Anne Perry - Half Moon Street

“I dunno! Do you think I ask the name and address of every young amateur who comes here with an ’andful o’ pictures? They’re good pictures. Nothin’ wrong wif ’em. I bought ’em. Fair sale. Nothin’ more ter say.”

“Describe him!”

“Describe ’im! Yer crazy, or summink?” He was thoroughly aggrieved. “ ’E was a young man wot fancies ’isself as a photographer, an’ ’e in’t bad.”

“Tall or short? Dark or fair? Describe him!” Pitt said between closed teeth.

“Tall! Fair! But there’s nothin’ wrong wif ’em! You can find pictures like this all over London. . all over England. Wot’s the matter wif yer?”

“Did he see your other pictures? Like the one of Ophelia chained up in the boat?”

The man hesitated. In that instant Pitt knew that it was Orlando who had brought the photographs, and that he had seen Cathcart’s picture of his mother. Until then Pitt had been clinging to the hope that it had been Bellmaine, or even, by some obscure chance, Ralph Marchand, pursuing his crusade against pornography.

“Sergeant Tellman!” Pitt turned sideways, his voice sharp.

Tellman stood up, letting the postcards fall onto the floor.

“Yes sir?”

“Go and find the nearest constable to stand guard here. I think we should continue this discussion at Bow Street.”

“All right!” Hadfield snapped. “ ’E could ’ave! I dunno!”

What was his name?”

“I’ll ’ave ter look at me records.”

“Then do it!”

Muttering under his breath, Hadfield went back to his desk, and it was several silent, painful minutes before he returned, waving a piece of paper. There was no name on it, simply the amount of money, a brief description of the photograph, and the date-two days before Cathcart’s death.

“Thank you,” Pitt said quietly.

Hadfield’s face conveyed the words he did not dare to say.

Pitt wrote him a receipt in exchange for the photographs he was sure were taken by Orlando Antrim, also the sales receipt with its date.

Outside the air seemed cold.

Tellman looked at him questioningly.

“Orlando Antrim,” Pitt answered. “He was here two days before Cathcart’s death. If he saw that picture of his mother, and perhaps some of the others, how do you suppose he felt?”

Tellman’s face was pinched with misery, and there was an emotional conflict in him that was painfully apparent. “I don’t know,” he said, stumbling a little as he stepped off the pavement onto the road to cross. “I don’t know.”

Pitt tried to imagine himself in Orlando’s place. Cecily was an actress. It was her profession to portray emotion in public and behave in such a way as to stir any of a score of passions. He must be used to it. But could anything make this acceptable to him?

Pitt could see the grotesque picture of Ophelia in his mind’s eye so clearly there was no need to pull it out of his pocket to remind himself. It was a woman bound by literal, physical chains, but appearing to be in a paroxysm of sexual ecstasy, as if the bondage she experienced excited her as no freedom could. It suggested that she hungered to be overpowered, forced into submission. It was lust that lit her face as she lay there, knees apart, skirts raised. There was nothing of tenderness in it, certainly nothing that could be thought of as love.

If Pitt had seen his own mother like that, for any reason at all, it would have revolted him beyond measure. Even now, striding along the footpath at an increasing speed, he could not allow his mind to touch such an idea. It polluted the very wellspring of his own life. His mother was not that kind of woman. His intelligence told him she had loved his father. He had heard them laughing together often enough, long ago, and seen them kiss, seen the way they looked at each other. He knew the nature and the acts of love.

But that picture had nothing to do with love, or the things men and women do in private in generosity, hunger and intimacy. It was a mockery of them all.

Of course the world was full of people whose ideas were different, whose acts he would have found offensive if he had considered them. But within one’s own family it was different.

Had he seen Charlotte portrayed that way. . he felt the blood rise in his face and his muscles lock, his fists clench. If any man were ever to speak coarsely to her he would be tempted to violence. If anyone actually touched her Pitt would probably strike him and consider the consequences afterwards.

For anyone to think of Jemima in that way, and then use her so, would break his heart.

Cecily Antrim had such profound understanding of so many different kinds and conditions of people, how could she fail to grasp the distress any man must feel to see his own mother in such a way? Had she no conception of the grief and the confusion that had to follow?

He thought of Orlando. If he had seen that picture, or any of them, he would have walked away from the shop like a blind man; the world of footpath and stones and sky, soot in the air, clatter of people, smell of smoke and drains and horses would make no mark on him at all. He would be consumed by the inner pain, and perhaps hatred.

And above all, he would be asking the same question Pitt was- Why? Was any cause worth fighting in such a way? Pitt could ask it, and still be hurt by the disillusion over a woman whose glorious talent he had admired, who had made him think, and above all, care about her on the stage. How infinitely more must Orlando have felt?

Pitt had been convinced from the beginning that Cathcart’s death was a crime of passion, not simply escape, even from the life-draining clutches of blackmail. That would induce hatred and fear, but there was more than either of those in the way Cathcart had been laid in the mockery of Millais, the exact replica, a soul-deep injury that could not be undone.

“D’you think he knew who took that picture?” Tellman’s voice, which cut across Pitt’s thoughts, was harsh, yet so quiet he barely heard it.

“No,” Pitt replied as they both stopped at the next curb while a heavy wagon rolled past, horses leaning forward into the harness, the wheels rumbling over the cobbles. “No. He saw it two days before Cathcart’s death. I think it took him that long to find out.” He started forward across the street. He did not even know where he was going; at the moment he simply needed to put in a physical effort because he could not bear to keep still.

“How could he do that?” Tellman asked, running a couple of steps to keep up. “Where would he begin? He can’t have asked her. In fact, if I were in his place I couldn’t even have spoken to her.”

“He’s an actor,” Pitt replied. “I presume he is better at masking his feelings than either of us.” He walked a few yards in silence. “He would know it was a professional photograph. . the square exposures. Professionals don’t use the round ones. No good except in daylight. And he’d hardly have the film manufacturer develop them, which is what the amateurs do.”

Tellman grunted with profound disgust. His emotions were too raw to find words. He walked with his shoulders tight and hunched, his head forward.

“He’d have started to consider the different professionals it might be,” Pitt continued with his thoughts. “He’d do it very discreetly. He would have been thinking of murder already. . or at the very least a confrontation. Where would he begin?”

“Well, if he’s trying to keep it secret, he’ll hardly ask anyone,” Tellman retorted. “Not that you would ask anyone about pictures like that anyway.”

“He’d narrow it down to professional photographers who use that kind of scenery,” Pitt answered his own question. “He’d study them for style. He takes photographs himself. He knows how an artist puts things one way, then another, trying to get exactly the right effect. It’s like a signature.”