There was a slight shadow in Charlotte’s face. ‘She doesn’t,’ she agreed. ‘But Mary Grover was very kind to her, and Jemima promised she would be there to help.’
Pitt remembered Jemima’s argument on the subject, then he looked at Charlotte again. ‘Don’t you think …?’ he began.
‘She doesn’t want to go because the Hamiltons are having a party as well, and she wants to go to that instead, because she likes Robert Hamilton.’
‘Then-’
‘Thomas … she owes Mary Grover a debt of kindness. She will pay it. And don’t tell me “later”. “Later” doesn’t do.’
‘I know,’ he said quietly.
‘I’m so glad.’ Suddenly she smiled and it warmed her whole face with a melting gentleness. ‘I don’t want to fight both of you — at least not at once.’
‘Good,’ he said, relaxing also at last, although he did not doubt for a second that she would have, had he forced her into it.
Chapter Two
Three weeks later, at the end of January, Pitt was at breakfast in the warmth of the kitchen when the telephone rang. It was a marvellous instrument and had been of great service to him, but there were times when he resented its presence. Quarter-past seven on a winter morning, before he had finished his toast, was one of them. Nevertheless he stood up and went out into the hall where the telephone sat on the small table, and picked it up. He knew no one would call him without good reason.
It was Stoker on the other end, his voice thick with emotion.
‘They’ve found a body, sir.’ He took a breath and Pitt could hear the sounds of footsteps and other voices around him. ‘I’m at the Blackheath police station,’ Stoker went on. ‘It’s a woman … young woman, far as we can tell … handsome build …’ He swallowed. ‘Reddish hair …’
Pitt felt his own throat tighten and a wave of sadness pass over him. ‘Where?’ he asked, although the fact that Stoker was calling from Blackheath told him that it was not far from Shooters Hill.
‘Gravel pit, sir,’ Stoker replied. ‘Shooters Hill Road, just beyond Kynaston’s house.’ He seemed about to add something, then changed his mind.
‘I’ll be there,’ Pitt replied. He had no need to tell Stoker that it would take him at least half an hour. Keppel Street was little more than a mile from Lisson Grove, where his office was, but it was a long way west and north of the river from Blackheath, let alone from Shooters Hill.
He put the phone back in its cradle and turned to see Charlotte standing at the bottom of the stairs, waiting for him to tell her what it was. She would know from his face, even from the angle of his body, that it was bad news.
‘A body,’ he said quietly. ‘Young woman found in one of the gravel pits on Shooters Hill.’
‘I suppose you have to go …’
‘Yes. Stoker’s already there. That was him on the telephone. I suppose the local police called him.’
‘Why?’ she asked.
He smiled bleakly. ‘Because the local police are very diligent — or because I have a strong idea that he’s kept on checking on them in case they found Kitty Ryder’s body. But I think the truth is most likely that they sense a bad case coming, and they’d very much like not to have to deal with it themselves.’
‘Can they pass it to you, just like that?’ she said dubiously.
‘Since it’s on Kynaston’s doorstep, and might well be his maid, yes they can. If it is her, they’ll have to give it to Special Branch anyway.’
She nodded slowly, sadness pinching her face. ‘I’m sorry. Poor girl.’ She did not ask why anyone would kill her or if Kitty might have done something, such as attempting blackmail, in order to bring it on herself. She had learned over their sixteen years of marriage how complicated tragedies could be. She was just as blazingly angry at injustice as she had been when they first met, but now very much slower to judge — most of the time.
He walked back to the warm kitchen and its smells of coal, bread and clean linen, to eat the last few mouthfuls of his toast, and drink his tea, if it wasn’t cold. He hated cold tea. Then he would go out into the icy morning and find a hansom. By the time he got to the river it would be sunrise, and daylight when he got up the hill to the gravel pit.
Charlotte was ahead of him. She took his cup off the table and fetched a clean one from the Welsh dresser. ‘You’ve time for it,’ she stated firmly before he could get the words out to argue. She topped up the teapot from the kettle on the hob, waited a moment, then poured it.
Pitt thanked her and was drinking it gratefully — hot if a trifle weak — when Minnie Maude came in, carrying potatoes and a string of onions. Uffie, the small, shaggy orphan pup she had adopted a year ago was, as usual, practically treading on her skirts. He had begun by being denied the kitchen, but it had not worked. If Charlotte had had any sense, she would never have imagined it would!
Pitt smiled, then thought of Kynaston’s kitchen and how different it would be there. ‘I don’t know when I’ll be back,’ he said quietly, and turned to leave.
Pitt reached the gravel pit, as he expected, just as the grey light spread over the waste where the earth had been dug and exploited. The wind from the east carried flecks of ice, stinging the exposed skin of his face and finding the vulnerable parts of his neck. In earlier days he would have worn a long woollen scarf, wound round and round to keep out the cold. Now he felt that would be a little scruffy and informal for his rank, and he had a silk one instead. It was difficult enough to impress people anyway. His predecessors had all been gentlemen from their birth, and in many cases senior officers in either the army or the navy, like Narraway, assuming the obedience of others quite naturally.
‘Morning, sir.’ Stoker walked towards him with an easy gait, his feet crunching on the frozen grass. He refused to huddle his body against the wind. ‘She’s over there.’ He indicated a small group of men about fifty feet away, standing close together, coats whipping a little around their legs, hats jammed on their heads. The light of bull’s-eye lanterns glowed with a false warmth, yellow in the gloom.
‘Who found her?’ Pitt asked curiously.
‘The usual,’ Stoker replied with a shadow of a smile. ‘Man walking his dog.’
‘What time, for heaven’s sake?’ Pitt demanded. ‘Who the devil walks his dog up here at half-past five on a winter morning?’
Stoker lifted his shoulders slightly. ‘Ferryman down on the Greenwich waterfront. Takes people who cross the river to be there before seven. Sounds like a decent enough man.’
Pitt should have thought of that. He had come over the river by ferry himself, but barely looked at the man at the oars. He had dealt with murders most of his police career, and yet they still disturbed him. He had never seen the victim alive, but the accounts of her by the other staff at Kynaston’s house had given her a reality, a vivid sense of laughter and friendship, even of dreams for the future.
‘He reported it to the local police station, and they remembered your interest, so they sent for you,’ Pitt said.
‘Yes, sir. And they telephoned my local station, who sent a constable around for me.’ Stoker looked uncomfortable, as if he were making some confession before it caught up with him anyway. ‘I came up here first, before calling you, sir, in case it wasn’t anything to do with us. Didn’t want to get you out here for nothing.’
Pitt realised what he was doing — accounting for the fact that he was here first. He could have had his own local police call Pitt, and he had chosen not to.
‘I see,’ Pitt replied with a bleak smile, in this grey light, barely visible. ‘Where did you find a telephone up here?’
Stoker bit his lip but he did not lower his eyes. ‘I went to the Kynaston house, sir, just to make sure the maid had not returned and they had forgotten to tell us.’
Pitt nodded. ‘Very prudent,’ he said, almost without expression. Then he walked towards the group of men,
