Secrets (24 page)

Naomi groped on the bedside table for the phone, half expecting it to be Alec; but it was Gregory. It had been more than twenty-four hours since she had sent him the text and the attached image of the photograph Barnes had given to them. She had almost given up on getting a response. Had almost decided that he, too, had flown south like the birds content to let the mystery remain a mystery.

‘Can we meet?' Gregory said.

‘I suppose so. Alec isn't here.'

‘No, I know, he's at Joseph Bern's funeral.'

Naomi laughed uneasily. ‘Is there anything you don't know?'

‘It would seem there is,' Gregory told her quietly. ‘But I plan to remedy that.'

She waited with Napoleon in the hotel reception. Gregory arrived only a few minutes after she had come down. He took her arm.

‘Where are we going?'

‘For a drive, then a walk, I think. It's a lovely day. Don't worry, you'll be back before Alec is.'

Reluctantly, she allowed him to lead her to his car. He opened the back door for Napoleon and then helped Naomi into the passenger seat. ‘Are you OK finding the seat belt?'

‘I'm fine. Where are we going?'

‘I thought we'd go back to that cemetery, where you and your friend, Liz went. It's a nice place to walk and I don't know of any decent parks round here.'

‘And it's private,' Naomi said. ‘Away from prying eyes.'

‘That too.' He was suddenly curious. ‘How do you know that, though?'

‘I might not be able to see, but I can still hear perfectly well. No traffic noise, lots of birdsong, and that kind of, well, kind of dead sound you get when something is enclosed. You know what I mean?'

‘Yes, I know. The cemetery is cut back into a hill side. I think they must have expanded it at some time. In front, the hill drops off quite steeply, so that would have been difficult for expansion, so they sliced the side off the hill. The rest of it is surrounded by a wall and mature trees. The main road is actually only about a half mile away but the lie of the land kills the sound of traffic.'

‘And not many people go there.'

‘True.'

‘We could talk in the car,' she suggested.

She could hear the smile in Gregory's voice when he replied. ‘Naomi Blake, are you afraid to be alone with me? We could talk in the car,' he agreed, ‘but you look as though you need a walk. Some fresh air.'

‘You could be right. We're going to leave in the morning. We agreed. Once Alec has done his duty and taken Molly to this funeral, we are out of here.'

‘Probably wise,' Gregory said.

Naomi felt oddly deflated. She'd been expecting an argument, she realized, not this simple acceptance. ‘You think that's what we should do?'

‘I think you should do what feels right.'

What feels right, Naomi thought. What did feel right? ‘Do you know what's going on?' she challenged him.

‘I know a little more than I did.'

‘Which is?'

Gregory laughed. She felt the car turn and the sound of the tyres change as they drove off the road and on to the gravel track. He pulled up, moments later and cut the engine. ‘The sun is shining,' Gregory said. ‘Shall we enjoy it while we can?'

‘While we can?'

‘Storm clouds coming,' Gregory said. ‘It's going to rain.'

Joseph Bern's house was pretty and small. It stood alone, separated from a short terrace by a strip of garden and a picket fence. The garden surrounded the red brick cottage and a brick path led to the front door. Flowers had been planted in terracotta pots on either side of the porch and someone had obviously been watering them in Joseph's absence. Someone had also cut the lawn on either side of the path, but the narrow flower beds that ran beside it showed evidence of their owner's absence in the clumps of dandelions that poked between the summer bedding.

Inside a tiled hall led down to the kitchen and a flight of narrow stairs disappeared behind a railing that Alec assumed defined the landing. There was a room on either side of the hall. One seemed to have been designated as a living room, with a large red sofa dominating the space, two, smaller, fireside chairs and a rather decrepit looking television. The wall space was lined with shelves, some carried books, an assortment of African carvings, odds and ends of silver and strange little tourist souvenirs that advertised themselves as presents from Brighton and Cleethorpes.

On the other side of the hall, the room had been set out as a study. Here all the shelves were laden down with books, the desk, though bare of papers, had a businesslike air about it, Alec thought. Set with wire mesh trays and a pot of pens. A well-worn office chair had been set behind it and another stood in the corner next to a shelf upon which typed papers had been neatly stacked.

