Faith and Beauty by Jane Thynne Page A

was a brave man, my dear. You should be proud of him.’
    ‘He
was
?’
    He imprisoned her hand momentarily in a tight clasp.
    ‘Thanks once again for coming. Can I take it you remember the way to the lift?’
    Numbly, Clara retraced her steps along the corridor. Tears welled in her eyes, blurring the partitioned offices and the men on telephones. She was barely aware of the clack of typewriters and the chatter of secretaries carrying files clipping alongside her. A tall, tawny-haired man with a narrow, toothbrush moustache glanced at her quizzically, as though about to enquire if she was all right. As their eyes met she noticed that he had irises of two different colours, one blue and one brown, and the irrelevant thought went through her head that such a distinguishing feature would make undercover work impossible; this agent must be office based. Ducking her head, she walked swiftly to the lift.
    She did not look back. If she had, she would have seen Major Grand poised at the entrance to his office, an unusually sympathetic look replacing his rigid military demeanour.
    In Caxton Street a brisk wind had got up, rustling the leaves on the plane trees and causing women at the bus stop opposite to clutch onto their hats. In a breeze like that, it was unsurprising that anyone should have tears in their eyes and no one gave Clara the slightest attention apart from a grinning bus conductor, sailing past on the platform of his bus, who called, ‘Penny for your thoughts, darling!’
    She walked like someone dazed by an explosion, the exterior world locked off behind an invisible wall. The bomb that had gone off inside her had caused everything around to resettle in unrecognizable disarray.
    She progressed blindly, wondering what to do in the hours before making for Liverpool Street station and the boat train. Suddenly, the shock she had received overcame her instincts and, turning on her heel, she caught up with the bus that had just passed and jumped aboard, heading for Elizabeth Street.
    She sat numbly on the lurching bus.
If I were you, my dear, I should forget Mr Quinn.
It was as though all the ballast was knocked out of her and she might simply collapse without the coarse red and blue backing of the seat beneath her. All she could think of was knocking on Angela’s door and feeling her elder sister’s sinewy arms enfolding her in a stiff but heartfelt embrace. She was aching to breathe in Angela’s trademark perfume and bury her face in soft, sensible cashmere. She had not seen her sister for two years. They might disagree politically; they might have avoided any intimate exchanges for a decade, but Angela was, after all, her only sister. And at a time when she felt desolately alone, Clara yearned for the visceral comfort of flesh and blood.
    She had never visited Angela’s home in Belgravia but it was exactly as she expected. Wedding-cake white stucco, window boxes trimmed with box and ivy, expensive cars parked outside and a black door so polished you could see your face in it. It was hard to believe her sister had come so far. In her mind’s eye Clara still saw her in an Aertex shirt, cotton skirt and white leather T-bar shoes, standing in the garden of their Surrey home, arguing over a tennis racquet.
    Her heart was thumping as she waited on the step and raised the lion’s-head knocker, but it was a while before the door opened, and then it was only an indifferent maid who peered out and did not invite her in. Her cap was askew, as if she had only hurriedly fixed it on, and her hair badly pinned beneath.
    ‘Mrs Mortimer is out. Mr Mortimer is at the House of Commons.’
    ‘It’s Angela I want. When will she be back?’
    ‘I can’t say, I’m sure. The mistress left instructions that she’s away.’
    ‘Away? Away where?’ Emotion made Clara abrupt but she didn’t care.
    The maid hesitated, as if deciding whether she needed to elaborate for the sake of this insistent stranger, then resolving that to be on