Fraser gave a quick, contained nod. Melanie Fraser’s fingers whitened round the ecru porcelain of her cup.
Roth set down his coffee cup, reached into the frayed pocket of his brown wool coat, and drew out a notebook and a pencil. “I know it’s difficult to think clearly at a time like this—”
Fraser set his own cup down with a clatter. “My wife isn’t given to hysterics, Roth. I’ll do my best not to succumb to them myself. For God’s sake, don’t waste time sparing our sensibilities.”
Roth met the other man’s gaze. Fraser’s gray eyes had the hard glint of tempered steel. Roth recalled that before he had been a politician, Charles Fraser had been posted at the British embassy in Lisbon, where he had earned fame for exploits beyond the usual diplomatic line. A man of action with a cold intellect. A volatile combination.
“It was carefully planned,” Fraser continued, in a tone that made Roth wonder just who was conducting the interview. “They’d have learned the routine of the house, the arrangement of the rooms.” He looked at his wife. “My wife and I were discussing who we’ve seen about in the last few days. Tradesmen making deliveries. Hackney drivers. Coachmen and grooms. It would be easy enough for a stranger to blend in.”
Roth nodded. “Judging by the break-in, they’re too accomplished to have drawn attention to themselves, but the patrol I brought with me is having a word with the servants in case anyone noticed anything. Which brings us back to the question of the motive.”
Fraser picked up his coffee cup, then set it down again without touching it. “Money would seem likeliest. Isn’t it at the root of most crime?”
“It is indeed, Mr. Fraser. And it’s surprising how often the culprit proves to be a family member.” Roth looked from husband to wife. “Any relatives who’ve applied to you for a loan or whom you know to be in debt?”
Roth expected shocked denial at this accusation against one of their own. In his experience, the higher one moved up the social ladder, the more people wanted to believe that crime was something that only existed in the dark reaches of the underworld.
But Fraser merely said, “My brother’s a captain in the Horse Guards. Fraternal feelings aside, he married an heiress. Their income is probably larger than ours. My sister and her husband live in Scotland and they’re too proud to ask for money, let alone extort it. I have an aunt and uncle who are in Paris at the moment and a widowed aunt in Brighton. She has a taste for amorous intrigue, but she’s far too well off to indulge in anything this sordid. None of my cousins is in straitened circumstances. Oh, and there’s my grandfather. But he hasn’t left Scotland in years and he’s quite comfortably situated.”
This last was a wild understatement. Charles Fraser’s maternal grandfather was the Duke of Rannoch. Roth inclined his head. “I appreciate your frankness.” He made some notes. “Mrs. Fraser?”
Melanie Fraser plucked at the skirt of her gown, her nails scraping against the sheer fabric. “I’m an only child. Both my parents were killed during the war in Spain. Between the war and the revolution, I don’t have any family left that I know of.”
Roth, ardent supporter of the French Revolution, more than passingly sympathetic to Napoleon, looked into the eyes of this blue-blooded woman and found himself smiling in an awkward attempt to ease her fears. “Friends, then.” He jotted down a note. “Hangers-on. Former servants, though it would have to be someone with the resources to carry out such a plot.”
The Frasers exchanged glances again. “No one I can think of,” Mrs. Fraser said. “The only servant who’s left recently is our little girl’s nurse who got married last summer. My husband and I were at the wedding.”
“My friends aren’t all saints,” Fraser said. “But if they wanted money they’d simply ask for it.”
“Of course it’s possible he was taken for ransom by someone unknown to you,” Roth said. “But while money’s the likeliest motive, it’s not the only one. You’re a prominent politician, Mr. Fraser. Perhaps the culprit wishes to force your hand in the House of Commons.”
“You can’t have followed my career too closely. It’s highly improbable that any of my proposals will be enacted in the immediate future. It’s more likely
“You ruffled a lot of feathers with your speeches against suspension of habeas corpus. Suppose someone took the boy to force you to be silent. Or to get you to change your vote.”
