Buckingham Palace Gardens - Anne Perry [101]
He walked round a corner and found the man he was looking for. He sat down opposite him, knowing he was intruding on a few moments of peace and also that the man dared not refuse him.
Yet if he did not play these games, what would he do? Through the long years he had developed no other skill that used his mind fully, or the sensitivities he had honed.
Welling looked up and jerked himself out of the study in which he had been lost. “Who are you after?” he asked.
“Sorokine,” Narraway replied.
“Dead,” Welling told him. “Good man. Died about five years ago. Surprised you didn’t know that.” There was a faint glimmer of satisfaction in his eyes.
“Julius Sorokine,” Narraway corrected him.
Some of the pleasure died out of Welling’s face. “Oh. Yes. The son. Good man too, but a bit too handsome for his own well-being. Doesn’t have to work hard enough. Suppose that might change. Seemed to be putting a bit more energy into it a couple of months ago, then slacked off again.”
“Slacked off?” Narraway was startled. This didn’t seem relevant to the murderer in Cape Town he was looking for, but it was interesting because it made no sense. Any anomaly should be pursued. “What was he doing?”
“For God’s sake, Narraway, don’t treat me like a fool!” Welling said impatiently. “He’s negotiating for this damn railway for Dunkeld. Talking to the Belgians and the Germans, and all the odd African lands right the way up to Cairo.”
“And he slacked off? Why?” Now Narraway was really interested in spite of himself. Suddenly Sorokine was more complex than he had assumed. “Did someone else approach him?” It was an ugly thought, a kind of betrayal that was peculiarly offensive, presumably for money.
Welling smiled but his lips were turned down. “I doubt it. There’s no one else in a position to rival Dunkeld, since Watson Forbes isn’t interested. And Sorokine’s married to Dunkeld’s daughter anyway. It would be against his own interest.”
“So why? Just lazy?”
Welling shrugged. “I’ve nothing but rumors, bits of whisper not worth a lot.”
“Sabotage?” Narraway suggested. Had someone looked into the old murder and found something? Or even a second crime somewhere, and blackmailed him over it? He found that hard to believe, simply because the murder appeared to be the product of eruptions of a darkness inside the mind that no one could control, no matter what the threat.
“Sabotage is always possible.” Welling misunderstood him. “Seven thousand miles of track, mostly unprotected? Pardon me, but it’s a stupid question.”
“Not of the track,” Narraway told him. “I meant of the project in the first place.”
“By somehow removing Sorokine? I suppose it’s possible. But pretty short term, and hardly worth the trouble.” Welling sat up a little straighter in the chair, his eyes sharper. “What the hell are you really after, Narraway?”
“What was being said, exactly?” Narraway ignored the question.
“It’s serious?” Welling blinked. “What I heard was that Sorokine was uncertain in his loyalty to the project altogether. Someone had been talking to him about lateral lines, from the center to the sea, rather than a long spine up the back of Africa. The real future of the British Empire lies in sovereignty of the sea, not of Africa. Build railways to take inland timbers, ivory, gold, and so on, to the ports. Let the nations of Africa have their own transport, independently, build it and maintain it themselves, and we’ll ship