Molly sat back on her heels and sorted through the other pictures, smiling at the memories they evoked. One had been taken outside the UN headquarters on the Boulevard D’Albert, the main thoroughfare running the length of Leopoldville. Run down but beautiful Art Deco buildings lined the road. The UN headquarters was in the seven-storey hotel, Le Royal.
Molly laughed. ‘Nothing very Royal about it, was there, Edward? The lifts didn’t work, there was electricity for half the day if you were lucky and it was faster to run up and down the stairs than it was to try and get the phones to work.’
Edward had been in and out of the place several times a week, attending briefings and updating the various officials on the situation on the ground ‘up country’. They had called the main briefing room ‘the snake pit’. Edward always reckoned it was an apt description.
She peered more closely at the photograph, looking at the background of the picture. ‘Oh, yes, of course. I’d almost forgotten. We ate there so many times. Dolmades and moussaka in the middle of the Congo. Utterly bizarre.’ There’d been a Greek restaurant on the ground floor of Le Royal. It had seemed such an odd thing at the time, but they’d been grateful for the half-decent food in a city of shortages and high prices and where most of the UN forces and their tag-alongs – like Molly herself – lived most of the week on field rations.
‘And I was too in love to care,’ she said softly, touching her husband’s face ever so gently. She had just married Edward and this had been their first posting together. Molly smiled remembering their little house with its long veranda and tin roof. They’d made a point of not staying in the colonial areas with the remaining Belgian and other European expats on the hill in Kalina. Edward believed he’d never gain any credibility with the local people if he separated himself from them. He’d be seen as just another white colonist. So he had moved his new wife into an enclave, mostly of local traders and merchants, on the edge of town. The smell from the dredging operations taking place on the river, attempts to improve its navigability, blew in on the wind. Much of the time, it stank, Molly remembered. It had been deafening when the rains came, too hot when the sun beat down. She had found a local man who had installed a false ceiling and a couple of fans and it had finally been bearable. It had been a tiny place, really, just a couple of rooms, one for living and one for sleeping and a primitive bathroom. The kitchen had been outside. A stove and a table beneath a thatched roof. It was all supposed to be temporary, but they’d lived in that little house for almost a year until the political situation worsened, and talks broke down and full civil war threatened to overtake them all. Molly and Edward had left, flitting in the middle of the night, only minutes ahead of the mob who had come to burn and steal and destroy.
She picked up the other photograph again. The group image she had looked for. Gently, she laid her index finger against each face in the photograph. Her younger self, all blonde curls and soppy smile. Edward, looking handsome and tall, his hair side parted and combed back from his face. That slightly crooked smile of his …
Molly felt her throat tighten and the pain in her chest like a lead weight.
Adam Carmodie, slightly out of focus as he always seemed to be, no matter how many photographs Molly had seen of him. He was never still, always off and doing. Piotre and Joseph and that girl who’d come over as a translator. … Genevieve, that was it. Molly had not known her so well, but Joseph had been smitten for a while. Then Paul and Adis, local liaison … she tried hard not to think of the night she had watched Adis die …
Gently, Molly laid the photograph back in the tin box. The face she thought she had seen, the one the young man had reminded her of, he looked back at her too. Eyes seemingly locked on hers, pale and blue, she remembered; they still looked pale and blue even in the black and white image. Drawing a deep and unsteady breath, Molly turned the picture face down and made to close the lid. Then she paused and, unwilling but knowing she must check, she dug down into the depths of the box and withdrew a faded green folder. Molly didn’t trouble to open it; the weight and feel of it was so familiar she would have known if even a single page had been disturbed. Her fingers traced a single letter, stamped in red and enclosed in a circle. W, for Watch, for a file that should not have still existed, that should have been destroyed before they left back in 1961. She and Edward had carried this little scrap of forbidden information with them almost all of their married lives. Kept it, guarded it, worried about it and then, as years had passed, tucked it away with their memories and, even while they felt uncomfortable even acknowledging its existence, not quite felt right about its final destruction either.
