At Some Disputed Barricade_ A Novel - Anne Perry [105]
Matthew grimaced. “I’ll remember.”
Matthew spent a wretched night. Unable to sleep, he sought every kind of escape from the only conclusion now possible.
He lay staring at the ceiling. He was safe and comfortable in his own bed. The silence surrounded him, cocooning him from the world. He began to think about his brother.
Joseph, if he was sleeping at all, would be in a hole dug in the sodden earth of Flanders. There would be no silence there. The guns never entirely stopped, least of all now with the battle for Passchendaele raging on. Now and then phosgene or mustard gas would be pervasive. Death and decay would be everywhere—the smell of it, the taste of it. Those Joseph shared tea and bad jokes with tonight might be torn apart by shrapnel tomorrow, and he would bury what was left of them.
And here was Matthew in silence and clean sheets, tossing and turning because tomorrow he would begin proving that Calder Shearing was the Peacemaker, the idealist turned betrayer who had killed John and Alys Reavley.
He finally gave up trying to sleep and made himself a cup of tea. Then he sat in his armchair noting all he knew already, and what he needed to learn from a reputable source who would not take the inquiry back to Shearing.
The second was the more difficult. He remembered Sandwell’s warning that Shearing would not hesitate to kill if he was threatened. Matthew already knew that. He had never forgotten Cullingford, and his loss still hurt. Looking back now he was certain that the attack in the alley when he had so nearly been knifed himself was not an attempted robbery but a murder foiled more by luck than skill.
Why? He had not suspected Shearing then. In fact it was barely twenty-four hours since they had eaten a hasty supper together of ham sandwiches and coffee, set up over maps of safe houses and escape routes for saboteurs. He could see it exactly in his mind’s eye: the lamplight on the table, Shearing’s dark head bent over the diagrams, his sudden smile when he had seen the solution, and then the eagerness in his voice. It had been one of the rare betrayals of emotion in him. Matthew had felt an intense companionship at that moment. They had even joked afterward; Shearing had told some long-winded story about a dog and a newspaper. They had laughed, mostly from relief.
There was really only one person he could speak to, and that was Admiral “Blinker” Hall, the head of naval intelligence. He had gone to him before when he had had knowledge that was sensitive and painful. He was used to harboring secrets that would make or break nations, and that could never be revealed.
It was still a little after one the following afternoon when Matthew was shown into Admiral Hall’s office. Hall was sitting behind the desk, papers spread in front of him. He was a stocky man with an eaglelike face and thick white hair. His narrowed blue eyes blinked rapidly every now and then, as if he could not help himself.
“Well, Reavley, no preamble. No time. What is it that you must tell me that cannot wait?”
“Not tell you, sir,” Matthew corrected him. “Ask you.”
“You had better know a good reason for this. Sit down, man. I’m not spending my time straining my neck looking up at you! Spit it out.”
Matthew sat obediently.
“Information has come to me, sir, from a source high in the government that casts doubt on some of Colonel Shearing’s actions and decisions.” He felt like a traitor saying it aloud.
“For example?” Hall asked, blinking several times.
“His explicit approval of Lieutenant Colonel Faulkner as prosecutor in the court-martial against Captain Cavan, and the other men, if they are caught,” Matthew answered. “Faulkner is an absolute hard-liner, and if Cavan is found guilty and shot, it will be a disaster to morale, possibly beyond our ability to cope with. It could even become a full-scale mutiny.” He had no