Death on Blackheath Read online

  “I will have Sergeant Stoker speak to them, when he is finished with the local police.”

  “I see,” Kynaston said thoughtfully. “I see.” Still he hesitated.

  This time Pitt did not help him. He had long learned that silence can betray people as much as words, sometimes in the subtlest of ways.

  “I …” Kynaston cleared his throat. “I would like to be present when you speak to her. My wife is … is easily distressed. If indeed it is Kitty, she will take it extremely hard.”

  Pitt did not want Kynaston there, but he had no excuse to deny him at this point. Had it been Charlotte, and Gracie Phipps or Minnie Maude who had gone missing, she would have been completely distraught at the idea of them having been hurt at all, let alone killed in a violent scuffle. For that matter, so would Pitt himself.

  “Of course,” he agreed. “I shall be as circumspect as possible.” He was probably being more gentle than was wise. If the body was that of Kitty Ryder, then Rosalind Kynaston feeling a great deal of pain was inevitable, no matter how tactful he was.

  Kynaston excused himself and returned twenty minutes later with not only Rosalind Kynaston, but his sister-in-law, Ailsa, as well. Both of them were immaculately dressed as if ready for an evening outing.

  Rosalind wore a beautifully tailored costume of dark blue. It was a cold color for winter, but with pale lace at the throat it became her well enough. There was a dignity in her manner, though she was gaunt and pale. When she met Pitt’s eyes her hand instinctively reached out to clasp on to something. Kynaston offered his arm, and she ignored it.

  Beside her, Ailsa, taller and so very much fairer, looked magnificent in soft grays. Pitt could not have said exactly how, but he recognized the latest cut in her sweeping skirt, short enough not to touch the ground and get wet. The whole costume needed only a fur hat to be perfect, and no doubt she had such a thing. She took Rosalind’s arm, without asking her permission, and guided her to the large, soft sofa, easing them both into it, side by side. She stared at Pitt with sharp blame in her blue eyes.

  Kynaston remained standing, as though he felt that to sit down would somehow relax his guard.

  “We do not yet know what happened to Kitty, Mr. Pitt,” Ailsa said a little brusquely. “My sister-in-law told you that we would inform you if we did.”

  “Yes, Mrs. Kynaston, I know that,” Pitt replied. The woman irritated him and he had to remind himself that although she certainly did not look it, she was probably afraid, more for her sister-in-law than for her own sake. The thought flickered through his mind that she might be more aware of the domestic realities than the younger and apparently more delicate Rosalind. He had a sudden cold vision of Kynaston’s possible affair with a handsome maid: quarrels, embarrassment, even an attempt at blackmail, a flare of temper out of control.

  Was that what he saw in Ailsa’s vivid eyes, and the fear of everything that exposure would bring? To whom? Scandal to Kynaston? Or disillusion to Rosalind? But he was days ahead of himself, and quite probably mistaken.

  Ailsa was waiting, somewhat impatiently.

  “I am sorry to inform you that we have discovered the body of a young woman up at the gravel pit to the east of here,” Pitt told her. “We do not know who she is, but we would like to assure ourselves, and you, that it is not Kitty Ryder.” Out of the corner of his vision he saw Kynaston relax a little. It was no more than a slight change in his stance, as if he breathed more easily.

  Ailsa gave the ghost of a smile. Rosalind did not stop staring straight at Pitt.

  “Why don’t you find out who she is first? Then you would have no need to disturb my sister-in-law at all,” Ailsa said with an edge of criticism in her voice. She did not like Pitt, and she was not trying to conceal the fact. It might not have anything to do with the case, but he wondered why. Rosalind did not seem to have any such feelings. But perhaps she was too numb to feel anything. Did she usually need Ailsa to protect her?

  If the body were that of Kitty Ryder, Pitt suspected that there was going to be a difficult mass of emotions to untangle in the Kynaston household, relevant and irrelevant alike. Everyone had secrets, old wounds that still bled, people they loved or hated, sometimes both.

  “You would have heard of it within a day or two at the outside anyway,” Pitt assured her. “And if we have not eliminated the possibility that it is anyone from your house, hearing of it that way would’ve been far more distressing.”

