‘Gambling. You can ask that girl. That’s why she went home with me. Because she could see how much I’d won.’
‘Home. Yes, I wondered about that. What were you doing in someone’s house, I wonder? A friend of a friend, was it?’
‘It was a bedsit. They’re safer than a hotel. People don’t ask questions.’
‘I’m sure they don’t, but whose bedsit? That’s what I’m asking.’
‘And I’m not saying. I’m not ratting on my friends. I told you that already,’ said Eddie defiantly.
‘He doesn’t need to,’ said Clayton, speaking for the first time. ‘It’s in the report from the London police. The whole house is divided up into bedsits, and they talked to a couple of the tenants. Landlord’s a John Birch. Usually collects the rent in person on the first day of the month. Doesn’t have a forwarding address…’
‘Birch or Bircher?’ asked Trave, interrupting. Clayton picked up on the sudden expectancy in his boss’s voice — he’d seen how Trave had gripped the edge of the table with his hand when he heard the name.
‘I don’t know. It could be either. Here, you can look yourself,’ said Clayton, handing Trave the document that he’d been reading from. ‘The report’s obviously been written up in a hurry.’
Trave glanced down at the page and then fixed Eddie with a hard stare. Clayton noticed how the cigarette had started to shake again in Eddie’s hand and how the colour had gone out of his cheeks.
‘Who’s Bircher?’ asked Trave.
‘I don’t know. Never heard of him.’
‘How did you find that house?’
‘A friend told me about it.’
‘A friend. What friend?’
‘I’m not saying. Like I told you: I’m no rat.’
‘Tell that to the old ladies you’ve conned out of their life savings,’ said Trave angrily. ‘Tell that to the poor girl you hit with that bottle last night.’
‘She had it coming,’ said Eddie with a sneer.
‘What? Because she has to earn her living going home with people like you? You didn’t think she’d go to the police because of who she was. That was your big mistake, wasn’t it?’
‘I don’t have to listen to this,’ said Eddie. ‘I’ve changed my mind. I want a lawyer, and until I get one I’m saying nothing.’
‘Interview suspended at twelve thirty-one,’ said Trave smoothly, looking at his watch. ‘You can have your solicitor, Eddie, but we’re not finished. I can tell you that much.’
‘Come on,’ said Trave, looking back at Clayton over his shoulder as he picked up his coat and went out the door of their office. ‘We’ve got work to do.’
‘Where are we going?’ asked Clayton, half-running down the corridor to keep up with Trave.
‘Where do you think? Archives first — to get Bircher’s picture — and then down to see your friend at the prison. I hope he’s not gone off duty by the time we get there.’
They were in luck. Bircher was on parole and so his file was live. He’d been released on licence the previous year after doing three years of a five-year stretch for running the rent-boy ring that Claes had got caught up with. He’d kept girls in another house too apparently — quite an operation. He’d stayed out of trouble since getting out, which seemed to be something of an achievement, given that he had a string of previous convictions going back to when he was eighteen a quarter of a century earlier — most for pimping, a few for low-level fraud. He was living at an address in Oxford according to the parole record — there was no mention of the tenement house in London. And pinned to the front of the file were his arrest photographs — front on and in profile. Average height, average build, average-looking except for a thick black beard.
‘Gotcha,’ said Trave under his breath as he signed for the file.
It didn’t take long for the visits officer to identify Bircher as the man who’d visited Eddie Earle on four different occasions in the month before Earle escaped, but Trave wasn’t satisfied. He insisted on seeing the prison governor and wouldn’t take no for an answer, until, half an hour later, the two policemen found themselves seated on uncomfortable hard-backed chairs in the governor’s second-floor office. Opposite them the governor, an unfriendly, balding little man, sat bolt upright with his hands palm down and immobile on the desk in front of him, looking like he was about to have his photograph taken. Behind his head, a picture of the young Queen in a pearl-white dress adorned with a blue regal sash gazed down at them, while to her right a large laminated sign ordered inmates not to smoke and to stand in the presence of the governor. Above the door a wall clock ticked loudly, measuring out the time with thick black hands.
