Angels in the Gloom wwi-3

by Anne Perry

  “What is it?” Joseph felt a flutter of fear making him a little sick.

  “The Scientific Establishment’s been broken into again and . . .”

  Shanley Corcoran! He had been murdered as Joseph had dreaded. He should have done something when he had the chance. Shanley knew who killed Blaine, and he had let himself be—

  “I’m sorry, Captain Reavley,” Perth apologized again, cutting through his thoughts. “Mr. Corcoran’s very upset, and knowing you’re a friend of his for a long time, I . . .”

  Joseph felt his heart beating in his throat. “He’s upset? Then he’s all right?”

  “Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say ‘all right,’ ” Perth qualified, biting his lip. “He looks like a man at the end of his strength, to me.”

  “You said the Establishment was broken into? What happened? Was anyone hurt? Do you know who did it?” Joseph could hear his own voice out of control, and he could not stop it. Corcoran was all right! That was all that mattered. He was dizzy with relief.

  “No, we don’t know,” Perth replied. “That’s the thing, sir. Whoever it was smashed the piece of equipment the scientists were working on. Prototype, they called it. Broke it to bits. Mr. Corcoran says they’ll have to start again from the beginning.”

  “But he wasn’t hurt?” Joseph insisted.

  “No, sir. He was in a different part of the building. Nowhere near it, thank heaven. But he looks proper wore out, like he was coming down with the flu, or something.” He shook his head, his plain, pleasant face twisted in concern. “He’s a very brave man, Captain Reavley, but I don’t know how long he can go on like this. It looks as if there’s no question we’ve got a spy in the village, or hereabouts, and that’s a bitter thing.” His mouth was pinched as he said it and there was a downward tone in his voice, as if he had struggled a long time to avoid facing that conclusion.

  Joseph looked at him with a sudden clarity, seeing not just a methodical policeman who was tackling a difficult case, but a man of deep loyalties to his country.

  The blossom was drifting off the pear tree, the white petals lost in the high grasses, and a thrush was singing in the hedge.

  “War changes us,” he said to Perth.

  Perth swung his head around, his eyes miserable and challenging. “Does it, sir?”

  “Strips us down to the best and the worst in us.” Joseph smiled at him very slightly, just a warmth in his eyes. “I think so. I’ve found heroes where I didn’t expect, as well as villains.”

  “Yes, I suppose,” Perth conceded. “I’d like to put men in the Establishment to keep Mr. Corcoran safe, but I haven’t got anyone to spare. But I wouldn’t know who to tell him to watch, and the intelligence people wouldn’t let me anyway. There’s nothing to do but find the bastard and see that he’s hanged! And they will hang him, for what he did to poor Mr. Blaine, apart from anything else. I’d like to know what ideas you have, Captain. I know you’ve been thinking on it a great deal.”

  Joseph nodded. It was a miserable thought, but an inevitable one. He wished with a savage depth that he had more to tell Perth, something of meaning. “I’ll go and talk to Francis Iliffe, and see what I can find out,” he said. But he resolved first to go and try to comfort Shanley Corcoran.

  In the house on Marchmont Street the Peacemaker received a visitor. It was the same young man who had called before to bring him word from Cambridgeshire. He stood in the upstairs room, his young face tired. He was trying to hide at least some of his unease, but it was more out of courtesy than any hope to deceive.

  “Have the police discovered who killed Blaine?” the Peacemaker asked.

  “No,” the young man replied. “To begin with, they considered the probability that it was a domestic matter. Blaine was having an affair with Lucas’s wife. But Lucas couldn’t have killed him. He can prove quite easily that he was somewhere else.”

  “You’re certain?”

  “Yes. I checked it myself.”

  “What about Blaine’s wife?” the Peacemaker asked.

  “Possible. But they aren’t considering her seriously, I don’t think. . . .”

  “Couldn’t be a woman’s crime?” the Peacemaker said with derision. “Rubbish. A strong, healthy young woman, driven by jealousy, could easily have done it. From what you say, it was a crime of opportunity and passion anyway. The weapon was already there. No one brought it! That’s hardly planned.”

