Betrayal at Lisson Grove Read Online Free PDF

regretted it.
    It had cost her her comfortable position in society, and the financial security she had been accustomed to, as well as the dinner parties, the servants, the carriages, the privileges of rank.
    She had not said so – it would be heavy-handed – but in return she had gained a life of interest and purpose. Frequently she had been informally involved in his cases, at which she had considerable skill, although far less often since he had moved to Special Branch, where so much of the work was secret. She had married not for convenience but for love, and in dozens of small ways she had left him in no doubt of that.
    Dare he send her a telegram as well? In this strange French street with its different sounds and smells, a language he understood little of, he ached for the familiar. But the telegram to Narraway was to a special address. If Wrexham were to ask the post office for it, it would reveal nothing. If Pitt allowed his loneliness for home to dictate his actions and communicate with Charlotte, he would have to give his home address. That might be a weakness for which he would pay at the very least in anxiety, at most in real fear, and perhaps even death. He should not let this peaceful street in the April sun, and a good breakfast, erase from his mind the memory of West lying in the brickyard with his throat slashed open and his blood oozing out onto the stones.
    ‘Yes, we’ll do that,’ he said aloud to Gower. ‘Then we will do what we can, discreetly, to learn as much as possible about Mr Frobisher.’
     
    It was not difficult to observe number seven, Rue St-Martin. It was near the towering wall of the city, on the seaward side. Only fifty yards away, there was a flight of steps up to the walkway around the top. It was a perfect place from which to stand and gaze out to sea at the ever-changing horizon, or watch the boats tacking across the harbour in the wind, their sails billowing, careful to avoid the rocks, which were picturesque and highly dangerous. In turning to talk to each other, it was natural for them to lean for a few minutes on one elbow and gaze down at the street and the square. One could observe anybody coming or going without seeming to.
    In the afternoon of the first day, Pitt checked at the post office. There was a telegram from Narraway, and arrangements for sufficient money to last them at least a couple of weeks. There was no reference to West, or the information he might have given, but Pitt did not expect there to have been. He walked back to the square, passing a girl in a pink dress and two women with baskets of shopping. He climbed up the steps on the wall again and found Gower leaning against the buttress at the top. His face was raised to the westering sun, which was gold in the late afternoon. He seemed to have his eyes shut and be smiling up into the light. He looked like any typical young Englishman on holiday.
    Pitt stared out over the sea, watching the light on the water. ‘Narraway replied,’ he said quietly, not looking at Gower. ‘We’ll get the money. The amount he’s sending, he expects us to learn all we can.’
    ‘Thought he would.’
    Gower did not turn either, and barely moved his lips. He could have been drifting into sleep, his weight relaxed against the warm stone. ‘There’s been some movement while you were gone. One man left, dark hair, very French clothes. Two went in.’ His voice became a little higher, more tightly pitched. ‘I recognised one of them – Pieter Linsky. I’m quite sure. He has a very distinctive face, and a limp from having been shot escaping from an incident in Lille. I think the man with him was Jacob Meister, but that’s only a guess.’
    Pitt stiffened. He knew the names. Both men were active in socialist movements in Europe, travelling from one country to another fomenting as much trouble as they could, organising demonstrations, strikes, even riots in the cause of various reforms. But underneath all the demands was the