Death On Blackheath tp-29 Read online

  ‘That bad?’ Carlisle indicated an armchair, then sat back down in the chair opposite. His keen face showed a similar tension to that that Pitt felt knotting inside him.

  There was no point in being evasive. ‘I think so,’ he replied.

  Carlisle smiled, as if they were playing some desperate parlour game. ‘And what is it that you think I can do? I know no one who murders women and leaves them in gravel pits. Believe me, if I did, I would already have told you.’

  ‘Actually, it is not so much that they died that concerns me at the moment,’ Pitt smiled back. ‘It is what appears to be their connection with Dudley Kynaston.’ He glanced around the room with sharpening interest. He took time to notice the naval memorabilia more closely. The beauty of one of the paintings suggested a very fine artist, and perhaps worth a great deal of money. If not, then it had been chosen with some diligence. Perhaps it was inherited from someone who had long loved the sea.

  Carlisle was waiting for him to continue. How direct should he be?

  ‘Kynaston’s gold watch was found on the first body,’ he said, watching Carlisle’s expression and seeing only the slightest change. ‘And the fob on the second woman. Among other things perhaps less tangible.’

  Carlisle hesitated. Quite clearly he was debating within himself whether to banter or to face the real battle. He must have decided on the latter because the amusement died out of his eyes and suddenly in the firelight and the softer glow of the gas brackets above him, the lines in his face seemed deeper. He was older than Pitt, perhaps into his fifties. It was his energy that occasionally made one forget that. Now the sun and windburn from his years of climbing, the lines around his eyes where he had peered into far distances, marked his features.

  ‘A very marked connection. How did he explain it?’ Carlisle asked.

  ‘That his watch was stolen by a pickpocket,’ Pitt replied.

  ‘And you believe him?’

  ‘I’m inclined to. It is not beyond your abilities to have had someone take it for you.’

  ‘Good heavens! Rather a back-handed compliment to my abilities. A dangerous undertaking, don’t you think?’

  ‘Extremely,’ Pitt agreed. ‘Therefore you had a very good reason. I cannot imagine any love affair he could have which would stir your anger or passion to the degree where you would use these women like this in order to draw me in.’

  ‘He has at times allowed his heart to rule his head,’ Carlisle answered sharply, weighing his words. ‘Not to love is to die by inches. Or perhaps it is worse than that. Maybe it is to hesitate on the shore of life and never step into its waters. But take it too far, and one can not only drown oneself, but take others with you.’

  ‘True,’ Pitt agreed. ‘But I believe you have something very specific in mind.’

  Carlisle’s eyebrows rose in a sharp double V shape. ‘Verbally, perhaps. But you are calling upon me, not I on you.’

  ‘Really?’ Pitt said softly. ‘I had the idea that perhaps you were calling upon me, and that it was time I answered.’

  Carlisle hesitated barely a second. ‘Indeed? What gave you that idea, or are we past that particular point?’

  ‘We are past it.’

  ‘I see. And your answer is?’ Carlisle sat motionless, his whisky forgotten. In fact, he had not drunk more than a couple of sips. Its colour reflected gold in the firelight, in the cut crystal it looked like a jewel itself.

  ‘You have my attention,’ Pitt replied. ‘I am listening.’

  Carlisle did not answer.

  ‘Come on!’ Pitt said more sharply than he had intended. Carlisle was stretching his nerves. He could not afford to lose this game. Nothing in all of his experience with Carlisle suggested he had ever acted lightly or taken crazy risks that could cost him his freedom, even his life, unless the stakes were high enough to warrant it.

  ‘I investigated Kynaston, and found nothing,’ Pitt continued. ‘Kitty Ryder is still alive, but she left at night, and without taking her belongings. She must have been very afraid of something. I can’t see it as being the fact that apparently Kynaston has a mistress, unless she were an extraordinarily powerful man’s wife?’ Even as he said it, he did not believe it himself.

  ‘That’s not worthy of you, Pitt,’ Carlisle sounded disappointed. ‘Why the hell should I care who Kynaston’s in bed with?’

