The King of Diamonds

CHAPTER 22

On the same Monday morning that Jacob Mendel broke into Blackwater Hall, Vanessa Trave finally forced herself to make the phone call to her husband that she had been putting off from day to day ever since she had promised to marry Titus Osman two weeks earlier. She did not fully understand her own reluctance. She had no wish to go back to her husband, and yet she found it extraordinarily hard to make the formal break with her past that was now required. It felt like she was closing the book not only on her husband but also on her dead son: divorce was not just an acknowledgement of failure but also somehow an act of cruelty, a betrayal of the past. She hadn’t been able to explain any of this to Titus when he’d gently but insistently pressed her about her continuing inaction during dinner in Oxford two days earlier, but she realized that the delay was only making it harder to do what she had to do, and so she went straight to the telephone almost as soon as she’d got out of bed, determined to seize the bull by the horns.

Trave answered on the second ring, and she was momentarily at a loss for words. She hadn’t spoken to her husband in months, and the sudden sound of his voice disconcerted her. When she said her name it hurt that he sounded so pleased to hear from her.

‘Could I see you?’ she asked. She knew that she couldn’t tell him what she had to say on the phone. As she’d told Titus, he deserved better than that.

‘Now?’ he asked. ‘I’ve got to be in London this afternoon.’

‘Yes, all right,’ she said, taken aback. And yet it was better this way, she thought — an amputation should be done quickly or not at all. And she didn’t need to be at work until ten.

She named a coffee house on St Michael’s Street — neutral ground where they had never met before — and noticed that her hand was trembling when she put down the receiver.

She dressed carefully. Her instinct was to wear black but eventually she compromised, settling for a simple grey dress that she’d recently bought in a second-hand store in the market, with her old black overcoat on top. Frowning, she looked down at the two rings on her hands: the simple gold wedding band on the right and the perfect diamond on the left: Bill’s ring and Titus’s. Worlds apart, and yet set in permanent conflict. Slowly and carefully she took both rings off and put them away in a small jewellery box by her bed. Today she’d be herself only, she decided. It was better that way.

Trave was already sitting in the cafe when Vanessa arrived, and he insisted on queueing up at the counter to order her a coffee while she sat opposite his half-drunk mug at the table by the window, feeling more awkward by the minute. She wished there were set rules for this kind of meeting: she’d come here to tell her husband that she wanted a divorce, not to drink coffee. And yet here she was sitting amid a throng of women and their shopping as if she was just meeting an old friend. It was all wrong. She wished she’d chosen some sombre venue — the back of a church or some out-of-the-way corner of the public library. But it was too late now — she’d have to get on with it.

When Trave finally sat down, Vanessa was struck by how run-down he looked. There were dark circles under his eyes, and his suit was crumpled as if it hadn’t been hung up in weeks. And something told her the dishevelment was not just superficial. He’d aged since she’d last seen him, turned some corner in his life that she hadn’t been there to see.

‘I’m sorry about your job,’ she said. She really was sorry, but her words sounded awkward, artificial.

‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said, even though it was obvious that it did. ‘You can’t keep making compromises forever. I’ll find something else to do.’

‘What?’ Vanessa asked, genuinely curious. The concept of Bill as anything other than a policeman was inconceivable to her.

‘Something,’ he said with a sad smile. ‘You look wonderful, Vanessa. Better than you’ve done in years.’

She flushed, touched and yet upset by the genuine pleasure in his voice. And she couldn’t cope with the way he looked at her so intently, as if memorizing every detail of her face. The meeting was painful, more painful than she could have imagined. She needed to tell him why she was here, to get the words out while she still could.

‘I need a divorce,’ she said. She spoke softly and didn’t know at first whether he had heard her. He looked away out the window, averting his face, gazing sightlessly at the people hurrying by in their winter overcoats. And when he turned back, there was an awful desolation in his pale blue eyes, which made her feel suddenly sick, as if she was an executioner disgusted by her own handiwork.

‘You want to marry Osman,’ he said. It was a statement, not a question.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘He’s not like who you think he is, he’s…’ Vanessa stopped in mid-sentence, seeing the weary disbelief in her husband’s eyes. ‘It’s a second chance,’ she said. ‘Everyone deserves a second chance.’

‘Yes,’ said Trave quietly. ‘You do deserve that. You deserve the sun and the moon and the stars, Vanessa. And what I regret most in my life is that I failed to give you any of them.’

