Betrayal at Lisson Grove (9 page)

Charlotte did not hear the doorbell ring and was startled when Mrs Waterman knocked on the parlour door. The older woman immediately came in, her face pinched with displeasure.

‘There’s a gentleman called, ma’am. Shall I tell him that Mr Pitt is not at home?’

Charlotte was startled, and her first thought was to agree to the polite fiction. Then her curiosity intruded. Surely at this hour it must be someone she knew?

‘Who is it, Mrs Waterman?’

‘A very dark gentleman, ma’am. Says his name is Narraway,’ Mrs Waterman replied, lowering her voice, although Charlotte could not tell if it were in disgust, or confidentiality. She thought the former.

‘Show him in,’ she said quickly, putting the mending out of sight on a chair behind the couch. Without thinking, she straightened her skirt and made sure she had no badly straying hair poking out of her rather loose coiffure. Her hair, which was a rich dark mahogany colour, slithered very easily out of control. As the pins dug into her head during the day, she was apt to remove them, with predictable results.

Mrs Waterman hesitated.

‘Show him in, please,’ Charlotte repeated, a trifle more briskly.

‘I’ll be in the kitchen if you need me,’ Mrs Waterman said with a slight twist of her mouth that was definitely not a smile. She withdrew, and a moment later Narraway came in. When Charlotte had seen him two days ago he had looked tired and a little concerned, but that was not unusual. This evening he was haggard, his lean face hollow-eyed, his skin almost without colour.

Charlotte felt a terrible fear paralyse her, robbing her of breath. He had come to tell her terrible news of Pitt; even in her own mind she could not think the words.

‘I’m sorry to disturb you so late,’ he said. His voice was almost normal, but she heard in its slight tremor the effort that it cost him. He stood in front of her. His eyes were so dark they were black in the lamplight, but curiously she could read the expression in them perfectly. He was hurt, and there was an emptiness inside him that had not been there two days ago.

He must have read her fear. How could he not? It filled the room.

He smiled thinly. ‘I have not heard from Thomas again, but there is no reason to believe he is other than in excellent health, and probably having better weather than we have,’ he said gently. ‘Although I dare say he finds it tedious hanging about the streets watching people, while trying to look as if he is on holiday.’

She swallowed, her mouth dry, relief making her dizzy. ‘Then what is it?’

A ghost of amusement lit his eyes for an instant, then vanished. ‘Oh dear, am I so obvious?’

It was more candid than he had ever been with her before, almost as if they knew each other well. She was surprised, and yet it did not feel unnatural.

‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘I’m afraid you look dreadful. Can I get you something? Tea, or whisky? That is, if we have any. Now that I’ve offered it, I’m not sure that we do. The best of it might have gone at Gracie’s wedding.’

‘Oh, yes, Gracie.’ This time he did smile, and there was real warmth in it, changing his face. ‘I shall miss seeing her here. She was magnificent, all five foot of her.’

‘Four foot eleven, if we are honest,’ Charlotte corrected him with answering warmth. ‘Believe me, you could not possibly miss her as much as I do.’

‘I hear intense feeling in your voice,’ he remarked, moving to stand a little closer to the fire, although the evening was not cold. ‘You do not care for Mrs . . . Lemon?’

‘Waterman,’ she corrected him. ‘But Lemon would suit her. I don’t think she approves of me. Perhaps we shall become accustomed to one another one day. She does cook well, and you could eat off the floors when she has scrubbed them.’

‘Thank you, but the table will do well enough,’ Narraway observed.

She sat down on the sofa. Standing so close to him in front of the fire was becoming uncomfortable. ‘You did not come to enquire after my domestic arrangements. And even if you had known Mrs Waterman, she is not sufficient to cause the gravity I see in your face. What has happened?’ She was holding her hands in her lap, and realised that she was gripping them together hard enough to hurt. She forced herself to let go.

There was a moment or two with no sound in the room but the flickering of the fire, as if he had not framed in his mind what he meant to say.

She waited, the anxiety growing inside her again, her fingers finding each other and locking.

