Angels in the Gloom wwi-3

by Anne Perry

  “It’s not secret stuff,” he said disparagingly, seeing Joseph’s surprise. “I’m designing a sailing boat, one of those to put on ponds? I want to be able to steer it from the shore.”

  Joseph found himself smiling.

  “So what do you want from me?” Iliffe asked with interest. “If I had any proof who it was I’d have done something about it myself.”

  Joseph knew what he wanted to ask; what he did not know was how to measure the truth of the answers he received. “How brilliant was Theo Blaine?” he asked. He wished Lizzie were not there, but the advantage was that she was at least some measure for accuracy.

  “The best,” Iliffe said frankly. His eyes went to Lizzie with a smile, then back to Joseph again.

  “Can you finish without him?” Joseph continued.

  Iliffe shrugged. “Touch and go. Not if some swine smashes the prototype again. It’s worth a try, but I’m not sure.”

  “With Corcoran working on it personally?”

  Iliffe looked unhappy.

  Joseph waited. There was a keen edge of intelligence in Iliffe’s face. He understood the reasoning, and guessed the personal gain and loss.

  “If Morven works on it, perhaps,” he answered. “Corcoran alone, no.” He offered no apology and no prevarication.

  “What can you tell me about Morven?” Joseph asked.

  “Intellectually? He’s outstanding. Almost in Blaine’s category.”

  “And in other ways?”

  Iliffe looked at Lizzie, but she allowed him to answer without adding anything herself.

  “Grew up in working-class Lancashire,” Iliffe said. “Grammar school, Manchester University. Opened up a new world to him. Don’t know if you can understand that, Mr. Reavley. Sorry, I don’t know your rank. . . .”

  “Captain, but it’s irrelevant. Yes, I can understand it. I lectured in Biblical languages in Cambridge before the war. I had many students with a similar background, some were even brilliant, in their own field.” He ignored the pain inside him as he said that.

  Iliffe saw it. “Gone to the trenches?” he asked.

  “Many of them, yes. It’s not exactly a war-exempt skill.”

  “Then you know the impact of ideas on a boy from a narrow, working-class town suddenly in a ferment of social, political, and philosophical ideas, realizing he’s got a dazzling mind and the whole world is out there, and his for the conquering. Morven’s an idealist. At least he was a year ago. I think some of the dreams have been tempered a bit by reality since then. One grows up. Are you thinking he’s a German sympathizer?”

  “Are you?” Joseph countered.

  Lizzie looked from one to the other of them, but she did not interrupt.

  “No, frankly,” Iliffe replied. “But a socialist, possibly. Even an internationalist of sorts. I can’t see him killing Blaine.” He glanced at Lizzie. “Sorry,” he apologized gently. He turned back to Joseph. “But then I can’t see anyone doing that, and obviously someone did. Does your pastoral experience teach you how to recognize violence like that behind the everyday faces, Reverend?”

  “No,” Joseph said simply. “We all have the darkness. Some act on it; most of us don’t. I can’t tell who will, or who already has.”

  “Pity,” Iliffe said drily. “I was hoping you had all the answers. I’m damn sure I don’t.”

  Outside on the way home again Lizzie said very little. Joseph apologized once more for having asked her to drive him on such a journey.

  “Don’t.” She shook her head. “In an obscure sort of way it makes me feel better to think I’m doing something. It isn’t right to carry on with my life as if Theo were going to come back one day. I was his wife. I loved him. . . . I ought to be trying to find out who killed him, and prevent them from killing his work as well.”

  He looked at her face, concentrated on the dark road and the bright path of the headlights. He could see only her profile, lips smiling, and tears on her cheek.

  He did not say anything and they drove home in an oddly companionable silence.

  The next day was Sunday. Archie had come home late the previous evening for a short leave, but he made the effort to get up and they all went to church together, dressed in their best clothes. Archie and Joseph both wore uniforms and Hannah walked between them, her head high with pride. They spoke to everyone they knew, assuring them they were well, asking in return but never mentioning other members of families. One could not be certain from day to day who was critically injured, posted missing in action, or even newly dead. There was kindness in it, sensitivity to pain and fear, and the knowledge that the blow could come at any moment. There was so much that could not be said, or the dam would break.

