Treachery at Lancaster Gate

Chapter 12

Tellman hugged his daughter so tightly she giggled, then gave a little squeak of protest. He let her go, reluctantly. For him Christina was still a kind of miracle, and her laughter touched him so deeply he was a little embarrassed by it.

He tickled her gently, and pulled faces at her, just to hear her laugh again. He kissed Gracie softly and more lingeringly than he had done for some time, then he went out of the front door and walked off down the road without looking back at them. Perhaps they were not at the window any longer, but if he turned round and saw them, he would remember all the things that mattered to him, and he might lose his resolve to follow the story of Ednam’s corruption to the very end.

If Lezant was innocent, what were all the things that followed from that? It was what Pitt was thinking, which was why they had quarreled. Tellman had refused to follow that path of thought because of where it would lead. It was time to face the truth.

He crossed the street and carried on along the icy pavement, his collar turned up against the wind, although he was so deep in thought he was barely aware of it.

Why would Lezant have taken a gun? He bought opium regularly. It was an arrangement both he and the supplier needed. Neither of them would jeopardize it. Tellman wished the police had been able to find the supplier. There were plenty of records of Ednam trying at the time, but whoever it was had been too careful and too clever for them.

Or had Ednam not tried at all, because he did not need to? Was it possible that he knew? That was a hideous thought. Tellman racked his brain for some reason why it could not be true. He found none.

If protecting the seller of opium was Ednam’s real corruption, it would explain why they had never found the man-why, in fact, the seller had not turned up at the arranged place at all that fateful day. Ednam had warned him before the ambush was ever laid!

But why had Ednam, or any of his men, brought a gun? Who had they meant to shoot? Not the dealer. Then it could only be either Alexander or Lezant. Or did they fear some third person turning up, and then mistook Tyndale for him?

Neither Lezant nor the supplier would have wanted a confrontation. Had they known of it they would simply have chosen another place-or waited for a better time, even a different day.

Damn Ednam!

The first thing to do was look more closely at the exact record of the gun, or even better, to find it in the evidence of the case. An exact description of it would be necessary, its make, caliber, and so on. Then he could check back through all records to see if such a gun had ever been taken into police possession as evidence. Guns were rare in towns, especially handguns. Shotguns were common enough in the countryside. Most farmers had at least one, more likely several.

At the station he was greeted with some irritation by Whicker.

“What is it now?” he said, looking up at Tellman standing in front of him. His face was pinched and his skin had the pallor of a man who had lost too much sleep and shaved with more haste than care.

“I need to see the gun Lezant used to shoot Tyndale,” Tellman replied.

Whicker’s anger was instant. “Whatever for?” he demanded. “Damn waste of time. Haven’t you got anything useful to do? How about finding the bloody lunatic who killed three of our best men? Or is that too much for you?”

“I want to do more than catch him,” Tellman replied grimly, keeping hold of his temper with some effort. “I want a clear chain of evidence right from beginning to end. Isn’t that what you want?”

Whicker was taken aback. Obviously he had not expected a complete and slightly aggressive answer. It caught him off balance.

“Thank you,” Tellman said, as if Whicker had agreed. It was neatly done, but it gave him no comfort. He did not like being at odds with another man in the force. They should be on the same side.

The sergeant at the evidence room made heavy weather of it. He did not like men from other stations reexamining old cases. Had Tellman not outranked him, he would have questioned what he wanted it for. As it was, he moved with unnecessary deliberation while Tellman shifted from one foot to the other and finally paced the floor. He took a full half hour to report that it appeared to have been mislaid. He could not say when, or by whom, and smiled at Tellman as if that were an achievement.

Tellman felt his temper slipping. If he lost it he would have given victory to the sergeant.

“Then I’ll have to make do with second best,” he said levelly. “Look at your records and tell me when it was first logged in, who by, and connected with what crime.”

“I don’t know that I can do that, sir. Take me a long time. I got other things to do.” He looked at Tellman blandly.

“Then you’d better get on your knees, praying that it doesn’t turn up in another crime, hadn’t you!” Tellman snapped back. “Since it was last in your keeping, you’ll be the first on our list of suspects.”

The blood ebbed out of the sergeant’s face like a receding tide. “Things get lost! People take ’em out an’ don’t bring ’em back!”

“Didn’t give it away to someone, did you? Sell it, maybe?” Tellman suggested.

“Of course I didn’t!” There was now a fine sheen of sweat on the sergeant’s skin. “You can’t say that!”

