Buckingham Palace Gardens - Anne Perry [104]
“Since you are concerned with Sorokine, I imagine you are concerned with the murder of a woman that, so far as I know, has never been solved.”
Narraway swallowed the last mouthful. “Yes, I’m afraid so. I hear rumor of various sorts, nothing substantial, but enough to cause me anxiety.”
Forbes seemed surprised. “Because of Sorokine’s involvement in the railway?”
Perhaps at least an element of the truth was necessary in order to persuade Forbes to be frank. “Yes. It is possible the Prince of Wales may lend the project his support.”
“Ah, I see. Now I understand why Special Branch is concerned.” Forbes’s expression was curiously unreadable. “I wish I could comfort you. Sorokine is definitely the best man I know of to make the diplomatic arrangements. His father was skilled and had excellent connections. I think Julius is even more so, and of course the connections are still there. A certain lack of commitment could be…overcome, if he chose. I think he has it in him.”
“But…?” Narraway prompted. Was it his imagination that there was a coldness in the room, as if the summer were already passing?
“But I cannot tell you that he was not involved in the murder of the woman,” Forbes finished. “I am afraid I think it is more than likely he was. I don’t know if you will ever prove it, or how you even learned of the matter. But if you did, then you had best be told the truth.” He sounded resigned. “He was there, he appeared to have some connection with the woman. Africa can have strange effects on people. They can forget the laws they would keep almost by second nature in their own countries.”
He drew in his breath and let it out slowly. “I have no proof, but were I responsible for the honor and reputation of the heir to the throne, I would not have him associate with Sorokine. You could not afford the scandal it would cause were the matter to be raised. I assume that it is why you asked me before if the project might have enemies? Of course it will, and they will be those men who have lived in Africa themselves. And whether they are prompted by envy, greed, altruism, or personal hatred, they will either know of it already, or they will make it their business to find out.”
“Thank you,” Narraway said unhappily. “I appreciate your candor.”
He felt peculiarly alone and disillusioned as he left Forbes’s house and walked down the front steps into the street. It was as if a great dream, something of nobility and vision, had collapsed unexpectedly, leaving him only dust.
He thought of Pitt in his room in the Palace, and how he too was facing disillusion. Would he be honest enough, brave enough to acknowledge it, if that were the truth? Part of him hoped he would not—Pitt had so much of life’s true wealth already!
Then that feeling vanished, and profoundly, passionately he hoped that Pitt would find that courage. If Narraway had been a man of faith, he would have prayed. There were times when one was empty and did not have something larger and better than oneself in which to believe.
CHAPTER
TEN
AFTER NARRAWAY HAD gone, Pitt abandoned pretense and asked Tyndale to send Gracie to him. She came ten minutes later, carrying a tray of tea with three slices of buttered toast and a dish of marmalade. She put it down on the table and stood more or less to attention. She looked very small, miserable, and a little crumpled.
“Sit down,” he said gently. “The tea’s good, but it was only an excuse to get you here.”
She obeyed. “Is it true they done ’er in like the poor thing in the cupboard?” she asked. Her face screwed up as she searched his eyes, frightened of what she would see.
For her sake he tried to conceal his own sense of panic. “Yes, almost exactly. It has to be the same person. You said she was asking questions all day.”
“Yeah.” She nodded. “An’ I think as she knew ’oo did it. It were in ’er face, in the way she walked, gettin’ more an’ more excited, like, all the time. She were addin’ it up an’ it made sense to ’er, even if it don’t ter us.”
“Tell me again who she spoke to and all you know about it.”
She