Long Spoon Lane - Anne Perry [108]
“Then I had better get someone to raise the Josephine,” Narraway observed. He looked tense, pale-faced, as if containing his emotions with difficulty. Had he really been so concerned for Pitt’s safety? “We would look foolish if we needed to find it and it had been discreetly removed,” he added.
“Yes, sir.” Pitt put the papers on the desk. “That ties it to Simbister, and to Grover.”
“Who tried to drown you?” Narraway asked.
“Grover, I think. He was certainly there shortly before we were. I have witnesses to that. Three students are included.” He tapped the papers with his finger.
“You seem to have been competent.” Narraway stared at him, his eyes dark and hot. “You must have looked half dead when you arrived home last night.”
Pitt was startled. “A bit wet,” he agreed.
“A bit wet,” Narraway echoed his words. “And what did you tell your wife? That you fell into the river?”
“That I was in a boat that sank, and I only just got out in time,” Pitt replied, evading the truth.
Narraway’s voice was colder than the Thames water had been. “Do you suppose that that was what sent her to see Charles Voisey this morning? Concern that he had caught a chill, perhaps?”
“She…she went to see Voisey this morning? Where?” Pitt was alarmed, caught off-balance. “At the House of Commons? He wouldn’t be there so early…”
“Precisely,” Narraway agreed scathingly. “At his home in Curzon Street. It seems I know rather more about your wife’s comings and goings than you do, Pitt! From now on I suggest you keep better control of your domestic affairs. She is a willful woman greatly in need of a stronger hand than you have exercised so far. You obviously tell her too much, and her imagination does the rest.” He looked truly and profoundly angry. His body was rigid, his shoulders high as if all his muscles were clenched. “She is going to get herself seriously hurt if you allow her to keep on interfering in things she has no grasp of, and no idea of her own danger. For God’s sake, man, what’s the matter with you? Can’t you run your own household?”
Pitt stared at him, dumbfounded. He had no idea Charlotte had gone to see Voisey, and could not think why she should want to. But one thing he was absolutely sure of was that she had not forgotten that he had killed Mario Corena, and the Reverend Rae, and that she would never trust him, no matter what he said or did. She had gone for a reason. There was nothing she could learn from him that Pitt had not already learned. She must have gone to tell him something. Then he remembered she had asked about the proof against Mrs. Cavendish, and he was certain he knew what she had said to Voisey, and why she had gone. He found himself smiling, even though it was shakily, with a mixture of fear and pride, and a strange oblique amusement.
“If you see something humorous in this, Pitt, I’d be delighted to know what it is!” Narraway said tartly.
Pitt straightened his face. He understood Charlotte, and with amazement and a flood of strange, fierce pity, he knew why Narraway was so angry. It was not Pitt or the success of Special Branch he was afraid for, it was Charlotte herself. He was moved to such irrationality because he cared for her. The emotion in him was personal. Pitt knew exactly what it felt like, the mixture of happiness and terror, the knowledge that you were not in control, like losing your balance, the feeling of helplessness and the waiting for a verdict that could hurt more than you would be able to bear.
He avoided Narraway’s eyes, so that he would not know that Pitt had seen