idea of unity greater than all the differences in race, creed and circumstance that bound together a quarter of the earth. The worst of society was greedy, arrogant and selfserving, but the best of it was supremely brave, generous and, above all, loyal. What was anybody worth if they had no concept of a purpose greater than themselves?
This was very little to do with Victoria herself, and most certainly nothing to do with the Prince of Wales. The murder at Buckingham Palace was very recent in Pitt’s mind. The selfishness of the Prince, his unthinking arrogance, and the look of hatred he had directed at Pitt, could not be forgotten. They should not. Soon the Prince would be King Edward VII, and Pitt’s career as a servant of the Crown would rest at least to some degree in his hands. Pitt would have wished him a better man, but his own loyalty to the Throne was something apart from any personal disillusionment.
All his concentration now was bent on controlling Austwick. Whom dare he trust? He could not do this alone, and he must force himself not to think of Charlotte or Vespasia, or even of Narraway, except insofar as they were allies. Their danger he must force from all his conscious thoughts. One of the burdens at the core of leadership was that you must set aside personal loyalties and act in the good of all. He made himself think of how he would feel if others in command were to save their own families at the cost of his, if Charlotte were sacrificed because another leader put his wife’s safety ahead of his duty. Only then could he dismiss all questions from his mind.
As he passed along the familiar corridors he had to remind himself again not to go to his old office, which was now occupied by someone else, but back to the one that used to be Narraway’s, and would be again as soon as this crisis was past. As he closed the door and sat at the desk, he was profoundly glad that he had retrieved Narraway’s belongings, and never for a moment behaved as if he believed this was permanent. The drawings of trees were back on the walls, and the tower by the sea, even the photograph of Narraway’s mother, dark and slender as he was, but more delicate, the intelligence blazing out of her eyes.
Pitt smiled for a moment, then turned his attention to the new reports on his desk. There were very few of them, just pedestrian comments on things that for the most part he already knew. There was no information that changed the circumstances.
He stood up and went to find Stoker rather than sending for him, because that would draw everyone’s attention to the fact that he was singling him out. It was necessary he trust someone or failure was certain. Even with Stoker’s help, success would be desperately difficult.
‘Yes, sir?’ Stoker said as soon Pitt had closed the door and was in front of him. He stared at Pitt’s face, as if trying to read in it what he was thinking.
Pitt hoped that he was a little less transparent than that. He remembered how he had tried to read Narraway, and failed, at least most of the time.
‘We know what it is,’ he said quietly. There was no point in concealing anything, and yet even now he felt as if he were standing on a cliff edge, about to plunge into the unknown.
‘Yes, sir. .’ Stoker froze, his face pale. On the desk, still holding the paper he had been reading, his hands were stiff.
Pitt took a breath. ‘Mr Narraway is back from Ireland.’ He saw the relief in Stoker’s eyes, too sharp to hide, and went on more easily, a darkness sliding away from him also. ‘It seems we are right in thinking that there is a very large and very violent plan already begun. There is reason to believe that the people we have seen together, such as Willie Portman, Fenner, Guzman and so on, intend to attack Her Majesty at Osborne House. .’
‘God Almighty!’ Stoker gasped. ‘Regicide?’
Pitt grimaced. ‘Not intentionally. We think they mean to hold her to ransom in return for a bill to abolish the hereditary power of the House of Lords — a bill that, of course, she will sign before, I imagine, her own abdication.’
Stoker was ashen. He looked at Pitt as if he had turned into some nightmare in front of his eyes. He swallowed, then swallowed again. ‘And then what? Kill her?’
Pitt had not taken it that far in his mind, but perhaps it was the logical end, the only one they could realistically live with. In the eyes of Britain, and most of the world, as long as Victoria was alive she would be queen, regardless of what anyone else said, or did. He had thought things could not get worse, but in one leap they had.
‘Yes, I imagine so,’ he agreed. ‘Narraway and Lady Vespasia Cumming-Gould have gone to Osborne, to do what they can, until we can send reinforcements to deal with whatever we find.’
