Angels in the Gloom (28 page)

Corcoran smiled, and for a moment there was an intense joy in his eyes. “Thank you, Joseph,” he said with a huskiness in his voice. “But I’ll be safe. You needn’t worry.”

“Do you know who it is, Shanley?”

“Do you think I would defend him if I did?”

“Wouldn’t you? If he were crucial to the project?”

“And he would give it to the Germans?” Corcoran said with mockery in his disbelief.

Joseph would not be diverted. “If you thought you could use him until exactly the right moment, then betray him before he betrayed you? Is that not what this kind of battle is about?”

Corcoran smiled. “My dear Joseph, I can’t answer that. I don’t know, because I haven’t faced the situation yet.” His eyes were dark and gentle as he looked back in the fast fading light. “But don’t fear for me. I’m very careful. Believe me, I care about the project more than anything else in my life. It is brilliant! More than I dare tell you. It would save not only a million lives, but Europe itself. That has to outweigh individual justice or even individual lives, hard as that is.”

There was no argument to make. Joseph stood silent, but the fear for Corcoran sank deeply into him.

It was not enough for him simply to pity or to fear. All the love in the world was worth nothing if he did not act. He had unraveled murder before now, even when he had not wanted to know who had committed it. Now, when it mattered desperately, he must try again—with renewed conviction.

CHAPTER TEN

“This!” Detta said with complete conviction, her eyes alight, her lips smiling. “It’s perfect!”

Matthew looked at it. It was a man’s wristwatch of a highly individual design, with a thin green circle around the face that was only visible when the light caught it. “It’s excellent,” he agreed, more bitterly aware of the irony than she was. It was a gift for her father, to her an Irish Nationalist fighting for his country against the British oppressor. There was nothing in her face, in its passion, laughter, or wild imagination that let him believe she also knew that he was the man who had ordered the murder of his parents. For him it was not just a war of nations but an acutely personal violation that would last as long as he lived.

“Yes, it’s excellent,” he agreed, struggling to mask his feelings. He refused to imagine Hannassey wearing it.

“Thank you for being so patient,” she said warmly. “It’s always difficult to know what to choose for a man. Women are easy.” Her expression was pinched with momentary pain.

She had never mentioned her mother. He had not wondered before what had happened to her, or if she was still alive. Perhaps she too had died tragically, even violently, and Detta had a burden like his to bear. Why had he not considered that? Why had he not considered many things, now that it was almost over—and one of them was going to pay the price of losing? He forced any dark thoughts from his mind.

“It was a pleasure,” he said aloud.

She gave a little laugh. “Liar!” she retorted, but there was no anger in her. She paid for the watch, and he could see that it was more expensive than she had anticipated, but the extra sacrifice gave her happiness. It was ridiculous that it should hurt him so much. He could give nothing to his father now. And here was the Peacemakers daughter, eyes soft with joy because she could give him something that cost her dearly. He walked outside while she finished the transaction.

A moment later she joined him in the street and they crossed into the park. The late afternoon sun was warm, creating an illusion of timelessness that both of them seemed willing to indulge in.

From where they were they could see at least twenty other couples, some walking arm in arm, many standing idly under the trees, some sitting on the grass. They passed one man wobbling on crutches, his left leg missing below the knee. The girl with him was white-faced and she kept looking away, as if afraid she would embarrass him by seeing his awkwardness. Perhaps she was revolted and knew he would see it in her eyes. Matthew caught it in her face, and for an instant hated her for it.

Detta touched his arm. “Some people can’t help it,” she whispered.

“We have to help it!” he exclaimed when they were out of earshot. “Won’t she expect him to love her when she’s older, when she’s put on weight and her bosom sags, or her skin has blemishes? Or does she think she’s always going to be so pretty?”

“She isn’t thinking, Matthew,” Detta answered drily. “She’s just feeling. She loved him as he was. You grow old slowly, this is all in a few days. And maybe he pushed her away? Have you thought of that? When we’re hurt in body and dignity, sometimes we take it out on those closest to us—and they don’t know what to do or how to help. She’s maybe hurting, too.”

He looked at her with surprise and a flood of perception he knew he should have had before. “You’ve seen that.” It was not a question.

She gave a little shrug, swinging her skirt with the elegance of her stride. “Irishmen are no different,” she answered as she walked ahead of him, the sun gleaming on her hair, catching rich, red lights in its darkness. She was slender, and there was the grace of a wild creature in her, moving when and where she would. The elusiveness of her was part of what Matthew loved. She made other women seem tame, too easily caught and held.

In the distance a band was playing, something patriotic and sentimental. Before the war the German bands had played here. Funny that Matthew should equate that music with peace now! What a blessed, lost innocence that was.

Three young men walked by together, in the uniform of the same regiment. They were laughing, teasing each other. They moved with a kind of unity, as if there were an invisible thread that governed them all.

A nursemaid pushed a perambulator. She seemed like a relic from another age.

A man stood in the middle of the grass, looking from side to side as though utterly lost. His face was bleak. Matthew had not seen these symptoms before, but Joseph had described them to him. The man had been so battered and deafened by the guns, seen such horror, that his mind had refused to accept any more. He had no idea where he was; the only reality was inside him, and that was unbearable.

This one looked about thirty years of age. Then as Matthew and Detta drew closer to him, Matthew realized with a twisting pity that he was probably more like nineteen or twenty. His eyes were old, but the skin of his cheek and neck said that he had barely reached maturity.

“Are you lost?” Detta said to the young man. She spoke softly, with a sweet, urgent gentleness.

He did not answer.

She asked again.

