Long Spoon Lane: A Charlotte and Thomas Pitt Novel

by Anne Perry

  “Almost. We need to be able to prove all the connections. We have the dynamite to Grover, Grover to Simbister, through that confession of Denoon’s, Simbister to Wetron, but Wetron could still deny it. He could say he had only just found that, and intended to act on it when he was certain. It would destroy Simbister, and Wetron would merely replace him with someone else.”

  “I see, I see!” Voisey said impatiently. “We must tie Wetron to using Piers Denoon so he can’t escape it. If Denoon shot Magnus Landsborough you can charge him with murder. He’ll be happy to swear he was blackmailed into it. The papers are safe? Where? Not in your house!”

  “Yes, they’re safe,” Pitt replied bleakly.

  A half smile flashed on Voisey’s face. He had not really expected to be told.

  “Use your old Circle connections,” Pitt went on. “We need the proof quickly. Wetron knows we have the papers.”

  The half-smile widened. “Does he indeed? I wish I’d seen that.” There was regret in his voice, a hunger to take revenge: to roll it on his tongue, not merely be told about it.

  Pitt felt faintly sick. A shiver passed over his skin, but there was no way around working with Voisey, and no point thinking about it as if he could escape. “Use them today,” he said aloud. “Find the proof that Wetron knew of the rape and used it on Denoon to force him into funding the anarchists, then murdering Magnus Landsborough.”

  Voisey licked his lips. It was a slow, delicate gesture made without awareness that he was doing it. “Yes,” he said, looking at Pitt. “Yes, I know just who to go to. I still have a few old debts to call in. You have a telephone? Of course you have. Be by it from four o’clock onward. You’re right, there’s no time to waste.” He gave a very slight shrug, an inch, no more. “For Tellman’s sake!”

  Pitt gave him the number of his telephone, then turned and walked away, his footsteps rapping on the stone, before he gave in to the impulse to hit Voisey’s subtle, smiling face. He was perfectly aware that they were on the brink of success, and it could all still go wrong. Voisey could betray him; destroy Wetron with the evidence, and Simbister; disgrace Edward Denoon through his son; and save enough from the ashes to step back into his old place in the Inner Circle. Perhaps he could even use the bill in Parliament to his own ends. And there was nothing Pitt could do to prevent that. He knew it, and he could see in his eyes that Voisey knew it too. Voisey was savoring it, as one does a hundred-year-old brandy: breathing the aroma, letting it dizzy your senses.

  Pitt was at home at four o’clock, waiting, pacing the floor, starting at every sound. Charlotte was watching him. Gracie was banging around with a mop, muttering to herself, because she knew there was danger, and no one had told her what it was. She had not seen Tellman alone for two days. Pitt said Tellman had acted with extraordinary courage and intelligence, but would not elaborate, even to Charlotte.

  At five o’clock they had tea, drinking it quickly, and too hot, wanting cake and then not wanting it.

  It was quarter to six when the telephone finally rang. Pitt charged to the hall and picked the receiver off its hook.

  “Yes?”

  “Got it,” Voisey said jubilantly. “But Denoon has been warned. He’s at the docks already. Come as fast as you can. King’s Arms Stairs on the Isle of Dogs, at Rotherhithe on the south. It’s Limehouse Reach…”

  “I know where it is!” Pitt snapped.

  “Come now!” Voisey urged. “Fast as you can. I’ll go ahead. If we lose him, we’ve lost it all.”

  “Coming.” Pitt replaced the phone, swung around to look at Charlotte and Gracie staring at him. “I’m going to the King’s Arms Stairs on the Isle of Dogs, to get Piers Denoon, before he escapes. Wetron must have warned him.” And he started for the door.

  “You can’t arrest him!” Charlotte called after him. “You aren’t police anymore. Let me call…”

  “No!” he shouted. “No one! You don’t know who to trust. Tell Narraway, if you can find him. No one else!”

  She nodded. It was clear in her face she knew not even to try to reach Tellman. He kissed her so swiftly it was barely a touch, then went out of the house and sprinted to the end of the street. He hailed the first hansom that passed him. “Mill-wall Dock!” he called to the driver. “Then the King’s Arms Stairs. Know it?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  “Fast as you can! I’ll pay extra!”