Stoker half rose in his seat.
‘But not until we know whom we can trust,’ Pitt added. ‘The group must be small enough to be discreet. If we go in with half an army it will be far more likely to provoke the plotters into violence immediately. If they know they are cornered and cannot escape, they’ll hold her to ransom — their freedom for her life.’ He felt his throat tighten as he said it. He was fighting an enemy of unknown size and shape. Moreover, elements of it were secret from him, and lay within his own men. For a moment he was overwhelmed. He had no idea even where to begin. Every possibility seemed to carry its own failure built into it.
‘A few men, well-armed and taking them by surprise,’ Stoker said quietly.
‘That’s our only hope, I think,’ Pitt agreed. ‘But before we do that, we need to know who is the traitor here in Lisson Grove, and who else is with him, otherwise they may sabotage any effort we make.’
Stoker’s hand on the desk clenched into a fist. ‘You mean you think there’s more than one?’
‘Don’t you?’
‘I don’t know.’ Stoker pushed his hand through his hair, scraping it back off his forehead. ‘God help me, I don’t know. And there’s no time to find out. It could take us weeks.’
‘It’s going to have to take us a lot less than that,’ Pitt replied, pulling out the hard-backed chair opposite the desk and sitting on it. ‘In fact we must make a decision by the end of today.’
Stoker’s jaw dropped. ‘And if we’re wrong?’
‘We mustn’t be,’ Pitt told him. ‘Unless you want a new republic born in murder, and living in fear. We’ll start with who set up the fraud that got rid of Narraway and made it all connect up with Ireland, so he would be in an Irish prison when all this happened.’
Stoker took a deep breath. ‘Yes, sir. Then we’d better get started. And I’m sorry to say this, but we’ll have to consider whoever Gower worked with as well, because getting you out of the way has to be part of it.’
‘Of course it has,’ Pitt agreed. ‘But Gower worked with me, and I reported to Narraway.’
‘That’s the way it looked to all of us,’ Stoker agreed. ‘But it can’t be what it was. I’ll get his records from the officer who keeps all the personal stuff. We’ll have to know who he worked with before you. You don’t happen to know, do you?’
‘I know what he said,’ Pitt replied with a twisted smile. ‘I’d like to know rather more than that. I think we’d better take as close a look as we can at everyone.’
They spent the rest of the day reading through all the records they could find going back a year or more, having to be discreet as to why.
‘What are you looking for, sir?’ one man asked helpfully. ‘Perhaps I can find it. I know the records pretty well.’
Pitt had his answer prepared. ‘It’s a pretty serious thing that we were caught out by Narraway,’ he replied grimly. ‘I want to be sure, beyond any doubt at all, that there’s nothing else of that kind — in fact, nothing at all that can catch us out again.’
The man swallowed, his eyes wide. ‘There won’t be, sir.’
‘That’s what we thought before,’ Pitt told him. ‘I don’t want to leave it to trust — I want to know.’
‘Yes, sir. Of course, sir. Can I help. . or. .’ He bit his lip. ‘I see, sir. Of course you can’t trust any of us.’
Pitt gave him a bleak smile. ‘I don’t mind your help, Wilson. I need to trust all of you, and equally you need to trust me. It was Narraway who embezzled the money, after all, not one of the juniors here. But I have to know who helped him, if anyone, and who else might have had similar ideas.’
Wilson straightened up. ‘Yes, sir. Is anyone else allowed to know?’
‘Not at the moment.’ Pitt was taking a chance, but time was growing short, and if he caught Wilson in a lie, it would at least tell him something. In fact perhaps fear would be a better ally than discretion, as long as that too was used secretly.
He loathed this. At least in the police he had always known that his colleagues were on the same side. He had not realized then how infinitely valuable that was. He had taken it for granted.
By the middle of the afternoon, they had found the connection between Gower and Austwick. They
