Long Spoon Lane - Anne Perry [8]
“Are you saying the police put it there?” Pitt interrupted whatever Narraway had been going to say.
“That’s only one of a dozen,” Welling retorted. “Good, decent people are being robbed, injured, frightened into giving up their honor and their business, and the police look whichever way suits them best.” He was close to tears with frustration. “The whole government wants throwing out, destroying, before it twists us all so tight we have nothing left to fight with. We need to make a clean sweep, start over.” He jerked his head violently. “Get rid of them all, the greedy, lying, corrupt…” He stopped suddenly, his body sagging as if the spirit had gone out of him. He turned away. “But you’re government—police,” he said helplessly. “Everything you want, your money, your power, it’s all tied up in keeping things as they are. You’re all part of it, whether you know it or not. You can’t afford to escape!” He gave a wild laugh. “Where would you go?” He held his chin high, eyes blazing, but without hope.
Pitt’s mind was racing. Many of the streets Welling had spoken of were within the Bow Street area, policed by his own old station, men he had worked with, commanded. Now it was under Superintendent Wetron, who was of the Metropolitan Police—and the Inner Circle. But Pitt refused to believe that he could have changed things so dreadfully in little more than a year.
Welling was staring at him, understanding of his defeat in his face already. He gave a jerky little laugh, as if to protect his vulnerability from showing. “You don’t dare believe it, do you!” he said wretchedly.
“Why Myrdle Street?” Pitt asked again, going back to the unanswered question. “They’re just ordinary people.”
The sneer twisted Welling’s face again. “Police,” he said the single word with a snarl.
“Police?” Pitt questioned.
“As if you didn’t know!”
“I don’t! I’m Special Branch.”
Welling blinked. “The house in the middle was Grover’s. He’s Simbister’s man! Cannon Street.”
“And that is worthy of a death sentence?” Narraway inquired icily.
Welling was defiant, his eyes filled with hate. “Yes! If you’d watched him, seen him hurt and humiliate people…yes, it is!”
Narraway straightened up away from the wall.
“You are not judge, jury, and executioner, Mr. Welling. You take rights that are not yours.”
“Then you do it!” Welling shouted at him. “Someone has to!”
Narraway ignored him and turned to Pitt. “I shall go to inform Lord Landsborough of his son’s death. It will be necessary for him to identify the body.” His voice was perfectly steady. “You go back to Long Spoon Lane and examine everything again. I should like to know for myself who murdered Magnus Landsborough, and if possible why. It seems peculiarly pointless, but then I suppose anarchy is pointless by definition.”
“You murdered him!” Welling spat, tears on his white face. “Because he was our leader. Can’t you understand that when you cut one of us down, another will rise up to take his place! Over and over as many times as it needs. You can’t kill everybody. After all, who would do the work then? Who would you govern?” His voice shook with passion. “Can’t have a government unless there’s someone to hew the wood and draw the water, someone to take the orders and do as they’re told.”
Narraway did not look at him. “And I should like to demonstrate to Mr. Welling that one of his own people is responsible for the death of his leader,” he added. “We don’t shoot people we need to get rid of. We hang them.” With that he turned and walked out of the room leaving Pitt to follow him. Welling stared after them, his eyes scalding in tears of helplessness.
Narraway had to make several inquiries and it took him until the middle of the afternoon before he walked up the steps of the Atheneum at 107 Pall Mall to speak to Lord Landsborough. Narraway was a member, or of course