by Cathy Ace
Bud was saying, “I don’t understand. There must be hope, surely.” I could see his hand raking through his hair. Have you lost weight, Bud?
“As I keep telling you, Bud, even after all these weeks, we just don’t know.”
Weeks?
“She’s healed in all respects but this—and while we can keep doing scans of her brain, all I can tell you is it is not damaged. She’s not responding as she should be. Whatever she is eventually able to do, it will take time. Months, or maybe years.”
I wanted to scream at the man and tell him he was talking nonsense, but all I managed to do was reach out and smack a plastic cup off the little table sitting across my bed. Bud’s face broke into the biggest smile I’d ever seen.
“There she is—she’s back. My Cait is coming back. That’s right, isn’t it? You’re fighting your way back to me in there, aren’t you?”
I nodded. Slowly. I knew I’d really done it because Bud cried, sobbed, like a child. He held me as close as all the equipment attached to me would allow and I could feel his entire body juddering against mine. “I thought you’d gone, my love. Thank you for coming back to me.”
His body felt odd against my skin, which was hypersensitive. Pulling back, he looked into my eyes, and I looked into his. I winked at him, and that set him off again.
When he’d rested me back against my pillows he sat on the edge of my bed and held both my hands. I could feel his skin warm against mine. I had missed that feeling so much.
“Oh Cait. These have been the worst weeks of my life, watching you lay here, helpless. But now you’re on your way back. I can see you in your eyes. We can work on getting you well.”
Echoes from the Cold War
THE SUITE AT THE GELLÉRT Hotel was wonderful; wood-paneled walls, elegant furnishings, and a canopied bed in a separate room made for luxurious surroundings. I’d come off the ventilator just a week earlier, but had already been given clearances to travel by the medical staff at the hospital, who’d all been astounded by my recovery. Bud and I had agreed to splash out on one night of indulgence before we left Budapest.
“It’s absolutely marvelous to see you here, like this, Cait, my dear,” said John Silver when he arrived with a box of pastries. “If Bud had told me a month ago this would be what we’d be doing today, I’d have done my best to bring him down from cloud cuckoo land without a bump. You’ve made wonderful progress.” He was beaming.
The room was warm—maybe a little too warm, but Bud wouldn’t have it any other way, so I was glad to be able to sip iced tea with the pastries.
“Yes, I’m just fine now, thanks,” I said, munching a delicious chocolate tartlet topped with raspberries.
John patted my hand. “Wonderful.” Looking across the coffee table at Bud, he added, “A real fighter, this one. I’d keep her, if I were you.”
“I’m planning on it,” said Bud with a grin. “It’ll be our wedding anniversary in a couple of days. On December 31 we’ll have been married a whole year. At one point I wasn’t sure she’d make it. And, whatever she says, she’s still not one hundred percent. She has to take it easy for a while and there’ll be months of rehab. We have to get her walking properly again.”
“Hey, come on, I’m sitting right here, you know,” I said, “albeit in this blessed wheelchair. I feel fine. You also promised I could have today to tie up all the loose ends here. I can’t leave until justice is served.”
John tilted his head. His eyes softened with concern. “Cait, Bud made me promise not to talk about any of this until you were out of the hospital, and I haven’t. However, despite the fact you’re one of the brightest people I’ve ever met, I know you’re not in possession of all the facts pertaining to the matter, so there’s no way you could know what was going on. We had Patrik Matyas, aka Peter Mezey, in custody for a while, and he gave us some information you don’t have.”
“Before you tell me what he’s confessed, just answer me one question,” I said.
“Okay. Shoot,” said John. He received a thump on the arm from Bud for that.
“When you searched it, which I’m sure you did, you didn’t find any listening devices in my apartment, did you?”
“Correct,” replied John.
“That makes sense. And it means that, for once dear husband, I’m afraid I have to acknowledge I made a mistake.”
Bud pantomimed a shudder. “No, not a mistake. Perish the thought.”