Vanessa wanted to cry. Her husband had never said anything as simple and loving to her before in all the years they had been married. He’d saved it up for now, when it was all too late. She couldn’t bear it. She steeled herself against him. She knew she had to if she was going to survive.

‘So you’ll help me,’ she said. ‘It’ll have to be your petition with Titus as co-respondent. There’s no other way.’

Trave nodded, and then he reached out and took hold of her right hand, the hand that was now missing its wedding ring. ‘Be happy,’ he said. ‘Try to be happy, Vanessa.’

She nodded, squeezed his hand once as if sealing an agreement, and got up to go. But then, at the doorway, she turned back, unable to leave him when she felt so in the wrong. He looked up, surprised, when she got back to the table, taken aback by her sudden return.

‘Titus didn’t kill Katya,’ she said, blurting out the words. ‘You believe it because he’s with me. Admit it, Bill. That’s why you’ve done all this.’

‘Done all what?’

‘Ruined your career, been so pig-headed.’ She spoke accusingly, harshly, but he also sensed the desperation in her voice, as if she was pleading for exoneration, and that was something he could not provide.

‘No,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘I hate Osman because of you. That’s true. But that’s not why I think he killed Katya.’

‘Why then?’ she asked, challenging him.

‘Because I don’t believe David Swain killed her or Ethan either for that matter,’ said Trave, choosing his words carefully. ‘Swain’s a fool, an angry fool, but he’s no murderer. But Claes is. I know he is. In fact I think he’s been responsible for many people’s deaths, even though I can’t prove any of them,’ he added bitterly. ‘And if Claes killed Katya, then he couldn’t have done it without Osman.’

‘No, that’s where you’re wrong,’ said Vanessa vehemently. It was years since Trave had seen her so passionate. ‘Maybe you’re right about Claes. I don’t like him either. He’s got some hold over Titus which I don’t understand, but that doesn’t mean Titus knows what he’s doing. Titus isn’t like Claes. I know him and you don’t. That’s the difference. He was taking care of Katya after she’d gone off the rails. It wasn’t his fault she blamed him for keeping her at home. He did it to help her, for her own good.’

‘How do you know she blamed him?’ asked Trave, leaning forward.

‘Because she told me,’ said Vanessa quietly, lowering her eyes.

‘Told you what?’

‘She said: “They’re trying to kill me.” It was ten days before her death. I was there for dinner and she came into the drawing room. I was on my own, and that was all she said. She was in a bad way and she fainted afterwards. Titus said his sister-in-law had tried to give her a sedative, and he explained about the state she was in, about why he was so worried about her, about why he had to keep her at home for her own good.’

‘I’m sure he did,’ said Trave sarcastically. ‘He’s an expert at playing the do-gooder. The man’s a professional philanthropist.’

‘I knew you wouldn’t understand,’ said Vanessa angrily. ‘That’s why I didn’t tell you. I knew you’d have used it against Titus when he hasn’t done anything wrong. I know he hasn’t,’ she added fervently.

‘It doesn’t matter what you think. You should still have told me.’

‘I told that inspector who took over from you.’

‘Macrae?’

‘Yes.’

‘When?’

‘A couple of weeks ago.’

‘And I suppose he told you to say nothing?’

‘Yes.’ Vanessa sounded defensive now.

‘And you felt okay with that?’

Vanessa stirred uneasily in her seat, not answering. She resented the cross-examination, and yet she also felt its justification. Her interview with Inspector Macrae had not set her conscience about Katya at rest, however much she had hoped it would.

‘You’re going to have to tell that court up in London,’ said Trave quietly. He spoke as if what he had to say was obvious, not a subject for argument or discussion.

‘I can’t. I won’t,’ said Vanessa, refusing to see it that way. Her eyes blazed with defiance, but Trave stood his ground.

‘It’s your duty. You know it is,’ he told her. ‘A man’s on trial for his life. If Osman loves you then he’ll understand.’

‘And you hope he doesn’t, don’t you?’

‘I hope you’ll do what’s right. That’s all.’

