Part 17 (1/2)

'Where have you been?' Narraway demanded as soon as she came into Mrs Hogan's sitting room. He had been standing by the window, or perhaps pacing. He looked exhausted and tense, as if his imagination had plagued him with fear. His eyes were hollow and the lines in his face deeper than she had ever seen them before. 'Are you all right? Who's with you? Where is he?'

'n.o.body is with me,' she answered. 'But I am perfectly all right.'

'Alone?' His voice shook. 'You were out on the street alone, in the dark? For G.o.d's sake, Charlotte, what's the matter with you? Anything could have happened. I wouldn't even have known!' He put out his hand and gripped her arm. She could feel the strength of him, as if he were quite unaware how tightly he held her.

'Nothing happened to me, Victor. I wasn't very far away. And it isn't late. There are plenty of people about,' she a.s.sured him.

'You could have been lost . . .'

'Then I would have asked for directions,' she said. 'Please, there is no need to be concerned. If I'd had to walk a little out of my way to get here it wouldn't have hurt me.'

'You could have-' he began, then stopped, perhaps realising that his fear was disproportionate. He let go of her. 'I'm sorry. I . . .'

She looked at him. It was a mistake. For an instant his emotion was too plain in his eyes. She did not want to know that he cared so much. Now it would be impossible for either of them to pretend he did not love her, and she could not pretend she did not know.

She turned away, feeling the colour burning on her skin. All words would be belittling the truth.

He stood still.

'I went to see Cormac O'Neil,' she said after a moment or two.

'What?'

'I was perfectly safe. I wanted to hear from him exactly what happened, or at least what he believes.'

'And what did he say?' he asked quickly, his voice cracking with tension.

She did not want to look at him, to intrude into old grief, which was still obviously so sharp, but evasion was cowardly. She met his eyes and repeated to him what Cormac had said, including the fact that Talulla was Kate's daughter.

'That's probably how he sees it,' Narraway answered when she had finished. 'I dare say he couldn't live with the truth. Kate was beautiful.' He smiled briefly. In that moment she could imagine the man he had been twenty years earlier: younger, more virile, perhaps less wise.

'Few men could resist her,' he went on. 'I didn't try. I knew they were using her to trap me. She was brave, pa.s.sionate . . .' He smiled wryly. 'Perhaps a little short on humour, but far more intelligent than they realised. It sometimes happens when women are beautiful. People don't see any further than that, especially men. It's uncomfortable. We see what we want to see.'

Charlotte frowned, suddenly thinking of Kate: a p.a.w.n to others, albeit one that they wanted, fought over, desired. 'Why do you say intelligent?' she asked.

'We talked,' he replied. 'About the cause, what they planned to do. I persuaded her it would rebound against them, and it would have. The deaths would have been violent and widespread. Attacks like that don't crush people and make them surrender. They have exactly the opposite effect. They would have united England against the rebels, who could have lost all sympathy from everyone in Europe, even from some of their own. Kate told me what they were going to do, the details, so I could have it stopped.'

Charlotte tried to imagine it, the grief, the cost.

'Who killed her?' she asked. She felt the loss touch her, as if she had known Kate more than simply as a name, an imagined face.

'Sean,' he replied. 'I don't know whether it was for betraying Ireland, as he saw it, or betraying him.'

'With you?'

Narraway coloured, but he did not look away from her. 'Yes.'

'Do you know that, beyond doubt?'

'Yes.' His throat was so tight his voice sounded half strangled. 'I found her body. I think he meant me to.'

She could not afford pity now. 'Why are you sure it was Sean who killed her?' She had to be certain so she could get rid of the doubt for ever. If Narraway himself had killed her it might, by some twisted logic of politics and terror, be what he had to do to save even greater bloodshed. She looked at him now with a mixture of new understanding of the weight he carried, sorrow for what it had cost him: whether that were a shame now, or a lack of it which would be worse.

How did that affect Pitt? He would always hurt for his mistakes, and for the decisions from which there was no escape. Thank heaven the biggest ones were not his to make.

'Why are you sure it was Sean who killed her?' Charlotte repeated.

He looked at her steadily. 'What you really mean is, how can I prove I didn't kill her myself?'

She felt a heat of shame in her own face. At least she would not lie to him. 'Yes.'

He did not question her, or blame her for thinking it possible.

'She was cold when I found her,' he replied. 'Sean tried to blame me. The police would have been happy to agree, but I was with the Viceroy in the Residence in Phoenix Park at the time. Half a dozen staff saw me there, apart from the Viceroy himself, and the police on guard duty. They didn't know who I was, but they would have recognised me in court, if it had been necessary. The briefest investigation showed them that I couldn't have been anywhere near where Kate was killed. It also proved that Sean lied when he said he saw me, and that by his own admission, he was there.' He hesitated. 'If you need to, you can check it.' His smile was there for a moment, then gone. 'Don't you think they'd have loved to hang me for it, if they'd had the ghost of a chance?'

'Yes,' she agreed, feeling the weight ease from her. Grief was one thing, but without guilt it was a pa.s.sing wound, something that would heal. 'I'm . . . I'm sorry I needed to ask. Perhaps I should have known you wouldn't have done it.'

'I would like you to think well of me, Charlotte,' he said quietly. 'But I would rather you saw me as a real person, capable of good and ill, and of pity, and shame . . .'

'Victor . . . don't . . .'

He turned away slowly, staring at the fire. 'I'm sorry. It won't happen again.'

She left quietly, going up to her room. She needed to be alone, and there was nothing either of them could say that would do anything but make matters worse.

They were at breakfast the following morning: she with a slight headache after sleeping badly; he weary, but with the mark of professionalism so graciously back in place that yesterday could have been a dream, something she thought of that had never happened.

They were eating toast and marmalade when the messenger arrived with a letter for Narraway. He thanked Mrs Hogan, who brought it, then tore it open.

Charlotte watched his face but she could not read anything more than surprise. When he looked up she waited for him to speak.

'It's from Cormac,' he said gently. 'He wants me to go and see him, at midday. He will tell me what happened, and give me proof.'

She was puzzled, remembering Cormac's hate, the pain that seemed as sharp as it must have been the day it happened. She leaned forward. 'Don't go. You won't, will you?'

He put the letter down. 'I came for the truth, Charlotte. He may give it to me, even if it is not what he means to do. I have to go.'

'He still hates you,' she argued. 'He can't afford to face the truth, Victor. It would place him in the wrong. All he has left is his illusions of what really happened, that Kate was loyal to Ireland and the cause, and that it would all have worked, except for you. He can't give that up.'

'I know,' he a.s.sured her, reaching out his lean hand and touching her gently, for an instant, then withdrawing it again. 'But I can't afford not to go. I have nothing left to lose either. If it was Cormac who created the whole betrayal of Mulhare, I need to know how he did it, and be able to prove it to Croxdale.' His face tightened. 'Rather more than that, I need to find out who is the traitor in Lisson Grove. I can't let that go.' He did not offer any rationalisation, taking it for granted that Charlotte understood.

It gave her an odd feeling of being included, even of belonging. It was frightening for the emotional enormity of it, and yet there was a warmth to it she would not willingly have sacrificed.

She did not argue any further, but nodded, and determined to follow after him and stay where she could see him.

He went out of the house quite casually, as if merely to look at the weather. Then, as she came to the door, he turned and walked quickly towards the end of the road.