Bossiney did not answer, but nor did he deny it.
“And you let him hang.” It was a statement. There were not many questions left now, but Tellman had to ask them. “Why?” he said. “You knew he was innocent.”
Bossiney breathed in and out, slowly, for so long that Tellman thought he was not going to answer.
Bossiney was watching him. His face was puckered with scars, his skin purple-red, his mouth pulled at one corner. It was impossible to read.
Tellman felt a rage burn up inside him, not at Bossiney, who God knew had paid an unimaginable price, but at Ednam, who had put him there, and the whole system that had conspired to allow the rot to creep through so far.
“I didn’t want to know,” Bossiney said at last. “Ednam said it was the right thing to do, and I believed him because I wanted to. Going against him would have cut me off from all the rest of the men. I’d ’ave been on my own. I wouldn’t ’ave lasted. Don’t you know what it’s like to be out there with everybody against you? What about my family? Who’d look after them if I’m gone?”
Tellman said nothing. He hated everything Bossiney was saying, and everything he had failed to do. And yet he was choked by the pity inside him.
“You don’t know what power he had,” Bossiney went on. “He knew people a lot higher up than us. You can’t win. Best to hang on to what you got, an’ not look at what you don’t want ter see.”
Is that what Tellman had done himself? He would like to think it wasn’t, but it would be a lie. There were things he must have seen, half seen and refused to recognize for what they were. He had turned a blind eye and called it mercy, when perhaps cowardice would have been a truer name for it.
It was the breaking of illusions that hurt most. The reflection of what he wanted to see was perfect, until someone threw a stone into the water and it fractured into countless pieces.
He stood up. What could he say to Bossiney? The man had paid more than enough. Tellman could not bring himself to make it worse.
“I’ll find proof of it without you,” he told him, knowing how much he might regret those words, but he had to say them now. “I know where to look.”
Bossiney did not answer. Tears filled his good eye.
Tellman turned away. He went out of the room, closing the door behind him, and out into the street again. He would send a message to Pitt letting him know what he had learned. He intended to find whoever had protected Ednam, and figure out why. Had Ednam blackmailed someone? Or had that person used Ednam, paying him and protecting him?
“Just delay it, that’s all we’re asking,” Jack said desperately. It was late the following day and they were sitting in Pitt’s office. Outside the fog was closing in like a blanket, wrapping them in a muffling darkness that denied even the sharp sound of horses’ hooves on the road.
“I can’t,” Pitt told him. It was what Bradshaw had asked him to do, but he had decided that the seriousness of the case far outweighed political or diplomatic expediency. And he was under no obligation to take orders from Bradshaw. “I have to charge Alexander. I can’t hold him unless I do.”
“Then release him into his father’s custody,” Jack protested. “For God’s sake, Thomas, do you think Godfrey won’t keep him safe? He’ll have him locked in his room, if that’s what you want.”
“What I want is to have him locked in a hospital ward,” Pitt said tartly, “with a doctor who’ll give him some sort of treatment. The man’s a wreck.”
“Then let him be at home.” Jack’s face lit with hope as if at last they had reached some meeting point. “We’re nearly there with the contract. The Chinese have no arguments left!”
Pitt kept his patience with difficulty.
“I can’t let him go, Jack. He killed three policemen.”
Jack was exasperated. He jerked his hands in a gesture of futility.
“He’s manipulating you, Thomas!”
“Of course he is.” Pitt’s own voice rose. “He’s manipulating all of us. God knows, we’ve done it enough to him.”
“The law has, maybe.” The color rose hot up Jack’s face now. “Not his family, and certainly not the government.”
Pitt’s eyebrows rose. “Do you think he sees a distinction between the government, the law, and his family? Don’t be so naive!”
Jack winced.
Before Pitt could frame a gentler answer, one that took account of yet another major hope crashing because of individual vulnerability, he was interrupted. There was a sharp rap on the door, and without waiting for permission to enter, Stoker walked in.
“Sir.” He barely inclined his head to acknowledge Jack. “I just got a message. Inspector Tellman’s gone after some of the bent coppers by himself.”
Pitt froze. For a moment it was as if he could not command his muscles. Then he forced himself to stand. “Where?” he demanded. “Where is he, man?”
“Word to me was Tailor’s Alley,” Stoker replied. His face was very pale and there was a slight nervous twitch in one temple. “I’ve got a cab waiting, sir. I only came for you because you know the business he’s been about. He’s stirred up a right hornets’ nest.”
Pitt wanted to know how, but there was no time for questions. He turned to Jack. “I’m sorry but this can’t wait.”
Jack’s face was grim. He glanced at Stoker, then back at Pitt.
“I’m coming too-”
“You can’t,” Pitt cut him off. “It could get very nasty.” Perhaps he owed him something of an explanation, a few words at least. He spoke as he went over to a heavy cupboard. He took the key ring from his pocket and unlocked the door, then an inner safe door beyond that.
“Tellman’s been running down police corruption,” he said to Jack. “Last message I had from him, he’s got proof and admission that Lezant was innocent.”
“I’m coming with you,” Jack repeated.
Pitt took a revolver out of the safe and closed the door, then the outer door.
Jack did not move. In the gaslight he looked older, grayer at the temples than Pitt had realized. The lines in his face showed more deeply.
Pitt was in no mood for another battle, nor was there time. Tellman could be in very bad trouble. They could be too late already.
Stoker put out his hand, the light gleaming on the barrel of the gun he was offering Jack.
Jack took it, not even glancing at Pitt. He handled it easily, as if he had used such a weapon before.
“I’ve got another one.” Stoker looked briefly at Pitt. “We should go, sir.”
Jack put the gun in his pocket and went out of the door a step behind Stoker.
The hansom was waiting at the curb, the horse restless in the hard, cold wind.
“Tailor’s Alley,” Stoker told the driver, and stepped up quickly, Jack and Pitt behind him.
They moved off at a rapid pace, the sudden motion jerking them momentarily out of their seats, then back again. They rode in tense silence, sweeping on past lights blurred by fog. They were out of the main streets now, keeping up speed even in stretches of near darkness. The fog made them blind, as if they were suddenly in an unknown city. Distances were distorted. It seemed miles to the Edgware Road. Nothing was quite where you thought it was. The Praed Street station came and went in an instant. Even sounds lost distinction and echoed as if the walls of fog were solid. The journey had the repetitive, nonsensical quality of a nightmare.
Pitt felt his muscles clench with fear. Would they find Tellman already dead?
The cab swung round the corner a little fast, pitching them onto one another. By the time they had righted themselves they were at another corner, which the driver took more slowly this time; then the cab pulled to a halt.
Pitt leaped out first. Through the gloom ahead of him he could see the entrance to a narrow opening and, just below the lamp, the name Tailor’s Alley. There was a man huddling in a doorway and propping himself up against it. He looked to be either drunk or asleep.