The factory had vanished many years ago, of course, along with numerous outbuildings. The photographs Holgate had shown Nick revealed what amounted to a small industrial estate on the site in the 1950s and 60s. All he could see in the distance now was a couple of low structures and a radar dome.
He followed the line of the chain-link perimeter fence as it rose and dipped with the level of the cliffs, wondering where and how Peter and Alison had entered the site. He wasn’t in any serious doubt they had gone in, though for what purpose exactly he wasn’t sure. Neither was Holgate. Whatever Tom Noy had told them he’d kept quiet about in the aftermath of the drowning. So had Martin Caldwell. The shock of Alison’s death – and Peter’s presumed death – had effectively silenced them, perhaps because it had frightened them. And with good reason.
Tom Noy had taken the secret to his grave in 1982, killed by liver cancer at the age of fifty-seven. ‘There was never any danger of the MoD overspending on pensions for Nancekuke workers,’ Holgate had wryly remarked.
As for Caldwell, at some point he’d obviously stopped being frightened. Or perhaps the discovery that Peter Ellery probably hadn’t died that night had finally driven him to act. But still, it seemed, there was good reason to be frightened. Even forty-two years later.
Half an hour’s stiff walking showed Nick all of the little there was to be seen of Nancekuke – or RAF Portreath as it had officially been renamed. An old airfield with a few buildings on a wind-scoured plateau on the edge of the land high above the Atlantic Ocean. Its death-dealing past had been erased, its buildings demolished, its materials buried, its land decontaminated. All gone. And best forgotten. If you believed what you read in the newspaper.
The signs on the fence remained, however, as uncompromising echoes of that past. MINISTRY OF DEFENCE PROPERTY – KEEP OUT. Keep out; stay away; pretend it never happened. That was the message. Whatever it was that had happened … officially hadn’t. There was no story. There was no secret. Nothing.
Except the clean, cold wind blowing in.
And the question, lodged in Nick’s mind, sharpened by the belief – the growing certainty – that Peter Ellery was his father. What happened that night? What really happened?
Haruto admitted to Wada he’d never eaten at the restaurant where they met at twelve thirty that day. But it wasn’t far from his office, its sushi came highly recommended and he’d engineered a full hour’s break to spend with his sister, so she stifled her objections to the tastelessly large ‘Hello Kitty’ figurine waggling its paw at her from the corner of the bar.
It transpired Haruto hadn’t spoken to their mother for several weeks. ‘Every time I think of calling her I think of how she’ll cross-question me about my social life, and decide it can wait,’ he admitted. Wada sympathized. ‘Are you still working for that private detective?’ he asked.
‘Sort of,’ she replied. Well, that was true enough. Kodaka was dead and technically she was no longer his employee, but she was carrying on his work.
‘So, is this a holiday or a business trip?’
‘What would you say if I told you I was trying to track down one of the men responsible for Hiko’s death?’
‘I’d say they hanged Asahara and that other guy, Sasada, last year. I’d say that pretty well settles it.’ He gave her a sideways look. ‘But it’s not settled for you, I’m guessing.’
‘There’s someone else. Behind Sasada. A shadow of someone else, you could say.’
‘I don’t know what that means.’
‘If anyone asks where I’ve gone, tell them … California … or Alaska.’
‘Where are you really going?’
‘Where the shadow leads.’
‘You realize that sounds totally mad, right?’
‘You think I’m mad?’
‘No. I’ve never met anyone less mad than you, Umiko. You are the sanest person in the world. I mean, with what happened to Hiko, you could have … lost it. But you didn’t. You just … went on.’
‘The private detective, Kodaka?’ She hadn’t decided until this moment to tell Haruto about Kodaka. But now she felt she had to. ‘Maybe you should know. He’s dead.’
Haruto started with surprise. ‘How?’
‘Hit-and-run.’
‘Does this have anything to do with—’
‘Oh yes. Of course.’ She turned towards Haruto. ‘The investigation involves taking a few risks.’
‘A few risks? You’ve just told me your boss has been … murdered.’
‘I think so, yes. It looks like it.’
‘Then … drop the investigation. While you still can. Hiko’s dead. The guy who actually released the gas is dead too. And it all happened more than twenty years ago.’
‘It’s only a few days since they killed Kodaka.’
‘Who are “they”?’
‘I am not going to tell you. That would endanger you. And I am the one taking the risks, not you. Big sister talking, OK? Better you know nothing.’
His expression knotted faintly, a sign of exasperation. ‘Then why tell me anything at all?’
‘Because I need you to understand this is serious.’
‘I get that, Umiko. What I don’t get is why you’ve come to New York.’
‘To lay a false trail. To make them think I’ve done what they want me to do. Give up. But I am not going to give up.’
‘No.’ Haruto shook his head dolefully. ‘Of course you’re not.’
‘So, you will help, won’t you? By telling anyone who asks that I’m touring the United States?’
‘Sure.’ He didn’t look happy about it. But he looked as if he meant it, which counted for more. ‘What else would I do?’
‘And don’t worry about me. I’m tougher than I look.’
‘I know. But are you tough enough?’
