Angels in the Gloom (42 page)

Joseph looked back at him, racking his mind for what he should say. Was Kerr strong enough for honesty? Perhaps he was too weak to survive anything else, and forgive? “I don’t know,” he answered. “There are times when I look at what’s happening, young men crushed and dying, the land poisoned and turned to filth, corruption of what I used to trust utterly, and I’m not sure.” He met Kerr’s haggard eyes. “But the things that Christ taught are still true, of that I’m absolutely certain. Meet me at the end of the world when we stand at the abyss, I’ll tell Satan to his face just as certainly: Honor is still worth living or dying for; no matter how tired or hurt or frightened you are, face forward and seek the light, even if it’s gone out and you can’t remember where it was, keep going. It’s always right to care. It’s going to hurt like hell at times, you’ll think it’s beyond bearing, but if you let go of that then you have lost the purpose of existing at all.”

Kerr stared at him, a slow, almost beautiful dawn of understanding in his eyes, as if he had seen something at last that made sense, one firm step on which to build.

“Yes,” he said simply. “I’ll go now. Thank you, Captain Reavley.” He held out his hand. “Thank you for everything.”

Joseph took it and gripped it hard, and felt an answering firmness. “Good luck,” he offered, meaning it profoundly.

Kerr nodded. “You too, sir.”

The next day Orla telephoned again, and this time it was not possible to put her off with evasion. Her voice was harsh with fear and exhaustion, and unquestionably with anger as well.

“Joseph? Shanley has asked me to speak with you. He sounds terribly ill, and he won’t tell me what is wrong. He says that he has some information about an enemy in the Establishment. I suppose he must be referring to whomever murdered poor Theo Blaine.” Now the anger in her was very forceful. “I think that Shanley has realized who it is that is betraying us to the Germans. He dare not trust anyone except you. He says he cannot even speak to Matthew, and you will know why, but it is extremely urgent. You have to go to him, Joseph. He sounds dreadful. I’ve never heard him like this before.” Her voice dropped. “I think it must be someone he is very fond of, someone he really trusted. Disillusion is one of the most painful of all human experiences, especially for a man like Shanley, who cares for people so much. Please go immediately, Joseph. Promise me?”

She spoke of disillusion! What searing irony. It was the very last thing he wanted to do. There was nothing to say, nothing to add except recriminations, and excuses neither of them would believe.

Was it conceivable that Corcoran knew anything about information going from the Establishment to the Germans? From whom? Ben Morven? There was nothing new in that. Surely naval intelligence would get everything from him that there was?

Or could it be that Corcoran knew something that Morven would never betray?

He did not believe it. But he would go, not for Corcoran to tell him anything from naval intelligence, but because he wanted to look at Corcoran again and see if he could understand how he had been so blind all these years to the truth of him. Had the weakness always been there? How had he missed it? What did he really understand of human good or evil if he misread a man so close to him so badly?

And had his father been so blind as well? Had he chosen not to see, or not to believe it? Should the deepest friendship close its eyes deliberately? Was that what loyalty was, or ought to be?

He was standing at the telephone in the hall. Everyone else was in the kitchen. He could smell bread baking.

“Yes,” he said, clearing his throat. “Yes. Of course I’ll go. I imagine they will let me in. Where is he?”

There was a moment’s silence. “Don’t you know? Shanley said you did!”

“No, I don’t. But I imagine I can find out. It may not be today, but I’ll go.”

“Thank you.” She did not press him or ask him to swear or promise. She believed his word. It made him feel worse.

It took him several telephone calls and a lot of waiting before finally someone in Admiral Hall’s office told him where Corcoran was, and gave him permission to visit because he was an ordained chaplain in the army. Corcoran would not be permitted a civilian lawyer, but he would be allowed a military one, and the military priest of his choice. Apparently that was Joseph. A car would pick him up the following afternoon, and return him afterward. He was to speak of it to no one, most particularly not to Orla Corcoran. Joseph gave his word; it was a condition of the visit. And he was to wear uniform so there could be no misunderstanding of his status.

