Treachery at Lancaster Gate (22 page)

“Did Inspector Ednam, or any of his men, ask you about your husband's business, or his habits at the time? Anything about him?”

“Are you suggesting there was something to hide?” she said, almost without expression. How many times had she fended off the intrusive questions of neighbors? Why Tyndale, why not their husbands, or sons? It is easier to think misfortune is somehow deserved; then you can make yourself safe from it.

“No, Mrs. Tyndale. I am wondering if they did not ask precisely because they knew your husband's death was completely random, exactly as you said. There has been some suggestion that Lezant shot him deliberately. But since he had never met him that seems very unlikely.”

“Then why would he?” At last the pain came through her voice.

“There is a young man, another one, who says he was there also, and escaped. He claims that Lezant did not shoot your husband, but one of the police did. He always claimed so throughout the trial right until Lezant's own death, but he was not believed.”

“Except by you?” Mrs. Tyndale asked, her eyes widening.

“I'm not sure,” he admitted. “There are questions unanswered, things that don't appear to make sense, as you have pointed out.”

She looked at him steadily, and then averted her eyes. He caught the bright light on tears for an instant. Then she moved and the shadow changed.

“I would be grateful if you proved without any doubt that my husband was a chance victim and nothing more. It is all I can do for him now.”

“Has anyone suggested otherwise, apart from the police, who are now under far closer scrutiny?”

She looked back at him. “Those who wish to protect the police,” she answered. “I can understand why. We all need to believe the police are strong, honest, brave, everything that will stand between us and the violence and darkness we are afraid of, whether it is real or not.”

He knew exactly what she meant.

He spoke with her another twenty minutes, learning more of James Tyndale, and then excused himself and left. He would check everything she had said, but the more he considered it, the less did he believe that Tyndale was anything more than a bystander caught fatally in someone else's disaster.

T
ELLMAN ALSO HAD READ
Josiah Abercorn's letters to the newspapers, and found that the man who had taken Ednam's place was in profound agreement with Abercorn's point of view.

“Thank heaven somebody's speaking out for us,” Pontefract said as Tellman closed the door behind him and sat down opposite the desk.

Tellman felt it would be foolish at this point to do anything but agree.

“Indeed.” He nodded. “I hope that very soon this kind of defense won't be necessary.” He had felt uncomfortable reading the most recent letter at his own breakfast table. There was an anger in it that suggested, without saying so outright, that any questioning of police morality was a sympathy with anarchists. And yet he understood that. It was his own instinctive response. He disliked change. The old values were good, familiar to everyone, proven over the years. It all came down to trust.

“We need to win the public back on our side,” he added, watching Pontefract's face. He hated having to, but he was far too good a detective to take anyone's innocence for granted. He was disturbed to find that he wondered if Pontefract were involved himself, even if it were no more than turning a blind eye for fear of seeing something he would prefer not to, something that might require him either to be involved or deliberately to speak out against…what? Bribery? Concealing a fatal crime, and sending an innocent man to the gallows? Murder?

How far had he come from just a couple of weeks ago that such a thought would even come into his mind? It made him feel chilled inside, and slightly sick.

“Of course,” Pontefract agreed. He seemed to be weighing what he would say next, searching Tellman's face. Finally he came to a decision. He leaned forward a little across the desk and lowered his voice. “I have looked a great deal more closely at Ednam's record over the past several years. To be frank, Tellman, I've discovered a few things that are very disturbing. He seems to have been blind, perhaps intentionally, to quite a few…regrettable things. Mostly slight, you understand, but he allowed a pattern of dishonesty to develop. I'll see that it stops. Good men, basically, but grown a little lax. We need discipline, just like anyone else.”

He looked at Tellman very steadily, trying to read his face.

Tellman was unpleasantly aware of it. Under the palliative words, there was a battle beginning. Tellman was being told to leave it alone. Should he do that? Allow the situation to heal itself? But would it? Wasn't that turning the blind eye, as he had all along? Only now it would be worse, because he knew.

