“Now I can tell.Thank God, now I can tell.”
Lauriefrowned.She was holding him at arm’s length, her fingers clampedon his shoulders with a surprisingly powerful grip.He saiduneasily, “Tell what, Ma?”
“That poor boy!But it was convenient.I had to do it.You knowwhat your father is like, Laurence.He would never have let Clarago.I knew he was going to harm her, and I couldn’t stop it.He’dhave pursued her forever.Never, never let her go.I had to doit!”
* **
Laurietook the stairs down to the hallway five at a time.The phoneextension in his mother’s room had no memory library, and he didn’thave the number in his mobile.On his way across the hall, healmost ran over Gibson, who turned as if in a dream and began tofollow him—afraid of God knew what news, Laurie understood—and hesmiled and held out a hand to her.There was a chair by the phonetable.He told her to sit down.For himself, he knelt.
It tooka long time for his aunt to answer the phone, and longer still forLaurie to tell her, in his passable but halting French, what hadhappened.She was hard to convince.Laurie guessed she had beencoached to be wary of such calls.Eventually she told him to wait,and there was another long silence.
Then the line clattered to the sound of the receiver beingeagerly grabbed, and a clear child’s voice carried forth from it,vivid to Laurie as if they were in the same room.Yes, she wasfine.She was a little out of breath; she had run up from thekitchens, where she and her cousins were making canapés fortheirreveillonChristmas Eve dinner.Her only concerns were that she missedher brother and she could not understand whyTanteElise, who normally allowed herto roam like a wild goat over her extensive Languedoc estates,would not let her out of the house.
He hungup the phone and went back upstairs.He didn’t know what to say tohis mother, who was where he had left her, curled up in the bed,clutching her lace.It didn’t matter.Gibson pushed past him,rushed to her side, and seized her in an embrace Laurie knew fromexperience would leave bruises, powered by this muchemotion.
The roomwas very warm.Laurie hadn’t noticed before.It was stuffy, thetemperature of sickrooms and hothouses.A place where impossiblesecrets could grow.He strode over to push up the sash window.Leaning his hands on the sill, he looked out into thelight.
* **
Lauriehad found John Kucharski alone in the Scotland Yard ops room.Hehad had some difficulty making it to this point past the securitydesks.He supposed he hadn’t made a convincing concerned relative,shaking finely as he was with reaction and joy.He wondered ifKucharski was having trouble believing him too.He had sat insilence through Laurie’s news, staring at him across the desk.Thiswas why Laurie had come to him directly rather than phoning: to seehis face and let his own be seen, to be, as far as possible,accountable.
The ops room was lined with images of Clara.Of Sasha too,although from these Laurie kept his gaze carefully averted.Clara,Sasha, a handful of other dark-eyed, harsh-faced men he didn’tknow.Stefan Petrica.He fought a painful lurch of his heart.He had to stay calm,remain in the functional zone he had found between anxiety for Sashand this wild, unmanning release from fear over his sister.“I’msorry,” he said, for he thought the fifth or sixth time.“I…I knowall the trouble we’ve caused.But she’s okay, sir, really.She’sfound.”
Kucharski rubbed his brow.He had in front of him, Lauriecould see, a formidable array of files and photographs, and helooked tired.He said at length, “All right.I…want to believe you,Mr.Fitzroy, but I think there has to be a…well, a misunderstandingat best.This has been an investigation at the highest level.Partly because of your sister’s vulnerability, of course, butalso—I won’t kid you—because of the men we think are involved.There just isn’t any way it could have proceeded so far as it haswithout basic checks being done on family and…”
Lauriepulled out his mobile.He handed it across the desk, top flippedup, Elise Devereaux’s details on the screen.He said, “I know.But—that’s her number, if you want to…”
“You’ve spoken to her yourself?And the child?Directly?”
“Yes, sir.”