I couldn’t help but smile. “Because I was wrapped in a fog of paranoia, I took the message on my bathroom mirror—LISTEN TO YOUR HUSBAND STOP MEDDLING—to mean I should listen to what you’d been telling me during our Skype conversations about refraining from investigating the Seszták case. My fevered little brain was only too happy to believe my apartment was bugged—that the walls really did have ears. But I was wrong. It wasn’t that at all.” Both men’s eyes were twinkling.
“Go on,” said Bud wickedly.
“Patrik Matyas was the one who entered my apartment and wrote that message on my mirror, but he did it for an entirely different reason.”
“And that was?” said John, goading me.
“He did it because Stanislav Samokhin, the Russian record producer who was so desperate to sign Zsófia Takács to a contract, and whose nose I had put badly out of joint, asked him to. Or told him to. Stanislav spoke to Patrik at the club the night they were both there to see Zsófia sing. I might have interpreted their brief exchange as an innocent one between the only two people over the age of fifty in the place—as Patrik would have had me believe—had it not been for the exact nature of their interaction. Stanislav bent his head to Patrik’s ear, an intimate gesture. If they’d really been strangers to each other there’d have remained a distance between them. Not being privy to all the files you can access, I don’t know what the exact connection between them is, but it’s enough of one for Stanislav to be able to get Patrik to act on his behalf to scare me off being protective of Zsófia. I should have known it was Patrik who did it; no one had broken into my apartment, you see—the front door was open, not forced. It’s an apartment held by the HUB for visiting professors, so there’s no reason why he wouldn’t have access to another set of keys. I’d spoken to him at the St. Martin’s Day dinner at the Vajdahunyad Castle about how you have often told me I shouldn’t get involved in students’ business back at UVan, Bud, so the message he left should have pointed directly to him—I’d told no one else any such thing. But because of my general state of mind, I leapt to a totally incorrect conclusion—that all my conversations were being listened to. However, there were no complex bugging systems, there was just a man taking what I’d said and using it to frighten me when he was required to do so.”
John and Bud didn’t say a word, then they both grinned.
John said, “He’s already admitted what you’ve surmised. He didn’t realize he’d left your front door improperly closed, and threw quite a little tantrum when he found out about that, by all accounts. The plan had been to terrify you with an ‘impossible message.’ He’s also admitted to his various roles through the years as an informant and infiltrator, as you told us in your messages.”
“Will you allow Patrik to return to his post?” I asked.
“He’s been back at the HUB for three weeks,” said John. “His allegiances have changed somewhat, of course.”
“His real name is Vladimir,” added Bud. “One of the delights of working for a government that has absolute control over all personal records is, of course, that he could become anybody his masters wanted him to be. Happy now?”
I said I was.
Bud sighed. “So, if you got that far lying in your sickbed, how about the Ilona Seszták murder? I’ll admit we’ve spent no time on that at all. The Matyas thing had to be dealt with, and John handled it all very nicely. The death of the Seszták woman wasn’t something I was prepared to work on—it would have kept me away from your bedside. So?”
“That’s the big picture stuff dealt wit
h,” I said. “By the way, did you ever find out if Tamás Örsi entered Canada in October 1976?”
“No one by that name did, Cait,” replied John. “But then paperwork is easily created if you work for a government.”
“Right then—so now we’re left with the family drama. I’m clear about what happened, but getting the truth out into the open won’t be easy, I don’t think,” I said.
“If anyone can do it you can, Cait,” said Bud with a truly happy grin.
Echoes from Canada
WE SAT AROUND THE DINING table in our suite with Tamás and Klara Örsi and Zsófia and Alexa Takács, facing a dazzling array of sweet and savory treats and a selection of beverages. The room service people had done an excellent job, and the atmosphere was quite festive. That had been my aim—since I’d told the Örsis and Takácses I wanted the chance to celebrate my recovery and imminent return to Canada with them all.
