The Anatomy of Death Page 21

  Fisher did not crack a smile; indeed he did not even meet Pike’s gaze. His hand, limp and sweaty, barely returned Pike’s squeeze. Pike could not understand his lack of enthusiasm. The job offered better pay, would set him well up the promotion ladder, and he would finally have the money to provide his ailing wife with the nutritious diet she required.

  “Collect your transfer papers from my secretary, Inspector Fisher. That will be all.” The commissioner smiled again.

  The door closed behind Fisher. Smiles faded. The temperature in the office seemed to drop several degrees. Pike, who had still not been offered a chair, edged closer to the warm air rising through the flue in the floor from the office below.

  The commissioner studied Pike for a moment. “And now to matters of a graver nature.” He linked his hands and leaned towards Pike across his desk. “I understand you believe the disorderly conduct of the police at the suffragette riot was endorsed by certain high-ranking police officers.”

  This was not a question. Dykins must have bleated to Shepherd about how Pike had forced the information from him. Pike straightened, placed his hands and cane behind his back. “Yes, I am convinced that is the case, sir,” he said, allowing his gaze to linger on Shepherd, who stared back with hard, flat eyes.

  “And you are correct,” the commissioner said. “The order came directly from the Home Office. The women were to be put in their place, with force if necessary—those were the most esteemed gentleman’s very words.”

  Pike took a breath. The light from the window was not so blinding now, as if a cloud had passed over the sun. “That is scandalous,” he said, trying to keep his voice level. “Those orders resulted in the deaths of three women—and one of those deaths is likely to be found manslaughter at the least. The senior officers concerned”—he looked at Shepherd again—“should have realised that tactics like that would only incite the women further.”

  “And we have learned from our mistakes. It will not happen again. Thanks to you, the overzealous officers have been sacked and the force’s reputation has been saved,” the commissioner said. “The matter is over.”

  “Lady Catherine Cartwright was beaten about the head by a police officer whom I have yet to identify. I do not consider the force’s reputation saved while that man continues to serve.”

  “Drop it,” Shepherd said coldly. “Drop your enquiries and move on.”

  The commissioner frowned at Shepherd. Pike stared from one to the other and discerned the fear behind their stony masks. He took a step towards the desk. “May I hazard a guess as to what is worrying you, Commissioner? You are concerned that if I continue with my investigations, the press will get wind and the name of the man who gave those orders will be exposed. You have mentioned no names, but it is not hard to guess. He is surely the Home Secretary, Mr. Winston Churchill.”

  The commissioner exchanged glances with his companions and said, “Mr. Churchill is a promising young politician who does not deserve to be cut down so early in his career because of a minor tactical error.”

  “But it is not only Mr. Churchill you are worrying about,” Pike added, as if the commissioner had not spoken. He was making waves, he was going to be dismissed, and he had nothing to lose. “Certain high-ranking police officers might also find themselves in the spotlight for giving a young politician such questionable advice.”

  There was silence for a few moments, broken finally by the shuffle of paper as Shepherd removed a photograph from a buff envelope and handed it to the commissioner. Pike knew what the photograph was, even before the commissioner held it up so he could see his daughter’s white face staring out from the bedlam of the riot. Pike had hidden the photograph at the bottom of his locked desk drawer, to which only one other man had access: Walter Fisher.

  He could not believe, did not want to believe, that Fisher had betrayed him. But it was suddenly painfully clear: Fisher’s promotion—and why he had reacted to the news as if he had been sentenced to the gallows. And why he could not meet Pike’s eyes.

  Shepherd had known about Fisher’s dire domestic circumstances and made the sergeant an offer he could not refuse.

  Pike felt a stabbing pang, like broken glass, deep inside his chest. This betrayal, more than anything else that had just transpired, broke through his defences and made him feel sick to the stomach.