  ‘You don’t,’ Pitt agreed. ‘So I wonder what it is you do care about — sufficiently to step into this macabre farce. And it is a farce, isn’t it?’

  Carlisle’s eyes did not leave Pitt’s face. ‘Is it?’ he whispered.

  ‘If I don’t find the truth of it, yes it is!’ Pitt responded sharply, his own nerves taut.

  He saw a flicker of fear in Carlisle’s eyes, just for a moment, so brief he was not even certain he had seen it at all.

  ‘I don’t believe you killed either one of them,’ he added. ‘In fact you probably never saw them alive.’

  Carlisle breathed out slowly. Something within him eased, but only a fraction.

  ‘And put the pieces of the watch there as well,’ Pitt continued. He did not mention the mutilations; that was a hideous lacuna between them. ‘And probably the cupboard key. You must have been damn sure I wouldn’t connect it up, and charge you!’

  ‘You’re the best detective I know,’ Carlisle replied, his voice a little hoarse, as if his lungs were starved, his throat tight.

  ‘So what is it you want me to find?’ Pitt leaned forward. ‘You left those women up there for the animals to eat! What matters that much to you, Carlisle? Murder? Multiple murder?’ He said the last word very carefully. ‘Still not enough! It has to be treason!’

  Carlisle took a long, deep breath. ‘Do you know Sir John Ransom?’

  ‘Not personally. I know who he is.’

  ‘Precisely,’ Carlisle agreed. ‘It was a rhetorical question. If the head of Special Branch did not know the name of the man who leads scientific inventions regarding the navy, and naval warfare, then we have very deep problems indeed.’

  ‘What about Ransom?’ Pitt asked.

  ‘He is a friend of mine. A couple of years ahead of me at Cambridge,’ Carlisle replied.

  Pitt allowed him to continue, knowing that this much preamble must be necessary. A log of wood collapsed in the fire, sending up a shower of bright sparks, but Carlisle apparently did not notice it.

  ‘He came to me two or three months ago,’ Carlisle resumed. ‘He had no proof at all, but he believed that certain highly sensitive facts regarding a new step forward in submarine warfare were being offered to another naval power. He did not say which because I believe he did not know.’

  ‘From the department where Kynaston works,’ Pitt concluded.

  ‘Precisely. Ransom was very worried because he had little doubt in his own mind that it was occurring, but no idea who was responsible. But it rested between three men. The other two have since been exonerated …’

  ‘Leaving Kynaston …’ Pitt said unhappily. ‘But there is no proof, or you would not be discussing it. You would simply have handed over the evidence to us.’

  ‘Yes. Without proof, allowing Kynaston to know that we are aware of what he is doing would only alert him, and perhaps make the matter worse,’ Carlisle agreed.

  ‘So you make it appear that he murdered his wife’s maid, over some real or imagined love affair, and hope that I will pull your chestnuts out of the fire!’

  ‘That’s about right,’ Carlisle admitted. ‘But you’re damn slow about it!’ He gave a harsh, twisted smile. ‘You like the man …’

  ‘Yes, I do. But that has nothing to do with it,’ Pitt said angrily. ‘Whatever I think of him, I can’t charge him with anything at all until I have evidence to prove it. And since Kitty Ryder was seen alive and well after the first body was found, and the second body doesn’t even resemble her, I have no reason to accuse Kynaston!’

  ‘I slipped up there,’ Carlisle admitted, wincing at his own failure. ‘But I didn’t know Kitty had b
een seen. Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes. I have a highly diligent assistant …’

  ‘Ah! The redoubtable Stoker. Yes. An excellent man.’ Carlisle smiled very slightly. ‘If he could actually find the woman, then she would testify as to what it was she saw, or heard, and why she ran away. Although it would be better to have something rather weightier than the word of a runaway lady’s maid.’

  ‘I’ll widen the search for her,’ Pitt promised. ‘Who else is involved? He must be passing the information to someone? And why, for God’s sake?’ Even giving words to the question and speaking it aloud was painful. He had not thought Kynaston more than perhaps self-indulgent with his mistress, certainly not a man to betray his own country. He had become used to disillusion but this still hurt.