  “For goodness’ sake, why don’t you know if it was her?” Ailsa demanded. “She was a perfectly recognizable young woman. Get the butler, or someone, to go and look at her. Isn’t that your job?”

  Rosalind put her hand on her sister-in-law’s sleeve. “Ailsa, give him a chance to tell us. I daresay he has his reasons.”

  Pitt avoided the answer, aware of Kynaston’s eyes on him and a sharp, almost electric tension in the air.

  He looked at Rosalind. “Mrs. Kynaston, I imagine that, like most ladies, you have a number of handkerchiefs, some of them embroidered with your initials?”

  “Yes, several,” she replied with a frown.

  “Why on earth does that matter?” Ailsa snapped.

  Kynaston opened his mouth to reprove her, and changed his mind. He looked even tenser than before.

  Pitt took the recovered handkerchief out of his pocket and passed it across to Rosalind.

  She took it, damp, in her fingers and dropped it instantly, her face white.

  Ailsa picked it up and examined it. Then she looked up at Pitt. “It’s a fairly ordinary lace-edged handkerchief, made of cambric. I have half a dozen like it myself.”

  “That one has an R embroidered on it,” Pitt pointed out. “Does yours not have an A?”

  “Naturally. There are thousands like these. If she was not the kind of person to own one herself, she could have stolen it from someone.”

  “Did Kitty Ryder steal it from you, Mrs. Kynaston?” Pitt asked Rosalind.

  Rosalind gave the slightest shrug: a delicate gesture but unmistakable. She had no idea. Picking it up again between her fingertip and thumb, she passed it back to Pitt.

  “Is that all?” Kynaston asked.

  Pitt replaced the handkerchief in his pocket. “No. She also had a small key, the sort that might open a cupboard or a drawer.”

  No one responded. They sat stiff and waiting, not glancing at each other.

  “It fits one of the cupboards in your laundry room,” Pitt added.

  Ailsa raised her delicate eyebrows slightly. “Only one? Or did you not try the rest? In my house such a key would have fitted all of them.”

  Rosalind drew in her breath as if to speak and then changed her mind.

  Was it anger in Ailsa, or fear? Or simply defense of someone she saw as more vulnerable than herself? Pitt replied to her levelly, politely. “I am aware that there are only a limited number of types of keys, especially of that very simple sort. I have cupboards in my own house, and I have found that all the doors in one piece of furniture can be opened by the same key. This one opened one set of doors, but nothing in your kitchen or pantry, for example.”

  Ailsa did not flinch. “Are you concluding from this … evidence … that the unfortunate woman in the gravel pit is Kitty Ryder?”

  “No, Mrs. Kynaston. I am hoping there is some way of proving that she is not.” It was perfectly honest: he would very much rather she were someone about whom he knew nothing, whose friends or relatives he would meet only when there was no hope left of her being alive. It was easier, he admitted to himself. You went prepared.

  Kynaston cleared his throat, but when he spoke his voice was still hoarse. “Do you wish me to look at this poor woman and see if I recognize her?”

  “No, sir,” Pitt said gently. “If you will permit me to take your butler, Norton, he will know her better and be in a position to tell us, if it is possible, whether this is Kitty Ryder or not.”

  “Yes … yes, of course,” Kynaston agreed, breathing out slowly. “I’ll tell him
immediately.” He seemed about to add something, but glancing first at Ailsa, then at Rosalind, instead he said good-bye to Pitt with a brief nod and turned to go and seek Norton.

  “That is all we can do for you, Mr. Pitt.” Ailsa did not rise to her feet, but her dismissal was clear.

  “Thank you for your consideration,” Rosalind added quietly.

  PITT AND NORTON TRAVELED to the morgue by hansom cab. Norton sat bolt upright, his hands clenched in his lap, knuckles white. Neither of them spoke. There was no sound except the clatter of the horse’s hooves and the hiss of the wheels on the wet road, then the occasional splash as they passed through a deeper puddle.

  Pitt let the silence remain. Norton could have felt anything for the girl he was perhaps going to identify: indifference, irritation, dislike, respect, even affection. Or the clearly intense emotion he suffered now could be quite impersonal, simply a dread of death. Anybody’s death was a reminder that it was the one unavoidable reality in all life.