  Joseph saw Ben Morven in a pew to their left, and caught his eyes on Hannah, watching her with a bright gentleness that betrayed more than he could have known. Once he saw Hannah look back at him, and then away again quickly, blushing.

  The submerged tension in the air was crackling. Everyone practiced Sunday-best behavior, but the anger and suspicion were there, conspicuous in the tight lips, the whispers, and the silences.

  Joseph wondered if Ben could possibly have killed Theo Blaine. Perhaps in a fistfight? He was young and strong and passionate in his loves and his dreams. But not in the dark, ripping his throat out with a garden fork! Could he?

  That was absurdly naÏve. Idealism had crucified men, burned them at the stake, broken them on the wheel. Of course he could. It was hypocrisy that made the hand fail, cowardice, apathy, all the half-hearted emotions. Ben Morven was not half-hearted, right or wrong.

  Kerr’s sermon was unusually effective, and Joseph caught his anxious glance two or three times. However much he would prefer to avoid it, he must speak to the minister. He waited behind after everyone else had left.

  Kerr was standing at the church door, moving uncomfortably from one foot to the other. His hair was slicked back with its exact center parting, a slight sheen of sweat on his forehead in the warmth of the sun.

  “The suspicion is tearing us apart,” he said before Joseph had time to speak. “All sorts of stupid whispers are going around the village. Old feuds we all thought were settled years ago are being opened up again. Anybody gets a letter from a stranger, an overseas stamp on it, and the stories begin. That wretched inspector talks to everyone and either someone says he suspects that person, or they’re telling stories about someone else, trying to plant suspicion.”

  “It’s bad,” Joseph agreed somberly. “I came just to commend you on your sermon, but . . .”

  Pleasure lit Kerr’s face, and Joseph suddenly realized, with surprise and a degree of guilt, that Kerr admired him intensely. He cared what Joseph thought. His impatience or indifference would wound with real pain, perhaps lasting.

  “But perhaps we should think a little about this,” he added. “It’s a very serious problem.”

  Now Kerr was surprised. He had not expected help, and that too made Joseph aware of a streak of unkindness in himself. He had had the time, simply not the inclination. If he were going to stay here, then he should face the villagers’ needs, not simply use them as an excuse not to go back to the trenches.

  “I’ve been thinking about it,” Kerr was saying. “I can’t decide whether it would be better to speak about it generally, without making anyone feel singled out, or to go to each one I know is guilty, and tackle it unequivocally.” He was talking too quickly. “Sometimes an oblique approach is better. It allows people to deny it and at the same time do something about it.” He looked at Joseph hopefully.

  They smiled at the Teversham family as they huddled together along the path.

  “It’s a good point,” Joseph conceded. “You touched on it today. I didn’t realize at the time quite how bad it had become.”

  Kerr nodded. He began to look less tense and he stood still at last as if he were easy in front of his own church. “Of course the difficulty is that if you speak of something in a sermon, so often the people you mean it fo
r are quite sure it is directed at everyone but them,” he said.

  Joseph put his hands in his pockets. It was a curiously valuable sense of freedom to be rid of the sling at last, even though he tended to carry his arm bent a little. “Then you will have to speak to people as you become aware of their behavior,” he said decisively.

  Kerr gulped.

  Joseph smiled at him, but it was an expression of sympathy, devoid of judgment. “Rotten,” he agreed. “But there are ways of doing it. Have you considered asking their help?”

  “Help?” Kerr said incredulously, sure he had misheard. “From the ones creating the most damage?”

  “Exactly. Tell them how much pain and fear it’s causing, but attribute it to someone else. Think how they can then agree with you and save their pride, and at the same time crush what’s happening.”

  “I see! Yes. Yes, I think . . .” He gulped again. “That might work.” He smiled. “Rather well.”

