Seven Dials - Anne Perry [5]
“Why did she have a gun?”
Talbot spread his hands. “God knows! She did, that’s all that matters. Look, sir—Constable Black found her in the garden with the murdered body of an old lover of hers stuck in a wheelbarrow. What more do you want of us?”
“Nothing,” Pitt conceded. “Thank you for your patience, Inspector Talbot. If there’s anything further I’ll come back.” He hesitated a moment, then smiled. “Good luck.”
Talbot rolled his eyes, but his expression softened for a moment. “Thank you,” he said with a touch of sarcasm. “I wish I could walk away from it so easily.”
Pitt grinned, and went to the door with a feeling of overwhelming relief. Talbot, poor man, was welcome to what was almost certainly no more than a domestic tragedy after all, cabinet minister notwithstanding.
All the same, Pitt decided that he would walk past Eden Lodge and look at it before going back to report to Narraway. Connaught Square was less than ten minutes away and it was now a very pleasant early morning. More deliverymen were out and the clip of horses’ hooves was sharp in the air. In the areaway of one large house a between-stairs maid of about fourteen was whacking a red-and-blue rug with enthusiasm and sending a fine cloud of dust up into the sunlight. He wondered if it was just exuberance or if the rug stood in for someone she disliked.
He crossed the road, cobbles still gleaming in the dew, and threw a penny to one of the small boys who swept away the manure when the need arose. It was too early for the boy to have much to do yet, and he leaned on his broom, his flat cap a couple of sizes too big for him, and resting on his ears.
“Ta, mister!” he called back with a grin.
Eden Lodge was an imposing house facing the open space of Connaught Square, and with a further wide view of St. George’s Burial Ground behind it, beyond the mews. It might be interesting to find out whether Miss Zakhari owned it or rented it, and if the latter, from whom? Or possibly they had not bothered to be so discreet, and it was simply owned by Ryerson in the first place.
But of more importance now was to see the garden where Miss Zakhari had been found with the corpse. For that it would be necessary to walk the short distance to the end of the block and around to the back.
There was a constable on duty in the mews, and Pitt identified himself before being permitted to go through the gate beside the stables and into the leafy, damp garden. He kept to the path, although there was little to mask or spoil in the way of evidence. The wooden wheelbarrow was still there, smears of blood down the right side, from where the person pushing it would have stood, and a dark pool, almost congealed, in the bottom. The dead man must have been laid across it with his head on that side and his legs over the other.
Pitt bent and looked more closely at the ground. The wheel was sunk almost an inch deep in the loam, witnessing the weight of the load. The rut it had caused was deep for about three yards, and from that point there were tracks from where it had come, empty, been turned around and loaded. He straightened up and walked the few yards. Faint scuff marks, indistinct, showed where feet had stood and swiveled, but it was impossible even to tell how many, let alone whether they were a man’s or woman’s, or both. The earth was scattered with fallen leaves and twigs and occasional small pebbles, leaving only rough traces of passage.
However, when Pitt looked more closely the rusty mark of blood was clear enough. This was where Lovat had been when he fell.
He stared around him. He was about five yards into the garden, between laurel and rhododendron bushes, and in the dappled shade of birches towering a great deal higher.