‘You don’t see because you don’t want to see,’ said Jacob, looking over at Clayton with obvious hostility. ‘The two of them — they’re in it together: they have been from the start. Osman targeted my family; he planned the whole thing. He knew my father was wealthy — he’d dealt with him lots of times at the Antwerp diamond exchange before the war, and he knew that my father had hidden most of his diamonds when the Nazis came, just like the other Jewish traders did. He got me and my brother out of Belgium because he knew he had to get my parents to trust him with their escape. And the plan worked — my parents must have had at least half their fortune sewn into their clothes when Claes met them at the border. And sent them to Mechelen. Do you know about Mechelen, Inspector?’ Jacob asked, turning to Trave.
‘Yes, your grandmother told me,’ said Trave quietly.
‘But you didn’t go there, did you? You didn’t see it?’ Trave shook his head. ‘I thought not. It doesn’t look like anything nowadays — just an old barracks near the railway line with a big enclosed courtyard in the middle. The Belgian army use it as an officer training school. A school — can you believe it? And there’s nothing there except a tiny plaque to say what it was, when there should be a monument, the biggest bloody monument in Belgium to stop them forgetting. They shouldn’t be allowed to forget…’
Jacob broke off, drawing deep breaths to control his anger. And when he resumed speaking, it was in a new, flat, expressionless tone, as if he knew that this was the only way that he could safely talk about the past.
‘The commandant there was called Schmitt — Philip Schmitt. He was a sadist — strip-searched the women himself when they arrived and used his big alsation on the prisoners. One of them died from bites. But he was the only one who did. People didn’t die in Mechelen. They needed them alive to make up the numbers for the trains. It was easy at first — the Jews reported to the camp themselves, called up for forced labour in the east, and the SS was sending out two trains a week. But then rumours got out about what was really waiting at the other end of the line, and the Jews went into hiding. The Nazis started doing round-ups, night arrests, but still there were fewer Jews coming into Mechelen than before, and so they had to wait until there were enough of them for a convoy. My parents had to wait two months, Inspector. I don’t know if they knew where they were going — I pray in my heart that they didn’t, but in my head I know they did. And yet they must have hoped, hoped right up to the end that they weren’t going where they feared they were going, that they would survive.’
Jacob broke off, looking out into the darkness outside the window, as if he was trying to search back into the past.
‘The SS used third-class passenger carriages at first when they began the deportations in 1942,’ he went on again after a moment, ‘but then people started jumping out of the windows, and so they switched to goods wagons — seventy Jews locked in each truck for two or three days with no food, no water, almost no ventilation, and at the end — the end of the world. Screaming and shouting and barbed wire and arc lights and dogs and… and…’
‘You don’t need to tell us this. You don’t have to,’ said Trave. ‘We understand…’
‘No, you don’t. You don’t understand,’ Jacob interrupted passionately. ‘The selections were done straight away at the end of the platform. You probably know that — right to the camp, left to the gas. And my parents — they were split up. My father was selected to live; my mother to die. And so that was their last moment — being dragged apart in that terrible place. I see it through his eyes; I see it through her eyes. On and on and on forever.’
‘How do you know this?’ asked Trave. ‘Your grandmother didn’t say
…’
‘I didn’t tell her. She’s suffered enough — why should she have to live with that knowledge? I found it out from the SS records — the Germans kept lists of everything. That was their way. Both my parents were on the convoy when it left Mechelen, but only my father’s name was recorded as entering the camp. And he lasted six months and two weeks — about average for someone of his age — before he went to the gas as well. People didn’t survive. It’s a myth to say they did. Twenty-five thousand Jews went from Mechelen to Auschwitz in two years, from 1942 to 1944, and a thousand came back; and then no one wanted to hear what they had to say. No one except people like me — orphaned children who’d been hidden or escaped. And it’s up to us to make devils like Claes and Osman pay for what they did to our people — even if you gentiles won’t.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ asked Clayton, stirring. He was still standing by the door, continuing to bar Jacob’s only possible route of escape.
