Death on Blackheath Read online

  She looked up at him, her eyes filled with tears. “Yer saying as that ’orrible … fool … did this to ’er?”

  “No, ma’am, I’m saying I’d like to prove it’s got nothing to do with this house at all, and keep the police from having to trouble you.”

  She sniffed and searched for a handkerchief in her apron pocket. When she had found it and had blown her nose, she gave him her full attention. “Well, what do you want to know about Kitty? She might ’a been a fool about men, goin’ an’ picking the stupidest great lummox she could find.” She glared at him, daring him to argue.

  “How did she meet him?” Stoker asked.

  “Came an’ did a carpentry job ’ere,” she answered. “Kept coming back even after it were finished, just to see ’er.”

  “Was she frightened of him?” He tried to keep the sudden anger out of his own voice, and his face.

  “Not ’er! Ask me, she were sorry for ’im,” she responded. “More fool ’er! ’E played on it. ’Oo wouldn’t?”

  “She was gentle?” he said with some surprise. The idea he had in his mind was of a strong woman, handsome and sure of herself. But the cook might know of a vulnerable side to her that her mistress didn’t.

  The cook laughed and shook her head. “Yer just like all men, aren’t yer! Think because a woman’s ’andsome, an’ got a mind of ’er own, that she can’t be ’urt, can’t cry ’erself ter sleep when no one sees ’er, like anyone else. She were worth ten of ’im, any day, an’ ’e knew it.” She was obliged to blow her nose again, hiding the tears on her face.

  “Did that make him angry with her?” Stoker asked.

  “Didn’t think so.” She glared at him. “You tellin’ me I’m wrong?”

  He did not answer. He needed to know more: for example, if it was indeed Kitty lying in the morgue, how had she come by the gold watch that had been stolen from Dudley Kynaston?

  “Who else did she know?” he asked. “Anyone who gave her expensive presents?”

  “No!” the cook snapped back at him. “If she were a fool like that, you think she’d ’a bin a lady’s maid?” There was contempt in her voice, and she was too hurt to try to govern it. He was only a policeman of sorts and she had done nothing wrong to fear him. “If you mean to stay in a quality house like this, you don’t never let your greed get the better o’ you,” she said witheringly. “You’re thinking just because she got soft over a young man wot wasn’t worth it, that she were stupid all the time? Well, she weren’t. If she’d ’a been born in the right family, and learned ’ow ter be’ave ’erself like a lady, she could ’a married the best an’ never ’ad ter work a day in ’er life. Yer take wot life gives yer, an’ get on with it. You, too, an’ all!”

  Stoker smiled, something he did not often do on duty. Most of his work was grim—and, more often than not, he did it alone. Perhaps he was too sober? He felt he would have liked Kitty Ryder, if he had known her.

  “You are quite right,” he conceded. “So apart from her choice in admirer, she was wise in her friends.”

  “I’m not sayin’ as she didn’t ’ave some daft ideas,” the cook said more amiably. “An’ some dreams as wouldn’t never ’appen. Course she did. Wot girl don’t? An’ she could fight ’er corner if she’d a mind to. But not like some, she could own up if she were wrong … sometimes, any’ow.”

  “Thank you, you’ve been very helpful. I’d like to speak to the rest of the staff, if you please.” He did not expect them to add much, but it was possible some of those nearer Kitty’s age might know other things, details he could use. He had spoken to them before, but this was different. Now there was the matter of the gold watch. The handkerchief could’ve belong to anyone, but the watch was unquestionably Kynaston’s, and stolen from him, but seemingly by a pickpocket in the street. So then it was essential that they prove beyond any reasonable doubt that the woman in the gravel pit was someone else. That was his job, in order to protect Dudley Kynaston. Then the presence of the watch would be a coincidence—probably!

  LATE THAT SAME AFTERNOON Pitt received a message that he should report to the Home Office at his very earliest convenience. Perhaps seven o’clock that evening would be a good idea.

