The Angel Court Affair (Thomas Pitt 30) (35 page)

For a moment Pitt felt exactly the same need, and the same courage to seek. Then he remembered what they must do. ‘So you will let her die,’ he concluded gently, but even while he said the words, he knew that was not what he meant, nor did Nazario either.

‘I have told you what I will do,’ Nazario replied. ‘I will preach her doctrine this evening.’

Suddenly Pitt was cold inside. He could see it as vividly as if it were already happening.

‘There will be violent responses,’ he said quickly. ‘Take your head out of the clouds of your philosophy and look at what is real. It will stir up violent emotions, both in those who are afraid of her, and those who cling to what she said and desperately want her rescued. There may be rioting. People will become hysterical and start surging forwards, screaming and shoving each other, some even throwing things. It will be the perfect excuse for whoever has her to take the final step. Think what you’re doing!’

‘I am thinking,’ Nazario said, his voice quiet again, his body hunched up in the chair. ‘They have had her for nineteen days now, Mr Pitt. If they have not killed her already, they soon will. They want to know where she has hidden Juan Castillo, the last man who came to her for redemption, a way to right the wrong he had done, and maybe even to die in peace. She will not tell them. She herself will die first. I think she has already proven that, to them, if not to you. If she tells them, they will kill her anyway. She must know that too.’

‘You know who it is!’ Pitt said in amazement and momentary anger. ‘Why in God’s name are you protecting him? Who is he? Is this political after all? Is the religion no more than an excuse?’

‘No, I don’t know what it is!’ Nazario started up from his chair. ‘But I believe I know why. And in a sense it is religious, but only because everything in this world is of God! Faith is not something you mouth words for on Sundays, and forget for the rest of the week. The way you live is what you really believe, no matter what you say. Sofia believes there is no darkness from which you cannot come back, if you want to enough. She has believed that, and lived it for years. Castillo came to her for help. He confessed something to her, and of course she did not tell me what it was, except that the man who was his partner in some conspiracy had been murdered. His entrails were torn out of him and his body left on the side of the road as a warning.’ Nazario’s face was grey under the olive of his skin. ‘I know what they could do, Mr Pitt. Don’t treat me as if I were a dreamer whose visions have blotted out the reality of pain.’

He stared at Pitt earnestly. ‘Faith is supposed to give you hope, not to dazzle your vision that you don’t see the darkness, or the need to work, to face the truth in all its sorrow and its joy. If you don’t see that then you didn’t listen to Sofia. I am going to preach this evening, Pitt. You cannot prevent me. I have committed no crime, and you know that. I shall keep all your laws, but I shall try to save my wife, if she is still alive, and I shall do it my own way.’

Pitt looked back at his dark, unwavering eyes, and knew that argument was a waste of time he could use better. There was no more he could do about the way Nazario Delacruz chose to face his dilemma. Pitt did not honestly know what he would do in the man’s place. He could only thank the grace of God that he was not.

‘Well?’ Charlotte asked him when he got home that afternoon. He was tired, his feet ached, and he would have liked nothing better than to spend the evening with his family, listening to their talk of anything at all, except politics, religion or Sofia Delacruz. But it was not possible. He had already spent a couple of hours with Stoker and Brundage arranging for a degree of police protection at the hall where Nazario was to speak.

There was nothing more to do now but wait, but his mind kept going over and over all the possibilities. He told Charlotte that briefly as he hung his hat on the hall stand and followed her as she led the way.

The kitchen was warm and full of nice smells. The little dog, Uffie, sat in his basket by the stove and his tail thumped gently on the floor as he recognised Pitt. He didn’t move towards him, because he had learned that he was not supposed to be in the kitchen at all, and the delusion that no one noticed him was by far the safest way to stay there.

Pitt sat down in the chair nearest to him and leaned over to stroke his ears. The tail thumped a lot louder.

‘Hello, Uffie,’ Pitt said to him softly. ‘You are a lucky dog. I hope you appreciate it. Everyone tells you their troubles, and nobody expects you to reply.’

Charlotte understood the remark, and ignored it anyway. ‘What is Nazario going to do?’ she asked.

Minnie Maude came in from the pantry with a large apple pie in her hands. She looked from Pitt to Uffie, then at Charlotte. When no one answered she put the pie on the bench and went out again. Uffie stayed where he was, with Pitt’s hand on his head.

