for keeping her at home. He did it to help her, for her own good.’
‘How do you know she blamed him?’ asked Trave, leaning forward.
‘Because she told me,’ said Vanessa quietly, lowering her eyes.
‘Told you what?’
‘She said: “They’re trying to kill me.” It was ten days before her death. I was there for dinner and she came into the drawing room. I was on my own, and that was all she said. She was in a bad way and she fainted afterwards. Titus said his sister-in-law had tried to give her a sedative, and he explained about the state she was in, about why he was so worried about her, about why he had to keep her at home for her own good.’
‘I’m sure he did,’ said Trave sarcastically. ‘He’s an expert at playing the do-gooder. The man’s a professional philanthropist.’
‘I knew you wouldn’t understand,’ said Vanessa angrily. ‘That’s why I didn’t tell you. I knew you’d have used it against Titus when he hasn’t done anything wrong. I know he hasn’t,’ she added fervently.
‘It doesn’t matter what you think. You should still have told me.’
‘I told that inspector who took over from you.’
‘Macrae?’
‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘A couple of weeks ago.’
‘And I suppose he told you to say nothing?’
‘Yes.’ Vanessa sounded defensive now.
‘And you felt okay with that?’
Vanessa stirred uneasily in her seat, not answering. She resented the cross-examination, and yet she also felt its justification. Her interview with Inspector Macrae had not set her conscience about Katya at rest, however much she had hoped it would.
‘You’re going to have to tell that court up in London,’ said Trave quietly. He spoke as if what he had to say was obvious, not a subject for argument or discussion.
‘I can’t. I won’t,’ said Vanessa, refusing to see it that way. Her eyes blazed with defiance, but Trave stood his ground.
‘It’s your duty. You know it is,’ he told her. ‘A man’s on trial for his life. If Osman loves you then he’ll understand.’
‘And you hope he doesn’t, don’t you?’
‘I hope you’ll do what’s right. That’s all.’
Vanessa looked at her husband and suddenly the fire went out of her, extinguished in a moment. Her sharp retort died on her lips and she bowed her head, realizing that he was right: she had no choice. She wished with all her heart that Katya hadn’t crossed her path that night at Blackwater Hall, but she had, and in those few moments the girl had placed her under an obligation that she could only ever discharge by standing up and telling the whole world what Katya had said. Until she had done that she would have no peace. Bill had only told her what she knew already.
Vanessa felt exhausted suddenly. It was like she’d finally put down a burden that had been weighing her down for months and only now realized how heavy it had been. She needed to be alone, to gather her strength for what lay ahead. She stood up and leaned across the table, bending down to kiss her husband on the cheek.
‘Thank you,’ she said. And as she turned and walked away it occurred to her that she didn’t know whether they were parting on her terms or his.
That day and most of the next went by in a blur. Vanessa went to work and did her job, typing letters and filing correspondence on automatic pilot, while underneath her mind raced from one thought to another as she tried to work out what she could say to Titus to make him understand her decision. She knew that this time she could not delay. The Swain trial was already into its second week, and Swain’s lawyers would need to take a statement from her before she gave evidence. But she couldn’t go to see them without telling Titus first. She owed him that much. Several times she picked up the telephone, intending to dial Blackwater Hall, but then replaced the receiver like it was hot to the touch, reproaching herself for her cowardice. It wasn’t that she was frightened of Titus; it was that she was frightened of losing him. She wished she could abandon her conscience, discard it into the waste- paper basket on the floor beside her desk, but she knew she couldn’t. She was who she was, and perhaps Titus would understand that. But she knew she would have to see him to explain. A telephone call was not enough. And so after work on Tuesday she got into her car and drove out to Blackwater with a heavy heart.
Jana answered the door. Dressed as always in funereal black, Claes’s sister showed no warmth of recognition when she saw Vanessa on the step, shivering in the cold. There was something frozen about the woman’s face, Vanessa thought — as if it was a door that had been shut and locked against the world. It unnerved Vanessa, and she felt forced to explain herself, to justify her visit.
‘I wanted to see Titus,’ she said, stumbling over her words. ‘Something important has come up that I need to tell him about. Is he here?’ she finished lamely.
Jana opened the door wide without saying anything and moved aside to let Vanessa pass. It was warm inside and Vanessa rubbed her hands together to restart her circulation, and then, looking up, she was surprised to see a uniformed policeman come through the doorway at the end of the hall and go up the stairs to the first floor. There were several voices talking somewhere out of sight, but Vanessa couldn’t tell if one of them was Titus’s.
‘Has something happened?’ she asked, turning to Jana. ‘Is Titus all right?’
‘A man broke in here yesterday, trying to take things. But the police came and he ran away,’ said Jana in her slow, heavily accented English.
‘Who was here?’ asked Vanessa, horrified.
‘I was. Please wait in here,’ said Jana, opening the door of the drawing room. ‘I will tell Titus you are come.’
Vanessa had innumerable questions to ask, but something in Jana’s tone prohibited further conversation, and Vanessa did as she was told, taking a seat on the same sofa where Katya had lain unconscious five months before, having placed Vanessa under an obligation that, try as she might, she seemed unable to escape.
The grey, overcast afternoon was now dissolving into an early evening gloom, and the drawing room felt cheerless and forlorn. There was no fire, and Vanessa did not turn on the lights. She felt like she was in some kind of medical waiting room and that there would be no good news when she finally got to see the doctor.
She idly picked up the newspaper that was lying in front of her on the coffee table. It had obviously been read already since it was folded in on itself with an inside page now at the front, and the headline explained why it had attracted the previous reader’s attention: ‘Blackwater Murder — Witness’s Nazi Connections’. Osman came in when Vanessa was halfway through the article.
‘Is this true?’ she asked, leaning away as he bent down over the back of the sofa to kiss her.
Osman glanced at the newspaper over her shoulder and sighed with obvious irritation. ‘That Franz was a Nazi?’ he asked, straightening up and heading over to the drinks tray in the corner.
‘Yes. Was he?’
‘I don’t know, to be honest with you. He certainly worked with them. He had no choice if he was going to keep his job in the interior ministry, but I’ve never asked him if he was actually required to join the party. I didn’t think it was any of my business.’
‘That he was, is, a Nazi,’ said Vanessa, looking appalled. ‘What could be more important?’
‘Nothing, if he really was one,’ said Osman evenly. ‘But the truth is he only worked with them so as to do good things. For Belgium and for Belgian Jews. Yes, that’s right, Vanessa,’ Osman went on, seeing the look of disbelief on his fiancee’s face. ‘Without Franz I would never have been able to help all those poor people to escape. I needed someone on the inside with power…’
‘A Nazi,’ said Vanessa interrupting. ‘You needed a Nazi.’
Osman turned away without answering, concentrating on mixing himself a drink. Vanessa shook her head when he offered her one too. It was only quarter past five according to the clock on the mantelpiece.
‘I’m sorry, my dear,’ he said, coming over to sit beside her on the sofa. ‘I’m not at my best right now. This has not been an easy couple of days. Franz and I had to give evidence at the trial up in London, which was stressful, particularly for Franz’ — Osman gestured toward the newspaper — ‘and then when we came back we found the house had been broken into and Jana had been terrorized by a man with a gun. He fired a bullet into my
