by Anne Perry
“It was a long time ago,” Corcoran began thoughtfully. “When your father and I were both young. Perhaps it was even something to do with me, I don’t know. It was in our first year at Cambridge—”
“I didn’t know you were the same year!” Matthew interrupted.
“I was a year older than he. I was there on my father’s money, he was on a scholarship. He started in medicine, you know?” Even without Matthew’s amazement, it was obvious in Corcoran’s face that he knew Matthew had not known. “I was reading physics. We used to spend hours talking and dreaming about what we could do after we graduated.”
Matthew tried to visualize the two young men, minds full of the future, of hopes and ambitions. Had John Reavley been happy with what he had achieved? It hurt like a slow, grinding pain in the pit of the stomach to think that perhaps he had not, that he had died a disappointed man.
“Don’t,” Corcoran said gently, his eyes searching Matthew’s face. “He changed his mind because he wanted to go into politics. He thought he could achieve more there, so he read classics instead. That’s where most of our leaders come from, the men who learned the discipline of the mind and the history of thought and civilization in the West.” He let out his breath slowly. “But there were times when he regretted it. He found politics a hard and often graceless master to serve. In the end he preferred the individual to the mass, and he thought it would give you greater happiness, and far more security.”
“But you went on with physics,” Matthew said.
Corcoran gave a downwardly twisted smile, self-mocking but also evasive. “I was ambitious in a different way.”
“Father thought we were underhand, essentially betrayers—that the intelligence services deliberately used people and had no loyalties. He had no patience with deviousness. He couldn’t be bothered to be indirect, to play to people’s vanities or use their weaknesses. I don’t think he understood how to. And he thought that was what we do.”
“Isn’t it?” Corcoran asked with a kind of wry regret.
Matthew sighed and leaned back in his chair again, crossing his legs. “Sometimes. Mostly it’s just collecting as much information as possible and fitting it together so we see a picture. I wish I could have shown him that.”
“Matthew,” Corcoran said earnestly, “if he was coming to you for your professional advice, then whatever he had discovered, he must have believed it was profoundly serious and that only one of the secret services could help.”
“But you have no idea what it was? What did he say to you? Anything? Names, places, dates, who would be affected . . . anything at all?” Matthew pleaded. “I don’t know where to start, and I don’t trust anyone, because he said important people were involved.” Even to Corcoran he held back that his father had spoken of the royal family. Given how large Queen Victoria’s family had been, the net spread very wide indeed.
Corcoran nodded. “Of course,” he agreed. “If he could have trusted the ordinary services, then he would have.”
There was a knock on the door, and Orla Corcoran came in. She was dressed in a bluish green gown of silk charmeuse with Venetian lace draped around her shoulders. In the fashion of the moment, the waist was high and soft, and the full drape came almost to the ankle before sweeping back to be caught up behind, revealing only a few inches of the plainer skirt beneath. It was decorated with two crimson roses, one just under the bosom, the other on the skirt. Her dark hair was curled loosely and had only a few streaks of gray at the temples; they made her the more striking.
“Matthew, my dear,” she said with a smile. “How good it is to see you.” She regarded him more closely. “But you are looking a little tired. Have you been working too hard with all this wretched business in eastern Europe? The Austrians don’t seem to manage their affairs very well. I do hope they don’t draw us all into their mess.”
“I’m in good health, thank you,” he said, taking her hand and touching it to his lips. “Unfortunately they haven’t given me anything so interesting to do. I fear I may be picking up the domestic duties of others who are sent off to exotic parts.”
“Oh, you really don’t want to go to Serbia!” she said instantly. “It would take you ages to get there, and then you wouldn’t understand a word they said.” She turned to Corcoran. “Dinner is about to be served. Do come through, and talk about pleasanter things. Have you been to the theater lately? Last week we saw Lady Randolph Churchill’s new play at the Prince of Wales.” She led the way across the hall, passing a maid dressed in black with a crisp white lace-edged apron apparently without seeing her. “Very mixed, I thought,” she went on. “Lots of drama, but a bit thin on skill here and there.”