She smiled at him. ‘Well, we’ll find out, won’t we?’
After walking back to Porthtowan, Nick drove round to RAF Portreath’s main entrance on the inland side of the site. From there he had a closer view of the buildings he’d already seen at a distance. There was a guard post and a camera-monitored gate as well. That was all. Nancekuke’s present wasn’t much like its past.
If only he could go back in time to that June evening in 1977 and follow Peter Ellery and Alison Parker after they left Martin Caldwell on Porthtowan beach and climbed the path he’d climbed himself that morning, he’d know. He’d understand. Barring that, there was only one way to find out what had happened.
He had to find the man who knew. His father. And ask him.
Half an hour later, he was on the A30, heading east, towards London, and the start of his search.
Haruto returned to work after his sushi lunch with Wada. She’d be gone from his apartment by the time he returned there that evening, so there was an unspoken poignancy to their goodbyes as they parted outside Nomura’s Worldwide Plaza HQ.
From there Wada walked out on to Fifth Avenue and wandered slowly north, towards Central Park. She sensed, amidst the tumult of traffic and bustling pedestrians, the security of utter inconspicuousness. One small, solitary, middle-aged Japanese woman making her way along the streets of New York. No one would have thought she was in a hurry. No one would have thought she had any bold or hazardous intentions. No one would have thought anything about her at all.
And that was how she liked it.
ELEVEN
IT WAS A long and wearying drive to london from cornwall through the Friday afternoon traffic. Nick reached Catford as a chill dusk was setting in. He’d worried April might be out, but there were lights on in the house, so it looked as if he was in luck. Which was unlucky for April. She had questions to answer. And Nick meant to ask them.
‘Nicky,’ she almost sang as she opened the door to him. ‘You should have let me know you were coming.’
‘I’m not interrupting anything, am I?’
‘No.’ She frowned slightly. ‘But I’m going out soon.’
‘Got a date?’
> ‘Since you ask, yes.’
‘Nan?’
‘Yeah.’
‘That’s nice for you.’
‘But there’s time for a quick drink. Do you want a beer? Or a glass of wine?’
‘No thanks.’
They were in the kitchen by now. April swung the door of the fridge open, lifted out a bottle of white wine and poured herself a glass. She waggled the bottle invitingly at Nick. ‘Sure?’
‘Nothing for me, thanks.’
‘OK.’ She put the bottle back in the fridge and took a sip of wine. ‘How are things?’
‘Things?’
‘You don’t seem quite your normal self, Nicky. What’s wrong?’
‘Quite a lot, April, actually. Quite a fucking lot.’
‘So … tell me what’s up.’
He showed her the photograph Holgate had lent him, then. The photograph of five young protesters standing by the Redruth to Portreath road on Easter Saturday, 1977. He didn’t say anything. He just let her hold it and look at the black-and-white images of the younger versions of herself and her friends: of Caro and her holding the YOU ARE ENTERING A CHEMICAL WARFARE ZONE banner; of Martin Caldwell and Alison Parker forcing leaflets on passing motorists; and of Peter Ellery gazing across the road into the camera.
‘Christ,’ she said, taking a big swallow of wine. ‘This is memory lane stuff.’ She was trying to sound unfazed, trying desperately to pretend there was no lie staring back at her from the photograph.
‘Why did you and Caro switch fathers on me, April?’
‘We didn’t …’ The words died in her throat. ‘Where’d you get this, Nicky?’
‘Barry Holgate. Retired Western Morning News reporter. If it matters.’
‘Have you been down to Exeter?’
‘I have. To eighteen Barnfield Hill, as a matter of fact.’
‘You can’t believe anything Marty says. He’s …’
‘Missing, actually. Whereabouts unknown. I haven’t seen him. But Holgate told me most of what I needed to know.’
‘You can’t believe anything he says either. Holgate? I remember him. Typical journalist. Anything for a story. He didn’t like any of us. We weren’t his type. Well, not his readers’ type I—’
Nick grabbed the photograph out of her hand so forcefully some wine splashed out of her glass on to the floor. They looked at each other in silence for a moment. In her face Nick saw guilt and regret and something very like fear. ‘Could we just drop all that crap, please, April? It’s beside the point, isn’t it? I don’t know what’s going on with Martin. A lot, that’s for sure. But what I do know – what’s glaringly obvious – is that the guy in this photograph, the one who isn’t Martin, looks just like me when I was that age. I mean, it’s clear, isn’t it?’ He held the picture in front of her. ‘Well, isn’t it?’
She didn’t reply. He could hear her breathing, shallowly and rapidly. He was distressing her and he hated doing it on account of all the love she’d given him for as long as he could remember. But he didn’t hate it enough to stop. She didn’t owe him much. But she did owe him the truth about his father.
‘Peter Ellery was my father, not Geoff Nolan. You’re not going to deny that, are you?’
Her silence continued, growing heavier all the time. Eventually, she said, ‘I need to sit down.’
She walked over to the table and lowered herself very slowly into a chair. She took another gulp of wine. The glass was nearly empty. ‘Pass me the bottle, would you, Nicky?’
He took it out of the fridge, poured some into her glass and sat down opposite her.
