Final Witness (23 page)

    Thomas suddenly had a profound sense of the significance of the dead who lay all around him. People who had walked the old narrow streets of Flyte and fought against the same cruel sea. Sackvilles who had inherited the House of the Four Winds and passed it on intact to the next generation. Thomas’s father was alien to all of this, but he, Thomas, was inseparable from what had gone before and what was still to come. He looked up at the friendly, sympathetic faces of his neighbors; men and women whom he had known all his life, and he smiled at them through his tears. He was not alone, and as if in answer to his thought, the rain slowed and then stopped and the sun came out weakly overhead.

    

    

    AFTER THE FUNERAL, Peter stood beneath the portrait of his father-in-law in the dining room of the House of the Four Winds, talking in turn to each of the friends, neighbors, and distant relatives who had come to pay their respects.

    His training in politics had made him skillful at this type of event. He remembered almost everybody’s name and spoke to each of them for just the right amount of time, accepting their sympathy with just the right amount of gratitude.

    All the time that he was talking, however, he was also looking for his son. Thomas had disappeared after the funeral, and no one, not even Jane Martin, seemed to know where he had gone. Peter had been very conscious of how the boy had shrunk from his side in the graveyard, and he wanted to try to bridge the gap between them before he had to go back to London.

    Not a day passed that Peter did not regret hitting his son, although he knew himself well enough to realize that it was not something that he could have chosen not to do. Thomas had provoked him too far when he said those terrible things.

    Most of the guests had gone when Jane Martin told Peter that Greta wanted him on the phone. He extricated himself politely from a conversation with the Flyte harbormaster and took his glass of red wine into the study where he stood looking out through the newly repaired window as he picked up the phone.

    “Hullo, Greta,” he said, but there was no response. Just a hubbub of voices above which he could hear a drunken man shouting that he wanted to go home.

    “Greta!” he shouted into the phone. He could feel something was wrong, although he didn’t know what it was.

    He heard her voice just before he was about to hang up and try to call back.

    “Peter, thank God you’re there. They’ve arrested me.”

    Peter dropped his glass of wine on the floor. It did not smash, but the red wine spread out over the pale carpet and Peter turned away. It looked too much like blood.

    “Where are you?” he asked.

    “I’m in Ipswich with this Hearns man. They brought me here from London.”

    “Are you all right?”

    “I don’t know. There’s a lawyer here. He says that Thomas has made a statement saying it was me that sent those men to kill Anne. I don’t understand how he could say that to them, Peter. Not after all the time that we’ve spent together.”

    “Greta, I’m coming. I’ll get you out. I promise.”

    “Make it quick, Peter. Please.”

    As he put down the phone, Peter saw his son come through the north gate and walk toward the house across the lawn. Peter ran outside to intercept him. They met under an old elm tree, and Peter pulled his son behind it so that they wouldn’t be visible from the dining room window.

    “What is it, Dad?” Thomas was alarmed. His father was breathless and had still not let go of the lapel of his suit jacket.

    “Where’ve you been?” It was not the question Peter wanted to ask but he needed time to find the right words.

    “I went down to the beach. I was trying to make some sense of it all. You can help me, Dad.”

    “Help you?” Peter laughed harshly. He could hear the wine in his voice. He’d drunk too much at the wake or whatever the dismal gathering inside was called. It wasn’t just today, of course. He was drinking too much every day and every night trying to cope while his son went off to that pushy policeman and stuck a knife in his back.

    “Help you after what you’ve done to me!”

    “What, Dad?”

    Thomas sounded frightened now. His father had hold of both his lapels and was shaking him as he spoke.

    Abruptly Peter let go. It was as if an electrical current inside him had suddenly been switched off.

    “They’ve arrested Greta. Just like you wanted them to. You’ve got what you wanted now, Thomas.”

    “It’s not what I want, Dad. It’s what’s right. That man was with her in London. I know he was.”