  Carlisle pulled his mouth into a gesture of apology. ‘I have no idea. But I have no doubt he will have plenty of defenders simply because no one will wish to believe that he could have betrayed them, or that they could have let him! The Prime Minister will be displeased, to say the least of it!’

  ‘I’m getting rather accustomed to displeasing the Prime Minister,’ Pitt said tartly. ‘It seems to be a function of the job. But catching Kynaston, even proving what he has done, is far from the end of the task …’

  ‘Oh, I know that!’ Carlisle agreed. ‘You need to know all of it! More than anything else, you need to know exactly how much information he has given, and to whom. Preferably, you also need to know how he came into such a position, and everyone else who is involved. And then, naturally, you need to deal with him so that as few people are aware of it as possible, in the circumstances. To have a trial and exposure would be almost as damaging as the act itself.’

  ‘Thank you, Carlisle! I am aware of that!’ Pitt snapped. ‘I also would prefer not to be obliged to prosecute you! I accept that you did not kill either of the women, but you took their bodies from wherever they were kept — a morgue of some sort, I imagine — and you laid them out in the gravel pits. I prefer not to know that you also mutilated them in identical ways so we would be forced to conclude they were killed by the same person, and the link to Kynaston was too clear to ignore. Well, I have your message, and I understand it. You have succeeded.’

  Carlisle was pale, even in the firelight. ‘I am not proud of it,’ he said very quietly. ‘But Kynaston is betraying my country. He must be stopped.’

  ‘I will do all I can to stop him,’ Pitt promised. ‘And you will help me, if I can think of a way. And from now on you will do exactly what I tell you to … so I can find a reason not to charge you with body-snatching, mutilating the dead, and generally being a damn nuisance!’

  ‘Would you-’ Carlisle began.

  Pitt glared at him. ‘Yes I would! And if you involve Lady Vespasia in this I’ll see you pay for it with your seat in Parliament!’

  ‘I believe you,’ Carlisle said very quietly indeed. ‘I give you my word I have not done so, and I will not.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Pitt stood up. ‘I thank you for at least this much truth. Now I wish I’d had the whisky!’

  ‘It’s still available …’

  ‘No, thank you. I must go home. It’s late, and I need to think how the hell I’m going to clear this up, starting tomorrow morning. By the way, where did you get the bodies? I assume you took them from some morgue?’

  ‘Yes. But I’ll see they are decently buried, when you’ve finished with them. As I promised in the first place,’ Carlisle replied.

  Pitt stared at him for a moment, trying to find words for what lay between them, and failing. He turned and left.

  Outside the rain had stopped but the wind was even colder. Pitt thought, seeing the hard, brittle glitter of the stars, that there could be a frost.

  Walking briskly along the pavement he thought again of Carlisle. The man infuriated him, but he could not dislike him. This time he had seen beyond the wit and the imagination to someone who dared to believe in things further than he could see himself, and who reached, however crazily, for the sublime. A lonely man.

  He could not believe that Carlisle had had any part in the deaths of either of the women, he had merely seized an opportunity. Pitt could imagine him carefully cutting the dead faces, women beyond indignity or pain, and apologising for using them for what he believed was a greater and more desperate good. The man he had known in the past would never have killed anyone, even to expose treason.

  But people can change. Unknown pressures can fall on them, old debts can need to be paid. Was that why Carlisle had rescued Pitt from the fury of Edom Talbot so fortuitously? And was it he who had created the situation in the first place, so Pitt would owe him a debt?

  Did Carlisle owe someone this terrible thing?

  Or was it Kynaston who owed an unpayable debt?

  And perhaps the treason was far more than Pitt had yet guessed.

  He looked up at the thin starlight; sharp edged in the wind, and increased his pace.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Charlotte had deliberately chosen to spend more time with Emily, so when Emily invited her to go with Jack and herself to a reception for a visiting Norwegian explorer, and to listen to his lecture, she accepted. She did it for Emily’s sake, not because she was particularly interested in islands in the North Atlantic, and whatever manner of birds might inhabit them. The thought of so much floating ice made her cold, even before she set out.

