Treachery at Lancaster Gate

Chapter 10

Charlotte put hot porridge in front of Pitt and passed him sugar and cream, then poured him a second cup of tea.

“Thomas, I think you should at least see the newspaper, even if you don’t read it all. Perhaps some of the letters…”

He looked up at her. “I know,” he said quietly. “A good many people are concerned about finding the Lancaster Gate bomber, but even more about allaying this suspicion of the police, and the disgrace of corruption. It is doing a lot of damage.” He heard the strain in his voice, even though he had tried to hide it from her.

“It’s more than that,” she replied, not moving away even to put the teapot down or resume her place opposite him. “I haven’t mentioned this before, because I hoped he would leave it, but he’s getting worse…”

“Who is?”

“Josiah Abercorn. I didn’t know much about him, so I asked Emily if he was important. I’m sorry, but apparently he is.”

She had his attention now.

Charlotte refilled her own cup and sat down.

“He is very much for the police. He wants justice for those who were murdered, and all police treated with more respect. He wants the bomber found and hanged, and for Special Branch to stop maligning them, by implication.”

“And does he have any practical suggestions as to how we should do that?” Pitt said bitterly. “Most of us want to believe that the police are strong, clever, and honest. They are the shield between us and the reality of crime.”

“Of course he’s saying what everybody wants to hear,” she said patiently. “He’s ambitious to be a politician, no doubt destined for high office. What else would he say?”

“Is he?” He was surprised. He should have remembered that.

“He’s not elected yet,” she said with a downward turn of her mouth, “but he aims to be, and he’ll succeed.”

“You don’t like him,” he observed.

She looked surprised. “Of course I don’t. He’s clever, opportunistic, and he’s criticizing you. But you can’t ignore him.”

He smiled. “What should I do? Write to The Times myself? And say what? ‘Regrettably the police are imperfect, and it is beginning to look very possible that they were in too much of a hurry to close a particularly ugly case in which they may have contributed rather a lot to hanging the wrong man’? I would like to be sure of that before I say it. I’d like to be even more sure that there is a better answer than that.”

“And is there?”

He let out a sigh. “I don’t think so. But I’m not going to say anything until I know for certain, and can prove it. Has anyone replied to Abercorn?”

“Victor did yesterday. It was rather neat, actually. He explained why Special Branch business is secret, and anyone who read it would see Abercorn as being irresponsible. But people tend to see what they want to. Narraway is playing to reason-Abercorn to panic. Panic usually wins. I’m sorry.”

Pitt did not argue. She was right. He read Abercorn’s letter and appreciated exactly what he was doing, fanning the indignation and the fear at the same time. He could also understand it. Saying “Everything is under control, leave it to me” doesn’t soothe any anger or grief. It sounds like the indifference of someone who is not himself in any danger.

Charlotte was watching him, waiting for his response.

“I know,” he conceded. “There’s little I would like more than to clear the police of any wrong, in Lezant’s death or anything else beyond ordinary errors now and then. But I can’t.”

She did not reply, as if waiting for him to go on. It was a relief to share it all with her. He had not realized how much until he began to tell her. His tea went cold and he did not notice.

When he had finished she looked sad, a pity in her face.

“From what Alexander says, it was probably Ednam who shot Tyndale,” Pitt finished. “But they all had to cover it up and blame Lezant.”

“And Lezant is dead, and Alexander probably a mass murderer, at least in the eyes of the law,” Charlotte added. “Who is Tyndale? Could he have been an opium dealer?”

Pitt stood up. “I’m not sure. I’m going to see his family. I don’t suppose I’ll learn much, but I have to try.”

She nodded and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek as he turned and went toward the hall, and the front door.

Pitt had received Tyndale’s address from one of his men, and he caught a hansom in Russell Square, giving the driver instructions. Then he sat back and considered what he would say to Tyndale’s widow. There was very little about her in the notes from the original case. Perhaps the poor woman had been too shocked by her sudden and pointless bereavement to say anything. Ednam had left no description. Pitt wondered if not speaking to her sooner was an oversight that could matter.

He also thought about Josiah Abercorn. If Charlotte was correct and he was busy courting public support, he would find a great deal of it. The bombing had stirred up a powerful undercurrent of fear. Most people were frightened by the specter of uncertainty, disorder, and panic in the streets. There were more and more immigrants in London, and they were easy to identify. They looked different, sounded different. Too many of them were poor, and willing to work harder than other people, for less money. They also ate different food and seemed to worship different gods. They were an easy focus for the fear that displayed itself as anger.