The countryside was glorious, dappled sunshine over the fields, hedges still white with blossom, trees billowing in the wind, their skirts flying. There were shire horses leaning into the harrow, necks bent. Clouds piled up, scudding away in long mare’s tails, like spindrift off the sea. For once he did not see it.

It was a long journey and he lost sense of direction, except that it was generally toward London. It took over two hours. When he finally arrived at the building, he found it was an old prison made of stone and smelling as if it was always wet. It seemed to carry with it the darkness of old griefs, bitterness, and lost dreams.

Joseph identified himself again, and was taken inside.

“I have been told to allow you an hour, Chaplain, but it will only be this once,” the officer in charge told him. “I don’t know what he’s here for, but it’s very serious. You must give him nothing, and take nothing from him. Do you understand?”

“Yes. I’ve seen military prisoners before,” Joseph replied miserably.

“Maybe, but this one’s different. Sorry, Chaplain, but we’ve got to search you.”

“Of course.” Joseph submitted obediently, then finally he was conducted along a narrow corridor. His footsteps, instead of echoing as he had expected, were eaten by the silence, as if he had not really passed that way at all.

Corcoran was in an ordinary room, indistinguishable as a cell except for the fact that the window was above head height, and the glass was so thick that nothing was visible through it. The single door was made of steel with no features at all on the inside, no hinge, no handle.

Corcoran himself was sitting on a bunk bed with a bare mattress.

He looked up as the door closed and Joseph was left alone with him. He was an old man, his face withered, his skin without life. His eyes seemed smaller, more deeply sunken into his head.

Joseph felt a wrenching pity inside him like a cramp in the stomach, and even a kind of revulsion. It would have been unimaginable a week ago. This was Shanley Corcoran! A man he had loved all his life, whose face and voice and whose laughter were woven into the best of all his memories. And he had killed Theo Blaine, not in anger or passion, not in defense of anything good, but because Blaine was going to achieve the glory of saving Britain, leaving Corcoran to be no more than a footnote on the pages of history.

That glory in other men’s minds had mattered to him more than the project itself, more than Blaine’s life, and God forgive him, more than the lives of the sailors who would have used the device, whatever it was. Had he thought of them?

Joseph stopped just inside the door, standing because there was nothing on which to sit. He had to say something, keep up the pretense.

“What is it you know, Shanley?” he asked. He could not bring himself to say “how are you?” That would be absurd now, and dishonest. His state was painfully obvious, and Joseph could do nothing to help, even if he wished to, and he was not sure that he did, or what it was he felt now, except misery.

Corcoran gave a bitter little laugh. “Is that all you care about, Joseph? After all these years, the sum of it is ‘what do you know?” “

Joseph felt a stab of pity and disgust that almost made him sick. It was like a physical twisting of the stomach. “That’s why you sent for me,” he replied. “And incidentally, why they let me in.”

“And the only reason you came?” There was accusation in Corcoran’s face.

It was even worse than Joseph had feared. The room was not hot, but it was airless, and he could feel the sweat running down his body. He could not ask him when the corruption had started, or if it had always been there. He played the farce. “Is there another spy in the Establishment, Shanley?” he asked.

Corcoran looked up at him. “You know, I have not the faintest idea. There might be. It could even be one of the technicians or guards, for all I could say.” Now there was anger in him, as if he had been let down. “But I knew you wouldn’t come unless you thought there was some glory in it for you, some prize to take back to Admiral Hall.” His mouth twisted in a sour grimace. “You’re nothing like your father, Joseph. He knew the value of friendship, through fair weather or foul. He would never turn his back on a lifetime of loyalty, all the human passion and treasure of the past. But for all your pretense of religion, your self-righteousness going out to the trenches where you can pose the hero, you’re shallow as a puddle in the street.”

