“Go around,” Sir Edward Manning hissed to the driver. “We’ll go in the back entrance.”
“We will do no such thing,” Alexia said firmly. “Stop here.” And before Sir Edward could restrain her, she had opened the car door and stepped outside.
“Home Secretary!” he called after her but it was useless. The noise of the crowd was deafening. Once people realized who it was, pandemonium broke loose. Luckily, two policemen swooped in to protect the home secretary, one on either side of her, but they offered little protection against the swelling mass of bodies.
For the second time that day, Alexia felt frightened. The prime minister’s phone call earlier had frightened her, although she hadn’t shown it, either to Henry Whitman or to her own staff. Never show weakness. Never back down. When cornered, she had a tendency to fight even harder. She knew with hindsight that her statement on the flag affair had been mistaken. But she would never admit it, especially now, when the stakes were so high. She must appear strong, to Downing Street, to the cabinet, to everybody. Strength was what Alexia De Vere did best.
But this was different. This was physical fear. She’d acted on impulse, jumping out of the car, but she knew now it had been a mistake. I should have listened to Edward and gone around the back. This is dangerous.
Aware that she might be being photographed, she held her head high as she was hustled through the jeering crowd, almost all of them men. But she was afraid. The men’s physical closeness was intimidating. Alexia could smell their foul breath, soured by bitterness, and felt suddenly nauseous. Then, out of nowhere, she felt herself being grabbed by the arm and pulled forward. She couldn’t see her rescuer, but she knew he was dragging her toward the private members’ entrance to Parliament, toward safety.
My security detail. Thank God. I must be more careful next time.
Relaxing her body, she allowed herself to be pulled closer, tuning out the angry faces on either side of her, focusing only on the door ahead. At last the danger was past. A wall of police moved in behind her, forcing the protesters back. The hand that had been gripping her arm let go and Alexia looked up for the first time into the eyes of her savior.
“You!” she gasped.
“Me.”
Billy Hamlin smiled. Then he said two words that Alexia De Vere had thought she would never hear again. Two words that brought the past rushing back and that filled her heart with utter, abject dread.
“Hello, Toni.”
Part Three
Chapter Sixteen
Toni Gilletti thought disappearing would be difficult. In fact it was frighteningly easy.
A few days after Billy Hamlin’s trial, she sneaked out of her bedroom window in the wee hours of the morning and ran. She ran and she ran and she didn’t look back. When she could run no more she waited. For retribution. For her father, Walter, to come for her. Or her friends. Or the police. Or Billy’s lawyers, already busy working on an appeal. Surely, eventually the truth would catch up with her? She would be hauled back to jail and left to rot.
But nothing happened. No TV appeals, no expensive private detectives on her tail. No one came for Toni Gilletti. No one cared.
Well, not quite no one. The one person who did care had sacrificed his freedom for Toni Gilletti and allowed himself to be branded a murderer. In return, Toni had promised to marry him, to give him her life just as he had given her his. An eye for an eye.
But when push came to shove, Toni couldn’t do it. She couldn’t sacrifice her whole life on the altar of one teenage mistake. Not for Billy Hamlin. Not for anyone. Once she realized this, her path was clear: there was nothing left for Toni Gilletti to do but to run.
She spent the first two years of her new life in that mecca of lost souls: Las Vegas. Nevada was like another planet, hot and dry and soulless and sleepless and as good a place to get lost as any. It was 1975 and business was booming, with new hotels and casinos popping up out of the ground every month like vast, concrete krakens rising from the waves. Everybody was hiring, and nobody cared about your past. If ever there was a place to reinvent yourself, it was Las Vegas in the midseventies. Toni Gilletti did just that. Rechristening herself Alexia Parker (her best friend in grade school had been called Alexia and she’d always loved the name. Parker just sounded unobtrusive and real), she started working as a bartender. She had no papers and no Social Security number, but Vegas employers were happy to pay cash. Alexia Parker was a sexy girl, which the customers liked. She was also hardworking and reliable, which the club owners loved. Sexy girls were a dime a dozen in Vegas, but Alexia Parker combined her good looks with abstinence, neither drinking nor doing drugs. That was a whole lot rarer. She also appeared to have taken a vow of celibacy, never dating customers or other bar staff.
