Death On Blackheath (Thomas Pitt 29) Read online

  That there was also an antipathy between Carlisle and Talbot was clear, and Pitt would be wise to remember that and avoid being caught in the middle. Nevertheless his step was light as he made his way to the ferry.

  Stoker sat at the kitchen table at his sister’s house. He quite often came here on his days off. King’s Langley was an ancient and very pleasant village in Hertfordshire beyond the outskirts of London, about an hour’s journey on the train. Gwen was the only family he had left, and quite apart from that, he really liked her. All his best memories were somehow attached to her. She was two years older than he and had looked after him in the earliest times he could recall. It was she, more than the schoolteacher, who had taught him to read. She was the one who encouraged him to join the navy, and to whom he had recounted his adventures, enlarging the good and mostly skipping over the bad. Perhaps that was why he remembered the good so clearly, trying to share it with her, seeing her eyes widen, her holding her breath as she waited for the next turn in his stories.

  It was also Gwen who had travelled miles by train, spending the little money she had, to come and visit him in hospital when he was injured. And of course it was Gwen who told him off when she thought he was wrong. She who had brought him the news of their mother’s death, and she who nagged him about putting flowers on the grave, saving for the future, and even occasionally about getting married.

  Now she was cooking dinner for her husband and children when they came home. He watched her with pleasure because the kitchen was warm and smelled of baking pastry and clean sheets drying on the airing rail above them. There were strings of onions hanging in the corner and a small dresser with plates on it, and two copper pans, the pride of her possessions. The shine and the colour of them were too good to spoil with over-use.

  He must get her something else pretty some time. It was too long since he had last done so. Her husband was a hard worker, most of the year at sea, as Stoker himself had been. But money had a long way to go to support a wife, and four children who grew out of their clothes and were always hungry.

  Stoker was full of thoughts of Kitty Ryder, and relief that the hat with the red feather was not hers. He had not realised until Pitt told him about Talbot, and Carlisle’s rescue of the situation, that he had been sad at her death. It was ridiculous! He had never even seen the woman!

  Gwen was looking at him.

  ‘What’s the matter, Davey?’ she asked. ‘You’ve got a face on you like a burst boot! You said the hat wasn’t hers. She could still be alive.’

  He looked up. ‘I know. But if she is, why doesn’t she come forward and say so? Everybody in London knows we’re trying to identify the body in the gravel pit, and that there’s speculation it’s her. And don’t tell me she can’t read! I know she can.’

  ‘Are you staying to dinner? You’re welcome, you know? You’re always welcome,’ she assured him.

  He smiled at her, quite unaware how it lit his face. ‘I know. And no, I’m not. I’ve got to be on duty tomorrow.’ That was not strictly the truth; he chose to be. But he had also made a good assessment of the meat in the stew and how if he accepted a portion, someone else would go without – almost certainly Gwen herself.

  ‘They work you too hard,’ she criticised.

  ‘We’ve been over that,’ he reminded her. ‘I like the work, Gwen. It matters. I don’t tell you much about it because it’s secret. But Special Branch keeps us all safe, if we do it right.’

  ‘What about this new guv’nor, Pitt?’ she asked. ‘Does he work as hard as you do? Or does he go back to a nice big house somewhere with servants to look after him and parties to go to?’

  Stoker laughed. ‘Pitt? He’s not a gentleman, Gwen. He’s an ordinary man, like anyone. Worked his way up. He’s got a decent home, on Keppel Street, but no mansion. You’d like his wife. I don’t know her well, but she’s not all that different from you.’ He looked around the room quickly. ‘Kitchen’s bigger than this one, but like it; smells of clean laundry and bread as well.’

  She looked at him and smiled back. ‘So why the face? And you might be Special Branch, an’ all that, but you never could fool me, and you can’t now, so don’t waste both our time trying it.’

  ‘Where is she?’ he said simply.

  ‘In love with the man she ran off with?’ she suggested, reaching out to pour him another cup of tea.

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘It’s been over four weeks since she disappeared. No one’s that much in love.’