Vanessa looked at her husband and suddenly the fire went out of her, extinguished in a moment. Her sharp retort died on her lips and she bowed her head, realizing that he was right: she had no choice. She wished with all her heart that Katya hadn’t crossed her path that night at Blackwater Hall, but she had, and in those few moments the girl had placed her under an obligation that she could only ever discharge by standing up and telling the whole world what Katya had said. Until she had done that she would have no peace. Bill had only told her what she knew already.

Vanessa felt exhausted suddenly. It was like she’d finally put down a burden that had been weighing her down for months and only now realized how heavy it had been. She needed to be alone, to gather her strength for what lay ahead. She stood up and leaned across the table, bending down to kiss her husband on the cheek.

‘Thank you,’ she said. And as she turned and walked away it occurred to her that she didn’t know whether they were parting on her terms or his.

That day and most of the next went by in a blur. Vanessa went to work and did her job, typing letters and filing correspondence on automatic pilot, while underneath her mind raced from one thought to another as she tried to work out what she could say to Titus to make him understand her decision. She knew that this time she could not delay. The Swain trial was already into its second week, and Swain’s lawyers would need to take a statement from her before she gave evidence. But she couldn’t go to see them without telling Titus first. She owed him that much. Several times she picked up the telephone, intending to dial Blackwater Hall, but then replaced the receiver like it was hot to the touch, reproaching herself for her cowardice. It wasn’t that she was frightened of Titus; it was that she was frightened of losing him. She wished she could abandon her conscience, discard it into the waste-paper basket on the floor beside her desk, but she knew she couldn’t. She was who she was, and perhaps Titus would understand that. But she knew she would have to see him to explain. A telephone call was not enough. And so after work on Tuesday she got into her car and drove out to Blackwater with a heavy heart.

Jana answered the door. Dressed as always in funereal black, Claes’s sister showed no warmth of recognition when she saw Vanessa on the step, shivering in the cold. There was something frozen about the woman’s face, Vanessa thought — as if it was a door that had been shut and locked against the world. It unnerved Vanessa, and she felt forced to explain herself, to justify her visit.

‘I wanted to see Titus,’ she said, stumbling over her words. ‘Something important has come up that I need to tell him about. Is he here?’ she finished lamely.

Jana opened the door wide without saying anything and moved aside to let Vanessa pass. It was warm inside and Vanessa rubbed her hands together to restart her circulation, and then, looking up, she was surprised to see a uniformed policeman come through the doorway at the end of the hall and go up the stairs to the first floor. There were several voices talking somewhere out of sight, but Vanessa couldn’t tell if one of them was Titus’s.

‘Has something happened?’ she asked, turning to Jana. ‘Is Titus all right?’

‘A man broke in here yesterday, trying to take things. But the police came and he ran away,’ said Jana in her slow, heavily accented English.

‘Who was here?’ asked Vanessa, horrified.

‘I was. Please wait in here,’ said Jana, opening the door of the drawing room. ‘I will tell Titus you are come.’

Vanessa had innumerable questions to ask, but something in Jana’s tone prohibited further conversation, and Vanessa did as she was told, taking a seat on the same sofa where Katya had lain unconscious five months before, having placed Vanessa under an obligation that, try as she might, she seemed unable to escape.

The grey, overcast afternoon was now dissolving into an early evening gloom, and the drawing room felt cheerless and forlorn. There was no fire, and Vanessa did not turn on the lights. She felt like she was in some kind of medical waiting room and that there would be no good news when she finally got to see the doctor.

She idly picked up the newspaper that was lying in front of her on the coffee table. It had obviously been read already since it was folded in on itself with an inside page now at the front, and the headline explained why it had attracted the previous reader’s attention: ‘Blackwater Murder — Witness’s Nazi Connections’. Osman came in when Vanessa was halfway through the article.

‘Is this true?’ she asked, leaning away as he bent down over the back of the sofa to kiss her.

Osman glanced at the newspaper over her shoulder and sighed with obvious irritation. ‘That Franz was a Nazi?’ he asked, straightening up and heading over to the drinks tray in the corner.

‘Yes. Was he?’

‘I don’t know, to be honest with you. He certainly worked with them. He had no choice if he was going to keep his job in the interior ministry, but I’ve never asked him if he was actually required to join the party. I didn’t think it was any of my business.’

‘That he was, is, a Nazi,’ said Vanessa, looking appalled. ‘What could be more important?’