He drew in his breath, then changed his mind. He looked away from her, into the heart of the fire.

‘I have been relieved of my position in Special Branch. They say that it is temporary, but they will make it permanent if they can.’ He swallowed as if his throat hurt, and turned his head to look at her. ‘The thing concerning you is that I have no more access to my office at Lisson Grove, or any of the papers that are there. I will no longer know what is happening in France, or anywhere else. My place has been taken by Charles Austwick, who neither likes nor trusts Pitt. The former is a matter of jealousy because Pitt was recruited after him, and has received preferment in fact, if not in rank, which has more than equalled his. The latter is because they have little in common. Austwick comes from the army, Pitt from the police. Pitt has instincts Austwick will never understand, and Pitt’s untidiness irritates his orderly, military soul.’ He sighed. ‘And, of course, Pitt is my protégé . . . was.’

How can one believe and disbelieve something at the same moment? Charlotte was stunned so her brain did not absorb what Narraway had said, and yet looking at his face she could not doubt it. She felt an uprush of pity for him, and turned away so he would not see it in her eyes. Then she realised what he had said about Pitt and Austwick, and she understood why he had come specifically to tell her.

She knew he was watching her.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said quietly.

She understood what he was apologising for. He had made Pitt unpopular by singling him out, preferring him, confiding in him. Now, without Narraway, he would be vulnerable. He had never had any other profession but the police, and then Special Branch. He had been forced out of the police after his long struggle against the Inner Circle. He could not go back there. It was Narraway who had given him a job when he had so desperately needed it. If Special Branch dismissed him, where was there for him to go? There was nowhere where he could exercise his very particular skills, and certainly nowhere where he could earn a comparable salary.

They would lose this house in Keppel Street and all the comforts that went with it. Mrs Waterman would certainly no longer be a problem. Charlotte might well be scrubbing her own floors; indeed, it might even come to her scrubbing someone else’s as well. Pitt would hate that for her more than she would for herself. She could imagine it already, see the shame in his face for his own failure to provide for her, not the near luxury she had grown up in, nor even the amenities of a working-class domesticity.

She looked up at Narraway, wondering now about him. She had never considered before if he were dependent upon his salary or not. His speech and his manner, the almost careless elegance of his dress, said that he was born to a certain degree of position, but that did not necessarily mean wealth. Younger sons of even the most aristocratic families did not always inherit a great deal.

‘What will you do?’ she asked, then was aware how intrusive that sounded, and that it might be a painful question. Certainly it was one to which she had no right to expect an answer. She could feel the heat mounting up her cheeks. Would apologising make it better, or worse?

‘How like you,’ he replied. ‘Both to be concerned for me, and to assume that there is something to be done.’

Now she felt foolish. ‘Isn’t there?’

He hesitated. The silence between them was full of all sorts of memories and emotions. Yesterday he had been Pitt’s superior, a man with enormous power. Today he had no authority, possibly even no income beyond a few weeks.

Did he have friends, people he could call on, or might he be too proud to do that? She had known him, through Pitt, since Pitt had joined Special Branch, but she was sharply aware now how superficial that knowledge was. What of his past? What was his life beyond the Branch? Perhaps there was not much.

She knew that in the last case, Pitt had made an enemy of the Prince of Wales. Perhaps that enmity extended to Narraway as well. Remembering the circumstances, she could only believe that it must. There may be many other enemies. People do not forgive knowledge of the intimate and painful kind that Narraway possessed.

She looked at his face in the lamplight, and then lowered her eyes. She was not sure what she wanted to say, only that silence was of no use to Pitt, or to Narraway himself.

‘What are you going to do?’ she asked him again.

‘To help Pitt? There’s nothing I can do,’ he replied. ‘I don’t know the circumstances, and to interfere blindly might do far more harm.’

‘Not about Thomas, about yourself?’ She had not asked him what the charge was, or if he was wholly or partially guilty. Suddenly that omission seemed so enormous she drew in her breath to say something to amend it. Then she felt inexcusably clumsy, and ended saying nothing.

The ashes settled even further in the fire.

