The Path of the Wicked (2 page)

Mr Godwit looked ill at ease. ‘Rather the reverse. There seems to be some evidence that Picton and Miss Marsh were on . . . conversational terms, so to speak.'

‘More than conversational, you mean?'

A reluctant nod. ‘So it's said.'

‘Is it likely – the governess in a landowner's family and the local revolutionary?'

‘Surprising, I grant you. But Picton was a good-looking fellow, and quite the orator.'

I noted the use of the past tense, but mainly I was wondering how such an unlikely pair could have met. But then there were sometimes hidden depths in governesses. I knew. I'd once been one myself.

‘So why did he kill her?'

He wriggled in the chair. ‘It's supposed that he . . . made advances to her and she resisted.'

‘Where was the body found?'

‘In a copse, on the Kembles' land. Young Kemble was walking with the keeper early one morning and they found her lying in a clearing. She was quite cold and her clothes were soaked with dew. It seems certain she'd been there since the night before.'

‘How had she been killed?'

‘With a blow to the head from an iron bar. It was found in the nettles not far from the body, with traces of blood and some of her hairs on it.'

‘How long ago did this happen?'

‘Eleven days ago.'

‘Was Picton arrested immediately?'

‘No. He disappeared again. He was found hiding in a barn some miles away, five days later.'

‘And charged with the murder?'

‘Yes. They arrested him on the Wednesday and he was brought before the bench last Friday.'

‘Did he deny knowing Miss Marsh?'

‘No. He admitted meeting her from time to time, in that very copse where the body was discovered.'

‘Wasn't that foolish of him?'

‘There's evidence that a housemaid had spotted them there once. He must have known that would come out at the assizes. But it was all part of the man's attitude. He was treating the magistrates with contempt, as if we didn't matter.'

‘And where was he on the night Miss Marsh was killed?'

‘He was seen by a reliable witness earlier in the evening on a road not far from the Kembles' estate. He says he was on his way somewhere else, but wouldn't say where. It was put to him repeatedly that it would damage his position.'

‘Was he asked why he'd disappeared after the murder?'

‘Yes. He said that since he hadn't committed a crime, he didn't have to account for his movements.'

I'd been taking notes as we were talking, but now I put down my pencil, feeling oppressed by his story. Unless young Picton had amazing luck or a much better lawyer than anyone likely to be available to a farm labourer's widow, yes, he would hang and there was probably precious little I could do about it.

‘So Picton denies killing Miss Marsh, but admits to meetings with her. He was seen not far away near the time she was killed and won't say where he went after that. Then he went into hiding. In spite of all this, you think he's innocent?'

‘No.' Mr Godwit said it forcefully. Then, seeing the surprise on my face: ‘I'm not a fool. In the face of all this, I can't claim he's innocent. And yet, I'm not totally convinced he's guilty. As a private gentleman, that wouldn't matter one way or the other. But I'm a magistrate, with a sworn duty to justice, and rather than annoy my friends and neighbours I've sent that young man on the road to the gallows when there's a doubt in my mind whether he's guilty or not. Should I really be shrugging off the responsibility?'

You could tell he wasn't a man accustomed to making speeches. His eyes were distressed, his face red.

‘I wish I could help,' I said.

‘Meaning that you can't?'

‘It would take some time, getting to know the place and the people. I suppose it's not long to the next assizes.'

‘Three and a half weeks. They open on the fifteenth of August.'

‘I can't simply leave my cases here.'

‘Of course, I see that.'

He dropped his eyes, apologetic. That made me feel shabby. The fact was, I had only one minor case on hand, which I could probably have seen to its end in a day or so, leaving me free to travel to Cheltenham. There were two other reasons, which I could not give to Mr Godwit.

‘Even if I were free, it's not certain that I could help you,' I said. ‘Suppose whatever I found only confirmed Picton's guilt?'

‘I'd accept that. At least I'd feel that I'd done whatever was possible.'

His humility made me feel worse. I sighed.

‘I'm sorry. I don't think I can do it. But if you'd care to leave your country address with me, I'll write to you if things change.'

