The King of Diamonds

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.

It had been raining earlier and the ground was still wet underfoot. There were patches of thin mist floating in the damp air and the autumn cold tingled on Vanessa’s skin, making her feel irrationally nervous and uneasy. And yet Titus seemed in better spirits than she’d seen him since the murder. She’d been distressed by the change in him when she’d seen him the previous Sunday and then again in the middle of the week. Then there’d been thick dark circles under his eyes and he’d spoken in disjointed sentences as if his mind was constantly wandering away into desolate places where she could not follow. And afterwards, on her own, she’d thought of him as an old tree bent over to the ground in a winter storm. The image frightened her, making her worry whether he would recover from the blow of his niece’s violent death, as she selfishly realized how much she’d come to depend on her lover’s strength and self-assurance. But then today, as if in answer to her prayers, there was a spring in his step again and a glow in his eye. He seemed almost like his old self again.

‘Having you here makes such a difference,’ he told her, squeezing her hand as they passed under the trees and left the gardens behind.

‘I’m glad,’ she said. And she would have liked to have said more except that she felt self-conscious suddenly. It was as if another separate Vanessa was standing off to one side under the trees watching Titus and her pass by along the path. She hoped that he wouldn’t ask her about his marriage proposal or what she intended to do about what Katya had said. She felt upset by the pressure Claes had put on her back at the house — being in the drawing room had reminded her of Katya and how she’d suddenly appeared in the doorway ten days earlier swaying from side to side. It haunted Vanessa that Katya had known what was coming and yet nobody had been able to protect her from her fate.

‘I keep wishing I could have done something,’ said Osman, as if reading his companion’s mind. ‘I wish I’d known…’

‘About Swain? How could you have known he’d escape? Prisons are supposed to keep people in, not let them out,’ said Vanessa, quick with words of reassurance. ‘You can’t blame yourself.’

‘I know, but it’s hard sometimes,’ he said and then stopped, suddenly silent as the trees opened out in front of them and they found themselves standing on the edge of the lake. Here the mist was thicker, shrouding the far bank and absorbing a flock of geese into a grey-white invisibility almost as soon as the birds had passed overhead, leaving only their raucous calls borne back to Titus and Vanessa on the breeze. Vanessa shivered, and Titus put his arm around her.

‘Blackwater Lake can seem like an evil place on days like this,’ he said, ‘but then within an hour or two the wind will chase the clouds away, and it knocks me back with its beauty. Its changeability reminds me of home, I think. That’s why I like it so much.’

‘Home? Belgium, you mean?’

‘Yes. Antwerp and the River Scheldt and Flanders — where I came from, where I made my fortune.’

‘Selling diamonds?’ asked Vanessa, genuinely curious. Titus had never told her about how he had made his money before. The subject had not come up for some reason.

‘Yes, diamonds, always diamonds. I fell in love with them before I dealt in them and perhaps that was why they have been so good to me. They are in my blood, Vanessa. I can close my eyes here now and I’m back there, back in the attic workshops before the war with the rows of men on stools in their white shirts and black waistcoats cleaving the stones, sawing them, cutting them with a precision that you cannot imagine — each one of them an artist — or sitting among the dealers in the bourse or at the Diamond Club on the Pelikaanstraat, bent down over the jewels so all you could see were their wide-brimmed hats.’ Osman laughed, as if shaking off the intensity of his recollection.

‘Why don’t you go back there if you miss it so much?’

‘I don’t know. Because I have made a new life here; because I have enough money now to last me a lifetime; because there are too many bad memories over there, too many people that died when they shouldn’t have done. Except that now they are dying here too,’ added Titus with a bitter smile.

‘Come on, let’s go back,’ he went on after a moment. ‘You’re cold and this isn’t one of the lake’s better days.’

They walked slowly back through the woods without speaking, the sound of their footsteps muffled by the pine needles that carpeted the ground, each lost in their own thoughts, until, coming out on the other side, Titus shivered as he looked up toward his house and reached for Vanessa’s hand.

‘Thank God we’re together,’ he said. ‘I don’t know where I would be without you.’

Vanessa felt a sudden wave of protective love for Titus. She raised her head, waiting for his kiss, but the kiss never came. From across the lawn there was the sound of a car coming fast, much too fast, up the drive and then the screech of its brakes as it emerged into the front courtyard and screamed to a halt. Titus set off across the lawn at a run with Vanessa following in his wake, and she turned the corner of the house just in time to see her husband beginning a shouting match with Franz Claes at the foot of the front steps. Further back, a young man whom Vanessa recognized as her husband’s assistant, Adam Clayton, was standing beside the open door of Trave’s old Ford car, looking as if he knew that something bad was about to happen but was powerless to prevent it.

‘Where’s Bircher? Tell me where he is right now,’ shouted Trave. He was no more than a foot from Claes, who was standing ramrod straight, refusing to give ground.

