Betrayal at Lisson Grove - Anne Perry [9]
‘Probably,’ Pitt answered. ‘But he could get off anywhere.’ He was thinking how hard it would be to follow Wrexham in Paris. Should they arrest him while they still had the chance? In the heat of the chase yesterday it had seemed like a good idea to see where he went, and more importantly, who he met. Now, when they were cold, tired, hungry and stiff, it felt a lot less sensible. In fact it was probably absurd.
‘We’d better arrest him and take him back,’ he said aloud.
‘Then we’ll have to do it before we get off,’ Gower pointed out. ‘Once we’re on French soil we’ll have no authority. Even the captain here is going to wonder why we didn’t do it in Southampton.’ His voice took on a note of urgency, his face grave. ‘Look, sir, I speak pretty good French. I’ve still got a reasonable amount of money. We could send a telegram to Narraway to have someone meet us in Paris. Then there wouldn’t be just the two of us. Maybe the French police would be pleased for the chance to follow him too?’
Pitt turned towards him, but he could barely make out his features in the faint light of the sky, and the dim reflection of the ship’s lights. ‘If he goes straight for the town, we’ll have no time to send a telegram,’ he pointed out. ‘It’ll take both of us to follow him. I don’t know why he hasn’t noticed us already.’ Actually that thought had troubled him through the night. Both he and Gower were above average height. In St Malo they would be even more conspicuous. Not only would their language betray them, but the cut of their clothes and the fact that they were obviously strangers. Wrexham could hardly be so blind as not to notice them in the clarity of daylight.
‘We should arrest him,’ he told Gower with regret. ‘Faced with the certainty of the rope, he might feel like talking.’
‘Faced with the certainty of the rope, he’d have nothing to gain,’ Gower pointed out.
Pitt smiled grimly. ‘Narraway’ll think of something, if what he says is worth enough.’
‘He might not go for the train,’ Gower said quickly, moving his weight to lean forward a little. ‘We were assuming he’ll go to Paris. Perhaps he won’t? Maybe whoever he’s going to meet is here. Why come to St Malo otherwise? He could have gone to Dover, and taken the train from Calais to Paris, if that was where he wanted to be. He still doesn’t know we’re on to him. He thinks he lost us in Ropemakers’ Fields. Let’s at least give it a chance!’
The argument was persuasive, and Pitt could see it might be worth waiting a little longer. ‘Right,’ he conceded. ‘But if he goes to the railway station, we’ll take him.’ He made a slight grimace. ‘If we can. He might shout for help that he’s being kidnapped. We couldn’t prove he wasn’t.’
‘Do you want to give up?’ Gower asked. His voice was tight with disappointment and Pitt thought he heard a trace of contempt in it.
‘No.’ There was no uncertainty in the decision. Special Branch was not primarily about justice for crimes, it was about preventing civil violence and the betrayal, subversion or overthrow of the government. They were too late to save West’s life. ‘No, I don’t,’ he repeated.
When they disembarked in the broadening daylight it was not difficult to pick Wrexham out from the crowd and follow him. He didn’t go, as Pitt had feared, to the train station, but into the magnificently walled old city. They did not dare lose sight of him, or Pitt would have taken time to look with far more interest at the massive ramparts as they went in through a vast entrance gate, which would have allowed several carriages to pass abreast. Once inside, narrow streets crisscrossed each other, the doors of the buildings flush with the footpaths. Dark walls towered four or five storeys high in uniform grey-black stone. It had a stern beauty he would have liked to explore, as if in those