“Then show me the records,” Tellman insisted. “Unless you’ve been told not to by someone? Who would that be? Ednam’s dead. Who else needs to cover it up?”

The sergeant blanched. “I’ll get what we ’ave.” Before Tellman had to argue any further, the man turned away from the counter where they had been speaking and disappeared into another room.

Tellman waited a full quarter of an hour before the sergeant came back, carrying two large ledgers in his arms. He set them down on the countertop.

“There you are, sir. You’ll find them all under the correct dates.” He clearly was not going to assist any further, so Tellman took them from him and started to search for himself. He knew the date of Tyndale’s death, so the reference was not difficult to find. The gun was logged in with an accurate description of its make, caliber, and the fact that it was empty of bullets at the time it was repossessed by the officers in charge.

Tellman made a note of the details, and then started to look backward in the inventory for any guns taken into evidence and held for any length of time. It was a tedious and very time-consuming task because the ledger was full of property of all sorts. However, although there were a large number of weapons, mostly knives or cudgels of various sorts, there were relatively few guns.

It took him almost two hours before he found another gun exactly like the one that Lezant had apparently used, the same make, the same caliber, only this one had been fully loaded. The bullets had been taken out by the sergeant when it was put away.

“Do you remember this?” Tellman asked him.

“No, sir. Can’t ’ave been me on duty then,” he said blandly.

“Looks like your signature here,” Tellman pointed out. “Looks like your writing and your name.”

The sergeant’s face was a careful study in blank insolence. If he was trying to disguise the feeling in any way, he failed.

“You asked if I remember, an’ I don’t! Yer ought to leave that alone, Mr. Tellman. You’re one of us, or yer was! Yer didn’t ought ter do this.”

Tellman felt cold, and profoundly vulnerable. He found his voice husky when he spoke. “What is it you’re asking me to forget, Sergeant? That a gun and bullets went missing from property, and turned up later in a murder committed by Dylan Lezant? And no one here knows how it got from here into his possession?”

“Mistakes ’appen.” He stared at Tellman with a flat, angry expression. “An’ five men are dead, or as close to as matters,” he went on. “?’Ow’d yer like to ’ave yer face so burned yer own mother wouldn’t know yer? Or lose one o’ yer arms?” He looked Tellman up and down. “Still find that uniform fits yer, do yer? Still think yer got the right ter wear it?”

Tellman’s hands were shaking.

“Yes, Sergeant, I do. Ednam’s gone, and no one else is going to risk his neck covering for you.” He pushed the ledgers back across the counter, then turned and walked out.

Outside in the street there was a very light snow falling and it was bitterly cold, more than Tellman remembered from when he’d arrived.

The next thing to follow up was the timing of the tip regarding the drug purchase. How had Ednam known where it would be, when, and who would be involved? To take other men with him, he had to have a story to account for how he had learned the information.

The inquiry led him eventually to a Sergeant Busby, who, under considerable pressure, admitted that he had owed Bossiney a favor for some time: a mistake overlooked. He had mentioned information to Bossiney about an upcoming drug sale, but might have forgotten to tell all the appropriate superiors as well. Perhaps the information had lost its way somehow? He was no longer certain exactly where it had originated.

Tellman did not press him any further. There were lies within lies. What had happened to the written reports? No one knew. Perhaps in the haste and shock of Lezant shooting at them, things here and there had been lost. Busby defied Tellman to prove any different.

Late in the evening when the snow had stopped and an icy wind sliced in from the east, Tellman did what he had dreaded he must. He went to see Bossiney at his home.

The hospital had released him, but they had warned Tellman that he was still in a very bad state.

It would be a long time before he returned to work, if ever. Even then, it could only be some kind of desk duty, where the public would not see his face.

Tellman found him sitting beside his own fire, dressed in a nightshirt and a thick jacket to keep him warm. Even so he was rigid, as if knotted against some cold no one else in the stuffy room could feel. Bossiney’s wife, small and frail-looking, left them alone as soon as she had received a nod from her husband that she should do so.

Tellman took the other chair and forced himself to look at Bossiney’s face. It was scarred hideously, and still inflamed so that his right eye was almost invisible. How could Tellman inflict further pain on him by asking questions about past wrongs? There was too much suffering altogether. Newman and Hobbs were dead, and now Ednam too. And, of course, Tyndale and Lezant. Nothing anybody said was going to alter that.

For that matter, Alexander Duncannon was destined to die no matter what happened. If he wasn’t hanged, the opium would kill him, only more slowly. Did the truth matter so much? It would hurt deeply and endlessly, regardless of his acts.