  Had Pitt been at home it would have been a greater sacrifice, but he was out many evenings recently, pursuing one aspect or another of the case of Kitty Ryder. He had said she was alive, but they still could not find her.

  As she sat while Minnie Maude dressed her hair up, a skill she was rapidly developing, Charlotte thought more about the whole issue. She had not questioned Pitt any more, because she knew from watching his face that he was deeply worried about the case, and that it now concerned some other issue, which he could not tell her. That did not mean she was not free to try to discern it for herself.

  She knew more of the personal lives of people like Dudley Kynaston than Pitt or Stoker could do, because the Kynastons belonged to the level of Society in which she had grown up, and to which Emily had belonged all her life. She and Pitt were now on the fringes of it, but to him it would always be alien, at least in some of its values, no matter how skilled he became at appearing to be comfortable.

  When Emily arrived Charlotte saw that she was dressed in pale green, the colour that became her most. The gown itself was exquisite, and perfectly suited to the occasion. Charlotte recognised it as ‘battle dress’ from the way it fitted, and the beauty of the subtle emerald and diamond earrings that Emily wore with it. When she kissed her quickly on the cheek, the opinion was confirmed by the perfume she detected, so subtle she wanted to come closer again in order to catch it more definitely. It was nothing she could name, and no doubt very expensive. It was the sort of thing a woman buys herself, if she does not have to count the cost of it.

  As soon as they were seated in the carriage and had moved off from the kerb into the roadway, Charlotte asked the question.

  ‘Why are we going to a lecture on arctic exploration?’

  Emily smiled. Even in the gathering dusk and the first glow of streetlamps, her satisfaction was visible. ‘Because Ailsa and Rosalind Kynaston are going to it,’ she replied. ‘I have been getting to know Rosalind a little better recently. It isn’t difficult or odd in the circumstances. If Jack is going to be offered this position with Dudley Kynaston, then we shall possibly become friends.’

  ‘And is he?’ Suddenly Charlotte forgot all concern with the Kynastons, or Kitty Ryder’s plight. She could only think of Jack, because of how another disappointment would affect Emily.

  ‘You don’t want him to, do you!’ There was a sudden edge of challenge in Emily’s voice. ‘He’s brilliant, you know. Or perhaps you don’t know? It would be very interesting for Jack to work with him, and a promotion, of course. But you must know that, if you’ve thought about it at all!’
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br />   Charlotte forgot her resolve to be patient, and gentle. ‘I want him to take it, as long as Kynaston’s not guilty of anything,’ she said tartly. ‘If he was having an affair with his wife’s maid I suppose that isn’t very important, except to his wife, and perhaps to the maid. But if he killed her, then I would very much rather Jack did not work with him. Until he is accused, of course, then I dare say he will be in gaol, and there will be no possibility of anybody working with him. But even if he did kill her, or threaten to kill her, and we never prove it, I would still rather that Jack had nothing to do with it.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Or even if it was his wife who killed her, unlikely as that seems, I would prefer no one I loved was involved with them.’

  ‘Jack will be pleased to know that you love him,’ Emily said icily. ‘Even if it does appear to infect your imagination with grotesque fantasies. If every woman in London were to murder their maids because their husbands slept with them, we would be up to our knees in blood!’

  ‘Not likely.’ Charlotte was equally icy. ‘She wasn’t stabbed. She was beaten, her face mutilated, and her body left up in the gravel pit to be scavenged by animals. Not much blood at all.’

  ‘You are disgusting!’ Emily spat out the words.

  ‘Don’t be so stupid!’ Charlotte snapped. ‘It’s you I love, and I like Jack, very much, but that will cease instantly if he hurts you.’

  ‘He isn’t-’ Emily began, but stopped equally quickly. When Charlotte turned to look at her she saw the tears brim over her eyes and down her cheeks. At another time she would have said something, even hugged her. Now the emotion between them was too brittle. She sat in silence for several moments, allowing Emily time to regain her composure. When she thought it was long enough, she began another conversation. ‘What is Rosalind like?’ she asked. She did not have to feign interest.