  He read the note at quarter past six, but knew that he had no choice but to make the suggested time convenient. So after changing his wet jacket and his muddy boots, he took a hansom. At ten past seven, he entered a pleasant room with portraits of home secretaries of the past, some of their faces from every child’s history books, pompous and unsmiling.

  Pitt glanced at the newspapers on the table near the fireplace. The headlines caught his eye. “Mutilated Corpse in Gravel Pit Still Unidentified.” And underneath it: “Police Say Nothing!” Pitt deliberately looked away.

  He waited for a further twenty minutes before being greeted by a well-groomed young gentleman who came in and closed the door behind him.

  “So sorry to keep you waiting, Commander Pitt,” he said with a slight smile, as though he was doing Pitt a service by being well mannered, given his own importance.

  Pitt thought of several terse replies, and then how he could not afford to make them.

  “I was the one who was late, Mr. Rogers,” he said equally politely. “I could not come here covered in mud.”

  Rogers’s fair eyebrows rose. “Mud?”

  “It is raining outside,” Pitt said, as if perhaps Rogers had not noticed.

  Rogers glanced down at Pitt’s immaculate polished boots and then up at his face.

  “We found a body in a gravel pit at Shooters Hill before dawn yesterday,” Pitt explained. “I had occasion to go back there.”

  “Yes … yes. About that …” Rogers cleared his throat. “Extremely distasteful, of course. Have you identified her yet?”

  “No. There is a possibility that it is the missing maid from Dudley Kynaston’s house, but the butler was unable to confirm or deny the body is her.”

  “Really?” The young man’s eyes widened. “I find that hard to believe. Is the man lying, do you suppose? I assume he did look? He didn’t … evade it, turn away? Faint?”

  “She has been dead for some time, and is badly mutilated,” Pitt told him. “Apart from her very serious facial injuries, the flesh is beginning to decay. I can go into detail, if you wish, but I imagine you would prefer that I didn’t. Her eyes are missing, but her hair is unusual.”

  “Yes, I see,” the man said hastily. “That makes it difficult … I appreciate the …” He stopped. “However, the important thing is that you cannot say for certain that it is Kynaston’s maid, correct?”

  “Correct,” Pitt agreed.

  The young man relaxed the stiff line of his shoulders. His voice, when he spoke, was suddenly softer. “Excellent. Then it will not be difficult for you to leave the matter to the local police. She is probably some prostitute who was unfortunate in her choice of customer. Sad and extremely ugly, but not a Special Branch matter, and certainly nothing to do with Kynaston. The home secretary asked me to convey to you his appreciation of your discretion in stepping in so quickly, just in case the local police were clumsy and caused any degree of embarrassment to the Kynaston family, and therefore to the government. We have enemies who would seek to profit from even the slightest appearance of an … unfortunate association.” He inclined his head slightly. It was a dismissal.

  Pitt wanted to argue, to point out that the issue was not finished yet and it was too soon to assume it settled. But he had been dealing with crimes and investigation all his adult life. He understood both gossip and authority. He had learned how to use them, not always successfully. Reason agreed with the young man, instinct spoke against him. It had not been phrased so, but he knew this was an order. It was part of his new position that he should not require anything blunter.

  “Of course,” he said quietly. “Good evening.”

  The young man smiled. “Good evening, sir.”

  PITT WAS HOME LATER than he had wished to be, and he found that the rest
of the family had already eaten dinner. Charlotte, however, had waited for him. She offered him the choice of the kitchen or the dining-room table, and he chose the kitchen. It was warmer, both literally and in the sense that it was the room at the heart of his family’s life. Their closest friends had sat around this table in anxiety, working on desperate challenges, in grief, when they seemed beaten, and in celebration, when victory was grasped.

  Now he was there, eating hot beef stew with vegetables, lots of onions, and dumplings.

  The discovery of the woman’s body in the gravel pit was in no way secret, reported, as it had been, in the newspapers. Of course the usual speculations had accompanied the few known facts.

  “Is it the missing maid?” Charlotte asked, leaving her own portion of stew untouched.

  “I wish I knew,” he replied when he had swallowed his mouthful.