  She shook her head. ‘You know, Davey, sometimes I worry about you. Have you ever been really in love? You haven’t, have you? When you are, you can’t see anything else, believe me. You walk into a hole in the road, because your head’s in the air and your eyes full of dreams. Would you like some cake?’

  ‘Yes, and no, not so that I fall into holes in the road,’ he answered.

  She stood up, still looking at him. ‘You’ve got your head screwed on all right, so tight it’s a wonder you can fasten your shirt collar.’ She opened the pantry cupboard and took out the cake, cutting a really large wedge for him and putting it on a plate.

  ‘Thank you,’ he accepted, taking a bite of it immediately. ‘That isn’t the answer, Gwen,’ he said with his mouth full. ‘She knew something, and that’s why she ran away. And the only thing that’d be safe for her is if she came out from wherever she’s hiding and told people. Then there’d be no point in hurting her, it would only prove she was right.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, use your common sense!’ she said exasperatedly. ‘Who’s going to believe a lady’s maid over a lord, or his wife?’

  ‘He’s not a lord, he’s an inventor of some sort, working on experiments with new undersea weapons.’

  ‘Under the sea?’ she said incredulously. ‘To kill what? The fish?’

  ‘Ships,’ he said succinctly. ‘Hole them under the waterline, where they’ll sink.’

  ‘Oh.’ She paled. ‘And you’re saying he isn’t a gentleman either?’

  ‘No! He’s a gentleman, and he’s got money and influence. And I suppose you’re right, she’d have to have proof, and maybe she doesn’t. I’ve got to find her, Gwen. I’ve got to prove what happened to her, I just don’t know where else to try!’

  She looked at him as if he were five again, and she were seven. ‘What do you know about her?’ she said patiently.

  He described what he knew of her appearance. ‘And she came from the country,’ he added. ‘Somewhere in the west. The local police looked to see if she’d gone home, and she hasn’t.’

  ‘Well, she wouldn’t, if she were hiding, would she!’ Gwen said, shaking her head. ‘But she might go somewhere like it.’

  ‘We thought of that. We can’t find a trace of her at all.’ He heard the note of panic in his voice and deliberately lowered it. ‘She was very handsome to look at, easy to notice. And she was quick, and sometimes funny, so the other staff said, and her friends at the local pub. They were all surprised she took up with Harry Dobson. Said he wasn’t anywhere good enough for her.’

  ‘Nobody ever is,’ she said with a sudden wide smile. ‘But we love you anyway!’

  She was teasing him and he relaxed a little, taking several more bites of the cake. She was a good cook, and the taste of it carried him back in memory to being home on leave from the sea, and sitting in another kitchen, before she moved out here to King’s Langley. Everything had been different there – sparser, poorer, much smaller, back door opening into a small, grubby yard – all except the cake. She never stinted with cake.

  ‘She liked the sea,’ he went on. ‘Used to carve little boats, real little tiny ones, out of soft wood. What kind of a man would kill her just because she couldn’t help seeing that he was having an affair? And he was. Pitt caught him in lies and he had to admit it. But Pitt doesn’t think Kynaston killed her. I think he’s off on another world sometimes.’

  Gwen frowned. ‘It doesn’t make sense,’ she agreed. ‘Who’s she going to tell?’

&nbs
p; ‘His wife,’ he replied.

  ‘Oh, for goodness’ sake!’ she said impatiently. ‘Do you think she doesn’t know? What’s she going to do about it? Nothing now – except pretend she didn’t see. It’s not a crime, just a betrayal. And nobody else will want to know, I can promise you that. It could upset all sorts of applecarts to be admitting to that kind of thing … unless …’ She stopped.

  ‘Unless what?’ He put the last of the cake into his mouth.

  ‘Unless it’s with someone that really matters?’ she answered thoughtfully. ‘Someone whose husband would throw her out. That could happen, and then she’d be ruined. That’s … possible … I suppose.’

  ‘How do you know about things like that?’ he said curiously.

