assume it is some case Paterson is presently engaged in, and which was a great deal more serious than he at first supposed.” He winced, his heavy face looking tired and shocked. “I fear it may involve some possible misbehavior or corruption. I refuse to speculate further and possibly do someone a profound injustice.”
“Why did he choose you, Mr. Livesey?” Pitt asked, endeavoring to make his tone so courteous as to rob the words of any rudeness. “Did he know you?”
“By repute, I suppose,” Livesey replied with profound unhappiness. “Certainly to the best of my knowledge I had never met him. Of course I knew his name, because I read his evidence at the trial of Aaron Godman. Similarly, he may have known that I sat on the appeal. But not personally, no. We had never met.”
Pitt was still puzzled.
“That does not really answer the question.”
“I agree,” Livesey said, shaking his head. “It is extraordinary. I can only suppose that the poor young man discovered, or thought he had discovered, something which he dared not take to his own superiors, and he chose someone whose name he knew, with the position, and the integrity, to help him.
There was no comment Pitt could make that would be helpful. He could not deny it. To do so would be condescending, and neither of them would believe it. Livesey did not deserve that, instead he walked over to the body, still hanging from its rope, regarded the noose, then pulled one of the chairs over to see if it would give him enough height to lift the body down at last and lay it where it could rest decently until the medical examiner came and took it away.
That was something Lambert could do, send for the appropriate people Presumably Livesey had not done so. He turned to look at him.
“Do you—do you need a little help?” Livesey said, swallowing and stepping forward. “I …” He cleared his throat. “What would you like me to do?”
“I was going to ask you if you had called the medical examiner,” Pitt answered,
“No—no, I just sent the boy for the police. I thought …”
“Lambert can do that,” Pitt said quickly. “I can’t untie the rope, his weight will have pulled it tight. I’ll need a knife.”
“Er …” Livesey was beginning to look ill, as if his years had caught up with him. “I’ll go and see if the landlady has one. You’ll need to preserve the rope, I imagine. Evidence.”
“Thank you. Ask Lambert to send for the medical examiner, will you?”
“Yes. Yes, of course.” And as if escaping the room and its fearful burden, Livesey turned on his heel and went out of the door. A moment later Pitt heard his steps heavy in the passage outside, and then on the stairs.
Pitt went back and stood in the room until Livesey returned with the knife.
Livesey was too shaken to touch the corpse. His face was pale and there was sweat on his brow and lip and his hands were clumsy, as if he could no longer coordinate them. Pitt held the body up as far as he could to ease the weight. Livesey cut the rope, taking several seconds to saw it through, then Pitt felt the full weight of Paterson suddenly collapse on him.
Livesey swore, his voice choking, and together they laid the body on the floor.
“There’s nothing else to do here,” Pitt said quietly, moved by pity for Livesey, and anxiety in case he could not bear the horror any longer. “Come. We’ll wait for the medical examiner in the next room.”
Two hours later Pitt had questioned the landlady, now alternately shrieking with outrage and mute with fear, and then the other tenants, and learned nothing from any of them. The medical examiner had been and gone, taking the body with him in his mortuary van, the horse stamping and blowing as it caught the smell of fear from passersby. Livesey, still pink-faced and now suddenly cold, had excused himself. Pitt and Lambert stood on the landing outside the door, the keys in the lock.
Lambert shook his head.
“I don’t understand,” he said yet again. “What on earth could he have wanted to tell Livesey? Why not us? If not me, then you?” He took the keys out of the door and gave them to Pitt. In single file they went down the stairs.
The landlady was still standing in the hall, her face haggard and eyes blazing.
“Murder!” she said furiously. “In my very own ’ouse! I always said I never should ’ave ’ad police as lodgers! Never again! I’ll take my oath on that, never again!”
Lambert swung around on her, his face white, his eyes blazing.
“A young policeman is murdered in your house, and you’ve got the impertinence to blame him! Perhaps if he’d never come here then he’d be alive today. What sort of a house do you keep anyway?”
“ ’Ow dare you?” she shrieked, her cheeks scarlet with outrage. “Why you—”
“Come on.” Pitt took Lambert by the arm and half pulled him out, still turned towards the woman, wanting to fight. The rage and the grief in him needed to lash out at someone, lay blame where he could see and hear.
“Come on,” Pitt repeated urgently. “We’ve got a lot to do!”
Reluctantly Lambert went with him. Outside the sky was overcast and it had begun to rain. Passersby were huddled into themselves, collars up, faces averted from the driving cold.
“What?” Lambert demanded between his teeth. “Who murdered poor Paterson? We haven’t even found out who killed Judge Stafford! We don’t know why! Do you know, Pitt?” He dodged off the pavement into the running gutter, then back on again. “Have you even got an idea? And don’t tell me Godman wasn’t guilty—that doesn’t make any sense. If he wasn’t, why would anybody rake it all up now? They’ve got away with it. It was the perfect murder. Godman is hanged and the case is closed.”
“What else was Paterson working on?” Pitt asked, matching his pace to Lambert’s as they walked along Battersea Park Road to a place where they could find a hansom back to the station.
