Twenty-One Days

by Anne Perry

  Daniel snapped at last. ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘Not yet,’ Graves agreed. ‘But you’ll have to find out. You won’t be able to ignore it, not for ever. Little bits of evidence will turn up, old tales, and when there’s enough of them, you’ll see that I was right. The image will be there in your mind, a bright silver one, all glittering with light. But as you see it more and more often, it will be a little more tarnished each time, until it’s grey and yellow, corroded over, as ugly as it once was beautiful.’ His eyes never left Daniel’s face.

  That was a stab that hurt. Daniel could remember Vespasia from his earliest childhood. She was beautiful, and she made him laugh. She always had time to talk to him. Once or twice she had given him books and sat with him to discuss them. He remembered long talks about Ivanhoe and Hereward the Wake and his long battle against the Normans.

  And she was funny. He remembered her remarks that often he did not understand, but made everybody laugh.

  When a case was very bad, seeming impossible to solve, she and Narraway would come to the house and they would sit around the kitchen table and work out all the ways to solve it. He remembered creeping down the stairs with Jemima and sitting on the lower steps listening at the kitchen door. They knew from the voices that it was serious, although they didn’t understand very much. They knew when a decision had been made, and more than once had had to hide very quickly in the pantry, or get caught.

  These were good memories, ones he would not let Graves spoil. He knew that the cases were serious, often to do with treason, or murder, but he refused to believe that they fought for their own gain and not for a just cause, or to save the lives of those who were guilty of no more than foolishness, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  He looked at Graves’ sneering face. ‘I think most of her lovers would be dead by now,’ he said as levelly as he could. He heard the strain in his own voice. ‘Although perhaps their sons are not. You have certainly made a lot of enemies. I wouldn’t know where to begin. You’ll have to do better than that. It would take me years to go through all of them.’

  Graves’ eyes widened. He saw his own tactical error, as Daniel recognised before a look of hatred filled Graves’ face.

  ‘I agree,’ Graves said softly. ‘Forget about Lady Vespasia, and Narraway, for that matter. His extorted help, money from too many people; betrayed his friends. And those from his early years would be dead, too. Concentrate on your father. He’s still alive, and has fifteen years left in office, more or less. The lists of victims to blackmail are his! Lots of them are still alive. Look into those he trusts to do something like kill my wife and blame me! Ask him about Portugal! Then you won’t think he’s such a damn hero!’

  Daniel frowned. Puzzled. What did Graves mean about Portugal?

  ‘You’re no more of a hero than your father.’

  Daniel was confused, but he would ask his father, not Graves.

  ‘It’s common knowledge that he paid old fford Croft to take you on. You are his man inside one of the most discreet and trusted law firms in the country. Think of the secrets you will know – one day,’ he said with contempt. ‘Will you be Sir Daniel when he’s gone?’ Now his sneer was undisguised. ‘Was it not that kind of knighthood? Bought and paid for by turning a blind eye to all the right things! As I said in my book – weak! And weakness leads to corruption. And corruption leads to murder. Got to solve the case, no matter how, no matter who hangs for it. Runs in the bloodline, doesn’t it? His father was a poacher, he’s a lackey to Narraway, and God knows who else now. What are you going to be?’

  Daniel rose to his feet. He was shaking. ‘The man who finds out who killed your wife,’ he replied without hesitation. ‘Whether it’s you or not. If it isn’t you, I’ll get you out of here. And if it is, I’ll see you hang with pleasure.’

  Daniel went to the door and banged on it to be let out. He did not look back at Graves when the guard came, but walked away.

  Chapter Twelve

  Daniel made up his mind that he must go and see his father that evening. He set out with the intention of arriving about six o’clock. It would be before dinner, and it would be an interruption to his parents’ evening, but it was the best time to catch him, in the event that they had planned to go out. If so, their plans might have to be cancelled. This matter would not wait.

  Several times on the way there, he wondered if it was wise to appeal to his father, and if it was even necessary. It could be left until he knew more, in fact until after he had found out who might be behind Ebony’s death. But he did not hesitate in his stride. He knew these were all excuses, because it was going to be difficult. Unpleasant, at least; at worst, disastrous.

