He was looking across at me, sympathetic but unyielding. ‘The evidence appears as conclusive as it can be. There is nothing I can do.’
‘Can you tell me where they’ve taken her?’
‘I’m sorry, Catherine.’
I didn’t want to argue with him over the issue, especially since I was certain all my protests would be futile.
‘What’s going to happen to me? Aren’t I going to be arrested and interrogated? Don’t you want to know who my accomplices were, what I was doing and what I found out?’
Though my tone was challenging, the questions were sincere. It was hard to believe that my nocturnal activities with ALEX would go unpunished.
‘I think there has been enough blood-letting of late,’ he responded. ‘I would prefer to consider the matter closed.’
I was suspicious. ‘But you don’t know what I might know.’
‘I will admit that I regret Maxixca destroyed the disk. It was a hasty and short-sighted action. But nothing can be done about it now.’
It seemed to me he was accepting matters far too easily.
‘So I’m free to do as I please?’
‘I won’t make you a prisoner, Catherine. All I can do is ensure you are well guarded, for your own safety as much as anyone else’s. Perhaps you’ll understand me when I have had the opportunity to speak to you at greater length. Come to dinner this evening at my suite.’
I eyed him. ‘I thought I was in the doghouse.’
He looked puzzled at this but ignored it. ‘It’s very important I speak with you in private. Please come.’
He spurred Archimedes. ‘By the way, Richard is home, too. I shall expect you at eight o’clock.’
Then he galloped away.
Richard was taking a bath when I arrived at his suite. Huixtochtli, the most officious of his staff, was insistent that he shouldn’t be disturbed. I strode past him and walked in on my brother.
He sat up to his shoulders in foam, manoeuvring a small plastic killer whale through his knees. The toy was battery-powered, its tail weaving from side to side.
He greeted me with a broad smile and told me that he had missed me. Yet I knew that in the old days he would have sought me out immediately on his return. The ties between us were no longer as strong.
I passed him his bathrobe, and he clambered out of the water. For some reason, I was startled by the glimpse of dark hair at his groin; to me he had always been a child, yet physically he was now a man.
Huixtochtli brought him a lemonade, and we sat out on the balcony in the afternoon sunlight. Up to now, our conversation had consisted entirely of pleasantries.
‘Did you hear what happened to Victoria?’ I asked.
He looked uncomfortable, as if he had hoped we wouldn’t have to broach the subject.
‘It was terrible,’ he replied. ‘They told me when I was in Quauhtemalan. I cried. Isn’t it awful, Kate?’
‘You don’t believe she had any part in the conspiracy, do you?’
‘There was evidence. Photographs.’
‘Do you think they were genuine?’
‘Why shouldn’t they be?’
‘That sort of evidence is easily fabricated.’
‘The others they arrested said she was involved, Kate.’
This was true. I had seen extracts from their ‘confessions’ during the show trials on news bulletins. Four men from the New Court, among them Huahuantli, had declared on oath that Victoria had been an active participant in the plot. There was no such admission from Jeremy Quaintrell, who remained scornfully insistent of his innocence to the last. All the conspirators had subsequently been deported to the huge maximum-security prison complex in Las Vegas.
‘Can you really imagine Victoria being involved in something like that, Richard?’
He played with the straw in his drink. ‘I was shocked when they told me. I think she was misguided, Kate, but I’ve tried to understand her reasons.’
This sounded as if it was parroted from someone else – no doubt his Aztec ‘advisers’, seeking to soften the blow and persuade him of the truth of their lies. It never occurred to me to consider that perhaps I had always underestimated Richard’s intelligence and that he was capable of his own reasoning. I was blind to many things about him and also Victoria, a great failing on my part.
‘Do you think she’d risk killing you and me?’ I said. ‘And herself? It’s madness.’
‘She wasn’t going to be there when the bomb exploded, Kate. She only turned up because she learned they’d found out about the plot.’
‘Yes, so they claimed. And it was you who told them about it.’
For an instant he looked sheepish, but then he said, ‘I’m sorry. I believe it was my duty. I won’t let you make me feel guilty, Kate.’
‘People have been sent to prison and Victoria is in exile because of what you did.’
‘I’m not the one who was going to kill innocent people.’
He looked defiant; I knew I couldn’t browbeat him as of old. And, of course, I couldn’t admit to myself that my own reactions were confused. Had I really wanted the bomb to go off? If not, then why blame Richard for warning the Aztecs about it? This was the kind of moral quandary I couldn’t bring myself to confront.
‘Victoria wasn’t involved,’ I insisted. ‘They told you lies.’
‘She confessed herself, Kate.’
‘Don’t you believe it.’
‘There’s a tape.’
‘What?’
‘A tape of her. They showed me it.’
I demanded to see it. Richard summoned Huixtochtli, who went away and shortly returned to inform us that the tape was ready for viewing.
We went inside. Huixtochtli pressed the PLAY button on the recorder and withdrew.
The screen came to life, showing Victoria’s head and shoulders with a blank white background behind her. Staring straight at the camera, her face strained, she said, ‘I confess my part in the conspiracy to kill the cihuacoatl Tetzahuitl, Governor Extepan and others at the Lords cricket ground by means of an explosive device. I have no regrets, except for the grief I know I shall have caused to the remaining members of my family. To you, Richard and Catherine, my sincerest apologies. I love you both.’ She looked off camera, her face rigid with tension. ‘Do I have to say any more?’
The picture went blank.
A table had been laid on the balcony with white linen, English silverware and a vase of honeysuckle. Extepan and I ate a meal of clear vegetable soup followed by Dover sole with asparagus and new potatoes. There was summer pudding for dessert. I felt that Extepan was trying to make some statement with the simplicity and Englishness of the menu, though I was not sure what.
Mia served us with her perfect poise, pouring a crisp Californian Riesling to accompany the meal before leaving us alone.
‘She’s very beautiful,’ I remarked to Extepan as she departed.
‘Indeed,’ he replied, managing to make the word sound both emphatic and non-committal.
‘Have you known her long?’
‘We grew up together. Her mother was a wet-nurse to my elder brothers.’
Dwarf palms and flowering creepers surrounded us on three sides. The garden here was more luxuriant than my own, more exotic and tropical.
‘You didn’t tell me Victoria had taped a confession,’ I remarked.
‘I had no involvement in that,’ he replied.
What did this mean? ‘Why hasn’t it been shown on television like all the others?’
Extepan looked a little squeamish. ‘I did not feel it necessary for her indignity to be made public.’
‘Especially when it was so obviously a scripted confession. A lie.’
He topped up our wine glasses. ‘I know there is no persuading you of your sister’s guilt, and I do not propose to try. Can we set the matter aside, just for this evening?’