Was Abercorn feeding that fear, and hoping it would in turn feed him? It was despicable, but he certainly would not be the first, or the last, to use it for his own ends.

And perhaps he was also quite genuinely afraid that social upheaval was already awake and restive. Worse could follow: violence imported from Europe, where revolution had been suppressed, speech restricted, and there was poverty and overcrowding so bad it seemed to suffocate the breath in your throat.

His work at Special Branch had necessitated Pitt talking to a lot of foreigners, many from Russia and the countries lying on its borders. Their desperation was in their faces, in the threadbare clothes they wore, the food they ate, the odd, sometimes colorful phrases they used as they tried to become used to English and its eccentricities.

He thought of the peaceful countryside of his youth, to some boring and bare of idea or adventure. Now it seemed like a place of lost peace. The world was changing too rapidly, like a train careering toward the horizon, out of control, threatening to crash.

He arrived at the Tyndale house, alighted, and paid the driver. He stood on the pavement and stared around him as the hansom moved away. It was a quiet neighborhood, and a little shabby. A million people lived in houses like these, outwardly much the same, inside each one unique, with the possessions and the record of one family, perhaps several generations of it.

He walked up to the door of number fifty-seven and knocked. As he stepped back, so as not to threaten whoever opened it, he noticed that the bricks needed repointing in half a dozen places. A slate in the roof was loose, but well away from the door. If it fell it would land harmlessly in the garden, in among the perennial flowers, which were now neatly cut back, ready to grow again next year.

The door opened and a maid looked out curiously. She was young, not more than fifteen or sixteen. She reminded him of Gracie, when he and Charlotte had first married. One young girl was all the domestic help they could afford. He found himself smiling at the memory.

“Yes, sir? Can I ’elp yer?” she asked.

“Good morning. My name is Commander Pitt, of Special Branch. Will you please ask Mrs. Tyndale if she can spare me a little of her time? It is important.”

It took the maid a moment to grasp what he had said, but after the initial amazement, she nodded, dropped an awkward curtsy, and asked him in. She left him in a rather chilly parlor, and went off very swiftly to fetch her mistress.

Pitt looked around. One could tell a great deal about both past and present from the parlor of a family home, or, in wealthier houses, from the morning room. It was usually a mixture of what one wished people to believe was part of one’s ordinary life: the books, the pictures, the ornaments, the best furniture; and also the things one thought well of, but did not actually find comfortable: straight-backed chairs, vases given as gifts by relatives one could not afford to offend, books one ought to have read but never would.

Mrs. Tyndale came in five minutes later. She was a slender woman with a grave, interesting face and a streak of white across the front of her dark hair. When she spoke, her voice was husky, and had a faint foreign accent he could not place. Instantly she shattered all his preconceptions.

“Good morning, Commander,” she introduced herself. “I am Eva Tyndale. What can I do for you?”

He answered her quite candidly. “I apologize for intruding on you, but recent events have obliged me to look into police conduct at the time of your husband’s death. I am sorry to have to raise the matter again. This should have been done at the time, but it wasn’t.”

She raised fine, black eyebrows. “Recent events?”

“The death of three policemen and injury of two more in the bombing at Lancaster Gate.”

“Oh. I see.” She made a very slight gesture with one hand, inviting him to sit down. “I have no idea how I can help. I did read enough about it to realize that they were the same men who investigated the shooting of my husband. I had assumed it was coincidence. Presumably they often work together, and their job is a dangerous one. But how does my husband’s death concern Special Branch? He was killed by accident, by a young man addicted to opium. Why is Special Branch involved in that?”

“Because there is a possibility that the two events are connected,” Pitt answered levelly. “If not in fact, then in someone’s imagination.”

“My husband was there purely by mischance.” She sat in the chair opposite him, her hands folded gently in her lap, very white against the black of her dress. She was not beautiful, but there was an intensity of character in her face that held his attention, and he found it pleasing. He regretted having to ask this of her. It had to be painful.

“Mr. Tyndale did not normally pass that way?” he asked.

“Seldom. He had come home and gone out again, to look for our dog, which had chased a cat and disappeared.” She took a deep breath and quite openly steadied her voice, keeping her self-control with difficulty as memory of that night returned. “He never came back. But the dog came home an hour or two later. It has an absurdity about it, doesn’t it? Life can be both tragic and ridiculous at the same time.”

“Indeed. The police record says very little about him…” he began.

