Long Spoon Lane - Anne Perry [80]
“I wasn’t thinking of morality,” Pitt cut across him. “I’ve no more time for hypocrites than you have. I was thinking of there being anything to hope for after death.”
Welling went as white as a sheet. Suddenly he found it hard to breathe.
“You’re a young man,” Pitt said more gently. “You don’t have to give up your life, or all you can do in it, the good things and the mistakes, if you help me find out who killed Magnus Landsborough, and prove it. It was a wrong thing to do, by your morality and mine. I have the authority to give you amnesty for the shooting of the policeman, or anything else, if you help.”
Welling licked his lips. “How do I know that? How do I know you aren’t lying? Maybe the policeman did die!”
“No, he didn’t. He’ll be back on duty in a few weeks. The shot went through his shoulder. Didn’t touch the artery.” He pulled the piece of paper from his pocket with the promise Narraway had written for him and passed it to Welling, who took it and read it, blinking several times, his hands shaking slightly.
“What about Carmody?” he said at last. “I…” He had to clear his throat. “I won’t save myself and let you hang him.”
Pitt could only guess what it had cost him to say that. He admired him for it. “You won’t have to,” he promised. “The same offer goes for him, if he wants it. Now tell me all you know about Magnus Landsborough, who’ll be leader in his place—you can call him whatever you like—and the old man who spoke to him. How often, where, what time of day or night? How did Magnus react?”
Welling told him bit by bit, measuring every word so he was not tricked into betraying something he had not meant to. He could give no name to the man he believed would be the new leader, but his respect for him was clear. He shared Magnus’s passion against unjust dominion of one person over another. He was infuriated by the helplessness of the poor, the disadvantaged in health or intelligence, in education, birthright, or simply position in society. Power without responsibility was for him the ultimate evil, the begetter of cruelty, injustice, every kind of abuse one person may inflict upon another.
Pitt discussed with him only the means with which he sought to address it. Perhaps Welling sensed something of that, because he began to speak with less contempt, and more cordially of his hope to achieve some greater balance.
Pitt did not argue with him that in his belief it owed as much to human nature as to any specific political system. It rose to his mind to do so, but the coldness of the cell, the stale odor of the air, reminded him of the immediate urgency of corruption today, and Wetron’s power in the future.
Welling also told him of Magnus’s meeting with the older man. It had happened perhaps half a dozen times, and Magnus had seemed disturbed by it. He had refused to say who the man was, or what he wanted, but he would hear no ill of him, nor would he permit any of the others to approach the old man or warn him not to come again. The few of their conversations that had been observed were obviously arguments. The older man’s feelings had run high, but no one knew enough to say what they had been, and Magnus refused to discuss it at all.
Pitt broached the subject of the source of the money, obliquely at first, but he gained no response. Welling became even more guarded.
“There’s no need to protect him,” Pitt said casually. “We know who he is. In fact the police know as well.”
Welling smiled. “Then you don’t need us to tell you,” he said.
“No. I wouldn’t mention it if there were any chance that you would warn him.”
“Really.” Welling’s voice was back to its initial skepticism.
“Piers Denoon,” Pitt told him, and saw the chagrin in Welling’s eyes. Not that he needed any confirmation. It was on the edge of his tongue to ask if Magnus and Piers had quarreled. Perhaps Magnus had realized that Piers was a double player, both for the anarchists and the police, and had threatened to expose him. Then, just before he spoke,