The Angel Court Affair

by Anne Perry

  Even in his horror and pity, Pitt was drenched with relief. He did not know her. Then he looked farther down and realized that the dark mass around the lower part of her body was not an apron crumpled up, but her own intestines, where her belly had been torn open. Then almost with relief he saw the knife buried deep in her chest, and knew that the mutilation could have been done after death, sparing her at least that pain.

  “Please God…” he murmured, keeping himself from gagging with difficulty.

  “It is Cleo Robles,” Brundage said hoarsely. “She was only twenty-three.” His voice choked with anger and grief. “She thought she was going to save the world, or at least a good part of it. She believed in everything…in God.” He stopped abruptly and swallowed hard, and then he barged out of the room into the rest of the house.

  Pitt followed him, knowing he had to. Elfrida and Sofia were probably lying just like this, somewhere close by. He needed to be angry too. Grief was no use now; revulsion and fear were even worse, more disabling. Pity could come later. Now they must do their jobs.

  Elfrida Fonsecca was in the hall, at the bottom of the stairs, curled over against the bloody mess that had been her internal organs. She too had been stabbed in the heart. She was older than Cleo, perhaps in her forties. There were a few gray threads in the hair unraveled around her face, and her skin was touched with lines at the eyes and mouth.

  “Who the hell would do this?” Brundage asked blankly, his voice trembling. He had been in the army before joining Special Branch; he was acquainted with violence, but not this obscenity against women. “This can’t be religious…can it?”

  “I don’t know,” Pitt admitted. He was trembling himself, his hands slipping on the banister, his legs weak. He pushed past Brundage and went on up to the top landing. It was empty, but a potted plant in a stand had been knocked over and there was soil scattered over the carpet.

  His hands stuck on the doorknob, his throat tight, while he opened the first bedroom door. The room had been lived in recently. There were hairbrushes on the dressing table and a nightgown laid out neatly on the bed, the sheets smooth, blankets tucked in.

  He walked around slowly, then kneeled down and looked under the bed. There was nothing there but a few pieces of fluff, as if no one had swept for a day or two.

  He stood up again, awkwardly, and looked in the wardrobe and the drawers of the chest. There were a few undergarments, clearly a woman’s. Whoever it belonged to had brought at least sufficient to stay for several days. She had not been snatched without warning.

  The other bedroom had two beds in it; both had been occupied, but left neat. Pitt and Brundage searched from attic to cellar, but there was no sign of Sofia Delacruz.

  CHAPTER

  5

  PITT SENT BRUNDAGE TO find the nearest telephone and inform the local police. He had considered for a few moments the possibility of not telling them, but eventually they would have to know. Special Branch did not deal with crimes other than those that endangered the state. Police cooperation was critical.

  He also told Brundage to send for more of their own men, most specifically Stoker, usually Pitt’s right-hand man. He had not been involved in this so far because it had seemed such a trivial case at first.

  These murders were going to make headlines though. There was no way to avoid it. And the more he attempted to try, the worse it would look. The neighbors would already be wondering what was going on. Any minute now someone would come to look. The first journalists would not be far behind. He shuddered at the thought of what Frank Laurence would write.

  When Brundage was gone Pitt steeled himself to go back and study the bodies. The local police surgeon would be among the first to arrive. Pitt knew he had maybe thirty or forty minutes to learn what he could while the scene was undisturbed.

  He would look at Elfrida first. Reluctantly he went back to the hallway and the foot of the stairs. Gazing at the wreck of Elfrida’s body he felt a momentary wave of fury at the flies and lashed out at them, sending them buzzing crazily.

  Within seconds they were back and he felt ridiculous.

  When he had learned all he could by studying her, he would find the linen cupboard and put a sheet over her. It was a decency for his own sake. It made no difference to anything else now, certainly not to her.

  Had Elfrida been coming down the stairs, perhaps hearing Cleo cry out? Or had she been going up, trying to run away or warn Sofia, even defend her?

  Pitt wondered how the murderer had got into the house. The front door was unmarked and no windows at either the back or front appeared to have been jimmied. Had one of the women let him in? At which door, back or front?