“A good man, Abercorn,” Pontefract went on. “On our side. We need more like him. Understands the job. Not just that, he knows we are the line between safety and lawlessness. It's not Special Branch who need to enforce order, for all their responsibility for security and, I daresay, much higher pay—it's us.” He nodded. “Got to keep public respect. I know you can see that. You've always seen it. The ordinary working man, with a family to care for and nothing to do it with but what he earns. Duty to them. Damn Ednam and his slack ways, little lies here and there, pocketing the odd shilling to let things slip. Overzealous in some things, too lenient in others. We'll put it right.” He stopped and waited for Tellman to reply.

The silence grew heavy.

“Glad you agree,” Tellman said at last. “We'll have to begin with this opium dealing disaster a couple of years ago.”

Pontefract shook his head. “Ah—no. Can't do much now. All the poor devils involved in that are dead, or as good as.” He shrugged. “Nothing really to look into. We'll never know if Tyndale was the dealer or not, but since he's dead, too, it's over with. Now—there's the matter of Trumbell and whether he lost his temper and hit…what was his name? Holden? Yes…Holden. Nasty piece of work. I think a good caution, perhaps dock a week's pay, and that'll be settled. He won't do it again. Give him a fright and show that we haven't forgotten it.” He smiled as if Tellman had already agreed with him. “And keep better records of all things taken as evidence. Make sure it's double-checked and there's a signature on everything. Carelessness, not malice, you know?”

Tellman could see by the bland smile on Pontefract's face that nothing he said was going to make any difference. The defense was prepared and he was not going to be allowed to break through it, not without injuring himself, and making enemies.

Pitt had been right. There was an ugliness here that would hurt all of them, one way or another.

Tellman persisted in listing and clarifying everything, out of stubbornness rather than belief he could win, and by the time he left for home it was dark outside. The east wind had a biting edge to it. On the pavement the ice was already hard, and his weight cracked it where he stepped on shallow puddles.

He began intending firmly not to tell Gracie anything about it. However, she, too, had read Abercorn's letter, albeit repeated in an evening newspaper.

“ 'E's wrong,” she said bleakly after they had finished supper and Gracie had checked on Christina. Tellman always liked it if he could get home in time to talk to his daughter. She listened wide-eyed, watching his face and trying to mimic him, copying his tone and now catching many of his words, even if they were ones she did not understand at all. It was an intense pleasure to him and he had been known to go and waken her deliberately, if he were home late, just for the pleasure of seeing the recognition and the excitement in her eyes.

Tonight he had not done so. She was teething and Gracie had settled her. She herself looked tired and worried. She picked up his moods as if she could read the thoughts written in his face, or perhaps the weariness of his step in the hall, the way he sat with his feet before the fire.

“Is he?” He was referring to Pontefract, in reply to her observation. “If it's put right then isn't it time to forgive and move on? Maybe Ednam was the only bad apple in the barrel?”

“They in't apples,” she argued stubbornly. “And you know that! When did you ever blame them above yer for things yer done wrong? You get 'ot enough under the collar if they take credit for what other people do right!”

That was true.

“It's not the same thing—” he began.

“In't it? Looks just the same ter me. You saying they're just like machines? Yer push this button an' this 'appens, push that one an' summink else does.”

“No, of course not! But if Ednam was bad, he's gone. I don't like Pontefract, self-satisfied…” He left out the word he was thinking. He was careful not to swear in front of her; he thought better of her than to do that. “But he's right. We've got to forgive somewhere, and the sooner the better. We rely on each other. Trust men and they'll trust you. It can be hard out in the streets, Gracie.”

“I know that, Samuel,” she agreed quickly. “An' don't think I don't worry about yer, 'cos I do. Yer can forgive someone 'oo 'urt yer yourself. Yer got the right to do that. But someone what 'urts other people, if ye're the law, yer gotta draw a line an' say, ‘If yer do this, then it'll cost yer.' If yer don't, then they know they can do anything they like, and yer won't ever do anything.” She drew in her breath. “Yer got no right ter do that, Samuel. Yer'd be lying to everyone.”