I allowed Tamás to explain, to my face, how he’d done his best to hit the wolf I was running toward and not me, and how he’d rushed me to the hospital in his work truck, leaving his young colleague to haul away the two sedated wolves alone. He also told me he had resigned from his post, and that he and Klara were now looking for a small home somewhere away from people where they could enjoy his well-earned, and much overdue, retirement. I thanked him for his explanation, and he looked as comfortable as he could in my company after that.
After the small talk about my recovery—and weight loss—had subsided, and we inevitably reached the topic of Valentin’s death, I was finally able to tell Zsófia how sorry I was about the loss of her uncle. She’d visited me at the hospital, but I’d held back from saying anything, until I could say everything. This was the time.
“It’s unlikely we’ll any of us meet again,” I began, “though you know, Zsófia, you have a place to stay in British Columbia should you ever need one, so this is the day I must, unfortunately, change all of your lives forever. And it won’t be in a good way.”
“What do you mean?” asked Alexa, sipping tea. The room was devoid of any alcohol.
“I mean I have to tell you some things about your own family you might not be happy to hear.”
“Lies eat at the soul,” said Klara sagely. “We know this. Truth is painful, but better. We should be glad we have the chance to speak the truth. It was not always possible.”
“Indeed,” I replied. “So, I’ll get right to it. The night before Valentin died, Klara, Tamás, Zsófia, and I discussed the fact that Valentin was adopted by your parents, Alexa.”
Alexa spoke. “Once they told me he wasn’t related to me by blood, many things from the whole of my life made more sense. When Zsófia informed me he was the child of a couple killed by their other son, I also understood why my father made me promise I would always look after him—even though he was my older brother.”
“For a man who chastised us for our deceitfulness, Kristóf was himself a man who told many lies,” said Tamás sadly.
“Indeed he did—and probably more than you think,” I said. “Valentin told you he was planning on revealing more family secrets in his final book, correct, Zsófia?”
“He did, though I don’t know what he meant. I read the entire manuscript, and I couldn’t see what truths he was telling. When you read it, Mama—before you burned it—you said you saw it. Mama will not share that information with us, Cait, and now the manuscript has gone, so we’ll never know.”
“Yes, it’s gone, but, thanks to you allowing me to read it, it’s not forgotten.”
“I don’t understand,” said Zsófia, voicing the opinion of four people in the room.
I cleared my throat. “Book six, page 782, paragraph four, line three—I quote: ‘The King lay in his chamber, his last breaths rattling the breast that had once been great. Zoth hovered beside his father’s bed. Handmaidens bathed the old man’s brow with the milk of goats, which the healer said was good for him. Zoth found the stench of death in battle glorious, but the sight of his father dying before him made him feel sick.’”
Everyone except Bud and John looked puzzled. I continued, “Page 823, paragraph two, line one: ‘Hailing his firstborn one last time, King Rohan—leader of men, lover of women, demon of the battlefield, now almost deceased—whispered into the young man’s ear, “I know you saw me with your sister’s corpse, and if I wish to enter the great halls of the afterlife, I must now admit it was I who killed her.’”
For a moment the room was utterly silent.
“How did you do that? I sort of remember something of the kind being in the manuscript, but how can you be so sure of the exact words?” asked Zsófia.
“She’s just making it up,” said Alexa. “It means nothing. Is that it?”
“No,” I replied. “There’s more. I won’t recite all of the entries, and the page references are moot since you destroyed the manuscript itself, but there were at least seventeen more points at which Valentin addressed matters pertaining to your mother’s death, Alexa, hidden in plain sight as references to the death of the princess, King Rohan’s only daughter.”
“And you remember them all, do you?” mocked the woman. “Did you write down those little bits and memorize them?”
Bud and John sat forward in their seats, allowing them a better view of the faces of our guests.
“No, Alexa, I didn’t need to. I have an eidetic memory, often referred to as a photographic memory. I can recall every word of the manuscript, as though I were turning the pages in front of me.”
