Midnight at Marble Arch

by Anne Perry

  Stoker blinked. For the first time uncertainty showed on his face as he considered other possibilities. “Rape, as a tool of fear, civil disruption? I don’t think so, sir. It’s just a regular crime of selfishness, violence, and uncontrolled appetite. She was a very pretty girl, and some vicious bastard saw his chance and took it. I don’t see it makes any difference that she was Portuguese, except maybe it made her easier to get at.” He swallowed. “And maybe he reckoned her parents would be in less of a position to insist on his arrest, punishment—although honestly, I don’t believe he’d even have thought of that. Rape’s a kind of hot-blooded crime, isn’t it?”

  “Not necessarily. But does that make any difference?” Pitt asked, still holding Stoker’s gaze. “If an anarchist throws a bomb on impulse, or shoots a political figure, is it less dangerous than if he’d planned it ahead of time?”

  This time Stoker’s answer was immediate. “No, sir. D’you think it’ll become an international incident? That might put it on our plate. Castelbranco didn’t seem the sort of man to use his daughter’s death like that. Although I suppose his temperament and philosophy might change if no one is charged.”

  “And if he doesn’t, others might, in his—Angeles’s—name,” Pitt pointed out. “I’m pretty sure most fathers would want to see someone pay for this.”

  Stoker looked bleak. “Except the father of whoever did it, sir. He sure as hell wouldn’t. Maybe some of that is what’s behind it?”

  “We’ve opened up some ugly possibilities, Stoker,” Pitt admitted. “We need to look further into the thought of people taking advantage of the event for political manipulation, repulsive as that is. Bring me what we know about Pelham Forsbrook and any interests he might have that connect in any way to Portugal, or Castelbranco personally.” He rose to his feet. “I think I need to know a lot more about this. With the Quixwood case we will—it’s on everyone’s minds—but not this one, poor girl.”

  “We’d better try our best to figure it out, sir. We don’t want to be caught looking as if we didn’t care. Someone could dig a real deep hole for us with that.”

  “Yes,” Pitt agreed with a shiver. “You’d better see if you can find out who else was at that party I told you Lady Vespasia mentioned. See if you can find a servant who noticed people, things. Some of them do. Claim robbery as a cover. Be careful what you say.”

  “Right, sir. Thank heaven the Quixwood case is nothing to do with us,” Stoker said with feeling. “Count it up how you want, it looks as if it had to be a lover. I’m sorry for Quixwood. Not only lost his wife pretty horribly, but the whole world knows she was betraying him. There’s another man you couldn’t blame if he lost his control and killed the bastard … if they find him.”

  “If they find him they’ll hang him,” Pitt replied, taking his hat and jacket from the coat stand.

  “Even if she took her own life, which is what some people are saying?” Stoker questioned.

  “She was a respectable married woman,” Pitt answered, jamming the hat on his head. “Important husband with influence. And she was British.”

  Stoker pulled a sour face, but he did not reply.

  PITT WENT TO LINCOLN’S Inn Fields to find the man he had been advised was the best and most experienced prosecuting lawyer in cases of rape. He had telephoned in advance to make an appointment, using his position as leverage to force himself into the man’s already busy schedule.

  Aubrey Delacourt was tall and lean, with a shock of dark brown hair. He had a long face with heavy-lidded eyes, which were surprisingly blue.

  “I can spare you about twenty minutes, Commander,” he said, shaking Pitt’s hand briefly, then indicating a chair opposite his desk. His manner was impatient, making it clear he resented being obliged to disrupt his day. “You might be best served by omitting any preamble. I already assume this is important to you, or you would not waste your own time, never mind mine.”

  “You are quite right,” Pitt agreed, sitting down and crossing his legs comfortably, as if he refused to be hurried. “I wouldn’t. However, I must start by saying that what I’m about to tell you is in absolute confidence. If you require me to retain your services for that, give me a bill for your time.”

  “Not necessary,” Delacourt replied. “You have told me you are the head of Special Branch, and I took the precaution of confirming that for myself. What is the advice you wish?”

