam was a loyal bully. What about Yarcombe, Bossiney? The others?”
“I don’t tell tales on dead men.” Cotton shuffled his chair forward again and looked at Pitt directly across the desk. He was not used to being questioned, even though Pitt outranked him.
“Never investigated a murder then, have you?” Pitt responded.
“Is that what this is? Two murders?” Cotton asked.
“Isn’t it? And three attempted?”
“Looks like it. All right, I’ll give you all I know on those five men. And you’d better bloody well bring me back someone to answer for them!”
Pitt stood up. “Thank you.” He knew that in a sense he had accepted a challenge.
He met Tellman again the day after to hear what more he had learned. He summarized the reports that Cotton had given him, the good and the bad.
Tellman’s face grew tighter and a flush mounted up his thin cheeks.
“He said that about his own men?” he asked when Pitt had finished. The disgust in his voice was palpable.
Pitt understood at least in part. He knew the weaknesses of his own men. He was of little use to them if he did not. He knew their skills and their inabilities. He also had a strong feeling for the directions in which their fears lay, and what most stretched their courage, where their blind spots were, and who worked well with whom. He knew some of their temptations. But he would never have spoken of these faults to anyone else.
“I pressed him,” he said as some excuse for Cotton. “We have to know exactly who was crooked, and to what extent.”
“I do know!” Tellman said instantly. He was speaking out of bravado, and Pitt was quite aware of it. In fact, this was predictable from Tellman.
“No you don’t,” he contradicted. “At least I hope to God you don’t! If you knew that of them and did nothing, then you’re part of it.” Even as he said it, he knew that Tellman’s reaction would be instant defense.
Tellman’s body was rigid, his face white but for the spots of color burning in his cheeks. “I’m damn well not part of it!” he shouted. “I’ve never taken a thing that wasn’t mine. I’ve never arrested anyone with more violence than was necessary, and I’ve certainly never hit a man that was down, or cuffed. And if you don’t know that, then you’re a fool! And you shouldn’t be in charge of a newspaper stand, never mind a body of men that risk their lives to carry out your orders. You’re a fool…and a bitter, damaged man!” The words came out rasping, as if their passage through his throat hurt him.
Pitt swallowed hard. He was taken aback by Tellman’s rage, although perhaps he should have expected it.
“I know my men, and I trust them,” he replied as levelly as he could, but he heard his own emotion roughen his tone. “They know that. They know I also know their weaknesses, as I daresay they know mine. The difference is that it’s my responsibility not to put them in the path of the things they can’t handle. I understand fear, confusion, pity, clumsiness now and then. But I don’t accept lies, stealing, the loss of temper to the point of beating someone. I don’t accept taking bribes or giving them. It’s a betrayal of everyone else, and any man caught in those things goes…if it’s possible, he serves time.”