Paragon Walk - Anne Perry [8]
“Your dinner is nearly ready,” she said, carrying the pan to the sink. “Was Emily all right?”
“She seemed to be.” He sat on the edge of the table. “I met her Aunt Vespasia. Do you know her?”
“No. We don’t have an Aunt Vespasia. She must be George’s.”
“She ought to be yours,” he said with a sudden grin. “She is exactly as you might be when you get to be seventy or eighty.”
She let the pan go in her surprize and turned to stare at him, his body like some enormous flightless bird, coattails trailing.
“And the thought didn’t appall you?” she asked. “I’m surprized you still came home!”
“She was marvelous,” he laughed. “Made me feel a complete fool. She said precisely what she thought without a qualm.”
“I don’t do it without a qualm!” she defended herself. “I can’t help it, but I feel awful afterward.”
“You won’t by the time you’re seventy.”
“Get off the table. I’m going to put the vegetables on it.”
He moved obediently.
“Who else did you see?” she continued when they were in the dining room and the meal was begun. “Emily has told me something of the people in the Walk, although I’ve never been there.”
“Do you really want to know?”
“Of course, I do!” Why on earth did he need to ask? “If someone has been raped and murdered next door to Emily, I have to know about it. It wasn’t Jessamyn something-or-other, was it?”
“No. Why?”
“Emily can’t abide her, but she would miss her if she were not there. I think disliking her is one of her main entertainments. Although I shouldn’t speak like that of someone who might have been killed.”
He was laughing at her inside himself, and she knew it.
“Why not?” he asked.
She did not know why not, except she was quite sure her mother would have said so. She decided not to answer. Attack was the best form of defense.
“Then who was it? Why are you avoiding telling me?”
“It was Jessamyn Nash’s sister-in-law, a girl called Fanny.”
Suddenly gentility seemed irrelevant.
“Poor little child,” she said quietly. “I hope it was quick, and she knew little of it.”
“Not very. I’m afraid she was raped and then stabbed. She managed to make her way to the house and died in Jessamyn’s arms.”
She stopped with a forkful of meat halfway to her mouth, suddenly sick.
He saw it.
“Why the hell did you ask me in the middle of dinner?” he said angrily. “People die every day. You can’t do anything about it. Eat your food.”
It was on the tip of her tongue to point out that that did not make it any better. Then she realized that he had been hurt by it himself. He must have seen the body—it was part of his duty—and talked with those who had loved her. To Charlotte she was only imaginary, and imagination could be denied, while memory could not.
Obediently she put the food in her mouth, watching him. His face was calm, the anger entirely gone, but his shoulders were tense and he had forgotten to take any of the gravy she had so carefully made. Was he so moved by the death of the girl—or was it something far worse, fear that the investigations would uncover things uglier, close to him, something about George?
Two
THE FOLLOWING MORNING Pitt went first to the police station, where Forbes was waiting with a lugubrious face.
“Morning, Forbes,” Pitt said cheerfully. “What’s the matter?”
“Police surgeon’s been looking for you,” Forbes replied with a sniff. “Got a message about that corpse from yesterday.”
Pitt stopped.
“Fanny Nash? What message?”
“I don’t know. ’E wouldn’t say.”
“Well, where is he?” Pitt demanded. What on earth could the man have to say beyond the obvious? Was she with child? It was the only thing he could think of.
“Gone to ’ave a cup of tea,” Forbes shook his head. “I suppose