‘Who’s the new boy?’ Simon asked Richard, the office’s systems manager and resident gossip.
‘Monica Burrows.’ Richard raised an eyebrow. ‘She’s on secondment from the CIA.’
‘I see.’ Simon sat down at his own desk and switched on his computer to check his emails. He’d been out of the office for most of the past month. He glanced at Ian’s desk and a gamut of mixed emotions assailed him. A gut-wrenching guilt that it was he who had ended Ian’s life …
There were no words he could ever write that could put his feelings onto a page, nothing he could say to explain. He was his own judge and jury – never outwardly tried for his crime, but neither pardoned nor condemned and in a moral limbo for the rest of his life. And doubting more and more that this was the career for him.
Simon checked himself. It wasn’t Monica’s fault she’d been given the desk of a man who no longer existed …
‘Human life is like a bucket of water. Take out a cupful of it and the bucket fills over,’ someone had once said to him.
Pulling himself out of his reverie, he checked the time and realised he had only fifteen minutes before reporting for his meeting.
‘Hi,’ said an unfamiliar voice from behind him.
Simon turned round to see a tall brunette in a well-cut jacket and skirt. The woman was immaculate – blow-dried from head to toe. She held out her hand. ‘Monica Burrows, good to meet you.’
‘Simon Warburton.’ Simon shook her hand, noticing her smile was warm, but the perfectly made-up green eyes were cold.
‘Seems we’re desk neighbours,’ Monica purred as she sat down and crossed her long, slim legs. ‘Maybe you’ll help show me the ropes.’
‘Sure, but I’m afraid I’m on my way out.’ Simon stood up, nodded at her, then headed for the door.
‘See you around,’ he heard her say as he pushed it open.
Life goes on … he thought as he emerged from the lift on the top floor and walked along the thickly carpeted corridor. ‘Even when it doesn’t,’ he muttered as he went to make himself known to the faithful receptionist who sat in state alone on the top floor.
The strong morning sunlight was pouring in through the high windows. As he entered the room, Simon thought how frail the man looked, the bright light accentuating the deeply engraved lines on his face.
‘Good morning, sir,’ he said as he walked towards the desk.
‘Sit down, Warburton. Before we go any further, did you turn up anything on that private detective agency that James Harrison had engaged?’
‘The chap I interviewed from the agency told me that James Harrison had asked him to investigate what had happened to Niamh Deasy all those years ago in Ireland.’
‘Guilt in the last stages of his life,’ sighed the old man. ‘I presume they came up with nothing?’
‘No more than that she and the child died at the birth, sir.’
‘Well, at least I can take comfort that the British security service managed to cover their tracks sufficiently on that one. And the Marcus Harrison situation has been smoothed over, I take it?’
‘Yes, it’s been reported as a shooting accident, and I doubt anyone will dig deeper. His funeral was last month.’
‘Good. Now, this name that Miss Haslam gave you is interesting, very interesting indeed. I’d always wondered who it was our “Lady” trusted enough to deliver the damned letters. Of course, I should have thought of her long ago. She was certainly a close friend of our “Lady”, though if memory serves me, she’d left to marry by the time all this happened. I’ve got some men on it, but the chances are, she’s probably dead anyway.’
‘Probably, sir, but at this point any avenue is worth a shot.’
‘We’ve looked through every damned piece of paper in that attic. Any other hiding place that’s struck you, Warburton?’
‘I’m afraid not, although I’m seriously beginning to wonder whether he destroyed the letter, that maybe it just doesn’t exist any more. It’s obvious to me that the Harrison family know nothing of Sir James’s past.’
‘Look how close the Haslam girl came to discovering the truth. We were only lucky that Harrison’s Irish affair provided the perfect smokescreen.’ The old man sighed again. ‘He would have kept the damned thing and I cannot rest until that letter is found and destroyed. Mark my words, if we don’t get hold of it, then someone else will.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘As there seem to be few other options, I’m putting you back on duty with Zoe Harrison. The palace is dithering as to how to play the situation. HRH is still resisting all attempts to bring him to his senses. They’re having to go along with him for the present and hope the relationship peters out.’
