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
“When there is anything, I will,” he said. “I promise. 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.
The master, Aidan Thyer, had been very considerate, asking Joseph if he was sure he was ready to come back so soon. He was valued, of course, and irreplaceable, but nevertheless he must take more time if he needed it.
Joseph answered him that he did not. Everything had been done that was required, and his responsibilities to work were a blessing, not a burden. He thanked him and promised to take his first tutorial the following morning.
It was difficult picking up the threads after an absence of almost two weeks, and it required all his effort of mind to make an acceptable job of it. He was exhausted by the end of the day, and happy after dinner to leave the dining hall, the stained-glass windows scattered with the coats of arms of benefactors dating back to the early 1500s, the magnificent timbered ceiling with its carved hammer beams touched with gold, the oak-paneled walls
