Angels in the Gloom_ A Novel - Anne Perry [81]
When finally she was exhausted and pulled away, he was too cramped to be able to move.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized. “Here. I’ll help you up. No! Don’t do that, you’ll make it worse!” Expertly, accustomed to helping injured men, she eased him to a sitting position.
“Thank you,” he said again. “A good thing one of us is competent. Would you like Mrs. Blaine to stay with you? She will if you wish, if you’d rather not be alone.”
“Oh God! Didn’t the poor woman just lose her husband?” She was aghast.
“Yes. But she’ll stay, if you like.”
“Do you know who did it yet?”
“No. They’re still looking.”
“I saw him . . . I think.” She frowned. “I’d been to see Mrs. Palfrey. She lost her brother a month ago. Posted missing. I saw the man just on the edge of the woods, in the dark. He had a pale coat on. At first, I thought it was a woman, then he relieved himself, so I knew it was a man.”
He was stunned. “With a bicycle? A woman’s bicycle, coming from the track past the Blaines’ house?”
“Yes,” she agreed. “It was very late. It must have been . . . after . . .” She stopped. “Does Mrs. Blaine want to stay?” she whispered. “I’d rather be alone, but if she . . .”
“No, I don’t think so,” he answered. “She just offered. If you want to talk again, or I can do anything for you, let Mrs. MacAllister know, and I’ll be here.”
“Thank you,” she said automatically, then paused for a moment, looking at him with full concentration. “Thank you, Captain Reavley.”
He could not sleep. At two o’clock he was still wide awake, seeing Gwen Neave’s shattered face in his mind—her consuming grief, not furious, not questioning or railing against fate, simply a kind of inner death.
He got up and went to the window, pulling the curtains back. The night was radiant with moonlight that flooded the sky, catching every flake of the mackerel clouds with silver. Just below the sill the first white roses were out, single flowers, pale as the moon, like apple blossom.
He stood gazing at the scene. The beauty was almost too intense to bear. Then he heard the piercing sweetness of a nightingale—once, twice—then the silence washed back again like a deep ocean, drowned in light.
He ached with a measureless hunger to hold the moment forever, make it part of him so he could never lose it.
He was needed here. It was a lifetime’s work to touch this grief and heal even a fraction of it. He must stay.
CHAPTER
* * *
NINE
Patrick Hannassey might be the Peacemaker. In fact, theprobability stabbed like a knife into Matthew’s thoughts no matter which avenue he followed. He told himself it was ridiculous. He had always known that Hannassey was an enemy of England, willing to resort to violence. But it was different to think that he could be the man behind the murder of his parents.
He and Joseph had done everything they could to learn the Peacemaker’s identity. They had considered all they knew that must define him: first, his access to both the king and the kaiser in a manner sufficiently confidential to present the treaty and its astounding contents for their consideration; second, John Reavley had to have known him well enough to have stumbled accidentally on the treaty and taken it. There were times when in order to commit other acts, the Peacemaker had to have been in London. Finally, there was little doubt that he had also had a powerful influence on Eldon Prentice, and upon Richard Mason. Therefore he had strong connections with the press—not the national newspapers who obeyed the government’s restriction notices, but the smaller, less responsible provincials.
How did these criteria apply to Patrick Hannassey? Matthew had to put them to the test, whatever the answer.
The appalling violence of the Easter Rising in Dublin and the British suppression of it gave him the opportunity he needed. On Easter Monday the gunboat Helga opened fire on Dublin, setting alight Liberty Hall and several other buildings, and killing civilians. British troops landed at Kingstown and marched