by KJ Griffin
***
New Scotland Yard: 10:20 a.m.
Whatever instructions she was receiving through the earphones, the policewoman leaning almost straight into Sophie's face across the interview room table seemed agitated and startled.
‘This interview is being interrupted at 10:21 a.m.,’ she announced tersely into the microphone, summoning her two male colleagues outside. The older policeman sighed and scowled, leaving his junior colleague to lock the door behind.
Sophie cupped her head in her hands. It was almost better having the company, though the questions were tedious, sometimes even offensive. When the policemen left the room she felt the irrational panic attacks return.
But they weren't leaving her long this time. She could hear footsteps then voices in the corridor. The door opened tentatively and a solitary hand was all Sophie could see. Whoever was propping the door open was arguing in whispered flurries with several other voices in the corridor.
Finally the arguing stopped, the door swung back more decisively and Mr Talbot stepped in. Alone. Sophie felt sick.
‘I might have known you would show up sooner or later,’ she groaned.
There was no answer. Not for a long time. But eventually, curiosity overcame Sophie's distaste and she glanced directly at Talbot to find out the reason for his silence.
This was not the Talbot she knew. His face looked white and blotchy and there was pain in his eyes. He forced a taut, almost apologetic smile, sat down opposite and sighed.
Sophie waited for him to begin, but every time his mouth opened only another sigh came out and a sad, drawn grimace. Seeing Talbot that way made Sophie bolder and more bitter.
‘Where's your next picture then, Mr Talbot?’ she taunted. ‘I don't mind if you get the whole album out now. I've got nothing else to do in here.
Talbot looked at her directly now, plucked out of his dreamworld by the sound of Sophie's voice. He reached across to the edge of the interview desk, checking that the recorder was switched off. And when he spoke, it was no longer with the sarcastic slant she had known in Oxford.
‘I suppose we had better start by clearing up a few basics,’ he began wearily. ‘Talbot's not my real name. It's Clayton. Max Clayton.’
‘Whatever you want,’ she shrugged. ‘Call yourself Peter Pan if you prefer.’
Their eyes met and Sophie could see that Clayton's were rheumy. Good God, he looked as if he had been crying!
‘I met Robbie Bailey,’ Clayton continued, his delivery sunk to the brainwashed monologue of a show-trial defendant, ‘the man you know as Omar Al-Ajnabi, on the first day of term in the Oxford of twenty-five years ago. He was sitting alone outside on the lawn in the quad, enjoying the autumn sunshine. My father had driven me up to Oxford - dropping me off and picking me up on the first and last day of term was the sum total of his involvement in my education since I started prep school aged seven, so Dad sat in his sports car as usual smoking roll ups while I began to unload my things.’
‘Robbie strolled over and offered to help. I thought he was just anxious to make friends, as all we freshers were, but I later found out that that was typical of Robbie. He was always confident, not pushy though, looked you straight in the eye, got on with things without making a fuss. Even my father seemed to take to him immediately, which was saying something. I seem to recall he even shook Robbie's hand before driving off.’
Sophie watched Clayton's eyes. The talk seemed to have dried them, and she was glad. She didn't want to watch this horrible government stooge cry, or try and make her feel guilty for her antipathy.
But this Max Clayton had changed in other ways, too, since he had sloughed Mr Talbot's skin. His voice was softer, less sarcastic and his hands moved towards hers across the table, as if he wanted to clutch her own but was too shy.
‘Robbie and I soon found out we had a lot in common,’ Clayton went on. ‘Both on Army scholarships, both fairly sporty, both on three-year courses. But we had our differences, too: I had come up from Winchester; Robbie was a grammar school boy. Robbie was left-wing and mildly political, agitated by the usual student issues. He would argue his point with strangers in bars, but otherwise life was too busy for him to get involved in campaigns. I teased him about joining the Army but he just shrugged it off; 'I'm mainly in it to learn survival skills,' he would say. He wanted to trek across the whole Amazon basin from Atlantic to Andes as soon as he got out.’
‘So that was how we became close friends. The differences soon became irrelevant, even strengths. Robbie didn't mind my public school upbringing or crusty public school friends; I let him have his leftie politics and we both became interested in his Amazon trekking idea. God, I wish they had some water in here,’ Clayton broke off, standing up to look around the bare interview room. ‘Would you like something to drink, Sophie?’
She shook her head, damned if she was going to let Clayton feel comfortable in this manner of almost casual friendliness he had slipped into since he had swapped identities and found his voice. Anyway, the talk was all too likely to be some crass bad cop, good cop act, designed to put her off her guard.
