Silence in Hanover Close - Anne Perry [104]
The sweat broke out on Pitt’s skin, then chilled instantly, leaving him shivering and a little sick. What would happen to Charlotte? Emily would see to her financially, thank God! But what about the disgrace, the public shame? Policemen had few friends; a policeman hanged for murdering a prostitute had none at all. Charlotte would find every hand turned against her: neighbors and erstwhile friends would abhor her; the underworld that normally had some care for its own, who might have given something to an ordinary hanged man’s widow, would have no pity for a policeman’s family. And Daniel and Jemima would grow up with the shadow of the gibbet across their hearts, always hiding who they were, trying to defend him, never really knowing—Pitt stopped; these thoughts were unbearable.
“Come on!” The voice yanked him from his inner misery back to the urgency of the present. “Coldbath Fields fer you; yer can’t sit ’ere all night. Let’s be ’avin’ yer!”
He looked up to see the chill boiled-blue eyes of a constable regarding him with the kind of loathing that police reserve for their own kind who have betrayed everything they have given their lives to preserve.
“On yer feet! Gotter learn ter do as ye’re told, you ’ave!”
9
CHARLOTTE HAD EXPECTED Pitt to be late getting home, so she went to bed a little before eleven, unhappy that things between them were still unresolved. She woke with a start in the morning, aware even before she opened her eyes that something was wrong. There was a coldness, a silence. She sat up. Pitt’s side of the bed was as neat and untouched as it had been when she put the sheets on clean the day before. She scrambled out and reached for her robe without any clear idea of what she was going to do. Perhaps there was a note downstairs. Could he have come in and had to go out again without time to sleep at all? For the moment she dared not think beyond that. She did not even bother with slippers and she winced as her bare feet touched the cold floor in the passageway.
She looked first in the kitchen, but there was nothing; the kettle was where she had left it and the cups were unused. She went to the parlor, but there was nothing there either. She tried to fill her mind with good reasons for Pitt’s absence, so her fears could not intrude: he was on the trail of something, and so close to victory he could not leave it; he had actually made an arrest and was still at the police station; there had been another murder, and he was so busy with it he could not come home, and he had not sent a messenger during the night because he did not want to waken her, and no stranger could get in without his key—but her common sense stopped her there. There was always the letter box; it would have been simple to slip a note in to tell her.
Well, any minute now someone would come, perhaps even Pitt himself. She should get dressed. She was shuddering with the chill and her bare feet were numb. There was no point in standing here. Gracie would be up soon and the children must have breakfast. She turned and went upstairs quickly, into the oddly empty bedroom. She took off her robe and nightgown, still shivering, and put on her camisole, petticoats, stockings, and an old, dark blue dress. Her fingers were clumsy this morning and she could not be bothered to do anything with her hair except wind it in a loose coil and pin it up. She would wash her face in the kitchen downstairs where the water was hot. Surely by then there would be a message.
She had just reached for a rough, dry towel and felt its clean abrasiveness on her skin when the doorbell rang. She dropped the towel onto the bench accidentally dragging it with her elbow and pulling it onto the floor. She ignored it, running along the passage to the front door, which she flung open. A red-faced constable stood on the doorstep, misery so heavy in his features that she was instantly afraid. Her breath stopped.
“Mrs. Pitt?” he asked.
She stared at