  “I know that.” A flicker of impatience crossed the young man’s features. “But someone broke into the Establishment the day before yesterday, late in the evening, and smashed the prototype. . . .”

  “And you come to tell me now?” the Peacemaker demanded, his hands clenching, fury rising inside him like bile.

  The young man’s eyebrows rose, his eyes wide. “And if I’d come racing up to London the morning after, don’t you think Inspector Perth might have regarded me a great deal more closely than either of us want?” There was no respect or fear in his voice. That was a change the Peacemaker noted with interest.

  “Smashed it?” he asked. “Didn’t take it?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Why? Any ideas?”

  “I’ve been giving it a lot of thought,” the young man answered. “The actual guidance system is not too large or too heavy for one man to carry, and that’s all you would need. The rest of it is pretty standard—that’s the beauty of it. It could be used on anything: torpedo, depth charge, even regular shell, if you wanted.”

  “I know that!” the Peacemaker snapped. “Is that the best you can do?”

  A flash of temper lit the young man’s eyes, but he controlled it. “The Establishment would be extraordinarily difficult to break into. They have doubled the guards, but no one was attacked.”

  “Bribery?”

  “It’s possible, but they’d have had to bribe at least three men in order to reach where the prototype was.”

  “Money would be no object,” the Peacemaker pointed out.

  “But the more people you bribe, the more chance of one of them changing his mind or betraying you. And you’ve not only got to get in, you’ve got to get out again. And what about afterward? Do you want to leave three men who have that knowledge?”

  The Peacemaker waited.

  “I think no one came in or went out,” the young man said. “It was someone inside all the time.”

  The Peacemaker relaxed. It made perfect sense. “And I assume if it were you, you would tell me?” he said with an edge to his voice—half humor, half threat.

  “I wouldn’t smash it before it’s finished,” the young man replied levelly. “If you don’t believe my loyalty, at least believe my intellectual curiosity.”

  “I hadn’t thought to question your loyalty,” the Peacemaker said very carefully. “Should I?” There was something in the young man’s manner, a change in the timber of his voice since the last time he had been here. Or perhaps, on reflection, it dated further back.

  “I still believe exactly as I did when we first met,” the young man said intently, his concentration sudden and very real. “More so, if anything.”

  The Peacemaker knew that that was the literal truth, but was there some double edge to the meaning of the words? “Then it seems we have a third player in the game,” he said very slowly.

  The young man paled. “I think perhaps we have. And before you ask me, I have no idea who.”

  “Are they still going forward?”

  “Yes. Corcoran is determined, whatever the cost. He’s working all day and half the night as it is. I don’t know when he eats or sleeps. He looks twenty years older than he did two months ago.”

  “Were you close to success?” It was a question he hardly dared ask. If Corcoran did succeed, then Britain would gain a whole new lease on life at sea. It could prolong the war another year, even two—and God alone knew how many more lives would be lost.

  The young man did not answer the question. His face was bleak, his eyes unhappy.

 
; “If he does, you must take it for Germany,” the Peacemaker said with a sudden flare of passion. “Tell me when he’s anywhere near it, whatever it costs you! I’ll see the prototype is taken, if I have to burn the place to the ground.”

  The young man nodded. “Yes, sir. I’ll watch. I’m working on it myself. Unless Corcoran gets a sudden breakthrough, I’ll be able to see it in advance.” His voice was oddly flat, possessing none of the hunger there used to be. Was he tired, harassed by the police presence, the questions intruding on his work, the suspicion? Or was he really afraid there was a third player, and his own life was at risk?

  Or was he going soft, learning to become too much part of one small village in Cambridgeshire, and its people? He must be watched. The work, the goal was too important to indulge any individual.

  Two days later the Peacemaker had a very different visitor. This was not a young English scientist with a pleasant freckled face and brown hair that waved off his brow. It was an Irishman closer to fifty, of average height, lean-bodied, his hair neither dark nor fair. If one did not study the expression in his face, he was unremarkable. Only his eyes reflected his intelligence, and then only if he chose that they should.

