Death in Focus Read online

“Is Roger helping her?” he asked.

  She spent a moment or two hunting for a way to put her thoughts into words. “He lost people in the war, too,” she began. “Not as much family as she did, but people he knew, and cared about. Men who served with him. He was a pretty good officer, you know…”

  Her face was almost unreadable. Almost, not quite. He saw in it the one reason she could not understand him. She was used to circling around the subject. Was she going to break twenty years of hurt now? He would not blame her.

  “I know,” he replied. “And perhaps it’s easier for him because he feels he is doing something about it.”

  “What?” She frowned, still trying to understand.

  He must choose his words carefully. “Cultural attaché? I thought he was working pretty hard for understanding between Britain and Germany, the new leadership. They had one war with us; they don’t want another war, not with anyone.”

  She smiled and her shoulders relaxed. “Yes. That’s pretty much what she said. And it is a great comfort to her, as much as anything can be. He’ll do pretty well anything to prevent there ever being another war…in our lifetime.”

  He knew she was telling the truth. It was what he had feared. He smiled back at her and said nothing.

  CHAPTER

  9

  This time when Lucas met Peter Howard it was not in the woods, much as they both enjoyed the peace and the beauty of them. If you wanted to keep secrets, habits were dangerous. There was a walk in the fields that Toby liked just as much. In fact, any situation at all was perfect to him if he could be talked to, fussed over, then conveniently ignored to wander off on his own after any wonderful smell. He never went very far. He was Lucas’s dog, and he liked to know where Lucas was. It was his job to look after him.

  So, when Lucas received a telephone call just two days after their previous meeting, he put on his jacket and told Toby to fetch his lead, something he never had to be told twice.

  “Just going to take the dog for a walk,” Lucas called to Josephine, who was busy writing letters. She was a good correspondent. She kept in touch with many of the women she had worked with during the war. Some of these relationships had been friendships of forced circumstances, and after the war those were packed up, like other hardships of the time, and forgotten. Others lasted, in some cases because the women had victories and losses they could share with no one else. For many it had been the least lonely time in their lives, when the usual barriers of background did not matter. They had belonged in a way that seldom happened in peacetime.

  Josephine had begun to explain this to Lucas one day, and then seen from his face that he already knew. She did not question his friendship with Howard, and Lucas had no idea whether she knew that they still kept the old relationship by meeting up. It was something he could not share and she had never asked him to, or pushed for an explanation of exactly what he did during those dark and hectic days. She had her own secrets to keep and respected his. He loved her the more for it.

  As he parked the car at the field entrance, he thought again how much he admired his wife. Despite the length of their marriage she still managed to surprise him, not so much with new ideas as with interpretations of old ones that he had never perceived. She was so often completely original. He knew that it was her unusual imagination that had caused her to be chosen for her position, and he was proud of that.

  It puzzled him how she could possibly have given birth to a man like Charles, who seemed to be so desperately orthodox in everything. Was it the times he lived in? The need for conformity to preserve the old, with its values and its memories of safety? Or had the diplomatic service and the war done that to him? He had risen rapidly to a high position. He had married a perfect wife. Katherine was intelligent, charming, always elegant, and, above all, intensely loyal. Margot had taken after her in that. She also had the same flair for style and originality that Katherine had.

  Lucas opened the field gate and went in, closing it carefully behind him. He let Toby off the lead and watched him run joyously after a scent, nose to the ground, tail in the air.

  Lucas could understand why Charles, like uncountable others—for instance, Roger Cordell—had sworn that they would never fight another war, no matter what Hitler did. Mike had been Charles’s only son, and Lucas’s only grandson. But more than that, he had been a unique and beloved person. Lucas could still hear Mike’s voice in his mind, his laughter, his ridiculous jokes, his endless optimism. He had been so very young, on the brink of life.

  Katherine had seldom spoken of the death of her son, but it had numbed her, too, as it would any mother.

  Little wonder Margot went wild now and then, or that she had one romance after another. Lucas did not know how far she took them, nor did he want to know. But she never settled for anyone. Who could match Paul? He had not lived long enough to be anything other than perfect. Did she feel it would be a betrayal to marry someone else? He could understand that, too, irrational as it was.

  Elena had always been the one he understood best. He had missed her when she moved into her own flat in London. Her mind was so quick, so tireless. She understood him yet she was in other ways totally different from him, all emotion and imagination, her mind full of pictures.

  He had not liked the little he knew of Aiden Strother, but he would have forgiven him anything if he had made Elena happy. But he had betrayed her, as he had betrayed his country. Somehow the personal hurt more!

  She would get over it. Of course she would. Most people were hurt in love, sometime or other. Maybe she would find herself in her photography? She might discover her real talent at last. She was so often trying to experiment with light and shadow, with showing something in a different way from usual, so you saw a new dimension to it.

  She should be home from Amalfi soon. At the thought, his heart lifted.

  Toby had stopped and was barking. Then suddenly he recognized whoever or whatever it was he had seen and set off at a gallop. Please heaven it was not a cow or a sheep loose!

