Every Secret Thing (17 page)

But he didn’t. As I’d feared, the thieves had ravaged Deacon’s papers; there’d been nothing left for him to find. And Anabela hadn’t been in touch with Guy, and Guy still hadn’t been able to get near my briefcase, and I still couldn’t get in touch with Margot, or with Patrick, and it seemed to me that I had reached rock bottom, that there wasn’t any way things could get worse.

But I was wrong.

Guy came at breakfast, without any warning. He looked like he’d slept in his clothes.

I was starting to tell him as much when he cut me off.

‘Someone broke into your grandmother’s house,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Last night. You know your neighbour to the north – the old guy who’s always looking out his window, never sleeps? Well, he saw someone sneaking out the back door of your grandmother’s house around midnight, so he called the cops, but by the time they got there, of course, there wasn’t anyone around.’

My mind was racing, making the connection to the break-in that had happened back in England, at The Laurels – Deacon’s cottage – and the level of damage the vicar had hinted at.

‘What did they do?’ I asked. ‘What did they take?’

‘Not much. In fact, the officers were saying that, if it hadn’t been for your neighbour, they might not have noticed anything themselves, not right away. It was only because they knew someone had been in the house that they took a look around, to see if anything was missing.’

‘And?’

He sat beside me, shifting to get comfortable. ‘They didn’t let me in the house, you understand. I didn’t get a chance to see for myself. But I was right there on the porch – I could hear the cops talking to each other, and from what they were saying, it sounded like the only rooms that really got touched were the bedrooms upstairs. It was carefully done, as though whoever it was didn’t want to draw attention to the fact that they’d been there. And they left all the obvious stuff – the TV, and the DVD player.’ He looked at me straight. ‘But your briefcase is gone, from the hall.’

‘Damn.’

‘I know. Sorry, Kate. And this time, the cops
do
think it was you. They think you probably came back to pick up things you needed – clothes, and things like that. They still don’t view you as a suspect in the shooting, but they’re thinking maybe you know who it was, that’s why you’re hiding. And they’re sure somebody’s helping you. They asked me a whole lot of questions this morning.’

Tony, who’d listened in silence till now, spoke up. ‘What did you tell them?’

Rubbing his neck with a weary hand, Guy said, ‘I told them they needed to speak to her boss, on the business desk. She knows Kate better than I do, I said. We don’t work much together, I said. Kate’s away a lot.’

‘And they believed that?’ asked Tony.

‘They seemed to. They’re down at the
Sentinel
building right now, asking questions.’ When he saw my concerned frown, he said, ‘Hey, don’t worry. They won’t find out anything except maybe that you were there that night – Security will have a record of that. But no one saw us talking, and we left the building separately.’

That wasn’t what had me worried. I could think of one reason, and one reason only, why someone would risk breaking into the house just to search through a couple of rooms and make off with my briefcase: They were looking for something. For Deacon’s report, or whatever it was that they thought he had given me, and, more disturbingly, maybe for clues as to where I might be. ‘So, it looks like our theory was right. Someone really
is
after me.’

‘Not to worry,’ said Tony. ‘You’re safe enough here.’

‘But for how long?’ I asked him. ‘Whoever’s behind this, they’re not going to stop, are they? Not until they’ve managed to get rid of me, to know I’m not a threat. They’ll keep looking. If they’ve got my briefcase, they’ve got my address book, the names of my friends. And they’ve also got the letters. Deacon’s letters. There were names in those, as well, of people Deacon knew in Portugal. Even if those people aren’t involved, and don’t know anything, the killer might assume they do.’ I should have kept those letters with me, I reproved myself. I should have never been so careless. I looked away, and clenched my fingers on the table. ‘Deacon’s secretary, if she’s still alive, would be about my grandma’s age. And I’ll be damned if I’ll stand by and let her be a target too, because of me.’

The windows in the kitchen were all shuttered tightly – Tony and Marie’s attempt to make me feel a little more secure – but I could not escape the sense of something ominous and dark approaching, seeking to get in. I said, ‘It’s up to me to try to end this. No one who knew Deacon will be safe unless I do. Besides, I want to make them pay, whoever did this. I want justice. For my grandmother. For Cavender. For Deacon.’

