Highgate Rise - Anne Perry [76]
Pitt followed him and Murdo came a step behind. The withdrawing room was cold, the ashes of the fire already dark, but Flora was standing beside it. She was also fully dressed, in a gray winter gown, her face pale and her hair tied back with a silk kerchief. Murdo felt himself suddenly excruciatingly awkward, not knowing what to do with his feet, where to put his painful, dirty hands.
“Good evening, Inspector.” She looked at Pitt courteously, then at Murdo with something he thought was a smile. “Good evening, Constable Murdo.”
She had remembered his name. His heart lurched. It had been a smile—hadn’t it?
“Good evening, Miss Lutterworth.” His voice sounded husky and ended in a squeak.
“Can we help, Inspector?” She turned to Pitt again. “Does anyone … need shelter?” Her eyes pleaded with him to tell her the answer to the question she had not asked.
Murdo drew breath to tell her, but Pitt cut across him and he was left openmouthed.
“Your father thinks the fire was deliberately set, in order to kill Dr. Shaw.” Pitt was watching her, waiting for reaction.
Murdo was furious. He saw the last trace of color leave her face and he would have rushed forward to save her from collapsing, had he dared. In that instant he loathed Pitt for his brutality, and Lutterworth himself for not having protected her, he whose duty and privilege it was.
She bit her lip to stop it trembling and her eyes filled with tears. She turned away to hide them.
“No need to cry for ’im, girl,” Lutterworth said gently. “ ’E was no use to you, nor to ’is poor wife neither. ’E was a greedy man, with no sense o’ right nor wrong. Save your tears for poor Amos Lindsay. ’E was a good-enough chap, in ’is own way. A bit blunt, but none the worse for that. Don’t take on.” Then he swung around to Pitt. “Mind you could’a chosen your time and your words better! Clumsy great fool!”
Murdo was in an agony of indecision. Should he offer her his handkerchief? It had been clean this morning, as it was every morning, but it must smell terrible with smoke now; and anyway, wouldn’t she think him impertinent, overfamiliar?
Her shoulders were trembling and she sobbed without sound. She looked so hurt, like a woman and a child at once.
He could bear it no longer. He pulled the handkerchief out of his pocket, dropping keys and a pencil along with it, and went forward to give it to her, arm outstretched. He no longer cared what Pitt thought, or what detective strategy he might be using. He also hated Shaw, with an utterly new emotion that had never touched him before, because Flora wept for him with such heartbreak.
“He in’t dead, miss,” he said bluntly. “He was out on a call somewhere an’ ’e’s terrible upset—but he in’t even hurt. Mr. Oliphant, the curate, took him back to his lodgings for the night. Please don’t cry like that—”
Lutterworth’s face was dark. “You said he was dead.” He swung around, accusing Pitt.
“No, Mr. Lutterworth,” Pitt contradicted. “You assumed it. I am deeply sorry to say that Mr. Lindsay is dead. But Dr. Shaw is perfectly well.”
“Out again?” Lutterworth was staring at Flora now, his brows drawn down, his mouth tight. “I’ll lay odds that bounder struck the match ’imself.”
Flora jerked up, her face tearstained, Murdo’s handkerchief clasped in her fingers, but now her eyes were wide with fury.
“That’s a terrible thing to say, and you have no right even to think it, let alone to put it into words! It is completely irresponsible!”
“Oh, and you know all about responsibility, of course, girl,” Lutterworth retorted, by now regardless of Pitt or Murdo. His face was suffused with color and his voice thick in his emotion. “Creepin’ in and out at all hours to see ’im— imagining I don’t know. For heaven’s sake, ’alf Highgate knows!