Chapter 19: You Kept Me

Davis recovered faster than I would have believed.

It took him less than a minute.

He tied the belt of his dressing gown and smoothed his silver hair.

The Rotary smile came back onto his face.

"Well," he said. "That was a nasty piece of theater."

Nobody answered.

Cormick's men had moved to the doors.

The housekeeper stood in the kitchen archway with her hand at her collar.

Pierce had slid down the corridor wall to sit on the floor.

Russell was on the bottom step with his head between his knees.

"Russell is a boy who has had too much wine," Davis said, to the room.

"He has been under strain. I won't have a word he says tonight used against this family."

"You're in the recording," I said.

"I am mentioned by a drunk."

"He said you told him."

"He said I told him."

Davis spread his hands.

"Eden, sweetheart. Look at me. Eighteen years I have looked after you."

I came down the last three stairs.

My legs were shaking now that it was over, and I let them.

"We took you in with one suitcase," he said, gently. "We gave you a room and a school."

He shook his head.

"And this is what you do. You put cameras in a family home and trap my son."

"Dad," Pierce said from the floor, in a thin voice.

"Be quiet, Pierce."

Davis turned back to me with his eyes full of tears, and I understood that they were real.

He believed it.

He had told himself the story so long that every word of it was true to him.

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