Betrayal at Lisson Grove (39 page)

 

In the morning he was halfway to Lisson Grove when he changed his mind and went instead to see Vespasia. It was too early for any kind of social call, but if he had to wait until she rose, then he was willing to. His need to speak with her was so urgent he was prepared to break all the rules of etiquette, even of consideration, trusting she would see his purpose beyond his discourtesy.

In fact she was already up and taking breakfast. He accepted tea, but he had no need to eat.

‘Is your new maid feeding you properly?’Vespasia asked with a touch of concern.

‘Yes,’ he answered, his own surprise coming through his voice. ‘Actually, she’s perfectly competent, and seems very pleasant. It wasn’t . . .’ He saw her wry smile and stopped.

‘It wasn’t to seek recommendation for a new maid that you came at this hour of the morning,’ she finished for him. ‘What is it, Thomas? You look very troubled indeed. I assume something new has occurred?’

He told her everything that had happened since they last spoke, including Narraway’s arrest for murder and Pitt’s own dismay and disappointment over Stoker’s sudden change of loyalties, and the brutal details with which he had described Narraway’s falling apart.

‘I seem to be completely incompetent at judging anyone’s character,’ he said miserably. He would like to have been able to say it with some dry wit, but he felt so inadequate that he was afraid he sounded self-pitying.

Vespasia listened without interrupting. She poured him more tea, then grimaced that the pot was cold.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said quickly. ‘I don’t need more.’

‘Let us sum up the situation,’ she said gravely. ‘It would seem unarguable that you were wrong about Gower, as was everyone else at Lisson Grove, including Victor Narraway. It does not make you unusually fallible, my dear. And considering that he was your fellow in the service, you had a right to assume his loyalty. At that point it was not your job to make such decisions. Now it is.’

‘I thought Stoker was Narraway’s man too,’ he pointed out.

‘Possibly, but let us not leap to conclusions. You know only that he brought news of Victor’s arrest, and that what he reported to Gerald Croxdale about the embezzlement charge seemed to blame Victor, and also was untrue in other respects. He made no mention of Charlotte, as you observed, and yet he must have seen her. Surely his omission is one you are grateful for?’

‘Yes . . . yes, of course. Although I would give a great deal to know she is safe.’ That was an understatement perhaps only Vespasia could measure.

‘Did you say anything to Croxdale about your suspicions of Austwick?’ she asked.

‘No.’ He explained how reluctant he had been to give any unnecessary trust. He had guarded everything, fearing that because Croxdale had known Austwick a long time perhaps he would be more inclined to trust him than to trust Pitt.

‘Very wise,’ she agreed. ‘Is Croxdale of the opinion that there is something very serious being planned in France?’

‘I saw nothing except a couple of faces,’ he answered. ‘And when I look back, it was Gower who told me they were Meister and Linsky. There was talk, but no more than usual. There was a rumour that Jean Jaurès was coming from Paris, but he didn’t.’

Vespasia frowned. ‘Jacob Meister and Pieter Linsky? Are you sure?’

‘Yes, that’s what Gower said. I know the names, of course. But only for just one day, maybe thirty-six hours, then they left again. They certainly didn’t return to Frobisher’s.’

Vespasia looked puzzled. ‘And who said Jean Jaurès was coming?’

‘One of the innkeepers, I think. The men in the café were talking about it.’

‘You think? A name like Jaurès is mentioned and you don’t remember by whom?’ she said incredulously.

Again he was struck by his own foolishness. How easily he was duped. He had not heard it himself Gower had told him. He admitted this to Vespasia.

‘Did he mention Rosa Luxemburg?’ she asked with a slight frown.

‘Yes, but not that she was to coming to St Malo.’

‘But he mentioned her name?’

‘Yes. Why?’

‘Jean Jaurès is a passionate socialist, but a gentle man,’ she explained. ‘He was a campaigner for reform. He sought office, and on occasion gained it, but he fights for change, not for overthrow. As far as I know, he is content to keep his efforts within France. Rosa Luxemburg is different. She is Polish, now naturalised German, and of a much more international cast of mind. I have Russian
émigré
friends who fear that one day she will cause real violence. In some places, I’m afraid real violence is almost bound to happen. The oppression in Russia will end in tragedy.’

