Betrayal at Lisson Grove by Anne Perry Read Free Book Online

it had come to be Pitt. Austwick was in his late forties with fair hair, which was receding a little, and a good-looking but curiously unremarkable face. He was intelligent and efficient, and he seemed to be always in control of whatever feelings he might have. Now he looked very directly at Narraway, deliberately so, as if he were uncomfortable and attempting not to show it.
    ‘An ugly situation has arisen, sir,’ he said, sitting down before he was invited to. ‘I’m sorry, but I have no choice but to address it.’
    ‘Then do so!’ Narraway said a little hastily. ‘Don’t creep around it like a maiden aunt at a wedding. What is it?’
    Austwick’s face tightened, his lips making a thin line.
    ‘This has to do with informers,’ Austwick said coldly. ‘Do you remember Mulhare?’
    Narraway saw from the gleam of oblique satisfaction in Austwick’s pale eyes that it was something to do with Narraway himself, and in which he was vulnerable. He recognised the name with a rush of sadness. Mulhare had been an Irishman who risked his life to do what he thought was the right thing in giving information to the English. It was dangerous enough that he would have to leave Ireland, taking his family with him. Narraway had made sure there were funds provided for him.
    ‘Of course I do,’ he said quietly. ‘Have they found who killed him? Not that it’ll do much good now.’ He knew his voice sounded bitter. He had liked Mulhare, and had promised him that he’d be safe.
    ‘That is something of a difficult question,’ Austwick replied. ‘He never got the money, so he couldn’t leave Ireland.’
    ‘Yes, he did,’ Narraway contradicted him. ‘I dealt with it myself.’
    ‘That’s rather the point,’ Austwick said. He moved position slightly, scuffing the chair leg on the carpet.
    Narraway resented being reminded of his failure. ‘If you don’t know who killed him, why are you spending time on that now, instead of current things?’ he asked abruptly. ‘If you have nothing to do, I can certainly find you something. Pitt and Gower are away for a while. Somebody’ll have to pick up Pitt’s case on the docks.’
    ‘Oh, really?’ Austwick barely masked his surprise. ‘I didn’t know. No one mentioned it!’
    Narraway gave him a chill look and ignored the implied rebuke.
    Austwick drew in his breath. ‘As I said,’ he resumed, ‘this is something that I regret we have to deal with. Mulhare was betrayed—’
    ‘We know that, for God’s sake!’ Narraway could hear his own voice thick with emotion. ‘His corpse was fished out of Dublin Bay.’
    ‘He never got the money,’ Austwick said again.
    Narraway clenched his hands under the desk, out of Austwick’s sight. ‘I paid it myself.’ He had done, but indirectly, for good reasons, which he would not tell Austwick.
    ‘But Mulhare never received it,’ Austwick replied, his voice conflicted with a mixture of emotions. ‘We traced it.’
    Narraway was startled. ‘To whom? Where is it?’
    ‘It is in one of your bank accounts here in London,’ Austwick answered.
    Narraway froze. Suddenly, with appalling clarity, he knew what Austwick was doing here, and held at least a hazy idea of what had happened. Austwick suspected, or even believed, that Narraway had taken the money and intentionally left Mulhare to be caught and killed. Was that how little he knew him? Or was it more a measure of his long-simmering resentment, his ambition to take Narraway’s place and wield the razor-edged power that he now held?
    ‘Went in and out again,’ he said aloud to Austwick. ‘We had to move it around a little, or it would have been too easily traceable to Special Branch.’
    ‘Oh, yes,’ Austwick agreed bleakly. ‘Around to several places. But the trouble is that in the end it went back again.’
    ‘Back again? It went to Mulhare,’ Narraway corrected him.
    ‘No, sir, it did not go to Mulhare. It went back into one of your special accounts. One that we had