Treachery at Lancaster Gate

Chapter 3

Tellman sat beside the fire in his own home, the place he most loved to be. It was a small house, one he could afford without anxiety, in a neat row of other houses along a quiet street. He did not know the neighbors well, but his wife, Gracie, did, and liked them. Several of them were other young women, like herself, with small children. They were all respectable. Gracie had wanted a house like this, with her own husband and her own children, for as long as she could remember dreaming about anything at all.

She had been born in the East End, in poverty and with no education. She had begun work at thirteen, as a maid for Charlotte and Pitt, soon after they were married. She was still barely five feet tall, but with enough spirit in her for two people twice her size. Charlotte had taught her to read and write as well as how to cook and generally keep house.

Tellman sat in the rocking chair in the corner of the warm kitchen and watched as Gracie fed their daughter. It was a sight that was infinitely pleasing to him. Nothing in the world would ever matter quite as much as this.

Little Christina looked at him once or twice, puzzled, because he had not picked her up and cuddled her, as he usually did. He had a heavy cold, and he did not wish to give it to her. He probably missed the touch of her face more than she missed him. He smiled at her now, even though he did not feel like it.

The bombing had horrified him, especially since the victims were fellow police. But his job had caused him to see a great deal of violence and tragedy over the years. What disturbed him more deeply was the talk of corruption. Of course people made mistakes, everyone did, and sometimes the results were serious. He had no doubt that at times people lied, either to protect themselves or someone else. Men had been known to keep the odd few coins, perhaps even a guinea, almost a week’s wages.

Tellman despised it, but he would have faced the guilty man. He had done, on occasion. You did not go behind a man’s back; you gave him the chance to put it right.

But two men were dead, and three men crippled and might yet die. Tellman had been to the hospital and seen them, not to ask any questions but out of respect. They had looked awful. Bossiney would probably live, but he was in agony from the burns that had devastated half his face. Yarcombe was silent, stunned by the loss of his limb, unable to grasp that it was not there.

Ednam had been more consumed by fury at the attack on his men than at his own pain. At least that was how it had seemed. He had glared at Tellman and demanded from him an oath that he would find who had done this, and see them hanged for it.

Tellman had replied that he would do it regardless of pressure or threats, and he had meant it. It had taken an effort to forgive Ednam for even asking.

Now Pitt was saying that the strongest lead they had, one they could not ignore, was that the whole atrocity was a revenge against police corruption so vile it had ended in the deliberate hanging of an innocent man!

It was nonsense, of course. The man who made the charge must be mad. In any other circumstances Tellman would have pitied him, for something had clearly unhinged his mind. Apparently the man hanged was a close friend. If anyone had so terribly damaged those Tellman loved, would he have lost his balance, his wits, maybe even his morality? He could not bear to think of it.

He stood up now and walked over to Gracie. “Sorry,” he said quietly. “I’ll carry her up.” He smiled at Christina, who put her head to one side and slowly smiled back at him. Suddenly he was choked with emotion. He reached forward and picked her up, holding her close, taking in the sweetness of her, soap, warm wool, smelling faintly milky.

“C’mon, angel,” he said a little gruffly. “It’s your bedtime.”

He carried her up the stairs and into her room, next to theirs and where, with the doors open, they could hear her if she cried. He took off the blanket around her and again marveled at the embroidery on her nightgown, little flowers worked in pink. He remembered Gracie stitching it, only a few months ago. How quickly babies grow. Every day was precious.

He tucked her into the bed and kissed her. “Good night,” he whispered.

“Night,” she answered, closing her eyes. She was probably asleep before he reached the door.

Back downstairs again his mind returned to the question of corruption.

For Tellman, who grew up poor, the scrawny, undersized son of a factory laborer, to be a policeman was an honorable job. It was a position that earned respectability and the regard of the community. People who had never noticed him as a child now looked to him for help. And he gave it, with pleasure.

