Long Spoon Lane by Anne Perry Page B

Myrdle Street has you considerably exercised.”
    “Did you follow me along the embankment to say that?” Pitt asked a little testily.
    “It was a preamble,” Voisey replied. “Perhaps unnecessary. It is the Myrdle Street bombing I wanted to talk to you about.”
    “If you are trying to recruit me into backing a drive to arm the police, you are wasting your time,” Pitt said curtly. “We have guns now, if we need to use them. And we don’t need any more authority to search people, or houses. It’s taken us decades to get even as much cooperation as we have; if we start being heavy-handed, we’ll lose it. The answer is no. In fact, I shall do whatever I can to fight against it.”
    “Will you?” Voisey turned half a step ahead to face him, his eyes wide.
    Pit was obliged to stop in order to answer. “Yes!”
    “No chance of you changing your mind, under pressure, for example?”
    “None at all. Were you intending to exert pressure on me?”
    “Not at all,” Voisey answered him with a very slight shrug. “On the contrary, I am very relieved to hear that you will not be changed, regardless of threats or pleas. I had expected as much of you, but it is still a relief.”
    “What do you want?” Pitt demanded impatiently.
    “To have a reasonable conversation,” Voisey said, dropping his voice and suddenly intensely serious. “There are issues of urgent importance upon which we agree. I am aware of things which possibly you are not.”
    “Since you are a member of Parliament, that is unarguable,” Pitt observed tartly. “But if you imagine that I will share Special Branch information with you, you are mistaken.”
    “Then be quiet and listen to me!” Voisey snapped, his temper suddenly giving way, his face flushed. “A member of Parliament called Tanqueray is going to propose a private bill to arm the London police and give them wider power of search and seizure. As things stand at the moment, he has a very good chance of getting it passed.”
    “It will set the police back years.” Pitt was appalled.
    “Probably,” Voisey agreed. “But there is something far more important than that.”
    Pitt did not bother to hide his impatience, but already a sharp needle of curiosity was pricking him. Voisey must want something, and he must want it very much to have swallowed his loathing of Pitt sufficiently to follow him and speak like this. “I’m listening,” he said.
    Voisey’s face was pale now, a small muscle ticking in his jaw. His eyes held Pitt’s as they stood facing each other on the pavement by the embankment in the wind and the late sun. They were oblivious of passersby, the laughter, the music, and the splash of the rising tide on the steps below them.
    “Wetron will use people’s fear to back the bill,” Voisey said quietly. “Every further outrage plays into his hands. He will allow crime to mount until no one feels safe: robbery, street attacks, arson, perhaps even more bombings. He wants people so afraid that they will be begging him to get weapons, new men, more power, anything to make them feel safe again. And when he is given them he will quell crime almost overnight, and emerge the hero.”
    “And you want him stopped,” Pitt realized aloud, knowing how intensely Voisey must hate the man who had so brilliantly taken over the position from which he had been driven.
    “So do you,” Voisey said softly. “If he succeeds he will be one of the most powerful men in England. He will be the man who saved London from violence and chaos, who made it safe to walk the streets again, to sleep undisturbed in one’s own bed without fear of explosions, robbery, losing one’s home or one’s business. The commissioner’s office will be his for the asking.” His voice was thick with fury and loathing too powerful to conceal anymore. “And he will be in command of a private army of policemen, with guns and the power of search and seizure that will ensure no one dislodges him. He will