No Graves As Yet Page 2

  Matthew was opening the attaché case and looking through the papers inside, his fingers moving delicately. There was something to do with insurance, a couple of letters, a bank statement.

  Matthew frowned and tipped the case upside down. Another paper slithered out, but it was only a receipt for a pair of shoes—12/6d. He ran his hands down inside the main compartment, then the side pockets, but there was nothing more. He looked across at Joseph and, with fingers trembling, put down the case and reached for the handbag. He was very careful not to touch the blood. At first he just looked inside, as if a paper would be easy to see. Then when he found nothing, he began carefully moving around the contents.

  Joseph could see two handkerchiefs, a comb . . . He thought of his mother’s soft hair with its gentle, natural curl, and the way it lay on her neck when she had it coiled up. He had to close his eyes to prevent the tears, and there was an ache in his throat so fierce he could not swallow.

  When he mastered himself and looked down at the handbag again, Matthew was staring at it in confusion.

  “Perhaps it was in his pocket?” Joseph suggested, his voice hoarse, jolting the silence.

  Matthew looked across at him, then turned to the sergeant.

  The sergeant hesitated.

  Joseph looked around. It was bare except for the cupboards, more a storeroom than an office. A simple window faced a delivery yard, and then rooftops beyond.

  Reluctantly the sergeant opened another drawer and took out a pile of clothes resting on an oilskin sheet. They were drenched with blood, dark and already stiffening. He did his best to conceal it, handing Matthew only the man’s jacket.

  His face blanched even whiter, Matthew took it and, with fingers clumsy now, searched through one pocket after another. He found a handkerchief, a penknife, two pipe cleaners, an odd button, and some loose change. There was no paper at all. He looked up at Joseph, a frown between his brows.

  “Maybe it’s in the car?” Joseph suggested.

  “It must be.” Matthew stood still for a moment. As if he had spoken it, Joseph knew what he was thinking: Regrettably, he would have to examine the rest of the clothes—just in case. He was startled by how fiercely he did not want to intrude into the intimate, the familiar smell. Death was not real yet, the pain of it only just beginning, but he knew its path; it was like the loss of Eleanor all over again. But they must look. Otherwise they would have to come back and do it later if the document was not in the car.

  But of course it was in the car. It had to be. In the glove compartment, or one of the pockets at the side. But how odd not to have put it in the briefcase along with the other papers. Isn’t that what anyone would do, automatically?

  The sergeant was waiting. He too did not want to inflict that distress.

  Matthew blinked several times. “May we have the others, please?” he requested.

  The clothes were inspected, as both brothers tried to distance their minds from what their hands were doing. There were no papers except for one small receipt in their father’s trouser pocket, soaked with blood and illegible, but there was no way in which it could be called a document. It was barely two or three inches square.

  They folded the clothes again and set them in a pile on top of the oilskin. It was an awkward moment. Joseph did not know what to do with them. The sight and touch of the garments knotted up his stomach with grief. He wished he had never had to see them at all. He certainly did not want to keep these clothes. Neither did he want to pass them over to strangers as if they did not matter.

  “May we take them?” he asked haltingly.

  Matthew jerked his hand up. Then the surprise died out of his face as if he understood.

  “Yes, sir, o’ course,” the sergeant replied. “I’ll just wrap ’em up for you.”

  “If we could see the car, please?” Matthew asked.

  But it was still on the way back from Hauxton, and they had to wait another half hour. Two more cups of tea later they were taken to the garage where the familiar yellow Lanchester sat gashed and crumpled. The whole of the engine was twisted sideways and half jammed into the front of the passenger area. All four tires were ripped. No human being could have remained alive inside it.

  Matthew stood still, struggling to keep his balance.

  Joseph reached out to him, glad to break the physical aloneness.

  Matthew righted himself and walked over toward the far side of the car, where the driver’s door was hanging open. He took his jacket off and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt.

  Joseph went to the windowless frame of the passenger door, keeping his eyes averted from the blood on the seat, and banged the glove compartment to make it open.

