that used his mind fully, or the sensitivities he had honed.
Welling looked up and jerked himself out of the study in which he had been lost. “Who are you after?” he asked.
“Sorokine,” Narraway replied.
“Dead,” Welling told him. “Good man. Died about five years ago.
Surprised you didn’t know that.” There was a faint glimmer of satisfaction in his eyes.
“Julius Sorokine,” Narraway corrected him.
Some of the pleasure died out of Welling’s face. “Oh. Yes. The son. Good man too, but a bit too handsome for his own well-being.
Doesn’t have to work hard enough. Suppose that might change.
Seemed to be putting a bit more energy into it a couple of months ago, then slacked off again.”
“Slacked off?” Narraway was startled. This didn’t seem relevant to the murderer in Cape Town he was looking for, but it was interesting because it made no sense. Any anomaly should be pursued. “What was he doing?”
“For God’s sake, Narraway, don’t treat me like a fool!” Welling said impatiently. “He’s negotiating for this damn railway for Dunkeld.
Talking to the Belgians and the Germans, and all the odd African lands right the way up to Cairo.”
“And he slacked off? Why?” Now Narraway was really interested in spite of himself. Suddenly Sorokine was more complex than he had assumed. “Did someone else approach him?” It was an ugly thought, a kind of betrayal that was peculiarly offensive, presumably for money.
Welling smiled but his lips were turned down. “I doubt it. There’s no one else in a position to rival Dunkeld, since Watson Forbes isn’t interested. And Sorokine’s married to Dunkeld’s daughter anyway. It would be against his own interest.”
“So why? Just lazy?”
Welling shrugged. “I’ve nothing but rumors, bits of whisper not worth a lot.”
“Sabotage?” Narraway suggested. Had someone looked into the old murder and found something? Or even a second crime somewhere, and blackmailed him over it? He found that hard to believe, simply because the murder appeared to be the product of eruptions of a darkness inside the mind that no one could control, no matter what the threat.
“Sabotage is always possible.” Welling misunderstood him. “Seven thousand miles of track, mostly unprotected? Pardon me, but it’s a stupid question.”
“Not of the track,” Narraway told him. “I meant of the project in the first place.”
“By somehow removing Sorokine? I suppose it’s possible. But pretty short term, and hardly worth the trouble.” Welling sat up a little straighter in the chair, his eyes sharper. “What the hell are you really after, Narraway?”
“What was being said, exactly?” Narraway ignored the question.
“It’s serious?” Welling blinked. “What I heard was that Sorokine was uncertain in his loyalty to the project altogether. Someone had been talking to him about lateral lines, from the center to the sea, rather than a long spine up the back of Africa. The real future of the British Empire lies in sovereignty of the sea, not of Africa. Build railways to take inland timbers, ivory, gold, and so on, to the ports. Let the nations of Africa have their own transport, independently, build it and maintain it themselves, and we’ll ship the goods round the world. It’s what we’ve always done. We’ve explored the world, settled it, and traded with it. Africa was never a maritime continent. Keep it that way.” He was watching Narraway’s face more closely than he let on, eyes half-veiled.
Narraway turned it over in his mind. At first it seemed reac-tionary: a denial of adventure, trade, the brilliant advance of engineering the Cape-to-Cairo railway would be. Then he realized that it was not denying new exploration or building, simply the scale of it.
There would still be new tasks, but laterally, east to west rather than south to north. The difference that mattered was that the railway would belong to the multitude of nations concerned, not to the British Empire.
Ships would be the key, not trains. And the British had been masters of the sea since the days of Nelson and in maritime adventure since the defeat of the Spanish Armada in the time of Queen Elizabeth.
British ships traded in every port on earth and across every ocean.
“And Sorokine was listening to this?” he said aloud.
“So I heard,” Welling replied. “But he might have told the man to go to the devil, for all I know. How did you get to hear of it? And why do you care? Is the Cape-to-Cairo railway Special Branch business?”
“No,” Narraway said honestly. He would need Welling again.
Lying to him would destroy future trust. “It’s to do with the man, not the project. At least I think it is. Do you know Sorokine personally?”
“I’ve met him, can’t say I know him. Why?”
“Is he a womanizer?”
“He’s probably had his share. He’s a good-looking man. Doesn’t have to try very hard.” He was looking at Narraway curiously now.
“Are you thinking of that damn business in Cape Town with the prostitute? There was no proof it was him, just gossip, and I think honestly you could trace most of that back to Dunkeld.”
“Why would Dunkeld say it if there were no foundation to it?
Sorokine’s married to Dunkeld’s daughter,” Narraway pointed out.
Welling sighed. “Sometimes you’re so devious and so damn clever, you miss what a more emotional man less occupied with his brain would know instinctively. Dunkeld is possessive, especially of his daughter. Sorokine was taken with her to begin with, then he got bored with her. No emotional weight.”
“Sorokine, or Minnie Dunkeld?” Narraway asked.
Welling smiled. “Probably both of them, but I meant her. To love or hate is excusable, but a woman like her is never going to forgive a man for being bored with her, whoever’s fault it is. It would do you a lot of good to fall in love, Narraway. You would understand the forces of nature a great deal better. If you survived it.” He pulled a silver case out of his pocket. “Do you want a cigar?”
“No thank you.” Narraway had difficulty mastering his sense of having been somehow intruded upon. “Do you think Sorokine had anything to do with the woman in Cape Town?” he asked a little coolly.
“No.” There was no doubt in Welling’s face. “Whoever did it was raving mad. If he’s still alive, he’ll be foaming at the mouth by now, and certainly have done it again, probably several times.” The unlit cigar fell out of his mouth. “God Almighty, is that what’s happened?”
“Don’t oblige me to arrest you for treason, Welling,” Narraway said softly, a tremor in his voice he would prefer to have disguised. “I rather like you, and it would make me very unhappy.”
“I doubt it is Sorokine.” Welling was rattled. He picked up the cigar to give himself a moment more before he answered. “I don’t think he has the temperament. But I’ve been mistaken before.”
Narraway tried to think of other questions to ask, something that would indicate a further line of inquiry. A woman had been killed in Africa, and the method was apparently exactly the same as that used in the Palace. He knew Welling was watching him. He would be a fool to underestimate his intelligence.
“Tell me more about the crime in Cape Town,” he asked.
Welling shrugged. “Prostitute, half-caste with the best features of both races, as so often happens. Fine bones of the white, rich color and graceful bearing of the black, but wanted by neither side. Made her money where she could, and who can blame her? No one wanted to marry her: too white for the blacks, ideas above her station. Too black for the whites, can’t take her home to the parents, but too handsome not to lust after.”
Welling lit the cigar and drew on it experimentally. “Ended up on the floor in a bawdy house, her throat cut and her belly slit open. Nobody ever knew who did it.”
“But Sorokine was there?”
“He was in the area, no more than that. So were a lot of white men.”
“It had to be a white man?”
“Apparently. It was a place that didn’t allow blacks in.”
Narraway said nothing. It was ugly, equivocal, and inconclusive.
It was also disturbingly like the present crimes. Finally he thanked Welling and left.
Over the course of the day, he made a few more inquiries to see if he could learn of any other murders of