Toni Gilletti had been a party girl. But Toni Gilletti was dead. Alexia Parker lived to work. In two years she’d earned enough of a nest egg to put herself through college. She applied to UCLA, intending to major in political science.
Unfortunately, unlike the Vegas bar owners, UCLA did need papers. Alexia Parker had no Social Security number, no passport, no birth certificate, no history of any kind. It was a problem.
Alexia solved the problem by moving to L.A., breaking her vow of celibacy, and sleeping with Duane from the Social Security office on Santa Monica Boulevard.
“I could get fired for this. I could go to jail,” Duane moaned, typing Alexia Parker’s fake details into the state records while she gave him expert head under the desk.
“So could I,” Alexia said, spitting out Duane’s twitching cock like a chick rejecting a worm. “Which means we’ll both keep the secret, right?”
“What are you doing? Don’t stop now!”
“I said, we’ll both keep the secret. Right, Duane?”
“Right, yes, of course. You got it. I ain’t gonna tell nobody. Just please, please don’t stop.”
Alexia Parker left Duane’s office with a newly minted Social Security card and a backdated birth certificate. Her SAT results she forged herself.
Alexia did not consider herself a dishonest person. She simply did what she had to do. She looked forward, never back, and she solved problems as they arose, using her natural talent for acting and mimicry to help her forge a new identity.
First rule of politics: be pragmatic.
Only two years later, as she was working her ass off, she graduated UCLA summa cum laude and boarded a plane for London. There was no way she could pursue a political career in Washington, not without her past coming back to haunt her. But politics was in her blood now. It was time for another new chapter.
Alexia Parker landed at Heathrow Airport with no friends, no connections, and two hundred pounds of cash in her pocket.
She was twenty-three years old.
Billy Hamlin’s grip on her arm was tightening.
“Please, Toni. I need to talk to you.”
Her heart pounding, Alexia wrenched herself free.
“I’m afraid you’re confused. I don’t know any Toni. Excuse me.”
The members’ entrance to Parliament was only a few feet away. She stumbled toward it desperately, afraid for her life. But Billy Hamlin lunged for her, grabbing her again.
“Toni, for God’s sake, it’s me. It’s Billy.”
Alexia looked into his eyes and saw the confusion written there, the desperation. What are you doing here, Billy? Don’t you understand? Toni’s dead. She died years ago. I’m Alexia now, a new person, a phoenix risen from the ashes of a ruined life. I can’t let you drag me back there!
“Let go of me.”
“I know you’re busy.” Tears welled in Billy Hamlin’s eyes. “But this is important. It’s life or death. My daughter’s in terrible danger.”
“Step back please, sir.” Finally, a policeman managed to pull Billy away. Dizzy with relief, Alexia almost fainted. Thankfully Sir Edward Manning reappeared just in time, grabbing Alexia’s hand and helping her through the gate and into the building.
&nbs
p; “Are you all right, Home Secretary?”
Alexia nodded. She was still shaking. Through the closed door, she could hear Billy’s screams. Sir Edward Manning heard them too.
“Toni, please! It’s my daughter. My daughter! Why are you doing this? I KNOW WHO YOU ARE!”
They waited for the commotion to calm down and silence to fall. Then Sir Edward Manning said, “I think we need to talk, Home Secretary. Don’t you?”
They retreated to Alexia’s private office. Sir Edward Manning shut the door and locked it.
“That was him, wasn’t it? That was William Hamlin.”
Alexia nodded. “I think so. Yes.”
“He knew you. You knew each other.”
