Read Online At Some Disputed Barricade by Anne Perry - Free Book Online

But whoever it is, his purpose seems to be broadly the same, and his skill is obviously formidable. And I’d like to save Corracher, if possible.”
    Shearing’s mouth pulled tight. “Not likely,” he said bitterly. “If the man behind this is as clever as you think, he’ll have made provision for Corracher fighting the charge. Wheatcroft’s wife has powerful family connections. They’ll all want to believe her, and take the blame off Wheatcroft, true or false. Think carefully before you act, Reavley—and keep me informed. You might end by making it even worse.”
    It was a dismissal, but Matthew refused to stand up. “Are you telling me not to do anything, sir?” he said between his teeth.
    “No, I’m telling you to use your brain, not your emotions!” Shearing said tartly. “Be as angry as you like. Go home and smash the china, swear at the neighbors, punch the furniture. Then grow up and do your job.”
    Matthew sat motionless.
    “Now!” Shearing shouted suddenly. “It’s a filthy thing to do! It’s deceit and betrayal and it soils everything it touches. Don’t sit there like a grave ornament! Do something!”
    “Yes, sir.” Matthew stood up. Quite unreasonably, it made him feel better to see Shearing’s temper snap, too, and to know that under his tightly controlled surface he was just as furious and offended as Matthew himself.
     
    That evening the man whom Matthew had referred to as the Peacemaker stood at the window of an upstairs room in his house on Marchmont Street, only a few miles away from Matthew’s flat. He was waiting for a visitor and uncertain when he would arrive. It was no longer possible to rely on steamers or trains. The German Grand Fleet had not left harbor since the Battle of Jutland, but U-boats still patrolled the seas, necessitating that British warships guard troop carriers bringing back the wounded from France and Flanders.
    It grew darker. The soft colors of the sky were fading, light reflected on windows opposite. The fire watch would be out soon, looking for zeppelins, waiting for the explosion of bombs. The streetlamps would make the city an easy target from the air.
    His hands clenched and unclenched, his nails digging into his palms when he saw a taxi slow as it passed his house, then speed up again. He had known it would not be Richard Mason; he would not be foolish enough to get out right at the door. However, he would be tired after the long, dangerous, and heartbreaking journey. He might be careless. He had been once before.
    The Peacemaker drew the curtains closed and turned away from the window, impatient with himself and the emotion raging inside him, which locked the muscles of his arms and chest, making them ache. Mason, the man he was waiting for, was possibly the best of all the war correspondents. He had sent dispatches from all the places where the fighting was fiercest: France, Flanders, Northern Italy, Bulgaria, Palestine, and Mesopotamia. He did not quote figures of men dead or wounded, or yards of mud-soaked land gained. He wrote with passion of individual experience, one act of heroism, one victory, one death. He described the weariness, the disgust, the hunger he himself felt, or the laughter, the letters from home, the silly jokes and terrible food. He hid nothing. Through the human suffering and tragedy of a few he painted the whole. In his words the destruction of Europe, now spreading across the Near East, North Africa, India, and America as well, was brought to life.
    The Peacemaker had always known that the human cost of war was beyond measuring. As young men during the Boer War, he and Mason had both seen the concentration camps, the brutality, the degradation of the spirit. They had not known each other then, but the experience had given them a common goal. Both were consumed by an ideal that war should never be allowed to happen again, but the Peacemaker was willing to go to any lengths. One man, ten men, a hundred were a price not worth