Seven Dials

Synopsis:
Thomas Pitt, mainstay of Her Majesty's Special Branch, is summoned to Connaught Square mansion, where the body of a junior diplomat lies huddled in a wheelbarrow. Nearby stands the tenant of the house, the beautiful, notorious Egyptian woman Ayesha Zakhari, who falls under the shadow of suspicion. Pitt's orders are to protect - at all costs - the good name of the third person in the garden: senior cabinet minister Saville Ryerson. The distinguished public servant, whispered to be Ayesha's lover, insists that she is as innocent as Pitt himself. Pitt's journey to uncover the truth takes him from Egyptian cotton fields to the insidious London slum called Seven Dials - and ultimately to a packed London courtroom in which shocking secrets will at last be revealed.

CHAPTER ONE
PITT OPENED HIS EYES but the thumping did not stop. The first gray of mid-September daylight showed through the curtains. It was not yet six, and there was someone at the front door.

Beside him, Charlotte stirred a little in her sleep. In a moment the knocking would waken her too.

He slid out of bed and moved quickly across the floor and onto the landing. He ran down the stairs in his bare feet, snatched his coat off the rack in the hall, and with one arm through the sleeve, unbolted the front door.

"Good morning, sir," Jesmond said apologetically, his hand still in the air to knock again. He was about twenty-four, seconded from one of the local London police stations to Special Branch, and he considered it to be a great promotion. "Sorry, sir," he went on. "But Mr. Narraway wants you, straightaway, like."

Pitt saw the waiting hansom just beyond him, the horse fidgeting a little, its breath hanging vapor in the air. "All right," he said with irritation. It was not a particularly interesting case he was on, but he had it nearly solved; only one or two small pieces remained. He did not want a distraction now. "Come in." He gestured behind him towards the passage to the kitchen. "If you know how, you can riddle the stove and put the kettle on."

"No time, sir, beggin' your pardon," Jesmond said grimly. "Can't tell you wot it's about, but Mr. Narraway said ter come right away." He stood firmly on the pavement as if remaining rooted to the spot would make Pitt leave with him even sooner.

Pitt sighed and went back in, closing the door to keep the damp air out. He climbed the stairs, doffing his coat, and by the time he was in the bedroom, pouring water out of the ewer into the basin, Charlotte was sitting up in bed pushing her heavy hair out of her eyes.

"What is it?" she asked, although after more than ten years of marriage to him, first when he was in the police, now the last few months in the Special Branch, she knew. She started to get out of bed.

"Don't," he said quickly. "There's no point."

"I'll get you a cup of tea, at least," she replied, ignoring him and standing on the rug beside the bed. "And some hot water to shave. It'll only take twenty minutes or so."

He put down the ewer and went over to her, touching her gently. "I'd have had the constable do it, if there were time. There isn't. You might as well go back to sleep... and keep warm." He slid his arms around her, holding her close to him. He kissed her, and then again. Then he stepped back and returned to the basin of cold water and began to wash and dress, ready to report to Victor Narraway, as far as he knew, the head of the Secret Service in Queen Victoria 's vast empire. If there was anybody above him, Pitt did not know of it.

Outside, the streets were barely stirring. It was too early for cooks and parlor maids, but tweenies, bootboys, and footmen were about, carrying in fresh coal, taking deliveries of fish, vegetables, fruit, and poultry. Areaway doors were open and sculleries were brightly lit in the shadows of the widening dawn.

It was not very far from Keppel Street, where Pitt lived in a modest but very respectable part of Bloomsbury, to the discreet house where Narraway currently had his offices, but it was already daylight when Pitt went in and up the stairs. Jesmond remained below. He had apparently finished his task.

Narraway was sitting in the big armchair he seemed to take with him from one house to another. He was slender, wiry, and at least three inches shorter than Pitt. He had thick, dark hair, touched with gray at the temples, and eyes so dark they seemed black. He did not apologize for getting Pitt out of bed, as Cornwallis, Pitt's superior in the police, would have done.

"There's been a murder at Eden Lodge," he said quietly. His voice was low and very precise, his diction perfect. "This would be of no concern to us, except that the dead man is a junior diplomat, of no particular distinction, but he was shot in the garden of the Egyptian mistress of a senior cabinet minister, and it seems the minister was unfortunately present at the time." He stared levelly at Pitt.

Pitt took a deep breath. "Who shot him?" he asked.