He had felt that purpose more deeply when he had started working with Thomas Pitt, years ago, in Bow Street. Pitt was a tall man, strong, someone who had come from an ordinary enough background. But Pitt knew what he wanted to be, and he believed in himself. He had shown Tellman what a good job it was, what courage and honor there was in it. They were men who spent their days, and sometimes their nights as well, seeking the truth, wherever it led them, fighting to see that justice was done and people were kept from injury, loss, fear of the people they could not fight alone.

That was why he found Pitt’s attitude now so acutely painful. He could not tell him that. Of course he understood that Pitt’s job had changed and he could not afford a loyalty to the police rather than to Special Branch. But it still seemed like a denial of what he used to care about, the men he had worked beside in the past, not so long ago.

Tellman was tired and his head ached. The hot tea had eased his sore throat a little, but his face ached across the bones of his cheeks. He was in for a really heavy cold.

Gracie looked at him with a rueful smile.

“Yer should take a day in bed,” she told him. “Just sleep as much as yer can. It won’t send it away, but it’ll ’elp.”

“I can’t,” he answered firmly, mostly to convince himself. Nothing sounded better than bed just now. “I’ve got to find out all I can about this bombing.”

“What can you find if it’s anarchists?” she asked reasonably. She sat down sideways on one of the hard-backed chairs at the kitchen table. The room reminded him a little of the Pitts’ kitchen. It had the same colored china, although it was a different pattern. It was still blue and white. And there was a copper saucepan hung on the wall by its handle. Gracie seldom used it, but she liked the beautiful, gleaming color of the metal. He had seen her polish it countless times. The fact that it was hers always made her smile.

On the dresser, where most people would have had special plates, there was a little brown china donkey. He had bought it for her in a market one day, and she had loved it. She said it reminded her of a real one she had known, and she called it Charlie. He looked at it now and smiled. This was home, and he longed to be able to stay here until his cold was better. It would almost certainly be wet tomorrow, and the sting of the east wind could slice through even the best woolen coat and scarf.

“If it’s anarchists then it isn’t crooked police,” he answered. “I’d give a week’s salary-a month’s-to be able to find that.”

“Do you think it could be?” she asked. Gracie never ran away from a problem; at worst she would creep around and attack it from another angle. She was the bravest, and the most stubborn person he knew. He admired it in her, even loved it, but it still frightened him. She might be only the size of a ninepenny rabbit, but she had more fight in her than a weasel.

She passed him a soft cloth rag and he blew his nose fiercely.

“That means you think it could be,” she said very quietly.

“That means I don’t know how to prove it wasn’t,” he argued. “We make mistakes, but we aren’t corrupt. Gracie…if you’d seen them, you’d want to put a spit through whoever did it and slow roast them over the fire!”

“You knew them, didn’t you, Samuel?” she said, biting her lip.

“It could have been me leading that raid on the house.” He met her eyes and saw the pain in them, as she imagined what the other men’s wives must be feeling now.

“But yer weren’t,” she said flatly. She sniffed. “Do yer know what it were about?”

“No. It looks like an opium sale.”

“That’s not what you do, opium!”

“What difference does that make?” he demanded. Why was she arguing? “What if it’d been paintings, or jewelry? Then it could have been me!” he said sharply.

She sat absolutely still, her face tight with pain. “I know that. Ye’re scared for next time they send you somewhere?” She reached forward to touch his hand, and then changed her mind. “I wouldn’t blame yer.”

“No, I don’t think so,” he answered quite honestly. “I think I feel sort of guilty, because they’re in the morgue, blown to pieces, or in hospital burned and broken-and I’m sitting in my own house in a warm kitchen complaining ’cos I’ve got a cold. What makes me different, Gracie? How come I’m alive an’ they’re dead? Or maybe dying! Yarcombe lost his arm.”

“I dunno,” she admitted. “But it ’appens all the time. Mrs. Willetts down at number twenty-three died when her babe was born. An’ I’m as fit as the butcher’s dog. Nobody knows the reasons, Samuel. Least not yet. Maybe one day. I got one reason…”

“Like what?” he said after a moment. He really did not want to know, but she seemed to be waiting for him to ask.

