Secrets (25 page)

He held up a hand to stop her when Molly looked about to protest. ‘Alec, this Inspector Barnes, is he the kind of man that is likely to just let things go?'

‘I don't suppose so,' Alec said reluctantly. ‘Being told to back off is a bit like waving a red rag at a bull. He'll wonder why. He may do as he's told, but, if he's anything like I would be, he'll just get hold of a big stick and poke at the problem from a distance.'

‘Then you need to talk to him. Tell him to let it go.'

‘Before I do that, you need to give me a reason,' Alec said. ‘Like I said, he's been in the job long enough to become an Inspector. You don't do that without being a tenacious bugger.'

Adam nodded. ‘Look,' he said. ‘I think even if Joseph left anything here for us then the chances are it's already gone. Molly, I think we should all practise what we preach and get out of this mess once and for all. Time to walk away.'

‘You can't be serious!' Molly exploded.

‘Oh, but I am.' He put a finger to his lips and took something from his pocket. To Alec it looked like an ordinary mobile phone. He held it up and showed it to Molly. Alec, watching, saw her nod.

‘One quick look,' she said. ‘In case we've missed something and, Adam, I'd like a souvenir. A book or a … I don't know, a something to remember him by. Joseph was a part of our lives for so long, I'm sure he wouldn't mind.'

Alec, not sure what was going on, said the first thing that came to mind. ‘Who is the beneficiary of his estate, Adam? Molly, I'm not sure you should be—'

‘Oh, Alec, don't fuss, so. Joseph wouldn't care what I took.'

Adam shrugged and Molly seemed to take that as permission. Once again she prowled the study, examining the bookshelves and occasionally removing something. To Alec's eyes her choices seemed random; as random as Joseph's shelving had been. He sighed, giving in to the moment and sat down again. Molly would take her own sweet time, he was sure of that. He took out his phone and thought about calling Naomi, then put it away, thinking he should wait until he had a sense of when he'd be taking Molly home. If Naomi was worried about anything she would call him.

Glancing up, he noticed that Adam had left the room and a moment later he heard footsteps on the stairs.

‘Adam needed to use the facilities,' Molly said.

‘So he could hide a file? Molly, what on earth did you think—'

Molly turned on him, her expression fierce. ‘I thought it was time I did the right thing,' she said angrily. ‘Sometimes, we just have to. All of us, no matter what.'

Alec held up his hands, signalling surrender and Molly turned away, taking another book from the shelf and flicking through the pages. As Alec watched, she paused, removed what looked like a postcard from between the pages and studied it for a moment before replacing it and closing the book.

‘Right,' she said. ‘Well I suppose we should be going. Whoever gets this place will be getting a cosy little home. Maybe you and Naomi should think about it if it comes on to the market.'

‘Not enough garden,' Alec said automatically. He could hear Adam moving about upstairs and then descending, his footsteps slow and steady.

‘I think we're ready to go, now,' Alec told him. ‘Molly seems to have found her souvenir.'

Adam nodded. Alec could see he looked anxious about something, but Molly was hustling them out of the door and so he let it go.

‘What were you showing to Molly? On your phone?' Alec asked when they were once more out on the narrow village street and heading back towards The Green Man.

Adam took the phone from his pocket and showed it to Alec. It looked like an ordinary smart phone, similar to the one Alec carried. ‘As Molly may or may not have told you, my expertise is in electronics and communication. I made a few modifications to my phone. Added a few apps, as they say in modern parlance.'

He swiped through a few screens, then stopped at one which showed some kind of waveform pattern. It looked to Alec like the track he got on his graphic equalizer at home.

‘And what does that mean?' he asked.

‘It means that Joseph's place has been bugged,' Adam said. ‘I don't know who by, but whoever it is, the bugs are still active. Whoever it is, they are still listening in.'

‘You talked about saving a child,' Naomi said. It was warm for early October and she could feel the sun on her face and a light breeze carried the scent of flowers and damp earth. The small amount of light and dark visual perception left to her, suggested they were walking under trees, evenly spaced and grown tall and wide.