Alexia looked past Sir Edward out of the window. Two barges were making their stately way down the Thames, as leisurely and untroubled as a pair of drowsy swans.
This is reality. London, Parliament, my life with Teddy. The present.
I am Alexia De Vere. I am the home secretary of Great Britain.
The past is gone.
Only the past wasn’t gone. It was outside in Parliament Square, grabbing hold of her in broad daylight, demanding to be heard. It was threatening everything she had become, everything she had worked for.
“Home Secretary?” Sir Edward Manning disturbed her reverie. “What is your connection with William Hamlin?”
“We have no connection, Edward.”
“I don’t believe that, Home Secretary,” the civil servant said bluntly. “What you tell me will go no further than these four walls. But I need to know what’s going on. I can’t do my job otherwise.”
Alexia’s mind raced.
Should she trust him?
Did she have a choice?
“We knew one another slightly. As kids. That’s all. I haven’t laid eyes on Billy in almost forty years.”
“But you chose not to share this information with the police. Why?”
“Because I was born in the United States and grew up there. Nobody in this country knows that—not the media, not the party, not even personal friends—and I’d like it to stay that way.”
Sir Edward Manning took this in. It was quite a revelation. To have made it as far in public life as Alexia De Vere, and to have successfully concealed such a big piece of one’s past, was quite a feat.
“May I ask why you chose to conceal this, Home Secretary? After all, being American is hardly a crime.”
“Indeed. But I’m not American, Edward. I renounced my citizenship years ago, before I stood for Parliament. My whole adult life has been spent in this country and I consider myself completely English. Besides, I didn’t conceal anything. I’ve never been asked about my childhood other than in the most generic of ways. It’s never come up, that’s all.”
“But it’s coming up now.”
Alexia sighed. “Yes. That night, at Kingsmere, the figure on the CCTV footage. There was something familiar about him. I couldn’t put my finger on it at first. But then it came back to me.”
“You recognized Hamlin?”
“Not definitively. I didn’t know it was him. I wasn’t sure. Like I say, I hadn’t seen him since we were children. But as soon as Commissioner Grant mentioned the name . . .”
She left the sentence hanging.
“Did you know he’d been in prison?”
Alexia hesitated for a moment. Then she said, “Yes. The case was in the news at the time.”
“About the child who drowned.”
“Yes.” Alexia shivered. Just hearing the word drowned still made her blood run cold. “But I knew nothing about what had happened to him since. His mental illness, the delusions, all of that stuff.”
Sir Edward Manning asked, “Why do you think Hamlin would want to contact you now?”
“I have no idea. You saw his file. He’s had business and financial problems, as well as his mental health issues.”
Sir Edward Manning cast his mind back. He did remember reading something about bankruptcy. Hamlin’s auto-repair business going under during the recession.
“You think he may be after money?”
Alexia shrugged. “Like I said, I have no idea.”
“Were you lovers?”
The question was so blunt, for a moment Alexia was blindsided.
“I . . . we . . . does it matter? For heaven’s sake, Edward, it was forty years ago!”
“It may matter, Home Secretary. Does Hamlin know anything that he could use to blackmail you?”
Alexia looked away. “No. Not that I can think of.”
“What about sexual peccadilloes, things of that nature?”
“No.” Alexia shot her PPS a look that could have frozen fire.
“Drugs?”
“No! I mean maybe the odd joint. It was the sixties.” She ran a hand through her hair. “Look, when Commissioner Grant confirmed that the man at Kingsmere that night was Billy Hamlin, I was curious as much as anything. That’s why I asked you for his file, privately. But what I read disturbed me. Clearly Billy isn’t well. He’s psychotic, he develops weird obsessions with famous individuals. And now he shows up here, in England, behaving in a very confused, aggressive manner toward me. I don’t like it.”
“Nor do I, Home Secretary,” Sir Edward Manning said with feeling. “Nor do I.”
