Twisted Agendas (28 page)

When he went to his bedroom after the call, he discovered Julia had tidied it while he’d been away. After a long, hot shower, he climbed into bed. It seemed larger and so much softer than
he remembered. He stretched out his legs and arms and luxuriated in the crisp feel of the sheets against his naked body. He fell asleep quickly but kept waking up through the night thinking he was
back in the cell.

Though his incarceration had seemed endless, he’d missed only two days of German and knew he could catch up before his exam in four days. During the drive to the
Kant-Institut
the next morning, he frequently checked in the rearview mirror when slowly approaching or stopped at the traffic lights. He didn’t see anyone suspicious but could not
shake off the unsettling feeling he was.

Finty’s desk was empty when he got to class. When she hadn’t arrived by the end of the first class, Danny knew she wasn’t coming. Nor did she come the next afternoon, which was
the last day of formal instruction before the exam. After classes ended, he went directly to the administration office to inquire about her but no-one had any information. He began to rehash every
detail of their friendship: her initial evasiveness to talk about her background; the failure to invite him to her home; how gullible he’d thought her behaviour in smuggling letters out for
an IRA prisoner. Her gullibility seemed unbelievable now. Perhaps she’d been appointed to develop a friendship with him and the story was a ruse to make him feel comfortable and confide in
her. Or maybe she’d been a principal actor in securing the IRA man’s imprisonment. Perhaps the man was innocent like him, had found himself in the exact position Danny found himself in
now and refused to become an informer.

Tempering his rush to convict her was the knowledge that deep anxiety and a lack of control over one’s circumstances could spawn irrational conclusions. It was he who’d first made
contact with her after all, and he who suggested where and when they study together. There was also the comical absurdity of a hardnosed Special Branch detective making her puppy a vegetarian, or
not eating eggs because she followed a strange philosophy.

On the morning of the exam, as Danny was leaving the house, Mrs. Hartley was crossing the street from her car carrying a shopping bag. When she looked up and saw him, the bag slipped from her
grasp, its contents including tins of cat food and a jar of strawberry preserves falling onto the road. The jar smashed and the preserves pooled around her left foot. As he rushed to assist her,
she emitted a high-pitched shriek. He picked up the bag and put everything but the broken jar inside. Her face looked dangerously pale.

“Are you okay?”

Gently, he gripped her arm but she pulled it away, her power surprising him. The blood returned to her cheeks and she snatched her shopping bag away. Without thanking him, she marched to her
house and went inside, slamming the door behind her.

Finty bustled into the classroom five minutes after the exam began. She apologised to Herr Fehler who permitted her to take her place beside Danny.

The exam lasted two hours and, though very demanding, Danny felt confident he’d done well.

“That wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” Finty said after Herr Fehler had collected their papers. “I didn’t get as much time to cram as I’d have
liked.”

“ How come?”

She avoided his gaze. “I’ve been ill.”

“That’s why you missed the last classes,” he said, as he watched the Chinese men approach and bow as they said goodbye to the teacher.

“Let’s say goodbye to Herr Fehler.”

Determined to find the truth, he walked to the tube with her after they chatted briefly to their teacher.

“I guess it’s all over apart from getting the results,” she said as they arrived at the tube station entrance. She moved aside to allow a woman carrying two heavy bags to exit
the stairs onto the street. “I take it you’ll stay on in London.”

“Why would you assume that?”

She didn’t look at him, instead hung her head slightly.

“Why would you think I’m not leaving?”

“You’re so good at German. Why would you not stay and do the advanced course?”

“I have my reasons.”

“So you’re leaving?”

He said nothing.

“When?”

“Can we walk for a minute?”

She looked at her watch. They walked in silence for a bit.

“I’m amazed you haven’t asked why I missed class last week.”

“I did wonder, actually.”

“Have you been spying on me, Finty?”

Her face turned scarlet. Her mouth opened and closed twice. “Why would you even ask that?”

“I saw you talking to a female detective at the place where
I
was interrogated.”

“
You
were there, too?”

