Free No Graves As Yet by Anne Perry Page A

struggle to believe and understand it, far more than he was willing to admit. “We went to the stretch of road where it happened,” he said in harsh, measured words, like incisions. “We saw where the car began to swerve, and where it finally plowed over the verge and into the trees. . . .”
    Matthew started to speak but stopped, blinking rapidly. He turned away.
    Judith stared at Joseph, waiting for him to justify what he was telling her.
    “Once we understood what had happened, it was quite clear,” Joseph continued. “Someone had used a kind of barb, tied to a rope . . . the end of it was still knotted around a sapling trunk . . . and stretched it across the road deliberately. The marks were there in the tarmacadam.”
    He saw the incredulity in her face. “But that’s murder!” she exclaimed.
    “Yes, it is.”
    She started to shake her head, and he thought for a moment she was not going to get her breath. He put out his hand, and she gripped it so hard it bruised the flesh.
    “What are you going to do?” she said. “You are going to do something, aren’t you?”
    “Of course!” Matthew jerked up his head. “Of course we are. But we don’t know where to start yet. We can’t find the document, and we don’t know what’s in it.”
    “Where did he get it?” she said, trying to steady her voice and sound in control. “Whoever gave it to him would know what it was about.”
    Matthew gave a gesture of helplessness. “No idea! It could be almost anything: government corruption, a financial scandal, even a royal scandal, for that matter. It might be political or diplomatic. It could be some dishonorable solution to the Irish Question.”
    “There is no solution to the Irish Question, honorable or not,” she replied with an edge of hysteria to her voice. “But Father still kept up with quite a few of his old parliamentary colleagues. Maybe one of them gave it to him?”
    Matthew leaned forward a little. “Did he? Do you know anyone he was in touch with recently? He’d only had it a few hours when he called me.”
    “Are you certain?” Joseph asked. “If you are, then that would mean he got it on the Saturday before he died. But if he thought about it a while before calling you, it could have been Friday, or even Thursday.”
    “Let’s start with Saturday,” Matthew directed, looking back to Judith. “Do you know what he did on Saturday? Was he here? Did he go out, or did anyone come to see him?”
    “I don’t know,” she said miserably. “I was in and out myself. I can hardly remember now. Albert was supposed to be doing something in the orchard. The only one who would know would be . . . Mother.” She swallowed and took a ragged breath. She was still clinging onto Joseph’s hand, her knuckles white with the strength of her grip. “But you can’t let it go! You’re going to do something? If you aren’t, then I will! They can’t get away with it!”
    “Yes, of course I am,” Matthew assured her. “Nobody’s going to get away with it! But Father said it was a conspiracy. That means several people are involved, and we have no idea whom.”
    “But . . . ,” she started, then stopped. Her voice dropped very low. “I was going to say it couldn’t be anyone we know, but that’s not true, is it? The opposite is! It had to have been someone who trusted him, or they wouldn’t have given him the document in the first place.”
    He did not answer.
    Her rage and misery exploded. “You are in the Secret Intelligence Service! Isn’t this the sort of thing you do? What damn use are you if you can’t catch the people who killed our family?” She glared at Joseph. “And if you tell me to forgive them, I swear to God I’ll hit you!”
    “You won’t have to,” he promised. “I wouldn’t tell you to do something I can’t do myself.”
    She searched his face as if seeing him more clearly than ever before. “I’ve never heard you say that in the past, no matter how hard it’s