Did it really matter now? Molly asked herself. She had thought not, but then the young man had come to her home and had died, right there in front of her and Molly could not shake the conviction that, even after all these years and all the changes, that those two things, the young man and this forbidden file were connected by a single, fragile, but unbroken thread.
FIVE
Bill was on his final patrol before going off shift at six a.m. He was ready for some breakfast and his bed and got the impression that Fred, the dog, felt pretty much the same way. Fred looked the part, but the truth was he was twelve years old and the night air didn’t do a lot for his joints, and any way he was as soft as tripe. Bill sympathized with the joint problem, his own complained at the chill and damp, but he only had a year and a bit to go till he retired, so Bill figured he could mark time until then.
There’d been talk of retiring Fred, too and Bill was almost decided to offer the old boy a permanent home. Sheila wouldn’t mind and it would be good to have something to walk of an evening, to help ease him into what Sheila kept referring to as normal hours.
They had just rounded the final turn of the perimeter fence when Bill became aware of a change in Fred’s demeanour. The dog paused and pricked up his ears. Bill followed his gaze. Outside of the perimeter fence was a blue van, old and plain and badly painted and he was pretty sure it hadn’t been there when he’d last made his rounds an hour before.
Man and dog drew level with the vehicle and Bill realized there were sounds coming from inside. His first thought was that it was a courting couple, thumping about. He smirked, knowingly, thinking that at least they had a bit more space than the back of a car and then thinking that it was a bit early in the morning or rather a bit too late in the night for anyone to be parking up to have that sort of fun. His next thought was that the sound was all wrong anyway and the thought that chased after that one was that whoever was inside was thumping on the back doors and shouting for help.
Fred growled, almost convincingly and Bill grasped the radio at his belt. ‘Tony, something’s up out here, I think we might need the cops.’
He frowned, he’d look a bit daft if it was only kids having a bit of fun at his expense, but …
Tony was asking what was wrong and Bill told him quickly.
‘You sure?’ Tony said.
‘Just give them a call,’ Bill said. ‘I’ll see if I can make them hear, them inside the van. If it’s nothing, well, better safe than sorry, isn’t it?’
He came closer to the fence. The exit gates were right round the other side of the factory and Bill didn’t feel like making the trek if this really was nothing; he also had an odd feeling about this and it felt a bit better having the fence between him and the vehicle. He was aware that the dog wasn’t happy either and Bill trusted the old boy.
‘Hello in there,’ he shouted at the rear doors of the van. ‘Whatcha doing in there?’
The hammering increased in volume and the shouts for help were unmistakable now.
‘Locked yourself in, have you?’ Bill asked, though he couldn’t for the life of him imagine how that could have happened. ‘Don’t you worry, police are on their way.’
The hammering became more frenetic and Bill wondered if whoever was inside could actually hear him. He raised his voice. ‘I said don’t worry, the police are on their way.’ He eyed th
e closed padlock on the back doors. Something was really not right here, Bill thought anxiously They could hardly have done that from the inside, could they?
‘Tony, you got an ETA on the police?’
‘On their way, they said. What’s going on out there? Want me to come out to you?’
Bill hesitated. There was supposed to be one of them in their little control room watching the cameras at all times. Not that anything ever happened. Or at least not that it ever had in the past.
‘No, stay put, I’m going to head round to the gate, wait for the police there.’
It felt, maybe a bit cowardly, he thought, but he didn’t want to be anywhere near that van. Something was just not kosher.
He gave the dog’s lead a little tug and Fred followed him obediently away from the fence. Bill could hear the police car now, or at least he assumed it must be them. No sirens, but the sound of a vehicle travelling at speed through the industrial estate at that time of the morning wasn’t likely to be anyone else. The sound of the engine was clear as it echoed off the warehouses and storage lots.
He reached the front gate just as they did and, glad that he recognized both officers, told them what was wrong.
