by Anne Perry
They were in Commercial Road East, now, in Stepney. If Wrexham did not turn they would be in Limehouse, perhaps the West India Dock Road. If they went that far they could lose him among the tangle of wharves with cranes, bales of goods, warehouses, and dock laborers. If he went down to one of the ferries he could be out of sight between the ships at anchor before they could find another ferry to follow him.
Ahead of them, as if he had seen them, Wrexham increased his pace, his long legs striding out, his jacket scarf flying.
Pitt felt a flicker of nervousness. His muscles were aching, his feet sore despite his excellent boots—his one concession to sartorial taste. Even well-cut jackets never looked right on him because he weighted the pockets with too many pieces of rubbish he thought he might need. His ties never managed to stay straight; perhaps he knotted them too tightly, or too loosely. But his boots were beautiful and immaculately cared for. Even though most of his work was of the mind, out-thinking, out-guessing, remembering, and seeing significance where others didn’t, he still knew the importance of a policeman’s feet. Some habits do not die. Before he had been forced out of the Metropolitan Police and Victor Narraway had taken him into Special Branch, he had walked enough miles to know the price of inattention to physical stamina, and to boots.
Suddenly Wrexham ran across the narrow road and disappeared down Gun Lane.
“He’s going for the Limehouse Station!” Gower shouted, leaping out of the way of a cart full of timber as he dashed after him.
Pitt was on his heels. The Limehouse Station was on the Blackwall Railway, less than a hundred yards away. Wrexham could go in at least three possible directions from there and end up anywhere in the city.
But Wrexham kept moving, rapidly, right, past the way back up to the station. Instead, he turned left onto Three Colts Street, then swerved right onto Ropemaker’s Field, still loping in an easy run.
Pitt was too breathless to shout, and anyway Wrexham was no more than fifteen yards ahead. The few men and one old washerwoman on the path scattered as the three running men passed them. Wrexham was going to the river, as Pitt had feared.
At the end of Ropemaker’s Field they turned right again into Narrow Street, still running. They were only yards from the river’s edge. The breeze was stiff off the water, smelling of salt and mud where the tide was low. Half a dozen gulls soared lazily in circles above a string of barges.
Wrexham was still ahead of them, moving less easily now, tiring. He passed the entrance to Limehouse Cut. Pitt figured that he must be making for Kidney Stairs, the stone steps down to the river, where, if they were lucky, he would find a ferry waiting. There were two more sets of stairs before the road curved twenty yards inland to Broad Street. At the Shadwell Docks there were more stairs again. He could lose his pursuers on any of them.
Gower gestured toward the river. “Steps!” he shouted, bending a moment and gasping to catch his breath. He gestured with a wild swing of his arm. Then he straightened up and began running again, a couple of strides ahead of Pitt.
Pitt could see a ferry coming toward the shore, the boatman pulling easily at the oars. He would get to the steps a moment or two after Wrexham—in fact Pitt and Gower would corner him nicely. Perhaps they could get the ferry to take them up to the Pool of London. He ached to sit down even for that short while.
Wrexham reached the steps and ran down them, disappearing as if he had slipped into a hole. Pitt felt an upsurge of victory. The ferry was still twenty yards from the spot where the steps would meet the water.
Gower let out a yell of triumph, waving his hand high.
They reached the top of the steps just as the ferry pulled away, Wrexham sitting in the stern. They were close enough to see the smile on his face as he half swiveled on the seat to gaze at them. Then he faced forward, speaking to the ferryman and pointing to the farther shore.
Pitt raced down the steps. His feet slithered on the wet stones. He waved his arms at the other ferry, the one they had seen. “Here! Hurry!” he shouted.
Gower shouted also, his voice high and desperate.
The ferryman increased his speed, throwing his full weight behind his oars, and in a matter of seconds had swung around next to the pier.
“Get in, gents,” he said cheerfully. “Where to?”
“After that boat there,” Gower gasped, choking on his own breath and pointing to the other ferry. “An extra half crown in it for you if you catch up with him before he gets up Horseferry Stairs.”
