Peter felt he’d been just. God knows he’d been just. He hadn’t dismissed Jane Martin even though the old shrew richly deserved being thrown out on the street. Instead he’d allowed her to stay on in the House of the Four Winds because he knew that that was what Anne would have wanted. He’d been just and loyal, unlike his son, who’d gone through Greta’s underwear behind her back, and his son’s freckled friend, the Barne boy, who ran away because he was too scared to back up Thomas’s lies. Peter wasn’t like that. He stood up to be counted when it mattered, and he didn’t sneak into people’s homes and then tell lies about them to fat detectives like Hearns.
Hurrying from the Daimler as soon as it had drawn up outside the court entrance, Peter ignored the group of reporters who shouted meaningless questions at him as he passed. He took it as a good sign that they were so few in number. Most of them must still be inside feasting on Greta’s trial, and so perhaps he wasn’t going to be late after all.
In the great hall at the top of the stairs Peter almost collided with Patrick Sullivan, who was coming toward him from the lifts.
“Where’s Greta?” Peter asked anxiously. “I said I’d meet her here ten minutes ago. She must be looking for me.”
“It’s all right. She’s on her way down. The court only finished a couple of minutes ago.”
“How did it go?”
“Good. No, better than good. Miles did a fantastic job on Thomas.”
“About the locket? Greta told me he did well with the Barne boy.”
“He did. We’ve got the locket covered, but Miles did his real damage cross-examining Thomas about what happened two weeks ago. I wish you could have seen it.”
“You mean this business about Anne’s killers going back to get Thomas. I agree with Greta: he’s made the whole thing up. There’s not a shred of evidence to support his story apparently.”
“That’s right. It’s obvious he’s made it up because Miles was able to poke so many holes in what he said. The best one was when Thomas said he used his panic button to call the police and then when they got to the gate he buzzed them in through the intercom instead of telling them to go around and intercept these Lonny and Rosie characters in the lane.”
“Lonny and who?”
“Rosie. They’re these weird names that Thomas has dreamed up for the intruders. Rosie’s the main man though. He’s the one that Thomas saw under the streetlight and the one who took the locket on the night of the, the…”
Patrick’s voice trailed away. He always found it difficult to talk to Peter about the central event of the case, and it didn’t help that the main prosecution witness was Peter’s son.
“Didn’t Greta show you Thomas’s last statement?” Patrick asked in an attempt to get the conversation back onto more neutral ground.
“No, I didn’t,” said Greta, coming up on them from behind. “Peter’s got enough on his plate without having to read Thomas’s lies.”
Patrick was puzzled by the irritation evident in Greta’s voice. She had seemed so pleased upstairs only minutes earlier when they had come out of court.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I was just telling Peter how well everything had gone today.”
“Yes, it did go well, didn’t it?” said Greta. “Miles is a genius at what he does.” She kissed her husband. The anger had passed so rapidly from her face that it was as if it had never been there at all.
Peter did not respond to his wife’s greeting. It was almost as though he didn’t notice her presence. He had a faraway look in his eyes, and the deep lines on his forehead were furrowed even more than usual, as if he was immersed in some intense thought process.
“Are you all right, darling?” asked Greta solicitously. “You don’t look well.”
“Peter’s been overdoing it, I expect,” said Patrick, filling in for Peter’s lack of response.
“No, I’m fine. It’s been a long day for all of us,” said Peter, summoning up the ghost of a smile that flickered across his lips but never reached his distracted blue eyes.
“And I’m afraid it’s not over yet,” said Greta. “I’m supposed to have a conference with Miles to make sure we’ve got everything covered before I give evidence tomorrow.”
“When?” asked Peter. “Now?”
“No. Down at his chambers at six-thirty. I need to change first and have a drink.”
Patrick had already left and Greta was in the Daimler when Peter stepped back onto the sidewalk.
“I don’t feel very well for some reason, Greta. Will you wait for me while I just go back inside and use the bathroom? I won’t be long.”
Peter did not wait for his wife to reply but walked quickly through the courthouse doors. He wasn’t lying about not feeling well, although he had no intention of finding a bathroom. An alarm had been going off in Peter’s head ever since Patrick had told him about Rosie. He had made the connection instantaneously with what he had overheard Greta saying on the telephone the night that they had first slept together. It was the day of the funeral; the day when Greta got arrested and they had ended up in Greta’s flat, in Greta’s bed, and then the telephone rang in the middle of the night and she had said: ‘Don’t call me that. I’m not your Greta Rose.’ Peter was sure that that was what she’d said, and afterward she’d told him that that was her name before she came to London: Greta Rose because Rose was her grandmother’s name. Was that the truth, or was Greta connected to Anne’s killer? Peter had to know. Greta wouldn’t tell him. She hadn’t told him about the names in Thomas’s last statement. She’d told him not to read the statement in fact because he’d got enough on his plate without worrying about Thomas’s lies. Or maybe that was wrong, maybe he’d just never asked to see it. Peter could not be sure now. All he knew was that he needed to ask Thomas about this Rosie character. Had the other man called him Rose or Rosie? Was Rose his first name or his second? Was there a connection or was there not?
Peter did not stop to think whether his son could help him with any answers. All he knew was that there was no one else to whom he could put his questions.
He thought that there must be a chance that Thomas was still in the building. Hearns wouldn’t allow the boy to leave on his own, and Hearns himself might not have been ready to leave immediately. The detective always seemed to be busy with something. Peter had seen him in the courthouse corridors several times since the first morning of the trial carrying papers, talking sycophantically to barristers, looking self-important. It would be unlike Hearns to rush away straight after court, particularly if it had not gone well for the prosecution today.
The problem for Peter was that he didn’t know where to look for his son, and not only that: time was against him. Greta could not be relied upon to sit twiddling her fingers in the back of the Daimler forever.
There was no one in the witness waiting room and no sign of Hearns in the police room. Peter had just given up the search and was on his way downstairs when he ran straight into the detective and his son on the first-floor landing. It was the first time that Peter had seen Thomas since the day he’d thrown him out of his house the previous October, and he wouldn’t have known how to speak to him if the urgency of his need to know about Rosie had not overcome his inhibitions.
“I have to talk to you,” Peter said simply. He stood barring his son’s access to the stairs.
Thomas opened his mouth but no words came out. Astonishment seemed to have momentarily taken his voice away, and it was Hearns who responded to Peter’s approach.
“You’re a potential defense witness, Sir Peter. You should know better than to try to talk to a witness for the prosecution.”