The Inheritance (20 page)

It was a sort of forgiveness, and Ritter felt an almost irrational gratitude, which he knew better than to express. There was no time anyway. The firing began before they got to the door. Two rifles, it sounded like. One answering the other. Backward and forward, and then silence.

Ritter and Cade stood behind the door of the church, listening to the footsteps approaching. God knows who was outside. Friend or foe. The truth was that they weren’t ready for either. The Germans would kill them, and the British would find them with the Germans’ guns.

It was almost dark in the church now, and Ritter could only just make out the outline of Rocard’s body on the floor behind him. He cursed the whole sorry business under his breath and felt that he would give almost anything to get outside into the open. The church was bad luck. That much was obvious.

Suddenly the door began to move. Ritter and Cade flattened themselves against the wall behind them, holding their guns out with both hands in readiness, and Ritter would probably have shot Carson if he hadn’t called out the colonel’s name before he came into view. Instead Ritter reached forward and pulled him roughly inside.

“What was that?” asked the colonel. “Who was firing out there?”

“Me. There was someone in the house and he took a couple of potshots at me. Almost hit me too.” Carson spoke in a rush, and his hands were shaking.

“So where are they now?”

“I don’t know. I think maybe I got him. There was a lamp in one of the windows, and I saw someone moving behind it. I fired two or three times and he didn’t shoot back after that.”

“All right. Let’s take a look.”

Cade led them outside, and then almost immediately began running down the hill toward the house. There were flames leaping up in two of the ground-floor windows, and by the time he reached the door, they had spread to a third. Ritter was slower than the colonel even though he was the younger man, and he didn’t follow Cade inside. He was too busy catching his breath. And it didn’t take long for Cade to come back out anyway.

“The place is going up like a fucking tinderbox,” he said. “I can’t stop it.”

“What about whoever it was that shot at me?” asked Carson, who’d arrived outside the house last.

“It was an old woman. Probably the wife of the old man. And she’s dead. Or if she isn’t, she will be in a minute or two. Burnt up with the house and all its contents. Courtesy of Corporal Crackshot here. You’re a fucking idiot, you know that, Corporal. A fucking idiot.” Cade didn’t raise his voice, but Ritter could sense how angry he was. The colonel rarely swore.

“What was I supposed to do?” said Carson defensively. “How was I supposed to know it was some old woman?”

“You weren’t. But it doesn’t take a genius to know what happens if you shoot a rifle at a kerosene lamp.”

Cade turned away before Carson could think of a reply.

“This inferno’s going to be visible for miles around,” he said to Ritter. “We’ve got to move the trucks and put the guns back. There’s no time to lose.”

They began jogging down the drive.

“You too, Corporal,” Cade shouted back over his shoulder at Carson, who had hung back, watching the flames spread upward into the higher storeys of the house.

And that was how it had ended. They’d waited for the troops to arrive, and then shown them what the Nazi bastards had done. It was a pity that they hadn’t got there in time to save the people in the house, Cade had told them, but that was what happened in wartime. It was just bad luck.

The bells of St. Paul’s rang out the hour of two, and Ritter stretched, rousing
himself from his reverie. He could have told the silent jury and the journalists with their itching inky fingers all about Marjean and Jimmy Carson. He had stories to tell that would make their hair stand on end, but instead he had lied. And he had lied well. He wasn’t going to be some sideshow that Stevie’s devious lawyer could use to shift the blame. Cade’s death had nothing to do with Marjean. It was simple greed that had driven Stevie to kill his father, and Ritter hated him for it. He hated the son as much as he had once loved the father, and he wanted him dead. Hanging on the end of a rope.

Ritter walked quickly back toward the court. He didn’t want to miss even one minute of his wife’s evidence. He had coached her well, and he expected her to be a credit to him.

