Twenty-One Days

by Anne Perry

  Pitt was speaking again. ‘I know what Graves is referring to, and in essence what he said is true. A man of high power in Portuguese politics, Luz dos Santos, here in London at the time, had a violent quarrel with his wife in their home. It ended tragically. He struck her hard and killed her. So yes, it was murder. He was a violent man.’

  ‘You helped him? Why?’ Daniel demanded.

  ‘It was two years ago, just before the assassination of the King of Portugal.’

  ‘What does that have to do with it?’

  ‘It was a very turbulent time in Portugal. It still is. I hope there won’t be any more, but there is a strong chance of another rebellion like the last one, but far worse. There is unrest all over Europe, particularly Socialists uprisings. I can’t say I entirely blame them.’

  ‘What? Assassinations? Riots?’

  ‘I am not approving of them, Daniel, I’m saying I understand why they rebel against poverty, oppression, and a rule that has no fairness and no room to appeal.’

  ‘And was this man’s wife oppressing him?’ Daniel asked, and then wished he could have left the sarcasm out of his voice. Should he apologise? He had not intended the rudeness, but the disbelief was real.

  ‘You have to follow the exactness of the law,’ Pitt said. He, too, seemed to be keeping his temper with an effort. ‘I can’t always afford the luxury of having what I do dictated by statute. Revolution is essentially about breaking laws.’

  ‘Murder?’ Daniel challenged. He hated this. He wished he had never begun, but he could not leave it now. His father’s beliefs were the framework of all he believed himself. Fairness, innate decency, following the rules when they suited you, and even more scrupulously when they didn’t. It was what his parents had taught him all his life. How could it be changing now? He felt utterly lost, more than ever before.

  ‘Daniel!’ Pitt’s voice was sharp.

  Daniel looked up.

  ‘I didn’t kill the woman. I would have saved her if I could, but when I arrived she was already dead. The man knew too many secrets that he would tell if I let him be taken into police custody, and charged, then stand trial. I hated saving him, but the alternative would have cost many lives that I was not too late to save.’

  Daniel felt hope surge inside him. He wanted that to be true, wanted it so badly it was like gasping for air when you have been under water. ‘What did you do? Lie to the police?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Did anyone else get blamed?’

  ‘No,’ Pitt said stiffly. ‘Of course not. We managed to disguise it to look like an accident. She fell down the stairs.’

  ‘And what happened to him?’

  ‘I got him out of the country.’

  ‘But the assassination happened anyway?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the people whose deaths he would have caused, they are still alive?’ Daniel asked slowly.

  ‘Daniel, I’m not trying to change the political situation in other countries,’ Pitt said patiently. ‘I’m trying to stop the violence from coming here. Half the social extremists in Europe – that is, the revolutionaries – are in London, one time or another. Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, they feel safe here, some of them even live here. God knows what they are planning. And I like to know as much of it as I can. That’s what Special Branch is about. Safeguarding us against violence, terrorism, change by force.’ His grimace was something short of a smile.

  ‘I see . . .’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘I think so. Something, anyway. This biography that Graves is writing – it’s pretty . . . nasty.’

  ‘I damn well intend to find out,’ Pitt answered. ‘We should have known someone was writing a biography like this. He must have had to do a great deal of research into it. And if someone at Special Branch answered his questions, I will need some good excuse if they expect to keep their job now, and an account of exactly what he asked, and exactly what he was told. They’re going to have to earn their redemption.’ He pushed his hand through his unruly hair, making it worse. ‘It must have been difficult for you to tell me.’

  Daniel felt a mixture of pity for those accused in Graves’ book, guilt that he had told Pitt about it, and the fierce wish that he could do something to help. Mostly he feared that all the certainties in life that made sense, and the values of everything, even his own identity, were beginning to unravel in front of him.

  ‘I’m sorry . . .’

  Pitt jerked his head up. ‘You’d be a damn sight sorrier if you’d said nothing, and passed this case on to someone else. Graves is your client?’