‘Stretching as far as Britain?’ he said dubiously.

‘No, only in so far as the world is sometimes a far smaller place than we think. There will be refugees, however. Indeed, London is already full of them.’

‘What did Gower want?’ he asked. ‘Why did he kill West? Was West going to tell me Gower was a traitor?’

‘Perhaps. But, I admit, none of it makes sufficient sense to me so far, unless there is something a great deal larger than a few changes in the laws for French workers, or a rising unease in Germany and Russia. None of this is new, and none of it worries Special Branch unduly.’

‘I wish Narraway were here,’ Pitt said with intense feeling. ‘I don’t know enough for this job. He should have regarded Austwick as his protégé – unless he knows Austwick is a traitor too?’

‘I imagine that is possible.’ She was still lost in thought. ‘And if Victor is innocent, which I do not doubt, then there was a very clever and carefully thought-out plan to get both you and he out of London. Why can we not deduce what it is, and why?’

 

Pitt went to his office in Lisson Grove, aware as he walked along the corridors of the eyes of the other men on him, watching, waiting. Austwick’s particularly.

‘Good morning,’ Austwick said, apparently forgetting the ‘sir’ he would have added for Narraway.

‘Good morning, Austwick,’ Pitt replied a little tartly, not looking at him but going on until he reached Narraway’s office door. He realised he still thought of it as Narraway’s, just as he still thought of the position as his.

He opened the door and went inside. There was nothing of Pitt’s here yet – no pictures, no books – but Narraway’s things had been returned, so that to Pitt it felt as if he were still expecting the man himself to come back. When that happened he would not have to pretend to be pleased, and it would not be entirely for unselfish reasons either. He cared for Narraway, and he had at least some idea of how much the job meant to him: it was his vocation, his life. Pitt would be immensely relieved to give it back to him. It was not within Pitt’s skill or his nature to perform this job. He regretted that it was now his duty.

He dealt with the most immediate issues of the day first, passing on all he could to juniors. When that was done, he told them not to interrupt him. Then he went through all Narraway’s records of every crime Gower had been involved with over the past year and a half. He read all the documents, getting a larger picture concerning European revolutionary attempts to improve the lot of the working men. He also read the latest report from Paris.

As he did so, the violence proposed settled over him like a darkness, senseless and destructive. But the anger at injustice he could not help sharing. It grieved him that people had been oppressed and denied a reasonable life for so long that the change, when it came – and it must – would be fuelled by so much hatred.

The more he read, the greater the tragedy seemed to him that the high idealism of the revolution of ’48 had been crushed with so little legacy of change left behind.

Gower’s own reports were spare, as if he had edited out any emotive language. At first Pitt thought that was just a very clear style of writing. Then he began to wonder if it were more than that: a guarding of Gower’s own feelings, in case he gave something away unintentionally, or Narraway himself picked up a connection, an omission, even a false note.

Then he took out Narraway’s own papers. He had read most of them before, because it was part of his duty in taking over the position. Many of the cases he was familiar with anyway, from general knowledge within the Branch. He selected three specifically to do with Europe and socialist unrest, those associated with Britain, memberships of socialist political groups such as the Fabian Society. He compared them with the cases on which Gower had worked, and looked for any notes that Narraway might have made.

What were the facts he knew, personally? That Gower had killed West and made it appear it was Wrexham who had done so. All doubt left him that it had been extremely quick thinking on Gower’s part. It had been his intention all the time, and with Wrexham’s collaboration. Pitt recalled the chase across London and then on to Southampton. He was bitterly conscious that it had been too easy. The conclusion was inevitable: Gower and Wrexham were working together. To what end? Again, looked at from the result, it could only have been to keep Pitt in St Malo – or, more specifically, to keep him from being in London, and aware of what was happening to Narraway.

But to what greater purpose? Was it to do with socialist uprisings? Or was that also a blind, a piece of deception?