  He had no inclination for the charade he sensed was about to be acted out. “Before you ask, yes, that is my daughter,” he said. “She was present at the recent suffragette rally. And yes, I failed to submit the photograph as evidence in fear of the consequences, for her and for me, keeping it locked in the drawer of my office desk.” Pike turned and headed towards the door, not bothering to attempt to hide his limp. “I will write out my resignation forthwith.”

  “Wait, Pike, not so fast,” said Callan, who had remained silent until now. He left his chair and guided Pike back into the room by the elbow, pulling over an empty chair and indicating for Pike to sit. “There is a way out of this, old man.”

  “I can’t see what. I have no more desire to work with the superintendent”—he pointed his cane at Shepherd—“than he has to work with me. The situation is untenable. I have withheld evidence, which is a sackable offence. I have perverted the course of justice almost as much as those of you who suppressed the truth behind the riot—the truth being that they bribed roughs from the docks as well as the police officers to deliberately cause havoc. We are as guilty as each other.”

  The commissioner coughed. “Yes, well, I suppose if one chooses to look at it like that. But the men were not meant to physically harm the women, just frighten them.”

  Pike’s anger almost boiled over. “That’s like telling a pack of dogs to do no more than lick a sheep they have pulled to the ground.”

  “We are at a stalemate, Matthew,” Callan said. “We do not want you to resign. Be realistic, man. Money is tight; you have a daughter to support who would most likely be expelled from her school if this came out.”

  Pike said nothing; his friend spoke the truth. Though he was wrong on one count: Shepherd would have been glad for him to resign. Pike should have been storming from the room, but instead he sat there, waiting to hear them out.

  And he hated himself for it.

  “There is a new department at Special Branch,” Callan went on, “for which I feel you are highly suited. It is a department devoted to monitoring the suffragette activity in London. You are just the kind of man we need, quiet and nonthreatening, and you have already shown a degree of sympathy to their cause, which will put you in their favour. This is a much-sought-after position.”

  “I have no sympathy at all with the militants,” Pike said. “I do not condone violence by anyone. But if you are referring to my visit to the magistrate yesterday to persuade him to release Miss Olivia Barndon-Brown, any man who witnessed the barbarism in that prison cell would have done the same. I recommend a visit to the cells for all of you.”

  Callan met the commissioner’s eye and raised his brow as if to say, What did I tell you? “Go home, Matthew,” he said, “sleep on it. Come and see me in a day or two and we’ll discuss it further.”

  Pike got to his feet. “I will not stop looking for the officer who bludgeoned Lady Catherine,” he said, breathing hard.

  “Of course not, and we don’t expect you to,” the commissioner said pleasantly, shooting a warning look at Shepherd. “We gave you free rein to deal with those other police thugs, did we not?”

  “You may have managed to play down the brutal behaviour of men like Dykins to the press, but I don’t know how you can play down a cold-blooded murder—if that is what it turns out to be—of a prominent society woman.”

  “In fact, gentlemen,” Shepherd spoke over him, “I think we can conclude that Lady Catherine tripped and fell during the riot and her injuries were caused by someone inadvertently treading on her head. The autopsy report is vague, but it does lend some support to this theory …”

  The commissi
oner held up his hand. “Your devotion to the force is admirable, Superintendent, but the autopsy report, vague though it is, does not suggest this is what happened at all. Mr. Cartwright has seen the report, and the man is not a complete fool.”

  Of course, Pike thought, the commissioner was still under pressure from Mr. Hugo Cartwright to find his aunt’s killer. If not for this, the commissioner might well have agreed with Shepherd’s cover-up. What a fine line they all trod.

  The commissioner turned from Shepherd back to Pike. “We want the blaggard caught as much as you do.”

  Shepherd crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, giving Pike a black look. After a moment he sighed as if in great pain, and lifted up the photograph of Violet from the commissioner’s desk. “Lucky chap,” he said without expression. “You’ve been given a second chance—don’t waste it.” He held the photograph up to Pike, flicking it with his fingernail and producing a sharp crack of sound.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Dody, have you seen this?” Florence stood up from the chaise and rattled the newspaper, shattering the companionable silence of the morning room.

