Every Secret Thing

by Susanna Kearsley

  I’d been wondering whether Guy had filled them in on what had happened; wondering what I ought to tell them if they asked, but then, they hadn’t asked me anything. But now I knew they knew at least the basics, because Guy was speaking freely about what he’d learnt today, from the police:

  ‘So they figure the shooter was up on the roof of the neighbour’s garage, at the back of the lane. They wouldn’t tell me why they thought that, or what they’d found in the way of evidence, but I got the impression they hadn’t found much. They’re a long way from knowing who did it.’

  ‘They probably think it was me,’ I said.

  ‘Nobody thinks it was you.’

  ‘Guy, I ran away from them. They can’t think that was normal.’

  ‘Anyone,’ he emphasised, ‘would understand you running scared last night. You were tired, you were in shock, you’d just seen your grandmother murdered…and on top of all that this guy Metcalf walked in and you snapped. I can guarantee you, if you were to go to the police right now and tell them that, they’d understand.’

  ‘I can’t. I’ve told you. I can’t trust them.’

  ‘Are you sure? Because everything I’m getting from my sources in the department says the Metcalf who’s here in Toronto right now is the real deal – a genuine Scotland Yard cop. And if all of this started in London, then maybe he can help you.’

  ‘No.’ Both hands were at my temples now, as though the touch could hold my head together. ‘This thing with Deacon, it goes real high up – to Whitehall, to the government – he sent them a report. They said they didn’t have it, when I called to ask. They stonewalled me. But Guy, I’m sure that they were lying. I could feel it. I…’ I had some trouble putting my suspicions into words. ‘Deacon used to be British Intelligence. And this story he wanted to tell, it had something to do with a murder. I don’t know what I’ve stumbled onto here, but I do know if Whitehall’s involved, then…’

  ‘She’s right,’ Tony said, coming in on my side, unexpectedly. His voice was very quiet, but it carried authority. He said to Guy, ‘If what she thinks is true – if the deaths of this old man in London, his nephew, her grandmother…if they weren’t accidents, then she’s right to think the government is probably involved. And if they are, she wants to stay away from Scotland Yard.’

  Guy asked, ‘But why—?’

  ‘Because, lad, “Scotland Yard” is just a shorthand for the London Metropolitan Police, and the commissioner of the London Metropolitan Police reports directly to the Home Office. That’s Whitehall, all of it – the Foreign Office, Home Office, all one great and many-headed beast.’

  Guy shook his head. ‘No, I meant what makes you think that the government’s in on it?’

  Tony leant back. ‘Well, you said the old boy sent some kind of report, in the first place, to Whitehall.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘So, now, follow along with this theory these deaths were no accident. Someone was watching this Deacon bloke closely enough to know he’d talked to Kate. It’d be a fair assumption that they also knew he’d sent off this report, and where he’d sent it, which would mean they knew his story was already in the hands of the authorities.’ He looked at us, to make quite sure that we’d both grasped that point. ‘But they went ahead and killed him, and they’ve gone on killing others who they think might know this…well, this secret thing that the authorities already know. Now, why would they do that?’

  Guy admitted that it made no sense, ‘Unless they didn’t know that he’d sent anything to Whitehall.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s possible. I wouldn’t bet the bank on it,’ said Tony, ‘but it’s possible. A better reason might be that they knew that Whitehall wasn’t going to act on the report, that it was going to be buried. Making Deacon and the people that he told his story to the only threat.’

  Guy finally saw, I think, where he was going with this logic – where my own mind had already travelled, on its own. Guy said, ‘But the only way someone could know Whitehall wouldn’t do anything with the report would be…’

  ‘If they were working for Whitehall,’ said Tony. ‘Or if they were Whitehall.’

  His statement was followed by silence.

