Death On Blackheath

Chapter Ten

‘You bring ’er back ’ere by ’alf-past five, you ’ear me, young man? I don’t care ’oo you are, special police or not,’ the cook said fiercely, staring at Stoker as if he were an errant bootboy.

Stoker smiled, but Maisie got the answer in before he could speak.

‘Yes, Cook. Mr Stoker’s a Special Branch policeman. ’E wouldn’t never do nothing wrong.’ She lifted her chin up even higher and met Cook’s eyes directly, something she would not normally dare to do. But today she was in her best dress, the only one that she never used for work. The footman had polished her boots for her until the cat could see its face reflected in them. Mrs Kynaston’s new lady’s maid had put her hair up so that it was tidy, even at the back where she couldn’t see it herself. She was going out to tea with Mr Stoker, to be asked some important questions, so important they couldn’t be asked where other people might overhear them.

Stoker became serious again. ‘We shall have tea, and then I shall bring her back,’ he promised.

Cook gave Maisie a stern warning. ‘You be’ave, Maisie. Don’t you go gettin’ ideas above yourself or givin’ no cheek, you understand? And if you go repeating gossip what’s none o’ your business, you’ll find yourself out on the street with no place. You watch your tongue, and that imagination o’ yours.’

‘Yes, Cook. I won’t say nothin’ at all but the truth.’ Then, without waiting for the Cook to add anything more, she turned and walked away, her chin high, her back as straight as if she had been carrying books on her head.

Suddenly Stoker wished he had had a daughter. An old love of his had wanted to marry and settle down. She had been pretty, with dark eyes like this odd little scullery maid’s. Stoker had been frightened by the idea of such responsibility. He had hesitated too long. By the time he had come back from the voyage Mary had found someone else. It had hurt for a long time.

He caught up with Maisie and they walked together, he being careful not to outpace her. They went down Shooters Hill Road towards Blackheath until they came to the tea shop, where he had already reserved a table for them.

‘This yours, then?’ she asked as he pulled out the chair and she sat down, more than a little self-consciously arranging her skirts.

‘For now it is,’ he told her. ‘Would you like tea? And some cakes?’

She was too impressed to speak as the waitress stood ready to take their order. She had never been waited on before, or called ‘Miss’.

‘Tea for two, and your best cakes, please,’ Stoker requested. He was loath to admit it, but he was enjoying himself. But time was short, and he had a lot to ask her. He could not afford to wait until they began tea.

‘We found a hat up at the gravel pit we thought was Kitty’s,’ he began. ‘But then we learned that it wasn’t. Some stupid man put it there on purpose, just to get himself noticed.’

Maisie frowned. ‘That’s wicked. ’E just wanted ter make us all scared and sad, so’s ’e’d be talked about? Is ’e daft, or summink?’

‘I’d say so. But we found the receipt for the hat, and for the red feather, so we know it wasn’t hers.’

Her eyes were bright. ‘So mebbe she in’t dead, then?’

‘I’m going to believe she isn’t,’ he said firmly.

‘But some poor cow is, eh?’ She bit her lip. ‘An’ yer still gotter find out ’oo she is, an’ ’oo done that to ’er?’

‘If it isn’t Kitty, and isn’t anything to do with the Kynaston household, then it’s the police’s job to find out,’ he replied.

‘’Cos you’re special, right?’

He drew in breath to explain it a little less self-importantly but, seeing her bright face, changed his mind.

‘Something like that,’ he agreed awkwardly. ‘But I still want to find Kitty, and prove she’s alive.’

She put her head a little to one side. ‘Ter save Mr Kynaston?’

He found himself slightly uncomfortable. Her eyes were bright, almost black, and both quick and innocent at the same time. He hesitated as to how he should answer her. He needed information from her, and yet she was second-guessing him. If she caught him in any deception at all he would lose her trust, and therefore her honesty. He would also find that painful. He was getting soft.

‘Mostly,’ he agreed. ‘But I’d like to find Kitty just to know she’s all right as well.’

The tea came, with a whole plate full of little cakes and pastries. Maisie looked at them, then up at Stoker, then back at the plate.