  Perhaps he had lost someone else young: a mother, a sister, even a daughter. It happened to many people. Pitt was lucky it had not happened to him—at least not yet. Please God—never!

  Or it might be that Norton feared that if it was Kitty, then her murder had some connection with the Kynaston house and someone who lived in it, either family or staff.

  And there was the other possibility also, as there was in every household, that a close and intrusive police investigation would expose all kinds of other secrets, weaknesses, the petty deceits that keep lives whole, and private. Everyone needed some illusions; they were the clothes that kept humans from emotional nakedness. It was sometimes more than a kindness to purposefully avoid seeing; it was an act of decency, a safeguard for oneself and others.

  It was Pitt’s duty to watch this man as he looked at the body, read all his emotions, however private or, for that matter, however irrelevant. He could not find justice or protection for the innocent without the truth. But he still felt intrusive.

  It was also his duty to interrogate him now, while he was emotionally raw and at his most vulnerable.

  “Did Kitty often go out with the young carpenter?” he began. “That was very lenient of Mrs. Kynaston to allow her to. Or did she do it without asking?”

  Norton stiffened. “Certainly not. She was allowed her half day off, and she went out with him sometimes, just for the afternoon. A walk in the park, or out to tea. She was always home by six. At least … nearly always,” he amended.

  “Did you approve of him?” Pitt asked, now watching his face for the feeling behind the words.

  Norton’s shoulders tightened—he stared straight ahead. “He was pleasant enough.”

  “Had he a temper?”

  “Not that I observed.”

  “Would you have employed him, if he had a domestic ability you could use?”

  Norton thought for a moment. “Yes,” he said at last. “I think I would.” A faint smile crossed his face and vanished. Pitt could not read it.

  They reached the morgue and alighted. Pitt paid the driver then led the way inside. He stayed close to Norton because he was afraid the man might faint. He looked white, and a little awkward, as though he were not certain of his balance.

  As always, the place smelled of carbolic and death. Pitt was not certain which was worse. Antiseptic always made him think of corpses anyway, and then of loss, and pain. He hurried without meaning to and then had to wait for Norton to catch up when he reached the end of the passage and the door to the cold room that they wanted.

  The attendant seemed to disappear into the gray walls, the sheet that had fully concealed the corpse in his hands. Now it was covered only as much as decency required. She looked even more broken and alone than she had lying sprawled out in the gravel pit on the freezing grass.

  Norton gasped and choked on his own breath. Pitt took his arm to support him if he should faint.

  There was no sound but an irregular dripping somewhere. Norton took a step closer and looked down at the body, the blotched flesh coming away from the bone, the hollow eye sockets, the ravaged face. The auburn hair was thick and tangled now, but it was still possible to see where clumps of it had been torn out.

  Norton backed away at last, staggering a little, uncertain of his footing although the floor was even. Pitt still kept hold of him.

  “I don’t know,” Norton said hoarsely. “I can’t say for certain. God help her, whoever she is.” He began to shake as though suddenly the cold had reached him.

  “I didn’t expect you would,” Pitt assured him. “But you might have been able to say that it was not her. Perhaps the hair was slightly wrong, or the height …”

  “No,” Norton gulped. “No … the hair looks right. She … she had beautiful hair. Perhaps it was a little darker than that … and hers was never …” He motioned to the tangles. “She was always very careful of her hair.” He stopped abruptly, unable to control his voice.

  Pitt allowed him to walk away and go out of the room into the cold, tiled passage, then along to the door to the outside and the steady drenching rain that held nothing worse than physical discomfort. They still did not know if the woman from the gravel pit was Kitty Ryder, or some other poor creature whose name and life they might never learn.

  THE NEXT MORNING STOKER finished all the inquiries he could make locally, and on leaving the police station in Blackheath he walked up the rise towards Shooters Hill. He was careful to keep his footing on the ice. Pitt had said little yet as to how they would approach the staff in the Kynaston house regarding Kitty Ryder. Stoker was surprised how much he still wanted to find her alive.