Theagent pushed the mobile away.He laid down his pen.It looked toLaurie such a gesture of defeat, the king going down on thechessboard.He could have smiled had not Kucharski’s doubts—adultdoubts from a world Laurie wasn’t sure even now he had earned theright to inhabit—almost made him wonder if he had imagined hisconversation with Clara in a happy dream.After a moment, Kucharskipicked up the receiver of his desk phone.He tapped in an internalnumber and said, rubbing the bridge of his nose, “Foster?I wantyou and Paul Gray in here right now.”
Therewas a brief, awkward silence.Laurie tried not to clutch at theedge of the seat in a gesture that would have instantly toldKucharski of his strong desire to be out of there.He wasn’t surewhere he wanted to be—France, possibly, shaking Tante Elise untilher sapphire earrings fell out, or back at his own flat, waitingand hoping against hope.He felt a painful sense of responsibilitytoward Gray and Foster too, and swallowed dryly when they appearedin the doorway to the ops room, glancing at one another inapprehension.
“Oh, it’s all right,” Kucharski said, gesturing them in.“Nolittle body washed up out of the Thames this time.Far from it.Mr.Fitzroy here has come to tell us that his sister is alive and well,under the protection of his aunt, who apparently owns the south ofFrance.”He paused for a moment, watching the effect of this newson his colleagues.“DS Gray, am I right in thinking you wereresponsible for initiating the check on the relatives?”
“Sir,” Gray said, a touch of outrage in his voice.“I hadMI5backgroundcheck the relatives.”
“Yes, but”—Kucharski picked up his pen again and waved itwearily in Gray’s direction—“did anyonelook?Physicallycheck?By which I mean,did anyone glance up from their psych profiling and DNA analysislong enough to send a gendarme out to the Devereauxestate?”
Lauriecleared his throat.He really felt for Gray, who looked relievedand mortified in equal parts.“I don’t think there was any reasonto,” he said.“My mother packed Clara off pretty neatly.She hadone of our Devereaux cousins come over to escort her, so she’d betravelling on a passport not in the name of Fitzroy.She even dyedher hair.”
Kucharski did not look consoled.“I don’t care if she gaveher a Groucho Marx wig and nose.My officers just raised afull-scale child trafficking alert across the whole of Europewithout checking in on Aunt Elise.Foster, Gray, this is what Imean when I tell you not to lose your basic police work in the joysof promotion and technology.I’m delighted that this had a happyending, but…” He hesitated and glanced back at Laurie as if he hadjust recalled his presence, and that probably he should not rip astrip off his officers in front of a member of the public.“Well.We’ll go over this later.For now…just get out of here.”
Lauriewatched them go.“It’s not their fault,” he said.“It’s ours.Mymother was determined to get Clara away.”
“Mr.Fitzroy, leave me to deal with my staff.And, as for you,if I didn’t think you incapable of sustained deception in a matterlike this…” He hesitated and sighed, visibly relenting a little.“All right.She’s found.Let’s both thank our gods for that and begrateful.”
Laurienodded.He wasn’t yet sure who his gods were, but he would happilyhave gone down on his knees to thank Kucharski’s.“Yes,sir.”
“All right,” Kucharski said again.He had an air of a manrapidly rearranging his ideas and preconceptions.“Your motherwanted her away.Thinking about what he did to you—do I need lookany further than your father to work out why?”
Lauriecaught his breath.Not half an hour before, he had stopped off atthe Royal Free Hospital’s morgue to identify Sir William’s body.Odd.After a lifetime of florid purples and scarlet, the old man’sface had been gray.And much of his bulk had been Laurie’s own fearof him.He was small on his slab.Diminished and gone.He said, alittle unsteadily, “No.You don’t.My mother was afraid of him.Notbecause he’d be violent to Clara, but…” He shivered, running a handinto his hair.“I’m sorry.It’s hard to talk about.”
“Okay.I get the picture.You don’t have to.But, Laurie, whenthe child comes back from France, if she’s gonna be in danger inher home…”
“She won’t be.”