“You are repeating exactly what the reviewers say, my dear,” Corcoran remarked with amusement.
“Then perhaps for once they are right!” she retorted, leading the way into the splendid rose-and-gold dining room.
The long mahogany table was very simple, in the classic style of Adam. The mahogany chairs’ high, tapered backs echoed the lines of the windows. The curtains were drawn, hiding the view across the garden and the fields beyond.
They took their seats, and the first course was served. Since it was high summer and in the nature of a family meal rather than a formal one, a cold collation was quite acceptable. The second course was grilled trout and fresh vegetables, with a light German wine, dry and very delicate.
Matthew passed the natural compliments to the cook, but he meant them with great sincerity.
The conversation meandered over a dozen subjects: the latest novels published, accounts of travel in North Africa, more local gossip of Cambridgeshire families, the likelihood of a cold winter after such a glorious summer, anything but Ireland or Europe. Eventually they touched on Turkey, but only as a possible site for the ruins of what was once the great city of Troy.
“Wasn’t that where Ivor Chetwin went?” Orla asked, turning to Corcoran.
Corcoran glanced at Matthew, then back to his wife. “I don’t know,” he answered.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake!” she said impatiently, spearing a slice of nectarine with her fork. “Matthew knows perfectly well that John quarreled with Ivor. You don’t have to tiptoe around it as if it were a hole he would fall into.” She turned to Matthew, the fork still in her hand. “Ivor and your father used to be very good friends, nine or ten years ago. They both knew a man called Galliford, Galliard, something like that. He was doing something serious that he shouldn’t, I don’t know what. They never tell you.” She ate the last of the nectarine quickly. “But Ivor told the authorities about it and the man was arrested.”
Corcoran drew in his breath, seemingly to interrupt, then apparently changed his mind. The damage was done.
“John never really forgave him for it,” Orla continued. “I don’t know why—after all, Galliford, or whatever his name was, was guilty of doing it. That was Ivor’s chance to join some branch or other of the secret services, and he took it. After that he and John never really spoke to each other, except to be polite. It was a great shame, because Ivor was a lovely man and they used to enjoy each other’s company.”
“It wasn’t that he caught Gallard,” Corcoran said quietly. “It was the way in which he did it that John couldn’t forgive. John was a very candid man—almost innocent, you might say. He expected a certain standard of honesty from other people.” He glanced at Matthew.
“Father never told me about Ivor Chetwin,” Matthew said. “Did he go to Turkey?”
“Of course he did!” Orla responded. “But he came back.”
“Do you think Father would have seen him again? Recently? In the last week or so before he died?”
Orla looked surprised.
Corcoran understood immediately. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s possible.”
Orla had no such hesitation. “Of course it’s possible. I know Ivor is at home because he lives in Haslingfield, and I saw him only a couple of weeks ago. I’m sure if your father visit
ed him, he’d be happy to tell you about it.”
Corcoran looked at her, then at Matthew, uncertain.
Matthew could not afford to care about old quarrels. High in his mind was the possibility that Ivor Chetwin could be the man behind the conspiracy John Reavley discovered. It was suddenly very important to know if they had met, but he would have to be extremely careful. Whoever it was did not hesitate to kill. Again he was overwhelmed with anger for his father for having been so naive as to trust someone, to think the best of them when it so agonizingly was not true.
“Matthew . . . ,” Corcoran began, his face earnest, the lamplight now accentuating the warmth in his features.
“Yes!” Matthew said instantly. “I shall be extremely careful. Father and I are quite different. I trust no one.” He wanted to explain to them what he intended to do. However, he did not know yet, and he needed the freedom to change his mind. But above all, he did not want his father’s friend watching over his shoulder to see his weaknesses, or his pain if what he found was sad and vulnerable—and private.
