No one asked David Laverne anything, because he wouldn’t answer. Or he would tell them what he wanted them to know and nothing more. Irritation with the family that had been dumped on him led to David’s withdrawal. When Nicholas ran off to London in his teens, it was Honor who rang the police and Henry who talked to them. David Laverne was listening to music somewhere in the house and wasn’t to be disturbed. When the police demanded to talk to the children’s ward he emerged reluctantly and stood, truculent in a patched cardigan, answering sullenly.

‘No, I don’t know where my nephew is. No, I don’t know why he ran off. Nicholas is a very irritating boy—’

Honor had stepped in. ‘He said he wanted to visit friends.’

The police and David Laverne had looked at her. Petite, black haired, intelligent. A good liar.

‘You know who his friends are?’ one of the policemen had asked her.

She had shrugged. ‘No, but he’s OK. Honestly. Nicholas will be back. He can take care of himself.’

And he did come back, several times. In and out of their lives like a visitor. Never one of the awkward, ill-matched family. Not really …

Finally making up her mind, Honor reached for her mobile and clicked down the stored numbers. She paused at the name Claude Devereux – a man she had spoken to many times, always about Nicholas. A man who had once worked with her other brother, Henry. She flinched at the thought of her dead sibling. Who would have thought Henry would die young? Henry, with his architectural practice in Paris, encouraged by Claude’s father, Raoul Devereux.

Honor glanced back at the mobile and Claude Devereux’s name. It had been nearly a year since they had last talked, when Claude had told her Nicholas was working for a wealthy widow, Sabine Monette.

‘He seems happy there. She has an estate outside Paris, and an apartment on the Champs Elysées. Nicholas looks after her, does odd jobs.’

‘Odd jobs?’ Honor had queried. Her brother, doing odd jobs. ‘He won’t take my calls any more. I keep trying, but he won’t talk to me. He was always difficult, but now he doesn’t want anything to do with me. I didn’t turn against him. Everyone else did, but not me. And yet he cut me out of his life.’ Her tone had been injured, old wounds picked raw.

‘Nicholas can’t get over what happened to him.’

‘It was years ago—’

‘He was excommunicated from the Catholic Church. For a priest, a believer, there’s nothing’s worse than being deprived of God.’ Claude had hesitated. ‘It shook him when he exposed the corruption and was punished for it.’

‘He was naïve.’

‘He was Nicholas.’

For a time Honor had suspected that Claude and Nicholas were lovers, but when Claude became engaged to Eloise she realised that the Frenchman was just – just – her brother’s friend. And in running away from his disgrace in London, Nicholas had chosen France as his adopted home. An ex-priest, repelled by the Catholic faith, barred from Mass and destined for a heretic’s burial.

Nicholas’s religious fervour had been unexpected. A capricious mind, a restless character, he had teetered on the edge of criminality and promiscuity for years. As he entered his late teens he had bummed his way around London and the capitals of Europe, taken menial jobs, and then returned home only to be off again weeks later. Hardly the kind of person to choose a religious life … Honor thought for a moment. Perhaps the Church had offered him security. Nicholas had experienced a lot of danger, sex and excitement – perhaps he was tired. But why Catholicism? their beleaguered uncle had asked. You were raised as Church of England – why change? Honor had never understood that argument. In truth, the Laverne siblings hadn’t been raised in any religion. They had been English, middle class, well-schooled and intelligent. Religious devotion had been nothing but an unwelcome moral cuckoo.

For another few moments she stared at the phone number and then dialled, waiting for Claude to answer. But it wasn’t his voice that came down the line, it was his wife’s, Eloise unusually flustered.

‘Hello?’

‘Eloise, how are you?’ Honor began. ‘We haven’t spoken in a while and we should catch up. I was wondering if Claude was there. I’d like to speak to him if I may.’

Honor paused, waiting for the reply. It didn’t come for several seconds.

‘No,’ Eloise said finally, ‘you can’t talk to him. Claude is dead.’

Thirteen

Church of St Stephen, Fulham, London

A wind was blowing, shifting the November trees and moving the dust around the basement yards. The street lamps were on, one flickering, the bulb about to fail, but the others blazing in a triumphant row. An ash tree, bark peeling as though sunburnt, shuddered in its yard of earth, while green wheelie bins stood like bouncers outside the row of doors.

Behind the houses, St Stephen’s church drove its inky spire into the scatter of clouds. The church was locked up in darkness apart from a light burning in the rectory window. And behind the light, Father Michael sat thinking about Nicholas Laverne. Had it really been ten years? he thought. Ten years … Slowly he rose to his feet, unlocked the vestry door and moved into the church beyond. A single lamp burned over the altar, the gold crucifix throwing a gloomy shadow on the stone wall behind.

Genuflecting, Father Michael knelt down. His hands clasped in front of him, he tried to pray, but although the words came easily their meaning did not. After a while he sat back in the pew and stared at the stained-glass window. But there was nothing visible of the familiar pictures, because there was only darkness behind them. The figures had disappeared, their inspiring message blacked out. And outside the wind kept blowing.

He had prayed for the man who had been murdered only yards from where he sat. Had sent up supplications for the unknown victim who had been torched, burned alive. Sent into the next world screaming, clawing at the gravel as he died. And as he prayed, Father Michael had felt guilt because he had done nothing. Not on the night the man died, nor the week before when a stranger had come to the church and sought him out, asking to stay.

‘No one can sleep in the church,’ Father Michael had told him. ‘It’s against the rules. But you could go to the YMCA. Catch a number thirty-four bus at the corner and get off at Cromwell Street. They’ll put you up for the night.’

‘I want to stay here,’ the man had persisted, talking with his back to the street lamp, his face half hidden under a hoodie. It had been raining that night, cold too. ‘Please,’ he had begged. ‘Just let me stay. Who would know? I’ll do odd jobs for you, anything you like—’

‘I can’t allow it,’ Father Michael had insisted, touching the stranger’s shoulder. ‘I can offer you a drink and a sandwich, but not a place to sleep.’

There had been no further argument and no acceptance of the offer of food. Instead the man had walked off, turning at the corner, perhaps to catch the number 34 bus. But Father Michael knew he wouldn’t, and three days later he hadn’t been surprised to find the man sheltering in the church porch. It was after eleven at night, drunks calling out to each other from across the street, a police siren sounding in the distance, and the stranger waiting.

‘What d’you want here?’

‘I know this place,’ he had replied. ‘I lived round here once.’ His voice had been cultured, his age around fifty. ‘Won’t you let me in? Just for one night, Father. Please, just for one night.’

I should have let him in, Father Michael thought, wracked with remorse. Sweet Jesus, why didn’t I let him in? His gaze moved back to the blanked-out window, seeking comfort, trying to make out the familiar Biblical characters painted on the glass. In days his life had shifted from stability to a terrible unease. He could sense something dark coming for him, but he didn’t know what.