Communists. None of us do, including your President Kennedy.’
Vanessa sat stiffly in her chair, keeping her eyes fixed on Claes, refusing to be mollified. ‘What do you say?’ she asked.
‘About what?’ asked Claes. Vanessa sensed the contempt in his voice, in the way he looked at her. She felt that underneath his rigid exterior he was spoiling for a fight just as much as she was.
‘About Hitler? About fighting the wrong enemy in the war?’
Claes smiled thinly at Vanessa, apparently about to respond, but then he glanced away, unable to ignore Osman’s intent stare. ‘I did not want Adolf Hitler to win the war,’ he said slowly, sounding for a moment like a recalcitrant schoolchild reciting a lesson that he’d been required to learn by heart. On the other side of the table, Claes’s sister exhaled deeply and put her hand up to the small silver crucifix that hung from a slender chain around her neck, in what was obviously a habitual nervous gesture in such moments of crisis.
Titus, however, had behaved as if nothing had happened, taking Vanessa by the arm and leading her along the corridor to the drawing room, where they passed the rest of the afternoon side by side on the sofa in front of a roaring fire, talking about faraway places where Vanessa had never been and to which Titus was eager to take her.
But now, sitting on the grey wooden bench by the riverbank in the darkening late January afternoon, Vanessa realized once and for all that there could be no future with Titus as long as she kept Katya’s words a secret. She could only give Titus what he wanted if she went against his wishes and told what she knew to the police. Not to her husband but to the policeman who’d taken over the case. He didn’t have an axe to grind with Titus; he’d be objective, unlike Bill; he’d tell her what to do.
Vanessa thought of telling Titus first but then decided against the idea. He’d make her change her mind, and she couldn’t cope with the guilt of remaining silent any longer. She needed to do what was right. He’d just have to understand.
Vanessa wasted no time once she’d made her decision. She phoned the police station as soon as she got home and made an appointment to see Inspector Macrae the following day.
It felt strange going into the building where her husband had spent his working life. Vanessa had rarely been there while they were together. Police functions tended to be held at a hotel near the station, and Bill had always wanted to keep his professional and personal lives apart. Vanessa thought with sudden sadness how lost he must feel now that he’d been exiled from this place perhaps forever, but then she hardened her heart, remembering how he’d shut her out after Joe’s death, leaving her alone with her grief while he worked in his office through the long evenings, only coming home to go to bed.
Macrae came out into the entrance hall, introduced himself, and led her back down a series of twisting corridors to his office. She appreciated his consideration but nevertheless felt put off by the man. Sitting across the desk from him, she couldn’t put her finger on the reason. Perhaps it was the way his eyes seemed so cold and watchful, detached from what he was saying; perhaps it was the way he stroked his long fingers together as he listened. But Vanessa was determined not to let an unfounded aversion obstruct the purpose of her visit, and so she pushed it to the back of her mind, refusing to acknowledge its existence.
She began to describe her encounter with Katya in the drawing room at Blackwater Hall four months earlier. It felt like a relief at first to be breaking her long silence and telling this stranger what had happened, but then, faced with her own disclosure, she felt a new surge of guilt for not having spoken before and stumbled over her words, realizing to her shame that tears had started to spring from her eyes.
‘I didn’t want to get Titus into trouble,’ she said. ‘He’s a good man, and he was just trying to help Katya, but I knew that Bill, my husband…’
‘Would take it the wrong way,’ said Macrae, finishing Vanessa’s sentence. She nodded her head and bent down, taking a handkerchief from her bag to dry her eyes.
‘I can understand your concern, Mrs Trave,’ Macrae continued. ‘Your husband hates Mr Osman, and now, meeting you, I think that I can understand why.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean that you are a beautiful woman. Your husband cannot bear the fact that you have left him for Titus Osman, and so he wants to paint Mr Osman as a murderer when he is nothing of the kind.’
Vanessa flushed, not knowing what to say. She resented Macrae’s personal remarks, and yet she realized that he was only articulating what she had long thought herself.
