The Angel Court Affair (Thomas Pitt 30) (26 page)

‘Thank you, Dorothea,’ Vespasia accepted. She lied without hesitation. ‘You were always generous.’

Dorothea looked startled, suspecting sarcasm, but she did not argue.

The following morning at a little after eight o’clock, Vespasia’s carriage pulled up outside the high walls of the convent. The building was probably a hundred years old, beautiful in its simplicity.

Vespasia alighted and walked to the entrance where she gave the gatekeeper her name, and requested to see Sister Maria Madalena with a request for help. She gave Sofia’s name, and said that the need was very urgent.

Five minutes later she was conducted through a huge barred oak door into the silence of stone colonnades, motes of dust whirling in the slanted morning sunlight. The floors were worn uneven from centuries’ passage of feet, the centre of each step on the flight of stairs hollowed out.

She was shown to a quiet room filled with patterned sunlight coming in through the wrought-iron grille on the window. She sat in one of the two chairs in meditation until the door opened and Sister Maria Madalena came in.

She was a small woman with a gentle face and a very slight limp. She looked to be about Vespasia’s own age. There was in her eyes a great peace, not untouched by humour.

‘Lady Vespasia Narraway,’ she smiled, bowing very slightly, in a curiously graceful gesture. ‘I believe you are enquiring about Sofia Delacruz. I can tell you only what I know, and I have no reason to speak of her less than well. I do not agree with her faith. I cannot. But I respect her nature. I am very sorry to hear that she has met with some grave trouble. I will do all I can to be of help.’

‘Thank you,’ Vespasia accepted. ‘I believe you know her?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Sister Maria Madalena answered with certainty. ‘She came to visit us. She liked it here, the apartness from the world, you know? We often sat and talked together. We agreed about all the little things, the daily things.’ She smiled. ‘Just not on who we are, where we came from or where we are going to, or even why. Just the step by step of it.’ She smiled, and it illuminated her face. ‘It is the step by step that counts, don’t you think?’

Vespasia made a sudden decision to be honest with this quiet nun who judged so wisely. ‘I am afraid something extremely unpleasant has happened to Señora Delacruz, and I hope that by learning more about her, we may forestall it becoming a complete tragedy. I cannot tell you much more, except what is publicly known in London. She has been kidnapped, and two of her followers violently and very terribly killed.’

Sister Maria Madalena’s face showed pain, but not horror, and no incredulity at all. Vespasia wondered for an instant if she had not understood, even though Vespasia’s Spanish was good.

‘Oh dear,’ Sister Maria said quietly. ‘There is such terrible tragedy in the world, and such wickedness. I shall do all I can to be of help. She was extraordinarily honest.’ The ghost of a smile touched her lips. ‘Perhaps it would be wiser of me not to admit that, but an error of doctrine is a small thing compared to the love of one person for others, or of honesty itself. She never lacked courage, which will possibly be her undoing. But blazing a path is never easy, wherever it leads.’

‘Was she much resented for her beliefs?’ Vespasia asked.

Sister Maria smiled. ‘Here, in Toledo? You do not know our history. And why should you, when you have so much of your own? But in the past we were famed for our tolerance, before the days of fear and the judgement that only one way was right. That was before the driving out of most of those whose ideas were different from our own, and the persecution of the few who remained. Then art and science flourished. Differences were no threat; they were the path to greater learning. Fear is a terrible thing, Lady Vespasia, a disease that leaps like fire from one mind to another, and burns away so much of the best in us. We stop listening and strike out too easily, before we think.

‘Your question? In Toledo, the old quarters, no, we found her ideas strange and interesting. She made me re-evaluate some of my own faith’s teachings. I saw certain things in a different light, and at least one of them seemed the more precious for it. We love certainty, and imagine we see it where in fact we do not.’

‘Your face says that you are not afraid,’ Vespasia said quietly.

‘I am not. I am certain of the things that matter. Kindness and honour are always good. Do not build God in your own image, with your doubts and fears, your need to judge and condemn, your need for safety, and to be right whatever the cost to others, and ultimately to yourself. Let your soul be still, and know that God is never capricious, never cruel, and never wrong. It is our understanding that stumbles. Even the cleverest of us are yet children, and the wisest of us know that.’

‘Was Sofia one of the wisest?’ Vespasia asked.

