Southampton Row - Anne Perry [152]
“Good. Then we shall leave you and be on our way to the coroner.”
“Yer don’t want a cup o’ tea? Anyway, yer got to take your jam,” she added to Pitt.
Narraway looked at the kettle. “Actually, yes, we can stay for tea, just a cup. Thank you. It has been an unusually trying day.”
She glanced at the dirt and the tears in his clothes, and in Pitt’s, but she made no remark. She would have considered it rude. Anyone can fall on hard times, and she knew that very well. She did not judge people she liked.
Pitt and Narraway walked as far as the station together.
“I am going back to Kingston to the coroner,” Narraway announced as they crossed the road. “I can enforce the verdict we wish. Francis Wray will be buried in hallowed ground. However, there is little purpose in proving that Mrs. Cavendish’s tarts poisoned him. She would be charged with murder, on unarguable circumstantial evidence, and I doubt very much that she had the slightest idea of what she was doing. Voisey either gave her the jam, or more probably the tarts themselves, in order to make sure no one else was affected, both for his own safety in case it was traced back to him, and because insofar as he cares for anyone, it is she.”
“Then how in God’s name did he bring himself to use her as an instrument of murder?” Pitt demanded. Such callousness was utterly beyond him. He could not conceive of a rage consuming enough to use any innocent person as a weapon of death, let alone someone you loved, and above all who trusted you.
“Pitt, if you are to be any damned use to me at all, then you must stop imagining everyone else operates on the same moral and emotional plane as you do!” Narraway demanded. “They don’t!” He glared savagely at the footpath ahead of him. “Don’t be so bloody stupid as to think what you would do in a situation! Think what they would do! You are dealing with them . . . not a hundred mirror images of yourself. Voisey hates you with a passion you can’t even think of. But believe it! Believe it every day and every hour of your life . . . because if you don’t, one day you will pay for it.” He stopped and held out his hand, causing Pitt to all but collide with him. “And I will have Mary Ann’s testimony. That, and the autopsy result, are going where even Voisey will never find them. He needs to know that, and he needs to know that if anything happens to you, or to your family, then they will become public, which would be very unfortunate for Mrs. Cavendish, very unfortunate indeed, and ultimately for Voisey himself, whether she were prepared to testify against him or not.”
Pitt hesitated only a moment. It was safety for his family, and bought without compromise, without surrender. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out Mary Ann’s testimony. If he could not trust Narraway then he had nothing.
Narraway took it and smiled, thin-lipped. “Thank you,” he said with mild sarcasm. He knew Pitt had doubted, for an instant. “I am perfectly happy to have a photograph made of both papers and lodged wherever you wish. The originals must remain where even Voisey can never reach them, and it is best you also do not know where that is. Believe me, Pitt, they will be safe.”
Pitt smiled back. “Thank you,” he accepted. “Yes, a photograph of each would be nice. I daresay, Commissioner Cornwallis would appreciate that.”
“Then he shall have it,” Narraway answered. “Now, catch your train back to the city and see what election results have come in. There should be some by now. I would suggest the Liberal Club. They will have news as fast as anyone, and they put it up in electric lights for all to see. If I didn’t have to speak to the coroner, I’d go myself.” A flicker of pain crossed his face. “I think the fight between Voisey and Serracold may be far closer than we wish, and I won’t call it. Good luck, Pitt.” And before Pitt could answer, he turned and walked smartly away.
Pitt, exhausted, stood in the crowd on the pavement outside the Liberal Club staring up at the electric lights which flashed the latest news of the results. He cared