‘I mean you, Detective Whatever Your Name Is,’ said Jacob, half-spitting out his words as he fixed Clayton with a hostile glare. ‘You seem a lot more interested in me breaking into Blackwater Hall last summer than what those bastards have been doing in there. That’s what I mean.’
‘Burglary’s a crime,’ said Clayton, riled. ‘And you’ve got no proof against Osman, or Claes either for that matter. We don’t punish people without proof — not in this country.’
‘Proof!’ said Jacob with an angry laugh. ‘Like the proof that you police are using against that poor bastard, Swain, up in London just so that you can hang him for something he never did? I won’t let them get away with it, I tell you. I won’t let them win — proof or no proof.’
‘No one’s above the law,’ said Trave softly. ‘If you’ve got something else on Claes or Osman, show it to us. I promise you that I want to find evidence against them as much as you do.’
Jacob gave Trave a long, searching look and then glanced back at Clayton. He looked like he was weighing something up in his mind. ‘Okay,’ he said, as if coming to a final decision. ‘I’ll show you what else I have.’ He got up from his chair and crossed over to the filing cabinet in the corner, using a key on his ring to unlock it. He opened the middle drawer all the way and bent down over it as if searching for something. Suddenly, too late, Clayton sensed what was happening. He rushed toward Jacob but then stopped dead in his tracks as the young man turned round to face him with a revolver gripped in his hand.
‘I know where you want to take me,’ Jacob said slowly, speaking to Clayton now, not Trave. ‘You want to lock me up for that burglary so I don’t try it again and take a gun with me this time. Maybe you’re right: I’ve reached the end of my tether and I’ll stop at nothing now — nothing.
‘Now get over there with the inspector. I’ll use this thing if I have to.’
Clayton didn’t know whether he believed Jacob, but he wasn’t going to put his doubts to the test. Keeping his eyes fixed on the revolver, he edged across the room to join Trave by the window.
Powerless, the two policemen watched as Jacob pulled out a rucksack from behind the filing cabinet. It was already packed, and they realized that Jacob must have been prepared for this day for a long time.
‘You’re making a mistake,’ said Trave. ‘Can’t you see I want to help you?’
‘Yes, maybe you do, although I don’t trust him,’ said Jacob, indicating Clayton with a wave of his gun. ‘But it doesn’t matter what you want any more. You’ve had your chance and you achieved nothing — just got David Swain arrested for something he never did. Osman played you just like he played my father, and now he’s got your pretty wife on his arm and my family’s diamonds in the bank.’
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Trave.
‘Do? I’m going to do whatever it takes to bring them to justice — I promise you that, Inspector,’ said Jacob. He sounded as if he was taking an oath. ‘Now I’m going to lock you both in,’ he said, backing away toward the door. ‘Don’t come after me or I’ll shoot. I don’t want to, but I will.’
He turned out the light and closed the door, and moments later the two policemen heard the front door of the flat closing and a key turning in the lock.
They crossed over to the window and the pale moonlight illuminated their tire
d, impotent faces as they watched Jacob getting on his scooter down below. He turned on the engine and rode away into the darkness without once looking back.
CHAPTER 21
Jacob had double-locked the door as he left, and it took Trave and Clayton a lot longer to get out of the flat than it had taken to get in. There was no telephone, and hammering on the locked door brought no response from any of the neighbours, and so they had to resort to taking it in turns to shout for help down into the empty street. Lights went on in the neighbouring houses, but it was still a maddeningly long time before people appeared below the window, and then there was a further delay while they had to satisfy a would-be rescuer that they were law enforcers and not lawbreakers. Eventually, however, a ladder appeared out of the darkness and the two policemen were able to climb down to the ground.
Clayton already had his car running by the time Trave had pressed a pound note into the hand of the ladder’s owner and had joined him, taking the passenger seat, and Clayton wasted no time in heading off.
‘To Blackwater?’ he asked, glancing at his companion.
