Betrayal at Lisson Grove (Treason at Lisson Grove)

He dealt with the most immediate issues of the day first, passing on all he could to juniors. When that was done, he told them not to interrupt him. Then he went through all Narraway’s records of every crime Gower had been involved with over the past year and a half. He read all the documents, getting a larger picture concerning European revolutionary attempts to improve the lot of workingmen. He also read Stoker’s latest report from Paris.

As he did so, the violence proposed settled over him like a darkness, senseless and destructive. But the anger at injustice he could not help sharing. It grieved him that it had oppressed people and denied them a reasonable life for so long that the change, when it came—and it must—would be fueled by so much hatred.

The more he read, the greater a tragedy seemed to him that the high idealism of the revolution of ’48 had been crushed with so little legacy of change left behind.

Gower’s own reports were spare, as if he had edited out any emotive language. At first Pitt thought that was just a very clear style of writing. Then he began to wonder if it was more: a guarding of Gower’s own feelings, in case he gave something away unintentionally, or Narraway himself picked up a connection, an omission, even a false note.

Then he took out Narraway’s own papers. He had read most of them before, because it was part of his duty in taking over the position. Many of the cases he was familiar with anyway, from general knowledge within the branch. He selected three specifically to do with Europe and socialist unrest, those associated with Britain, memberships of socialist political groups such as the Fabian Society. He compared them with the cases in which Gower had worked, and looked for any notes that Narraway might have made.

What were the facts he knew, personally? That Gower had killed West and made it appear it was Wrexham who had done so. All doubt left him that it had been extremely quick thinking on Gower’s part. Had it been his intention all the time—with Wrexham’s collaboration? Pitt recalled the chase across London and then on to Southampton. He was bitterly conscious that it had been too easy. On the rare occasions when it seemed Wrexham had eluded them, it was Gower and not Pitt who had found the trail again. The conclusion was inevitable—Gower and Wrexham were working together. To what end? Again, looked at from the result, it could only have been to keep Pitt in St. Malo—or more specifically, to keep him from being in London, and aware of what was happening to Narraway.

But to what greater purpose? Was it to do with socialist uprisings? Or was that also a blind, a piece of deception?

Who was Wrexham? He was mentioned briefly, twice, in Gower’s reports. He was a young man of respectable background who had been to university and dropped out of a modern history course to travel in Europe. Gower suggested he had been to Germany and Russia, but seemed uncertain. It was all very vague, and with little substantiation. Certainly there was nothing to cause Narraway to have him watched or inquired into any further. Presumably it was just sufficient information to allow Gower to say afterward that he was a legitimate suspect.

Had he intended to turn on him in France?

The more he studied what was there, the more Pitt was certain that there had to be a far deeper plan behind the random acts he had connected in bits and pieces. The picture was too sketchy, the rewards too slight to make sense of murder. It was all random, and too small.

The most urgent question was whether Narraway had been very carefully made to look guilty of theft in order to gain some kind of revenge for old defeats and failures, or whether the real intent was to get him dismissed from Lisson Grove and out of England. The more Pitt looked at it, the more he believed it was the latter.

If Narraway had been here, what would he have made of the information? Surely he would have seen the pattern. Why could Pitt not see it? What was he missing?

He was still comparing one event with another and searching for links when there was a sharp knock on the door. He had asked not to be interrupted. This had better be something of importance, or he would tear a strip off the man, whoever he was.

“Come in,” he said sharply.

The door opened and Stoker came in, closing it behind him.

Pitt stared at him coldly.

Stoker ignored his expression. “I tried to speak to you last night,” he said quietly. “I saw Mrs. Pitt in Dublin. She was well and in good spirits. She’s a lady of great courage. Mr. Narraway is fortunate to have her fighting his cause, although I daresay it’s not for his sake she’s doing it.”

Pitt stared at him. He looked subtly quite different from the way he had when standing in front of Croxdale the previous evening. Was that a difference in respect? In loyalty? Personal feeling? Or because one was the truth and the other lies?

“Did you see Mr. Narraway?” Pitt asked him.