  Dody looked up from the letter she was writing. “I haven’t had the chance to read the paper today. What does it say?”

  “It appears the suffragettes’ golf course sabotage was doomed to fail, even if the women had not been apprehended in the act. Police scientific analysis reveals that the blasting caps used in the thwarted explosion were defective and would have been incapable of detonating the dynamite under any circumstances.” Florence’s voice trembled with rage.

  She tossed the paper to the ground. “Derwent supplied us with those blasting caps—how foolish he has made us look!”

  “But perhaps the crime will not be considered so terrible now?” Dody suggested. “If Miss Lithgow and Daisy were to say that they knew the bomb would not have gone off, perhaps they will be released earlier?” She did not really believe this but hoped the idea might placate her sister.

  “I hardly think so.” Florence’s glance suggested that Dody knew nothing about the real world. “Oh, it is so humiliating. Look at the heading they printed: ‘SUFFRAGETTES BUNGLE BOMBING: WILL THEY NOW STAY IN THE KITCHEN?’” She thrust the newspaper at Dody and strode to the door.

  “Wait, Florence, where are you going?” It would be just like her sister to go and confront O’Neill, though Dody dared not say that in case she set the idea in motion. “I’m going to my room to think this through.”

  “Pike will be here soon,” Dody said. From the moment they had learned that Pike had orchestrated Olivia’s release from prison, Florence had seemed keen to make peace with him. Dody was looking forward to seeing her sister and the man she had begun to regard as her friend bury the hatchet.

  “Call me when he gets here.” Florence closed the door with a bang.

  Dody finished the letter she had been writing to her parents and smoothed out the crumpled newspaper. She was reading it when Annie entered, saying with a grimace that the chief inspector had arrived. Dody stood, glanced in the mantle mirror and repinned some loose strands of hair. “Show him in, Annie. Then go upstairs and tell Florence he’s here, and bring us some tea.”

  “Miss Florence has gone out, miss.”

  “Out? Where?”

  “To see Miss Barndon-Brown, I think, miss.”

  Dody felt herself relax. But it was a pity her sister had not stayed to meet Pike. It was only natural, Dody told herself, to want to see the people you felt affection for get on well together.

  “Thank you, Annie,” she said, hiding her disappointment. “Show the chief inspector in.”

  The smell of fog, dank and sulphurous, followed Pike into the room. “I would have been here sooner,” he apologised, “but visibility was terrible. I had to climb out of the cab and guide the driver with a lantern for some of the way.”

  “It was good of you to come at all on such short notice and on such a dismal evening.”

  He gave her a stiff little bow, barely touched her hand. “My first day back at work was not as busy as I had expected. I was getting ready to leave when my clerk gave me your message. I hope there’s nothing wrong.”

  “On the contrary, please sit down.” Dody indicated the chair nearest the fire. “I wanted to thank you personally for what you did for Olivia; she was released yesterday evening. My sister and I are very grateful. I’m sure Olivia will contact you herself and thank you when she’s feeling better.”

  “It was the least I could do, Dr. McCleland.”

  She smiled. “Please, call me Dody.” Away from her parents’ house, she gave only a few special friends the liberty of calling her by her Christian name. Now the matter of keeping some kind of professional boundary between herself and Pike did not seem so important.

  He did not appear to hear what she had said. He seemed distracted, his eyes flitting about the room as if seeing it for the first time: the inlaid writing desk near the window; a faint draught making the curtains shiver; the chaise; the deep pink velvet upholstery of the Queen Anne armchairs; the crackling fire. When finally his gaze settled on her, she could tell that his attention was still elsewhere.

  Then he gave a small start, as if suddenly appreciating the significance of her words. “Dody,” he said, testing her name on his lips with the hint of a smile. “Very well, then.”

  Her peevishness lifted. She paused to examine him. The way he sat rigidly erect on the edge of the chair betrayed an even greater tension than when they had stood side by side in the prison cell yesterday. “Is something troubling you?” she asked.