‘Yes, you heard Jacob,’ said Trave with a sigh. ‘That’s where he’s going. Maybe not tonight, but sooner rather than later. He’s convinced himself that there’s vital evidence somewhere in the house, and he won’t rest until he’s found it, although personally I think it’s a wild-goose chase. If there was anything, Osman would have got rid of it at the same time he got rid of Katya. No, the evidence exists; it’s just somewhere else. That’s all.’
‘How can you be so sure?’ asked Clayton. He’d heard nothing in the flat to convince him that Osman had had anything to do with his niece’s murder. Claes was a different matter.
Trave started to respond, but his voice was drowned out by the wail of a police-car siren coming toward them down the other side of the road. For a moment its blue flashing lights illuminated the darkness, and then it was gone.
‘I know where they’re going,’ said Trave with a smile. ‘Someone obviously thought we were up to no good back there. Probably that old woman in the ground-floor flat. She’s certainly had a day to remember.’
‘What do you think Jacob’s intending to do with that gun?’ asked Clayton nervously, wishing that the police car was following them out to Blackwater Hall instead of heading uselessly over to Jacob’s empty flat. Right now they needed all the help they could get.
‘Well, I don’t think he’s going to kill anyone with it, if that’s what you’re worried about,’ said Trave with quiet confidence. ‘Not unless Claes fires at him first, and I honestly don’t think Jacob’s looking for that kind of confrontation. He could have shot Osman and Claes a long time ago if he’d wanted to, but instead he’s spent every minute of every day going round Europe searching for evidence against them, because it’s justice he’s after, not some clandestine murder in the dark.’
‘Well, I hope you’re right. But whatever he’s got in mind, we need to warn the people at the Hall. They’ve got a right to know,’ said Clayton, glancing anxiously at his watch. It was six o’clock already, and Jacob would easily have got to Blackwater by now if that was where he’d gone. Once again Clayton cursed his stupidity for having allowed their prisoner to get away and pressed his foot down hard on the accelerator, trying in vain to extract a little more speed from his old second-hand car.
Trave said nothing, and they passed the rest of the journey in an uneasy silence.
Jacob stood motionless in the darkness with his back to a tall pine tree on the edge of the woods that bordered the wide lawns surrounding Osman’s house. The wind had died down since the afternoon but still blew softly through the trees, and overhead the crescent moon peeped out intermittently from behind a veil of clouds, shedding a pale light down onto the well-tended grass. About two hundred yards away the Hall was a great shadowed shape lit here and there by pricks of electric light. The minutes passed and nothing happened, but Jacob showed no sign of impatience. His face was impassive, giving no clue to the feverish workings of his brain.
The Swain trial had already been running for three days, and Jacob had confidently expected Claes and his sister and Osman to go to London to give evidence on the Friday, two days earlier. They hadn’t, but the newspaper yesterday had reported that preliminary legal arguments were over and that the live evidence would begin on Monday. And until his unexpected encounter with the police, Jacob had calculated on the three of them being gone for the day, giving him the opportunity to quietly break into the house and search it at his leisure. Osman was a collector, a keeper of trophies — there would be evidence somewhere of his crimes. Jacob was sure of it.
But now the situation was out of his control. Trave might not want to stand in his way, but the other policeman certainly would, and a locked door would not keep them imprisoned in his flat for very long. On his arrival fifteen minutes earlier Jacob had climbed up into the trees and cut the telephone line running from the road up to the Hall, and now all he could do was wait and see what happened next.
Jacob cursed himself yet again for having come out here earlier in the day. There was no need for it. Monday was going to be his opportunity, and if he’d stayed home that young detective would never have found him. But there was no point regretting his mistake. What was done was done. The house drew him like a magnet — that was the problem. Tonight he would sleep in the boathouse. It was the place where he felt closest to his brother — it was where Ethan had been happy and where he had died, murdered in cold blood by those two bastards who’d already sent Ethan’s and his parents to the gas chambers. A spasm of hatred gripped Jacob’s thin frame, but it was gone in a moment as he reasserted control over himself. He hadn’t come this far to let emotion get in the way of what he had set out to do.
