Peter sat in the back of his official car drumming on the leather top of the briefcase that he held across his knees. In front of him across Ludgate Circus the bright midafternoon sun lit up the magnificent dome of St. Paul’s Cathedral, but the motionless traffic on Fleet Street barred his progress toward the Old Bailey and made him oblivious to the beauty of the view. He was already five minutes late for his meeting with Greta, and his frustration boiled uselessly inside him. The rat-a-tat-tat of his nails on the briefcase only echoed a more frenzied pounding in his head, which he held in place even more rigidly than usual so that the thick blue veins in his neck stood out above the tight collar of his shirt.
The week of the trial had not been good for Peter. He had hardly slept, and the strain of trying to do his job and worry about his wife at the same time was showing on his face. There were bags under his eyes, and he had developed a tiny tic on the side of his lip. His mind would begin wandering to the Bailey in the middle of complex negotiations with armament executives, and he sensed the growing doubt behind the friendly masks worn by his civil servants. He felt that it was only a matter of time before he made some appalling mistake that would bring his career tumbling down in ruins.
Peter realized now that he should have booked time off during the trial, but he had thought naively that his work would be a distraction; better the Ministry of Defense than sitting outside the courtroom wondering what was going on inside. He consoled himself with the thought that it would all soon be over and tried not to think of the possibility of conviction. Only in his dreams did Peter imagine Greta being sentenced and taken away, and then the horror would wake him up with his heart racing. He’d calm himself in the dark by reaching out to take hold of his wife’s sleeping body.
Peter had made his life-defining choice on that cold November day in Ipswich eight months before when that smug bastard Hearns finally got around to charging Greta with conspiracy to murder. That was the day that he had proposed marriage to her. It was his way of telling the world who he was and where he stood, and besides, he had grown to love Greta. He owed her so much, and there was not a day that passed that she did not fill him with a terrible aching desire. Marriage meant that she would never go away. Till death do us part.
Of course, the wedding announcement had caused a scandal, but Peter had been ready for that. He had done well in his job since becoming defense minister nearly three years before, and he had known that the prime minister would stand by him. In fact, Peter had almost welcomed the media circus that congregated on his doorstep at the time of the wedding. Answering the reporters’ questions had given him an opportunity to tell the whole world how he felt about Greta.
Then, two days later, a train had crashed in the north of England, killing thirty passengers, and the defense minister’s private life had become yesterday’s news. The media spotlight had only returned with the onset of the trial, and now it was not Peter but Greta who was suffering under its glare.
Once again Peter cursed the ridiculous legal rules that stopped him from being in court until after he’d given his evidence. Patrick Sullivan had been down at the Bailey with Greta for most of the trial, and this had helped a little because Patrick was Peter’s oldest friend as well as his lawyer. However it wasn’t the same as being in the courtroom himself sharing his wife’s ordeal. Miles Lambert had told him that he’d be giving his evidence on Wednesday or Thursday at the latest, and Peter looked forward to the prospect like a prisoner awaiting his release. He’d tell them what Greta was and wasn’t capable of and what kind of person she was. He’d tell them that Anne had worn that locket at dinner after the Chelsea Flower Show and that she and Greta had got on fine in London. He’d tell them that he hadn’t seen Anne wearing the locket on the day of her death, and he’d tell them that that sneak Matthew Barne had run away without answering when he’d asked him if Greta had said “It’s mine.” Peter had not seen Thomas since that October afternoon in Chelsea when he’d come home to find the two of them burgling his house, and he’d not missed him either. He didn’t intend to see his son again until the boy came to him on bended knees begging his forgiveness, and Greta’s too for that matter, and maybe even that wouldn’t be enough.
Peter felt he’d been just. God knows he’d been just. He hadn’t dismissed Jane Martin even though the old shrew richly deserved being thrown out on the street. Instead he’d allowed her to stay on in the House of the Four Winds because he knew that that was what Anne would have wanted. He’d been just and loyal, unlike his son, who’d gone through Greta’s underwear behind her back, and his son’s freckled friend, the Barne boy, who ran away because he was too scared to back up Thomas’s lies. Peter wasn’t like that. He stood up to be counted when it mattered, and he didn’t sneak into people’s homes and then tell lies about them to fat detectives like Hearns.
Hurrying from the Daimler as soon as it had drawn up outside the court entrance, Peter ignored the group of reporters who shouted meaningless questions at him as he passed. He took it as a good sign that they were so few in number. Most of them must still be inside feasting on Greta’s trial, and so perhaps he wasn’t going to be late after all.
In the great hall at the top of the stairs Peter almost collided with Patrick Sullivan, who was coming toward him from the lifts.
“Where’s Greta?” Peter asked anxiously. “I said I’d meet her here ten minutes ago. She must be looking for me.”
“It’s all right. She’s on her way down. The court only finished a couple of minutes ago.”
“How did it go?”
“Good. No, better than good. Miles did a fantastic job on Thomas.”
“About the locket? Greta told me he did well with the Barne boy.”
“He did. We’ve got the locket covered, but Miles did his real damage cross-examining Thomas about what happened two weeks ago. I wish you could have seen it.”
“You mean this business about Anne’s killers going back to get Thomas. I agree with Greta: he’s made the whole thing up. There’s not a shred of evidence to support his story apparently.”
“That’s right. It’s obvious he’s made it up because Miles was able to poke so many holes in what he said. The best one was when Thomas said he used his panic button to call the police and then when they got to the gate he buzzed them in through the intercom instead of telling them to go around and intercept these Lonny and Rosie characters in the lane.”
“Lonny and who?”
“Rosie. They’re these weird names that Thomas has dreamed up for the intruders. Rosie’s the main man though. He’s the one that Thomas saw under the streetlight and the one who took the locket on the night of the, the…”
Patrick’s voice trailed away. He always found it difficult to talk to Peter about the central event of the case, and it didn’t help that the main prosecution witness was Peter’s son.
“Didn’t Greta show you Thomas’s last statement?” Patrick asked in an attempt to get the conversation back onto more neutral ground.
“No, I didn’t,” said Greta, coming up on them from behind. “Peter’s got enough on his plate without having to read Thomas’s lies.”
Patrick was puzzled by the irritation evident in Greta’s voice. She had seemed so pleased upstairs only minutes earlier when they had come out of court.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was just telling Peter how well everything had gone today.”
“Yes, it did go well, didn’t it?” said Greta. “Miles is a genius at what he does.” She kissed her husband. The anger had passed so rapidly from her face that it was as if it had never been there at all.
Peter did not respond to his wife’s greeting. It was almost as though he didn’t notice her presence. He had a faraway look in his eyes, and the deep lines on his forehead were furrowed even more than usual, as if he was immersed in some intense thought process.
“Are you all right, darling?” asked Greta solicitously. “You don’t look well.”
“Peter’s been overdoing it, I expect,” said Patrick, filling in for Peter’s lack of response.
“No, I’m fine. It’s been a long day for all of us,” said Peter, summoning up the ghost of a smile that flickered across his lips but never reached his distracted blue eyes.
“And I’m afraid it’s not over yet,” said Greta. “I’m supposed to have a conference with Miles to make sure we’ve got everything covered before I give evidence tomorrow.”
“When?” asked Peter. “Now?”
“No. Down at his chambers at six-thirty. I need to change first and have a drink.”
Patrick had already left and Greta was in the Daimler when Peter stepped back onto the sidewalk.
“I don’t feel very well for some reason, Greta. Will you wait for me while I just go back inside and use the
