Simon Tolkien - The Inheritance

“What happened?” she asked. She found it difficult to speak, and the words came out in a whisper.

“You fainted. And the judge left you to it,” Trave said with a smile.

“So please, can I go?” Jeanne asked, getting unsteadily to her feet.

“Yes. But they want you back tomorrow, I’m afraid. Have you got somewhere to stay? I don’t think you should go back to Moreton.”

“Yes, I can find somewhere. There are places up near Baker Street where I was living before. I’ll be all right.”

In truth, Jeanne had no idea if she would be all right. All she knew is that she wanted to be alone, far away from anyone who had seen her in court, but the police officer was persistent. He wouldn’t let her go so easily.

“What about money?” he asked.

“I’ve got enough.”

“Well, I’ll walk you to the tube.”

Trave felt frightened for the woman. Either tonight, that she’d do something to herself, sitting on the side of the bed in some ill-lit cheap hotel room in the early hours with bottles of pills lined up on the dresser, or tomorrow, when Ritter found her. There was no sign of him anywhere in the courthouse or in the street when they got outside, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t lurking somewhere, ready to grasp his wife in his thick pudgy hands as soon as Trave’s back was turned.

But there was nothing Trave could do. That much was obvious to him as his companion hurried down Blackfriars Road toward the underground station, intent only on getting away from him. He couldn’t guard her if she didn’t want to be guarded, and even if she did, it was probably outside his job description.

The station was crowded, and she had to queue for a ticket.

“Are you sure you’ll be all right?” he asked, as if in need of some kind of blessing for leaving her alone. But she didn’t answer. She was looking in her purse for coins, and Trave felt as if he’d already been left behind.

At the foot of the stairs, Trave turned back, hoping to get a last glimpse of her at the turnstiles, but she was gone, swallowed up into the throng of afternoon travelers, and so he climbed back up into the day and walked out onto Blackfriars Bridge.

The great grey river washed against its stone banks, too dirty to reflect the solid nineteenth-century buildings rising up on either side. And, despite the sunshine, there was almost no river traffic. Just a police launch approaching fast from the east, looking for something or someone. London was an easy place to end your life, if that’s what you had in mind.

Trave felt the old familiar depression settle down onto his shoulders, although there was no return of the pain in his chest that had brought him to his knees on the first day of the trial. He’d almost have welcomed it, because the sense of desolation told him a different story. He’d live for many more years yet in his big old North Oxford house, thinking about his son who had died and his wife who had left him for another man. He’d hear the echo of things that had gone forever until he couldn’t stand it anymore. The echo of playing the piano in an empty room or mowing the lawn in an empty garden. Keeping going for no good reason at all.

Trave’s work had been his salvation ever since his son died. He was good at it, and it had kept his demons at bay, for most of the time at least. But this case had changed things. Standing, looking down into the grey river, Trave realised that now. He’d begun to make mistakes. He should have pressed Ritter’s wife more when she made her statement. He should have had enough experience to know if she was lying to him. Stephen’s guilt was too easy an explanation, but he’d ignored the personalities and concentrated on the facts. It didn’t matter how strong the evidence was. He should have known better. He should have kept an open mind. Instead he’d got it wrong. And now a boy might hang for something he probably never did. And a woman might die tonight. And it seemed like there was nothing he could do.

Trave turned away from the river with a sense of despair, but then thought better of stopping at the pub on the corner for a whisky. He had work to do, and he needed a clear head. First of all, he had to find Adam Clayton, if he was still in the courthouse. The gossip in the witness room was clearly what had driven the Frenchwoman to change her story. And of course Clayton’s evidence about what had happened that afternoon would help Gerald Thompson persuade the jury that she’d invented her new account on the spur of the moment, in order to punish Silas by accusing him of the murder. Clayton would help put the rope back round Stephen Cade’s neck, and Trave understood himself well enough by now to know that he would do almost anything to save the boy. Anything except not do his job. His duty was to provide the evidence, not to withhold it, and then it was for the jury to decide who was guilty and who was not.

Perhaps Jeanne Ritter had told him the truth back on that late summer’s day when he had gone to visit her at Moreton and they had sat so awkwardly at either end of the heavy mahogany table in the dining room, never once making eye contact. In court today, he’d believed her, but now he wasn’t so sure. She’d been angry as well as desperate until Thompson had got the better of her. There were questions that still needed answers. Had she seen Stephen coming back into the study just before his brother crossed the courtyard? She’d have been at the window because she was doing her hair, but would she have seen him? If he’d come along the side of the house, he’d have been out of her view-and maybe out of her hearing too if the window was closed. There was a wind, and she’d never said she heard the gunshot. But then again, perhaps she hadn’t mentioned Stephen because he never did come back. Perhaps he was in the study all the time, killing his father, and the rest was just a figment of the Frenchwoman’s overactive imagination.

Trave shook his head from side to side, as if to rid himself of his thoughts. His mind was going round and round in circles, posing questions to which he had no answers. But at least Adam Clayton hadn’t gone. He was waiting for the inspector outside the courthouse.

“Where have you been?” he asked, sounding nervous and excited all at once. “People in there were saying that Ritter’s wife fainted and that’s why the court rose early.”

“Yes. I’ve just been taking her to the underground. She’ll have to come back tomorrow.”

“But that can’t be right,” said Clayton, clearly surprised. “She just went by here only a couple of minutes ago. She was with her husband. He was shouting at her, calling her names.”

“What names?” asked Trave, looking horrified.

“He called her a whore. And a bitch too, I think. He was pulling her along, and so I didn’t get to hear much. Perhaps I should have stopped him, but I didn’t, because she is his wife, after all,” Clayton ended uncertainly.

“No, I’m the one who should have done that.” Trave realised what a fool he’d been. Why hadn’t he seen her onto a train? Instead he might just as well have handed her over to her murderous husband. Ritter had obviously followed them down into the underground station, and then calmly waited until Trave had left before taking hold of his wife and dragging her back the way she’d come, while Trave gazed down into the River Thames, wallowing in self-pity. God knows where they were now.

“Did Ritter say anything else?” Trave asked.

“He said she was going to show him. Whatever that meant.”

“Show him,” repeated Trave, sounding puzzled, and then suddenly he understood. “Come on,” he shouted. “He’s taking her back to Moreton. And he’s driving. Otherwise he wouldn’t have come back here.”