Bluegate Fields - Anne Perry [104]
His self-pity provoked Pitt.
“No,” he said shortly. “It makes no difference. And I don’t know that I do believe you. But I went back to talk to the girl again. She’s disappeared. Then I went to look for Albie, and he’s disappeared too.”
“Doesn’t make any difference,” Jerome replied, staring at the wet stones on the far side of the cell. “As long as those two boys keep up the lie that I tried to interfere with them.”
“Why are they doing it?” Pitt asked frankly. “Why should they lie?”
“Spite—what else?” Jerome’s voice was heavy with scorn; scorn for the boys because they had stooped to dishonesty from personal emotion, and for Pitt for his stupidity.
“Why?” Pitt persisted. “Why did they hate you enough to say something like that if it’s not true? What did you do to them to cause such hatred?”
“I tried to make them learn! I tried to teach them self-discipline, standards!”
“What’s hateful about that? Wouldn’t their fathers do the same thing? Their entire world is governed by standards,” Pitt reasoned. “Self-discipline so rigid they’d endure physical pain rather than be seen to lose face. When I was a boy, I watched men of that class hide agony rather than admit they were hurt and be seen to drop out of a hunt. I remember a man who was terrified of horses, but would mount with a smile and ride all day, then come home and be sick all night with sheer relief that he was still alive. And he did it every year, rather than admit he hated it and let down his standards of what a gentleman should be.”
Jerome sat in silence. It was the sort of idiotic courage he admired, and it galled him to see it in the class that had excluded him. His only defense against rejection was hatred.
The question remained unanswered. He did not know why the boys should lie, and neither did Pitt. The trouble was Pitt did not believe they were lying, and yet when he was with Jerome he honestly did not believe Jerome was lying either. The thing was ridiculous!
Pitt sat for another ten minutes in near silence, then shouted for the turnkey and took his leave. There was nothing else to say; pleasantries were an insult. There was no future, and it would be cruel to pretend there was. Whatever the truth, Pitt owed Jerome at least that decency.
Athelstan was waiting for him at the police station the following morning. There was a constable standing by Pitt’s desk with orders that he report upstairs instantly.
“Yes, sir?” Pitt inquired as soon as Athelstan’s voice shouted at him to come in.
Athelstan was sitting behind his desk. He had not even lit a cigar and his face was mottled with the rage he had been obliged to suppress until Pitt arrived.
“Who the hell told you you could go on visiting Jerome?” he demanded, rising from his chair to half straighten his legs and give himself more height.
Pitt felt his back stiffen and the muscles grow tight across his scalp.
“Didn’t know I needed permission,” he said coldly, “Never have done before.”
“Don’t be impertinent with me, Pitt!” Athelstan stood straight up and leaned across the desk. “The case is closed! I told you that ten days ago, when the jury had brought in their verdict. It’s none of your business, and I ordered you to leave it alone then! Now I hear you’ve been poking around behind my back—trying to see witnesses! What in hell do you think you’re doing?”
“I haven’t spoken to any witnesses,” Pitt said truthfully, although it was not for the want of trying. “I can’t—they’ve disappeared!”
“Disappeared? What do you mean ‘disappeared’? People of that sort are always coming and going—jetsam, scum of society, always drifting from one place to another. Lucky we caught them when we did, or maybe we wouldn’t have got their testimony. Don’t talk rubbish, man. They haven’t disappeared like a decent citizen might. They’ve just gone from one whorehouse to another. Means nothing—nothing at all. Do you hear me?”
Since he was shouting at the top of his voice, the question was redundant.
“Of course I can hear you, sir,” Pitt answered, stonefaced.
Athelstan flushed crimson with anger.
“Stand still when