Buckingham Palace Gardens - Anne Perry [3]
Dunkeld took a deep breath and stood up also. He walked past Pitt and opened the door, leaving them to follow him. He led the way along the corridor with its ornately plastered and gilded ceiling, and up another broad flight of stairs. At the top he turned right past two doors to where a young footman stood at attention outside a third door.
“You can go,” Dunkeld dismissed him. “Wait on the landing. I’ll call you when I need you again.”
“Yes, sir.” The footman glanced with anxiety at Narraway and Pitt, then did as he was told, his feet soundless on the carpet.
Dunkeld looked at Narraway, then at Pitt. “What do you normally do? Chase spies? Uncover plots?”
“Investigate murder,” Pitt replied.
“Well, here’s one for you.” Dunkeld opened the cupboard door and stood back.
Pitt stared at the sight in front of him. At his elbow Narraway gasped as his breath caught in his throat. The older man gulped and put his hand to his mouth, as if afraid he might disgrace himself by being sick.
It was not surprising. The woman lay on her back and was obscenely naked, breasts exposed, thighs apart. Her throat had been cut from one side to the other and her lower abdomen slashed open, leaving her entrails bulging pale where they protruded from the dark blood. One leg was raised a little, knee bent, the other lay slack, foot nearly to the floor. Her long, brown hair had apparently been pulled loose from its pins in some kind of struggle. Her blue eyes were wide open and glassy, her mouth gaping. There was blood everywhere, spattered on the walls, soaked into the piles of sheets, daubed across her body, and pooling on the floor. Even her hands were scarlet.
Pitt stared at her less with revulsion than with an overwhelming pity for the gross indignity of it. Had it been an animal the callousness of it would have offended him. For a human being to die like that filled him with a towering anger and a desire to lash out physically and strike something. His breath heaved in his chest and his throat convulsed.
Yet he knew he must keep calm. Intelligence was needed, not passion, however justified. Someone had done this to her. And since this was a royal residence, guarded day and night, it had to be someone within the Palace walls. He found himself shaking at the desecration of the woman’s body, of life, and of the Queen’s home. He steadied himself with difficulty and tried to still the churning of his stomach.
Why? Surely only a man bereft of reason would do such a thing anywhere, let alone here?
Narraway cleared his throat.
Pitt turned to him. He was white around the lips and there were beads of sweat on his skin. Pitt guessed he had never seen such grotesque violence and degradation before. He should say something that would soften the horror, but his mind was empty. Perhaps he did not want to. One should feel sick, stunned, torn apart by such things.
Instead, he turned away and moved into the cupboard, stepping carefully to avoid standing in the pooled blood. It seemed to be all over the place: thick, dark gouts of it, scarlet only where it was smeared and thin.
He touched the woman’s arm. It was cold and the flesh was growing stiff. He guessed she had been dead for at least six hours. It was now half-past eight in the morning, which meant she had been killed by half-past two, at the latest.
“What is it?” Narraway gulped as if his throat were constricted.
Pitt told him.
“I think we know that,” Narraway said hoarsely. “She arrived here yesterday evening, and presumably was seen by several people up until one o’clock.” He turned to Dunkeld. “I’m sorry to ask you, but would you look at her face, please, and tell us if you recognize her?” Then he swiveled round to Pitt again and his voice was jerky, losing control. “For God’s sake, man, put something over the rest of her! The cupboard’s full of sheets. Use one!”
Pitt took one from the top shelf, far away from the body, and opened it up. With some relief he spread it over her, right up to her neck, deliberately covering the fearful