Brunswick Gardens (54 page)

Vita turned gray-white.

“It was you who cried out, ‘No, no, Reverend!’ not Unity at all,” Pitt went on. “She broke her heel at the top of the stairs. It fell into a potted palm, where I found it this morning.”

“That’s nonsense,” Tryphena said suddenly, stepping towards her mother. “There was nothing wrong with Unity’s shoes. I saw them. They weren’t broken.”

“There wasn’t when you saw Unity’s body,” Pitt corrected her. “Mrs. Parmenter exchanged them with her own; that is why the chemical stain from the conservatory was there.” He looked at Mallory. “You said Unity didn’t come into the conservatory that morning. But your mother did, didn’t she?”

Mallory licked his lips. “Yes …”

“And the love letters?” Tryphena demanded, her voice sharp, her face pale. “I suppose Papa wasn’t in love with Unity either? What were they, then? And if they were innocent—which they couldn’t be—why did he try to murder Mama?”

“They were translations of classical love letters,” Pitt replied. “Those in Ramsay’s writing were his translations, those in Unity’s writing were hers, of the same letter.”

“Nonsense!” Mallory said, but with fading conviction. His face, too, was pasty white. “If that were true, he would have had no reason to have attacked Mama.”

“He didn’t.” Pitt shook his head. He was still holding Vita by the arm. She seemed frozen. He could feel her rigidity. “That was the murder in all this. Mrs. Parmenter always intended to kill him if I did not arrest him and have him hanged for Unity’s death. Act by act, she created a picture of him as violent and out of control. The letters were an excellent excuse, as long as we did not realize what they were, and both Ramsay and Unity were dead and could not explain.”

“But—but he attacked her!” Mallory protested.

“No, he didn’t,” Pitt corrected. “She took the paper knife in with her, and she attacked him.”

Dominic was aghast. He stared at Vita as if she had
metamorphosed in front of his eyes into something almost beyond imagination.

“I did it for us!” she said urgently, ignoring Pitt, not even trying to pull away from him. “Don’t you see that, my darling? So we could be together, as we were always meant to be!”

Mallory gasped.

Tryphena staggered against the bishop.

“You—you and I?” Dominic’s voice cracked with horror. “Oh, no—I …” He stepped even closer to Clarice. “I don’t …”

“Don’t pretend!” Vita urged, her face softening to a knowing smile. “My dear, it isn’t necessary anymore. It’s all over. We can be honest now. We can tell the world.” Her voice was gentle, utterly reasonable. “You can step into Ramsay’s place. You can be all that he failed to be. It is your destiny to lead, and I will be by your side all the way. I have made it possible for you.”

Dominic closed his eyes as if he could not bear to see her. His whole body clenched.

The bishop swayed on his feet. “Oh, my God!” he muttered helplessly. “Oh, my God!”

“You didn’t do it for me …” Dominic said, in obvious agony. “I never—never wanted you to …”

“Of course you did,” Vita said in a soothing tone, as if she were persuading a child. “I know you love me just as much as I love you.” She shrugged her shoulders, regardless of Pitt’s hold on her. “You’ve told me so in a hundred different ways. You were always thinking of me, caring for me, doing little things for my comfort and my happiness. You gave me so much. I stored every keepsake in my room, where no one else would look. I take them out every night and hold them, just to be close to you …”

The bishop made clicking noises of disgust with his teeth.

Isadora put her heel on his toe and trod hard. He yelped, but no one was listening to him.

“Tell him to go away,” Vita urged, indicating Pitt with a jerk of her elbow. “Dominic, you can do anything; you have the
power. You are going to be the greatest leader of the church in this century.” Her eyes shone with eagerness, with pride. “You are going to restore it to the place it belongs, so everyone looks up to it, to the clergy, as they should do. The church is going to be the head and the heart of every community again. You’ll show people; you’ll make it so. Tell this stupid policeman to go away. Tell him why this has happened. It isn’t a crime. It is simply necessary.”

“It wasn’t necessary, Vita,” Dominic answered, opening his eyes and forcing himself to face her. “It was wrong. I love you only in the same way I love everybody, no more than that. I am going to marry Clarice, if she will have me.”

Vita stared at him. “Clarice?” she said, as if the word were meaningless to her. “You can’t. There is no need. We don’t have to pretend anymore. Anyway, it would be quite wrong. You couldn’t do that to her, when you love me. You’ve always loved me, ever since we first met.” Her voice was gaining confidence again. “I remember the way you looked at me, the very first day you were in the house. You knew even then that Ramsay was weak, that he had lost his faith and he was no good to lead the people anymore. I saw your strength even then … and you knew I believed in you. We understood each other. We—”

“No!” Dominic said firmly. “I liked you. That is a completely different thing. You were Ramsay’s wife, and to me you always will be. I am not in love with you. I never was. I am in love with Clarice.”

Slowly Vita’s face changed. The softness died out of it. The wide eyes narrowed and became hard and hot. Her lips drew back into a twist of hatred.

