The Angel Court Affair (Thomas Pitt 30) (30 page)

It was the moment to press, and Narraway did not allow himself to hesitate. ‘Why, Señor Delacruz? What was the additional threat? This is not the moment to protect anyone! Whoever it was, they murdered Cleo and Elfrida to show us that they are in earnest. They cut them open with knives, and tore out their entrails, just to make certain we knew that they are not only capable of anything, but willing to do it.’

Nazario was white as if he too had been drained of blood. Narraway was afraid that he had gone too far. A witness horrified into paralysis was no use.

‘Señor Delacruz . . .’ he said more gently. ‘They have taken Sofia alive because they very badly want to give her back, in exchange for certain actions on your part. They will win nothing from you if she is not alive and well. You have some fearful decisions to make. You need as cool a head as—’

‘What decisions?’ Nazario demanded, raising his head and glaring at Narraway. ‘What can you mean? I will do whatever he says. Are you suggesting that I could refuse? What kind of a man are you?’

Narraway almost smiled; it was no more than a tightening of the lips. ‘One who is also married to a woman of courage and conviction, who would not have me do something I know to be wrong, in order to save her. And certainly would not thank me for making a decision she would consider a coward’s way out, whatever I thought.’

‘I don’t understand.’ Nazario’s voice cracked and he was close to losing control. ‘For the love of God, stop talking in riddles and tell me what you want! Who is it? Do you know who it is? Is it something to do with your government? Do they want somebody else in her place?’

‘No.’ Narraway realised he was drawing it out more than he had to. ‘The Government has no hand in it at all, and nothing to lose or gain, except whatever morality they believe in,’ he replied. ‘What the kidnapper wants is for you to come to England and say that Sofia is a fraud, a woman who deliberately seduced you from your first wife, and your children, and was the immediate cause of their suicide by fire. That you both covered up those facts to avoid the disgrace of it. Of course, it would ruin all that she has fought for and preached for these years, but the reward would be her life.’

For terrible, aching seconds there was absolute silence.

‘And if I don’t?’ Nazario said at last.

‘Then she will be killed, in the same manner that Cleo and Elfrida were.’ Narraway felt sick as he said it, and he thought Nazario was going to faint. ‘I’m sorry,’ he found his own voice almost strangled in his throat.

‘It is not true,’ Nazario said slowly, choosing his words as if English had suddenly become a strange language to him and he had to think to frame his sentences. ‘Luisa and I had parted before Sofia came to Toledo. Of course we were not divorced. Our faith at the time was Roman Catholic, and such a thing was forbidden. We could not obtain an annulment because there were no grounds.’ He stopped, the memory clearly painful.

Narraway did not interrupt or try to hasten him. It was not out of practicality so he could observe him, but the compelling need for a decency toward a suffering he could not help.

‘Luisa went to live in a small house her family owned, and she took our children with her,’ Nazario continued. ‘I did not stop her, for the sake of the children, as well as the fact that I could see no way in which we could be reconciled. I think now that Luisa was ill in her mind. I did not realise it at the time. Perhaps I did not want to.

‘I lost myself in whatever good work I could find, mostly connected to this monastery here, but based in Toledo.’

‘And Sofia?’ Narraway asked.

‘That was when she came to Toledo. She was a companion to an elderly woman of some means. As the woman became ill, I was of assistance to her.’

‘You are a doctor?’ Narraway interrupted.

‘I qualified in medicine,’ Nazario nodded. ‘Then my father died, leaving me sufficient means for the rest of my life, without practising. I did it for mercy’s sake, not for payment. I came to know Sofia during that time. It was a friendship in the service of the woman whose companion she was, and for whom she had the deepest regard. More, I think, than for her own mother.’

His face became bleak. ‘But Luisa mistook the relationship for something else. As if I would fornicate with a woman I had come to love, in the house of her dying patron and friend!’ His voice was raw with pain. ‘So much did Luisa think of me! She tried to persuade me to abandon them, even as the poor woman lay in agony. I would not do it.’

Narraway waited in silence.

Nazario drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘Luisa’s belief in my infidelity became more and more hysterical. She threatened to kill herself, and our children. To my everlasting grief, I did not believe her. I should have. She did exactly that. Killed the children quickly, I have to believe, mercifully, then set fire to the home and cut her own wrists.’