Guy said, ‘Kate, you’re doing all you can. And now that you’ve got Anabela over there to help you—’

‘She’s not finding anything,’ I said. ‘And this isn’t how I work, you know that, Guy. I don’t have other people do my research for me, and I don’t just sit locked in a room on the Internet, either. I need to be out in the field, on the front line. I need to be talking to people.’ Suddenly it all seemed very clear to me, just what to do.

I turned, and my gaze went to Tony, who sat like a rock at the head of the table, impassively taking things in. His expression barely changed, and yet I knew that he was quick enough to know what I was asking. ‘Kate…’

I met his eyes. ‘I need to go to Portugal.’

Portugal

Halfway over the Atlantic, in the dark of night, the plane ran into turbulence. I tried hard not to take that as an omen.

For all the miles I’d travelled, I had never completely made peace with the concept of flying. I hated the feeling of takeoffs and landings, and still got a knot in my stomach whenever the ride got a little bit bumpy. And this was considerably more than a little bit bumpy. At times it felt as though the very bottom of the plane was falling out from underneath me, as though nature itself was attempting to point out how foolish I had been for leaving the security of solid ground.

I closed my eyes and put my head back, took a calming breath, and turned my mind to other things.

The memory of Guy’s face at our last meeting rose accusingly. ‘I’m just not sure you’ve thought this through,’ I heard him say again.

This had been yesterday, as I had done my final round of packing before leaving for the airport. He’d been serious, very direct. ‘You
are
crossing the line here. You do understand that, Kate, don’t you?’ he’d said. ‘I mean, hiding from the police is one thing, but once you go through that airport security gate with a passport that’s fake, you’ll be breaking the law.’

‘Yes, I know that.’

‘Then why go? You don’t need to. You’ve got Anabela to do your legwork. Look, she found the marriage all right, didn’t she?’

The fax had come through just that morning – a newspaper clipping announcing the wedding of one Alvaro Marinho, a clerk at the British Embassy, to Regina Sousa. There could be no doubt. Ivan Reynolds was listed as one of the guests.

‘But,’ I argued, ‘she hasn’t found anything else.’

‘Give her time.’

I didn’t have time. And Anabela was already doing more than I could ask of her. She had her own job, after all; she couldn’t spend her own days playing phone tag with officials at the British Embassy in Lisbon, trying to access their personnel records. As soon as I landed, I knew, I could go there in person. If I could find out where Marinho had lived when he’d married Regina…well, I’d gotten fairly accomplished at tracking down people for interviews, finding them through their addresses, their relatives. All that it took was a starting point. ‘Besides,’ I’d said to Guy, ‘I’ll get to meet your Anabela face to face.’

That was to be tonight, at my hotel. Tony’s travel-agent contact, who was brilliant with last-minute deals, had found me a room at a hotel not far from the Embassy district, a good place to start my enquiries, and Anabela had agreed to meet me there for dinner.

But Guy still hadn’t thought I should be going in the first place.

I’d tried explaining. ‘Guy, whatever’s happening, it all began in Portugal.’

And he’d said, ‘You don’t know that. All you know is Deacon wanted to tell you a story. You don’t even know that same story was in his report.’

‘But it was,’ I had argued. ‘It had to be. Cavender told me that Deacon was angry about Whitehall’s lack of action. That was why he came to London to see me, so I’d make things public. And he sent a copy of that same report,’ I’d said, ‘to Portugal. Why would he do that if it didn’t all tie back to when he was in Lisbon?’

He hadn’t had an answer.

‘Guy, it’s all I have to go on. I have nothing else. I have to try. I’m running at the end of my rope here.’ I’d given him a small smile. ‘At the very worst, I’ll get a week’s vacation in the sun. I sure could use that.’

That week seemed very distant from me now. The airplane heaved and shuddered, dropping once with such a force that several people further up the cabin shrieked.

Involuntarily, my hand went to the tiny unfamiliar weight that lay against my collarbone – a little silver medal on a chain. Tony’d put it round my neck as I was leaving. ‘It’s St Christopher,’ he’d said. ‘I gave my daughter one of these when she went off to do her thing in Europe, after high school. St Christopher, he keeps her out of trouble. She comes back all right,’ he’d told me. ‘So will you.’

I only hoped that he was right.

Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam, was full of travellers going somewhere else. I’d passed through countless times myself, en route to various assignments, and I knew my way around.