  He stood in front of the Peacemaker, carefully balanced as if to run or to strike, but it was only habit. He had been here many times, and his weapons in this battle were of the intellect.

  “Have they the code?” the Peacemaker asked him bluntly.

  “No,” Hannassey replied. “They’ve worked out how the saboteurs get their funding and who they are by turning a German agent in the docks, and using a double agent in the banking system.”

  “Are you sure?” the Peacemaker asked with a lift of interest.

  “Yes. The double agent was murdered,” Hannassey replied. “We found the body. The main thing is that our plans in Mexico can go ahead. The code is safe. We can run rings around the Americans, keep them busy on the Rio Grande for another year at least. Bleed them dry. After that it won’t matter whether or not they enter the war.”

  “And you trust Bernadette—not just her loyalty, but her judgment?” the Peacemaker persisted. There was an arrogance in Hannassey that he did not like.

  Hannassey smiled, a cold expression of mirth without pleasure. “Sure, I’d trust her loyalty to the end of the earth and beyond,” he replied. “She has the courage to take on God Himself.” There was a shadow in his face, but he did not explain it. Bernadette was his daughter. If he saw a flaw in her he would admit it to no one else, least of all his men.

  The Peacemaker offered no comment. He had assessed Bernadette for himself. He trusted no one else’s judgment.

  Hannassey was motionless. His intense, controlled stillness was one of the few things that marked him out physically. “Who are the leaders of British Naval Intelligence?” he asked with the slightest smile. “One superannuated admiral who blinks like an owl, a chief with a wooden leg, and a couple of dozen assorted academics from this college and that.” He was not being dismissive; it was simply fact. The British were amateurs.

  The Peacemaker relaxed. He knew the men of British Intelligence. “Tell Bernadette we are grateful,” he said generously. “It’s a fine piece of work.”

  “She didn’t do it for you,” Hannassey told him. “Or for Ger-many. She works for Ireland as a united country free of British rule, and with its rightful place in Europe. We’ve a proud heritage, older and better than yours, and far older than Germany’s.” His lip curled very slightly. “Neither do I work for you. We’ve a bargain, and I expect you to keep your side of it, starting with more money to support our men, and the right word in the ear of the right man about how the Easter Uprising is dealt with. We’ll need a great deal more support next time, not only financial but political.” His eyes were unflinching and there was an ugliness in his face, as if threat were very close to the surface.

  The Peacemaker saw it, and understood exactly what it was. “Give us a list of your requirements,” he said calmly. “I’ll consider them.” He made a mental decision to get rid of Hannassey as soon as the opportunity offered itself. He had already exceeded his usefulness. If things worked out as he intended in Cambridgeshire, that opportunity would come very soon.

  He looked up at Hannassey and smiled.

  CHAPTER

  ELEVEN

  Joseph needed far more to take to Perth than vague ideasabout Blaine’s death and the terrible fear for Shanley Corcoran corroding inside him. It was now inescapable that there was a German sympathizer within the Establishment. No one had broken in to smash the prototype; Perth had proved that beyond doubt. Whatever Theo Blaine’s romantic affairs had been, it was now ridiculous to suppose they were the cause of his death, or that Lizzie was involved.

  It was for that reason that Joseph felt it was acceptable to ask her to drive him to meet with Francis Iliffe in the evening after his conversation with Perth in the orchard.

  It was dusk as they left the village street in St. Giles and turned onto the road toward Haslingfield. She was concentrating on the twists, verges now almost hidden by the tall grass and the bursting leaf of hedgerows, here and there an early may blossom blooming white. And there was always the possibility of coming on a farm implement in the roadway, or horses, sometimes even a herd of cows.

  “Do you know Francis?” Lizzie asked, slowing down for a curve.

  “No.” That was the part that Joseph was going to find most difficult. He was intruding into the home of a man he had not even met, with the intention of asking him impertinent questions, and even implying that he might be guilty of murder. He smiled ruefully, aware of his own absurdity. “I was hoping you would introduce me. I apologize if I am placing you in an embarrassing position.” However, he did not offer her the chance of retreating.