  Very briefly Pitt summarized his account of the rape and death of Angeles Castelbranco. Before he had finished, Delacourt interrupted him.

  “You have no case to bring,” he said bluntly. “I would have expected you to know that.” There was brisk condescension in his tone. “Even if you find the man who raped her, from what you have said you cannot prove it. All you will do is damage the poor girl’s name even more.”

  “I know that.” Pitt did not hide his own irritation. “I have advised her father to that effect, but quite naturally he cannot bring himself to accept it. I myself have a daughter only two years younger, and when I look at her I know perfectly well I would not accept it either. I would want to beat him senseless, even tear the man apart with my own hands. Knowing I would end up in jail for assault, and it would leave my wife and children in an even worse position perhaps might stop me, but I can’t swear to it.”

  Delacourt’s eyebrows rose slightly. “You want me to advise you how to stop Castelbranco? Say to him exactly what you have said to me.”

  “I want to know more about rape cases,” Pitt answered sharply. “It can’t always be as hopeless as this. If it is, then we need to do something about the law. Does everyone just … give in? One of the misfortunes of life, like a cold in the head, or measles?”

  Delacourt smiled and the anger seeped out of him, his body easing in his chair into a different kind of tension.

  “I won’t wrap it up for you, Commander. Rape is a crime that is desperately difficult to prosecute. That is partly why I chose to specialize in such cases. I like to delude myself that I can achieve the impossible.”

  He steepled his fingers. “People react to it in different ways. Most often, I believe, it is not even reported. Women are so ashamed and so hopeless of any justice that they tell no one. Strangers tend to think they must have deserved it in some way. That is the most comfortable thing to think, especially for other women. Then it cannot happen to them, because they do not deserve it.”

  He moved slightly again. “Some people believe that if a woman defends herself thoroughly, she will not be raped.” He smiled bitterly. “Only beaten to a pulp, or murdered, which would, of course, show she was a virtuous woman, albeit a dead one.

  “Men whose daughters are raped feel the rage you just described,” Delacourt went on, his face puckered with his own anger and sense of futility. “The younger the girl, the deeper the pain and the fury, and usually the sense of personal failure, that they did not prevent the atrocity from happening. What use are you as a father if your child is violated in this terrible way, and you were not there to stop it?”

  Pitt could imagine it only too easily.

  Delacourt was watching him. “We don’t want our children to grow up, except in the sense of happiness,” he said. “We want them to find someone who will love them, when they are ready for the idea, not before. We want them to have children of their own, and if they are sons then to have successful careers—all without the pain and the failures that we have had.”

  Pitt shook his head, not able to find words.

  “We know it’s not possible,” Delacourt agreed. “But we are still not ready for reality. If it is our wives who are raped, then we are confused, outraged not only for her but for ourselves. She has been violated, and something we considered ours has been taken away—not only from her but from us. Life will not ever be the same again. Somebody must be punished. Our civilized minds say it should be long imprisonment. Our more primitive core demands death. In our dreams that we would not admit to, we would accept mutilation as well.”

&n
bsp; Pitt opened his mouth to protest, then merely sighed, and again said nothing.

  Delacourt had not yet finished. “And thoughts we don’t want to have enter our minds.” Delacourt had not yet finished. “Was it really rape? Did she in some way invite it? Surely she must have. Why did it happen to her, and not to someone else? She’s different now. She doesn’t want anyone to touch her, even me! And I’m not certain that I want to touch her anyway. This man has ruined my life. I want to ruin his, slowly and with exquisite pain, as he has done to me.

  Delacourt leaned forward a little. “And if it is brought to trial she will have to tell the whole court, detail by detail, everything he did to her, and how hard she fought, or not. He will be there, in the dock, watching, listening and reliving it himself. Possibly as you look at him you will see the light in his eyes, his tongue flickering over his lips. His lawyer will say everything he can either to suggest she has the wrong man, is mistaken, hysterical, deliberately lying—or else that she was perfectly willing at the time, but is now crying otherwise to try to protect her reputation. Perhaps she is afraid that she is with child, and her husband knows perfectly well it is not his, but a lover’s?”