  We thought. Then Marie, who’d been silent till now, said, ‘I think Kate’s safety ought to be our first concern. I think that we should help her, like we help the other women – get her out of here, where nobody can find her.’ Then she said to me, directly, ‘We’ve got people who can change your name, your looks, and get you somewhere you’ll be safer. We’ve even got a travel agent, brilliant lad, can get you on a flight this week to anywhere you want.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t think it’s come to that, yet,’ Tony said. His tone was level, quietly authoritative. ‘Maybe down the road a bit, but not just yet. It’s a drastic step, that, and you don’t want to break the law lightly.’

  Something in the way he said that struck me. My whole life was built on hunches, and I played one now. I looked at him, the big man with the rugged face, and asked him if he’d ever been a cop.

  ‘I was, once, yeah. Long time ago.’

  ‘In England?’

  ‘Yeah.’ He met my eyes. ‘I was six years with Scotland Yard, in Special Branch. We weren’t the CID, we didn’t deal with crime – we did political security.’

  ‘I see.’ My guard went up.

  Guy stared. ‘You never told me that.’

  ‘You never asked,’ said Tony. ‘Anyway, it’s years ago now. Ancient history. I wouldn’t know anyone there now, or else I might have been able to ask round myself for you, about this Metcalf…’

  Guy said, ‘Look, we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. We’re just working with a theory, and we may be wrong. I mean, if Whitehall were involved, why would they send that guy in London to her hotel, saying he was Metcalf, when he wasn’t? Why not send the real Metcalf to talk to her?’

  Nobody knew.

  They didn’t know, either, why Grandma’s death hadn’t been made to look random, like Deacon’s and Cavender’s. To Guy it suggested a lack of conspiracy. Tony saw something more sinister. ‘They’ve changed locations. They may have changed killers. Who knows how many people may be in on this.’

  Which wasn’t reassuring, but he hadn’t meant to reassure. He said things straight, and that was why, although he had a link to Scotland Yard, and logic told me there was no one I could trust, my instinct told me, on the other hand, that Tony wasn’t someone I should fear.

  And I had never had to trust my instinct more.

  It was like being on assignment in a strange and foreign landscape, with no contacts, no direction. Out of my element; over my head. There were too many questions, and not enough answers. Unless…

  I tried focusing, as I’d have done in the field.

  Follow the facts, I thought. Follow the story. I needed to know what was in that report.

  Guy was right. We were just trading theories, without any proof, and the only way to find out who was doing this – if anyone, in fact, was doing anything – would be to find out who might have a stake in keeping Deacon silent. And to do that, I would have to find out what it was he’d meant to say.

  I interrupted Guy and Tony, who were talking about something that I’d long since ceased to follow. ‘Tony?’

  ‘Yes, love?’

  ‘There is one thing you could do for me.’

  He raised an eyebrow. ‘Name it.’

  ‘I need access to the Internet,’ I told him. ‘And a telephone.’

  THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 21

  The vicar of St Stephen’s Church, in Elderwel, was too polite to say so, but I knew he must have thought that I was odd. A normal person, after all, wouldn’t have reacted as emotionally to the death of a virtual stranger as I had done two days ago, when I’d learnt of the murder of James Cavender. I tried to cover for my curious behaviour this time round, with an apology, and told him just how sorry I had been to hear the news. ‘I thought he was such a nice man.’

  ‘Yes,
he was,’ said the vicar. ‘He was. I knew him rather well, he’s been a lay reader here for a number of years, so it’s been difficult this week. I’m James’s executor, you see,’ he said, ‘and indirectly, I suppose, his beneficiary. He had no family, so he’s left everything to our church.’

  My mind leapt on the point, before I stopped to think how callous it might sound. ‘Does that include his uncle’s papers?’

  ‘Andrew’s papers? Yes, although—’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I know you have a lot of other things to think about just now. It’s only that Mr Cavender wanted to send me a copy of something his uncle had written, and he was going to look for it after he got home, last Sunday, but…’ I doubted that he’d had the chance to even start his search, that night, before he had been killed. ‘It may still be there, at the house. And I wondered…I mean, if it isn’t too much trouble, could you maybe have a look for it yourself?’