  ‘Yes . . . but—’

  ‘No buts. You can repeat nothing you know in confidence that is against his interest,’ Pitt replied. ‘You must investigate this wherever it leads, but if you find out anything that is a threat to the security of the nation, you will tell me. I don’t imagine that will happen. If it does, you may have a conflict of interest. Ask fford Croft, he’ll advise you.’

  ‘Would it be against the interest of the nation if you were not able to perform your job?’

  Pitt’s smile was bleak. ‘That’s a matter of opinion. I hope so. But no doubt there will be those who think it would be in the best interests of the country if I were to be replaced. A few for whom it would be very much in their interest!’ His amusement was self-mocking.

  Daniel did not know what to say. He would have given a great deal for this not to be happening, for it to be something else he had to tell Pitt, that his man, at least one of them, had let him down. He stumbled for something to say, but nothing came to him that was honest.

  ‘There isn’t anything you can do,’ Pitt repeated. ‘Once Graves told you, there was only one thing you could ever have done.’ He took a moment to think. ‘Tell me, what have you learned since then? I ask because I have to find out who could and should have known about this, and why he didn’t. Is it carelessness, or design? Did someone know, and not set it right? And if so, why?’

  Daniel could think of nothing useful to say. It was not his fault, and yet he felt as if it were. At every step, he could have paid lip service to the idea of saving Graves from the rope, whether he killed Ebony or not, and he surely deserved to hang!

  Except you have to have faith, before you hanged someone, that you were right, at least in fact. The morality of it was not your judgement.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ he asked Pitt.

  ‘Find out where the information came from,’ Pitt answered. ‘And you are going to help me. I want all the details you can remember of exactly what stories Graves was going to tell. He must have got some details – it’s not a story without them. Tell me. What stories did he tell of Narraway, specifically? Then of Vespasia, something that’s not just gossip that anyone knows? Although the days she was gossiped about are long past. Is it first-hand knowledge or second? And about me? I used to know the dates. I need to know the details.’

  ‘It’s ugly . . .’ Daniel avoided his father’s eyes.

  ‘The details!’ Pitt said sharply. ‘If I know the details he has, I can very probably trace it back to the source. The devil of truth is in the details, Daniel. Just what stories do they tell about Narraway?’

  Daniel tried to remember exactly what he had seen in Graves’ notes. ‘There was something about a case in Ireland. A man named O’Neill, who was betrayed and died. A woman Narraway seduced, and then betrayed. Someone else who had betrayed Special Branch, and sent you on an abortive trip to France, to Paris.’

  ‘You sure it was Paris?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Interesting. It was Saint Malo, actually. Go on.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you go to Paris first?’

  ‘No. Paris is inland, I took a ferry direct to Le Havre, and then to Saint Malo.’

  Daniel felt a thin trickle of hope, like winter sunlight. ‘And then there was a case about an addicted young man who shot a bystander and blamed the police, and Narraway told you to get him off.’

 
‘Interesting details. Did they say how I got him off or why Narraway wanted it?’

  ‘Narraway wanted to . . . something to do with the boy’s father, who was very important.’ Daniel struggled to remember more, and could not.

  ‘Get me all you can – copies of Graves’ notes, if possible,’ Pitt told him. ‘The cases are real ones. But the details are wrong. The boy was dying anyway. All I did was get him into a hospital for the last few months of his life, instead of a prison cell and a death in unbearable pain. And as for his father, I’d have seen the swine in hell, with pleasure. But his mother was a good woman. Go on.’

  Daniel told him all the rest that he could remember, and promised to bring him more detail as soon as he could.

  When he finally stood up to go, his mind was racing with ideas. All the facts he remembered, and any others he could add later, might well help Pitt to lead Daniel to whoever had murdered Ebony Graves and had framed Graves. On orders from someone in Special Branch? And was that person a traitor – or a patriot? Did that depend upon whether Narraway, or Pitt himself, had acted as Graves concluded? Or was that immaterial? And if it had all happened while Pitt was head of Special Branch, did that make it his fault?

  Daniel stayed for dinner, even though part of him wanted to leave and think what to do next. First, he must study the material of Graves’ book he had taken back to his lodgings.

