Angels in the Gloom (15 page)

Joseph looked away. “Judgment is anything but simple.” Judgment was impossible, he thought. One stumbled from hour to hour, trying to understand, trying to get it right, hardly ever sure whether one had or not. It all mattered far too much: love and hate, loyalties torn in too many directions, uncertainty, guilt, decisions that had to be made too quickly and without a chance to think and weigh.

“Just do your best,” he said to Kerr. “Perth will probably find out eventually anyway. Don’t betray anybody’s trust in you.”

“Thank you,” Kerr said with a rush of overriding gratitude, his face suddenly pink. “I knew you would advise me.” He hesitated a moment as if to repeat himself, then straightened his shoulders and went to the door.

Joseph was exhausted and his arm ached appallingly. It seemed as if a hideous pattern was starting all over again.

CHAPTER SIX

Matthew was in his office as usual on the morning Blaine’s body was found. He was reading a letter and he finally put it down with a sense of relief He was always pleased to hear from Judith because he worried about her, not only because of the very obvious danger of being injured, or even killed, but the threats of ordinary illness made far worse by the long hours and the wet and filthy conditions.

But in her letter she accepted that every avenue of inquiry had been followed to its end, and they knew no more about the Peacemaker than they had before. He could still be almost anyone, except Ivor Chetwin or Dermot Sandwell. Even Aidan Thyer, Master of St. John’s, might be the Peacemaker. Most painful to Matthew, and perhaps most frightening, was the chance it was Calder Shearing himself. That thought touched Matthew now and then like the cold fingers of nightmare. His father had hated Secret Intelligence and all its works. Was Shearing’s involvement what his father had meant when he had warned Matthew to trust no one because the corruption reached right to the very top?

He had had no difficulty in deciding not to tell Judith anything of his thoughts on Patrick Hannassey yet. There was too much yet to test. Where had Hannassey been at the time of John and Alys Reavley’s deaths? And was it imaginable that John Reavley had known him? Could he possibly have had private access to the king and the kaiser?

He still had these questions in his mind when Desborough entered and announced that Shearing wanted him immediately. “Something bad,” he added with a frown. “By the look on his face, pretty bloody. Thought I’d warn you.”

“Thanks,” Matthew said drily, rising to his feet. He put Judith’s letter in his pocket and went along the corridor to Shearing’s office. His mind raced over the most probable disasters in the Atlantic, or worse still, in America itself. Either one of their own agents had been caught, or there had been another major incident on the Mexican-American border.

“There’s been a murder in St. Giles,” Shearing said bluntly as Matthew entered his office. “Theo Blaine. He was Corcoran’s best man, in fact he was brilliant, key to the whole project.”

Matthew was stunned. It was the last thing he had been expecting. “Do we show our interest by investigating it, or leave it to the Cambridge police?”

Shearing looked exhausted. He had the dazed, rather stiff air of someone newly bereaved, but Matthew knew it was not the young scientist personally whose loss bruised him so deeply, but the wound it dealt to the project that was possibly crucial to their survival in the war. He harbored the thought that perhaps this was another brilliant act of the Peacemaker’s. A blow like this, with such surgical precision, emulated the pattern of his parents’ deaths—swift, murderous, but in its own way hideously strategic.

“Reavley!” Shearing’s voice broke his moment’s inattention.

“Yes, sir,” he said. “I can go to St. Giles without drawing any particular notice, if you want me to. I can stay at home, visit with my brother. He’s still far from recovered. But if it was a German agent who killed him, that won’t fool anyone.”

“We’ve no idea yet who it was,” Shearing replied. “He was only found this morning.”

“Where? By whom?” Matthew asked. It was still hard to grasp as reality. It was someone he had never met, but his death could affect the entire country, millions of lives, perhaps the course of history. It was too vast to have meaning yet.

“By his wife,” Shearing answered. He moved to stand with his back to the window, the late morning light shadowed from his face for a moment. “By the potting shed at the bottom of the garden. He was probably there all night.”

