Betrayal at Lisson Grove - Anne Perry [21]
It would be pathetic and pointless to indulge in self-pity. If he sank to that, what better would he deserve? He must fight back. Someone had done this to him. It made sense only if it were deliberate and, regrettably, he could think of a score of people who might be responsible, and a score of reasons. The only person he would have trusted to help was Pitt, and Pitt was in France chasing socialist reformers with violence in their dreams.
He was walking quickly up Whitehall, looking neither right nor left, probably passing people he knew, and ignoring them. No one would care. In time to come, when it was known he was no longer in power, they would probably be relieved. He was not a comfortable man to be with. Even the most innocent tended to attribute ulterior motives to him, imagine secrets that did not exist.
Whitehall became Parliament Street, then he turned left and continued walking until he was on Westminster Bridge, staring eastward across the wind-ruffled water.
He could not even return to his office to look through the piles of papers he had and begin to search for anomalies, figures that did not add up, anything that would tell him where to look for the enemy who, for reasons of greed, hatred, or divided loyalties, had betrayed Mulhare, and in doing that betrayed Narraway also.
Then another thought that was far uglier occurred to him. Was Mulhare the one who was incidental damage, and Narraway himself the target of the treachery?
As that thought took sharper focus in his mind he wondered bitterly if he really wanted to know the answer. Who was it that he had trusted, and been so horribly mistaken in?
He was letting himself hate, and there was no time for such self-indulgence. Anger – a small amount of it – was good. It fired the energy to fight back, to deny discouragement, weariness, even the awful void of being alone.
He turned and walked on over the bridge to the far side, and took a hansom, giving the driver his home address.
When he reached his house he poured himself a quick shot of single malt whisky, his favourite, Macallans. Then he went to the safe and took out the few papers he had kept here referring to the Mulhare case. He read them from beginning to end, and learned nothing he did not already know, except that the money for Mulhare had been returned to the account within two weeks. He had not known because he had assumed the account dormant. There was no notification from the bank.
It was close to midnight, and he was still sitting staring at the far wall without seeing it when there was a sharp, double tap on the window of the french doors opening onto the garden. It was a rhythm that only a person’s knuckles could make. It startled him out of his reverie and he froze for an instant, then got to his feet. The speed with which he did it, moving away from the glass and the light, made him realise how tense he was.
The tap came again, and he looked at the shadow outside. He could just see the features of a man’s face beyond, unmoving, as if he wished to be recognised. Narraway thought for a moment of Pitt, but he knew it was not he. He was in France, and this man was not as tall.
He must concentrate – think! He had allowed this blow to stun him. In a single act they had removed from him almost all that mattered to him, his purpose, his value in other people’s eyes, and perhaps in his own as well, and also a great deal of his pleasure.
The man at the window was Stoker. He should have known that straight away. It was ridiculous to be standing here in the shadows as if he were afraid. He went forward and unlocked the french doors and opened them wide.
Stoker came in, holding a bundle of papers