It was ridiculous that it should hurt! It was grossly unfair, distorted by fear and, please God, by guilt as well, but still it left Joseph gasping with the pain of it. “Don’t use my father’s name in this,” he said between his teeth. “Most of the time I miss him with a constant emptiness. I keep thinking of things I want to ask him, things to tell him, or just to share. But I’m glad he doesn’t have to see you now. He would have found it unbearable because you’ve betrayed not only the future, but the past as well. Nothing looks the same as it used to. All my life I’ve thought that you, above all men, were honest. You’re not; you’re a liar to the soul. I just wondered if you had always been, and somehow we missed it!”

Corcoran stood up, easily, the aches and stiffness forgotten. “You’re ignorant, Joseph, and with the arrogance of all people who think they speak for God and morality, you judge without understanding. I had no choice.” He stared at Joseph, his eyes burning with anger. “When I said I had no idea who the spy in the Establishment was, that was only half true. I don’t know who’s left now, who smashed the prototype and who could still be in touch with the Germans.” His voice rose a pitch. “Theo Blaine wasn’t nearly as clever as everyone thought he was, not anywhere near! Oh, he was bright!” He said it bitterly, as though it were somehow a condemnation. “Very advanced in his field, but there’s all the difference in the world between bright and genius. Like Icarus, he flew too close to the sun. Thought he could design a machine that would guide torpedoes and depth charges so they would hit their target every time. He said so!”

Joseph’s mind swam. The idea was vast! It really would have changed the war forever. Whichever side had such a thing would destroy the other out of the sea. That was what Archie was testing now, and Matthew with him. Did they know the truth—that it was useless? Why in God’s name had Corcoran killed Blaine, if Blaine had not had the genius to do it?

“It makes no sense,” he said aloud. “If he couldn’t finish it, why kill him?”

“Now you doubt I did it?” Corcoran was raging. “Suddenly you re sorry, and on my side again?”

Joseph was staggered. Could he have been so immensely wrong? It was a moment’s wild, beautiful hope. But Blaine had certainly not torn his own throat out with a garden fork!

“Because he couldn’t finish it, he was going to sell it to the Germans, you fool!” Corcoran spat. “Anything rather than admit he wasn’t up to it. That way we would never have known. It was his chance to cover himself. But maybe the Germans could have finished it, built on what we had! They have brilliant men.” He leaned farther forward. “Don’t you see, Joseph? I had to do it! I had no choice. Who could I tell? No one else in the country knew enough to understand whether I was right or not. The fate of the war depended on it…”

Joseph was stunned. Was it possible? It made hideous sense—a scientist who boasted of what he could achieve, who overrated his own ability, brilliant as it was, but not genius of that splendor. Then, when he was at his wit’s end, staring failure in the face, and his own humiliation, he sold it to the enemy rather than admit the truth. What fatal arrogance!

“I tried to stop the spy as well,” Corcoran went on, his voice strengthening. “But I missed him. Blaine wouldn’t tell me, but I have no doubt now that it’s Morven.” He moved until he was almost close enough to Joseph to touch him. “You have to take it from here. I don’t know who to trust. Matthew’s at sea on Archie’s ship. He doesn’t trust Calder Shearing, he told me that himself. Hall won’t listen to me. You have to do it—for England—for the war. For everything we love and believe…”

Joseph looked at him. It hung in the balance, all the past love, the memories sweet and close, the desperate hunger to believe, like clinging to a dream as the shreds of it slip into waking.

But honesty forced itself on him. Corcoran was lying. It was there in the details, the pattern that shifted with each retelling of the story, always to lay the fault on someone else. He remembered Lizzie’s words about Blaine’s skills, and that Morven’s were not the same, but Corcoran’s were. And now he could see it in Corcoran’s eyes, the sheen on his skin. It was the same terror of dying that he saw in the trenches, but out there, for all the horror and pity, it was in a way clean.

He turned away, sick to his heart. “You’re lying, Shanley,” he said quietly. “Blaine might have finished it. It was you who stopped him so you could do it yourself and take the fame in history, the glory of saving your country. But you were willing to let the country lose rather than have Blaine crowned in your place.”