It felt as if Elena had barely fallen asleep before she was woken by a gentle, persistent knocking at her door. She quickly slipped out of bed and went to open it.
Allenby came in and closed the door behind him without a sound. He was fully dressed, a loose, warm sweater over his shirt.
“What happened?” she asked hurriedly with a sudden grip of fear inside her.
“Nothing yet,” he answered. “But we’re not getting anywhere here. Repton left no trail. He was practically invisible, just another elderly tramp, which he was most likely pretending to be. Nobody seems to care. We can’t find out who he saw when he was here. Kitchen staff say he was looking for food in return for work, odd jobs. Another old soldier who never really came home.” His gaze fell to the floor.
Even in the shadows, she recognized the grief in his face.
“We need to go to Repton’s house,” he said firmly. “It’s about two hours away, with clear roads at this time of night. We can search and be back before morning. Perhaps even early enough to get an hour’s sleep or so. Get dressed. Something warm, if you’ve got it. Otherwise, I’ll bring one of my jackets for you.”
Despite her confusion and the thought of driving all night instead of being warm and asleep, she laughed at the idea of herself in one of Allenby’s jackets. But she did not argue. She turned to pick up her clothes from the chair she had laid them on and took them to the bathroom.
Eight minutes later she was out in the bedroom again, fully dressed in dark-blue trousers and the only button-up cardigan she had brought, which was a very similar navy.
Allenby glanced her up and down. “Yes, good. Sorry about this, but we can’t afford to waste any time. We still don’t even know what Repton was doing here. Who was he watching? Why? And what did he find that was so god-awful that someone was willing to take the risk of killing him?”
Elena heard the pain in those words, much as he tried not to reveal it. She knew well that the harder she tried to conceal her feelings, the wider they spread around her.
She turned off the light and they left her room. After a moment or two, as their eyes adjusted to the near darkness, they walked almost soundlessly along the landing. There was a low glow of night-lights, very dim, casting long shadows, but it was enough to allow Elena and Allenby to go down the stairs without the danger of misjudging a step.
When they arrived in the hall, she glanced only once at Allenby and then, closing the door silently, followed him outside.
Once they were clear of the house, it was easier. There was a low quarter moon and a nearly cloudless sky.
Wordlessly, they went to where Allenby’s car had been left. There had been no room for it in the garage, where Elena’s car was already parked, and there was no need to search for his car among the others, which included a black Rolls-Royce and a rather more sporty-looking silver-gray Bentley.
Mercifully, the engine started straightaway, and they followed the drive to the gates and then out onto the main road.
“Do you think whoever killed Repton knows much about him?” Elena asked after they had driven several miles north. “I mean—”
“I know what you mean,” he cut across her. “You’re wondering if we’re walking into a trap left nicely open for us. I think if Repton went back home after he discovered whatever it was, he would have made a record of it. And yes, they would have followed him if the information was worth something. They would have recovered it, then killed him.”
She said nothing for a long moment, trying to clear her thoughts before she spoke. “What was the last thing he said to Peter?” she asked. “He must have told you.”
“Only that he was on to something that he believed was one of the gravest threats to the country since the end of the war.”
“And he was chasing it?”
“Naturally.”
“Did he say that when he was at Wyndham Hall, before he left?” She was trying to form a picture in her mind of when the enemy, whoever it was, had realized that Repton was dangerous enough to be gotten rid of, and that it could not wait for a less drastic, and above all less obvious, way of doing it.
Allenby must have been following her train of thought. “Yes, that seems to make sense. If they could have killed him at his home, it would have been better. Perhaps they didn’t need to until after he got to Wyndham Hall, but it had to be quick, before we found out more or he reported back to MI6. So quickly! No hanging around so that they could be more subtle about it.”
“But Peter has no idea what Repton had found out?” she confirmed. “Or he’s just not telling us. Why not? It could help us find whoever is responsible if we know what we’re looking for!”
“Or predispose us to look for only that. I don’t think Peter knows. It’s probable that Repton still needed a few pieces of the puzzle, or that it was so complicated that he couldn’t put it together yet.”