‘I figured some daft bugger locked themselves in,’ he said. ‘But there’s a padlock on the back door; it’s been fastened shut from the outside.’
‘OK, we’ll take a look. Want a lift round?’
‘No, I’ll follow on with the dog.’ He paused, worried about being laughed at. ‘It feels, I dunno, a bit odd,’ he managed, noting the smirk on the face of the younger officer.
His older partner merely nodded. ‘See you round there, then,’ he said. The car pulled away and Bill and Fred followed, on the street side of the fence this time. As they turned the corner, Bill could see the police car pulled up beside the van and the older of the two officers – Bill struggled to recall his name; Prentiss, wasn’t it? Tod or Tad or Tom or something – was banging on the back door, speaking loudly to those inside.
‘We’re going to need some bolt croppers,’ he said as Bill arrived. He banged the flat of his hand on the van door. ‘I’ve got to get bolt croppers,’ he shouted. ‘Get the lock off. Can you hear me in there?’
‘They’ve gone quiet,’ he said to Bill and it was clear to the security man that the police officer was now disturbed too.
The younger officer went to the front of the van and tugged on the driver’s door. It opened suddenly, catching him off balance. He peered inside and then knocked on the rear bulkhead. ‘Can you hear me?’
Tad Prentiss was speaking on his radio. ‘You got anything in the boot you can lever that lock off with?’ Bill asked, looking over the young officers shoulder. ‘What’s that there?’ he added, pointing to something glimpsed between the seats.
The officer looked. ‘Some kind of gas cylinder,’ he said, ‘and there’s a valve and a pipe going—’
‘Well you’d best switch it off then.’ Bill was truly alarmed now.
The officer hesitated for a second, obviously worried about touching evidence. ‘Christ’s sake, man, they’re dying in there.’
The policeman reached in to turn the valve. ‘What the hell do you think it is? Think it’ll explode?’
‘I don’t know,’ Bill said, ‘but we need something to lever those doors open.’
‘Jack handle.’ The younger officer ran to the back of his car and rummaged in the boot. He came back with what looked like a length of pipe, then wedged it against the van door, behind the hasp and staple through which the padlock was fixed. Bill watched as the man threw his weight against the lever. The silence from inside the van was now profound. Why had they stopped shouting? Bill gripped the length of pipe and added his weight to that of the police officer. Something gave with a sharp crack, launching Bill sideways. He scrambled back to his feet and examined the damage. Part of the hasp had pulled away from the body of the van.
‘It’s a start,’ he said. ‘Give it another go.’
Together they tried again, but the first attempt had partly bent the pipe. As a lever, it’s effectiveness was all but lost. A second car pulled up alongside and Bill was profoundly relieved to see a young female officer pull a large pair of bolt croppers from the boot.
‘Give these a go,’ she said. ‘What the hell’s going on?’
No one replied; truth was, Bill figured, no one knew. But the lack of sound from those inside the van was now deeply troubling. What was going on in there?
Bolt croppers were applied and the lock gave way with a final reluctant snick. Handles were seized, doors pulled but refused to move. The now bent lever was pressed into service again, bolt croppers wedged in beside it and finally a small but definite opening was created between the doors.
‘What the hell?’ Bill had looked down to see if he could figure out what was holding the door closed. He touched the door sill. Tacky blue paint came away on his hand. ‘It’s been welded shut?’
‘It’s what?’
‘Look at the bugger. Welded shut and painted over.’
All action momentarily stopped as officers and security man looked at one another. The female officer stepped away and Bill could hear her asking for an ETA on the ambulance and asking for additional support.
‘Try again,’ Prentiss said. ‘Have we got anything else we can use as a lever?’
Bill rooted in the patrol car boot and came back with a nail bar, wrapped in a plastic evidence bag. Prentiss hesitated for a second and then took it from him. Together they launched themselves against the doors again.
The doors had bent, rather than opened and it was now possible to see inside. Two men lay slumped in the rear of the van.