  There was nothing inside except a small tin of barley sugar and an extra pair of driving gloves. He looked across and saw Matthew’s face, wide-eyed and confused. There was no document in the side pocket. Joseph held the road atlas and riffled the pages, but nothing fell out.

  They searched the rest of the car as well as they could, forcing themselves to ignore the blood, the torn leather, the twisted metal, and the shards of glass, but there was no document of any sort. Joseph stepped back at last, elbows and shoulders bruised where he had caught himself on the jutting pieces of what had been seats and the misshapen frames of the doors. He had skinned his knuckles and broken a fingernail trying to pry up a piece of metal.

  He looked across at Matthew. “There’s nothing here,” he said.

  “No . . .” Matthew frowned. His right sleeve was torn and his face dirty and smeared with blood.

  A few years earlier Joseph might have asked his sibling if he was certain of his facts, but Matthew was beyond such brotherly condescension now. The seven years between them were closing fast.

  “Where else could it be?” he said instead.

  Matthew hesitated, breathing in and out slowly. “I don’t know,” he admitted. He looked beaten, his eyes hollow and his face shadowed with fatigue from battling the inner shock and grief, trying to keep it from overwhelming him. Perhaps this document was something to cling to, something over which he could have some control.

  Joseph understood how it mattered to him. John Reavley had wanted one of his sons to enter the medical profession. He had believed passionately that it was the noblest of callings. Joseph had started medical studies to please his father, and then found himself drowned by his inability to affect all but the smallest part of the suffering he witnessed. He knew his limitations, and he saw what he thought was his strength and his true vocation. He answered the call of the Church, using his gift for languages to study the original Greek and Hebrew of the scriptures. Souls needed healing as well as bodies. John Reavley was content with that, and deferred his dream to his second son.

  But Matthew had refused outright and turned his imagination, his intellect, and his eye for detail toward the Secret Intelligence Service. John Reavley had been bitterly disappointed. He despised espionage and all its works, and equally those who occupied themselves with it. That he had called Matthew in his professional capacity to help him with a document he had found was a far more powerful testimony of his judgment of it than anyone else would understand.

  It would have been a chance for Matthew to give his father a gift from his chosen calling, and it had slipped away forever. That was part of the pain etched in his face.

  Joseph lowered his eyes. Perhaps understanding was intrusive at this raw moment.

  “Have you any idea what it is?” he asked, investing his voice with urgency, as if it could matter.

  “He said it was a conspiracy,” Matthew replied, straightening his back to stand upright. He moved away from the door, coming around the back of the car to where Joseph was, keeping his voice very low. “And that it was the most dishonorable betrayal he had ever seen.”

  “Betrayal of whom?”

  “I don’t know. He said it was all in the paper.”

  “Had he told anyone else?”

  “No. He didn’t dare. He had no i
dea who was involved, but it went as high as the royal family.” Matthew looked surprised as he said it, as if hearing the words aloud startled him with their enormity. He stared at Joseph, searching for a response, an answer.

  Joseph waited a moment too long.

  “You don’t believe it!” Matthew’s voice was hoarse; he himself sounded unsure if it was an accusation or not. Looking at his brother’s eyes, Joseph could see that Matthew’s own certainty was wavering.

  Joseph wanted to save something out of the confusion. “Did he say he was bringing the document or that he would merely tell you about it? Could he have left it at home? In the safe, perhaps?”

  “I would have to see it,” Matthew argued, rolling his shirtsleeves down and fastening the cuffs again.

  “To do what?” Joseph pursued. “Wouldn’t it be better for him to tell you what it was—and he was perfectly capable of memorizing it for you—and then decide what to do, but keep it in the meantime?”

  It was a sensible suggestion. Matthew’s body eased, the stiffness draining out of it. “I suppose so. We’d better go home anyway. We ought to be with Judith. She’s alone. I don’t even know if she’s told Hannah. Someone will have to send her a telegram. She’ll come, of course. And we’ll need to know her train, to meet it.”

