Long Spoon Lane (11 page)

“I know that,” he said aloud. “And so does he.”

“Then get on with it,” Narraway said quietly. “I want to know who was behind this bombing. Was Landsborough the leader? Where did the money come from for the bombs? And above all, now that Landsborough’s dead, who’s the new leader? By the way, who did kill Landsborough?”

“I don’t know,” Pitt replied. “Carmody and Welling behave as if they believe it was one of us, which suggests it was someone they don’t know. A rival anarchist? One of Simbister’s men?”

“Which means one of Wetron’s?” Narraway said almost under his breath. “Find out, Pitt. I want to know.”

Pitt spent the rest of the day in the bombed-out ruins of Myrdle Street. He made several more inquiries about Grover, but no one was willing to say much about him beyond verifying that he had lived in the center house, and of course was now homeless, as were they all. Yes, he was a policeman. Their faces had closed expressions, defensive, and he thought also that there was fear. No one spoke ill of him, but there was a coldness in their eyes, without sympathy. It tended to confirm rather than disprove what Carmody had said.

Deep in thought, walking along the Thames Embankment, he was pleasantly half-aware of the steamboats on the river, which were crowded with people enjoying themselves, wearing hats with streamers and waving to the shore. There was a band playing somewhere just beyond the curve where he could not see them. Street peddlers were selling lemonade, ham sandwiches, and various kinds of sweets. It was all exactly as London should be late on a summer afternoon. The breeze carried the smell of salt with the incoming tide, the sounds of laughter, music, horses’ hooves on the cobbles, and the faint, background surge of water.

“Good evening, Pitt. All looks very normal, doesn’t it.”

Pitt stopped abruptly. He knew the voice even before he turned. Charles Voisey, knighted by the Queen for his extraordinary personal courage in killing Mario Corena and saving the throne of England from one of Europe’s most passionate and radical republicans. Now he was a member of Parliament as well.

What Her Majesty did not and would never know was that Voisey had then been the head of the Inner Circle, on the point of achieving his ambition to overthrow the monarchy and become the first president of a republican Britain.

However, it was Mario Corena who had precipitated that act intentionally, forcing Voisey into killing him in order to save his own life. It had offered Pitt the chance to make Voisey seem the savior of the throne, and thus the betrayer of his own followers. For that Voisey would never forgive him, even though he had crossed sides brilliantly, almost without hesitation, using his newfound status as royal favorite to stand for Parliament, and win. Power was the prize. Only the Inner Circle had ever known his republican goal. To everyone else he was a brave, resourceful, and loyal man.

Now Pitt looked at him standing on the footpath, smiling. He remembered his face vividly, as if he had seen him only minutes ago. He was distinguished but far from handsome. His pasty skin splashed with freckles, his long nose a trifle crooked. But as always, his eyes shone with brilliant intelligence, and he also seemed mildly amused.

“Good evening, Sir Charles,” Pitt replied, surprised to find his breath catching in his throat. This meeting could not be by chance.

“You are not an easy man to find,” Voisey continued, and as Pitt started to move again, he fell into step beside him, the breeze in their faces. “I imagine the bombing in Myrdle Street has you considerably exercised.”

“Did you follow me along the embankment to say that?” Pitt asked a little testily.

“It was a preamble,” Voisey replied. “Perhaps unnecessary. It is the Myrdle Street bombing I wanted to talk to you about.”

“If you are trying to recruit me into backing a drive to arm the police, you are wasting your time,” Pitt said curtly. “We have guns now, if we need to use them. And we don’t need any more authority to search people, or houses. It’s taken us decades to get even as much cooperation as we have; if we start being heavy-handed, we’ll lose it. The answer is no. In fact, I shall do whatever I can to fight against it.”

“Will you?” Voisey turned half a step ahead to face him, his eyes wide.

Pit was obliged to stop in order to answer. “Yes!”

“No chance of you changing your mind, under pressure, for example?”

“None at all. Were you intending to exert pressure on me?”

“Not at all,” Voisey answered him with a very slight shrug. “On the contrary, I am very relieved to hear that you will not be changed, regardless of threats or pleas. I had expected as much of you, but it is still a relief.”

“What do you want?” Pitt demanded impatiently.

“To have a reasonable conversation,” Voisey said, dropping his voice and suddenly intensely serious. “There are issues of urgent importance upon which we agree. I am aware of things which possibly you are not.”

“Since you are a member of Parliament, that is unarguable,” Pitt observed tartly. “But if you imagine that I will share Special Branch information with you, you are mistaken.”

“Then be quiet and listen to me!” Voisey snapped, his temper suddenly giving way, his face flushed. “A member of Parliament called Tanqueray is going to propose a private bill to arm the London police and give them wider power of search and seizure. As things stand at the moment, he has a very good chance of getting it passed.”

“It will set the police back years.” Pitt was appalled.

“Probably,” Voisey agreed. “But there is something far more important than that.”

