Running

by Barbara Spencer

  ‘I wish you’d told me. I could have been more use.’

  ‘I think you were pretty useful as it was. But how did you find me? I couldn’t believe my ears when they said you’d brought help.’

  ‘I followed the clues, Dad. Actually, we followed the clues.’ Scott indicated the silent figure on the chair. ‘Hilary came after me.’

  ‘What clues?’ Bill Anderson’s expression was curious.

  ‘Well, first there was the obituary, then the posters.’

  ‘Posters!’ repeated his father, sounding astonished.

  ‘Yes,’ Scott insisted. ‘The ones on the wall about the bike: “So take the High Road” and “That’ll do nicely.”’ Scott’s voice trailed away. ‘You did leave clues, didn’t you?’

  Bill broke into a laugh. He clutched his shoulder, an agonised expression on his face. ‘Remind me not to do that, it’s far too painful. Scott, I promise you, I left no clues. The only thing I left was a letter with Jameson’s dad, in case anything ever happened to me. It tells you everything. But you always go there, so what happened this time?’

  Scott appeared on the brink of tears. ‘Jameson met this girl and decided to stay away for the week. And when I got back to the cottage, Mr Terry’s lot were waiting. You mean it was coincidence?’

  Bill nodded painfully. ‘I swear! I never knew James Nicely lived in Loch Lomond. I never asked. He never said. We communicated by phone.’ Bill shook his head. ‘How extraordinary!’

  Hilary sighed, shutting her eyes briefly, as if to say: I told you so. ‘Brilliant, we were going round in circles,’ she muttered under her breath. Then more loudly, as if unable to stop herself, ‘So if we’d stayed at home we’d have found out the truth anyway and I’d have not got bruises from riding that damn bike.’

  ‘No, we wouldn’t!’ Scott hurled back. ‘I might have known about Dad’s work but he’d still be lost. And we got there, didn’t we, coincidence or no coincidence. And it was a pretty great coincidence, that’s all I can say.’

  Bill watched his son and the youthful American agent glare at one another. ‘You did say you were friends, didn’t you,’ he said mildly.

  ‘But why the posters, Dad, if they weren’t clues? I mean, our house is bare ...’ Scott’s voice trailed away. ‘What was I to think?’

  Surprisingly it was Sean Terry who replied. ‘Look here, kid. You led me a right dance; I cursed you to kingdom-come. But, if you hadn’t done it like that we’d still be wondering who the snake in our organisation was – and your dad would still be lost.’

  Hilary smiled a little enviously, wishing her boss would praise her like that. ‘He’s right, Scott,’ she said generously. ‘I guess it doesn’t matter how it’s done, as long as it gets done. Still, you know me, prickly as anything without clean clothes.’

  Scott swallowed, feeling the ready tears trying to push their way to the surface.

  Sean Terry glared at Hilary for interrupting. ‘There’s something else you need to know, Scott. Are you going to do it, Bill, or shall I?’

  Bill leaned into his pillows, pumping a shot of morphine into his vein. ‘I will. I meant to, this week anyway.’ He moved his head slightly. ‘Those posters – stupid really. I don’t think I ever looked at what was written on them. Not once. They were simply a reminder of the last day your mother and I spent together. She picked them up in a market.’ He took a deep breath wincing with pain as the muscles attached to his ribs and shoulder protested. ‘I don’t know if you will ever forgive me for this, I hope you will. But your mother’s alive. She didn’t die.’

  Scott heard the words but they made no sense. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Can you explain, Terry, I’m shattered.’

  The silence in the room was intense – everyone aware this was one of those life-changing moments, with Bill wishing he was strong enough to do the job himself. That’s how it should have been. But, with all the emotional baggage the confession would engender, he knew it was beyond him.

  ‘What your father’s trying to tell you, is that your mother, like him, has been hidden all these years. She escaped the earthquake, made her way inland and then to Miami, before losing herself in the Caribbean. She joined a charter vessel as a cook, spent three years up and down the Caribbean – long enough, she thought, to be safe.’ The chair creaked as Sean Terry shifted round to face Scott full on.

  ‘What you’ve got to remember, Scott, before you start to judge your father, is that he genuinely thought her dead. His only aim was to stay alive himself and keep you safe,’ he said, emphasising the final four words. ‘He had no clue as to who was behind the explosion, no one to trust; not till several years later when David Runyon surfaced.’

  ‘You definitely started without me, if you know all this, already,’ Scott threw at him.

  ‘Kid, I know all this because I know all this. I’ve been searching for them for almost fifteen years, goddamn it.’

  Bill smiled and said in Atired voice, ‘You don’t take prisoners, do you, Terry?’

  ‘Your son’s old enough to face facts. To go on. Your father found your mother when, four years later, she responded as Sister Sarah. At first, he didn’t believe it. When he did, they met up secretly. But all they had, in the last fifteen years, was a couple of lousy weekends. Not much of a life, was it? It was a joint decision …’ Sean Terry glared at Scott as if he’d been going to interrupt, ‘to stay apart, to stay safe. I come into it, later. I traced your mother to Wales.’

  Scott looked across at the figure in bed. ‘Is that why we always went there for holidays?’

  ‘So she could see you, from a distance, yes,’ Bill said. He shut his eyes, the effort of talking obviously exhausting him.

  ‘I found her two days after your dad went missing,’ the agent continued. ‘Fortunately, I was on my own. I didn’t take my team, left them chasing-up Bill, otherwise your mother would have been taken too.’

  ‘Except Sarah has nothing to do with the project now. It was the only way,’ Bill said, his voice faint.