“Unfortunately, they’re hardly in need of my vote to suspend habeas corpus.”
“No, but it would make a powerful statement to silence critics if you changed your position.”
Fraser leaned back on the sofa, his eyes narrowing.
“I do read the papers,” Roth said. His voice was mild, but there was an edge to it.
“I don’t doubt it.” Fraser watched him a moment longer. “You’re an unusual man, Mr. Roth. You work for the chief magistrate of Bow Street, who works for the Home Secretary. The Home Secretary is a government minister. Yet you’ve just suggested that someone allied with the government’s interests may have been behind the disappearance of our son.”
“It’s my job to explore all possibilities, Mr. Fraser.” Roth shifted his gaze to Melanie Fraser. “Mrs. Fraser? Is there any reason you can think of why your son might have been taken to target you?”
She shook her head, strands of hair stirring about her face. “No. I’m sometimes accused of being too outspoken, but I can’t see anyone going to this much trouble to quieten me.”
Her fingers clenched tight in her lap. Her gaze shifted toward the painting on the overmantel. Roth followed the direction of her gaze. The painting had only registered before as a blur of colors. Now the candlelight seemed to cluster about the luminous whites and pastels the painter had used. It was a portrait of Melanie Fraser and the children. They were sitting on a wrought-iron bench in the same garden where Roth had looked for clues to Colin Fraser’s disappearance. In the painting it was not a November night but a spring afternoon. The linden trees in the background were thick with leaves, not stark and barren. Melanie Fraser’s face was bright with laughter, not shadowed with fear. A little girl of perhaps eighteen months sat in her lap, reaching for the rose-colored ribbons on her dress. A small boy stood beside her, leaning against her arm.
Colin Fraser must have been about five when the portrait was painted, Roth guessed, judging by his own sons. The boy wore a shirt and breeches, not ruffles and velvet. His hair was dark, almost as dark as his mother’s. His face was fine-boned and serious, but curiosity sparkled in his eyes and a hint of mischief danced in the slant of his brows.
Roth’s throat closed unexpectedly. “He looks like a bright lad.”
“He is.” Melanie Fraser’s voice broke, like crystal hurled against a rock. She drew a sharp breath. “He’ll keep his head. I keep telling myself that.”
Charles Fraser took her hand and gripped it between his own. “He has his mother’s nerves of steel as well as her looks.”
In truth, the boy did look very like his mother. Roth studied the picture a moment longer, searching for some echo of Charles Fraser in his son. You could see it in the little girl—the strong, determined bones of the face were visible even beneath the baby fat. But the boy was pure French-Spanish, with no hint of the Celt. Not that it was surprising for a child to take strongly after one parent. And yet—
Roth turned a page in his notebook and jotted down a random note, to give himself a moment to think. The Frasers seemed a happy enough couple, but Charles Fraser was a damned cold bastard and fidelity was rare in their set. Some women of fashion made it a matter of pride to have each of their children by a different father. It was rare for an eldest son and heir to be illegitimate, but accidents could happen to even the cleverest woman. If another man had fathered Colin Fraser, if that man knew or guessed and wanted to lay claim to his child…Roth scribbled over the page. It would explain Melanie Fraser’s startling combination of self-possession and fear if she suspected who had taken her child and why.
It was nothing he could pursue with the Frasers, but he could make discreet inquiries later. No doubt it would be damnably difficult. What the polite world did and what they were willing to talk about were two very different things. “Anything else either of you can think of?” he said. “Anything anyone might pressure you to do, not to do, anything anyone might want from you—”
“We’ve had our share of adventures in the past,” Charles Fraser said, “but nothing—Oh, Christ.” Fraser stared across the room, as though he had been slapped hard across the face.
“Darling?” Melanie Fraser squeezed her husband’s hand.
Charles Fraser pushed his fingers into his brown hair. “It’s absurd. But—”
“What?” His wife’s voice was tense with strain.
