At the War Office General Arbuthnot was holding a final meeting with the Metropolitan Police and Dominic Knox of the Intelligence Department of the Irish Office.
‘What do you think, Knox? Are we to expect a terrorist attack or not?’
‘You are always asking me for a definite answer,’ said Knox, irritated with this need for simple certainties in the battle against a devious and invisible enemy. ‘On balance, I should say that there will be an attempt at some kind of outrage. It may be that we will be able to prevent it. But I do not believe it will take place on the main route of the procession.’
‘Why not?’ said the General.
‘Think of it, man, think of it.’ Knox addressed the General as though he was talking to a rather stupid child. ‘This isn’t like a football match with supporters of two different teams attending. There is only one team, Victoria’s team. Fifty thousand soldiers are going to march along the route. All of them are to be told to keep their eyes open for anything unusual in the crowds. There will be policemen everywhere charged with the same mission. Plain-clothes men will be placed among the crowd at certain points – one entire stand near Fleet Street will be filled with them. Nobody could attempt to fire a shot or place a bomb with that amount of surveillance, not unless they are on a suicide mission. And however much the Irish profess their love for their country and its freedom, none of them has so far been prepared to blow himself up in the process.’ General Arbuthnot always found it difficult talking to Knox. The man was so elusive, so quick to qualify whatever decisions he might have made.
‘So where might we expect something, do you suppose, Mr Knox?’
‘I don’t know, General.’ He’s off again, thought the General, longing for the ordered certainties of the parade ground. ‘I’m afraid I just don’t know.’
Lord Francis Powerscourt had gone back to Blackwater. He had forbidden himself the library in case of distractions. He knocked once more at the door of Samuel Parker’s cottage.
‘Good morning, my lord,’ said Parker. ‘Good to see you again.’
‘I trust Mrs Parker is well? And you must be relieved to have Miss Harrison off your hands?’
Powerscourt smiled. From what Lady Lucy had told him, old Miss Harrison would not have been an easy visitor, residing in her mind somewhere between heaven and hell.
‘She’s gone to those Italian Lakes, my lord. Mabel was right glad to see her go. Old Miss Harrison began talking to her one day as if she was an angel.’ Samuel Parker shook his head sadly. ‘I’m not saying that Mabel mightn’t have looked a bit like an angel when she was young. But you’d have to be off your head to think she was one now.’
‘Mr Parker,’ Powerscourt was moving on from the civilities, ‘I wonder if I could borrow your keys, the ones to the temples round the lakes you had with you before. I’d just like to have another look around. And is there a boat anywhere I could borrow – a rowing boat, I mean? I thought I might have a poke about on that little island.’
‘The island, my lord? I’ve just remembered. I don’t think I mentioned it last time, it quite slipped my mind. But sometimes Old Mr Harrison used to row himself over there, all on his own, my lord. He wasn’t a very good rower, mind you, it used to take him about ten minutes. He went round in circles sometimes.’
Parker disappeared behind his front door and came back with one of the largest bunches of keys Powerscourt had ever seen.
‘The temples are all marked, my lord. And you’ll find a boat underneath the Temple of Flora.’
Parker watched him go, the sunshine dancing on the lake. I’ll say one thing for Lord Francis Powerscourt, he said to himself as he went inside to tell Mabel the latest news, he doesn’t give up easily.
Powerscourt wandered slowly round the lake. Somewhere there must be a key or a clue to the terrible events that had engulfed the House of Harrison. Round these paths the old man had wandered on his pony, the faithful Parker accompanying him. By these temples he had stopped and taken out his writing desk, already trying to solve the mystery that brought Powerscourt to this water’s edge. Inside these temples, perhaps, he had conducted his correspondence with his contacts in Germany, sending Parker to post them on his own to avoid the postal system in the main house. Inside them too, he had read his replies, returning to Blackwater to mutter to his sister after dinner about conspiracies and secret societies. Old Mr Harrison had made some connection between events in Germany, perhaps in Berlin, and the deaths that struck his family and weakened his bank.
Powerscourt walked into the echoing dome of the Pantheon. The statues mocked him. We know, we are gods, they seemed to say. You are merely an ignorant mortal doomed to wander in the shadows of ignorance for the rest of your days. The cupboards and the window seats in The Cottage had no secrets for him. The sun was flooding the Temple of Apollo, the lead statue of the hero glowing in the light. Once again Powerscourt tapped on the lead as he had tapped on the marble of the other statues. No hollow sound, no promise of a secret cache here. The whole lake seemed to be laughing at him, mocking his ignorance and rejoicing in its older, superior knowledge.
By the Temple of Flora, where yet more statues failed to yield up any secrets, he found the boathouse. He was looking out at the Pantheon and the little island that lay half-way between it and The Cottage. Powerscourt rowed slowly, remembering the flat fens he had rowed past in his days at Cambridge, the thrill of the chase, the wonderful excitement of making a bump on the boat ahead. No other boats followed him here, only the ripples on the water. He tied his boat to the nearest tree and went to explore.
The island was very small, some seventy yards long and fifty yards wide. It was ringed by trees so the little clearing at the centre was almost invisible from the shore. Powerscourt suddenly heard the voice of the Sibyl in Book Six of the Aeneid sounding in his brain.
‘In a dark tree there hides a golden bough and it is sacred to the Juno of Helclass="underline" It is not given to anybody to approach earth’s hidden places except he first plucked from that tree its golden foliage.’
Golden boughs and golden foliage seemed appropriate to a banking family, thought Powerscourt, looking round for dark trees with golden foliage. There was a dark tree, but it was old and withered. It had a hollow centre reaching up to his shoulder. Feeling slightly self-conscious he put his hand inside. There were leaves and clods of earth lying on the top. There was something hard beneath them. When he had brushed the mould away Powerscourt saw there was an ill-fitting piece of wood lying across the hollow, like a badly made trapdoor. He tried to move it with his hands. It didn’t move. He tried levering it up with Mr Parker’s largest key, a formidable instrument over two feet long. There was a crack, then a harsh creaking noise as the wood came away. Powerscourt peered inside. The top of the tiny chamber was covered with towels. There must have been half a dozen of them. He thought of the housekeeper at Blackwater, checking her stores, looking in her books, complaining to anyone who would listen that her towels kept on disappearing.
At the bottom of the towels was a small black document box, made of iron and sealed with a formidable lock. As he lifted it out of its hiding place he could see the legend ‘C.F. Harrison’ written on the side.
Powerscourt peered through the trees. For some time he had wondered if he was being watched. There was nothing definite, just the sense of hidden eyes following him round the lake. Perhaps it was the statues.
He looked at the lock. He wondered if any of Mr Parker’s keys would open the box. He wondered about Mr Parker. Surely he must have known about the cache on the island on the lake? Surely he must have known that his master sometimes took things to and from his box? Was Mr Parker to be trusted, or was he yet another mystery in the labyrinth that was Blackwater?