Farrier's Lane (41 page)

“And you don’t know what it was that troubled him so much, or why he wouldn’t simply tell Inspector Lambert?” Pitt asked.

“No, I’m afraid I don’t,” Livesey replied, lowering his voice still further so Lambert would not hear him in the next room. “But the suggestion implicit is not a pleasant one. I must say, poor Lambert does look very shaken. I assume it is some case Paterson is presently engaged in, and which was a great deal more serious than he at first supposed.” He winced, his heavy face looking tired and shocked. “I fear it may involve some possible misbehavior or corruption. I refuse to speculate further and possibly do someone a profound injustice.”

“Why did he choose you, Mr. Livesey?” Pitt asked, endeavoring to make his tone so courteous as to rob the words of any rudeness. “Did he know you?”

“By repute, I suppose,” Livesey replied with profound unhappiness. “Certainly to the best of my knowledge I had never met him. Of course I knew his name, because I read his evidence at the trial of Aaron Godman. Similarly, he
may have known that I sat on the appeal. But not personally, no. We had never met.”

Pitt was still puzzled.

“That does not really answer the question.”

“I agree,” Livesey said, shaking his head. “It is extraordinary. I can only suppose that the poor young man discovered, or thought he had discovered, something which he dared not take to his own superiors, and he chose someone whose name he knew, with the position, and the integrity, to help him.
I
feel appallingly guilty that I did not come last night, when I could have saved his life.”

There was no comment Pitt could make that would be helpful. He could not deny it. To do so would be condescending, and neither of them would believe it. Livesey did not deserve that, instead he walked over to the body, still hanging from its rope, regarded the noose, then pulled one of the chairs over to see if it would give him enough height to lift the body down at last and lay it where it could rest decently until the medical examiner came and took it away.

That was something Lambert could do, send for the appropriate people Presumably Livesey had not done so. He turned to look at him.

“Do you—do you need a little help?” Livesey said, swallowing and stepping forward. “I …” He cleared his throat. “What would you like me to do?”

“I was going to ask you if you had called the medical examiner,” Pitt answered,

“No—no, I just sent the boy for the police. I thought …”

“Lambert can do that,” Pitt said quickly. “I can’t untie the rope, his weight will have pulled it tight. I’ll need a knife.”

“Er …” Livesey was beginning to look ill, as if his years had caught up with him. “I’ll go and see if the landlady has one. You’ll need to preserve the rope, I imagine. Evidence.”

“Thank you. Ask Lambert to send for the medical examiner, will you?”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” And as if escaping the room and
its fearful burden, Livesey turned on his heel and went out of the door. A moment later Pitt heard his steps heavy in the passage outside, and then on the stairs.

Pitt went back and stood in the room until Livesey returned with the knife.

Livesey was too shaken to touch the corpse. His face was pale and there was sweat on his brow and lip and his hands were clumsy, as if he could no longer coordinate them. Pitt held the body up as far as he could to ease the weight. Livesey cut the rope, taking several seconds to saw it through, then Pitt felt the full weight of Paterson suddenly collapse on him.

Livesey swore, his voice choking, and together they laid the body on the floor.

“There’s nothing else to do here,” Pitt said quietly, moved by pity for Livesey, and anxiety in case he could not bear the horror any longer. “Come. We’ll wait for the medical examiner in the next room.”

Two hours later Pitt had questioned the landlady, now alternately shrieking with outrage and mute with fear, and then the other tenants, and learned nothing from any of them. The medical examiner had been and gone, taking the body with him in his mortuary van, the horse stamping and blowing as it caught the smell of fear from passersby. Livesey, still pink-faced and now suddenly cold, had excused himself. Pitt and Lambert stood on the landing outside the door, the keys in the lock.

Lambert shook his head.

“I don’t understand,” he said yet again. “What on earth could he have wanted to tell Livesey? Why not us? If not me, then you?” He took the keys out of the door and gave them to Pitt. In single file they went down the stairs.

The landlady was still standing in the hall, her face haggard and eyes blazing.

“Murder!” she said furiously. “In my very own ’ouse! I always said I never should ’ave ’ad police as lodgers! Never again! I’ll take my oath on that, never again!”

Lambert swung around on her, his face white, his eyes blazing.