‘Nothing, if he really was one,’ said Osman evenly. ‘But the truth is he only worked with them so as to do good things. For Belgium and for Belgian Jews. Yes, that’s right, Vanessa,’ Osman went on, seeing the look of disbelief on his fiancee’s face. ‘Without Franz I would never have been able to help all those poor people to escape. I needed someone on the inside with power…’

‘A Nazi,’ said Vanessa interrupting. ‘You needed a Nazi.’

Osman turned away without answering, concentrating on mixing himself a drink. Vanessa shook her head when he offered her one too. It was only quarter past five according to the clock on the mantelpiece.

‘I’m sorry, my dear,’ he said, coming over to sit beside her on the sofa. ‘I’m not at my best right now. This has not been an easy couple of days. Franz and I had to give evidence at the trial up in London, which was stressful, particularly for Franz’ — Osman gestured toward the newspaper — ‘and then when we came back we found the house had been broken into and Jana had been terrorized by a man with a gun. He fired a bullet into my desk and another one upstairs. Thank God the police came, or I don’t know what would have happened.’

‘Who was it?’

‘Ethan’s brother, Jacob Mendel. It’s not the first time he’s been here. He blames me for Ethan’s death. I don’t know why. The police need to catch him before he does something really stupid.’ Vanessa caught the note of anxiety in Titus’s voice. It was strange when he was usually so confident, so much the master of the situation.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t have come if I’d known it was a bad time. I wanted to talk to you because I saw Bill, like you asked me to. I had coffee with him in town yesterday morning and…’ Vanessa hesitated, searching for the right words.

‘Did he agree — to the divorce?’ Osman asked, suddenly eager.

‘Yes.’

‘I told you he would,’ said Osman, smacking the side of the sofa with his open hand. ‘He’s…’

‘A decent man,’ said Vanessa, remembering the word she’d used to describe her husband to Titus on the day that she’d agreed to marry him. Now she felt ashamed of its inadequacy, it felt obscurely like a betrayal. It was Titus’s triumphalism that was making her uneasy, she realized. It made her feel cheap, as if she was a prize won in a game of chance, as if Bill’s agreement to the divorce was Titus’s victory, not hers.

‘There’s something else,’ she said. ‘I agreed to give evidence myself.’

‘Give evidence. What evidence?’ asked Osman, not understanding her meaning.

‘About what Katya said. About people trying to kill her.’

‘You can’t,’ said Osman, horrified. ‘You can’t do that to me, Vanessa. You said you wouldn’t.’

‘I know I did, and I shouldn’t have done. I have to do this, Titus,’ she said sadly. ‘I can’t be with you otherwise.’

Osman got up and walked away to the window. He stood with his back to her for a moment, looking out, and Vanessa could sense him battling to keep control of his emotions.

‘Your husband put you up to this, didn’t he?’ he said finally, turning round. There was a cold, hard edge to his voice that Vanessa had never heard before. It frightened her, but the fear only made her more determined to go through with her decision. She knew she would have no peace otherwise.

‘He made me see what I should have seen for myself. That’s all,’ she said.

‘Very clever,’ said Osman. Again Vanessa had that fleeting sense that Titus was playing a game, reacting to a surprise move of his opponent. ‘Wasn’t going to Macrae enough?’ he asked angrily.

‘Macrae! How do you know about Macrae?’ asked Vanessa. Now it was her turn to be astonished.

‘Because he told me. Macrae wants to do what’s right, unlike your husband, who’ll do anything to hurt me. Can’t you see that?’

Vanessa shook her head and got up from the sofa, heading toward the door. She wanted the scene to be over. She wanted to be on her own. But Titus blocked her path, taking hold of her arm.

‘I love you,’ he said desperately. ‘Doesn’t that mean anything to you at all? Why do you have to ruin everything? Swain killed Katya. Everyone knows that.’

Vanessa heard the appeal in her lover’s voice, and perhaps she would have answered it if at that moment the door hadn’t opened. It was Claes. No doubt he’d heard the raised voices coming from inside. Vanessa looked at him and remembered what she’d read in the newspaper minutes earlier, and she thought of what he had said about the war that day at lunch the previous month. He was a Nazi. She knew he was. It didn’t matter what Titus said. She wanted to be gone, far away from Claes and his limp and his scar and his thin-lipped, silent sister. Pulling away from Titus, she ran to the door and then out through the hall and down the steps to her car and drove away without a backward look.