‘For what it’s worth,’ she said, forming her words with evident care, ‘I told Caro I thought it was a mistake to pass Geoff off as your father. I lived with it, though. I backed her up in the … little white lie.’
‘Was it so little?’
‘Well, Peter was dead. Everyone was sure of that. And you were approaching an age when you had to be told something. Then Geoff died. Providentially. Conveniently. So …’
‘What would have been so bad about the truth?’
‘Caro predicted – and the way you’re behaving now goes to show she was probably right – that if you knew your father’s death was just a legal presumption, that nobody could be sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he was dead, then you’d never stop wondering if he was actually alive and well and out there, somewhere in the world. She worried it would become an obsession, something that would … distort your life. And she wanted the best for you, Nicky. We both did. A phantom father to chase didn’t sound like the best to us. Whereas Geoff, dead and definitely buried, was … preferable. A whole lot preferable.’
‘But the others – Martin, Miranda – must have realized I was actually Peter’s son.’
‘Caro never told them who the father was. And the resemblance wasn’t obvious until you were older, by which time they didn’t often see you and there was no reason for them to challenge the Geoff Nolan version of your paternity. I guess they decided to let sleeping dogs lie.’
‘I suppose they did. But then, of course, there were a lot of sleeping dogs to choose from, weren’t there, April? I mean, taking Peter Ellery out of my life was one thing. Taking out everything about how Alison Parker died and he supposedly died with her … well, that was quite another.’
‘Telling you about all that might have made you curious about Peter. And if you ever saw a photograph of him …’
‘The game was up.’
She swallowed some more wine and looked at him, honestly and openly. ‘We did what we thought was best for you, Nicky, we really did. What difference does it make which of two dead men was actually your biological father?’
‘None at all, I suppose. Unless the one who was isn’t dead after all. You wouldn’t have done your best for me then, would you?’
‘But he is dead. There’s absolutely no reason to think otherwise.’
‘Really? Are you sure Martin Caldwell hasn’t found a reason?’
‘Marty’s always wanted to believe Peter’s alive. To assuage some of the guilt he feels about what happened that night, I suppose. He wants to believe it so badly he’ll twist the facts into any shape that suits him.’
‘Did you know what they were going down to Nancekuke to do?’
‘Not at the time. Caro and I didn’t trust Peter’s informant.’
‘Tom Noy?’
‘That’s right. We just didn’t think he was reliable. He was so embittered about how the MoD had treated him, you couldn’t believe a word he said. Peter and Alison thought otherwise. We agreed to disagree. They obviously decided it was better not to tell us what they were planning. Marty went along basically because he was so gone on Alison he’d have done anything she suggested. And she was … made of warrior stuff. Handing out leaflets and waving a banner was too tame for her. She wanted … engagement. Marty told us later they’d intended to break into Nancekuke to film stocks of sarin and something even more sinister Noy claimed had been produced there. He didn’t tell the police that and neither did we. We were all scared stiff we’d be arrested as their accessories. It was a terrible time. Alison dead; Peter presumed dead; Marty in full meltdown mode; Miranda blaming us for letting them go down there in the first place; Geoff obsessed with the idea the police would find his drugs stash; and Vinod hardly saying a word. We didn’t go to Alison’s funeral, you know. We couldn’t face her family. It was way up in Lincolnshire, but … I’ve always felt ashamed about that.’
‘The police must have known you were holding out on them.’
‘That depends on how much the MoD told them. They wouldn’t have wanted any information leaking out about what went on at Nancekuke. Or what measures they took against intruders. Maybe they were happy for the police inquiry to go nowhere.’
‘And so were you?’
‘There was nothing we could do to bring Alison or Peter back, so in the end we … tried to put it behind us.’
‘Where it stayed. Until now
.’
April sighed. ‘I’m sorry, Nicky. Truly I am.’
‘I know you and Caro thought you were protecting me, April. But it seems to me you were protecting yourselves as well.’
She looked at him without evasiveness. One of April’s most endearing features was her willingness to confront her own failings when she had to. There were tears welling in her eyes as she spoke. ‘It’s true.’
‘And what you said about Martin persuading himself to believe Peter was alive? Didn’t you and Caro persuade yourselves to believe the exact opposite?’
‘I suppose we did.’
‘I had a right to know.’
‘Yes. And we denied you that. We just never … thought of what we were doing in those terms. What a bloody mess.’ She drained her glass. ‘Do you have any idea where Marty’s gone, Nicky?’
‘None at all. But I’m not the only one looking for him. There was a break-in at his flat.’
‘A break-in?’
‘Two, if you count the Japanese woman who helped herself to a spare key. Which didn’t turn out well for her. She got hit over the head by the man who stole Martin’s computer. He was Japanese as well, apparently.’
April’s mouth had fallen open. She stared at him in astonishment. ‘They were both Japanese?’
‘Yeah. Does that mean something to you?’
‘Did you meet the woman?’
‘No. She’d discharged herself from the hospital and taken off by the time I arrived. But Holgate met her.’
‘Do you know her name?’
‘Mimori Takenaga.’
The Fine Art of Invisible Detection Page 11