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‘I’m sorry,’ Daniel apologised. He must not let her see, or guess, the real reason for his inability to command his thoughts. ‘I am. I got Roman’s message too late to call on you. I was . . . out . . .’
She grunted rather than spoke. ‘Breakfast?’
‘No, dinner last night. With my parents.’
‘I mean would you like breakfast?’ she offered. ‘Nobody does their best thinking on an empty stomach.’
‘Am I going to need my best thinking?’ he asked, trying to invest some lightness into his voice, and failing. He did not want more nasty surprises.
‘Yes,’ Mercy said simply.
She took him through to the kitchen where Blackwell was sitting at the table nursing a cold cup of tea.
‘Ah!’ he said as soon as he saw Daniel. ‘What news?’ His dark face was crumpled, as if he were expecting something bad and trying to guess the nature of it before he was told.
‘You sent for me!’ Daniel said, sitting down in the chair opposite him.
‘True,’ Blackwell agreed. ‘Ma, you’d better feed him. He looks bloody awful.’
‘I can see that,’ Mercy replied without turning round. She was already busy with slicing bread and warming up the grill. ‘And watch your manners, Roman. I’m still your mother, and don’t you forget it!’
Blackwell smiled and his face lit with genuine amusement. ‘My one reliable pleasure in life is baiting Mercy. She never fails to bite.’
‘Rubbish,’ she said. ‘Balderdash!’
‘What have you found out so far?’ Blackwell asked Daniel. ‘I think I can add to it.’
‘A lot,’ Daniel replied, conscious of telling Blackwell less than the truth. But Blackwell admired Pitt so much, he would not want to know about the Portuguese murder and the compromise Pitt had felt he had to make. ‘But without proof it all amounts to nothing,’ he added, refusing to give Graves’ manuscript the credit of belief.
Daniel felt a little like a moth pinned to a board, so piercing was Blackwell’s gaze.
‘Bad, eh?’ Blackwell asked. ‘You don’t care if Graves hangs. He deserves to, if he did that to his wife. And by all accounts, he’s a rotten sod anyway, quite apart from whether he killed her or not. So, what’s eating at you? Old fford Croft going to throw you out if you can’t rescue Graves? Or are you up to rescuing Kitchener, or whatever his name is?’
‘Kitteridge,’ Daniel corrected. ‘He’s looking for holes in the law . . .’
‘Well, if he can’t find a hole in the law, he’s an ass! It’s as full of holes as a sieve!’ Blackwell said in disgust. ‘Some you could drive a coach and horses through, but none that will save Russell Graves! Why does fford Croft want to? Have you worked that out yet?’
‘It’s a debt he owes. An old occasion when Marcus let Graves’ father down. It weighs on him,’ Daniel replied.
‘So, was his father a rotten sod as well?’ Blackwell’s eyebrows rose, giving his face a startled look.
‘A promise is a
promise,’ Daniel replied, feeling even more cornered. ‘It’s about you, not whoever you made the promise to!’ He could almost hear his father’s voice in his head saying it for him.
‘Have a cup of tea.’ Blackwell turned in his seat. ‘Is that kettle boiling yet?’ It was an oblique observation, not a question as to fact. Blackwell turned to Daniel again. ‘So why do we care so much? And don’t lie to me. You’re not good enough at it yet to get away with it. Not to me, anyway. Don’t think you’ll ever be. You care so much, it’s got you all twisted up and cold inside, like a pig’s tail in ice. Why?’
Mercy put a fresh pot of tea and a fresh, crisp bacon sandwich in front of Daniel.
Blackwell sat and listened, his face increasingly grim, while Daniel told him very briefly about Graves’ intended book and its exposure of Narraway and Vespasia Cumming-Gould, who became his wife. He finished up by admitting it had to be the incontestable conclusion that the person most likely to destroy Graves was someone in Special Branch – either Thomas Pitt himself, or someone fulfilling his orders. He was uncomfortably conscious of omitting reference to Pitt, or the Portuguese murder.
Daniel wanted to choose his words carefully, understanding that his emotion was too strong for him. ‘He didn’t know anything about the book,’ he said, and then realised how incompetent that made Pitt seem. ‘He should have. Some of his own men must have access to that kind of information . . .’
Blackwell pursed his lips. His disgust was plain, but he did not waste words on it. ‘Has Graves a publisher for this thing?’
‘He says so,’ Daniel replied. ‘Ah! I see. Why is the publisher prepared to set up a book like this, and ruin his own reputation? Are there damages the people in it will claim – if they’re still alive? That’s the thing. Most of them are dead. Lord Narraway is, so is Lady Vespasia . . .’ He felt a sudden tightness in his throat as he said that. It had not been long ago, and the loss was still fresh enough to hurt. There was a place in his life that felt as if it would always be empty now. ‘Why would the publisher accept it in the first place?’ he asked, struggling to stop the emotion from drowning him. ‘I’ll find out exactly who it is. They are hiding behind the company name.’
‘You may be poking a stick into a hornets’ nest,’ Blackwell warned. ‘Why don’t you let me do it – sideways, like?’