A bitterness made her face bleak for an instant, then she mastered it. “They asked a great deal at the time, but all in an effort to find out if he could have been the dealer in opium their trap was set to catch. Apparently that man never came…if he existed at all. The young man was arrested and charged with shooting my husband to death.” She twisted her hands in her lap, just a tiny movement. “He denied it. I didn’t know whether to believe him or not. I can think of no reason in the world why he would shoot James. Or the drug seller either, for that matter.” She gave Pitt a small, sad smile. “I would have thought it far more likely he would shoot one of the policemen, or even more than one, and then make his escape. Wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” Pitt admitted. “But then I am on the scene a couple of years too late. I understand your husband dealt in books, Mrs. Tyndale?”

“Yes, he sold rare books and manuscripts,” she replied.

Pitt had already looked around the room and seen that a once very comfortable style of life had suffered a little since Tyndale’s death. There was a slight shabbiness, obvious from cushions worn and not replaced, net curtains carefully mended, the loose slate on the roof, old paint here and there, a cracked paving stone in the garden. How wide a tragedy can spin its web.

“Did Inspector Ednam, or any of his men, ask you about your husband’s business, or his habits at the time? Anything about him?”

“Are you suggesting there was something to hide?” she said, almost without expression. How many times had she fended off the intrusive questions of neighbors? Why Tyndale, why not their husbands, or sons? It is easier to think misfortune is somehow deserved; then you can make yourself safe from it.

“No, Mrs. Tyndale. I am wondering if they did not ask precisely because they knew your husband’s death was completely random, exactly as you said. There has been some suggestion that Lezant shot him deliberately. But since he had never met him that seems very unlikely.”

“Then why would he?” At last the pain came through her voice.

“There is a young man, another one, who says he was there also, and escaped. He claims that Lezant did not shoot your husband, but one of the police did. He always claimed so throughout the trial right until Lezant’s own death, but he was not believed.”

“Except by you?” Mrs. Tyndale asked, her eyes widening.

“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “There are questions unanswered, things that don’t appear to make sense, as you have pointed out.”

She looked at him steadily, and then averted her eyes. He caught the bright light on tears for an instant. Then she moved and the shadow changed.

“I would be grateful if you proved without any doubt that my husband was a chance victim and nothing more. It is all I can do for him now.”

“Has anyone suggested otherwise, apart from the police, who are now under far closer scrutiny?”

She looked back at him. “Those who wish to protect the police,” she answered. “I can understand why. We all need to believe the police are strong, honest, brave, everything that will stand between us and the violence and darkness we are afraid of, whether it is real or not.”

He knew exactly what she meant.

He spoke with her another twenty minutes, learning more of James Tyndale, and then excused himself and left. He would check everything she had said, but the more he considered it, the less did he believe that Tyndale was anything more than a bystander caught fatally in someone else’s disaster.

Tellman also had read Josiah Abercorn’s letters to the newspapers, and found that the man who had taken Ednam’s place was in profound agreement with Abercorn’s point of view.

“Thank heaven somebody’s speaking out for us,” Pontefract said as Tellman closed the door behind him and sat down opposite the desk.

Tellman felt it would be foolish at this point to do anything but agree.

“Indeed.” He nodded. “I hope that very soon this kind of defense won’t be necessary.” He had felt uncomfortable reading the most recent letter at his own breakfast table. There was an anger in it that suggested, without saying so outright, that any questioning of police morality was a sympathy with anarchists. And yet he understood that. It was his own instinctive response. He disliked change. The old values were good, familiar to everyone, proven over the years. It all came down to trust.

“We need to win the public back on our side,” he added, watching Pontefract’s face. He hated having to, but he was far too good a detective to take anyone’s innocence for granted. He was disturbed to find that he wondered if Pontefract were involved himself, even if it were no more than turning a blind eye for fear of seeing something he would prefer not to, something that might require him either to be involved or deliberately to speak out against…what? Bribery? Concealing a fatal crime, and sending an innocent man to the gallows? Murder?

How far had he come from just a couple of weeks ago that such a thought would even come into his mind? It made him feel chilled inside, and slightly sick.

“Of course,” Pontefract agreed. He seemed to be weighing what he would say next, searching Tellman’s face. Finally he came to a decision. He leaned forward a little across the desk and lowered his voice. “I have looked a great deal more closely at Ednam’s record over the past several years. To be frank, Tellman, I’ve discovered a few things that are very disturbing. He seems to have been blind, perhaps intentionally, to quite a few…regrettable things. Mostly slight, you understand, but he allowed a pattern of dishonesty to develop. I’ll see that it stops. Good men, basically, but grown a little lax. We need discipline, just like anyone else.”