‘It is a tragedy,’ Macrae went on. ‘Your husband was once a very good policeman but he has lost his way, and now I fear it may be too late.’
Macrae sounded regretful, but the expression in his grey eyes didn’t seem to match his words. She sensed a cruel humour in them, as if Macrae was secretly enjoying himself, but then with an effort Vanessa dismissed the impression as an illusion. ‘I came here to talk about Katya, not about my husband,’ she said firmly.
‘But your husband is the reason you didn’t come forward with the information before. Isn’t that right, Mrs Trave?’
‘Yes,’ said Vanessa reluctantly. It was true — mistrust of her husband was the reason why she’d stayed quiet, but the spoken acknowledgement felt like a betrayal. She was saying that Bill was not to be trusted, that he had lost his objectivity, that he had become dishonest; and she was saying it here, in this place where he had worked so hard for so many years to do what was right. Vanessa looked up and felt for a moment as if Macrae had read her mind, as if he entirely understood the significance of her admission and was savouring it with relish.
‘But I am telling you now,’ she said, trying to regain control of the conversation. ‘And I need your advice about what to do…’
‘To do?’ repeated Macrae, appearing puzzled. ‘There’s nothing you need do, Mrs Trave. You see, this case is very simple. David Swain killed Katya Osman. There are no conspiracies, however much your husband would like to uncover them. By all accounts Katya was a very unhappy person. She took drugs and generally abused herself in places where no self-respecting girl should go, and her uncle, to his great credit, tried to help her by looking after her at home. It is not his fault that she had become too unbalanced to appreciate his efforts and made wild allegations to you one evening, and he does not deserve to have those allegations aired in public. No, Mrs Trave, there’s been too much muddying of the waters already in this case. We don’t need any more.’
‘So we do nothing?’ asked Vanessa, surprised. It was the outcome she’d hoped for, and yet it left her strangely dissatisfied, unable to reconcile all her soul-searching and guilt with this easy happy ending.
‘Just that — nothing at all,’ said Macrae with a smile. ‘Justice will take its course up in London, and you and Mr Osman will live happily ever after at Blackwater Hall. He’s a very lucky man.’
‘Nothing is decided yet,’ said Vanessa defensively, getting up to go. There was nothing she could put her finger on, but once again she had the impression that Macrae was taunting her, enjoying her discomfort.
‘Of course not,’ he said evenly, holding out his hand. Reluctantly she took it, noticing again the policeman’s long, tapering fingers and his effeminately shaped nails. She made to let go immediately, but he held his grip, looking her in the eye. ‘A word of advice, Mrs Trave,’ he said softly. ‘You’ve done well to come to me, but now I would let the matter rest. Idle talk costs lives — remember what they told us in the war.’
Macrae dropped Vanessa’s hand and walked over to the door, opening it to let her pass. A burly overweight man in police uniform was standing outside, apparently waiting to come in. He’d cut his chin shaving, and a big sticking plaster disfigured his already ugly face.
‘Ah, Jonah,’ said Macrae, addressing the big man with easy familiarity. ‘Please, could you show Mrs Trave out?’
Wale glanced over at Vanessa with a leer when he heard the name and then turned without a word and began walking away down the corridor. Vanessa followed in his wake, thinking that there was something half- bestial about the man’s lumbering gait. And then out in the foyer he looked her up and down and smiled — a thin, cracked smirk of a smile that set her teeth on edge.
‘Thank you,’ she said more curtly than she intended. But he just grinned and turned away, disappearing back into the interior of the police station.
Vanessa didn’t quite know what to feel in the days that followed her visit to Inspector Macrae. She’d at last done what her conscience demanded and the result had been better than she could have hoped. The policeman in charge of the case had expressly told her to let the matter rest. Now she could get on with her life, unencumbered by any self-reproach. She wouldn’t even need to tell Titus that she had gone to the police. And yet she remained troubled. It had all been too easy. She still felt that questions needed to be put to Claes and his sister, and she
