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Pitt did not bother to reply. It was going to be a long, and probably boring, duty. He was thinking of Charlotte at home, and his children Jemima and Daniel. He missed them, but especially Charlotte, the sound of her voice, her laughter, the way she looked at him. They had been married for fourteen years, but every so often he was still overtaken by surprise that she had apparently never regretted it.
It had cost her her comfortable position in Society and the financial security she had been accustomed to, as well as the dinner parties, the servants, the carriages, the privileges of rank.
She had not said so—it would be heavy-handed—but in return she had gained a life of interest and purpose. Frequently she had been informally involved in his cases, in which she had shown considerable skill. She had married not for convenience but for love, and in dozens of small ways she had left him in no doubt of that.
Dare he send her a telegram as well? In this strange French street with its different sounds and smells, a language he understood little of, he ached for the familiar. But the telegram to Narraway was to a special address. If Wrexham were to ask the post office for it, it would reveal nothing. If Pitt allowed his loneliness for home to dictate his actions, he would have to give his home address, which could put his family in real danger. He should not let this peaceful street in the April sun, and a good breakfast, erase from his mind the memory of West lying in the brickyard with his throat slashed open and his blood oozing out onto the stones.
“Yes, we’ll do that,” he said aloud to Gower. “Then we will do what we can, discreetly, to learn as much as possible about Mr. Frobisher.”
IT WAS NOT DIFFICULT to observe number 7 rue St. Martin. It was near the towering wall of the city, on the seaward side. Only fifty yards away a flight of steps climbed to the walkway around the top. It was a perfect place from which to stand and gaze at the ever-changing horizon out to sea, or watch the boats tacking across the harbor in the wind, their sails billowing, careful to avoid the rocks, which were picturesque and highly dangerous. In turning to talk to each other, it was natural for them to lean for a few minutes on one elbow and gaze down at the street and the square. One could observe anybody coming or going without seeming to.
In the afternoon of the first day, Pitt checked at the post office. There was a telegram from Narraway, and arrangements for sufficient money to last them at least a couple of weeks. There was no reference to West, or the information he might have given, but Pitt did not expect there to have been. He walked back to the square, passing a girl in a pink dress and two women with shopping baskets. Ascending the steps on the wall again, he found Gower leaning against the buttress at the top. His face was raised to the westering sun, which was gold in the late afternoon. He looked like any young Englishman on holiday.
Pitt stared out over the sea, watching the light on the water. “Narraway replied,” he said quietly, not looking at Gower. “We’ll get the money. The amount he’s sending, he expects us to learn all we can.”
“Thought he would.”
Gower did not turn either, and barely moved his lips. He could have been drifting into sleep, his weight relaxed against the warm stone. “There’s been some movement while you were gone. One man left, dark hair, very French clothes. Two went in.” His voice became a little higher, more tightly pitched. “I recognized one of them—Pieter Linsky. I’m quite sure. He has a very distinctive face, and a limp from having been shot escaping from an incident in Lille. The man with him was Jacob Meister.”
Pitt stiffened. He knew the names. They were both men active in socialist movements in Europe, traveling from one country to another fomenting as much trouble as they could, organizing demonstrations, strikes, even riots in the cause of various reforms. But underneath all the demands was the underlying wish for violent revolution. Linsky in particular was unashamedly a revolutionary. Interesting, though, was that the two men did not hold the same viewpoints, but instead represented opposing sides of the socialist movement.
Pitt let out his breath in a sigh. “I suppose you’re sure about Meister as well?”
Gower was motionless, still smiling in the sun, his chest barely rising and falling as he breathed. “Yes, sir, absolutely. I’ll bet that has something to do with what West was going to tell us. Those two together has to mean something pretty big.”
Pitt did not argue. The more he thought of it the more certain he was that it was indeed the storm Narraway had seen coming, and which was about to break over Europe if they did not prevent it.
“We’ll watch them,” Pitt said quietly, also trying to appear as if he were relaxed in the sun, enjoying a brief holiday. “See who else they contact.”
Gower smiled. “We’ll have to be careful. What do you think they’re planning?”
Pitt considered in silence, his eyes almost closed as he stared down at the painted wooden door of number 7. All kinds of ideas teemed through his head. A single assassination seemed less likely than a general strike, or even a series of bombings; otherwise they would not need so many men. In the past assassinations had been accomplished by a lone gunman, willing to sacrifice his own life. But now . . . who was vulnerable? Whose death would really change anything permanently?
“Strikes?” Gower suggested, interrupting his thought. “Europe-wide, it could bring an industry to its knees.”
“Possibly,” Pitt agreed. His mind veered to the big industrial and shipbuilding cities of the north. Or the coal miners of Durham, Yorkshire, or Wales. There had been strikes before, but they were always broken and the men and their families suffered.
“Demonstrations?” Gower went on. “Thousands of people all out at once, in the right places, could block transport or stop some major event, like the Derby?”
Pitt imagined it, the anger, the frustration of the horse-racing and fashionable crowd at such an impertinence. He found himself smiling, but it was with a sour amusement. He had n
ever been part of the Society that watched the Sport of Kings, but he had met many members during his police career. He knew their passion, their weaknesses, their blindness to others, and at times their extraordinary courage. Forcible interruption of one of the great events of the year was not the way to persuade them of anything. Surely any serious revolutionary had long ago learned that.
But what was?
“Meister’s style, maybe,” Pitt said aloud. “But not Linsky’s. Something far more violent. And more effective.”
Gower shivered very slightly. “I wish you hadn’t said that. It rather takes the edge off the idea of a week or two in the sun, eating French food and watching the ladies going about their shopping. Have you seen the girl from number sixteen, with the red hair?”
“To tell you the truth, it wasn’t her hair I noticed,” Pitt admitted, grinning broadly.
Gower laughed outright. “Nor I,” he said. “I rather like that apricot jam, don’t you? And the coffee! Thought I’d miss a decent cup of tea, but I haven’t yet.” He was silent again for a few minutes, then turned his head. “What do you really think they have planned in England, sir—beyond a show of power? What do they want in the long run?”
The sir reminded Pitt of his seniority, and therefore responsibility. It gave him a sharp jolt. There were scores of possibilities, a few of them serious. There had been a considerable rise in political power of left-wing movements in Britain recently. They were very tame compared with the violence of their European counterparts, but that did not mean they would remain that way.
Gower was still staring at Pitt, waiting, his face puzzled and keen.
“I think a concerted effort to bring about change would be more likely,” Pitt said slowly, weighing the words as he spoke.
