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“Yes. He could have been going directly to Cordell, to have him act to stop it. Ironic when he’s the man we can’t entirely trust.” Howard’s face was touched by a bitter amusement. His dry sense of humor was at its best in the worst difficulties. It was a peculiarly English trait of character, one that Lucas both liked and admired. But it was also a sign that Howard could see the bitterness of the situation. It was his defense against helplessness.
“Given that we can’t prevent it,” Lucas said quietly, “what can we do to limit the damage—without Cordell’s assistance?”
“It had better be without his knowledge as well,” Howard pointed out. “I’m not yet ready to give him the slightest idea we don’t trust him. In fact, I won’t ever be ready. If he’s innocent, I don’t want him to know we suspected him. And if he’s guilty, I’m going to use the bastard in every way I can. He’ll be the perfect source of misinformation, if we do it well enough!” He gave a brief grunt of laughter. “I’d never make a comedian—my timing is ghastly!”
“Have you considered that Cordell could be involved, if there is a plan to assassinate Scharnhorst?” Lucas asked. “If MI6 is blamed, that could well be his intention!” He hated saying it, but it weighed on him like a collar of lead.
“I suppose,” Howard agreed, although from the look in his eyes that thought had only just come to him. “It follows. I don’t know who to trust in Berlin. If they blame MI6, he’ll have to respond and may make the situation a lot worse.” He gave a tiny downward smile, no more than a curve of his lips. “The interesting question is, is it MI6 under his direction who’ll be responding? Or could he possibly be acting in a German plot to start a quarrel as a way of breaking some diplomatic agreement?”
“Or both,” Lucas added.
Howard frowned, looked down for a moment, then up again, “I took it to Bradley. At least part of it. I…” He looked worried and slightly embarrassed, which Lucas knew was an unusual experience for him.
Lucas asked the question he had to. “Don’t you trust him?” Un
til he knew that, there was nowhere else to proceed.
“Trust Bradley to be honest?” Howard smiled. “As honest as we ever are when we’re afraid. And who, with any sense, isn’t afraid of something?”
“What is he afraid of?” Lucas asked. He knew Howard would understand the complexity of the question and not merely slide over the surface. They had never done that with each other.
“I suppose he’s afraid of betraying the past, the war to end all wars. All the numberless dead. Or just plain being wrong. Of telling people he cares about something they can’t bear to hear. Of waking up one morning and finding he missed something desperately important…”
“We’re all afraid of that,” Lucas said, suddenly crushed with memories he had forced out of his mind. It had been a way of life…once. “The only way you can excuse it is to leave the whole damn job to someone else.”
Lucas had thought Peter was going to say something, but he didn’t. He just sat looking at Lucas.
“I’m not coming back,” Lucas answered the silence. “I’m only going to say what you’re saying. You’ll have to deal with Cordell yourself. And if someone kills Scharnhorst, hope that the Germans get the right person for it…poor devil.”
“Perhaps I should go there myself?”
“No!” Lucas sat forward in his chair. “No, that would be exactly what they want, to lure out one of our best men, high up in the order of command and a person very much worth capturing. Don’t be a fool, Peter! Command requires more responsibility than that! You can’t go haring off just because you want to feel as if you’re doing something. You’ve got plenty of good men in the field. Trust them. That’s what they’re there for.”
Lucas was right, and Howard knew it, however much he did not want to. Lucas knew what a hard discipline it was to sit in London and tell other men what to do. But Howard had too much knowledge now to risk his own life without absolute necessity. Calm was needed, courage and intelligence, not bravery on the line. It felt like leading from the back, from safety, which they both deplored.
“You’ll have to send someone you trust,” Lucas said, “to keep separate from Cordell at all times, and he’ll have to know why, without doing anything to give it away. About the best he can do is see if he can get Scharnhorst’s assassination—should it go ahead—blamed on the Germans themselves. Scharnhorst will have many enemies. Look among those whose jobs he has cost, one way or another. Or better still, someone whose family he has ruined. There are enough to go around. Although I hate blaming someone innocent…It may be that you don’t have to.”
Howard rose to his feet. “Yes, one innocent man in place of another is hardly an improvement, but there are plenty of violent people who’d be happy to see the end of Scharnhorst. I’ll let you know what happens regarding Cordell. Thank you for the advice.”
Lucas did not say anything; it had all been said, and understood. He walked to the front door and saw Howard on his way.
He was going back to his study when he met Josephine in the hall. He felt oddly wrong-footed after Howard’s observation of her. He looked at her now as sunlight shone from the garden door behind her. She was still slim, and the bones of her face, which Elena had inherited, only slightly blurred by age. Had she really known the nature of his work all this time?
“Are you ready for lunch?” she asked. “It’s cold bacon and egg pie, with tomato relish on the side.”
It was one of his favorites. There was nothing better than fresh, flaky pastry around the sharpness of bacon and perfectly cooked eggs. A pot of fresh tea, fragrant and slightly aromatic, would be marvelous. Earl Grey, perhaps? He must eat. He had learned long ago that no one is at their best if they do not eat and sleep. Punishing yourself just makes you a damn nuisance to everyone else.
“Yes, please,” he replied. Then he looked more closely at her face. There was anxiety in her eyes. She might try to hide it but, once seen, it was too easy to recognize. “What is it?” he asked, but lightly, so she could deny it, or brush it away if she chose. “Josephine?”
“It must be serious for him to have come here openly,” she replied. “Is it something to do with Elena? And if you dare lie to me, in what you imagine is protecting me, I will not forgive you.”
He could see that she meant it, even though he had never known her not to forgive anyone, in time. But then perhaps there was a lot he had not known.
“No, it’s nothing to do with Elena,” he said honestly. Well…almost honestly. Ian Newton was dead, on a train to Paris. All he knew of Elena was that she had left Amalfi for Rome with a young man she had met. The route home from Rome was via Paris. Surely not…Better to keep quiet about that until he had learned more. “It was about something that he fears will happen in Berlin,” he added.
She looked at him long and steadily, then nodded and turned away. “Lunch will be in five minutes,” she said over her shoulder. “When the kettle has boiled.”
CHAPTER
