Matthew shrugged. “So he had a secret,” he said with his mouth full. “Probably he was seeing a girl his parents wouldn’t approve of, or who was involved with someone else, possibly even someone’s wife. Sorry, Joe, but he was a remarkably good-looking young man, which he was well aware of, and he wasn’t the saint you like to think.”
“He wasn’t a saint!” Joseph said a trifle abruptly. “But he could behave perfectly decently where women were concerned, even nobly. And he was engaged to marry Regina Coopersmith, so obviously any involvement with someone else would be something he wouldn’t want known. But that isn’t why I’m telling you about it. What does matter is that to drive from Haslingfield to Cambridge he would pass along the Hauxton Road, going north, and it now seems that it must have been at pretty much the same time as Father and Mother were going south.”
Matthew stiffened, his hand with the bread in it halfway to his mouth, his eyes wide. “Are you saying he could have seen the crash? In God’s name, why wouldn’t he have said so?”
“Because he was afraid,” Joseph replied. He felt the tightness knot inside him. “Perhaps he recognized whoever it was, and knew they had seen him.”
Matthew’s eyes were fixed on Joseph’s. “And they killed him because of what he had seen?”
“Isn’t it possible?” Joseph asked. “Someone killed him! Of course, he may have passed before the crash and known nothing at all about it.”
“But if he did see it, that would explain his death.” Matthew ignored his supper and concentrated on the idea, leaning forward in his chair now, his face tense. “Have you come up with any other motive for what seems to be a pretty cold-blooded shooting?”
“Cold-blooded?”
“Do your students usually call on each other at half past five in the morning carrying guns?”
“They don’t have guns,” Joseph replied.
“Where did it come from?”
“We don’t know where it came from or where it went to. No one has ever seen it.”
“Except whoever used it,” Matthew pointed out. “But I presume no one left the college after Elwyn Allard found the body, so who left before? Don’t they have to pass the porter’s lodge at the gate?”
“Yes. And no one did.”
“So what happened to the gun?”
“We don’t know. The police searched everywhere, of course.”
Matthew chewed on his lip. “It begins to look as if you’ve got someone very dangerous indeed in your college, Joe. Be careful. Don’t go wandering around asking questions.”
“I don’t wander around!” Joseph said a little tartly, stung by the implication not only of aimlessness, but of incompetence to look after himself.
Matthew was deliberately patient. “You mean you are going to tell me this about Sebastian and leave it for me to investigate? I’m not in Cambridge, and anyway, I don’t know those people.”
“No, of course I don’t mean that!” Joseph retorted. “I’m just as capable as you are of asking intelligent and discreet questions, and deducing a rational answer without annoying everybody and arousing their suspicions.”
“And you’re going to do it?” That seemed to be a question.
“Of course I am! As you pointed out, you are not in a position to. And since Perth knows nothing about it, he won’t. What else do you suggest?”
“Just be careful,” Matthew warned, his voice edgy. “You’re just like Father. You go around assuming that everyone else is as open and honest as you are. You think it’s highly moral and charitable to think the best of people. So it is. It’s also damn stupid!” His face was angry and tender at the same time. Joseph was so like his father. He had the same long, slightly aquiline face, the dark hair, the kind of immensely reasonable innocence that left him totally unprepared for the deviousness and cruelty of life. Matthew had never been able to protect him and probably never would. Joseph would go on being logical and naive. And the most infuriating thing about it was that Matthew would not really have wished his brother to be different, not if he was honest.
“And I can’t afford for you to get yourself killed,” he went on. “So you’d better just get on with teaching people and leave the questions to the police. If they catch whoever shot Sebastian, we’ll have a lead toward who’s behind the conspiracy in the document.”
“Very comforting,” Joseph replied sarcastically. “I’m sure the queen will feel a lot better.”
“What has the queen to do with it?”
“Well, it’ll be a trifle late to save the king, don’t you think?”
Matthew’s eyebrows rose. “And you think finding out who shot Sebastian Allard is going to save the king from the Irish?”
“Frankly, I think it’s unlikely anything will save him if they are determined to kill him, except a series of mischances and clumsiness, such as nearly saved the archduke of Austria.”
“The Irish falling over their own feet?” Matthew said incredulously. “I’m not happy to rely on that! I imagine rather more is expected of the SIS.” He looked at Joseph with a mixture of misery and frustration. “But you stay out of it! You aren’t equipped to do this sort of thing.”
Joseph was stung by the condescension in him, whether it was intentional or not. Sometimes Matthew seemed to regard him as a benign and otherworldly fool. Part of him knew perfectly well that Matthew was aching inside from the loss of his father just as much as he was himself, and would not admit that he was afraid of losing Joseph as well. Perhaps it was something he would never say aloud.
But Joseph’s temper would not be allayed by reason. “Don’t be so bloody patronizing!” he snapped. “I’ve seen just as much of the dark side of human nature as you have. I was a parish priest! If you think that just because people go to church that they behave with Christian charity, then you should try it sometime and disabuse yourself. You’ll find reality there ugly enough to give you a microcosm of the world. They don’t kill each other, not physically anyway, but all the emotions are there. All they lack is the opportunity to get going with it.” He drew in his breath. “And while you’re at it, Father wasn’t as naive as you think. He was a member of Parliament, after all. He didn’t get killed because he was a fool. He discovered something vast and—”
“I know!” Matthew cut him off so sharply that Joseph realized that he had hit a nerve; it was precisely what Matthew feared and could not bear. He recognized it because it was within himself as well: the need to deny and at the same time protect. He could see his father’s face as vividly as if he had left the room minutes ago.
“I know,” Matthew repeated. He looked away. “I just want you to be careful!”
“I will.” This time the promise was made sincerely, with gentleness. “I’ve no particular desire to get shot. Anyway, one of us has got to keep Judith in some kind of check . . . and you aren’t going to!”
Matthew grinned suddenly. “Believe me, Joe, neither are you!”
Joseph picked up the wine bottle and for a few moments did not speak. “If Father was bringing the document to you in London, and whoever killed him took it from the car, what were they searching the house for?”
Matthew thought for a while. “If it really is a plot of some sort to kill the king, Irish or otherwise, perhaps there are at least two copies of it,” he replied. “They took the one Father was bringing, but they need the other as well. It’s far too dangerous to leave it where someone else might find it—especially if they actually put it into effect.”
It made perfect sense. At last there was something about it that fell into place. Intellectually it was a comfort, finally something reason could grasp. Emotionally it was a darkening of the shadows and a waking of a more urgent fear.
CHAPTER
NINE
Joseph returned to Cambridge the following morning, the twenty-second of July. The train pulled away from the streets and rooftops of the city and into the open country northward.
He felt an urgency to be back in college again, and to look with fresh and far more perceptive eyes at the people he knew. He was aware that he would see things he would prefer not to: weaknesses that were impinging on his consciousness, Morel’s anger and perhaps jealousy because Abigail had been in love with Sebastian. Had he taken his revenge for that, storing it up until it became unbearable? Or was it the insult to Abigail he avenged? Or was it nothing to do with either of them, but one of the other cruelties? Had someone cheated and been caught?