Pitt landed in the boat behind him and immediately sat down so they could get under way. “He’s not going to Horseferry,” he pointed out. “He’s going straight across. Look!”
“Lavender Dock?” Gower scowled, sitting in the seat beside Pitt.
“What the hell for?”
“Shortest way across,” Pitt replied. “Get up to Rotherhithe Street and away.”
“Where to?”
“Nearest train station, probably. Or he might double back. Best place to get lost is among other people.”
They were pulling well away from the dock now and slowly catching up with the other ferry.
There were fewer ships moored here, and they could make their way almost straight across. A string of barges was still fifty yards downstream, moving slowly against the tide. The wind off the water was colder. Without thinking what he was doing, Pitt hunched up and pulled his collar higher around his neck. It seemed like hours since he and Gower had burst into the brickyard and seen Wrexham crouched over West’s blood-soaked body, but it was probably little more than ninety minutes. Their source of information about whatever plot West had known of was gone with his death.
He thought back to his last interview with Narraway, sitting in the office with the hot sunlight streaming through the window onto the piles of books and papers on the desk. Narraway’s face had been intensely serious under its graying mane of hair, his eyes almost black. He had spoken of the gravity of the situation, the rise of the passion to reform Europe’s old imperialism, violently if necessary. It was no longer a matter of a few sticks of dynamite, an assassination here and there. Rather, there were whispers of full governments overthrown by force.
“Some things need changing,” Narraway had said with a wry bitterness. “No one but a fool would deny that there is injustice. But this would result in anarchy. God alone knows how wide this spreads, at least as far as France, Germany, and Italy, and by the sounds of it here in England as well.”
Pitt had stared at him, seeing a sadness in the man he had never before imagined.
“This is a different breed, Pitt, and the tide of victory is with them now. But the violence . . .” Narraway had shaken his head, as if awakening himself. “We don’t change that way in Britain, we evolve slowly. We’ll get there, but not with murder, and not by force.”
The wind was fading, the water smoother.
They were nearly at the south bank of the river. It was time to make a decision. Gower was looking at him, waiting.
Wrexham’s ferry was almost at the Lavender Dock.
“He’s going somewhere,” Gower said urgently. “Do we want to get him now, sir—or see where he leads us? If we take him we won’t know who’s behind this. He won’t talk, he’s no reason to. We practically saw him kill West. He’ll hang for sure.” He waited, frowning.
“Do you think we can keep him in sight?” Pitt asked.
“Yes, sir.” Gower did not hesitate.
“Right.” The decision was clear in Pitt’s mind. “Stay back then. We’ll split up if we have to.”
The ferry hung back until Wrexham had climbed up the narrow steps and all but disappeared. Then, scrambling to keep up, Pitt and Gower went after him.
They were careful to follow from more of a distance, sometimes together but more often with a sufficient space between them.
Yet Wrexham now seemed to be so absorbed in his own concerns that he never looked behind. He must have assumed he had lost them when he crossed the river. Indeed, t
hey were very lucky that he had not. With the amount of waterborne traffic, he must have failed to realize that one ferry was dogging his path.
At the railway station there were at least a couple of dozen other people at the ticket counter.
“Better get tickets all the way, sir,” Gower urged. “We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves from not paying the fare.”
Pitt gave him a sharp look, but stopped himself from making the remark on the edge of his tongue.
“Sorry,” Gower murmured with a slight smile.
Once on the platform they remained close to a knot of other people waiting. Neither of them spoke, as if they were strangers to each other. The precaution seemed unnecessary. Wrexham barely glanced at either of them, nor at anyone else.
The first train was going north. It drew in and stopped. Most of the waiting passengers got on. Pitt wished he had a newspaper to hide his face and appear to take his attention. He should have thought of it before.
“I think I can hear the train . . .,” Gower said almost under his breath. “It should be to Southampton—eventually. We might have to change . . .” The rest of what he said was cut off by the noise of the engine as the train pulled in, belching steam. The doors flew open and passengers poured out.