‘Good heavens, no! One of the bravest, certainly. And one of the gentlest, in her own way. She was forever seeking to help the truly penitent to find their way back to the light. That is a godly thing to do.’

‘You are not surprised that she should have been abducted?’

Sister Maria considered for a moment before replying, then she measured her words carefully. ‘Sofia worked with a great many people. I heard that she turned no one away, although a good many went of their own accord. Some of her teachings were hard, others were very gentle. She never denied food and shelter if she had it to give.’ She bit her lip and hesitated, then reached some inner decision. ‘One man came to her, shortly after there was a very brutal murder committed. A man had been found with his throat cut, and his body mutilated. I do not know what the fugitive man said to Sofia. She did not tell me and of course I did not ask. But he sought shelter with her. He was very afraid, mortally so. She was deeply disturbed by it, and confided in me that she was afraid for his life, and for his soul.’

‘She told you this?’ Vespasia said with surprise.

‘She would not have, had she not needed my help. She said he had confessed a deep sin to her, but that it was not violent, although the harm it would do was terrible. She asked me to find him shelter where he could not be reached by outside forces seeking to kill him. She gave me her word that he had not confessed to this murder, but admitted that his fear was in connection with it.’

‘And you believed her?’ Vespasia asked, sudden new ideas whirling in her mind. Was this fugitive the key to Sofia’s kidnap now? Did ‘outside forces’ mean Sofia’s abduction was political after all?’

‘I did. I still do. I never found Sofia in a lie of any sort, even to herself. She is the most blisteringly honest person I know, and I choose my words with care and intent. Of course I do not know if the man deceived her.’

‘But you sheltered him?’ Vespasia said, trying to help her voice level. ‘Is he still with you?’

‘No. I did. It was just for a few days, and then Sofia found her own way to protect him. I did not ask what it was, nor did she offer to tell me. I think she obtained money to look after him elsewhere, but that is only my guess.’

Vespasia weighed what she heard and the gravity in the nun’s face. She knew it would be pointless to search for more than she had already been told. If Maria Madalena knew more, she did not consider herself free to say so.

‘Thank you,’ Vespasia acknowledged her help. ‘It seems very possible that her rescue of this man may have been the cause of her present trouble. Is there nothing more that you can tell me about him? For example, how long before her departure to England did this happen?’

‘Less than a month,’ Maria Madalena replied. ‘That is why I felt compelled to break her confidence and tell you. Please . . . do what you can to help her. Her beliefs are blasphemous to my Church, or they seem so, but she is a good woman, and to me that is all that matters. She is a child of God as much as anyone. Whoever this man is, and whatever sin he confessed to her, rightly or wrongly, she will believe she is helping.’

‘I will,’ Vespasia promised. She rose to her feet and thanked the nun again. ‘I will,’ she repeated.

PITT STOOD in Inspector Latham’s small, untidy office. The desk was littered with piles of reports, and two enamel mugs half-full of tea. On the ashtray rested a pipe. The wooden bowl of it was stained dark with use, but it gave off a warm, rather pleasant odour.

‘I’ve already told you . . . sir,’ Latham said tartly, his patience wearing thin. ‘Police surgeon says they died early in the evening before we found them. As near as he can be sure, within minutes of each other. It was fine and warm that day. Windows open, flies around. Unpleasant, but it helps fix the time. Probably no later than dusk. Twilight’s long this time o’ the year. Clear night, an’ all. Light enough you wouldn’t be afraid of answering the door, dark enough neighbours was already inside an’ probably having their dinners. If anyone did see, they’d think it was likely someone come to dinner. Two hansoms were noticed, but can’t say if it was the same one twice.’

‘How far apart?’ Pitt asked.

‘For heaven’s sake, sir, people don’t look at their clocks unless they’re expecting someone who’s late. Could’ve been a few minutes, or an hour. Or the same one! The neighbours are just beginning to get themselves together again. If you go clomping up and down asking any more questions, like those damn fellows of Mr Teague’s, you’ll just upset decent people, and get a whole lot of stupid stories from those who don’t know their backsides from their elbows, but want everyone to listen to them anyway. I don’t know what you called him in for! We can do our job, if it can be done at all. There are some people you never catch. We had half England trying to catch the Ripper, but we never did.’