  “No, no.”

  “Your first day back at work did not go well?”

  He took out his cigarette case. “May I?”

  “Of course,” she said, turning down the offer of one for herself.

  “No, my first day back did not go the way I expected. I am to be transferred. They implied it was a promotion of some kind—utter rot, of course. They found out that my daughter was present at the riot. The so-called promotion is a sideways shift to another department on the condition that I remain silent about the men who instigated the violence at the march. If I don’t, I’ll be dismissed.” He exhaled smoke. “I can’t afford to lose my job.”

  No wonder the poor man had been so distracted. Though surely this kind of behaviour was not unusual in the police force, and Pike was canny enough to know that. There was something else bothering him; Dody was certain of it.

  “Have you also been instructed to drop the search for Lady Catherine’s killer?” she asked. “Are they intending to cover that up, too? If so, they shan’t get away with it. If the papers don’t print the letters all the WSPU women are writing, my sister has assured me the women will find other ways to make their anger known.”

  “I am to continue that investigation,” Pike said. “My last assignment before I am moved. Presumably Hugo Cartwright has the commissioner’s ear.” He continued to look troubled.

  “What is it then?” Dody asked.

  “Probably nothing of importance; just a strange notion I had when I was going through the surveillance photographs again in Hastings.”

  “They say two heads are better than one.”

  Pike smiled back briefly and leaned towards his briefcase. He stopped when Annie rattled through the morning room door with the tea tray, thumping it on the table before Dody.

  “Thank you, Annie, that will be all,” Dody said with a frown. She made a mental note to speak to the girl about her churlish behaviour at the next opportunity.

  She began pouring the tea. “I’m sorry. My sister had intended on being here when you came. She was very grateful for what you did for Olivia.”

  “I only managed to help one woman. I’m afraid the situation is likely to continue until the law is changed.”

  “You mean equal rights for men and women?”

  Pike touched the knot of his tie. “Actually, I was looking at the smaller picture, that of force-feeding.”


  “You do not believe in equal rights for—” Dody saw the exasperation in his face and laughed. “Very well, one thing at a time; I will leave your daughter to argue the case of equal voting rights with you.” Pike looked relieved. Dody handed him tea, but he refused her offer of cake. “Florence and I also wanted you to convey our apologies to your sergeant for neglecting to give him back his truncheon. I thought my sister had organised its return and she thought I had.”

  Pike stared into his teacup. “Fisher is no longer my sergeant.”

  Dody was about to ask why when Pike clanked his cup down, slopping tea into the saucer.

  “Just a minute—you say the truncheon has not been returned?”

  “I’m sorry if it has caused such an inconvenience.” Dody was surprised that he would take issue with something so trivial. “Surely your sergeant could have accessed another truncheon if he needed one so desperately?”

  Pike did not answer for a moment. “Tell me again about the truncheon, from the beginning,” he said.

  Although she did not yet know the cause, his anxiety was infectious and put an edge to her voice that the intense scrutiny of his intelligent blue eyes did nothing to soothe. “We borrowed the truncheon from your office and then I used it on the pigs’ heads. I left it clean on the hall table for Fletcher to return. Olivia noticed the truncheon there, and when Florence told her how we had managed to procure it, she was most impressed.”

  Pike grunted.

  “Then yesterday, before Olivia was released, Florence went to her flat to get her some clean clothes. She saw the truncheon on the top shelf of Olivia’s wardrobe. She later asked Olivia where she’d got it from, and Olivia said she had taken it from our hall table to play a little joke on us, just as we had on you.”

  Pike was frowning.

  “Yes,” Dody went on, “I’m surprised Fletcher never mentioned the truncheon wasn’t there for him to collect. I assumed he’d returned it and he must have assumed that I had given it back to you. Perhaps that is why Florence went to see Olivia—to collect the truncheon so she can return it to you. A peace offering, I suppose. I don’t think she’ll be very long.”