A Question of Betrayal

by Anne Perry

  They began to walk swiftly toward the dock, then turned the corner without looking back.

  CHAPTER

  19

  Lucas and Josephine were at breakfast early, when the September sun was just over the horizon in the east and there was a hint of chill in the air.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Josephine began. “If Stoney knew anything—and we are almost certain he did—then he will have left clues of some sort.”

  “He did know something,” Lucas said with absolute certainty. Thinking back on Stoney’s visit, he remembered things he had barely noticed at the time: his choice of words, a sense of anxiety deeper than he was admitting to, an absence of his usual wry humor. Lucas recognized it now as controlled fear, perhaps sadness, even an understanding that they might not meet again. Why had he not recognized it at the time? Was he so long out of the game that he had become blind to shades and tones that he used to understand as second nature? Or was it that he thought Stoney was growing lonely, living in the past where he had had many old friends? Please God, Lucas had not condescended to him. Looking back on it, he could not be certain.

  “Then he will have left a sign, such as he could,” Josephine said. “Something perhaps only you would pick up, or see the meaning of. Lucas”—she put down her cup, as if it were of no more interest to her—“we must go and look further, before the police or anybody else comes and moves things. He may have left clues as to who the murderer was.”

  “You’re right,” he cut her off, rising to his feet. “We’re going straightaway.” He debated whether to tell her about meeting Peter Howard.

  “What is it?” she asked. She could not read his thoughts, but she could read his face, and she knew when a new idea or memory had assailed him.

  “Yesterday evening, when I took Toby for a walk, I met up with Peter.”

  “Has he anything to do with Stoney?” Her face suddenly grew more serious. There was a new anxiety in her eyes. She put facts together and made a story as easily as he did.

  “Yes,” he said. “I told him about it. He believes Stoney was murdered. But he thinks that there is someone even higher in MI6 who knew about the figures Stoney discovered, and what they mean.”

  “The money,” she cut in. “Where from, and more importantly, where to? Do you know…or do you have a guess? I can see it in your face. Why does it trouble you so much?”

  “Because Stoney died for it.” The initial reason was that simple, whatever complications followed. “Not only that, Peter has an idea where it’s going, and so do I. After what Margot told me, I’m almost sure, but we must have proof.”

  “Margot?” Her face was troubled. “Then has this got something to do with Roger Cordell?”

  “I am as certain as we can be of anything that it has nothing at all to do with him.”

  “Lucas.”

  “Believe me, Jo, this is far too serious to tell anyone comfortable lies, you least of all,” he said quietly. “Margot told me she heard whispers at the wedding party in Berlin. A group calling itself the Fatherland Front is trying to annex Austria to Germany, as a cultural and political ally of the Germans.”

  “You mean consume it, conquer it without a fight?” The sudden disgust in her face was so fierce it startled him.

  “Yes, that’s almost exactly what I mean,” he agreed. “The money is for that cause, and the list of contributors would horrify us. That’s what Stoney was working on. And the amount is vast, millions.”

  “And he was killed for it.”

  “It looks like it,” he admitted.

  Josephine frowned, her concern deep in the shadows of her eyes. “And there is something else. What more did Peter say to you? And how is it that he knows about it? Did you tell him what Margot told you? You did. Of course you did.”

  There was nothing to be gained, no protection he could give her from the reality. Now, of all times, he would have wished to, yet it was a relief to tell her, not to face the fear alone. “Peter has a man in Vienna and another in Trieste, where the root of this particular plot is planned. He’s well established there, Peter says.”

  “The point, Lucas?” Her voice was brittle. She looked tired; she was too old to be frightened all over again for those she loved.

  And he resented it profoundly. “The point, my dear, is that Aiden Strother is the man in Trieste, and has been for years.”

  She paled, but she did not interrupt.

  “His cover was broken and Peter needed to warn him, in spite of the fact that his contact is apparently dead. He sent the one person who would know Strother by sight, and that he would trust.”

  “Elena. That’s where she’s gone!”

  “Yes.”

  Josephine said nothing. For Lucas, this was worse than if she had spoken.

  “He didn’t tell me until after she had gone,” he said. It sounded like an excuse. In fact, it was. “Not that I could argue with his choice. She can’t join MI6 but refuse to do the jobs that are dangerous or distasteful.”

  “I know, I know.” She almost choked on the words. “So, all we can do is sort out who killed Stoney Canning and take our evidence to Bradley.”

  “No, not Bradley.” His voice was dry in his throat. “I don’t entirely trust him. Nothing specific or I’d do something about it. But this stuff of Stoney’s goes very high.”

  “I thought Bradley was head of MI6? How much higher can you get?” She blinked and shook her head.

  “I don’t know what more he wants. Maybe he’s riding a tiger, and now he can’t get off?”

  “Oh, heavens.” She closed her eyes, then seemed to have to force herself to open them and look at him. “Where the hell have we missed our way so badly?” Her voice cracked and she struggled to keep it level. She seemed to understand all the things he had said, and everything not said as well: the suspicions, the fear, the innate dislike, the disagreement that seemed fundamental. “How far back does this go?” she asked. “Do you even know?”

