No Graves as Yet_ A Novel - Anne Perry [122]
“It is that,” Carter agreed.
“I thought I might see Dr. Beecher along here. He hasn’t been this way already, has he?”
“Dr. Beecher? No, sir. Comes occasional loike, but not very often.”
“He’s a friend of mine.”
“Nice gentleman, sir. Friend to a lot o’ folk.” Carter nodded. “Always got a good word. Talked a bit about them ole riverboats. Interested, ‘e is, though between you an’ me, Oi think ’e do it only to be agreeable. ’E knows Oi get lonely since moi Bessie died, an’ a bit of a chat sets me up for the day.”
That was the Beecher that Joseph knew, a man of great kindness, which he always masked as something else so there was never debt.
“You must have been talking together when young Allard was killed,” he remarked. How bare that sounded.
“Not that mornin’, sir,” Carter shook his head. “Oi tole the police gentleman it were, because Oi forgot, but that were the day Oi ’ad the bad puncture. Oi ’ad to fix it, an’ it took me an age ’cos it were in two places, an’ Oi didn’t see it at first. An hour late ’ome, Oi were. O’ course Dr. Beecher must’ve bin ’ere if ’e said so, but Oi didn’t see ’im ’cos Oi weren’t, if you get me?”
“Yes,” Joseph said slowly, his own voice sounding far away, as if it belonged to someone else. “Yes . . . I see. Thank you.” And he turned and walked slowly along the grass.
Did he have a moral obligation to tell Perth? He had agreed that the law was above them all, and it was. But he needed to be sure. Right now he was certain of nothing at all.
CHAPTER
TWELVE
On Saturday afternoon Matthew dined with Joseph at the Pickerel, overlooking the river. There were just as many people there as always, sitting around the tables, leaning forward in conversation, but voices were lower than a week earlier, and there was less laughter.
Punts still drifted back and forth on the water, young men balancing in the sterns with long poles clasped, some with grace, others with precarious awkwardness. Girls, wind catching the gossamerlike sleeves of their pale dresses, lay half reclined on the seats. Some wore sweeping hats, or hats decked with flowers to shade their faces; others had parasols of muslin or lace, which dappled the light. One girl, bare-headed, with russet hair, trailed a slender arm into the river, her skin brown from the sun, her fingers shedding bright drops behind her in the golden light.
“One of us ought to go home,” Matthew said, reaching his knife into the Belgian pâté and spreading more of it onto his toast. “It ought to be you, and anyway I need to go and see Shanley Corcoran again. With things as they are, he’s about the only person I dare trust.”
“Are you any further?” Joseph asked, then immediately wished he hadn’t. He saw the frustration in Matthew’s face and knew the answer.
Matthew ate another mouthful and swallowed the last of his red wine, then poured himself more, before replying.
“Only ideas. Shearing doesn’t think it is an Irish plot. He seems to be trying to steer me away from it, although I have to admit his logic is pretty sound.” He reached for more butter. “But then of course I don’t know beyond any doubt at all that he isn’t the one behind it.”
“We don’t know that about anyone, do we?” Joseph asked.
“Not really,” Matthew agreed. “Except Shanley. That’s why I need to speak to him. There’s . . .” He looked across the river, narrowing his eyes against the brilliance of the lowering sun. “There’s a possibility it could be an assassination attempt against the king, although the more I consider it, the less certain I am that anyone would benefit from it. I don’t know what I think anymore.”
“There was a document,” Joseph said. “And whatever was in it, it was sufficient for someone to kill Father.”
Matthew looked weary. “Perhaps it was evidence of a crime,” he said flatly. “Simply a piece of ordinary greed. Maybe we were looking beyond the mark, for something wildly political involving the grand tide of history, and it was only a grubby little bank robbery or fraud.”
“Two copies of it?” Joseph said skeptically. Matthew lifted his head, his eyes widening. “It might