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‘I thought not,’ Daniel said sourly.
‘So, you imagine you’ll question them? And they’ll tell you?’ Graves asked in disbelief.
‘I’d leave that to Kitteridge. He’s pretty good at it. I’m going to dig up Ebony’s body and do another medical examination, only this time more thoroughly.’
Graves looked aghast. ‘You’re what?’
‘Going to exhume her.’
‘For God’s sake, why? What is it going to prove, that you don’t already know?’
‘Why burn her?’
‘I didn’t do it!’ Graves raised his voice harshly. It was almost a shout. ‘I didn’t bloody well kill her!’
‘How did they burn her like that?’ Daniel went on. ‘It takes a lot of heat to burn flesh.’
Graves’ face went white, and his eyes hollow. ‘What are you saying?’
Daniel leaned forward a bit. ‘If they used something they brought with them, and not from the house, it would indicate premeditation. They are saying you quarrelled and lost your temper. But if what was used was something in the house already, that could have been on the spur of the moment.’
Graves was smiling, very slightly. ‘Like who? The maid and her lover?’
‘Most likely,’ Daniel agreed.
‘Then go and find who’s trying to get the hangman to murder me!’ Graves shouted. ‘Do your job! Is it really your job to let them hang me?’ A look of terror filled his face, and he jerked forward until the manacles stopped him, wrenching his arms. ‘Or is that your job? To get the evidence banned and then let them hang me? They’re good at covering up murder – ask your father! I’ll wager he won’t tell you. Ask him about Amalia dos Santos! What did they do to her? How did he cover that up? Who helped him? He didn’t do all that on his own.’
‘Who put you up to this?’ Daniel demanded. ‘Tell me, or I really will let you hang.’
‘Of course you will! That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Your father to frame me, and you to make sure I hang!’
‘I’m trying to get you off, you stupid sod! But I can’t if I don’t know all of it.’ And then a sudden idea struck him. ‘You haven’t even sold the book yet, have you?’
‘I have! I’ve got . . . offers . . .’ Slowly Graves sat back on the wooden chair. ‘Is that what you want? You want to know who’s publishing it? Well, I won’t tell you.’
‘Yes, you will, or I’m walking out of here. I’ll suddenly find myself too busy to see you again. Too busy looking for your publisher – in your best interests, of course . . .’
He could see Graves thinking. Would he lie? There would be some record of any money paid in advance. Who would publish an exposé like that?
Then suddenly he realised. ‘Someone who’s on that
list! Of course! And the price isn’t money, is it? You don’t need money, with the inheritance you’ve just come into. It’s silence that this person needs. Your silence. He’ll ruin everybody else if he has to, to buy his own safety! And destroy Narraway’s reputation, and my father’s, at the same time!’
Graves was white and his chest was heaving. There was a sweat of terror on his face, and showing wet on his neck and chest, where Daniel could see his skin. ‘God help me, I didn’t kill her!’ His voice was almost strangled. ‘But you’re going to be guilty of my death. You’ll wear that for the rest of your life. Connive at murder, just like your father!’
Daniel looked at him with sudden chill. ‘You are in the wrong place to be abusing me. I’m the only thing between you and the rope. You want me on your side. And you are calling me stupid?’
Graves looked as if he had been struck, and a dull tide of colour swept up his face. His eyes burned with hatred. ‘You’re going to let me hang?’
Daniel leaned forward over the table. ‘Someone hated you enough to kill your wife, burn her face off and get you hanged for it. Please God, there aren’t many people with that potential for hatred around! Concentrate. We’ve got to find who it is.’
‘You? And who else? fford Croft? Kitteridge?’
‘If my father still has Narraway’s list of people, I’ll let him do it,’ Daniel replied. ‘He’ll know just how dangerous any of them really are. If there actually is such a list, we should make it work for us, shouldn’t we?’
Graves was seething with anger, but he was trapped, and he knew it.
‘Yes.’