  ‘For goodness’ sake!’ she repeated exasperatedly. ‘I was a laundress before I got married! I didn’t live all my life inside a box with the lid on, Davey!’ She stood up again. ‘You’d better go and catch your train, before it gets late and you’re out half the night. And don’t leave it so long next time.’ She came around the table and hugged him. He felt the warmth of her body, the softness of her hair, and how strong her arms were when she clung on to him. For a moment he hugged her hard in return, then put on his coat again and went out of the door into the yard and up the steps without looking back at the lights, or to see her standing there watching him.

  While Stoker was in the train rattling through the darkening countryside back to London, Pitt was in the chair beside the fire in Vespasia’s sitting room with its warm, pale colours. He was so comfortable it was an effort to keep awake. The fire was burning low, its embers glowing, the light reflecting in the facets of the small crystal vase in which were a few delicate snowdrops. He was startled at how richly their perfume filled the room. There were faint sounds of footsteps in the hall, and now and then the patter of rain on the window. It was only the urgency of the matter weighing on his mind that prevented him from relaxing.

  ‘… Suspiciously, at the very last moment,’ he finished, describing the events of his rescue by Somerset Carlisle.

  ‘And the very best moment,’ she added drily. ‘That sounds exactly like Somerset, although unusually fortunate, even for him. I see that troubles you …’

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it,’ Pitt admitted. ‘Carlisle was the one who had asked the question in the House, making the whole issue far more public than it had been before. And yet he not only rescued me from Talbot, he rescued Kynaston, for the time being, from a situation that at the very best would have been embarrassing. At worst it would have brought him into suspicion of having killed and mutilated Kitty and put her body in the gravel pit. Why?’

  ‘Somerset is a good man,’ Vespasia said quietly, her mouth curving in a sweet smile, ‘if, as you say, a trifle eccentric now and then.’

  ‘That is a magnificent understatement,’ he observed.

  She smiled very slightly. ‘I only overstate things when I am so angry I have lost my vocabulary,’ she answered.

  He raised his eyebrows. ‘I don’t believe you ever lose your vocabulary. I have seen a fluency from you that would stop a horse in full gallop, or freeze a duchess at twenty paces.’

  ‘You flatter me,’ she protested, but through laughter. ‘I would like to think that his principle purpose was to make a fool of Edom Talbot, a man he loathes, but I appreciate that that could be no more than an agreeable side effect.’ The amusement in her face died completely. ‘But you say that Dudley Kynaston is unquestionably having an affair, and that you think it is possible that Kitty, being bright, observant, and no doubt bored, may have been aware of this? You are certain, I presume?’

  ‘The evidence is there, and he did not deny it,’ Pitt said unhappily. ‘I just don’t believe he would kill his wife’s maid because she had deduced that he was lying about where he had been. Either that is not the case at all, and is merely incidental, or there is something far more important that I’m missing. And where did she learn it? Why won’t she come forward now, or at least send some kind of a message that she’s alive? Maisie said she could read and write!’

  ‘Who is Maisie?’

  ‘The scullery maid.’ Pitt remembered Maisie’s eager face. ‘Kitty was her … example. She not only liked her, she admired her. Maisie means to learn to read.’

  ‘Just how ambitious was Kitty?’ Vespasia asked doubtfully. ‘Sufficient to improve herself, but not so rash as to exert a little unwelcome pressure? Are you sure, Thomas?’

  ‘What could it gain her to attempt blackmail on Kynaston? Not a lot more than dismissal, and possibly a police charge. And she can’t have been stupid enough to imagine anything else. The magistrates would not be very kind to her. They can’t be seen to allow servants to gather information about their masters, and then use it that way.’ He smiled ruefully and almost without bitterness.

  ‘Of course not,’ she agreed, her face reflecting an unaccustomed sadness. ‘It would be the end of the world, as most of us know it. And yet it will certainly happen, inch by inch. Nothing is more inevitable than change, for better and for worse. Perhaps it is the approaching close of the century, but it is a very mixed prospect. Events seem to be moving faster and faster.’