‘I don’t know who you’re talking about,’ said Claes evenly. He seemed strangely calm, and there was even a faint smile playing around his thin lips: Vanessa sensed to her surprise that he was actually enjoying the situation.

‘You’re lying,’ yelled Trave. ‘Bircher was the one who set you up with those boys and he’s the one who you used to spring Swain out of gaol.’

‘Spring — what’s spring?’ asked Claes with a sneer. He spoke the word with derision. It was obvious that he was trying to provoke Trave, whose hands had bunched into fists, whereas Claes kept his hands firmly in the pockets of his trousers. Osman clearly sensed what was coming and chose this moment to intervene.

‘Inspector, please calm down. I’m sure we can sort this out,’ he said.

Trave wheeled round to his left, aware of Osman for the first time. He opened his mouth to speak and then closed it, seeing his wife behind Osman’s shoulder. It was one thing to imagine Titus Osman with his hands on Vanessa; it was quite another to see them together in the flesh. A current of rage surged through Trave, momentarily blacking out his reason, and, taking two steps forward, he punched out at Osman with all the force he could muster. But instead of connecting with cheek and eye and bone as he had hoped, Trave’s hand flailed through thin air. Osman had seen the blow coming and had had time to duck out of the way, and then, just as Trave was readying his arm for another punch, Clayton came from behind and pulled Trave backwards towards the car. Taken by surprise, Trave lost his balance and fell over onto the ground with a thud.

Sprawled on his back, Trave looked up into the grey indifferent sky and felt a terrible humiliation. He’d broken every rule in the book; he’d made a fool of himself in front of Vanessa; he’d played into the hands of his enemies. He sensed them all looking down at him and closed his eyes tight shut. He could imagine the different expressions on their faces: contempt and, even worse, pity, and triumph too. He knew he was finished unless he could prove a connection between Blackwater Hall and the prison escape, if there was one… But Trave refused to acknowledge the possibility that he might be mistaken. He felt sure that the vital piece of evidence was there, just out of reach. He’d come to the wrong place — that was all; he’d allowed his anger to swamp his reason. Clayton had been right — it was the police station that he should’ve gone to from the prison, not here. Eddie was the key. Trave saw that now as clear as day. He could offer Eddie a deal, lean on the cocky bastard until he coughed up the truth. Except that Trave would never get the chance once Creswell got to hear about what he’d done in the last two minutes. And that was only a matter of time. Osman would complain, and Clayton would have to make a report to Creswell once he got back to the station. He’d have no option. Trave would do the same if he was in Clayton’s shoes.

Trave knew what he had to do. He had to get out of here now and leave Clayton behind, and then trust to luck that no one could get hold of Creswell on the phone before he’d had a chance to talk to Eddie. Picking himself up from the ground, he looked over at Vanessa, trying to make her understand that he was sorry, that he hadn’t meant it to turn out this way, but she refused to meet his eye, and instead reached out and took hold of Osman’s hand.

All right, to hell with you too, he thought as he turned away, running toward the car. He got in and reached over to lock the passenger door just as Clayton took hold of the handle, and then, throwing the car into gear, he drove in a fast arc round the mermaid fountain in the centre of the courtyard and away down the drive. Overhead there was a clap of rolling thunder, and rain started to fall in heavy drops down from the leaden sky.

Trave had Eddie back in the interview room within five minutes of his return to the police station. He took a young uniformed constable in there too so that there’d be a witness and a written record if he managed to get Eddie to talk.

‘I told you I wanted a solicitor,’ said Eddie defiantly.

‘And you can have one once you’ve heard what I’ve got to say,’ said Trave. ‘You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to. I’ve just read you your rights.’

Eddie lit a cigarette from the open packet that Trave had left lying on the table and breathed the smoke in deep. He glanced over at Trave and then looked away. He seemed even more nervous than he’d been earlier, Trave noted with satisfaction.

‘All right, so what is it?’ Eddie asked.

‘The visits officer at the gaol picked out Bircher as the man who came to see you four times in the last month, the same John Bircher who’s a friend of Franz Claes, who lives at Blackwater Hall. Does that name mean anything to you, Eddie? Franz Claes?’

‘Maybe.’

‘What do you mean maybe?’

‘Swain mentioned him a couple of times.’

‘And what about Bircher? Did he mention Claes?’

Eddie looked at Trave and said nothing.

‘Bircher, Eddie. The man with the beard. Here, let me refresh your memory.’

Trave already had Bircher’s photograph face-down on the table. Now he turned it over and slid it across to Eddie, who flicked his eyes down to it for a moment before looking away.

‘He’s the one who helped you over the wall, isn’t he, Eddie? Got you a car, got you money? Gave you a place to stay in London? Why, Eddie? Why would he do all that?’

