Long Spoon Lane - Anne Perry [40]
Narraway nodded. “And who killed Magnus Landsborough?”
“I don’t know,” Pitt admitted. “I need to speak to Welling and Carmody again, but it’s getting harder to get anything useful out of them. They’re both idealists who see largely one vision: a corrupt authority that can only be got rid of by violence. They let off bombs after giving the residents warning to get out.” He tried to put into words the innocence or essential futility of such tactics. “They won’t shed blood, which was the ultimate weapon, but they were willing to destroy homes and possessions.”
“They’ll hang,” Narraway said, looking at Pitt steadily. He put his hands into his pockets. “I imagine they know that, but it might have escaped them. No one died in the Myrdle Street bombing, but one of them shot at a policeman and hit him. If you hadn’t gone to him and stopped the bleeding, he might have died. They can be charged with attempting to murder a policeman while in the course of committing a very serious crime.”
Pitt knew it was pointless to argue with Narraway. Actually he had no idea what Narraway believed about hanging, or what he felt about anything else deeper than the surface pleasures or irritations of the job. Narraway was meticulous in his clothes and habits and untidy with paperwork. He ate sparingly, but he liked good pastry and good wine. He read voraciously: history, biography, science, and poetry. Pitt had not seen him with a novel except in translation from other languages, especially Russian. But what stirred his emotions, what hurt him, or woke his dreams, Pitt had no idea at all.
“Offer them amnesty.” Narraway’s voice cut across Pitt’s thoughts. “In return for information to stop police corruption, more bombings that will kill people, any way you want to phrase it that will work.”
Pitt was astounded. “Amnesty?” he said incredulously.
Narraway widened his eyes. “You know, I rather thought that would please you! Not that that’s why I’m doing it, of course. Five years’ prison, instead of the rope. But don’t sell it cheap.”
Pitt’s spirits surged upward. “Who do you have to ask? When will you know?”
Narraway put his hands into his pockets. “I know now, Pitt.” The faintest flicker of amusement crossed his eyes. “Go and see what you can get for it.”
Five minutes before noon Pitt went across the black-and-white stone floor of St. Paul’s Cathedral, and down the flight of steps to the crypt. He walked through the arches quietly, trying to keep his footsteps from disturbing the near-silence. There were only two other people down here that he could see, an old man with thin hair and a mild, dreamy face, and a young woman concentrating intently on a piece of paper in her hand. Neither of them looked at him as he passed.
There were many plaques on the walls commemorating the famous dead from great battles of the past. He was startled to notice how many of them were naval captains who had fallen at Trafalgar. It was a stark reminder of just how dark England’s future had seemed then, with Napoleon conquering Europe and poised on the shores to take Britain as well. It had seemed as if nothing could stop him.
He saw the central pale-arched ceiling where the colonnades met and under it, in the heart of the crypt, the great memorial tomb of Horatio Nelson. Voisey was standing in front of it. Was he in silent contemplation of heroism, sacrifice, the fortunes of war that could change history in the outcome of one battle? And could the leadership of one man with vision, skill, courage, eccentricity, control that? Nelson’s signal to the fleet before the attack had passed into history, and perhaps into all that it meant to be English: “England expects that every man will do his duty.”
Why had Voisey selected this tomb, among all those in this great cathedral? There were a score of other places to meet, as easily found. And why was he early? Was that his first and startling