Betrayal at Lisson Grove (Treason at Lisson Grove)

He was smiling, but the sharp morning light showed very clearly the tiredness in his face. Her resolve to lie to him wavered. There were many ways in which he was unreadable, but not in the deep-etched lines in his face or the hollows around his eyes.

“All right,” she conceded. “They were hospitable and a certain glamour in it was fun. Is that more precise?”

He was amused. He gave nothing so obvious as a smile, but it was just as plain to her.

“Whom did you meet, apart from Fiachra, of course?”

“You’ve known him a long time?” she asked, remembering McDaid’s words with a slight chill.

“Why do you say that?” He took more toast and buttered it. He had eaten very little. She wondered if he had slept.

“Because he asked me nothing about you,” she answered. “But he seems very willing to help.”

“A good friend,” he replied, looking straight at her.

She smiled. “Nonsense,” she said with exactly the same inflection he had used.

“Touché,” he acknowledged. “You are right, but we have known each other a long time.”

“Isn’t Ireland full of people you have known a long time?”

He put a little marmalade on his toast.

She waited.

“Yes,” he agreed. “But I do not know the allegiances of most of them.”

“If Fiachra McDaid is a friend, what do you need me for?” she asked bluntly. Suddenly an urgent and ugly thought occurred to her: Perhaps he did not want her in London where Pitt could reach her. Just how complicated was this, and how ugly? Where was the embezzled money now? Was it really about money, and not old vengeances at all? Or was it both?

He did not answer.

“Because you are using me, or both of us, with selected lies?” she suggested.

He winced as if the blow had been physical as well as emotional. “I am not lying to you, Charlotte.” His voice was so quiet, she had to lean forward a little to catch his words. “I am … being highly selective about how much of the truth I tell you …”

“And the difference is?” she asked.

He sighed. “You are a good detective—in your own way almost as good as Pitt—but Special Branch work is very different from ordinary domestic murder.”

“Domestic murder isn’t always ordinary,” she contradicted him. “Human love and hate very seldom are. People kill for all sorts of reasons, but it is usually to gain or protect something they value passionately. Or it is in outrage at some violation they cannot bear. And I do not mean necessarily a physical one. The emotional or spiritual wounds can be far harder to recover from.”

“I apologize,” he responded. “I should have said that the alliances and loyalties stretch in far more complicated ways. Brothers can be on opposite sides, as can husband and wife. Rivals can help each other, even die for each other, if allied in the cause.”

“And the casualties are the innocent as well as the guilty,” she said, echoing McDaid’s words. “My role is easy enough. I would like to help you, but I am bound by everything in my nature to help my husband, and of course myself …”

“I had no idea you were so pragmatic,” he said with a slight smile.

“I am a woman, I have a finite amount of money, and I have children. A degree of pragmatism is necessary.” She spoke gently to take the edge from her words.

He finished spreading his marmalade. “So you will understand that Fiachra is my friend in some things, but I will not be able to count on him if the answer should turn out to be different from the one I suppose.”

“There is one you suppose?”

“I told you: I think Cormac O’Neil has found the perfect way to take revenge on me, and has taken it.”

“For something that happened twenty years ago?” she questioned.

“The Irish have the longest memories in Europe.” He bit into the toast.

“And the greatest patience too?” she said with disbelief. “People take action because something, somewhere has changed. Crimes of state have that in common with ordinary, domestic murders. Something new has caused O’Neil, or whoever it is, to do this now. Perhaps it has only just become possible. Or it may be that for him, now is the right time.”

He ate the whole of his toast before replying. “Of course you are right. The trouble is that I don’t know which of those reasons it is. I’ve studied the situation in Ireland and I can’t see any reason at all for O’Neil to do this now.”

She ignored her tea. An unpleasant thought occurred to her, chilling and very immediate. “Wouldn’t O’Neil know that this would bring you here?” she asked.

Narraway stared at her. “You think O’Neil wants me here? I’m sure if killing me were his purpose, he would have come to London and done it. If I thought it was simply murder I wouldn’t have let you come with me, Charlotte, even if Pitt’s livelihood rests on my return to office. Please give me credit for thinking that far ahead.”