by Anne Perry
“What were they?” Joseph asked, racking his mind for what could have torn tires on a moving car and left this track behind, yet not be here now, nor have been found embedded in the tires themselves. Except, of course, no one had been looking for such things.
Matthew stood up, his face white. “It can’t be nails,” he said. “How could you put nails on a road to stay point upward and catch only the car you wanted, and not leave them in the tires for police to find if they looked?”
“Wait for them,” Joseph answered, his heart knocking in his chest so violently his body shook. A cold, hurting rage engulfed him that anyone could cold-bloodedly place such a weapon across the road, then crouch out of sight, waiting for a car with people in it, and watch it crash. He could hardly breathe as he imagined them walking over to the wreck, ignoring the broken and bleeding bodies, perhaps still alive, and searching for a document. And when they did not find it, they left, simply went away, carefully taking with them whatever had caused the wreck.
He hated them. For a moment the heat of it poured over his skin in sweat. Then he found himself shivering uncontrollably, even though the air was hot and still, damp on the skin. More thunder flies settled on his face and hands.
Matthew had gone back to the side of the road, but opposite from the place where the car had swerved off. On this side there was a deeper ditch, thick with primrose leaves. There was a thin, straight line where they were torn, as if something sharp had ripped through them right from the tarmacadam edge all the way across to the ditch and beyond.
Dizzily, his vision blurred except for a crystal clarity at the center. Through it Joseph saw a birch sapling next to the hedge. A frayed end of rope hung from the trunk, biting into the bark about a foot from the ground. He could imagine the force that had caused that. He could see it—the yellow Lanchester with John Reavley at the wheel and Alys beside him, possibly at something like fifty miles an hour, striking it . . . striking what?
He turned to Matthew, willing him to deny it, wipe away what he imagined.
“Caltrops,” Matthew said softly, shaking his head as if he could rid himself of the idea.
“Caltrops?” Joseph asked, puzzled.
“Twists of iron prong,” Matthew replied, hooking his fingers together to demonstrate. “Like the things they put in barbed wire, only bigger. They used them in the Middle Ages to bring down knights on horseback.”
Thunder rumbled again, closer to them. The air was almost too clammy to breathe.
“On a rope,” Matthew went on. He did not look at Joseph, as if he could not bear to. “They must have waited here until they heard the car coming. Then when they knew it was the Lanchester, they sprinted across the road to the far side, and pulled it tight.” He bowed his head for a moment. “Even if Father saw it,” he said hoarsely, “there would be no way to avoid it.” He hesitated a moment, taking a deep breath. “Then afterward they cut the rope—hacked it, by the look of it—and took the whole thing away with them.”
It was all clear. Joseph said nothing. It was hideously real now, no more possibility of doubt. John and Alys Reavley had been murdered—he to silence him and retrieve the document, she because she happened to be with him. It was brutal, monstrous! Pain ran through him like fire inside his head. He could see the terror in his mother’s face, his father struggling desperately to control the car and knowing he couldn’t, the physical destruction, the helplessness. Had they had time to know it was death and they could do nothing for each other, not even time for a touch, a word?
And he could do nothing. It was over, complete, beyond his reach. There was nothing left but blind, bright red fury. They would find whoever had done this. It was his father, his mother, it had happened to. People who were precious and good had been destroyed, taken from him. Who had done it? What kind of people—and why?
They must find them, stop them. This must never happen again.
He would do what he should. He would be kind, obedient, honorable—but never hurt like this again. He could not endure it.
“Is Judith safe?” he said abruptly. “What if they go back to the house?” The thought of having to tell her the truth was ugly, but how could they avoid it?
“They won’t go back.” Matthew straightened up unsteadily. “They know it’s not there. But where the hell is it? I’m damned if I know!” His voice was breaking, threatening to go out of control. He stared at Joseph, willing him to help, to find an answer where he could not.
Thunder cracked across the sky above them, and the first heavy spots of rain fell, splashing large and warm on them and on the road.
Joseph seized Matthew’s arm and they turned and ran to the car, sprinting the last few paces and scrambling in, struggling with the roof as the heavens opened and torrential rain swirled across the fields and hedges, blinding the windscreen and drumming on the metal of the car body. Lightning blazed and vanished.
Matthew started the engine, and it was a relief to hear it roar to life. He put the car into gear and inched out onto the swimming road. Neither of them spoke.
When the cloudburst had passed and they could open the windows, the air was filled with the perfume of fresh rain on parched earth. It was a fragrance like no other, so sharp and clean they could hardly draw enough of it. The sun returned, gleaming on wet roads and dripping hedges, every leaf bright.
“What did Father say, exactly?” Joseph asked when at last he had control of himself enough to speak almost levelly.
“I’ve gone over and over it so many times I’m not sure anymore,” Matthew answered, his eyes ahead on the road. “I thought he said he was bringing it, but now I’m not certain. And since they didn’t find it, and they must have looked, and so did we, the only alternative seems to be that he hid it somewhere.” He was almost calm, addressing it as though it were an intellectual problem he had to solve, and the passion of the reality had never existed.