‘Can you hear me?’ Bill shouted. ‘The ambulance is on its way, we’re going to get you out of there.’ He glanced at Prentiss. ‘What the hell is going on?’ He stepped back from the vehicle and radioed his partner, fending off the anxious questions. ‘Tony, do we still have that angle grinder? Right, I’m coming to get it, anything else you can find that might be useful for breaking into a van too, oh, and we’ll need the genny.’ He broke off. ‘Be quicker if someone could drive me round,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a small generator; we got it when we had all those power cuts last winter.’
Prentiss’s younger partner opened the car door and Bill slid into the passenger seat. ‘Stay,’ he told Fred. ‘I’ll be right back.’
‘How long had the van been there?’ the police officer asked.
‘I’m certain it wasn’t there last time I patrolled,’ Bill told him. ‘So it arrived in the hour between. There’s a camera on that corner post, it should have caught something.’
They turned into the factory gate. Bill could see Tony coming down the front steps with the grinder in one hand and a portable power pack in the other. The generator stood at the top of the steps. Tony handed Bill the power pack. ‘I’ve been keeping this in the car,’ he said. ‘My battery ain’t so hot and I can’t get another, not till next month. There might be enough juice in it for the angle grinder.’
Bill nodded and they loaded the equipment into the car. ‘See if you can find when this van arrived,’ Bill said. ‘It weren’t there the last time I went out.’
‘Will do.’ Tony disappeared inside. Bill could hear the ambulance, now, sirens on this time. It was almost light, the pale dawn reminding him that he ought to have been heading for home. He must call. Sheila would be worried if he came in late.
Back at the van he plugged the grinder into the power pack while the police officers hauled the generator out of the car and got it going. The draw would be too great, Bill thought, to keep the angle grinder going for long on the little inverter he was using. He started on the weld down on the bottom sill, going for the metal above and below, rather than cut through what looked like quite an efficient weld. The metal gave under the onslaught and Bill reached up to attack the weld at the top of the door. The power gave out as he’d almost finished, but the three of them hauling on the door broke what
was left. They made way for the paramedics who clambered into the van through the one open door.
‘Are they dead?’ Bill wanted to know.
‘No, but I think it was a close thing.’ One of the paramedics crawled back out of the van and went to fetch a gurney. Bill peered into the space he had left. The man closest to him looked about mid-forties, Bill guessed. He was dressed in a suit and tie and polished shoes, like he’d been on the way to the office. His skin was ash grey and his lips blue. The paramedic fitted a mask over the man’s face and Bill switched his attention to the rear of the van. It had been modified, he realized; a solid box created inside the body of the van. One small break in the blank interior attracted his attention. A valve of some sort. Metal flanges had been welded around the opening where the doors fitted so that when they were closed they fitted tightly against the frame. The external welding finished the job of holding them in place. The padlock, Bill realized, was really just for show. Just to slow down the rescue even more.
‘They made it air tight,’ he said.
‘What?’ PC Prentiss looked at what Bill was indicating.
‘Poor buggers would have run out of air even if the gas hadn’t got them first.’
Prentiss looked quizzically at him and then went round to the front of the van, opened the door. The two men peered inside.
‘Look, that’s where the valve goes through into the back,’ Bill said, pointing. ‘There’s a pipe, leads somewhere to the front of the van, under the dash. We turned the valve off, but who knows how long it had been on for.’
‘You’re thinking carbon monoxide poisoning?’
Bill shook his head. ‘No, their skin’s the wrong colour.’ He shrugged. ‘Sheila, the wife, she’s into all this crime drama stuff on the telly.’
Prentiss scooted back round to the rear. ‘Best get them out fast,’ he told the paramedic. ‘I don’t like the look of this.’
He got on to the radio and Bill got the impression he was trying to get the bomb squad called out. Bill moved back, away from the action. This was rum, very rum and Bill felt he was missing something. He radioed Tony back in the control room. No response.
Secrets Page 4