Long Spoon Lane - Anne Perry [97]
There was a sudden, violent noise and a rush of air. They were both hurled backwards, then ice-cold water struck them and the boat began to slide deeper.
Pitt thrust himself forwards, up towards the gaping hole in the bow. He must get there before the boat went down and the weight of water coming in forced him back. He reached the ragged edge and grasped hold of it. It was only a foot above the water. Any moment it would be too late.
He pulled with all his strength, and felt the air on his face and saw the lights of the river and the sky. He turned to reach back for Voisey and grasped his hand, heaving with all his strength.
Voisey emerged just as the Josephine slid into the river and disappeared. They were left to flounder to the steps, ice-cold, and free.
9
PITT SAT IN front of the stove in the kitchen. He was dressed in his nightshirt and a robe, but he was still shivering. Hot tea helped, but the cab ride in sodden clothes had seemed to go on endlessly, as if Keppel Street were twenty miles away, not five.
Neither he nor Voisey had spoken much after they were up the steps and on the wharf again. There was nothing to say; it was all understood. The dynamite had probably belonged, directly or indirectly, to Simbister, but the point was that someone had deliberately tried to drown them, and very nearly succeeded.
The hansom had dropped Pitt at Keppel Street, before taking Voisey on to his house in Curzon Street. Charlotte had met Pitt at the door. She had been pacing the floor in anxiety and was ashen-faced.
Now she was standing in front of him, her eyes still shadowed with concern. He had already told her roughly what had happened—it would have been impossible not to, but apart from that he had had no wish to keep it from her. The dark hold, the sense of helplessness as the boat sank lower, and the sounds of water that seemed to be all around, was something he could never forget, even in dreams. He knew he would wake in the night grateful to see even a spark of light, the glow of the streetlamp through the curtains, anything at all. He had a new and terrible sense of what it would be like to be blind, attacked, and unable even to guess from which direction, until it was too late.
“Are you sure Voisey had nothing to do with it?” Charlotte asked for a third time.
“He doesn’t care for any cause enough to die for it,” he said with conviction.
She did not argue. “This time,” she conceded. “What now? You don’t have the proof of the dynamite anymore. It’s at the bottom of the river.”
He smiled. “I think it’s quite safe there, don’t you?”
Her eyes widened. “Will that do?”
“Sir Charles Voisey is a hero and a member of Parliament. I think his evidence will be accepted. And the records that the Josephine belonged to Simbister still exist.”
“But what can you prove with that that could help defeat the bill?” she persisted. “Another explosion just looks like anarchists again, and will give Tanqueray even more fuel for his argument.”
“If I take that proof of ownership to Somerset Carlisle, and tell him about the dynamite and Grover and Jones the Pocket, that may be enough to make a few people hesitate,” he said slowly. Suddenly, in the warmth of the kitchen, he was overwhelmingly tired. Exhaustion seeped through every inch of his body and he could not think clearly. No decisions were clear-cut anymore.
“Don’t trust Voisey,” she said urgently. “He could still betray you.” She was leaning forward a little, her hands over his.
“I don’t need to trust him,” he pointed out. “He wants the same thing I do: no police bill. For different reasons, but that doesn’t matter.” He yawned enormously. “Sorry.”
She knelt in front of him, staring at his face. “You