by Anne Perry
The other prisoners regarded him with curiosity and hatred. He was the enemy. Were it not for the police, none of them would be here in this prolonged torture, cramped in the narrow, airless cells of the treadmill, endlessly stepping on slats that gave way under them as they struggled to keep abreast in the slow-turning wheel. Fifteen minutes in one of its cooplike stalls with the hot air suffocating the lungs was all any man could bear; then he had to be taken out before he collapsed.
If one were not eager enough at this, there was punishment ever available. For outright rebellion a man could be birched or flogged; for lesser offenses such as insolence or refusal to obey orders a man could be required to do shot drill. It was the third day before Pitt found himself ordered to this, for answering back, laziness, and causing a brawl.
The men were lined up in a hollow square outside in the bitterly cold exercise yard. Each man stood three yards from his neighbor and was given a twenty-five-pound iron cannonball to place at his feet. At the command he must pick it up and carry it to his neighbor’s spot, put it on the ground, and return to his own spot, where he would find a new ball put there by the man on his other side. This senseless passing round and round of shot could be kept up for seventy-five minutes, till shoulders stabbed with pain, and muscles were torn and backs too sore to straighten.
Pitt’s offense had been a stupid quarrel picked by another prisoner, who felt compelled to swagger in front of his companions. Had Pitt been paying more attention to his surroundings he would have noticed the man’s brittle temper, the slight bounce to his walk, his curled fingers. Pitt would have understood the glitter as the man’s eyes moved from side to side to see who was watching him, and whether admiration was there, the peculiar mixture of fear and respect that the weak have for violence. He would have recognized the man’s sharp grin as that of the bully on parade.
But his mind was on the brothel and Cerise’s dead body thrown carelessly on the gaudy bed, as he tried to recall the few moments when he had seen her face. Had she really once been so beautiful, or possessed of such charm and wit, that Robert York had been bewitched by her into betraying his country? He would have been risking not merely the love of his wife, which he might or might not value, but his position in the Foreign Office and in Society, the things which governed the whole style of his life. If he had been caught, the best he could have hoped for would have been a cover-up, for his family’s sake, and to prevent a scandal, which the government would not want; at worst he would have been brought here, where Pitt was, Coldbath Fields, or somewhere like it, to await trial, and very probably the hangman’s noose.
That reminder was enough to overwhelm him with such anger and fear Pitt was careless of the immediate danger. He did not see the momentary swagger, the quick glitter in the man’s eyes, nor recognize the challenge. The man was marking his territory. When the man spoke, Pitt replied tartly with the first answer that came to his tongue, and before he realized it he had placed the bully in a position of having to defend himself to keep from losing face. It was stupid, an idiotic scuffle that ended with both of them on shot drill and Pitt bending, straightening, carrying the shot, replacing it, walking back, until he thought his back was broken and the sweat drenched his clothes. When it finally stopped, they stuck to him in clammy cold and the ache of tortured muscles was so sharp that for four days he could not move even in his sleep without pain.
Days went by, and Pitt became accustomed to the routine, the wretched food, always being cold except when labor made him sweat and then the worse chill afterwards. He hated always being dirty, he loathed the lack of any privacy even for essential functions. He was lonelier than he had ever been in his life; and yet never alone. Actual physical solitude would have been a blessing, a chance to relax the tension, the awareness of enmity, and to explore the thoughts crowding inside himself without prying, cruel eyes watching, probing for weakness, prurient to invade.
The first time Charlotte came was the worst experience of all. To see her, talk and yet always be overheard, without being able to touch her, to have to struggle to put into words communication that was too intimate, too formless for such a quantifiable and public medium. His own thoughts were chaotic. What could he possibly say to her? That he was innocent, of anything except perhaps gullibility somewhere, but he was not even sure where? Perhaps it was only stupidity. He still had no idea who was the spy, or who had killed Robert York. Certainly he was guilty of failure! He had failed both Charlotte and the children. What would happen to them? What was happening now? She must be suffering all the fear, the shame of being thought a murderer’s wife. And in time the poverty would come as well, unless her family helped. But the misery and the humiliation of lifelong dependency was hardly an answer.
