kindest speculation was that she was in love with someone who did not return her feelings. The cruelest that she was with child, that her fiancé had very understandably called off the betrothal, and in despair she had killed herself and her unborn baby.
Charlotte had seethed with anger, but all she could do was accuse the speaker of malice. And that would gain nothing, except enemies she knew she could ill afford, for Pitt’s sake as well as her own. If she was helpless, how much more so was Isaura Castelbranco?
“Did you learn anything?” she asked Pitt.
“Not that could be proof,” he replied.
“What else did Mr. Quixwood say about the party?”
“Only that Forsbrook was charming, flattered Angeles in the way most young women enjoy, but that she seemed to be upset by it. He implied that either she thought herself too good for Neville or her English was not sufficiently fluent for her to have understood him properly. The prevailing opinion was that she was too young, and too unsophisticated to be in Society yet, even when her mother was present at the same function, as she usually was. They suggested that perhaps Portuguese girls were more sheltered and less prepared to conduct themselves with appropriate grace.” He stopped, looking at Charlotte with a frown.
“That doesn’t mean anything. Everyone is saying whatever makes them feel most comfortable. It’s disgusting! How desperately alone she was … and her family is now.” She wanted to encourage him, but what was there to say? “There must be something you can do,” she tried. “Even indirectly, perhaps?”
Pitt raised his head.
“I haven’t given up.” His voice had an edge to it he failed to hide.
“I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I’m asking for miracles, aren’t I?”
“Yes. And your potatoes are boiling over.”
She leaped to her feet. “Oh blitheration! I forgot them. Now it’s too late to put the cabbage on.” She pulled the pan off the stove and lifted the lid cautiously. She jabbed the skewer into one. They were very definitely cooked, a little too much so. She would have to mash them.
Pitt was smiling. “We’ll just have more pickle,” he said with amusement. She was always teasing him that he used too much.
The following morning Pitt sat in his office studying the papers, mostly looking for information he could use professionally. Often Stoker selected articles for Pitt, to save him time.
“Lot about the upcoming Jameson trial,” Stoker observed drily, putting more papers on Pitt’s desk.
“Anything I need to know right now?” Pitt asked, hoping he could avoid reading them.
“Not much.” Stoker’s face creased in distaste. “Still haven’t solved the murder of Rawdon Quixwood’s wife. Sometimes I think I’d understand it if somebody murdered a few of these journalists, or the damn people who write letters expressing their arrogant opinions.”
Pitt looked at Stoker curiously. It was an unusual expression of emotion for him. More often he showed only disinterest, or occasionally a dry humor, especially at political contortions to evade the truth, or blame for anything.
Rather than ask him, Pitt turned over the pages of the first newspaper until he came to the letters to the editor. He saw with anger what Stoker meant. A good deal of space was devoted to the subject of rape.
One writer expressed the heated opinion that morality in general, and sexual morality in particular, was in serious decline. Women of a certain type behaved in a way that excited the baser appetites in men, leading to the destruction of both and to the general degradation of humanity. But the author conceded that rapists, if caught and the matter proved beyond any doubt, should be hanged, for the good of all. No names were mentioned, but Pitt noted that the writer lived in a neighborhood not two streets away from Catherine Quixwood.
“Why the devil does the editor print this sort of thing?” he demanded angrily. “It’s vicious, ignorant, and will only stir up ill feeling.”
“And produce more letters in answer,” Stoker replied. “Dozens of them, of all opinions. And loads of people will buy the paper, to see if their answer has been printed, or just for the fun of watching a scrap. Same thing as the idle who gather to watch a street fight, and then demand we clean up the mess afterward, all the time shaking their heads and saying how terrible it is. But heaven help you if you get between them and the view.”
