Shoulder the Sky (33 page)

Judith had already told the general something of the events themselves, and the search afterwards as the fragments of meaning had come together, until finally, with Europe on the brink of war, John Reavley's children had discovered the conspiracy itself.

"Your father was a brave man," he said quietly when she had finished. "I wish I could have known him."

She was furious with herself because the tears filled her eyes and her voice choked when she tried to speak.

"I'm sorry," he said with deep contrition. He put his pipe down briefly to pull a handkerchief out of his pocket. He handed it to her.

She took it, wiped her eyes, which was almost useless, then blew her nose fiercely. She stood holding the handkerchief. She could hardly give it back to him now.

"I think Eldon may have been involved in the same thing," Cullingford said thoughtfully. There was immense sadness in his face, but he did not flinch away from the knowledge. "I've thought about some of the things he said to me last time I was on leave. He boasted about changing things. He often did that, as young men will, but he seemed surer of himself than before, as if he were speaking of something specific'

Judith said nothing.

He pulled on his pipe slowly and let out the smoke. She could smell it in the damp air.

"We had one of the stupid arguments we had so often. He hated the army and everything to do with militarism, as he called it. He said there was a better way than violence, a way of peace and government that would supersede petty nationalism, and that I was fast becoming an anachronism, and I'd see!" He was standing still, the pipe in his hand almost as if he were not quite sure what to do with it. The light reflected on the polished wood of the bowl. "I thought he was just bragging at the time, but looking back, I think he knew what he was saying."

She turned to look at him, and he averted his eyes, even though in the twilight she could barely have read the expression in them. She knew it was shame that he had read Prentice so easily, the shallow and the vulnerable in him, the child that had needed to impress, and the man who had embraced an evil to do so, perhaps without recognizing it. She looked back at the trees against the sky, now little more than shadows in the afterglow.

"I saw photographs of him," she said quietly. "At a regatta. You were there. He looked young and eager, sort of excited, as if everything good lay ahead of him. I suppose there are thousands of young men like that. People must look at those pictures now, and .. ." She could not go on. She was hurting both of them, and it was pointless.

He put out his hand and touched her arm, his fingers strong, a steadying grip, just for a moment, then withdrawn again.

"There was a young woman as well," she said, to fill the silence.

"I don't remember," he answered.

"She was unusual, very tall," she elaborated. "Dramatic eyes. They were pale, as if they might have been light blue or green." Then a memory came back to her of Hannah using almost the same words.

She stopped abruptly and swung back to face him, her heart pounding. "I think I know how the instructions were given to Sebastian to murder my parents! It couldn't have been a letter -you don't put that sort of thing down on paper. Anyway, you'd have to be certain that Sebastian was going to do it. You could hardly wait for him to write back! It had to be a conversation. Matthew told me he didn't have a telephone call, except from Mr. Thyer at St. John's, and that was only a few moments. But I know he did meet a young woman in one of the local pubs in Madingley." She was speaking more and more rapidly, her voice rising with excitement. "A friend of Hannah's saw her! She was tall, with unusual light eyes! Of course it doesn't have to be the same woman, but it could have been! She might have drawn Prentice into the plot as well!"

Cullingford was staring at her, amazed, vulnerable, strangely naked in the last shreds of the light no more than a warmth in the sky. "Yes," he agreed gently. "Yes, it could. I'm going to London tomorrow. Just a couple of days. I'll look into it. See who she was."

She was surprised. He had said nothing about this journey before. She was startled how fiercely she would miss him, even for so short a time. She took the handkerchief out of her pocket and offered it back to him.

He laughed a little shakily. "Keep it," he said, reaching out very gently to touch her cheek with his fingers. "Be here when I get back. Please?"

"Of course I will!" The words were awkward, her throat aching so savagely she could barely swallow.

He leaned forward and kissed her, softly, on the mouth, hesitating a moment, then more fully. Then he let her go and turned to walk towards the house, without looking back.

Cullingford was in London by half-past eleven. First he went to see Abigail Prentice. It was a stiff, highly emotional meeting, neither of them able to bridge the gulf of pain between them.

"Hello, Owen," she said with as much warmth as she could manage. There was an awkwardness in her that could not totally forgive him because he was a professional soldier, a man who had deliberately given his life to fighting, a thing she could not understand, and here he was, alive. Her son, who fought with his mind and his beliefs, whose only weapon was the pen, had been drowned in no man's land, and buried where she could not even visit his grave. She had not been there to comfort him, or to mourn.

"Hello, Abby." He kissed her fleetingly on the cheek. It was all she offered him.

"Are you home on leave?" she asked, going ahead of him into the sitting room.

"A couple of days," he replied.

"I thought as a general you would have been able to have longer." She sat down in the old armchair near the fire. There were early yellow roses in a vase on the table. They were still in bud, short-stemmed, picked from the climber over the arbour in the garden. In a couple of weeks they would be glorious. "I suppose they can't manage without you," she added, both pride and resentment in her voice.

He wondered if he was sitting where Judith had sat when she was here. He glanced at the familiar room, the photographs of Prentice, one or two of himself, not many. There were several of Belinda, some of Abby and her husband. Then he saw the one Judith had referred to. He remembered the occasion. It was Henley, as she had supposed. It had been a hot day, dazzling sun on the water, lots of young men in light trousers, straw boaters, striped blazers, girls in dresses that were self-consciously nautical, or else all muslins and ribbons, and parasols to protect against burning in the sun. there had been lots of laughter, cold lemonade and beer, picnic hampers, fruit and sherbet, pheasant in aspic, cucumber sandwiches; some people with champagne.