“That’s not what I was going to say,” Corcoran declared. “Ivor Chetwin was a decent man when I knew him. But I doubt your father would have confided anything in him before telling you. Have you considered that this issue your father was so concerned about may have been a piece of politicking that he felt was dishonorable, rather than anything you or I would consider a conspiracy? He was a little . . . idealistic.”
“Conspiracy?” Orla looked from Matthew to her husband and back again.
“Probably nothing.” Corcoran smiled very slightly. “I daresay he would have found that out if he had had the chance.”
Matthew wanted to argue, but he had no weapons. He could not defend his father; he had nothing but remembered words, which he had repeated so often he was hearing his own voice saying them now. There was nothing tangible except death, the awful absence of those he loved, the jolting surprise of the empty rooms, the telephone call no one would answer from the study.
“Of course,” he said, not meaning it, nor looking at Corcoran’s face. He was agreeing for Orla’s sake, so as not to alarm her. Then he changed the subject. “I wish I didn’t have to go back to London so soon. It is so timelessly peaceful here.”
“Have a glass of port?” Corcoran offered. “I have some real vintage stuff.”
Matthew hesitated.
“Oh, it’s excellent!” Corcoran assured him. “No cork in it, no crust or sediment, I promise.”
Matthew acceded gracefully.
The butler was sent for and dispatched to fetch one of the best bottles. He returned with it cradled in a napkin.
“Right!” Corcoran said enthusiastically. “I’ll open this myself! Make sure it’s perfect. Thank you, Truscott.”
“Yes, sir.” The butler handed it over with resignation.
“Really . . . ,” Orla protested, but without any belief she would make a difference. “Sorry,” she said ruefully to Matthew. “He’s rather proud of this.”
Matthew smiled. It was obviously a ritual that mattered to Corcoran, and he was happy to observe as Corcoran led them to the kitchen, heated the tongs in the kitchen stove, then grasped the bottle with them, closing them around its neck. Truscott handed him a goose feather and held out a dish of ice. Corcoran passed the feather through the ice, then carefully around the neck of the port.
“There!” he said triumphantly as the glass cracked in a perfect circle, cutting the corked top off cleanly. “You see?”
“Bravo!” Matthew laughed.
Corcoran was grinning widely, his face alight with triumph. “There you are, Truscott! Now you can decant it and bring it to us in the dining room. Mrs. Corcoran will have a Madeira. Come . . .” And he led the procession back to the rose-and-gold room.
It was late on Sunday afternoon when Matthew drove to Haslingfield. Ivor Chetwin did not live in the magnificent manner of the Corcorans, but his home was still extremely agreeable. It was a Georgian manor a mile outside Haslingfield, and the long drive from the road swept around a gracious curve with a stand of silver birches, their leaves shimmering in the breeze, their white trunks leaning with exaggerated grace away from the prevailing wind.
A parlor maid welcomed Matthew, but Chetwin himself appeared almost immediately, an enthusiastic spaniel puppy at his heels.
“I’d have recognized you,” Chetwin said without hesitation, extending his hand to Matthew. His voice, unusually deep, still had the echo of music in it from his native Wales. “You resemble your father about the eyes.”
The loyalty hardened even more deeply inside Matthew, memory catching him again.
“Thank you for agreeing to see me at such short notice, sir,” he replied. “I’m just up for the weekend. I spend most of my time in London now.”
“I’m afraid I only get occasional weekends here myself at the moment,” Chetwin agreed. Then, followed by the puppy, he turned and led the way into a casual sitting room that opened onto a paved and graveled garden, largely shaded by overhanging trees. It was full of blossom from bushes and shrubs at the sides, and low-growing silvery-gray-leaved plants in clumps in the paving. The extraordinary thing about it was that every flower was white.
Chetwin noticed Matthew staring.