He looked at Tellman very steadily, trying to read his face.

Tellman was unpleasantly aware of it. Under the palliative words, there was a battle beginning. Tellman was being told to leave it alone. Should he do that? Allow the situation to heal itself? But would it? Wasn’t that turning the blind eye, as he had all along? Only now it would be worse, because he knew.

“A good man, Abercorn,” Pontefract went on. “On our side. We need more like him. Understands the job. Not just that, he knows we are the line between safety and lawlessness. It’s not Special Branch who need to enforce order, for all their responsibility for security and, I daresay, much higher pay-it’s us.” He nodded. “Got to keep public respect. I know you can see that. You’ve always seen it. The ordinary working man, with a family to care for and nothing to do it with but what he earns. Duty to them. Damn Ednam and his slack ways, little lies here and there, pocketing the odd shilling to let things slip. Overzealous in some things, too lenient in others. We’ll put it right.” He stopped and waited for Tellman to reply.

The silence grew heavy.

“Glad you agree,” Tellman said at last. “We’ll have to begin with this opium dealing disaster a couple of years ago.”

Pontefract shook his head. “Ah-no. Can’t do much now. All the poor devils involved in that are dead, or as good as.” He shrugged. “Nothing really to look into. We’ll never know if Tyndale was the dealer or not, but since he’s dead, too, it’s over with. Now-there’s the matter of Trumbell and whether he lost his temper and hit…what was his name? Holden? Yes…Holden. Nasty piece of work. I think a good caution, perhaps dock a week’s pay, and that’ll be settled. He won’t do it again. Give him a fright and show that we haven’t forgotten it.” He smiled as if Tellman had already agreed with him. “And keep better records of all things taken as evidence. Make sure it’s double-checked and there’s a signature on everything. Carelessness, not malice, you know?”

Tellman could see by the bland smile on Pontefract’s face that nothing he said was going to make any difference. The defense was prepared and he was not going to be allowed to break through it, not without injuring himself, and making enemies.

Pitt had been right. There was an ugliness here that would hurt all of them, one way or another.

Tellman persisted in listing and clarifying everything, out of stubbornness rather than belief he could win, and by the time he left for home it was dark outside. The east wind had a biting edge to it. On the pavement the ice was already hard, and his weight cracked it where he stepped on shallow puddles.

He began intending firmly not to tell Gracie anything about it. However, she, too, had read Abercorn’s letter, albeit repeated in an evening newspaper.

“?’E’s wrong,” she said bleakly after they had finished supper and Gracie had checked on Christina. Tellman always liked it if he could get home in time to talk to his daughter. She listened wide-eyed, watching his face and trying to mimic him, copying his tone and now catching many of his words, even if they were ones she did not understand at all. It was an intense pleasure to him and he had been known to go and waken her deliberately, if he were home late, just for the pleasure of seeing the recognition and the excitement in her eyes.

Tonight he had not done so. She was teething and Gracie had settled her. She herself looked tired and worried. She picked up his moods as if she could read the thoughts written in his face, or perhaps the weariness of his step in the hall, the way he sat with his feet before the fire.

“Is he?” He was referring to Pontefract, in reply to her observation. “If it’s put right then isn’t it time to forgive and move on? Maybe Ednam was the only bad apple in the barrel?”

“They in’t apples,” she argued stubbornly. “And you know that! When did you ever blame them above yer for things yer done wrong? You get ’ot enough under the collar if they take credit for what other people do right!”

That was true.

“It’s not the same thing-” he began.

“In’t it? Looks just the same ter me. You saying they’re just like machines? Yer push this button an’ this ’appens, push that one an’ summink else does.”

“No, of course not! But if Ednam was bad, he’s gone. I don’t like Pontefract, self-satisfied…” He left out the word he was thinking. He was careful not to swear in front of her; he thought better of her than to do that. “But he’s right. We’ve got to forgive somewhere, and the sooner the better. We rely on each other. Trust men and they’ll trust you. It can be hard out in the streets, Gracie.”

“I know that, Samuel,” she agreed quickly. “An’ don’t think I don’t worry about yer, ’cos I do. Yer can forgive someone ’oo ’urt yer yourself. Yer got the right to do that. But someone what ’urts other people, if ye’re the law, yer gotta draw a line an’ say, ‘If yer do this, then it’ll cost yer.’ If yer don’t, then they know they can do anything they like, and yer won’t ever do anything.” She drew in her breath. “Yer got no right ter do that, Samuel. Yer’d be lying to everyone.”