  ‘I could try. I’m not sure how much luck I’ll have finding anything, after what happened. It was—’ he began, and then cut himself short, as though trying to spare me the details. ‘Well, it was a shambles, as I said. It still is. I’m going to have quite a job on my hands, clearing Andrew’s house out for the auction. But if you’ll tell me what it is I should be looking for, I’ll see what I can do.’

  I had to confess that I wasn’t entirely sure. ‘It’s a report, I don’t know how thick it would be, but he wrote it just recently, sometime this past summer. I don’t know the subject for certain, but Mr Cavender thought it would be about Lisbon; the time that his uncle spent working in Portugal, during the war.’

  ‘Did Andrew work there? I wasn’t aware of that. I knew he had travelled a good deal, but I didn’t realise he actually lived abroad.’

  ‘He worked for Ivan Reynolds.’

  ‘Did he?’

  ‘In fact,’ I told him, ‘anything you find that has to do with Ivan Reynolds, or with Lisbon, I would really like to see it.’

  ‘Oh, of course. Of course. I don’t hold out much hope, mind, but I’ll do my best.’ His voice changed as though he were shifting the receiver on his shoulder, freeing his hands. ‘Just let me have your number, and I’ll give you a ring if I come across anything.’

  I hesitated. For all the vicar knew, I was still in London, and it made sense to let him go on thinking that. Safer for me not to let people know where I was. ‘Actually, I think it would be easier if I called you. Would the weekend be too early?’

  He paused, and then, as though he had heard something in my voice I hadn’t meant for him to hear, he asked, ‘Is anything wrong?’

  ‘Not a thing,’ I said, striving for lightness.

  ‘You’re sure?’

  I assured him I was, but he waited a moment before he said, finally, ‘All right, then, I’ll wait for your call at the weekend.’

  Which didn’t give him that much time to look for Deacon’s papers, but I couldn’t help the rush. I didn’t have the luxury of time. Someone had tried to kill me once this week – they might be out there, right now, getting set to try again.

  I didn’t know how wide they’d cast their web. I’d tried again to get in touch with Margot, and with Patrick, but I’d had no luck. Which only made me worry more about their safety; made my mission feel more urgent.

  I knew that, realistically, the odds were pretty long against the vicar finding anything at Deacon’s house – the people who’d killed Cavender had probably been searching for that same report, and any papers that they might have found they would have taken, or destroyed. It was quite possible the only papers left were those that Cavender had brought to me in London: Deacon’s letters to his sister, that he’d written while in Portugal. I didn’t have them with me. They were still at Grandma’s house, tucked safely in the zippered inside pocket of the briefcase that I lugged my laptop round in. I had left that briefcase sitting in the front hall, with my suitcase; hadn’t thought to take it when I’d left the house. I hadn’t thought of much then, I had been so deep in shock, and at the time I hadn’t realised I would not be going home after the hospital.

  But hindsight could be punishingly clear, and I’d have given quite a lot to have those letters with me now. I’d read them all in London, on my last day there. I’d read them again, on the plane, but I couldn’t remember more than a few first names of people he had talked about, and one or two descriptive bits he’d written to his sister – his arrival in the city, a reception at the Embassy, that sort of thing. At the time, nothing had struck me as being of any significance. He hadn’t really talked about his work, or Ivan Reynolds, or the intrigues that I knew must have been going on in Lisbon at that time. He’d written mostly of his meals, and of the house where he was living, and how much he missed his wife.

  Of course I knew now that he hadn’t had a wife, he had been speaking of my grandmother, which made me keen to read those bits again, because the emotion in them had, upon first reading, seemed so genuine.

  In fact, I wanted badly to read all the letters over, in the hope of finding some small telling detail I had overlooked. If nothing else, as Cavender had pointed out to me that night in London, Deacon mentioned several people whom he worked with, and if any of them could be found, if they were still alive, they might prove helpful. Without any access to Deacon’s report, I would have to try piecing together his story myself, and that meant I would have to rely on the memory of those who had known him, in hopes they’d be able to help me uncover this murder he’d wanted to tell me about.