“What do you want?” Bossiney asked him.

Tellman took a deep breath and let it out slowly. His heart was hammering in his chest as if he had been running.

“The drug sale that went wrong.” He cleared his throat. “When Tyndale was shot…”

Bossiney stared at him from his one good eye. His face was so badly disfigured it was impossible to read any expression in it.

Tellman began again. “The drug dealer that didn’t turn up. Did you ever get him?”

“No,” Bossiney answered. “Why do you care now?” Part of his mouth was scarred, but it did not slur his speech.

Tellman chose his words carefully. “I don’t, except that I’m wondering who gave you the information that set up the operation in the first place.”

“Don’t know,” Bossiney replied. “I’d say ask Ednam, but he’s dead, isn’t he!”

There was something in his answer, not the words but a change in the tensions in his body, even in his twisted face, that made Tellman believe he was lying, if not in total then at least in part.

“Yes, you do,” he said. “Nobody sets up a five-man operation like that unless there’s pretty good information about it. It wasn’t just a petty sale. Five of you! And armed!” He was taking a chance and he knew it. He hated doing it. These were his own men, not the enemy! Friends, more than that, allies. “You were expecting something hard and dangerous.”

Bossiney sat motionless, except that his left hand curled over, gripping the thick fabric of his jacket.

“We weren’t armed. Lezant had the gun. He shot Tyndale.” He said the words as if by rote, with no hesitation, not even any emotion. He seemed tired of repeating them. Did that mean they were lies? Or simply that he did not care anymore? Perhaps the tide of violence and tragedy had drowned such things in him.

Then would he be ready to tell the truth at last?

Tellman felt brutal. He was attacking a beaten man. Did the truth matter enough for that?

Yes, it did.

“As you said, Ednam is dead,” Tellman said flatly. “You can’t protect him anymore. There’s only you and Yarcombe left.”

“Then it doesn’t matter, does it?” Bossiney said bitterly. “Leave it alone. Let him rest in peace.”

“Who? Ednam? He was the one who shot Tyndale?”

There was silence, absolute except for the ashes settling in the hearth. Who would pay for coal, for food, for anything, if Bossiney was dishonorably discharged from the police?

“I don’t care if it was you,” Tellman said rashly. “I have to know the truth to get Alexander Duncannon. He keeps swearing Lezant was innocent. That’s why he blew up the house! Is he wrong? Maybe he didn’t put that bomb there, then?”

Bossiney blinked his good eye.

Tellman waited.

“I don’t know where the tip-off came from,” Bossiney said at last. “I got it from Busby, but…but he told me later that it was false. I never told Ednam. I forgot, until it was too late, then I never said. We had a lot of bad things going on then.”

“So Ednam took the gun…” Tellman said quietly, as if he knew.

“Yes…”

“And he shot Tyndale?”

“We thought it was the drug seller come…” Bossiney must have realized how futile that sounded now.

“And then made it look as if Lezant shot him,” Tellman finished.

“They were drug addicts anyway! Both of them!” Bossiney protested.

“Were they?” Tellman’s heart was beating so hard it almost choked him. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure! They were pale-faced, sweating, shivering, like something out of a nightmare. Both of ’em.”

“Duncannon and Lezant?” Tellman held his breath.

“Yes…” Then Bossiney realized what he had said. They had been close enough to see their faces, to recognize Alexander, who they said had not been there! He seemed to crumple up inside, as if suddenly he had become a smaller, older man, robbed of part of himself.

“Duncannon escaped and you put the gun into Lezant’s hands. What did you do? Knock him out, then put it beside him and swear it was his?”

Bossiney did not answer, but nor did he deny it.

“And you let him hang.” It was a statement. There were not many questions left now, but Tellman had to ask them. “Why?” he said. “You knew he was innocent.”

Bossiney breathed in and out, slowly, for so long that Tellman thought he was not going to answer.

Bossiney was watching him. His face was puckered with scars, his skin purple-red, his mouth pulled at one corner. It was impossible to read.

Tellman felt a rage burn up inside him, not at Bossiney, who God knew had paid an unimaginable price, but at Ednam, who had put him there, and the whole system that had conspired to allow the rot to creep through so far.

“I didn’t want to know,” Bossiney said at last. “Ednam said it was the right thing to do, and I believed him because I wanted to. Going against him would have cut me off from all the rest of the men. I’d ’ave been on my own. I wouldn’t ’ave lasted. Don’t you know what it’s like to be out there with everybody against you? What about my family? Who’d look after them if I’m gone?”