  “ ’Ang on!”

  The hansom lurched forward and increased speed as the light faded in the streets. Pitt hung on as they slewed around corners going south towards Oxford Street. They forced their way through the traffic eastwards, the driver yelling alternately praise and abuse. Oxford Street changed to High Holborn, Holborn Viaduct, Newgate Street then Cheapside. At the junction at Mansion House there was chaos. Two carriages were locked wheel to wheel.

  The driver pulled up. Pitt was in a fever of impatience. All around people were shouting, horses backing and squealing.

  Then they seemed to turn almost back on themselves, and down King William Street towards the river.

  “You can’t get through there!” Pitt shouted furiously. “You’ll come up against the Tower!”

  The driver shouted something he did not hear. It was darkening rapidly with a misty rain. They were picking up speed again, but it would do them no good. They could not get around the great bulwark of the massive eight-centuries-old Tower of London, built by William the Conqueror.

  Then they turned again and were going north. Of course. Gracechurch Street, up Leadenhall Street, through Aldgate and Whitechapel, and on east. Pitt sat back, gulping, and trying to steady himself. He had miles to go yet. The gray air was full of rain, the road surface gleaming wet in the lights from carriage and streetlamps. The splash and hiss of wheels was almost drowned by the sound of hooves.

  Finally they pulled up at the King’s Arms Stairs in near darkness. Almost immediately Voisey’s tall figure came out of the gloom, solid black against the shifting glitter of the river, ships’ riding lights dancing on the ripples of the tide behind him.

  Pitt leapt out, thrusting money at the driver—probably twice as much as he owed. He thanked him, and followed after Voisey over the quayside to the water’s edge.

  “He’s on that barge,” Voisey said huskily. “He’s been hiding there. They’ll take him out on the turn of the tide…about twenty minutes.” He pointed out into the river. “I’ve got a boat. Borrowed it from one of the ferrymen. It’s not much, but it’ll get us out there.” He started down the dark steps, balancing himself with one hand against the wall of the embankment.

  Pitt could see the black shell of a boat riding in the water and the dripping rope that held it knotted to the ring in the stones. The oars were shipped, waiting.

  Voisey clambered in and took the oarsman’s seat. Pitt untied the rope, coiling it over his arm, and jumped into the stern. Voisey unshipped the oars, and slipped them into the rowlocks, and then threw his weight against them.

  They pulled out into the tide, slithered around for a moment, righted, slewed the other way, then met the waves straight and the oars dug in. Voisey leaned forward, back, found his rhythm, and they sped away.

  He slowed as they reached the moored barge, and swung the oars on board again. Pitt stood up carefully, balancing to reach out as they came around. He needed to stop them from bumping the hull of the barge and alerting whoever was there. Piers Denoon would not be alone. He reached forward, catching the side and holding on. Then he jumped and rolled, landing easily and regaining his feet, then dropping onto his knee not to make a high outline against the sky, if anyone were looking. He had a cudgel in his pocket, but at this moment he wished it were a pistol. Thank goodness Voisey was with him, with as much interest in catching Denoon as he had. Voisey was quite a big man, and both powerful and ruthless.

  He crept forward and saw the lighted hatchway. There was only one man standing there. He looked about twenty years old, slender and angular. Beyond him there was the shadow of a seco
nd man, heavier, but bent forward a little. He did not appear to be armed, as far as Pitt could see.

  He did not want to strike the younger man. He put his arm around his neck instead and pulled him backwards. The other man jerked up, startled.

  There was a movement on the deck. Pitt turned to look for Voisey, but it was a big man in a woollen hat. Beyond him, the boat with Voisey in it was pulling away, back towards the steps. It was the betrayal at last, at the one time he had not expected it.

  11

  PITT WATCHED the boat slide over the glittering water with a rage that almost choked him. How unbelievably, fatally stupid of him! But what clue had he missed? Voisey wanted Piers Denoon caught and charged just as much as Pitt did. It was the final connection between Wetron and the bombings. It was proof of police corruption that could not be denied.