  “I am back to the beginning, then,” Pitt replied, now paralyzed by futility. “We can do nothing. We rule an empire that stretches around the world, and we cannot protect women from the depraved among us?”

  Delacourt gave a very slight shrug, rueful, but there was a gentleness in his face. “It’s not impossible, Commander, just extremely difficult. And even when we succeed, the cost is high—not to us, but to the women. You have to be certain that you think it’s worth it. Are you sure you are willing not only to live with the result yourself, but to watch this girl’s family live with it?”

  Pitt managed a bleak smile. “Do you tell this to all your clients?”

  “Perhaps not quite as brutally,” Delacourt admitted. “What is it you want to achieve, Mr. Pitt? Angeles Castelbranco is dead. Her reputation is ruined. If you could prove she was raped, and that would be extremely difficult without her alive to speak, then you might achieve something. But the young man would no doubt defend himself vigorously, and whatever he says, there is no one to say otherwise.”

  “Yes. But if we do nothing, then the Portuguese ambassador will believe we don’t care,” Pitt argued. “It might damage the relationship between our two countries for some time—not vastly perhaps, but how can you trust a nation that allows such a thing to occur and then lets it go unpunished?”

  Delacourt grimaced. “I can see the ugliness of that. I don’t know what help I could suggest, Commander, but I will give it some thought.”

  “And the other part of it is that if the young man gets away with it completely, as seems the case, will he do it again?” Pitt asked. “Put simply, why shouldn’t he?”

  “There you have the worst of it. Almost assuredly he will. From the little you’ve told me, it was hardly a crime of passion.” Delacourt clenched his teeth and shook his head very slightly. “A crime of hate, the desire to dominate and to shame. Have you ever been in the slightest tempted to take a woman for whom you had some regard, at any cost?”

  The thought was repulsive. “Of course not!” Pitt said with more feeling than he had intended. “But I am not—” He had been going to say “a rapist,” but stopped, realizing the thought answered itself.

  “A man subject to desire?” Delacourt asked with quite open amusement.

  Pitt felt himself coloring with embarrassment, not that he had felt desire, almost overwhelmingly at times, but that he should have sounded so naïve.

  “I’m sorry,” Delacourt apologized. “I led you into that, partly to show you how easy it is to twist someone’s words and feelings on the subject. Even a man as experienced as you are in police work and evidence in sensitive matters can be led to awkwardness. Imagine being on the witness stand, vulnerable, trying desperately to be both honest and to give evidence that will trap a dangerous man and still preserve some dignity and reputation for the woman concerned.”

  “But you’re pretty certain he’ll do it again?” Pitt said.

  “Yes,” Delacourt agreed. “Don’t most thieves do it again? Most arsonists? Most embezzlers, vandals, liars, anyone whose crime benefits them in some way in their appetite for money, power, revenge, or excitement?”

  Pitt rose to his feet.

  “There is one thing,” Delacourt added, looking up at Pitt. “All that I have said is true; I know it by bitter experience in the courtroom. But if this young man is as violent as you say, then it is possible he has shown it in other ways. Look for loss of temper when he is crossed, when he is beaten in some sport or other, or even loses badly at cards. If he is a risk-taker, look for gambling losses that are heavy or unexpected.”

  Pitt was not certain he grasped the importance of things so trivial. “How will that help the Castelbrancos? Proving Forsbrook is ill-tempered is a far cry from rape.”

  “Not so very far, if he is a bully who can’t take losing,” Delacourt replied. “But that isn’t my point. I’ve tried to convince you of the difficulty of proving rape at all, never mind the danger to the victim of trying. Sometimes one can settle for what is admittedly far less, pathetically so: a prosecution for assault can damage a man’s reputation; people don’t want to do business with him, invite him to the better social events, have him marry into the family. Several such convictions, or even prosecutions without a serious sentence, can mar his life.”