Seconds ticked by.

‘The police doctor told me this, but he allowed the coroner to say that it had been an accident. Luisa’s family is powerful. They are old and respected, with considerable wealth, but more than that, there are many priests, even a cardinal in her recent ancestry. It would have been an appalling shame for them. Suicide is an unforgivable sin, not to mention killing her own children.’ The tears now ran down his face, in spite of his attempts to blink them away.

‘They allowed it to be recorded as a terrible accident, and she was buried in a Christian grave. Of course, when I married Sofia there were those who said Luisa died of grief. Perhaps she did, but it was not for that reason. I committed no sin and Sofia even less so. But I let it be, for the sake of my children. And I suppose for Luisa also.’

He smiled with a bitter self-blame. ‘And of course you could say that Luisa’s family would not have allowed me to do anything else! But Sofia felt for her, even though they had never met. Sofia loved me, and she knew how another woman could have also. But that’s Sofia. Now tell me, Mr Narraway, how do I let her die?’

Narraway could not answer, and even to try would be insulting.

‘Or how do I tell the world that she is a whore who lured me from my wife and children? She was a woman who nursed her dying patroness, whom she loved as a mother, and only came into my arms, or my bed, after I had married her, and Luisa was dead, by her own hand. How can I do either of those things? Tell me!’

‘I can’t tell you,’ Narraway said honestly. ‘I don’t know what I would do myself.’

‘Don’t you?’ Nazario asked. ‘Wouldn’t you say that there must be a third way, and I will give my life to find it?’

‘Yes,’ Narraway said in a whisper, seeing Vespasia’s face in his mind. ‘I would.’

There was a knock on the door and Nazario stood up to open it. The abbot came in, glanced at Nazario, then at Narraway. He read the distress and the exhaustion in their faces.

‘Brothers, I think it is time you allowed yourselves time to rest, perhaps meditate a little, and certainly sleep. With peace will come new strength.’ He turned to Narraway. ‘We have prepared a room for you.’ He gestured towards the door and Narraway was happy to stand also, and follow him.

In the morning, long after sunrise, which was very early at this time of year, Narraway arose and enquired his way to the refectory where most of the monks were taking breakfast. He was welcomed and shown to a separate table where only Nazario was seated. He looked weary, his eyes hollow and heavily shadowed.

He looked up as Narraway pulled out the heavy wooden chair and sat down. The table had been set with bread and finely sliced ham, olives and herb butter when Nazario broke the silence.

‘I have been thinking about this most of the night.’ Nazario looked up from his plate. ‘Sofia did not tell me so, but there were other events that I believe may have caused her to feel impelled to speak to Barton Hall. She did not discuss it with me because she knew I would rather she did not take the risk herself, and God knows, I wish I had been wrong!’ He stopped abruptly and took a long drink from the pewter mug of rough wine beside him.

‘I had better tell you the whole story, so you may judge which parts of it, if any, may have connection with what has happened. You mentioned that the house where Cleo and Elfrida were killed was owned by Barton Hall. I had not thought it relevant before, and it may not be.’

‘Tell me anyhow,’ Narraway insisted. Perhaps at last this was going to be about the fugitive she had protected.

Nazario thought in silence for a few moments before he began.

‘Several weeks ago, perhaps two weeks before Sofia went to London, a man came to her in great distress. It is not an unusual happening. She is widely known for her mercy. This man said that he and a friend of his, whom he named only as Alonso, had perpetrated a hoax of almost unimaginable size. It had succeeded beyond their dreams, and now threatened their lives. Alonso had been murdered, very violently. Knifed to death and left almost torn apart, out in the country, but near the road where he was bound to be discovered.’

Nazario glanced up at Narraway, then back at his plate again.

‘There is no point in killing someone as a warning if the corpse is not found,’ he went on almost under his breath. ‘Juan Castillo, the other man in the hoax, understood the message and he was terrified for his own life. He knew he would be next. Above all, he was afraid of dying without having made a confession and receiving some absolution he could believe in. He came to Sofia and told her all that he had done. I have no idea the nature of this hoax or what it was because of course she did not tell me.’