Simon studied his hands, his heart sinking. ‘Yes, sir.’
‘He is also insisting that Miss Harrison and he begin to be seen out officially in public together. The palace has agreed to her attending a film premiere with him in a couple of weeks’ time. He’s also eager to move her, but they are resisting. She’s been away on a short holiday with her son for the past week, but she’s been told to expect you at Welbeck Street on Monday morning.’
‘Yes, sir. One last thing: Monica Burrows from the CIA – Jenkins told me she’ll be working alongside us. I presume she knows nothing?’
‘Absolutely not. Personally, I disapprove of all this getting into bed with other intelligence agencies, sharing methods and pooling ideas. Jenkins will put her on light surveillance work, spending time with members of the department, shadowing them, that sort of thing. Thank you, Warburton. We’ll speak at the usual time tomorrow.’
Simon left the office thinking how weary the old man seemed. But then he’d carried the secret alone for many, many years. And the burden of that was enough to sap the strength of the strongest constitution.
It was certainly sapping his.
‘Joanna!’ A pair of thick, hairy arms went around her shoulders and clasped her in a bear hug.
‘Hi, Alec.’ She was taken aback by his display of affection.
He dropped his arms and stood back to look at her. ‘How are you, love?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘You look terrible, girl. Skin and bone. Sure you’re okay?’
‘Yes. Honestly, Alec, I just want to get on with some work, try to forget all about the past few weeks.’
‘Right, well, I’ll see you for a sandwich in the local at one o’clock. There’s a few things I should fill you in on. Some … changes that have occurred since you went away. Go on, get off with you to your old desk and catch up with your emails.’ He winked at her and returned to his computer.
Joanna wandered across the office, breathing in its fuggy smell. No matter how many NO SMOKING notices the management posted, a cloud of cigarette smoke still hung permanently above the desks in the newsroom. Glad Alice’s chair next door to her was empty – she wanted some time to settle in without a barrage of questions – Joanna sat down and turned on her computer.
She stared sightlessly at the screen, as her mind continued to run over the new facts. Since she’d seen Dora, she’d compared further photos of the young Duke with that of the young Michael O’Connell in the programme. Any differences between the two men were virtually indistinguishable.
Taking Dora’s idea of a ‘double’, Joanna had come up with a vague outline of what might have happened: a young actor, very similar in looks and age to the Duke of York, plucked to play the part of his life. The Duke could not have been in Ireland at the time in question due to official engagements and the fact that his wife was pregnant, so it had to have been Michael O’Connell who had stayed in the coastguard’s house. And therefore it was Michael O’Connell who had the affair with Niamh Deasy. Poor Ciara had seen the picture of the Duke of York’s coronation on the front of the Irish Times ten years later and understandably thought it was he who had been staying at the house across the bay, he who’d had an affair with her dead sister. And, Joanna thought sadly, the letter, hidden for so many y
ears under the floorboards of the house, had probably been no more than the last few sad words of a dying woman to Michael, the man she loved.
If this was the case, why had Michael O’Connell changed his identity? What had he known that had provided him with a house the size of Welbeck Street, money, an aristocratic wife and huge success as an actor? And what about the love letter to ‘Siam’ from the mysterious lady – the letter that had begun her quest in the first place? Had Rose written it, as she’d previously thought, or someone else … ?
Joanna sighed in frustration. The bottom line was that, even though the similarity between the two men was incredible, there was absolutely no proof of anything.
Joanna glanced around trying to bring herself back to reality. The chances were that if she gave anyone so much as a sniff of the fact she was still ‘interested’, they’d be on to her immediately. They’d only given her back her life because they thought what she knew was safe. The big question was, did she have the strength and courage to continue to pursue the truth? Even if she had no firm answers, Joanna’s instincts told her she was dangerously close to finding out what it was.