“My white garden,” he explained. “I find it very restful. Sit down. Oh, move the cat.” He gestured toward a black cat that had settled itself in the middle of the second chair and looked very disinclined to shift.
Matthew stroked the cat gently and felt rather than heard it begin to purr. He lifted it up, and when he had taken the seat, he put it down again on his lap. It rearranged itself slightly and went back to sleep.
“My father intended to come and see you,” he said smoothly as if it were true. “I never had the chance to ask him if he actually did.”
He watched Chetwin’s face. It was dark-eyed, with a strong, round jaw, black hair graying and receding from a high brow. He could read nothing in it. It was a face that could give away exactly what its owner wished it to. There was nothing naive or easily misled in Ivor Chetwin. He was full of imagination and subtlety. Matthew had been here only a few minutes, yet already he had a sense of Chetwin’s inner power.
“I’m sorry he didn’t,” Chetwin replied, and there was sadness in his voice. If he was acting, he was superb. But then Matthew had known men who betrayed their friends, even their families, and though they profoundly regretted what they saw as the necessity, it had not stopped them.
“He didn’t contact you at all?” Matthew pressed. He should not have been disappointed, and yet he was. He had hoped Chetwin would have an idea, a thread, however fine, that would lead somewhere. He realized now it was unreasonable. John Reavley would have come to Matthew first before trusting anyone else, even the far more experienced Chetwin.
“I wish he had.” Chetwin’s face still showed the same sadness. “I would have called on him, but I doubted he would see me.” A new bleakness shadowed his eyes. “That’s one of the deepest regrets of death: the things you thought of doing and put off, and then suddenly it’s too late.”
“Yes, I know,” Matthew agreed with more emotion than he had meant to expose. He felt as if he were laying a weapon down with the blade toward himself and the handle to a potential enemy. And yet had he shown less, Chetwin would have sensed it and known he was guarding himself.
“I think of something every day I would like to have said to him. I suppose that’s really why I called. You knew him during a time when I was so young I thought of him only as my father, not as a person who led any life beyond St. Giles.”
“A natural blindness of youth,” Chetwin said. “But most of what you would have heard about your father you would have liked.” He smiled, which momentarily softened his face. “He was stubborn at times; he had an intellectual arrogance he was not even aware of. It sprang from an effortless intelligence, and yet he had untiring patience for those he perceived as genuinely limited. He treated the old, the poor, t
he unlearned with dignity. To him the great sin was unkindness.” He seemed to retreat further into memory, revisiting the past before his quarrel with John Reavley had bled the pleasure from it.
Matthew took the risk of probing. “I remember him as being completely without guile. Was that true, or just what I wanted to think?”
Chetwin gave a sharp little laugh. “Oh, that was true! He couldn’t tell a lie to save himself, and he wasn’t about to change what he was to please anyone, or to deceive them, even to gain his own ends.” His face became shadowed again, but his dark eyes were unreadable. “That was his weakness as well as his strength. He was incapable of deviousness, and that is a politician’s main weapon.”
Matthew hesitated, wondering if he should admit to being in the intelligence services, and knowing that Chetwin was also. It might be a shortcut to gaining confidences. It would save time, take him nearer the truth. Or should he guard the little ammunition he had? Where were Chetwin’s loyalties? He was easy to like, and the ties of the past were strong. But perhaps that was exactly what had cost John Reavley his life.
“He was very worried about the present situation in the Balkans,” Matthew said. “Even though he died the day of the assassination, so he didn’t hear of it.”
“Yes,” Chetwin agreed. “I know he used to have a considerable interest in German affairs and had many German friends. He climbed in the Austrian Tyrol now and then when he was younger. He enjoyed Vienna, its music and its culture, and he read German, of course.”
“He discussed it with you?”
“Oh, yes. We had many friends in common in those days.” There was sadness in his voice and a gentleness that seemed entirely human and vulnerable. But if he was clever, it would do!