‘Which one would you like?’ he asked.

‘The chocolate one,’ she said instantly, then blushed. ‘’Course, if you like it, the one with the pink sugar on it’d be all right.’

He made a note not to take the one with the pink icing, which he rather liked the look of too.

‘I’ll take the apple tart,’ he assured her. ‘You begin with the chocolate.’ He considered asking her if she would pour the tea, then changed his mind. He did ask her how she liked hers, and then poured for each of them.

She ate the chocolate cake slowly, savouring each mouthful.

‘To find Kitty, I need to know more about her,’ he began. ‘I know a few things. She could sing really nicely. She liked the sea, and ships, and used to collect pictures of ships from all over the world — with different kinds of sails.’

Maisie nodded with her mouth full. As soon as she had swallowed she answered. ‘Real clever with ’er ’ands, she was. Course, bein’ a lady’s maid an’ all, she could sew real well, even mend lace when it got tore.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘Please find ’er, mister. Tell us she’s all right … I mean … alive, an’ well …’

‘I will,’ he promised, and knew even as he was saying it how rash he was being.

Maisie sniffed. ‘P’raps she just went off wi’ that great dollop, ’Arry. D’yer think?’ She looked at the last piece of the chocolate cake on the plate. ‘But why couldn’t she ’ave told us? Why don’t she even write a letter, nor nothing?’

‘Are you sure she can write?’ he asked.

‘Yeah! She used ter write lists an’ things. She were teachin’ me.’ She looked again at the last piece of her cake.

‘Why don’t you finish that, and then take the pink one?’ he suggested. ‘I’m going to have that one with the raisins.’

She looked at him to make sure he meant it, then did as he said, taking a delicate sip of her tea in between.

He hid his smile. Perhaps he was going about this the wrong way. Maybe he should be looking not for where Kitty would go, but for where Harry Dobson would choose.

‘What was he like, this … dollop?’ he asked.

Maisie giggled at his use of her word. ‘’E were all right. Crazy about Kitty, ’e were. Thought as the sun shone out of ’er eyes. An’ I s’pose that’s worth something, in’t it? She just smiled at ’im, an’ ’e were made.’

‘But he wouldn’t suit you?’ he concluded. ‘Why not?’

She looked down at the pink-iced cake, a little embarrassed. ‘I in’t never goin’ ter be pretty like ’er, but I want ter better meself, all the same. I’d want someone wi’ a bit o’ fire, like; someone as wouldn’t let me run rings around ’im.’ She stopped, ashamed of her words. It was too self-revealing to say what she meant to somebody who didn’t know her — or any man at all, for that matter.

‘You might have to work hard to find someone you couldn’t run rings around Maisie,’ Stoker warned. ‘But I heard that Kitty was ambitious too. Was that wrong?’

Maisie sighed. ‘I s’pose when yer fall in love yer kind o’ lose yer wits. Least that’s wot they say.’ She bit into the pink cake, then looked at it. ‘This ’as got cream in it, all squashy and sweet.’

‘Don’t you like it?’ he said quickly. ‘You don’t have to eat it. Choose another …’

She looked up at him. ‘Oh, I like it. It’s a bit like bein’ in love, though, in’t it? I s’pose yer don’t know it’s goin’ ter ’appen until yer already bit into it, eh?’

‘Maisie, you are so clever sometimes you worry me. All these cakes are for us, so take as many as you like. Tell me more about Harry Dobson, and if you really think she liked him enough to have gone off with him … without telling anyone. She must have had a reason for that. What might it be?’ He drank some of his tea and added a little more, to keep it hot. Then he took another cake, because he was sure she would not take another until after he had. He had seen her count them, and she was going to be scrupulously fair.

‘Do you think he would have made her go secretly?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘No! ’E wouldn’t ’a made Kitty do nothin’ as she didn’t want. I reckon she must ’a bin …’ She hunched her shoulder a little and gave a tiny shiver, then she looked up at Stoker. ‘Mebbe she were scared? I used ter think as she knew one or two things as she’d sooner not a’ knowed about the mister an’ missus, like. Then I thought as it were just talk. But mebbe it weren’t? D’yer think?’