  He stood staring at the body, picturing it in his mind. She was lying slightly sideways, her head a couple of steps higher than her feet. The knife was in her chest, and yet she seemed to be going upward. She must have turned to face the killer. Had she been going down then he would have been behind her. She would have fallen forward much farther.

  If it was someone she knew, had she run only after he had killed Cleo? If she had been afraid immediately then she would surely have gone out the door and into the street, screaming for help.

  Or maybe Sofia had done that. But surely someone would’ve reported it. And then, where was she? Escaped? Still alive and taken somewhere else? Or dead, but the body in some other place?

  He went upstairs and found the linen cupboard. He took two sheets and spread one out over Elfrida’s body, then returned to the kitchen and forced himself to look at Cleo.

  Again he had to swallow his rage at the flies and study the way the body lay, the clothes, her position relative to the table, the stove, the door. He must learn everything he could.

  One leg was twisted half under her. She must have turned. He worked out which way she had been looking when she fell. It was toward the back door. But had that been to run out of it, or could her attacker have come in that way?

  He studied the few articles on the floor: a wooden spoon, a cloth, a china bowl broken into two pieces. There was spilled egg yolk on the boards, dried hard now. She had been starting to make something. Whatever else she had been going to use was still in the pantry. It must have been a calm hour of the day when they were busy doing simple chores and then violent and terrible death had come on them, with perhaps only seconds’ warning.

  It was another twenty minutes before the local police arrived accompanied by the surgeon, and the formal process of investigation began. Pitt had found only a few further signs of struggle, slight but there. There was a dent in the wooden table in the hallway. There was a small tear in the net curtain by the window beside the front door. He saw three other small tears neatly mended, suggesting that this one was recent. It could mean anything or nothing.

  Inspector Latham was a tall, spare man. He introduced himself to Pitt, glanced around the kitchen and noted the body covered with the bedsheet. He cleared his throat as if to say something, then changed his mind. He nodded to the police surgeon, a Dr. Spurling, who nodded to Pitt, then bent down, removed the sheet carefully, and began his examination.

  “Thank you, sir,” Latham said to Pitt. “Very nasty indeed.” He had a long, sad face and it expressed his emotions perfectly. “We’ll take it over from here. But before you leave, you’d better tell me what you know. Who are these women?”

  Briefly Pitt told him about Sofia Delacruz and her mission in England.

  Latham shook his head. “Oh dear.” His voice was grave. “Well, if we find anything we’ll let you know. We’ll question the neighbors. There are half a dozen of them hanging around. We’ll keep you informed. Any trace of Señora Delacruz and we’ll report it.” He nodded. It was a dismissal, and Pitt was happy to leave.

  —

  PITT ARRIVED HOME LATE and tired. Charlotte had already heard of the murders at Inkerman Road. They were in the late editions. He did not tell her the details, or how he felt about discovering the bodies of the two women, but she knew him well enough n
ot to need words. The news had spread like a flood tide through London. By morning all the newspapers carried the story in various degrees of horror, from the stately loathing of the most respectable to the lurid gore of the pamphlets in the East End. Common to them all was the speculation about religious vengeance and the shame that such a crime should happen to foreigners visiting London. The police were excoriated everywhere. Pitt felt a rising anger in their defense, and an embarrassment that Special Branch, which had been given the specific task of protecting Sofia Delacruz, and forewarned of the threat, should have so signally failed.

  At first glance Laurence’s article in The Times was less cruel than it might have been. Pitt looked at it with trepidation, and when he came to the end he felt a breath of relief. Then he looked across the breakfast table at Charlotte and saw her expression.

  “You’ve read it?” he said quietly.

  She nodded, her face bleak with sympathy. He looked at her for a moment or two, then scanned the article again. It avoided all the direct and obvious criticism, but it was sharper, and also funnier, than the others, and filled with additional information about Sofia Delacruz and the substance of her philosophy. It explained quite clearly why it could be so disturbing to the Establishment. It raised questions the other accounts did not. It caught the attention, made one laugh and shiver at the same time.