“We’re goin’ to ’ave another baby…”

Suddenly a wave of emotion swept through him, as if there were a fire inside him, filling him up. All the rest of the kitchen melted into shadows and all he could see was Gracie sitting sideways on the chair, the lamplight on her face, a little flushed, her eyes bright.

This was his home, his family, more precious than anything else in the world. It was all he needed for happiness. He must look after them, keep them safe, see that they were always fed, sheltered, happy. Whatever job he had to do, he must do it well. This was his greatest calling in life. He must always look after them.

“Say something!” she urged him. “Are yer pleased?”

Tears choked him. “Of course I’m pleased,” he said, reaching for the cloth and blowing his nose again. “I’m…I’m happier than any man has a right to be.”

“Then get up to bed and sleep,” she ordered. “Sleep termorrer too.” She gave him a quick hug, which he returned, tightly, but he still argued.

“I can’t, I’ve got to go to work. I need to prove to Pitt that this is anarchists, and nothing to do with the police!”

Tellman felt thickheaded and his throat was sore when he woke up, but he pretended he was better. However his first words to Gracie were punctuated by a hacking cough, so her total disbelief was understandable.

“Go back to bed,” she said gently. “I’ll bring yer up an ’ot drink and a nice crisp slice o’ toast. I got some good, sharp marmalade.”

For an instant he hesitated. He could hear the rain against the kitchen window, even though it was warm inside. She must have been up for some time, because the cooker was hot and the whole kitchen was comfortable, the air soft to the skin.

“Yes,” he said huskily. “But I’ll have it down here. Got to go and see more about the injured men again.” He knew he must look into whatever they had in common. Was the bomber aiming at them in particular? Or police in general? At anybody to pay for the one he thought was corrupt? He sat down at the kitchen table. He could see by the clock on the dresser that he was late already, but he could afford ten or fifteen minutes more. Perhaps the rain would ease.

Gracie opened the door to the hot coals and put a slice of bread on the toasting fork. While he waited he poured himself a large mug of tea.

She brought him the toast, crisp and perfect. He thanked her for it, and reached for the butter. Then he spread the marmalade on and bit into the slice. It was delicious and piquant enough to taste, even thickheaded as he was and totally robbed of the sense of smell.

“What are you looking for?” she persisted. She never gave up.

“Lots of things, maybe,” he answered, swallowing the first mouthful.

“Like what?”

“Why those particular men,” he said to begin with. “Do they usually work together, or was it for a special case?”

“Why does that matter?”

“So we know if it was the case they were attacked for, or if it was them the bomber wanted,” he explained.

“Would an anarchist care who it was?” she asked, taking a second piece of toast off the fork and putting it back on so the other side faced the coals.

“They wouldn’t,” he answered with his mouth full.

“So yer think they was after them police in particular?” she concluded.

“I have to make sure that isn’t the case.” He evaded the question.

“So what’ll you do? Give it back to Mr. Pitt, then?” She was not going to leave it alone.

“If it was anarchists, I suppose so. That’s his job.” He realized he was not sure if that was what he wanted to do. There was a discomfort at the back of his mind, a need to defend his own men from the smear of corruption that had been suggested. And more than that, the victims were police. They deserved justice.

“Except I don’t want to,” he said instead. “I want to follow it all the way, and see the end of it.” He looked up at her and saw the anxiety in her sharp, bright little face. Although she was married and expecting her second child, there was so much in her that was still like the quick, brave, confrontational girl he had first met years ago, when he was Pitt’s sergeant and she was his opinionated little housemaid. She had challenged Tellman, contradicted him, and far too often been right. He had tried very hard not to fall in love with her, and failed utterly. It had taken him years even to catch her attention, let alone her respect. At least that was how it seemed.

Now she looked at him tenderly, the same way she looked at their child.

He felt a wave of emotion wash over him completely, and he concentrated on his toast as if it was a complicated masterwork.

