pocket at exactly the time specified in the note; the fact that Katya was sent out shopping for the day; but most of all, I think, it was the note itself that worried me,’ said Trave reflectively. ‘Whichever way I looked at it, it made no sense that the first thing Ethan did after he got back from his European trip was to go and see a person who hated him, a person whom he didn’t even know, and that then, instead of suggesting a meeting in Oxford where he already was, he left a note asking Swain to come out here at five o’clock the same day.’
‘Maybe he was going to propose to Katya and wanted to straighten things out with Swain before he did,’ suggested Clayton.
‘But he didn’t need to,’ said Trave, warming to his theme. ‘Ethan had no responsibility to Swain. Katya had finished with Swain long before. The note nagged at me. I couldn’t make any sense of it, and Swain couldn’t shed any light on the bloody thing either when I went to see him…’
‘You went to see him!’ repeated Clayton, sounding surprised. ‘When?’
‘A couple of times last year. He was still up in London then, in Brixton Prison pending transfer. But he wasn’t any help — just went endlessly on about the injustice of it all and how much he hated Katya Osman. And so I came back out here a couple of times, even though I knew I was wasting my time — I got nowhere with Osman and Claes, and there was no evidence to justify a search warrant, although I doubt I’d have found anything worthwhile even if I’d got one. The diamond business is a secret world at the best of times, and Osman’s got a castle wall built around his share in it. I thought I was on to something at one point when I found a neighbour of Swain’s who said she’d seen a man with a beard hanging around near Swain’s flat on the day of the murder, but then she didn’t recognize Osman when I showed her his photograph, and so that was that.’
‘Where did you get the picture?’ asked Clayton.
‘Out of a magazine. Our friend up at the house is quite a celebrity in these parts, you know — always willing to reach into his pocket for a good cause, always available to cut a ribbon, say a few words. You know what I mean,’ said Trave with a twisted smile.
There it was again — the unexplained animosity toward the owner of Blackwater Hall. It alarmed Clayton more each time he saw it. What Trave had told him about the case was interesting, and there was certainly something strange about the note the dead man had left for Swain, but Clayton had seen enough police work to know there were always a few loose threads left hanging at the end of every investigation. The note didn’t make Swain’s conviction unsafe. In fact, the more Clayton heard about it, the more the Mendel murder sounded like an open-and-shut case. And yet Trave hadn’t been prepared to let it drop. Why? Had the answer got something to do with Trave’s wife and this man, Osman? Once again Clayton remembered how Trave had looked in the study when Osman had said the name Vanessa. Clayton vividly recalled the way his boss’s fists had involuntarily clenched on the desk, the scarlet flush that had spread across his face, and Osman’s look of smug self-satisfaction as if he’d just downed an opponent with a knockout blow. Clayton didn’t much like the man either, but that wasn’t the point. This was a murder inquiry he and Trave were conducting, and personal feelings couldn’t come into it. It had to be without prejudice.
Trave could be a hard taskmaster, and the last thing that Clayton wanted was to get on the wrong side of his boss, but he felt he had no choice in the matter. He had to ask Trave about his wife’s connection to Osman if only to get some reassurance before they went any further with the investigation.
‘Mr Osman mentioned something earlier that I wanted to ask you about,’ Clayton began nervously.
‘Yes, what?’ asked Trave, sounding distracted. He was obviously still thinking about Ethan’s murder.
‘Well, he said something about someone called Vanessa, and I wondered…’
Clayton broke off, alarmed by the change in his boss’s demeanour: the name had registered on Trave’s face like an electric shock.
‘You wondered what?’ asked Trave, staring angrily at his subordinate.
‘I wondered if… well, if it was Mrs Trave he was talking about,’ Clayton finished lamely.
Trave was silent for a moment, breathing heavily, and then, when he spoke again, his voice was hard and cold.
‘Yes, Constable, Titus Osman was referring to my wife, the same lady who has left me and taken up with him, as you must know full well given that you choose to spend your time listening to station gossip instead of doing your job.’
‘I’m sorry, sir. I asked you because I didn’t know — about her and Osman, I mean. I knew she’d left, that she was no longer with you, but I didn’t know the other. I promise you, I didn’t,’ said Clayton, stumbling over his words.
‘Well, now you do. What of it?’ asked Trave brutally.
‘Well, it’s just, it worried me, sir, that it might affect things, the inquiry…’
‘Cloud my judgement, you mean?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Well, it won’t. Are you satisfied now?’
Clayton nodded, and he would have said more, but for the fact that they were at that moment interrupted by someone tapping on the half-open door. It was Watts, one of the detectives who’d been helping organize the search.
‘What do you want?’ asked Trave furiously, rounding on the newcomer in the doorway.
‘I’m sorry, sir,’ said Watts nervously. ‘It’s just I thought you ought to know. The switchboard called. A man that matches Mr Swain’s description hijacked a car in Blackwater village a few hours ago and made the people in it take him to the railway station.’
‘The station — which station?’ asked Trave.
‘Oxford. They think he took the first train to London apparently. Oh, and he’s got a gun. He threatened them with it.’
‘A gun. Anything else?’
‘Yes, they say he was wounded — there was blood around his left shoulder and he was holding his arm like it was hurting him, apparently.’
Behind Trave, Clayton got to his feet. It was the news they’d been waiting for — independent evidence that Swain had been here during the night — and armed too. Now surely there could be no doubt about the identity of their main suspect.
‘Put out an alert,’ said Trave. ‘Nationwide. You know the drill. And Adam, you come with me,’ he said, turning to Clayton. ‘We’ve got work to do.’
Titus waited until the police had cleared out of his study before he telephoned Vanessa and told her what had happened.
Vanessa was aghast, remembering Katya’s desperate face in the drawing room ten days before, the way she’d struggled so hard to convey her message. ‘They’re trying to kill me,’ the girl had said. And now she was dead, murdered in her bed.
‘I need to see you,’ said Titus urgently. ‘Can I come over?’
Twenty-five minutes later he was sitting beside her on the sofa in her living room. The weather had turned cold, and she’d lit a fire before Titus called so the room was warm. But he still shivered, as if the shock of what had happened was only now beginning to penetrate his skin. He was different to how she’d ever seen him before — like something inside him had broken, and his voice had a faraway feel, even though he was sitting beside her.
‘It’s such a waste,’ he said with a sigh. ‘Such a terrible waste. She’d have got better if she’d just had a little bit more time. I know she would. She had so much to live for, and now it’s as if she never was. You should have seen her, Vanessa. Like a rag doll in her bed, with all the life blown out of her by that swine. And her beautiful face such a mess too, such a damned, God-awful mess.’
Titus shuddered, and Vanessa reached over and took his shaking hand, wishing she could find some way to comfort her lover, but she could think of nothing to say to mitigate his pain. Death of the young was unbearable. Because it was avoidable, because of what might have been and now would never be. She knew these things from bitter personal experience.
‘It’s how we parted that I cannot bear,’ said Titus. It was obviously hard for him to speak, and the words caught in his throat. ‘If she’d had a bit more time to recover, then we could have been friends again like we were when Ethan was alive. She’d have got her hope back. But instead she saw me as her enemy; she wouldn’t understand why I was keeping her at home. And your husband doesn’t understand either, or rather he doesn’t want
