Treason at Lisson Grove - Anne Perry [42]
“Why would anyone at Lisson Grove be willing to help O’Neil?” she asked. It was like trying to take gravel out of a wound, only far deeper than a scraped knee or elbow. She thought of Daniel’s face as he sat on one of the hard-backed kitchen chairs, dirt and blood on his legs, while she tried to clean where he had torn the skin off, and pick out the tiny stones. There had been tears in his eyes and he had stared resolutely at the ceiling, trying to stop them from spilling over and giving him away.
“Many reasons,” Narraway replied. “You cannot do a job like mine without making enemies. You hear things about people you might very much prefer not to know, but that is a luxury you sacrifice when you accept the responsibility.”
“I know that,” she told him.
His eyes wandered a little. “Really? How do you know that, Charlotte?”
She saw the trap and slipped around it. “Not from Thomas. He doesn’t discuss his cases since he joined Special Branch. And anyway, I don’t think you can explain to someone else such a complicated thing.”
He was watching her intently now. His eyes were so dark it was hard to read the expression in them. The lines in his face showed all the emotions that had passed over them through the years: the anxiety, the laughter, and the grief.
“My eldest sister was murdered, many years ago now,” she explained. “But perhaps you know that already. Several young women were at that time. We had no idea who was responsible. In the course of the investigation we learned a great deal about each other that would have been far more comfortable not to have known, and we cannot unlearn such things.” She remembered it with pain now, even though it was fourteen years ago.
She looked up at him and saw his surprise. The only way to cover the discomfort was to continue talking.
“After that, when Thomas and I were married, I am afraid I meddled a good deal in many of his cases, particularly those where Society people were involved. I had an advantage in being able to meet them socially, and observe things he never could. One listens to gossip as a matter of course. It is largely what Society is about. But when you do it intelligently, actually trying to learn things, comparing what one person says with what another does, asking questions obliquely, weighing answers, you cannot help but learn much that is private to other people, painful, vulnerable, and absolutely none of your affair.”
He moved his head very slightly in assent, but he knew it was not necessary to speak.
For a little while they rode in silence. The rhythmic clatter of the wheels over the railway ties was comfortable, almost somnolent. It had been a difficult and tiring few days and she found herself drifting into a daze, then woke with a start. She hoped she had not been lolling there with her mouth open!
Still, she did not yet know enough about what she could do to help and asked, “Do you know who it was at Lisson Grove who betrayed you?”
“No, I don’t,” he admitted. “I have considered several possibilities. In fact the only people I am certain it is not are Thomas and a man called Stoker. It makes me realize how incompetent I have been that I suspected nothing. I was always looking outward, at the enemies I knew. In this profession I should have looked behind me as well.”
She did not argue. “So we can trust no one in Special Branch, apart from Stoker,” she concluded. “Then I suppose we need to concentrate on Ireland. Why does Cormac O’Neil hate you so much? If I am to learn anything, I need to know what to build upon.”
This time he did not look away from her, but she could hear the reluctance in his voice. He told her only because he had to. “When he was planning an uprising I was the one who learned about it and prevented it. I did it by turning to his sister-in-law, Sean’s wife, and using the information she gave me to have his men arrested