Seven Dials

CHAPTER TEN

PITT THANKED TRENCHARD for his help and left Alexandria with a stab of regret that surprised him. He would miss the balmy nights pale with stars, the wind blowing in off the sea, smelling clean above the spice odors and filth of the hot streets. And he would also miss the sound of music and voices he did not understand, the colors in the bazaars, the fruit. But in London there would be fewer mosquitoes, and no scorpions. Certainly in the coming winter no cloying, sticky heat to make the sweat run down his skin or light that blinded his eyes and made him permanently squint in the sun.

And there would be no more sense of being a stranger intruding in a land where his people were different and unwelcome, and the weight on the conscience of having contributed to the searing poverty. Of course there was poverty in England too. People died of hunger, cold and disease, but they were his own people; he was one of them and not to blame.

There was a sense of incompleteness in his mission as he stood on the deck of the ship, the bright water churning around him and the city already fading into the distance. What could he tell Narraway? He knew far more about Ayesha Zakhari, and she was not at all as he had assumed, which forced him to reassess the whole question of why Lovat had been killed. It seemed a pointless thing to have done, and Ayesha was not stupid.

Above all, he wanted to be home with Charlotte, his children, the comfort of his house and the familiarity of streets where he knew every corner, and understood the language.

It was another three days before he docked at Southampton, and then a train journey back to London which was in truth less than two hours but seemed to drag to the very last minute.

By seven o’clock he was on the doorstep of Narraway’s office, determined to leave a note if there was no one in, but wishing intensely to say all he had to tonight, and go home to sleep as long as he wanted, luxuriously, in all that was sweet and gentle and long-loved, without the need to trouble his mind with what he must say or do in the morning.

But Narraway was in and there was no escape from reporting in person. He leaned back in his chair when Pitt was inside and the door had closed behind him. His stare was penetrating but guarded, already prepared to defend against a returning enquiry.

Pitt was too tired, both physically and emotionally, to pretend to any form of etiquette. He sat down opposite him and stretched out his legs. His feet hurt and he was cold with exhaustion and the sudden chill of English October.

Narraway simply waited for Pitt to speak.

“She is a highly intelligent, literate, and well-educated woman of Christian descent,” Pitt said. “But an Egyptian patriot who cared very much for the poor in her country and for the injustice of foreign domination.”

Narraway pursed his lips and made his fingers into a steeple, his elbows on the arms of his chair. “So a woman coming for a political end, not merely to make her own fortune,” he said without surprise. His expression did not alter in the slightest. “Did she imagine that she could affect the cotton industry through Ryerson?”

“It seems so,” Pitt answered.

Narraway sighed, his face now filled with sadness. “Naive,” he murmured.

Pitt had a powerful feeling that Narraway was speaking of far more than simply Ayesha Zakhari’s ignorance of political inevitability. He sat back in his chair as if at ease, and yet his body was not relaxed. There was a tension within him which was palpable in the room. “You said well educated. In what?” he demanded.

“History, languages, her own culture,” Pitt replied. “Her father was a learned man, and she was his only child. Apparently he found her an excellent companion and taught her much of what he knew.”

Narraway’s face tightened. He seemed to understand far more from Pitt’s words than the simple facts they referred to. Was he thinking that she was brought up in the intellectual company of an older man, that it was comfortable to her and she was used to both the advantages, and perhaps the disadvantages as well? Pitt wondered if it had been a training for her which enabled her to charm Ryerson without ever seeming to be too young, too unsophisticated, too impatient? Or was it the forming of a woman for whom young men were unsubtle, shallow and with whom she was ill at ease? Could she actually be as much in love with Ryerson as he believed?

Then why on earth would she have shot Lovat? Had Pitt missed something critical in Alexandria after all?

Narraway was watching him. He said abruptly, “What is it, Pitt?” He was leaning forward. His hand was shaking slightly.

Pitt was intensely aware of currents of emotion far beyond the facts he could see. He hated working with a superior who obviously trusted him so little, whatever the reason. Was it for his safety? Or someone else’s? Or was Narraway protecting something in himself that Pitt could not even guess at?

“Nothing that seems to have any relevance to Lovat, or to Ryerson,” he answered the question. “She was a passionate follower of one of the Orabi revolutionists, an older man. She fell in love with him, and he betrayed both her and the cause. It was a bitter hurt to bear.”

Narraway drew in a long, deep breath and let it out silently. “Yes.” The single word was all he said.

For seconds Pitt waited, sure Narraway would say more. There seemed to be sentences, paragraphs in his mind, just beyond reach.

But when he did speak, it was a change of subject. “What about Lovat?” he asked. “Did you find anyone who knew him? There must be something more than the written records we have here. For God’s sake, what were you doing in Alexandria all that time?”

Pitt swallowed his irritation and told him briefly what he had done, his further pursuit of Edwin Lovat and his army career in Egypt, and Narraway listened, again in silence. It was u

“I couldn’t find anything at all to suggest a motive for murder,” Pitt finished. “He seemed a very ordinary soldier, competent, but not brilliant, a decent enough man who made no particular enemies.”

“And his invaliding out?” Narraway asked.

“Fever,” Pitt replied. “Malaria, as far as I could tell. He certainly was not the only one to get it at that time. There doesn’t seem to have been anything remarkable about it. He was sent back to England, but honorably. No question over his record or his career.”

“I know that much,” Narraway said wearily. “His trouble seems to have begun after he got back home.”

“Trouble?” Pitt prompted.

Narraway’s look was sour. “I thought you looked at the man yourself?”

“I did,” Pitt replied tartly. “If you remember, I told you.” He was conscious of how tired he was. His eyes stung with the effort of keeping them open, and his body ached from long sitting in one position on the train. He was cold in spite of the fire in Narraway’s office. Perhaps hunger and exhaustion added to it. He wanted to go home, to see Charlotte and hold her in his arms; he wanted these things so profoundly it required a deep effort to be civil to Narraway. “He’s given plenty of men, and women, cause to hate him,” he went on brusquely. “But we have nothing to suggest any of them were in Eden Lodge the night he was killed. Or have you discovered something?”

Narraway’s face pinched tight. Pitt was startled by the sense of power in it. Narraway was not a large man, yet his mind and his emotion dominated the room, and would have, however many people had been there. For the first time Pitt realized how little he knew about a man in whose hands he placed his own future, even at times perhaps his life. He had no idea of Narraway’s family or where he came from, and that did not matter. He had never known those things about Micah Drummond, or John Cornwallis, and he had not cared. He knew what they believed in, what mattered to them, and he understood them, at times better than they understood themselves. But then he was wiser, more experienced in human nature than they, who had seen only their own narrow portion of it.