“But-” he started.

“No!” she said hotly. “If yer tell a child ‘no,’ but what ye’re doing means ‘yes,’ then they don’t know what you mean. They’d stop trusting yer because yer in’t telling the truth. And yer really in’t protecting them the way yer promised. Yer in’t leading them right. I can tell yer one thing for sure, Samuel, yer in’t teaching my child that! It’s wrong.”

He looked at her where she sat stiff-backed in front of him, her face set, her eyes meeting his without a flicker.

He thought for an instant of asking her if she would make exceptions for certain cases, then knew that she would not. She would tell him to say what he meant in the first place, and stick to it.

“Is it bad?” she asked when he still didn’t answer.

“I think so,” he said grimly. “There’ve been too many lies. They should have done something years ago. It’s going to be hard…”

A momentary fear flickered in her eyes and her lips tightened. “Yer’d better be careful, then, ’adn’t yer!”

He kept on thinking he knew her and she wouldn’t surprise him anymore, and again he was wrong.

“Have you got any cake?” he asked.

She knew she had won, and she smiled at him, taking a deep breath. She had not wanted to be right. It would have been so much easier to tell him to leave it alone.

“Yeah,” she said airily. “I got one piece left. I’ll get it for yer.”

In the morning Tellman decided to look again at other cases since the death of Tyndale, ones that Ednam had worked on, and particularly those that included Newman, Hobbs, Bossiney, and Yarcombe. He was returning down an alley toward his own station, carrying a piece of testimony that had been key to a conviction, when he heard footsteps behind him, light and rapid, like someone attempting to catch up with him. He turned as a man bumped into him, knocking him off balance. He fell against the wall, bruising his shoulder.

He righted himself immediately, regaining his stance, ready to fight. The man stood in front of him. He was young, strong, and on the balls of his feet, like a boxer.

This looked as if it were going to be ugly. He felt a sharp tingle of fear. They were alone. Tellman had learned how to defend himself. He was wiry, and very fast, but what if the man had a knife?

The man stared at Tellman unblinkingly.

“Sorry, Inspector,” he said with a very slight smile down-turned at the corners of his mouth. “Didn’t mean ter scare yer. Not a very good neighbor’ood, this. Mebbe yer shouldn’t be ’ere alone, like. I’ll walk yer to the main road.”

Tellman felt a sweat of relief break out on his body. He racked his memory to recall where he had seen the man. His face was vaguely familiar, but he could not place it. It was recently, and they had spoken only briefly. He knew the intonation, and the man had addressed him by rank. Had he arrested the man for something? There was challenge and dislike in his eyes.

Tellman swallowed, and calmed his breathing. “It’s not far,” he said, dismissing the suggestion. He did not want the man with him. More than that, he could not afford to have the man know how much he had startled him…no, that was less than the truth. For a moment he had been afraid. His heart was still hammering in his chest. It was a long time since he had walked the beat, aware of the dangers around him.

Now suddenly he knew who the man was: Constable Wayland, one of Whicker’s men.

“No trouble, sir,” Wayland said, falling into step beside Tellman as he started to move again. “Just make sure ye’re all right, sir. We gotta look out for each other, right? Even off duty…”

“Thank you, Constable Wayland.” Tellman forced his voice to be calm, level. Should he let the man know he had understood the implicit threat? If he didn’t, then maybe it would be repeated, less pleasantly. Or was he imagining it? Making himself ridiculous, as if he had a guilty conscience?

They walked in silence along the narrow pavement, matching step for step, until they came to the main thoroughfare, and then stopped at the curb.

“You’ll be all right now, sir,” Wayland said, nodding with satisfaction. “Good day, sir.”

“Good day, Constable,” Tellman replied, and then, watching the traffic carefully, he crossed the road, still uncertain, turning it over in his mind.

Neither was the following day a good one. He continued to look over records, finding even more discrepancies now that he was looking for them. There were figures that did not match, even a couple of statements that had been altered very carefully, very cleverly. He could feel his stomach knotting as he began to appreciate how deep the corruption ran.

He met with resistance everywhere, sometimes even open dislike. One constable fetched him a cup of tea and spilled it all over his jacket and trousers.

“Oh! Terribly sorry, sir!” he said, barely concealing his smile.

It was hot, almost hot enough to scald, if Tellman had not moved quickly enough to miss most of it.