But her lack of complicity had made Clayton forget about the water. He sat down again and began to fiddle distractedly with his mobile phone.
‘After just one term we became a real pair, Robbie and I,’ he continued. ‘Have you soon Max and Robbie?’ people would ask at the Porters' Lodge. Though we had different lectures, tutorials and sports teams to attend, we soon established a regular routine of places to meet up at given times. And every week, of course, there was Army training.’
Sitting there still petrified, being forced to listen to this loathsome man's reminiscences turned Sophie's nausea into irritation. There was no need to let him have it all his own way.
‘I suppose all this is leading to what happened between Rob - I hate that name, I'm going to stick to Omar - and Mum?’
Clayton caught her eyes and nodded thoughtfully.
‘Yes. It happened out of the blue. Must have been sometime in the summer term at the end of our first year. Rob was invited to some Pimm's do thrown by the Warden. They met there. I was staggered when Robbie told me afterwards about his meeting Alison Palmer, and I suppose every other first-year male undergrad in Oxford must have heaved a similar sigh of despair. Your mum was definitely the most sought-after girl in college, perhaps in the whole university, Sophie, the more so because she hardly ever went to any parties. Chaps I knew scoured lecture halls to try and get close to her, sent her dinner and party invite after invite. But just polite refusal after refusal all year, till Rob and his easy-going charm did the trick over a couple of sodding Pimm's. And do you know what? When he came bursting into my rooms later that warm, summer evening, brimming with the news that he'd managed to invite the legendary Alison Palmer out for a date, I actually felt happy for him! Can you imagine it? I mean, I fancied your mum as much, if not more than most. I had tried my hardest to get talking to Alison every time we passed each other in the quad, but all I ever got was a smile and a shy hello. But when my best friend told me he'd managed the impossible, I didn't feel any jealousy, I just shared in his joy. That was how close we were in those days.’
This was too much for Sophie. The knot of fear still dormant in the pit of her stomach and the thought of her mum were too powerful. The tears came not in trickles, but in gasping convulsions, and she cried for all of them: for Mum, for Omar, for Marcus - even for this strange Talbot-cum-Clayton hybrid. But above all, she cried to forget about the fear.
Sophie didn't know how long she had been that way, before she felt the cold touch of Clayton's hand against hers. She recoiled instinctively, and he withdrew it immediately, embarrassed.
‘Why are you telling me all this?’ she sobbed at him, rising to her feet. ‘Why don't you bastards just charge me with something and be done with it? It's all the bloody waiting and questioning I can't stand! And now your horrible memories too!’
Clayton was rubbing a hand over an
d over again across the stubble that was starting to grow on his chin, seemingly ignoring her tirade to concentrate on some private misery of his own.
The crying settled Sophie's nerves again. She felt more in control now, and for the first time curiosity began to outweigh the suffocating despair.
‘Were you friendly with my mum too back then?’ she asked.
Clayton caught her eyes.
‘Yes, I was. Eventually. Of course, for most of the rest of that term I saw less of Robbie as the romance blossomed between him and Alison. He tried to involve me several times in a few of the outings they organized together, but it was hard to overcome the stigma of playing gooseberry. Alison tried to invite a female friend of hers along on two occasions, but there were fewer women in Oxford back then; and very few of those at all fanciable. Besides, it seemed so contrived. So, we went our own ways initially, till the end of that summer term, when it was time to move out of college accommodation and look for houses of our own to rent for the coming year. Robbie found a three-room house in St Clements. He asked me to join him and Alison. I was against it at first but Robbie persisted as only he knew how. We ended up doing all the pubs in the High Street and down the Cowley Road that night and somewhere along the way, as I puked up into the gutter, I must have agreed.’
‘But none of us ended up regretting it. That second year and the third, we lived two of the happiest years I think any of us had ever, have ever known. I found a girlfriend, Lucy from Wadham, the following October and soon the awkward three became a very balanced four. That took the pressure off everything long enough for me to get to know your mother as a proper friend, so that by the time Lucy and I split up in the summer of my final year, Robbie, your mum and I were good enough friends to survive the awkwardness of three not going into two.’
‘If you were all such good friends back then, why are against Omar now? And why did you and mum never keep in touch?’ Sophie asked, and as she did, she could see his eyes looked red and rheumy again.
He blinked back the tears and then grinned more bitterly, just as he had done when she had known him as Talbot.
