as the idle who gather to watch a street fight, and then demand we clean up the mess afterward, all the time shaking their heads and saying how terrible it is. But heaven help you if you get between them and the view.”
Pitt looked up at Stoker with surprise. There had been more heat in his voice than Pitt had heard in a while. It flickered through his mind to wonder if Stoker had known and cared for someone who had been violated: a sister, even a lover at some time. He knew little of Stoker’s personal life—or that of most people in Special Branch, for that matter. And he wasn’t likely to learn more about them through this subject, as it was the sort of thing a man did not talk about even to those he knew best, let alone relative strangers.
“Of course.” Pitt looked down at the newspaper again. “It was a stupid question. People attack what they’re afraid of. Like poking a hornets’ nest with a stick. Makes you feel brave, as if you’re doing something. Don’t care who the damn things sting afterward. Poor Quixwood must feel like hell.”
“Yes, sir,” Stoker agreed. “But I’ve met Knox before; I know he is a good man. If anyone can find the truth, it’s him.”
Pitt looked up at him again. “I notice you didn’t say ‘catch who did it.’ Do you think it wasn’t murder, then? Suicide, because she allowed herself to be raped?” He heard the anger in his own voice and could not control it.
Stoker looked slightly embarrassed. “Whoever it was, sir, she let him in herself, with no servants around. That doesn’t make attacking her right, but it does make it a lot more complicated.”
“Sometimes, Stoker, I look back to my time in Bow Street, when murders seemed simpler. Greed, revenge, fear of blackmail I can understand. I quite often felt a degree of pity for even the worst people, but I knew that I still had no acceptable choice but to arrest them. If the jury decided they were innocent, then I could live with that and it was a comfort to know they might catch my mistakes, if that’s what they were. But who catches ours?”
Stoker chewed his lip. “Sometimes we do,” he said with a raised eyebrow. “Otherwise, probably no one. You’d like me to say different?” He was polite, just, but there was a challenge in his voice, one he would not have dared use with Narraway.
“No, not if you can’t do it believably,” Pitt retorted. “At least we’re not in the diplomatic service, or the Foreign Office. Thank God Leander Starr Jameson and his damn raid aren’t on our desks.”
“No, sir. And neither is poor Angeles Castelbranco.”
“Yes she is,” Pitt replied grimly. “Someone raped her here in London, and brought about her death.”
“Not a diplomatic incident, sir,” Stoker said firmly.
“Are you sure?” Pitt stared at him, holding his gaze.
Stoker blinked. For the first time uncertainty showed on his face as he considered other possibilities. “Rape, as a tool of fear, civil disruption? I don’t think so, sir. It’s just a regular crime of selfishness, violence, and uncontrolled appetite. She was a very pretty girl, and some vicious bastard saw his chance and took it. I don’t see it makes any difference that she was Portuguese, except maybe it made her easier to get at.” He swallowed. “And maybe he reckoned her parents would be in less of a position to insist on his arrest, punishment—although honestly, I don’t believe he’d even have thought of that. Rape’s a kind of hot-blooded crime, isn’t it?”
“Not necessarily. But does that make any difference?” Pitt asked, still holding Stoker’s gaze. “If an anarchist throws a bomb on impulse, or shoots a political figure, is it less dangerous than if he’d planned it ahead of time?”
This time Stoker’s answer was immediate. “No, sir. D’you think it’ll become an international incident? That might put it on our plate. Castelbranco didn’t seem the sort of man to use his daughter’s death like that. Although I suppose his temperament and philosophy might change if no one is charged.”
“And if he doesn’t, others might, in his—Angeles’s—name,” Pitt pointed out. “I’m pretty sure most fathers would want to see someone pay for this.”
Stoker looked bleak. “Except the father of whoever did it, sir. He sure as hell wouldn’t. Maybe some of that is what’s behind it?”
“We’ve opened up some ugly possibilities, Stoker,” Pitt admitted. “We need to look further into the