Narraway's eyes did not blink. "That is what I wish you to find out, but so far it unfortunately looks as if Mr. Ryerson is involved, since the police do not seem to have found anyone else on the premises, apart from the usual domestic servants, who were in bed. And rather worse than that, the police arrived to find the woman actually attempting to dispose of the body."

"Very embarrassing," Pitt agreed dryly. "But I don't see what we can do about it. If the Egyptian woman shot him, diplomatic immunity doesn't stretch to cover murder, does it? Either way, we cannot affect it."

Pitt would have liked to add that he had no desire or intention of covering the fact that a cabinet minister had been present, but he very much feared that that was exactly what Narraway was going to ask him to do, for some perceived greater good of the government or the safety of some diplomatic negotiation. There were aspects of being in Special Branch that he disliked intensely, but ever since the business in Whitechapel he had had little choice. He had been dismissed from his position as head of the Bow Street station, and had accepted secondment to Special Branch as protection for himself from the persecution that had followed his exposure of the Inner Circle 's power and its crimes. His new assignment was the only avenue open to him in which he could use his skills to earn a living for himself and his family.

Narraway gave a slight smile, no more than an acknowledgment of a certain irony.

"Just go and find out, Pitt. She's been taken to the Edgware Road police station. The house is on Connaught Square, apparently. Somebody is spending a good deal of money on it."

Pitt gritted his teeth. "Mr. Ryerson, I presume, if she is his mistress. I suppose you are not saying that loosely?"

Narraway sighed. "Go and find out, Pitt. We need the truth before we can do anything about it. Stop weighing it and judging, and go and do your job."

"Yes, sir," Pitt said tartly, standing a little straighter for an instant before turning on his heel and going out, thrusting his hands into his jacket pockets and pushing the entire garment out of shape.

He set out along the street westward towards Hyde Park and the Edgware Road, intending to pick up a hansom as soon as he saw one.

There were more people around now, more traffic in the streets. He passed a newsboy with the earliest edition, headlining the threat of strikes in the cotton mills of Manchester. This problem had been grumbling on for a while, and looked like it was getting worse. Processing cotton was the biggest industry in the whole of the West Midlands, and tens of thousands of people made their living from it, one way or another. The raw cotton was imported from Egypt and woven, dyed and manufactured into goods there, then sold again all over the world. The damage of a strike would spread wide and deep.

There was a woman on the corner of the street selling hot coffee. The sky was calm and still, shredded with ragged clouds, but he was chilled enough to find the prospect of a hot drink welcome. There could well be no time for breakfast. He stopped.

"Mornin', sir," she said cheerfully, grinning to show two missing teeth. "Lovely day, sir. But a nip in the air, eh? 'Ow abaht an 'ot cup ter start the mornin'?"

"Yes, please."

"That'll be tuppence, sir." She held out a gnarled hand, fingers dark with the stain of the beans.

He gave her the money, and accepted the steaming coffee in return. He stood on the pavement, drinking slowly and thinking how he could approach the police when he reached the Edgware Road station. They would resent his interference, even if the case threatened to be so ugly they would be glad to pass the blame on to someone else. He knew how he had felt when he was in charge of Bow Street. Good or bad, he wanted to handle cases himself, not have his judgment overridden by senior officers who knew less of the area, of the details of the evidence, and who had not even met the people concerned, let alone questioned them, seen where they lived, who they cared for, loved, feared, or hated.

The cases he had handled so far in Special Branch were largely preventative: matters of finding men likely to incite violence and stir up the cold, hungry, and impoverished into riot. Occasionally he had been involved in the search for an anarchist or potential bomber. The Special Branch had been formed originally to combat the Irish Problem, and had had a certain degree of success, at least in keeping violence under control. Now its remit was against any threat to the security of the country, so possibly the fall of a major government figure could be scraped into that category.

He finished the coffee and handed the mug back to the woman, thanking her and continuing along the pavement. He took the last few yards at a run as he saw an empty hansom stop at the intersection, and he hailed the driver.

At the Edgware Road station an Inspector Talbot was in charge of the case and received Pitt in his office with barely concealed impatience. He was a man of middle height, lean as a whippet, with sad, slightly faded blue eyes. He stood behind his desk, piled with neatly handwritten reports, and stared at Pitt, waiting for him to speak.

"Thomas Pitt from Special Branch," Pitt introduced himself, offering his card to prove his identity.

