Anne Perry - Treachery at Lancaster Gate

“And how will that help?”

“It probably won’t, but you know as well as I do that you don’t prejudge the evidence. Get it all. You know what to look for. And find out whatever you can about who lives in this house, what they look like, when they come and go, who visits them, what they say they do and, if possible, what they really do.”

“You don’t need to tell me how to do police work,” Tellman said angrily. He stood still and looked at Pitt for several seconds, then turned away. The grief was clear in his face.

“I know,” Pitt said quietly. “Sorry…”

He remembered Newman at his wedding, the way his young bride had looked at him. No one should end up as he was now.

“I’m going to the hospital,” he said gruffly. “One of the injured men might be able to tell me why they went to that house.”

He walked smartly toward the Bayswater Road, where he could get a hansom quickly. He needed to feel as if he were doing something with a purpose. St. Mary’s in Paddington was not far, a few minutes’ ride up Westbourne Terrace to Praed Street and he would be there.

There was a stationary cab close to the curb, as if the driver had known he would be needed. “St. Mary’s Hospital, Paddington,” Pitt said as he got in.

“Yes, sir,” the driver replied gravely. “You’ll be wanting me to hurry,” he added.

“Yes, if you please.” Pitt desperately wanted to speak to the injured men, if they were still conscious and not in the operating theater-or dead.

It seemed like an endless journey, and yet in other ways far too short.

Pitt got out, paid the driver, and thanked him.

“Ye’re welcome, sir. You just catch the bastards!” the driver called after him.

Pitt half turned and raised his hand in a swift acknowledgment. There was nothing he could promise.

The doctor in charge told him that he couldn’t see the patients. They were still in great pain and heavily dosed with morphine.

Pitt explained again who he was. It was one occasion when a uniform with plenty of buttons and braid would have helped.

“Special Branch,” he said yet again. “This was a bombing. Right in the middle of London. We have to catch the perpetrators and stop them before they do it again. So it’s vital that I speak to these men, if they are able.”

The doctor’s face paled and he bit back his insistence. “Then be quick, Mr. Pitt. These men are in a bad way.”

“I know that,” Pitt said grimly. “I’ve just been looking at the dead.”

The doctor winced, but did not say anything more. Instead he led Pitt briskly along the corridor to a very small ward where three beds were occupied by men in different states of treatment. Two of them appeared to be unconscious, but could have been merely silent, motionless in suffering.

The most senior of the injured was Ednam, and he was awake, watching Pitt as he approached. His face was bruised and there was a dark red, angry burn across his left cheek. His left arm was bandaged from the shoulder to the wrist and his leg was propped up and also heavily bandaged, so whatever treatment it had received was concealed. Pitt guessed it was broken, and probably burned as well. When Pitt asked quietly if he could speak to him, Ednam looked back guardedly, taking a moment or two to recognize him. Then he relaxed a fraction, with just an easing of the muscles around his mouth.

“I suppose.” His voice was dry. Clearly his throat hurt, and probably his chest, from inhaling the smoke.

“If you can tell me anything,” Pitt prompted.

“If I’d known there was a bloody bomb I wouldn’t ’ave gone!” Ednam retorted bitterly.

“Why did you go?” Pitt asked. “And with four other men? That’s a big force. What were you expecting to find?”

“Drugs. Opium, to be exact. Big buy there, we were told.”

“By whom? Did you find any evidence of it?”

“We barely had time to look!”

Pitt kept his voice soft. “Was anyone else there?”

“Apart from us? Not that I saw,” Ednam answered. “But the information came from a good source. At least…one we’ve trusted before.” His voice was now little above a whisper. The effort to speak cost him dearly. “Newman and Hobbs are dead, aren’t they?”

“Yes.”

Ednam swore until he couldn’t get his breath anymore.

“I need to know your source,” Pitt urged, leaning forward a little. “Either he set you up or someone else set him up.”

“I don’t know his name. He calls himself Anno Domini.”

“What?”

“Anno Domini,” Ednam repeated. “I don’t know if he’s religious or what. But we’ve had a few good tips from him before.”

“How? Do you talk with him? Get letters?”

“Letters, just a line or two. Delivered by hand.”

“Addressed to you?”

“Yes.”

“By name?”

“Yes.”

“Telling you what?”

“Where a purchase will be or where drugs are stashed.”

“How many arrests have you made on this information?”

Ednam’s eyes did not leave Pitt’s face.

“Two. And found about two hundred pounds’ worth of opium.”

More than enough to establish trust; in fact, enough to raise the funds to buy a small house. Pitt could not blame Ednam for following the lead. He would have himself.

“Do you think he was setting you up?” he asked. “Or was someone else using him?”

Ednam thought for a few moments, his face tense with concentration. “I think someone else was using him,” he said at last. “But it’s just a guess. Find who’s behind this. I want to see them hang.”

“I’ll try,” Pitt promised. It was one of the rare moments when he agreed. Usually he found hanging a repulsive idea, regardless of the crime. It was an act of revenge that reduced the law to the same level of barbarism as those who had broken it.

He walked over to the bed opposite and found Bossiney. Pitt spoke to him only a few moments. He was very badly burned and must have been in savage pain, drifting in and out of consciousness.

Pitt walked over to the nurse in the corner of the ward. She gave him a bleak smile but would not confirm or deny anything; she had hope that he would survive, but would not commit herself to more. Her emotional exhaustion from witnessing such pain was marked on her face.

Finally Pitt went to the bed closest to the window, where Yarcombe lay staring at the ceiling, his face blank. A glance told Pitt that his right arm was missing from the elbow downward. Pitt struggled for something to say and could find nothing that was remotely adequate. His own right hand clenched till his nails bit into the flesh of his palm, a sweet reminder that it was there, real and alive.

“I’m sorry,” he said awkwardly. “We’ll get them.”

Yarcombe turned his head very slightly till his eyes focused on Pitt. “Do that,” he replied in a whisper. “They set us up!” He added something more, but it was unintelligible.

Pitt left the hospital with his head pounding and a vague, sick feeling in his stomach.

He arrived back at the Special Branch offices at Lisson Grove to find a message waiting for him to report to Commissioner Bradshaw of the Metropolitan Police. It did not surprise him. Bradshaw would be deeply upset about the bombing and remiss in his duty if he did not contact the head of Special Branch. Pitt had wanted to return to Lisson Grove only to see if there was any further information he could give to Bradshaw.

Stoker knocked on his door almost as soon as Pitt had closed it and looked at the papers on his desk.

“Sir?” Stoker said as soon as he was inside. He was a man of few words, but this was brief, even for him.

“Nothing more,” Pitt replied. “They are hurt very badly. Yarcombe lost part of his arm. Nobody can say if they’ll live or not. Ednam doesn’t look fatal but you can’t tell what’s inside. Or how bad the shock will be. He says they went there on a tip-off that there would be a big opium sale. They expected a degree of resistance, and they didn’t want anyone escaping with the proof.”