Seven Dials - Anne Perry [138]
Charlotte saw the tight fear in his face, and she turned to Pitt. It was there in him also as the enormity of it hit him, as if he had seen it before but clung to the hope that it was not real, just his own personal nightmare.
“Four drunken British soldiers massacring thirty-five peaceful Muslims in their own shrine,” Narraway said, barely above a whisper. Only by watching his lips could they be certain of the words. “Can you think what that will do in Egypt, Sudan, even India, if it’s known?”
“You mean Ayesha killed Lovat in revenge for her own people?” Pitt said slowly. His face betrayed how deeply the thought wounded him.
Charlotte wished she could think of anything at all to comfort him, but there was nothing. Who could blame Ayesha for it? The law would do nothing to answer the massacre, but it would hang her, without doubt . . . and probably Ryerson with her. But perhaps she did not care about that. “Has Ryerson anything to do with it?” she said aloud. “Or is he just unfortunate? He fell in love with the wrong woman at the wrong time . . .”
She was startled at the pain that for a moment was naked in Narraway’s face, acute and so obviously personal. Then he masked it, as if aware that she had seen. “Probably,” he agreed, starting to walk again.
They turned the corner and crossed the street into Shaftesbury Avenue. Charlotte had no idea where they were going, and she had a strong belief that neither Pitt nor Narraway did either. The dread that filled their minds drowned out everything else, as it did with her. She was aware of the noise of traffic passing, but it was all a blur of meaningless movement. Alexandria was another world which she had seen only in paintings and through Pitt’s descriptions he had shared with her. But it was linked with everything here as really as if it lay across some immediate border. It would be British soldiers who would be sent to fight and die there if there was an armed revolt, just as there had been in the Sudan. She could remember the newspaper accounts of that well enough. She had known and liked a woman whose only son had been killed at Khartoum.
And if Suez fell, the repercussions of it would touch every life in Britain.
But it was still wrong to sacrifice an innocent man to the rope. If he was innocent? Aunt Vespasia wanted to believe he was, but that did not make it so. Even she could be mistaken. People did things that seemed unimaginable to others when they were in love.
Narraway stopped on the footpath, facing Pitt. “Garrick is safe enough for the foreseeable future, whatever that is. I’m less happy about Sandeman, but I think if he understands the dangers he will keep silent. If he wanted to be a martyr to soothe his own conscience, he would have done it before now. Staying in Seven Dials matters to him. It is his way of answering for his soul. I believe he will die before he will sacrifice that. And Yeats and Lovat are dead.”
“Is it Ayesha?” Pitt said almost hesitantly. “For vengeance?”
“Probably,” Narraway replied. “And God help me, I can’t blame her . . . except for drawing Ryerson in. And perhaps she couldn’t help that. It was chance that brought him there that night, exactly as she was disposing of the body. She couldn’t have been sure he would help rather than calling the police—as, if he had an ounce of self-preservation, he would have.”
“Why did she wait for fifteen years?” Charlotte interrupted. “If some of my family had been killed like that, I wouldn’t.”
Narraway looked at her with curiosity turning to interest. “Neither would I,” he said with feeling. “Something must have made it impossible before—a lack of knowledge? Of help? Power? Assistance from someone, their belief, money?” He looked from one to the other of them for an answer. “What would make you wait, Mrs. Pitt?”
She thought only for