  But if he didn’t stay, then he would have to explain to his mother why. It would frighten her. And then she would see through it immediately if he tried to look as if nothing were going on. He had learned that at the age of six. She knew him better than he knew himself. It wasn’t completely true now, but the memory was strong, and she could still surprise him at times.

  At dinner, they sat around the dining-room table, not the kitchen, as in so many years in the past. Perhaps if he had not been present it would have been in the kitchen this evening, too.

  Daniel dismissed the whole subject of Russell Graves, and instead told his mother in particular how he had very nearly lost the case for Roman Blackwell, but in the end pulled it out of apparently nothing, like a magician’s rabbit out of a hat. They all discussed the latest letter from Jemima in New York, and how her husband, Patrick, was faring, and, of course, all about her two little girls.

  Daniel left after nine. He hugged his mother, as he did always, and shook his father’s hand, feeling the warmth of his grip just a moment longer than usual. It was Charlotte who saw him to the door.

  ‘Come back, if you can’t handle it alone,’ she said very quietly. ‘We’re always here.’

  ‘Handle what?’ He feigned innocence.

  ‘Whatever it is,’ she said impatiently. ‘I’ve been a policeman’s wife since before you were born, my darling. I know there’s something very wrong. Just remember . . . we are here.’ She reached up and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek, then almost pushed him out of the door.

  He arrived back at Mrs Portiscale’s, opened the front door as close to silently as he was able, and went inside. There was only the night light on in the hall. He went up the stair, avoiding the step he knew creaked, and into his own room on the next floor, overlooking the garden.

  He saw the message on the desk, propped up, and written in Mrs Portiscale’s painfully careful hand: ‘Dear Mr Pitt, a Mr Roman Blackwell left a message for you to visit him. Sincerely, Mrs Portiscale.’

  Well, whatever it was would have to wait until tomorrow. Maybe Mercy had heard something interesting . . .

  Daniel sat down at the desk and unlocked the drawer. He took out Graves’ notes for the book and started to copy them for his father. He studied them also for himself as he went. At last he knew where to begin.

  It was nearly two o’clock when he finally went to bed.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Daniel woke with a start to find sunlight streaming in through the window. His mind had been in too much turmoil to remember to set his alarm clock, and it was already after eight. He might well have missed breakfast, and he had work that could not wait.

  He washed, shaved and dressed, and hurried downstairs to see if there was anything left to eat. Then he changed his mind. Roman Blackwell’s message had been delivered the previous afternoon. He should go straight away. With a hurried apology to Mrs Portiscale, he dashed out of the front door and then down the street to the nearest cab stand. He asked the driver to take him to Blackwell’s address.

  It was about nine o’clock and traffic was totally entangled at the busiest time of day. When they arrived, he paid the driver. The fare seemed an exorbitant amount, but the man had found backroads that avoided the worst blockages and left Daniel on the pavement sooner than he would have thought possible. He thanked him, and walked up to Blackwell’s doorstep. Before he raised his hand to knock, it opened in front of him.

  ‘Well!’ Mercy said, looking him up and down. She refrained from straightening his tie for him, but only just. ‘Come in,’ she invited, stepping back. ‘You look . . . frazzled!’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Daniel apologised. He must not let her see, or guess, the real reason for his inability to command his thoughts. ‘I am. I got Roman’s message too late to call on you. I was . . . out . . .’

  She grunted rather than spoke. ‘Breakfast?’

  ‘No, dinner last night. With my parents.’

  ‘I mean would you like breakfast?’ she offered. ‘Nobody does their best thinking on an empty stomach.’

  ‘Am I going to need my best thinking?’ he asked, trying to invest some lightness into his voice, and failing. He did not want more nasty surprises.

  ‘Yes,’ Mercy said simply.

  She took him through to the kitchen where Blackwell was sitting at the table nursing a cold cup of tea.

  ‘Ah!’ he said as soon as he saw Daniel. ‘What news?’ His dark face was crumpled, as if he were expecting something bad and trying to guess the nature of it before he was told.

  ‘You sent for me!’ Daniel said, sitting down in the chair opposite him.