“They’re police, and they’re dead, or worse,” he said finally. “I’m alive. They’re my own people, Gracie. I’ve got to find out what happened to them, and who did it. I’ve got to show people that police are good men doing a job that shouldn’t get them killed. I owe them that…them that are gone, and all them that are still here and still out on the streets.”

“Be careful,” she warned. “Somebody did it. They in’t going ter want you finding them. Don’t let ’em kill you too, Samuel.”

She was doing everything she could to hide her fear, but he saw it. He did not want her frightened, hurt in any way; but if she had not been afraid for him, that would have settled over him like a darkness, a loneliness he had not felt since the day she had said she would marry him. If anything did happen to him, could she possibly miss him as much as he would miss her?

Perhaps losing an arm, a leg, not being able to look after her, would be worse than being dead.

“I’ll take care,” he said firmly, and then before she could argue, or get any more emotional, he ate the fresh toast with one hand, and poured himself more, hotter tea with the other.

The first thing Tellman did was go to see Whicker, Ednam’s immediate superior. He knew that rumors would soon start about the motives behind the bombing. If he asked the right questions he might be able to kill any notion of police corruption before it took root. As he got off the omnibus and walked along the windy street he framed the questions in his mind. If he found there were minor errors, a little dishonesty here and there, would he report it? His own sense of justice said that these men were suffering enough. They might not ever recover sufficiently to return to the force anyway. You don’t kick a man when he’s down.

Was it to do with the Lezant case Pitt was talking about? Were all these five men involved in it? That was a place to begin.

But if they did always work together, how would anyone outside the force know that?

He would have to be extremely tactful when he asked his questions, avoiding the reason for his inquiry. He hated the idea of investigating his own, as if he thought those dead or damaged men were somehow at fault for the disaster that had struck them down. And everyone else would hate him too.

He turned the corner, stepped over a couple of deep puddles, and went in through the police station doorway and introduced himself to the desk sergeant on duty. The place seemed bare, and even drabber than usual, as if the bereavement could be felt in the wood and linoleum and the iron locks on the doors.

He asked to see whoever was in charge.

The sergeant nodded and sent a constable with a message. Five minutes later Tellman was in Superintendent Whicker’s office in the best interview chair and facing Whicker across the desk. Whicker was perhaps fifty-five, solid, graying at the temples and with a ragged mustache.

“Of course they worked together now and then,” he said tartly when Tellman asked. “Doesn’t your station cooperate, er…Tellman?”

“Yes, it does, sir. And I know when they do,” he added.

“What is it you’re expecting to learn?” Whicker frowned. “You already know that they went mob-handed because they were expecting a big purchase of opium. There could have been half a dozen dealers or buyers there. People who trade in that kind of stuff expect trouble, you know. They come prepared, and they can be violent.”

“But they don’t plant bombs in the rooms and blow them up,” Tellman pointed out. “Bad for business to kill yourself, not to mention your customers. They were set up.” He said the words between his teeth, the hot anger and guilt and the fear of death all making his voice almost choked. “I need to know if the bomber meant to get these men, all of them, or just some of them…”

“For God’s sake, man!” Whicker retorted violently, his face suffusing with color. “They don’t care who they get, they’re anarchists. They want chaos-terror-panic! You’ll never catch them if you chase after reasons.” There was pain in his eyes. He had lost five men.

Tellman sat still, fighting not to lose his own control.

“We don’t know that, sir. And I’m afraid there will soon be rumors around that they meant to get these men particularly. I want to kill that as soon as I can. If it was revenge, I want to be able to prove to anyone that it was unjust, and none of us did anything out of order.” He leaned forward. “I want to get these bastards, and knowing why they did it is about the only chance I’ve got of finding out who they are. I want them on trial, then I want them on the end of a rope. Don’t you?”

Now Whicker was pale. He looked as if he were ready to snap the pencil he held in half. “Of course I do. They were my men, dammit. I know they had the odd failing now and then, but they were good men, policemen. What is it you’re imagining? I’ll show you all the records you want. You’ll see they were all just as good as your own men. I’ll show you, and I’ll show the bloody newspapers that are looking for blame. And I’ll show bloody Special Branch! They should have seen this coming, and stopped it!”