Adam Clayton was worried. No, it was worse than that. He was scared. He’d felt awkward ever since he’d got to the courthouse at ten o’clock on the dot that morning, following the directions that he’d written down so carefully on a piece of paper back at the police station in Oxford. He felt secure there, but here he couldn’t rid himself of a sense that he didn’t belong. He’d worked hard to become a detective, but now he wished himself back in uniform again and out of the black pinstripe suit that had felt fine yesterday but now seemed too tight all over. Even before Bert Blake had sat down opposite him in the cafeteria, Clayton had had a feeling that something was going to go wrong, and now it had. In spades. This was Clayton’s first big trial, but he knew enough about the criminal law to be sure that policemen weren’t supposed to go round talking about sensitive exhibits in front of important prosecution witnesses, and that was exactly what he’d just done.

He’d turned around in time to see the look of anguish on Mrs. Ritter’s face as she got up and hurried out, leaving her fat husband licking the coffee from his black moustache. The photographs had been of one of the other women in the house, Cade’s assistant, Sasha, and Clayton couldn’t understand why his conversation with Blake should have had such an effect on Mrs. Ritter. Perhaps it hadn’t. Perhaps he was just being paranoid, and her husband had said something to upset her. Clayton had never liked the look
of the man, even though he was the prosecution’s most important witness, the one who’d caught the defendant red-handed. But Clayton was sure that his gut instinct was right. It was his conversation with Blake that had sent Mrs. Ritter running from the room. He remembered how the people at the other tables had gone silent as he and Blake had raised their voices. God, he was an idiot. Clayton smacked the side of his head in irritation. It was his own fault for talking to Blake. The photographer had worked him out for just what he was: green behind the ears and a bit of a prude, and it had taken Blake less than five minutes to get a rise out of him. It was rotten luck that the Ritters had been sitting at a table right behind his back, but he should have known better.

Clayton looked at his watch and realised he’d been walking the halls for over an hour. Now he stopped outside the entrance to Court number 1. From this vantage point, he could see virtually nothing of what was going on inside, and so he leant on one of the high swing doors slightly to get a better view. It didn’t help, but the muffled voices inside suddenly became clearer, and Clayton could hear Ritter giving his evidence. It’d be his turn soon, once Ritter and his wife had finished, and perhaps he’d find himself answering questions about his error of judgement in the cafeteria. Clayton turned away with a shudder, and Trave had to stop suddenly to avoid colliding with his junior officer as he came out of the court.

“What the hell are you doing, Clayton?” he asked angrily. “You’re not allowed to listen to the evidence until after you’ve given your own. You shouldn’t need me to tell you that.”

“I don’t, Bill. I was . . .”

“Not Bill. Inspector Trave.”

“Sorry, Inspector. I was looking for you. That’s why I’m here.” Clayton stammered over his words, shaken by Trave’s insistence on being addressed by his rank. They’d been on first-name terms before, back on the day of Cade’s postmortem, when Trave had kept him on his feet and bought him a whisky.

“There’s something that’s happened, that I need to tell you about,” he went on after a moment, and then stopped, at a loss for words.

Trave looked at Clayton for a moment, and his expression softened.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s find somewhere to talk. This isn’t the best place. They’ll all be coming out in a minute.”

They went outside, turned left and left again, and Clayton suddenly found himself trying to keep up with Trave as he turned this way and that, seemingly at random, through a succession of tiny side streets under the shadow of St. Paul’s, until the inspector stopped under a freshly painted pub sign and disappeared into the dark interior of The Lamb and Flag Public House.

“You certainly seem to know your way around here,” said Clayton, admiringly, as they sat down at a table near the bar.

“An old friend of mine took me here for lunch, when I was starting out just like you, and he was an old inspector who’d seen better days. He’s been dead awhile, and I doubt anyone really remembers him now.”

“Except you,” said Clayton, picking up on a note of sadness, or was it bitterness? in the inspector’s voice.

“Except me,” said Trave, smiling. “I remember him just like it was yesterday, sitting where you are now, and saying, ‘Best bread and cheese in London, son,’ as if it was an article of faith. And he was right too. It still is the best.”