‘A child. Yes. Adis. I have no idea where he ended up or even if he kept the same name, but I'm sure Edward ensured he was cared for. Did you meet Edward?'

‘Once or twice. At Alec's family gatherings. He seemed like a nice man. Mild and quiet compared to Molly.'

‘They do say that opposites attract. They were reputed to be the perfect team, though, professionally speaking. I understand they were also genuinely in love.'

‘Oh, I think that's true, but what do you mean, professionally speaking and why was this child so important?'

Gregory considered for a moment and then responded to her second question. ‘Adis was the first of many,' he said. ‘Mostly children, but Molly was a stickler for loyalty. She believed that if someone put their life on the line to help you, then you were obliged to do the same in return.'

‘I don't understand,' Naomi said. ‘What people?'

‘It's complicated,' Gregory told her. ‘This is a lovely place, don't you think? Funny how full of life these cities of the dead can be.'

‘Necropolis,' Naomi said. ‘I always did like the word. But you're right; this place is filled with birds.'

‘And rabbits and foxes. I suppose being right in the middle of nowhere, like this—'

‘But you're dodging my question. What kind of people? You can't start on a story and then try and distract me.'

‘It's more that I'm not much of a storyteller. I'm not sure where to begin, but I suppose the Adis incident is as good a place as any. That incident took place in 1961.'

‘The Belgian Congo.'

‘As it was, yes. As I told you before, there were many forces jockeying for position that summer and Edward was in the thick of it. You've got to remember, the UN was only about fifteen years old at that time. It was an organization still looking for its role in the world. Edward had acted as a liaison officer for the UN a couple of times before. I don't know if you knew, but he spoke about a dozen languages, had grown up in Africa and understood the situation on the ground far better than most Europeans ever could.'

‘So … hadn't the president been assassinated or something?'

‘The first elections had taken place, but there were so many conflicting interests moving in, all ready to stake their claim on the minerals, the resources … Anyway, Adis senior was a local interpreter, Edward had recruited him and the two of them had worked closely for, perhaps, six months. Then Adis was killed, violently killed. Molly witnessed his death. I understand, so did the boy. Edward and Molly fled and they took the boy with them. He had no close family and they knew, as the son of a collaborator who'd been killed for working with the wrong people, the kid's life would not have been worth a damn.'

‘I'm not sure I understand,' Naomi said. ‘Surely, it was just a job.'

Gregory sighed, paused for a moment and then said. ‘OK, let's turn it around, take a more extreme example. In the Second World War, in Vichy France, those who worked with the Nazis, even as interpreters, even if their lives were under threat if they did not, were at best shunned by many of their countrymen. At worst, some were tried for war crimes. Logic and quiet consideration of circumstance and consequence don't happen when you're stuck in a war zone. People react, people jump on whatever bandwagon happens to be passing, or they act according to what they genuinely believe is the justice of the moment.'

‘But the Nazis were different. That was—'

‘That was a time of crisis. Of invasion, of all out war. The disturbance in what had been the Belgian Congo might not have been on the same scale. It's most famous victim might have been Dag Hammarskjöld, but tens of thousands died or were displaced, or were forced into actions that might have seemed inconceivable just a year or so before. The only real difference is that the invading forces were not cohesive; they were a mix of big corporations and political factions. Ours, the Americans, the Russians, factions native to the country and factions from outside. Not some easily identifiable, single force, like Nazi Germany. Those that suffer most in the aftermath of such a process are those that were seen to take sides, to get involved, and then get left behind when whatever force they backed or employer they worked for moves out and moves on. People like Adis.'

‘I heard something about the first Gulf War,' Naomi said. ‘That there were journalists and interpreters who had helped the US forces. Or maybe not even helped them just did their job as interpreters or got involved in some way and they were executed. Is that true?'

‘It's true of many places and many times. Naomi, you've probably seen film of when the US forces pulled out of Vietnam. The fall of Saigon. You've probably seen film of the evacuation of CIA personnel from the rooftop of the US Embassy. But how many civilian employees, friends, lovers, common law partners do you think got left behind?

