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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.
That was a stab that hurt. Daniel could remember Vespasia from his earliest childhood. She was beautiful, and she made him laugh. She always had time to talk to him. Once or twice she had given him books and sat with him to discuss them. He remembered long talks about Ivanhoe and Hereward the Wake and his long battle against the Normans.
And she was funny. He remembered her remarks that often he did not understand, but made everybody laugh.
When a case was very bad, seeming impossible to solve, she and Narraway would come to the house and they would sit around the kitchen table and work out all the ways to solve it. He remembered creeping down the stairs with Jemima and sitting on the lower steps listening at the kitchen door. They knew from the voices that it was serious, although they didn’t understand very much. They knew when a decision had been made, and more than once had had to hide very quickly in the pantry, or get caught.
These were good memories, ones he would not let Graves spoil. He knew that the cases were serious, often to do with treason, or murder, but he refused to believe that they fought for their own gain and not for a just cause, or to save the lives of those who were guilty of no more than foolishness, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
He looked at Graves’ sneering face. ‘I think most of her lovers would be dead by now,’ he said as levelly as he could. He heard the strain in his own voice. ‘Although perhaps their sons are not. You have certainly made a lot of enemies. I wouldn’t know where to begin. You’ll have to do better than that. It would take me years to go through all of them.’
Graves’ eyes widened. He saw his own tactical error, as Daniel recognised before a look of hatred filled Graves’ face.
‘I agree,’ Graves said softly. ‘Forget about Lady Vespasia, and Narraway, for that matter. His extorted help, money from too many people; betrayed his friends. And those from his early years would be dead, too. Concentrate on your father. He’s still alive, and has fifteen years left in office, more or less. The lists of victims to blackmail are his! Lots of them are still alive. Look into those he trusts to do something like kill my wife and blame me! Ask him about Portugal! Then you won’t think he’s such a damn hero!’
Daniel frowned. Puzzled. What did Graves mean about Portugal?
‘You’re no more of a hero than your father.’
Daniel was confused, but he would ask his father, not Graves.
‘It’s common knowledge that he paid old fford Croft to take you on. You are his man inside one of the most discreet and trusted law firms in the country. Think of the secrets you will know – one day,’ he said with contempt. ‘Will you be Sir Daniel when he’s gone?’ Now his sneer was undisguised. ‘Was it not that kind of knighthood? Bought and paid for by turning a blind eye to all the right things! As I said in my book – weak! And weakness leads to corruption. And corruption leads to murder. Got to solve the case, no matter how, no matter who hangs for it. Runs in the bloodline, doesn’t it? His father was a poacher, he’s a lackey to Narraway, and God knows who else now. What are you going to be?’
