Betrayal at Lisson Grove - Anne Perry [131]
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