“We have to tell Judith,” Joseph said, watching his face for his reaction. “Apart from keeping the house locked if she’s ever in it alone, she has a right to know. And Hannah . . . but perhaps not yet.”
Matthew was silent. There was another flare of lightning far away, and then thunder off in the distance to the south.
Joseph was about to repeat what he had said, but finally Matthew spoke.
“I suppose we must, but let me do it.”
Joseph did not argue. If Matthew imagined Judith would allow him to evade any of the issues, then he did not know his sister as well as Joseph did.
When they reached St. Giles it started to rain again. They were both glad to leave the car and use getting soaked as an excuse to avoid immediate conversation. It was emotional enough saying goodbye to Hannah as Albert put her luggage into the Ford. She did not want anyone to go to the station with her.
“I’d rather not!” she said quickly. “If I’m going to burst into tears, at least let me do it here, not on the platform!”
No one argued with her. Perhaps they preferred it this way, too. She hugged each of them, not able to find words, or a steady voice to say anything. Then, holding her head so high she all but tripped on the step—even though it had been there all her life—she followed Albert out to the car. Joseph, Matthew, and Judith stood in the doorway watching her until the car was out of sight. Then Joseph walked over the grass to close the gate.
“I know what you’re going to say,” Judith retorted defensively when they were sitting in the dining room after dinner, Henry asleep on the floor. It was barely dark outside and clear again, the storm long since passed.
“I don’t think you do.” Matthew set his coffee cup down and regarded her gravely.
She looked at Joseph. “Shouldn’t you be the one doing this?” she challenged, anger hard in her voice and her eyes. “Why aren’t you telling me what to do? Haven’t you the stomach for it? Or do you know it’s a waste of time? You’re a priest! It’s cowardly not even to try! Father always tried!”
It was an accusation that he was
not Father, not wise enough, not patient or persistent enough. He knew it already. It was a deep ache inside him and, as with her, an anger, because no one had equipped him to do this. John Reavley had gone leaving a task half done and no one to replace him, as if he did not care.
“Judith . . . ,” Matthew began.
“I know!” She swung round to face him, cutting across his words. “The house is Joseph’s, but I can live here as long as he doesn’t need it, and he doesn’t. We’ve already discussed that. But I can’t go on wasting my time. That’s a condition. I’ve either got to get married or find something useful to do, preferably something that pays me enough to at least feed and clothe myself.” Her eyes were red-rimmed, full of tears. “Why haven’t you the courage to say that to me? Father would have! And I don’t need a gardener, a cook, a manservant, and a housemaid to look after me.” She stared at him furiously. “I worked that out for myself.” She flicked a glance sideways at Joseph, contempt in it.
Joseph felt the sting, but he had no defense. It was true.
“Actually, I wasn’t going to say anything of the sort,” Matthew said to her tartly. “Joseph told me you were perfectly aware of the situation. I was going to tell you why Father was coming to see me on the day he was killed, and what we have learned since then. I would rather have protected you from it, but I don’t think we can afford to do that, and Joseph thinks you have a right to know anyway.”
Apology flashed across her face, then fear. She bit her lip. “Know what?” she said huskily.
Briefly Matthew told her about John Reavley’s call on the telephone, admitting that he was uncertain now of the exact words. “And when we were at the funeral, someone searched the house,” he finished. “That is why Joseph and I were late into the dining room.”
“Well, where is it?” she said, looking at one, then the other, her anger added to by confusion and the beginning of sick, urgent fear.
“We don’t know,” Matthew answered. “We’ve looked everywhere we can think of. I even tried the laundry, the gun room, and the apple shed this morning, but we haven’t found anything.”
“Then who has it?” She turned to Joseph. “It is real, isn’t it?”
It was a question he was not prepared to face. It challenged too much of the belief in his father, and he refused to be without that. “Yes, it’s real,” he said with biting certainty. He saw the doubt in her eyes, her struggle to believe and understand it, far more than he was willing to admit. “We went to the stretch of road where it happened,” he said in harsh, measured words, like incisions. “We saw where the car began to swerve, and where it finally plowed over the verge and into the trees. . . .”
Matthew started to speak but stopped, blinking rapidly. He turned away.
Judith stared at Joseph, waiting for him to justify what he was telling her.
“Once we understood what had happened, it was quite clear,” Joseph continued. “Someone had used a kind of barb, tied to a rope . . . the end of it was still knotted around a sapling trunk . . . and stretched it across the road deliberately. The marks were there in the tarmacadam.”
He saw the incredulity in her face. “But that’s murder!” she exclaimed.
“Yes, it is.”
She started to shake her head, and he thought for a moment she was not going to get her breath. He put out his hand, and she gripped it so hard it bruised the flesh.
“What are you going to do?” she said. “You are going to do something, aren’t you?”
“Of course!” Matthew jerked up his head. “Of course we are. But we don’t know where to start yet. We can’t find the document, and we don’t know what’s in it.”
“Where did he get it?” she said, trying to steady her voice and sound in control. “Whoever gave it to him would know what it was about.”
