Seven Dials - Anne Perry [151]
“Can you say for certain that he hanged himself?” Pitt asked. Even though it made no sense of anything they knew, he hoped intensely that McDade would tell him it was suicide.
McDade did not hesitate. “No, I can’t,” he said dryly. “He’s been knocked around a bit, bruised under the skin, but it happened either just before death or just after. There’s been no time for the blood to gather, no marks to see. Bit of a gash on his head under the hair, but that’s not necessarily a blow administered by someone else. It could have happened when he dropped, or any of a dozen ways afterwards—water carried him against the arches, struck by a passing boat, or even by driftwood or flotsam.” He shrugged his massive shoulders. “It could be murder, but I can’t tell you anything to prove it one way or the other. Sorry.”
Pitt pulled back the sheet and looked at the rest of the torso. There were other marks on it as if it had buffeted to and fro, and been caught by rough objects which had torn the skin in several places. He replaced the sheet and turned away.
“Will anyone see he gets a burial according to his faith?” he asked.
McDade’s eyebrows rose. “No one to claim the body?”
“Not so far as I know. I think the court will decide by now that he was the one who shot Lieutenant Lovat.”
McDade shook his head, his chins quivering. “You say that as if you are not sure it is true,” he observed.
“I’m sure it’s true,” Pitt replied. “I’m just not sure it is all of the truth. Thank you.” He closed the conversation and turned to go. McDade made him uncomfortable; he was too observant. And Pitt needed to speak once more to the river police about exactly where el Abd was found, the state of his clothes, and the precise hours of the tides last night. A time of death mattered to him; in fact, just at the moment the importance of it overrode everything else in his mind.
Two hours later, at a quarter to nine, he had the answers. He stood on the Embankment in the gusty wind, his coat flapping around his legs and his scarf whipping out sideways, staring at the racing water of the flood tide returning. Out on the river, boats churned the water, steamers, barges, a lone pleasure boat with only half a dozen people on deck.
Tariq el Abd had died between one and five in the morning. They could not be more accurate than that. It was a time when most people were at home in bed. Pitt could have proved he was there, because Charlotte always woke if he got up. A man who lived alone would have no such safety.
He realized how little he knew of Narraway’s private life; he had never even wondered about it. For that matter he knew almost nothing of Narraway’s past, his family or his beliefs either. He was private to the point of being secretive. The only thing Pitt was sure of was that Narraway cared passionately about his work, and the causes it served, and that there was a personal relationship between him and Ryerson which caused him deep pain and which he would not discuss, no matter what the circumstances. And it was that which ate at Pitt now with a hard, angry pain that he could no longer ignore. It must be now; there was just time before the court resumed—if Narraway was at home.
Pitt met him on the doorstep, dressed smartly in his usual perfectly tailored dark gray. Narraway stopped abruptly, his eyes wide, his face pale.
“What is it?” He caught his breath, his voice husky.
Pitt had never defied Narraway before, never even challenged him. He knew his own dependence upon Narraway too well, not only for his job in Special Branch, but for the guidance and the protection while he was feeling his way in learning a new skill. But the emotion inside him now had power to override all such careful considerations.
“Inside!” he said abruptly.