  He turned the corner into Keppel Street. Every house was familiar. He had walked this way almost every day since he was four or five years old, right until he went up to Cambridge. He did not hesitate, although he was forcing himself in every step.

  He was glad they had not moved to a newer, grander house with Pitt’s promotion, and higher salary. This was home. He pulled the bell rope and stepped back.

  It was answered almost immediately. They had a manservant now. That was fairly new. They’d always managed before with one maid, and a woman a couple of days a week for the heavy work.

  ‘Good evening, Mr Daniel. Is Sir Thomas expecting you?’ The servant opened the door wide and moved aside to allow Daniel in. He must know that Daniel was not expected, but it was a courteous way of asking.

  ‘No, Yeats, he isn’t. And I’m sorry if it causes inconvenience, but it’s really urgent. Will you please tell him I’m here? And I’ll say hello to my mother.’

  ‘Yes, sir. Lady Pitt is in the sitting room.’ Yeats went ahead of him, knocked on the sitting-room door and went in immediately. Daniel heard him say something in a murmur, and the next moment Charlotte was in the doorway.

  ‘Daniel!’ Her face was alight with pleasure and she hugged him immediately. He felt the warmth of her and responded. Since he had lived away from home, he had missed her enthusiasm, her interest in everything, even her desire to be involved in whatever was his latest interest. He had never known anybody more alive. It had driven him frantic, and frequently embarrassed him when he was a child. But he looked back on it now with pleasure.

  He hugged her in return. ‘Hello, Mama. Sorry to come without warning, but I have to talk to Father rather urgently about something very serious. And it’s a case I can’t tell you about, so don’t ask me. I know I’m interrupting, but it won’t wait.’

  ‘Oh!’ She seemed about to add more, but the gravity in his face, even perhaps a degree of pain, kept her from arguing. She could be amazingly discreet at times, which still surprised him. ‘I’ll fetch him. He’s in the study.’

  ‘I’d rather go in to him there,’ he said. ‘It’s . . .’

  ‘Serious?’ she asked, the light slipping out of her face. ‘Before dinner?’

  ‘Please.’ He wanted to talk as if everything were normal and not tell her he was too nervous to eat. He thought he had more control than that. He had stood up in court and defended a man, knowing that the man would live or die, depending on his success. He might even have turned the tide for Graves, temporarily. Was that an achievement, or a disaster? But telling his father about Graves’ accusations was different. It struck at the root of who his family was, who he was himself. And Graves knew it! He had seen that in his eyes, the knowledge of leaving a deep wound. It was what he had meant to do.

  Charlotte did not press him any further. She might ask Pitt afterwards, but that was up to them.

  She took him to the study door, knocked, and then went in. ‘Thomas? Daniel is here to see you about something very important. He says it’s better to get it over with before dinner.’ She held the door open for Daniel.

  Pitt was sitting at his desk. As usual, there were papers spread all over it. None of them would be secret. Those did not leave the office. Even so, Daniel did not glance at any of them, but straigh
t at his father.

  Pitt was tall and loose-limbed. He had improved on his natural untidiness a little over the years, but not a great deal. His hair was still too long and unruly, and lately there was a good deal of grey in it. Actually, it became him. It gave him a certain gravitas he had lacked before. He looked at Daniel steadily for several seconds.

  ‘You’d better sit down and tell me what it is,’ he said at last. ‘And if you are going to ruin your mother’s dinner. I hope you have already informed her?’

  ‘I don’t know . . .’

  Pitt saw the concern in his face. ‘Tell me . . .’

  Daniel sat down in the chair opposite the desk. He still did not know how he was going to approach this. He had thought of half a dozen ways on the journey here, and cast them all aside. Was the whole thing foolish, and he should not bother his father? Or was this going to be a turning point in the family, the beginning of a damage that would never be undone, never be completely healed over?

  Pitt was waiting, a shadow in his face now.

  Should Daniel start with Marcus fford Croft? Or defending Graves, and the outcome? Or go straight to Graves’ accusation?

  ‘Daniel?’