  Lucas strode forward up the gentle slope, limping slightly with his bad ankle, and at the top he saw that it was Peter Howard, who must have come in at the far side of the field. Lucas saw him kneel down as Toby charged up and threw himself at him, all but knocking him over.

  Lucas reached him just as he regained his balance. Howard spoke first to Toby, then smiled at Lucas, a bleak, very measured gesture, looking over the dog’s head. He moved quietly, stroking the animal’s ears, his attention still on the comfort of its affection.

  “You should get a dog,” Lucas said quickly. An animal would offer Peter companionship, an outlet for unspoken affection, perhaps a trust he would find nowhere else. Dogs did not need explanations, only feeding, exercise, to be talked to, and loved, endlessly loved. They never criticized.

  Howard did not look up. “Pamela doesn’t like animals,” he said quietly.

  Lucas saw the pain in his face, and was angry with himself for having spoken without thought. He had met Pamela Howard only a dozen or so times in all the years he had known Peter. The deep friendship between Peter and Lucas had grown, first from trust and intellectual respect, then wry jokes in times of tension or defeat, and through an enormous love of certain music, especially Beethoven and Liszt. They had also shared a peace in the company of animals, plus a score of other small things over the years that told almost too much about their inner loves.

  Lucas should have known that Pamela Howard would find dogs untidy, intrusive, and too demanding of her time. And also, perhaps, that Peter would show the animals a tenderness she had never awoken in him. Maybe they had hurt each other once too often. Dogs forgive, and will come back again and again. Children will, sometimes, and get hurt again. They learn only slowly to understand that some people never want the reality of love, because it always carries the possibility of pain.

  Lucas did not know what
hurt existed between Peter and his wife, nor did he want to. Everyone was due a degree of privacy. Some wounds healed in the light, some could be borne only because they were hidden.

  It would be impractical for Peter to have a dog because he traveled too often. He would not leave an animal in the care of someone who did not love it, talk to it, touch it.

  They started to walk along the edge of the field. The grass was tall already. Four months of decent weather and it would be ripe, and in this particular field it would be grazed with scarlet poppies, casually, like a spray of blood across the gold. Vivid, beautiful, and tearing at the memory, as poppies always did, since Flanders.

  Lucas knew what Howard had come for, apart from the pleasure of the walk. “Got a plan for Cordell?” he asked after fifty yards or so.

  Howard continued walking slowly, hands in his pockets. The sun was bright and high. Six weeks, and it would be the longest day of the year.

  Lucas did not ask what the plan was. Howard would tell him if he wished.

  They walked in silence a little farther. A long way off they heard lambs bleating. Otherwise, there was only the slight whisper of wind in the grass.

  “That’s only part of why I came…” Howard began.

  Lucas did not say anything. Somewhere at the back of his mind he had known that the plan regarding Cordell was not the reason.

  “I had a message from young Newton, from the railway station in Rome. I’ve mentioned him to you before. Just a telegram. He’s on his way to Berlin. He got intelligence that there’s a plan to assassinate Scharnhorst and blame it on the British. MI6, specifically…He’s a good man; he’s got it all in hand.”

  Lucas stopped walking, and Howard stopped also, facing him now.

  “You didn’t say that before,” Lucas said softly. “Why not? Are you saying you didn’t know? Scharnhorst is a pretty big fish. Maybe one of the worst close to Hitler…”

  “The worst,” Howard agreed.

  “No. Goebbels is the worst. If you can’t see that, you soon will. But if there was a plot against Scharnhorst, why didn’t we have any word of it?”

  “I don’t know. But we do now…”

  “And I suppose he’ll contact Cordell,” Lucas said.

  “Bound to…” Howard replied. “Unless Newton’s information included the possibility that Cordell knew, and didn’t tell him?”

  “Or is behind it?” Lucas was compelled to say it.

  Howard’s jaw muscles tightened. “I thought of that, too. If I don’t hear, I may go out there myself,” he said at last. “I hate going to Germany, it’s such a bloody tragedy, but if Cordell is a traitor, we’ll have to get rid of him fast, or else use him. It’s a decision that’ll have to be made instantly.”

  “I haven’t been there for a long time,” Lucas said thoughtfully. “I hear stories, but they’re always bits and pieces. Churchill’s afraid it’s all got to end in war again, or else a kind of defeat for us that’s worse than war.”

  Howard turned sharply and looked at him, a question in his face.

  “We become them…” Lucas answered. “We retreat and retreat, morally, until there is no meaningful difference left between us. What you see, and allow without a fight, is what you become yourself. What is the moral difference between the man who burns his neighbor to death, and the man who stands by and watches him do it?”

  Howard’s face for once showed his emotion. “None,” he replied. “Or none that I could defend. But the Germans are starving; decent men are willing to work, yet there is nothing for them. Or there wasn’t. Rearming offers work, Lucas. And God knows, they are certainly doing that! We would know, if we wanted to look, but we don’t!” He hesitated a moment.

  Lucas did not interrupt him. He needed to say this.

