Bluegate Fields - Anne Perry [105]
“No, sir, I don’t!” Pitt stood stiff as a ramrod. “Are you telling me that I’m to do only exactly what I’m told, without following my own intelligence or my own suspicions—or else I’ll be dismissed?”
“Don’t be so damn stupid!” Athelstan slammed the desk with his hand. “Of course I’m not! You’re a detective—but not on any damn case you like! I am telling you, Pitt, that if you don’t leave the Jerome business alone, I’ll put you back to walking the beat as a constable—and I can do it, I promise you.”
“Why?” Pitt faced him, demanding an explanation, trying to back him into saying something indefensible. “I haven’t seen any witnesses. I haven’t been near the Waybournes or the Swynfords. But why shouldn’t I talk to Abigail Winters or Albie Frobisher, or visit Jerome? What do you think anyone is going to say that can matter now? What can they change? Who’s going to say something different?”
“Nobody! Nobody at all! But you’re stirring up a lot of ill-feeling. You’re making people doubt, making them think there’s something being hidden, something nasty and dirty, still secret. And that amounts to slander!”
“Like what, for instance—what is there still to find out?”
“I don’t know! Dear God—how should I know what’s in your twisted mind? You’re obsessed! But I’m telling you, Pitt, I’ll break you if you take one more step in this case. It’s closed. We’ve got the man who is guilty. The courts have tried him and sentenced him. You have no right to question their decision or cast doubts on it! You are undermining the law, and I won’t have it!”
“I’m not undermining the law!” Pitt said derisively. “I’m trying to make sure we’ve got all the evidence, to make sure we don’t make mistakes—”
“We haven’t made any mistakes!” Athelstan’s face was purple and there was a muscle jumping in his jowl. “We found the evidence, the courts decide, and it’s not part of your job to sit in judgment. Now get out and find this arsonist, and take care of whatever else there is on your desk. If I have to call you back up here over Maurice Jerome, or anything to do with that case, anything whatsoever, I’ll see you back as a constable. Right now, Pitt!” He flung out his arm and pointed at the door. “Out!”
There was no point in arguing. “Yes, sir,” Pitt said wearily. “I’m going.”
Before the end of the week, Pitt knew why he had not been able to find Albie. The news came as a courtesy from the Deptford police station. It was just a simple message that a body that had been pulled out of the river might be Albie, and if it was of any interest to Pitt, he was welcome to come and look at it.
He went. After all, Albie Frobisher was involved in one of his cases, or had been. That he had been pulled out of the water at Deptford did not mean that that was where he had gone in—far more likely Bluegate Fields, where Pitt had last seen him.
He did not tell anyone where he was going. He said simply that the Deptford station had sent a message for him, a possible identification of a corpse. That was reasonable enough, and happened all the time, men from one station assisting another.
It was one of those hard, glittering days when the east wind comes off the Channel like a whip, lashing the skin, stinging the eyes. Pitt pulled his collar higher, his muffler tighter around his throat, then jammed his hat down so the wind did not catch it under the brim and snatch it off.