Pitt struggled to keep Wrexham in sight. He waited until the last moment in case he should get out again and lose them, and, when he didn’t, he and Gower boarded a carriage behind him.
“He could be going anywhere,” Gower said grimly. His fair face was set in hard lines, his hair poking up where he had run his fingers through it. “One of us better get out at every station to see that he doesn’t get off at the last moment.”
“Of course,” Pitt agreed.
“Do you think West really had something for us?” Gower went on. “He could have been killed for some other reason. A quarrel? Those revolutionaries are pretty volatile. Could have been a betrayal within the group? Even a rivalry for leadership?” He was watching Pitt intently, as if trying to read his mind.
“I know that,” Pitt said quietly. He was by far the senior, and it was his decision to make. Gower would never question him on that. It was little comfort now, in fact rather a lonely thought. He remembered Narraway’s certainty that there was something planned that would make the recent random bombings seem trivial. In February of last year, 1894, a French anarchist had tried to destroy the Royal Observatory at Greenwich with a bomb. Thank heaven he had failed. In June, President Carnot of France had been assassinated. In August, a man named Caserio had been executed for the crime. Everywhere there was anger and uncertainty in the air.
It was a risk to follow Wrexham, but to seize on an empty certainty was a kind of surrender. “We’ll follow him,” Pitt replied. “Do you have enough money for another fare, if we have to separate?”
Gower fished in his pocket, counted what he had. “As long as it isn’t all the way to Scotland, yes, sir. Please God it isn’t Scotland.” He smiled with a twisted kind of misery. “You know in February they had the coldest temperature ever recorded in Britain? Nearly fifty degrees of frost! If the poor bastard let off a bomb to start a fire you could hardly blame him!”
“That was February, this is April already,” Pitt reminded him. “Here, we’re pulling into a station. I’ll watch for Wrexham this time. You take the next.”
“Yes, sir.”
Pitt opened the door and was only just on the ground when he saw Wrexham getting out and hurrying across the platform to change trains for Southampton. Pitt turned to signal Gower and found him already out and at his elbow. Together they followed, trying not to be conspicuous by hurrying. They found seats, but separately for a while, to make sure Wrexham didn’t double back and elude them, disappearing into London again.
But Wrexham seemed to be oblivious, as if he no longer even considered the possibility of being followed. He appeared completely carefree, and Pitt had to remind himself that Wrexham had followed a man in the East End only hours ago, then quite deliberately cut his throat and watched him bleed to death on the stones of a deserted brickyard.
“God, he’s a cold-blooded bastard!” he said with sudden fury.
A man in pin-striped trousers on the seat opposite put down his newspaper and stared at Pitt with distaste, then rattled his paper loudly and resumed reading.
Gower smiled. “Quite,” he said quietly. “We had best be extremely careful.”
One or the other of them got out briefly at every stop, just to make certain Wrexham did not leave this train, but he stayed until they finally pulled in at Southampton.
Gower looked at Pitt, puzzled. “What can he do in Southampton?” he said. They hurried along the platform to keep pace with Wrexham, then past the ticket collector and out into the street.
The answer was not long in coming. Wrexham took an omnibus directly toward the docks, and Pitt and Gower had to race to jump onto the step just as it pulled away. Pitt almost bumped into Wrexham, who was still standing. Deliberately he looked away from Gower. They must be more careful. Neither of them was particularly noticeable alone. Gower was fairly tall, lean, his hair long and fair, but his features were a trifle bony, stronger than average. An observant person would remember him. Pitt was taller, perhaps less than graceful, and yet he moved easily, comfortable with himself. His hair was dark and permanently untidy. One front tooth was a little chipped, but visible only when he smiled. It was his steady, very clear gray eyes that people did not forget.
Wrexham would have to be extraordinarily preoccupied not to be aware of seeing them in London, and now again here in Southampton, especially if they were together. Accordingly, Pitt moved on down the inside of the bus to stand well away from Gower, and pretended to be watching the streets as they passed, as if he were taking careful note of his surroundings.
