facedown. “Putting it off won’t make it any better. Ask him to come in,” he requested.
“Do you want me to interrupt in fifteen or twenty minutes?” Stoker asked.
Pitt gave him a bleak smile. “Not unless it’s genuine.”
Stoker nodded and withdrew. Two minutes later the door opened again and Rafael Castelbranco came in. He looked ill, and ten years older than he had a few days ago. His cheeks were sunken; there was no color in his skin. His clothes were neat, even elegant, but now they seemed a mockery of other, happier times.
Pitt rose to his feet and came around the desk to offer his hand.
Castelbranco gripped it as if that in itself were some promise of help.
At Pitt’s invitation they sat in the two armchairs between the fireplace and the window. With a small gesture of his hand, Castelbranco declined any refreshment. He had fine hands, brown-skinned and slender.
“What can I do for you, sir?” Pitt asked. There was no point in inquiring after his health, or that of his wife. The man was shattered by grief, and she could only be the same.
Castelbranco cleared his throat. “I know you have children,” he began. “Mrs. Pitt has been most kind to my wife, both before my daughter’s death, and since. You may perhaps imagine how we feel, but no one could know … could even think of …” He stopped himself, took several deep breaths, and continued in a more controlled tone. “I wish you to help me find out as much as I can about what happened to my daughter, and why.” He saw Pitt’s expression. “I am not looking for justice, Mr. Pitt. I realize that may be beyond anyone’s reach.” He closed his eyes a moment; whether to regain control of his voice or to hide his thoughts it was impossible to tell.
Instead of interjecting, Pitt waited for Castelbranco to continue.
The ambassador opened his eyes again. “I wish to silence the rumors, not only for my own sake, and my daughter’s, but for my wife’s. Until we know what happened we cannot refute even the ugliest whispers. We are helpless. It is a …” Again he stopped. Clearly none of his diplomatic skills or experience came to his aid in trying to describe what he was feeling.
This matter was not specifically within the area of Special Branch’s duties. But Castelbranco was the ambassador of a foreign country with whom Britain had a long and valued relationship, and the death had taken place in Britain.
Apart from that, simply as a human being with a daughter of a similar age, Pitt felt a sharp, very personal understanding of Castelbranco’s grief.
“I’ll do what I can,” he promised, wondering as he said the words if he was being rash and would regret it. “But I must be discreet, or I may risk making the rumors worse, rather than better.” Did that sound like an excuse? It was not. Pitt simply knew from experience that inquiring into a rumor, or even denying it too vehemently, could result in it spreading much further.
“I understand the risks,” Castelbranco said grimly, “but this is intolerable. What have I left to lose?” His voice trembled in spite of himself. “Angeles was betrothed to marry Tiago de Freitas, a young man of excellent family, with a bright future ahead of him and an unspotted reputation. It was in all ways an excellent match.” His hands tightened, even though they were resting in his lap. “She told me that their decision to end the engagement was mutual. But now people are suggesting that he discovered something about Angeles that was so shameful he could not live with it, and that is why the engagement was broken.”
Pitt felt a wave of fury flow through him, then one of terrible pity. The ambassador’s body was visibly so tense, Pitt knew every muscle in him must ache, and yet how could the man possibly rest? Did he sleep at all? Or perhaps in nightmares he saw his daughter crash through the glass into the night, again and again as he watched, helpless to save her?
Or was it even worse than that? Did he see her laughing, young, and excited at all that lay ahead of her? Did he feel her hand in his, small and soft, and then waken and remember that she was dead, broken on the outside by glass and stone, inside by terror and humiliation?
“Exactly what has this young man said?” Pitt asked.