They are all broken now. All in pieces on the floor, like smashed toys.
‘Should we report her to the police?’ Leo asks. ‘Surely it is only a matter of time before she returns here?’
‘No,’ says Claudine at once. ‘The police will hardly take this seriously.’
Leo is agitated, speaking too quickly. ‘But she’s dangerous – clearly, she is dangerous.’
Ah. He takes Claudine’s line. Yes, Odette understands. It is easier for him. There is a singular evil amongst them, which can be sliced out like a cancer. Odette will be eliminated, then they can continue on, telling themselves they did all they could in the face of tragedy.
‘As far as anyone knows, she is still abroad, and so the matter will be out of their hands,’ says Claudine.
George has said little, but he speaks now. ‘I must attend to some business at the Commons.’
‘Of course you must.’ Claudine’s voice is ice.
‘I am sure this is all sound and fury and will signify nothing in time,’ he adds. Odette can imagine his bland smile, his pacifying hands spread wide.
There is no reply, or at least none that she can hear, and shehas slid down another step to strain for softer voices when the door opens and George steps out.
Odette freezes, crouched on the stairs like some devil from Hell, clawed hands wrapped around the banisters.
Her father looks up at her, shock and distress plain across his face.
Odette cannot breathe. Any moment, he will speak, and she will be found.
Quietly, he pulls the drawing-room door shut.
The hall clock measures out the long seconds, the silence that lasts between them.
There is a blurring to her vision, dampness on her cheeks, and she is surprised to find herself crying.
Oh. Oh, there is some feeling spirit left in her still.
George hesitates a moment more, face twisted with pain. She thinks – hopes – for one wild second that he might come to her. Choose her. Listen to her. Together they might expel Claudine from the nest, bring her to justice. He might hold her as she cries for her mother.
But he does not.
Without a word, he puts on his hat and coat and lets himself out.
At the door, he gives Odette one last look, and she understands that this is goodbye.
This is all he can give her.
The door closes behind him.
Odette presses her hands into her face, hard, to hold back her weeping, to push against this weakness in her. She loves him – oh, of course she still loves him, her father, her useless, kind, deluded father. How awful it is to love someone who can only fail you.
When she can breathe again, see again, she turns her attention back to Claudine and Leo in the drawing room, nowalone together.
They speak quickly, two strange bedfellows, in this to the end.
‘So we do nothing,’ says Leo.
Claudine, measured, careful. ‘I did not say that.’
‘But you said—’
‘There is no point in the police. Yes. I stand by that.’