“But—” he started.

“No!” she said hotly. “If yer tell a child ‘no,' but what ye're doing means ‘yes,' then they don't know what you mean. They'd stop trusting yer because yer in't telling the truth. And yer really in't protecting them the way yer promised. Yer in't leading them right. I can tell yer one thing for sure, Samuel, yer in't teaching my child that! It's wrong.”

He looked at her where she sat stiff-backed in front of him, her face set, her eyes meeting his without a flicker.

He thought for an instant of asking her if she would make exceptions for certain cases, then knew that she would not. She would tell him to say what he meant in the first place, and stick to it.

“Is it bad?” she asked when he still didn't answer.

“I think so,” he said grimly. “There've been too many lies. They should have done something years ago. It's going to be hard…”

A momentary fear flickered in her eyes and her lips tightened. “Yer'd better be careful, then, 'adn't yer!”

He kept on thinking he knew her and she wouldn't surprise him anymore, and again he was wrong.

“Have you got any cake?” he asked.

She knew she had won, and she smiled at him, taking a deep breath. She had not wanted to be right. It would have been so much easier to tell him to leave it alone.

“Yeah,” she said airily. “I got one piece left. I'll get it for yer.”

I
N THE MORNING
T
ELLMAN
decided to look again at other cases since the death of Tyndale, ones that Ednam had worked on, and particularly those that included Newman, Hobbs, Bossiney, and Yarcombe. He was returning down an alley toward his own station, carrying a piece of testimony that had been key to a conviction, when he heard footsteps behind him, light and rapid, like someone attempting to catch up with him. He turned as a man bumped into him, knocking him off balance. He fell against the wall, bruising his shoulder.

He righted himself immediately, regaining his stance, ready to fight. The man stood in front of him. He was young, strong, and on the balls of his feet, like a boxer.

This looked as if it were going to be ugly. He felt a sharp tingle of fear. They were alone. Tellman had learned how to defend himself. He was wiry, and very fast, but what if the man had a knife?

The man stared at Tellman unblinkingly.

“Sorry, Inspector,” he said with a very slight smile down-turned at the corners of his mouth. “Didn't mean ter scare yer. Not a very good neighbor'ood, this. Mebbe yer shouldn't be 'ere alone, like. I'll walk yer to the main road.”

Tellman felt a sweat of relief break out on his body. He racked his memory to recall where he had seen the man. His face was vaguely familiar, but he could not place it. It was recently, and they had spoken only briefly. He knew the intonation, and the man had addressed him by rank. Had he arrested the man for something? There was challenge and dislike in his eyes.

Tellman swallowed, and calmed his breathing. “It's not far,” he said, dismissing the suggestion. He did not want the man with him. More than that, he could not afford to have the man know how much he had startled him…no, that was less than the truth. For a moment he had been afraid. His heart was still hammering in his chest. It was a long time since he had walked the beat, aware of the dangers around him.

Now suddenly he knew who the man was: Constable Wayland, one of Whicker's men.

“No trouble, sir,” Wayland said, falling into step beside Tellman as he started to move again. “Just make sure ye're all right, sir. We gotta look out for each other, right? Even off duty…”

“Thank you, Constable Wayland.” Tellman forced his voice to be calm, level. Should he let the man know he had understood the implicit threat? If he didn't, then maybe it would be repeated, less pleasantly. Or was he imagining it? Making himself ridiculous, as if he had a guilty conscience?

They walked in silence along the narrow pavement, matching step for step, until they came to the main thoroughfare, and then stopped at the curb.

“You'll be all right now, sir,” Wayland said, nodding with satisfaction. “Good day, sir.”

“Good day, Constable,” Tellman replied, and then, watching the traffic carefully, he crossed the road, still uncertain, turning it over in his mind.