‘I think that’s very possible,’ he agreed, trying not to make too much of it and twist what she was going to say. ‘Any idea what she knew?’

She shook her head. ‘There are things as I don’t want ter know. Me ma always said that, told me not to see things or ’ear things as I shouldn’t. An’ if I did, ter forget it like it never ’appened.’

‘Very wise indeed,’ Stoker said gravely. ‘I am telling you exactly the same thing, and I mean it just as much as she did. Now tell me more about Harry Dobson. We’ve asked the regular police, but nobody seems able to find him. Did he do any special kind of carpentry work? Windows, doors, floors? Any particular builder he worked with?’ He reached for the teapot. ‘And have some more tea. If you’d like more cakes, we’ll ask for them.’

She took a deep breath, scooped up all her courage, and asked for another chocolate cake.

‘Kitty said as ’e were goin’ ter get a place ter work on ’is own, like,’ she answered. ‘’E were good at doors. Wanted ter make fancy ones, carved, an’ all that. But ’e could ’a gone anywhere for that.’

‘Where did he come from?’ Stoker persisted. This looked more hopeful.

‘Dunno,’ Maisie admitted. ‘North o’ the river, I think.’

‘Thank you. That’ll narrow the search quite a bit.’

She frowned. ‘Should I ’a said that before? Nobody asked. It were only wot ’e wanted. I dunno as ’e ever did it.’

He smiled at her. ‘Maybe he didn’t, but it’s worth a try.’

She sighed with relief and ate the cake.

Stoker had naturally been assigned to other cases since the failure to identify the body in the gravel pit, and then the assumption that it was indeed that of Kitty Ryder. Those cases could not be ignored; they genuinely affected the security of the country. Therefore it was wiser that he continue to look for Harry Dobson in his own time. He did not relish trudging around the streets, in and out of public houses, music halls, taverns, but it was very possibly a task that he would gain little from doing at midday. He had learned a lot from Maisie that would narrow the search. He must forget the local area and go north of the river and at least try to find someone who specialised in good doors, even ones with carving on.

It took him four evenings walking in the late February rain, his sodden trouser legs flapping around his ankles, his boots letting in the water from puddles and overflowing gutters. He spoke to local builders from Stepney, Poplar, east to Canning Town, then to north of Woolwich before he finally found Harry Dobson.

Stoker stood in the sawdust of the carpenter’s workroom and faced a fair-haired young man with heavily muscled arms and mild eyes.

‘You Harry Dobson?’ Stoker asked. Could this be the young man Kitty Ryder had run off with, abandoning her position, and her warm, safe home on Shooters Hill? Stoker had expected to dislike him, to see in his face some evidence of the nature that would abuse a young woman who trusted him. He saw instead only a young man who was slow, careful. At the moment, he seemed a little sad, as if he had lost something, and had no idea where to look to find it again.

‘Yeah,’ the carpenter said quietly. ‘You the feller with the warped doors?’

‘No, actually I’m not.’ Stoker felt like apologising. He stood blocking the doorway, but there was another entrance behind Dobson, leading into a timber yard. ‘Sorry. I’m looking for the Harry Dobson who courted Kitty Ryder, who worked up on Shooters Hill.’

The colour leached out of Dobson’s skin, leaving him almost white, his eyes dark hollows in his head.

Stoker tensed, expected him to turn and bolt out of the other door.

For seconds the two stood staring at each other.

Finally Dobson spoke. ‘You … you police?’

‘Yes …’ Stoker was rigid, all his muscles tight, expecting to have to chase this man, try to bring him down before he escaped. He was sick with misery at the thought, and also physically very aware of the other man’s strength. He was solidly built, muscular, and with powerful arms. Stoker was as tall, and wiry, but he had nothing like the sheer strength of Dobson. He would have to rely on speed, and years of experience in hard and dirty fighting.

Dobson took a deep breath. ‘You come to tell me they got ’er after all?’

Stoker was stunned. ‘Got who?’

‘Kitty!’ Dobson said desperately. ‘’Ave you come to tell me they killed ’er? I begged ’er not to go, but she wouldn’t listen to me.’ He gasped as if someone were preventing him from breathing. ‘I promised I’d look after ’er, but she wouldn’t listen.’ He shook his head. There were tears in his eyes and he did not even seem to be aware of them.