  ‘I have a defendant accused of a murder,’ he began. ‘I was only assisting at the trial, because the lawyer who was doing it had met with a street accident.’ He was making a mess of it already.

  Pitt did not interrupt.

  Daniel took a breath and started again. ‘The accused was found guilty and sentenced to be hanged. There are seventeen days left. Sixteen, tomorrow. Marcus put the senior lawyer into finding grounds to appeal in law, and me on finding grounds in fact . . . like another major suspect . . .’

  ‘And have you found one?’ Pitt asked quietly.

  It was the moment when Daniel had to tell him the truth. There was no evading it, other than lying.

  ‘Not by name, but by a major motive, which I’m afraid makes a lot of sense.’

  ‘Afraid? Why? What is it?’

  This was the moment beyond which he could not retreat.

  Daniel looked away, and then back at his father. ‘Have you ever heard of Russell Graves?’

  ‘No. Who is he?’

  ‘You’ve never heard of him? No one you know has ever even mentioned his name?’

  ‘No. Why should they have? Who is he?’ Pitt asked. A flicker of anxiety crossed his face.

  Daniel saw it. ‘He is a particularly unpleasant biographer. Likes to rip the mask off people we have regarded as heroes, for one reason or another.’

  ‘It happens,’ Pitt replied, his voice almost without inflection, giving away nothing. ‘Every good man, or woman, has their detractors. Some see them as saints, and rob them of their humanity. Others cannot believe in a quality they don’t have themselves, and want to force us to see their flaws. Usually, we sort them out. But you cannot suppress opinions, and we shouldn’t try. Why do you mention Graves in particular?’ He frowned. ‘Isn’t that the man who murdered his wife, and then disfigured her face?’

  Daniel swallowed. ‘Yes. Except he claims he didn’t. But whether he did or not, the book he’s planning to write will have given him a great number of enemies who would be glad to see him hang, but even more than that, totally dishonoured. Although I’m afraid that his hanging may well make some people of a certain sort want to read what he has written.’

  Pitt’s face was filled with sympathy, which softened all the lines in it, making him look younger and much more vulnerable. ‘There will always be people like that. There’s nothing we can do about it.’

  Daniel felt the sweat on his hands. ‘There ought to be,’ he replied. ‘It’s not just unpleasant. I have to investigate, in case it is true that somebody else killed his wife, in order to ruin him. Silence him permanently, by hanging.’

  ‘You just said it won’t save him,’ Pitt pointed out.

  Daniel was losing control of it. He could not back out now. ‘The man he has exposed is Victor Narraway . . .’

  Pitt looked incredulous. ‘What?’

  ‘Victor Narraway,’ Daniel repeated.

  ‘Exposing him as what?’ Pitt asked incredulously. ‘Head of Special Branch? For God’s sake, everybody who mattered knew that. And Victor’s dead. He hasn’t got any family to pay . . . or whatever this man wants.’

  ‘He’s not looking for money. He’s just inherited a whole fortune. Lands, money and a title. But it isn’t only Narraway . . .’ This was hard to say. Pitt didn’t seem to have understood it – not really.

  Pitt waited, his face paler now, the tension apparent in the way he sat.

  ‘Graves has painted him as corrupt.’ Daniel swallowed. ‘He says Narraway had a file of information on people which he used to blackmail them, to give himself more and more power. And he also said . . .’ This was even harder than he had foreseen. He felt as if it would make it sound believable, just by repeating it. ‘He says that Aunt Vespasia slept with all sorts of people to get information . . . personal information about important people, that she was . . . a high-class whore.’ He watched Pitt’s expression move from incredulity to understanding, to fury, then to grief.

  ‘I’m sorry . . .’ Daniel began.

  Pitt put up his hand, as if that could silence Daniel.

  ‘I had to tell you!’ Daniel said, his voice shaking with emotion. ‘And he says you use the same file of names to keep power. He . . .’ He tailed off. He could not repeat Graves’ words about Pitt. Even to say it sounded as if Pitt had to justify himself to Daniel. He could not do it. ‘He is suggesting that someone in Special Branch killed Ebony Graves, to keep anyone from publishing Graves’ book. I have to prove that is not true! It’s . . . it’s his only defence. And they’re going to hang him in a less than three weeks. I don’t believe it, but that isn’t good enough . . .’