She did not answer him. It was unnecessary. She sat silently, imagining John Repton’s last days, where his thoughts must have gone.
The road was dark. They passed very few cars.
She voiced the thought she least wanted to face. “He made a mistake, didn’t he? Or they wouldn’t have caught him out. What was it? Wrong time? Wrong place? Trusted someone he should not have? It might help to know.”
“Of course it would.” Allenby’s voice was flat. “Let’s not make the same mistake,” he told her reluctantly. “Trust no one. Not even Wyndham himself. Hard. I like him.” He did not add a warning; it was already implicit.
They drove in silence for a while. Elena tried to order the questions in her mind, the ones that searching Repton’s house might answer. Allenby had been there before. What would he find now that could be of interest?
“Do we agree that whoever killed him did so on the spur of the moment, then tried to make it look like an accident?” she asked. “I’m guessing the police might be inclined to believe that. I’d like to know if he went home, then returned to Wyndham Hall again. But that makes no sense at all.”
“No, it doesn’t,” Allenby agreed. “I think he knew what he had found at the Hall was important and was a part of the larger picture of whatever he was on to, which might be a hell of a lot bigger than that.”
“What could he have found? Or what did his killer think he had found?” she wondered aloud. “If Repton didn’t tell Peter, was that because he wasn’t sure yet or because he simply had not yet had the chance?”
“It was important enough to bring him to Wyndham Hall,” Allenby replied. “If we can discover what it is, that will be the turning point. But we have no idea what Repton was pursuing.”
Elena felt a chill settle over her. Who were they chasing? Was it a stranger, or was it someone they already knew? Most important was the question that nagged at her: What could have mattered so much and led so clearly toward some truth that it pushed someone to risk killing Repton? And probably in the place where he had gone to find proof of what he suspected…or feared?
For the moment, there was nothing to say. She understood the importance of this, and she was certain that Allenby did as well. The silence gave them time to think.
There were no sounds other than the tires on the road and the dull hum of the engine. The only light, other than the car’s beams, was the occasional splash of illumination as another car approached them, going the opposite way.
Elena did not realize that she had gone to sleep until she woke up with a jolt. Not only were they stationary, but Allenby was not in the car. A moment of fear touched her like a cold hand on her skin. Then she saw him standing a few feet away, talking to a man whose attitude seemed to reflect exhaustion.
There was not a shred of light in the sky. She glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It was only a few minutes after one. She saw Allenby pay the man and assumed it was for petrol. As he was walking back to the car, she took a chance that there was a little shop in the garage. She jumped out of the car and walked toward it. When Allenby saw her, she pointed to the door. She returned minutes later with two containers of water and two bars of chocolate.
“Midnight snack,” she offered, holding out the goods.
“Thank you,” he accepted with a smile. “Another half hour or less and we should be there.”
His estimate was very close. After twenty-five minutes, they arrived at a little parking area perhaps a hundred yards from a short row of cottages. Allenby backed as far under the trees as possible, with the car facing the road.
Elena looked at him. In the meager light of the dashboard she saw deep shadows in his face, and she realized that this was much more than a possible political plot; it was an emotional loss. A person whose friendship had mattered to him no longer existed, except in memory. Did he even see something of himself in Repton? No solution, no understanding, would fill that empty space. She wanted to say something, but it was pointless.
She left the car, closed the door quietly, and followed Allenby across the open space of grass and up to the first house, which was separated from the others by about twenty yards. There were no lights showing in any of them.
Allenby glanced at her once, just to make sure she was behind him, then went straight to the front door. He took out a small collection of keys and began to work on the lock. In the dark, he had to rely on touch rather than sight.
It took him several minutes of working in silence before the lock’s mechanism fell into place and the door swung open into darkness. Allenby went in, holding the door for Elena. They stood still until their eyes adjusted to the deeper shadows. All that was visible were the faint outlines of furniture.
Allenby walked carefully across the room to the windows and drew the curtains closed. Then he took a flashlight, no more than four or five inches long and not much thicker than a fountain pen, and switched it on. Before he moved farther into the room, he handed an identical flashlight to Elena.
