CHAPTER 11
Stoker came into Pitt’s office and closed the door behind him.
“Sir, something’s happened I think you should know about.” His expression was bleak, his eyes sharp and troubled.
“What is it?” Pitt asked immediately.
Stoker took a deep breath. “There’s been another very nasty rape of a young woman, sir, and I’m afraid she is dead. Seventeen, her father says. Respectable, good family. Walking out regular with a young man in the Grenadiers.”
Pitt felt horror ripple through him, then an overwhelming pity for the father, but also a sense of relief he was ashamed of. This was not Special Branch business. He could leave the pain and the bitter discoveries to someone else.
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” he said quietly. “But it’s for the police to handle, Stoker, it’s nothing to do with us.”
“I’m not sure about that, sir,” Stoker said, shaking his head. “Very violent, it was. Quite a lot of blood, and her neck was broken with the force of the blow.” Stoker stood rigid, almost to attention, like a soldier.
“It’s still not ours,” Pitt said hoarsely. “It’s for the regular police. Unless … you’re not going to tell me she’s a foreign diplomat’s daughter, are you?”
Stoker raised his chin a little.
“No, sir, her father is an importer and exporter of some sort. But her young man’s a friend of Neville Forsbrook and his crowd, even met Miss Castelbranco once or twice, so her father says.” He waited, staring at Pitt.
“You think Neville might be to blame?” Pitt framed the words slowly.
“Don’t know, sir.” Stoker attempted to smooth his face of anger and frustration, but failed. “I doubt the newspapers will make that connection. Nobody else knows for sure that Miss Castelbranco was raped, and she was certainly alive until she fell through that window. And, by the way, they’ve arrested someone for raping Mrs. Quixwood, but it’s a close thing as to whether he was in custody at the time of this most recent attack.”
Pitt was startled. “Have they? Who was it?”
“Alban Hythe,” Stoker said flatly, his voice expressionless. “Young man. A banker, so they say. Married. Not what you’d expect. Seems they were lovers-at least that’s what I hear from a friend I have in the police.”
Pitt said nothing. He wondered what Narraway would think of Hythe’s arrest. He had not wanted to think Catherine Quixwood was in any way to blame, even remotely.
“What’s her name?” he asked, meeting Stoker’s eyes again. “The new victim, I mean.”
“Pamela O’Keefe, sir. It’ll make a big splash in the newspapers, I should imagine. When it does, the Portuguese ambassador’s going to be very upset. I would be.” He stood still in front of the desk, his bony hands moving restlessly.
Normally Pitt would have resented the pressure, even the suggestion of insolence; however, he knew it sprang from Stoker’s own sense of helplessness in the face of what he felt was an outrage. He expected Pitt, as head of Special Branch, to do something about it.
“Be careful, Stoker,” Pitt warned. “The Home Secretary personally sent me a note warning me that there’s nothing we can do about Angeles Castelbranco.”
Then suddenly Pitt’s anger overwhelmed him, the obscene injustice of it. His temper snapped-not with Stoker, but Stoker got the brunt of it simply because he was there.
“Damn it, man! I was in the building when the poor girl went through the window. Forsbrook says she was hysterical, and so she was. The only question is, what made her so. Was she terrified of him, and for good reason? Was she blaming him for something that someone else did to her? Or was it all in her own fevered imagination?”
Stoker’s eyes blazed but he knew to keep silent.
“Do you think I wouldn’t arrest the bastard if I could?” Pitt shouted. “No charge would stick to him and we’d end up looking ridiculous. Far more to the point, the poor girl is-” He stopped, appalled. “God! I was going to say decently buried-but she isn’t. She’s just shoved into some hole in the ground, because the sanctimonious bloody Church has decided she might have taken her own life!”
He very seldom swore, and he heard the echo of his own voice with disgust. He was shaking with fury. Every instinct in him was to attack, to punish Forsbrook until there was nothing left of him. And all he could do was stand by and watch.
And now Stoker too was expecting something of him he could not give. He wondered for a brief instant if Narraway would have done better.
Stoker did not flinch. “So are we going to let it go … sir?” he asked. His voice was so tight in his throat it was a pitch higher than normal.
“When was Alban Hythe arrested?” Pitt asked coldly.
“Last night, sir, or more accurately, late yesterday evening,” Stoker replied. “Shortly after Pamela O’Keefe was raped and killed, if that’s what you’re asking. Too close to call.”
“Of course that’s what I’m asking!” Pitt snapped. “So could he be guilty of killing Pamela O’Keefe, regardless of the crimes against Mrs. Quixwood or Angeles Castelbranco?”
“It doesn’t seem likely, sir,” Stoker said grimly. He took a breath. “I’d say we’ve got two violent men raping respectable women. Maybe three. Unless you’re thinking Angeles Castelbranco wasn’t actually raped.”
“No, I’m not thinking that!” Pitt all but snarled. He knew he was being unfair, but the sense of outrage and futility suffocated him. “Coincidences happen, but I don’t believe in them until there’s nothing else left.” He stared at Stoker’s blank face. “Find out if there’s any further connection between Forsbrook and this poor girl. Maybe he is the leader of a whole bunch of cowards that go after women.”
“A gang of them?” Stoker said with disgust, his hands curled into fists. “Isn’t that some special sort of crime?” There was a lift of hope in his voice.
“If he or any of them killed the O’Keefe girl, we can hang them just as high for that as for Angeles’s death,” Pitt replied. “Go and find out. But, Stoker …”
The younger man halted at the door and turned. “Yes, sir,” he said.
“Be careful,” he warned again. “I would very much rather the Foreign Secretary had no occasion to think of us at the moment, let alone know anything. I’ve been told to leave it alone. It was an order. I need to be damn careful not to be seen disobeying. Your inquiries are for the purpose of making certain Mr. Forsbrook is not mistakenly blamed for any of this. Do you understand?”
Stoker snapped to attention, his eyes brilliant as sunlight on ice. “Absolutely, sir. We must protect our national honor. An upstanding young gentleman like Mr. Forsbrook musn’t be slandered by some foreign ambassador, no matter how upset the poor man might be about his daughter’s most unfortunate death in our capital city.” He took a breath and went on. “And we must make certain there is no connection in anyone’s mind between that and this other poor girl’s rape and murder, sir. Mrs. Quixwood is quite another matter … no connection whatever. Regrettably London appears to be full of rapists, and I suppose young ladies are not careful enough who they keep company with-”
“Stoker!” Pitt barked.
“Yes, sir?” Stoker opened his eyes wide.
“You’ve made your point.”
Stoker lowered his voice. “Yes, sir.” There was something close to a smile on his lips. “I’ll report to you as soon as I have anything, sir.” And without waiting to be dismissed, he turned on his heel and went out.
Pitt picked up the telephone to call Narraway.
Two hours later Pitt and Narraway walked along the Embankment with the magnificent Palace of Westminster towering above them in the sun. On the telephone Pitt had very briefly told Narraway of the new rape case, keeping the details until they met. Narraway in turn had given him nothing beyond the bare fact of Alban Hythe’s arrest. His own ambivalent emotions about it were clear in his voice.