  “Yes, of course,” Joseph conceded. “There’ll be a lot of preparations.” He did not want to think of them now; they were intimate, final things, an acknowledgment that death was real and that the past could never be brought back. It was the locking of a door.

  They drove back from Great Shelford through the quiet lanes. The village of Selborne St. Giles looked just the same as it always had in the soft gold of the evening. They passed the stone mill, its walls flush with the river. The pond was flat as a polished sheet, reflecting the soft enamel blue of the sky. There was an arch of honeysuckle over the lych-gate to the churchyard, and the clock on the tower read just after half past six. In less than two hours they would hold Evensong.

  There were half a dozen people in the main street, although the shops were long closed. They passed the doctor with his pony and trap, going at a brisk pace. He waved cheerfully. He could not have heard the news yet.

  Joseph stiffened a little. That was one of the tasks that lay ahead, telling people. He was too late to wave back. The doctor would think him rude.

  Matthew swung the car left, along the side road to the house. The drive gates were closed, and Joseph got out to open them, then close them again as Matthew pulled up to the front door. Someone had already drawn the curtains downstairs—probably Mrs. Appleton, the housekeeper. Judith would not have thought of it.

  Matthew climbed out of the car just as Joseph reached him, and the front door opened. Judith stood on the step. She was fair-skinned like Matthew, but her hair fell in heavy waves and was a warmer brown. She was tall for a woman, and even though he was her brother, Joseph could see that she had a uniquely fierce and vulnerable kind of beauty. The strength inside her had yet to be refined, but it was there in her bones and her level, gray-blue eyes.

  Now she was bleached of all color and her eyelids were puffy. She blinked several times to hold back the tears. She looked at Matthew and tried to smile, then took the few steps across the porch onto the gravel to Joseph, and he held her motionless for a moment, then felt her body shake as she let the sobs wrench through her.

  He did not try to stop her or find any comforting words. There was no reason that made any sense, and no answer to the pain. He tightened his arms around her, clinging as much to her as she was to him. She was nothing like Alys, not really, yet the softness of her hair, the way it curled, slightly choked the tears in his throat.

  Matthew went in ahead of them. His footsteps faded along the wooden floor of the hall, and then they heard his voice murmuring something and Mrs. Appleton replying.

  Judith sniffed hard and pulled back a little. She felt in Joseph’s pocket for his handkerchief. She took it out and blew her nose, then wiped her eyes, screwing up the linen and clenching it in her hand. She turned away and went inside also, talking to him without looking back.

  “I don’t know what to do with myself. Isn’t it stupid?” She gulped. “I keep walking around from room to room, and going out again, then coming back—as if that would make it any different! I suppose we’ll have to tell people?”

  Joseph went up the steps behind her.

  “I sent Hannah a telegram, but that’s all,” she went on. “I don’t even remember what I said.” Inside she swiveled around to face him, ignoring Henry, the cream-haired retriever who came out of the sitting room at the sound of Joseph’s voice. “How do you tell people something like this? I can’t believe it’s real!”

  “Not yet,” he agreed, bending to touch the dog as it pushed against his hand. He stood in the familiar hallway with its oak staircase curving upward, the light from the landing window catching the watercolors on the wall. “It’ll come. Tomorrow morning it will begin.” He could remember with sickening clarity the first time he had woken up after Eleanor’s death. There was an instant when everything was as it had always been, the whole year of their marriage. Then the truth had washed over him like ice, and something inside him had never been warm again.

  There was a fleeting pity in Judith’s face, and he knew she was remembering also. He made an effort to force it away. She was twenty-three, almost an afterthought in the family. He should be protecting her, not thinking of himself.

  “Don’t worry about telling people,” he said gently. “I’ll do that.” He knew how hard it was, almost like making the death itself happen over again each time. “There’ll be other things to do. Just ordinary housekeeping, for a start. Practical things.”

