Tellman also had read Josiah Abercorn’s letters to the newspapers, and found that the man who had taken Ednam’s place was in profound agreement with Abercorn’s point of view.
“Thank heaven somebody’s speaking out for us,” Pontefract said as Tellman closed the door behind him and sat down opposite the desk.
Tellman felt it would be foolish at this point to do anything but agree.
“Indeed.” He nodded. “I hope that very soon this kind of defense won’t be necessary.” He had felt uncomfortable reading the most recent letter at his own breakfast table. There was an anger in it that suggested, without saying so outright, that any questioning of police morality was a sympathy with anarchists. And yet he understood that. It was his own instinctive response. He disliked change. The old values were good, familiar to everyone, proven over the years. It all came down to trust.
“We need to win the public back on our side,” he added, watching Pontefract’s face. He hated having to, but he was far too good a detective to take anyone’s innocence for granted. He was disturbed to find that he wondered if Pontefract were involved himself, even if it were no more than turning a blind eye for fear of seeing something he would prefer not to, something that might require him either to be involved or deliberately to speak out against…what? Bribery? Concealing a fatal crime, and sending an innocent man to the gallows? Murder?
How far had he come from just a couple of weeks ago that such a thought would even come into his mind? It made him feel chilled inside, and slightly sick.
“Of course,” Pontefract agreed. He seemed to be weighing what he would say next, searching Tellman’s face. Finally he came to a decision. He leaned forward a little across the desk and lowered his voice. “I have looked a great deal more closely at Ednam’s record over the past several years. To be frank, Tellman, I’ve discovered a few things that are very disturbing. He seems to have been blind, perhaps intentionally, to quite a few…regrettable things. Mostly slight, you understand, but he allowed a pattern of dishonesty to develop. I’ll see that it stops. Good men, basically, but grown a little lax. We need discipline, just like anyone else.”
He looked at Tellman very steadily, trying to read his face.
Tellman was unpleasantly aware of it. Under the palliative words, there was a battle beginning. Tellman was being told to leave it alone. Should he do that? Allow the situation to heal itself? But would it? Wasn’t that turning the blind eye, as he had all along? Only now it would be worse, because he knew.
“A good man, Abercorn,” Pontefract went on. “On our side. We need more like him. Understands the job. Not just that, he knows we are the line between safety and lawlessness. It’s not Special Branch who need to enforce order, for all their responsibility for security and, I daresay, much higher pay-it’s us.” He nodded. “Got to keep public respect. I know you can see that. You’ve always seen it. The ordinary working man, with a family to care for and nothing to do it with but what he earns. Duty to them. Damn Ednam and his slack ways, little lies here and there, pocketing the odd shilling to let things slip. Overzealous in some things, too lenient in others. We’ll put it right.” He stopped and waited for Tellman to reply.
The silence grew heavy.
“Glad you agree,” Tellman said at last. “We’ll have to begin with this opium dealing disaster a couple of years ago.”
Pontefract shook his head. “Ah-no. Can’t do much now. All the poor devils involved in that are dead, or as good as.” He shrugged. “Nothing really to look into. We’ll never know if Tyndale was the dealer or not, but since he’s dead, too, it’s over with. Now-there’s the matter of Trumbell and whether he lost his temper and hit…what was his name? Holden? Yes…Holden. Nasty piece of work. I think a good caution, perhaps dock a week’s pay, and that’ll be settled. He won’t do it again. Give him a fright and show that we haven’t forgotten it.” He smiled as if Tellman had already agreed with him. “And keep better records of all things taken as evidence. Make sure it’s double-checked and there’s a signature on everything. Carelessness, not malice, you know?”
Tellman could see by the bland smile on Pontefract’s face that nothing he said was going to make any difference. The defense was prepared and he was not going to be allowed to break through it, not without injuring himself, and making enemies.
Pitt had been right. There was an ugliness here that would hurt all of them, one way or another.
Tellman persisted in listing and clarifying everything, out of stubbornness rather than belief he could win, and by the time he left for home it was dark outside. The east wind had a biting edge to it. On the pavement the ice was already hard, and his weight cracked it where he stepped on shallow puddles.
He began intending firmly not to tell Gracie anything about it. However, she, too, had read Abercorn’s letter, albeit repeated in an evening newspaper.
“?’E’s wrong,” she said bleakly after they had finished supper and Gracie had checked on Christina. Tellman always liked it if he could get home in time to talk to his daughter. She listened wide-eyed, watching his face and trying to mimic him, copying his tone and now catching many of his words, even if they were ones she did not understand at all. It was an intense pleasure to him and he had been known to go and waken her deliberately, if he were home late, just for the pleasure of seeing the recognition and the excitement in her eyes.
Tonight he had not done so. She was teething and Gracie had settled her. She herself looked tired and worried. She picked up his moods as if she could read the thoughts written in his face, or perhaps the weariness of his step in the hall, the way he sat with his feet before the fire.
“Is he?” He was referring to Pontefract, in reply to her observation. “If it’s put right then isn’t it time to forgive and move on? Maybe Ednam was the only bad apple in the barrel?”
“They in’t apples,” she argued stubbornly. “And you know that! When did you ever blame them above yer for things yer done wrong? You get ’ot enough under the collar if they take credit for what other people do right!”
That was true.
“It’s not the same thing-” he began.
“In’t it? Looks just the same ter me. You saying they’re just like machines? Yer push this button an’ this ’appens, push that one an’ summink else does.”
“No, of course not! But if Ednam was bad, he’s gone. I don’t like Pontefract, self-satisfied…” He left out the word he was thinking. He was careful not to swear in front of her; he thought better of her than to do that. “But he’s right. We’ve got to forgive somewhere, and the sooner the better. We rely on each other. Trust men and they’ll trust you. It can be hard out in the streets, Gracie.”
“I know that, Samuel,” she agreed quickly. “An’ don’t think I don’t worry about yer, ’cos I do. Yer can forgive someone ’oo ’urt yer yourself. Yer got the right to do that. But someone what ’urts other people, if ye’re the law, yer gotta draw a line an’ say, ‘If yer do this, then it’ll cost yer.’ If yer don’t, then they know they can do anything they like, and yer won’t ever do anything.” She drew in her breath. “Yer got no right ter do that, Samuel. Yer’d be lying to everyone.”
“But-” he started.
“No!” she said hotly. “If yer tell a child ‘no,’ but what ye’re doing means ‘yes,’ then they don’t know what you mean. They’d stop trusting yer because yer in’t telling the truth. And yer really in’t protecting them the way yer promised. Yer in’t leading them right. I can tell yer one thing for sure, Samuel, yer in’t teaching my child that! It’s wrong.”
He looked at her where she sat stiff-backed in front of him, her face set, her eyes meeting his without a flicker.
He thought for an instant of asking her if she would make exceptions for certain cases, then knew that she would not. She would tell him to say what he meant in the first place, and stick to it.