Tellman found himself answering before he considered whether it was wise or not.

“No matter how hard we work, sir, or how clever we are, we can’t stop all crime, and Special Branch can’t either. What we can do is catch the bastards afterward. Now if you’ll let me see those records, I’ll be much obliged.”

The records were brought to him, and he spent a long, miserable day searching them. It took him a little while before he found the Lezant case. He could see immediately that the five men caught in the bombing had been involved.

A constable brought Tellman a cup of hot, over-strong tea, and he was so absorbed he forgot to drink it until it was cold.

The case centered on another suspected sale of opium, on the information of an informer considered reliable but named only as Joe, which could have been anyone.

The arrest had gone badly wrong. The two young men, both addicts, who were presumed to be the buyers, had turned up, but the seller had not.

The disaster was that one of the young men had been carrying a gun, and was extremely tense and jittery. In Ednam’s opinion, he needed his drugs and was almost out of his mind from withdrawal symptoms. A passerby had chosen this alley as a shortcut home. The young man was so highly strung he had completely lost his nerve and shot the passerby, killing him immediately. He had realized what he had done, and turned to run away.

The police could then show themselves and chase both young men. They caught the one who had fired the shot, but the other had escaped. Tellman looked for a description of him, but it was so vague as to be useless. He was average height, possibly thin. He looked in the faint lamplight to be dark-haired.

Dylan Lezant was charged with murder.

Tellman read the report again, slowly and even more carefully. All five men said exactly the same thing, agreeing on the details. But then they were so few, and so general, there was nothing much to disagree about. It was not a complicated story where disagreement on details was to be expected.

It was a simple tragedy, correctly handled.

He read on, looking to see if there were any questions that had arisen later, but there were none. The seller of opium was never found. But then when he read about the shooting in the newspapers the next day, he would very naturally have moved his place of business.

Tellman stopped for a few minutes, rubbed his eyes, tired of reading handwriting, relatively neat as it was. He was glad of a fresh cup of tea and a couple of biscuits.

Then he began on other reports, including financial ledgers. He had always been good at arithmetic. It had a kind of logic to it that he liked. There was a right and a wrong. It balanced itself. He was working on accounts of money from robberies, arrests, stolen-goods receipts. He checked the addition and found an error. He tried it again, and realized someone had read a five for an eight. Easy to do, especially when you were tired and had probably been working all day. A man could easily be too eager to go home to his family, a warm hearth, and a decent meal to check his sums. Not everyone found numbers easy.

Working on a little further, he found more, a seven mistaken for a one; threes, fives, and eights written carelessly and misread.

He went back to check all of them, and realized that in every case, the error resulted in a smaller sum. It only added up to a few pounds, but a pound was a lot of money. A few years ago, it had been a constable’s weekly pay.

He closed the ledger and sat back. Another thing he had noticed, much as he did not wish to: all the errors had happened when Sergeant Tierney was on duty.

What had happened to the money? Had it lined his pocket? Someone else’s that he owed? Bribes? Tellman hated the thought, but he would have to follow it up, sooner or later, whether it had anything to do with the bombing at Lancaster Gate or not. Who was paying whom? And why?

It left him with a sour taste, as if something clean and long loved had been soiled. Did it take him any closer to finding out who had planted the bomb? Possibly. More probably not.

He walked the last half mile or so home from the bus stop through the thickening fog. The only traffic was the occasional hansom cab going over the cobbles. He could hear the clatter of hooves and the hiss of wheels in the water before he could see the lights. It was a night any sane man was at home beside his own fire, not out turning over and over lies and stupidity in his mind and trying to find excuses he knew were worthless.

