Keeping Secrets

by Andrew Rosenheim

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning, let’s try and extract proper names. If we can isolate them then it might just be manageable to view the context in which they occur, then decide if that tells us anything.’

  Tells us, thought Renoir – this was a good sign. ‘But, Ticky,’ he said, ‘there’re so many emails and documents on his PC that there must be millions of words. Sorting all those isn’t going to help.’

  ‘You’d be surprised.’ Ticky’s voice was calm, yet somehow also hopeful. ‘Word frequency throws out a really sharp curve. Let’s run a sort and you’ll see what I mean.’

  ‘The thing people don’t realise,’ Ticky explained, ‘is that for every million words that get written, an astonishingly high percentage are the same words over and over again. An average person may know thirty thousand words in the sense of knowing what they mean, but they actually use about eight thousand of them, tops. Articles, conjunctions, connectives – “and”, “the” and “of” probably account for at least fifty per cent of the occurrences if you take a large enough sample. And the one hundred most common words account for over seventy-five per cent.’

  ‘That still leaves an awful lot of other words.’

  ‘Sure. But we’ll run them against a lexicon and throw all the matches out. That should leave only proper names.’

  ‘How long is it going to take to do this?’

  There was a snort from Ticky’s end. ‘I said I’d help you, didn’t I? Let me send you a utility so you can get started.’

  ‘But, Ticky, what if this guy’s name is also a common noun. What if he’s called “Jimmy Blacksmith” or “Malcolm White”?’

  ‘In that case you’re done for. The only way to handle that would be to go through the entire word list and disambiguate every occurrence. That would take you six months, I figure, so you just have to hope that’s not the case.’

  And as he went to bed in the earliest hours of Monday morning, the professional part of him was optimistic; his personal feelings he was trying to ignore. If Kate were in trouble (and he had no doubt she was), what if he couldn’t help get her out of it?

  Twelve hours later, after a bad pizza in Wantage, two walks around the Old Orchard and an awful lot of daytime television, the program Ticky had emailed him at last finished its processing. It came back with 434 isolated proper names, reduced to the 83 which were addressed in an email or letter from Benedict, or which came from them to Benedict.

  In mid-afternoon, he left a message on the answering machine at the flat: ‘Hi, it’s me. I think maybe it’s better if I stay down here this week, give us time for things to calm down. I need to think before we talk, and maybe you feel the same way. I hope we could meet up here at the weekend.’ He paused. ‘I love you,’ he said, feeling awkward declaring this to a machine. ‘Take care.’

  The utility had listed the names with their immediate context, and he spent the evening looking through them, eliminating anything that seemed completely conventional – Dear Mr Peterson, I am happy that you have received the dividend from Flanner Agricultural Holdings at long last, and am sorry for the mix-up about your new address. Etc., etc.

  By the time he drove into London Tuesday morning, late enough to be confident Kate would have left the flat to go to work, he had reduced the list to nine names which might, through a stretch of his imagination, suggest some sort of business relationship that wasn’t above board.

  He left the car on a meter in Queen’s Gate, then went up and retrieved a digital video camera from the hall closet of the flat. Kate had also been living off pizza, he noted sadly, looking at the empty carton on the kitchen table, and a half-drunk bottle of Burgundy. In their bedroom a paperback thriller sat pages down on the bed, which was unmade. He packed an old navy bag with clothes for three nights, took care to leave no sign of his having been there, and waited until the stairwell was empty before leaving the building.

  He was gone two days. Five of the nine names were in London; he would deal with them later and get the travelling out of the way first.

  He started with the most remote, Charles Linklater, Summer Copse Cottage, Ludlow, Shropshire. The instigating email was from Benedict to his secretary. Among a list of terse instructions, one said, C present to Charles Linklater, followed by the address.

  He arrived in mid-afternoon, only to find he’d made a long trip for nothing. Charles Linklater, he discovered from the Mrs Linklater who opened the door and proved unusually forthcoming, was nine years old and Benedict’s godson. The senior Mr Linklater now lived in London, she informed Renoir through pursed lips, where he could be found shacked up with the next Mrs Linklater to be.