How could he even say he loved her in such circumstances, with a dispirited and contemptuous jailer listening? And he wanted to, to put away forever the brief anger he had allowed to mar the last few days before he’d been taken away.
She had looked pale. She had tried hard, but she could not keep the shock from her face. He could not remember afterwards what they had said—something and nothing, just noises. The silence between the words had been more important, and the shining tenderness in her eyes.
The second time had been better. At least she seemed unaware of the reality of the prison, and she was confident Ballarat was doing everything to get him released—more confident than Pitt was. Ballarat had not come anywhere near Coldbath Fields, nor had he sent anyone, except a constable, who was embarrassed and had asked only the most obvious and meaningless questions.
“What was yer doin’ in Seven Dials, Mr. Pitt?” The “Mr.” was so habitual he could not drop it, even here. He fiddled with his pencil and avoided Pitt’s eyes.
“I went there with a running patterer because he told me the woman I wanted to question was there,” Pitt had replied irritably. “I already told them that!”
“So you went lookin’ for ’er?”
“I told them that, too!”
“What for, Mr. Pitt?”
“Because she was a witness in the murder of Robert York.”
“Would that be Mr. York of ’anover Close, as was killed by a burglar three years ago?”
“Yes, of course it would!”
“An’ ’ow do yer know that, Mr. Pitt?”
“She was seen in the house.”
“Oh yes? ’Oo saw ’er?”
“Dulcie Mabbutt, the lady’s maid.”
“ ’Ow do yer spell that, sir?”
“Don’t bother; she’s dead. She fell out of a window.”
The constable’s eyes had opened wider and for the first time he looked directly at Pitt. “ ’Ow did that ’appen, sir?”
Was it worth telling him? What if he were the only one who ever came, just as a formality, so all the right papers could be filled in? Now might be the only chance. He must try.
“I think someone overheard her tell me about the woman in cerise.” He watched the constable’s face. “The library door was open.”
“You mean she were pushed?” the constable said carefully.
“Yes.”
The constable concentrated hard. “But this woman in pink was an ’ore, Mr. Pitt. Why should anyone care that much about ’er? Gentlemen ’as their pleasures, we all knows that. If ’e were careless, it’s a domestic matter, in’t it?”
“She wasn’t just a whore,” Pitt had said gravely, keeping his temper because he had to. What could he do to persuade this round-faced constable that there was conspiracy and treason in this ordinary, rather sordid tragedy?
“No, sir?” the constable inquired, his eyes narrowing a little.
“There are secret papers missing from the Foreign Office, from the department where Robert York worked before he was murdered.”
The constable blinked. “You sayin’ as ’e took ’em, Mr. Pitt?”
“I don’t know. Felix Asherson and Garrard Danver also work there, and of course many others. I do know the silver va
se and the first-edition book that were reported stolen the night he was killed never turned up at any fence’s or pawnshop in London, and no regular villain anywhere in the city knows anything about them, or about the murder.”
“Are you sure o’ that, sir?” The constable looked dubious.
“Yes I am! What the hell do you think I’ve been doing these past weeks?”
“I see.” The constable licked his pencil but could think of nothing to write.
“No, you don’t see!” Pitt said angrily. “Neither do I. Except Robert York was murdered, Dulcie fell out of a window, and the woman in cerise, who was seen in Hanover Close, had her neck broken in a bawdy house in Seven Dials—just before I got to her.”
“An’ yer still say it weren’t you as done it?” There was no skepticism in his face now; rather he seemed to be looking for confirmation.
“Yes.”
The constable had not pressed the matter any further and had taken his leave with a look of deep concentration on his blunt face.