‘No!’ Stoker said quickly. ‘No … I haven’t come to say that at all! I don’t know where she is. I’m looking for her.’

The colour and the light came back into Dobson’s face. ‘You mean she could be all right?’ He took a step forward eagerly. ‘She’s still alive?’

Stoker held up a hand. ‘I don’t know! The last I heard about her for sure was the night she ran away from Shooters Hill, way back in January.’

‘She was with me then,’ Dobson responded. ‘I promised to look after ’er, an’ I did. Then all of a sudden, about a week ago, she said she gotter go again, and there weren’t nothing I could do to stop ’er. I begged ’er, told ’er I didn’t want nothing except to keep ’er safe.’ He shook his head. ‘But she wouldn’t listen …’ A look of helplessness washed over him again and Stoker was suddenly moved to an intense pity for him.

‘She’s probably all right,’ he said gently. ‘And she maybe was right to go. If I could find you, so could others. I don’t suppose you have any idea where she went?’

‘No …’

‘Perhaps that’s wise too,’ Stoker conceded, difficult as it was. ‘I’m a policeman, and I haven’t heard of anyone finding her, dead or alive, so she’s probably fine for now. You did the right thing.’

‘What about ’er?’ Dobson pressed. ‘What if they find ’er, then?’

‘We’ll do all we can to see that we catch them before they do.’ Stoker made a wild promise. He knew perfectly well that he was being unprofessional about this. Pitt’s influence was rubbing off on him!

Dobson nodded slowly. He believed him. ‘Thank you, sir,’ he said solemnly.

‘But you have to help me,’ Stoker resumed a more serious manner. ‘I can’t catch him without your help …’

‘Anything!’ Dobson agreed eagerly.

‘Why was she afraid of them? I know, but I want you to tell me what she believed.’

‘She saw things and heard them,’ Dobson answered straight away. ‘She knew as there were something really bad going on in that house. I mean worse than just people pinching the odd thing ’ere and there, or messing around with other people’s wives, an’ such.’

‘Not an affair?’ Stoker was surprised, immediately wondering if Kitty had told Dobson the truth. ‘What, then?’

Dobson shook his head. ‘She didn’t say. I asked her, told her to go to the police, but she said the police wouldn’t be no good. For a start, she didn’t think they’d believe ’er, considering who Mr Kynaston is, but also she said the police could be in on it anyway. And there in’t no use getting angry with me! Don’t you think I’d tell you, if I knew?’

‘Yes,’ Stoker said frankly. ‘I think you would. Thank you, Mr Dobson. If we find Kitty we’ll keep her safe …’

‘You can’t,’ Dobson said instantly. ‘You don’t know who’s after ’er.’ That was a challenge, not a question.

‘No,’ Stoker admitted. There was a chill inside him as if a gust of cold rain had drenched his clothes, touching his skin with an icy hand. He drew breath to promise that he would find out, then he realised he had made enough extravagant promises for today. That one he would make silently, and to himself.

That same evening, Pitt was sitting by the fire in his home on Keppel Street. The long curtains across the french windows on to the garden were closed, but he could hear the wind and rain beating against the glass. The children were in bed. He and Charlotte were sitting quietly by the fire.

It was Charlotte who raised the subject of the unidentified woman in the gravel pit again.

‘Do you think it’s over?’ she asked, putting her embroidery aside.

Pitt liked watching her sew. The light flashed on the needle as it moved in her hands, weaving in and out, and the faint click of it against the thimble on her finger was rhythmic and comforting.

‘What’s over?’ He had not been paying attention. To be honest he was nearly asleep in the warmth of his home, with Charlotte so close he could have leaned forward and touched her.

‘The Dudley Kynaston case,’ she answered. ‘I keep waiting every day for Somerset Carlisle to raise it again in the House. You know the hat wasn’t Kitty’s, but you don’t know that the body wasn’t — do you?’

He sighed, forcing his attention back to the issue. ‘No, and there’s no further evidence, so there’s nothing to pursue. We have to let it go.’