For a few moments silence fell. On one level, Alexia had told Edward the truth. She didn’t know what Billy Hamlin wanted from her. He’d mentioned his daughter being in danger, but according to his psychiatrist’s report, unspecified threats to the lives of loved ones were a common delusional theme. Or perhaps it was money he needed. Who knew?
What Alexia did know, with certainty, was that she wasn’t about to let Billy Hamlin destroy her life. She’d worked too hard for her career, and her marriage, to allow them to be threatened by a ghost from the past, a past to which she no longer felt any connection. Not while she still had breath in her body.
Besides, the girl that Billy Hamlin was looking for was already dead.
Alexia De Vere had buried Toni Gilletti a long, long time ago.
“Edward?”
“Home Secretary?”
“I’d like you to get rid of him.”
The hairs on Sir Edward Manning’s neck stood on end. He looked at his boss with new eyes.
There’s a determination there, a ruthlessness that I didn’t appreciate before. She’s a street fighter. A survivor.
Just like me.
What had Hamlin shouted at Alexia, when the police dragged him away?
I know who you are.
Sir Edward Manning wished he could say the same. Not least because his own survival might now depend on it. He thought about Sergei Milescu and the faceless people paying him. He remembered the sharp pain of the kitchen knife as it cut through his skin, the cold terror of being tied to his own bed, helpless, with the blade hovering over his genitals. He remembered the camera and the awful, degrading things that Sergei had made him do.
Edward Manning had secrets of his own.
For a tense few seconds the civil servant and the cabinet minister eyed each other across the desk like two desert lizards. Unblinking, cold-blooded, and as still as statues, each assessed the other’s intentions. Were they to be hunting partners, ranged against Billy Hamlin? Or was one of them the predator and one the prey?
“Yes, Home Secretary. I can get rid of him. If that’s what you want.”
“It is, Edward. It is.”
“Then consider it done.” Sir Edward Manning got up to leave the room. When he reached the door he turned. “Just one small question, Home Secretary. I heard Hamlin calling you ‘Toni.’ Why was that?”
“It was a nickname I had as a little girl,” Alexia answered unhesitatingly. “To be honest with you, I can’t remember why. So strange, hearing it again all these years later.”
Sir Edward Manning said, “I can imagine.”
The door closed and he was gone.
It was all over so quickly.
There were no lawyers, no phone calls, no court appearances or appeals. After Alexia De Vere refused to see him, the police threw Billy Hamlin into the back of a van with six other protesters and kept him in a cell at Westminster police station. A few hours later a smartly dressed man arrived to claim him.
“Mr. Hamlin? There’s been a misunderstanding. You can come with me.”
The man seemed avuncular and kind. He had an educated accent and was wearing a suit. Billy felt quite safe getting into his chauffeur-driven car, assuming that they were heading straight to the Home Office. In fact, as soon as the car door closed, Billy was restrained and injected with some sort of sedative. He was dimly aware of being transferred from the fancy car to another, anonymous-looking white van and driven to Heathrow. After that, it was like a dream. His passport was taken, then returned with various hostile-looking stamps in black ink on its last pages. He was escorted, luggageless, onto an ordinary Virgin Atlantic passenger plane, strapped into his seat, and, as he fought the drug-induced sleep that inevitably claimed him, launched into the gray, drizzly sky. When he awoke, he was in New York, dumped penniless and alone back on U.S. soil like an unwanted package returned to sender.
Dazed, he found an airport bench to sit on and rummaged through his pockets for his cell phone.
Gone.
No! It couldn’t be gone! What was going to happen when the voice called? Who would answer?
Billy Hamlin started to shake.
Why hadn’t Alexia De Vere listened to him? Why hadn’t he made her listen?
He had failed. Now there would be blood, more blood, and it would be on his hands.
He wept.
“Mr. Hamlin?”
Billy looked up, defeated.
He didn’t struggle as the strong arms gripped him and carried him away.
Sidney Sheldon's the Tides of Memory Page 13