The Whitechapel Conspiracy - Anne Perry [31]
Of course Pitt remembered the summer and autumn of ’88. Everyone did. But he had not realized the situation was still so close to violence. He had imagined it one of those sporadic eruptions which happens from time to time and then dies down again. Part of him wondered if Narraway were overdramatizing it, perhaps to make his own role more important. There was much rivalry within the different branches of those who enforced the law, each guarding his own realm and trying to increase it at the cost of others.
Narraway read his face as if he had spoken.
“Don’t rush to judgment, Pitt. Be skeptical, by all means, but do as you are told. I don’t know whether Donaldson was right about you or not on the witness stand, but you’ll obey me while you’re in Special Branch or I’ll have you out on your ear so fast you’ll fetch up living in Spitalfields or its like permanently, and your family with you! Am I clear enough for you?”
“Yes, sir,” Pitt answered, still hideously aware of what a dangerous path he trod. He had no friends, and far too many enemies. He could not afford to give Narraway any excuse to throw him out.
“Good.” Narraway recrossed his legs. “Then listen to me, and remember what I say. Whatever you think, I am right, and you will need to act on what I say if you are to survive, let alone be any actual use to me.”
“Yes, sir.”
“And don’t parrot back at me! If I wanted a talking bird I’d go and buy one!” His face was tight. “The East End is full of poverty—desperate, grinding poverty such as the rest of the city can’t even imagine. People die of hunger and the diseases of hunger … men, women, and children.” A suppressed anger made his voice raw. “More children die than live. That makes life cheap. Values are different. Put a man in a situation where he has little to lose and you have trouble. Put a hundred thousand men in it and you have a powder keg for revolution.” He was watching Pitt steadily. “That’s where your Catholics, your dynamiting anarchists, nihilists and Jews are a danger. One of them could be the single spark which could unintentionally set off all the rest. It only needs a beginning.”
“Jews?” Pitt said curiously “What’s the problem with the Jews?”
“Not what we expected,” Narraway confessed. “We have a lot of fairly liberal Jews from Europe. They came after the ’48 revolutions, all of which were crushed, one way or another. We expected their anger to spill over here, but so far it hasn’t.” He shrugged very slightly. “Which isn’t to say it won’t. And there’s plenty of anti-Semitic feeling around, mostly out of fear and ignorance. But when things are hard, people look for someone to blame, and those who are recognizably different are the first targets, because they are the easiest.”
“I see.”
“Probably not,” Narraway said. “But you will, if you pay attention. I have found you lodgings in Heneagle Street, with one Isaac Karansky, a Polish Jew, well-respected in the area. You should be reasonably safe, and in a position to watch and listen, and learn something.”
It was still very general, and Pitt had little idea of what was expected of him. He was used to having a specific event to investigate, something that had already happened and was his task to unravel so he could learn who was responsible, how it had been done, and—if possible—why. Trying to learn about some unspecified act which might or might not happen in the future was completely different, and something too indefinite to grasp. Where did he begin? There was nothing to examine, no one to question, and worst of all, he had no authority.
Once again he was overwhelmed by a sense of failure, both past