Osman; imagining them standing in this room where he was now; picturing Osman’s long, tapering fingers on Vanessa’s arm as he showed her his possessions. Trave shuddered. He knew the man. Osman was a collector, and now Vanessa was being added to the collection. Involuntarily Trave picked up a pretty Dresden china ornament from the mantelpiece, a milkmid with a jug, and held it in his fist, thinking about how satisfying it would be to throw it down, smash it in the fireplace at his feet, but at that moment Jana, entering the room, caught sight of Trave’s reflection in the mirror above the fireplace, and, perhaps sensing what was going through his mind, she shouted at him from the doorway: ‘Put it down.’
Trave was surprised at himself afterwards that he so meekly obeyed the woman’s command. Perhaps it was an association with his childhood — his mother had hated him touching her ornaments, her ‘precious things’ as she called them.
He didn’t turn round immediately but instead took a moment to pull himself together, watching Claes’s sister in the mirror as she came slowly into the room, leaning heavily on her stick. She hesitated after a few steps, perhaps embarrassed at her outburst, before going on to the sofa, where she sat awkwardly, keeping firm hold of the stick as if ready to get up and leave at a moment’s notice. She looked out of place in the room, and Trave thought he knew why. This was Osman’s territory, and Jana would only come in here to clean and dust, not to sit on the sofa and make conversation.
‘I am sorry,’ she said, speaking slowly and with a heavy foreign accent. ‘The china, it is expensive and I look after it.’ The apology was reluctant, Trave thought. She would have remained silent if she’d felt she had a choice.
‘I quite understand,’ said Trave, resuming his seat beside Clayton on the sofa opposite. ‘All this must be very distressing for you.’
‘Yes.’
Trave looked at Jana Claes with interest. He’d interviewed her two years before when he took her statement after the Mendel murder, but she’d had little to say then. Her evidence had been straightforward: she’d gone out shopping with Katya in the afternoon and so neither of them had been present when Mendel met his death down by the boathouse. She knew very little of the murdered man and had never met his assassin, David Swain. And yet now it was different. Jana Claes had been living with Katya Osman for years. She knew things: how the house worked, what Katya’s life had been like in her last months, and it was Trave’s job to get the information out of her if he could. But it wouldn’t be easy. That much was obvious. With her eyes fixed on the carpet, she looked the very image of an unwilling witness.
‘Okay,’ he said, beginning his questions in a far more friendly tone than he’d adopted with Jana’s brother. ‘Detective Clayton and I are trying to put together a picture of what happened here tonight, and so we’d like you to tell us everything you remember.’
‘I went to bed. I woke up because there was a shot. Then there were more, two more. And people running. And then it was quiet again. Titus, Mr Osman, came into my room and took me to Katya. Then my brother, Franz, was there too. I did not touch her. They said to wait. After, I got dressed and you came.’
Trave watched Jana carefully. There was a rehearsed feel to her words, and he was struck by her failure to articulate any emotional response to the murder. Was it shock or her difficulties with the language or something else?
‘You sleep only two rooms away from Miss Osman. Isn’t that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘So the gunshots must have been very loud?’
‘Yes.’
‘How long would you say there was between the first shot, the one that woke you up, and the others?’
‘I don’t know. I was sleeping.’
‘Enough time to get out of bed?’
‘Yes.’
‘But you didn’t go outside?’
‘No, I was frightened.’
‘Yes, I can understand that.’ Trave nodded and then stayed silent for a moment, with his forehead creased as he debated where to go next with his questions.
‘Tell us what you do here, Miss Claes. Other than look after the china,’ he said with a smile.
‘I take care of the house. I tell the servants what to do. My brother-in-law, Mr Osman, he likes things done…’ Jana stopped, searching for the right word, and Trave came to her assistance.
‘Properly?’
‘Yes.’
‘And does Mr Osman pay you for your help?’
‘No, of course not.’ Jana looked insulted.
‘He gives you nothing?’
‘I have an allowance, but that is because I am family; it is not pay. And I do not need money,’ she added.
‘Oh, and why is that?’
‘I stay here. I do not go out.’
‘Then who does the shopping?’
‘The servants. That is their job. Like I told you.’
‘But you went shopping with Miss Osman on the day Mr Mendel was killed, didn’t you? I remember you telling me that last time we met.’
Jana looked disconcerted. Two small red circles appeared in her pale cheeks, and she swallowed before answering Trave’s question. She was clearly nervous underneath her cold exterior.
‘That was different,’ she said. ‘Katya needed something in the town, and my brother asked me to go with her, to keep her company.’
‘But generally speaking you never go out? Is that right?’
‘Yes.’
‘Never, Miss Claes?’
‘I go to church. On Sundays,’ Jana said reluctantly, as if she had been forced into an admission she didn’t want to make.
‘Ah, yes, I thought you might,’ said Trave. He’d noticed the crucifix that Jana wore around her neck and he remembered her bedroom from when he’d gone round the house two years before, after Ethan Mendel’s murder. He remembered the room better than its owner in fact: the heavy oak furniture; the absence of ornamentation and personal possessions; the plainness of the walls, except above the bed, where a tortured Christ hung in bloody agony on a thick wooden cross. A nun’s room, he’d thought at the time. Or the room of someone who wanted to be a nun but had been thwarted in her ambition.
‘And who takes you to church? Do you drive yourself?’ Trave asked, keeping his tone casual and ignoring Clayton’s restless stirring by his side. There’d be time to get back to tonight’s events later on.
‘No. My brother takes me.’
‘And does he accompany you inside?’
‘No, he waits.’
‘I see. And at the end of the Mass, you take communion, yes?’
Jana didn’t answer but instead put her hand up to the silver cross on her chest. Trave could have sworn that it was an unconscious gesture, and he felt almost sorry for her for a moment.
‘Do you?’ he asked insistently.
For a moment Jana didn’t answer, but then reluctantly she raised her eyes to meet Trave’s and shook her head.
‘And do you go to confession; do you tell the priest your sins, ask for God’s forgiveness?’ Trave went on remorselessly.
Again Jana shook her head. ‘No,’ she said softly, her voice almost inaudible.
‘Well, Miss Claes, do you want to tell me why?’ asked Trave in a soft voice as he leaned forwards towards her.
But this time Jana didn’t answer, keeping her eyes fixed on the floor, and Clayton felt compelled to intervene.