  “The violence is increasing, and the oppression. They’re building camps to put prisoners in, not people who’ve committed crimes, but people who are born guilty of being Gypsies or Jews or, God help us, homosexuals. Why the hell do we care what people do in their own bedrooms? I know, I know…” He made a small gesture of dismissal, chopping the air with his hand. “They’re an instinctive target, vulnerable, and we don’t understand, so we are afraid. How many unhappy people are branded just because they look or sound different, and don’t fit in with what we feel comfortable with?”

  Lucas did not bother to respond.

  “Somebody to lash out at,” Howard answered himself. “They’re frightened, and fear makes people angry because they are ashamed that they can’t do anything about it. It’s easier if it’s someone’s fault. Blame the Communists, or the Jews. Get rid of them, and everything will be all right.”

  “Is it really that bad?” It was a rhetorical question, but Lucas asked it anyway.

  Howard glanced at him with a rueful smile. “Sorry. Have you seen Churchill recently?”

  “Yesterday. He’s in one of his ‘black dog’ moods. Nobody wants to listen to him. We’ve got too many Nazi admirers in the government and other places of influence, and they’re gaining ground. We have an infinite capacity for believing whatever we need to in order to keep our world the way we need it to be, for our own sanity. We want to believe that Hitler’s fine, and as soon as he’s got Germany back on its feet he’ll direct his anger eastward at the Communists, and we’ll all be better off for it.”

  Howard swore under his breath.

  “Peter, nobody wants another war,” Lucas said quietly. “We believe what we need to. We can’t go through that again. It takes a kind of courage to hope. The more reality is against you, the more courage it takes.”

  “Hope…” Howard turned the thought over in his mind. “What about reality? I know! I know…you’re going to say ‘whose reality?’ And what is faith worth, if it’s in the impossible?”

  Lucas smiled. “Actually, I would have said faith is only of value if it seems impossible. At least that’s what Josephine would say.”

  Howard gave him one of his rare, beautiful smiles, shadowless, like a burst of pure sunlight. Then it was gone again. “Who am I to argue with Josephine?” he said.

  “Nobody,” Lucas agreed. “Certainly not me. Even Elena doesn’t argue with her grandmother.”

  “I must meet your Elena one day. She sounds formidable.”

  “She is,” Lucas agreed. “Can argue the leg off an iron pot!”

  “And you adore her,” Howard added.

  “I always have. Too late to abandon the habit now.” He gave a quick shrug. “What are you going to do about Cordell?”

  “I suppose he might be useful,” Howard said unhappily. “Feed him enough false information, although that’s a risky business. It’ll be even harder keeping real information from him. He’s pretty high up. May have to pull him out. Then what the hell do we do with him? It’s not wartime.”

  “You’ll have to be very careful…” Lucas warned.

  “I’m always careful,” Howard replied. “Well…almost always.” He added that because Lucas knew very well some of the wilder things he had done during the war.

  Toby went off chasing after what might have been a rabbit, more likely a ripple of wind through the corn.

  They both stopped and stared across the land, dappled with cloud and sunshine, all of it basking in utter peace, like a cat in the sun.

  They did not need to finish the conversation. They both knew how the rest of it played out.

  Lucas turned to look at Howard’s face as he watched the corn shaking where Toby plowed through it, returning happily, his tail high. He had not caught anything—he never did—but he was the last one to care. He slid to a halt in front of Howard, who bent down and gave him a sudden hug, to Toby’s wriggling delight. Lucas saw in his friend a wave of emotion he had not witnessed before, a complete and unselfconscious love that he seldom dared reveal. He said nothing.

  Howard rose t
o his feet and they walked back in companionable silence along the hedgerow.

  * * *

  —

  Lucas arrived home, ready to enjoy a little quiet time at the piano, perhaps have another attempt at playing one of his favorite Chopin pieces.

  Josephine greeted him, shaking her head. “You’ve forgotten, haven’t you?” It was more a statement than a question.

  “Forgotten what?” he asked. He had no idea what she was referring to. “Was I supposed to have fetched something?”

  Toby sat patiently, waiting to have his lead removed.

  “Forgotten what?” he repeated, undoing the clip so Toby could go and find his dinner. He knew exactly where it was, and that it was time.

  Josephine shook her head. She regarded him with weary affection. “We are having dinner with Charles and Katherine…”

  “Again?” he said with surprise. “But we saw them only the other day. Are you sure?” He was prevaricating. Of course she was sure. Josephine did not make mistakes like that. More to the point, she would not be going were there no arrangement to do so. She looked very elegant. She had kept her poise, and her beautiful hair, no less lovely because it was now completely silver. She was dressed in a dark blue gown that fell well below the knee, but clung to her because of the way it was cut. Normally he was very unobservant about clothes, but he could see that this was special.

  “It’s Katherine’s birthday,” she reminded him.

  “Oh! Oh dear. I forgot. We should have chosen something for her…”

  “A bit late now,” she said drily, but she could not keep the smile from giving her away.

  “You have something for her?” he said with the assurance of long habit.

  “Of course I have! Elena’s birthday is the only one you never forget!”

  “Well, she was born on the fifth of November!” he said reasonably. “Guy Fawkes Day. If anyone else had been born on Christmas Day, or St. George’s Day, or something, then I would remember them,” he excused himself.