  The big man on the deck was coming towards him, hunched forward a little as if preparing to lash out. “Get outa my way, Mike!” he snarled at the fair young man struggling in Pitt’s tightening grip. The only other person he could see was the older man inside the cabin.

  Why had he believed Voisey that Piers Denoon was here at all? Because he had grown used to believing him. He had been swept away by the fever of the chase, the expectation of victory, and forgotten what Voisey was, what he had always been. Perhaps he even knew where Piers Denoon really was!

  The big man stopped, momentarily confused by the fact that Pitt had the young man around the front of his neck, but it would be respite for a very short time. The other man was coming up the steps, an iron bar in his hand.

  Pitt’s only chance was to back away and hope to jump over the side without hitting himself too hard on any of the loose spars and boxes on the deck, or anything in the water. Even so he could easily drown. He was thirty yards from the shore; the current was high and pulling out to sea. The water was cold, and he had a coat and boots on. He would be lucky, very lucky indeed, to make shore, quite apart from the strings of lighters that went down the river and could strike him, knock him senseless, entangle him and drag him under. He needed only to catch a part of his clothing on a half-submerged spar, drifting wood, anything, and he would be trapped, sucked down.

  He moved backwards carefully, dragging the man with him. He was struggling now, kicking and trying to gouge with his hands. Pitt was paying the price for his ultimate stupidity. Narraway had warned him, Charlotte had, even Vespasia. Why had Voisey taken the chance that Charlotte would not use the evidence against Mrs. Cavendish? Because if she did, she would have nothing left with which to defend herself, or the children! The thought twisted inside his belly till it was a physical pain.

  “Jump!”

  The sound startled him so abruptly that he slipped and stumbled, falling backwards and yanking the man off his feet as well, and letting him go. They both went clear together just as the big man struck, hit the furled sail and let out a yell of pain.

  “Jump!” the cry came again.

  This time Pitt scrambled awkwardly to his feet and threw himself over the side. He landed on his hands and knees on the bottom of a small rowing boat, sending it rolling so wildly it shipped water. It was lucky to right itself with considerable effort by the man working the oars.

  “You clumsy oaf,” he said, not very critically. “Keep your head down, just in case one of them has a pistol.” He threw his weight against the oars, shooting farther out into the middle of the river and away from the lights. He steered between the moored ships into the current, pulling for the opposite shore.

  Pitt climbed to his feet without straightening up, and sat in the stern now that they were beyond the light. “Thank you,” he said sincerely, even though he had no idea if he was actually any better off.

  “I’ll collect,” the man replied. “I’d have left you there if I didn’t know you were the only one with a real chance of stopping the police bill.”

  Pitt was bruised and uncomfortable, but intensely grateful not to be in the water. “Who are you?”

  “Kydd,” the man replied, grunting as he put his weight to the oars.

  “I was lucky you were passing,” Pitt tried to steady his breath, and the beating of his heart. The air was damp on his skin. “Are you a ferryman, lighterman?”

  “Anarchist,” Kydd answered, irony in his voice, his face invisible in the darkness. “And I wasn’t just passing. It’s my job to know what’s going on. If you weren’t trying to stop police corruption, I’d have let them kill you. But as they say, politics make strange bedfellows of us. More strange than you and Charles Voisey! That was a mistake. But I imagine you know that now.”

  They seemed to be nearing the farther shore, because Kydd eased the boat around to go in stern first, alongside the steps. However, there was little that Pitt could see except the denser blackness of the unlit wharves and warehouses. They must be farther downriver than the Dog and Duck, where the public house lights would be clear.

  “Where are we?”

  “Saint George Stairs,” Kydd answered. “By the railway yard. A little walk for you, and a swift brandy. Then you can make your way back. Cut along to Rotherhithe and get a ferry to Wapping, if I were you. I wouldn’t get back on the water downriver of that.”

  Pitt received the advice in silence, turning over what Kydd had said. The boat was lashed to an iron ring and they climbed up the slippery steps, but the tide was only just turning so they were near the top anyway. Pitt followed the dark figure of Kydd across the open dockside. The wind was cold now and there was a slight fog settling, blurring the lights and making the damp air hang in little droplets. From farther down the river came the mournful cry of foghorns.

