happen. That was what made it unbearable. He’d die and be put in a pit like his father, and the world would go on as before, except that he wouldn’t be a part of it any more. Soon he’d be old news, forgotten by everyone except his mother and Max, who’d met his brother one morning and now didn’t have one any more.
Tears ran down David’s face into the toilet bowl and his back shook and his stomach heaved, but the Old Bailey gaolers didn’t pay much attention. Prisoner R137861 was being sick in his cell, and there was nothing very remarkable about that. He’d just heard that he was going to swing, and that took some getting used to. They understood these things because, after all, they’d seen them all before.
CHAPTER 26
All through the weekend Vanessa grew more agitated. She tried everything to calm herself down, but nothing worked: she took up her paints and then threw them away in disgust; she spent half an hour reading her book and then realized that she hadn’t taken in a single word; and eventually, in despair, she put on her overcoat in defiance of the wintry weather, intending to take a brisk walk down by the river, but ended up envying the regal calm of a pair of swans watching her disinterestedly from the other bank. The only respite from her anxiety came when she went out to the newsagent on Sunday morning and bought editions of all the newspapers, stumbling home with a pyramid of newsprint balanced precariously in her hands, and then drank three cups of coffee one after the other while she sat at the kitchen table reading with avid concentration all the accounts of everything that had happened at the Swain trial the previous week, grimacing with worry when each article ended up referring to the strength of the case against the accused.
Vanessa continued to go back and forth in her mind, gnawing at the evidence in a state of ever-growing anxiety. As Bill had said, only Katya’s diary could tell her the truth — if it existed, of course, which was a big if. She wished she could read it without having to look for it. Because looking might mean tangling with Claes, and Vanessa was not ashamed to admit that that prospect unnerved her. She knew how much Claes disliked her already, and she was sure that his dislike would soon build into hatred when he found out that Titus was prepared to sacrifice him on the altar of his love for Vanessa Trave. And if Claes was guilty of these murders and found her digging for evidence against him, he wouldn’t hesitate about killing her. She knew how cold-blooded he was. He’d wait to get her alone on some deserted street corner or down by the river, and then he’d take her from behind with a hand over her mouth to stifle her screams and twist a sharpened knife in her gut, just like he must have done with Ethan. If he killed Ethan…
Vanessa couldn’t make up her mind about who was responsible. She remained steadfastly unsure of the truth, plagued by doubt and uncertainty, hoping for David Swain to be acquitted so that she could carry on as before and do nothing, even though deep down she knew that Katya’s ghost would not permit her to remain inert forever. Sooner or later she’d have to go and look for the diary, but in the meantime she ignored the summons of the telephone that kept ringing in the living room. She knew it was either her husband or Titus. Both of them wanted her to go out to Blackwater Hall, albeit for different reasons, and that was the one place she didn’t want to go near, at least until the trial was over.
The weekend finally came to an end, and work on Monday morning did help provide some temporary distraction from her inner turmoil. For the next two days she stayed long hours in the office, filing and refiling her employer’s correspondence, answering letters that didn’t need answering, but under her professional exterior she was finding the uncertainty of the trial’s outcome harder and harder to cope with. And on Wednesday, after reading two newspaper summaries of the judge’s summing up of the mountain of evidence against the defendant, she decided she couldn’t stand it any more and stayed home from work. All day she paced the rooms of her flat like they were a prison cell, listening to the hourly news broadcasts on the radio, until the verdict was finally announced at five o’clock, complete with a description of the pandemonium that had broken out in the courtroom when a member of the public had thrown her shoe at the judge, just when he was halfway through pronouncing the defendant’s death sentence.
Now Vanessa didn’t hesitate. She knew what she had to do. She turned off the radio and rang up Titus. He sounded ecstatic to hear from her.
‘I’ve been worrying about you,’ he said. ‘You didn’t answer my calls. Have you been all right?’
‘I had some kind of virus,’ she lied, ‘so I went to bed and took lots of medicines and unplugged the telephone, but I’m better now. Can I see you?’
‘Of course you can. When?’
‘Tomorrow for lunch? I can get the day off.’
‘Wonderful,’ he said. She’d never heard him sounding so happy.
‘Good, I’ll see you then.’
She rang off, realizing that she’d said nothing about the verdict, and that she hadn’t even asked about the man with the gun whom Titus was so worried about. Still, she knew there’d be plenty of time to discuss these topics and others at lunch the next day — before she found an excuse to slip away and look for Katya’s diary at the top of the house.
She awoke the next morning to a dense white fog that had enveloped the city in a damp, sightless embrace. The red brick neo-Gothic towers of Keble College that usually dominated the view from her living room window were now no more than vague shapes in the mist. All morning she hoped that the fog would clear, but if anything it was thicker than before when she finally screwed up her courage and got in her car to go to Blackwater.
The journey took much longer than usual since she had to drive very slowly, feeling her way tentatively along the roads, and Osman was waiting anxiously for her when she finally pulled up in the courtyard and turned off her headlights. He came hurrying down the steps, opened her door, and, taking her arm, steered her through the haze into the warmth of the hall. She felt a surge of relief as she took off her coat and preceded her lover through the door of the drawing room, but then stopped dead in her tracks as she caught sight of Claes standing in front of the fire. She was rooted to the spot, unable to go forward to take Claes’s outstretched hand, but Claes didn’t seem in the least put out by her rudeness. Instead he smiled broadly, and the tightening of his facial muscles stretched the white scar running down beside his left ear and the mutilated red skin below his jaw, giving him an almost obscene appearance that Vanessa felt sure was a calculated effect, since there was no warmth in his grey eyes to back up the smile on his lips. She felt as if some invisible portion of the fog had followed her inside, wrapping its tendrils around her body.
Osman didn’t seem pleased with Claes’s presence either, but Claes remained apparently impervious to his companions’ obvious wish to be alone. Lunch in the dining room was a miserable affair. Vanessa kept looking towards the door, getting ready to excuse herself so she could go upstairs and search for the diary, but then each time she was about to open her mouth, she caught Claes looking at her out of the corner of his eye. She felt irrationally certain that he could read her mind. And so she dropped her eyes to the table and watched his bony hands holding his knife and fork as he methodically cut up the meat on his plate, and imagined him cutting into her flesh too, sawing her, watching her bleed.
She couldn’t eat. She felt weak, helpless in the face of her fear of Claes. What if there was no diary? she asked herself. What if Swain was guilty — just like the jury had said? But then she remembered the way Swain had mouthed ‘thank you’ at her as she left the court, and she thought of how young he was — not much older than her own son who had died. She imagined him on the gallows, waiting for the trap to give way beneath his feet, and she went back to toying with her food.
‘Have you heard about the verdict, Mrs Trave?’ Claes asked, breaking the silence.
‘Yes,’ she said, refusing to meet his eye.
‘And what do you make of it?’ he asked. ‘You must be disappointed in the outcome after your efforts for Mr Swain’s defence.’
‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s for the jury to decide, not me.’
‘Quite right, my dear,’ said Osman, coming to her rescue. ‘These trials are very unpleasant. We have to do our duty and give evidence, whether it’s for the prosecution or the defence, but that doesn’t mean we enjoy the experience or what comes after. Personally I do not like the death penalty, but I understand why some people think it’s necessary.’
Claes snorted, as if unable to believe his ears. ‘What are you talking about?’ he asked. ‘You can’t have law