So even though I was on a rather tight schedule to connect with my Lisbon flight, I knew that I had time enough to stop off in the ladies’ room along the way, to tidy up. The long, bumpy hours I’d already spent in the air had left me feeling wilted and dishevelled. The mirror showed a stranger. I’d had two days to get used to it, but still, my new appearance caught me off my guard and made me look more closely.

Gone was the red hair my father had loved…truly gone, in the literal sense, cropped quite short, like a boy’s, and dyed medium brown. Tony’s wife had done quite a professional job, even tinting my eyebrows and lashes to match. I was wearing no make-up, which ought to have made me look younger, but didn’t. It made me look tired.

I peered at my reflection through the glasses that were part of my disguise. Tony’d had them made with lenses that reacted to the light, becoming darker when I went outside. An added screen to hide behind. I pushed them up, now, to the top of my head, as I hoisted my carry-on onto the counter. Rummaging, I took hold of the bright blue travel wallet that held my tickets and my passport. It felt odd to have a passport in somebody else’s name. Tony had managed that, of course – I didn’t know the details and I didn’t want to know, but I had credit cards and traveller’s cheques to match the passport, in the name we’d chosen: Katherine Allen.

‘You always keep your first name,’ Tony’d told me. ‘Makes it easier. You’re less likely to slip up, that way; make a mistake.’

Setting the travel wallet carefully beside the sink, I dug deeper for my toothbrush, which had settled at the bottom of the bag. One of the stall doors behind me clanged shut, but I took no real notice, only shifted a bit to make room at the counter. A minute had passed before I became aware that I was being watched.

The woman one sink over met my eyes with recognition in the mirror; then she hesitated.

Oh, of all the luck,
I thought.
Of all the rotten luck
.

Because the woman was Anne Wood, who’d sat across from me that night at Patrick’s parents’ house. The international lawyer, who was probably here in the Netherlands now on account of her trial at the Hague. I had long ago learnt that the world was a very small place.

Sliding my glasses back over my eyes, I gave her the brief, non-specific smile suited to meeting the gaze of a stranger, and went on with what I was doing, head down.

The water taps ran. Stopped. I glanced up again. She was still watching.

‘Sorry,’ she said this time. ‘Only…you look so familiar.’

I forced another smile, more friendly. ‘You know, a lot of people tell me that. I must just have one of those faces.’

As I quickly capped the toothpaste and tossed it back into my bag, she said, ‘You’re not Canadian, by any chance?’

‘American.’ I trusted that she, like most people, would not have an ear for the difference in accents. I saw her hesitate, and knew my looks had changed enough that, though she might wonder, she wouldn’t be sure. And then, because she looked about to ask another question, I zipped up my carry-on bag and excused myself, making a getaway out of the bathroom and back into the reassuring anonymity of airport crowds. Stepping onto the conveyor-belt ‘sidewalk’, I settled myself with gratitude against the rail and swung my bag forward again as I felt for my passport and boarding pass.

I couldn’t find them.

Damn
, I thought, and hauled the bag more firmly up against my stomach, peering down inside it. All my documents and traveller’s cheques and cash were in that travel wallet – brilliant blue, to make it easier to find inside my bag…except, it wasn’t in my bag. I felt panic rising like bile from the pit of my stomach, and forced it down, turning my mind back to where I had last seen the wallet, and what I had done with it. Then I remembered – I’d taken it out in the bathroom, to get at my toothbrush. It must still be there, by the sink, on the counter.

It
would
still be there, I assured myself, jogging the few steps to the end of the section of moving sidewalk and heading back along the centre carpet at a run – I’d left it there less than five minutes ago.

But the bathroom was empty.

Nothing on the floors or counters; no one in the stalls.

The panic surged a second time, more powerful. Without that passport, I was trapped. In trouble. And, as Guy had warned, in trouble much more serious than I had ever known. My fingers tightened on the little medal hanging round my neck – my little image of St Christopher. But even Tony couldn’t help me now, I thought. He wouldn’t be able to get me new documents here. And anyway, I had no way to call him. With my wallet gone, I didn’t even have a coin to use the phone.

