The man lost his nerve. “Thank you,” he acknowledged.
Quixwood did not reply, but walked inside and allowed Knox to close the door behind him, leaving the constable outside.
Quixwood faced Narraway. “Thank you. I am enormously grateful for your support.” His eyes searched Narraway’s face. “I would appreciate it if you would do what you can to help the inspector keep speculation as … as low as possible. The circumstances are-” he swallowed “-are open to more than one interpretation. But I loved Catherine and I will not allow her memory to be soiled by the vulgar and prurient, who value nothing and know no honor. Please …” His voice cracked.
“Of course,” Narraway said quickly. “As I said, anything Knox will allow me to do, I will. There may be avenues I can explore that he can’t. I may not be head of Special Branch anymore, but still have some influence in higher offices.”
Quixwood gave the ghost of a smile. “Thank you.”
Narraway took one of the cabs that the police had kept and went home to get a few hours’ sleep before facing the next day and trying to see the case with clearer vision. He had a hot bath to wash away some of the weariness and the tension that gripped him, then went to bed.
He slept deeply, out of exhaustion, but woke before eight, haunted by dreams of the dead woman and the terror and searing pain she must have felt as the most intimate parts of her body were torn. His head was pounding and his mouth was dry. The emptiness in his own life since losing his position as head of Special Branch seemed ridiculously trivial now, something he was ashamed to own, compared with what had happened to Catherine Quixwood.
He washed, shaved, and dressed, then went down to have a quick breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, and tea before going out into the warm early summer day and finding a hansom to take him to Dr. Brinsley.
The morgue was a place Narraway loathed. It was too much a bitter reminder of mortality. The smell of it turned his stomach. He could always taste it for hours afterward.
Today the heat and dust, the smell of horse manure in the street outside, was suddenly sweet compared with what he knew he would face as soon as the doors closed behind him.
He found Brinsley almost immediately. The man’s long-nosed, wry-humored face told Narraway that the news was ugly and probably complicated.
“Morning, my lord,” Brinsley said with a grimace. “Not seen Inspector Knox, I take it?”
“No, not yet,” Narraway replied. “Are you able to tell me anything?”
“Come into the office,” Brinsley invited him. “Smells a little better, at least.” Without waiting, he walked along the corridor, turned right, and led the way into a small room piled high with books and papers on every available surface. He closed the door behind them.
Narraway waited. He did not want to sit; it implied remaining here for longer than he wished to.
Brinsley noticed and understood. The recognition of it flickered in his eyes.
“She was raped and pretty badly beaten. The damn animal even bit her breast,” he said with anger harsh in his voice. “But I don’t think that was what killed her, at least not directly.”
Narraway was startled, momentarily disbelieving.
Brinsley sighed. “I think she died of opium poisoning.”
Narraway felt a bitter chill run right through him. The smell of the place seemed to have crept into his nose and mouth. “Before she was raped, or after?” His voice sounded hoarse. “Do you know?”
“After,” Brinsley said. “Knox found the laudanum bottle and the glass from which she’d which she’d drunk in the hall cabinet. There was blood on the glass.”
“Her attacker forced her to drink it?” Narraway knew the question was foolish even as he asked it.
Brinsley’s face was filled with pity, for Catherine, but possibly for Narraway as well. “Far more likely she was stunned, close to despair,” he answered. “Either didn’t realize how much she’d taken or, more probably, meant to drink that much. The attack was very brutal. God knows what she must have felt. Many women never get over rape. Can’t bear the shame and the horror of it.”
“Shame?” Narraway snapped.
Brinsley sighed. “It’s a crime of violence, of humiliation. They feel as if they have been soiled beyond anything they can live with. Too many times the men they think love them don’t want them after that.” He swallowed with difficulty. “Husbands find they can’t take it, can’t live with it. They can’t get rid of the thought that somehow the woman must have allowed it.”
“She was beaten to-” Narraway started, his voice rising to a shout.
“I know!” Brinsley cut him off sharply. “I know. I’m telling you what happens. I’m not justifying it, or explaining it. It does strange things to some men, makes them feel impotent, that they couldn’t defend their own woman. I’m sorry, but it looks as if she drank it herself. God help her.” He swallowed, his face pinched with pain. “Find this one, will you? Get rid of him somehow.”
“We will.” Narraway felt his throat tighten and a helpless anger scald through him. “I will.”
CHAPTER 3
Pitt was distracted at the breakfast table. He ate absentmindedly, his attention absorbed by whatever he was reading in the newspaper. He looked up briefly to bid goodbye to Jemima and Daniel, then returned to his article. He even allowed his tea to go cold in the cup.
Charlotte stood up and took the teapot to the stove, pushed the kettle over onto the hob, and waited a few moments until it reached a boil again. With the teapot refreshed, and carrying a clean cup, she returned to the table and sat down.
“More tea?” she asked.
Pitt looked up, then glanced at his cup beside him, puzzled.
“It’s cold,” she said helpfully.
“Oh.” He gave a brief smile, half-apologetic. “I’m sorry.”
“From your expression, it’s not good news,” she observed.
“Speculation on the Jameson trial,” he replied, folding the paper and putting it down. “Most people seem to be missing the point.”
She had read enough about it to know what he was referring to. Leander Starr Jameson had returned to Britain from Africa, accused of having led an extraordinarily ill-conceived invasion from British-held Bechuanaland across the border into the independent Transvaal in an attempt to incite rebellion there and overthrow the Boer government, essentially of Dutch origin.
“He’s guilty, isn’t he?” she asked, uncertain now if perhaps she had misunderstood what she had read. “Won’t we have to find him so?”
“Yes,” Pitt agreed, sipping his new hot tea. “It’ll be a question of what sentence is passed and how much the public lionizes him. Apparently he’s a remarkably attractive man; not in the ordinary sense of being handsome or charming, but possessing a certain magnetism that captivates people. They see him as the ideal hero.”
She looked at Pitt’s face, the somber expression in his eyes that belied the ease of his voice.
“There’s more than that,” she said gravely. “It matters, doesn’t it?”
“Yes,” he answered softly. “Mr. Kipling believes him a hero for our time: brave, loyal, resourceful, seizing opportunity by the throat, a born leader, in fact.”
Charlotte swallowed. “But he isn’t?”
“Mr. Churchill says he is a dangerous fool who will, in the near future, cause war between Britain and the Boers in South Africa,” he replied.
She was horrified. “War! Could it?” She put her cup down with a slightly trembling hand. “Really? Isn’t Mr. Churchill being … I mean, just drawing attention to himself? Emily says he does that a bit.”
Pitt did not answer immediately.
“Thomas?” she demanded.
