Angels in the Gloom_ A Novel - Anne Perry [40]
Joseph was appalled. He had thought nothing violent could shock him anymore, but this did. A scientist! One of Shanley Corcoran’s men. Fear chilled him to the pit of his stomach. Did the Germans know about the invention? Was this their way of stopping Britain from winning, even from surviving? No. He was being hysterical. There could be any number of reasons.
He sat down slowly. Kerr could remain standing if he wanted to. “How did it happen?” he asked. “Who is responsible?”
Kerr flopped into the chair opposite him, clasping and unclasping his hands. “No one knows,” he said wretchedly. “The police have been sent for, of course. I mean someone from Cambridge. There’ll have to be an investigation. It’s going to turn the whole village upside down. There’ll be scandal. As if we hadn’t enough to . . .” He covered his face with his hands. “What can I say to his wife? I can hardly go in with condolences as if she had lost him in France. This is hideous . . . personal hatred so terrible . . .” He looked up, his skin blotched from the pressure of his fingers. “What do I say?” he pleaded. “How do I explain this, and tell her there is some kind of God who is in control and can make sense out of it all? What can I do to comfort her?”
“You won’t know until you see her,” Joseph answered. “There’s no formula.”
“I can’t do it! I don’t know the words. . . .” He gestured helplessly. “If he’d died in the army, or the navy, I could say he made a great sacrifice and God would . . . I don’t know . . . watch over him, take him home. . . .” He floundered to a stop.
Joseph wanted to argue the futility of saying such things however anyone had died, but Kerr was not listening to him. He wanted Joseph to do the job for him—and for Mrs. Blaine’s sake, as well as for Kerr’s, he must. “You’ll have to drive me,” he answered, and saw the flood of relief in Kerr’s face, and then apprehension. “I haven’t got a car, and I couldn’t drive it with one hand if I had,” Joseph pointed out.
“Oh! Yes, yes of course.” Kerr stood up. “Thank you. Thank you. Will you . . . er . . . come now?”
“I must tell my family, then I’ll accompany you.” Joseph stood also, finding himself oddly stiff and a little dizzy. “I shall be back in a moment.” He left Kerr in the sitting room and went through to look for Hannah.
She was in the kitchen. She turned to face him as soon as she heard his footsteps, even before he was through the door. She had a dish cloth in one hand, dripping unnoticed onto the floor. “What is it?” she asked. “What’s happened?”
“One of the scientists at the Establishment has been murdered,” he answered gently. There was no point in trying to protect her. The whole village would know in an hour or two. “Kerr wants me to go with him to see the widow.”
“You don’t have to.” She put the dish cloth down and took a step toward him. “You’re still sick.”
“Yes, I must, for Mrs. Blaine’s sake.”
She drew in her breath to argue, then let it out again, the struggle over before it began. “Can I help?”
“Maybe later.” He turned to leave.
“Joseph?”
“Yes?”
“Is that going to stop Shanley from completing the invention?” She was frightened and it was naked in her face.
He knew the fear, tight gripping in the stomach, shivering cold. It was far bigger than one life or death, however terrible. It could be the loss they all dreaded, the beginning of the final defeat.
“I don’t know.” He tried to sound calm, braver than he felt. “This man might not have even been working on it.”
“Shanley’s going to be so distressed—either way. Don’t forget him, will you!” she warned.
“No, of course not.” He hesitated a moment more, touched her briefly with his good hand, then went out into the hall.
He sat silently beside Kerr as they drove along the main street of St. Giles. It was the first time Joseph had seen it since his last leave