  I remembered, in his letters, he had talked about a secretary. What had been her name? Regina something. Frowning, I half closed my eyes and tried to think…but no, the name was gone.

  ‘Hey,’ said Tony’s voice, from the hall behind me.

  I turned in my chair. ‘Hi. Do you want to get on your computer?’

  ‘No, no, you just stay there as long as you like, Kate. No, I’ve got Guy on the cell phone, here, wanting to talk to you. Is this a good time?’

  Thanking him, I took the phone and held it to my ear. ‘Guy?’

  ‘Hi, Kate, I just thought—’

  ‘You’re psychic,’ I told him. ‘I need you to do something for me.’

  Guy turned up that evening to find me still stubbornly trawling the Internet.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, as he slumped in the chair at my side. ‘I couldn’t get anything out of your briefcase. I couldn’t get into the house. They’ve got the whole place wrapped in yellow tape, you can’t get through.’

  ‘I thought you had an “in” with the police.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I didn’t know any of the guys who were on duty today. I can try again tomorrow for you. Maybe I’ll have better luck. I did get these, though, like you asked.’ He thumped two thick library books down beside my computer. ‘They had half a shelf on Reynolds, but these are the only two books that deal with his company in the time frame you’re after.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You finding anything online?’

  I shook my head. ‘Not really.’ I had found a few articles about Ivan Reynolds himself – two short biographies, and his obituary in the New York Times – but they had told me little other than that he had died of cancer on the 6th of April, 1944, and that he’d left the bulk of his estate to a foundation he’d created in his name, for the enjoyment of the public.

  There was apparently a newsreel of his funeral in the British Pathe News Archives, but I hadn’t been able to access it, and most of the Internet references dealing with Reynolds in Lisbon were, predictably enough, in Portuguese.

  ‘I need a translator,’ I said to Guy.

  He leant in closer, looking at the screen, and shrugged. ‘I dated a Portuguese girl once. She writes for a paper in Lisbon. I still have her number. You want me to call her and see if she’d help?’

  I didn’t doubt she would, for him. Guy’s ex-girlfriends were thick on the ground, in Toronto, and the ones I’d met had nothing but good words to say about him. It was his particula
r gift – likeability.

  ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘That would be great.’

  ‘All right. I’ll let you know.’ He stood, and smiled, and left me to it.

  She said yes, of course. But by the time Guy got back to me on Friday, I had something more specific for his Portuguese ex-girlfriend to look into. In one of the library books he had brought me, I’d found a useful photograph that somebody had taken over Christmas, 1943, in Reynolds’ Lisbon offices. It showed two secretaries sitting smiling at their typewriters in what appeared to be a very elegant, wood-panelled room, and underneath, the caption read: Employees Jenny Saunders and Regina Sousa.

  There, I thought, was my Regina. Now I’d seen the last name, I remembered it from Deacon’s letters. Sousa. She had been his secretary for the first few months, until she had left to get married.

  Both the women in the picture looked quite young – the odds were good that one of them, at least, was still alive.

  ‘This Regina, she married a Portuguese man. Deacon went to their wedding,’ I told Guy. ‘It was early on in 1944…I think in February, maybe. Could your friend – what’s her name again?’

  ‘Anabela.’

  ‘Could Anabela search the local papers for that time and try to find the wedding announcement? Because if I can find Regina’s married name, I might be able to find her, ask her some questions.’

  ‘Do you still want all the Reynolds stuff?’

  ‘Yes, please. And one more thing.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Death notices. Obituaries. Anything and everything from late November ’43 – that’s when Deacon got there – through the spring of ’44. I’m especially interested in people whose deaths weren’t from natural causes.’

  ‘In Lisbon?’ said Guy, with his dark eyebrows lifting. ‘In wartime? There shouldn’t be more than a couple of thousand of those.’

  He was right, I knew. As James Cavender had pointed out, wartime Lisbon, much like Casablanca, had been a dangerous place, filled with spies, double agents, and treachery; whispers in alleys and knives in the back. There would likely have been any number of deaths that might be termed suspicious.