  He looked at her face. It was still beautiful, still full of passion and vitality, but he also knew there was a fragility in it, a power to be hurt that he had not appreciated before. Her century was ending and she could not know what lay ahead.

  Could Pitt say anything that would comfort Vespasia? Or would it be clumsy, and in reality make her more fragile?

  He changed the subject completely. ‘Do you trust Somerset Carlisle?’

  She gave an abrupt little laugh, light and full of generous amusement.

  ‘My dear! What a question. That depends very much upon what we are talking about. To be honest, yes, I do. To be generous and risk anything at all for what he believes? Unquestionably. To have values the same as mine, and to behave responsibly? Not in the slightest.’

  ‘I owed him a lot today,’ Pitt answered. ‘I think Edom Talbot would be delighted to see the back of me from Special Branch. I am not the sort of man he judges suitable for the position, neither intellectually nor socially, especially the latter.’

  ‘I have no doubt of it,’ she agreed. ‘For all that he is not quite a gentleman himself, he intends to become one. And yes, you owe Somerset a considerable debt. Now if you do not mind, my dear, I have plans for this evening, and I need to get ready.’

  ‘Of course.’ He rose to his feet immediately. ‘Thank you for your advice, as always.’ He leaned forward and kissed her very lightly on the cheek, then felt instantly embarrassed for the familiarity of it. He could not remember having had the tenacity to do it before.

  Chapter Eight

  WHEN PITT left, Vespasia turned to the telephone and found herself curiously nervous. Beneath the muslin ruffles of her cuff, her hand was trembling a little. She steadied it and picked it up. When the operator asked whom she wanted, she gave her Victor Narraway’s number.

  It rang three times, and she was about to change her mind when he answered, giving simply his name.

  She cleared her throat.

  ‘Good evening, Victor. I hope I am not troubling you?’

  ‘I am not certain how to answer that and be both courteous and truthful,’ he said with a degree of amusement that she could discern, even in a voice distorted by the machine.

  ‘It is serious enough, I think, that you may dispense with courtesy,’ she replied. ‘And not all of the truth may be necessary …’

  He laughed. ‘You always trouble me, but I should be bored without it,’ he said. ‘What is it that is so serious? I presume I may help? Or at least that there is that possibility?’

  She was relieved, but also nervous, which was extremely unusual for her. She was accustomed to being in control of any social situation.

  ‘Will you dine with me, and I can explain to you the situation I believe I am observing?’

  ‘I should be
delighted,’ he said immediately. ‘May I suggest a place where we may eat well, but not fashionably, and therefore be able to discuss without interruption whatever it is that troubles you?’

  ‘I think that would do very nicely,’ she accepted. ‘I shall dress accordingly.’

  ‘You will still cause a stir.’ The idea seemed to please him. ‘You cannot help it, and I should regret it bitterly if you tried.’

  For once she could think of no suitable answer, except to say that she would see him in just over an hour.

  In spite of what she had said about dressing quite ordinarily for dinner, she did not do so. Indeed, she took great care, choosing a gown of a dark blue-grey so soft that in the shadow it looked almost indigo. The line of the neck and the sweep of the skirt were both very flattering, and cut in the fashion of the moment. Deliberately she wore no jewellery, except very small diamond drop earrings. Her shining silver hair was ornament enough.

  In the carriage as it made its way through the windy darkness of the streets, she was deep in thought, turning over and over in her mind the things that Pitt had told her.

  There was a major part missing, in the sense of it. Now in the flickering light and shadow of the carriage interior, she could no longer deny it. She was almost certain who it was that had made it appear that Dudley Kynaston was deeply involved in the disappearance, probably even the murder of Kitty Ryder.

  The thought was painful for a number of reasons. She did not regard Kynaston as a friend. She had met him perhaps half a dozen times, but she did know of his importance to the navy, even if not any of the details of his particular skills. Remembering his face, his voice, his pleasant but slightly detached manner, she found it hard to imagine any circumstances in which he would feel a sufficiently violent and totally uncontrolled emotion that he would sink to such an act. And why, for heaven’s sake? What could possibly be gained by it?