Anne Perry - Death On Blackheath

Finally they found a cab and splashed through the puddles to scramble inside, their sodden trouser legs flapping, coats flying open in the wind.

It was a long way from Lisson Grove to Blackheath, on the other side of the river and considerably further east.

‘If someone’s trying to make Kynaston look guilty of this, even if he isn’t, then it’s someone with a pretty good knowledge of his household,’ Stoker said after a few minutes. ‘And he knows Kynaston himself too. Either he knows why Kynaston keeps on lying, or he’s got some kind of a hold over him so he doesn’t tell us the truth.’ He sat huddled in his damp coat, looking sideways at Pitt in the grey daylight.

‘I’m afraid that’s unarguable,’ Pitt agreed. ‘What I need to know is, why? To what end? I wish I could think it was personal vengeance of some sort, but we haven’t found any kind of reason for it.’

They turned from Seymour Place right into Edgware Road then left and right again into Park Lane.

‘Well, I dare say Rosalind Kynaston would be pretty angry if she knew about the mistress,’ Stoker pointed out. ‘And she could have taken the watch and fob easily enough.’

‘She might hate him,’ Pitt replied reasonably, ‘but she wouldn’t ruin him. If she did, she’d be ruining herself at the same time. His disgrace would be hers as well. And if he lost his income, that’s also hers! You told me she comes from a respectable background, but she has no independent wealth. Unless you think she’s got a lover too! One who would marry her, in spite of whatever this does to her reputation? I suppose it’s possible, but I can’t see it as likely, can you?’

Stoker thought for a moment. ‘I don’t know women that well, sir. Not as you must, with a wife and a daughter …’

‘I’m not sure any man knows women,’ Pitt said drily. ‘Let us agree that perhaps my ignorance is not as total as yours. What about it?’

‘Mrs Kynaston doesn’t look to me like a woman who’s got a secret lover, sir.’ Stoker assiduously avoided his eyes. ‘I remember when my sister Gwen was first in love with her husband, didn’t know that much about him, but by heck, I knew she had something going on. Little things, like the way she did her hair, the way she took care with what she wore, not just some of the time, but all of it. That little secret smile, like the cat that got the cream. And even the way she walked with a little swish of her skirts, as if she knew she was going somewhere special.’

Pitt couldn’t help laughing, in spite of the cold and the discomfort inside the rattling hansom squashing them together. He had seen exactly what Stoker was describing in Charlotte, years ago when he had been courting her. He hadn’t understood it then: the happiness one moment, despair the next, but always the vitality. She had seemed to glow with life.

He had seen it in Emily too, when she was beginning to think seriously about Jack Radley. But that was another subject, and at the moment one of more pain than pleasure.

And, of course, now it was also beginning in Jemima. How quickly she was growing up. Pitt knew which young men she liked, and which held no interest for her. She was so pretty, brave and vulnerable, like her mother, imagining she was sophisticated, and as easy to read as an open book. Or was that only so to him, because he loved her, and would have protected her from every pain, if that were possible?

Charlotte’s father would have protected her from the social disasters, not to mention financial, of marrying a policeman! The only fate worse would have been not to marry at all, and that judgement call was a fine thing! Thank heaven her mother had more emotional sense!

Would he have sense, when it came to Jemima marrying someone?

Not necessary to think of now. It was years away! Years and years!

They were moving steadily south towards the river. No doubt the driver would take them along the Embankment, then over one of the bridges on to the south bank.

Pitt regarded Stoker with a new respect. He had not thought him capable of such human observation. It came to him in a rush of clarity that he did not know Stoker very much at all. Outside his skill and intelligence in the job, and his well-proven loyalty, he was almost unknown!

‘So you think Rosalind Kynaston is not having an affair?’ he asked.

‘That’s right, sir. She looks like a woman who has very little to be happy about,’ Stoker agreed.

‘Do you think she knows of Kynaston’s affair?’

‘Probably. In my experience people do know, especially women, even if they can’t afford to admit to themselves that they do. Of course, when they’re not in Society, and there’s not much money or a nice house to lose, there’s not the same need to fix a smile on your face and pretend you’ve seen nothing. And I’ll bet you anything you like,’ he added, ‘she’s not the one who killed anyone and laid them out in the gravel pits — or slashed their faces to bits!’

Pitt shivered. ‘Quite. But you agree that whoever is doing it, the whole thing is connected to the Kynaston house?’

‘No question,’ Stoker agreed. ‘I just don’t know how! I’ve been turning it over and over, but nothing makes complete sense. For a start, why these mutilations? What kind of a person cuts the flesh on the face of someone who’s already dead? The only reason I can think of is to disguise who it is. But we’ve got no idea, anyway.’

‘Or to draw our attention to it,’ Pitt said, thinking aloud.

‘You mean two dead women dumped in a gravel pit isn’t going to make us stop and think?’ Stoker asked with heavy disbelief.

‘Doesn’t make as big a headline as two that are mutilated in exactly the same way,’ Pitt pointed out.

‘What’s the point of that?’ Stoker was now looking at Pitt curiously, as if he expected an answer. He stared more intently. ‘You mean it’s to draw our attention even more to Kynaston? Like the handkerchiefs?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Why?’ Stoker repeated.

‘That’s what I am struggling with,’ Pitt told him, trying to find words that were honest, and yet did not tell him about Somerset Carlisle. Not naming him would be easy, but Stoker would know the answer was being evaded, and that was an insult he did not deserve. It would also damage the trust between them, which was one of Pitt’s greatest assets. Without the trust of his men he was alone. He was increasingly aware of the lack of confidence from people like Talbot, and possibly others in the Government. Even in Lisson Grove he had yet to earn the kind of respect they had had for Victor Narraway.

‘One thought that came to me,’ Pitt went on as they crossed over the river and turned east, ‘is that if Kynaston is suspected and the net seems to be closing around him, he would be extremely grateful to anyone who could prove his innocence …’

‘He won’t thank us for long, sir,’ Stoker said with an odd gentleness, as if he were protecting a younger man from disillusion.

Pitt avoided looking at him, suddenly both moved and amused by his desire to prevent a pain that afflicted everyone from time to time. It was reality, bitter and as sharp as the icy edge of the spring winds that so often take the early flowers.

Pitt had to speak quickly, dispel the mistake before it had taken shape.

‘I know that, Stoker. I was considering the possibility of someone else offering him rescue, at a price — someone who owes him nothing, but to whom he might then owe a very great deal.’

Stoker’s eyes widened, sharp and bright. ‘I see! At a price he would then go on paying indefinitely! That would be very clever indeed. And we would look stupid. We might find ourselves listened to rather less the next time we suspect someone!’