“You coward!” she spat out. “You weak, worthless coward! I killed for you! I endured all that danger, all that play-acting, all those stupid questions and answers, so you could fill your role in destiny, so we could be together! I thought up that brilliant plan and I put it into execution. I thought of everything! And look at you! Afraid to take it up! You are pathetic!” Then her
face softened again, melting into smiles. “But I would forgive you, if …”

Dominic turned away, unable to bear any more. Clarice put her arms around him, and very close together they walked back into the body of the church.

Pitt looked at Cornwallis, who nodded, thin-lipped, touched with a terrible sadness.

Pitt held Vita harder. “Come with me, Mrs. Parmenter,” he said levelly. “There is no more to say. It is all over.”

She looked at Pitt as if she had only just remembered he was there, although he had held her all the time.

“We are leaving,” Pitt repeated. “You have no place here anymore.” He started to walk with her down the steps towards the street. Cornwallis passed him to fetch the carriage.

Charlotte looked for a moment at the doorway into which Dominic and Clarice had disappeared, then, smiling and curiously at peace, she followed after Pitt.

Q. Anne, why did you decide, when you first began writing the Charlotte and Thomas Pitt series, to set your novels in Victorian England?

A. I did not choose the Victorian period with intent. I had been writing nonmystery novels set in many periods, without success. My first mystery, and first book which sold, was
The Cater Street Hangman.
Believe me, nothing makes you love a period like acceptance!

Now I love it for its atmosphere, contrasts between wealth and poverty, what seems to be and what is, for its glamour and squalor, and for the fact that it is largely before the use of science in detection. It is also a mirror of our own time close enough to be valid, and far enough away to be bearable. I get immense pleasure from the manners which are so much subtler than ours, and therefore fun to write about. Romance can legitimately go on for ages.

Q. How much research have you had to do—in the past and on a continuing basis—to ensure that your novels are historically accurate? Do you enjoy the research?

A. To begin with I had to research a great deal. Now I hope I know the period well enough to write most of the book with only minor checking, except for whichever subject I have chosen that is unusual to that book. For example, photography will be featured in one that is planned, the workings of the Victorian theatre for the same book, 1890s spiritualism for another, and so on.

Q. Now that you have two long-running series—the Pitt mysteries as well as the more recent William Monk novels—you write two complete books a year. How do you organize your writing time?

A. Organizing my time? I love working. I usually begin around nine
A.M.
, break for half an hour’s lunch, work again until five
P.M.
or six
P.M.
, have supper, and often go back for an hour or three in the evening. Monday to Saturday. No one is driving me to this. I do it from choice.

I plan a book in considerable detail long before I start Chapter One, etc. I brainstorm with my assistant, who picks all the holes she can, and then we mend them (I hope). Usually a full single space, legal page per chapter—twelve or thirteen chapters. That may be done up to a year before I start. I like to have two or three in hand.

Q. Do you have a favorite character in your novels?

A. A favorite character? Whomever I am working on at the time. Of all of them, if I have to choose—possibly Great-aunt Vespasia.

Q. In the Monk series, the protagonist is plagued by a faulty memory—sometimes inopportunely faulty. Do you plan to have Monk fully regain his memory, or will he always be troubled by partial amnesia?

A. No, Monk is not going to regain all his memory. Two reasons: I believe it is medically unlikely, and I have far too much pleasure dealing him his past a card at a time to spoil it by dealing the cards all at once. Then I could not spring any surprises.

Q. Some of your novels are being adapted for television. Please tell us about that. And how do you feel about your creations being interpreted by flesh-and-blood actors?

A. I am delighted to say that
The Cater Street Hangman
has been filmed for TV, as a pilot for a series, we hope. I think they
have done a superb job, everyone involved, but particularly the casting director, who could have taken the actors out of my imagination and given them flesh. The physical appearances are all exactly as I would have wished, but far more important, the spirit is there. I am totally delighted. It is a most extraordinary thrill to see what has been inside your head become real in front of you.

Q. You also write short fiction, notably a story in Ballantine’s
Canine Crimes
anthology. For you, does the writing process change when you turn to the shorter form?

A. I enjoy writing short stories, from the totally light, and I hope funny, stories like “Daisy and the Archaeologists” in
Canine Crimes,
through to the dark and tragic mystery, such as the one called “Heroes,” set in the trenches of World War One. Yes, the writing process has to be tighter, the plot cannot be fudged at all, and there is little time to set an atmosphere. But drama does not change, nor does dialogue or character—and perhaps not mystery either. You still need a crime, some detection, and an honest resolution.

Q. In your spare time, what writers do you read?

A. Whom do I read? I have just been rereading a little Dante, a lot of poetry, sometimes fantasy, and am about to start a book given me today about religious versus humanist ethics.

I also enjoy all sorts of mysteries, particularly present-day American—as far from my own as possible!

A BREACH OF PROMISE
An Inspector William Monk Novel

by Anne Perry

Stripping away the pretty masks that conceal society’s darkest transgressions, Anne Perry unflinchingly exposes the human heart’s deepest hiding places—and creates the most mesmerizing courtroom drama of her distinguished career.

Published by Fawcett Books.
Available at your local bookstore.

M
YSTERY

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