Talbot's face tightened, but he waved a hand for Pitt to sit down in one of the rigid, hard-backed chairs. "It's a clean case," Talbot said flatly. "The evidence is pretty hard to misunderstand. The woman was found with the body, trying to move it. It was her gun that shot him, and it was in the barrow beside the body. Thanks to someone's quick thought, we got her in the act." The expression in his face was a challenge, daring Pitt to contradict such blatant facts.

"Whose honesty?" Pitt asked, but his stomach knotted up with foreknowledge of a kind of hopelessness already. This was going to be simple, ordinary and ugly, and as Talbot said, there was no way of evading it.

"Don't know," Talbot replied. "Someone raised the alarm. Heard the shots, they said."

"Raised the alarm how?" Pitt asked, a tiny prickle of curiosity awakened in him.

"Telephone," Talbot answered, catching Pitt's meaning instantly. "Narrows it down a bit, doesn't it? Before you ask, we don't know who. Wouldn't give a name, and apart from that, the caller was so alarmed the voice was hoarse-and so up and down the operator couldn't even say for sure whether it was a man or a woman."

"So the caller was close enough to be certain it was shots," Pitt concluded immediately. "How many houses have telephones within a hundred yards of Eden Lodge?"

Talbot pulled his mouth into a grimace. "Quite a few. Within a hundred and fifty yards, then, probably fifteen or twenty. It's a very nice area, lot of money. We'll try asking, of course, but the fact the caller didn't give a name means he or she wants to keep well out of it." He shrugged. "Pity. Might have seen something, but I suppose more likely they didn't. Body was found in the garden, well concealed by shrubbery, all leaves still on the trees, barely beginning to turn color. Laurels and stuff on the ground, evergreens."

"But you found it straightaway," Pitt pointed out.

"Could hardly miss it," Talbot said ruefully. "She was standing there in a long white dress, with the dead man draped over a wheelbarrow in front of her, like she'd just dropped the handles when she heard the constable coming."

Pitt tried to picture it in his imagination, the dense blackness of the garden in the middle of the night, the crowding leaves, the damp earth, a woman in an evening gown with a corpse in a wheelbarrow.

"There's nothing for you to do," Talbot interrupted.

"Possibly." Pitt refused to be dismissed. "You said there was a gun?"

"Yes. She admitted it was her gun. Had more sense than to try and deny it. Handsome thing, engraved handle. Still warm, and smelled of powder. There's no doubt it was what killed him."

"Could it have been an accident?" Pitt asked without any real hope.

Talbot gave a little grunt. "At twenty yards, possibly, but he was shot within a few feet. And what would a woman like that be doing out in the garden with a gun at three in the morning, except on purpose?"

"Was he shot outside?" Pitt asked quickly. Was Talbot making assumptions, possibly wrong?

Talbot smiled very slightly, only a twitch of the lips. "Either that or he was left lying outside for some time afterwards; there was blood on the ground. And none inside, by the way." His expression tightened, his eyes bright and pale. "Takes a lot of explaining, doesn't it?"

Pitt said nothing. What on earth did Narraway expect him to do? If Ryerson's mistress had shot this man, there was no reason why Special Branch should even think of protecting her, much less lie to do it.

"Who was he?" he said aloud.

Talbot leaned back against the wall. "I was wondering when you'd ask that. Edwin Lovat, ex-army officer and minor diplomat with an apparently good record behind him, and until last night, a promising future ahead. Good family, no enemies that we've found so far, no debts that we know of yet." He stopped, waiting for Pitt to ask the next question.

Pitt concealed his irritation. "So why should this Egyptian woman shoot him, in or out of her house? I assume there was no question of his trying to break in?"

Talbot's eyebrows shot up, wrinkling his forehead. "Why on earth should he do that?"

"I've no idea," Pitt replied tersely. "Why should she be outside in the garden with a gun? None of it makes any sense!"

"Oh, yes it does!" Talbot retorted fiercely, sitting forward and putting his elbows on the desk. "He served with the army in Egypt. Alexandria, to be precise. Which is where she comes from. Who knows what goes on in the minds of women there? They're not like white women, you know. But she's definitely moved up a bit now. She's the mistress of a cabinet minister, Member of Parliament for a Manchester constituency, where all the trouble is over cotton at the moment. She's not got time for the likes of an ex-soldier who's only on the bottom rung of the diplomatic ladder. I daresay he was less keen in taking no for an answer, and she didn't want him interfering in her new affair and upsetting Mr. Ryerson with tales of her past."