    “There’s no point arguing with you, Thomas. You’ve gone down your own road now, and I can’t follow. I just think I deserved better from you. That’s all.”

    “Oh, Dad.” Thomas began to cry. All the sense that he had started to make of things at the graveside and down on the beach began to crumble inside him.

    “I’m sorry, Thomas. Perhaps you should have waited to make your revelations until after your mother’s funeral.”

    Peter knew he was being cruel. Somewhere inside he even dimly realized that he was quite wrong to speak to his fifteen-year-old son like this on the day of his mother’s funeral, but uppermost in his mind was the thought of Greta in the police station among all the drunks and lechers. Stuck in the back of the police car coming down from London, with Hearns beside her sweating onto the stained upholstery, and now sitting in a cell feeling sick and scared.

    “It’s true, Dad. Why can’t you believe me?” Thomas begged his father through his tears.

    “Because it’s not true. It’s delusion. You’re sick with delusion, and you’re making innocent people pay for it.” The urgency was back in Peter’s voice. “I’ve got to go now, Thomas.”

    “Where?”

    “Where do you think? To Ipswich Police Station to get Greta out, and then I’m taking her back to London.”

    “When will I see you again, Dad?”

    “I don’t know. I’ve got to go back to work. Jane’ll be here to look after you, and then we’ll see. You need to go to a good school and learn something. That’s my opinion.”

    Thomas turned away. There was no point in talking to this man who understood him so little. Just like his father hadn’t understood his mother.

    Thomas started to walk slowly toward the house. His shoulders sagged and his back bent like he was carrying a burden way beyond his years.

    “Pull yourself together, Thomas,” his father called after him. “There are still people in the house.”

    

    Peter drove fast, checking in his rearview mirror to see that none of the reporters at the gate had followed him. The road was empty, and beyond Carmouth he wound down the windows and tried to make some sense of what was happening.

    Above all he felt guilty about having left Greta alone in London. She had offered to come to the funeral, but he had told her to stay away. He hadn’t wanted any more conflict with Thomas after what had happened in Woodbridge, but he should have seen this coming. There was a craziness about his son that afternoon that should have given him fair warning, although there was obviously nothing he could have done once Thomas had decided to point the finger at Greta. Injustice must take its course, like justice. Except that he might have been there with her when they came for her; he might have been able to get to the police station sooner, get her a good lawyer. She needed someone strong to protect her from Hearns with his probing questions and dirty insinuations.

    Greta was still being interviewed when he got to the station. He paced up and down in the front office, watched indifferently by a uniformed constable behind the desk.

    “How long will it be before I can see Sergeant Hearns?” he’d asked over and over again, only to get the same reply each time.

    “He knows you’re here, sir. He knows you’re here.”

    It was past six o’clock, and Peter was debating whether or not to go to the nearest pub and drink some whisky when Hearns came out.

    “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting, Sir Peter.”

    “No you’re not,” Peter countered rudely. “Couldn’t you have waited until after the funeral?”

    “I’m afraid not. We have to move quickly, otherwise evidence might be destroyed.”

    “Who by?”

    Sergeant Hearns did not reply, other than to raise his shaggy gray eyebrows. He looked as if he was wearing the same suit and tie that he’d worn on the night of the murder.

    “Can I ask you a question, Sir Peter?” he said after a moment. “Why are you so angry about us pursuing this investigation? It is
your
wife that has been killed. I would have thought you would want us to find the culprit.”

    “The right culprit. I don’t want you chasing up blind alleys. Persecuting my assistant.”

    “She’s not been persecuted, Sir Peter. She’s been interviewed.”

    Hearns’s studied politeness enraged Peter even further.

    “You have no right!” he shouted. “She’s done nothing wrong.”

    “Then you have nothing to fear,” said the detective. “It does seem strange to me that you should be so concerned about us interviewing Miss Grahame, Sir Peter. I hope that you’re not concealing anything. That would not be sensible.”

    “What the hell do you mean? How dare you talk to me like that! Do you know who I am?”