Eddie ground out his cigarette in the ashtray and began chewing his thumb nail. ‘You’ve got nothing,’ he said, spitting out the words. ‘Nothing.’

‘Not yet maybe. But I’m only just beginning. I’ve been in this game long enough to know there’s always evidence if you know where to look. And I know where to look now. I’ll find Bircher, and if he talks, I won’t need you. You’ll be hung out to dry, Eddie. Conspiracy to murder: you’ll be an old man when you get out.’

He was getting to Eddie. Trave could feel it. He was an expert at this: playing his man like a fish, reeling him slowly in. He saw the telltale signs: the beads of nervous sweat forming under the hairline on Eddie’s forehead, the way Eddie chewed his nails and smoked hungrily on yet another cigarette. Not much longer now, provided Eddie knew something, of course. But he had to. Trave had no room left for doubt.

‘You talk, Eddie; you testify against Claes and Bircher, and I’ll protect you,’ said Trave, leaning across the table. ‘Immunity from prosecution, early release, a new start, you name it.’

Trave knew he was going out on a limb. He needed authority to make these kinds of offers, but there was no time for that now. Time was the one thing he didn’t have. And he was close if he could just catch Eddie’s eye. But Eddie had withdrawn into himself — he was bent over, chewing his nails, eyes on the floor. Trave longed to take hold of Eddie and shake the truth out of him, push him up against the wall, make him confess, but he knew he couldn’t. He’d been an honest copper too long to change his ways now.

‘What do you owe them?’ asked Trave insistently. ‘Nothing,’ he said, answering his own question. ‘Think of yourself, Eddie. Don’t be the fall guy.’

Eddie looked up, and Trave tried to read the conflicting emotions written across his face. Fear was there, but what else? Indecision? Hope? Eddie opened his mouth, about to speak, and closed it again. He was no longer looking at Trave but over Trave’s shoulder toward the door that had just opened. Turning round, Trave saw Creswell in the doorway and behind him, waiting like a vulture, Macrae.

‘I need to see you, Inspector. In my office,’ said the superintendent. It was an order, not a request.

‘I’m coming,’ said Trave, hoping Creswell would give him a minute or two more with Earle. That was all he needed. But it was a vain hope.

‘Now, Bill,’ said Creswell in a voice that brooked no opposition.

Trave looked across the table at Eddie Earle one last time and knew he was beaten. He got up to go and then, just as he was turning away, Eddie shot him a look of hatred. ‘I’m no rat,’ he said, spitting out the words. ‘I told you I’m no rat.’

Trave sat in Creswell’s office, looking utterly deflated. Macrae had tried to come into the room too, but Creswell had at least put a stop to that. The superintendent seemed sad more than angry.

‘Mr Osman called, told me what happened out at Blackwater,’ said Creswell. ‘You’re off this case, Bill. And there may be more trouble. I don’t know. I’ll do my best for you. You can count on me for that. You’re a damned good policeman, and you’ve been put under more strain than anyone should have to cope with. I feel responsible: I should have replaced you on day one.’

‘I insisted.’

‘Yes, you did. But that doesn’t mean I had to listen to you.’ Creswell paused, shaking his head. ‘What a mess! What a bloody awful mess!’

‘Who’s getting the case?’ asked Trave, although he already knew the answer.

‘Hugh Macrae…’

‘Christ!’

‘I don’t want to hear it, Bill,’ said Creswell — there was a warning note in his voice. ‘He’ll find Swain…’

‘Yeah, and that’s not all he’ll do…’

‘Enough!’ said Creswell, banging his desk. ‘I’m in charge of this police station, not you, and I’m not interested in your opinion of Inspector Macrae. You’ve caused enough trouble round here for one day. You should be bloody grateful I’m standing by you. Stay away from this case, you hear me?’

‘I hear you,’ said Trave, bowing his head. ‘And I am sorry, sir, for what it’s worth. I don’t need you to tell me what an idiot I’ve been.’

‘No, you don’t,’ said Creswell, sounding appeased. ‘Go home, Bill. Have a drink; have two drinks. Do whatever it is a workaholic like you does to relax. And then forget this case — like it never happened, all right?’

‘Yes, sir,’ said Trave, getting up.

But Creswell called him back just as he’d reached the door. ‘Clayton’ll work with Macrae,’ he said. ‘For continuity. Once it’s over you can have him back.’

‘Good,’ said Trave, nodding.

‘Good?’

‘Yes, good. Thank you, sir. I’ll go and have that drink now,’ said Trave, closing the door.

He passed Macrae in the corridor on his way out of the station, walking by him like he didn’t exist. Macrae paused for a moment and then went over to the window, and his mouth twisted into a smile as he watched Trave get into his car down below. And then, as Trave drove away, he began softly singing to himself an old Great War soldiers’ song, one of his favourites: ‘Oh, we don’t want to lose you but we think you ought to go…’