  The next stop was Oxford, and he drove south in the late afternoon, stopping on the outskirts of town and booking into a Travel Lodge. He was tempted to go into the city to look around, but in working mode he avoided distractions, however pleasant. So he ate a terrible dinner in a motorway restaurant next door, watched two movies on Sky in his room and slept badly, waking repeatedly as lorries changed gears and pulled in for petrol. In the morning he waited until Arthur Kennedy would have gone to work, then rang his house in Summertown (he could almost walk there, he noted from his local map), where his wife answered the phone. ‘Is Mr Kennedy in?’ he asked, making no effort to sound less American.

  ‘No, he’s in college.’

  ‘College?’ He was not expecting this.

  ‘Who’s calling?’

  ‘I’m with Redwill Vacation Homes. We’re offering special discounts on luxury timeshare villas in Orlando Florida. I’d be real happy to send you further information and arrange for a free ten-minute video to be sent to you which highlights—’

  Mrs Kennedy interrupted. ‘No thank you. I thought you were one of his students. And we already have a holiday home, so thank you very much.’

  ‘But let me just tell you a little more—’

  ‘Goodbye,’ she and hung up the phone.

  The email prised out of Benedict’s inbox hadn’t given any indication of Kennedy’s vocation. Dear Arthur (if I may), Would three o’clock at Boodle’s (my club) in St James’s Street suit? That should give us enough time to go through the numbers.

  It took him most of the rest of the morning to locate the college where Mr Kennedy taught. He had already Googled the name and got 53,000 hits, which was the practical equivalent of getting none, but after several frustrating phone calls succeeded only in teaching him that Oxford University didn’t seem to have a central telephone number or a faculty directory, he suddenly thought to try Google again, and with a refined search of Arthur Kennedy + Oxford narrowed it down to 493 results. Twenty minutes slog later he was confident he’d found his man; Arthur Kennedy, former fellow and tutor of Modern Languages at Christ Church, author of a biography of Cervantes, two editions of El Cid, and editor of Romance Language Quarterly.

  And Renoir got luckier still. For if Arthur Kennedy was past retirement age, then he almost certainly would have taught a certain undergraduate twenty years before, a competent speaker of French and Spanish, the stockbroker and brother-in-law of Kate Palmer, Alastair Scruton. Further proof to Renoir that a certain kind of England was inhabited by ten thousand people who all knew each other.

  Yes, Alastair remembered him. ‘Terrible old fart even then,’ he said on the phone, sounding relaxed after lunch. ‘He must be positively ancient now. How did you say you met him?’

  ‘With an old friend from the States,’ said Renoir, who had his story prepared. ‘He teaches Spanish Lit at Berkeley. We had coffee in Kennedy’s rooms.’

  ‘I’m surprised Kennedy’s still got them. Isn’t he retired?’

  ‘I don’t know. But he remembered you fondly.’

  ‘That must be the onset of senility. We didn’t get on at all.’

  ‘He seemed to know a lot about the City.’

  ‘What?’ Alastair was incredulous. ‘I don’t believe it. He was the epitome of an academic when I knew him. Lived in a scummy little house in North Oxford
– bicycled to college, dressed like a librarian. You sure you have the right man?’

  ‘I think so. He seemed to know your friend Benedict as well.’

  ‘My friend? Ah, you’re being facetious, Renoir. I think you’re in danger of losing your Americanness. How on earth does he know Benedict?’ He thought for a second. ‘I know. It must be through Benedict’s wife. She’s very keen on Spanish stuff.’

  ‘I thought she was Turkish.’

  ‘An interest and a nationality are not mutually exclusive. I take back my suggestion that you are no longer quite so American.’

  ‘Thank you Alastair,’ said Renoir, in as dry an English manner as he could manage, thinking that there was no point being lucky if your luck was about the wrong man.

  *

  He dreaded the prospect of a second night in the Travelodge, but wanted to stay clear of the Gatehouse in case Kate rang, and the London flat was out of the question. He didn’t seem to be getting anywhere, but he wasn’t sure if he expected to. Once engaged on the hunt, with its minor discoveries, minor setbacks, strokes of luck and complete dead ends, you sometimes forgot all about the chances of actually finding what you were looking for.

