Betrayal at Lisson Grove - Anne Perry [79]
The following day was misty and a lot cooler. Pitt had deliberately chosen the first crossing to avoid having to breakfast with Gower. He was afraid in the affected casualness of it he might try too hard, and make some slip so small Gower picked it up, while Pitt would have no idea anything had changed.
Or had Gower suspected something already? Did he know, even as Pitt walked down to the harbour along ancient, now-familiar streets, that the pretence was over? He had a desperate instinct to swing round and see if anyone were following him. Would he pick out Gower’s fair head, taller than the average, and know it was he? Or might he already have changed his appearance and could be yards away, and Pitt had no idea?
But his allies, Frobisher’s men, or Wrexham’s, could be anyone: the old man in the fisherman’s jersey, lounging in a doorway, taking his first cigarette of the day; the man on the bicycle bumping over the cobbles; even the young woman with the laundry. Why suppose that Gower himself would follow him? Why suppose that he had noticed anything different at all? The new realisation loomed gigantic to him, filling his mind, driving out almost everything else. But how self-centred to suppose that Gower had nothing more urgent to consume his thoughts! Perhaps Pitt and what he knew, or believed he knew, was an irrelevance anyway.
He increased his pace and passed a group of travellers heaving along shopping bags and tightly packed portmanteaux. On the dockside he glanced around as if to search for someone he knew, and was flooded with relief when he saw only strangers.
He stood in the queue to buy his ticket, and then again to get on board. Once he felt the slight sway of the deck under his feet, the faint movement, even here in the harbour, it was as if he had reached some haven of safety. The gulls wheeled and circled overhead, crying harshly. Here on the water the wind was sharper, salt-smelling.
Pitt stood on the deck by the railing, staring at the gangway and the dockside. To anyone else, he hoped he looked like someone looking back at the town with pleasure, perhaps at a holiday well spent, possibly even at friends he might not see again for another year. Actually he was watching the figures on the quay, searching for anyone familiar, any of the men he had seen arriving or leaving Frobisher’s house, or for Gower himself.
Twice he thought he saw him, and it turned out to be a stranger. It was simply the fair hair, an angle of shoulder or head. He was angry with himself for the fear that he knew was largely in his mind. Perhaps it was so deep because, until the walk back to the town yesterday evening, it had never entered his mind that Gower had killed West, and Wrexham was either a co-conspirator, or even just a tissue-paper socialist posing as a fanatic, like Frobisher himself. It was the shock at his own blindness that dismayed Pitt. How stupid he had been, how insensitive to possibilities. He would be ashamed to tell Narraway, but he would have to; there would be no escaping it.
At last they cast off and moved out into the bay. Pitt remained where he was at the rail, watching the towers and walls of the city recede. The sunlight was bright on the water, glittering sharp. They passed the rocky outcrops, tide slapping around the feet of the minor fortress built there, guarding the approaches. There were few sailing boats this early: just fishermen pulling up the lobster pots that had been out all night.
Pitt tried to imprint the scene on his mind. He would tell Charlotte about it: the beauty, the tastes and sounds, how it was like stepping back in time. He should bring her here one day, take her to dine where the shellfish was so superb. She hardly ever left London, let alone England. It would be fun, different. He imagined seeing her again so vividly he could almost smell the perfume of her hair, hear her voice in his mind. He would tell her about the city, the sea, the tastes and the sounds of it all. He wouldn’t