Long Spoon Lane - Anne Perry [39]
Jack waited a long time before he answered. They were nearly at the doorway to go back inside the palace and towards his office. “No,” he said softly. “But be careful, Thomas, for heaven’s sake, be careful. Don’t trust him with anything, not even for a moment.”
Pitt said nothing.
“What do you want from me?” Jack asked him.
Pitt looked at him steadily. “The answer you gave me. Tanqueray’s going to go ahead with his bill, and you think it might well get passed. If it does, it will give Wetron the power to impress his rule on London. I can’t let that happen if there is any way to stop it, whatever the risk.”
Pitt entered Narraway’s office, tense even before he broached the subject. Narraway was standing, staring out of the window, his back to the door, the gray in his hair catching the light. He turned as Pitt came in, his face expectant. “You’re late,” he said bluntly. “What else have you learned about Magnus Landsborough? I need to know before they regroup and find another leader.” He was impatient. “Where was the money coming from? Who else is involved? I’ve spoken to all my sources of information, and I’ve heard of no connection to any foreign group. The East End is littered with Poles and Jews, Frenchmen, Italians, Russians, anything and everything you can think of, but no one was interested in blowing up Myrdle Street.”
“I don’t think there’s a foreign connection,” Pitt replied, remaining standing also. He was too stiff and shivery to sit anyway. Better to come to the point straightaway. It was not as if he could avoid telling Narraway. “I’m late because I was at the House of Commons, talking to Jack Radley. He says Tanqueray’s bill has a good chance of passing.”
Narraway swore viciously and with a suppressed violence that spoke of intense emotion.
Pitt found that instead of shocking him, it was oddly comforting. It betrayed a humanity that bridged the gulf he so often felt between them. Narraway seldom allowed anything but his intellect to show.
“I have an offer of help that I am going to accept,” Pitt told him. “Because the situation may possibly be worse than we thought, and Jack believes it is going to deteriorate even further.”
“Oh? And what are they going to blow up next? Buckingham Palace?” Narraway said sarcastically.
“Sabotage by corruption,” Pitt answered. “The police force could become Wetron’s private army, if this bill is passed.”
Narraway drew in his breath sharply, then suddenly he understood. His shoulders relaxed and he breathed in very deeply, his eyes bright. “Wetron seizing the chance,” he said softly. “Brilliant! Then he won’t want us to catch the anarchists. He’ll want them to strike again, so everyone is frightened enough to give him the power he’s after. Then he’ll reverse the corruption he’s encouraged. It won’t be hard for him to arrest all the men because he already knows who they are—God help them, he put them there! What made you see that, Pitt?” There was a gleam in his black eyes that could have been admiration.
There was only one possible answer, and that was the truth. “Charles Voisey,” Pitt answered. “He caught up with me in the street yesterday evening. He wants me to work with him to prevent the bill.”
“Does he indeed? And what did you tell him?”
Pitt forced himself to be calm. “I told him I would consider it. I’m meeting him at St. Paul’s. But I am going to do it.”
Narraway’s voice was very soft, almost like an animal’s purr. “Oh, are you!” It was more of a challenge than a question.
Pitt answered it as such.
“I can’t afford not to. And you can’t afford that I don’t. We need police cooperation in order to succeed at our job. With Wetron as commissioner, and the Inner Circle against us, not to mention the police seen as a public enemy, we’d be blocked at every point. We would be able to do only what Wetron allowed us to.”
“You believe this?” Narraway asked. “It hasn’t occurred to you that Voisey could have made it all up in order to use you to destroy Wetron and get himself back in control of the Inner Circle?”
“Of course it has occurred to me,” Pitt replied