‘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.
CHAPTER 23
Trave drove up to the Old Bailey immediately after seeing Vanessa on the Monday morning and then spent the entire afternoon pacing the police room, waiting to give evidence, but the summons to attend court never came, and he had to wait until the next morning to take the stand.
Almost all his testimony was going to be uncontroversial, but the jury still needed to hear about what he’d found at Blackwater Hall on the night of the murder and the various investigations that he’d carried out and ordered until Creswell took him off the case. The previous week he’d insisted on making a further statement about John Bircher’s connections with Claes and Eddie Earle, realizing that the defence would then be able to elicit this information from him in cross-examination, but he didn’t seriously anticipate that this would make any major difference to the outcome of the case, given the strength of the evidence against the defendant. The jury would dismiss Bircher’s involvement as a minor coincidence, just as the allegations of collaboration with the Nazis that the defence had thrown at Claes the day before — using the material sent by Jacob — would do no more than muddy the waters.
Trave had heard from Clayton when he got back from court the day before about Jacob’s botched break-in at Blackwater Hall, but he thought it unlikely that the young man had found anything worthwhile in the house, given that Osman’s safe had apparently survived intact. It might conceivably make a difference to the outcome of the trial if Jacob came to court himself and told the jury that he’d sought out Katya a month before her death and asked her to search Osman’s house for incriminating evidence, but Trave wasn’t holding his breath about the likelihood of Jacob’s showing up. According to Clayton, Jacob had disappeared into thin air after the break-in, and there was no way of knowing where he was now holed up.
Vanessa, on the other hand, would give evidence — Trave knew his wife well enough to be sure that her conscience would not allow her to do otherwise. But Trave doubted that her testimony would be enough to save Swain. The prosecution would recall Osman to explain away Katya’s words, and Vanessa’s continuing determination to marry Osman would provide him with a gold-plated character reference. And that would be that. One fine morning David Swain would have his neck broken for him in Pentonville Prison, and Trave’s wife would marry the man whom Trave believed should be hanging there instead. Trave felt the frustration pressing hard down onto his chest like a physical weight, but there was no relief to be had from the pain. And he knew he was running out of time.
It was the same Old Bailey courtroom in which David Swain had been tried for the murder of Ethan Mendel two and a half years earlier, and Trave found the sense of deja vu almost overpowering. There was a different judge and defence counsel this time around, but hawk-like Laurence Arne had again been instructed for the prosecution. Unwinding himself from behind the files of evidence that covered his table, he was just as imposing and dominant as before, and he seemed even more determined to secure a conviction now that the defendant faced the ultimate penalty for his crime. Hanging was the prescribed punishment for a murder by shooting, and Swain could expect no mercy given that this was the second time he’d killed with premeditation.
Trave looked over at the defendant, sitting between two prison officers in the dock. It was the first time he’d seen Swain since their desperate meeting in the cricket pavilion the previous October. Surprisingly, Swain looked better than he had then, notwithstanding his terrible predicament. The wild, haggard look had disappeared from his face, replaced by an air of quiet resolution. Dressed in a sombre dark suit, he gazed at Trave intently, leaning forward on the railing of the dock as Trave answered the prosecutor’s questions. Trave found it hard to concentrate. He felt a terrible guilt about his inability to help an innocent man, about his unwitting role in Swain’s capture.
During a pause in the questioning, he glanced over and caught the eye of Macrae, who was sitting at the same side table where Trave had sat when he had been the officer in the case at the first trial. The look of unconcealed triumphant glee on his successor’s face was intolerable. It made Trave want to be sick. He felt suddenly claustrophobic in the windowless courtroom, with its wood-panelled walls and bright white lights, and longed to be outside in the bracing winter air.
And yet he lingered for some reason in the empty courtroom after his evidence was over and everyone had left for lunch. He sat in Macrae’s chair at the police table and stared over at the witness box, trying to reconstruct a memory of Katya that had been on the edge of his consciousness ever since his conversation with Vanessa the previous day. He remembered the girl lying on her narrow bed in that sparse, cleaned-up room at the top of Blackwater Hall — so thin she had been and fragile and gone forever. It was a vision that never left him, waiting always on the surface of his subconscious, ready to spring out at him like a permanent reproach. But this was another kind of memory — a detail, elusive and minute. He thought perhaps it was something Katya had said when she’d given evidence from this same witness box, staring over so angrily at her former boyfriend in the dock, convinced of his guilt. And yet he couldn’t be sure — mayb
e it was just his imagination, feeding on the intensity of his desire to find a key to unlock the case when perhaps there was no key to be found. The uncertainty made him nervous, and, picking up his hat, he headed for the door.
