Betrayal at Lisson Grove - Anne Perry [91]
Charlotte tried to imagine it, the grief, the cost.
‘Who killed her?’ she asked. She felt the loss touch her, as if she had known Kate more than simply as a name, an imagined face.
‘Sean,’ he replied. ‘I don’t know whether it was for betraying Ireland, as he saw it, or betraying him.’
‘With you?’
Narraway coloured, but he did not look away from her. ‘Yes.’
‘Do you know that, beyond doubt?’
‘Yes.’ His throat was so tight his voice sounded half strangled. ‘I found her body. I think he meant me to.’
She could not afford pity now. ‘Why are you sure it was Sean who killed her?’ She had to be certain so she could get rid of the doubt for ever. If Narraway himself had killed her it might, by some twisted logic of politics and terror, be what he had to do to save even greater bloodshed. She looked at him now with a mixture of new understanding of the weight he carried, sorrow for what it had cost him: whether that were a shame now, or a lack of it – which would be worse.
How did that affect Pitt? He would always hurt for his mistakes, and for the decisions from which there was no escape. Thank heaven the biggest ones were not his to make.
‘Why are you sure it was Sean who killed her?’ Charlotte repeated.
He looked at her steadily. ‘What you really mean is, how can I prove I didn’t kill her myself?’
She felt a heat of shame in her own face. At least she would not lie to him. ‘Yes.’
He did not question her, or blame her for thinking it possible.
‘She was cold when I found her,’ he replied. ‘Sean tried to blame me. The police would have been happy to agree, but I was with the Viceroy in the Residence in Phoenix Park at the time. Half a dozen staff saw me there, apart from the Viceroy himself, and the police on guard duty. They didn’t know who I was, but they would have recognised me in court, if it had been necessary. The briefest investigation showed them that I couldn’t have been anywhere near where Kate was killed. It also proved that Sean lied when he said he saw me, and that by his own admission, he was there.’ He hesitated. ‘If you need to, you can check it.’ His smile was there for a moment, then gone. ‘Don’t you think they’d have loved to hang me for it, if they’d had the ghost of a chance?’
‘Yes,’ she agreed, feeling the weight ease from her. Grief was one thing, but without guilt it was a passing wound, something that would heal. ‘I’m . . . I’m sorry I needed to ask. Perhaps I should have known you wouldn’t have done it.’
‘I would like you to think well of me, Charlotte,’ he said quietly. ‘But I would rather you saw me as a real person, capable of good and ill, and of pity, and shame . . .’
‘Victor . . . don’t . . .’
He turned away slowly, staring at the fire. ‘I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.’
She left quietly, going up to her room. She needed to be alone, and there was nothing either of them could say that would do anything but make matters worse.
They were at breakfast the following morning: she with a slight headache after sleeping badly; he weary, but with the mark of professionalism so graciously back in place that yesterday could have been a dream, something she thought of that had never happened.
They were eating toast and marmalade when the messenger arrived with a letter for Narraway. He thanked Mrs Hogan, who brought it, then tore it open.
Charlotte watched his face but she could not read anything more than surprise. When he looked up she waited for him to speak.
‘It’s from Cormac,’ he said gently. ‘He wants me to go and see him, at midday. He will tell me what happened, and give me proof.’
She was puzzled, remembering Cormac’s hate, the pain that