muscled arms and mild eyes.
‘You Harry Dobson?’ Stoker asked. Could this be the young man Kitty Ryder had run off with, abandoning her position, and her warm, safe home on Shooters Hill? Stoker had expected to dislike him, to see in his face some evidence of the nature that would abuse a young woman who trusted him. He saw instead only a young man who was slow, careful. At the moment, he seemed a little sad, as if he had lost something, and had no idea where to look to find it again.
‘Yeah,’ the carpenter said quietly. ‘You the feller with the warped doors?’
‘No, actually I’m not.’ Stoker felt like apologising. He stood blocking the doorway, but there was another entrance behind Dobson, leading into a timber yard. ‘Sorry. I’m looking for the Harry Dobson who courted Kitty Ryder, who worked up on Shooters Hill.’
The colour leached out of Dobson’s skin, leaving him almost white, his eyes dark hollows in his head.
Stoker tensed, expected him to turn and bolt out of the other door.
For seconds the two stood staring at each other.
Finally Dobson spoke. ‘You … you police?’
‘Yes …’ Stoker was rigid, all his muscles tight, expecting to have to chase this man, try to bring him down before he escaped. He was sick with misery at the thought, and also physically very aware of the other man’s strength. He was solidly built, muscular, and with powerful arms. Stoker was as tall, and wiry, but he had nothing like the sheer strength of Dobson. He would have to rely on speed, and years of experience in hard and dirty fighting.
Dobson took a deep breath. ‘You come to tell me they got ’er after all?’
Stoker was stunned. ‘Got who?’
‘Kitty!’ Dobson said desperately. ‘’Ave you come to tell me they killed ’er? I begged ’er not to go, but she wouldn’t listen to me.’ He gasped as if someone were preventing him from breathing. ‘I promised I’d look after ’er, but she wouldn’t listen.’ He shook his head. There were tears in his eyes and he did not even seem to be aware of them.
‘No!’ Stoker said quickly. ‘No … I haven’t come to say that at all! I don’t know where she is. I’m looking for her.’
The colour and the light came back into Dobson’s face. ‘You mean she could be all right?’ He took a step forward eagerly. ‘She’s still alive?’
Stoker held up a hand. ‘I don’t know! The last I heard about her for sure was the night she ran away from Shooters Hill, way back in January.’
‘She was with me then,’ Dobson responded. ‘I promised to look after ’er, an’ I did. Then all of a sudden, about a week ago, she said she gotter go again, and there weren’t nothing I could do to stop ’er. I begged ’er, told ’er I didn’t want nothing except to keep ’er safe.’ He shook his head. ‘But she wouldn’t listen …’ A look of helplessness washed over him again and Stoker was suddenly moved to an intense pity for him.
‘She’s probably all right,’ he said gently. ‘And she maybe was right to go. If I could find you, so could others. I don’t suppose you have any idea where she went?’
‘No …’
‘Perhaps that’s wise too,’ Stoker conceded, difficult as it was. ‘I’m a policeman, and I haven’t heard of anyone finding her, dead or alive, so she’s probably fine for now. You did the right thing.’
‘What about ’er?’ Dobson pressed. ‘What if they find ’er, then?’
‘We’ll do all we can to see that we catch them before they do.’ Stoker made a wild promise. He knew perfectly well that he was being unprofessional about this. Pitt’s influence was rubbing off on him!
Dobson nodded slowly. He believed him. ‘Thank you, sir,’ he said solemnly.
‘But you have to help me,’ Stoker resumed a more serious manner. ‘I can’t catch him without your help …’
‘Anything!’ Dobson agreed eagerly.
‘Why was she afraid of them? I know, but I want you to tell me what she believed.’
‘She saw things and heard them,’ Dobson answered straight away. ‘She knew as there were something really bad going on in that house. I mean worse than just people pinching the odd thing ’ere and there, or messing around with other people’s wives, an’ such.’
‘Not an affair?’ Stoker was surprised, immediately wondering if Kitty had told Dobson the truth. ‘What, then?’
Dobson shook his head. ‘She didn’t say. I asked her, told her to go to the police, but she said the police wouldn’t be no good. For a start, she didn’t think they’d believe ’er, considering who Mr Kynaston is, but also she said the police could be in on it anyway. And there in’t no use getting angry with me! Don’t you think I’d tell you, if I knew?’
‘Yes,’ Stoker said frankly. ‘I think you would. Thank you, Mr Dobson. If we find Kitty we’ll keep her safe …’
‘You can’t,’ Dobson said instantly. ‘You don’t know who’s after ’er.’ That was a challenge, not a question.
‘No,’ Stoker admitted. There was a chill inside him as if a gust of cold rain had drenched his clothes, touching his skin with an icy hand. He drew breath to promise that he would find out, then he realised he had made enough extravagant promises for today. That one he would make silently, and to himself.
That same evening, Pitt was sitting by the fire in his home on Keppel Street. The long curtains across the french windows on to the garden were closed, but he could hear the wind and rain beating against the glass. The children were in bed. He and Charlotte were sitting quietly by the fire.
It was Charlotte who raised the subject of the unidentified woman in the gravel pit again.
‘Do you think it’s over?’ she asked, putting her embroidery aside.
Pitt liked watching her sew. The light flashed on the needle as it moved in her hands, weaving in and out, and the faint click of it against the thimble on her finger was rhythmic and comforting.
‘What’s over?’ He had not been paying attention. To be honest he was nearly asleep in the warmth of his home, with Charlotte so close he could have leaned forward and touched her.
‘The Dudley Kynaston case,’ she answered. ‘I keep waiting every day for Somerset Carlisle to raise it again in the House. You know the hat wasn’t Kitty’s, but you don’t know that the body wasn’t — do you?’
He sighed, forcing his attention back to the issue. ‘No, and there’s no further evidence, so there’s nothing to pursue. We have to let it go.’
‘But you do know there’s something wrong!’ she protested. ‘Didn’t Kynaston admit to you that he had a mistress?’
‘Yes, but it wasn’t Kitty Ryder.’
‘You believe him?’ Her brow was puckered.
‘Yes, I do.’ He sat up a little straighter. ‘From everything the other servants say, Kitty was a handsome girl, ambitious to better herself, not to have an affair that could cost her her job. Or worse than that, get her with child, and then out on the street with no money, no position and no future. I believe Kynaston. I really don’t think a quick fumble with his wife’s maid would be worth killing her to keep secret. I don’t know why Kitty went, but I can’t see her succeeding in blackmailing him or — from what the other servants say of her — even trying it. It looks as if she ran off with Dobson and then perhaps was too ashamed to come home again.’
‘Maybe she was with child already, and she married him?’ Charlotte suggested. ‘I suppose you looked at all the marriage registers?’
Pitt smiled. ‘Yes, my darling, we did.’
‘Oh.’ She was silent for several minutes. There was no sound but the flickering of the fire and the rain against the windows.
‘Then what is Somerset Carlisle doing?’ she said at last. ‘Why did he raise the question in the House? He must have had a reason. For that matter, how did he even know so much about it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Pitt confessed. ‘He must be aware of something, or at least believe it. The information is not so difficult to get; he may have friends in the police, or in the newspapers.’
She frowned. ‘What could he know that we don’t? It has to be about Kynaston, doesn’t it?’
‘Or his mistress,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘He may have ways of finding out, on a personal level, that we