  It ended by reminding the readers of the radical changes of the last half century. Science had given people new worlds, but it had also shaken the foundations of the old.

  The advances of science make it difficult for many of us now to believe in the Bible as the literal truth. If it is figurative, then who is to interpret it for us? Science is impartial. It offers no comfort, no moral authority and certainly no help or mercy. The strong survive. But the strong are not necessarily the funny, the brave, the wise or the gentle. And they are not necessarily the ones we love. Why did Sofia Delacruz’s message frighten people and make them so angry? Is this what we have become, killers of those we do not understand?

  Frank Laurence’s article would be read, and remembered, by the people with influence, and the power to call Pitt’s position into question. None of it could he disclaim.

  Charlotte said nothing for a moment; when she did speak it was very quietly. “Is Laurence right, Thomas? Whether she means to or not, is Sofia Delacruz eating away at the foundations of the Church, and therefore also at the Throne? The Queen is the Protector of the Faith, and so at least nominally the head of the Church. Do you suppose Sofia has even thought of that?” She bit her lip. “Or is it exactly what she is meaning to do?”

  “That would be one reason for silencing her,” Pitt admitted unhappily. It was a possibility he did not want to think about, and yet he must.

  “Should we let anyone silence her?” Charlotte asked. “What if she’s right? What if she won’t be silenced, except by violence?”

  “Thank God that’s not my decision,” Pitt said with intense gratitude.

  “And if it were?” she persisted.

  “I don’t know what I believe.” He found the words hard to say. “I wish it could be as simple for me as it was for my mother. She believed. It was there in her face, in her eyes. It’s all I can remember about her really clearly. Sometimes I see her, for an instant, in Jemima, although really Jemima looks like you. It’s just in the turn of her head, an expression sometimes. Or maybe I just want to see it that way.” He smiled at her very slightly, and felt her hand close round his and her fingers tighten.

  —

  IN THE OFFICE, BRUNDAGE was waiting for Pitt, and almost as soon as he had finished his report on the few facts they had gained from Latham’s men, Stoker came in also. His bleak, bony face was grim. He acknowledged Brundage, and then spoke directly to Pitt.

  “The police surgeon, Spurling, has nothing useful to add, sir. From the postmortem, seems the two women were both caught pretty much by surprise. The one in the kitchen, immediately. Never had time to defend herself. The older woman on the stairs seemed to be trying to run away. Neither of them were able to fight hard; no wounds where you’d expect them if they had. That suggested that maybe they knew whoever did it, didn’t immediately attack him, poor creatures. At least the bastard didn’t cut them up alive.” His expression registered a marked degree of anger. Pitt realized suddenly that the younger woman, Cleo, had had lovely hair, auburn in color, just like Kitty Ryder, whom they had spent so long searching for only a few months ago, and who had held Stoker’s imagination so tightly.

  “We’ve got to find this swine,” Stoker said with a wave of fury. “I don’t care if this killer thinks he’s on some religious crusade, or what he believes about anything. This is plain, brutal murder.”

  “We’ll get ’im on the end of a rope, sir,” Brundage said suddenly. “I don’t know if it’s a help or not, but this case has got a hell of a public outcry.”

  Pitt winced. “I know. I suppose now we have to closely examine every lunatic who threatened her. Sort out the dangerous ones from the crackpots.”

  “I’ll do that, sir,” Brundage said quickly. “I’d like to scare them witless. Let them think I believe they ripped those poor women’s bellies out. They won’t open their mouths again in a hurry.”

  Stoker gave a rare smile at the thought.

  “While you’re about it, don’t forget that some of them might actually be respectable,” Pitt said bitterly. “Religious lunacy doesn’t know any bounds. If you doubt it, take a look at some of the things we did in the Reformation. We burned a fair few people for their beliefs.”

  “We?” Stoker’s eyes opened wide.

  “Yes, ‘we,’ ” Pitt answered decisively.

  There was a knock on the door and a young man looked in, his face pale, eyes wide.