    Peter felt himself losing his temper, but his anger seemed to have no effect on Hearns’s maddening equanimity.

    “You’re an important minister in Her Majesty’s government, and to be honest with you, I don’t know if we’ve ever had a minister in this police station. We don’t get too many VIP’s down in our neck of the woods. I should get you to sign our visitors’ book before you go.”

    Peter was speechless. Hearns clearly had a real talent for being rude while pretending to be the opposite.

    “The point is, Sir Peter, it doesn’t matter who you are. You could be the prime minister, and it wouldn’t stop me doing my job. There’s evidence pointing toward your assistant, and it’s my duty to investigate it.”

    “What evidence? A ridiculous identification and a window she’s left open by mistake. You’re trying to build a case for which there’s no foundation, when you should be out trying to catch the real killers.”

    “I am trying to catch them, Sir Peter, and I won’t allow you or anyone else to stand in my way.”

    “Don’t be ridiculous. I want to take Greta home with me now. Have you finished with her?”

    “Yes, just about. There are a few formalities. It won’t take long.”

    “So you’re not charging her. I thought as much. You’re not charging her because you haven’t got any evidence.”

    “There is evidence, Sir Peter, but at present there is no charge.”

    Hearns smiled as if pleased with the succinctness of his response, and once again Peter was treated to a sight of the detective’s yellowing teeth.

    “I will have Miss Grahame join you in just a few minutes,” he said.

    

    Greta slept on the way back to London. Peter drove fast, glancing repeatedly at her profile. The smooth, soft skin of her face and the groomed black hair tucked behind her delicate ear made his heart beat fast. He hadn’t realized until now how much he’d missed her. He felt determined to protect her from a hostile world, whatever the cost might be.

    In Chelsea he stood at the top of the railings while she went down to the basement and opened the door. A minute later he heard her scream. Inside the apartment, drawers were pulled out everywhere and papers lay all over the floor. There was no cupboard or recess that had not been searched.

    “They must have carried on after Hearns took me to Ipswich,” she said. “I didn’t know it was going to be like this.”

    “Oh, Greta, I wish I could do something,” he said. “I feel so responsible. I didn’t want you to come back to this.”

    “You are doing something. You’re being here.”

    They were in the kitchen and Greta was moving about, straightening her possessions, making coffee, and bringing out a glass and a bottle of whisky for Peter.

    “Have some too, Greta,” he said. “You’ll feel better.”

    “No, I won’t. I’ll feel worse,” she said, laughing suddenly. “The coffee’s enough, and I’ll have some toast. I didn’t touch anything in that filthy police station.”

    “Was it really bad?”

    “It was squalid. Full of human misery like those places are. They put you in a cell, give you a taste of it to soften you up before they start asking you questions.”

    “I’ve never been in one.”

    “Of course you haven’t, Peter. You haven’t got a rich past life like me. Sorry,
poor
would be a better word.” Greta spoke harshly. There was a bitterness in her voice that Peter had not heard before.

    “What are they going to do, Greta?”

    “Oh, they gave me a date to go back. ‘Bail to return’ it’s called, but nothing’ll happen. They’re grasping at straws.”

    “I know. That’s what I told Thomas.”

    “It’s because of him that they’re doing it. You know that, don’t you, Peter? He’s so convinced that I’m the person behind it that he’s got Hearns convinced too. And the best part is that he didn’t even see the face of the man that I’m supposed to have been with. God, I wish I hadn’t lied. It’s too late now, of course.”

    “Don’t blame yourself, Greta. I understand why you had to. What else have the police got?”

    “The window that I forgot to close. The arrangement with Mrs. Ball that Anne asked me to make, and now they’ve got sweet Aunt Jane saying that I was standing in the hall talking to myself about how Lady Anne ‘had fucking had it now.’ Mrs. Posh I’m supposed to have called her.”

    “Jane told me something about this. It was the day after it happened, and I went over to Woodbridge to talk to her and Thomas. Everyone got angry.”