Several seconds passed before he answered. ‘I don’t know,’ he admitted, his voice hesitant for the first time in her knowledge. ‘I am not even certain who is at the root of it, although I have at least an idea. It is all . . . ugly.’

She had to press onward, for Pitt’s sake. ‘Is that a reason not to look at it?’ she said quietly. ‘It will not mend itself, will it?’

He gave the briefest smile. ‘No. I am not certain that it can be mended at all.’

‘
Would
you like a cup of tea?’ she asked.

He was startled. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You look uncomfortable standing there in front of the fire. Wouldn’t sitting down be better?’

He turned slightly to look behind him at the hearth and the mantel, and took a step sideways. ‘You mean I am blocking the heat,’ he said ruefully.

‘No,’ she smiled. ‘Actually I meant that I am getting a crick in my neck staring up and sideways at you.’

For a moment the pain in his face softened. ‘Thank you, but I would prefer not to disturb Mrs . . . whatever her name is. I can sit down without tea, unnatural as that may seem.’

‘Waterman,’ she supplied.

‘Yes, of course.’

‘I was going to make it myself, provided, of course, that she will allow me into the kitchen. She doesn’t approve. Ladies of the social order she is accustomed to working for do not even know where the kitchen is. Although how I could lose it in a house this size, I have no idea.’

‘She has come down in the world,’ Narraway observed. ‘It can happen to the best of us.’

Charlotte watched as he sat down, elegantly as always, crossing his legs and leaning back as if he were comfortable.

‘I think it may concern an old case in Ireland,’ he began, at first meeting her eyes, then looking down awkwardly. ‘At the moment it is to do with the death of a present-day informant there, because the money I paid did not reach him in time for him to flee those he had . . . betrayed.’ He said the word crisply and clearly, as if deliberately exploring a wound: his own, not someone else’s. ‘I did it obliquely, so it could not be traced back to Special Branch. If it had been, it would have cost him his life immediately.’

Watching his face, Charlotte had no impression that he was being deliberately obscure. She waited. There was silence beyond the room, no sound of the children asleep upstairs, or of Mrs Waterman, who was presumably still in the kitchen. She would not retire to her room with a visitor still in the house.

‘My attempts to hide its source make it impossible to trace what actually happened to it,’ Narraway continued. ‘To the superficial investigation, it looks as if I took it myself.’

He was watching her now, but not openly. She saw the apprehension in his eyes; it was there just for a moment, then gone again. She tried to keep all expression from her face. What did she believe of him? She did not know, but for Pitt’s sake she could not afford to allow doubt.

‘You have enemies,’ she said.

His body eased so minutely it was barely visible, just an alteration in the way the fabric of his suit stretched across his shoulders. He was not a large man: average height, slender, wiry. The bones of his hands resting on his knee were lean. In fact his hands were beautiful. She had not noticed them before.

‘Yes,’ he agreed. ‘I have. No doubt many. I thought I had guarded against the possibility of their injuring me. It seems I overlooked something of importance.’

‘Or someone is an enemy whom you did not suspect,’ she amended.

‘That is possible,’ he agreed. ‘I think it is more likely that an old enemy has gained a power that I did not foresee.’

‘You have someone in mind?’ She leaned forward a little. The question was intrusive, but she had to know. Pitt was in France, relying on Narraway to back him up. He would have no idea Narraway no longer held any office.

‘Yes.’ The answer seemed to be difficult for him.

Again she waited.

‘It’s an old case. It all happened more than twenty years ago.’ There was a roughness in his voice and he had to clear his throat before he went on. ‘They’re all dead now, except one.’

She had no idea to what he was referring, and yet the past seemed to be in the room with them.

‘But one is alive?’ she probed. ‘Do you know, or are you guessing?’

‘I know Kate and Sean are dead,’ he said, so quietly she had to strain to hear him. ‘I imagine Cormac is still alive. He would be barely sixty.’

‘Why would he wait this long?’

‘I don’t know.’

She studied him as he sat in Pitt’s chair opposite her. He was uncomfortable, yet he made no move to go, nor even to defend himself from her enquiries.