Long Spoon Lane - Anne Perry [7]
“Don’t tell me you care!” Welling made it a stinging accusation.
“Neither do you, apparently,” Pitt replied, forcing himself to smile. That was not easy. He had been a policeman all his adult life. He had devoted his time and energy, working long days, enduring emotional exhaustion to seek justice, or at least some resolution of tragedy and crime. To place a slur on both the honesty and the ideals of the men he worked with robbed from him the meaning of a quarter of a century of his past, and his belief in the force that defended the future. Without police of integrity there was no justice but vengeance, and no protection but the violence of the powerful. That truly was anarchy. And this smug young man in front of him would lose as much as anyone. He could survive to plant his bombs only because the rest of society obeyed the laws.
Pitt let his own contempt fill his voice when he answered. “If the police were largely corrupt, you wouldn’t be sitting here being questioned,” he said gratingly. “We’d simply have shot you. It would be easy enough to make an excuse afterward. Any story would do!” He heard how harsh and on the edge of control he sounded. “You sit here to face trial precisely because we keep the law you break. It is you who are a hypocrite, and corrupt. You not only lie to us, you lie to yourself!”
Welling’s anger blazed. “Of course you could shoot us!” he said, leaning forward. “And you probably will! Just like you shot Magnus!”
Pitt stared at him, and realized with rising horror that Welling really was afraid. His words were not bravado; he believed them. He thought he was going to be murdered here.
Pitt turned to Narraway, who addressed the prisoner. “Magnus Landsborough was shot from behind,” he said carefully. “He fell forward, with his head towards the window.”
“He wasn’t shot from outside,” Welling responded. “It was one of your people coming up from the back. As I said, as corrupt as hell itself.”
“You’ve proved nothing,” Pitt countered. “And it’s only just happened, so it could hardly be motive for bombing Myrdle Street. Why Myrdle Street, anyway? What did those people ever do to you? Or doesn’t it matter who it is?”
“Of course I don’t have proof of corruption,” Welling said bitterly, straightening his body again. “You’ll cover it up, just like you do all the rest. And you know why Myrdle Street.”
“All the rest of what?” Narraway asked him. He was standing elegantly, leaning against the wall, his thin body tense. He was not a big man. He was shorter than Pitt and much lighter, but there was a wiry strength in him.
Welling considered before he replied. He seemed to be weighing the risks against the values of talking. When he finally did, he still gave the impression of being in the grasp of anger rather than reason.
“Depends where you are and who you are,” he said. “What crimes you get caught for, and what gets overlooked—if you put a little money the right way.” He looked from one to the other of them. “If you run a string of thieves, give a proportion of your take to the local police station and no one’ll bother you. Have a shop or a business in certain places and you won’t get robbed. Have it somewhere else and you will.” His eyes were hot and angry, his body stiff.
It was a massive charge he was making, hideous in its implications.
“Who told you all this?” Narraway inquired.
“Told me?” Welling snapped back. “The poor devils who are paying, of course. But I didn’t expect you to believe me. You’ve a vested interest in pretending not to. Ask around Smithfield, the Clerkenwell Road, and south to Newgate or Holborn. There are scores of alleys and back streets full of people who’d tell you the same. I’ll not give you their names, or next thing they’ll have to pay twice as much, or have the police all of a sudden find stolen goods in their houses.”
Narraway’s face reflected open disbelief. Pitt did not know if it was real, or a mask put on precisely to provoke Welling to continue talking.
“Go ask Birdie Waters up the Mile End Road!” Welling