Kynaston that I’d be happy to come with her and help her look for it. I looked straight at her when I said it, too. If what were written on that ring mattered that much, then let him see it too! She knew exactly what I meant, and she changed her mind. Said to him that she probably hadn’t brought it with her, and she was sorry for making a mistake. Then she looked daggers at me, and went on up to bed.’
He admired her courage, if not her sense.
‘Did you tell Mr and Mrs Kynaston about the ring?’ he asked.
‘No. I went to the kitchen and waited till everyone had gone to bed, then I just left.’ She hesitated for a moment. ‘I went out the back door and just kept walking. It wasn’t that far to the pub, and I knew they’d put me up for the night, till I could get as far as Harry’s the next day. I knew he’d look after me. But it weren’t long before someone came asking questions, and I couldn’t stay. Not fair to him neither, because I didn’t want to marry him. I like him well enough, but not that much.’
‘And how did the blood and hair get onto the steps from the areaway to the street? And the broken glass?’
She looked down, clearly embarrassed.
‘It doesn’t make sense,’ he said quietly. ‘I have to know.’
She raised her eyes. ‘I’m not lying! Everything I told you was true.’ She swallowed hard. ‘Mrs Ailsa came after me into the kitchen. I knew she was ’oping to get me. She had a glass in her hand and she was smiling. I ran for the back door and she came after me. We fought on the steps. It was my hair she pulled out, but her blood … Just from her finger where she broke the glass. I didn’t hurt her, I swear! I didn’t even try-’
‘I know,’ he said quickly. ‘Thank you. I don’t know why it matters enough to come after you, but it must have something to do with what we suspect about treason. You stay here with Gwen. Don’t tell anybody else about this — in fact don’t talk to anyone at all until I tell you it’s all right.’
She looked at him. ‘What happens if you don’t catch them?’
‘I will catch them,’ he said a little rashly. ‘I always catch them. But I’m not alone. There are lots of us. Just stay safe here.’ He stood up. ‘Gwen’ll look after you until I come back again. I may not do that for a little while. I’ll be busy, and … and you’ll be safe if no one knows you are here. Gwen’s name’s different from mine. No one around’ll connect her with me. Please … do as I say!’
She nodded, her eyes suddenly filling with tears as she realised that for a little while, at least, she was safe.
He said good night to Gwen and her husband in the kitchen, and thanked her again. Then he went out into the night smiling to himself, his step light, the ground easy under his feet.
Pitt telephoned Narraway at home and was told that he had gone to the House of Lords. An hour later he had received a message from Narraway, in answer to his request. They met on the Embankment. It was still only a little past ten in the morning and the March wind had a new softness to it. It was easy to believe that spring would begin in a day or two.
Briefly Pitt told Narraway what Stoker had told him when he had arrived at Keppel Street a minute or two after seven. Narraway listened as they walked, without interrupting.
‘Then it seems inescapable that Ailsa Kynaston is the force behind Dudley’s betrayal of his country,’ Narraway said when Pitt had finished. ‘The questions are why, and to whom is he giving the secrets of our naval submarine plans, which possibly cover the whole area of weapons, on which our survival might depend! We need to know a hell of a lot more about her!’
‘And Bennett,’ Pitt added. ‘Perhaps about his death. It may be irrelevant, but it more likely has something to do with it. And we need to do it very quickly.’
Narraway gave a brief, tight smile. ‘I hadn’t thought you were telling me simply to satisfy my curiosity. That would have done over dinner, when you had the solution.’
Pitt made no excuses. ‘You have connections I don’t, people you know who won’t trust me yet. I’m going to speak to Sir John Ransom and find out exactly what Kynaston has knowledge of, and see what I can learn from him. I’ve got to discover where the information is going, and through whom. What a mess!’
‘Be careful how you tell Ransom,’ Narraway warned. ‘He may find it very hard to believe. The whole Kynaston family has been highly respected for several generations.’ His face pinched as he said it, imagining the grief, the refusal to accept what would in the end prove to be unavoidable.
‘He already has a good idea of it,’ Pitt replied, remembering Carlisle’s account, and his sadness for a friend betrayed. He turned and smiled at Narraway, a mirthless means of communicating that he had no intention of telling him how he knew. It was not that he did not trust Narraway, but that he did not want to place on him the burden of keeping it from Vespasia. Neither of them yet knew where this was going to lead.
Narraway did not press him.
‘I’ll let you know immediately,’ Pitt added, coming to a stop along the path. The wind off the river was still cool, the bright sun on the water deceptive. ‘Tell me if you learn anything new that would help.’
Pitt recalled Kynaston’s study and the paintings he had said were of Sweden, several of them clearly attached to memories. He mentioned them, then thanked Narraway and turned to walk back to Westminster Bridge. He was not looking forward to having to tell Ransom what he now knew, but since it was unavoidable, the sooner it was done, the better. This was his job, one of the darkest sides of it.
Ransom received him immediately. He was a quiet man, tall and thin with grey hair receding from a high brow.
‘I hoped you would not come,’ he said, shaking his head a little. They were in his office, a large space, which he had managed to fill with books and papers. They were jammed in together on the shelves that lined three of the walls, and still they spilled over into piles on odd chairs, and even on to the floor. Pitt wondered how much he lost, or if actually he knew what every pile contained. From the steady eyes of the man and his gentle, precise voice, he imagined the latter.
‘I hoped so too,’ Pitt replied. They were both still standing. Somehow it did not seem the occasion to sit. ‘I’m afraid it is now necessary.’
‘Kynaston?’ Ransom asked. ‘Or am I pre-empting what you have to say?’
‘No, you are actually making it easier,’ Pitt said truthfully. ‘It is not yet proved, but I can see no alternative explanation for what I know.’
Ransom was pale. ‘It appears I was denying what, if I were honest, I had already accepted was true. But I thank you for coming. Are you arresting him?’
Pitt shook his head. ‘Not yet. I need proof before I blacken a man’s name. I don’t need to tell you that you do not allow him access to any further new material. And I need to have you tell the Government of the information he could have passed to our enemies — or even our friends, for that matter.’
Ransom smiled sadly. ‘When it comes to weapons of war, it is not always so easy to tell the difference. I have not had such a thing happen since I have been in charge here. Of course I have thought of it — one has to — but somehow the reality hurts more than I had foreseen. I like the man. What in God’s name can have made him do it?’
‘I don’t know yet,’ Pitt answered. ‘We may never know.’
Ransom looked at him, frowning, his face filled with misery. ‘I suppose you find this sort of thing again and again, in your profession. How do you go on trusting anyone? Or don’t you?’ He stopped, searching to defend his idea in words. ‘Do you learn whom to trust? Is there some sense, some formula that you use? How do you know when a man you have liked and believed in for years is actually heart and mind serving someone else, something else, different sorts of ideals and beliefs altogether? Do you then doubt everyone else as well?’
‘No,’ Pitt answered before he allowed himself to think of it. ‘Then you are allowing them to destroy you, as well as themselves. Over time and experience you make enemies, for lots of reasons, but you also make friends. People who will disagree with you openly, but never betray you to another, even when you are wrong.’
Ransom said nothing.
‘Actually I like Kynaston too,’ Pitt added. ‘You might be pleased to know that Kitty Ryder, the maid who disappeared, is alive and well. I would prefer it that you did not make that public, for her safety.’
Ransom sighed and rubbed the heel of his hand over his forehead. ‘That’s something. Although some poor woman is dead, whoever she is.’