The days blurred into a long, dark procession. It never seemed light in the Steel. Even the exercise yard was narrow and walled so steeply the frail winter daylight was lost in it, and bent over the back-breaking shot, or huddled with other miserable, sour-smelling prisoners, Pitt felt the darkness creep into his mind like mold. The outside world became remote, a story in a children’s book.
Then gradually, in spite of himself, he was drawn into noticing his fellows: Iremonger, who was middle-aged and pasty-faced, accused of practicing abortion. He proclaimed his innocence with stoic resignation, not expecting to be believed. He obviously knew some medicine and exercised a certain compassion. He knew how to treat the small wounds gained at the crank, the worst punishment of all, where a man turned a spindle connected to a drum full of sand; the weight of the spoon-shaped cups lifting against the dead inertia tore the muscles even more than the shot. Iremonger also doled out advice and peculiarly intimate sympathy for those who suffered from the treadmill harness.
There was Haskins, the bully who had fought with Pitt, a sad, shallow man who had won the few victories in his life through violence; he was respected to his face but mocked behind his back. There was Ross, a handsome, genial man who lived off the earnings of prostitutes and was in for some stupid theft. Ross saw nothing wrong in either occupation: one fulfilled a need, the other was merely making the best of an opportunity. When he was released he would do precisely the same again. The concept of right and wrong in anything except personal loyalties was unknown to him. In spite of himself, Pitt could not dislike him.
Pitt also noticed Goodman, who was small, overwhelmingly greedy, but an excellent raconteur, even if it was probably all lies. He was in for embezzlement from his father-in-law, and like most of the others, proclaimed his innocence, if not of the fact then of any moral fault in the matter. His weasellike face was full of indignation. On the other hand, his fertile imagination, and some education, made his company, on the few occasions they were permitted to speak, a relief from the corroding boredom.
And there was Wilson, a man so savage in his rage he lashed out at everyone; Wood, ignorant and angry with a world which had no use and no place for him; fat Molloy, who had spent most of his life in prison and feared the outside world in spite of his repeated longing for it; and poor little Raeburn with drooping eyes and mouth, who stole simply because he was hungry and incapable of earning his way.
At first Pitt hated them all because they were part of the Steel, and everything that trapped and held him, all the ugliness and the perpetuity of the place.
Then through small acts, glimpses of pain, he was reached. At first these incidents seemed trivial; a brushing of the surface of his mind, more an irritation because he had no emotion to spare than any real empathy.
Then a stupid and pointless tragedy involving Raeburn jerked Pitt violently out of his self-pity. Raeburn was a purposeless, simpleminded little man who seemed inadequate to face the world. He had only one thing of which he was proud: though he was promiscuous and he stole, he did not tell lies, not even to escape punishment. Now and again he boasted of it and no one minded; it was boring and they took for granted that he was harmless, and he challenged no one’s territory. There was a tacit understanding that one did not victimize Raeburn. He filled the role of a house pet.
On this occasion, when Pitt was sunk deep in his own misery, the permanent cold, the hunger, and the emotional loneliness and fears he was being forced with every succeeding day to face more openly, a jailer’s watch was mislaid, and by some mischance Raeburn was accused of having taken it. He swore he had not, but the jailer, who did not know him, did not accept the denial. Raeburn was removed to solitary confinement. He was terrified of being alone, he had no thoughts to fill the silence and it threatened to obliterate him. When they came for him he lashed out, and for that he was undeniably guilty. They dismissed the charge of thieving as no longer important; now he had assaulted a warden. He was put in a cell in isolation, uncomprehending, still swearing he had not taken the watch.
At night in his bunk, shivering in the dark, Pitt could hear Raeburn crying out, sometimes loudly, “I didn’t do it! Tell ’em I didn’t do it!” Other times it was only a confused babbling that sank away into silence.