  “What is it, Carter?” Pitt asked.

  “Mr. Teague is here, sir,” Carter replied breathlessly. “Dalton Teague. He’d like to speak to you, sir.”

  Even Stoker looked impressed, in spite of himself.

  Pitt understood. Dalton Teague was a national hero. He excelled at many sports, but at cricket he was supreme. He played not only with such skill and leadership that he seldom lost, but he had a grace that was a joy to watch. He typified the courage, honor and sportsmanship that was the essence of the game. Pitt remembered seeing him at Sofia’s lecture; he was equally surprised the man was here now. Had he come to exert some influence in the search for Sofia? He was standing for Parliament. But as a Conservative candidate he must loathe everything Sofia Delacruz stood for.

  “What on earth does Teague want?” Pitt said with exasperation. He was not in the frame of mind, or the position of strength, to receive a national figure at the moment. He searched for an excuse, and found none. He glanced at Stoker, then at Brundage.

  “You had better ask him to come in,” he conceded to Carter.

  Almost immediately after Carter went out, the magnificent figure of Teague filled the doorway. With his pale-colored clothes and fair hair he seemed to carry the light with him.

  Pitt rose to his feet and stared at him levelly. “Good morning, Mr. Teague. What may we do for you?” he said courteously, offering his hand.

  Teague shook it with a powerful grip, then sat down gracefully in the nearest chair. He did not acknowledge either Brundage or Stoker, not like he had not seen them, but as if they were servants, to whom one naturally did not speak.

  “Good of you to see me,” he said casually. His features were excellent, his skin burnished golden by the sun.

  “I imagine you have no time to spare for calling on anyone without a specific purpose,” Pitt replied, keeping up his own pleasant expression with something of an effort.

  “Precisely,” Teague agreed. “So I shall come to the point. Like everyone else, I am aware of the murders of the women from Angel Court, and the disappearance of Sofia Delacruz. I am not an admirer of her teachings. Frankly I think them preposterous. But I am an Englishman, and I do not wish her to come to harm while in my co
untry. I shall be happy to do all I can to help find her, and if it should be necessary, help to rescue her from whomever is responsible for this.” He smiled very slightly, holding up one hand as if to prevent Pitt from interrupting him.

  “I have considerable means at my disposal,” he went on. “You may not be aware of the extent of my interests, but I can call upon scores of men all over the Home Counties to do whatever is necessary to search for Señora Delacruz. You cannot be unlimited in the number of men you can deploy, since your responsibility is far wider than this one miserable incident.” He smiled bleakly. “God knows, the world seems to be on the brink of a precipice, and losing its balance. Even America, which I’ve always thought of as the sanest and most idealistic of countries, is setting out on wars of aggression.

  “But of course you must know that. They have already declared war on Spain so they can take Cuba. Then Dewey’s Asiatic Squadron steamed into Manila in the Philippines and destroyed the entire Spanish fleet there, and most of the shore batteries. Who knows how many people they killed.”

  He clenched his teeth. “Europe is in chaos. Only God and the devil know how this damn Dreyfus affair is going to end. By the look of it, either the government will fall, or the army will. Dreyfus is rotting his life away in prison on Devil’s Island, innocent or guilty.”

  Pitt drew in breath to speak, but Teague carried on.

  “I’m sorry, I have gone off on a tangent. As I said, I am to offer whatever assistance I can in order to find Señora Delacruz.”

  This time his smile was wider. “Also I am not without influence in various…other circles. For instance, when it comes to certain branches of the press who could be of more use, and of less nuisance, than they currently are. Permit me to help, Mr. Pitt. We have common cause.”

  It was the last thing Pitt had expected. His immediate instinct was to refuse. Special Branch worked alone. It was out of necessity, and under sufferance, that they cooperated with the police. And yet even as the words rose on his tongue, he saw the advantages of Teague’s offer. The situation was desperate, and Pitt did not have sufficient men to comb the countryside for one woman who could be anywhere. She had been gone for several days now, which was long enough for her to have returned to Spain, or anywhere else.