“I found where Dominic lived before he went to Maida Vale. I went to Cater Street and saw your mother. She gave me the name of his shirtmaker …”
“Gieves,” she said huskily. “I could have told you that. How did that help?”
“They had his address on record …”
“Oh. Where was it?”
He was putting off the time when he would have to tell her the part that mattered, that would hurt.
“Haverstock Hill.”
“I didn’t know that.”
“Of course not. You didn’t know Dominic then.”
“What was he doing there?”
Should he answer the question she meant? What was his occupation? He could tell her about his financial affairs, his speculation, his banking advice. It was irrelevant. He was tired and cold. It was midnight already.
“He was having an affair with Unity Bellwood, who lived in Hampstead and was working for one of his clients.”
Her face was very white. “Oh.” She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I suppose it matters, or you wouldn’t be having to tell me.” She searched his eyes. Her voice dropped even lower. “And you wouldn’t look like that. What is it, Thomas? Did—did Dominic kill her?” She looked as if she were waiting to be physically struck.
“I don’t know.” He put his hand on her shoulder and ran it gently down her arm, holding her. “But he lied by implication and omission, and it seems he had pretty good cause. She took the affair very seriously. He got her with child, but for whatever reason, she had it aborted.”
Her face crumpled with pain and confusion, and her eyes filled with tears. She bent her head into his shoulder, and he tightened both his arms around her. There was no point in stopping now. Best to tell her all of it, far better than stopping and having to start again.
“He ran away, fled, leaving her behind.” His voice was soft and hollow in the silence. “Apparently he panicked. He was very upset indeed. Whether he was upset that she was with child, and demanded she have it aborted, or whether he was distressed she aborted it, and ran away because he couldn’t face that, no one seemed to know. But he went one night, without telling anyone or leaving any clue as to where he was going. I don’t know where he did go. But a few months later he turned up in Maida Vale without any belongings except his clothes, and no mail was forwarded from Haverstock Hill.”
Charlotte pulled back from him, but her eyes were closed and her jaw was clenched. He could feel her body clenched also.
“And he had an affair with the girl Jenny, and she was with child as well … and she took her own life,” she said very quietly, her voice thick with pain. “Then he ran away to Icehouse Wood, where Ramsay Parmenter found him.”
“Yes.”
“And then the terrible coincidence that Unity took a job with Ramsay—”
“It wasn’t a coincidence. She saw the job advertised in an academic journal, and Dominic’s name was mentioned. She knew he was there. That was why she wanted the job so very much.”
“To be with Dominic again?” She shivered. “How he must have felt when he saw her arrive!” She stopped abruptly, her face pinched. “Was that why he … are you sure he did, Thomas? Absolutely sure?”
“No. But she was with child again … and can you believe it was Ramsay Parmenter? You met him. Do you believe he made love to her almost as soon as she was in the house? And more to the point, can you believe she made love with him, when Dominic was there?”
“No …” She looked down, away from him. “No.”
They sat together, huddled closely in silence as the minutes ticked by.
“What are you going to do?” she said at last.
“Face him,” he answered. “If Unity’s child wasn’t Ramsay’s then Ramsay had no reason to kill her, and I can’t accept blindly that he did.”
“Then why did he try to kill Vita?”
“God knows! Perhaps by then he really was mad. I don’t understand it. It doesn’t make any sense. Perhaps he felt the net closing around him and he committed suicide, and she lied about it to protect him. She probably thinks he was guilty. She won’t know anything about Dominic and Unity.”
She looked at him with a slight frown. “You don’t suppose she thought he was guilty and killed him, do you?”