"Any evidence of that?" Pitt asked. He was angry, and he wanted to prove Talbot prejudiced and inaccurate, but he could not dislike him totally; in fact, he could not seriously dislike him at all. The man was faced with a task in which he could not satisfy his superiors and still keep any kind of honor. Neither would he keep the confidence of the men he commanded, and with whom he would have to work for months and years after this affair was over. What would Pitt have done in the same circumstances? He honestly did not know. He would have been angry as well, casting around for answers, his thoughts leaping ahead of facts.

"Of course there isn't!" Talbot responded. "But I'll lay you a pound to a penny that if Special Branch, or someone like them, doesn't charge in and prevent me, I will have such evidence in a day or two. The crime's only four hours old!"

Pitt knew he was being unfair.

"How did you identify him?" he asked.

"He had cards on him," Talbot said simply, sitting back upright again. "She was going to dispose of the body. She hadn't even bothered to remove them."

"Is that what she said?"

"For God's sake, man!" Talbot exploded. "She was caught in the garden with his body in a wheelbarrow! What else was she going to do with him? She wasn't taking him to a doctor. He was already dead. She didn't call the police, as an innocent woman would have done; she fetched the gardener's barrow, heaved him into it, and started to wheel him away."

"To go where?" Pitt asked, trying to imagine what had been in the woman's mind, apart from hysteria.

Talbot looked slightly discomfited. "She won't say," he replied.

Pitt raised his eyebrows. "And what about Mr. Ryerson?"

"I haven't asked!" Talbot snapped. "And I don't want to know! He wasn't on the scene when the police got there. He arrived a few moments afterwards."

"What?" Pitt said incredulously.

Talbot colored. "He arrived a few moments afterwards," he repeated stubbornly.

"He just happened to be passing at three in the morning, saw the light of the constable's bull's-eye shining on a woman with a corpse in a wheelbarrow, so he stopped to see if he could help?" Pitt said with heavy sarcasm. "He did arrive in a carriage, from the street, I assume? He didn't by any chance come out of the house-in his nightshirt!"

"No, he did not!" Talbot retorted hotly, his thin face flushing. "He was fully dressed, and he walked over from the direction of the street."

"Where his carriage was waiting, no doubt?"

"He said he came by hansom," Talbot answered.

"Intending to call on the lady, only to find her conspicuously unprepared!" Pitt observed waspishly. "And you believe him?"

"What choice do I have?" Talbot raised his voice for the first time, his desperation ragged through his rapidly slipping composure. "It's idiotic, I know that! Of course he was there. He was actually coming from the mews, where I imagine he'd gone to harness up a horse and hitch it to a trap, or whatever she has, to take the body somewhere and get rid of it. They're only a stone's throw from Hyde Park. That would do. It would be found, of course, but there would be nothing to connect it with either of them. But we got there too soon. We didn't see him with her, and she isn't saying anything."

"And you don't ask him because you don't want to know," Pitt finished for him.

"Something like that," Talbot admitted, his eyes hot and wretched. "But if you want to, then Special Branch is very welcome. Have it! Have it all! Go and ask him. He lives in Paulton Square, Chelsea. I don't know the number, but you can ask. There can't be many cabinet ministers there."

"I'll see the Egyptian woman first. What is her name?"

"Ayesha Zakhari," Talbot replied. "But you can't see her. That's my orders from the top, and Special Branch or not, I'm not letting you in. She hasn't implicated Mr. Ryerson, so you've no brief here. If her embassy says anything it'll be a matter for the Foreign Office, or the Lord Chancellor, or whoever. But so far they haven't. She's just an ordinary woman arrested for the murder of an old lover, and there's no reasonable doubt that she did it. That's how it is, sir-and that's how it's staying, as far as I'm concerned. If you want to make it different, you'll have to do it somewhere else, 'cos you're not doing it here."

Pitt pushed his hands into his trouser pockets, finding a small piece of string, half a dozen coins, a bull's-eye sweet wrapped in paper, two odd lumps of sealing wax, a penknife, and three safety pins. In the other were a notebook, a stub end of pencil, and two handkerchiefs. It flicked through his mind that that was too much.