  “I’ve been studying Stoney’s diaries. I haven’t read every word—God knows his handwriting is worse than Elena’s—but I can trace this thread of thought back just over a year.”

  Her eyes widened. “That long?”

  “Adolf Hitler didn’t come to power overnight, Jo. He planned very carefully. He didn’t tell people what he was going to do for them; he asked them what they wanted, then turned around and said that was what he would give them. Over forty percent of the people voted for him. It’s not as if we couldn’t have seen this coming.”

  “Stoney—”

  “Stoney was far wiser than he seemed, but I can’t prove anything because he was very vague in his diaries. I might be reading into it what I can see now.”

  “Then we must find the rest,” she said quickly. “This isn’t enough. We have to know who killed Aiden’s contact, and how, and then why. If I understand all the things you’ve been saying for the last two years at least, and the things that tie them together—and they must be followed up, if you are right—then it is much worse than we think.”

  Lucas stood up. “We had better start. We haven’t found much here. I’ve read all the papers we took and you’ve read most of anything else we could find. We need to look harder.”

  Josephine also stood. “I’m ready, but we must have a plan. Otherwise, we’re going to miss the piece that matters, even if we have it in our hands.”

  They went out to the car and were several miles along the road before she spoke again. “You knew Stoney at university,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “What did he study? And what else did he do, that you know of? Hobbies, interests, sports…?”

  He smiled. “Stoney? No sports, except it came as a surprise to me to learn that he actually skied quite well.”

  Josephine gave him a doubtful look. “I’m thinking about something
the two of you shared. Do you know one end of a ski from the other?”

  “I think the bit that curves up goes to the front,” he said with almost a straight face. “But I take your point. He would choose to communicate with me through something I would see, or at least understand when I saw it.” He tried to think back to when he and Stoney had been young men, excited by the world of thought, the vast and ever-expanding exploration of the physical universe; by the beliefs of past ages, wonderful minds that embraced, that created the curious and the beautiful. At Cambridge, they had seen dawn over the River Cam, the spreading of light, both outside and within their minds. Lucas looked back on it and remembered the sense of brotherhood that had never completely left him. He remembered one clear night when the stars seemed close enough for him to stretch out and reap with a casual hand. How had he left Stoney alone when he so much needed someone who believed him, when he couldn’t explain himself?

  Something danced on the edge of his imagination, something only he and Stoney knew.

  He pulled into the drive of Stoney’s house, then put his foot gently on the accelerator and continued round to the far side of the garage, out of sight of the road.

  Josephine glanced at him questioningly.

  He knew what was going through her mind. “No,” he answered. “I would just rather not explain myself to the local police, or have inquiries filter back to MI6.”

  She bit her lip but did not answer.

  They had the keys now. Lucas was executor of Stoney’s estate. They had been back a few times, but still, it felt strange to let themselves into someone else’s house, as if they had the right to intrude without even calling out a greeting.

  The hall was tidy, exactly as they had left it. There was no sign that anyone else had been there, until Josephine stopped suddenly at the entrance to the beautifully carpeted dining room. It was a formal room, probably very seldom used.

  “What’s the matter?” Lucas asked. The house was not cold, yet he felt a certain chill. “Josephine?”

  “There’s not a mark on the carpet,” she replied. “Not a footstep, nothing. No one’s walked across it since it was vacuumed.”

  “Well, surely, no one—” Then he understood, and the slight chill he felt turned to ice. “We were here.”

  She looked back at him. “I walked over to the side table. I looked in the drawers. It’s a thick carpet; my footsteps showed, and they have been erased. That was yesterday, Lucas. Someone was here overnight, someone who removed all traces of themselves…and of us.”

  “It wasn’t the police,” he said, almost as if he were hoping she would contradict him. “No policeman would bring a vacuum cleaner with him.”

  “No one with any right to be here would,” she added. “It must be worth a lot, whatever it is this person is looking for.”

  “At least to him,” he agreed. “The question is, did he get it? Stay with me, Josephine. No wandering off alone.”

  “Do you think this person might still be here?” she said incredulously, but she did not move, and her hands were shaking very slightly. “There was no car anywhere around, and I don’t imagine he came on a motorbike.” She stopped.

  Lucas smiled. “With the vacuum cleaner strapped to the passenger seat? No, neither do I. All the same, we’ll do this together.” He said it resolutely and was relieved to see that she understood.

  They checked the house to make sure no one else was there, then began methodically going through all the places of easy access first, on Lucas’s assumption that there was something that Stoney had intended him to find.

  They searched slowly and carefully, piling things as they went, ready to move them. It made Lucas feel uncomfortable, even though he knew Stoney would mean him to do exactly this. It was still an intrusion into the man’s life: all of his present-day habits and his passions of the past. He had been orderly in some things, those daily necessities that were important: his toiletries and clothes, the good tie he liked, his favorite jams and the Seville orange marmalade he always had with breakfast. The bills that were paid up to date.

