Seven Dials

Charlotte wished she could think of anything at all to comfort him, but there was nothing. Who could blame Ayesha for it? The law would do nothing to answer the massacre, but it would hang her, without doubt… and probably Ryerson with her. But perhaps she did not care about that. “Has Ryerson anything to do with it?” she said aloud. “Or is he just unfortunate? He fell in love with the wrong woman at the wrong time…”

She was startled at the pain that for a moment was naked in Narraway’s face, acute and so obviously personal. Then he masked it, as if aware that she had seen. “Probably,” he agreed, starting to walk again.

They turned the corner and crossed the street into Shaftesbury Avenue. Charlotte had no idea where they were going, and she had a strong belief that neither Pitt nor Narraway did either. The dread that filled their minds drowned out everything else, as it did with her. She was aware of the noise of traffic passing, but it was all a blur of meaningless movement. Alexandria was another world which she had seen only in paintings and through Pitt’s descriptions he had shared with her. But it was linked with everything here as really as if it lay across some immediate border. It would be British soldiers who would be sent to fight and die there if there was an armed revolt, just as there had been in the Sudan. She could remember the newspaper accounts of that well enough. She had known and liked a woman whose only son had been killed at Khartoum.

And if Suez fell, the repercussions of it would touch every life in Britain.

But it was still wrong to sacrifice an i

Narraway stopped on the footpath, facing Pitt. “Garrick is safe enough for the foreseeable future, whatever that is. I’m less happy about Sandeman, but I think if he understands the dangers he will keep silent. If he wanted to be a martyr to soothe his own conscience, he would have done it before now. Staying in Seven Dials matters to him. It is his way of answering for his soul. I believe he will die before he will sacrifice that. And Yeats and Lovat are dead.”

“Is it Ayesha?” Pitt said almost hesitantly. “For vengeance?”

“Probably,” Narraway replied. “And God help me, I can’t blame her… except for drawing Ryerson in. And perhaps she couldn’t help that. It was chance that brought him there that night, exactly as she was disposing of the body. She couldn’t have been sure he would help rather than calling the police-as, if he had an ounce of self-preservation, he would have.”

“Why did she wait for fifteen years?” Charlotte interrupted. “If some of my family had been killed like that, I wouldn’t.”

Narraway looked at her with curiosity turning to interest. “Neither would I,” he said with feeling. “Something must have made it impossible before-a lack of knowledge? Of help? Power? Assistance from someone, their belief, money?” He looked from one to the other of them for an answer. “What would make you wait, Mrs. Pitt?”

She thought only for a moment. A brewer’s dray with six gray horses rumbled past, their huge feet heavy on the cobbles, manes tossing, brasses bright. “Not knowing about it,” she said first. “Either not knowing it happened, or that my family was involved, or not knowing who did it or where to find them. Some situation that I couldn’t leave-”

“What situation?” Narraway interrupted.

“Illness,” she said. “Someone I had to nurse, a child or a parent? Or someone I had to protect, who might be hurt if I acted? Somebody implicated, maybe? A hostage to fortune of some kind.”

He nodded slowly, and turned to Pitt, his eyebrows raised.

“Only not knowing,” Pitt replied, and as he said it something tingled in his memory. “I knew of the fire, but the people I spoke to believed it was an accident, at least that is what they said. How did Ayesha learn that it wasn’t?”

Narraway’s face set hard. “That’s a very good question, Pitt, and one to which I would like the answer, but unfortunately I have no idea where to begin looking. There is a great deal about this I would like to know. For example, is Ayesha Zakhari the prime mover, or is she acting with or for someone else? Who else knows about the massacre, and why did they not expose it in Egypt? Why wait, and why in London?” His voice dropped a little and became tight and hard with emotion he barely kept in control. “And above all, is personal revenge all they want, or is this just the begi

Neither Pitt nor Charlotte answered him. The question was too big, the answer too terrible.

Pitt put his arm around Charlotte’s shoulders, almost without thinking, and drew her closer to him, but there was nothing to say.

CHAPTER TWELVE

VESPASIA WAS IN the withdrawing room, arranging white chrysanthemums and copper beech leaves floating in a flat Lalique dish, when she heard angry voices raised in the hall. She turned in surprise just as the door flew open and Ferdinand Garrick pushed past the maid and stood on the edge of the Aubusson carpet, his face suffused with anger and something close to despair.

“Good morning, Ferdinand,” she said coolly, indicating with a slight nod that the maid might leave. She would have put an edge of ice to it sufficient to stop the Prince of Wales in his tracks but for the reality of the emotion she recognized in him. It overrode all consideration of personal ma

He was taken aback. He was quite aware of his almost unpardonable rudeness, and now that he thought of it, he had expected to meet with outraged dignity rather than any form of understanding. It robbed him momentarily of his assurance. He stood still, breathing hard. Even from across the space of the room she could see his chest rise and fall.

She broke off the last two flower stalks and floated the heads in the fan of leaves, then set the bowl on the low table. It was exquisite, as beautiful as when she did it with bloodred peonies in the summer.

“Tell me what it is that has happened,” she directed. “If you would care for tea I shall send for it, but perhaps it would only be an encumbrance now?”

He jerked his hand, dismissing the idea. “My son is in desperate danger from the same people who murdered young Lovat, and now your idiot policeman has kidnapped him and removed him from the only place where he was safe!” he accused, his eyes burning. His voice shook when he went on, and he was struggling to get his breath. “For God’s sake, tell them to leave it alone! They have no idea what they’re meddling with! The disaster will be…” The enormity of it defied his ability to describe, and he stared at her in helpless fury.

She could see that there was little purpose in attempting to reason with him; he felt too much panic rising towards a breaking point to listen to anything that seemed like argument.

“If it was indeed Pitt who removed your son, then we had better inform him of the danger,” she replied calmly. “At this hour in the morning I doubt if Pitt will be at home, but I may be able to find him. If I do, I shall have to tell him specifically what the danger is in order for him to guard Stephen against it.”

“The man’s a fool!” Garrick’s voice rose, quivering near to breaking. “He’s gone blundering in where he doesn’t understand a damn thing, and he could set a whole continent ablaze!”

Vespasia was startled. Garrick’s words were wild, but in spite of her dislike of his self-righteous, rigid beliefs, he had been an excellent soldier. He had not the imagination to be hysterical.