“I am trying to catch them, Sir Peter, and I won’t allow you or anyone else to stand in my way.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I want to take Greta home with me now. Have you finished with her?”
“Yes, just about. There are a few formalities. It won’t take long.”
“So you’re not charging her. I thought as much. You’re not charging her because you haven’t got any evidence.”
“There is evidence, Sir Peter, but at present there is no charge.”
Hearns smiled as if pleased with the succinctness of his response, and once again Peter was treated to a sight of the detective’s yellowing teeth.
“I will have Miss Grahame join you in just a few minutes,” he said.
Greta slept on the way back to London. Peter drove fast, glancing repeatedly at her profile. The smooth, soft skin of her face and the groomed black hair tucked behind her delicate ear made his heart beat fast. He hadn’t realized until now how much he’d missed her. He felt determined to protect her from a hostile world, whatever the cost might be.
In Chelsea he stood at the top of the railings while she went down to the basement and opened the door. A minute later he heard her scream. Inside the apartment, drawers were pulled out everywhere and papers lay all over the floor. There was no cupboard or recess that had not been searched.
“They must have carried on after Hearns took me to Ipswich,” she said. “I didn’t know it was going to be like this.”
“Oh, Greta, I wish I could do something,” he said. “I feel so responsible. I didn’t want you to come back to this.”
“You are doing something. You’re being here.”
They were in the kitchen and Greta was moving about, straightening her possessions, making coffee, and bringing out a glass and a bottle of whisky for Peter.
“Have some too, Greta,” he said. “You’ll feel better.”
“No, I won’t. I’ll feel worse,” she said, laughing suddenly. “The coffee’s enough, and I’ll have some toast. I didn’t touch anything in that filthy police station.”
“Was it really bad?”
“It was squalid. Full of human misery like those places are. They put you in a cell, give you a taste of it to soften you up before they start asking you questions.”
“I’ve never been in one.”
“Of course you haven’t, Peter. You haven’t got a rich past life like me. Sorry, poor would be a better word.” Greta spoke harshly. There was a bitterness in her voice that Peter had not heard before.
“What are they going to do, Greta?”
“Oh, they gave me a date to go back. ‘Bail to return’ it’s called, but nothing’ll happen. They’re grasping at straws.”
“I know. That’s what I told Thomas.”
“It’s because of him that they’re doing it. You know that, don’t you, Peter? He’s so convinced that I’m the person behind it that he’s got Hearns convinced too. And the best part is that he didn’t even see the face of the man that I’m supposed to have been with. God, I wish I hadn’t lied. It’s too late now, of course.”
“Don’t blame yourself, Greta. I understand why you had to. What else have the police got?”
“The window that I forgot to close. The arrangement with Mrs. Ball that Anne asked me to make, and now they’ve got sweet Aunt Jane saying that I was standing in the hall talking to myself about how Lady Anne ‘had fucking had it now.’ Mrs. Posh I’m supposed to have called her.”
“Jane told me something about this. It was the day after it happened, and I went over to Woodbridge to talk to her and Thomas. Everyone got angry.”
“Well, I know why she’s said it. To back up Thomas, because that’s his problem. He needs someone else to say something.”
“You mean she’s lying.”
“Of course she’s lying. She’s always hated me.”
“I’ll dismiss her then.”
“No, don’t do that. It’ll just make things worse.”
“No, you’re right. I can’t leave Thomas there on his own.”
“On his own?”
“I can’t see him. Not after what he’s said to me. Not after what he’s done.”
“What did he say to you?”
“He said I was protecting you because we’re, we’re…” Peter flushed and looked away, busying himself with pouring out another glass of whisky.
Greta sat down beside him at the table and took his other hand in hers, knotting their fingers together.
“Look at me, Peter,” she said. “That’s why Thomas is doing this. I didn’t want to tell you before, but things have gone too far now. You need to understand.”
She was very close to him, and he sat captivated by her glittering green eyes.
“He wanted me, Peter. He told me that I was beautiful, that he loved me.”
“When? What did you do?”
Peter felt a rush of panic as if she’d suddenly taken a knife out of the drawer and put it to his throat.
“It was in the taxi on the way back here after we had a picnic in the park. The day that you couldn’t make it, you remember.”
“What did you do?”
“Nothing. What do you think I did? He was fourteen and I’m twenty-seven. I told him that he was very sweet but it wasn’t right. What else was I supposed to say?”
“Nothing. You did right. He must be crazy.”
“He’s a teenager who has never had a girlfriend. He’s thinking about sex three times a minute just like other boys his age.”
“I didn’t.”
“That’s not the point. The reason I’m telling you all this is so that you’ll understand why he’s got it in for me. I rejected him and he’s got to hate me for that. Then he thinks that I’m having sex with you, which makes him hate me even more because I’ve taken you away from him and because he’s jealous. Then his mother’s killed and he feels guilty about having wanted me when I wasn’t Lady Anne’s favorite person. It’s a poisonous brew.”
“Did he touch you, Greta?”
The thought of his son’s hands, of anyone’s hands holding Greta had engulfed Peter. He suddenly felt sick with jealousy.
“Of course he didn’t, Peter. Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I don’t want anyone to touch you.”
“They’re not going to.”
She smiled and reached out her hand so that it touched his cheek. Her red lips were open, and he could see the tip of her tongue between her perfect small white teeth.
He took hold of her hand and kissed it. He meant his touch to be gentle, but instead it was hungry and his breath came in short, sharp bursts.
She stood up, and for a moment he thought she was going to leave but she did not pull away. Instead she took his other hand, unlacing it from the whisky glass, and brought it up until it covered her breast.
She looked dreamily at the wall through half-closed eyes as he cupped her breast in his palm and felt with his fingers for the hard nipple through the thin black material of her dress.
She was feeling behind her back for the zipper, grimacing in frustration when she could not reach it, but she did not speak. Instead she pulled his other hand round behind her, pressing herself forward into his body while she guided his fingers upward.
A moment later and he had found it. He pulled down and suddenly he felt the flesh of her back. He pulled apart the bra strap so that he could feel the hard bones of her shoulder blades and below that, a second later, the parting of her skin, the cleft above her buttocks.
As Peter’s hand descended, Greta threw her head back, exhaling deeply. The black dress fell away from her, and his face was crushed into the soft center of her breast. He opened his mouth and searched with his tongue for