  Did he know that he would die soon, or at least believe it was likely? Had he even recognized his killer when he rang the doorbell and stood waiting on the steps until Stoney answered? It was a terrible thought, and Lucas did not speak it aloud.

  Then there were things from Stoney’s past, all of which Lucas had seen before. But had he seen all that they might mean? A couple of seashells, which were ordinary enough, but in this case absolutely perfect, still—pink shaded into blue and gray, washed by the sea, but unblemished. There were pebbles from a mountain stream, found when they had gone hill walking in Scotland. They were worth nothing, except the memories of laughter, endless windy spaces, and a horizon lost in shadows of a mountain shielded by mist.

  On the shelf below were packets of loose photographs, black and white, an interesting evocation of what seemed another lifetime. Lucas picked them up and started looking at them. He could recall most of the places. Had anything happened there? Had Stoney told him something then that had bearing on the present? Lucas stood there, still holding them in his hands, trying to think. He turned one over and saw what must be the date it was taken written on the back. Except it wasn’t a date, it was far too long. In fact, it was too long for anything he could think of. “Josephine.”

  She was on the other side of the room, leafing through books. She looked up.

  “What do you make of this?” he asked.

  She came across and took the photograph from him, looking carefully at both sides. First the picture, then the numbers. “Where is it?”

  “Scotland, the Cairngorms. It wasn’t one of the higher peaks, but much like that. What do you make of it?” he repeated, passing her the whole pile of pictures. There were about two dozen, many very similar.

  She studied them for so long that he finally lost patience. “I don’t think the place mattered, except to me,” he said. “Nothing special happened there. It was just a particularly happy memory. We felt free, kings of the world.” It sounded ridiculous now, but a shred of the old invincible feeling came back, even as he looked at what was a very ordinary hillside, rendered bland by the lack of space that the camera reflected, missing so much of the width of it. It was shades of gray, rather than the luminous veils of lavender, and indigo, white into silver that he could remember, or thought he could.

  “Did you pick them out because of a memory?” she asked, meeting his eyes with startling intensity.

  “I suppose so. When I try to explain, it seems so commonplace.”

  “But you do remember a profound emotion?” Her voice was urgent now.

  “Yes,” he said with certainty.

  “Then that will be what Stoney meant you to see. The numbers must refer to what he was working on. We just have to figure it out. What does it all refer to?”

  “I think we went there in…Oh God, it seems like another lifetime. It must have been in the early 1880s, or even before. I was young, I know that.” He felt strange even saying it aloud.

  The woman who had broken complicated codes in wartime was staring at the figures on the backs of the photographs. There were twice as many on some, even three times as many. “It may not have anything to do with the photographs.” She was thinking aloud. “He put these numbers on them because he knew the memory would catch you. They don’t look like dates, but there’s a group here that could be. See? Several that are in 1933 or 1932. They could be months, and these could be days.”

  “All in the last two years,” he observed. “But everything put into numbers. This is what really matters. The other numbers we’ve seen as we’ve looked through Stoney’s papers are just calculations. This is information.”

  Josephine thought silently for a moment. “These could be map coordinates, but they are all sorts of places far apart, hundreds of miles. Different countries even. But
you could identify people by their addresses, I suppose. It seems a heavy-handed way of doing it, very approximate.” She laid out four photographs and then pointed to the sequence of numbers on the back of each that could be coordinates. She was frowning. “But even if it identifies the appropriate place where someone lived or worked, without more it doesn’t mean much…or even anything.”

  “Then the last figures must be something that explains it.” He was guessing, grasping at straws. Had Stoney left him all the clues he had? There must be something else that he was missing.

  Josephine was looking at him.

  “What is it?” he asked, trying to keep the edge out of his voice.

  “Lucas, we can’t stay here much longer,” she said gravely. “If the police come back, they’ll take these from us, and neither of us has the ability to memorize these apparently random numbers. If he left anything else, we’ve got to find it and then leave, and quickly. Someone could easily return…” She did not bother to add what danger that would be.

  Lucas nodded. She was saying it as if it were an apology. She knew him so well. No matter how he tried to disguise it or control it, she could always feel the distress in him as palpably as if it were electricity in the air. He thought it was one of the greatest gifts in life, to have someone know you so well and still love you. It was also a limitless responsibility.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “We’ll take these photographs, give the house one last quick look around, and then leave. What are we going to do with Stoney’s things? Who do we give them to?”

  “That’s tomorrow’s problem, not today’s,” she said firmly. “They’ll suit somebody. They’re of good quality. Let’s look around. If he knew this much, he knew the man intended to kill him, and that’s a horrible thought.”

  “I know,” Lucas agreed. He stared around the room with no idea of what he was looking for. If Stoney knew that, in a matter of minutes, he was going to be killed by the man who was with him, what sign would he leave? What would he expect Lucas to find, other than the little pile of photographs, which obviously had been placed here long in advance, in case this should happen? Stoney had known of the danger, even understood it. Lucas felt slightly sick at the idea.