  “Are they going to admit it, if it is?” She looked at him directly, demanding his attention.

  He smiled in spite of himself. He should have known she would say that, or something like it. She had learned to curb her tongue over the years, but never her thoughts, and never with him.

  “Not if they can help it,” he replied.

  “Will you go along with that?” she persisted. “I suppose you’ll have to. Is Kynaston really so important? Thomas, for heaven’s sake, do be careful.”

  He heard the sudden gravity in her voice and realized she was genuinely afraid for him. She had been proud when he was promoted, and never for an instant doubted he was able to fill Narraway’s position. Furthermore, until now she had concealed almost completely her understanding of the danger of the job. Or was it that he had never told her the worst? There were whole areas he could not speak of, not as he had in the past when he was merely a policeman.

  “My dear, it is simply a missing maid,” he said gently. “It could be she ran off with a young man who had been courting her. If it is her body in the gravel pit, it is a tragedy. But regardless of who it is, it is a young woman dead. The fact that she used to be Mrs. Kynaston’s maid—if it is her—draws attention to him it would be better to avoid, no more.”

  She waited for a moment, then relaxed and smiled. “I saw Emily today.” Emily was her younger sister, now married to Jack Radley, for some time a member of Parliament. “She knows Rosalind Kynaston slightly. She says she’s very quiet and frankly rather boring.”

  Pitt took another mouthful before he replied. “Emily is easily bored. How is she?” He had not seen Emily since Christmas. Once she and Charlotte had helped in some of his more colorful cases, particularly those involving the wealthy and socially prominent, where they had access, while he, as a policeman, was sent round to the servants’ entrance. It felt like a long time ago now. Emily’s first husband had had both wealth and title, and had died tragically. For a short and desperate time in her life, Emily had been suspected of his murder. That, too, was well in the past.

  Charlotte shrugged very slightly. “You know how it is in winter.”

  He waited, expecting her to add something. Instead, she stood up, went to the stove, lifted a treacle pudding out of its steaming pan and turned it out, upside down onto a large plate, watching with satisfaction as the rich, melted golden syrup ran down its sides. She knew it was one of his favorites. There was nothing more enjoyable at the end of a long, cold, wet day. He found himself smiling in anticipation, even though he was quite aware that she had deliberately evaded his question about Emily, which had to mean that there was something wrong.

  CHAPTER

  4

  IT WAS TWO MORE days before Pitt heard from the police at Shooters Hill—or to be more precise, from the police surgeon, Dr. Whistler. He received a short note, sealed in an envelope and delivered by a messenger who did not wait for an answer.

  Pitt read it a second time.

  Dear Commander Pitt,

  I have further examined the body of the woman found in the gravel pit on Shooters Hill. I have learned a number of facts, which change the situation quite fundamentally. It is my duty to report these to Special Branch so you may act as you believe appropriate in the interests both of the state, and of justice.

  I shall be in my office in the morgue for the rest of the day, and at your service.

  Yours sincerely,

  George Whistler, MD

  Pitt obeyed the summons immediately. His first thought was that Whistler had found some way of confirming that the body was indeed Kitty Ryder, and that she had in fact been murdered in a way that would connect her death with the Kynaston house.

  There was nothing to keep him at Lisson Grove. The matters in hand were all routine and very capably handled by others. He informed the appropriate people where he was going. Fifteen minutes later he was in a hansom on the long, traffic-clogged journey first to the river, across Westminster Bridge, then eastwards to Greenwich and the morgue. He was cold and uncomfortable in the hansom. He had several miles to cover, and the ice on the roads made the journey even slower than usual.

  Finally he stood in Whistler’s office. His coat was on the stand by the door and the warmth was slowly seeping back into him, thawing out his hands and allowing his tense shoulders to ease a little.

  Whistler had lost the slightly aggressive air he had had earlier. In fact he looked distinctly unhappy, as if he did not know how to begin.

  “Well?” Pitt prompted him.