The one window in the office looked directly down onto the concrete exercise yard in the centre of the prison, bleak and deserted in the gathering gloom of the autumn afternoon, and beyond that, above a long brick building lined with tiny barred windows, Clayton glimpsed the top of the high perimeter wall. He wondered if that was the way Earle and Swain had gone when they escaped, and was struck with admiration for a moment at their audacity in finding a way out of this hellish place.
‘What is it you want to ask me about, Inspector?’ asked the governor, looking up at the clock behind his visitors’ heads. ‘I do my rounds at two o’clock and I’m a punctual man, so please be brief.’
There was a nasal, clipped quality to the governor’s voice that stopped just short of outright rudeness. Clayton put it down to the governor’s wanting to avoid having to answer any more questions about the escape — it wasn’t hard to imagine that he’d already taken a lot of flak over what had happened, and he didn’t look like someone who’d welcome being in the line of fire. But Trave wasn’t in the least deterred — Clayton couldn’t remember ever seeing his boss this fired up before.
‘I want to ask you about David Swain and Edward Earle, the two prisoners who escaped last weekend,’ said Trave. ‘I want to know who put them in a cell together. Whose decision was it?’
‘It was nobody’s decision,’ the governor shot back without hesitating. ‘It was standard administration. Swain’s cellmate was sent to the punishment block because he was caught fighting, and so Earle replaced him. It’s not our practice to keep cells in single occupation, Inspector. Space is at a premium here.’
‘But why Earle? Why put a known escaper in with a maximum-security prisoner?’
‘There are a lot of high-security prisoners here. Earle had to go somewhere.’
‘Why? Why couldn’t he stay where he was? Why not put a new arrival with Swain?’
‘Because we didn’t. That’s why. We move prisoners around. It’s our policy. I don’t know what you’re implying, Inspector, but…’
‘I’m not implying anything,’ said Trave interrupting. ‘Two men have escaped from your prison. One of them is a convicted murderer who’s still on the run, and I need to know how they came to be put together. That’s all.’
‘And I’ve told you how,’ said the governor, rising from his chair. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me…’
But Trave stayed anchored to his seat, ignoring the governor’s attempt to terminate the interview.
‘How many visits are convicted prisoners allowed each month?’ he asked.
‘Two,’ said the governor, reluctantly resuming his seat. ‘Two every four weeks.’
‘So why did Earle receive four last month?’
‘I don’t know,’ said the governor, sounding genuinely surprised. ‘It’s the first I’ve heard of it. If it’s true, there must have been some kind of mix-up.’ Clayton noticed how the governor’s cheeks had become suffused with a deep red flush and wondered whether this arose from embarrassment or anger or a combination of the two.
‘It is true,’ said Trave, pushing his advantage. ‘Your visits officer just confirmed it to us. He showed us the book.’
‘Well it won’t happen again. I can assure you of that.’
‘I’m sure it won’t, except that it sounds a bit like locking the stable door
after the horse has bolted. Have you any idea what harm these mix-ups of yours have caused?’ asked Trave, leaning forward suddenly across the desk and giving his anger free rein. ‘If they are mix-ups… I haven’t even started looking into how Swain and Earle got out of your so-called maximum-security prison…’
‘What do you mean by that?’ asked the governor, whose plump hands had now curled into tight fists as he retreated back into his chair in the face of Trave’s attack.
‘What do you think I mean?’ Trave shot back, returning the governor’s hostile stare.
The governor opened his mouth to respond but then thought better of it, breathing deeply in an effort to regain his self-control.
‘I don’t know why you have chosen to be so offensive, Inspector,’ he said at last in a self-consciously dignified voice as he got up from his chair and went over to the door. ‘But it is not conduct that I will tolerate in my office. Please make an appointment if you have any further questions. Or even better, put them in writing.’ He now had the door open and stood waiting for them to leave.
Outside Trave wrinkled his nose in disgust. ‘Prig,’ he said, spitting out the word like it was a bad taste. ‘Another one who knows more than he’s saying.’