  Pitt said nothing, thinking slowly.

  Delacourt was watching his face. “A small victory,” he admitted, “when you want to beat the man to pulp, and then tear him apart for what he has done to a woman you care about. But it is better than nothing—and it can be a foundation on which to build if you ever do get him to court on a heavier charge.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Delacourt,” Pitt said. “You have spared me more time than you can probably afford. And although only moderately encouraged, I am at least wiser. I understand why people take the law into their own hands. They have looked hard at those of us who are supposed to protect them, or at the very least avenge them, and see that we are powerless. I shall try to prevent the Portuguese ambassador from taking action … even though I still can’t say that I am entirely averse to it. In his place I would do so, and then leave immediately for Portugal and never return.”

  Delacourt shrugged. “Frankly, Mr. Pitt, so would I.”

  Pitt hesitated, wanting to say more, but not knowing what, precisely. “Thank you,” he said finally. “Good day.”

  Outside in the street he walked slowly, oblivious of passersby, of the traffic, even of the open brougham with a beautifully dressed woman riding in it, parasol up to protect her face from the sun, colored silks fluttering in the slight breeze.

  What Delacourt had said to him filled his mind. He believed that it was true, but he was unable to accept that there was no possible way to fight. There had to be. They must make it so, whatever that demanded of them. To be helpless was unendurable.

  He came to the curb and waited a moment or two for a brewer’s dray to pass, then crossed the road.

  Instead of thinking of Jemima, he was now thinking about Daniel. How many men feared for their sons? What would Pitt do if Daniel, grown to adulthood, should be wrongly accused of such a violent and repulsive crime?

  The answer was immediate and shaming. His instinctive reaction would be to assume that the woman was lying, to protect herself from blame for some relationship she dared not acknowledge. His own assumption would be that Daniel could not be at fault, not seriously.

  In six or seven years, Daniel would be a young man, with all the hungers and the curiosity that were there for every young man. His father was probably the last person with whom he would discuss such things. How would Pitt know what Daniel thought of women who perhaps teased him, provoked him, with little or no idea what tigers they were awakening?

  He crossed Drury Lane into Long Acre, only peripherally mindful of
the traffic.

  How would he prevent Daniel from becoming a young man who treated women as something he had the right to use, to hurt, even to destroy? Where did such beliefs begin? How would he ever make certain his son could lose any competition with the same grace as when he won? That he would govern himself in temper, loss, even humiliation? The answer was obvious—he must learn at home. Would it be Pitt’s fault if Daniel grew up arrogant, brutal? Of course it would.

  If Neville Forsbrook was guilty of raping Angeles Castelbranco and thereby causing her death, was it Pelham Forsbrook’s fault as well as Neville’s? Probably. Would that same father defend him now if he was accused? Almost certainly. Any man would, not only to save his child, and out of a refusal to believe he was guilty, but also to defend himself. Pelham Forsbrook would be socially ruined, and perhaps professionally damaged irreparably, if his son was convicted of such a crime.

  The defense would be savage, a fight for survival. Was Pitt prepared to involve himself in that? Winning would not bring Angeles back, and the risks were great.

  But if he did not try? What would that cost?

  Without being aware of it he increased his pace along the footpath. How would he feel if it was his daughter, his wife who was violated in such an intimate and terrible way? What if it was not so immediate, so visceral? What if it was Charlotte’s sister Emily? He had known her as long as he had known Charlotte.

  What if it was Vespasia? Age was no protection. No woman was too young, or too old. Vespasia had such courage, such dignity. Even to imagine her violation was a kind of blasphemy. It jerked him to a stop on the footpath with a pain that was almost physical. He must not allow Neville Forsbrook, or anyone else, to break his world in pieces like that. Whatever the cost, to stand by and do nothing, paralyzed with fear and hopelessness, was even worse. He must think how to attack. It was they who should feel frightened and cornered, not he, not the women he cared for, or any others.

  He started along the pavement again, moving as if he had purpose.