“She didn’t miss him?” Matthew was startled. Perhaps this was nothing to do with Germany, but was simply a domestic tragedy.

Shearing must have read the thought in his expression. The ghost of a smile touched his eyes and vanished instantly. “Don’t cling to that, Reavley. It means nothing.” He walked slowly over to his desk, but without sitting down in the leather-padded, round-backed chair, as if it would in some way imprison him. “His throat was torn out with the prongs of a garden fork.”

Matthew winced.

Shearing saw it. “It could still have been a woman’s crime,” he pointed out. “That doesn’t mean it had nothing to do with Germany. It could be any of a dozen things, and whatever it was, it is still the loss of the best scientific brain in the country. That matters more than any one man’s life.”

There was nothing to argue. “What do you want me to do, sir?”

“Get your brother the priest to resurrect the man!” Shearing snapped, his eyes blazing for a moment, then with fear and will suppressing the panic he leveled his voice. “We need to know whether it was personal or enemy inspired,” he answered. “We’ve done everything we can to keep the project secret, but it’s almost impossible. If there is a German spy or sympathizer in St. Giles, we must find and destroy him, preferably without exposing him publicly. It’s devastating for morale to know we are so vulnerable. And of course we need to guard ourselves better in the future.”

Matthew did not interrupt.

“In the hope that it was personal, possibly domestic,” Shearing went on, “we must avoid drawing undue attention. It’s a murder. Leave the local police to do what we have to hope they are trained for.” His lips tightened. “What I need you to do, Reavley, is find out from Corcoran the absolute truth, however bitter—can we complete the project without Blaine?”

“Yes, sir,” Matthew said quietly.

“We can allow other people hope,” Shearing said. “I need the truth, Reavley, whatever it is.”

“Yes, sir. I know that.”

Matthew assigned his immediate duties to his colleagues and cleared his desk, then early the next morning he drove to St. Giles. There was no point in going the same day. The police would need time to assemble the preliminary facts, and more important, Corcoran would have to assess the situation at the Establishment. He would investigate what Blaine had left in the way of notes or instructions to others, whom else he had trusted, or who might understand his calculations. It was not a judgment that would be made in haste.

As Matthew motored to St. Giles, there was a haze of green over the fields and the first leaves were beginning to open in the hedges. Every so often there was a burst of white blossom.

Matthew was one of the few people who had access to as much petrol as he needed, but he was acutely aware of the shortages and he did not abuse the privilege. However, he would need to travel not only to St. Giles but also to the Establishment, to Shanley Corcoran’s house in Madingley, and probably back and forth to Cambridge. This time he had a reason to drive, and he enjoyed the surge of power in the engine of his Sunbeam, and the sense of momentary freedom it gave him to race along the open road.

He tried to plan in his mind what he would say, then decided it was useless. Grief could not be met with prepared speeches; in fact it could not be met at all, only treated with the dignity of being honest.

He went to the Establishment first. It was less than half an hour beyond St. Giles through the winding, familiar lanes, verges deep in grass. He was not in uniform, since the whole visit was ostensibly a private one, but he carried identification, and was obliged to produce it before being allowed in to see Corcoran.

The edifice was large and utilitarian, and at the moment there was an air of gloom about it. Doors were closed and they were also locked until opened by discreet guards. Their faces were tense, shoulders stiff, and if they recognized Matthew from previous visits, they gave no indication.

After what seemed like endless corridors indistinguishable from one another, he found Corcoran in his office, sitting at his desk and perusing a mass of papers. Even at a glance Matthew could see that many of them were covered with formulas and calculations. Matthew would not have understood them, but even so Corcoran automatically covered them with a couple of large sheets of paper before standing up to greet him.

“Matthew! It’s good to see you.” He clasped Matthew’s hands in both of his. He looked shocked, his face crumpled, every line heavier and more deeply scored, as if dragged downward. But his eyes were vivid as always, and his hands were warm and strong. “Of course you’ve come about this dreadful situation. Poor Blaine was brilliant. One of our best.”