  ‘Yeah, sure,’ he dismissed Bill’s effort. ‘But that wouldn’t have stopped them.’

  ‘But didn’t you suspect Pete?’ Scott said, all of a sudden glad he could ask something innocent, something that didn’t leave him feeling like mashed potato, with the masher still pounding his brains.

  ‘No! Not Pete. He’d been with me too long; we’d shared too much together.’ Sean Terry’s expression was bitter.

  Scott suddenly remembered what Pete had told him. ‘He killed that man.’

  ‘I guessed he had, that is once we knew it was him.’

  ‘How did you know?’

  All of a sudden, Hilary appeared badly rattled. She put out her hand as if to stop her boss talking and shook her head in warning.

  ‘Look, Stone, if the kid falls out with you because you put loyalty to me first, tough. You saved his hide. He wouldn’t be here with his dad, if you hadn’t.’

  ‘Hilary was in touch with you all the time?’

  Sean Terry nodded. ‘I don’t go much on women agents as a rule, but at least Stone had the good sense to tell me your dad had gone missing and you were worried.’

  ‘At the harbour, you mean?’

  ‘Yeah! We were planning a visit anyway. But we got there too late.’ The reporter leaned forward. ‘I recruited Stone for one purpose only. To help me find the rotten apple in our barrel. She was new, not contaminated, and she reported to me, no one else.’

  A blaze of clarity swept through Scott’s head. ‘So that’s why,’ he said, his tone almost triumphant. He swivelled round in his chair to confront Hilary. ‘That’s why you were in such a state when they found Mr Nicely. You thought Mr Terry behind it, didn’t you? Go on, admit it. I dare you.’

  ‘So what if I did. I was wrong, it wasn’t him,’ she snapped back.

  Scott beat his fists on his knees. ‘And that’s why you burst into tears when we found the bug …’

  ‘Steady on, Scott,’ murmured his father.


  ‘No, it’s okay.’ He shouted the words. ‘It’s all quite clear now. I wondered and wondered, what was the matter with you? I thought I’d done something wrong. But it was nothing to do with me after all. When you saw that bug – it got Mr Terry off the hook.’

  ‘Right on the nose, kid!’ Sean Terry’s smile was bleak, like his eyes, as if his job, keeping the streets safe for decent people to walk in, had obliterated the ability to create warmth. But it was a smile nonetheless, and the first Scott had seen on the man’s face.

  ‘And I can tell you something else. That’s when you knew about Pete, because if Hilary was okay, the only other person that could possibly have bugged my trainers was him. I never thought about it before. I tossed them off in the kitchen and none of your men came into the house afterwards; only you, Pete and Hilary. But how did you keep in touch?’

  Hilary held up her phone. ‘Mostly, this. But for safety …’ she added, staring down at the floor. She stretched out her foot. Clinging like a leech to the sole of her shoe was a small grey pebble.

  Scott stared, stunned into silence.

  ‘You’re not mad, Scott, about my lying to you?’ Hilary’s voice sounded nervous; her precise, confident tone missing.

  Scott’s head filled with words he desperately wanted to hurl at her. Words she had used to lord it over him. How many times had she told him to trust her, when all the time …. What did she have to do, get shot! Pretending to be too scared to get in touch with her boss. Of all the sneaky …’ He opened his mouth and spotted his father watching him closely.

  He swallowed hard and sketched a smile. ‘I got Dad back.’ He shrugged. ‘I guess nothing else really matters. And you weren’t the only person telling lies.’ He glanced at his dad, smiling shyly.

  ‘Scott?’

  ‘It’s okay, Dad, at least I think it is. I’m not quite sure yet. But I’d quite like to meet her. There’s a lot of catching up to do. Do you think she can cook more than stir-fry and pasta?’

  Bill felt a wetness on his cheeks; instantly blaming the morphine for leaving him so vulnerable. Then he understood why he was crying, it wasn’t because he felt weak, it was with pride, great pride, that he’d reared a son who was rapidly becoming a halfway-decent human being.

  ‘She’s in Holland, Scott. Doug went back last night to get her. We were going to meet up. It had already been decided, when last weekend happened. But whether we stay here or move back to the States ...’

  ‘I don’t mind living in the States, Dad,’ Scott boasted, his eyes sliding towards Hilary.

  Bill noted the glimmer of a smile. ‘What I’m trying to say is: wherever we live, it has to be out of the way – for the time being at least – and probably with a permanent guard. At least we now know who our friends are.’ He smiled gratefully at the two men occupying the armchairs; one of whose face was ravaged with exhaustion; the other, someone that believed in the stability of the monarchy and was prepared to do something about it.

  Sean Terry got to his feet. ‘We’ll get it sorted, don’t worry. But even if we fix this one, it won’t be long before another maniac comes along demanding our attention. Well, I’m off to tie one on. Doug, here, will fetch the missing momma. Stone, you coming?’

  Hilary seemed about to speak. Reluctantly, she stood up as if waiting for something.

  ‘Scott?’ his father said.

  Scott swung round. ‘See you tomorrow?’ he said, smiling broadly. She smiled back and, lifting her hand in a wave, joined her boss in the corridor.

  Sean Terry stuck his head back in the room, his bleak eyes erupting into a smile. ‘Oh! I forgot! Just in case your dad decides to take another fifteen years to get round to telling you; you’ve also got a nine-year-old sister! And grandparents! I’ve met them. They’re nice!’ He grinned encouragingly at the exhausted figure lying in bed; his voice, with its Irish lilt, innocent sounding. ‘I find sick people get better much more quickly if their conscience is clear.’ He raised his hand in a salute. ‘Come on, Stone, Let’s find a decent bar, I need a stiff drink.’