Buckingham Palace Gardens - Anne Perry [103]
Welling lit the cigar and drew on it experimentally. “Ended up on the floor in a bawdy house, her throat cut and her belly slit open. Nobody ever knew who did it.”
“But Sorokine was there?”
“He was in the area, no more than that. So were a lot of white men.”
“It had to be a white man?”
“Apparently. It was a place that didn’t allow blacks in.”
Narraway said nothing. It was ugly, equivocal, and inconclusive. It was also disturbingly like the present crimes. Finally he thanked Welling and left.
Over the course of the day, he made a few more inquiries to see if he could learn of any other murders of women in the same pattern, anywhere connected with Sorokine, Marquand, or Quase. He heard stories, possibilities. There were always noted crimes in large cities or in settlements on the edges of wild places where there are many men and few women. Nothing matched exactly, although several could have been close enough. Julius Sorokine’s name did not arise.
Lastly he went back yet again to Watson Forbes. It was late in the evening and it was discourteous to impose on him. Nevertheless, he did not hesitate to do so.
Forbes was polite, as always. “You look tired,” he observed. “Have you eaten?”
“Not yet,” Narraway confessed.
Forbes rang the bell and when the servant answered, sent him for cold beef, horseradish sauce, and fresh bread and butter. “Perhaps tea would be better than whisky?” he suggested.
Narraway would have preferred whisky, but he accepted the tea. Forbes was right, it would be wiser. They spoke of trivial things until the food came and the servant had withdrawn.
“I presume you are still concerned with the railway?” Forbes said when they were alone. “I know of nothing else useful I can tell you. I have been more than frank with my own opinion.”
“Indeed,” Narraway agreed. He swallowed. “I spoke with someone else who favored lateral lines, east and west to the coastal ports, rather than north and south. Said Britain’s historic power lay at sea. We should enlarge on it, and allow Africa to develop itself.”
Forbes’s eyes opened a little wider, but it was a very slight movement, almost as if he did not wish it seen. “Really! A little…conservative, but perhaps he is right. It doesn’t sound like a great adventure. An old man, I assume?”
Narraway smiled. “You think it is an old man’s vision?”
“Isn’t it?”
“I think he saw it as the vision of a man keen to build on what we have, both physically and morally, rather than risk it all on a new venture that might be dangerous in both regards.”
Forbes smiled. “Possibly. I approve of his reluctance to carve up Africa, keeping all the important places in British hands. Did you come to tell me that?”
“No. I have heard of an incident in Cape Town from two or three people. A tragedy that might have bearing on the present.”
“Dunkeld’s project?” Forbes asked.
There was a stillness in the room now, a waiting.
“Possibly.” Narraway had struggled with finding a way to ask Forbes for information without telling him of the present crisis. If Sorokine was proven guilty, then it would not matter. The fear of scandal would be past. The crime could be mentioned, Minnie Sorokine’s death would not be hidden, but the details, and above all the place and circumstances, could and would be lied about. It might even be necessary to say that Julius was dead also.
“What is it?” Forbes asked, his voice very steady.
More lies might be necessary now. “A murder that happened in Cape Town, several years ago,” Narraway answered as casually as he could.
“Really?” The silence thickened.
Narraway was about to continue, but some sense of conflict in Forbes’s face made him hesitate. Forbes was struggling with a decision. Narraway finished the rest of his beef and buttered another slice of bread. He had eaten that also before Forbes