Both rooms, Alec noticed, had rather nice, tiled fireplaces with fire-baskets and all the other accoutrements of fire keeping: pokers and coal scuttles and the like. He'd like an open fire, Alec thought. There was something cheering about glowing coals and crackling wood. He glanced automatically into both grates, checking for recent burning. Molly went a stage further and shoved the poker up inside the chimney. A cascade of soot showered down into her sleeve and she swore, roundly.

‘Needs his blasted chimneys sweeping,' she said.

Not knowing what to look for or what was required of him, Alec sat down behind the desk and watched as Molly and Adam cast about the room. Apart from Molly's attack on the chimney, they touched nothing, just looked and Alec was reminded again of the instructions his boss had given him at Alec's first serious crime scene.

‘Stand and look. Then look again and don't forget the ground beneath your feet.'

He glanced at the desk and the contents of the in-trays. A diary, from the look of it, sat in one. Curious, he picked it up and flicked through, ignoring Molly's stern look. She obviously thought he was interfering. Apart from hospital appointments and the odd lunch, a note about the church bazaar and a reminder to pay his electric bill, the diary was disappointingly empty. Entries stopped altogether about a month before, Alec noted. Presumably when Joseph went into the hospice.

A handful of letters and bills occupied the other tray and Alec shuffled through. He was a little disappointed to find that they were mostly utilities – marked paid and the payment date noted down. A card from someone wishing him a speedy recovery and a letter from the vicar who had led the burial service telling Joseph that he would visit at the hospice on his – the vicar's – return. The letter was postmarked Brighton and Alec wondered if he had been the source of the seaside souvenirs. He wondered, if so, were they intended ironically or did he genuinely think that Joseph would like an egg timer with a picture of a beach on it, or a shell-encrusted box, topped off by a picture of Brighton Pier. He fought down the urge to go back to the pub and ask. He guessed the vicar would still be there, toasting Joseph's memory along with the rest of the locals. It seemed that Joseph – or Joe – had truly found his place in this little community.

The desk itself was modern and cheap, probably a flatpack from one of the big DIY chains, Alec thought. It looked out of place in the room. Too new and too stark. Three drawers, no locks, one deep enough to take files. He resisted the urge to look inside. It seemed rude to start a proper search before his companions (glancing through the contents of a wire tray really didn't count, Alec thought). But Molly and Adam seemed oddly reluctant to begin.

‘What are you looking for?' he asked finally as Molly made her third, slow circuit of the room.

‘Anything out of place.'

‘And how would you know? You've neither of you been here before.'

‘No, but I know Joseph. Knew, Joseph,' she corrected herself. ‘You get a feeling for these things.'

Alec raised an eyebrow. ‘Do you even know what you might be looking for? Anyway, you seem to think someone else will have searched here already, so I really don't quite see the point.'

Impatient, he tugged the drawers open and felt around inside, checking beneath them as well. They seemed oddly empty. Paper, envelopes, paperclips and other stationery supplies, all neatly placed, and the filing drawer held only old bills and the odd postcard. Receipts for a new fridge and DVD player, other random detritus the like of which would be found in any home office or, in Alec's case, kitchen drawer.

He got up and went to examine the nearest bookshelves. Volumes of poetry and travel, literature and science sat side by side. The company they kept seemed random; Keats beside an old Baedeker Guide to Berlin. A book on Middle Eastern spices next to an atlas that, judging by the binding, appeared to date from the mid-1900s. No rhyme nor reason that Alec could see.

‘Don't touch anything else,' Molly warned. ‘If Joseph left us a message, you could ruin the entire meaning by moving something you shouldn't.'

‘A message? Molly, I think you're being deluded.' He sat back down behind the desk and closed his eyes, suddenly very weary with all this cloak and dagger stuff. ‘Don't you lot ever retire?' he asked irritably. ‘I mean, old spies, or whatever you all were, surely you eventually retire just like everyone else. Can't you just leave this to whoever … I don't know, whoever … the new spies are?'

