Farriers' Lane - Anne Perry [124]
“That is not what I said,” Pitt retorted a trifle more sharply. He was finding it difficult that Drummond’s mind lacked its usual accuracy. “Pryce began by being quite sure it would not have been Mrs. Stafford, then suddenly he realized it could have been. He was afraid for himself, certainly, but for the first time he was afraid for her—not that she would be blamed wrongly, but that she might actually have done it.”
“Are you sure?” Drummond drew his brows down. “You seem to be saying that in fact neither of them did it. Is that what you mean?”
“Yes, it is.” Pitt controlled his impatience with difficulty. “They are guilty of self-indulgence, of mistaking obsession for love and deceiving themselves it excused everything, when it excuses nothing. Ungoverned hunger is understandable, but there is nothing noble in it. It is selfish and ultimately destructive.” He leaned farther forward, staring at Drummond. “Neither of them truly cared for the well-being of the other, or they would never have allowed passion to dictate behavior.” He looked at Drummond’s face. “I sound pompous, don’t I?” he admitted. “But the justification makes me so angry! If they had ever been honest they wouldn’t have destroyed so much, and in the end been left with nothing.”
Drummond stared into the distance.
“I’m sorry.” Pitt straightened up. “I have to go back to Farriers’ Lane.”
“What?” Drummond looked up at him sharply.
“If it isn’t Juniper Stafford or Pryce, then I have to go back to Farriers’ Lane,” Pitt repeated. “It was someone he saw that day, because the flask was all right when Livesey and his luncheon companion drank from it. Which leaves only those involved in the case.”
“But we’ve been over that,” Drummond argued. “Everything we’ve looked at still leads to Godman being guilty, and if he was, why should anyone kill Stafford because he wanted to open up the case again? And there is no proof that he did want to. Livesey said he didn’t.”
“Livesey said he had no knowledge that he did,” Pitt corrected. “I accept Livesey believes the case is closed, but that does not mean Stafford found nothing that day. He may well have wished to keep it to himself until he had proof.”
“Of what?” Drummond demanded exasperatedly. “That someone other than Godman killed Blaine? Who, for heaven’s sake? Fielding? There’s no evidence. There wasn’t at the time and can you think of what anyone, let alone Stafford, could find now?”
“I don’t know,” Pitt admitted. “But I want to reinvestigate the entire case. I have to, if I am going to find out who killed Stafford.”
Drummond sighed. “Then I suppose you had better do it.”
“With your authority? Lambert won’t like it.”
“Of course he won’t. Would you?”
“No. But once I had wondered whether I was wrong in the first place, I would have to know.”
“Would you?” Drummond said wryly. He moved away from the fire towards his desk. “Yes, of course with my authority, but you’ll still have to be diplomatic if you hope to achieve anything. It is not only Lambert who will not like it! You are treading on a lot of toes. The assistant commissioner has been onto me to get the murder of Stafford solved as quickly as possible, and to do it without raking up the Farriers’ Lane case and causing a lot of public unease and questioning of the original verdict. There are enough people trying to cause unrest as it is. We mustn’t give them the ammunition to undermine the law any further. The Whitechapel murders did the police a lot of harm, you know.”
“Yes, I know,” Pitt agreed quietly. He was very well aware of the resignations that matter had caused, and the questions in the Houses of Parliament, the public resentment of a police force paid for from taxes. There were still many people, some of considerable influence, who believed that a police force was a