Clayton followed his boss to the car, wondering where they were going next. He soon found out: instead of returning to the police station, Trave drove out of town on the Cowley Road, pressing his foot down on the gas as they weaved in and out of the busy afternoon traffic.
‘Shouldn’t we have another go at Eddie first, now we’ve got the ID on Bircher?’ Clayton suggested, holding on to the dashboard to prevent himself flying forwards as Trave came to a sudden halt at a red light, narrowly missing a car coming from the right.
‘No, let him stew for a bit,’ said Trave in a tone that brooked no opposition. ‘Claes is the connection — it’s him we need to talk to now.’
‘Connection? So you really think Claes used Bircher to spring Swain out of gaol just so as to set him up for Katya’s murder?’ asked Clayton doubtfully.
‘Maybe,’ said Trave, sounding the opposite of doubtful. ‘And maybe Claes wasn’t acting on his own either.’
‘You mean Osman was in on it too?’
Trave nodded.
‘But why would they go to all this trouble to frame Swain?’ asked Clayton. ‘Katya was sick, mentally unbalanced. They could easily have faked a suicide.’
‘Sure, but that would’ve given me the opportunity to go straight for Osman’s jugular, wouldn’t it? He’s got too much to hide to risk that, whereas this way Swain’s the focus of the investigation. And if I start asking any awkward questions out at Blackwater, all Osman’s got to do is have a chat with the chief constable and I’m off the case.’
Trave glanced over at his companion, catching the look of disbelief on his face. ‘Osman did it to prove he could do it. That’s what I think,’ he said quietly. ‘It’s the same reason he does everything. To show he can.’
Clayton bit his lip and said nothing. He didn’t agree at all with his boss’s handle on the case, and he didn’t like the hard set of Trave’s jaw, the white-knuckled grip with which he held the steering wheel, the angry edge to his voice. As far as Clayton could see, there was precious little evidence against Claes and none whatsoever against Osman. Trave wanting him to be a murderer didn’t make him one. All the evidence pointed toward David Swain, and this surprise visit to Blackwater Hall felt like at best a wild-goose chase, at worst a serious mistake. But Trave was the man in charge — it was his call where they went next and when. Clayton had infuriated his boss once already by questioning his methods, and he wasn’t going to do it a second time unless he had to. Clayton was independent-minded, which was why Trave liked him as an assistant, but he was no mutineer.
And so he kept his peace and hoped for the best as Trave made a sharp left turn and headed up the road toward Blackwater Church, where it stood silver-stoned and serene at the top of the hill, looking down on the lush green landscape all around.
CHAPTER 13
Franz Claes opened the front door before Vanessa had even got out of her car and came down to meet her on the steps. He took her coat in the hall and showed her into the drawing room, explaining that Titus was tied up with something in his study. He offered her a drink, which she refused, but then, just when she’d expected him to leave, he closed the door and came and sat down opposite her on the sofa. It made her feel nervous. Up until now he had always seemed keen to shun her company, treating her with an icy politeness that barely concealed an obvious antipathy, and she wondered what it was that had changed his attitude today.
‘Perhaps I’ll change my mind about that drink,’ she said. ‘A glass of wine would be nice.’
‘Certainly,’ said Franz, crossing to the sideboard and opening a bottle with quick, practised movements, and then, as he held the glass out towards her, he caught her eye and held it.
‘It’s obvious you’ve got something to say to me, Franz,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you tell me what it is and put me out of my suspense.’
He nodded, smiling thinly as he resumed his seat. ‘It’s about Titus,’ he said. ‘I am worried about him.’
‘Because of what’s happened?’
‘Yes. He is under very great strain, and the police inspector, your husband, he is making it worse.’
‘What? More since last Sunday?’ asked Vanessa, trying not to show how perturbed she felt. She’d only seen Titus once since the previous weekend for a hurried lunch in Oxford, and he hadn’t referred to her husband then or when they’d spoken each evening on the telephone. He’d obviously not wanted to worry her.
