to move out.”
“But not today. I need to talk to you first. We have...a lot to talk about.”
She regarded him ironically. “Didn’t we talk enough three years ago?”
“We talked a lot, but maybe not to any good purpose. I’ve been through those interviews, and there are things I’m uneasy about.”
“You’re...?” She regarded him in cynical hilarity. “You’re uneasy. Now I’ve heard everything. There were one or two things I was uneasy about, too, in particular, the way you deliberately distorted the truth and wrecked my life. Don’t ever imagine that pouring a few aspirin down my throat makes up for it.”
“I wouldn’t expect it to, if I really had deliberately hidden the truth,” he said edgily. His anger was rising as he discovered how difficult it was to make any impression on her. He was used to being arrogant, dominant, as a policeman had to be. Eating humble pie came very hard to him. “But I didn’t.”
“Oh, come on,” she said wearily. “We’ve passed that point, surely?”
“Megan, I didn’t suppress that statement,” he said emphatically. “I simply didn’t remember it.”
She raised an eyebrow at him. “You can do better than that.”
“No, I can’t, because it’s true. I didn’t remember anything about the witness. My mind just...blanked him out.” In despair he could hear how unconvincing it sounded, and her look of derision confirmed it. Perhaps if he told her everything about his mental and emotional agony at that time, and what had caused it, she might understand. But something deep within him shied away from exposing his wounds. He’d never begged for mercy. It wasn’t his way. “I had...a lot of cases on my plate” was the best he could manage.
“Funny, that. You always seemed to have time to interrogate me,” she observed. “I’ve never heard such a feeble excuse. What are you? Some kind of incompetent who needs your hand held? At least suppressing evidence is decisive. Losing it because you’re muddled is the action of a wimp.”
His temper rose. “You make very glib judgments,” he snapped.
“So did you.”
“The evidence against you was very strong. Without that witness it was a rock-solid case.”
“And of course you made absolutely sure it was ‘without that witness.’”
“Will you listen to me?” he demanded hoarsely.
“Will listening to you make any difference?” she flung back at him. “Will it give me back my reputation, three years of my life—my son? How would you know what it’s like to lose your child and think about him every moment of every day, becoming obsessed with him because they had no right to take him but he’s gone anyway?” She took a deep, shuddering breath and forced herself to calm down. “There’s no point in going through it again. You know what you did, even if you won’t admit it. There must be a way to undo the damage you did. I just...just don’t know what it is.”
He could have given her the answer. There was only one way to clear her completely, and that was to find the real murderer. But he didn’t say so because he still wasn’t totally convinced. After the days spent studying the interviews, he had serious doubts, but that wasn’t enough. He caught her looking at him, and had an uncomfortable feeling that she’d read his thoughts.
“I’m going to call my lawyer,” she said. “The sooner I’m away from here, the better.” She went back to the alcove and dialed.
“Newton and Baines,” the receptionist at the other end said.
“I’d like to speak to Janice,” Megan said urgently.
“I’m afraid Mrs. Baines isn’t here. Her son has measles and she’s quarantined at home with him.”
Megan ground her nails into her palm. “Mr. Newton, then.”
“One moment.”
She was reluctant to talk to Newton, a curt man who seemed devoid of all human sympathy, but she was desperate. When he came on the line a moment later her worst fears were realized. He listened in frozen silence as she described her predicament, then said, “I must say I think you were extremely unwise to leave your lodging.”
“I was driven out. I can’t go back there.”
“But you appear to have found somewhere else, so I don’t see the problem.”
Megan tried to keep her temper. “I am temporarily in the home of Detective Inspector Keller, the man who put me away, and that is the problem.”
“I don’t understand. What are you doing there?”
“He rescued me from the press and brought me here. But I’ve been here nearly a week, and I don’t want to stay.”
“Hmm.” Newton sounded bored. “Well, frankly, Mrs. Anderson, I find your point of view hard to comprehend. Having managed to get this man on your side, your sensible course would surely be to make use of him. He has, er, resources denied the rest of us. Give me the address and I’ll arrange for some money to be sent to you, but I’m afraid it won’t be much.”
As she hung up, Daniel came out into the hall and looked at her inquiringly. “She’s away,” Megan said. “Her partner is going to send me some money.”
“If you need money, why did you run away from the press?” he asked wryly. “They were offering to buy your story. You could have told the world just what you thought of me. I can’t think why you passed up the chance.”
“Because my son might have seen it. I don’t want him picking up a newspaper and seeing Megan Anderson Tells All. Brian would claim it made me an unfit mother, and I have enough of a fight on my hands without giving him ammunition.”
“Won’t he give you some financial help?”
“Him?” Megan asked with withering scorn. “All he wants is for me to vanish from sight. It suited him to have me in prison where I couldn’t challenge him for Tommy. Now that I’m out, he’d like to pretend it hasn’t happened.”
She sipped her tea in brooding silence, not noticing what he was doing until he placed a plate of bacon and eggs in front of her. “Eat up,” he said. “You haven’t had a proper meal for days, and it takes strength to hate someone as much as you hate me.”
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