‘Preach this evening,’ Pitt replied. ‘I couldn’t persuade him not to. I think he has a plan of some sort, but he wouldn’t tell me what.’

Charlotte sat very still, her face pale.

‘Oh, Thomas, do you think he means to let her be martyred . . . for the cause?’

Pitt had known that thought was at the back of his own mind, but he had refused to consider it. Now he had no choice.

‘I don’t think so. And if he did, I don’t know whether it’s religious or political,’ he replied. ‘The man Castillo that he mentions is no one we know of, nor does anyone in Spain that we can reach. But of course that doesn’t have to be his real name.’

‘But Sofia came to England?’ she asked. ‘Unless whoever it is wants her murder to happen here for some reason? Could it be to do with the Spanish-American war? We have a long enough history of wars with Spain, and at least some of them were religious. People have long memories when they want to.’

‘It could be all sorts of things,’ he said wearily. ‘But I think it has to do with her reason for seeing Barton Hall. And that would be political. There is a large amount of money that seems to be unexplained, I mean a king’s ransom of it!’

‘Crusaders’ funds?’ she said with doubt. ‘Theft from someone?’

‘I don’t know. Either someone is torturing Sofia to find out where she has hidden Castillo, or else that is only what someone is using as an excuse for their own purpose. Which could be anything: making her a martyr on whom to build the religion, or getting rid of her so they can change it to something more moderate. That might gain a far larger following, and do it in peace. Or it could be simply to get rid of her for personal reasons . . .’ He did not finish the thought. It was repulsive and he did not want to say it aloud. He knew it would hurt her.

‘Money, religion, politics and sexual passion,’ she said with a bleak humour in her eyes. ‘Not very precise, is it?’

He was too tired to concentrate. He had to force himself to think logically. ‘Somebody wants to know from her where she has hidden Castillo. He has to be at the heart of it. It all started when she took him in, and then hid him somewhere. He has committed some act that he believes is a crime, and Sofia wants him to make amends for it, and redeem himself. Then she says she has to come to England in order to speak with Barton Hall.’

‘Did she ever speak with him? Do you know, for certain?’ Charlotte asked. ‘Even if she didn’t see him, there’s always the telephone. I’m sure he would have one.’

‘I don’t know. He says she didn’t, but she might have.’

‘You suspect him, don’t you?’ she said. ‘Couldn’t he be the one who is torturing her to find Castillo?’

‘But why? Hall’s an English banker, with ambitions to be Governor of the Bank of England. Why would he have anything to do with a Spanish criminal, possibly terrorist or revolutionary? Both Teague and Laurence have known him since childhood. The records are all there. I’ve had it all checked. Laurence says Hall and Teague have been friends, of a sort, since they were about eleven or twelve years old. Laurence dislikes them both, but what he says about them is definitely true, as far as it goes.’

‘Was he at school with them?’

‘Same school, but a few years younger. He says Hall cheated to help people pass their exams. He wouldn’t tell me who or how. He hates Hall for it, and because the one man who knew died in a fire, and Laurence believes he was murdered.’

She looked at him steadily, sorrow in her eyes. ‘And was he?’ she said softly. ‘Is that what this is about, and they are only using Sofia? Could that really be the truth?’

‘I don’t think so, but I don’t know. There are too many possibilities.’

He heard a slight sound at the door. At first he thought it was Minnie Maude come back, then turned and saw Jemima. She looked puzzled and unhappy. It was emotion she overheard that troubled her more than any facts she guessed at.

‘Is she dead, Papa?’ she said simply.

‘I don’t know,’ he replied honestly. ‘Whoever has her asked a ransom so terrible I don’t know whether her husband will pay it or not.’

‘Does he have enough money to do that?’ she asked.

‘It’s not money they want. The man holding her wants him to deny all her teachings by saying she was an awful and deceitful woman, and responsible for the deaths of his first wife and his children.’ He heard Charlotte draw in her breath, and saw the look of pain in Jemima’s face. But if Nazario did deny her, then everyone would know that he had, including Jemima. Telling her now might prepare her for it, and at least show that he trusted her.

Jemima took a deep breath. ‘Is that what you don’t know? If he will, or not?’