Matthew gave a gesture of helplessness. “No idea! It could be almost anything: government corruption, a financial scandal, even a royal scandal, for that matter. It might be political or diplomatic. It could be some dishonorable solution to the Irish Question.”
“There is no solution to the Irish Question, honorable or not,” she replied with an edge of hysteria to her voice. “But Father still kept up with quite a few of his old parliamentary colleagues. Maybe one of them gave it to him?”
Matthew leaned forward a little. “Did he? Do you know anyone he was in touch with recently? He’d only had it a few hours when he called me.”
“Are you certain?” Joseph asked. “If you are, then that would mean he got it on the Saturday before he died. But if he thought about it a while before calling you, it could have been Friday, or even Thursday.”
“Let’s start with Saturday,” Matthew directed, looking back to Judith. “Do you know what he did on Saturday? Was he here? Did he go out, or did anyone come to see him?”
“I don’t know,” she said miserably. “I was in and out myself. I can hardly remember now. Albert was supposed to be doing something in the orchard. The only one who would know would be . . . Mother.” She swallowed and took a ragged breath. She was still clinging onto Joseph’s hand, her knuckles white with the strength of her grip. “But you can’t let it go! You’re going to do something? If you aren’t, then I will! They can’t get away with it!”
“Yes, of course I am,” Matthew assured her. “Nobody’s going to get away with it! But Father said it was a conspiracy. That means several people are involved, and we have no idea whom.”
“But . . . ,” she started, then stopped. Her voice dropped very low. “I was going to say it couldn’t be anyone we know, but that’s not true, is it? The opposite is! It had to have been someone who trusted him, or they wouldn’t have given him the document in the first place.”
He did not answer.
Her rage and misery exploded. “You are in the Secret Intelligence Service! Isn’t this the sort of thing you do? What damn use are you if you can’t catch the people who killed our family?” She glared at Joseph. “And if you tell me to forgive them, I swear to God I’ll hit you!”
“You won’t have to,” he promised. “I wouldn’t tell you to do something I can’t do myself.”
She searched his face as if seeing him more clearly than ever before. “I’ve never heard you say that in the past, no matter how hard it’s been.” She leaned forward and buried her head in his shoulder. “Joe! What’s happening to us? How can this be?”
He put his arms around her. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I don’t know.”
Matthew rubbed his eyes, pushing his hair back savagely. “Of course I’m going to do something!” he repeated. “That’s why he was bringing it to me.” There was pride and anger in his voice. His face was pinched with loss of what was irretrievable now. He was still struggling to be reasonable. “If it were something the police could deal with, he’d have taken it to them.” He looked at Joseph. “We dare not trust anyone,” he warned them both. “Judith, you must make sure the house is locked every night, and anytime you and the servants are all out—just as a precaution. I don’t think they’ll come back, because they’ve already looked here, and they know we haven’t got it. But if you’d rather go and stay—”
“With a friend? No, I wouldn’t!” she said quickly.
“Judith . . .”
“If I change my mind, I’ll go to the Mannings’,” she snapped. “I’ll say I’m lonely. They’ll understand. I promise! Just don’t push me. I’ll do what I want.”
“There’s a novelty!” Matthew said with a sudden, bleary smile, as if he needed to break the taut thread of tension.
She looked at him sharply, then her face softened and her eyes filled with tears.
“I’ll find them,” he promised, his voice choking. “Not only because they killed Mother and Father, but to stop them doing whatever it was in the document—if we can.”
“I’m glad you said we.” She answered his smile now. “Tell me what I can do.”
“When there is anything, I will,” he said. “I promi
se. But call me if there’s anything at all! Or Joseph—just to talk if you want. You must do that!”
“Stop telling me what to do!” But there was relief in her voice. A shred of safety had returned, something familiar, even if it was a restriction to fight against. “But of course I will.” She reached out to touch him. “Thank you.”
CHAPTER
THREE
Joseph found his first day back at St. John’s even more difficult than he had anticipated. The ancient beauty of the buildings, mellow brick with castellated front and stone-trimmed windows, soothed his mind. Its calm was indestructible, its dignity timeless. His rooms closed around him like well-fitting armor. He looked with pleasure at the light reflected unevenly on the old glass of the bookcases, knowing intimately every volume within, the thoughts and dreams of great men down the ages. On the wall between the windows overlooking the quadrangle were paintings of Florence and Verona. He remembered choosing them to keep in his heart those streets worn smooth by the footsteps of his heroes. And of course there was the bust of Dante on the shelf, that genius of poetry, imagination, the art of the story, and above all the understanding of the nature of good and evil.
He had been away for long enough for an amount of work to have collected, and the concentration needed to catch up was also a kind of healing. The languages of the Bible were subtle and different from modern speech. Their very nature necessitated that they refer to everyday things common to all mankind: seed time and harvest, the water of physical and spiritual life. The rhythms had time to repeat themselves and let the meaning sink deep into the mind; the flavor and the music of it removed him from the present, and so from his own reality.
It was friends who brought him the sharp reminder of loss. He saw the sympathy in their eyes, the uncertainty whether to speak of it or not, what to say that was not clumsy. Every student seemed to know at least of the deaths, if not the details.