He took the pencil I offered him and wrote the address in a neat round hand. I went downstairs and to the gateway with him.

‘Perhaps the best you could do is to see that he has a lawyer,' I said.

‘Would that be proper, for a magistrate?'

I was on the point of saying that people needn't know, but guessed Mr Godwit would be as innocent as the egg he resembled when it came to subterfuge. Which meant young Picton was as good as hanged. Cravenly, I hoped he were guilty.

Back upstairs, I put his address away in a drawer and picked up the rectangle of card that was the real reason for my reluctance to go out of town: an invitation to an evening of Italian operatic arias in the garden of a house in Kensington, inside if wet. I enjoy Italian arias, but that did not account for the spark of excitement in my mind when the invitation had been delivered the day before. Since I was unknown to the aristocratic person hosting the event, the only reason for it was that Mr Disraeli had a case for me and – according to the custom of the unusual relationship between us – this was where he'd tell me about it. Over the few years since I'd adopted my profession, some high affairs of diplomacy and government had come my way. At first it hadn't been of my seeking, but the truth was I'd come to enjoy my privileged and occasionally dangerous glimpses behind the scenes. The very things that had seemed to my disadvantage as an inquiry agent – my gender and comparative youth – sometimes gave me access to places where heavy boots could not tread. That ambitious young MP, Mr Benjamin Disraeli, was not a government minister, much to his disappointment, but he had a finger in many pies. The authorities knew of our friendship – if it could be called that – and had several times used him as the means of sounding me out for commissions. Since care for my reputation and his meant we could not meet in private, the first indications I'd have were invitations like this one.

In the evening, I put on my printed glazed cotton with guipure lace at bodice and sleeves, fastened my lucky dragonfly in my hair and told my housekeeper, Mrs Martley, not to wait up. Treading carefully to the gateway in new satin pumps, I gave one of the boys from the mews a few pennies to find a cab for me. Normally, I should have asked my unpredictable assistant, Tabby, to do it, but she'd gone wandering again. A case a few months before had strained our relationship badly and the damage was by no means healed.

The house was in Kensington Gore, practically out in the country and an expensive cab ride. On the way, we passed a town house with the shutters up. Nothing unusual in itself, at a time when the fashionable world was beginning its migrations to spas or grouse moors, but this house was part of the reason why I did not want to exile myself to Cheltenham. It belonged to a man named Stephen Brinkburn. His father had died recently, so he was now Lord Brinkburn. His half-brother Robert and I were . . . well, what were we? Not engaged officially. Not even unofficially. We had cared very much for each other, but he had chosen to go travelling and I had encouraged him. Six months ago he had set off with a friend on a leisurely journey to Athens and probably beyond, which would take them away for a year or more. At first his letters had been warm and frequent, but now I hadn't heard from him for months. Lord Brinkburn owed me a favour, and I'd fought a battle with my pride and decided at last to ask if he'd heard from his half-brother, but by the time I brought myself to that point, he'd shut the town house and gone to his country estate. I'd resolved to ask as soon as he got back. If the answer was yes, he heard from him regularly, then whatever had been between Robert and me did not exist any more. I sighed. With one thing and another, I needed whatever task Mr Disraeli was going to offer to divert me. I hoped it might be some scandal at the Foreign Office.

At Kensington Gore, clouds were threatening showers, so the recital took place in the huge conservatory, with tropical birds fluttering free through swathes of palms and lianas. Seated behind a frangipane, I looked around for Mr Disraeli and caught sight of his wife, Mary Anne, at the end of a row near the front. Since she seldom left his side in public, that guaranteed his presence at least. She was wearing carnation-coloured silk and what looked like a matching turban, with fringes. On a stage between tubs of orange trees, Lucia di Lammermoor went decorously mad in white satin, her cadenzas competing with screeches from the macaws. At the interval, I collected a cup of coffee and walked into the garden. The showers had kept off and a smudgy sunset was staining clouds to the west. I waited on a stone bench by a pool where goldfish flickered, knowing he'd find me when he wanted.

