Free Treachery at Lancaster Gate by Anne Perry Page B

thought, but he would have to follow it up, sooner or later, whether it had anything to do with the bombing at Lancaster Gate or not. Who was paying whom? And why?
    It left him with a sour taste, as if something clean and long loved had been soiled. Did it take him any closer to finding out who had planted the bomb? Possibly. More probably not.
    He walked the last half mile or so home from the bus stop through the thickening fog. The only traffic was the occasional hansom cab going over the cobbles. He could hear the clatter of hooves and the hiss of wheels in the water before he could see the lights. It was a night any sane man was at home beside his own fire, not out turning over and over lies and stupidity in his mind and trying to find excuses he knew were worthless.
    He saw the lights of the Dog and Duck tavern, golden yellow and warm. Someone opened the doors and came out, laughing and waving his hand toward someone inside. Tellman succumbed to temptation and went in. He was not ready to go home yet. However much he tried to pretend that everything was all right, Gracie would see right through it. She would know he had found something wrong. They were only small things, but like a piece of grit in the eye, they were painful, and unforgettable. And, like a sore eye, he kept rubbing at it.
    He was chasing errors, repetitive petty theft. Yes—police corruption, but very minor.
    He sat on one of the bar stools and ordered a pint. It was warm inside, and damp from too many warm bodies and from wet clothes steaming in the heat from the fire in the great hearth at the far side of the room. Now and then beer slopped over onto the straw-covered floor. Normally he did not like such places, but tonight it was good, perhaps because it was so very normal.
    The barmaid brought Tellman’s beer and passed the time of day, but she could see his mood, and she did not pursue conversation. Tellman was glad of a small table out of the way where he could watch others but remain essentially alone.
    He was troubled, afraid of what all these small errors might mean. If someone else were to look at Tellman’s work, would they find as much unaccounted for? He did not think so.
    Did that make him a better policeman? Did details matter, or was he losing himself in them because it was a way to escape from the larger picture of violence, dishonesty, and waste?
    He finished his ale and went to the bar and ordered more. The barmaid was a big woman, friendly, her shock of hair falling out of its pins as she strove to serve everyone. Not the kind of woman he found attractive at all. But this evening her warmth was welcome, her cheerful, meaningless chatter a good distraction.
    He must find out more about Tierney, and the financial errors, although he strongly suspected that whatever petty carelessness he had committed, it was trivial. Grubby, of course, but of no consequence. It could have nothing to do with the bombing. It was just a small mistake that might never have been discovered if he were not looking for corruption.
    What if he did not report these accounting anomalies to Pitt? What if he said there was nothing? Or was replaced by someone else, someone who would not expect police to be better than another man, above temptations of any sort? Someone who cared less. Maybe someone with a little less childlike idealism, who did not think of police as the guardians of law, of the vulnerable, whoever they were, gentleman or pauper.
    When had that started? He thought back to being a boy, only briefly. There were too many things about it he preferred to forget. He was not that person anymore. He wasn’t hungry, scared, runny-nosed, scabby-kneed, always feeling on the outside. He was a grown man with a purpose. He had been that for years, ever since he had joined the police, part of an army for good, someone who belonged.
    Now he was an inspector himself, a rank he would never have imagined reaching, even a few years ago. It was his duty to protect the