‘But you do know there’s something wrong!’ she protested. ‘Didn’t Kynaston admit to you that he had a mistress?’

‘Yes, but it wasn’t Kitty Ryder.’

‘You believe him?’ Her brow was puckered.

‘Yes, I do.’ He sat up a little straighter. ‘From everything the other servants say, Kitty was a handsome girl, ambitious to better herself, not to have an affair that could cost her her job. Or worse than that, get her with child, and then out on the street with no money, no position and no future. I believe Kynaston. I really don’t think a quick fumble with his wife’s maid would be worth killing her to keep secret. I don’t know why Kitty went, but I can’t see her succeeding in blackmailing him or — from what the other servants say of her — even trying it. It looks as if she ran off with Dobson and then perhaps was too ashamed to come home again.’

‘Maybe she was with child already, and she married him?’ Charlotte suggested. ‘I suppose you looked at all the marriage registers?’

Pitt smiled. ‘Yes, my darling, we did.’

‘Oh.’ She was silent for several minutes. There was no sound but the flickering of the fire and the rain against the windows.

‘Then what is Somerset Carlisle doing?’ she said at last. ‘Why did he raise the question in the House? He must have had a reason. For that matter, how did he even know so much about it?’

‘I don’t know,’ Pitt confessed. ‘He must be aware of something, or at least believe it. The information is not so difficult to get; he may have friends in the police, or in the newspapers.’

She frowned. ‘What could he know that we don’t? It has to be about Kynaston, doesn’t it?’

‘Or his mistress,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘He may have ways of finding out, on a personal level, that we don’t.’

‘Would it matter?’ She was puzzled, her embroidery still ignored. ‘I mean would it matter to Somerset? If it were someone he knew, or cared about, surely it would be the last thing he would want exposed publicly, wouldn’t it?’

Pitt considered the possibility of the woman being someone Carlisle disliked, but as soon as the thought formed in his mind he discarded it. Carlisle was unpredictable in many ways — eccentric at times, to say the least — but he would not have descended to using his privilege of parliamentary questions for the purpose of conducting a private vendetta.

Charlotte was watching him. ‘What is it?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know. Talbot’s involvement troubles me, but I can’t put my finger on it. Carlisle dislikes him profoundly. It’s there in his manners and his voice, polite and perfectly controlled so there’s nothing to get hold of. I don’t like Talbot either, and I’m perfectly sure he doesn’t like me. But as far as I know, it’s just because I’m not the sort of gentleman he thinks should hold this position.’ He felt suddenly self-conscious saying this. Charlotte was the daughter of a family of both very comfortable means and long accepted social position — not high society like Vespasia, but far beyond the servant status of his own family. A generation earlier he would have been her footman, not her husband. He was more conscious of it than she. Talbot’s attitude had brought it back again to the forefront of his mind.

‘Then he’s a fool,’ Charlotte said angrily. ‘It is too important a position to appoint people because of who their fathers were. We can’t afford anything but the best. To try to undermine that is disloyal to the country. Of which I shall remind him, should he be rash enough to make such a remark in my presence.’

He laughed, but it was a little lopsided. He knew that she was perfectly capable of doing exactly that.

‘Are you going back to Carlisle?’ she asked.

‘Not until I have something specific to ask him,’ he answered. ‘We know each other too well for me to fool him for an instant. I wish I were as good a judge of him!’

‘I’m glad you’re not much like him,’ she said gently.

Pitt was in his office in the morning, reading through reports from various officers around the country, when, after a brisk knock on the door, Stoker came in. Today there was nothing stoic about him. His usually bleak, rather bony face was alight with satisfaction. His eyes shone.

Pitt was in no mood for preamble. ‘What is it?’ he demanded.

‘I found Harry Dobson,’ Stoker said immediately. ‘He’s set up in his own workshop now, that’s why we couldn’t find him. Ordinary sort of bloke, but decent. I checked on him. No record with the police. Pays all his debts. Nothing bad known about him-’

‘Get to the point, Stoker. Where is Kitty Ryder?’ Pitt interrupted.