“A young policeman is murdered in your house, and you’ve got the impertinence to blame him! Perhaps if he’d never come here then he’d be alive today. What sort of a house do you keep anyway?”

“ ’Ow dare you?” she shrieked, her cheeks scarlet with outrage. “Why you—”

“Come on.” Pitt took Lambert by the arm and half pulled him out, still turned towards the woman, wanting to fight. The rage and the grief in him needed to lash out at someone, lay blame where he could see and hear.

“Come on,” Pitt repeated urgently. “We’ve got a lot to do!”

Reluctantly Lambert went with him. Outside the sky was overcast and it had begun to rain. Passersby were huddled into themselves, collars up, faces averted from the driving cold.

“What?” Lambert demanded between his teeth. “Who murdered poor Paterson? We haven’t even found out who killed Judge Stafford! We don’t know why! Do you know, Pitt?” He dodged off the pavement into the running gutter, then back on again. “Have you even got an idea? And don’t tell me Godman wasn’t guilty—that doesn’t make any sense. If he wasn’t, why would anybody rake it all up now? They’ve got away with it. It was the perfect murder. Godman is hanged and the case is closed.”

“What else was Paterson working on?” Pitt asked, matching his pace to Lambert’s as they walked along Battersea Park Road to a place where they could find a hansom back to the station.

“An arson case. A couple of robberies,” Lambert answered. “Nothing much. Nothing anyone would kill him over. Garotte him in a dark alley, maybe; or stick a knife into him if he went to make an arrest. But not go to his house and string him up on a rope. It’s insane. It’s that damn Macaulay woman. She’s out on a rampage of revenge.” He stopped in his stride, turning to face Pitt, his eyes brilliant and wretched. “She’s insane! She’s coming after the people she holds to blame for her brother’s hanging!”

“She’s not doing it alone,” Pitt said, trying to keep calm. “No woman by herself strung up Paterson. He’s a big man and was in good health.”

“All right then,” Lambert snapped. “She had help. She’s a clever woman, beautiful, and has got that sort of personality. Some poor devil fell in love with her, and she’s got ’im so obsessed he helped her do that.” He was talking too fast and Pitt could hear the hysteria rising in his voice. “Or maybe ’e did it for her,” he went on. “Go and find him, Pitt. Prove it! Paterson was a good man. Far too good to die for the likes of her! You do that! Prove it!” And he snatched himself away from Pitt’s outstretched hand and strode along the wet pavement towards the Battersea Bridge, and the carriages and cabs clattering back and forth along it.

    Pitt began the long and tedious job of investigating the murder of Constable Paterson. The medical examiner’s report said that death had been caused by strangulation brought about by hanging, exactly as it had appeared. He had died some time the previous evening; his guess was that it had been earlier rather than later.

As a matter of course Pitt checked where Judge Livesey had been at that time, and was not surprised to learn that he had attended a dinner given by several of his colleagues and had been observed by at least a score of people for all of the relevant time. Not that Pitt had for a moment thought he might have been guilty; it was simply a matter of routine to check.

His mind was far more taken up with wondering what Paterson could possibly have learned that he wished so desperately to communicate with the judge. Did it concern the Farriers’ Lane case, as they had instinctively supposed, or was it something quite different?

He left Lambert to pursue the physical evidence: the witnesses who might have seen someone going into the lodging house; where the rope had come from; any signs of an intruder, a footprint, a scrap of cloth; anything at all that indicated a struggle.

He himself went searching for meaning, motive for such an apparently senseless act. If it lay in a case Paterson had been working on currently, or in some part of his personal life, then it was Lambert who would have the background to find it. But if it lay in the Farriers’ Lane case, then it was only in pursuing that that the answer could be learned.

Had Paterson tried to contact anyone other than Judge Livesey? Might he have tried one of the other judges also? It was too late for Stafford, he was already dead. Sadler had retreated from all responsibility and would have given no answer. Boothroyd was too involved in his conspicuous philanthropy, his seeking for friends and influence, to have taken any part in such a wildly unpopular cause as reopening the Farriers’ Lane case.

That left Judge Oswyn, or perhaps the other lawyers in the case. Aaron Godman’s solicitor, and his barrister who had pleaded for him at the trial. Surely they would have been the natural people with whom to begin, if indeed there were anything new, anything that pointed to a different verdict, or an accomplice.