‘Miss Lane, how nice to see you here.'

His affectation of surprise was one of the customs of our meetings. I said nothing, trying to resist the feeling that with his presence the world became instantly a more exciting place, though not necessarily more dependable.

‘May I join you?'

I nodded. There were enough people strolling in the garden to make our tête-à-tête acceptable. He sat down on the other end of the bench. He was wearing two or three gold chains and a brocade waistcoat that matched Mary Anne's dress. Goodness knows how he'd managed to escape her.

‘What did you think of the soprano?' he said.

The hitch of an elegant eyebrow gave his own opinion. I couldn't help smiling.

‘A very tasteful madness,' I said.

He laughed. ‘Yes, for a young lady who's just stabbed her bridegroom, she was commendably restrained.'

We sipped coffee and watched the goldfish.

‘The Home Secretary's very worried,' he said.

Down to business. So no scandalous foreigners this time.

‘He has plenty to be worried about,' I said.

‘The demands of the Chartists are very reasonable in many ways,' Disraeli said.

He knew my views and I didn't try to hide them.

‘In every way,' I said.

‘The problem is, the manner of asking.'

‘Isn't signing a petition one of an Englishman's rights?'

‘Indeed, but it doesn't stop at the great petition, does it? There's the question of riotous assembly.'

‘If peaceful marches turn into riots, it's usually because the authorities are heavy-handed,' I said. ‘If you call out the dragoons every time men are asking for food and employment, of course there's trouble.'

‘Yes, you're quite right,' he said.

It should have been a danger signal when he agreed with my opinion so easily, but I was too heated to catch it. He went on talking, eyes on the fish, voice serious.

‘The problem for the authorities is how to know in advance which marches and meetings are intended to be peaceful and which have been subverted by agitators who want to overturn everything in society. If the Home Secretary knew, for instance, more about the people who are involved in planning these demonstrations, he'd be in a much stronger position to decide which ones needed serious steps and which didn't.'

A cold feeling came over me as he was speaking.

‘So what has this got to do with me?' I said.

‘You're something of a radical; you can't deny it.'

‘I've never tried to.'

It was in my bloodline. My late father had been threatened with prison for openly supporting the French Revolution.

‘You have contacts among pamphleteers and so forth.'

‘Has somebody been spying on me?'

‘Of course not. The point is that you are in a good position to get to know some of the men involved and, from time to time, report on what they're planning.'

‘How dare you!'

The clattering of coffee cup on saucer warned me that I was literally shaking with anger. I clinked them down on the bench. Disraeli stared at me, seeming honestly surprised.

‘You'd be doing the honest men among them a favour,' he said. ‘It would make it more likely that the genuinely peaceful gatherings wouldn't be broken up by the police or army. Surely that would be worthwhile.'

I stood up, dazed with anger.

‘So you're asking me to be a government spy on the Chartists. I won't say I'm sorry you hold such a low opinion of me, because after this your opinion doesn't matter one way or the other. Goodnight.'

As I turned away, I had a glimpse of his annoyed and puzzled face. In my anger, I lost my way in the rambling garden, stumbling over box hedges, my sleeves torn at by rose briars. By the time I found my way to a side gate, everybody else had gone in and the tenor's voice in ‘Una furtiva lagrima' came faintly from the conservatory. There were no cabs to be had as far out as Kensington Gore and by the time I'd marched all the way to Knightsbridge my satin shoes were shredded beyond repair. When I got home, I used them to stir up the ashes of the parlour fire, found pen and ink and wrote a note.

Dear Mr Godwit,

Since our meeting, I find myself unexpectedly free of my obligations in London. If you still require them, you may call on the services of Liberty Lane.

‘L
ively sort of place, Cheltenham,' Amos said. ‘I was there when they burned down the grandstand.'

My friend Amos Legge and I were taking our usual early-morning ride in the park, I on my thoroughbred mare, Rancie, he on a bad-tempered roan from the livery stables where he worked as a groom. I'd told him about Mr Godwit, but not about the meeting with Disraeli.