“I know. Can you complete the project without him?” Matthew asked.

Corcoran winced and gave a half smile. “You’re blunt! I suppose you have to be. It will be difficult, but yes, of course we will. We have to. I know every bit as well as you do that victory could depend on it, and very probably will.” His mouth tightened. “I can do it, Matthew. I’ll work on it myself, day and night. I have good men left. Ben Morven is first class—well, good second,” he amended. “And Francis Iliffe, and Dacy Lucas. Every man will throw all he has into it, believe me.”

“I know you will, but will it be enough without Blaine?” Matthew hated having to persist. “I need the truth, Shanley, not optimism, and not just hope or faith. How hard will it be? What difference will it make to the time, being without Blaine? Your best estimate?”

Corcoran considered it for several moments, his eyes dark and bright.

“For whom am I guessing, Matthew? Calder Shearing?”

“Yes. And I would think for Admiral Hall, too.” Admiral “Blinker” Hall was head of naval intelligence.

Corcoran grimaced again, as if stabbed with pain. “Of course it will make it very much harder,” he admitted soberly. “If I have to be specific, it may take us two or even four weeks longer.” His voice trembled with the fierceness of his emotion. “But I swear I will do it!” He gestured toward the desk. “I’ve dropped everything else and I am personally reviewing all Blaine’s notes to determine and execute what he was planning. I know what lives will be lost by even that much delay.”

Matthew believed him, but he was also concerned. Corcoran was well over sixty and he looked shattered by weariness. He had lost considerable weight in the last year and was working himself to exhaustion without the new additional burden. This kind of intense mental drive over such extraordinary hours would be enough to break the health of a young man, let alone one his age. Matthew understood sacrifice, and it was selfish and absurd to make different rules for those you cared about, whatever the reason. And yet it was almost beyond his ability not to.

“Don’t work yourself into the grave,” he said, almost lightly, but there was a catch in his voice. Corcoran was more than a great man whom he admired intensely, he was a deeply loved friend, a link with the past and all that was precious in it. Memory stretched back into childhood so sweet it held a pain for all that had slipped away with John Reavley’s death, the war, the need to fight at such a hideous price for what they had once taken so lightly for granted. “We couldn’t do without you,” he added.

“Oh, come on!” Corcoran smiled suddenly. “It’s only work! Work is a challenge!” He held up his hand in a fist. “It’s what man was born for—work and love. That’s who we are, isn’t it? A life that doesn’t challenge you to give all you have is only half a life, unworthy of the possibilities of man. Your father would say that, and you know it.”

Matthew looked away, feeling suddenly stripped, and too vulnerable to meet Corcoran’s eyes. If he lost him, too, it would hurt more than he was prepared to face. He must think of something practical to divert the torrent of feeling that threatened to sweep away his balance.

“Shearing said to tell you that if there is anything you need, he’ll get it for you,” he said abruptly. “That might not be quite carte blanche, but it’s close.”

“It’ll do,” Corcoran assured him. “I’ll compile a list. Give me half an hour. I’ll get someone to take you around the place, show you the two or three things that you can be allowed to see—like the canteen and the lavatory! Not that I think for a moment you would understand the rest anyway. But it’s a protection for you as much as for us. Come with me, I’ll find someone.” He went to the door. “Lucas! Come, meet Matthew Reavley from Special Intelligence Services. Show him what you can for half an hour, then bring him back here. Be nice to him. He’s not only my friend; he’s the man who’ll bring us all the tools and funds we want!”

“Well, all there is,” Matthew amended, as he shook hands with Dacy Lucas.

Richard Mason left the nightmare of Verdun behind him, thinking as he rattled over the torn-up roads toward Ypres of what he could write in his report on the slaughter in the French army. Twelve days of incessant rain had made the landscape a sea of mud broken only by skeletonlike limbs of shattered trees and the occasional length of barbed wire.