‘Did Robbie tell you about the court-martial?’
‘Yes, about Goss and Marcus's father and the Foreign Secretary.’
‘And did he mention me?’
She closed her eyes up and looked at him suspiciously again.
‘No. Were you involved in that?’
He scratched a stubbly cheek thoughtfully again.
‘Yes and no. I mean, no, I should have been involved -helping Robbie out. But… something else came up.’
His voice trailed off.
An intuitive spark flashed across Sophie's mind. She wailed and looked at Clayton imploringly.
‘Oh no, not you and Mum as well? Oh no. Anything but that.’
Clayton's fixed stare was neutral, neither confirming nor denying her overwhelming fear, but the matter-of-fact tone in which he continued his story braced her Sophie the worst.
‘Robbie and I carried on our famous double act right into the Paras. I was also a platoon commander in D Company, in fact my platoon was just a mile down the road on that fateful April day. I would have been there at Robbie's side right from the onset, but things didn't go as smoothly for us as they had done in college. We were big boys now, big enough for our friendship to be tested by greed, pride, ambition… and chance.’
‘Colonel McPherson called for me the afternoon after Robbie was placed under house arrest. I suppose I had always been ambitious, but I wasn't aware just how much so until McPherson took me up to the mountaintop and offered me all the kingdoms in the world if I would just bow down and worship. I did, and for that I received a promotion, not just to first lieutenant, but a double jump to captain, posted to Cyprus with immediate effect. But McPherson did more than that. He praised my capabilities so highly that I couldn't but help fall under his spell, I mean to hear all that at so young an age from one of the Parachute Regiment's meanest commanders was just too much. Without realizing it then I had become McPherson's crony, although self-serving ambition had not yet grown so strong that I did not plead with McPherson on Robbie's behalf.’
'Don't worry, Max,' McPherson laughed when I left. 'There won't be any charges against your friend. By the time you arrive in Cyprus, Bailey will be back on patrol on the streets of West Belfast.'
‘It all sounded good, and to complete the deal, McPherson gave me four days leave back in mainland UK before departure for Cyprus. I said goodbye to Robbie back in our shared room; he looked firm and steady, just as I had always known him. He was more interested in my promotion than in his own situation. We talked of Robbie getting posted on to Cyprus to join me as soon as possible and left it that.’
‘When I got back to England…’
Clayton suddenly broke off, hung his head and sighed deeply. Sophie was amazed how engrossed she had become in his story. She had forgotten her surroundings and was waiting only for the conclusion of Clayton's tale, even though her anticipation was mixed with a tinge of dread.
She waited patiently, certain that he would resume. When he did his lips were taut, as if he were attempting to stave off emotion.
‘I went straight to Oxford. I picked up an evening paper at the station entrance. Robbie's face was staring straight back at me from the front page under the headline: Charged With Murder.’
‘I don't even know what I was doing back in Oxford. Force of habit? Who knows? I took a taxi and went straight to the address off the Iffley Road where your mother was staying, working on her MA. She had no idea of Robbie's involvement in the Falls Road Massacre. At first she was phlegmatic and calm. We went out for tea in the Churchill, and we discussed Robbie's arrest objectively. I told Alison how shocked I was that Robbie had been charged after McPherson's assurances and promised that I would ring McPherson again the next day; we could trust McPherson to sort it out, I told her. In any case, we both agreed that anyone who knew Robbie would never believe that he could have been responsible for that kind of carnage.’
‘That night we met up with several old friends in the Kings Arms. The drinks flowed and we moved from wallowing in Robbie's plight to sweeter souvenirs and nostalgia. I was sitting next to your mother. She was unusually tipsy, the loudest and funniest of the lot by the time we were thrown out at closing time.’
‘It was a cold, foggy night, more like late autumn than spring. Alison held my hand for warmth as we set out in high spirits for the long trek back to the Iffley Road. As we walked down the High Street and passed Magdalen, her mood suddenly changed. She was crying gently and she held me even tighter, resting her head on my shoulder all the rest of the way home. She couldn't believe what had happened to Robbie and couldn't be persuaded that he was not going to end up facing a long, dishonourable jail sentence. At one point, she even began to doubt his innocence.’
‘The other flatmates were in bed when we returned. I made coffees and tried to comfort your mother. I had never seen her so upset; she was inconsolable. I put my arm around her; that was certainly the first time we had been so close, but even then I didn't think much of it. I brushed her hair away from her eyes and brushed the tears from her cheeks with my fingers. She leant towards me and… and we started to kiss.’