  They walked for about ten minutes until, in an alley still close to the waterfront, Kydd stopped and opened a narrow door and immediately they were in a warm passageway. He closed it, setting a wooden bar across it, and they went on through a farther door into a startlingly comfortable and tidy room. It had three chairs in it, one wooden and two upholstered, and on the biggest one there appeared to be a cast-off hat, or rolled-together pair of fur gloves. At the sound of Kydd’s footsteps it unwound itself into four legs and a tail, then yawned prodigiously and blinked. It started to purr. Pitt judged the kitten to be about twelve or fourteen weeks old.

  Kydd picked it up with one hand, stroking it absentmindedly. “The brandy’s over there.” He pointed to a cupboard on the wall. “Let me give Mite something to eat first. She’s been alone all day.” He took a small piece of meat out of his pocket and tore it into pieces. The kitten snatched them from him almost before he had finished the task, purring so loudly now she sounded as if she rattled.

  Pitt opened the cupboard and found the brandy. There were several glasses and cups. He chose two and poured mean portions into them, aware that there was not much there. He drank his in one gulp, and put the other on the small table for Kydd.

  “Who were they?” he asked.

  “On the barge?” Kydd put the kitten back on the chair and took his brandy. “River thieves, probably. What were you looking for, for God’s sake?”

  “How did you know I was going to be there?” Pitt continued.

  Mite sharpened her claws, then climbed slowly up Kydd’s leg and back and settled on his shoulder. He winced, but did not put her off.

  “I didn’t, but I knew Voisey was waiting for someone. It was an educated guess,” he replied.

  “You’ve been following me?”

  Kydd looked very serious. In the light his face was high-cheekboned, blue-eyed. “I want to know who killed Magnus. I have to know it wasn’t one of us. If it was, I’ll execute him myself.”

  It was becoming clearer. “You were part of Magnus’s group,” Pitt said. “You are the leader who has taken over.”

  Kydd was unimpressed. “Who killed Magnus?” he repeated. “Don’t you know yet? Someone betrayed him. Was it his father?”

  “His father?”

  “He came after him, several times. Tried to persuade him to go back to the estab
lishment and give up his beliefs.” Kydd had a savage amusement in his face, his voice was edged with pain as well as anger. Absentmindedly he put his hand up and stroked the little animal still perched on his shoulder. “Mite was Magnus’s,” he said irrelevantly. “He rescued her…or him. Actually I have no idea which it is. Hard to tell with kittens.”

  It was a sudden act of humanity, a gentleness that gave Magnus Landsborough a dimension infinitely larger than nameless idealism. Pitt found himself choked with fury that he should have been killed simply to provoke a public outrage and create the climate for a piece of monstrous legislation.

  “No, it wasn’t his father,” he said harshly. “All he wanted was to change Magnus’s mind. It was his cousin, Piers Denoon. That’s who I was looking for on the barge, to arrest him before he fled the country. Easy to go downriver from here and across the Channel.”

  “Piers?” Kydd was incredulous. “What for? That makes no sense. I don’t believe it.” His eyes were bright and hard.

  “Because he raised money for you?” Pitt asked.

  “If you knew that, then you’ll know why I don’t believe it. Why would he kill Magnus?” Kydd unhooked Mite from his shoulder and sat down on the chair.

  “For the same reason he did everything else to do with anarchy,” Pitt replied. “Because he was being blackmailed. He couldn’t afford to refuse, or he’d have gone to prison, where I doubt he’d have survived.”

  “We’d have helped him. As you pointed out, it’s not hard to get across the Channel to France, or even Portugal.”

  “For anarchy, perhaps. Would you for rape?”

  Kydd was stunned. “Rape!” he repeated. “Rape?”

  “About three years ago. An ordinary girl. Mistook what she was, I think. But it was violent and nasty, and could have been made to sound even worse. Girl who could have been the sister or daughter of the kind of man he’d meet in prison.”

  Kydd’s face showed his bleak understanding of what that would mean, and perhaps, momentarily, a bright shard of pity. Then it was gone.