Anne Perry: Seven Dials

“ ’Round the back!” Narraway ordered, moving swiftly ahead of Pitt.

But there was no one in Eden Lodge. The entire house was deserted. The stove in the kitchen was cold, the ashes in the fires gray, the food in the pantry already going stale.

Narraway swore just once, with white-hot fury, but there was nothing he or anybody else could do.

NO TRACE WAS FOUND of Tariq el Abd by the police, or any of the men upon whom Narraway could call. Sunday was a wretched day, cold and windy, almost as if the weather itself fretted with the same sense of impending disaster as Pitt, cooped all day at home because he had nowhere to go and nothing to do that was of use. The trial would resume in the morning, and presumably Tariq el Abd would reappear and drag out the whole violent and dreadful truth of the massacre. It would be the beginning of the end of any kind of peace in Egypt, certainly of British rule and all that Suez meant for the empire.

He had told Charlotte what he knew. There was no point in keeping it from her because the only part that was dangerous she had known before he had.

They ate Sunday dinner together. It was the most formal meal of the week, and Daniel and Jemima found it both daunting and exciting, rather like being grown-up. They very much wanted it, it was part of life, but not necessarily today.

Afterwards Pitt sat by the fire, pretending he was reading, but actually he did not turn the pages of his book. Charlotte sat and stitched, but it was a straight hem on the edge of a sheet, and required no attention at all. Gracie and the children had put on coats and gone for a walk.

“What will he do?” Charlotte asked when the silence had become more than she could bear. “Arrive as a witness for the defense and say that he killed Lovat in revenge for having lost all his family, or something of that sort? And then describe the massacre?”

He looked up at her. “Yes, I should think so,” he agreed. He could see the fear in her face, and ached to be able to comfort her with some assurance that it would not be so, even a hope of something they could do to fight against it, but there was nothing. The desire to protect was deep, and yet oddly there was a sweetness for him in being able to share his thoughts with her. She understood. The gratitude inside him was almost overwhelming that she was not a woman who had to be sheltered from truth, or even who wished to be. He did not know how any man bore the loneliness of that. One shielded a child, but a wife was a companion, one who walked beside you-in the easy paths and the hard.

“I suppose Mr. Narraway will warn the defense lawyer,” she said, her eyes wide in question. “Or… or is it the defense lawyer who will call him, do you suppose?” The ugliness of that thought was plain in her eyes. It was an alien thought in the comfort of this familiar room, with its slightly worn furniture, the cats asleep by the hearth, the firelight flickering on the walls.

But was she right? Had the lawyer who had been so ardent in defending Ryerson known this from the beginning? Pitt had no idea. The knowledge that it could be so was uniquely chilling. There was a brutality to the entire plan which had nothing of the mitigating passion of a more personal crime. If it was true, there was in it a depth of deliberate betrayal.

It was a little before three o’clock when the doorbell rang. Gracie was still out, so Pitt went to answer it. The moment he saw Narraway’s face he knew something extraordinary had happened.

“He’s dead,” Narraway said even before Pitt could ask him.

Pitt was momentarily confused. “Who’s dead?”

“Tariq el Abd!” Narraway said tartly, stepping in past Pitt and shaking himself. Although it was not raining at that moment, the wind was cold and a bank of heavy cloud was racing in from the east. He stared at Pitt, his eyes tense, filled with hard, biting fear. “The river police found his body hanging under London Bridge. It looks as if he did it himself.”

Pitt was stunned. In a few words Narraway had shattered the case. Was it the solution, or did it merely make things worse?

“Suicide?” Pitt asked with disbelief. “Why? He was winning. Tomorrow morning he would have achieved everything.”

“And the rope as his reward,” Narraway said.

“Lost his nerve?” Pitt asked with disbelief.

Narraway looked totally blank. “God knows.”

“But it makes no sense,” Pitt protested. “He had manipulated everything to the exact point where he could come into court as a surprise witness and tell the world about the massacre.”

Narraway frowned. “You spoke to Ayesha Zakhari yesterday. She knew that you now understood el Abd had killed Lovat-”

“Even if she told him that,” Pitt interrupted him, “he would hardly have gone off and taken his own life. She couldn’t have proved it. All he had to do was get into the witness stand and say that it was she who had lost relatives in the massacre-or friends, a lover, whatever you like-and that was why she shot Lovat. Even if she had denied it and claimed it was he who did, there’s no proof. His death looks like an admission, and leaves the massacre a secret.”

They were standing in the hall, and both turned as the parlor door opened and Charlotte stood in the entrance looking at them anxiously. She saw Narraway just as he turned, and the gaslight in the passage caught the momentary softening of his face.

“Miss Zakhari’s house servant has been found dead,” Pitt said to her.

She looked from him to Narraway, to see if she was being protected from some deeper meaning.

“It appears to be suicide,” Narraway added. “But we can see no reason why.”

She stepped back, tacitly inviting them in, and they followed her into the warmth of the parlor, Pitt closing the door behind them and poking the fire before putting more coal on. It was not that it was cold so much as the desire for the brightness of new flame.

“Then either there is something we do not know,” she said, sitting down again on the sofa next to her sewing. “Or he did not take his own life, but someone else did.”

Pitt looked at Narraway. “I said nothing to Ayesha about the massacre. If she didn’t know about it before, then she still doesn’t.”

“I beg your pardon,” Narraway apologized, sitting in Pitt’s chair close to the fire, shivering a little. “I should not have assumed you would be so careless.”

“Why would anyone kill the house servant?” Charlotte asked, looking from one to the other of them. “That kind of death couldn’t be an accident, nor was it intended to look like one.”

“You are right, Mrs. Pitt,” Narraway agreed grimly. “Therefore it was someone who knew who he was, in relation to Lovat’s murder and the entire plan to set Egypt alight.” He faced Pitt. “El Abd was not the prime mover in this. There is someone else behind him, and for some reason we don’t yet know, he killed el Abd.” His hand clenched unconsciously. “But why? Why now? They were on the brink of victory.”

Pitt stood in front of the fire, as if he too were cold.

“Perhaps el Abd lost his courage and was not going to testify?” he suggested. Then the moment the words were out of his mouth, he knew he did not believe them. “But that makes no sense either. Why would he not? He had nothing to lose. It is not as if he intended to take the blame-he was going to make her connection certain by giving her the perfect motive.”

Charlotte looked at Narraway. “Will this help Ryerson? Will you be able to show that el Abd killed Lovat, without exposing that massacre? Surely you can? He could have had any number of motives for it, dating back to Lovat’s time in Alexandria… couldn’t he?”