Bluegate Fields - Anne Perry [11]
“When will it be possible to speak to Lady Waybourne, sir?” Pitt asked.
“It will not be possible. There is nothing she can tell you that would be of any use. Naturally, I have asked her, and she did not know where Arthur planned to spend his evening. I do not intend to subject her to the ordeal of being questioned by the police.” His face closed, hard and final, the skin tight.
Pitt drew a deep breath and sighed. He felt Gillivray stiffen beside him and could almost taste his embarrassment, his revulsion for what Pitt was going to say. He half expected to be touched, to feel a hand on his arm to restrain him.
“I’m sorry, Sir Anstey, but there is also the matter of your son’s illness and his relationships,” he said gently. “We cannot ignore the possibility that they were connected to his death. And the relationship is in itself a crime—”
“I am aware of that, sir!” Waybourne looked at Pitt as if he himself had participated in the act merely by mentioning it. “Lady Waybourne will not speak with you. She is a woman of decency. She would not even know what you were talking about. Women of gentle birth have never heard of such—obscenities.”
Pitt knew that, but pity overruled his resentment.
“Of course not. I was intending only to ask her about your son’s friends, those who knew him well.”
“I have already told you everything you can possibly find of use, Inspector Pitt,” Waybourne said. “I have no intention whatsoever of prosecuting whoever”—he swallowed— “whoever abused my son. It’s over. Arthur is dead. No raking over of personal”—he took a deep breath and steadied himself, his hand gripping the carved back of one of the chairs— “depravities of—of some unknown man is going to help. Let the dead at least lie in peace, man. And let those of us who have to go on living mourn our son in decency. Now please pursue your business elsewhere. Good day to you.” He turned his back and stood, his body stiff and square-shouldered, facing the fire and the picture over the mantelshelf.
There was nothing for Pitt or Gillivray to do but leave. They accepted their hats from the footman in the hall and went out the front door into the sharp September wind and the bustle of the street.
Gillivray held up the list of friends written by Jerome.
“Do you really want this, sir?” he said doubtfully. “We can hardly go around asking these people much more than if they saw the boy that evening. If they knew of anything”—his face wrinkled slightly in distaste, reflecting just such an expression as Waybourne himself might have assumed—“indecent, they are not going to admit it. We can hardly press them. And, quite honestly, Sir Anstey is right—he was attacked by footpads or hooligans. Extremely unpleasant, especially when it happens to a good family. But the best thing we can do is let it lie for a while, then discreetly write it off as insoluble.”
Pitt turned on him, his anger at last safe to unloose.
“Unpleasant?” he shouted furiously. “Did you say ‘unpleasant,’ Mr. Gillivray? The boy was abused, diseased, and then murdered! What does it have to be before you consider it downright vile? I should be interested to know!”
“That’s uncalled for, Mr. Pitt,” Gillivray said stiffly, repugnance in his face rather than offense. “Discussing tragedy only makes it worse for people, harder for them to bear, and it is not part of our duty to add to their distress—which, God knows, must be bad enough!”
“Our duty, Mr. Gillivray, is to find out who murdered that boy and then put his naked body down a manhole into the sewers to be eaten by the rats and left as anonymous, untraceable bones. Unfortunately for them, it was washed up to the sluice gates and a sharp-eyed sewerman, on the lookout for a bargain, found him too soon.”
Gillivray looked shaken, the pink color gone from his skin.
“Well—I—I hardly think it is necessary to put it quite like that.”
“How would you put it?” Pitt demanded, swinging around to face him. “A little gentlemanly fun, an unfortunate accident? Least said the better?” They crossed the road and a passing hansom flung