services.”
“Yes, I know!” Matthew cut in sharply. “He wanted Joseph to go into medicine, and when Joseph didn’t, he wanted me to. He never really said why. . . .” He stopped, seeing surprise and a swift tenderness in Corcoran’s face.
“He didn’t tell you?” Corcoran asked.
Matthew shook his head. It was a place inside him that still hurt too much to explore. He had always believed that one day he would have the chance to show his father the value of what he did. Discreetly, it also saved lives; it saved the peace in which people could go about their ordinary, open business without fear. It was one of those professions that, if practiced with great enough skill, one was unaware of. It was visible only when it failed. But John’s death had made that proof impossible, and it was an unresolved pain he had no way to deal with.
“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.