Elena scanned the area. They were in a comfortable room with an oversized armchair beside the fireplace and a small table that was covered with papers, most of them newspaper cuttings. There was a desk against the farthest wall with a chair in front of it and the kind of standard desk lamp that was designed for reading.
As Allenby moved his light, it showed that at least half the wall space was taken up by bookshelves; the books were all standing upright or lying on their sides.
Elena’s heart sank. It would take weeks to search through this lot. She glanced toward Allenby. “What are we looking for?”
“I’ll look through the bookshelves. You try the desk. If a drawer is locked and you can’t open it, ask me and I’ll try.”
She needed his help opening one of the desk drawers, but other than that, she was able to go through them all herself.
She became unaware of time.
The first drawer held nothing she could see to be of importance: mostly household bills, receipts, what anyone might have. The only thing of interest was a collection of travel receipts kept in separate envelopes. One was for journeys to the county immediately to the north of where they were. Another was for an area east of this house, and the third was for the Cotswolds. The dates were all from the summer now nearly passed. She wondered if these were business expenses. Since they were all dated, she assumed they were a summary of where his work had taken him. Despite the dates and figures, there was no mention of why he had been there. A good number of these, particularly the most recent, were specifically for the Wyndham Hall area.
“James,” she whispered. He was beside her in a moment. She illuminated the papers with her flashlight.
He looked at them one by one. “Right,” he whispered back. “Now what was he investigating down there? What sent him?” It was a rhetorical question.
She turned to a stack of newspaper clippings and picked up several of them. She looked closely, trying to see what they had in common or what held them together in Repton’s mind. She sorted them out on the table and studied them, piece by piece. The one thing they had in common was tragedy, the end of someone’s career.
She opened one of the desk drawers and pulled out a small book. Just as she opened it, there was a sound outside. She felt Allenby’s hand grasp hers so hard that she winced in pain.
The sound came again, like a foot striking stone, then a little click as the stone rolled away and dropped onto a hard surface.
She froze.
“Torch off,” Allenby whispered, leaving them in total darkness and silence.
Elena kept hold of the book and the newspaper clippings. She shoved them into her pockets and slid the drawer closed soundlessly.
There was another noise outside, harder to identify, but definitely closer than the one from moments earlier, followed by a scraping sound on the outside of the door.
“Back door?” she asked, although the sound she made was little more than a breath.
“No,” he whispered back. He took her hand and pulled her slowly. She walked on the tips of her toes, following Allenby to a door that led to what she thought might be a sitting room and whatever lay beyond it.
They crossed the corridor and hesitated for a moment. There was a slight squeak as the front door opened. Then there was no noise, not even the sound of someone else breathing.
Allenby’s fingers tightened on Elena’s arm, pulling her very slowly, one short step at a time, toward the outer wall.
She inched along, gripping his arm. Did he know this house well enough to find another way out in the pitch dark?
There was a sound coming from another area, where Elena thought the back door would be. Allenby froze, and she bumped into him.
There were definite footsteps in the room they had just left, the soft footsteps of someone who did not want to be heard because he knew he was not alone.
Allenby moved again, two steps forward, and then reached out in front of himself. There was a slight scraping sound, and then he stood back, pulling something down before leaning forward again.
A moment later, Elena felt cool air on her face. He had opened a window.
“Climb through,” he whispered. “It’s only three or four feet down to the ground. Be quick. Someone’s just behind us! Stay close to the wall. I’ll be straight behind you. Go!”
She obeyed silently, straining as she reached for the frame of the window. Her hand slipped. She grasped it again, then pulled herself up, scrambled through, and dropped down outside. It was getting a little bit lighter, and she could see the shadows of the trees and the bulky shapes of the other houses.
She was on her hands and knees. Where was Allenby? Her breath seemed to be knocking in her chest so violently that her whole body was shaking.
She heard a shot fired inside the house!
She almost choked on her own breath.
Then Allenby landed on the damp earth beside her. “Keep low!” he instructed quietly. “But move!”