“The two of you were very chummy.” He stopped walking and stared into her eyes. She didn’t look away. “I didn’t know what the hell to think.”

“We weren’t friends. She… ”

“You were smoking and laughing together.”

“I’m not a friend of that woman. I had no choice. I was told to come with the detectives.” She swallowed hard. “You know my feelings about the police.”

He kept his eyes riveted on hers.

“When I came out of my… ” she stopped talking as a stocky, middle-aged man passed by within earshot. “As I was on my way to the tube, a car drew up alongside me and a
man opened the passenger door. He said he needed to speak to me urgently. He didn’t even ask my name. He flashed a Metropolitan Special Branch badge, held up a photo of you and I lying on the
grass in Saint James’ Park. He said he needed me to come with him to their office to answer questions. I said you were a friend from class and I didn’t have time to go with him, but he
mentioned my past run-in with them in connection with the IRA chap and said it’d be in my best interests to cooperate.” She touched his wrist lightly. “They didn’t tell me
you were there. You’ve got to believe me, Danny.”

He scoured her face, scouring for the tiniest twitch of insincerity. She made no attempt to divert her gaze.

“Something weird happened when I was with her, I’d been sitting sideways at the desk and her phone rang. After she came off the phone, she told me to quickly turn my chair round and
face her. Then she lit a fag, offered me one and told me to relax because I wasn’t under suspicion. All they needed was my assistance for a couple of minutes, but she didn’t explain how
I could help them. I was baffled.” Finty paused and her eyes creased as if she were recalling the meeting again. “The only thing she did was push an album across the desk and ask if I
recognised anyone in it. When I came to your photo, I said I knew you and then she said I’d been really helpful and was free to leave. I was blown away. Before I left, she warned I was not to
tell anyone I’d been helping them. It was crazy. I don’t know how I helped because they already knew I was friends with you.” She fell silent for a moment. “You’re not
in trouble, are you?”

It was obvious the police had intended him to see Finty with the detective, though for what reason Danny couldn’t tell. Was it to create doubt and suspicion about who his friends were, or
was it to make him paranoid that they were watching every aspect of his life?

“The bastards accused me of being in the IRA and want me to turn informer in exchange for their not pressing charges.”

“Fuckers.”

“They’re playing mind games.”

“Special Branch does that.”

He looked toward the station. “We should go back now.”

After passing through the turnstile, they stopped to take their leave as Danny had to take the Piccadilly line west and she the Northern.

“So this is it,” she said, and laid her hand on his.

The coldness of her hand instantly penetrated his own. He’d forgotten how cold her touch was. He wanted all coldness gone between them. He pulled her to him and kissed her. He could hear
people pass silently on the street. She stayed there for what seemed a long time but was actually just seconds.

“I’d like to keep in touch with you.”

“I’d like that, too.” She smiled. “He’d miss not seeing his Irish uncle.”

“How do I do that? You don’t have a mobile.”

“No.”

“Give me your home number.”

“I’d rather not.”

“Ah yes, your boyfriend.”

She looked down the street a moment and then reached into her bag, pulled out a pad and tore off a sheet of paper. She scribbled something and handed it to him.

As he looked at it, she said, “It’s my current work number.”

Her mother’s wedding was in two days and she wanted, no needed, her father to be on a structured recovery path before she left three days later for London. She met her
mother after ‘the incident’ (as her mother referred to it on the phone) for lunch in a section of the Dag Hammarskjold Plaza on Forty-seventh Street and Second Avenue. Piper
couldn’t figure out why her mother suggested meeting there until she informed her when they met that she couldn’t stay long because she had a final dress fitting with a seamstress who
lived in a highrise one block from the plaza.

“I didn’t mention the incident to anybody, not even Juan. Just like you wanted. But he frightened me. All that rage. I’m still shaken.”

“I understand, Mom.”

“Do you, Phila?” She sighed. “I should be thinking of my wedding, not this bullshit.”

“He feels bad.”

“If I did tell Juan, he’d have to report it to the NYPD. And you know what that means?”

