The Whitechapel Conspiracy - Anne Perry [32]
He must try! He needed more from Narraway, even if it meant stifling his pride and making himself ask. When he left this tiny, drab room it would be too late. He would be more completely alone than he had ever been professionally in his life, until now.
“Do you believe there is someone deliberately trying to foment violence, or is it just going to happen by a series of unguarded accidents?” he asked.
“The latter is possible,” Narraway answered him. “Always has been, but I believe this time it will be the former. But it will probably look spontaneous, and God knows, there is enough poverty and injustice to fuel it once it is lit. And enough racial and religious hatred for there to be open war in the streets. That’s what it is our job to prevent, Pitt. Makes one murder more or less look pretty simple, doesn’t it, even close to irrelevant—except to those concerned.” His voice was sharp again. “And don’t tell me all tragedy or injustice is made up of individual people … I know that. But even the best societies in the world don’t eradicate the private sins of jealousy, greed and rage, and I don’t believe any ever will. What we are talking about is the sort of insanity where no one is safe and everything of use and value is destroyed.”
Pitt said nothing. His thoughts were dark, and they frightened him.
“Ever read about the French Revolution?” Narraway asked him. “I mean the big one, the 1789 one, not this recent fiasco.”
“Yes.” Pitt shivered, thinking back to the classroom on the estate again, and the word pictures of the streets of Paris running with human blood as the guillotine did its work day after day. “The High Terror,” he said aloud.
“Exactly.” Narraway’s lips thinned. “Paris is very close, Pitt. Don’t imagine it couldn’t happen here. We have enough inequality, believe me.”
Against his will, Pitt was considering the possibility that there was at least some truth in what Narraway was saying. He was overstating the case, of course, but even a ghost of this was terrible.
“What do you need of me, exactly?” he asked, keeping his voice carefully controlled. “Give me something to look for.”
“I don’t need you at all!” Narraway said in sudden disgust. “You’ve been wished on me from above. I’m not entirely sure why. But since you’re here, I may as well do what I can with you. Apart from being able to provide you with as reasonable a place to live as there is in Spitalfields, Isaac Karansky is a man of some influence in his own community. Watch him, listen, learn what you can. If you find anything useful, tell me. I am here every week at some time or another. Speak to the cobbler in the front. He can get a message to me. Don’t call unless it’s important, and don’t fail to call if it could be! If you make a mistake, I’d rather it were on the side of caution.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Right. Then go.”
Pitt stood up and walked towards the door.
“Pitt!”
He turned. “Yes, sir?”
Narraway was watching him. “Be careful. You have no friends out there. Never forget that, even for an instant. Trust no one.”
“No, sir. Thank you.” Pitt went out of the door feeling cold, in spite of the close air and the semisweet smell of rotting wood, and somewhere close by an open midden.
A couple of enquiries led him through the narrow, gray byways to Heneagle Street. He found the house of Isaac Karansky on the corner of Brick Lane, a busy thoroughfare leading past the towering mass of the sugar factory down to the Whitechapel Road. He knocked on the door. Nothing happened, and he knocked again.
It was opened by