‘That’s it. She ran off from Shooters Hill with Dobson because she knew something that scared her so badly she thought she’d be killed if she stayed. Wouldn’t tell Dobson what it was, but it was bad enough that when the hat with the red feather in it was found, she thought someone was after her again and she moved off. Wouldn’t tell him where she was going. Maybe she hadn’t decided.’ His face tightened. ‘Or she meant to keep on moving, too scared to stay in one place.’

‘That’s what Dobson told you?’ Pitt asked.

‘I believe him,’ Stoker insisted. There was absolute certainty in his voice, in his face and in the way he stood square in front of Pitt’s desk. ‘I think he cares about her, and to be honest I don’t think he’s got the wits to lie anyway. It fits in with everything else we know.’

‘Still leaves a lot unanswered,’ Pitt said unhappily. What was she frightened of? Who did she think was pursuing her? Like Stoker, he wanted to believe that she was alive. He also wanted to believe that Kynaston had not harmed her, and the body in the gravel pit was someone they did not know — and, of course, if he were honest with himself, something that the local police could deal with.

‘Sir?’ Stoker said a little sharply.

Pitt brought his attention back to the moment. ‘I suppose you checked with the locals that at least some of them had seen her with Dobson after the night she disappeared?’

‘Yes, sir. Only got one, but I didn’t find Dobson till yesterday late afternoon. I was lucky he was still working.’

‘Late?’ Pitt said curiously.

‘Yes, sir. About seven o’clock.’ There was a very faint colour in Stoker’s lean cheeks.

‘Your own time,’ Pitt remarked.

Now the colour was deeper. ‘I thought it mattered, sir,’ he said a little defensively.

Pitt leaned back in his chair and regarded Stoker with interest and a growing sense of sympathy. This need to follow up a missing person, even in his own time, was a side of Stoker he had not seen before. It was interesting that Stoker was embarrassed about it, too. Far from feeling irritation or contempt for him, Pitt liked him the better for it. It showed a gentleness, a vulnerability he had not thought Stoker possessed.

‘It probably does,’ he agreed. ‘Then the question is, what did she learn that was so terrible, or she thought was so terrible, that she fled without taking anything with her, or giving notice to anyone? And why has she not got in touch with the Kynaston house, or the police, to say that she’s alive and well?’

‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ Stoker said, regaining a little of his composure. ‘It’s pretty plain from what she said to Dobson that she thought someone had come after her, and she wouldn’t tell Dobson who. But nobody does that about an affair, whoever it’s with.’

‘No,’ Pitt conceded. ‘In fact I wonder now if Kynaston confessed to one at all only in order to satisfy our curiosity and get us to stop looking for anything further.’

Stoker bit his lip. ‘Can’t get away from that one, sir.’

‘For heaven’s sake, sit down!’ Pitt told him. ‘We’ve got to go back to the beginning on this. Did Dobson say if the blood and hair on the areaway steps were hers? If they were, how did they get there? I assume he didn’t fight with her? Were they put there to mislead? Did someone try to stop her? Who? It’s hard to believe it was any kind of coincidence.’

Stoker coloured again. ‘I didn’t ask him. I’ll go back and do that. Most likely seems to me that it was some kind of accident. Maybe she tripped.’

‘One accident I can believe in,’ Pitt answered. ‘Two I can’t. Whose body was it in the gravel pit? The local police can’t find anyone missing, and they’ve checked for several miles around. Whoever it is, poor woman, she died violently, then was kept somewhere for several days between the time of her death and the time she was found in the gravel pit. And she was appallingly mutilated. There’s no accident whatever in that.’

‘No, sir. Someone’s playing a very funny game with us. The stakes must be high.’

‘Very high,’ Pitt said gravely. ‘And I’m not sure we even know who the players are.’

‘Is Mr Carlisle a player, or a pawn?’ Stoker asked.

‘That’s another thing I don’t know,’ Pitt replied. ‘I’ve known him a long time. I think it will be wise to assume he’s a player.’

‘On whose side?’

‘Ours — I hope.’

‘And Mr Kynaston?’

‘I think that is where we begin. Delegate everything else for the time being.’

‘Yes, sir.’