‘What happened to Castillo?’ Narraway asked.

‘I don’t know,’ Nazario replied. ‘But she hid him, so far as I know successfully. At least she believed he was still alive when she went to England.’

‘You don’t know where?’ Narraway knew the answer, but he had to ask.

‘I have no idea,’ Nazario replied. ‘She would tell no one. And the police have never found any clue at all as to who had killed Alonso, or why, and whether Castillo had any part in it. But from the description of how Cleo and Elfrida were murdered, I fear that there is some connection.’

‘And you have no clue at all as to the nature of the hoax?’ Narraway had to press the matter as far as he could. Sofia’s life might depend on it; maybe more than that.

Nazario hesitated.

This time Narraway did not wait. ‘Even if she did not tell you, you must be able to piece some of it together,’ he said urgently. ‘We need every shred we can get. We’re fighting in the dark.’

‘Money,’ Nazario replied. ‘A vast amount of it, a king’s ransom.’

‘How? You say a hoax. That implies a trick rather than a robbery. Why did she want to see Barton Hall? Is it connected with him?’

‘I would guess so,’ Nazario answered. ‘Or perhaps that he could prevent it? I know of no other reason she would go to see him now. Their quarrel was years ago, and is a difference of belief that cannot be mended. Neither of them will change, and she would not wish him to pretend. What
he
would wish I don’t know. I never met him.’

‘But she said that she must go now?’

‘She told me there could be no discussion about it, and certainly no argument. I saw from the look on her face that she dreaded it, but she had no honourable choice but to go.’

‘Was she afraid?’ Narraway asked.

Nazario smiled bitterly. ‘If you had known her, you would not have asked that. I think so, but certainly not of murder. And from what she heard of Barton Hall, she did not think him capable of it. Something has happened she did not foresee, not even in imagination. But I have no idea what.’

‘Could she have known who killed Alonso, and therefore who would be trying to kill Castillo?’ Narraway suggested.

‘They killed Cleo and Elfrida?’ Nazario’s eyes widened. ‘Then why take Sofia rather than kill her too? It doesn’t make any sense. Sofia had no part in the hoax, whatever it was about, and neither would Cleo or Elfrida. If you had been able to know her, you would know that much.’

‘Then Sofia is hiding something, possibly concerning the whereabouts of Castillo,’ Narraway concluded. ‘And therefore the key to the hoax.’

‘Where does Hall fit in? Whose side is he on in this?’

‘Probably his own,’ Narraway said bleakly. ‘You said the hoax has to do with money? He is a banker, with fortunes in his charge. It seems unlikely they are not connected.’

‘Are you certain Sofia did not speak with him?’ Nazario asked.

‘No, I’m not sure at all,’ Narraway sighed. ‘Very possibly she did. And I wish I knew what happened to Castillo.’

‘So do I,’ Nazario agreed. ‘He comes to Sofia to help him save his soul. She gave him all the passion, honour and pity she could, and I loved her for it. But I will not let it cost her life.’

‘Then come to England with me and we will face the dilemma.’

Nazario was ashen-faced. ‘I can’t let them tear her apart . . . but neither can I say she was a whore, and responsible for Luisa’s death. That would destroy everything she is, all she believes and has worked to teach.’

‘I know,’ Narraway agreed. ‘The decision is impossible. We must try to create a third way. But we need to have all the facts to do that. We have a few days yet. They don’t expect an answer before we have had time to return to England. I dare say they will know when we do. Take time to study all the possibilities, and fast and pray, or whatever you do.’

Nazario sank his head into his hands and did not reply. Narraway saw his shoulders heave in sobs he could no longer control, and stood up silently. He could at least give him privacy.

They rode back through the night, hoping to arrive in Toledo by dawn.

Narraway was pleased to have the same horse, even though he had told the guide that he would leave earlier and go in the daylight.

The vast sky stretched above them, glittering with stars, and the wind was cool in their faces, blowing from the east. One huge shoulder of hillside gave way to another. The slow moon, three-quarters full, rose to the south-east and made their shadows black as Indian ink on the road, pooling and shifting and gathering again as the angles shifted against the light.