the locket. Greta used the bureau now, and Peter wondered if she had put anything in the secret drawer to replace the locket. For the hundredth time he tried to visualize Anne as he had seen her on the day of her death: at lunch, lying on the sofa, passing him on the stairs. He didn’t think she was wearing the locket, but he couldn’t be sure. He hadn’t known that it was the day of Anne’s death; he hadn’t known that he was looking at her alive for the last time.
I’m not your Greta Rose. Not anymore. But had she been once? Peter had to know. He picked up the telephone and dialed directory assistance. Matthew Barne’s number was unlisted and Peter was about to give up when he remembered the school. He was a parent, a tuition-paying parent. Carstow would give him the number; they had no reason not to.
Soon he was speaking to Thomas.
“What do you want, Dad?” Thomas’s voice was wary, but at least the word Dad implied a recognition of a relationship between them.
“I want to speak to you, to ask you something.”
“About what?”
“About Rosie.”
There was a silence at the end of the telephone, and Peter thought for a moment that they had been disconnected.
“Thomas, are you there?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
“I can’t speak for much longer. Will you meet me?”
“I don’t know.”
Another silence, and Peter could hear Greta coming down the stairs.
“There’s no time. I’ll meet you on Chelsea Town Hall steps at six-thirty.”
“Where’s that?”
“Around the corner from the house.”
Peter put the phone down just as Greta came into the room.
“Who was that?”
“Just someone from the Ministry.”
“What’s he doing around the corner from the house?”
“The House of Commons. That’s where I’m meeting him next week.”
The lie slipped easily from Peter’s tongue, and Greta seemed to accept his answer. She took the drink from his hand and kissed him as she did so, allowing her lips to move over his so that he was suddenly filled with desire.
She caught the look in his eye and moved away from him, smiling. Her power over him was still undiluted.
“Not now, darling, or I won’t be able to concentrate. Besides, I’m wearing my giving-evidence dress. It’s a dry run for tomorrow. What do you think?”
“I think it’s perfect.” Peter was being no less than honest. The black dress was of a perfect cut and length. Her breasts were high and pronounced, but there was no trace of cleavage. He had never seen Greta looking so beautiful.
The time passed slowly. Peter’s mind was in confusion, but he tried not to show it, hiding behind government papers on the sofa. But something must have alerted Greta to his anxiety. Perhaps it was the way he kept glancing up at the carriage clock on the mantelpiece. Several times she asked him what was wrong, and several times she wondered aloud about canceling the conference with Miles Lambert.
At five past six the bell rang and Greta gathered up her papers and went down to the car. On the doorstep she hesitated and took hold of her husband by the arm.
“I can rely on you, Peter, can’t I?” she said.
“Yes. Yes, of course you can.” He avoided her eyes as he spoke.
Chapter 23
Peter paced the rooms after Greta had left, checking off each minute that passed on his watch. His mind was in a ferment. One moment he was certain that Greta could have nothing to do with the murder, and the next doubts flooded back as he remembered the words that he had overheard in the basement a year earlier.
At 6:25 he left the house and walked around to the town hall. Thomas was sitting at the top of the steps. He was wearing the same outfit that he’d had on at court: a navy blazer with gold buttons, a pair of tan trousers and a pale blue Oxford shirt. The only difference was that the black loafers that had been shiny with recent polishing at court were now scuffed at the toes, as if Thomas had been using them to kick the curb in frustration. Peter was suddenly touched by the thought that Thomas would have had to decide for himself what to wear to court. He had no parents to advise him. His mother was dead, and his father had gone away. Peter felt a momentary sensation of guilt, but his nerves were too frayed for him to retain any emotion for long.
Thomas got to his feet and came halfway down the steps toward his father. Their eyes met for a moment and then Peter looked away. In his excitement he had not realized how traumatic it would be to see his son again. The meeting called for a reconciliation, but that of course was not why Peter had asked Thomas to come. He needed answers to the questions that had been pounding in his mind for the previous two hours, but he could not pay for the answers with soft words; that would be too much of a betrayal, and so he launched straight into his questions without saying anything by way of greeting.
“What did this Rosie say about Greta?” he asked breathlessly.
“He said she had told him how the hiding place opened. It’s all in my statement. Haven’t you read it?” Thomas had gone back up a step and now looked down at his father angrily.
“No, I haven’t read it,” said Peter. “I need to know about this from you.”
“Why?” Thomas threw out the question like a challenge. It conveyed all his pent-up resentment. He’d come across the city at the bidding of his father, negotiating the subway for only the second time in his life, and his father hadn’t even bothered to say hello to him. They hadn’t properly seen each other since the day of his mother’s funeral, and now his father had nothing for him except questions about Rosie. Thomas felt he’d had enough of questions. He’d heard nothing else all day.
“I’m asking you because you were the only other person there. You’re the only one who’s met this Rosie.”
“Apart from your wife,” said Thomas.
“All right, I don’t want to argue with you. I just need to know some things.”
“What things?”
“What else did he say about Greta?”
“He didn’t say anything else about Greta.”
“Are you sure he was called Rosie?”
“That’s what Lonny called him.”
“Could it have been Rose? Could you have heard it wrong?”
“No, I didn’t hear it wrong. And he did say it and it did happen. I’m sick of people saying it didn’t. Sick of people not believing me. Like you. You don’t believe me.”
It came to Peter that his son had changed in the year since the funeral. The desperation that he remembered from their interview in the little terrace house in Woodbridge had been transformed into a new, dogged determination. Thomas’s defiance was now far more than skin deep.
“I don’t know what to believe, Thomas. That’s why I need to ask you these questions.” Peter realized immediately after he spoke how much he had betrayed Greta by his words. He felt an overwhelming self-disgust, which in turn made him angry with his son.
Thomas, however, thought nothing of his father’s concession. He regretted coming. Seeing his father only made him realize how little the man loved him. He was better off not seeing him at all.
“I’m going,” he said. “I wish I hadn’t come.”