Who was Wrexham? He was mentioned briefly, twice, in Gower’s reports. He was a young man of respectable background who had been to university and dropped out of a modern history course to travel in Europe. Gower suggested he had been to Germany and Russia, but seemed uncertain. It was all very vague, and with little substantiation. Certainly there was nothing to cause Narraway to have him watched, or enquired into any further. Presumably it was just sufficient information to allow Gower to say afterwards that he was a legitimate suspect.

The more he studied what was there, the more Pitt was certain that there had to be a far deeper plan behind the random acts he had connected in bits and pieces. The picture was too sketchy, the rewards too slight to make sense of murder. It was all disparate, and too small.

The most urgent question was whether Narraway had been very carefully made to look guilty of theft in order to gain some kind of revenge for old defeats and failures, or whether the real intent was to get him dismissed from Lisson Grove and out of England? The more Pitt looked at it, the more he believed it was the latter.

If Narraway had been here, what would he have made of the information? Surely he would have seen the pattern? Why could Pitt not see it? What was he missing?

He was still comparing one event with another and searching for the links, the commonality, when there was a sharp knock on the door. He had asked not to be interrupted. This had better be something of importance, or he would tear a strip off the man, whoever he was.

‘Come in,’ he said sharply.

The door opened and Stoker came in, closing it behind him.

Pitt stared at him coldly.

Stoker ignored his expression. ‘I tried to speak to you last night,’ he said quietly. ‘I saw Mrs Pitt in Dublin. She was well and in good spirits. She’s a lady of great courage. Mr Narraway is fortunate to have her fighting his cause, although I dare say it’s not for his sake she’s doing it.’

Pitt stared at him. He looked subtly quite different from the way he had when standing in front of Croxdale the previous evening. Was that a difference in respect? In loyalty? Personal feeling? Or because one was the truth and the other lies?

‘Did you see Mr Narraway?’ Pitt asked him.

‘Yes, but not to speak to. It was the day O’Neil was shot,’ Stoker answered.

‘By whom?’

‘I don’t know. I think probably Talulla Lawless, but whether anyone will ever prove that, I don’t know. Mr Narraway’s in trouble, Mr Pitt. He has powerful enemies—’

‘I know that,’ Pitt interrupted him. ‘Apparently dating back twenty years.’

‘Not that,’ Stoker said impatiently. ‘Now, here in Lisson Grove. Someone wanted him discredited and out of England, and wanted you in France, gone in the other direction, where you wouldn’t know what was going on here and couldn’t help.’

‘Tell me all you know of what happened in Ireland,’ Pitt demanded. ‘And for heaven’s sake sit down!’ It was not that he wanted the information in detail so much as he needed the chance to weigh everything Stoker said, and make some judgement as to the truth of it, and exactly where Stoker’s loyalties were.

Stoker obeyed without comment.

‘I was there only two days—’ he began.

‘Who sent you?’ Pitt interrupted.

‘No one. I made it look like it was Mr Narraway, before he went.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I don’t believe he’s guilty any more than you do,’ Stoker said bitterly. ‘He’s a hard man, clever, cold at times, in his own way, but he’d never betray his country. They got rid of him because they knew he’d see what was going on here, and stop it. They thought you might too, in loyalty to Mr Narraway, even if you didn’t spot what they’re doing. No offence, sir, but you don’t know enough yet to see what it is.’

Pitt winced, but he had no argument. It was painfully true.

‘Mr Narraway seemed to be trying to find out who set him up to look like he took the money meant for Mulhare, probably because that would lead back to whoever it is here in London,’ Stoker went on. ‘I don’t know whether he found out or not, because they got him by killing O’Neil. They set that up perfectly. Fixed a quarrel between them in front of a couple o’ score of people, then somehow got him to go alone to O’Neil’s house, and had O’Neil shot just before he got there.

‘By all accounts, Mrs Pitt was right on his heels, but he swore to the police that she wasn’t there at the time, so they didn’t bother her. She went back to where she was staying, and that’s the last I know of it. Mr Narraway was arrested and no doubt, if we don’t do anything, they’ll try him and hang him. But we’ll have a week or two before that.’ He stopped, meeting Pitt with steady, demanding eyes.