Back at the house a letter was waiting for Trave on the doormat. The envelope was typed, official-looking, and he knew what it contained even before he’d ripped it open.
Dear Mr Trave,
The Chief Constable regrets to inform you that it has been decided to terminate your employment with the Oxfordshire Police forthwith in the light of a finding of gross dereliction of duty following the hearing last Saturday. You have fourteen days to appeal…
Trave didn’t bother reading any further. He screwed up the letter and threw it across the room and then proceeded to get as drunk on neat whisky as he’d ever been before in his entire life.
He woke up on the sofa the next day with the morning sun burning in his eyes. He had a blinding headache, and the telephone was ringing insistently in his ear, filling his head with yet more pain. It was Creswell.
‘Did you get the letter?’ asked the superintendent.
‘Yeah,’ said Trave, remembering with a feeling of renewed sickness the reason why he’d drunk himself into a stupor the night before.
‘I’m sorry, Bill,’ said Creswell, sounding genuinely upset. ‘I did my best, but they wouldn’t listen to me.’
‘I know. I didn’t think they would.’
‘Look, you have to appeal. I’ll try again. Dismissing you isn’t fair. It’s too harsh.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Trave. ‘I don’t think it’ll do any good. It’s cracking this case that would change things…’
‘Don’t be a fool,’ said Creswell, sounding angry now. ‘It’s your pig-headed obsession with Titus Osman that led to all this. If you’d been a bit more contrite…’
‘But I’ve never been much good at that, have I?’ said Trave. ‘Look, sir, I appreciate you calling, and I know you’re trying to help, but I’m not feeling at my best right now.’
‘Okay, I understand. But you’ll think about what I’ve said, won’t you? About not giving up?’
‘Yes,’ said Trave. ‘Of course I will.’
But Trave stopped thinking about the appeal as soon as he’d got off the phone. He was touched by the superintendent’s concern, but now he had other things to worry about. Something had been on the edge of his mind when he woke up, and he needed to concentrate before it slipped away. He went upstairs and showered in ice-cold water until his head was clear of alcohol and self-pity, got dressed in a pair of old gardening trousers and a patched jersey, and made a pot of the strongest coffee he could tolerate. He drank down a cup, and then, with a second in his hand, he finally sat back down with the transcript of David Swain’s first trial across his knees. It was dog-eared now, the pages crumpled from overuse. Trave turned to Katya’s evidence and began to read:
Evidence of Katya Osman
Witness is sworn
PROSECUTION COUNSEL, MR ARNE: Please tell the court who you are and where you live.
WITNESS: I am Katya Osman and I live with my uncle at Blackwater Hall. It’s near Oxford.
COUNSEL: Do you know the defendant sitting over there? (Counsel points toward the dock.)
WITNESS: Yes, we used to be friends.
COUNSEL: Friends?
WITNESS: He was my boyfriend for a year, but then I broke up with him after I met Ethan.
COUNSEL: Ethan Mendel?
WITNESS: Yes; he came to stay with my uncle last year. We fell in love. And David hated us for it. He sent me letters — horrible, threatening letters. I’ve got them here — six of them. I got the last one a few days before he killed Ethan. I brought them with me(Witness produces bundle of handwritten letters.)
COUNSEL: My lord, these will be exhibits 17 through 22. Copies have been made for the jury, and with your lordship’s leave the witness will now read them into the evidence.
JUDGE: Very well, Mr Arne.
Trave impatiently turned the pages of the transcript, looking for the resumption of Katya’s evidence. It was what Katya had to say that he was interested in, not David Swain’s childish, impassioned rants.
COUNSEL: The defendant refers in his letters to meeting you at ‘the boathouse’. Please tell us where that is, Miss Osman.
WITNESS: It’s by the lake. You get to it across the lawn and along a path through the woods. No one goes there.
COUNSEL: But you did with Mr Swain. Why?
WITNESS: Because no one goes there. My uncle didn’t approve of David, and so I couldn’t see him in the house.
COUNSEL: Never?
WITNESS: I took him there once when my uncle was away. Otherwise we met at the boathouse or in his room in Oxford.
COUNSEL: How often did you meet Mr Swain at the boathouse?
WITNESS: Lots of times.
COUNSEL: And how did Mr Swain get there if he wanted to avoid your uncle seeing him?
WITNESS: There’s a place on the road before you get to the main gate. You can get over the fence and walk down the path to the lake. That’s how.
COUNSEL: Did you use the boathouse after you ended your relationship with Mr Swain?
WITNESS: With Ethan you mean?
COUNSEL: Yes.
WITNESS: Yes, we did. I liked that it was our place, our secret. It was romantic with the lake and everything.