He looked at her, then the present returned to his mind. “I suppose so. I’m sorry. You look different. You’ve grown your hair. I thought you said you’d cut it off. Machines, or something. Caught in it—tore it right off. Someone’s scalp, you said.” There was no emotion in his face or his voice. He had seen so many people torn apart that one more made no impact at all.

Detta was startled.

An older woman came across the grass, running as fast as she could with her skirts flapping around her legs.

“I’m so sorry,” she apologized. “I just stopped for a moment. Saw someone I knew.” She looked at the youth. “Come on, Peter, this way. We’ll get a cup of tea at the Corner House, then it’s time to go home for supper.”

He went with her uncomplainingly. It probably made little difference to him where he was.

Detta watched them leave, her face tight with misery. “Why do we do this, Matthew?” she said bitterly. “Why do we care what happens to Belgium? Why do we let our young men be crucified for it?”

“I thought you liked fighting!” he retorted before he thought to guard his tongue. “Especially for a piece of land.”

She swung around to face him, her eyes blazing. “That’s different!” she said between her teeth. “We’re fighting for…” Then she stopped, a tide of color rushing up her cheeks.

He did not say anything. It was no longer necessary.

They walked a hundred yards or so in silence. A group of young women were laughing, absorbed in their own conversation. A man in striped trousers and a bowler hat strode briskly in the other direction, stiff and rhythmic, as if he were marching to his own inner beat.

“Is that really how you see us?” she said at last. “Pretty much the same as the Germans invading Belgium!”

“I think you see it from your own point of view, as we all do,” he replied. “You make rather a holy crusade of it, passionate and self-righteous, as if you were the only ones who loved your land, which is a bit of a bore.” It was the most honest answer he had ever given her. But today was different. It would be the last time he would see her. The arrests would be made today and the sabotage ended. Perhaps she knew it also. Their ability to use each other was drawing to a close. The pretense was so thin it was almost broken.

She paused a step ahead of him, forcing him to stop as well.

“Have you thought that all this time?” she asked. “Is that what has bred your calm, English tolerance? Your idea of being fair!”

“I suppose so,” he agreed. “You think that’s cold, don’t you?”

She looked away and started walking again. “I used to.”

He refused to ask if she had changed, still less why.

“I don’t mind fairness,” she added.

It would be dusk in an hour. The air was still warm and the park was full of people, more soldiers on leave, more girls returning from work, two middle-aged ladies, a handful of children. Whoever had been making the music seemed to have packed up and gone home.

“In fact, I admire fair play,” Detta added, still keeping her face half turned away. “ ‘Play up and play the game,” “ she went on. ”That’s what we love, and hate, in you. You’re impossible to understand.

They were at the end of the grass and crossed the path, then followed it to the gates. The shadows of the trees were long and the light had a muted tone. The traffic was a mixture of engines and the rattle of horses’ hooves.

“Are you hungry?” he asked. They had said all they had to; they had shared time and laughter and pain. She had wanted to know if the code was safe. He had deceived her that it was unbroken, and therefore British Intelligence could continue to use the information it gave them.

He looked at her. Her face was gold in the sun, a lock of hair straggling over her brow, and there was dust on her shoes. Could there possibly be any way not to let her go without betraying all those who trusted him?

“I’m thirsty,” she answered. She turned to him quickly, then away again. He knew with a tightening of the throat that she did not want to end it any more than he did. They were spinning it out, like a thread of gossamer, bright and fragile.

The traffic stopped and they crossed the road and walked in the close heat of the footpath, bumping into others, weaving their way. They crossed another street and came to a cafe, where they had tea and hard-boiled-egg sandwiches with cress. They talked about books, and ended up arguing over the virtues of Irish playwrights as opposed to English. She said all the best English ones were Irish anyway.

He asked how she would know, since she only read the Irish ones. She won the argument, then they moved to poets. She lost that argument, but she did it graciously, because the magic of the words enraptured her.

It was almost dark when they went out into the street again. The traffic had lessened a little, and the lamps were lit, but there were still people out walking. The breeze that ruffled the leaves at the edge of the park was warm on the skin.

There was nothing else to cling to, no more to say. Detta started to walk and Matthew lengthened his stride to keep up with her. Each was waiting for the other deliberately to make the break.

Then suddenly she stopped. “Lights!” she said hoarsely. “Look!”

He followed her gaze and saw them, searchlights probing the sky, first a couple, then more, long fingers poking into the vastness of the night.

She drew in her breath in a gasp, her body rigid. There was a silver tube, soundless, floating so high up it looked small, like a fat insect drifting on the wind. He knew it was a dirigible; the Germans called them zeppelins. There was a whole ship below the balloon itself, which in peacetime carried passengers. Now it carried a crew, and bombs.

She swung around to face him, her eyes huge, her body stiff. She put her hands on his arms and gripped him till he could feel the strength of her fingers through the cloth of his jacket. She was breathing hard. She knew it could drop bombs anywhere. There was no point in running, and nowhere to run to anyway.

They stood together, staring up as the lights picked out the gleaming object, then lost it, and found it again.

Then the first bomb came. They did not see it fall, only heard the crash and the explosion as it landed somewhere to the south, near the river. Flames burst upward, then rubble and dust. Not far away a woman screamed. Someone else was sobbing.

Matthew put his arms around Detta and held her. It seemed a natural thing to do, and she leaned against him, still clinging to his coat.

Another bomb came down, closer and far louder. They felt the jar of it as the ground trembled. He held her more tightly. There was no point in running because the balloon could change direction at any moment, drift or hover as it willed, or the wind took it, before it finally turned and powered its engines to take it home again.