Tellman said nothing. He hated everything Bossiney was saying, and everything he had failed to do. And yet he was choked by the pity inside him.

“You don’t know what power he had,” Bossiney went on. “He knew people a lot higher up than us. You can’t win. Best to hang on to what you got, an’ not look at what you don’t want ter see.”

Is that what Tellman had done himself? He would like to think it wasn’t, but it would be a lie. There were things he must have seen, half seen and refused to recognize for what they were. He had turned a blind eye and called it mercy, when perhaps cowardice would have been a truer name for it.

It was the breaking of illusions that hurt most. The reflection of what he wanted to see was perfect, until someone threw a stone into the water and it fractured into countless pieces.

He stood up. What could he say to Bossiney? The man had paid more than enough. Tellman could not bring himself to make it worse.

“I’ll find proof of it without you,” he told him, knowing how much he might regret those words, but he had to say them now. “I know where to look.”

Bossiney did not answer. Tears filled his good eye.

Tellman turned away. He went out of the room, closing the door behind him, and out into the street again. He would send a message to Pitt letting him know what he had learned. He intended to find whoever had protected Ednam, and figure out why. Had Ednam blackmailed someone? Or had that person used Ednam, paying him and protecting him?

“Just delay it, that’s all we’re asking,” Jack said desperately. It was late the following day and they were sitting in Pitt’s office. Outside the fog was closing in like a blanket, wrapping them in a muffling darkness that denied even the sharp sound of horses’ hooves on the road.

“I can’t,” Pitt told him. It was what Bradshaw had asked him to do, but he had decided that the seriousness of the case far outweighed political or diplomatic expediency. And he was under no obligation to take orders from Bradshaw. “I have to charge Alexander. I can’t hold him unless I do.”

“Then release him into his father’s custody,” Jack protested. “For God’s sake, Thomas, do you think Godfrey won’t keep him safe? He’ll have him locked in his room, if that’s what you want.”

“What I want is to have him locked in a hospital ward,” Pitt said tartly, “with a doctor who’ll give him some sort of treatment. The man’s a wreck.”

“Then let him be at home.” Jack’s face lit with hope as if at last they had reached some meeting point. “We’re nearly there with the contract. The Chinese have no arguments left!”

Pitt kept his patience with difficulty.

“I can’t let him go, Jack. He killed three policemen.”

Jack was exasperated. He jerked his hands in a gesture of futility.

“He’s manipulating you, Thomas!”

“Of course he is.” Pitt’s own voice rose. “He’s manipulating all of us. God knows, we’ve done it enough to him.”

“The law has, maybe.” The color rose hot up Jack’s face now. “Not his family, and certainly not the government.”

Pitt’s eyebrows rose. “Do you think he sees a distinction between the government, the law, and his family? Don’t be so naive!”

Jack winced.

Before Pitt could frame a gentler answer, one that took account of yet another major hope crashing because of individual vulnerability, he was interrupted. There was a sharp rap on the door, and without waiting for permission to enter, Stoker walked in.

“Sir.” He barely inclined his head to acknowledge Jack. “I just got a message. Inspector Tellman’s gone after some of the bent coppers by himself.”

Pitt froze. For a moment it was as if he could not command his muscles. Then he forced himself to stand. “Where?” he demanded. “Where is he, man?”

“Word to me was Tailor’s Alley,” Stoker replied. His face was very pale and there was a slight nervous twitch in one temple. “I’ve got a cab waiting, sir. I only came for you because you know the business he’s been about. He’s stirred up a right hornets’ nest.”

Pitt wanted to know how, but there was no time for questions. He turned to Jack. “I’m sorry but this can’t wait.”

Jack’s face was grim. He glanced at Stoker, then back at Pitt.

“I’m coming too-”

“You can’t,” Pitt cut him off. “It could get very nasty.” Perhaps he owed him something of an explanation, a few words at least. He spoke as he went over to a heavy cupboard. He took the key ring from his pocket and unlocked the door, then an inner safe door beyond that.

“Tellman’s been running down police corruption,” he said to Jack. “Last message I had from him, he’s got proof and admission that Lezant was innocent.”

“I’m coming with you,” Jack repeated.

Pitt took a revolver out of the safe and closed the door, then the outer door.

Jack did not move. In the gaslight he looked older, grayer at the temples than Pitt had realized. The lines in his face showed more deeply.

