in the opposite direction towards Westminster Bridge, leaving Pitt to go east, and down to the river.
It was only as he was nearing the riverbank and could hear the slurping of the incoming tide that Pitt allowed the wave of relief to run through him with a sudden warmth. He realised how close he had come to giving Talbot a reason to dismiss him. Of course he knew that many people did not find him a suitable person to follow Victor Narraway, who was undoubtedly a gentleman.
Pitt himself was the son of a disgraced gamekeeper, transported to Australia for theft when Pitt was a boy. He could scarcely remember him, only the shock and the indignation, his protest of innocence that was disregarded, then his mother’s grief. She and Pitt had been allowed to remain in the large country estate; indeed, Pitt had been educated with the son of the house, to encourage the boy. It would not do for a servant’s son to outdo the heir, and it was felt this might prevent such a thing. Although looking back on it now, Pitt thought that that had been an excuse to mask a kindness that was always intended.
Still, it was hardly a background to equal Narraway’s, or one that a man such as Talbot — and to be honest, many others — would be happy with. He must remember that, and not let anger or complacency lead him into error again. Carlisle had rescued him this time, and Pitt was just beginning to appreciate now just how much. He had been gracious enough to make light of it, as if it were in his own interest, rather than in Pitt’s, but that was a courteous fiction.
That there was also an antipathy between Carlisle and Talbot was clear, and Pitt would be wise to remember that and avoid being caught in the middle. Nevertheless his step was light as he made his way to the ferry.
Stoker sat at the kitchen table at his sister’s house. He quite often came here on his days off. King’s Langley was an ancient and very pleasant village in Hertfordshire beyond the outskirts of London, about an hour’s journey on the train. Gwen was the only family he had left, and quite apart from that, he really liked her. All his best memories were somehow attached to her. She was two years older than he and had looked after him in the earliest times he could recall. It was she, more than the schoolteacher, who had taught him to read. She was the one who encouraged him to join the navy, and to whom he had recounted his adventures, enlarging the good and mostly skipping over the bad. Perhaps that was why he remembered the good so clearly, trying to share it with her, seeing her eyes widen, her holding her breath as she waited for the next turn in his stories.
It was also Gwen who had travelled miles by train, spending the little money she had, to come and visit him in hospital when he was injured. And of course it was Gwen who told him off when she thought he was wrong. She who had brought him the news of their mother’s death, and she who nagged him about putting flowers on the grave, saving for the future, and even occasionally about getting married.
Now she was cooking dinner for her husband and children when they came home. He watched her with pleasure because the kitchen was warm and smelled of baking pastry and clean sheets drying on the airing rail above them. There were strings of onions hanging in the corner and a small dresser with plates on it, and two copper pans, the pride of her possessions. The shine and the colour of them were too good to spoil with over- use.
He must get her something else pretty some time. It was too long since he had last done so. Her husband was a hard worker, most of the year at sea, as Stoker himself had been. But money had a long way to go to support a wife, and four children who grew out of their clothes and were always hungry.
Stoker was full of thoughts of Kitty Ryder, and relief that the hat with the red feather was not hers. He had not realised until Pitt told him about Talbot, and Carlisle’s rescue of the situation, that he had been sad at her death. It was ridiculous! He had never even seen the woman!
Gwen was looking at him.
‘What’s the matter, Davey?’ she asked. ‘You’ve got a face on you like a burst boot! You said the hat wasn’t hers. She could still be alive.’
He looked up. ‘I know. But if she is, why doesn’t she come forward and say so? Everybody in London knows we’re trying to identify the body in the gravel pit, and that there’s speculation it’s her. And don’t tell me she can’t read! I know she can.’
‘Are you staying to dinner? You’re welcome, you know? You’re always welcome,’ she assured him.
He smiled at her, quite unaware how it lit his face. ‘I know. And no, I’m not. I’ve got to be on duty tomorrow.’ That was not strictly the truth; he chose to be. But he had also made a good assessment of the meat in the stew and how if he accepted a portion, someone else would go without — almost certainly Gwen herself.
‘They work you too hard,’ she criticised.
‘We’ve been over that,’ he reminded her. ‘I like the work, Gwen. It matters. I don’t tell you much about it because it’s secret. But Special Branch keeps us all safe, if we do it right.’
‘What about this new guv’nor, Pitt?’ she asked. ‘Does he work as hard as you do? Or does he go back to a nice big house somewhere with servants to look after him and parties to go to?’
Stoker laughed. ‘Pitt? He’s not a gentleman, Gwen. He’s an ordinary man, like anyone. Worked his way up. He’s got a decent home, on Keppel Street, but no mansion. You’d like his wife. I don’t know her well, but she’s not all that different from you.’ He looked around the room quickly. ‘Kitchen’s bigger than this one, but like it; smells of clean laundry and bread as well.’
She looked at him and smiled back. ‘So why the face? And you might be Special Branch, an’ all that, but you never could fool me, and you can’t now, so don’t waste both our time trying it.’
‘Where is she?’ he said simply.
‘In love with the man she ran off with?’ she suggested, reaching out to pour him another cup of tea.
He raised his eyebrows. ‘It’s been over four weeks since she disappeared. No one’s that much in love.’
She shook her head. ‘You know, Davey, sometimes I worry about you. Have you ever been really in love? You haven’t, have you? When you are, you can’t see anything else, believe me. You walk into a hole in the road, because your head’s in the air and your eyes full of dreams. Would you like some cake?’
‘Yes, and no, not so that I fall into holes in the road,’ he answered.
She stood up, still looking at him. ‘You’ve got your head screwed on all right, so tight it’s a wonder you can fasten your shirt collar.’ She opened the pantry cupboard and took out the cake, cutting a really large wedge for him and putting it on a plate.
‘Thank you,’ he accepted, taking a bite of it immediately. ‘That isn’t the answer, Gwen,’ he said with his mouth full. ‘She knew something, and that’s why she ran away. And the only thing that’d be safe for her is if she came out from wherever she’s hiding and told people. Then there’d be no point in hurting her, it would only prove she was right.’
‘For heaven’s sake, use your common sense!’ she said exasperatedly. ‘Who’s going to believe a lady’s maid over a lord, or his wife?’
‘He’s not a lord, he’s an inventor of some sort, working on experiments with new undersea weapons.’
‘Under the sea?’ she said incredulously. ‘To kill what? The fish?’
‘Ships,’ he said succinctly. ‘Hole them under the waterline, where they’ll sink.’
‘Oh.’ She paled. ‘And you’re saying he isn’t a gentleman either?’
‘No! He’s a gentleman, and he’s got money and influence. And I suppose you’re right, she’d have to have proof, and maybe she doesn’t. I’ve got to find her, Gwen. I’ve got to prove what happened to her, I just don’t know where else to try!’
She looked at him as if he were five again, and she were seven. ‘What do you know about her?’ she said patiently.
He described what he knew of her appearance. ‘And she came from the country,’ he added. ‘Somewhere in the west. The local police looked to see if she’d gone home, and she hasn’t.’
‘Well, she wouldn’t, if she were hiding, would she!’ Gwen said, shaking her head. ‘But she might go somewhere like it.’
‘We thought of that. We can’t find a trace of her at all.’ He heard the note of panic in his voice and deliberately lowered it. ‘She was very handsome to look at, easy to notice. And she was quick, and sometimes funny, so the other staff said, and her friends at the local pub. They were all surprised she took up with Harry Dobson. Said he wasn’t anywhere good enough for her.’
‘Nobody ever is,’ she said with a sudden wide smile. ‘But we love you anyway!’