As he had at least half expected, Wrexham went all the way to the dockside. Without speaking to Gower, Pitt followed well behind their quarry. He trusted that Gower was off to the side, as far out of view as possible.
Wrexham bought a ticket on a ferry to St. Malo, across the channel on the coast of France. Pitt bought one as well. He hoped fervently that Gower had sufficient money to get one too, but the only thing worse than ending up alone in France, trying to follow Wrexham without help, would be to lose the man altogether.
He boarded the ferry, a smallish steamship called the Laura, and remained within sight of the gangplank. He needed to see if Gower came aboard, but more important to make sure that Wrexham did not get off again. If Wrexham were aware of Pitt and Gower it would be a simple thing to go ashore and hop the next train back to London.
Pitt was leaning on the railing with the sharp salt wind in his face when he heard footsteps behind him. He swung around, then was annoyed with himself for betraying such obvious alarm.
Gower was a yard away, smiling. “Did you think I was going to push you over?” he said amusedly.
Pitt swallowed back his temper. “Not this close to the shore,” he replied. “I’ll watch you more closely out in mid-channel!”
Gower laughed. “Looks like a good decision, sir. Following him this far could get us a real idea of who his contacts are in Europe. We might even find a clue as to what they’re planning.”
Pitt doubted it, but it was all they had left now. “Perhaps. But we mustn’t be seen together. We’re lucky he hasn’t recognized us so far. He would have if he weren’t so abominably arrogant.”
Gower was suddenly very serious, his fair face grim. “I think whatever he has planned is so important his mind is completely absorbed in it. He thought he lost us in Ropemaker’s Field. Don’t forget we were in a totally separate carriage on the train.”
“I know. But he must have seen us when we were chasing him. He ran,” Pitt pointed out. “I wish at least one of us had a jacket to change. But in April, at sea, without them we’d be even more conspicuous.” He looked at Gower’s coat. They were not markedly different in size. Even if they did no more than exchange coats, it wo
uld alter both their appearances slightly.
As if reading this thought, Gower began to slip off his coat. He passed it over, and took Pitt’s from his outstretched hand.
Pitt put on Gower’s jacket. It was a little tight across the chest.
With a rueful smile Gower emptied the pockets of Pitt’s jacket, which now sat a little loosely on his shoulders. He passed over the notebook, handkerchief, pencil, loose change, half a dozen other bits and pieces, then the wallet with Pitt’s papers of identity and money.
Pitt similarly passed over all Gower’s belongings.
Gower gave a little salute. “See you in St. Malo,” he said, turning on his heel and walking away without looking back, a slight swagger in his step. Then he stopped and turned half toward Pitt, smiling. “I’d keep away from the railing if I were you, sir.”
Pitt raised his hand in a salute, and resumed watching the gangway.
IT WAS JUST PAST the equinox, and darkness still came quite early. They set out to sea as the sun was setting over the headland, and the wind off the water was distinctly chill. There was no point in even wondering where Wrexham was, let alone trying to watch him. If he met with anyone they would not know unless they were so close as to be obvious, and it might look like no more than a mere casual civility between strangers anyway. It would be better to find a chair and get a little sleep. It had been a long day, full of exertion, horror, hectic running through the streets, and then sitting perfectly still in a railway carriage.
As he sat drifting toward sleep, Pitt thought with regret that he had not had even a chance to tell Charlotte that he would not be home that night, or perhaps even the next. He had no idea where his decision would take him. He had only a little money with him—sufficient for one or two nights’ lodging now that he had bought a train ticket and a ferry ticket. He had no toothbrush, no razor, certainly no clean clothes. He had imagined he would meet West, learn his information, and then take it straight back to Narraway at his office in Lisson Grove.
Now they would have to send a telegram from St. Malo requesting funds, and saying at least enough for Narraway to understand what had happened. Poor West’s body would no doubt be found, but the police might not know of any reason to inform Special Branch of it. No doubt Narraway would find out in time. He seemed to have sources of information everywhere. Would he think to tell Charlotte?