Talbot stared at him. For the first time Pitt saw in his face that he was frightened. He had cause to be. If he were wrong, either for Ryerson or against him, not a matter of fact but of judgment, he would be ruined. He would take the blame, possibly for others' mistakes, men of greater power and with more to lose.

"So Mr. Ryerson is at home?" Pitt asked.

"As far as I know," Talbot said. "He certainly isn't here. We asked him if he could help us, and he said he couldn't. He said he thought Miss Zakhari was innocent. He didn't believe she would have killed anyone, unless they were threatening her life, in which case it wouldn't be a crime." He shrugged. "I could have written it all down without bothering to ask him. He said the only thing he could-he doesn't know anything about it, he only just arrived-to protect her honor, and all that. Decent men don't say a woman's a whore, even if she is and we all know it. He said she wouldn't have killed anyone without a reason, but then he wouldn't say she had, would he? Apart from anything else, it would make him look like he was betraying her-and that his mistress, which we all know that she is, was a likely murderess and he knew it. And as I said, she didn't deny the gun was hers. We asked the manservant she has, and he admitted it as well. He kept it clean and oiled, and so on."

"Why did she have a gun?"

Talbot spread his hands. "God knows! She did, that's all that matters. Look, sir-Constable Black found her in the garden with the murdered body of an old lover of hers stuck in a wheelbarrow. What more do you want of us?"

"Nothing," Pitt conceded. "Thank you for your patience, Inspector Talbot. If there's anything further I'll come back." He hesitated a moment, then smiled. "Good luck."

Talbot rolled his eyes, but his expression softened for a moment. "Thank you," he said with a touch of sarcasm. "I wish I could walk away from it so easily."

Pitt grinned, and went to the door with a feeling of overwhelming relief. Talbot, poor man, was welcome to what was almost certainly no more than a domestic tragedy after all, cabinet minister notwithstanding.

All the same, Pitt decided that he would walk past Eden Lodge and look at it before going back to report to Narraway. Connaught Square was less than ten minutes away and it was now a very pleasant early morning. More deliverymen were out and the clip of horses' hooves was sharp in the air. In the areaway of one large house a between-stairs maid of about fourteen was whacking a red-and-blue rug with enthusiasm and sending a fine cloud of dust up into the sunlight. He wondered if it was just exuberance or if the rug stood in for someone she disliked.

He crossed the road, cobbles still gleaming in the dew, and threw a penny to one of the small boys who swept away the manure when the need arose. It was too early for the boy to have much to do yet, and he leaned on his broom, his flat cap a couple of sizes too big for him, and resting on his ears.

"Ta, mister!" he called back with a grin.

Eden Lodge was an imposing house facing the open space of Connaught Square, and with a further wide view of St. George's Burial Ground behind it, beyond the mews. It might be interesting to find out whether Miss Zakhari owned it or rented it, and if the latter, from whom? Or possibly they had not bothered to be so discreet, and it was simply owned by Ryerson in the first place.

But of more importance now was to see the garden where Miss Zakhari had been found with the corpse. For that it would be necessary to walk the short distance to the end of the block and around to the back.

There was a constable on duty in the mews, and Pitt identified himself before being permitted to go through the gate beside the stables and into the leafy, damp garden. He kept to the path, although there was little to mask or spoil in the way of evidence. The wooden wheelbarrow was still there, smears of blood down the right side, from where the person pushing it would have stood, and a dark pool, almost congealed, in the bottom. The dead man must have been laid across it with his head on that side and his legs over the other.

Pitt bent and looked more closely at the ground. The wheel was sunk almost an inch deep in the loam, witnessing the weight of the load. The rut it had caused was deep for about three yards, and from that point there were tracks from where it had come, empty, been turned around and loaded. He straightened up and walked the few yards. Faint scuff marks, indistinct, showed where feet had stood and swiveled, but it was impossible even to tell how many, let alone whether they were a man's or woman's, or both. The earth was scattered with fallen leaves and twigs and occasional small pebbles, leaving only rough traces of passage.

However, when Pitt looked more closely the rusty mark of blood was clear enough. This was where Lovat had been when he fell.

He stared around him. He was about five yards into the garden, between laurel and rhododendron bushes, and in the dappled shade of birches towering a great deal higher. He was completely concealed from the mews, and obviously from the street, by the bulk of the house itself. He was a good five yards from the stone wall which concealed the back entrance to the scullery and areaway, and ahead of him across a strip of open lawn edged by flowers was a French door to the main part of the house.

