Anne Perry - Death On Blackheath

Carlisle hesitated. Quite clearly he was debating within himself whether to banter or to face the real battle. He must have decided on the latter because the amusement died out of his eyes and suddenly in the firelight and the softer glow of the gas brackets above him, the lines in his face seemed deeper. He was older than Pitt, perhaps into his fifties. It was his energy that occasionally made one forget that. Now the sun and windburn from his years of climbing, the lines around his eyes where he had peered into far distances, marked his features.

‘A very marked connection. How did he explain it?’ Carlisle asked.

‘That his watch was stolen by a pickpocket,’ Pitt replied.

‘And you believe him?’

‘I’m inclined to. It is not beyond your abilities to have had someone take it for you.’

‘Good heavens! Rather a back-handed compliment to my abilities. A dangerous undertaking, don’t you think?’

‘Extremely,’ Pitt agreed. ‘Therefore you had a very good reason. I cannot imagine any love affair he could have which would stir your anger or passion to the degree where you would use these women like this in order to draw me in.’

‘He has at times allowed his heart to rule his head,’ Carlisle answered sharply, weighing his words. ‘Not to love is to die by inches. Or perhaps it is worse than that. Maybe it is to hesitate on the shore of life and never step into its waters. But take it too far, and one can not only drown oneself, but take others with you.’

‘True,’ Pitt agreed. ‘But I believe you have something very specific in mind.’

Carlisle’s eyebrows rose in a sharp double V shape. ‘Verbally, perhaps. But you are calling upon me, not I on you.’

‘Really?’ Pitt said softly. ‘I had the idea that perhaps you were calling upon me, and that it was time I answered.’

Carlisle hesitated barely a second. ‘Indeed? What gave you that idea, or are we past that particular point?’

‘We are past it.’

‘I see. And your answer is?’ Carlisle sat motionless, his whisky forgotten. In fact, he had not drunk more than a couple of sips. Its colour reflected gold in the firelight, in the cut crystal it looked like a jewel itself.

‘You have my attention,’ Pitt replied. ‘I am listening.’

Carlisle did not answer.

‘Come on!’ Pitt said more sharply than he had intended. Carlisle was stretching his nerves. He could not afford to lose this game. Nothing in all of his experience with Carlisle suggested he had ever acted lightly or taken crazy risks that could cost him his freedom, even his life, unless the stakes were high enough to warrant it.

‘I investigated Kynaston, and found nothing,’ Pitt continued. ‘Kitty Ryder is still alive, but she left at night, and without taking her belongings. She must have been very afraid of something. I can’t see it as being the fact that apparently Kynaston has a mistress, unless she were an extraordinarily powerful man’s wife?’ Even as he said it, he did not believe it himself.

‘That’s not worthy of you, Pitt,’ Carlisle sounded disappointed. ‘Why the hell should I care who Kynaston’s in bed with?’

‘You don’t,’ Pitt agreed. ‘So I wonder what it is you do care about — sufficiently to step into this macabre farce. And it is a farce, isn’t it?’

Carlisle’s eyes did not leave Pitt’s face. ‘Is it?’ he whispered.

‘If I don’t find the truth of it, yes it is!’ Pitt responded sharply, his own nerves taut.

He saw a flicker of fear in Carlisle’s eyes, just for a moment, so brief he was not even certain he had seen it at all.

‘I don’t believe you killed either one of them,’ he added. ‘In fact you probably never saw them alive.’

Carlisle breathed out slowly. Something within him eased, but only a fraction.

‘And put the pieces of the watch there as well,’ Pitt continued. He did not mention the mutilations; that was a hideous lacuna between them. ‘And probably the cupboard key. You must have been damn sure I wouldn’t connect it up, and charge you!’

‘You’re the best detective I know,’ Carlisle replied, his voice a little hoarse, as if his lungs were starved, his throat tight.

‘So what is it you want me to find?’ Pitt leaned forward. ‘You left those women up there for the animals to eat! What matters that much to you, Carlisle? Murder? Multiple murder?’ He said the last word very carefully. ‘Still not enough! It has to be treason!’

Carlisle took a long, deep breath. ‘Do you know Sir John Ransom?’

‘Not personally. I know who he is.’

‘Precisely,’ Carlisle agreed. ‘It was a rhetorical question. If the head of Special Branch did not know the name of the man who leads scientific inventions regarding the navy, and naval warfare, then we have very deep problems indeed.’

‘What about Ransom?’ Pitt asked.

‘He is a friend of mine. A couple of years ahead of me at Cambridge,’ Carlisle replied.

Pitt allowed him to continue, knowing that this much preamble must be necessary. A log of wood collapsed in the fire, sending up a shower of bright sparks, but Carlisle apparently did not notice it.

‘He came to me two or three months ago,’ Carlisle resumed. ‘He had no proof at all, but he believed that certain highly sensitive facts regarding a new step forward in submarine warfare were being offered to another naval power. He did not say which because I believe he did not know.’

‘From the department where Kynaston works,’ Pitt concluded.

‘Precisely. Ransom was very worried because he had little doubt in his own mind that it was occurring, but no idea who was responsible. But it rested between three men. The other two have since been exonerated …’

‘Leaving Kynaston …’ Pitt said unhappily. ‘But there is no proof, or you would not be discussing it. You would simply have handed over the evidence to us.’

‘Yes. Without proof, allowing Kynaston to know that we are aware of what he is doing would only alert him, and perhaps make the matter worse,’ Carlisle agreed.

‘So you make it appear that he murdered his wife’s maid, over some real or imagined love affair, and hope that I will pull your chestnuts out of the fire!’

‘That’s about right,’ Carlisle admitted. ‘But you’re damn slow about it!’ He gave a harsh, twisted smile. ‘You like the man …’

‘Yes, I do. But that has nothing to do with it,’ Pitt said angrily. ‘Whatever I think of him, I can’t charge him with anything at all until I have evidence to prove it. And since Kitty Ryder was seen alive and well after the first body was found, and the second body doesn’t even resemble her, I have no reason to accuse Kynaston!’

‘I slipped up there,’ Carlisle admitted, wincing at his own failure. ‘But I didn’t know Kitty had been seen. Are you sure?’

‘Yes. I have a highly diligent assistant …’

‘Ah! The redoubtable Stoker. Yes. An excellent man.’ Carlisle smiled very slightly. ‘If he could actually find the woman, then she would testify as to what it was she saw, or heard, and why she ran away. Although it would be better to have something rather weightier than the word of a runaway lady’s maid.’

‘I’ll widen the search for her,’ Pitt promised. ‘Who else is involved? He must be passing the information to someone? And why, for God’s sake?’ Even giving words to the question and speaking it aloud was painful. He had not thought Kynaston more than perhaps self-indulgent with his mistress, certainly not a man to betray his own country. He had become used to disillusion but this still hurt.

Carlisle pulled his mouth into a gesture of apology. ‘I have no idea. But I have no doubt he will have plenty of defenders simply because no one will wish to believe that he could have betrayed them, or that they could have let him! The Prime Minister will be displeased, to say the least of it!’