Adam Clayton began to feel better. He did not know whether it was just getting out of the courthouse or Trave’s company or the pub food, which did turn out to be really good, but his conversation with Bert Blake didn’t seem to be so terrible after all, even if Mrs. Ritter had got herself upset about it. And Trave agreed with him.

“I wouldn’t worry about it if I was you, Adam,” he said. “It isn’t as if they were photographs of the Ritter woman herself, and her evidence isn’t exactly controversial, you know. I remember taking her statement the day after it happened. It was funny. She was very specific about what she remembered, but she didn’t remember anything of any real significance. They’re like that sometimes.” Trave laughed, remembering the look of rapt concentration on Jeanne Ritter’s face as she told her story.

“I don’t think she has a very good time,” said Clayton.

“Her husband, you mean. Yes, he’s the one that I’ve got a problem with,” said Trave musingly. “He’s not telling the truth about that place in France. Silas had no reason to lie about what he and his brother overheard. Something terrible happened there. I feel sure of it. And I don’t know if it’s got any bearing on this case. Perhaps it doesn’t. Perhaps it was this man, Carson, who shot Cade when he went back there and wrote him that letter afterward. I don’t know. I just think I should have gone over to France and asked
some questions. Poked around a bit. If it hadn’t been for that blinkered barrister in there, I probably would have done.”

“Why don’t you? There’s still time,” said Clayton, feeling slightly surprised by the inspector’s obvious antipathy toward the prosecutor. He’d not been aware of it before now.

“No, it won’t work,” said Trave hurriedly. He felt surprised at himself for having said so much. It was what came from keeping so much bottled up inside. He liked Adam Clayton, but he knew he shouldn’t be talking to him like this. Clayton was too junior, and besides he hadn’t yet given his evidence.

“Why won’t it work?” asked Clayton. The inspector’s anxieties about the case had begun to trouble him too.

“Because there’s no time. The prosecution case’ll be over by tomorrow or the next day. And then it’ll be up to the other side. I’m sure they’ll have made their own enquiries. The defendant’s barrister doesn’t look like he’s anyone’s fool. And we’re not here to do his job for him. He won’t thank us for getting in his way,” Trave added as he got up to go. He gave the impression of having talked himself out of his earlier uncertainty, and he avoided any further reference to the court case on their way back to the Old Bailey.

They parted company in the main hall.

“Don’t wear your shoes out walking up and down, Adam,” said Trave smiling. “Everything’ll be fine. I promise you.”

“Where are you going to be?” asked Clayton, feeling suddenly nervous again.

“In court. I want to hear what Mrs. Ritter has to say. And if you’re still here at the end of the day, I’ll drive you back to Oxford.”

It was almost two o’clock, and most of the main actors in Stephen Cade’s drama were already in their places. The public gallery was packed full of spectators just like it had been in the morning, and Trave noticed Ritter and Silas sitting in opposite corners. There was no way of knowing if they were conscious of each other’s presence, but Silas certainly looked ill at ease. He kept fidgeting with his tie, running his hand through his thin sandy-coloured hair. The sergeant, on the other hand, looked more than satisfied with the
world around him, and several times Trave saw him rubbing his pudgy hands together.

Suddenly the whispering and fidgeting stopped, and everyone got to their feet as Judge Murdoch swept into court. He looked even more foul tempered than usual, thought Trave. Rumour had it that the judge’s digestive system was shot to pieces after years of overindulgent lunches. Certainly the afternoon was not the best time to get on the wrong side of him.

“All right. Who’s next?” the judge growled at Thompson, once he was ready.

“Jeanne Ritter,” said the prosecutor, clearly unperturbed by the judge’s irritation. Most of the time Thompson actually felt stimulated by Murdoch’s permanent bad temper. He thought of it as a sort of righteous rage against all criminals, and Murdoch was clever as well as angry. He’d already made some well-timed interventions that friend Swift hadn’t had an answer to.