Pitt did not bother to hide his impatience, but already a sharp needle of curiosity was pricking him. Voisey must want something, and he must want it very much to have swallowed his loathing of Pitt sufficiently to follow him and speak like this. “I’m listening,” he said.

Voisey’s face was pale now, a small muscle ticking in his jaw. His eyes held Pitt’s as they stood facing each other on the pavement by the embankment in the wind and the late sun. They were oblivious of passersby, the laughter, the music, and the splash of the rising tide on the steps below them.

“Wetron will use people’s fear to back the bill,” Voisey said quietly. “Every further outrage plays into his hands. He will allow crime to mount until no one feels safe: robbery, street attacks, arson, perhaps even more bombings. He wants people so afraid that they will be begging him to get weapons, new men, more power, anything to make them feel safe again. And when he is given them he will quell crime almost overnight, and emerge the hero.”

“And you want him stopped,” Pitt realized aloud, knowing how intensely Voisey must hate the man who had so brilliantly taken over the position from which he had been driven.

“So do you,” Voisey said softly. “If he succeeds he will be one of the most powerful men in England. He will be the man who saved London from violence and chaos, who made it safe to walk the streets again, to sleep undisturbed in one’s own bed without fear of explosions, robbery, losing one’s home or one’s business. The commissioner’s office will be his for the asking.” His voice was thick with fury and loathing too powerful to conceal anymore. “And he will be in command of a private army of policemen, with guns and the power of search and seizure that will ensure no one dislodges him. He will continue to take tribute from organized crime, payment for being able to continue their extortion unmolested. If any ordinary man disobeys, or protests, he will be stopped in the street, or his house will be searched, and they will find he was in possession of stolen goods. Next thing he will be in prison, and his family destitute.”

An open landau passed by on the road, young women in pale dresses, parasols aloft, laughing and calling out to friends going the opposite way.

“No one will come to his aid,” Voisey continued, oblivious to them. “Because those with the power to will long since have been silenced. The police will not trust anyone because half of them will be Wetron’s anyhow, but no one will know which half. The government will look the other way, grateful for law and order. Is that what you want, Pitt? Or do you hate the idea as much as I do? It doesn’t matter what your reasons are.”

Pitt’s mind raced. Was it possible? Wetron’s ambition knew no bounds, but had he really the imagination and the nerve to try something so appalling? He knew the answer even as the question formed in his mind. Of course he had.

Voisey saw it, and slowly he relaxed, the panic dying out of his eyes. “Then ally with me,” Voisey said softly. “Help me prove what Wetron is doing, and stop him!”

Pitt hesitated. The hatred between them was like a razor-sharp blade.

“What is more important to you?” Voisey asked. “Your love of London and its people, or your hatred of me?”

Along the embankment a band played a dance tune. People below them on the river were laughing and calling out to one another. Somewhere in the distance a hurdy-gurdy was churning out a popular song. A girl’s hat blew off in the wind, ribbons flying.

“Hate is irrelevant,” Voisey said drily. “I trust you—to be predictable, anyway. Think about it. I have a seat in Parliament, and I know the Inner Circle. We can do better together than either of us can alone. Think what it is you want, Pitt. Remember, ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’—at least until the battle is over. Think about it. Meet me tomorrow and give me your answer.”

Pitt needed more time. The whole idea was preposterous. Voisey was a dangerous man who hated Pitt and would destroy him at the first chance. It was only what Pitt knew—and had proof of, a carefully kept secret—that prevented Voisey from harming his family. Voisey had used his own sister, the only person in the world he loved, as his tool in a murder.

But the thought of Wetron using the anarchist threat to rise to power was too real to ignore. He knew it, and Voisey understood that.

“Day after tomorrow,” he said. “Where?”

Voisey smiled. “There’s no time for self-indulgence. Make it somewhere nice and public,” he replied. “How about midday, in the crypt of St. Paul’s, by Nelson’s tomb.”

Pitt drew in a long breath. He met Voisey’s eyes, and saw that he already knew Pitt would agree. He nodded. “I’ll be there.”

4

P
ITT DID NOT FEEL
his usual pleasure as he let himself in at the front door in Keppel Street. Voisey had spoiled that. If Pitt as much as mentioned his name, Charlotte would remember all the misery and violence of the past. It would be a self-indulgence to tell her of his meeting with Voisey, simply so he did not have to weigh his decision alone.

He stepped inside and unlaced his boots without calling out to tell her he was home. There was no point in saying anything about Voisey if he decided not to ally with him. And if he accepted his offer, it would be far easier for Charlotte if she did not have to know. He told her the things that mattered; he always had. They had first met because of a murder. She was observant, wise, and she understood women as he never would. What was often more important in his investigations, she understood her own social class in a way that he, as an outsider, did not. Many times it had been her observation that had shown him some vital point, an anomaly, a motive, a pattern of thought.