And there was Laetitia Dawson with the startling eyes, almost as tall as Cullingford, a fraction taller than Prentice, but he had been fascinated by her. Had his involvement with the Peacemaker begun even there, the first introduction to the seductive and terrible ideas?

Was it she who had given Sebastian Allard his final, murderous instructions also?

"Would you like tea?" Abby asked.

"Thank you," he accepted, simply because it would be easier than sitting here doing nothing, and he would not go so soon.

"Will you stay to lunch?" she added.

"No, no, thank you. I have to get into the city and see various people."

"Thank you for sending Miss Reavley," she went on awkwardly. "That was thoughtful of you. She was very nice. She spoke well of Eldon."

He pictured Judith here in this room, struggling for something kind to say, just as he was now. She had loathed Prentice and despised his insensitivity towards men for whom she cared with an almost unbearable tenderness. Thinking of her his heart raced; the room became too small, too imprisoning. He wanted to be back in Flanders, even with the violence and the grief, the noise and fear and dirt. In Flanders were the people he loved and the causes he understood.

"Good," he said aloud. "I'm glad she was of some help."

"Nothing helps, Owen," Abby answered. "I am just acknowledging your thought."

"Abby, I did not send him into no man's land," he told her. He wanted to reach out and touch her, but she was too stiff, too fragile, and he did not dare. "He took his chances, like any young man," he went on. "If you are angry with everyone who lives, because he didn't, you are going to hurt yourself intolerably. There are casualties in war, just as there are in life. We do the best we can, the best we understand. Sometimes we are wrong. Eldon was following his belief. Don't blame other people for that." He was lying to her. Hadrian had told him that Eldon had been murdered, which was different from war. But he had given many people sufficient cause to hate him, and Cullingford had no idea which of them had been offered the chance and taken it. He could not blame Charlie Gee's brother, if it had been he, or Edwin Corliss's friends. But there was no need for Abby to know that. She had grief enough.

She was staring at him, waiting, wanting to quarrel and not knowing if she dared to. The anger needed to spill out, but not at him.

He stood up slowly. "We haven't time to waste on hate, Abby," he said very softly. "Hold on to the good you have, while you have it. Time is so precious, and so short."

The tears spilled over her cheeks, and awkwardly, as if it were a gesture he had never made before, he kneeled down in front of her and took her in his arms.

Cullingford had already given the subject a good deal of thought, and he knew which friend he would speak to regarding the idea that was taking greater shape in his mind the longer he considered it. It made a hideous sense. If what he learned next fitted in with what Judith had told him, the identity of the Peacemaker was certain.

He walked along Piccadilly in the sun with a dreamlike sense of unreality. It all looked exactly the same as it had a year ago, and yet it was in definably shabbier. Part of it was in the dress of the women. There were no bright colours, no reds, no oranges or hot pinks, as if they would be crass in the face of so many people's mourning.

Perhaps there were rather fewer horses and more cars, which might be to do with the war, or simply the progress of time. Newsboys stood on the corners. There was nothing different: casualty figures from Flanders, France, Gallipoli, bits of news from other regions such as Africa and the Mediterranean. Oddly enough there were still theatre flyers advertising musicals, dramas, the latest entertainment, and, of course, moving pictures.

He stopped to take his bearings for a moment, then crossed the street and went into a large block of flats, each one like a smart town house, with entrance foyer and a suite of rooms.

Gustavus Tempany was expecting him. He was at least fifteen years older than Cullingford, and white-haired. He was tall and thin, limping from the wound that had invalided him out of the Indian Army ten years ago. He still stood like a soldier. His thoughts and dreams were with the men in France, but his own days of battle were over.

He welcomed Cullingford and offered him whisky, in spite of the hour, but he was not surprised when it was declined.

"Well?" he said gravely, looking at Cullingford where he sat opposite him, legs crossed as if he were relaxed, trying to appear casual. "Don't play silly beggars with me, Cullingford. Something's eating at you, or you wouldn't be here. This is not time for little-tattle."

"Do you know Laetitia Dawson?" Cullingford asked bluntly.

Tempany's eyes opened very wide, but he did not make any obvious comment. "Of course."

"Do you know what she is doing these days?"

"Socially? No idea. Don't care much about these things." Very carefully he did not ask why on earth Cullingford should be interested in such a superficial matter. He frowned. "Is it important?"

"It could be. She's still in London? Hasn't married, gone abroad, or anything?"

"No. Saw her at dinner at the Savoy a couple of weeks ago, or perhaps it was three."

"Who with? Do you remember?"

"Somebody's brother. All very casual," Tempany replied.

Cullingford saw the curiosity in him, and smiled. He could have trusted his discretion, and his honour, but if Judith were right, such knowledge was dangerous, and Tempany had been his friend too long and too deeply to risk his safety.

"Can you put me in touch with anyone who knows her currently?" he asked.

"Cullingford, are you sure you know what you are doing?" Tempany said anxiously. "She won't be up to anything questionable, you know! You do know her family connections who her uncle is?"

"Yes, I do. Please it's important."

"Well, if you must, I think she actually lives quite a bit of the time up near Cambridge. Family home, you know?"

"Yes, I know."

"You could try one of the young scientists up at the Establishment there. Can't remember the fellow's name, but supposed to be brilliant. All very secret stuff. War effort, and all that. Is that what you're after?"

Cullingford did not answer. It was fitting together too easily: Laetitia Dawson with, first, Eldon presumably he had been the first? Then the message to Sebastian Allard. Now there was some young scientist in Cambridge. The connection was perfect. The passion was there, the idealism, the power. He would have to go up to Cambridge, of course. Every step needed proving, but he did not expect any difficulty. A society photograph of Laetitia was easy enough to find out of the Tatkr. He would show it in the pub that Judith's sister had spoken of, and the chain would be complete.