Byram blinked. “Yes madam,” he said. “That would be wise.”

“So I think,” I said. “Thank you, Byram.” I knew that I did not need to tell him to be covert and to keep his own counsel.

“What do you want me to do with him when I find him?” Byram asked.

“Kidnap him,” I said. “Incapacitate him. Do anything you need to do, short of killing him. Lock him away until I can reach London and speak with him. I shall be there as swiftly as I can.”

“Aye, madam,” Byram said.

I put out a hand to delay him for a moment. “Byram,” I said, “if your aim was to kill the king and you had gunpowder, how would you achieve it?”

“I would blow him up, madam,” Byram said, bluntly. “I would find a time and place I could be certain he would be present and then I would light the fuse.”

“The state opening of parliament is on November 5th,” I said.

“Then I had best be gone,” Byram said, “and pray to God that that is not the plan in Mr. Catesby’s mind.”

“Godspeed,” I said, “and I too pray I may be mistaken.”

Twenty-One

Lucy

Maud Enright lived in a neat bungalow in a cul-de-sac on the edge of Knightstone with a view down the hill and across the open fields of the Vale of the White Horse. Her daughter Janet led Lucy through the house and out into a bright conservatory at the back which was full of sunshine and roses. The scent of them hung in the warm air.

“How beautiful it is here!” Lucy said as she shook hands with the white-haired old lady sitting in a high-backed chair. “Thank you very much for agreeing to see me, Mrs. Enright.”

“Call me Maud,” Maud Enright said. Her voice was clipped, cut glass. She gestured to the table on which were laid out various books and what looked like a scrapbook of cuttings from newspapers. “Janet’s helped me to find all the bits and pieces I collected on Catherine Catesby. It’s been a while—” her sharp gray eyes appraised Lucy “—since anyone was interested in them.”

Janet offered refreshments and Lucy chose lemonade with ice whilst Maud asked for tea. “No sugar, dear!” she called after her daughter. “She always forgets,” she added, to Lucy, with a twinkle in her eye. “Takes three spoons of it herself and automatically adds it to mine.”

There was what was for Lucy a slightly unnerving silence whilst Maud waited for her to broach what she was there for. She realized that she hadn’t really imagined what Maud would be like or prepared herself properly for their meeting. Her encounter with Finn the previous night had put everything else from her mind in the nicest possible way. And now here she was at a bit of a loss to explain herself whilst Maud Enright looked like one of those scarily clever old ladies who had been at Bletchley Park or in the SOE, or something, and was impatient for her to begin.