  “It’s somewhere to start,” Joseph said encouragingly. “And you are quite right, it must be addressed, and there isn’t really anyone else who has the moral authority.”

  Kerr squared his shoulders. “Thank you, Captain Reavley. You really are a very great help. There is something valuable for me to do here. I see that.” He held out his hand. “Please believe me, I shall do my best.”

  It was a kind of farewell, as if Joseph would be leaving soon. A sharp guilt stabbed him that he was not. He had not actually sent the letter yet, but it was on the desk in the study, ready to go. He just had not got around to posting it. He had not told Hannah he would stay, but he had allowed her to believe it, to hope, and now in the silent graveyard it seemed a coward’s thing to do, a desertion. He could not make himself tell Kerr that he had decided not to return. There were all sorts of phrases in his mind, ready to say, and none of them sounded good. And above all, Tom would no longer see him as a hero, but just one more man who had escaped when he could, who no longer faced forward.

  If he changed his mind now he would be letting Hannah down, but whatever he did he would be letting someone down. It was not that Tom’s opinion of him mattered more than hers, and he would have to make her understand that it was his own opinion. This quiet village with its ancient church, its graveyard where his parents were buried, its vast trees and sunlit fields, its domestic lives, its quarrels, was infinitely precious. The only way to help it was not to cling, but to be willing to let go, to give, not to take.

  Kerr was looking at him, waiting for the acknowledgment he needed.

  “I have no doubt of that,” Joseph said sincerely. “And it will be enough. But don’t be afraid of failure. No one wins all the time. If you win most of it you will have done a great thing.” He took Kerr’s hand and gripped it hard before turning away and walking down the path to the lych-gate and onto the road.

  Archie was reading the newspaper in the sitting room when Joseph burst in. “Can you drive me to the Establishment, now, to see Ben Morven?”

  “This afternoon?” Archie said in disbelief.

  “Sorry,” Joseph apologized. “It can’t wait.”

  “You think it’s Morven?” Archie still looked doubtful.

  “I don’t know. I can’t afford to take the risk that it isn’t.”

  “And he’ll kill Corcoran as soon as he’s sure the prototype is complete?” Archie’s whole attention was engaged now.

  Joseph was confused. He had wrestled with the thoughts, turning them over and over in his mind. He would far rather have come to a different conclusion. He had liked Ben, but the theory fitted too well: the brilliant boy growing up where he could see and taste plenty of anger and social injustice, attending a university where suddenly the whole world expanded before him with its infinite opportunities and where thought had a power close to God! Joseph had seen it in so many young men, the passion of idealism overwhelming patience and caution. Words of warning infuriated where pain was seen on a vast scale, and a solution beckoned.

  A man like the Peacemaker would find recruits there so easily. Joseph had experienced it before at St. John’s. It was happening again, it was bound to, as long as there were young men with dreams, and powerful men willing to use them.

  Last time the price had been John Reavley’s life. This time it could be Shanley Corcoran’s. The difference was that now Joseph could see it, and stop it.

  “Probably,” he answered Archie’s question. “He has no need to keep him alive once it’s finished.”

  Archie was still hesitant.

  “He killed Theo Blaine!” Joseph said with bitter regret. “He tore his throat out with a garden fork. Why wouldn’t he kill Shanley?”

  “He would,” Archie conceded. “We’d better go. Are you going to tell Hannah why?”

  “No . . . at least . . .” Joseph was uncertain. “I’ll tell her it’s to do with Blaine’s death, then at least she’ll know why you have to go. I can’t ask Mrs. Blaine to drive me again.”

  “I’ll borrow Bibby Nunn’s car. It’s not exactly elegant, but it goes. I’ll see you in half an hour. I suppose Shanley will be at home?”

  “If he isn’t, we’ll wait,” Joseph replied simply.

  They spoke of other things as they drove—memories, family affairs, nothing of the war. Joseph had wondered whether to say anything of Hannah’s desire to know more of Archie’s life at sea, and decided it was up to her whether or not she asked further. Any intrusion might be clumsy, and apart from that, if what she learned was more than she afterward wanted to bear, then it must be of her own choosing.