He took a deep breath and controlled his anger with an effort. ‘Why don’t you just go and chase them dynamiters, or whatever it is you do, and leave us to sort this one? If we get even a whisper there’s anybody political in this, we’ll call you. Now can you get Teague out of here, please! I’m all for heroes, but in their own place, not ours.’

‘I didn’t invite him in, Inspector,’ Pitt said wearily. ‘Sofia Delacruz is a political figure, and she’s still missing.’

‘Thought she was some kind of preacher?’ Latham shook his head. ‘Don’t have no truck with it, myself. Go to church on Sundays and mind my own business. Who’d want to argue with the parson? What for?’

‘Some people would argue with God,’ Pitt said with a sigh. ‘I suppose there’s no more material evidence?’

‘Nothing you haven’t heard. Sharp knife used. Aren’t many in the kitchen, but no way to know if it was one of them he used, and took away. Or if there just weren’t many anyhow, and he brought his own.’

‘Do you know for certain that it was one man?’ Pitt interrupted.

‘Looks like it,’ Latham answered. He picked up the pipe from the ashtray but he did not relight it, just held it comfortably in his hand, as if he liked the feel of the smooth wood.

Pitt frowned. ‘How? Would you go alone to kill two women and kidnap a third who would certainly fight you? In fact probably attack you to save the other two? I would take someone else. Sofia Delacruz would be sure to attack right back. She wouldn’t run to save herself. And she’d scream for certain.’

‘I’ve thought about it, sir,’ Latham answered. ‘First off, if I were going to do something as horrible as this, I wouldn’t be letting anyone else know I did it, or he’d have me for the rest of my life. Unless I killed him too, that is? But I’d be afraid he’d think of that and get me first.’

Pitt nodded.

‘I’d go alone,’ Latham went on, his voice quiet, his confidence growing as Pitt did not challenge him. ‘I’d watch from outside. Dusk already. There’d be lights on in the house, so I’d have an idea where the different women were. Wait until I knew one of them was upstairs.’

Pitt thought of the garden and places near bushes, on the edge of the property where a man could linger, perhaps with a dog, or to smoke a pipe without raising suspicion.

‘Makes sense,’ he said quietly. ‘Find any evidence?’

‘Some,’ Latham answered. ‘Soil’s a bit dry, but there are clear enough parts to show that someone stood for a while near the bushes up the side path next door. Dog been there just recently too. You can stand still for a day without anyone really noticing. Natural thing to do.’ Latham sucked on the stem of his pipe for a moment. ‘No way to know if it was him, but could have been.’

He put the pipe aside. ‘I would have watched there before, seen their habits, then that evening I would have waited until one of them was upstairs and the one in the kitchen was alone. I’d have dealt with her quickly, got the second one while the third one was upstairs, not able to come down without passing me and escaping.’

‘Got to be very quick,’ Pitt said thoughtfully. ‘Blood makes it look like he killed the one in the kitchen first, then when the other one ran away, he chased after her up the stairs. Why she didn’t go out into the street I’ve no idea.’

‘The front door was locked,’ Latham answered. ‘Top bolt and side one. She was a small woman. Couldn’t have reached up and undone it before he’d have reached her. And he was between her and the back door.’ He could picture it in his mind and it turned his stomach with pity. ‘And Sofia still upstairs too. Poor soul,’ Latham added bitterly. ‘She must have let him in at the back. He wouldn’t have bolted the door himself, an’ she couldn’t ’ave reached it. Taller woman could have, I suppose.’

‘Only if they were expecting him to stay all night,’ Pitt answered. ‘Which would mean one of their own.’

‘Could be,’ Latham thought aloud. ‘Thought he was there to protect them – poor devils. Couldn’t ’ave been the little Spanish chap, then. He wouldn’t have reached the top bolt either.’

‘Melville Smith could have,’ Pitt said. ‘But his time is accounted for all evening. Could anyone have come back? Bolted the door later?’

‘Why, for God’s sake, would anyone come back?’ Latham said reasonably. ‘I used to think we’d got a common-or-garden lunatic. Nothing to do with who she was. But the ransom makes it different. Now I don’t know what to think, except that it was the kind of violence you don’t use on a stranger, unless you’re barking mad. Makes more sense it was someone who knew her, and hated her, as well as wanting something so bad he’d do anything at all to get it. We checked all the people that came with her, and we didn’t see anything that . . . personal.