Across from them, on a bench near the fountain that resembled a huge chalice, an old woman sat filing her nails while her heavily panting dog watched intently, as if willing her to finish up so
he could get out of the midday sun.

Her mother put her sandwich on her lap and turned round fully on the bench toward Piper. “What if there’s another incident? What if he goes crazy and kills Juan and I after you
leave?”

“He won’t.”

“You’re an expert, are you?”

“You can’t ruin Dad’s career. You were married to him for nearly twenty-five years. Cut him some slack, for Christ’s sake.”

Her mother didn’t reply, instead brushed crumbs off her lap. She looked at her watch. Her mother’s selfish indifference to her father’s pain signaled how far she really had
moved away from him.

“You need to know I’ve been pissed at… ” Her mother stopped when the old woman looked over. “Oh, never mind.” Her mother sighed. “You wanna come see
the dress?”

“I’m meeting Dad.” Piper rose.

“’Course, you are.”

It’ll be more of a surprise when I see it on Monday.”

“Your hair needs cutting before then.”

Piper wiped her fringe from her left eye. “I’m not part of the bridal set-up.”

“Yeah, but the photos… please.”

“Will do, but only if you give Dad a chance. I’m working to get him help.”

Her mother regarded her for a moment. “Has he agreed?”

“He will.”

“If he starts therapy, I’ll agree.”

Piper spent the rest of the week alternately talking, threatening and pleading with her father, even shared the fact she’d had some therapy in London and would be having
more so they could compare experiences if he wanted. When he asked about hers, she glossed over the reasons. As she pleaded with him, it felt on occasions as if she were the demanding parent and he
the stubborn child. When the breakthrough came, she leapt into action and contacted anyone she could think of in the city who would be able to suggest names of psychiatrists or psychologists. After
she and her father settled on a doctor, she made an appointment and insisted on accompanying him for good measure.

The initial portion of the appointment comprised of a negotiating session about cost that began on hard chairs positioned before the taciturn administrator’s desk but quickly advanced to
the buttery leather armchairs of the psychiatrist’s office commanding a view of the sparkling East River and cable car crossing to Roosevelt Island. Though fully insured, her father refused
to file a claim because bills would be forwarded to his NYPD medical insurance carrier and he feared some anonymous insurance bureaucrat would pass on information he had an emotional problem to his
precinct superiors. This fear, Piper took as an encouraging sign of his willingness to continue living.

Labour Day morning was sunny with only wisps of cloud in the sky as she hurriedly entered the North Garden at Central Park’s Conservatory Garden. A refreshing breeze
played with the leaves of the rosebushes climbing the nearest of the four archways to the Three Dancing Maidens fountain within the heart of the garden. Jets of water rose like a whale’s blow
above the heads of the copper maidens before tumbling in bursts of coruscating droplets into the shallow basin below. In front of the mouth of the southerly arch, her mother stood with the wedding
party that included Juan’s mother, his teenage daughter and a boyish-faced judge in a black robe who looked no older than twenty-five yet was a childhood friend of Juan’s.

“You’ve come,” her mother said.

That her mother articulated her fear Piper would be a no show was touching. The wedding dress was simple, elegant and snug, its snugness amplifying the curves of her mother’s hips and
breasts. Her hair was tethered into a perfect bun and she wore a gold necklace Piper had never seen before. A small oval silver frame containing a photograph of her brother Rory was pinned just
above her left breast.

After requesting the photographer take photos of the two of them by the fountain, her mother said she wanted them to take a short stroll.

“Don’t be long,” Juan called. He pointed to the judge. “He’s got another wedding before he can come to our party.”

“Okay
Papi
,” her mother said, and blew him two kisses.

It felt strange for Piper to see her mother so beautifully dressed for her marriage to another man, especially when her father was at this very moment at work in a shabby precinct twenty blocks
away. She couldn’t shake the feeling she was being disloyal to him just by being here, even though she was attending with his blessing. The harsh hiss of water from the fountain softened as
they strolled further from the garden’s centre.