  Orla Corcoran was surprised to see Joseph on the step. Archie had decided to remain in the car, possibly to walk a little once Joseph had gone inside.

  “He’s not home yet,” she said, showing Joseph into the drawing room. The curtains were still open to let in the evening light. Orla looked elegant and faintly exotic with her smooth, dark hair and her eyes so black it was impossible to read their expression.

  Joseph could not afford to worry about keeping Archie waiting outside. “Then may I wait?” he asked. “It’s important.”

  She stood motionless, lean and graceful, the sun on her shoulders. “Is it about Blaine’s death?” she said quietly. It was a natural guess.

  “Yes. I’m sorry.” Did she know, too? Was she just as afraid for Shanley as he was? He realized with shock that in spite of all the years of superficial familiarity he did not know her anything like as well as he knew her husband. She never spoke of herself, always of him. Joseph knew nothing of her dreams, beliefs, or what she might have wanted apart from being Mrs. Corcoran. How deeply did it hurt her that she had no children? He had never seen her spend time alone with any of his own family, nor did she now call on Hannah. It was always Shanley who took the lead.

  Was she simply shy? Or uninterested? Or guarding a hurt too deep to expose, even to friends? The mask of shadow created by the sunlight behind her showed nothing in her face. Joseph made the decision. “I’m afraid for him,” he said suddenly.

  “Of course,” she agreed. “We’re all afraid. What happened to Theo Blaine was terrible.”

  “Who did it?” he asked.

  Her fine eyebrows rose. “Do you think I know?”

  “I think Shanley does.”

  She turned away. “Would you like a glass of sherry while you are waiting?”

  So she was not going to answer. Perhaps that was an answer in itself. He accepted the sherry in a small, crystal glass, and they talked of other things. Corcoran arrived fifteen minutes later, pale-faced and clearly exhausted. He could not hide that it cost him an effort to be courteous, even to Joseph, close as they were.

  “I didn’t recognize the car,” he said without expression. “You’re well enough to drive. I’m glad.”

  “Archie borrowed one,” Joseph explained. “I expect he’s gone for a walk.”

  Corcoran turned away. “I see.”

  “I’m sorry,” Joseph apologized immediately. “If it could have waited I wouldn’t have
come.”

  Corcoran sighed. He accepted a glass of sherry from Orla, but did not touch it. He probably had not eaten, perhaps all day. Joseph was consumed with guilt, but his fear for him overtook it all.

  Orla slipped out without bothering to excuse herself.

  Corcoran turned to face Joseph. “What is it?”

  “I’ve been asking questions,” Joseph replied. “I won’t bother you with the details, unless you want them, but you probably know them as well as I do.” He looked at Corcoran’s weary face and felt a pity for him so intense it was a physical ache inside him, and a fear of loss that brought a sheen of sweat to his body. “I think Ben Morven was placed inside the Establishment to be a spy for the Germans, perhaps groomed for it even before the war. One of the idealistic young men who must have peace, at any price, and see us as just as much to blame for the war as anyone else.”

  Corcoran’s face tightened, a subtle change in his expression, but one of terrible sadness.

  “I think you knew that,” Joseph went on. He was finding it even harder to say than he had expected. The room seemed to be abnormally silent, his own voice thundering, although he was speaking softly. “And I think that for the sake of England, and the war, you are sheltering him for as long as you need his skill to finish the prototype.”

  Corcoran took a long, deep breath and let it out in a sigh. “And if you are right, Joseph, what difference does that make?”

  “You must have him arrested,” Joseph said simply. “You have no choice.”

  Corcoran’s eyes widened. “Must?”

  “He murdered Blaine. He’ll kill you, Shanley, the moment he thinks he doesn’t need you. And possibly Iliffe, too, if he gets in his way. Or Lucas, for that matter. But I’m not going to lose you.”

  Corcoran’s face was soft, his eyes gentle. “My dear Joseph, it is not about me, or about you. It is about England, and the war. Morven will not harm anyone until he has the final answers. I am safe until then.”