‘I… well, I… I…’ Todd realized he was floundering and forced himself to shut his mouth. Dussander had just outlined a piece of duplicity so fundamental that it had simply never crossed his mind. He opened his mouth to say so, realized Dussander would not believe him… and that, in fact, was the problem.
He shut his mouth again, this time with a snap.
‘And how would you know I hadn’t made two copies for my safety deposit box… that I had burned one and left the other there?’
Todd was silent and dismayed.
‘Even if there were some impartial third party we could go to, always there would be doubts. The problem is insoluble, boy. Believe it.’
‘Shit,’ Todd said in a very small voice.
Dussander took a deep drink from his cup and looked at Todd over the rim.
‘Now I tell you two more things, boy. First, that if your part in this matter came out, your punishment would be quite small. It is even possible — no, more than that, likely — that it would never come out in the papers at all. I frightened you with reform school once, when I was badly afraid you might crack and tell everything. But do I believe that? No -I used it the way a father will use the “boogeyman” to frighten a child into coming home before dark. I don’t believe that they would send you there, not in this country where they spank killers on the wrist and send them out into the streets to kill again after two years of watching colour TV in a penitentiary.
‘But it might well ruin your life all the same. There are records… and people talk. Always, they talk. Such a juicy scandal is not allowed to wither; it is bottled, like wine. And, of course, as the years pass, your culpability will grow with you. Your silence will grow more damning. If the truth came out today, people would say, “But he is just a child!”… not knowing, as I do, what an old child you are. But what would they say, boy, if the truth about me, coupled with the fact that you knew about me as early as 1974 but kept silent, came out while you are in high school? That would be bad. For it to come out while you are in college would be disaster. As a young man just starting out in business… armageddon. You understand this first thing?’
Todd was silent, but Dussander seemed satisfied. He nodded.
Still nodding, he said: ‘Second, I don’t believe you have a letter.’
Todd strove to keep a poker face, but he was terribly afraid his eyes had widened in shock. Dussander was studying him avidly, and Todd was suddenly, nakedly aware that this old man had interrogated hundreds, perhaps thousands of people. He was an expert. Todd felt that his skull had turned to window-glass and all things were flashing inside in large letters.
‘I asked myself who you would trust so much. Who are your friends… who do you run with? Who does this boy, this self-sufficient, coldly controlled little boy, go to with his loyalty? The answer is, nobody.’
Dussander’s eyes gleamed yellowly.
‘Many times I have studied you and calculated the odds. I know you, and I know much of your character — no, not all, because one human being can never know everything that is in another human being’s heart — but I know so little about what you do and who you see outside of this house. So I think, “Dussander, there is a chance that you are wrong. After all these years, do you want to be captured and maybe killed because you misjudged a boy?” Maybe when I was younger, I would have taken the chance — the odds are good odds, and the chance is a small chance. It is very strange to me, you know — the older one becomes, the less one has to lose in matters of life and death… and yet, one becomes more and more conservative.’
He looked hard into Todd’s face.
‘I have one more thing to say, and then you can go when you want What I have to say is that, while I doubt the existence of your letter, never doubt the existence of mine. The document I have described to you exists. If I die today… tomorrow… everything will come out, Everything,’