already dislikes you …’
‘I hardly know him!’ Pitt protested.
Narraway shook his head very slightly. ‘You are naïve sometimes, Pitt. Talbot doesn’t need to know you to resent your rise to a position usually occupied by someone of considerable social standing, and frequently military or naval background as well. The fact that you’re the best man for the job is irrelevant to him.’
‘Why on earth-’ Pitt began.
‘Because he’s from the same sort of background, you fool!’ Narraway said with exasperation. ‘And he knows Society’s closed to him. You don’t care, and that gives you a kind of grace, God help me, that allows you to be accepted. Added to which — and believe me I understand it — you know too many people’s secrets for anyone to risk offending you.’
‘And you?’ Pitt asked.
‘Or me either,’ Narraway admitted. ‘And neither do I care.’ He stopped suddenly.
‘And I have never minded that I married above me,’ Pitt added wryly. ‘Or hardly ever …’
Narraway drew in his breath, then let it out again soundlessly.
‘It’s not an insult,’ Pitt said gently. ‘I don’t think there are any royal princes left for Vespasia to marry upwards, nor would she want to.’
‘I hope not,’ Narraway said with emotion. Then he changed the subject abruptly, a slight pinkness colouring his cheeks. ‘Be careful of Talbot. Carlisle will not be there the next time to risk his neck rescuing you. You owe him a debt on that — which I suppose you are acutely aware of?’
‘Yes … but …’ He had been going to say that it would have no effect upon his actions in confronting Carlisle over the bodies in the gravel pits; then he wondered if that were true. He had evaded it partly because disgracing him, possibly prosecuting him, would carry other dangers as well. But he had not forgotten his own debt to Carlisle either.
‘I suppose I shouldn’t have-’ he began.
‘Don’t be a fool, Pitt,’ Narraway snapped. ‘You can’t go through life without owing anybody. The real debts are hardly ever a matter of money: it’s friendship, trust, help when you desperately needed it, a hand out in the darkness to take yours, when you’re alone. You give it when you can, and don’t look for thanks, never mind payment. You grasp on to it when you’re drowning, and you never forget whose hand it was.’
Pitt said nothing.
‘Carlisle won’t call you on it,’ Narraway said with conviction. ‘You’ve turned a blind eye to his misdemeanours a few times.’
‘And he’s helped me more than once,’ Pitt answered. ‘Of course he won’t call me on it! But I’ll be aware of it myself.’
‘It’s more than that.’ Narraway reached for the teapot and refilled both of their cups. ‘It will be impossible to hide the fact that you’re digging into Kynaston’s private life. Are you certain you are prepared to deal with whatever you find? Ignorance is sometimes a kind of safety. And with the reactions of other people whose personal habits wouldn’t bear being made public, you could lose some valuable allies. That sort of knowledge will earn you more enemies than any value it is likely to be to you. You’ll find out enough you don’t want to know in this job, without adding any more gratuitously. It’s a balancing act: know, but pretend that you don’t. You need to be a better actor than you are, Pitt, and less of a moralist, at least on the surface. Your job is to know, not to judge.’
‘You make me sound like a provincial clergyman with more self-righteousness than compassion,’ Pitt said with disgust.
‘No,’ Narraway shook his head. ‘I’m just remembering how I used to be — at your age.’
Pitt laughed outright. ‘When you were my age, you were twenty years older than I am!’
‘In some things,’ Narraway agreed. ‘I’m twenty years behind you in others. It will be far better that I find out, and tell you just what you need, no more.’
Pitt did not argue. ‘Thank you,’ he said quietly.
The following day Pitt received a rather stiff request to meet his brother-in-law, Jack Radley. Since it was apparently about the Kynaston case, Pitt could hardly refuse. He saw Jack alone, if hardly privately, on the Embankment not far from the House of Commons. It was a fresh, windy day with the usual chill of early March. The air was cold off the river, salt-smelling, and too brisk for one to enjoy lingering so they walked along quite quickly together.
Jack came straight to the point.
‘I hear you’ve been asking a lot of rather pointed questions about Dudley Kynaston, Thomas. What business is it of Special Branch if he has a mistress, let alone who she might be?’
Pitt could hear the sharp edge of criticism in Jack’s voice, something he was unused to. They had many differences of view, but they had usually been amicable. The tone of this took Pitt by surprise.
‘If it wasn’t my business I wouldn’t ask,’ he replied. ‘Although I hadn’t realised I was so obvious.’
‘Oh, really!’ Jack was impatient. ‘You’re asking about where he was, who he was with, attendance at different theatres or dinners — then crosschecking. Everybody can work out what you’re looking for.’ He hunched his shoulders against the chill and pulled his white silk scarf a little higher. ‘You don’t suspect him of theft, or embezzling naval petty cash, or cheating at cards, do you? Or even being a little drunk and talking too much. Anyone can tell you Dudley Kynaston is a decent man from a good family who behaves like a gentleman and is intensely loyal to his country and all it means.’
He turned to look at Pitt. ‘If he has a mistress, what of it? Maybe his wife is a crashing bore, or one of those chilly women who would break something if they laughed, or loved!’
Pitt caught him by the arm and swung him round so he was obliged to stop. They stood face to face in the wind.
‘You say that with a lot of feeling, Jack.’ Pitt allowed it to sound like an accusation. He had not entirely forgotten Jack’s reputation before his marriage.
Jack coloured; his eyes under his amazing eyelashes were dark with temper. ‘You’re a self-righteous idiot sometimes, Thomas. You may have been promoted to be the guardian of the nation’s secrets, but no one appointed you arbiter of our morals. Leave the poor man alone, before you ruin him with your suspicions.’
‘I don’t give a damn about his morals,’ Pitt said between his teeth. ‘I’m trying to prove he didn’t murder two women and leave their corpses in the local gravel pit! But I can’t do that if he keeps on lying to me about where he was at the relevant times.’
‘I thought you didn’t know when the second woman was killed,’ Jack retaliated instantly.
‘I don’t!’ Pitt was raising his voice now too. ‘But I know within a few hours when she was dumped at the gravel pit, and I’m pretty certain how she was carried there. If Kynaston would tell me where he was, and I could confirm it, I’d be certain it was not he who did it.’
‘Why the hell would you even suspect him?’
‘You know better than to ask that,’ Pitt replied. ‘You know perfectly well I can’t tell you.’
The anger drained out of Jack’s voice. ‘It must be intensely private …’
‘I need to know for myself!’ Pitt said exasperatedly. ‘I’m not going to tell the world. If he isn’t guilty he’s wasting my time, but I’ll let go of it and allow the regular police to do their job. If this case is no threat to Kynaston, it’s nothing to do with Special Branch.’
Jack looked at him with disbelief. ‘You really think Kynaston’s desperation to hide who his mistress is could be a threat to the security of the state? Come on, Thomas. That looks a hell of a lot like an upstart officer wielding his new powers to embarrass his social superiors, because he can. You’re better than that.’
Pitt was stunned. He stood in the bright light and the cold wind off the water chilled him right through his coat as if it were made of cotton.
‘Kynaston’s maid ran away the night before the first body was found, Jack,’ he replied, his voice shaking not only with anger but with a degree of hurt. ‘Because she saw or heard something that made her fear for her life. And that’s not a supposition! She’s been seen and spoken to since. Not by us — we can’t find her — but by others with no interest in this affair. Now there’s a second woman dead and mutilated and dumped in the same gravel pit. Physical evidence, which he doesn’t deny, links him to both dead women. Kynaston lies about where he was, and won’t tell us anything except that he’s having an affair. But he must prove it, or allow his mistress, even
