Buckingham Palace Gardens - Anne Perry [147]
Narraway considered for a moment or two. “Hell of a risk,” he said finally. “Dunkeld is a gambler, but not a fool. He would eliminate any danger he could. I’d say the carter was the accomplice, possibly even the murderer.”
“And Dunkeld disemboweled her when she was here?” Pitt asked. “I think he broke Minnie’s neck, almost certainly by accident, and cut her afterward to make it look the same, as if it had been broken on purpose. That’s why the injuries on the two women were so similar.”
Narraway’s mouth tightened into a thin line. “And he made them after he’d knocked Julius senseless in order to mark Julius’s face with cuts and bruises, and accounted for the marks on himself. Clever bastard. But who’s the accomplice? Thank God we don’t have to find him to convict Dunkeld!”
Pitt jerked his head up. “No, but I damn well want him! Are you trying to tell me he came across that girl dead just when he happened to need her? Right height, right build, right coloring, face similar enough, and nothing else wrong with her? No rashes, broken bones, scars or blemishes, no missing teeth, nothing to account for her death except the knife slashes we saw? He may have broken her neck, to make sure there was no blood to seep out of the box, but he killed her to meet his needs. I want him, Narraway, and I don’t intend to stop until I get him.” That was a warning and he meant it as such.
“Where do you propose to start?” Narraway asked. “By the way, if you have anything at all to ask anyone here, you’d better do it now. You’ll never get back in again.”
“Not even to trace a murder?”
Narraway gave a short bark of laughter. “Not if your life depended on it, Pitt. You found them the wrong answer.”
“I didn’t choose who was guilty!” Pitt protested. “The Prince chose the wrong man as his friend.”
“A cardinal sin,” Narraway agreed. “In fact completely unforgivable. Don’t fool yourself he will ever excuse you for pointing that out! Now he has to admit to Watson Forbes that he made a mistake, and he will not like that either.”
“Will Forbes accept? You said he’d retired, didn’t you?”
Narraway bit his lip. “He seemed adamant to me that he didn’t believe in the idea. He thought it would be bad for Africa, and in time destroy what was beautiful and unique. He said such a railway would cut through the heart of the country and vandalize the soul of it.”
“He said that?”
“Not in those words.” Narraway looked vaguely uncomfortable at the vividness of his own imagination. He was acutely conscious of the fact that he had never been to Africa. “But that was the essence of it. He might well turn the Prince down.”
“Two women murdered, and for nothing,” Pitt observed. “We don’t even know who the first one was.”
“The African one? We never will.”
“No, I’m not sure she had anything to do with it, except as a tragedy to make us think Dunkeld had to be innocent, and Sorokine guilty. I meant the woman in the linen cupboard, whom we thought was Sadie. Who was she? Did the carter who brought her here kill her simply for Dunkeld to use? Did he do it knowing what it was for? Or does he simply kill for money?”
“Too dangerous,” Narraway said immediately. “Dunkeld would be a fool to put himself in the hands of a man like that.”
“Then he was a conspirator. And he had to know Sadie in order to find a woman sufficiently like her,” Pitt added. “So he’s intelligent, resourceful, devious, and has a hell of a cool nerve. He’s not just an assassin for hire.”
“You’ve made your point, Pitt,” Narraway agreed with the ghost of a smile. “We have to find him, and Dunkeld isn’t going to help us. It is almost certainly the carter, but there is no reason to suppose he actually looks anything like the man the servants glimpsed on the night he brought the box. His clothes were nondescript and dirty, he wore a hat, and fingerless mittens to protect his hands. Usual enough if you’re driving a horse, or lifting boxes. We’d better start with looking for Sadie.”
“She’ll have disappeared,” Pitt told him. “Dunkeld will have paid