  Whistler was also standing, but closer to the fire. He pushed his hands hard into his trouser pockets. “Rather a lot of things to tell you, I’m afraid,” he replied. “On more detailed examination of the body, it became apparent that she had died considerably earlier than I had thought …”

  Pitt was confused. “Don’t you tell the time a person has been dead from the degree of decay?”

  “Will you let me finish?” Whistler snapped, his temper fraying at the first touch.

  Pitt realized with a jolt that the man was more than merely annoyed with himself for having to alter his diagnosis. Something was disturbing him more deeply, even brushing him with a kind of dread.

  Whistler cleared his throat. “Bitterly cold temperatures, below freezing, can delay the decaying process greatly, even put it off altogether, if they persist without break. This is why people keep ice houses for meat storage.” He hesitated, but Pitt did not interrupt again.

  “This body was kept at or below freezing for some time, and the decay was slight. But, as we discussed before, she was not kept at the place where we found her; she was not in the open at all, or scavenging animals would have got to her—at the very least, insects would have. Therefore she was in a very cold and completely enclosed place. Do you follow me so far?”

  “Yes. She was kept in a place that was clean and cold. We knew that already. Perhaps somebody’s ice house?” Pitt mused.

  “Precisely. The gravel pit is so close to a public footpath—granted, one used very infrequently, particularly at this time of year, but all the same, still used, and by people with dogs. So I had assumed she must’ve been placed there during that night—but, based on my initial assessment of her injuries, that she was killed perhaps two weeks before we found her.” Whistler was watching Pitt closely. “It seemed to make sense that possibly someone killed her, in an unplanned attack, and then had to consider how to dispose of her body. It took him time to find a way of getting her up to the gravel pit unseen, and considering the circumstances, without anyone else’s assistance.”

  “A reasonable assumption,” Pitt agreed. “No longer tenable?”

  Whistler grunted and let his breath out between his teeth. “It is. But, I examined the body very closely for the cause of death. While doing so I realized that the decay was much further advanced than I had supposed from the exterior. She had been kept somewhere extremely cold and”—he took a deep breath before continuing—“she had been cleaned up quite a lot after the injuries that caused her death …”

  “What?”

  Whistler glared at him. “You heard me correctl
y, Commander. Someone made an attempt to clean her up, then kept her body somewhere very cold, but thoroughly sealed. And don’t waste your time asking me for an explanation. I can only tell you the facts. Understanding them is your business, thank God!”

  “And the cause of death?” Pitt felt cold again, in spite of the bright fire.

  “Extreme violence,” Whistler replied. “Blows hard enough to break her bones, specifically her shoulder blade, four ribs, the humerus in her left arm, and her pelvis in three places. But all of that happened some time before the mutilations to her face. That is my point!” He stared at Pitt, his outrage at the brutality of it all apparent. “Her death happened around three weeks before the mutilation, at the absolute minimum.”

  Pitt was appalled. It was one of the most savage beatings he could imagine. And then to mutilate her face after she had died, to store her body and clean up her wounds before disposing of her in the pit! Whoever did it must have been completely insane. No wonder Whistler looked so wretched. If she were a prostitute it was no ordinary quarrel she had fallen victim to, it was an attack by a raving madman. And if he could do that once, how long would it be before he did it again?

  Suddenly the room seemed not warm and comfortably protected from the elements. It was more like a suffocating, airless imprisonment from the clean, driving sleet outside, and he longed to escape into it.

  “What with?” he asked, his voice wavering a little. “What did he use?”

  “Honestly?” Whistler shook his head. “This side of a lunatic asylum, I would say he ran her down with a coach and four. Some of the injuries could have been caused by horses’ hooves or carriage wheels. Considerable impact, from several directions, and it could have happened all at once, like horses panicking.”

  A momentary fury welled up inside Pitt. The man could have told him that in the first place. Hideous accidents happened. The damage and the pain were the same, but the horror was nothing like that of imagining a homicidal human being doing such a thing deliberately. He longed to actually hit Whistler, which was childish, and he was ashamed of himself. Nevertheless it was true. He clenched his fists and kept his voice level, even if it was tight and grated between his teeth.