What on earth had Edwin Lovat been doing here? It seemed unlikely he had arrived through the mews and was intending to enter this way, unless by prior arrangement, and she had been waiting for him inside the French doors. If she had not wished to see him, it would have been simple enough not to have answered. Servants could have dismissed him, and thrown him out if necessary.

If he were indeed arriving, it looked unpleasantly as if she had lured him here deliberately, with the intent of killing him, since she was in the garden with a loaded gun.

Or else he had been leaving, they had quarreled, and she had followed him out, again with the gun.

When had Ryerson really arrived? Before the shooting or after? Had she lifted the dead man into the wheelbarrow by herself? It would be interesting to find out his size and weight, and hers. If she had lifted him, then there would be blood, and perhaps earth, on her white dress. These were questions he needed to ask Talbot, or perhaps the constable who had actually been first on the scene.

He turned and walked back through the gate to the mews and found the constable standing fidgeting from one foot to the other in boredom. He turned as he heard the gate catch.

"Were you on duty here last night?" Pitt asked. The man looked tired enough to have been up many hours.

"Yes, sir."

"Did you see the arrest of Miss Zakhari?"

"Yes, sir." His voice lifted a little with the beginning of interest.

"Can you describe her for me?"

He looked startled for a moment, then his face puckered in concentration. "She was quite tall, sir, but very slender, like. And foreign, o' course, very foreign, like. She was... well, she moved very graceful, more than most ladies-not that they aren't-"

"It's all right, Constable," Pitt answered him. "I need honesty, not tact. What about the dead man? How large was he?"

"Oh, bit bigger than most, sir, broad in the chest, like. Difficult ter say 'ow tall 'cos I never saw 'im standin' up, but I reckon a bit taller 'n me, but not as tall as you."

"Did the mortuary wagon take him away?"

"Yessir."

"How many men to carry him?"

"Two, sir." His face filled with understanding. "You thinkin' as she couldn't 'ave put 'im in that barrer by 'erself?"

"Yes, I was." Pitt tightened his lips. "But it might be wiser not to express that opinion to others, at least for the time being. She was wearing white, so I'm told. Is that correct?"

"Yessir. Very sort o' close-fittin' dress it were, not exactly like most ladies wear, least wot I've seen. Very beautiful..." He colored faintly, considering the propriety of saying that a murderess was beautiful, and a foreign one at that. But he refused to be cowed. "Sort o' more natural, like," he went on. "No..." He put one hand on his other shoulder. "No puffs up 'ere. More wot a woman's really shaped like."

Pitt hid a smile. "I see. And was it stained with mud, or blood, this white dress?"

"Bit o' mud, or more like leaf dirt," the constable agreed.

"Where?"

"Around the knees, sir. Like she knelt on the ground."

"But no blood?"

"No, sir. Not that I saw." His eyes widened. "You're sayin' as she didn't put 'im in that barrer 'erself!"

"No, Constable, I think you are. But I'd be very obliged if you did not repeat that, unless you are asked to do so in a situation where not doing so would require you to lie. Don't lie to anyone."

"No, sir! I'll 'ope as I'm not asked."

"Yes, that would definitely be the best," Pitt agreed fervently. "Thank you, Constable. What is your name?"

"Cotter, sir."

"Is the manservant still in the house?"

"Yessir. No one's come out since they took 'er away."

"Then I shall go and speak to him. Do you know his name?"

"No, sir. Foreign-looking person."

Pitt thanked him again and walked across the short distance to the back door. He knocked firmly and waited several minutes before it was opened by a dark-skinned man dressed in pale, stone-colored robes. Most of his head was covered with a turban, but his beard was turning gray. His eyes were almost black.

"Yes, sir?" he said guardedly.

"Good morning," Pitt replied. "Are you Miss Zakhari's manservant?"

"Yes, sir. But Miss Zakhari is not at home." It was said with finality, as if that were the end of any possible discussion. He was obviously preparing to close the door.

"I am aware of that!" Pitt said sharply. "What is your name?"

"Tariq el Abd, sir," the man replied.

Pitt produced his card again and held it out, assuming that el Abd could read English. "I am from Special Branch. I believe the police have already spoken to you, but I need to ask you a few further questions."

"Oh, I see." He pulled the door wider open and reluctantly permitted Pitt to go through the scullery and up a step into a warm and exotically fragrant kitchen. There was no one else there. Presumably, el Abd did such cooking as was required, and other household staff who did the laundry and cleaning came in daily.