Why Livesey? Did he imagine him to have some integrity or power others did not?

Pitt began by seeking an appointment with Judge Granville Oswyn in his chambers, and was pleasantly surprised to be granted it almost immediately.

The room was large, sprawling and untidy, full of books, some in cases, some in piles covering tables and heaped on stools. There were several big plush armchairs, none matching anything, but all forming a comfortable whole. Old theater playbills decorated one of the walls, political cartoons by Rowlandson another. Oswyn was a man of interesting and catholic tastes. A beautiful bronze of a hunting dog stood on the bookcase, and there was a jasper-and-rock crystal paperweight on the desk.

Oswyn himself was a large, genial man in clothes that fitted him ill. He had the sort of face that seemed somehow familiar, even though Pitt knew perfectly well they had never met. A smile illuminated his features as though he were genuinely pleased to see Pitt.

“My dear fellow, come in, come in.” He rose from his seat behind the desk and waved at the best chair. “Do sit down. Be comfortable. What can I do for you? I have no idea, but do tell me.” He sat in his chair again, still smiling.

There was no point whatever in being devious, and no advantage to surprise.

“I am investigating the death of Judge Stafford,” Pitt began.

Oswyn’s face darkened. “Very nasty affair,” he said with a frown. “Very nasty indeed. Can’t think why. Honorable man. Hadn’t thought he had an enemy in the world. Seems I was wrong.” He leaned back and crossed his legs carefully. “What can I tell you that you don’t already know?”

Pitt sat back a little.

“He was reinvestigating the Farriers’ Lane case, you know?”

Oswyn’s face lost its geniality, and a flicker of anxiety crossed his eyes.

“No, I didn’t know. Are you sure you are not mistaken? There really was nothing else to pursue. We went through it very thoroughly at the appeal.” He looked at Pitt with concern crossing his face, leaning back and resting his elbows on the arms of his chair, making a steeple out of his fingers. “He was far more likely just trying to satisfy that poor Macaulay woman. She would not let it drop, you know. Very sad. Devoted to her brother, and simply would not believe it. But there was no basis for doubt, you know. None at all. Everything was correct at the time.”

“What were the grounds for the appeal, sir?” Pitt asked, as if he had had no idea.

“Oh—medical. A formality really. Had to have something.”

“And did you treat it like that—as a formality?”

Oswyn’s face was aghast and he dropped his hands instantly. “Good heavens, no! Of course not. A man’s life was at stake, and even more, the whole principle of British justice. Must not only be done, but be seen to be done, and to the satisfaction of everyone. Or else justice ceases to be upheld, and then it works for no one. Oh, we examined the
case in minute detail. There was no flaw in it, none at all.” He screwed up his eyes, looking at Pitt anxiously.

“Did Judge Stafford mention it to you lately?” Pitt felt his way, seeking for the question which would probe between the certainties of the obvious answers.

Oswyn hesitated only minutely, a moment of indecision, but it was there, and Pitt saw it. Oswyn smiled, understanding the expression in Pitt’s eyes, knowing he had seen.

“Well, yes, he did say something.” He shrugged. “But it was—not serious, if you know what I mean.”

“No,” Pitt said unhelpfully. “How could such a matter not be serious?”

But Oswyn had had time to think now. His answer came with assurance. “It was a nuisance. The poor Macaulay woman was still troubling him, trying to find someone to believe her and reopen the matter. And Stafford, poor devil, was the man she was directing her efforts towards.” He shrugged and smiled, attempting to look at ease. “He merely mentioned that. It was an embarrassment. Surely you can understand that, Inspector?” He laughed very slightly, but there was no nervousness in it, and no humor.

“In case there had been an omission, or an error?” Pitt asked.

“No!” Oswyn leaned forward, banging his hand down on the surface of the desk. His face was a little pink, his eyes earnest. “There was no …” He shook his head. “There was no error. The matter was very simple.” He stared at Pitt earnestly. “The appeal was raised on the grounds of the medical evidence. Yardley said originally that he thought the wound that killed Blaine had been caused by some sort of dagger. Then on examination he admitted that it could have been a particularly long farrier’s nail.”