“As your father is dead, this business falls on your plate. What I have to tell you is shocking and horrible.”
“You wrote that Lawrence was in some kind of trouble.”
“First of all—since Lawrence never said anything about me—how much did he say about anything else?”
Donald considered his answer most carefully. The question could be genuine, or it could be a charlatan sounding out her prey.
“Our relations have been cool. The last we heard, he had been promoted and was serving in the north.” That was vague enough to keep her guessing.
“Have you tried to contact him recently?”
“That’s hardly any of your business.”
“Yes, it is my business. Just as my story is your business, if you’d get off your high-horses and stop looking down your noses at me. My guess is you’ve tried contacting him through General Wardian about your father and they’ve not been any use. He listed no next of kin. All they’ll do is pass messages on.”
Donald maintained a perfectly impassive court face, because he was conditioned to do so. Lavinia was more open.
“She’s quite right,” she said.
“You won’t get no answer,” Sarah-Kelly said. “Probably not ever unless you do something to help. Lawrence has been fogged. They gave him eight years. That’s a death sentence.”
“What are you talking about, girl?” Lavinia said.
“Yes, please explain.”
“I mean… You can’t be serious. Have you lot never heard of the Night and Fog?”
“Yes, we’ve heard of the Night and Fog,” Donald said. “Could you please explain where, when and how you met Lawrence?”
“I met him in Oban. Have you heard of it?”
“It’s a port on the west coast of Scotland,” Lavinia said. “It’s part of the Krossingtons’ Mull and Morvern Estate, however it’s a private town, so what were you doing there?”
“I worked on the staff of Oban Castle in the export department.”
“And when did you meet Lawrence?” Donald asked.”
“It was last April 12th. He came up to me outside Oban Castle and asked me on a date. I was flabbergasted. Normally no glory officer would even look at a clerk from the trading office. We got on ever so well…” She struggled to hold back her tears.
“You slept with him?” Lavinia enquired.
Donald flinched and gazed up at the frames of the conservatory roof waiting for the bang.
“If you must know... Yes, we were lovers. We were in love. What would you expect us to do?”
“When was he sent to the Night and Fog?” Donald asked, relieved that Lavinia’s directness had not provoked an explosion.
“He was arrested in late July. I never saw him after that.”
“Then how do you know he was sent to the Night and Fog for eight years?”
“His boss, an account-captain called Turner, told me Lawrence had been charged with corruption against the Krossingtons. Then a local merchant told me about the eight years’ Fog. My Krossington citizenship got revoked and I had to get out of Oban. It was like a hurricane hit our life.”
For the first time that day, Donald enjoyed a flood of relief. Just for once, something was simple. It was something he could solve.
“Let me explain something to you,” Donald said. “If Lawrence had really been charged with corruption against the Krossingtons three months ago, I would have learned of it at the time. You are obviously not aware that I’m legal counsel to Tom Krossington himself. It’s out of the question he would have neglected to tell me.”
“Are you saying I’m a liar?”
“Yes, Miss Newman, that’s what I’m saying.” Donald said this with a decided satisfaction at having so certainly resolved the mystery of Miss Newman.
Sarah-Kelly was at first simply dumbfounded. She looked as if about to make a scene—she hit Donald with a ferocious glare—then she stood up.
“I’d like to go now.”
Donald summoned the maid and asked her to fetch Spencer. When the second butler arrived, Donald asked him to show Miss Newman out and give her money for transport if she needed it. Sarah-Kelly followed Spencer out obviously in a state of repressed fury, without one look back. Donald and Lavinia sat in silence for a while afterwards. He thought she might ask about his being shot down and incarcerated. Perhaps she had already heard the story from Her Decency Sally Tabetha Eugenie Krossington-Darcy. Or perhaps she was ashamed he had not committed suicide as a dutiful servant ought to have done. It was Lavinia who broke the silence.
“Suppose that girl was telling the truth?”
“She wasn’t telling the truth.”
“Why would she come here and lie?”
“I don’t know.” Donald thought about the balance of risk. There were two possibilities. Either Haighman and Newman had independently confirmed the truth, or else two plotters had worked to create a lie. What might this lie be? Donald was wise enough to know his life had been cossetted from the devious ways of swindlers. Perhaps they planned the same lie as that practised by the Ultramarine Guild; taking money pretending to make enquiries.
The more he thought about this, the less likely it seemed. A queasy feeling of having made a serious mistake intensified. Haighman was a well-educated officer serving on a sovereign land about eighty miles from the Central Enclave. Sarah-Kelly was of humble local birth. It was far-fetched in the extreme they could be in a conspiracy. In addition, she had provided comprehensive documentation that could be checked.
“I think she told the truth,” Lavinia said.
“She can’t be telling the truth. Had my brother been found guilty of offences against the Krossingtons, do you really think TK would have kept it secret from me? Even if he had, big brother Marcus-John certainly wouldn’t. He despises me. He thinks TK degrades the clan just by speaking to me, a mere commoner.”
“The whole business could have been buried—Oban is a long way off. Neither General Wardian nor Oban Castle would want high-level corruption advertised.”
“It wouldn’t kill me if my