He saw the lights of the Dog and Duck tavern, golden yellow and warm. Someone opened the doors and came out, laughing and waving his hand toward someone inside. Tellman succumbed to temptation and went in. He was not ready to go home yet. However much he tried to pretend that everything was all right, Gracie would see right through it. She would know he had found something wrong. They were only small things, but like a piece of grit in the eye, they were painful, and unforgettable. And, like a sore eye, he kept rubbing at it.

He was chasing errors, repetitive petty theft. Yes-police corruption, but very minor.

He sat on one of the bar stools and ordered a pint. It was warm inside, and damp from too many warm bodies and from wet clothes steaming in the heat from the fire in the great hearth at the far side of the room. Now and then beer slopped over onto the straw-covered floor. Normally he did not like such places, but tonight it was good, perhaps because it was so very normal.

The barmaid brought Tellman’s beer and passed the time of day, but she could see his mood, and she did not pursue conversation. Tellman was glad of a small table out of the way where he could watch others but remain essentially alone.

He was troubled, afraid of what all these small errors might mean. If someone else were to look at Tellman’s work, would they find as much unaccounted for? He did not think so.

Did that make him a better policeman? Did details matter, or was he losing himself in them because it was a way to escape from the larger picture of violence, dishonesty, and waste?

He finished his ale and went to the bar and ordered more. The barmaid was a big woman, friendly, her shock of hair falling out of its pins as she strove to serve everyone. Not the kind of woman he found attractive at all. But this evening her warmth was welcome, her cheerful, meaningless chatter a good distraction.

He must find out more about Tierney, and the financial errors, although he strongly suspected that whatever petty carelessness he had committed, it was trivial. Grubby, of course, but of no consequence. It could have nothing to do with the bombing. It was just a small mistake that might never have been discovered if he were not looking for corruption.

What if he did not report these accounting anomalies to Pitt? What if he said there was nothing? Or was replaced by someone else, someone who would not expect police to be better than another man, above temptations of any sort? Someone who cared less. Maybe someone with a little less childlike idealism, who did not think of police as the guardians of law, of the vulnerable, whoever they were, gentleman or pauper.

When had that started? He thought back to being a boy, only briefly. There were too many things about it he preferred to forget. He was not that person anymore. He wasn’t hungry, scared, runny-nosed, scabby-kneed, always feeling on the outside. He was a grown man with a purpose. He had been that for years, ever since he had joined the police, part of an army for good, someone who belonged.

Now he was an inspector himself, a rank he would never have imagined reaching, even a few years ago. It was his duty to protect the police from attack-from inside or out. Without loyalty they lost their greatest shield, and weapon. And you could not expect loyalty from men to whom you would not give it. It was when it was costly that it counted.

And he owed it to Gracie and his little girl. And the new baby coming. That might be a son! Someone who would want to follow in his footsteps, be like him.

He stood up, leaving the last few inches of his ale, paid his bill, and walked out into the thickening mist.

Gracie was more aware of the gravity of the situation than Tellman knew. The next morning, after he had left for work, she left her child sleeping quietly in the early winter sun, in the care of the woman who came and did the heavy cleaning. She had several of her own children, and would know exactly what to do, or not do.

Gracie caught the omnibus to Russell Square, and then walked along to Keppel Street. Of course she did not know if Charlotte was in, but there was only one way to find out. She was sufficiently early to make it very likely. She needed advice, and there was no one else anywhere who would be wiser, or more generous, in giving it.

She was fortunate. Charlotte was still at home. She had planned to go out but changed her mind the minute Gracie had appeared.

“My errand is of no importance at all,” she assured Gracie. “You are an excellent excuse to avoid it. Come in and have a cup of tea.”

“It’s too early for elevenses,” Gracie said a little awkwardly. This was not really a social call. Her reason for coming was important, and urgent. Tea was a pleasantry that did not matter.

Charlotte looked at her gravely. “Something is wrong. What can I do?”

Instead of the kitchen where Gracie had worked all her years from thirteen to well over twenty, Charlotte led her into the parlor, and closed the door behind them.

“Sit down, and tell me,” she directed, then took the seat that was usually Pitt’s and offered her own to Gracie.