Sophie felt uncomfortable and irritable again now that Clayton had reached the crux of his story.
‘Oh, spare me the rest,’ she interrupted, feeling a welling of disgust towards Clayton and her mother. ‘I think I can guess what happened next.’
Clayton rose to his feet and started pacing to and fro.
‘But it didn't stop there, Sophie. Yes, we both felt incredibly guilty, your mother even more than me. She would not talk to me when I left the next morning, nor the day after. But the night before I left for Cyprus, well,… it happened all over again.’
Sophie lent back haughtily in her chair, resting her head against her folded hands. The tearful vulnerability she had felt at the start of Clayton’s story had hardened into an indi
gnant resilience.
‘What an appalling mess!’ she said bitterly. ‘You shamelessly make a move on your best friend's girlfriend while he's locked up in jail and helpless to prevent you, then not satisfied by being such a first class bastard back then, you return twenty years later to persecute your ex-lover's innocent daughter. You're persecuting me because you're still consumed with jealousy of Robbie Bailey. And now, just because I've been connected to him you want to destroy me as well.’
‘Look, Sophie…’ Clayton’s voice was faltering now. ‘I never knew before now. Believe me… I had no idea before your mother broke her twenty-silence, but I'll make it up to you. Starting now. I've pulled some strings. You are free to go.’
Sophie shot to her feet.
‘You mean that?’
Clayton nodded forlornly.
Sophie walked round the desk and stopped in front of the door. The desire to run to immediate safety was overpowering, but she could not restrain a tinge of curiosity.
‘Why?’ she asked quietly. ‘Why the change of heart? What do you mean by Mum's twenty-year silence?’
Clayton was still slouching against the far wall, looking straight back across the empty desk at the chair in which she had been sitting.
‘Because you are my daughter.’
‘What?’
‘I mean it, Sophie. I am your real father.’
"Rubbish. My father was called Michael Paxson. His name is on my birth certificate. He died in a car crash when I was five months' old.’
But Clayton was persistent, straightening himself and moving towards her. Standing face-to-face in front of her, his eyes were searching for recognition. It was Sophie who broke off first.
‘No, no, no. That’s total crap! You’re making it all up, you sad, sad bastard! God knows what you really want from me, but what you're saying is all fucked up. And I've managed perfectly well without a father all my life and I'm not looking for any surrogates, especially not like you.’
But Clayton put his arm across the doorway, barring Sophie’s exit.
‘Trust me, what I'm telling you is the truth, Sophie. Go ahead, call your mother,’ he urged, ferreting for a number in his mobile's address book and handing her the handset.
It rang only twice.
‘Hello?’
‘Mum?’
‘Sophie! Where are you? Has Max spoken to you?’
Sophie froze. For the first time she believed what she had just been hearing.
‘Oh God, Mum, tell me that this man's not my real father,’ Sophie pleaded.
‘I had to tell him the truth, Sophie. It was the only way to get you out.’
Sophie could feel the emotion breaking into her mother's voice. Let her cry. Sophie felt more than capable of reciprocating with emotions of her own, but emotions which were altogether darker and angrier.
‘Why? Why? Why?’ she shouted into the phone. ‘Why after all this time? Why lie to me and everyone else for all these years about Michael? Why did you never even tell him?’ she continued, glaring accusingly at Clayton.
‘I found out I was pregnant three weeks after Max was posted to Cyprus,’ Alison sobbed at the other end of the phone. ‘I didn't know what to do. It was all such an awful mess. I was nearly suicidal; I only had Rosemary to confide in. In the end, we both decided that I would have to tell Max. But chance had it otherwise. The night I sat down to write to Max, he phoned from Cyprus. He told me that we had both made an awful mistake, that he regretted bitterly what had happened and that he would never see me again. So that's why I never told him, you see. Or you. Or anyone come to that. I wanted to eradicate his name and memory forever from life.
Sophie was staring at Clayton in disbelief.
‘But what about Michael, Mum? How on earth does he fit in?’
‘He was an angel, Sophie. A sweet angel whom I used horribly. He had started as young professor at St Catherine's the year before. I had met him at several lectures and a drinks party. He had invited me out before but I had refused. Then, about a week after Max's call, I bumped into him in the High Street. I'm afraid the callous plan occurred to me as soon as I started to chat to him in the drizzle in front of Schools. He asked me out again and I accepted. Michael was more mature, he came across as level-headed, caring and considerate. I knew he would make the ideal father for the baby I was determined to keep.’
