Pentecost Alley - Anne Perry [143]
“Nothing useful,” Pitt said honestly. “I have spoken again to Thirlstone and Helliwell, but no one will admit to any serious quarrel, although a pattern of dislike is becoming plain. They didn’t part friends, but I have no idea yet why. In fact,” he added ruefully, “I’m not honestly sure if it even matters.”
“What about Jones?” Cornwallis asked. “You didn’t mention him.” His face tightened and it obviously pained him to say what he was about to. “I know he is a man of the cloth, and very obviously doing fine work in Whitechapel, but that doesn’t mean he is not capable of personal hatred of a man like FitzJames. You don’t know what old wrongs may be in the past, Pitt.” He jammed his hands into his pockets, pulling them out of shape. “Nor is any man invulnerable to hungers and loneliness that can overwhelm one at times. He has chosen a path of service and self-denial, but he is a young man. It can happen that we ask too much of ourselves and find our weaknesses sharper than we can bear.”
Pitt heard the emotion in his voice, and the urgency. Was he speaking entirely of Jago Jones? He had spent long, lonely years at sea himself, with all the isolation of command. The responsibility for the lives of every man on his ship, with no one else to turn to for six months at a time.
“I know,” Pitt answered quietly. “Please God it is not he, and I believe it isn’t, but I know it is not impossible. I’ll see him. Then I’m going back to the most straightforward way, start again at the beginning with the evidence in the death of Nora Gough. I want to know more about her.”
“Does anything connect the two victims?” Cornwallis asked, starting to pace again, then stopping in a square of sunlight. “Apart from the same occupation and neighborhood?”
“I don’t know. I’m going to see Ewart again. He must have found something by now.”
“He’s a good man,” Cornwallis said seriously. “I’ve been looking into his record. Everyone speaks well of him, not just because of the success he’s had professionally but personally as well. His reputation is excellent. Quiet, conscientious, good family man. Works extremely hard and saves his money.” Cornwallis’s voice lifted with surprise. “He has three sons and a daughter. Daughter married well, to a farmer somewhere in Kent. Doing very well. His oldest son has a place in University, and the other two look set the same way. That’s a remarkable achievement.” He did not add “for an ordinary policeman.” Tact held his tongue, but he meant it. “We couldn’t have a better man with us.”
“Yes,” Pitt agreed. “He’s a good man. You know, he never thought FitzJames was involved with Ada McKinley. He always believed it was someone local. Perhaps he was right. It might have been exactly the domestic tragedy he had said. I should have listened to him more closely, paid more attention to his judgment. He never thought the connection with FitzJames mattered, and perhaps it doesn’t. I’ll see him tomorrow.”
“Then the core to this doesn’t lie with FitzJames at all?” Cornwallis said with a frown, more as if he were testing an idea than voicing a conviction. He was standing over by the telescope and the sextant on the wall, and the sunlight caught his face and gleamed on the polished brass surfaces. “What about this handkerchief? It could be his, but is it? Does it have to be?”
“No. Anyone could have had it made.”
“And the button?”
“Expensive, but quite easily obtained if one went to any good tailor.”
“So it doesn’t really mean anything?”
“It doesn’t mean FitzJames was there,” Pitt corrected. “It means someone would like us to think he was. And that someone wasn’t Costigan.”
Cornwallis shook his head a little and his eyes were bright with sadness.
“It comes back to Jones again,” he said quietly. “He seems to be the common factor, Pitt.”
“I know.”
“We must face it. Find out exactly where he was when both women were killed.