Pitt looked up at Stoker with surprise. There had been more heat in his voice than Pitt had heard in a while. It flickered through his mind to wonder if Stoker had known and cared for someone who had been violated: a sister, even a lover at some time. He knew little of Stoker’s personal life-or that of most people in Special Branch, for that matter. And he wasn’t likely to learn more about them through this subject, as it was the sort of thing a man did not talk about even to those he knew best, let alone relative strangers.
“Of course.” Pitt looked down at the newspaper again. “It was a stupid question. People attack what they’re afraid of. Like poking a hornets’ nest with a stick. Makes you feel brave, as if you’re doing something. Don’t care who the damn things sting afterward. Poor Quixwood must feel like hell.”
“Yes, sir,” Stoker agreed. “But I’ve met Knox before; I know he is a good man. If anyone can find the truth, it’s him.”
Pitt looked up at him again. “I notice you didn’t say ‘catch who did it.’ Do you think it wasn’t murder, then? Suicide, because she allowed herself to be raped?” He heard the anger in his own voice and could not control it.
Stoker looked slightly embarrassed. “Whoever it was, sir, she let him in herself, with no servants around. That doesn’t make attacking her right, but it does make it a lot more complicated.”
“Sometimes, Stoker, I look back to my time in Bow Street, when murders seemed simpler. Greed, revenge, fear of blackmail I can understand. I quite often felt a degree of pity for even the worst people, but I knew that I still had no acceptable choice but to arrest them. If the jury decided they were innocent, then I could live with that and it was a comfort to know they might catch my mistakes, if that’s what they were. But who catches ours?”
Stoker chewed his lip. “Sometimes we do,” he said with a raised eyebrow. “Otherwise, probably no one. You’d like me to say different?” He was polite, just, but there was a challenge in his voice, one he would not have dared use with Narraway.
“No, not if you can’t do it believably,” Pitt retorted. “At least we’re not in the diplomatic service, or the Foreign Office. Thank God Leander Starr Jameson and his damn raid aren’t on our desks.”
“No, sir. And neither is poor Angeles Castelbranco.”
“Yes she is,” Pitt replied grimly. “Someone raped her here in London, and brought about her death.”
“Not a diplomatic incident, sir,” Stoker said firmly.
“Are you sure?” Pitt stared at him, holding his gaze.
Stoker blinked. For the first time uncertainty showed on his face as he considered other possibilities. “Rape, as a tool of fear, civil disruption? I don’t think so, sir. It’s just a regular crime of selfishness, violence, and uncontrolled appetite. She was a very pretty girl, and some vicious bastard saw his chance and took it. I don’t see it makes any difference that she was Portuguese, except maybe it made her easier to get at.” He swallowed. “And maybe he reckoned her parents would be in less of a position to insist on his arrest, punishment-although honestly, I don’t believe he’d even have thought of that. Rape’s a kind of hot-blooded crime, isn’t it?”
“Not necessarily. But does that make any difference?” Pitt asked, still holding Stoker’s gaze. “If an anarchist throws a bomb on impulse, or shoots a political figure, is it less dangerous than if he’d planned it ahead of time?”
This time Stoker’s answer was immediate. “No, sir. D’you think it’ll become an international incident? That might put it on our plate. Castelbranco didn’t seem the sort of man to use his daughter’s death like that. Although I suppose his temperament and philosophy might change if no one is charged.”
“And if he doesn’t, others might, in his-Angeles’s-name,” Pitt pointed out. “I’m pretty sure most fathers would want to see someone pay for this.”
Stoker looked bleak. “Except the father of whoever did it, sir. He sure as hell wouldn’t. Maybe some of that is what’s behind it?”
“We’ve opened up some ugly possibilities, Stoker,” Pitt admitted. “We need to look further into the thought of people taking advantage of the event for political manipulation, repulsive as that is. Bring me what we know about Pelham Forsbrook and any interests he might have that connect in any way to Portugal, or Castelbranco personally.” He rose to his feet. “I think I need to know a lot more about this. With the Quixwood case we will-it’s