  Without realizing it he had increased his pace, and he had to steady himself. The footpath was treacherous. Perhaps someone could tell him a detail, a fact that would prove that the woman they had found in the gravel pit was not her, could not be, from some quirk or other: a birthmark, the shape of her hands, a particular pattern in the way her hair grew—anything. Maybe there was something the butler, Norton, had been too emotionally overwrought to notice.

  It was all ridiculous. He knew that. One woman’s life was as important, as unique as another. He knew nothing about Mrs. Kynaston’s maid, except what Pitt had told him. If he had met her he might have found her just as ordinary, as trivial, as most other people he knew. To allow his imagination to become involved was bad detection. He knew that, too. Facts. Deal with the facts only. Allow them to take you wherever they lead.

  He reached the areaway steps where he had first found the blood and broken glass. He noticed that they had been swept clean, apart from a few iced-over puddles where endless feet coming and going had worn a dip in the stone.

  He knocked on the door, and after a few moments it was opened by Maisie. She looked at him blankly for a moment, then lit up with a smile when she recognized him.

  “Yer come ter tell us yer found Kitty, an’ the body in’t ’er at all?” she said immediately. Then she screwed up her eyes and looked at him more closely. Her voice caught in her throat. “It in’t ’er—is it?”

  She was only a child and suddenly Stoker, in his mid-thirties, felt very old.

  “I don’t think so.” He meant it to sound gentler, but he was not used to softening the truth.

  Her face crumpled. “Wot d’yer mean, yer don’t think so! Is it ’er or not?”

  He resisted the temptation to lie outright, but only with difficulty. “We don’t think it’s her,” he replied carefully. “We just need to be sure. I have to ask all of you some more questions about her.”

  She did not move aside. “Din’t Mr. Norton go ter look at ’er?”

  “She’s in a bad way. It didn’t help a lot,” he replied. “Can I come in? It’s cold out here, and you’re letting it all in with the door open.”

  “S’pose so,” she said grudgingly, stepping back at last and allowing him to go past her into the scullery.

  “Thank you.” He closed the door firmly behind him. The sudden warmth made him sne
eze and he blew his nose to clear it. Then he smelled the onions and herbs hanging on the racks.

  Maisie bit her lip to stop it trembling. “I s’pose yer want a cup o’ tea, an’ all?” Without waiting for his answer, she led him into the kitchen where the cook was busy preparing dinner, rolling pastry ready to put on top of the fruit pie on the counter.

  “You got those carrots prepared then, Maisie?” she said sharply before she noticed Stoker following. “You back?” She looked at him with disfavor. “We only just got rid o’ yer gaffer. ’E bin ’ere ’alf o’ yesterday upsetting everyone. Wot is it now?”

  Stoker knew how irritated people were when interrupted in their work, not at all inclined to tell you what you needed to know. He wanted them to be at ease, not merely answering what he asked, but filling in the details, the color he could not deliberately seek.

  “I don’t want to interrupt you,” he said, filling his tone with respect. “I’d just like you to tell me a little more about Kitty.”

  Cook looked up from her pastry, the wooden rolling pin still in both hands. “Why? She ran off with that miserable young man of ’ers, didn’t she?” Her face crumpled up with anger. “Stupid girl. She could ’a done a lot better for ’erself. Come ter that, she couldn’t ’ardly ’a done worse!” She sniffed hard and resumed her smoothing and easing the shape of the piecrust.

  Stoker heard the emotion in her voice, and saw it in the angry tightness of her shoulders and the way she hid her face from him. She had cared about Kitty and she was frightened for her. Anger was easier, and less painful. He knew from relatives in service, old friends he seldom saw, that few household servants had family they were still in touch with. If they stayed for any length of time the other servants became family to them, full of the same loyalties, squabbles, rivalries, and intimate knowledge. Kitty might have been the closest this woman, bent over her pastry, would have to a daughter of her own.

  Stoker wanted to be gentle, and it was almost impossible.

  “Probably she did,” he agreed. “But we didn’t find her, so we’ve got no proof of it. We’ve got to know who this woman is in the gravel pit. I’d like to know for sure it’s not her.”