Pitt was in no mood for another battle, nor was there time. Tellman could be in very bad trouble. They could be too late already.

Stoker put out his hand, the light gleaming on the barrel of the gun he was offering Jack.

Jack took it, not even glancing at Pitt. He handled it easily, as if he had used such a weapon before.

“I’ve got another one.” Stoker looked briefly at Pitt. “We should go, sir.”

Jack put the gun in his pocket and went out of the door a step behind Stoker.

The hansom was waiting at the curb, the horse restless in the hard, cold wind.

“Tailor’s Alley,” Stoker told the driver, and stepped up quickly, Jack and Pitt behind him.

They moved off at a rapid pace, the sudden motion jerking them momentarily out of their seats, then back again. They rode in tense silence, sweeping on past lights blurred by fog. They were out of the main streets now, keeping up speed even in stretches of near darkness. The fog made them blind, as if they were suddenly in an unknown city. Distances were distorted. It seemed miles to the Edgware Road. Nothing was quite where you thought it was. The Praed Street station came and went in an instant. Even sounds lost distinction and echoed as if the walls of fog were solid. The journey had the repetitive, nonsensical quality of a nightmare.

Pitt felt his muscles clench with fear. Would they find Tellman already dead?

The cab swung round the corner a little fast, pitching them onto one another. By the time they had righted themselves they were at another corner, which the driver took more slowly this time; then the cab pulled to a halt.

Pitt leaped out first. Through the gloom ahead of him he could see the entrance to a narrow opening and, just below the lamp, the name Tailor’s Alley. There was a man huddling in a doorway and propping himself up against it. He looked to be either drunk or asleep.

Stoker was out beside him. There was just a breath of wind, clammy, cold, and the fog moved sluggishly.

“Keep the cabbie!” Pitt ordered.

“He’ll wait,” Stoker assured him. “Haven’t paid him yet.”

Pitt held his hand over the gun in his pocket and moved forward, his feet silent on the rough cobbles. He strained to listen, but he could hear nothing except the faint drip of water from the eaves. The man in the doorway stirred and lifted his head. He was a stranger.

Where was Tellman? Would they find only bodies, injured or dead, in the alley? No, that was absurd. The man would hardly be sleeping in the doorway if there had been a battle. Perhaps he wasn’t asleep, just drunk?

Were they too late? Or wrong. It was all misinformation. Pitt half turned to look at Stoker.

Stoker glanced up at the sign, now behind them, and then before Pitt could stop him, he went round the corner. He swiveled and strode back in barely two seconds.

“Wrong place,” he said, his voice tight. “There’s no one there!”

He broke into a run, reaching the cab and grasping the driver’s coattails to demand his attention. “Is there another Tailor’s Alley?” he asked as Pitt and Jack reached the cab and climbed back in.

“Tailor’s Row a mile away,” the cabbie replied.

“Then get to it!” Stoker ordered him. “Fast as you can!”

Grumbling, the cabbie obeyed. They jolted forward again and followed back alleys, avoiding the main traffic. Pitt was totally lost. They lurched and slithered like a drunken eel through one shortcut after another until they pulled up again, and this time there was no mistake. The sound of gunfire was clear even before their feet touched the cobbles.

Stoker threw a few coins to the cabbie, then followed after Pitt and Jack.

Another gunshot rang out, then a crack and a whine as the bullet hit stone, ricocheted and was lost.

The fog closed over them, muffling sounds. From what Pitt had heard, the shots were coming from the other end of the alley, fired toward them. Now the silence was heavy. He strained his ears, and heard brief, slithering footsteps, a voice, and then nothing.

Jack was beside him, gun in his hand. Stoker was a few yards away, on the other side of the alley and moving toward the corner, where he would be able to look into the other alley and see what was happening.

“Tellman!” Pitt called out, then immediately moved a few yards.

A shot rang out, ricocheting off the stone wall where Pitt had been.

There was a shout from ahead, then silence.

The fog drifted, constantly changing the shape of things.

Suddenly there was another shout, and a thudding of feet. Someone swore and there were more shots, then a cry as if at least one bullet had found flesh. More shouting. Voices Pitt did not know.

Stoker was out of sight, already around the corner.

Pitt inched forward. He could see a figure flattened against a doorway opposite him, bent over a little as if to protect one arm. His other held a gun. The man was average height, and thin, like Tellman, but his face was turned away so in the meager light Pitt could not be sure.

