Arguments teemed in Pitt’s head: about honor, surrender to anarchy and injustice, questions about the very existence of law if this was all it was worth. They faded before he spoke them. Narraway must have said them all to himself. They were new to Pitt. They shook his belief in the principles that had guided him all his life; they undermined the value of everything he had worked for, all his assumptions of the society of which he had thought himself a part. When it came to the final decision, if all the law could say to a man unjustly accused was “Run,” then why should any man honor or trust the law? Its ideals were hollow—beautiful, but containing nothing, like a shining bubble, to burst at the first prick of a needle.
He hunched his body, shoving his hands hard into his pockets.
“They knew who the Whitechapel murderer was, and why,” he said boldly. “They concealed it to protect the throne.” He watched for Narraway’s reaction.
Narraway sat very still. “Did they, indeed?” he said softly. “And how do you believe catching him would have affected the throne, Pitt?”
Pitt felt cold. He had made a mistake. In that instant he knew it. Narraway was one of them—not Inner Circle, but Masons, like Abberline, and Commissioner Warren, and God knew who else … certainly the Queen’s late physician, Sir William Gull. He had a moment’s panic, an almost overwhelming physical urge to turn and run out of the door, out of the shop and down the street, and disappear somewhere into those gray alleys and hide. He knew he could not do it quickly enough. He would be found. He did not even know who else worked for Narraway.
And he was angry. It made no sense, but the anger was greater.
“Because the murders were committed to conceal the Duke of Clarence’s marriage to a Catholic woman called Annie Crook, and the fact that they had a child,” he said harshly.
Narraway’s eyes widened so fractionally Pitt was not certain if he had seen it or imagined it. Surprise? At the fact, or that Pitt knew it?
“You discovered this since you’ve been in Spitalfields?” Narraway asked. He licked his lips as if his mouth were dry.
“No. I was told it,” Pitt replied. “There is a journalist who has all the pieces but one or two. At least he had. He may have them all by now, except the newspapers haven’t printed it yet.”
“I see. And you didn’t think it appropriate to inform me of this?” Narraway’s face was unreadable, his eyes glittering beneath lowered lids, his voice very soft, dangerously polite.
Pitt spoke the truth. “The Masons are responsible for it … that is what happened. The Inner Circle are feeding it to the journalist piece by piece, to break it at a time of their own choosing. Half the senior police in charge were in on the original crime. Sissons’s murder was Inner Circle. You could be either. I have no way of knowing.”
Narraway took a deep breath and his body slumped. “Then you took a hell of a risk telling me, didn’t you? Or are you going to say you have a gun in your pocket, and if I make the wrong choice you’ll shoot me?”
“No, I haven’t.” Pitt sat down opposite him in the only other chair. “And the risk is worth it. If you’re a Mason, you’ll stop the Inner Circle, or try to. If you are Circle, you’ll expose the Masons and, I daresay, bring down the throne, but you’ll have to reinstate Sissons’s death as a suicide to do that, and at least that will save Karansky.”
Narraway sat up slowly, straightening his back. There was a hard edge to his voice when he spoke. His fine hands lay loosely on the tabletop, but the anger in him was unmistakable, and the warning.
“I suppose I should be grateful you’ve told me at last.” The sarcasm cut, but it was against himself as much as Pitt. For a moment it seemed as if he was going to add something, then he changed his mind.
Pitt wondered if Narraway felt the same anger, the same confusion that the law was not only failing here, but that there was no higher power to address, no greater justice beyond, to which they could turn. It was corrupted at the core.
“Go and do what you can for Karansky,” Narraway said flatly. “And, in case you have doubts about it, that is an order.”
Pitt almost smiled. It was the one faint light in the gloom. He nodded, then stood up and left. He would go straight to Heneagle Street. It was a bitter thought that he, who had served the law all his adult life, was now helpless to do anything more for justice than warn an innocent man and help him to become a fugitive, because the law offered him no safety and no protection. He would have to leave behind his home, his friends, the community he had served and honored, all the life he had built for himself in the country he had believed would afford him shelter and a new chance.
But Pitt would do it, if he had to pack for them himself and walk with them down to the quay, purchase their tickets in his own name, and bribe or coerce some cargo captain to take them.
Outside, the street was hot and dusty. The stench of effluent hung sour in the air. Chimneys belched smoke, dimming the sunlight.
Pitt walked quickly southwards. He would find Isaac and warn him this afternoon. He passed a newspaper seller and glanced sideways to see the headlines … still the same drawing, but now there was a black caption underneath it—WANTED—SUGAR FACTORY MURDERER—just in case anyone had overlooked his offense against the community. The picture seemed to be changing slightly with each reprint, looking more than ever like Isaac.
Pitt increased his pace. He passed peddlers and draymen, carters, beggars, a running patterer making a rhyme about Sissons’s murder. He went so far as to say what everyone else was thinking: the killer was a moneylender teaching a bad debtor to pay his dues. It was a clever piece of doggerel. He did not use the word Jews, but the suggested rhyme did it for him.
Pitt reached Heneagle Street and went in at the front door and straight through to the kitchen. Leah was standing by the stove. There was a pot simmering, and the smell of herbs was sweet in the air. Isaac was on the far side of the table, and there were two soiled cloth bags on the floor beside him.
He turned sharply as Pitt came in. His face was deeply lined, his eyes dull with exhaustion. There was no need to ask if he had seen the posters or understood what they meant.
“You must go!” Pitt heard his own voice unintentionally sharp, fear and anger in it. This was England. They had done nothing; an innocent man should not have to flee from the law.
“We are going,” Isaac answered, putting on his old jacket. “We were only waiting for you.”
“Your supper is on the stove,” Leah told him. “There’s bread in the pantry. Clean shirts are on your dresser—”
There was the sound of heavy knocking on the door.
“Go!” Pitt said desperately, the word choking him.
Isaac took Leah by the arm, half pushing her towards the large back windows.
“There’s soap in the cupboard,” she said to Pitt. “You’ll find—”
There was more thunderous banging at the front of the house.
“We’ll get word to you through Saul,” Isaac said as he opened the window and Pitt moved towards the corridor. “God be with you.” And he half lifted Leah out.
“And with you,” Pitt replied. The pounding on the front door was so loud it threatened to break the hinges. Without waiting to watch them leave, he went along the short corridor and undid the latch just as another blow landed on the paneling which might well have burst the hinge had he not opened it first.
Harper was standing on the other side, with Constable Jenkins beside him, looking profoundly unhappy.
“Well, you again!” Harper said with a smile. “Fancy that, then.” He pushed past Pitt and strode down to the kitchen. He found it empty. He looked puzzled, wrinkling his nose at the smell of the unfamiliar herbs. “Where are they, then? Where’s Isaac Karansky?”