Anne Perry - Death On Blackheath

‘That’s what Dobson told you?’ Pitt asked.

‘I believe him,’ Stoker insisted. There was absolute certainty in his voice, in his face and in the way he stood square in front of Pitt’s desk. ‘I think he cares about her, and to be honest I don’t think he’s got the wits to lie anyway. It fits in with everything else we know.’

‘Still leaves a lot unanswered,’ Pitt said unhappily. What was she frightened of? Who did she think was pursuing her? Like Stoker, he wanted to believe that she was alive. He also wanted to believe that Kynaston had not harmed her, and the body in the gravel pit was someone they did not know — and, of course, if he were honest with himself, something that the local police could deal with.

‘Sir?’ Stoker said a little sharply.

Pitt brought his attention back to the moment. ‘I suppose you checked with the locals that at least some of them had seen her with Dobson after the night she disappeared?’

‘Yes, sir. Only got one, but I didn’t find Dobson till yesterday late afternoon. I was lucky he was still working.’

‘Late?’ Pitt said curiously.

‘Yes, sir. About seven o’clock.’ There was a very faint colour in Stoker’s lean cheeks.

‘Your own time,’ Pitt remarked.

Now the colour was deeper. ‘I thought it mattered, sir,’ he said a little defensively.

Pitt leaned back in his chair and regarded Stoker with interest and a growing sense of sympathy. This need to follow up a missing person, even in his own time, was a side of Stoker he had not seen before. It was interesting that Stoker was embarrassed about it, too. Far from feeling irritation or contempt for him, Pitt liked him the better for it. It showed a gentleness, a vulnerability he had not thought Stoker possessed.

‘It probably does,’ he agreed. ‘Then the question is, what did she learn that was so terrible, or she thought was so terrible, that she fled without taking anything with her, or giving notice to anyone? And why has she not got in touch with the Kynaston house, or the police, to say that she’s alive and well?’

‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ Stoker said, regaining a little of his composure. ‘It’s pretty plain from what she said to Dobson that she thought someone had come after her, and she wouldn’t tell Dobson who. But nobody does that about an affair, whoever it’s with.’

‘No,’ Pitt conceded. ‘In fact I wonder now if Kynaston confessed to one at all only in order to satisfy our curiosity and get us to stop looking for anything further.’

Stoker bit his lip. ‘Can’t get away from that one, sir.’

‘For heaven’s sake, sit down!’ Pitt told him. ‘We’ve got to go back to the beginning on this. Did Dobson say if the blood and hair on the areaway steps were hers? If they were, how did they get there? I assume he didn’t fight with her? Were they put there to mislead? Did someone try to stop her? Who? It’s hard to believe it was any kind of coincidence.’

Stoker coloured again. ‘I didn’t ask him. I’ll go back and do that. Most likely seems to me that it was some kind of accident. Maybe she tripped.’

‘One accident I can believe in,’ Pitt answered. ‘Two I can’t. Whose body was it in the gravel pit? The local police can’t find anyone missing, and they’ve checked for several miles around. Whoever it is, poor woman, she died violently, then was kept somewhere for several days between the time of her death and the time she was found in the gravel pit. And she was appallingly mutilated. There’s no accident whatever in that.’

‘No, sir. Someone’s playing a very funny game with us. The stakes must be high.’

‘Very high,’ Pitt said gravely. ‘And I’m not sure we even know who the players are.’

‘Is Mr Carlisle a player, or a pawn?’ Stoker asked.

‘That’s another thing I don’t know,’ Pitt replied. ‘I’ve known him a long time. I think it will be wise to assume he’s a player.’

‘On whose side?’

‘Ours — I hope.’

‘And Mr Kynaston?’

‘I think that is where we begin. Delegate everything else for the time being.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Pitt had sat up very late the previous evening, rereading all the papers he had on the Kynaston case. He thought of it in those terms because the root of it lay in Kynaston’s house. He had finally gone to bed at about half-past one, when the pages were swimming before his eyes and he was only wasting time looking at them.

He was jerked out of sleep by Charlotte’s hand on his shoulder, gentle but quite firm, shaking him. He opened his eyes and saw pale grey daylight in the room. It was the first of March. The sun was rising earlier every day. The equinox was less than three weeks away, the first day of spring.

‘Sorry. I slept in,’ he mumbled, sitting up reluctantly. His head felt thick and there was a dull ache at the back of his neck.

‘It isn’t all that late,’ she said quietly. Her voice was soft, but he had known her too long and too well to miss the strain in it.

Suddenly he was truly awake. ‘What’s happened?’ His mind raced over thoughts first of his children, then of Vespasia, or even Charlotte’s mother. Now he was cold, clenched up.

‘They’ve found another body in one of the gravel pits up on Shooters Hill,’ she answered. Her face was anxious, her brow furrowed.

All he felt was a wave of relief, as if the warm blood had started to flow in his body again. He threw off the covers and stood up.

‘I’d better get dressed and go. Who called you? I didn’t hear the telephone.’

‘Stoker’s here waiting for you, with a hansom. I’ll make him a cup of tea and a slice of toast while you’re dressing, and there’ll be some for you when you come down.’

He drew in his breath to argue, but she was already at the door.

‘And don’t tell me you haven’t time!’ she called. ‘The tea will be ready to drink, and you can carry the toast with you.’

Fifteen minutes later he was washed, dressed, hastily shaved, and sitting beside Stoker in the cab. They were going as fast as possible through the broadening daylight, rattling over the cobbles heading south.

‘Local police called me,’ Stoker told him. ‘Haven’t been there yet, came straight for you. They said this one’s worse. A lot worse.’

‘Another woman?’ Pitt asked.

‘Yes. But with fair hair.’ Stoker did not look at Pitt as he said it. Perhaps he was ashamed of it, but there was relief in his voice.

‘Does anyone know who she is? Any of the local police recognise her?’ Pitt asked.

Stoker shook his head. ‘Not at the time they called. Maybe they’ve got further now.’

Neither of them spoke for the rest of the journey as the hansom slowed a little going up the incline through Blackheath and then beyond on to Shooters Hill. Here the countryside was bare, the wind raking the grass between the few clumps of trees, which were none of them yet in leaf. Some of the gravel pits were filled with water after the winter rains.

Pitt prepared himself for the blast of the wind, which would be heavy and damp when he got out. He tried to imagine the sight that was waiting for them, as if foreknowledge could blunt the edge of the impact.

‘I ain’t waitin’ for yer,’ the cabby said gravely, his face windburned, half hidden by the muffler around his neck and chin. ‘I’nt fair ter me ’orse.’

‘Wouldn’t think of asking you.’ Pitt climbed out a little stiffly and paid the man generously more than he had asked for.

The driver found a sudden change of manner. ‘Thank you,’ he said with surprise. ‘Good o’ yer … sir.’ Then, before Pitt could have the chance to change his mind, he urged his horse on, turned in a circle, and headed back down towards Greenwich to find another fare.