Despite her protestations, Alec pushed her into the nearby pub at one o’clock on the dot, eager to hear the whole story.
‘So, tell all.’ Alec eyed her over his pint.
‘Nothing to tell,’ Joanna said. ‘There were some duck hunters out, and Marcus and I got caught in the midst of it. He was shot. I ran away from the gunfire and fell into the estuary, then got carried away by the current and nearly drowned,’ she repeated like a mantra.
‘Duck hunters!’ Alec snorted. ‘For God’s sake, Jo! It’s me you’re talking to here. What was it you found out that had you fighting for your life? And Marcus losing his?’
‘Nothing, Alec, really,’ she said wearily. ‘All my leads led to nothing. As far as I’m concerned, the chapter’s closed. I’ve got the job I love back and I intend to concentrate on digging the dirt on supermodels and soap stars, rather than getting carried away imagining fantastical plots fertilised by little old ladies.’
‘Haslam, you are a bloody shit liar, but I accept that them upstairs have done a good job and you’ve been well and truly scared off. Which is a shame, because I’ve done a little further digging myself.’
‘I wouldn’t bother if I were you, Alec. The road leads to nowhere.’
‘I don’t like to pull rank on you, sweetheart, but I’ve been in this business longer than you’ve been on the planet and I can smell a scandal from a mile off. Do you want to hear or not?’
Joanna shrugged casually. ‘Not really, no.’
‘Ah, go on, I’ll tell you anyway. I was reading through one of those autobiographies of our Sir James and something struck me as odd.’
Joanna focused on looking disinterested as Alec went on. ‘It recalls how close Sir James was to his wife, Grace. How strong their marriage was and how devastated he was when she died.’
‘Yes. So?’
‘Grace died in France apparently. I mean, if your beloved died abroad, surely you’d want to collect the body and have it buried on home soil? So that one day you could lie together for eternity? And we know Sir Jim is buried in Dorset. Alone,’ he added.
‘Maybe. Marcus certainly came home from Ireland.’ Joanna swallowed hard. ‘Though I was too ill to go to the funeral.’
‘So sorry about that, love. But there you go. So why didn’t Sir James do the same with his beloved? Could it be that she didn’t die after all?’
‘I don’t know. Can I have my sandwich? I’m starving.’
‘Sure. Cheese do?’
‘Fine.’
Alec shouted over the noisy hubbub to order the sandwich and a couple more drinks. ‘Anyway, she’d be over ninety by now, so the chances of her being either alive or compos mentis are slim.’
‘You really think she could still be alive? That she was involved in all this too?’
‘Could be, Jo, could be.’ Alec slurped his pint.
‘Alec, this is all very interesting, but as I said, I’ve come to the end of the line.’
‘Well, your call, darling.’
‘Besides, how would you go about trying to locate someone who’s supposedly been dead for nearly sixty years?’
‘Ah now, Jo, them’s the tricks of the trade. There’s always a way to reel ’em in, if you word it right.’
‘Word what right?’
‘An advertisement placed on the obituaries page. Every old crone reads those to see if anyone they know has copped the Big D. Come on, Jo, eat your sandwich. Looks like you could do with putting on a few pounds.’
Joanna let herself into her flat that night, feeling utterly exhausted, and went to run a bath. Coming back from the clean Yorkshire air made London – and her – feel grimy. Once she had bathed and donned her dressing gown and furry slippers, she sat on the sofa in the sitting room. She wondered now if she had returned too quickly – at least in Yorkshire she had felt safe and secure, and never as alone as she felt right now.
Reaching for the pile of post that had gathered whilst she was away, she began to open it. There was a sweet letter from Zoe Harrison, welcoming her back to London and asking Joanna to ring her so they could get together for lunch. There were also a frightful number of unpaid bills, and Joanna was grateful to have her job back. As she sorted the pile into ‘important’ and ‘wastepaper’ piles, a slim white envelope slipped onto the floor. She picked it up and, seeing it was a handwritten note with just her name on it, she opened it.
