coldly. 'Never have done before.'
'Don't be impertinent with me, Pitt!' Athelstan stood straight up and leaned across the desk. 'The case is closed! I told you that ten days ago, when the jury had brought in their verdict. It's none of your business, and I ordered you to leave it alone then! Now I hear you've been poking around behind my back-trying to see witnesses! What in hell do you think you're doing?'
'I haven't spoken to any witnesses,' Pitt said truthfully, although it was not for the want of trying. 'I can't-they've disappeared!'
'Disappeared? What do you mean 'disappeared'? People of that sort are always coming and going-jetsam, scum of society, always drifting from one place to another. Lucky we caught them when we did, or maybe we wouldn't have got their testimony. Don't talk rubbish, man. They haven't disappeared like a decent citizen might. They've just gone from one whore^ house to another. Means nothing-nothing at all. Do you hear me?'
Since he was snouting at the top of his voice, the question was redundant.
'Of course I can hear you, sir,' Pitt answered, stonefaced.
Athelstan flushed crimson with anger.
'Stand still when I'm talking to you! Now I hear you've been to see Jerome-not only once, but twice! What for, that's what I should like to know-what for? We don't need a confession now. The man's been proved guilty. Jury of his peers- that's the law of the land.' He swung his arms around, crossing them in frontof him in a scissor-like motion. 'The thing is finished. The Metropolitan Police Force pays you to catch criminals, Pitt, arid, if you can, to prevent crime in the first place. It does not pay you to defend them, or to try and discredit the law courts and their verdicts! Now if you can't do that job properly, as you're told, then you'd better leave the force and find something you can do. Do you understand me?'
'No, sir, I don't!' Pitt stood stiff as a ramrod. 'Are you telling me that I'm to do only exactly what I'm told, without
219
following my own intelligence or my own suspicions-or else I'll be dismissed?'
'Don't be so damn stupid!' Athelstan slammed the desk with his hand. 'Of course I'm not! You're a detective-but not on any damn case you like! I am telling you, Pitt, that if you don't leave the Jerome business alone, I'll put you back to walking the beat as a constable-and I can do it, I promise you.'
'Why?' Pitt faced him, demanding an explanation, trying to back him into saying something indefensible. 'I haven't seen any witnesses. I haven't been near the Waybournes or the Swynfords. But why shouldn't I talk to Abigail Winters or Albie Frobisher, or visit Jerome? What do you think anyone is going to say that can matter now? What can they change? Who's going to say something different?'
'Nobody! Nobody at all! But you're stirring up a lot of ill-feeling. You're making people doubt, making them think there's something being hidden, something nasty and dirty, still secret. And that amounts to slander!'
'Like what, for instance-what is there still to find out?'
'I don't know! Dear God-how should I know what's in your twisted mind? You're obsessed! But I'm telling you, Pitt, I'll break you if you take one more step in this case. It's closed. We've got the man who is guilty. The courts have tried him and sentenced him. You have no right to question their decision or cast doubts on it! You are undermining the law, and I won't have it!'
'I'm not undermining the law!' Pitt said derisively. 'I'm trying to make sure we've got all the evidence, to make sure we don't make mistakes-'
'We haven't made any mistakes!' Athelstan's face was purple and there was a muscle jumping in his jowl. 'We found the evidence, the courts decide, and it's not part of your job to sit in judgment. Now get out and find this arsonist, and take care of whatever else there is on your desk. If I have to call you back up here over Maurice Jerome, or anything to do with that case, anything whatsoever, I'll see you back as a constable. Right now, Pitt!' He flung out his arm and pointed at the door. 'Out!'
220
There was no point in arguing. 'Yes, sir,' Pitt said wSarily. 'I'm going.'
