Last Picture?’
Trave caught Clayton’s eye and whistled softly under his breath, but he didn’t speak, remaining intent on his inspection of the room. Now his torch was shining on a large map of Europe with a series of coloured lines stretching out west and south from tiny Belgium like an octopus’s tentacles. They were obviously escape routes, thought Trave — ones along which people had got away and ones where they had been caught and sent to the transit camp at Mechelen, and then east. Like Jacob’s parents. There was a picture of them with their two sons on the mantelpiece above the gas fire — a framed studio portrait taken when Ethan and Jacob were children. The boys were wearing tweed suits with knee breeches and stood posed on either side of their mother, who was seated, wearing a long ankle-length black dress with her husband standing behind her with his hand on her shoulder. Their expressions were rigid, formal, but the parents’ touch was natural — enough for Trave to know that Avi Mendel and his wife had loved each other once years ago, before they were murdered. Trave closed his eyes thinking of the millions of other victims. It was incomprehensible. Photographs were the only way to begin to understand the horror, he thought, with sudden insight — to make some small sense of the meaningless numbers.
Clayton had been standing by the window, dividing his attention between following Trave’s torch beam as it travelled across the walls and keeping watch on the pavement down below, which was lit by a nearby street light; but now, as Trave remained immobile, lost in thought, Clayton became impatient and took the torch from Trave’s hand and began to look through the pile of papers on the table in the centre of the room. One by one he turned them over: correspondence; cut-out newspaper reports on Swain’s trial, including several describing its opening at the Old Bailey the previous Wednesday; a handwritten document listing possible prosecution witnesses marked with crossings out and question marks — Clayton noticed that his name and Trave’s had been left unamended; a letter from two months earlier confirming Edward Newman’s membership of a local rifle-shooting club; a tenancy agreement for the flat dating from the previous May, this time in the name of Jacob Mendel…
‘Something must have happened. Jacob changed his name after he got here,’ said Clayton, showing Trave the document.
‘Yes, can’t you guess?’ Trave paused, but Clayton shook his head. ‘He’s our burglar, Adam. The one who broke into Osman’s study last summer and had a boxing match with our Nazi friend over there,’ said Trave, pointing to the pictures of Claes on the opposite wall. ‘There’s a pair of glasses in the bedroom, and I’d bet my house they’ll turn out to be a match for the ones he left behind at Blackwater. I don’t suppose you’ll have much choice but to take him in now, Macrae or no Macrae.’
Clayton was about to respond, but the words died in his throat. There was the unmistakable sound of a key being fitted in the front door of the flat, and Clayton cursed himself for having abandoned his watch on the pavement down below. Instinctively the two policemen flattened themselves against the wall on either side of the open door to the living room and waited, holding their breath.
CHAPTER 20
The light went on in the hall, footsteps approached, and Jacob cried out as Trave seized him from behind, shouting ‘police’ as he did so. But the young man’s reactions were quicker than Trave had anticipated. He twisted his body violently to the left, throwing Trave off balance, and then slammed his right arm back, catching Trave a glancing blow on the side of the face, sufficient to make Trave let go of his jacket. And then he took off, running back down the corridor, pulling open the front door of the flat, and taking the stairs three at a time. Clayton set off in pursuit, but Jacob had a head start and would certainly have got away if he’d taken the time to turn on the upper landing light before he began his mad descent of the stairs. Instead he lost his footing in the dark, two flights down, and fell head over heels down the remaining steps, ending up in a heap on the floor of the entrance hall.
By the time he regained consciousness, the lights were on and Clayton and Trave were standing over him, barring his way to the door. Slowly he got to his feet, rubbing his head, and gingerly took a few steps towards a suspicious-looking old lady who had emerged from the ground-floor flat at the other end of the hall.
‘It’s all right, Mrs Harris,’ he said, speaking in fluent English. ‘Nothing to worry about — just a silly accident, that’s all.’
The old lady looked unimpressed by the explanation. She peered distrustfully at the strangers by the door, and then retreated back inside her flat, closing the door. A moment later there was the sound of a key turning in the lock.
‘What the hell do you want?’ asked Jacob furiously, turning back to face the two policemen.
‘To talk to you. About Blackwater Hall and your brother, Ethan Mendel,’ said Trave calmly.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m Edward Newman. My name’s on the doorbell out there, if you can be bothered to look.’
‘Please don’t waste our time,’ said Trave evenly. ‘You’re Jacob Mendel. I recognize you from when you gave evidence at the Old Bailey two and a half years ago. And you probably know who I am too, judging from the interest you’ve been taking in Mr Swain’s new trial.’
There was the glint of recognition in Jacob’s eyes, but Jacob said nothing, continuing to glower at Trave and Clayton as if trying to work out a strategy for a second escape attempt.
‘We can talk down here,’ said Trave, ‘or upstairs. Personally I’d prefer upstairs. But it’s up to you.’
Jacob appeared to hesitate, and then, to Clayton’s surprise, he turned and began slowly climbing the stairs, keeping hold of the banister for support. The policemen followed at a cautious distance behind, and then, once they were back in the living room, Jacob pulled out the chair and sat down heavily at the table with his hands folded in front of him, watching silently as Trave turned on the light and then went over to the armchair by the window. Clayton took up position in the doorway on Jacob’s other side, barring his route of escape.
‘I went to Antwerp to see your grandmother,’ said Trave, opening the conversation. ‘She’s worried about you, wants to know where you are.’
‘Well, you can tell her you found me and that I’m all right,’ said Jacob with finality, as if there was nothing more to say.
‘Why don’t you tell her yourself? She’s an old lady and she loves you — she told me you’re her last living relative.’
‘She’s old and she’s blind,’ Jacob burst out angrily. ‘Wilfully blind — she believes in Titus Osman and all his lies. Just like Ethan did, and I don’t want to hear any more of that.’
‘Well, you won’t from me,’ said Trave quietly. ‘I’ve lost my job over Osman, but I think you already know that, don’t you?’ he added, pointing up at a newsapaper cutting sellotaped to the wall, describing David Swain’s arrest and Trave’s suspension from duty. ‘We’re on the same side, you and I. Why do you say Ethan believed in Osman?’
‘Because he had to have done. He wrote me that letter from Munich about finding out something vital and then flew back to England and went straight to see Osman. He wouldn’t have done that if he didn’t believe in Osman, would he? He’d found out something that affected Osman — that’s why he wanted to talk to him, but it wasn’t something that shook his faith in the bastard. If it had, he’d be alive today,’ said Jacob bitterly. He spoke in a rush, as if relieved to finally have an outlet for the thoughts that had obsessed him for so long.
‘And you think that that something he found out was about Franz Claes?’ asked Trave, looking over at Claes’s photographs on the wall.
‘Yes. Who else? Claes was Osman’s contact in the secret police. That’s how Osman got Jews out, or got them caught.’
‘All right, so what you’re saying is that Ethan found out something incriminating about Claes and told Osman, who killed Ethan because of it and then set up David Swain to take the blame? Is that right?’ asked Trave, speaking slowly as he put the pieces together.
‘Yes, exactly right. It’s the truth,’ said Jacob passionately. ‘I know it is. I just can’t prove it — that’s all. Claes is the key. I can show he was involved in Belgian fascist politics before the war; that he was invalided out of the Belgian army after the German invasion and went to work for the interior ministry; that he had dealings with the AJB, the Jewish Council; and that he was involved with the secret police…’
‘Sipo SD?’ asked Trave, pointing over at the photograph of Claes with the two men in German uniforms.
‘Yes. Ernst Ehlers, the man on the right, was in charge of the Gestapo in Belgium, and the other one, Kurt
