thoughtless, like most of us, except he did everything more. I’m not going to let him be forgotten. I’m not looking for vengeance, I suppose not even justice. It seems as if half the young men in Europe are dying. I just refuse to let it pass as if it wasn’t worth trying to do the right thing.”
“I’ll do the right thing,” he promised. He meant it intensely, for her sake as well as his own. “I’ll go to London tomorrow, and speak to the people who can deal with it, but not here, not Inspector Perth. I don’t have the kind of proof he would need. It’s just my word, at the moment.”
She reached across quickly and touched his hand, then gave a little smile, and nodded.
“Thank you for taking me,” he acknowledged her help, and got out of the car. He looked back at her for a moment and saw her smiling at him, the tears wet on her cheeks in the lamplight. He turned and went inside.
In the morning he took the bus to Cambridge, and then the train to London. He had told Hannah that it was business, but he had not told her the nature of it. She saw the darkness in his face and she did not ask.
He had no idea how long he would be gone, but he had a key to Matthew’s flat and if he had to stay in London, then he would do, as long as it was required until Admiral Hall of naval intelligence would see him. He would not trust Calder Shearing, because he knew that Matthew did not. This must go as high as he was able to reach. He still half hoped that there would be someone who could prove to him that he was wrong. He would look like a disloyal fool, but he could deal with his own weakness, blame himself and execute the appropriate penance. It would still be better than facing a truth as bitter as that which he knew his mind already accepted.
He went to naval intelligence. He knew where it was from his previous experience the year before, after the business at Gallipoli. Of course it was a different man who met him this time.
“Yes, sir?” the man asked blandly.
Joseph gave him his name, rank, and regiment, and said that Matthew was his brother. “I have information regarding the murder of Theo Blaine at the Scientific Establishment in Cambridgeshire,” he went on. “I can repeat it only to Admiral Hall.”
“I’m sorry, sir, that is not possible,” the man said immediately. “If you would like to write it down it will be submitted in due course.”
Joseph kept his temper only with the greatest difficulty. It was a kind of absurd nightmare that this dreadful task should be so difficult, as if fate were testing his resolve.
“The matter is in regard to immediate danger threatening a device currently being tested in sea trials on the HMS
That provided the result he wanted. Quarter of an hour later he was in the office of Admiral “Blinker” Hall, a short, robust man with a keen face and a shock of white hair. It was apparent within minutes how his nickname had been earned.
“Right, Captain Reavley, what is it?” Hall asked bluntly. “And don’t waste time explaining, I know perfectly well who you are. Well done on the Military Cross.”
“Thank you, sir. I know who killed Theo Blaine, and I fear that I know why. It appears to have nothing to do with the Germans.”
Hall frowned at him. “You had better sit down and tell me exactly what you mean.”
“Yes, sir. Do you want to know how I reached . . .”
“No. Just tell me who did what, and I shall ask you what I cannot deduce for myself.”
As briefly as he could, Joseph recounted what he believed to have happened. Hall stopped him every time he needed proof, or the process of his reasoning was unclear, but that did not happen often. The more Joseph laid out his knowledge the more hideously plain it became.
“And I believe you are testing the device now,” he finished. “When it works, and Corcoran does not need Ben Morven anymore, then I’m afraid he may either kill him, or else try to turn him in for the murder of Blaine,” he finished. His chest felt tight, as if he could not draw air into his lungs. Put as baldly as that it was logically inescapable, and yet emotionally he still felt as if he had betrayed the past and somehow broken a thing of infinite value that was not his alone, but belonged to his whole family. Most especially it belonged to Matthew, and he would not be forgiven for destroying it. He had created immeasurable pain, and he should have found some way to avoid it.
“That will not happen,” Hall said quietly.
“Yes, it will,” Joseph contradicted him. “As soon as the
Hall looked at him steadily, his eyes bright and sad. “It will not be successful. Corcoran could not complete it. Mrs. Blaine is right, he has not the brilliance Blaine had. He thought he could do the last little bit himself, but he misjudged his ability. He killed Blaine too soon.”
Joseph was stunned. “You mean we . . . we’ve lost the invention?”
“Yes.”
He refused to grasp it.
“But we’re testing it! On the
“In the hope that the Germans will try to steal it.” A flash of bleak humor touched Hall’s face. “Then we might at least find the leak from the Establishment. But if it was Corcoran himself who killed Blaine, and I believe you, then there may not be one. It looks as if he also smashed the first prototype in order to hide the fact that he was unable to complete it. It bought him some time, and increased our belief that there was a German spy in St. Giles.”
“You’re not surprised?” Joseph said with profound misery, still fighting to find some shred of disbelief. It was futile, and in his heart he knew it, but he could not let go yet.
“Yes, I am surprised,” Hall admitted. “But your logic is perfect. More than anything else I am grieved. I know Corcoran, not well, but I know him. I saw he was ambitious and that he loved admiration, he fed on the love of his fellows, which he more than earned.” His clear blue eyes were sad, and perhaps guilty. “I did not recognize the hunger for glory that it seems finally destroyed everything else in him.” His voice dropped. “I’ve seen it before, in military men, and in politicians, where the original desire to win the battle is overtaken by the lust for fame and to be admired, and then finally to become immortal in memory, as if their existence were measured only by what others think of them. They become so addicted to fame their appetite is insatiable. I didn’t see it in Corcoran, but I should have.”
“I can’t prove it!” Joseph said with a kind of desperation. It was Shanley that Hall was speaking of as if he were a stranger, somebody one could diagnose with impartiality, not a friend, his godfather, and a part of his life woven inextricably with every memory he had.
“You won’t prove it with Archie’s evidence,” he went on aloud, insistent, as if it could still matter. “Not beyond reasonable doubt.”
Hall looked at him with pity. “I know. He will have to be arrested immediately and tried in secret. None of this can be known. It is murder and treason. The evidence will be given in camera because of the prototype, and because such a betrayal would cripple morale, and we might not survive that just now.”
“In secret?” Joseph was startled.
“Yes. We will call you when you are needed.”
“Me? But . . .”
“You must testify as to what Commander MacAllister told you, and Mrs. Blaine.”
“But it’s hearsay!” Joseph protested. “It’s not evidence!”
“Is it true?” Hall’s eyes opened very wide.
“Yes! But . . .”
“You will swear to it?”
Joseph hesitated, not because he had any doubt, but because it meant that he was casting the final pieces that would weigh damnation for Shanley Corcoran.
“Are you telling the truth, Captain Reavley?” Hall repeated.
“Yes . . .”
“Then you will swear it before the tribunal if you are called. Thank you for coming forward. I realize what it has cost you.”
Joseph rose to his feet slowly, straightening his leg and his back. “No, you don’t,” he said wearily. “You have no idea at all.” He turned and walked to the door slowly, as if each step were too long, and too slow. He heard Hall
