Long Spoon Lane - Anne Perry [139]
“Oh yeah? And then come back obediently to prison, so you can lock me away for the rest of my life?” His look said that he would like to have wished Pitt in hell, but did not dare say so, in case Pitt revoked the few privileges he had, or even his promise not to charge him with Magnus’s death.
“You know,” Pitt said coolly, “if you would be quiet and let me put the offer to you, you might find it was a much better one than you seem determined to frame for yourself.”
“Be quiet!” Carmody snapped at Welling. “Yes, Mr. Pitt?”
Pitt acknowledged it with a tight smile. “I want one of you to go and find Piers Denoon and persuade him to go home. Choose whatever manner you know will work. He shot Magnus, and I can’t let him get away with that.” He saw the emotion in their faces, the anger and the hurt. “And if that is not sufficient for you,” he went on, “he also helped finance the dynamite that blew up the houses in Scarborough Street that killed eight people and injured many more, for which anarchists in general are being blamed.”
“Why would he kill Magnus?” Welling said doubtfully. “They were cousins, family!”
“Because he was being blackmailed into it,” Pitt replied with the truth. “He may not even have wanted to be involved with anarchists at all, but he had no choice. He committed a rape three years ago. I’ve seen his confession to it, and the supporting statements. The police kept them, and used them to force him to do what they wanted.”
Carmody used an obscene word about the police, his face twisted with revulsion and hatred.
“He still shot Magnus, rather than face his own punishment,” Pitt reminded him.
“It seems like a betrayal.” Carmody bit his lip.
“Of whom?” Pitt asked. “Piers? Or Magnus?”
“What if we don’t come back, whichever one of us goes?” Welling asked.
“I don’t expect you to come back,” Pitt replied with a very slight smile. “If you do what we agree, the other one goes free as well. If you don’t, then he stays here and faces the charges on the Myrdle Street bombing. And considering how many people were killed in Scarborough Street, I don’t think juries feel good about bombers at the moment.” He added that because he could not afford to lose, nor could he tell them all that could be won or lost on their decision.
“I’ll go,” Welling said with decision.
Pitt looked at him, then at Carmody. “No,” he said flatly. “Carmody will go. Do it straightaway. If you fail, Welling pays the price, and I’ll make very sure indeed that Kydd knows about it.”
Welling jerked his head up, his eyes sharp.
Pitt smiled. “You thought I didn’t know Kydd?”
Welling let out his breath silently.
“Are you coming?” Pitt said to Carmody.
Carmody straightened up. “Yes…sir. Yes, I’m coming.”
It was a long and miserable wait, watching the house, not only because of the time involved, or the possibility that Carmody would fail, but that he deliberately might not even try. Pitt had threatened to charge Welling if that were so, but he was reluctant actually to do it. There was an injustice in punishing one man for another’s weakness or cowardice that he found repellent. Worse than either of these was the knowledge of what success would mean: the arrest of Piers Denoon in his home, in front of his father. It was the only way to turn Edward Denoon against Wetron. It was not Edward Denoon’s feelings Pitt cared about—he was not proud of the pleasure he would take in inflicting some injury on such an arrogant man, one who might even take over Wetron’s leadership of the Inner Circle, if he were not prevented. But he grieved already for Enid, and for Landsborough, even as he stood stiff in the areaway of the house opposite, Tellman beside him. The latter was off-duty, but Pitt still needed a policeman there to make an arrest possible. Besides, Tellman deserved to be here.
Narraway himself had taken his turn, and was now waiting only a hundred feet away.
It was after six. The morning was bright with a slight wind coming up from the direction of the river when Pitt realized with a jolt that Tellman was poking him in the side.
“That’s him!