COUNSEL: I understand. Did you ever see the defendant at or near the boathouse after you ended your relationship with him?
WITNESS: Yes, once. It was in the evening. Ethan was writing something, and I went outside to look at the sunset. David was in the trees further up the path, watching. It was horrible, creepy. I never saw him again after that — until now.
COUNSEL: When was this?
WITNESS: The third of April — three days before Easter.
COUNSEL: How can you be so sure?
WITNESS: It upset me, and so I wrote about it in my diary. It helps to get things out of my system.
COUNSEL: What did the defendant do when you saw him?
WITNESS: He ran away back towards the road. I could hear him in the undergrowth.
COUNSEL: Did you tell Mr Mendel?
WITNESS: Yes. He was angry at first, worried. He wanted to go and see David about it, but I didn’t want him to. I thought it would make things worse. And so he didn’t. We stayed away from the boathouse for a while after that, but then we went back because it was beautiful and it was our place and David had no right to try and take it away from us. (Witness breaks down, distressed.)
COUNSEL: I’d like to move forward now to the period immediately leading up to Mr Mendel’s murder. What was the state of your relationship with Mr Mendel at that time?
WITNESS: We were in love; we were happy, although Ethan was preoccupied with something. He wouldn’t tell me what it was. He went away to Europe for a week. He didn’t tell me where he was going, but I assumed he was going to see his family in Antwerp. And then on the day he came back, I was out shopping in Oxford with Jana and so I never saw him. (Witness breaks down again, distressed.) I don’t know why he sent that note to David. Perhaps it was because of David’s letters. Ethan knew they upset me; he knew I was scared. I wanted them to stop.
COUNSEL: I want to show you the knife, the murder weapon — it’s exhibit three, my lord. Have you seen it before, Miss Osman?
WITNESS: I may have done. David had several knives similar to this in his room in Oxford. I can’t say if it’s the same one.
COUNSEL: Thank you, Miss Osman. If you wait there, my learned friend will have some questions.
Trave got up from the table and made himself some more coffee. He glanced around the room, grimacing at the dust and disorder: unwashed dishes stacked up by the sink, piles of unanswered correspondence balanced precariously on his desk in the corner. He didn’t need to be told that the mess was a symptom of the way his life was spinning out of control, as recorded in jottings on the Oxfordshire Police Force calen
dar hanging on the opposite wall — disciplinary hearing; Vanessa; give evidence — he might as well add lost job under today’s date.
Calendars, records — Katya had kept a record, a diary — it was how she’d been able to remember the date when David Swain had come stalking her and Ethan at the boathouse. And it wasn’t just an engagement diary; it was a fully fledged journal that she used ‘to get things out of my system’. That was what she’d said. The reference to the diary was what Trave had been trying to remember in the courtroom the day before — he was certain of it. But where was the diary now? Trave wondered. Had Osman found it? Probably — Trave remembered the cleaned-up feel of Katya’s room on the night of her murder. But then again, not necessarily — perhaps Osman didn’t know about the diary. He’d hardly have looked for it if he didn’t know it existed, and Katya was a girl who loved secrets — her meetings with David Swain behind her uncle’s back and her attachment to the boathouse itself were part of the same pattern. ‘I liked that it was our place, our secret.’ That was what she’d said.
And yet she’d also been prepared to tell the world about the diary when she gave evidence, unless of course she’d answered Arne’s question about the date without thinking, regretting the immediacy of her response later as she rode home in the back of her uncle’s car, hoping no one had noticed what she’d accidentally revealed. Trave paced backwards and forwards across his living room as his mind turned the scraps of evidence this way and that. He knew perfectly well that it was all speculation and that he was clutching at straws, just like he’d accused Jacob of doing two days earlier. But if straws were all he had, then he also knew he had no choice but to clutch at them, however pointless the exercise. Doing nothing was the alternative, and that was intolerable.
But if Katya had kept a secret diary that survived her death, then who was to say where it was now? Trave knew he couldn’t follow in Jacob’s footsteps and break into Blackwater Hall in the hope of finding something. Apart from the fact that Claes and Osman were now on high alert for intruders, he wouldn’t have the first idea of where to look. Katya’s bedroom had been cleaned up before her death, and the forensics team had gone through it with a fine-tooth comb on his orders afterwards and found nothing. If the diary was in there, it was concealed in some ingenious fashion that had eluded both her uncle and the police. To find it Trave needed to talk to someone who knew about the hiding place, someone in whom Katya had confided. Because Trave knew from his years of criminal investigation that that was the way of secrets: they existed to be revealed, to be disclosed in hushed whispers to those we love or think we love. And who had Katya loved? Ethan — but he was dead — and before Ethan, David. Trave remembered the transcript:
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