I gave myself a stinging mental kick. How
could
I have been so stupid? After all Tony’s coaching and all his hard work, his instructions on how to be careful, I’d gone and blown the whole thing before even reaching Lisbon. And in less than five minutes. It couldn’t have been any longer than that since I’d stood in this bathroom with Anne Wood and…

Anne Wood. My racing mind clutched at the name. She’d been the only other person in the bathroom at the time – perhaps she’d been the one who’d picked up my travel wallet, too, and perhaps she was this minute on her way to hand it in to the appropriate authorities. She couldn’t have got far, not in such a short time.

Spurred by the faint hope of catching up with her, I bolted from the bathroom, my pace growing increasingly frantic as I scanned the sea of heads and shoulders, trying without any luck to remember what colour Anne Wood had been wearing.

‘Are you Miss Allen?’ Asked just like that, in a light, almost cheerfully feminine voice, the question stopped me dead.

The woman who’d spoken was uniformed, very young, very blonde, driving a golf-cart-like airport convenience car. She’d been going in the opposite direction, but had braked now and was looking at me, smiling. Repeating her question, she nodded when I told her yes, I was.

‘I thought so.’ She reached out to hand me the bright blue travel wallet, that still bulged reassuringly. ‘Another woman found this in the washroom,’ she informed me, in a voice tinged with the lovely classy accent of the Dutch. ‘I was taking it up to your gate, but you’ve saved me the trip.’

Clumsily, I hastened to undo the zipper; check the contents.

‘It’s a good photograph, in your passport,’ the young woman complimented me. ‘I recognised you right away.’

Still feeling shaken by the whole affair, I managed to get out a ‘Thank You’ before the woman deftly wheeled her vehicle around and, wishing me a pleasant journey, buzzed away again along the bustling corridor.

With hands still shaking slightly from adrenalin, I sorted through the contents for a second time, to make absolutely certain. It was all there – my passport, my traveller’s cheques, everything.

Stuffing the travel wallet safely in my bag again, I drew the first deep breath I’d breathed in what seemed like an age, and, boarding pass in hand, I turned and headed for the gate.

I couldn’t see the runway that we landed on in Lisbon for the rain. Not that there would have been much to see – the modern airport lay, as did most airports, in an industrial area at the north edge of the city. There was no chance, from this approach, that I would see the wide impressive view of Lisbon from the harbour, with its tile-roofed buildings climbing up the terraced hills, that would have greeted Deacon, coming in by Pan Am Clipper in the final days of 1943.

I did think, though, that he might have felt as relieved as I was to have landed. I’d been reading, in my research, some accounts of the Atlantic crossings in those days, by seaplane – such a dangerous adventure, and not only because of the threat posed by enemy aircraft. The simple act of travelling by air was risky then. One of the flights not too long before Deacon’s had managed to make it the whole perilous way across the Atlantic, only to crash in the harbour on landing in Lisbon, killing many of its passengers. Small wonder that my grandmother had feared for Deacon’s safety.

The rain, at least, was easing by the time I caught my taxi, and the driver did his best to make up for my less than inspiring first view of Lisbon. He had a tour guide’s gift for running patter, and he took me to my hotel by the scenic route, leaving behind the wider modern avenues and groomed green parks in favour of the older, crowded, climbing streets.

‘We say,’ he said, his English rather excellent in spite of his thick accent, ‘that Lisbon is a white city, because the colour of the sun gives a lot of light, and most of the walls are in white, but also we like this pink colour, and the roofs in Portugal, the tiled roofs, they are in general red. These tiles come from the Roman times, and the mosaics of the Romans, this is what has later given us our sidewalks here in Portugal, isn’t it? We have beautiful sidewalks in Lisbon.’

They
were
lovely – small even squares of stone set into intricate patterns of black, grey, and white, stunning on the larger streets and lending beauty even to the meanest of the narrow ones. I might have admired the stone patterns more had we not, at that moment, taken a stomach-dropping downward turn towards the broad blue ribbon of the river Tagus. It must, I thought, be murder to walk in a city like this.

When I said as much, the taxi driver smiled. ‘The city has been built on seven hills, the legendary seven hills of Lisbon, just like Rome, isn’t it? Look to the other bank of the river – you see how hilly, undulating? This is the land of this region, so you see Lisbon was constructed on hills like those, imagine.’

As we came within view of the river itself, and the harbour, I saw a long, red bridge, like San Francisco’s Golden Gate, that stretched across the strip of water to the farther shore.