Dear Jo,
Please don’t tear up this letter yet. I’ve been an utter shit, I know. When I saw how hurt and angry you were, I’ve honestly never hated myself more than I do now.
I’ve spent my whole life blaming other people for my problems, and I realise now that I’m a coward. I’m such a coward for not telling you the truth about the money. I never deserved you.
From the moment that I saw you in that restaurant, I knew I wanted you. That you were special and different. You’re an incredible woman and, with your strength and bravery, you make me feel like the pathetic creature I am.
I know you’re probably shaking your head as you read this – if you haven’t already thrown it in the bin. I’m not the most articulate or romantic person, but I’m laying my heart bare here. It’s true. Joanna Haslam, I love you. There’s nothing I can do to change the past. But I hope I can change the future.
If you can find it in your heart to forgive me, I want to be a better man for you. And to show you who I can be.
Again, I love you.
Marcus
P.S. I didn’t tell the papers about Zoe, by the way. She’s my sister. I’d never do that to her.
‘Oh God, oh God, Marcus …’ Tears spilt out of Joanna’s eyes. ‘But you did show me, darling, you did!’
She cried some more, the awful finality of death – the fact she could never thank him for what he had done for her – hitting her acutely as she reread his last words to her. She realised that, despite his flaws, never in her life had she been loved as much as she had been by Marcus. And now he was gone.
‘I’m not strong, or brave,’ she muttered, as she wandered into the bedroom and looked in her rucksack for the sleeping pills the doctor had given her when she’d left the hospital. She would definitely need them tonight.
Pulling out the old newspaper cuttings and the envelope containing all her ‘evidence’, Joanna climbed into bed and looked at the pile. Yet again she was compelled to compare the photographs, and yet again her mind reached for answers.
‘This was your grandfather, Marcus,’ she whispered into the silent room as she swallowed a pill and tried to get comfortable on the new mattress.
‘Who was he?’ she asked the ether.
An hour later, still unable to sleep despite the pill, Joanna sat up. Surely … surely she owed it to Marcus, who had lost his life on the search, to find out?
Following Alec’s advice about posting an advert in the small
ads, Joanna set to work on her computer. Over a dozen national French newspapers were listed, plus numerous local papers. She decided she’d start with Le Monde and The Times, which, being of English origin, Grace might buy to keep in touch. If she received no joy from adverts in those, she’d move on to the next two, and so on. After all, there was no guarantee that Grace was still living in France. She might well have left soon after her faked ‘death’ all those years ago.
But how to word the advert so that Grace would know it was safe to reveal herself? And, by the same token, not alert anyone who might be watching and waiting? Joanna sat cross-legged on her bed far into the night, the pile of discarded scraps of paper – each one of which she knew she must burn to a cinder before morning came – growing as she racked her brains to find the right words to use.
As the dawn rose, Joanna typed up the advert, then deleted it immediately after it had printed. When she arrived at work, she used the office fax machine to send it through, with a note to both newspapers to place the ad as soon as possible. The ads would appear in two days’ time. It was a long shot, she knew, and all she could do now was to wait.
Lunchtime found her in the local library in Hornton Street to work, the table full of books on the history of the royal family. She studied yet another photograph of the young Duke of York and his bride. Then, casting her eyes down, she noticed a ring on a finger of his left hand. Even though it was partly in shadow, the shape and the insignia looked familiar.
Joanna closed her eyes and scoured her brain. Where had she seen that ring before? Cursing out loud because the answer would not come to her, Joanna looked at the clock and realised her lunch break was over.
At four o’clock, as she drank a cup of tea, she thumped her desk in exhilaration.
‘Of course!’
She picked up the receiver and dialled Zoe’s number.
‘How are you?’ Zoe opened the door to the Welbeck Street house that evening, made a fast check of the street, then ushered Joanna inside and embraced her warmly.
‘I’m … okay.’
The Love Letter Page 38