‘Pick any conflict, look at any moment in our history and I mean us as a species, not us as a particular race or a particular country or creed or place and the same patterns will be evident. Molly and Edward knew this, recognized this, but unlike most of us, they wanted to try and do something about it. Most of us, believe me, we are just grateful if we can walk away. Little Adis was the first child they rescued, but there were others. Children, adults, families. They hid them, they rehomed them, organized false identities.'

‘Rehomed.' Naomi laughed. ‘You make it sound like stray dogs.'

‘I always did prefer dogs to people,' Gregory told her. ‘As individuals, they always seemed so much more reliable. As a pack, they are loyal to their leaders in a way that humans rarely are.'

‘Or should be,' Naomi said, suddenly angry, though she could not have said exactly why.

‘Or should be,' Gregory agreed. ‘Though I do admire loyalty, I suppose. To the right people.'

‘The right people?'

‘I don't think Molly and Edward would agree with my choices, but we all do what we do, according to our natures. My friendship with Arthur Fields, even though I didn't always like the man, means that I owe a certain loyalty to him. I would like to know who shot him and on whose orders.'

‘You didn't like him? Arthur Fields?'

‘Not always, no.'

‘Then what makes you owe him anything? If it wasn't friendship—'

‘Coincidence of place, of time, of action. Maybe also because I know it could have been me. It's self-preservation, if you prefer that as an explanation.'

‘I'm not sure what I prefer, never mind believe.' Naomi frowned. What exactly did she know about Gregory? That he killed people, that he was full of contradictions, that, on occasion, he too had saved lives. That he did have an odd sense of loyalty, one which had led him to some particularly violent actions. ‘These people Edward and Molly helped. How did they hide them? How did they help?'

‘Why did the Victorians insist on putting up such damn great angels everywhere?' Gregory asked.

‘I don't know. But I do kind of like them.' She looked up instinctively towards the sound of chittering squirrels overhead. ‘Fighting?'

‘Yes, two big males, both want the same tree. You still behave as though you're sighted. I've noticed it before.'

‘I suppose I do. You can't change long ingrained habits overnight, I suppose.'

‘Does it make you angry?'

‘It did.' Naomi paused, well aware that Gregory was distracting her from the questions she had asked. He did this often, she thought, almost as if he needed thinking time. She decided to allow the distraction, just for the moment.

‘For a while I couldn't get over the anger. I felt like life was over and it was, the life I knew, anyway. But I was lucky. I had family and friends who wouldn't let me give in. My sister Sam was the biggest help.'

‘How?' Gregory asked.

Naomi laughed. ‘Oh, stupid, simple ordinary things. When the doctors said I could be discharged in a couple of days, she bought my make-up bag into the hospital. I'd never been a big one for all the slap, you know, but, Sam and I, we'd always looked at it like war paint. You put it on if you were worried about a new situation and you prepared for battle. She knew how hard it was going to be, going outside, facing people again, so she brought me a new lipstick and she sat with me until I could put it on and do my eye shadow and all that stuff and not look like some five year old who's stolen her mum's cosmetics. Then after I'd only been out a few days, she took me shopping. Boy, was I scared. The world was so much louder than I could remember it being and I held on to her arm so hard I bruised it. But she was right; you can spend too long standing on the edge of the pool, trying to summon the courage to jump in. I'd lost so much weight in hospital that nothing fitted. Sam said that if I could see myself in a mirror, I'd have hated the way everything just hung on me. She said I'd get to thinking what I looked like to other people, and I'd be upset because I looked a mess, so she took me out and we bought new clothes, and when I got home I just sat and cried and she just sat with me and you know how people usually try to get you to stop crying? Well Sam never did. She just knew I had to cry it all out. That I couldn't start to get better until I stopped being angry and got on with the grieving, I suppose. In a weird way, I guess she used my vanity to get me through a really difficult time.'