Death at Dawn - Caro Peacock [16]
The fat man paid no attention to him, his eyes still on me.
‘That is beside the point. Tell me, did your father communicate with you at all when he was in Paris or Dover?’
Why I answered his question instead of asking my own, I don’t know, unless those eyes and that voice had a kind of mesmeric force.
‘He wrote me a letter from Paris to say he was coming home.’
There was no reason not to tell him. Even talking about my father seemed a way of fighting them. Trumper sat up, feet to the floor, face turned greedily to mine. The fat man leaned forward.
‘What did your father say in this letter?’
I was more cautious now.
‘He said he’d enjoyed meeting some friends in Paris, but was looking forward to being back in England.’
‘Gentlemen friends or women friends?’ said Trumper, eager as a terrier at a rat hole.
The fat man looked at him with some contempt, but let him take over the questioning.
‘Gentlemen friends,’ I said.
‘Did he mention any women?’
The eagerness of Trumper’s question, practically panting with his tongue hanging out, made me feel that my father’s memory was being dirtied. In defence of him, I told the truth.
‘He mentioned that he’d met an unfortunate woman who needed his charity.’
And realised, from the look on Trumper’s face and a shifting in the fat man’s weight that made the carriage tilt sidewards, that I’d made a mistake.
‘Did he mention a name?’ Trumper said.
‘No.’
‘You’re sure of that?’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Or any more about her?’
‘Nothing.’
‘What did he propose to do about her?’
His letter had implied quite clearly that he was bringing her back to London with him.
‘I really don’t know,’ I said. ‘It was only a casual mention of her.’
‘She’s lying.’ The fat man growled it without particular enmity, as if he expected people to lie. ‘He was bringing her back to England with him, wasn’t he, miss?’
‘It seems you know more than I do, so why do you ask me?’
‘He abducted her from Paris. We know that, so you need not trouble yourself to lie about it.’
‘My father would not take away any woman against her will.’
‘Did he write to you from Calais?’
‘No. That letter from Paris was his last.’
‘Are you carrying it with you?’
‘No!’
From the fat man’s stare, I expected him to order Trumper to search me there and then, and shrank back in the corner of the seat.
‘Did he tell you to meet the woman at Dover?’
‘No, of course not. I was waiting to meet him, only he didn’t even know it.’
‘Do you know where he lodged in Calais?’
It heartened me that their inquiries round Calais must have been as fruitless as mine.
‘No. Not at any of the big hotels, I know that much.’
‘So do we,’ Trumper said, rather wearily.
The horses were moving at a fast trot now, the well-sprung carriage almost floating along. There was something I hadn’t noticed until then, with the shock and the questioning.
‘This isn’t the way back to Calais.’
‘It’s a better road,’ Trumper said.
I didn’t know enough about the area to contradict him, but I edged forward in my seat, trying to see out of the window. We were stirring up such clouds of dust that I couldn’t make out much more than the outlines of bushes. A look passed between the two men. Trumper pulled down the window and shouted something to the coachman that I couldn’t hear above the sound of wheels and hooves. The whip cracked and the rhythm of our journey changed as four powerful horses stretched out in a canter. I’d never travelled so fast before. Trumper hastily shut the window as a cloud of white dust blew up round us. I reached for the door handle. I don’t know whether I’d have been capable of flinging myself out at such a speed, but there was no chance to tell, because Trumper’s heavy hand clamped mine and forced it down on my lap.
‘Sit still. We’re not doing you any harm.’
‘Please take me back to Calais at once.’
‘You must understand …’ Trumper said. He had both of my hands now and was trying so hard to keep them held down that he was pressing them between my thighs. When I struggled it made things worse. The sweat was running down his forehead.