Anne Perry - Death On Blackheath

That would answer the question of where the bodies had been kept so chilled and clean. It would also explain the timing of discovery of them — only when Carlisle could find one that was suitable. They needed to be young women of the servant class, unclaimed by anyone else, and who had died violently. He must have combed all London for them!

If, of course, he had done it at all!

There was no evidence, only Pitt’s previous knowledge of Carlisle and his belief about his character.

What proof could he find? He could have his men look through all the records of recent deaths of women in the London area, those that were violent and resulted in the kind of injuries the gravel pit corpses had sustained. Then see which were unclaimed by family, and if some benefactor had offered to pay for a funeral.

Then what? Exhume them to see if the corpses were there, or bags of sand instead? Perhaps, but only as a last resort, and he would need far more to justify it than a desperate imagination.

He would have the enquiries made, discreetly. No exhumations until he had evidence.

He must learn more about Carlisle, the opinions of people who had encountered him in other contexts than those Pitt knew for himself. What were the man’s private interests apart from politics and social reform, the numerous battles against injustice. Who were his friends, other than Vespasia? Was there anyone in particular he might have turned to for help in this extraordinary undertaking? Did he know Kynaston personally? Were there any other connections that were worth exploring?

He must do it with great care, and disguise his reasons for asking. If he spoke to more than a very few, Carlisle would undoubtedly hear of it and know exactly what he was doing.

One friend of Carlisle’s whom Pitt spoke to was a highly respected architect by the name of Rawlins. Pitt took him to luncheon at a discreet and expensive restaurant. He gave the pretext of making a check on Carlisle in order to trust him with Special Branch information in order to engage his help in Parliament. Asking about Carlisle’s friends in the past came quite naturally.

‘Erratic,’ Rawlins agreed. ‘I wanted to build towers and spires that reached to the sky,’ he said with a wry smile. ‘Somerset wanted to climb them! I liked him enormously; still do, although I don’t see him so often. But I never understood him. Never knew what he was thinking.’ He sipped the very good red wine they were having with their roast beef.

Pitt waited. He knew from the look of inner concentration on Rawlins’ face that he was searching memory, struggling to understand something that had long eluded him.

‘Then he went off to Italy without finishing his degree,’ Rawlins spoke slowly. ‘Couldn’t understand why at the time. He was in line for a first; he could have been an academic.’

‘A woman?’ Pitt suggested. So far there had been no mention of any love affair, only dalliances, nothing to capture the heart.

‘I thought so at the time,’ Rawlins conceded. He gave a slight shrug and sipped at the wine again. ‘I learned long after that it was to fight with some partisans who were struggling for Italian unification. He never spoke of it himself. I only heard it from a woman I met in Rome, years later. She spoke of him as if his exploits were woven through the best and most fulfilling part of his life. I think she might have been in love with him.’

He smiled ruefully. ‘I remember I was jealous. In her words, he sounded funny, impossibly brave, absolutely hare-brained — but not unrecognisable as the man I had known.’

He sighed and took another mouthful of the excellent meal. ‘He ended up in an Italian prison somewhere in the north, with both his shoulders dislocated. Must have hurt like hell. He never spoke of it. If you need to know, I’m afraid I can’t help you. I haven’t any idea what happened, or who did it. I could give half a dozen guesses as to why.’

Pitt avoided Rawlins’ eyes, looking instead down at his own plate. ‘Did you ever know him to commit violence against anyone?’ he asked. ‘Perhaps in the conviction that the end justified the means?’ He did not want the answer, and he almost denied the question in the next breath. He could feel his muscles tense, as though he were waiting for a blow.

‘I can’t tell you,’ Rawlins said quietly. ‘Not in a way that would be of any value. I never knew him choose violence, in fact as a student I saw him go to some lengths to avoid it. He was argumentative, but never quarrelsome. But I do know that he was a man of intense passions. I don’t believe anything would stop him doing something he believed to be necessary in a cause he cared about. He had too much imagination, and not enough sense of fear. He was an all-or-nothing sort of man. Judging by his speeches in Parliament, and the little I know of him now, he still is. Actually, I don’t think that kind of thing changes. I’m sorry I can’t be of more help.’

‘Any friends I should worry about?’ Pitt asked casually.

‘Worry?’

‘Fringes of the communal underworld, that sort of thing?’

Rawlins smiled. ‘Carlisle? Quite possibly. He’s a man of eclectic tastes and peculiar loyalties. But if he makes a promise, he won’t break it.’

‘That’s rather what I thought,’ Pitt agreed.

They finished the meal speaking of other things. Rawlins was a pleasant man, intelligent and courteous. Pitt found him not only easy to like, but easier to believe than he would have wished.

Nothing he had heard in the course of the whole two days had painted a picture of Somerset Carlisle that was in any way different from the man he already knew, the man who had played such a grotesque and dangerous game with the corpses in Resurrection Row.

If anything, he was worse off, because it drew a picture of a man he not only liked, and was now compelled to admire, but one very capable of doing precisely what Pitt had feared.

Pitt arrived late at his office on the following morning, having been held up by a traffic accident on Euston Road. The whole thing had turned into chaos as everyone tried to find a way around it, and ended by getting jammed in a total impasse where no one had room to turn and extricate themselves.

Stoker was waiting for him, looking grave. ‘Don’t bother taking your coat off,’ he said as soon as Pitt was in through the door.

Pitt stopped. ‘Not another body!’

‘No, sir, still the same one. Whistler wants to see you. And if you don’t mind, sir, I’d like to come along too.’

Pitt had no objection to Stoker coming, but he was curious, and desperate for a little hope. ‘Why?’ he asked.

Stoker stared back at him, his dark grey eyes clear. ‘I want to know more about what kind of a man does this to a woman. I want to know who it is that Kitty Ryder thinks she’s running away from.’

‘You still think it has something to do with Kynaston?’ Pitt felt the knot tighten in his stomach.

‘I don’t know, sir, but it appears she thinks it has. If I could find her, I’d ask her why.’

‘No more progress with that?’ Pitt asked.

‘Not much.’ Stoker stopped, took a deep breath, and went on, ‘But I’m not giving up.’ There was a faint colour in his bony face, just a smudge of pink across his cheeks. He looked at Pitt defiantly, offering no explanations.

‘Well, if you succeed, you can ask her.’ Pitt jammed his hat on again. ‘But we can’t wait for that. We’d better go and see Whistler. Just what I feel like first thing on a cold wet morning, get stuck in a traffic jam, then a visit to the morgue. Come on!’ He led the way back out into the rain.

Pitt and Stoker had to wait several minutes to find a hansom. It was always like this on wet days. No one was willing to walk.