extremely urgent.”
“Yes, of course,” she said immediately. “Is everything all right? Has something happened?”
“Not so far, but I must go there and warn them so that it doesn’t. I’ll be waiting in the road. Thank you!”
It was ten minutes before she arrived, during which time he apologized to Mrs. Appleton and left a message for Hannah that he had gone on an errand, and would be back in the evening.
Lizzie swept up in the Model T. She looked anxious, her hair falling out of its pins and a smear of dirt on her cheek. Obviously she had taken him at his word as to the gravity of the occasion.
“Thank you,” he said, climbing in and closing the door.
She eased out the clutch and increased the acceleration before replying. “Are you going to tell me what it is? Do you know who killed Theo?”
“Yes, I think so,” he answered as they turned the corner into the High Street. “But I’ve got to make sure he doesn’t kill Corcoran as well. I believe they’re testing the invention, and if it’s a success he won’t need Corcoran anymore.”
“He wouldn’t kill him for that,” she said, increasing speed onto the open road and narrowly missing the may branches sloping wide. “It would be a stupid risk.”
“Not because they don’t need him,” Joseph explained. “This man killed your husband, and Corcoran knows it. I don’t know why he hasn’t turned him in already.”
“Perhaps he has no proof,” she suggested, her knuckles white on the wheel as she swerved with considerable skill and straightened up again. “Are you going to tell me?”
“Yes, when I’m absolutely sure. With Corcoran gone he would be the only man left alive who knows exactly how to re-create the invention.”
She concentrated on her driving for several minutes in silence, her face intense on the road.
“I’m sorry,” he said in sudden contrition. He was speaking of the murder of her husband as if it were incidental to the scientific achievement, not the death of the man she had loved, probably more than anyone else in the world.
She flashed him a sudden smile, and it vanished as quickly. “Thank you. I’m not sure how much I want to know what happened. I thought I did, but now that it could be any minute, it’s more real, and a lot uglier. In a way it was better drifting into the past unsolved. Am I a coward?” There was pain in her voice, as if she cared what he thought and had already decided it was harsh.
“No,” he said quietly. “Just wise enough to know that answers don’t always help.”
“I’ll miss you when you go back to France.” She stared ahead, deliberately avoiding his eyes. She put her foot down and increased the speed, now having to concentrate fiercely to keep on the road. The silence settled between them as if by agreement. They both had much to think about.
She screeched to a halt at the gates of the Establishment and Joseph got out, thanking her and leaving her to wait. He spent nearly a quarter of an hour explaining to officials that he had to see Corcoran urgently, and then waited, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, while messages were sent, answers returned, and more messages sent in reply.
It was nearly twenty-five minutes after arriving that he reached the waiting room, and a full quarter hour after that before he was ushered into Corcoran’s office. Corcoran, pale and tired, looked up from a desk littered with papers.
“What is it, Joseph? Surely it could have waited until this evening? You would have been welcome to come over to dinner.”
“I don’t think it can wait,” Joseph answered, too tense to sit down in the chair opposite him. “Not safely. And I couldn’t have said it in front of Orla anyway. You’ve got to have Perth arrest Morven before he kills you as well.” He leaned forward onto the desk, refusing to allow it to separate them. “I’m not going to let you run this risk anymore!” He nearly added that he cared too much, but it sounded melodramatic, and selfish.
“The work . . .” Corcoran began.
“It’s finished!” Joseph said impatiently. “It’s on sea trials, isn’t it? With Archie. You said he was going to do them. Isn’t that where Matthew’s gone?”
Corcoran’s dark eyes opened very wide. “You think I know?” he said slowly, surprise and a flicker of fear in his face.
“Don’t affect ignorance!” Anger welled up dangerously inside Joseph, too close to breaking his control. The danger was real, and he could not bear to lose Corcoran as well. It was as if the past and all he loved in it were being taken from him piece by piece. “You may not know where they’ve gone, but you know you finished the prototype and they took it! And Morven knows it.”
“To test!” Corcoran shook his head. “There’s so much that you don’t understand, and I can’t tell you. Morven will not kill me. . . .”
“He can’t afford not to!” Joseph was raising his voice in spite of himself. “For God’s sake, you were there that night! You saw it, or something! Enough to work it out.”
Corcoran gulped. “What makes you think that, Joseph?”
Joseph’s patience was close to ripping apart. “Don’t treat me like a fool, Shanley! You lied to me about where you were when Blaine was killed. You said you were with Archie at the Cutlers’ Arms. You weren’t.” He saw Corcoran wince as if he had been hit. “I’m not checking up on you!” he said angrily. “Archie told me where he met you, at the Drouthy Duck! I just today realized what you’d said.”
He steadied his voice, dropping it to be gentler, hearing his own anguish in it and unable to moderate it. “You were protecting Morven because you needed his gifts to finish whatever it is you were making. Well, it’s finished now! And the first chance he gets he’ll kill you. Give him up!”
Corcoran stared at him, amazement and grief battling in his face. He looked old, almost beaten. There was only a last shred of will left to hang on to.
“Shanley, you can’t protect him anymore!” Joseph pleaded. God, how he hated this war! Year by year it was stripping him of everything he loved! “I know you may like him,” he urged, his voice panicky, too high. “Damn it, I liked him myself, but he killed Theo Blaine. He stabbed him in the neck with a gardening fork and left him to bleed to death in the mud under his own trees—for his wife to find!” He leaned farther forward. “And he’ll do the same to you, but I won’t let that happen!”
“We . . . we still need him, Joseph,” Corcoran said slowly. “It’s only sea trials. It may need work yet!” He sat forward, elbows on the desk, his face, almost bloodless, only a yard away from Joseph’s. “This is the greatest invention in naval warfare since the torpedo! Perhaps even greater. It could save England, Joseph!” His eyes burned with the fire, the passion of it. “The whole British Empire rests on our mastery of the sea!” His voice trembled. “If we master the sea, we master the world, and lay peace on it. I can’t turn him in yet!”
“And if he kills you first?” Joseph demanded. He heard what Corcoran said about England, about the empire, even about victory and peace, words that sounded like the vision of a forgotten heaven of the past, a glory remembered now like the gold of a dream. But he could not bear to let go of the love he still had, the memories of all certainty and goodness bound up in this man. “Morven is a spy! He killed Blaine, and he’ll kill you!”
Corcoran blinked as if his vision were blurred and his eyes so exhausted he had trouble seeing. Then, very slowly, he sank his head on his hands. “I know,” he said softly, his voice little more than a whisper.
“Tell Perth!” Joseph reached across and placed a hand on Corcoran’s wrist, a touch more than a grip.
“I can’t, not yet.” Corcoran lifted his head. “Leave it, Joseph. There’s more to it than you know.”
“I won’t let you be killed!” He thought of his father. The pain of his loss ached inside him like a bruise to the bone, as if he had been beaten and it hurt even to breathe. Why couldn’t he make Corcoran see his danger? His father would have known what to say. Even Matthew might have done better than this. He wished Matthew were here with his judgment, his sanity. But he wasn’t. There was no one else.
Corcoran stared at him, his face gaunt, almost like dead flesh. “Leave it, Joseph,” he said again. “I know what Morven is. I’ve known for months. But it’s not time yet!”
“Why not?” Joseph demanded.
“I can’t do without him until we’re sure the prototype works.” Corcoran tried to smile. He looked like an old man staring death in the face with all the courage he could still grasp. “Please, Joseph, let it go for now. I know what I’m doing. He caught Blaine by surprise. Poor man had no idea. I do, and I’ll be careful. It’s not in his interest to kill me yet.”