  She glanced sideways at him, then back at the road. “You’re really worried about Mr. Corcoran, aren’t you?” she said quietly. There was sympathy in her voice, a sudden gentleness. Her own pain was still raw and full of surprise.

  “Yes,” he admitted. “Whoever it is has already killed once, and smashed the machine.”

  She winced.

  “I’m sorry.” He was callous to have mentioned it to her so clumsily. He realized that he was requiring her to take him to see the man who might have murdered her husband, with as little thought for her feelings as if she had been a taxi driver. He blushed with shame for himself. “Mrs. Blaine, I really am sorry! I’ve behaved with terrible insensitivity. I was so afraid for Shanley I forgot your feelings altogether. I . . .”

  “It’s all right. I know what you’re thinking. Truly. You can’t bring Theo back, and you’re trying to save a man who can finish his work and create something to win the war, and—far more important to you—a man you love as a friend and something like a father. I understand.”

  He was embarrassed for her gentleness, and his own stupidity. “You are very forgiving,” he said sincerely.

  She gave a little laugh, sad and self-deprecatory. “Not usually. It’s something I need to learn. I didn’t forgive Theo, and now it’s too late. I expected him to be clever in everything, not just some things, and people aren’t like that. Just because he could invent new and extraordinary machines didn’t mean he was wise as well, where people are concerned. I think mathematicians are young, the men that are geniuses. Understanding of people tends to come with age.”

  “Is Iliffe brilliant as well?” he asked.

  She looked at him quickly again, then back at the road. “You mean is he a fool over women? Probably, but I don’t know.”

  “Do you know Ben Morven, too?” He thought of Hannah, but he would not ask Lizzie if she knew about the situation.

  “Yes. He’s a bit naïve also, an idealist,” she replied. “But a nice one. Not as abrasive as Francis Iliffe.”

  “What sort of idealist?”

  “Social justice,” she answered. “He thinks education is the answer for everyone. He’s rather sweet, but very provincial.”

  Th
ey were out on the Haslingfield road and drove in silence for a while. The western sky in front of them flamed with color, and faded as they headed toward Iliffe’s home. Joseph tried to prepare what he would say. It was late to call on anyone, and discourteous to do so without notice in advance, but urgency precluded such niceties.

  Iliffe opened the door himself. He was in his early thirties, lean and dark-haired. At the moment he was wearing rather baggy trousers, a white shirt, and an old cricketing sweater against the evening chill. The lighted hallway behind him had the cleanliness of a house kept by a domestic servant, and the untidiness of one lived in by a young, single man who was interested in ideas and to whom physical surroundings were of little importance.

  “Yes?” Iliffe looked at Joseph curiously, not immediately seeing Lizzie beyond the circle of the light.

  Prepared explanations deserted Joseph and he was left with nothing but bare honesty, and his fear for Corcoran made anything else ridiculous.

  “Good evening, Mr. Iliffe,” he said candidly. “My name is Joseph Reavley. Shanley Corcoran is a friend of mine; he has been for years. I’m deeply afraid for his safety, and that of anyone else working at the Establishment.”

  A flicker of humor lit Iliffe’s thin, intelligent face. “Thanks for your concern. Did you come here to tell me that?” There was an understandable edge to his voice. “A letter would have sufficed.”

  Joseph felt himself blushing. “Of course not. I’m on sick leave from Ypres, where I’m a chaplain.” He saw Iliffe’s expression change and knew he had redeemed at least something of the situation. “I know Inspector Perth from another case, before the war. I intend to help him, whether he likes it or not.”

  Iliffe smiled and stepped back. “Come in.” Then he saw Lizzie and his eyes softened. “If you’re a friend of Lizzie’s, you can’t be as bad as you seem,” he added, leading them to a sitting room where books and papers were scattered on every surface. He tidied them, putting them in a pile on the desk, and offered his guests seats.