  ‘True,’ Blackwell agreed. ‘Ma, you’d better feed him. He looks bloody awful.’

  ‘I can see that,’ Mercy replied without turning round. She was already busy with slicing bread and warming up the grill. ‘And watch your manners, Roman. I’m still your mother, and don’t you forget it!’

  Blackwell smiled and his face lit with genuine amusement. ‘My one reliable pleasure in life is baiting Mercy. She never fails to bite.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ she said. ‘Balderdash!’

  ‘What have you found out so far?’ Blackwell asked Daniel. ‘I think I can add to it.’

  ‘A lot,’ Daniel replied, conscious of telling Blackwell less than the truth. But Blackwell admired Pitt so much, he would not want to know about the Portuguese murder and the compromise Pitt had felt he had to make. ‘But without proof it all amounts to nothing,’ he added, refusing to give Graves’ manuscript the credit of belief.

  Daniel felt a little like a moth pinned to a board, so piercing was Blackwell’s gaze.

  ‘Bad, eh?’ Blackwell asked. ‘You don’t care if Graves hangs. He deserves to, if he did that to his wife. And by all accounts, he’s a rotten sod anyway, quite apart from whether he killed her or not. So, what’s eating at you? Old fford Croft going to throw you out if you can’t rescue Graves? Or are you up to rescuing Kitchener, or whatever his name is?’

  ‘Kitteridge,’ Daniel corrected. ‘He’s looking for holes in the law . . .’

  ‘Well, if he can’t find a hole in the law, he’s an ass! It’s as full of holes as a sieve!’ Blackwell said in disgust. ‘Some you could drive a coach and horses through, but none that will save Russell Graves! Why does fford Croft want to? Have you worked that out yet?’

  ‘It’s a debt he owes. An old occasion when Marcus let Graves’ father down. It weighs on him,’ Daniel replied.

  ‘So, was his father a rotten sod as well?’ Blackwell’s eyebrows rose, giving his face a startled look.

  ‘A promise is a
promise,’ Daniel replied, feeling even more cornered. ‘It’s about you, not whoever you made the promise to!’ He could almost hear his father’s voice in his head saying it for him.

  ‘Have a cup of tea.’ Blackwell turned in his seat. ‘Is that kettle boiling yet?’ It was an oblique observation, not a question as to fact. Blackwell turned to Daniel again. ‘So why do we care so much? And don’t lie to me. You’re not good enough at it yet to get away with it. Not to me, anyway. Don’t think you’ll ever be. You care so much, it’s got you all twisted up and cold inside, like a pig’s tail in ice. Why?’

  Mercy put a fresh pot of tea and a fresh, crisp bacon sandwich in front of Daniel.

  Blackwell sat and listened, his face increasingly grim, while Daniel told him very briefly about Graves’ intended book and its exposure of Narraway and Vespasia Cumming-Gould, who became his wife. He finished up by admitting it had to be the incontestable conclusion that the person most likely to destroy Graves was someone in Special Branch – either Thomas Pitt himself, or someone fulfilling his orders. He was uncomfortably conscious of omitting reference to Pitt, or the Portuguese murder.

  Daniel wanted to choose his words carefully, understanding that his emotion was too strong for him. ‘He didn’t know anything about the book,’ he said, and then realised how incompetent that made Pitt seem. ‘He should have. Some of his own men must have access to that kind of information . . .’

  Blackwell pursed his lips. His disgust was plain, but he did not waste words on it. ‘Has Graves a publisher for this thing?’

  ‘He says so,’ Daniel replied. ‘Ah! I see. Why is the publisher prepared to set up a book like this, and ruin his own reputation? Are there damages the people in it will claim – if they’re still alive? That’s the thing. Most of them are dead. Lord Narraway is, so is Lady Vespasia . . .’ He felt a sudden tightness in his throat as he said that. It had not been long ago, and the loss was still fresh enough to hurt. There was a place in his life that felt as if it would always be empty now. ‘Why would the publisher accept it in the first place?’ he asked, struggling to stop the emotion from drowning him. ‘I’ll find out exactly who it is. They are hiding behind the company name.’