Tellman worked all morning. He stopped for tea and a ham sandwich at lunchtime, and then went on again. It was so dull he had trouble keeping awake. It was exactly the sort of police work he was accustomed to. The notes were those such as he had made a score of times himself. He could have been any of these men. Their choice of words and their handwriting was individual, but now and again an exact phrase was repeated, as if they had agreed on what to write.
It was only when he realized that several files were out of order, and he rearranged them, that he began to see a pattern. He went back and read them again. There was one case in particular of a man who had been injured in a brawl and had later given information, been charged with theft, and found not guilty. It was Yarcombe’s case, then passed to Bossiney.
When Tellman put those reports in the right order, the story looked very different. The dates had been changed, very carefully. Which made him realize the case had begun with Yarcombe, gone on to Bossiney, and ended with Ednam taking charge of it. The events had happened in a different order. The brawl had come last, when two of the named participants had already been in jail. The only conclusion was that it had been a beating by someone quite different, which made no sense.
It was the witness who had been beaten, and who had refused to testify against the man charged.
Was this the error of a tired and confused man, trying to get it right and failing? A misunderstanding? Or even carelessness? Perhaps the injured man was not well enough to testify, or worried about his family?
Tellman put the files aside and read the cases that followed. He found more mix-ups, stories that did not make sense when looked at closely. Many notes appeared merely hasty, as if written up by busy men made to work out details too long after the events and making mistakes in good faith. That was what he wanted to think. He had made such errors himself. It was easy to do. You started seeing something another way, and then got the whole pattern wrong.
He forced himself to study the files long into the evening. The errors added up to a few people not being convicted because evidence was lost. A few people had had accidents rather conveniently and were unable to testify. Whoever was looking after evidence was selectively careless. Some people were arrested quite often but never seemed to get convicted.
The next day he asked for other files, of cases not involving Ednam. He searched for the same carelessness, and did not find it. He also compared the rates of conviction for certain crimes, and found them lower than for Ednam, especially where theft was concerned.
There was little he could prove because some sorts of evidence were consistently missing, but by the end of the second day he was certain that there was a lot of well-concealed graft going on, favors for certain people, evidence deliberately misplaced.
Was Ednam overzealous? Now and then was he taking the law into his own hands when he felt certain a man was guilty but could not prove it legally, so he resorted to doing so illegally? Was he exercising his own form of justice? Or was he driven by his own ambition? Please heaven all of this was not for his own profit?
No! Tellman refused to think that.
Had somebody felt a rage hot enough to plant that bomb in Lancaster Gate as revenge for being framed for a crime?
Tellman wondered how much the other four men had collaborated with Ednam and how far outside the law they had gone. Had they knowingly convicted an innocent man, possibly not even caring, or were they just being obedient? They might even have been afraid of Ednam, who was, after all, their senior.
Newman he had known himself, and liked. He was cheerful, outgoing, prone to thinking the best of people-more than Tellman himself did. That was what Tellman had liked about him.
Suddenly it hurt all over again, recalling seeing him blown to bits on the floor of the house in Lancaster Gate. Had he trusted Ednam when he shouldn’t or was he afraid to fall out with his comrades? There was no hint of guilt in Newman’s case notes.
Yarcombe’s notes were terse, saying no more than they had to, like the man.
Bossiney wrote a lot. Was he drowning the truth in too many words?
Hobbs’s notes were careful, written in a schoolboy’s hand. It was a job he disliked.
It was Ednam whose words wrapped it all up, taking care of the omissions.
But even so, that did not justify the appalling bombing at Lancaster Gate, though it might well have been the cause of it.
Had Drake, this young constable detailed to help him, reordered the files intentionally? He thought so. But when he left late on the second evening, there was nothing in the innocent face to make him certain.
There was still a great deal more to find out. And he had tied it to nothing that related to the informer, Anno Domini. He had found the letter with the information, and the report of the opium sales and the amounts. There was nothing about the letter from which he could deduce anything further.
Tellman chose to walk a good distance before even looking for a bus to take him the rest of the way home. The bitter cold edge of the wind kept his thoughts sharp, a knife-edge outside to match the one cutting him inside.
He must have been terribly naive to have kept his ignorance of dubious police behavior for so long. He dealt with the worst aspects of humanity most of the time so none of this should come as a surprise. Yet it did! And it hurt!
He knew the police were fallible, because everyone was, but he had believed they were honest, loyal to the best in themselves. They would face what they saw, the violence and the pain, because they also knew the good.
Ednam had soiled that! He had twisted and distorted it. His betrayal was unforgivable.
Tellman pushed his hands hard into his coat pockets and turned the corner off the main street to take a shortcut. Suddenly he felt shattered. He stopped leaning into the wind and stood straighter, then began walking again.
He came out at the far end of the alley and faced the wind again. It seemed even harsher. Ednam had betrayed his men. And he had betrayed Tellman as well, because in a way he stood for all leaders that men had believed in.
He quickened his pace toward the omnibus stop. It was too cold to walk the streets any longer. He very much needed to go home.
He told Pitt what he had done when they met at Lisson Grove mid-morning the day after. Tellman was tired and his head pounded from all the reading by lamplight. But at least his cold was beginning to go away. He forgot about it for hours at a time. Perhaps he was simply too angry about the dishonesty and the violence he had found to care about a hacking cough or aching chest.
Briefly he told Pitt what he had found. He did not apologize for their last meeting. He thought his actions since then were apology enough. He did not want to remind Pitt of it, if he was willing to forget.
He watched Pitt’s face and saw the sadness in it. It was only then that he realized the disillusion was as sour to Pitt as it was to him, just maybe not as much of a surprise.
Maybe Pitt’s awakening had come some time ago. Perhaps it had dawned when his superiors, far above Cornwallis, had bowed to pressure over the business in Whitechapel and dismissed him from the police. Special Branch had been the only place still open to him to make his living in the profession he knew. That seemed like a long time ago now, but old wounds don’t stop aching. They are always under the surface, ready to remind one of the original injuries.
“The man I mentioned in connection to the Lezant case,” Pitt said slowly. “His name is Alexander Duncannon. His father is Godfrey Duncannon.”
Tellman stared at him, slowly grasping the enormity of what he had said. “And do you believe his story now?” he asked a little huskily. He wanted him to deny it.
“I still don’t know. As I said, I believe Alexander thinks he is right.” Pitt chose his words with care. “Whether he wants to because he can’t think his friend was guilty, or whether he has to blame someone other than himself for getting away when his friend didn’t-”