Betrayal at Lisson Grove - Anne Perry [22]
‘What are you doing here, Stoker?’ he said quietly, for the first time this evening drawing the curtains closed. It had not mattered before, and he liked the presence of the garden at twilight, the birds, the fading of the sky, the occasional movement of leaves.
‘Brought some papers that might be useful, sir,’ Stoker replied. His voice and his eyes were perfectly steady, but there was a tension in his body, in the way he held his hands, that betrayed to Narraway that he knew perfectly well the risk he was taking.
Narraway took the papers from him and glanced down at them, riffling through the pages swiftly to see what they were. Then he felt the breath tighten in his chest, and his own fingers clumsy. They referred to an old case in Ireland, twenty years ago. The memory of it was powerful, for many reasons, and he was surprised how very sharply it returned.
It was as if he had last seen the people only a few days ago. He could remember the smell of the peat fire in the room where he and Kate had talked long into the night about the planned uprising. He could almost bring back the words he had used to persuade her it could only fail, and bring more death and more bitterness with it.
He could bring back with exactness that still hurt the look in her eyes, the lamplight on her skin, the sound of her voice when she spoke his name – and the guilt.
Even with his eyes open, in his mind he could see Cormac O’Neil’s fury, and then his grief. He understood it. They all had reason to hate Narraway. But for all its vividness, it had been twenty years ago.
He looked up at Stoker. ‘Why these?’ he asked. ‘This case is old, it’s finished.’
‘The Irish troubles are never finished,’ Stoker said simply.
‘Our more urgent problem is here now,’ Narraway replied. ‘And possibly in Europe.’
‘Socialists?’ Stoker said drily. ‘They’re always grumbling on.’
‘It’s a lot more than that,’ Narraway told him. ‘They’re fanatic. It’s the new religion, with all the fire and evangelism of a holy cause. And just like Christianity in its infancy, it has its apostles and its dogma – and its splinter groups, quarrels over what is the true faith.’
Stoker looked puzzled, as if this were all true but irrelevant.
‘The point is . . .’ Narraway said sharply, ‘. . . they each consider the others to be heretics. They fight each other as much as they fight anyone else.’
‘Thank God,’ Stoker said with feeling.
‘So when we see disciples of different factions meeting each other in secret, working together, then we know that it is something damned big that has healed the rifts, temporarily.’ Narraway heard the edge in his own voice, and saw the sudden understanding in Stoker’s eyes.
Stoker let out his breath slowly.
‘How close are we to knowing what they’re planning, sir?’
‘I don’t know,’ Narraway admitted. ‘It all rests on Pitt now.’
‘And you,’ Stoker said softly. ‘We’ve got to sort this money thing out, sir, and get you back.’
Narraway drew in his breath to answer, and felt a sudden wave of conviction so profound – a helplessness, a loss, an awareness of fear – that no words were adequate.
Stoker held out the papers he had brought. ‘We can’t afford to wait,’ he said urgently. ‘I looked through everything I could that had to do with informants, money and Ireland, trying to work out who’s behind this. This case seemed the most likely. Also I’m pretty sure someone else has had this out lately.’
‘Why?’
‘Just the way it was put back,’ Stoker answered.
‘Untidy?’
‘No, the opposite. Very neat indeed.’
Now Narraway was afraid for Stoker. He would lose his job for this; in fact, if he were caught, he could even be charged with treason himself. All sorts of possibilities raced through his head, including that of a deliberate trap. Even if it were, he wanted to read the pages, but not with Stoker present. If this were the act of personal