  He slept badly again, and woke in the middle of the night. Had he been dreaming about the farm again? He wasn’t sure, but he wished that Kate were there, although, as he recognised, it was not so much the physical separation that bothered him as the fact that she was not there in his head to call upon. Better get used to it, he thought, feeling so uncertain of her that he was already hedging his emotional bets. He was heading back to where he had spent most of his adult life. On his own.

  Would she have levelled with him if he had been different with her? What had she said? I can’t make you tell me, Jack. You have to want to tell me.

  Why couldn’t he? He tried it out and saw at once it was . . . impossible.

  I saw my uncle murdered.

  Terrible, I’m sure, said the voice of the solitary Renoir (the black-and-white one now again in charge), but doesn’t trauma diminish over time?

  I was certain I was going to be murdered too. Then I was saved when my uncle’s girlfriend shot the man holding me. Killed him with one shot. I had his blood on me.

  It sounds like many hostage situations. At least she didn’t miss.

  And I killed a man myself.

  Africa is full of children who’ve killed people. You’ll get over it. You have got over it. Pull yourself together.

  Yes, that was right – minimise he told himself. Far better than talk, or talk therapy. That wouldn’t work. Why dismantle a lifelong strategy – minimise minimise – that had done its job?

  He remembered meeting a marine named Makinson, who’d survived the Lebanon barracks bombing. Describing the explosion, the unbelievable carnage, his eyes had started to glaze, and it had been obvious that the memory was with Makinson as if he had been blown up only the day before. Three years of seeing shrinks and Makinson hadn’t been helped at all.

  To Renoir, someone like Makinson was living proof that people are hard-wired – not blank plates on which a big pile of slop had fallen, waiting there to be cleaned up by a short course of intensive psychotherapy. Renoir thought Makinson was still a mess because he hadn’t learned he had to clean it up by himself.

  Renoir had. Renoir coped, Renoir managed. On a basis of telling no one anything about it at all. Only here, in England, had he allowed himself to recall even the sweet side of that time. He’d actually told Emily about the apple-loaded life of Will and Maris and Ellie the dog. But never a hint of the rest. Certainly not to Emily and never even to Kate. Not to anyone. Maris, he thought, as he finally began to fall asleep, I never told a single soul.

  In the morning he drove in the warming sun to Brighton, late enough for the motorways to be uncrowded. Further east, the town of Deal would be next, after this visit doubtless proved another dud.

  Parking in Brighton was a nightmare. He had a map off the Internet, but discovered that in the middle of Brighton all the car parks were full. He finally left the car in a supermarket lot on the town’s outskirts and walked in the general direction of the sea.

  He found the Grand Hotel easily enough, and, resisting the temptation to stop and eat lunch, forged ahead, into a nearby quarter with narrow streets. This was The Lanes, and he wound his way through its sinuous Bohemian turns until he came to a slightly wider street, the one he wanted. It was lined by small Victorian terraced houses on either side, which had somehow survived the 1960s urban renewal that seemed to have ruined the historical interior of virtually any British town of size. Most of the houses had been recently gentrified, newly painted in seaside pastels by their occupants.

  Number 27, the one he was looking for, was in poorer condition, with the white of the windowsills yellowing, and a front door that was battleship grey. He hadn’t known what to expect. The evidence this time had been a letter, apparently typed personally by Benedict, which was in itself suspicious. Dear Mr Urowski, I am delighted that you are interested, and if we could meet next Thursday I feel confident we can iron out any remaining details. Shall we say 11 a.m. in the lobby of the Grand Hotel? Yours sincerely, Conrad Benedict.

  The bell worked and Renoir could see a figure come along the hallway inside, magnified by the warble of the door’s glass pane. He was surprised when a young man opened the door. Dressed in a brown sports jacket but no tie, he looked like a club doorman, out of type in this neighbourhood of web designers, for he was powerfully built. He hadn’t shaved, and looked distinctly unfriendly.

  ‘Hello,’ said Renoir brightly. Behind the man someone was moving around at the back of the house.

