case the answer is one we don’t like? What about other men’s wives, or daughters? What about the next woman raped?”
Quixwood closed his eyes. His hands clenched around his glass so tightly that had it not been heavy cut crystal, it would have broken. Narraway did not press him to answer.
They spoke of other things, briefly, and after a little while Narraway left, wishing there were more he could do and knowing there was not.
CHAPTER
9
IT WAS EARLY EVENING but the sun was still high. Charlotte was at the stove, her back to the kitchen table, but she could hear Pitt’s fingers drumming irritably on the wood. She could have asked him to stop, but she knew it was pointless. He was not even aware of doing it. His sense of helplessness was eating away at him. The death of Angeles Castelbranco was unexplained; in his mind it was still a bleeding wound.
She knew that it was not just a matter of solving a crime. It was not even the taking of some small step to absolve England’s reputation as a gentle and civilized country where women, children, the vulnerable were treated with respect; they must show that brutality was punished swiftly, and that no one pleaded for justice in vain.
Beyond that, it was the deep, visceral nature of the crime that ate at him, the knowledge that those he loved could as easily have been the victims, could yet be, and he had found nothing he could do to prevent it.
She never doubted that he loved his family fiercely. Sometimes he was too strict, true, expected too much of the children; other times she thought he was too lax, but either way, whatever the disappointments, the love was as certain as the ground beneath her feet or the warmth of the sun.
All over the country there were other men the same, in every town and village—people who loved, who worried, who protected their loved ones the best they could, who lay awake at night thinking about the unthinkable, praying that they would never have to face it.
But Pitt had had to face it, to see it in Rafael Castelbranco and be unable to do anything, unable even to try, because there was nothing to grasp, no evidence. Witnesses abounded, and yet they had seen nothing that did not lose substance, like mist, when it was examined.
Isaura Castelbranco had said her daughter’s violator was Neville Forsbrook. Charlotte herself had seen him taunt Angeles and felt her terror as if it were palpable in the room. But then you had Rawdon Quixwood, stricken and bereaved by the rape of his wife, who had sworn to Vespasia that he had been at the event where the rape of Angeles must have taken place, and he knew young Forsbrook could not be guilty. It was not a reference to his character but to his whereabouts.
Who was lying? Who was mistaken? Who was so prejudiced as to be unable to see or tell the truth?
To Pitt it was more than that. He felt uniquely responsible because he had been present when Angeles had died; he was a guardian of the law, supposed to protect people, or at the very least to find justice for those who were wronged. Charlotte knew that fact was in his mind far more than the angry words, the long silences, the overprotectiveness that was infuriating Jemima or the lectures begun and broken off that confused Daniel.
She wanted to say something to help, at least to let Pitt know that she understood and did not expect him, or any man, to slay all the dragons or keep safe all the dark corners of life, whether they were far away or in the familiar rooms of one’s own house.
Pitt was still drumming his fingers on the tabletop.
Charlotte lifted the lid of the pan with potatoes and pushed a skewer into one, then another, to see if it was time to put on the cabbage. She hated it overcooked. The potatoes could do with a few more minutes. The table was already set and the cold meat carved. There were three separate dishes of chutney out: apple and onion, orange and onion, spiced apricot. She was rather pleased with herself for that.
“Only three places,” Pitt said suddenly. “Who’s not here?”
“Jemima,” she replied. “She’s spending the evening with a friend.”
Pitt’s voice sharpened. “Who is it? Do you know the family? What is she like, this friend? How old is she?”