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. Taking it 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 defence 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. Probably it would be a case for the local police, not Special Branch at all.
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 recognise 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 goodbye 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 travelled 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 feet 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, from indifference, possibly irritation, dislike, through respect even to 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 were 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 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 them from emotional nakedness. It was sometimes more than a kindness not to see too much; it was a decency, a safety to oneself as well as to 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 the 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 grey 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 and rotted 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. 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 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 … but it looked … messy. 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 enquiries 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
