Anne Perry: Treachery at Lancaster Gate

Pitt stood in the middle of the street looking at the smoldering ruins of the house. The fire brigade had thoroughly hosed the small bursts of flame here and there, and the water had puddled on the floor and settled into the craters left by the bomb that had detonated approximately forty-five minutes ago. It was midday but the sky was still clouded with smoke and the stench of it was everywhere.

Pitt moved out of the way as two ambulance men lifted a wounded man onto a makeshift litter and carried him out to the waiting ambulance. The horses were shifting their weight impatiently. They knew the smell of burning in the early winter air and each crash of collapsing timber startled them, though they waited obediently.

“That’s it, sir,” the white-faced constable said to Pitt, blinking rapidly. Perhaps it was the smoke that stung the man’s eyes, but more probably it was emotion. All of the men who had been caught in the explosion were police: five of them altogether. “That’s the last of them out.”

“Thank you.” Pitt acknowledged the words. “How many dead?”

“Hobbs and Newman, sir. We didn’t move the bodies.” The constable coughed and tried to clear his throat. “Ednam, Bossiney, and Yarcombe are pretty badly injured, sir.”

“Thank you,” Pitt repeated. His mind was teeming with thoughts, and yet he could not come up with anything to say that would give any real comfort to the constable. Pitt was head of Special Branch, that discreet part of Security that dealt with threats to the nation-sabotage, assassinations, bombings, any form of terrorism. He had seen destruction and violent death more times than he cared to remember. In fact, before Special Branch he had been in the regular police, dealing primarily with cases of murder.

But this was a deliberate attack directed specifically at the police: colleagues he had known and worked with over the years. He could remember Newman getting married, Hobbs’s first promotion. Now he had to search this wreckage for their bodies.

He turned and started to move slowly, picking his way so as not to disturb what was left of the situation-the evidence, if it could be called such. They already knew it was a bomb blast. Two people had been close enough to witness it. They had heard the explosion and seen the rubble flying, and then the flames as the wood caught fire. Now they were sitting in the back of an ambulance as one of the drivers finished binding up a gash in an arm caused by flying glass. There were shards everywhere from exploded windows. Both of the witnesses looked battered and shocked, but Pitt would have to interview them.

He spoke to the man first. He looked to be in his sixties, white-haired, dressed in a formal coat. Likely he had been on his way back home from church. There were cuts on the right side of his face, and a burn across his cheek, as if a piece of flaming wood had caught him. His right side was smeared with dust and there were small burns in the fabric of his clothes.

“On my way home from church, God help us,” the man said shakily after Pitt had introduced himself and apologized for disturbing him. “What kind of people would do this?” He was frightened, and trying desperately not to show it in front of the woman. His wife, Pitt assumed. He must have been walking on the outside, as a man would, and she had been closer to the blast and was more seriously hurt. It was her arm the ambulance man was binding.

“Did you see anyone else in the street?” Pitt asked. “Anyone at all? Any witnesses might help.”

“No…no, I didn’t. We were talking to each other,” the man replied. “Who would do this? What do they want?”

“I don’t know, sir. But we’ll find out,” Pitt promised. The ambulance man caught Pitt’s eye, his glance indicating that Pitt should hurry. Blood was already beginning to seep through the bandage on the woman’s arm as he added another layer, and she looked pale.

Pitt handed his card to the man. He didn’t see any point in delaying them further. “Thank you. That’s all for now. If you remember anything, please let us know.” He wished them well, and with a nod to the ambulance man he walked back toward the house. It was time to go in and look at the bodies, gather whatever evidence there was.

He skirted around a block of fallen masonry, picking his way carefully. He could taste burning in the air, and yet it was cold.

“Sir!” a fireman called out. “You can’t come in here! It’s…”

Pitt kept on walking, his feet crunching on broken glass. “Commander Pitt,” he introduced himself.

“Oh…well, watch where you put your feet, sir. And your head.” He glanced upward at a broken beam that was hanging at a crazy angle, swaying a little, as if it could become detached and fall off any moment. “You still shouldn’t ought to be here,” he added.

“The dead men?” Pitt requested.

“It’s dangerous in here,” the man pointed out. “They’ll not be going nowhere, sir. Best you let us get them out. The blast killed them, sir. No doubt about that.”

Pitt would have liked the excuse not to look at the bodies, but there was none. He might learn nothing useful, but it would be a beginning of facing the reality and coming to terms with it.

He was standing in front of the fireman. The man was pale-faced, apart from the black ash smudges on his cheeks. His uniform was filthy, and wet. When he had time to think about it, he would realize he was cold as well.

“The bodies?” Pitt nudged him as gently as he could.

“That way, sir,” the man said reluctantly. “But be careful. You’d be best not to touch anything. Bring the whole lot down on top o’ yourself.”

“I won’t,” Pitt responded, beginning the awkward journey, trying to avoid tripping. If he fell he would almost certainly bang into a jutting wall strut, a piece of smashed furniture, or something dangling from where the ceiling used to be.

The floorboards were half up, torn by the blast. It must have been a large bomb and, to judge by the burning and the angles of the broken wood, he was near the center of it. What on earth had happened here in a quiet house on a pleasant London street near Kensington Gardens? Anarchists? London was full of them. Half the revolutionaries in Europe had either lived here or passed through. In this year of 1898 there had been less terrorist activity than in the recent past, but now, almost at the close of the year, it seemed Special Branch’s sense of ease was misplaced. Was this the dying blow, or the first outrider of another storm? Nihilists in Europe had assassinated President Carnot of France, Tsar Alexander II of Russia, the Spanish prime minister, Canovas del Castillo, and, earlier this year, the empress Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary. Perhaps the violence was now coming here to England as well?

In front of Pitt there was a body, or what was left of it. Suddenly he could not swallow, and he thought for a moment that he was going to be sick. One leg was entirely gone, one side of the chest caved in under part of a beam from the rafters. But the man’s face was oddly unmarked. Pitt could recognize Newman.

He would have to go and see Newman’s widow, say all the usual words of grief. It would not help, but its omission would hurt.

He stared at the body. Did it tell him anything, other than what the fireman had already said? There was no smoke on Newman’s face. His left arm was mostly gone, but when Pitt looked more closely he saw his right hand was clean. Did that mean he was already inside here when the bomb went off? He had not battled his way through smoke and rubble. Why had he come here? Trouble reported? An alarm of some sort? Following someone? A meeting already arranged? An ambush?