  “Oh, yes.” She jerked her attention into focus. “Mrs. Appleton will deal with the cooking and the laundry, but I’ll tell Lettie to make up Hannah’s room. She’ll be here tomorrow. And I suppose there’s food to order. I’ve never done that! Mother always did.”

  Judith was quite unlike either her mother or Hannah, both of whom loved their kitchens and the smells of cooking, clean linen, beeswax polish, lemon soap. For them, to run a house was an art. To Judith it was a distraction from the real business of living, although to be honest, she was not yet certain for herself what that would prove to be. But Joseph knew it was not domesticity. To their mother’s exasperation, she had turned down at least two perfectly good offers of marriage.

  But this was not the time for such thoughts.

  “Ask Mrs. Appleton,” Joseph told her. He steadied his voice with an effort. “We’ll have to go through the diaries and cancel any appointments.”

  “Mother was going to judge the flower show,” she said, smiling and biting her lip, tears flooding her eyes. “They’ll have to find somebody else. I can’t do it, even if they were to ask me.”

  “And bills,” he added. “I’ll see the bank, and the solicitor.”

  She stood stiffly in the middle of the floor, her shoulders rigid. She was wearing a pale blouse and a soft green narrow skirt. She had not yet thought to put on black. “I suppose somebody’ll have to sort . . . clothes and things. I—” She gulped. “I haven’t been into the bedroom yet. I can’t!”

  He shook his head. “Too soon. It doesn’t matter, for ages.”

  She relaxed a fraction, as if she had been afraid he was going to force her. “Tea?”

  “Yes, please.” He was surprised how thirsty he was. His mouth was dry.

  Matthew was in the kitchen with Mrs. Appleton, a square, mild-faced woman with a stubborn jaw. Now she was standing at the table with her back to the stove on which a kettle was beginning to whistle. She wore her usual plain blue dress, and her cotton apron was screwed up at the right-hand corner as if she had unthinkingly used it to wipe the tears from her eyes. She sniffed fiercely as she looked first at Judith and then at Joseph, for once not bothering to tell the dog not to come in. She drew in her breath to say something, then decided she could not trust herself to keep h
er composure. Clearing her throat loudly, she turned to Matthew.

  “Oi’ll do that, Mr. Matthew. You’ll only scald yourself. You weren’t never use to man nor beast in the kitchen. Do nothing but take my jam tarts, as if there was no one else in the house to eat ’em. Here!” She snatched the kettle from him and with considerable clattering and banging made the tea.

  Lettie, the general housemaid, came in silently, her face pale and tearstained. Judith asked her to make up Hannah’s room, and she departed to obey, glad to have something to do.

  Reginald, the only indoor manservant, appeared and asked Joseph if they would want wine for dinner and if he should lay out black clothes for him and Matthew.

  Joseph declined the wine but accepted the offer to lay out the mourning clothes, and Reginald left. Mrs. Appleton’s husband, Albert, was outside working off his grief alone, digging in his beloved garden.

  In the kitchen they sat around the scrubbed table in silence, sipping the hot tea, each sunk in thought. The room was as familiar as life itself. All four children had been born in this house, learned to walk and talk here, left through the front gate to go to school. Matthew and Joseph had driven from here to go to university, Hannah to go to her wedding in the village church. Joseph could remember the endless fittings of her dress in the spare bedroom, she standing as still as she could while Alys went around her with pins in her hands and in her mouth, a tuck here, a lift there, determined the gown should be perfect. And it had been.

  Now Alys would never be back. Joseph could remember her perfume, always lily-of-the-valley. The bedroom would still smell of it.

  Hannah would be devastated. She was so close to her mother, so like her in a score of ways, she would feel robbed of the model for her life. There would be nobody to share with her the small successes and failures in the home, the children’s growth, the new things learned. No one else would reassure her anxieties, teach her the simple remedies for a fever or sore throat, or show the easy way to mend, to adapt, to make do. It was a companionship that was gone forever.