“Yes, sir. Good job done, then. Now get into the cab and let’s take you all to hospital.”
Pitt did not answer. There was nothing he could say that was adequate, and his arm was burning like hell where the bullet had torn the skin. It was nothing, barely even a decent flesh wound. All that mattered was whether Tellman would make it.
Chapter 13
It was long after midnight when Pitt finally got to bed. There had been six police cornering and attacking Tellman, all of them from Ednam’s old station. Three of them were dead, a fourth not expected to survive.
Pitt’s arm was sore where the bullet had grazed the flesh, and the hospital had stitched it and bound it up for him. All his concern had been for Tellman, who was lucky he had not bled to death. Jack also had needed careful stitching and bandaging, and had gone home in some pain.
Gracie had shown up at the hospital white-faced and clinging onto her self-control with a desperation she could not hide. Charlotte had gone to stay with her now, and would be back when she judged that Gracie was all right on her own. Pitt missed her, but he never for an instant questioned the decision-not that Charlotte had asked his permission. She had informed him, with the assumption that he would wish it as much as she did.
Still, he was lonely and sore when he fell into a restless sleep.
He woke several times in the night, jerked into consciousness as if by some loud noise. But the house was silent.
When he finally awoke to a gray daylight it was nearly nine o’clock. His head was pounding and his arm was stiff and on fire. It took him a moment to remember why, and then as he saw the empty place beside him in the bed, and the white bandage, he remembered.
Before washing or shaving, he put on his dressing robe and went downstairs to the telephone. He called the hospital and, as soon as he was connected, he asked about Tellman. He was told that he was in a lot of pain, and very weak from loss of blood but he was expected to recover fully, in time.
That was all he needed to know. Tellman would recover.
In the kitchen Daniel and Jemima were both still at the table and both stood up as soon as he came in.
“Are you all right, Papa?” Jemima said anxiously. “You look…”
“Awful,” Daniel finished for her.
Pitt thanked them wryly, and assured them that he was all right. Minnie Maude came in from the pantry, looked him up and down, and decided he needed quiet and some breakfast. She was right, and for once he did not argue. He wrote a note and gave it to Daniel, with his cab fare, and told him to take it to Charlotte, to assure Gracie that he had telephoned the hospital and been told that Tellman was doing well.
It was going to be a long, tedious morning, with a lot of paperwork to give exact accounts of what had happened in the alley, before the home secretary, or anyone else, could ask for them or misinform the newspapers. Minnie Maude was right: he needed a good breakfast.
After dinner, when Pitt was thinking of going to bed, Narraway called. He walked into the parlor as Minnie Maude directed, and looked at Pitt ruefully.
“Hurts, doesn’t it?” he said, but it was impossible to tell from his expression whether that was sympathy or merely an observation. “It’ll take a while to heal,” he added. “Thank God poor Tellman’s going to survive.” He sat down in Charlotte’s chair and crossed his legs.
“If you want whisky, it’s over there.” Pitt indicated the decanter.
“Not yet, thank you,” Narraway replied.
Pitt’s heart sank. He could tell from Narraway’s face that he came with bad news. “What is it?” He wanted a quick blow, rather than drawn out tension, however well intended.
“Alexander Duncannon will face trial,” Narraway replied.
“I know that,” Pitt said tartly. “You didn’t come over here in the mud and ice to tell me something we all know. What’s the real reason?”
“Abercorn is trained in criminal law, did you know that?”
“No.” Pitt was surprised. “What does that matter? I know he’s behind a lot of the heat to get justice for the police. He’s been playing to the gallery all the time since the bombing. I presumed it was for political advantage. He’ll give the prosecution all the help he can. I expected that, didn’t you?” He looked at Narraway more closely. “Godfrey Duncannon can afford the very best lawyers in the country. And whatever he feels about his son, for his own sake, he’ll pay to defend him. Politically he can hardly afford to do anything else.”
“Quite,” Narraway agreed. “Probably with a defense of insanity, due to opium addiction.”
“That’s foreseeable,” Pitt agreed. It bothered him. It was a miserable end to Alexander’s brave and desperate attempt to salvage Lezant’s name and find some justice. He wouldn’t find the mere deaths of Ednam, Hobbs, and Newman sufficient. That was no more than vengeance.
Narraway was watching him, as if he could see the thought behind his eyes.
“Alexander won’t like it,” Pitt said. “But if he’s being defended as insane, his lawyer won’t allow him to testify, and even if he did, it would carry no weight.” He wanted to say more, to give words to his sense of injustice on Alexander’s behalf, as if he himself had been injured by the failure. An innocent man had been hanged, deliberately, and the one friend who knew it had been beaten by the system and his own terrible frailty. And now, even if the insanity plea succeeded, Alexander would escape the rope but die a miserable death in an asylum, alone, in pain and defeated.
Pitt was exhausted and feeling beaten. His muscles, even his bones, ached. Whatever he said would sound like a cry of his own failure-to be frank, his own vulnerability.
Narraway was watching him, his eyes almost black in the shadows from the lamplight, his face touched with both pity and anger.
“Abercorn is going to prosecute it himself,” Narraway said quietly.
“What?” Pitt thought he must have misheard. His mind was playing tricks on him.
Narraway smiled bleakly. “That’s why I mentioned that Abercorn has kept his criminal law qualifications current. Never know when they’ll come in useful.”
Pitt swore with more pent-up rage than he had felt in a long time. It startled him how profound his anger was.
“So have I.” Narraway said it as if that also surprised him.
Pitt forced his attention back. “So have you what?”
“Paid my dues and kept my right to practice law,” Narraway answered mildly. “It’s always a good thing to have.”
Pitt was stunned. “I never knew you had…” He let the words tail off. Of course he had not known. There were loads of things he did not know about Narraway, in fact about most of his life. He knew he had been in the army at the time of the mutiny, in his youth. He must have come back to England and gone to university after that? Law was a hard discipline as well, but perhaps the two were in some way aligned?
“What has that to do with Abercorn, or his case?” he asked, feeling stupidly confused.
“If Abercorn prosecutes Alexander Duncannon, then if I can obtain Alexander’s approval, I shall defend him,” Narraway replied.
Pitt was stunned. He must have misunderstood.
“Why? What can you do that the best lawyer his father can pay wouldn’t do, and do it better?”
“Rather ungraciously put,” Narraway said with a flash of amusement. “But if my plan works, then I can expose the police corruption, and plead some merciful outcome for Alexander, in a hospital rather than an asylum.”
“And if it doesn’t?” Pitt refused to allow himself to hope.
“Then he’ll probably be hanged,” Narraway replied, his voice tight. “Which on the whole might be more merciful than the asylum.”
“With a guilty verdict,” Pitt said bitterly.
“It will be a guilty verdict anyway,” Narraway told him very softly. “It’s what he wants…isn’t it?”
Pitt agreed silently, just a tiny nod and little more than an expression in the eyes.