Gracie had been worrying about how to word it all the way here on the bus, but now suddenly it was easy. The years disappeared and it was as if they were back in the old days, when they had faced all kinds of cases together and Gracie had been part of the family, free to give her opinion like anyone else. Even Lord Narraway and Lady Vespasia had listened to her…sometimes.

“Samuel’s been looking at all these police what was hurt in the bombing,” she said earnestly. “He doesn’t tell me much, but I know ’im. He’s found bad things. I know that because ’e says nothing. If it was all right, he’d say so.” She looked down at her hands, which were very small, but very strong. “Samuel thinks the police are kind o’ heroes. Like King Arthur, all sworn to protect the innocent.” She sighed. “But yer gotta believe in something ter keep on going back all the time, an’ fighting against fear, an’ doubt an’…an’ just giving up. We all got our fairy stories. He’s a dreamer inside, you know. ’E thinks they’re all as straight as ’e is. But they in’t. I know that.”

“I know it too,” Charlotte agreed. “But if he accepted that, then he might not have the loyalty he does, and it’s that which makes him special and able to keep going even in the hardest cases.”

Gracie said nothing. Now, suddenly, it was not so easy. She had not come here for comfort; she needed to have a plan of some sort, something practical, if it all went bad.

She looked up at Charlotte. “Wot if they was bombed because they was crooked? On the take, like?”

Charlotte could remember very clearly what Thomas had said about the bombing, and how those specific policemen had been lured to the Lancaster Gate house-and about Isadora Cornwallis’s suspicion of Alexander Duncannon, though she could not share that with Gracie.

“If anyone had proof of stealing, or lying, wouldn’t they try to report it to police higher up, who would stop it themselves?” she asked slowly. “You could do that without any damage to yourself. If necessary you might be able to write an anonymous letter, if you were afraid of reprisals.”

“I thought o’ that,” Gracie answered. “It must be that there’s police ’igher up protecting them.” She shook her head. “I wish I could protect ’im from finding out the bad ones are bad enough to ’ave been the reason for this.” She looked at Charlotte, studying her face, wanting to see that Charlotte could prove her fears ungrounded.

It was several more moments before Charlotte answered. “They have to find the corruption, if it’s there,” she said, biting her lip. “And then they will discover where the deepest loyalties are. Choices between right and wrong are easy. It’s the ones where you have to decide between two rights, or two wrongs that hurt, and maybe you never know which would have been the better.”

“The police are going to say it should be to yer mates on the force,” Gracie said. “The ones as ’ave watched for yer when yer was tired, a bit slow, made a mistake, or could ’ave been knifed if they ’adn’t been there. If yer don’t know which side yer mates are on, nobody’s going ter fight. Samuel says then, if ye’re going into a dark alley an’ yer don’t know what’s in front of yer, yer gotta be sure as hell what’s behind yer.”

Charlotte did not argue. Gracie could see the conflict in her face.

“I know,” Charlotte agreed. “And yet if the police don’t keep honor to the truth but choose to protect those of them that lie, or twist evidence, steal little things here and there, take bribes to look the other way, what happens to the rest of us?” She shivered. “It’s like a building that’s got woodworm in the joists and rafters. One wormhole’s nothing: ten thousand and the whole thing caves in on your head.”

“So wot are we gonna do?” Gracie at last said the unavoidable.

For an instant there was a spark of dark humor in Charlotte’s eyes at her automatic inclusion, and then it vanished. This was too serious for any kind of laughter.

“I don’t think there’s anything you really can do,” Charlotte answered. “If there is, I’ve never found it.”

Surprise flickered across Gracie’s face, as if she had never considered Pitt vulnerable in the same way.

Charlotte threw away the last vestige of doubt. “You should look after your family. I will visit my sister, who knows all kinds of people, and ask her to find out what she can. Who knows how high up this may go?”

Gracie bit her lip. “An’ if it does?”

“I’m not sure. But an idea of the truth is the only place to begin.”

Gracie smiled a little lopsidedly. “Thank you.”