"Would you like coffee, sir?" el Abd enquired graciously, as if the kitchen were his. His voice was low and he spoke almost without accent.

"Thank you," Pitt accepted, more out of curiosity than a desire for more coffee. There was a smell of spices in the air, and of strange-shaped loaves of bread cooling on a rack near the farther window. Unfamiliar fruit lay rich and burnished in a bowl on the table.

El Abd took only a few moments to heat the coffee to the desired temperature again and bring a tiny cup of it over to present to Pitt, offering him a seat and enquiring after his comfort. He was a lean man who moved with a silent grace that made his age difficult to estimate, but the weathered skin of his hands made Pitt guess him to be well over forty, perhaps closer to fifty.

Pitt thanked him for the coffee and sipped it. It was so strong as to be almost a syrup, and he did not care for it much, but he kept all expression from his face except polite enquiry.

"What happened here last night?" he asked.

El Abd remained standing, so Pitt was forced to look up at him.

"I do not know, sir," the manservant replied. "Something awakened me, and I arose to see if Miss Zakhari had called, but I could not find her anywhere in the house." He hesitated.

"Yes?" Pitt prompted him.

El Abd looked down at the floor. "I went to the window and I saw nothing to the front, so I went to the back, and I saw movement through the bushes, the ones with the flat, shining leaves. I waited a few moments, but there was no more sound, and I knew of no reason to suppose there was anything wrong. I thought then that perhaps it was only the sound of the door that had wakened me."

"What did you do then?"

He lifted his shoulders slightly. "I was not required, sir. I went back to my bed. I do not know how long it was until I heard the people speaking, and the police called me downstairs."

"Did they show you a gun?"

"Yes, sir."

"And ask you whose it was?"

"Yes, sir. I said it was Miss Zakhari's." He looked down at the floor. "I did not know then what it had been used for. But I clean it and oil it, so of course I know it well."

"Why does Miss Zakhari have a gun?"

"It is not my place to ask such questions, sir."

"And you don't know?"

"No, sir."

"I see. But you would know if she had ever fired it before, since you clean it."

"No, sir, she has not."

"Thank you. Did you know Lovat... the dead man?"

"I do not think he has been here before."

That was not precisely what Pitt had asked, and he was aware of the evasion. Was it deliberate, or simply a result of the fact that the man was speaking a language other than his own?

"Have you seen him before?"

El Abd lowered his eyes. "I have not seen him at all, sir. It is my understanding that the policeman knew who he was from his clothes and the things in his pockets."

So they had not asked el Abd if he had seen Lovat before. That was an omission, but perhaps not one that would make a great deal of difference. He was Miss Zakhari's servant. Now that he knew she was accused of murdering Lovat, he would probably deny knowledge of him anyway.

Pitt finished his coffee and rose to his feet. "Thank you," he said, trying to swallow the last of the sweet, sticky liquid and clean his mouth of the taste.

"Sir." El Abd bowed very slightly, no more than a gesture.

Pitt went out of the back door, thanking Constable Cotter as he passed him. Then he walked along the mews and around the corner into Connaught Square, where he looked for a hansom to take him back to Narraway.

"WELL?" Narraway looked up from the papers he was reading. His face was a little pinched, his eyes anxious.

"The police are holding the woman, Ayesha Zakhari, and completely ignoring Ryerson," Pitt told him. "They aren't investigating it too closely because they don't want to know the answer." He walked over and sat down in the chair in front of Narraway's desk.

Narraway breathed in deeply, and then out again. "And what are the answers?" he asked, his voice quiet and very level. There was a stillness about him, as if his attention were so vivid he dared not distract himself by even the slightest action.

Pitt found himself unconsciously copying, refraining from crossing one leg over the other.

"That Ryerson helped her, at least in attempting to dispose of the body," he replied.

"Indeed..." Narraway breathed out slowly, but none of the tension disappeared from him. "And what evidence told you that?"

"She is a slender woman, at the time wearing a white dress," Pitt replied. "The dead man was slightly over average height and weight. It took two mortuary attendants to lift him from the barrow into the wagon, although of course they may have been more careful with him than whoever was trying to dispose of him."

Narraway nodded, his lips tight.

"But her white dress was not stained with mud or blood," Pitt went on. "Only a little leaf mold from where she had knelt on the ground, possibly beside him where he lay."

