changing his wet jacket and his muddy boots, he took a hansom. Shortly after 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 well-mannered in spite of his own importance.
Pitt thought of several terse replies, and then how he could not afford to make them.
‘I was late, Mr Rogers,’ he said equally politely. ‘I could not come here covered in mud.’
Rogers’ 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 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 later home 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 ate 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 realised 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 it. 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 seems she ran off with a rather unpleasant 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, now six weeks ago. Once she and Charlotte had helped in some of his more colourful 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 on to a large plate, watching with satisfaction as the rich, melted golden syrup ran down its sides. She knew it was one of his favourites. There was nothing more satisfying 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 Four
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, not previously visible, 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.
