Pentecost Alley - Anne Perry [104]
And Pitt could get no more from him. There was no punishment he could possibly receive worse than that for which he was already destined. And there was no reward that would be of the slightest use to him now. Apart from that, Pitt believed him that he had no further knowledge.
He left Newgate and walked out of the humid stone building into the heat of the August afternoon. But it was a long time before the sense of chill left him, the deep coldness inside from the presence of despair and unreachable misery.
By half past five he was back in Devonshire Street and requesting the cheerful butler for the opportunity to speak to Mr. Finlay FitzJames. He was granted it immediately, and was conducted over yards of finely polished parquet floor into the library, where both Finlay and Augustus were sitting near the open window which looked onto the garden. Past the tangle of honeysuckle flowers and stems, it was easy to see a glimpse of pale muslin as Tallulah pushed herself gently back and forth in a swing seat, her eyes closed, her face up towards the sun in a most unfashionable manner. No wonder her complexion had far more color than was deemed fit.
“Something further, Superintendent?” Augustus said curiously. He closed his book, a heavy tome whose lettering was too small for Pitt to read upside down, and left it on his lap, as though to resume any moment.
“Very little,” Pitt replied, glancing at Finlay, who was watching him with interest. Now that Costigan had been arrested and charged, he was completely relaxed, almost arrogant again. He was very casually dressed, his thick hair brushed back from his face in heavy waves, his expression polite and confident.
“Then why have you come, Mr. Pitt?” he asked, looking up without moving or offering Pitt a seat. “We know nothing whatsoever about the whole miserable business; which, if you remember, is what we told you in the first instance. I’m sure neither my father nor I wish to be informed detail by detail of your progress, or lack of it. It is all very pedestrian, and rather shabby.”
“It is shabby,” Pitt agreed, resenting Finlay’s arrogance bitterly, almost as if he himself had not despised Costigan just as much. He sat down uninvited. “But it is not pedestrian,” he added. “It is most unusual.”
“Is it?” Finlay’s eyebrows rose. “I would have thought prostitutes were quite often beaten or killed, especially in the East End.”
Pitt had difficulty in controlling his voice so it did not show. The indifference to death infuriated him: anyone’s death, Ada’s, Costigan’s, anyone’s at all.
“That sort of motive is quite common, Mr. FitzJames.” He tried to speak unemotionally, but he could not keep the shadow of sarcasm out of his voice. “But it is extraordinary to find at the scene of such a murder the personal possessions of a man like yourself, when you have no connection whatever with the victim or with the crime.”
“Well, as you now know, Superintendent, I do have no connection with it.” Finlay was smiling, his eyes bright. “It was her own pimp. I thought we had agreed that was beyond question. If you’ve come here to ask me how a badge, which looks like mine, came to be there, I had no idea in the beginning, and I still have no idea.”
Pitt clenched his teeth.
“And does that not bother you, sir?” he asked, staring levelly at Finlay’s handsome face and wide, complacent gaze. “The badge was in the bed, with the pin open. It could not have been there more than a very short time, half an hour at the very most.”
“If you are suggesting that Finlay was there half an hour before the murder,” Augustus interrupted icily, “then you are not only mistaken, Superintendent, but you are impertinent, and beginning to exceed your authority and trespass upon our goodwill.”
“Not at all,” Pitt answered. Finlay might not know why Pitt had come, but surely Augustus must now guess. Why was he pretending to be angry and obtuse? Pitt had not expected thanks, but neither had he expected this prickly pretense. “I am quite satisfied his account of his day was exactly