‘Yes, he comes here almost every day, insulting Titus, treating us like we are the criminals when he should be trying to catch the real murderer,’ said Franz, allowing his anger to show through. ‘Swain killed Katya just like he killed Ethan Mendel. I caught him doing it.’
‘I’m sure Bill’s doing his best to find him,’ said Vanessa, trying to inject her voice with a sense of conviction that she did not entirely feel. ‘The manhunt story’s on the radio every day.’
‘I am afraid that I do not share your confidence, Mrs Trave,’ said Claes coldly. ‘It has been a week and they have found nothing. And yet your husband won’t leave us alone…’
‘Well, what do you want me to do about it?’ Vanessa burst out, unable to contain her exasperation. ‘I’m sure it hasn’t escaped your notice that I’ve been separated from my husband for eighteen months. I can’t tell him what to do, and he wouldn’t listen to me even if I tried.’
‘I know. I understand this,’ said Claes, bowing his head. ‘Inspector Trave is a law to himself. It is not your fault that you are his wife.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ said Vanessa, bridling. It was one thing for her to leave her husband, quite another to stand by while Franz Claes insulted him. ‘He’s a good policeman. I know that much,’ she added angrily.
‘Maybe once upon a time he was good, but not now. He is treating us like this because of you and Titus, and that is not being a good policeman. I know this.’
‘All right,’ said Vanessa, controlling her temper. ‘If what you say is true then maybe Bill is in the wrong, but I still don’t see why you’re telling me about it. You just told me there was nothing I could do.’
‘Yes, but there is something you can not do,’ said Claes quietly.
‘What do you mean — not do?’
‘Titus told me about what Katya said to you in here. She lied of course, but it doesn’t matter — if your husband hears about it, he will never leave Titus alone. He will arrest him. It is just the excuse he is looking for. And Titus will be disgraced even though he is innocent. I ask you — is that justice?’ asked Franz, leaning forward and looking Vanessa in the eye. He hadn’t raised his voice, but she noticed how his bony hands were clenched together in his lap. She felt like he was looking inside her, and it made her heart beat fast. A cold sweat broke out on her forehead.
‘Titus has told me that he asked you to say nothing,’ Franz went on after a moment. ‘And he says that you are thinking about his request, but it is not enough to think, Mrs Trave. You must decide to do what is right; you must protect Titus from your husband.’
Vanessa drew a deep breath, trying to keep a lid on her inner turmoil. All week long she had been agonizing over what to do. She believed in Titus and wanted to help him, but then each time she resolved to do as he asked and stay silent, Katya’s desperate face appeared in her mind’s eye, and she remembered the terrible struggle that the girl had gone through to convey her message. ‘They’re trying to kill me’ — what if it was Claes and his invisible sister that Katya had been talking about? Was that why Claes was appealing to her now — not for Titus’s sake, but to protect himself?
‘Does Titus know about you talking to me about this?’ she asked.
Claes shook his head, and she was inclined to believe him. Titus was too considerate of her feelings to allow Claes to pester her — he knew how much she disliked his brother-in-law.
‘Well?’ Claes asked, looking at her expectantly. ‘Can we count on you?’
‘I’ll talk to Titus about it,’ she said. Claes flushed, but bit back the angry response he’d been about to make when the door opened and Titus came in.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, looking surprised. ‘I only just now saw your car outside, my dear. I had no idea you were already here. Has Franz been looking after you?’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Vanessa holding up her glass. ‘He has been most attentive.’
After lunch, Titus lent Vanessa a pair of Wellington boots and they walked out across the lawn to where the path opened up in the pine trees leading down to the lake. Titus’s cat, Cara, followed them a little way but then turned aside, entering the woods at a different point, engaged on a hunting expedition in the undergrowth. Vanessa was not sorry to see the animal go. She found it unnerving the way the cat stared at her out of its unblinking green eyes whenever she visited the Hall. Once or twice she had tried to stroke the creature, but it had got up each time and stalked away, impervious to her well-intentioned advances.
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