“You think she has been taken for a ransom?”
“Your father was very rich. Your family might well have been targeted for your wealth, and your father’s death unplanned. It’s certainly possible. We have men looking into that possibility now. Equally, the mission may have been to assassinate your father, and we have men looking into that possibility also—well, me, because of course I knew him well, and would know if he had any enemies: enemies with the wherewithal to stage such an attack, I mean, rather than disgruntled tenants—and I came up with not a single possibility, which leads me to believe that the object may have been to settle a grudge. If so then it’s a long-standing grudge, something that relates to his time before London. Jenny, being the only one who knew him before London, may have had answers, but whatever she knew she has taken into the hands of her captors. Either way, Haytham, we need to locate her.”
There was something about the way he said “we.”
“As I say, it is thought she will have been taken somewhere in Europe, so Europe is where we will conduct our search for her. And by ‘we,’ I mean you and I, Haytham.”
I started. “Sir?” I said, hardly able to believe my ears.
“That’s right,” he said. “You shall be coming with me.”
“Mother needs me, sir. I can’t leave her here.”
Mr. Birch looked at me again, in his eyes neither kindliness nor malice. “Haytham,” he said, “I’m afraid the decision is not yours to make.”
“It is for Mother to make,” I insisted.
“Well, quite.”
“What do you mean, sir?”
He sighed. “I mean, have you spoken to your mother since the night of the attack?”
“She’s been too distressed to see anyone but Miss Davy or Emily. She’s stayed in her room, and Miss Davy says I’m to be summoned when she can see me.”
“When you do see her, you will find her changed.”
“Sir?”
“On the night of the attack, Tessa saw her husband die and her little boy kill a man. These things will have had a profound effect on her, Haytham; she may not be the person you remember.”
“All the more reason she needs me.”
“Maybe what she needs is to get well, Haytham—possibly with as few reminders of that terrible night around her as possible.”
“I understand, sir,” I said.
“I’m sorry if that comes as a shock, Haytham.” He frowned. “And I may well be wrong, of course, but I’ve been dealing with your father’s business affairs since his death, and we’ve been making arrangements with your mother, I’ve had the opportunity of seeing her first-hand, and I don’t think I’m wrong. Not this time.”
iii
Mother called for me shortly before the funeral.
When Betty, who had been full of red-faced apologies for what she called “her little lie-in,” told me, my first thought was that she had changed her mind about my going to Europe with Mr. Birch, but I was wrong. Darting along to her room, I knocked and only just heard her tell me to come in—her voice so weak and reedy now, not at all how it used to be, when it was soft but commanding. Inside, she was sitting by the window, and Miss Davy was fussing at the curtains; even though it was daytime it was hardly bright outside but, nevertheless, Mother was waving her hand in front of her, as if she were being bothered by an angry bird, rather than just some greying rays of winter sunlight. At last Miss Davy finished to Mother’s satisfaction and with a weary smile indicated me to a seat.
Mother turned her head towards me, very slowly, looked at me and forced a smile. The attack had exacted a terrible toll on her. It was as though all the life had been leeched out of her; as though she had lost the light she always had, whether she was smiling or cross or, as Father always said, wearing her heart on her sleeve. Now the smile slowly slid from her lips, which settled back into a blank frown, as though she’d tried but no longer had the strength to keep up any pretence.
“You know I’m not going to the funeral, Haytham?” she said blankly.
“Yes, Mother.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Haytham, I really am, but I’m not strong enough.”
She never usually called me Haytham. She called me “darling.”
“Yes, Mother,” I said, knowing that she was—she was strong enough. “Your Mother has more pluck than any man I’ve ever met, Haytham,” Father used to say.
They had met shortly after he moved to London, and she had pursued him—“like a lioness in pursuit of her prey,” Father had joked, “a sight as bloodcurdling as it was awe-inspiring,” and earned himself a clout for that particular joke, the kind of joke you thought might have had an element of truth to it.
She didn’t like to talk about her family. “Prosperous” was all I knew. And Jenny had hinted once that they had disowned her because of her association with Father. Why, of course, I never found out. On the odd occasion I’d pestered Mother about Father’s life before London, she’d smiled mysteriously. He’d tell me when he was ready. Sitting in her room, I realized that at least part of the grief I felt was the pain of knowing that I’d never hear whatever it was Father was planning to tell me on my birthday. Although it’s just a tiny part of the grief, I should make clear—insignificant compared to the grief of losing Father and the pain of seeing Mother like this. So . . . reduced. So lacking in that pluck Father spoke of.
Perhaps it had turned out that the source of her strength was him. Perhaps the carnage of that terrible evening had simply been too much for her to take. They say it happens to soldiers. They get “soldier’s heart” and become shadows of their former selves. The bloodshed changes them somehow. Was that the case with Mother? I wondered.
“I’m sorry, Haytham,” she added.
“It’s all right, Mother.”
“No—I mean, you are to go to Europe with Mr. Birch.”
“But I’m needed here, with you. To look after you.”
She gave an airy laugh: “Mama’s little soldier, uh?” and fixed me with a strange, searching look. I knew exactly where her mind was going. Back to what had happened on the stairs. She was seeing me thrust a blade into the eye socket of the masked attacker.
And then she tore her eyes away, leaving me feeling almost breathless with the raw emotion of her gaze.
“I have Miss Davy and Emily to look after me, Haytham. When the repairs are made to Queen Anne’s Square we’ll be able to move back and I can employ more staff. No, it is me who should be looking after you, and I have appointed Mr. Birch the family comptroller and your guardian, so that you can be looked after properly. It’s what your father would have wanted.”