Angels in the Gloom_ A Novel - Anne Perry [82]
The next day Major-General Sir John Maxwell’s troops, sent by Prime Minister Asquith, and mostly untrained, began shooting Irishmen on sight, and the General Post Office went up in flames. It became obvious that even worse was to come. Questions about leading Irish Nationalists did not need to be explained.
Matthew was dining with a friend with whom he had been at school. It was a quiet restaurant and they sat in the corner discreetly, sharing a bottle of claret and a rather good game pie. He asked the questions that pounded in his mind, hoping for the answers, and dreading them.
“Hannassey?” Barrington said thoughtfully. “Do you think he’s behind this uprising? Behind Connelly and Pearse?”
“Can’t say,” Matthew replied, meaning to imply that he was.
Barrington smiled. “So what is it you want to know?”
Matthew began with the least controversial issue. “His history. For example, before the war what sort of influence did he have? Where did he travel?”
“Travel?” Barrington was surprised. “Europe. He had some sort of diplomatic position regarding Anglo-Irish interests.”
“Including Germany?”
“Naturally. Hadn’t you better tell me what this is about, Reavley?”
“I don’t know what it’s about yet,” Matthew evaded. “Still in the stage of seeing if it’s anything at all. Diplomatic service in Germany?”
“If you’re asking me if he’s a German sympathizer, yes, of course he is. Sympathizes with anyone who’s against us.”
“I took that for granted, given other circumstances. Would he know anyone connected with the kaiser?”
Barrington frowned, twiddling his coffee spoon in his fingers.
“Yes. He’s a very personable man, highly intelligent and if he wants to be, very cultured. Certainly the kaiser. King too, come to that.”
“And members of our Parliament?” Matthew persisted.
“He might have known pretty well anyone of influence.” Barrington shook his head. “Who do you have in mind, Reavley? You are being very evasive. Are you sure this isn’t something we should know?”
“It’s to do with something my father said before he died.” That was obliquely true, more or less.
“I heard about that. Road accident, wasn’t it? I’m very sorry.”
“Yes. Rather got swallowed in the news at the time.”
“Oh?”
“Same day as the assassination in Sarajevo.”
“Oh. That’s too bad. Do you think he knew something about Hannassey that still matters?”
“I’m chasing a possibility. Do you keep tabs on Hannassey?”
“Sometimes. Lose him pretty regularly. He’s a master of looking so damn ordinary he disappears. What dates are you interested in?”
“Late May, early June last year.”
“London, mostly. Can’t tell you where exactly.”
“Thank you. Last question: Has he any influence with the press?”
“None that I know. I should doubt it very much.”
“Not even local press, small papers in the north?”
“No idea. Why?”
“I’ll tell you, if it comes to anything.” He drank the last of his coffee. “Do you fancy a brandy?”
In his office again, Matthew received a wireless message from America and decoded it. He read it with acceptance and perhaps a kind of satisfaction, grim as it was. A stevedore in the New York docks had been murdered.
He wrote his reply. It was not necessary to say much. His man already had his instructions. The corpse was to be made to appear a spy, trained by Germany and then “turned” to betray their plans to Britain. His murder was payment for that act, an object lesson to would-be traitors.
Now also was the time to show the evidence on paper of a fictional agent in the German-American banking system who had revealed the details of all the transactions paying the man in the docks who had placed the bombs in the ships’ holds.
Matthew reread his letter once more, making certain of every detail, then encrypted it and gave it to the operator to send.
He reported to Shearing in the late afternoon as if no thoughts teemed in his mind except those of the allied shipping crossing the Atlantic with smoke bombs hidden among the tightly packed munitions. He forced away all thought that he