‘He has a plan. He won’t tell me what it is, probably because he is afraid I’ll stop him. But he says he won’t betray her by lying and saying she was ever greedy or selfish.’

She thought for a moment. ‘Would you do that, Papa? Deny everything you believe is true, to save your life?’

How hideously simply she put it! Like that, it sounded easy. Courage or cowardice? Life, or honour?

‘I hope not,’ he answered. ‘But I’m not sure if I wouldn’t do it to save yours or your mother’s. Or Daniel’s, of course. I love you very much.’

She smiled and suddenly her eyes filled with tears. ‘I know, Papa. Maybe it doesn’t count if it’s somebody you don’t like, or maybe don’t even know. That’s what a martyr is, isn’t it? Someone who will die rather than say they don’t believe in God?’

‘I think you can be a martyr to any cause,’ he replied. ‘It doesn’t have to be God.’

‘But God is the ultimate, isn’t He? Because you don’t really know if He’s real, do you?’

‘I don’t know,’ he confessed. ‘But I’m beginning to think that perhaps my mother did . . .’

‘Can you know something if it isn’t true?’ she asked.

Out of the corner of his eye Pitt saw Charlotte bite her lip.

‘You can think you do.’ He drew in a deep breath. ‘But I am seriously considering that she might really have known, in her own way.’

‘Are there different ways of knowing things?’

‘Definitely. Some things are very complicated. You come to them only slowly, a step at a time, and because you want to badly enough to keep on trying.’

‘Like mathematics,’ she said with a tiny glint of humour. ‘Or how to play the violin? That’s terribly difficult. You have to make all your own notes and know if they’re right or not.’

‘You have it exactly,’ he agreed. ‘It’s difficult, there are mistakes, but the music will be wonderful in the end.’

‘I want it before the end,’ she said gravely.

‘I shouldn’t have said “end”,’ he corrected himself. ‘If there is a God like the one my mother believed in, then there isn’t any end.’

Pitt went to the hall early to help Stoker and Brundage to prepare for Nazario’s speech. Not only were attacks to be forestalled, but the possibility of panic and the injury that would occur as a result was to be dealt with.

‘Do you really think he’s going to start a riot, sir?’ Brundage said with disbelief. ‘Or is that his way of getting back at us for letting all this happen in the first place?’ He looked thoroughly miserable. Pitt could see in his face that he still felt bitterly responsible for Sofia’s kidnap.

‘She came here knowing the risks, and when she got really worried her own people suggested she hide in the house on Inkerman Road,’ Pitt said patiently. ‘She went with them willingly! She didn’t climb down the drainpipe, and nobody broke in. It was probably all very quiet. We were supposed to protect her from attack, not hold her prisoner in Angel Court! If they hadn’t lied to us, she might still be all right.’

‘I wonder why Hall didn’t tell us about the house in Inkerman Road,’ Brundage added. ‘Didn’t he trust us either? Or did he have some other reason, do you think? I know he says he didn’t see her, but what’s that worth? For that matter, what’s that land in Canada worth? You asked me to look into that, but I can’t find anything about it. There’s land further east, and west with mineral deposits, even gold, but not there!’

Pitt froze suddenly. ‘Gold, but not there!’ Was that it? Hall had been duped into investing a fortune in land reputed to have gold in it, or some other massively valuable mineral – perhaps diamonds! Gold had been found in California in ’49 and both gold and diamonds beyond calculation in the Kimberley mines in South Africa.

That was what Sofia knew! That it was a hoax, formed and carried out by Juan Castillo, and the man who had been murdered on the road near Toledo.

No wonder Castillo was hiding! Hall would crucify him if he got hold of him. And he would tear Sofia apart slowly to make her tell him where he was. At all cost he must be silenced.

Hall was not stealing money; he was trying to disguise the loss until he could think of hiding it completely. No wonder he was panicking and close to despair. People lost money all the time. Any investment was a risk, but for a banker of Hall’s repute to be hoaxed by a couple of Spaniards, and out of a fortune belonging to the Church and the Crown!

Was that what Sofia was coming to tell him? It must have been. A warning and perhaps a way out.

Except it could not have been, or he would not now be torturing her – for what? Not to help him; if she could do that she would. Surely that was why she had come to England at all.