  ‘Hello to you too. What do you want?’

  ‘My name is Renoir and I’m looking for Richard Urowski. Is that you?’

  ‘No,’ the man said impatiently. ‘You’re looking for my father. He died two months ago. What do want with him anyway? Are you selling something?’

  ‘No, no. Nothing like that.’ Renoir struggled to explain, half tempted to quit right there, make his apologies and leave. What a waste this day had turned out to be. But at least if Richard Urowski were dead he wouldn’t have to concoct anything – for this call, he had come up with a special deal on vacation cruises, with a brochure to show that he’d found in the Sunday Times. ‘I wanted to talk to him. I thought maybe he could clear up something for me. It’s not important. I’m sorry to have bothered you.’

  The younger Urowski was starting to shut the door in Renoir’s face when a voice came from the hallway right behind him, where a very old woman was standing, looking distinctly doddery on her pins. Her voice was thin and reedy, though Renoir did not catch what she said.

  ‘It’s nothing, Mum,’ said the son. ‘Just someone looking for Dad.’

  She came up behind her son, a small woman wearing an apron. She had a rich head of grey curls, and wore glasses thick as goggles. ‘Oh, you’re not the same man,’ she said once she had peered at Renoir.

  ‘No,’ he said.

  ‘Did the other man send you?’ she asked. There was agitation in her voice, which despite her Polish name was perfectly English – the voice of a seaside boarding house landlady, perhaps.

  ‘No one sent me,’ he said.

  ‘Then what—’ the son began to demand, but the mother interrupted.

  ‘Hush,’ she said firmly, putting a hand on the elbow of her son, who towered above her. She lifted her chin to address Renoir. ‘Did my husband do something wrong?’

  ‘No, I don’t believe he did. That’s not why I’m here.’

  ‘Did the other man do something wrong?’

  Renoir hesitated, then said, ‘I think he probably did.’

  ‘I knew it!’ the woman said. ‘Terry,’ she commanded as she turned and began to shuffle towards the kitchen. ‘Take the gentleman’s coat while I put the kettle on.’

  Settled in the kitchen, with Terry looming from the doorway and Mrs Urowski sitting across the Formica table from him,
her hands clasped and elbows propped on top of a biscuit tin, Renoir wondered how to proceed. Fortunately Mrs Urowski required no prompting.

  ‘You have to understand it was a thousand pounds. In cash. And after that, one hundred and fifty pounds every month, in cash also. Three fifty pound notes in an envelope. They came like clockwork every month. It made a difference, you know, especially once my husband was in hospital.’

  ‘I’m sure it did,’ said Renoir sympathetically. The money – how much, how often, how it arrived – was obviously the key component in Mrs Urowski’s memory of it all. ‘But what I don’t quite understand is what your husband had to do in return.’

  ‘Do?’ She seemed greatly surprised by the question. ‘There wasn’t anything he had to do. Once he’d signed the papers, I mean.’

  ‘Were there a lot of them?’ asked Renoir, trying to feel his way.

  ‘Just the one. Opening the account.’ She sipped her tea, which had far less milk added than Renoir’s. ‘Actually, there may have been a few other ones.’

  ‘Did your husband know what he was signing?’

  ‘Certainly. Though he was happy to play dumb. He told me later he’d written it down. Just in case.’

  ‘In case?’

  ‘In case there was any funny business. Richard said, “Margaret, should there be any kind of trouble I need to protect our interests.”’ She paused and smiled a little self-consciously about her husband’s description of their assets.

  ‘But there wasn’t any trouble, was there?’

  ‘No, and to be honest we would have forgotten all about it. Except that every month the envelope arrived. I can’t pretend I didn’t notice that. Who wouldn’t? Though once my husband died the money stopped.’

  ‘It did?’

  ‘Yes. Immediately he passed away. You might have thought they’d wait a month. If only’ – she seemed to be searching for words – ‘from respect. But no, that was that.’

  Renoir asked her, ‘Did you ever happen to see what he wrote down?’

  She looked at him again with mild disbelief. ‘See?’ she said. ‘I have it upstairs.’