Читать книгу The Inheritance - Simon Tolkien - Страница 14

Trave arrived late, anxious to avoid if possible another encounter with Thompson, and earned himself a malevolent glance from the judge as the swing door banged closed behind him and he took a seat at the side of the court.

Silas was already in the witness box, and he kept his eyes fixed firmly on the floor as he answered the prosecutor’s questions, studiously avoiding the eager stare of his brother, who was gazing at him expectantly across the well of the courtroom. Trave realized that it must be four months or more since the two had last met.

Unsurprisingly, Silas looked more ill at ease than when Trave had seen him at the manor house the day before, but there was the same lack of expression in his voice as he answered the prosecutor’s questions, and the way he always seemed to think before he spoke made Trave more sure than ever that the young man was hiding something. Not for the first time Trave wished that he’d had the chance to interrogate Silas in that same windowless interview room at the back of Oxford Police Station, where he had questioned Stephen on the day after the murder. The trouble was that the evidence against the younger brother was just too strong. Trave had had no option but to charge the boy, and that had put an end to further investigation. Trave stirred in his seat, trying unsuccessfully to shake off his frustration and concentrate on the evidence.

‘How would you describe the relationship between your brother, Stephen, and your father?’ asked Thompson, getting straight to the point.

‘When?’

‘Let’s say, in the last two years of your father’s life. I don’t think there’s any need to go back further than that.’

‘They were estranged.’

‘They didn’t speak to each other at all?’

‘Not as far as I know. My brother was at the university, and my father lived at home. He never went out,’ Silas added, as if it was an afterthought.