There was a snigger of amusement from one of the other men, quickly changed into a cough, then another. The two other constables in the room also began to cough, as if in a chorus.

Tellman tried to make light of it, but he was sharply aware of how much worse it could have been. He was wet from the tea, and it would be very uncomfortable, not to mention embarrassing, when it got cold. It would be obvious, as if he had wet himself. Hotter, and it might have taken the skin off his belly. He forced the childhood memory out of his mind. It was unbearable. A wave of the old helplessness swept over him at the memory of the laughter, the mocking. He banished it. He was superior to all three of the men in this room. They were all pretending to be helpful when they were either guilty of changing evidence or stealing money themselves, or turning a blind eye to it.

Was his pretense not to know a mark of cowardice? They would smell fear. Bullies always did. How rash would it be to let them know he knew, face them? If he did not, was he then telling them he did not dare to?

What would Gracie think of him? What would he rather do? Face them and possibly be attacked? Or retreat, and be ashamed of himself, not be able to tell Gracie, in fact lie to her, even if only by omission?

“Don’t worry about it, Constable,” he said. “It’s unimportant.” He looked the man in the eye and saw a faint flush in his cheeks. “You seem to be afflicted with carelessness. You can’t add your figures right either. There are some very odd mistakes here. Oddest thing about it is that it’s always short! Never money over. Noticed that, did you?”

The constable’s jaw hardened but there was fear in his eyes. “Can’t say as I did,” he answered. “But when yer done a long day on the streets, ye’re so tired yer can ’ardly see straight, an’ yer feet ’urt something terrible, could be as figure work in’t perfect.” He leaned forward a little too close to Tellman.

Tellman did not retreat.

“Yer ever done that, Inspector? I ’spec you did, way back when you were a constable, like? When yer dealt wi’ people yerself, instead o’ tellin’ others to. When yer broke up the fights down by the dockside, or in the dark alleys where most folk got the sense not to go.” He cleared his throat and went on. “When yer knew that yer mates were be’ind yer? When yer’d bin in fights, got beat up, punched, sworn at, put on the ground an’ kicked. An’ yer never told on others, ’cos they was the ones as came an’ got yer, risked their own necks ter see yer were all right!” He took a hissing breath. “An’ when yer made a mistake, they picked up after yer, and kept their mouths shut. Yer know about that, do yer? Or ’ave yer forgot, like, now as yer don’t do that anymore?”

Tellman felt cold right through to his bones, as if the chill came from inside himself. There was no point in saying anything to this man, was there? They both knew what was behind the argument. If you expect loyalty, then you give it…all the time. You don’t pick and choose and give it only when it doesn’t cost you.

But there was an anger in Tellman as well, a rage for what was happening to good and bad men alike. Above all, for him at least, there was the destruction of an ideal that mattered. It had been at the heart of his purpose since he was that boy in the school yard, humiliated and needing something to believe in, to drive him forward. To get him up again when he fell, made mistakes, was too tired to think clearly.

“I understand,” he said quietly.

For an instant there was pain in the constable’s eyes, and then he smothered it. “Easy to say…” He forced the words through a tight jaw. “Got children ter feed, ’ave yer?”

Tellman wanted to lie, to protect his family; then he realized how pointless that was. Anybody could find out, in moments. Now he was really afraid.

“Yes, I have,” he answered, but his voice was shaking. “Why? Would you hurt them too, if I don’t keep silent and cover for your thefts?”

The man paled. “God in ’eaven! Wot d’yer think I am?”

Tellman answered honestly. It was too late for lies. “A man who began honest, doing a job that’s hard, at times dangerous, and gets paid too little, but who was obliged to realize that he depended on the loyalty of others. In your case that price was that you turned a blind eye to corruption…to petty theft, the occasional lie, lost evidence, sometimes more violence than was needed. Each step leads to the next one, until you’re too far in to get out again.” Now the pain was clear in the man’s face. “Tell me I’m wrong,” he went on. “Tell me this is what you want.” He hated saying it. “Tell me this is how you want your kids to see you: a man who dishonors his job, when it gets tough. That’s what you want them to be too-when it’s hard, too much trouble, then cheat.”

The constable’s muscles tightened, stretching the fabric of his uniform, and his fists clenched. There was hatred in his eyes, at Tellman, for making him see and despise himself. He struggled for words, and found none.

“You raised the question of family,” Tellman added. “Did you think to threaten mine because someone has threatened yours?”

The man was breathing heavily, struggling with himself.

Tellman waited.

“No,” he said at last. “No, of course not. What the ’ell do yer think we are?”

