Free No Graves As Yet by Anne Perry

use getting soaked as an excuse to avoid immediate conversation. It was emotional enough saying goodbye to Hannah as Albert put her luggage into the Ford. She did not want anyone to go to the station with her.
    “I’d rather not!” she said quickly. “If I’m going to burst into tears, at least let me do it here, not on the platform!”
    No one argued with her. Perhaps they preferred it this way, too. She hugged each of them, not able to find words, or a steady voice to say anything. Then, holding her head so high she all but tripped on the step—even though it had been there all her life—she followed Albert out to the car. Joseph, Matthew, and Judith stood in the doorway watching her until the car was out of sight. Then Joseph walked over the grass to close the gate.
             
    “I know what you’re going to say,” Judith retorted defensively when they were sitting in the dining room after dinner, Henry asleep on the floor. It was barely dark outside and clear again, the storm long since passed.
    “I don’t think you do.” Matthew set his coffee cup down and regarded her gravely.
    She looked at Joseph. “Shouldn’t you be the one doing this?” she challenged, anger hard in her voice and her eyes. “Why aren’t you telling me what to do? Haven’t you the stomach for it? Or do you know it’s a waste of time? You’re a priest! It’s cowardly not even to try! Father always tried!”
    It was an accusation that he was not Father, not wise enough, not patient or persistent enough. He knew it already. It was a deep ache inside him and, as with her, an anger, because no one had equipped him to do this. John Reavley had gone leaving a task half done and no one to replace him, as if he did not care.
    “Judith . . . ,” Matthew began.
    “I know!” She swung round to face him, cutting across his words. “The house is Joseph’s, but I can live here as long as he doesn’t need it, and he doesn’t. We’ve already discussed that. But I can’t go on wasting my time. That’s a condition. I’ve either got to get married or find something useful to do, preferably something that pays me enough to at least feed and clothe myself.” Her eyes were red-rimmed, full of tears. “Why haven’t you the courage to say that to me? Father would have! And I don’t need a gardener, a cook, a manservant, and a housemaid to look after me.” She stared at him furiously. “I worked that out for myself.” She flicked a glance sideways at Joseph, contempt in it.
    Joseph felt the sting, but he had no defense. It was true.
    “Actually, I wasn’t going to say anything of the sort,” Matthew said to her tartly. “Joseph told me you were perfectly aware of the situation. I was going to tell you why Father was coming to see me on the day he was killed, and what we have learned since then. I would rather have protected you from it, but I don’t think we can afford to do that, and Joseph thinks you have a right to know anyway.”
    Apology flashed across her face, then fear. She bit her lip. “Know what?” she said huskily.
    Briefly Matthew told her about John Reavley’s call on the telephone, admitting that he was uncertain now of the exact words. “And when we were at the funeral, someone searched the house,” he finished. “That is why Joseph and I were late into the dining room.”
    “Well, where is it?” she said, looking at one, then the other, her anger added to by confusion and the beginning of sick, urgent fear.
    “We don’t know,” Matthew answered. “We’ve looked everywhere we can think of. I even tried the laundry, the gun room, and the apple shed this morning, but we haven’t found anything.”
    “Then who has it?” She turned to Joseph. “It is real, isn’t it?”
    It was a question he was not prepared to face. It challenged too much of the belief in his father, and he refused to be without that. “Yes, it’s real,” he said with biting certainty. He saw the doubt in her eyes, her