“Did the supplier come?” he asked.
“No.”
“It wasn’t Tyndale? You’re sure?”
Alexander was incredulous. “Of course I’m sure! He didn’t come. Or if he did, he saw the police and went off without them or us ever knowing he was there.”
“Who was he?”
Something inside Alexander seemed to close down.
“I can’t tell you.”
“You mean you won’t!”
“Yes. I won’t. Without the opium I can’t stand the pain.” It was a simple statement of a fact he must live with day and night, every moment he was conscious, and that threaded through all his dreams, too.
“How did you know who the policemen were?” Pitt asked. “How were you certain enough to kill them?”
Alexander’s face was bleak, tight with pain. “They testified in court, remember? They swore to their names, and to being there.”
Of course. And Alexander was not called to testify.
“I assume it was your handkerchief at Craven Hill,” he said.
Alexander nodded.
Pitt knew he had grounds to arrest Alexander. But if he arrested him now, without proof of what had truly happened to Dylan Lezant, the young man would surely hang. And he had promised Jack he would wait. So he asked him to go over the events of that day one more time, step by step. He could compare it with whatever Yarcombe or Bossiney might say. Newman, Hobbs, Ednam, Lezant, and even Tyndale were all dead.
Half an hour later Godfrey Duncannon came in. He did not knock, which, since it was his house, was perhaps acceptable. All the same, Pitt found it an intrusion.
Alexander rose to his feet, his wince of pain almost imperceptible.
“Commander Pitt was just leaving, Father.” He turned to Pitt with a sudden, gentle smile, which for a moment illuminated his face and showed the man he could have been. “Good night, sir.”
Chapter 10
Charlotte put hot porridge in front of Pitt and passed him sugar and cream, then poured him a second cup of tea.
“Thomas, I think you should at least see the newspaper, even if you don’t read it all. Perhaps some of the letters…”
He looked up at her. “I know,” he said quietly. “A good many people are concerned about finding the Lancaster Gate bomber, but even more about allaying this suspicion of the police, and the disgrace of corruption. It is doing a lot of damage.” He heard the strain in his voice, even though he had tried to hide it from her.
“It’s more than that,” she replied, not moving away even to put the teapot down or resume her place opposite him. “I haven’t mentioned this before, because I hoped he would leave it, but he’s getting worse…”
“Who is?”
“Josiah Abercorn. I didn’t know much about him, so I asked Emily if he was important. I’m sorry, but apparently he is.”
She had his attention now.
Charlotte refilled her own cup and sat down.
“He is very much for the police. He wants justice for those who were murdered, and all police treated with more respect. He wants the bomber found and hanged, and for Special Branch to stop maligning them, by implication.”
“And does he have any practical suggestions as to how we should do that?” Pitt said bitterly. “Most of us want to believe that the police are strong, clever, and honest. They are the shield between us and the reality of crime.”
“Of course he’s saying what everybody wants to hear,” she said patiently. “He’s ambitious to be a politician, no doubt destined for high office. What else would he say?”
“Is he?” He was surprised. He should have remembered that.
“He’s not elected yet,” she said with a downward turn of her mouth, “but he aims to be, and he’ll succeed.”
“You don’t like him,” he observed.
She looked surprised. “Of course I don’t. He’s clever, opportunistic, and he’s criticizing you. But you can’t ignore him.”
He smiled. “What should I do? Write to The Times myself? And say what? ‘Regrettably the police are imperfect, and it is beginning to look very possible that they were in too much of a hurry to close a particularly ugly case in which they may have contributed rather a lot to hanging the wrong man’? I would like to be sure of that before I say it. I’d like to be even more sure that there is a better answer than that.”
“And is there?”
He let out a sigh. “I don’t think so. But I’m not going to say anything until I know for certain, and can prove it. Has anyone replied to Abercorn?”
“Victor did yesterday. It was rather neat, actually. He explained why Special Branch business is secret, and anyone who read it would see Abercorn as being irresponsible. But people tend to see what they want to. Narraway is playing to reason-Abercorn to panic. Panic usually wins. I’m sorry.”
Pitt did not argue. She was right. He read Abercorn’s letter and appreciated exactly what he was doing, fanning the indignation and the fear at the same time. He could also understand it. Saying “Everything is under control, leave it to me” doesn’t soothe any anger or grief. It sounds like the indifference of someone who is not himself in any danger.
Charlotte was watching him, waiting for his response.
“I know,” he conceded. “There’s little I would like more than to clear the police of any wrong, in Lezant’s death or anything else beyond ordinary errors now and then. But I can’t.”
She did not reply, as if waiting for him to go on. It was a relief to share it all with her. He had not realized how much until he began to tell her. His tea went cold and he did not notice.
When he had finished she looked sad, a pity in her face.
“From what Alexander says, it was probably Ednam who shot Tyndale,” Pitt finished. “But they all had to cover it up and blame Lezant.”
“And Lezant is dead, and Alexander probably a mass murderer, at least in the eyes of the law,” Charlotte added. “Who is Tyndale? Could he have been an opium dealer?”
Pitt stood up. “I’m not sure. I’m going to see his family. I don’t suppose I’ll learn much, but I have to try.”
She nodded and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek as he turned and went toward the hall, and the front door.
Pitt had received Tyndale’s address from one of his men, and he caught a hansom in Russell Square, giving the driver instructions. Then he sat back and considered what he would say to Tyndale’s widow. There was very little about her in the notes from the original case. Perhaps the poor woman had been too shocked by her sudden and pointless bereavement to say anything. Ednam had left no description. Pitt wondered if not speaking to her sooner was an oversight that could matter.
He also thought about Josiah Abercorn. If Charlotte was correct and he was busy courting public support, he would find a great deal of it. The bombing had stirred up a powerful undercurrent of fear. Most people were frightened by the specter of uncertainty, disorder, and panic in the streets. There were more and more immigrants in London, and they were easy to identify. They looked different, sounded different. Too many of them were poor, and willing to work harder than other people, for less money. They also ate different food and seemed to worship different gods. They were an easy focus for the fear that displayed itself as anger.
Was Abercorn feeding that fear, and hoping it would in turn feed him? It was despicable, but he certainly would not be the first, or the last, to use it for his own ends.
And perhaps he was also quite genuinely afraid that social upheaval was already awake and restive. Worse could follow: violence imported from Europe, where revolution had been suppressed, speech restricted, and there was poverty and overcrowding so bad it seemed to suffocate the breath in your throat.
His work at Special Branch had necessitated Pitt talking to a lot of foreigners, many from Russia and the countries lying on its borders. Their desperation was in their faces, in the threadbare clothes they wore, the food they ate, the odd, sometimes colorful phrases they used as they tried to become used to English and its eccentricities.