At ten past six the outside light suddenly went on above the front door, and a moment later Claes and his sister appeared on the steps with Osman behind them, wearing a dinner jacket. Jacob watched them through his field glasses as they got into Osman’s Bentley. He knew where Jana Claes was going, dressed all in black with a lace mantilla on her head and the old worn prayer book in her hand. He’d followed her before on a Sunday evening to 6.30 Benediction at St Aloysius and sat two pews behind her in the big, echoing church while the tiny congregation abased themselves before the Blessed Sacrament and incense filled the air. Mass in the morning; Benediction in the evening — Claes had his work cut out on a Sunday, Jacob thought with bitter amusement, ferrying his sister back and forth to church so she could confess her family’s sins, seek forgiveness for the unforgivable. And then Claes had to drive Osman about as well. Tonight the master of the house looked like he was on the way to some gala dinner or other in the city, where he would no doubt be treated like visiting royalty. Jacob had done his research — he’d traced the way Osman had spent the last fifteen years building himself a position in local society with carefully targeted charitable gifts, trading his ill-gotten gains for his neighbours’ respect, until now no Oxford ball or banquet could be judged a real success if Titus Osman wasn’t present as the guest of honour.
The headlights of the car raked the trees for a moment as Claes turned the wheel, and then they were gone, disappearing into the darkness up the drive. Jacob hesitated. He knew the house was almost certainly empty — there was no live-in staff at Blackwater Hall. It was the opportunity he had been waiting for, and yet still he hung back, unwilling to take the risk that Claes might come back unexpectedly and find him. Jacob hated Claes, but he feared him as well. He remembered the man’s wiry strength when they had wrestled together in Osman’s study the previous summer. He’d only just managed to get away.
And yet Jacob knew he had to try his luck. The chance was too good to miss. He stepped out onto the lawn, feeling the crunch of the frosty grass beneath his shoes, and had just reached the side of the house when he came to an abrupt halt, flattening himself against the wall as a car drew up in the courtyard. Looking cautiously around the corner, Jacob saw two men going up the
steps and then heard them knocking hard on the front door. It was what he’d feared: the moonlight was just sufficient to enable Jacob to recognize Trave and the other young detective — they’d escaped their captivity quicker even than he’d anticipated.
Trave stopped his knocking for a moment and then started it up again, this time even louder than before. A minute later the younger policeman took over. Jacob thought they would never give up, but finally they turned around and went back to their car. The doors closed and Jacob waited expectantly for the sound of the engine gunning into life, but nothing happened. He cursed his luck: it was obvious what was happening — they were going to sit there and wait for Osman and Claes to come home so they could warn them about him. And there was nothing Jacob could do about it except stand shivering in the cold and watch.
The minutes passed agonizingly slowly. It was too dark for Jacob to be able to see his watch, and he dared not risk his torch. An owl hooted several times somewhere high up in the trees, but there was otherwise no sound to break the silence until the bell in the tower of Blackwater Church on the other side of the hill began to toll out the hour of seven. It was like a signal: almost immediately a light went on in the car, and then, several minutes later, the younger policeman got out and went up the steps again. He didn’t knock on the door this time; he was doing something else, which Jacob couldn’t see in the darkness, and, once he’d finished, he went back to his car and drove away.
Jacob held his breath. Benediction was a short service, and Claes and Jana could easily be back by now; they could still meet the policemen’s car further up the drive, and all would be lost. But Jacob heard nothing. Once again he was entirely alone. Stealthily, he crossed the courtyard and went up the steps. There was a folded piece of paper tucked into the letter box. Jacob let out a sigh of relief — the young detective had obviously thought his note was more likely to attract Osman’s attention hanging on the outside of the door rather than posted into the interior. Carefully lifting the brass flap, Jacob picked up the note, put it in his pocket, and went back to the trees, where he read it by the light of his pocket torch.
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