Anne Perry - Death On Blackheath

‘I have nothing to add,’ Kynaston told him.

‘You have a few errors to correct, Mr Kynaston,’ Pitt answered. ‘And a few omissions to fill in rather more fully. And before you do, sir, I would prefer to tell you in advance than embarrass you afterwards, I shall be checking with other people, because this matter is too serious to allow what can be merely unintentional misstatements of fact.’ He let hang in the air between them the awareness that they could also be deliberate lies, even damning ones.

Kynaston did not answer. It had gone beyond the point of pretence that he was not deeply uncomfortable.

Pitt could have asked him the questions one by one, and tripped him in the lies — or if they were, the errors — but he loathed doing so. This had to be lethal, but it could be quick.

‘Your diary states that you went to dinner with Mr Blanchard on the evening of 14 December …’ Pitt began.

Kynaston moved very slightly in his chair. ‘If I had the date wrong, is it really important?’ he said reasonably.

‘Yes, sir, because you left the house dressed for dinner, and according to our enquiries, you did not see Mr Blanchard. Where did you go?’

‘Certainly not anywhere with my wife’s maid!’ Kynaston said sharply. ‘Perhaps the dinner was cancelled. I don’t remember. Has Special Branch really got nothing better to do than this?’

Pitt did not answer his question. ‘And just over a week later, on 22 December, again you have Mr Blanchard’s name in your diary, and again you did not see him,’ he went on.

Kynaston sat absolutely motionless in the chair, unnaturally so. ‘I have no idea where I went,’ he replied. ‘But it was probably an engagement to do with a society I belong to, and couldn’t possibly have anything less to do with my wife’s maid.’ He swallowed, his throat jerking. ‘For God’s sake, do you do this to everybody? Read their diaries and cross-question them as to whom they dined with? Is this what we pay you for?’ There was a faint flush of colour in his cheeks.

‘If it has nothing to do with Kitty Ryder’s death, then it will go no further,’ Pitt said, perhaps rashly. He felt grubby pursuing something that was clearly private, and embarrassing. Were it not, Kynaston would not be still evading an answer.

‘Of course it has nothing to do with it!’ Kynaston snapped, leaning forward suddenly. ‘If anyone killed her, then it was this wretched young man she walked out with. Isn’t that obvious, even to a fool?’ He looked away. ‘I apologise, but really, all this probing into my life is unnecessary and completely irrelevant.’

‘I hope so,’ Pitt said sincerely. He felt vaguely soiled that he had to pursue this to the bitter end. ‘There are a few errors in your diaries, which is to be expected. We all get hours or dates wrong from time to time, or forget to note something at all, even do so illegibly. It is only the occasions when you left home, dressed for dinner, and consistently did not go where you stated that I am asking you about. There are at least a dozen of them in the last two months.’

Kynaston’s face was now dark with colour.

‘And I will not tell you, sir!’ His voice wobbled a bit. ‘Except that it had nothing whatever to do with Kitty Ryder. For God’s sake, man! Do you think I am dining out in full evening dress with a lady’s maid?’ He managed to sound incredulous, even though his voice cracked a little.

‘I think you are going somewhere that you feel the need to lie about,’ Pitt answered. ‘The obvious conclusion is that it is with a woman, but that is not the only possibility. I would prefer to think that rather than anything else you feel the need to keep secret from your family, and from the police, and Special Branch.’

Kynaston blushed scarlet. He caught Pitt’s implication immediately. Pitt regretted it, but the man had left him no choice. He waited.

‘I dined with a lady,’ Kynaston said in little more than a whisper. ‘I shall not tell you who it was, except that it was certainly not Kitty Ryder … or anyone else’s … servant.’

Pitt recognised that that was the truth, and also that Kynaston did not intend to reveal who it was. The question in Pitt’s mind was whether Kitty Ryder might have known of it, and asked for some kind of favour not to tell her mistress. There was no purpose in asking Kynaston. He had already implicitly denied it.

Pitt stood up. ‘Thank you, sir. I’m sorry I had to pursue such a thing, but a woman is dead — violently — and her body dumped in a gravel pit for wild animals to eat!’

Kynaston winced.

‘That is more important than anyone’s sensibilities as to privacy for their indiscretions,’ Pitt concluded.

Kynaston stood up also, but he said nothing more except to wish Pitt a good evening, icily, and as a matter of form.

Outside in the cold, damp night, the wind was blowing clouds across the stars and streetlamps dotted occasionally here and there. Pitt was glad to walk briskly for some considerable distance. He was likely to find a hansom easily to take him all the way back across the river to Keppel Street.

What should he tell Talbot? That Kynaston was having an affair, but with some woman he could dine with in full formal clothes? Certainly not a servant of any kind. Someone else’s wife? That was the obvious conclusion, although perhaps not the only one.

Had Rosalind Kynaston any idea?

Possibly she had. It was then conceivable that she did not mind, as long as he was meticulously discreet. Pitt knew of marriages where such agreements were made.

It did not answer the question as to whether the bright and observant Kitty Ryder had been aware of it. If so, then it had to have been deduction. There was no way in which she could be in an appropriate place to have observed such a thing.

Deduced from what? What could she have seen or heard … or overheard? A conversation on the telephone, perhaps? A letter left open? A coachman’s gossip?

Was she really so quick, so very acute a judge? Was Kynaston so desperate, and so callous as to beat a maid to death for her knowledge of his affair? He was embarrassed that Pitt had deduced it, but Pitt had seen no rage in him, not the slightest suggestion of violence of any sort, physical or political. He had not threatened Pitt’s job or his position.

Was it necessary to report this to Edom Talbot?

He had reached the main road and found a hansom. He was sitting in it bowling along at a good speed by the time he reached the conclusion that it was, but he was still undecided exactly what he would say.

He was still collecting his evidence next day when a message came to his office requiring him to report immediately to Downing Street. It had to be Talbot, but how could he know what Pitt had learned the previous evening already? Surely that was impossible? Unless Kynaston had gone there ahead of Pitt, in order to — what? Complain? Deny the charge? Confess privately to Talbot who his mistress was, instead of to a mere policeman? Did he have far more influence in Government than Pitt had imagined?

Pitt had no choice but to obey. He put the papers in a small case so that, if Talbot demanded it, he could prove his assertion. Then he went out into the street to catch a hansom.

He sat all the way through the traffic, turning over in his mind how much he would tell Talbot. He would be finished if he were caught in a lie, but he might get away with an omission.

Why was he even thinking of concealing the truth from Talbot?

Because he did not believe that Kynaston had murdered Kitty Ryder to keep the secret of an affair. It was too extreme for a man who appeared to be neither violent nor particularly arrogant. Nothing Pitt had learned of him suggested either. And he had learned a considerable amount. Kynaston was proud of his family heritage. He had mourned the loss of his brother, Bennett, deeply; in fact the grief was still there in him, masked beneath the surface. To all outward appearances he had been a good father and a dutiful husband, if not a passionate one.