"I see." Narraway's voice was tight. "And Ryerson?"

"I didn't ask," Pitt said. "The constable was quite aware of why I enquired, and of the obvious conclusions. Do you want me to go back and ask him? I can do so perfectly easily, but it will then-"

"I can work that out for myself, Pitt!" Narraway snapped. "No. I do not want you to do that... at least not yet." His eyes flickered for a moment, then he looked over at the far wall. "We'll see what happens."

Pitt sat still, aware of a curious, unfinished air in the room, as if elusive but powerful things were just beyond the edge of perception. Narraway had left something unsaid. Did it matter? Or was it just an accumulation of knowledge gathered over the years, a feeling of unease rather than a thought?

Narraway hesitated also, then the moment passed and he looked up at Pitt again. "Well, go on," he said, but with less asperity than before. "You've told me what you saw and what the constable reported. We'll save Ryerson from himself, if we can. The next move is up to the police. Go home and have breakfast. I might want you later."

Pitt stood up, still looking at Narraway, who stared back at him-his eyes bright, almost blank of emotion, but with deliberate concealment. Pitt was as certain of that as he was of the charge in the room, like electricity in the air on a sultry day.

"Yes, sir," he said quietly, and with Narraway still looking at him, he went out of the door.

WHEN HE GOT HOME, it was late morning. His children, Jemima and Daniel, were at school, and Charlotte and the maid, Gracie, were in the kitchen. He heard their laughter the moment he opened the front door. He smiled to himself as he bent and took off his boots. The sounds washed around him like a balm: women's voices, the clatter of pans, a kettle whistling shrilly. The house was warm from the kitchen stove, and there was an odor of freshly laundered cotton, still a little damp, clean wood from the scrubbed floor, and baking bread.

A marmalade-striped cat came out of the kitchen doorway and stretched luxuriously, then trotted towards him, tail up in a question mark.

"Hello, Archie," Pitt said softly, stroking the animal as it swiveled under his hand, pressing against him and purring. "I suppose you want half my breakfast?" he went on. "Well, come on then." He stood up and walked silently down to the doorway, the cat following.

In the kitchen, Charlotte was tipping bread out of its tin onto a rack to cool, and Gracie, still small and thin although she was now well over twenty, was putting clean blue-and-white china away on the Welsh dresser.

Sensing his presence rather than seeing him, Charlotte turned around, questions in her face.

"Breakfast," he replied with a smile.

Gracie did not ask anything. She was outspoken enough once she was involved. She did not regard that as impertinence, rather the role of helping and looking after him, which she had taken upon herself almost from the time she had arrived in the household, at the age of thirteen, half starved, and with all her clothes too big for her. Her hair had been scraped back off her bright little face, and although then she could neither read nor write, she had a wit as sharp as any.

Now she was far more mature, and considered herself to be an invaluable employee of the cleverest detective in England, or anywhere else, a position she would not have exchanged for one in service to the Queen herself.

"It's not the Inner Circle again, is it?" Charlotte said with an edge of fear in her voice.

Gracie stood frozen, the dishes in her hands. No one had forgotten that dreadful, secret organization which had cost Pitt his career in the Metropolitan Police-and very nearly his life also.

"No," Pitt said immediately and with certainty. "It's a simple domestic murder." He saw the disbelief in her face. "Almost certainly committed by a woman who is the mistress of a senior government minister," he added. "Equally certain he was there, if not at the time, then immediately afterwards, and helped her attempt to get rid of the body."

"Oh!" she said with instant perception. "I see. But they didn't get away with it?"

"No." He sat down on one of the straight-backed wooden chairs and stretched out his legs. "The alarm was raised by someone who heard the shots, and the police arrived in time to catch her in the back garden with the corpse in a wheelbarrow."

She stared at him in a moment's disbelief, then saw from his eyes that he was not joking.

"Must be a bleedin' idjut!" Gracie said candidly. "I 'ope 'e in't in charge o' summink wot matters in the gov'ment, or we'll all be in the muck!"

"Yes," Pitt agreed with feeling. The cat leapt up onto his knee and he stroked it absently, fingers gentle in the deep fur. "I'm afraid we will."

Gracie sighed and started to sort out the dishes he would need for breakfast, and to make him a cup of tea first. Charlotte went to the stove to begin cooking, her face eloquent of the trouble she could foresee.