“Caught,” Tellman said grimly. “All caught.”

The man let his breath out. “What yer going ter do, then?”

Tellman had given himself no time to think. He had to answer straightaway, or he would look weak, even stupid. “Give you the chance to put it right,” he replied. “Whicker knows. Special Branch knows. Kill me and you’ll hang.”

“God! Wot’s yer-” He stopped. He had not even imagined such a thing, and it was clear in his face.

Neither had Tellman thought of it when he began, but now it was too obvious to evade. In minutes he had moved away from petty theft, failure to report a stupid incident and have it dealt with, a disciplinary action a sergeant could have taken, a bad note on the man’s record, maybe a stop of pay. Now they were talking of murder and the gallows. How the hell had he allowed this to go so far?

“You have a choice,” he said. “But you have to make it quickly. And I’ll take a constable with me, from now on, so don’t get any stupid ideas.”

The constable looked like a man who had been struck from behind and found himself on the floor, bruised and bleeding, without even knowing how it had happened.

When Tellman left that day and walked away from the station, he tried not to increase his speed. He must never let anyone see that he was afraid.

He reported both his findings and the exchange to Pitt, the latter not so much because Pitt needed to know, although he did, but for Tellman’s own safety. And he would do as he had told them he would.

He was glad to see that Pitt appeared to be as distressed about it as he was himself. He had said that they must find the corruption, if it was there. He had even worn an expression as if he expected it, but now that it was real, it hurt him too. Disillusion was a deep and ineradicable pain, even if the beliefs had been unrealistic, taken for granted, and built to protect one’s own dreams.

Pitt was sent for by Bradshaw again. It was five o’clock, well after dark, and the lamplight glittered on frost as the hansom pulled to the side of the road. Pitt got out and paid his fare. He walked carefully across the ice-covered pavement and up the steps. His breath was visible for a moment, there and then gone again.

Upstairs in his office Bradshaw was waiting for him, standing by the window looking out at the lights of the city, the glittering reflections on the river. He turned as Pitt was shown in. He looked pale, drained not only of color but also of energy.

“Your man Tellman has been creating hell all over the place,” he said bitterly. “Have you thought one step ahead of what you’re doing? Have you given the consequences even a moment’s consideration?”

“He’s not my man, sir,” Pitt reminded him. “He’s regular police, and he hates doing this as much as any of us. But since the bombing at Lancaster Gate, there’s no alternative.”

“Of course there are alternatives!” Bradshaw replied, but there was more desperation in his voice than anger. “Get whoever did it, and put an end to this…witch hunt! Ednam’s dead. For God’s sake, leave what’s left of the man’s reputation. For the police force’s sake, and the man’s family.”

“It’s going to be very ugly.”

“Uglier than dead policemen all over the wreckage of a house, burning debris in the streets, and accusations of police corruption through half the city?” Bradshaw demanded. There was pain in his voice and in his eyes, and another thing: a shadow Pitt thought was fear.

“Yes, sir,” Pitt said quietly. “The injuries and deaths are unchangeable. The fires are out and the debris is cleared up. The accusations are only words, so far. With care, we can settle most of them without prosecutions.”

“We’ve got to prosecute whoever set those bombs!” Bradshaw slashed his hand in the air to emphasize the point and perhaps because he was so filled with unbearable tension that he needed some violent action to release even a little of it, just for a moment, before it built up again.

“Of course,” Pitt agreed. “I meant prosecution of police who have committed theft, embezzlement, perjury, and possible uncalled-for violence.”

Bradshaw closed his eyes and blasphemed under his breath.

“You can’t prosecute dead men!” he retorted. “And so help me, Pitt, I’ll have your job if you try. I have friends in high places too!”

Pitt did not resent the abuse, or even the threat. He could see that Bradshaw was a man at the end of his endurance. There seemed to be some deep and appalling pain beyond the revelation of corruption, one that he could not speak of. Why should he share it with Pitt anyway? They were not friends, were no more than professional acquaintances, and seldom met.

“Yes, sir,” he said quietly. “And it will be public, as all court cases are, unless it involves spying and secrets that cannot be revealed for reasons of state.”

“Of course it would be public!” Bradshaw kept his voice under control only with difficulty. “Making it public is the most important part of it! People need to believe in the police, that we are efficient and powerful and will protect them from anarchists, lunatics, and random violence. Why the devil am I explaining this to you?”

Pitt felt his own muscles tightening, but the power of emotion in the other man outweighed his own. He breathed in and out slowly.

