The Whitechapel Conspiracy - Anne Perry [25]
In the middle of the afternoon Assistant Commissioner Cornwallis sent for Pitt. Pitt knew the moment he stepped into Cornwallis’s office that something was seriously wrong. He imagined a highly complex and embarrassing case, possibly even another like Fetters’s murder, implicating someone of importance. That was the sort of matter he dealt with lately.
Cornwallis stood behind his desk as if he had been pacing the floor and was reluctant to sit. He was a lithe man of average height. Most of his life had been spent in the navy, and he still looked as if being in command of men at sea would suit his nature better, facing the elements rather than the deviousness of politics and public opinion.
“Yes sir?” Pitt enquired.
Cornwallis seemed deeply unhappy, as if he had spent time searching for words for what he had to say but he had not yet found them.
“Is it a new case?” Pitt asked.
“Yes … and no.” Cornwallis gazed at him steadily. “Pitt, I hate this! I fought against it all morning, and I lost. No battle has ever sat worse with me. If I knew of anything else to do I would do it.” He shook his head very slightly. “But I believe that if I pursue it any more I may only make it worse.”
Pitt was confused, and Cornwallis’s obvious distress touched him with a chill of apprehension.
“Is it a case? Who’s involved?”
“In the East End,” Cornwallis replied. “And I have no idea who’s involved. Half of the anarchists in London, for all I know.”
Pitt took a deep breath, steadying himself. Like all other police officers, and much of the general public, Pitt was aware of the anarchist activities in much of Europe, including the violent explosion at a restaurant in Paris and several explosions in London and various other European capitals. The French authorities had circulated a dossier containing pictures of five hundred wanted anarchists. Several were awaiting trial.
“Who’s dead?” he asked. “Why are we called in? The East End is not our patch.”
“No one is dead,” Cornwallis replied. “It’s a Special Branch matter.”
“The Irish?” Pitt was startled. Like everyone else, he was perfectly aware of the Irish troubles, of the Fenians, of the history of myth and violence, tragedy and strife which had bedeviled Ireland over the last three hundred years. And he knew what unrest there was in parts of London, for which a special section of police had been set apart so that they might concentrate on dealing with the threat of bombings, assassination or even minor insurrection. It had originally been known as the Special Irish Branch.
“Not Irish in particular,” Cornwallis corrected. “General political troubles; they just prefer not to be called political. The public wouldn’t accept it.”
“Why us?” Pitt asked. “I don’t understand.”
“You’d better sit down.” Cornwallis waved at the chair opposite his desk, and Pitt obeyed.
“It’s not us,” Cornwallis said honestly. “It’s you.” He did not look away as he spoke but met Pitt’s eyes unflinchingly. “You are relieved of command of Bow Street and seconded to Special Branch, from today.”
Pitt was stunned. It was impossible. How could he be removed from Bow Street? He had done nothing even incompetent, far less wrong! He wanted to protest, but no words seemed adequate.
Cornwallis’s mouth was stretched into a thin line, as if he felt some physical pain gnawing at him. “The command comes from the top,” he said very quietly. “Far above me. I questioned it, then I fought it, but it is beyond my power to reverse. The men concerned all know each other. I am an outsider. I’m not one of them.” He searched Pitt’s eyes, trying to judge how much of his meaning Pitt had understood.
“Not one of them …” Pitt echoed. Old memories came flooding like a tide of darkness. He had seen the subtlest of corruption in the past, men who had secret loyalties which superseded every other honor or pledge, who would cover each other’s crimes, who offered preference to their own and excluded all others. It was known as the Inner Circle. Its long