Anne Perry: Southampton Row

Yes, Dartmoor would be good: great, clean, wind-driven skies, the smell of earth and grass on unpaved lanes. They would walk and talk together, or simply walk! He would fly kites with Daniel and Edward, climb some of the tors, collect things, watch the birds or animals. Charlotte and Jemima could do whatever they wished, visit people, make new friends, look at gardens, or search for wildflowers.

The cab stopped. “’Ere y’are sir,” the driver called. “Go right in. Gentleman’s expecting yer.”

“Thank you.” Pitt climbed out and walked across the pavement to the steps leading up to a plain wooden door. It was not the shop in the back room of which he had found Narraway in Whitechapel. Perhaps he moved around as the need directed? Pitt opened the door without knocking and went in. He found himself in a passage which led to a pleasant sitting room with windows onto a tiny garden, which was mostly crowded with overgrown roses badly in need of pruning.

Victor Narraway was sitting in one of the two armchairs, and he looked up at Pitt without rising. He was a slender man, very neatly dressed, of average height, but nevertheless his appearance was striking because of the intelligence in his face. Even in repose there was an energy within him as if his mind never rested. He had thick, dark hair, now liberally sprinkled with gray, hooded eyes which were almost black, and a long, straight nose.

“Sit down,” he ordered as Pitt remained on his feet. “I have no intention of staring up at you. And you will grow tired in time and start to fidget, which will annoy me.”

Pitt put his hands in his pockets. “I haven’t long. I’m going to Dartmoor on the noon train.”

Narraway’s heavy eyebrows rose. “With your family?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I’m sorry.”

“There is nothing to be sorry about,” Pitt replied. “I shall enjoy it very much. And after Whitechapel I have earned it.”

“You have,” Narraway agreed quietly. “Nevertheless you are not going.”

“Yes I am.” They had known each other only a few months, worked very loosely together on just the one case. It was not like Pitt’s long relationship with Cornwallis, whom he liked profoundly and would have trusted more than any other man he could think of. He was still unsure what he felt about Narraway, and certainly he did not trust him, in spite of his conduct in Whitechapel. He believed Narraway served the country and was a man of honor according to his own code of ethics, but Pitt did not yet understand what they were, and there was no bond of friendship between them.

Narraway sighed. “Please sit down, Pitt. I expect you to make this morally uncomfortable for me, but be civil enough not to make it physically so as well. I dislike craning my neck to stare up at you.”

“I am going to Dartmoor today,” Pitt repeated, but he did sit down in the other chair.

“This is the eighteenth of June. Parliament will rise on the twenty-eighth,” Narraway said wearily, as if the knowledge was sad and indescribably exhausting. “There will be a general election immediately. I daresay we shall have the first results by the fourth or fifth of July.”

“Then I shall forfeit my vote,” Pitt replied. “Because I shall not be at home. I daresay it will make no difference whatever.”

Narraway looked at him steadily. “Is your constituency so corrupt?”

Pitt was slightly surprised. “I don’t think so. But it has been Liberal for years, and general opinion seems to be that Gladstone will get in, but with a narrow majority. You haven’t called me here three weeks before I start in order to tell me that!”

“Not precisely.”

“Not even approximately!” Pitt started to rise.

“Sit down!” Narraway ordered with a suppressed rage making his voice cut like a blow.

Pitt sat more out of surprise than obedience.

“You handled the Whitechapel business well,” Narraway said in a calm, quiet voice, leaning back again and crossing his legs. “You have courage, imagination and initiative. You even have morality. You defeated the Inner Circle in court, although you might have thought twice had you known it was they you were against. You are a good detective, the best I have, God help me!” he replied. “Most of my men are more used to explosives and assassination attempts. You did well to defeat Voisey at all, but your turning of the murder on its head to have him knighted for saving the throne was brilliant. It was the perfect revenge. His republican friends regard him as the arch-traitor to the cause.” The merest smile touched Narraway’s lips. “He was once their future president. Now they wouldn’t allow him to lick stamps.”

It should have been the highest praise, yet looking at Narraway’s steady, shadowed eyes, Pitt felt only awareness of danger.

“He will never forgive you for it,” Narraway observed as casually as if he had done no more than remark the time.

Pitt’s throat tightened so his answer was scratchy. “I know that. I had never imagined he would. But you also said at the end of the affair that it would be nothing so simple as physical violence.” His hands were stiff, his body cold, not for himself but for Charlotte and the children.

“It won’t be,” Narraway said gently. For an instant there was a softness in his face, then it was gone again. “But he has turned your stroke of genius to his own use, that is his genius.”

Pitt cleared his throat. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“He is a hero! Knighted by the Queen for saving the throne,” Narraway said, uncrossing his legs and leaning forward, a sudden passion of bitterness twisting his face. “He is going to stand for Parliament!”

Pitt was stunned. “What?”

“You heard what I said! He is standing for Parliament, and if he wins he will use the Inner Circle to rise very quickly to high office. He has resigned his place on the Appeal Court Bench and taken to politics. The next government will be Conservative, and it will not be long in coming. Gladstone won’t last. Apart from the fact that he is eighty-three, Home Rule will finish him.” His eyes did not move from Pitt’s face. “Then we will see Voisey as Lord Chancellor, head of the Empire’s judiciary! He will have the power to corrupt any court in the land, which means in the end, all of them.”

It was appalling, but Pitt could already see how it was possible. Every argument died on his lips before he spoke it.

Narraway relaxed fractionally, an easing of the muscles so slight it was barely visible. “He’s standing for the South Lambeth seat.”

Pitt quickly thought of his London geography. “Wouldn’t that take in Camberwell, or Brixton?”

“Both.” Narraway’s eyes were steady. “And yes, it’s a Liberal seat, and he’s Conservative. But that doesn’t ease my mind, and if it eases yours, then you’re a fool!”

“It doesn’t,” Pitt said coldly. “He’ll have a reason. There’ll be somebody he can bribe or intimidate, some place where the Inner Circle has its power he can use. Who is the Liberal candidate?”

Narraway nodded very slowly, still looking at Pitt. “A new man, one Aubrey Serracold.”

Pitt asked the obvious. “Is he Inner Circle, and will stand down at the last moment, or throw the election in some other way?”

“No.” Narraway said it with certainty, but he did not explain how he knew. If he had sources somewhere deep inside the Inner Circle, he did not disclose them, even to his own men. Pitt would have thought less of him if he had. “If I could see where it was coming from, or how, I wouldn’t need you to stay in London and watch,” Narraway continued. “Throwing you out of Bow Street may prove to be one of their greatest mistakes.” It was a reminder of their power, and the injustice against Pitt. Precise knowledge of what he was saying sparkled hard and bright in his eyes, and he made no pretense to hide it. They both knew he did not need to.