‘Some of us try to retire,' Adam said heavily. ‘Some of us thought they had.'

Molly harrumphed and paced the room for a fourth time. Alec felt in his pocket for the photograph Barnes had given to him. He'd meant to show it to Molly that morning, but he'd been a little late getting to her house and she'd been cross and the moment hadn't seemed to be right. Another moment hadn't really come. Until now.

‘Want to tell me what this means,' he said, lying the picture down on the desk. ‘DI Barnes said it was found in the filing cabinet at Gilligan and Hayes. They know it wasn't there before our visit because the whole place had been photographed in microscopic detail. It mysteriously appeared after we let you off the leash for a few minutes.'

Adam glanced across, evidently puzzled. Alec saw Molly square her shoulders, stiffen her back, and prepare to go into denial mode.

Adam came over and picked the photograph up, frowning.

‘Molly?' he said. ‘Molly? You kept this?'

‘What of it?' she said.

‘What of it? Molly, these things should have been destroyed. You kept this?'

She shrugged again. ‘Oh get off your high horse, Adam. We all did things we really should not have done. At first it was just an accident. There wasn't time when we left Leopoldville, so we just gathered what we could and took it with us. Later, well it seemed like, well, we didn't quite know what to do with it. Who to give it to.'

‘Give it to? Molly, you could just have burned the damn thing.'

‘No.' Molly shook her head. ‘We thought so, and then we read it. We looked inside and we found … Well, it doesn't really matter what we found. You can guess. If not the exact details, you can guess what kind of thing we read. Edward realized it could be like an insurance policy. It could protect.'

‘Protect you? You used this for blackmail, Molly?'

She shook her head. ‘Not us. No. Others that had fewer resources, less help than we had. The vulnerable, the lost. Oh, Adam, you've travelled the same path as we did. You know what it's like. You have to be prepared to protect yourself and also, if you have any conscience at all, to protect those who have helped you, worked with you.'

‘Which is exactly why files like that should have been destroyed, Molly. You know better than that. You know exactly how dangerous—'

‘Files like what?' Alec demanded. ‘Look, the two of you might get off on playing games. I can appreciate it might be hard to give up on all that mystery, all that sense of your own damned importance. It must get to be a habit, maybe even like some kind of drug. But some of us, most of us, just want a quiet bloody life. No dramas, no international crises, no skeletons in cupboards. Molly, for Christ's sake, will you just tell me what the hell is going on?'

‘I can't,' Molly said. ‘I can't, Alec, because I no longer know. I know what we all did and what the consequences were. Believe me, we did retire. We did hand over to the new, modern versions of ourselves. We did bury our pasts. But some things just won't stay bloody buried and it's no good pretending they will. Past isn't past until everyone involved in it or touched by it is dead and buried and everything that ever touched them is likewise. You can do nothing about that, Alec and neither can I and sometimes knowing more won't keep you safer or tell you what you should do. It will just make you a target. Just make you into one of those people who have touched those that were there and are, therefore, also a threat. So don't ask me. I can't tell and I won't.'

‘I think it's a bit late for that,' Alec told her coldly. ‘I'm already involved and so is my wife. Involved because we care about you and also because you've already pulled us in, Molly. You used me to lie to Barnes and you used me to help you plant this file, whatever it is, in Gilligan's office. Well, Molly, the upshot of that is that Barnes has been told to drop the case. That he's been told to leave you alone. Been told that this is now a Home Office affair and well above the pay grade of some simple little provincial DI. Is that what you wanted, Molly? Did you get the desired effect?'

The silence in the room deepened as Molly looked away from him, refusing to reply. Alec could see her lip quivering, the Molly equivalent of full scale emotional breakdown. Adam stood silent. Finally he said, ‘It won't be the Home Office. That will just be a convenient label, a cover for whatever department is now dealing with the deep past. But Alec is right, my dear. We've been stupid and careless and the pair of us are far too old and far too tired to take all of this kind of thing in our stride these days.'