‘Did Michael ever found out that he wasn't my father?’
‘No. He was initially surprised at how quickly I had become pregnant, but I had made sure that we became lovers sooner rather than later. He seemed more delighted than upset when I told him I was pregnant only six weeks after we had started seeing each other and he proposed to me immediately. From that moment onwards I decided that the secret of your real father would never be known by anyone other than Rosemary. I suppose he must have found out from her.’
‘Who found out?’ Sophie asked menacingly.
‘Robbie. He told me it's in the letter he left for you.’
‘Letter?’
‘Max has it. Ask him for it if he hasn't already given it to you.’
Sophie terminated the call abruptly without goodbyes. Somehow, they had all betrayed her: Mum; the 'real' father who was standing dejectedly just an arm's length from her, but whom she could not even bring herself to look at, and Omar too.
‘You've got a letter for me,’ she said curtly.
Clayton nodded and reached inside his jacket pocket, handing her written on rich, heavy paper.
She tore open the envelope and pulled out a handwritten sheaf.
London, October 31
Sophie,
When we were standing under the stars in Tarangire you asked me what your role was in my plans. You were right: I do owe you a true explanation. I presume that by now your mother has told you about the identity of your real father, about his current rank and about how we were all connected at Oxford.
I can therefore finally tell you the truth. You, Sophie, were to be my insurance policy; insurance, that is, against an assault on the Commons. You see, I had intended to take you (either according to or against your will) into the Commons on October 31st, and if all had gone to plan I would have revealed your relationship to Max once we were together inside the Commons. That way, I would have Max Clayton in a hold. You see, I was gambling on the chance that not even Max Clayton would choose risking his own daughter's life over authorizing an SAS raid against me.
It was a plan that appealed for other reasons too. I must confess that I relished the prospect of the distress that the discovery of your parentage would cause both Max and your mother. It was a fitting revenge for their twenty-year-old deceit, a deceit that had nearly caused me to give up on life back in those lonely days in my cell in Catterick. Nearly, but not quite, and as Robert Bailey metamorphosed into Omar Al-Ajnabi, with all the latter's wealth and influence, I had the time and patience to sift through every detail of your parents' pasts. To Hasan's credit, it didn't take him long to stumble across the true identity of Sophie Palmer's father. That is why, as I told you back in our first meeting at Oxford, you were, as you put it, truly 'chosen'.
But even the best-made plans are made to be changed. And it is you who changed mine, Sophie. From the first, you surprised and affected me in ways I had not calculated, and after the night we spent together in Tarangire, you wrote yourself out of the role I had scripted for you.
I suppose I should have known that I would never have been able to risk harming someone who was so much her mother's daughter, in looks, intelligence and attitude, but also not devoid of some her father's better qualities.
At least, I hope I really have not hurt you. You still have the house and the money, of course. At least they will help you to continue with your studies and to pursue your eventual career without financial restrictions.
But more than all that, I must thank you personally, Sophie. The spontaneous passion you gave me in Tarangire was as delightful as it was unexpected. It has helped me enormously i
n working out the bitterness I had harboured for so long against Max Clayton and against your mother. My quarrel with your parents has become almost meaningless now and, having rid myself of that burden, I hope that I will be able to stay sharper and more focused in the difficult times ahead.
I think, from all the conversations we have had together, you may have judged me as something of a bitter cynic. In a way, that judgement may be right. I am bitter and cynical, but not by nature. No, if I do appear like that, it has more to do with my frustration at the abject way in which the whole world is missing out on the simple beauties of the planet we live on, beauties we are so ready to sacrifice in return for the chance of a level of material prosperity that is as elusive as it is intrinsically unrewarding.
Whatever happens from here on, I appeal to your intelligent nature, Sophie, not to look back at what happened between us too harshly. Tonight, the last night of freedom before we attack the Houses of Parliament tomorrow afternoon, is the first night in a long, long while that I have felt such loneliness, doubt and separation. During the long years in the wilderness, I learnt to value the simple and beautiful things in life more than the power, wealth and privilege I accidentally acquired. Tonight, more than anything else, I look back to what you gave me in Tarangire and cannot erase a creeping doubt that anything I may achieve politically from here on is worth nothing compared to the feelings inside me which you resurrected from oblivion.
I wish you a life full of peace, wisdom, love and understanding.
Omar Al-Ajnabi (aka Robert Bailey)