Anne Perry - Death On Blackheath

‘Thank you,’ he replied. ‘Yes … bring them to me in the parlour, please.’ He wanted to add something more, but there really wasn’t anything to say that was appropriate.

After dinner, when Jemima and her younger brother, Daniel, had gone up to bed, he sat beside the fire in his usual chair, opposite Charlotte, who had abandoned her embroidery for the evening and sat with her boots off and her feet up, hidden by her skirts. The light from the gas brackets on the walls was a golden colour, muted a little by the glass. It softened the lines of everything it touched: the familiar books on the shelves on either side, the few ornaments, each with its own associations in the memory. The long curtains across the french windows on to the garden were drawn against the cold. He could not imagine anywhere more comfortable.

‘What is it?’ Charlotte asked. ‘You are making your mind up whether to tell me, so it can’t be a secret.’

In the past, when he was still in the police, he had shared many of his cases with her. In fact, some of them she had known to involve crime before he did. She had been something of a detective herself. She was acutely observant of human nature, and alarmingly fearless in pursuing what she felt was justice.

Of course, now so much more was secret and he could not share with her nearly as much as he used to, although he still would were he able. He was often tempted, only the cost restrained him. A betrayal of trust would damage him in his own eyes, and in hers. The loss of his position would destroy his career, and therefore also his ability to look after his family. He had faced that once when he was dismissed from the police, without the hope of ever being reinstated. He had powerful enemies, among them, unfortunately, the Prince of Wales, who would be only too delighted if Pitt’s entire career were called into question.

Charlotte was waiting for an answer. No secrets of state were involved. So far it was nothing but a rather unfortunate domestic incident.

‘Evidence of a fight on the areaway steps of a house on Shooters Hill,’ he replied. ‘And a missing lady’s maid. She was courting so it’s possible she eloped.’

‘I didn’t think there were houses up on Shooters Hill,’ she responded, frowning a little. ‘If I mustn’t know, then don’t tell me, but what you’ve said so far doesn’t make any sense.’

‘I know it doesn’t make any sense,’ he agreed. ‘Blood and hair on the steps, and broken glass … and a missing maid at a time of day when she should have been there, and always has been in the past.’

‘Why you?’ she said curiously. ‘If there’s a crime involved at all, isn’t it for the local police?’ Then her face lit with understanding. ‘Oh … it’s somebody important!’

‘Yes. And you’re quite right, if it’s anything at all, it belongs to the local police. You said Jemima needs a new dress?’

She tucked her feet up a little higher. The coals settled in the fire with a shower of sparks.

‘Yes, please … at least one.’

‘At least?’ He raised his eyebrows.

‘She’s going to the party at the Grovers’ as well,’ she explained. ‘It’s quite formal.’

‘I thought she didn’t want to go to that?’ He was momentarily confused.

There was a slight shadow in Charlotte’s face. ‘She doesn’t,’ she agreed. ‘But Mary Grover was very kind to her, and Jemima promised she would be there to help.’

Pitt remembered Jemima’s argument on the subject, then he looked at Charlotte again. ‘Don’t you think …?’ he began.

‘She doesn’t want to go because the Hamiltons are having a party as well, and she wants to go to that instead, because she likes Robert Hamilton.’

‘Then-’

‘Thomas … she owes Mary Grover a debt of kindness. She will pay it. And don’t tell me “later”. “Later” doesn’t do.’

‘I know,’ he said quietly.

‘I’m so glad.’ Suddenly she smiled and it warmed her whole face with a melting gentleness. ‘I don’t want to fight both of you — at least not at once.’

‘Good,’ he said, relaxing also at last, although he did not doubt for a second that she would have, had he forced her into it.

Three weeks later, at the end of January, Pitt was at breakfast in the warmth of the kitchen when the telephone rang. It was a marvellous instrument and had been of great service to him, but there were times when he resented its presence. Quarter-past seven on a winter morning, before he had finished his toast, was one of them. Nevertheless he stood up and went out into the hall where the telephone sat on the small table, and picked it up. He knew no one would call him without good reason.

It was Stoker on the other end, his voice thick with emotion.

‘They’ve found a body, sir.’ He took a breath and Pitt could hear the sounds of footsteps and other voices around him. ‘I’m at the Blackheath police station,’ Stoker went on. ‘It’s a woman … young woman, far as we can tell … handsome build …’ He swallowed. ‘Reddish hair …’

Pitt felt his own throat tighten and a wave of sadness pass over him. ‘Where?’ he asked, although the fact that Stoker was calling from Blackheath told him that it was not far from Shooters Hill.

‘Gravel pit, sir,’ Stoker replied. ‘Shooters Hill Road, just beyond Kynaston’s house.’ He seemed about to add something, then changed his mind.

‘I’ll be there,’ Pitt replied. He had no need to tell Stoker that it would take him at least half an hour. Keppel Street was little more than a mile from Lisson Grove, where his office was, but it was a long way west and north of the river from Blackheath, let alone from Shooters Hill.

He put the phone back in its cradle and turned to see Charlotte standing at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for him to tell her what it was. She would know from his face, even from the angle of his body, that it was bad news.

‘A body,’ he said quietly. ‘Young woman found in one of the gravel pits on Shooters Hill.’

‘I suppose you have to go …’

‘Yes. Stoker’s already there. That was him on the telephone. I suppose the local police called him.’

‘Why?’ she asked.

He smiled bleakly. ‘Because the local police are very diligent — or because I have a strong idea that he’s kept on checking on them in case they found Kitty Ryder’s body. But I think the truth is most likely that they sense a bad case coming, and they’d very much like not to have to deal with it themselves.’

‘Can they pass it to you, just like that?’ she said dubiously.

‘Since it’s on Kynaston’s doorstep, and might well be his maid, yes they can. If it is her, they’ll have to give it to Special Branch anyway.’

She nodded slowly, sadness pinching her face. ‘I’m sorry. Poor girl.’ She did not ask why anyone would kill her or if Kitty might have done something, such as attempting blackmail, in order to bring it on herself. She had learned over their sixteen years of marriage how complicated tragedies could be. She was just as blazingly angry at injustice as she had been when they first met, but now very much slower to judge — most of the time.

He walked back to the warm kitchen and its smells of coal, bread and clean linen, to eat the last few mouthfuls of his toast, and drink his tea, if it wasn’t cold. He hated cold tea. Then he would go out into the icy morning and find a hansom. By the time he got to the river it would be sunrise, and daylight when he got up the hill to the gravel pit.

Charlotte was ahead of him. She took his cup off the table and fetched a clean one from the Welsh dresser. ‘You’ve time for it,’ she stated firmly before he could get the words out to argue. She topped up the teapot from the kettle on the hob, waited a moment, then poured it.