She was awkward at first, crawling crabwise away from the house and in the general direction of the car. Please heaven, whoever was in the house had not seen them. She was thankful that Allenby had parked away from the house and in the shadow of many trees. If he had parked at the curb…She shivered at the thought.
They moved slowly, crawling now on their hands and knees. Her trousers would be ruined! But as long as it was by damp earth, not blood, she would settle happily for that.
There were a few more moments of silence, then another shot. Uncomfortably close, this one.
“Run!” Allenby ordered urgently. “Keep low. Go from side to side. The car is only about twenty feet away. Come on, run!”
She obeyed, struggling to weave from one side to the other and all but falling over her own feet. There were more shots, but none of them were close.
She nearly ran into the side of the car.
Allenby was right behind her. “Get in!”
The door was unlocked, and she all but fell in just as a bullet hit the car. She was terrified when Allenby got the keys out of his pocket and fumbled for an instant to fit one into the ignition. The engine fired into life and the car jerked forward. They swerved to avoid a large bush, then bumped over the curb and onto the road.
Another bullet hit the car, this time on the rear bumper.
Allenby increased speed, then decelerated slightly as they bounced over the roughest parts of the road. When it finally smoothed out, he pushed the car to full speed.
Neither of them spoke. Allenby was rigid in his seat, gripping the steering wheel with white-knuckled hands.
There were no more shots, but Elena was certain she would not have heard them anyway. She was aware only of the car she was in, speeding and bumping over the rough parts of the road, and the roar of the engine.
They seemed to be alone, with no one pursuing them. It felt like an endless time before they reached the main road. There were occasional headlights coming from the opposite direction, and far ahead were the rear lights of another vehicle going south.
Elena swiveled as far around as she could in her seat, but she saw no lights behind them. She realized only now that her muscles were still clenched, even her hands and shoulders. Her neck ached. She peeked at Allenby. He was still tense, concentrating on the road, challenging the car to move at the highest speed it could manage.
“There’s nobody behind us now,” she said a little huskily.
He eased the speed a little. “Did you bring any of the papers?” He seemed to be trying not to let hope into his voice, but he was failing.
“Yes,” she said gently. “I lost some, but I have a pocketful. Do you want to pull over and look at them?”
“Not yet.” He shook his head before changing his mind. “Yes, actually, let’s see what we have.”
Five minutes later they were pulled off the road and staring at newspaper clippings. All of them recounted charges of scandalous behavior, lies, drunkenness, lasciviousness, theft, deceit, more lies, and the destruction of people’s credibility and honor in the eyes of society.
“They are all about being discredited, but I can’t see any connection among the people. None at all. What does it mean?” Elena asked, although she was denying what she already knew.
“It means someone is carefully listing the ways a decent man can be ruined by innuendo when his words are dismissed and his power is destroyed, almost certainly for the rest of his career. Even if, in time, the accusations are shown to be false, there will always be a shadow over him.”
“That’s—” She was at a loss for words.
He did not speak, but she felt his hand close over hers.
She suddenly remembered the little book she’d found in Repton’s desk. She removed it from her other pocket and handed it to Allenby.
He leafed through it. “It’s his diary,” he said in realization. “I’ll give it a good look when no one is around.”
Elena wondered who had shot at them. Had it been any more than good luck that they had not been injured, or even killed? She could hardly believe that they had escaped, hearts beating wildly, sweat on their skin.
On the long drive back, they steadied their nerves. Allenby drove slower, more gently. There was no point in looking at the papers again. Elena glanced at Allenby a couple of times, but neither of them needed to speak. The danger, the loss, and the new information were all understood, as was the vast difference all of this could make. Neither of them said so, but now they both knew what Repton had been looking for: the ways people were ruined. Not necessarily to convict them, but to put high office forever out of their reach and silence their warning voices. They knew that Repton had been killed, but not by whom, not yet. And they were still uncertain why.
They parked the car in the same place it had been before the journey and went silently into the house through the back door. Allenby had taken a key with them. They crept up the main stairs, exchanged weak smiles at the top, and then disappeared into their own bedrooms.
The sky was only just beginning to fade into light in the east.