No Graves as Yet_ A Novel - Anne Perry [92]
Joseph closed his eyes for a moment. Views of rage, bloodshed, martial law, and oppression filled his mind, sickening him. He had wanted his father to be right, to be justified rather than foolish, but not at this cost. He looked up at Matthew, seeing the grayness in him with an overwhelming understanding. “Is there anything we can do?” he asked.
“I don’t know. At least Sandwell is aware of it. I imagine he will warn the king.”
“Will he? I mean, would he even be able to get access to see him without alarming . . . ?”
“Oh, yes. I think they’re distantly related somewhere along the line. From the marriage of one of Victoria’s umpteen children. I just don’t know if Sandwell can make the king believe it. No one has ever assassinated a British monarch.”
“Not assassinated, perhaps,” Joseph agreed. “But we’ve certainly had a good few murdered, deposed, or executed. But the last was bloodless, and a long time ago: 1688, to be precise.”
“Rather beyond living memory,” Matthew pointed out. “Did you come to ask what I’d found so far?” He took another bite of his bread and pâté.
“I came to tell you that the police have discovered that Sebastian lied about when he left home to go back to college the day Mother and Father were killed. He actually left a couple of hours earlier.”
Matthew was puzzled. “I thought he was killed over a week later. What difference does that make?”
Joseph shook his head. “The point is that he lied about it, and why do that unless there was something he wanted to conceal?”
Matthew shrugged. “So he had a secret,” he said with his mouth full. “Probably he was seeing a girl his parents wouldn’t approve of, or who was involved with someone else, possibly even someone’s wife. Sorry, Joe, but he was a remarkably good-looking young man, which he was well aware of, and he wasn’t the saint you like to think.”
“He wasn’t a saint!” Joseph said a trifle abruptly. “But he could behave perfectly decently where women were concerned, even nobly. And he was engaged to marry Regina Coopersmith, so obviously any involvement with someone else would be something he wouldn’t want known. But that isn’t why I’m telling you about it. What does matter is that to drive from Haslingfield to Cambridge he would pass along the Hauxton Road, going north, and it now seems that it must have been at pretty much the same time as Father and Mother were going south.”
Matthew stiffened, his hand with the bread in it halfway to his mouth, his eyes wide. “Are you saying he could have seen the crash? In God’s name, why wouldn’t he have said so?”
“Because he was afraid,” Joseph replied. He felt the tightness knot inside him. “Perhaps he recognized whoever it was, and knew they had seen him.”
Matthew’s eyes were fixed on Joseph’s. “And they killed him because of what he had seen?”
“Isn’t it possible?” Joseph asked. “Someone killed him! Of course, he may have passed before the crash and known nothing at all about it.”
“But if he did see it, that would explain his death.” Matthew ignored his supper and concentrated on the idea, leaning forward in his chair now, his face tense. “Have you come up with any other motive for what seems to be a pretty cold-blooded shooting?”
“Cold-blooded?”
“Do your students usually call on each other at half past five in the morning carrying guns?”
“They don’t have guns,” Joseph replied.
“Where did it come from?”
“We don’t know where it came from or where it went to. No one has ever seen it.”
“Except whoever used it,” Matthew pointed out. “But I presume no one left the college after Elwyn Allard found the body, so who left before? Don’t they have to pass the porter’s lodge at the gate?”
“Yes. And no one did.”
“So what happened to the gun?”
“We don’t know. The police searched everywhere, of course.”
Matthew chewed on his lip. “It begins to look as if you’ve got someone very dangerous indeed in your college, Joe. Be careful. Don’t go wandering around asking questions.”
“I don’t wander around!” Joseph said a little tartly, stung by the implication not only of aimlessness, but of incompetence