head pounding, and determined to learn beyond dispute, all the facts that he could. Everything he cared about was slithering out of his grasp; he needed something to hold on to.
It was barely six o’clock, but he would begin immediately. It was an excellent time to walk along the Backs himself and find Carter the boatman, who had apparently spoken with Beecher on the morning of Sebastian’s death. He shaved, washed, and dressed in a matter of minutes and set out in the cool clarity of the morning light.
The grass was still drenched with dew, giving it a pearly, almost turquoise sheen, and the motionless trees towered into the air in unbroken silence.
He found Carter down at the mooring, about a mile along the bank.
“Mornin’, Dr. Reavley,” Carter greeted him cheerfully. “Yer out early, sir.”
“Can’t sleep,” Joseph replied.
“Oi can’t these days neither,” Carter agreed. “Everybody’s frettin’. Newspapers flyin’ off the stands. Got to get ’em early to be sure o’ one. Never seen a toime loike it, ‘cepting when the old queen were ill.” He scratched his head. “Not even then, really.”
“It’s the best time of the morning,” Joseph said, glancing around him at the slow moving river shimmering in the sun.
“It is that,” Carter agreed.
“I thought I might see Dr. Beecher along here. He hasn’t been this way already, has he?”
“Dr. Beecher? No, sir. Comes occasional loike, but not very often.”
“He’s a friend of mine.”
“Nice gentleman, sir. Friend to a lot o’ folk.” Carter nodded. “Always got a good word. Talked a bit about them ole riverboats. Interested, ‘e is, though between you an’ me, Oi think ’e do it only to be agreeable. ’E knows Oi get lonely since moi Bessie died, an’ a bit of a chat sets me up for the day.”
That was the Beecher that Joseph knew, a man of great kindness, which he always masked as something else so there was never debt.
“You must have been talking together when young Allard was killed,” he remarked. How bare that sounded.
“Not that mornin’, sir,” Carter shook his head. “Oi tole the police gentleman it were, because Oi forgot, but that were the day Oi ’ad the bad puncture. Oi ’ad to fix it, an’ it took me an age ’cos it were in two places, an’ Oi didn’t see it at first. An hour late ’ome, Oi were. O’ course Dr. Beecher must’ve bin ’ere if ’e said so, but Oi didn’t see ’im ’cos Oi weren’t, if you get me?”
“Yes,” Joseph said slowly, his own voice sounding far away, as if it belonged to someone else. “Yes . . . I see. Thank you.” And he turned and walked slowly along the grass.
Did he have a moral obligation to tell Perth? He had agreed that the law was above them all, and it was. But he needed to be sure. Right now he was certain of nothing at all.
CHAPTER
TWELVE
On Saturday afternoon Matthew dined with Joseph at the Pickerel, overlooking the river. There were just as many people there as always, sitting around the tables, leaning forward in conversation, but voices were lower than a week earlier, and there was less laughter.
Punts still drifted back and forth on the water, young men balancing in the sterns with long poles clasped, some with grace, others with precarious awkwardness. Girls, wind catching the gossamerlike sleeves of their pale dresses, lay half reclined on the seats. Some wore sweeping hats, or hats decked with flowers to shade their faces; others had parasols of muslin or lace, which dappled the light. One girl, bare-headed, with russet hair, trailed a slender arm into the river, her skin brown from the sun, her fingers shedding bright drops behind her in the golden light.
“One of us ought to go home,” Matthew said, reaching his knife into the Belgian pate and spreading more of it onto his toast. “It ought to be you, and anyway I need to go and see Shanley Corcoran again. With things as they are, he’s about the only person I dare trust.”
“Are you any further?” Joseph asked, then immediately wished he hadn’t. He saw the frustration in Matthew’s face and knew the answer.
Matthew ate another mouthful and swallowed the last of his red wine, then poured himself more, before replying.
“Only ideas. Shearing doesn’t think it is an Irish plot. He seems to be trying to steer me away from it, although I have to admit his logic is pretty sound.” He reached for more butter. “But then of course I don’t know beyond any doubt at all that he isn’t the one behind it.”
“We don’t know that about anyone, do we?” Joseph asked.
“Not really,” Matthew agreed. “Except Shanley. That’s why I need to speak to him. There’s . . .” He looked across the river, narrowing his eyes against the brilliance of the lowering sun. “There’s a possibility it could be an assassination attempt against the king, although the more I consider it, the less certain I am that anyone would benefit from it. I don’t know what I think anymore.”
“There
Matthew looked weary. “Perhaps it was evidence of a crime,” he said flatly. “Simply a piece of ordinary greed. Maybe we were looking beyond the mark, for something wildly political involving the grand tide of history, and it was only a grubby little bank robbery or fraud.”
“Two copies of it?” Joseph said skeptically. Matthew lifted his head, his eyes widening. “It might make sense! Copies for different people? What if it were a stock market scandal or something of that nature! I’m going to see Shanley tomorrow. He’ll have connections in the City, and at least he would know where to start. If only Father had said more!” He leaned forward, his food forgotten. “Look, Joe, one of us has got to go and spend a little time with Judith. We’ve both been neglecting her. Hannah’s taken it all very hard, but at least she’s got Archie some of the time, and the children. Judith’s got nothing, really.”
“I know,” Joseph agreed quickly, guilt biting deep. He had written to both Judith and Hannah, but since he was only a few miles away, that was not enough.
There was a short burst of laughter from the next table and then a sudden silence. Someone rushed into speech, something completely irrelevant, about a new novel published. No one responded, and he tried again.
“Anything more on Sebastian Allard?” Matthew asked, his face gentle, sensing the slow discovery of ugliness, the falling apart of beliefs that had been held dear for so long.
Joseph hesitated. It would be a relief to share his thoughts, even if as soon as tomorrow he would wish he had not. “Actually . . . yes,” he said slowly, looking not at Matthew but beyond him. The light was fading on the river, and the firelike scarlet and yellow poured out across the flat horizon from the trees over by Haslingfield right across to the roofs of Madingley.
“I’ve discovered Sebastian was capable of blackmail,” he said miserably. Even the words hurt. “I think he blackmailed Harry Beecher over his love for the master’s wife. For nothing so obvious as money—just for favor, and I think maybe for the taste of power. It would have amused him to exert just a very subtle pressure, but one that Beecher didn’t dare resist.”
“Are you sure?” Matthew asked, his face puckering with doubt. There was not the denial in his voice Joseph hungered to hear. He had overstated the case deliberately, waiting for Matthew to say it was nonsense. Why didn’t he?
“No!” he replied. “No, I’m not sure! But it looks like it. He lied as to where he was. He’s engaged to a girl his mother probably picked out for him, but he’s got a girlfriend of his own in one of the pubs in Cambridge. . . .” He saw Matthew’s look of amusement. “I know you think that’s just natural youth,” he said angrily. “But Mary Allard won’t! And I don’t think Regina Coopersmith will, either, if she ever finds out.”
“It’s a bit shabby,” Matthew agreed, the flicker of humor still in his eyes. “A last fling before the doors of propriety close him in forever with Mother’s choice. Why hadn’t he the guts to say so?”
“I’ve no idea! I didn’t know anything about it! Anyway, he would never have married Flora, for heaven’s sake. She’s a barmaid. She’s also a pacifist.”