  Pitt seemed to be stunned. He blinked once or twice. ‘Did he say where he got his information from?’

  ‘No. He knows that I’m your son. He seemed to take some pleasure in that.’

  ‘So, he used it to manipulate you? Or to have some sort of revenge on you that you didn’t save him?’

  ‘No. He hasn’t been home since I came onto the case. I’m only a replacement.’

  ‘What difference does it make that he hasn’t been home?’

  Daniel was doing this badly. And Pitt was refusing to understand. Daniel wanted to shout at him that he couldn’t evade it like that! Why wouldn’t he see that this was real?

  He took a deep breath. ‘I went to his house. Spoke to his servants, who don’t like him very much. They didn’t actually say so, but it’s there. They don’t seem to have any trouble believing that he killed his wife. I don’t know whether I believe he did or not. But Mr fford Croft owed him a debt of honour, and we have to . . .’ That was not what he meant. Start again.

  ‘I have to investigate it,’ he said desperately. ‘He hasn’t written a complete book yet, but he’s done a lot of it, a lot of the preliminary work, and a draft of the complete manuscript. And I don’t know who his publisher is yet and I don’t know how much they know.’ His voice was rising in exasperation. ‘I’ve got to see if it’s a credible defence! Somebody, anybody, might have tried to silence publication by framing Graves.’ He went on. ‘As he says, if he wanted to kill his wife, he could find a far better way of doing it than when he was the only suspect. And he could make it look like an accident, and no one would be the wiser. As it is, it’s obviously murder, because she was disfigured afterwards.’

  ‘Yes, all right!’ Pitt said quickly. ‘I see. And considering the material, the suspicion naturally falls on Special Branch. Narraway has no relatives, and Vespasia’s are her grandchildren, who are largely abroad. And they are not likely even to have heard of this, and less likely to do anything so . . . violent. And so futile.’

  ‘It’s to ruin Special Branch,’ Daniel said. ‘And you.’

  ‘Oh?’ A black humour lit Pitt’s face for a moment, and vanished. ‘What do these notes say a
bout me?’

  Daniel did not answer.

  Pitt’s voice was stunned. ‘Daniel? What do they say about me?’

  Daniel felt the room sway around him. He clenched his teeth, and breathed in deeply. ‘That you’re no better than Narraway. That you’ll do anything for power . . . even cover . . . murder.’ He waited, watching his father’s face as it changed from bewilderment to a flash of understanding, and then ill-concealed distress.

  The silence prickled for a moment. Then Pitt spoke. ‘And does he say whose murder this was, or only that I . . . covered it up?’

  ‘No. Except that it was a woman, and it was very violent.’ Why didn’t his father deny it? Why was he asking questions? He must know: it was in his eyes, in every hesitation in his voice. There could not be more than one incident like this . . . surely. He tried to speak, but his voice would not come. He cleared his throat and began again. ‘Do you know what he’s talking about?’ Instantly he wished he had not asked. It was already too late to take it back. He sat while the silence washed around him like waves.

  ‘Yes,’ Pitt said at last. ‘But I don’t know how Graves came to know anything about it . . . or to think he knows.’

  Daniel was stunned. He fought to remain calm. ‘I’ve only read his notes. I have a draft of the manuscript, with a lot of notes in the margins, and crossings out. I haven’t had time to read it. I don’t want to. Unless it wasn’t Graves who killed his wife, and I can . . . raise a reasonable doubt . . .’ He heard his own voice as if it were someone else’s.

  ‘I know,’ Pitt answered before Daniel could think how to finish. ‘If you can, you must. You must be true to your word, and your obligation. I would never expect anything less from you.’

  Daniel flinched. Pitt did not often speak of honour, or duty. It was implicit in everyday life, something that did not need to be given words. Daniel wished he had not come, had not raised anything of the issue. But it was too late to go back. He was now questioning his father’s honesty. Which meant that he was questioning his whole life. He could not deny it.