Twenty-One Days (Daniel Pitt #1)(49)

‘Why would anybody?’ Daniel asked.

The scorn in Graves’ face was quite open. ‘To make it more horrific, of course. And to prove it wasn’t an accident. Don’t pretend to be a fool! You must have thought of that. God! Why did they give me such a novice?’ He sat back in his chair, straining for a moment against his manacles, his shoulders bunched with the effort.

‘Because Kitteridge is busy, still looking for a loophole in the law,’ Daniel replied, trying to keep the anger out of his voice. ‘You’re lucky we’re trying at all! The world thinks you’re guilty.’ The moment he said that, he wished he had not. It was part of his job to keep Graves still hoping, still fighting. Was it cruel, when there was so little chance? Would it be kinder to help him come to terms with death? That was a priest’s job, but Daniel did not envy him that.

He couldn’t take the words back now, and apologising was useless.

‘You’re right,’ he admitted. ‘It doesn’t make any sense for you to have disfigured her face, except hatred. Since indisputably someone did, what reasons do you think they had? It must have taken some time. They risked being found, so they must have wanted to very much.’

‘To make everyone hate me,’ Graves answered. ‘So I’d look like a monster! Did you really need to ask that? God – you are a fool! Listen, you idiot, those behind my wife’s murder need to destroy me in order to make all my work seem like delusion, invented, instead of uncovering the corruption behind the face of power. Don’t you understand that?’ He looked at Daniel with a most profound contempt.

Said that like, it looked believable, even likely.

But it all depended on the charges that Graves’ book detailed being true.

Slowly, Daniel was being forced to accept the possibility that Graves thought it was true, however detached he was from reality.

‘All right,’ he said cautiously. ‘Who else knew about this book?’

Graves did not answer.

‘They had to know,’ Daniel pointed out. ‘Otherwise why take the risk of framing you for your wife’s murder? Actually, why not simply kill you? Then frame her, if they had to?’

‘Because I’m prepared,’ Graves replied. ‘Pretty obvious, really. I’d be a lot harder to kill.’

Daniel raised his eyebrows. ‘With all the skills they have? I don’t think they’d hesitate to kill you. Maybe with a blow to the head, or perhaps with a knife, or a gun. This seems like a long way around it.’

‘It wouldn’t stop my book being published,’ Graves answered.

‘And will this?’

‘No. I took precautions.’ Graves smiled slowly, a sour, malicious smile.

‘So, you don’t care whether you get hanged or not, as long as the book comes out?’ Daniel concluded.

Graves slammed his manacled fists on the table. The jolt of the steel against his wrists must have hurt appallingly. He would have bruises there in the morning.

‘Of course, I care! But I can’t let them win. When they’ve got my death on their consciences as well, it will only add to their infamy.’

‘Well, I’d like to see it averted before then,’ Daniel lied. ‘It’s my job to save you, and to expose the truth, if I can, but I can’t do it without you. Somebody killed your wife. And it wasn’t Narraway, because he’s dead himself, and so is Lady Vespasia. Then who killed Mrs Graves?’

‘You should ask your father!’ Graves spat the words.

Daniel felt as if he had been struck. Nausea overwhelmed him. His mind raced. He had expected this, but it still hit him with a shock, like a bad fall, as if he was sprawling on the ground, bleeding, skin torn and bloody.

‘Do you imagine he will tell me?’ he asked. ‘With no proof at all, just the desperate word of a man facing the gallows for the brutal murder of his wife? Really, you can do better than that! You’ll have to.’

Graves stared at him with hatred. The look on his face was that of a cornered animal, frightened and dangerous, nothing left to lose except his life.

‘Giving up?’ he said with contempt in his voice. ‘You’re not! You’re backing out because you’re afraid of what you’ll find. You look into all that past stuff, you’ll find that Narraway kept a file of all the things he learned in his job: all the debts, the sins, the mistakes of everyone he could one day blackmail. And since they’d given in, he’d got them for ever. Your father inherited that file and, believe me, when he gets tightly enough trapped, he uses it. Just a little bit at first. A small favour to solve a bad case. Then a little bit bigger one the next time, and bigger again.’ He smiled very slightly, an ugly, knowing gesture. ‘He can’t afford to fail! Not coming after the great Victor Narraway. And your father hasn’t got a Vespasia, who learned everybody’s secrets in the aristocracy, not only here, but in Europe, too.’ Graves’ face shone with malice. ‘No wonder she was never out of money! She earned a fortune in favours, one way or another. Mistress to half the crowned heads of Europe – and their enemies, no doubt. Blackmail for life, that!’

Daniel snapped at last. ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Not yet,’ Graves agreed. ‘But you’ll have to find out. You won’t be able to ignore it, not for ever. Little bits of evidence will turn up, old tales, and when there’s enough of them, you’ll see that I was right. The image will be there in your mind, a bright silver one, all glittering with light. But as you see it more and more often, it will be a little more tarnished each time, until it’s grey and yellow, corroded over, as ugly as it once was beautiful.’ His eyes never left Daniel’s face.