“Whoever it was had a reason, sir. The second bomb, which destroyed property but injured no one, makes it pretty clear that he intends to draw attention to something, and is prepared to go to any lengths at all to do it.”

“To the length of being hanged?” Bradshaw said with surprise.

“Yes, sir, I think so.”

There was a flicker of hope in the commissioner.

“Is he insane? Do you know that for certain?”

“If it is who I believe, then he is addicted to opium. Do you know anything about severe opium addiction, sir?”

Bradshaw’s face drained of all color until he was ashen. For a moment Pitt thought he might actually faint. Then as Pitt took a step forward, Bradshaw straightened himself and seemed to regain his self-control.

“What…what are you talking about?” His voice wavered and for a moment hit a falsetto note. He cleared his throat. “Are you saying that one or more of our men is…addicted…to opium? I doubt very much that that…could be true.”

Pitt struggled to keep the conversation impersonal, as if he had not noticed Bradshaw’s emotion.

“No, sir,” he said levelly. “But I think the man who set the bombs may be.”

“Opium addiction does not make a person violent, Pitt. I don’t know where on earth you got that idea from. It’s nonsense-dangerous nonsense. I would have thought that a man in your position would have been less…ignorant.” He almost spat the word. Then he seemed to regret it. “I’m sorry…that was…”

“I am aware of the causes of opium addiction,” Pitt spoke quickly, to rescue him. “In many cases it is medically prescribed, for severe pain. Some people can give it up easily enough when the pain is gone. Others can become addicted on a single dose. I mentioned it because I believe the bomber may be addicted, through no fault of his own.”

“It does not make people violent!” Bradshaw repeated intently, his face still almost bloodless.

Pitt’s mind was whirling. Bradshaw spoke so passionately that there had to be someone he loved who had experienced addiction, or did so even now. A son, perhaps? Was he as damaged as Alexander Duncannon? It must be terrible for any parent, but for one in the police, who saw what it actually brought, not in nice clean words but in the reality of the flesh, the real pain, the nightmares and nausea, the fears and despair, it must be even worse-if anything could be!

What was the kindest thing he could do? Say he understood? He didn’t, not in more than imagination. Or pretend he had not seen? Give the man an illusion of privacy?

He must answer.

“No, sir. I think it possible that this occurred because a friend of his was victim of police corruption, or so he thought. This friend, a fellow addict, was blamed for a crime our man was certain he had not committed, but on police testimony he was tried, convicted, and hanged. Our man has attempted since then to get the case reinvestigated, and no one will listen to him. At least this is his belief.”

Bradshaw cleared his throat again, as if he did not trust his voice. “Is this…is this true?”

“I don’t know. As I said, it is his belief. And for the purpose of driving his actions, that is all that would be necessary.”

“And he is still addicted to opium?”

“Yes. It is killing him, which he knows, so he has very little to lose.”

“Poor devil. Do you know who his supplier is?” Bradshaw’s voice was not much more than a whisper.

“No. He won’t tell me. I am not surprised. The man stands between him and the agony of withdrawal. I believe if it is sudden enough, in some cases it can lead to a terrible death.”

“Indeed,” Bradshaw said hoarsely.

Pitt hesitated, looking for something to say that was not shallow, as if he had neither brain nor heart. He could not help believing that Bradshaw had someone intensely close to him who was in just such a private hell.

“What are you going to do?” Bradshaw asked.

“I don’t know,” Pitt answered carefully. “First of all I must make sure that it is as I believe.”

“And if it is?”

“Arrest him. If we hold him in custody I will see that the police surgeon gives him that sufficient to manage his pain. I can’t leave him free: he’ll bomb again. He wants us to reopen the case.”

“But you said the other man was hanged!”

“He was. Our man’s whole purpose is to clear his name.”

“Who is it?”

“I’ll tell you that, sir, if I am right. Until then I must save those close to him from any breath of scandal.”

Bradshaw’s face was gray.

“For God’s sake, be careful. Suppliers of opium, or any other drug, have no pity. They’ll kill you, if you threaten them. I mean it, Pitt. They will!”

“Yes, I daresay they will,” Pitt agreed.

Bradshaw started to say something else, and then changed his mind.

Pitt ended the awkwardness by excusing himself, closing the door behind him. He walked away exhausted by the pity that had seared through him for Alexander, for his family, for Bradshaw, who he was now certain was trapped in the same hell.

Even as he went down the steps into the street, he was aware that such grief could touch anyone. Happiness was fragile, and infinitely precious.