He was a weak little man, and the one thing he valued had been removed. His only worth was that everyone knew he did not tell lies, but now someone had not believed him. His solitude was vast, like annihilation itself, and he had nothing to cling to. He either would not or could not eat.
A week later they took him away to the Bedlam asylum for the insane, and within a short time he was dead.
The effect on the other prisoners was surprisingly deep. While he had been alive Raeburn was tolerated with a mild contempt, but there had been a tacit comprehension that his honesty had been one small light in the darkness of his loneliness and stupidity; it was his mark of identity in a nameless sea. He had no other strength, nor was he aware of any other virtue. His weaknesses had let him down so often they were intimately known.
When he was taken away there rippled through the others a kind of anger that for once had nothing to do with selfishness. Raeburn’s fate brought them as close to pity as they could come.
The incident marked Pitt deeply. He willed himself to forget it, but Raeburn’s cries repeated themselves in his head and his imagination filled in the picture of the man’s shallow, droop-eyed face, witless with fear, stained with weeping.
His own self-pity dissolved into anger. From hating the other men, he surprised himself by managing to forget, sometimes for hours on end, all the world of difference between himself and them, and felt only the pain they had in common.
At night, lying in the cold, he turned over every possibility in his mind. He could speak to no one about his own case, but they could not stop him from thinking.
Surely the key to it lay in the treason. Who was the spy? At first he thought it had been Robert York, seduced by Cerise, perhaps with some spy master behind her. Then since Dulcie’s death, which he was certain had also been murder, the suspects had been narrowed to either someone in the York house or one of their visitors that night, the Danvers and the Ashersons, who also had access to the Foreign Office.
Now Cerise herself had been murdered—by whom? The unknown spy master who was afraid Pitt would find her and that she might knowingly or unknowingly betray him?
He was growing confused. It made no sense. If there was such a figure, shadowy, unknown, then that person had no part in the murder of Dulcie. It had to be someone Pitt knew, someone he had already seen and talked to. Dulcie had been killed because she had seen Cerise, there could be no other reason. That was borne out by the fact that Cerise herself had been murdered when it became inevitable that Pitt would find her.
But why had Robert York been killed? Was there something he knew, something he had seen or heard? Was it what he had done, and thus could reveal?
Perhaps there had been a real thief, s
omeone Robert York would have recognized when he interrupted and caught him. Perhaps Cerise had not succeeded in her attempts to seduce him, and had sent a thief instead. Then who was the thief? Someone known to Robert York, strong enough and skilled enough—and cold-blooded enough—to kill him with a single blow, even when he was prepared and presumably on his guard. After all, if you disturb a burglar in your house in the middle of the night, and you recognize him and know his intent, then surely you would understand he could not leave you to reveal him, as you would be bound to?
Julian Danver, Garrard Danver, possibly, although he was twice York’s age—or Felix Asherson? Pitt did not even consider Piers York; he would hardly have needed to offer any explanation for being in the library of his own house, whatever the time of night.
But the Danvers and Asherson all worked at the Foreign Office themselves. It did not make sense that they should steal secrets from Robert York.
Pitt lay awake in the bitter night, hearing the now familiar sounds of uneasy movement, the echo of coughs, groans, someone swearing, and further away a man weeping with hollow, racking sounds of despair.
He was no further forward. The pieces did not fit. Who was Cerise? he wondered, hovering on the borders of sleep, his mind snatching at shadows. It all hinged on her.
In the morning the gray immediacy of the day returned, crowding his senses. He could close his eyes to some of it, even turn his mind from the sounds, becoming numb to the creeping cold, but he could never completely shut out the sour smell. It was there with every breath, the taste of it at the back of his throat, making his stomach querulous.
There was no stillness to think.
With darkness came the illusion of solitude again, and his mind returned to gnaw the question. He turned it over and over and no answer seemed to satisfy him. It still seemed most likely that Robert York had interrupted someone, and he was killed because of his knowledge, as was Dulcie, and, of course, Cerise. But knowledge of what?