In the deeper shadow ahead of Pitt someone raised an arm, then as he fired toward the figure near Pitt, another man ducked and ran closer, holding his fire until he was almost to the doorway. He was thick, heavyset.

From the other side of the alley, Stoker fired at the heavyset man and he went down immediately.

The fog cleared for a moment. Four figures appeared at the far end of the alley and there were several more shots fired. A bullet struck the wall next to Pitt and sent up fragments that stung his cheek.

Pitt shot back. He was now almost certain that it was Tellman in the doorway, standing awkwardly as if he had been hit.

The men at the far end of the alley were inching forward. There was no cover except the alcove of doorways, no more than six or eight inches deep.

Stoker fired two more shots, which were answered immediately.

Four men. Was that all? Could there be a fifth, or even a sixth, moving around behind them?

“Watch your back!” Pitt called out to warn Jack and Stoker. “May be more behind us.”

Jack swore, his voice a little high as if his throat were closing up, but he turned sideways to look. He was just in time. He knocked into Pitt’s shoulder to send him sharply to the right, almost losing his balance, as another volley of shots rang out, all close around them. One actually tore the sleeve of Pitt’s coat.

Jack let out a sharp cry, muffled instantly. His breathing became rapid, turned to gasps for a moment, then steadied again.

“You hit?” Pitt asked, his heart pounding.

“Not badly,” Jack replied. “Just my arm.” He raised his own gun and shot back, three times. There was a cry as the man behind them staggered and fell.

Ahead there was a shout of rage and three men at the far end charged forward.

Pitt fired at them until his gun was empty. Tellman crumpled and slid down the doorpost into a huddle on the ground.

Pitt reloaded and went forward, shooting at the men ahead. He aimed for their bodies; there was no choice. All he could think of was Tellman, wounded, perhaps bleeding to death. Between all three of them they probably had only a few rounds left. Every shot must count.

One of the men coming toward them floundered and fell facedown on the cobbles, his gun clattering over the stones.

Stoker and Jack were both firing.

Another man fell. For an instant his police uniform was clearly visible. What the hell had they come to that they were killing one another in a fog-bound alley?

Then another thought forced its way into Pitt’s understanding. If anyone had heard the gunfire and called the police, they would see Pitt, Stoker, and Jack-three men in civilian clothes-firing on police in uniform! Tellman would be in uniform, but who was to say they had not shot him too! Not Tellman if he were dead! Was this what had happened to Lezant? Who was to say what had happened and who had shot whom? Only the survivors!

Pitt raised his gun and shot straight at the man ahead of him. It was as if he were a boy again, on the estate, shooting pheasants. You aimed for a clean kill. He squeezed the trigger. Handguns had little aim, not like a rifle. But they were close to each other, just a few yards.

The man went down.

One of the men shouted, “Don’t shoot! I give up!” And the next moment his gun clattered on the stones.

The other man hesitated. A shot from Stoker crackled a yard from him.

“I give up!” he shouted, a high-pitched sound in the dark and the fog. Then his gun too fell to the ground.

Jack stood holding his gun in his good hand while Stoker ran forward and cuffed both men with their own manacles.

Pitt hurried over to Tellman. He was crumpled up, but definitely still breathing, although his face was creased with pain and there seemed to be a lot of blood on his arms and chest.

“Hang on,” Pitt said as gently as his own ragged breath would allow. “Let me see.”

Tellman relaxed a little, allowing Pitt to look at his wounds, but the fear did not leave his face.

There was shouting behind them now, and a clatter of horses’ shod feet on the stones.

Stoker was yelling but Pitt could not make out the words.

Someone came up behind him.

“Let me see,” he said firmly. “Need to get him to a hospital.” He put his hand on Pitt’s shoulder. “You’ve done all you can. I’m a doctor. Let me see!”

Then there were more people, other police from somewhere. The gunshots had been heard and help sent for.

Jack was beside Pitt. In the lamplight his face looked pale. There was blood on his sleeve and his coat was ruined, but he looked relieved, almost happy.

Two men were lifting Tellman. Pitt followed them to a cab, then turned to help Stoker explain to the sergeant who seemed to be in charge.

“Special Branch,” he said simply. “Sorry about this. It’s about the Lancaster Gate bombing…”

“Yes, sir. Good job done, then. Now get into the cab and let’s take you all to hospital.”

Pitt did not answer. There was nothing he could say that was adequate, and his arm was burning like hell where the bullet had torn the skin. It was nothing, barely even a decent flesh wound. All that mattered was whether Tellman would make it.