Zsófia grabbed my hand in excitement. “Really? Do you think you could type it all up, just the way Uncle Valentin wrote it so I can read the clues you’re speaking of?” I said I probably could, intrigued that Zsófia was choosing to still refer to Valentin as her uncle. “That’s wonderful, Cait. I can read what he said properly, and the world will get the chance to know how he wanted his saga to end. Uncle gave all the income from the book to me—I’ll split it with you, equal shares, if only you’ll do it.” She dismissed my protests with, “No, I insist. It’s only fair. Without you doing all the typing, there’ll be no clues, no book. Please say you’ll do it?”
“All right, I’ll do it.” I hate typing!
“My daughter will make you a wealthy woman,” said Alexa angrily. “Lucky you.”
“We are already wealthy, Mama,” replied Zsófia. “Neither of us has a care about money, even without the last book, and Klara and Tamás know they are set for life too. So what if Cait gets a share? We’ll all have more money than we know what to do with and I will be able to work out who killed Ilona. The public will also get their closure. Everyone wins.”
“Everyone except the person who killed your grandmother, Zsófia,” I said.
Zsófia’s mood changed abruptly. “Yes, of course. I got excited because I thought I could try to spot the clues—but you already know what they are, don’t you? Do you know who did it, Cait? Have you found out any more? Uncle Valentin’s death has been so hard to bear it’s made me almost not worry about the death of a woman I never met. Even if he wasn’t my uncle by blood, I loved him as though he was my whole life. But all deaths are sad, and Grandmother’s shouldn’t have happened. Uncle Valentin took his own life because he couldn’t face the future for himself. I—” she hesitated before she added quietly, “I hope he knew he was loved. That we’d have loved him whatever happened.”
Alexa said, “He knew, child. He just chose to ignore our love when he killed himself.”
Zsófia’s sharp intake of breath was followed by, “I do wish I knew what happened to my grandmother. Do you know, Cait?”
“I do.”
“Was it Patrik Matyas? I know we talked about how he was in Vancouver at the time. He could have done it.”
Without so much as glancing toward Bud and John, I answered, “It wasn’t Patrik Matyas who did it. He was in Vancouver for other reasons. He was a watcher. A listener. Not a killer. Did you run into him at all when you visited Vancouver, Tamás?” I dared.
The old man blanched. “I have never been to Canada.”
Klara looked at her husband with a curious glint in her eye. “Is that where they sent you? Were you told to make sure your sister kept quiet? I’ve done some calculations, and the trip you took that really changed you—made you a different person for so long—was about the time she was killed. You should tell us the truth now.”
Tamás straightened his shoulders. “I was not in Canada at that time, I was in Italy.”
“Italy?” Klara sounded surprised. “Why were you there?”
Shaking his head, the old man replied, “I was sent to take photographs of dead animals, and living people. There had been a terrible tragedy—a chemical accident. Dioxin gas had been released. I was part of the group sent a few months later to document its effects on the animals and people of a place called Seveso. It was a difficult assignment.” He looked at his wife with a tortured expression. “I saw things a man should not see. I have never been able to forget them. I am sorry it made me a poor husband when I returned. I could not tell you, my dear. It was too dangerous for you to know.” He looked at John and Bud and added, “They’d been using similar types of chemicals to get rid of unwanted vegetation in parts of Mother Russia, then growing food on the land they’d cleared. They were interested to find out what happened if too much of the stuff got to animals and humans. I know no more than that.”
“Thank you, Tamás,” I said.
“Of course Tamás wouldn’t have killed his sister,” snapped Zsófia. “Was it Uncle Valentin’s real brother? The one who killed his family? Did he somehow find his little brother and kill the woman who had adopted him?”
“No.” I shook my head.
“Do you even know what happened to him?” Zsófia looked across at Bud and John.
I, too, looked at my husband for his input. He answered, “There are no records of Edward Cook, of any sort, after he left the hospital where he was treated for schizophrenia. We must assume, therefore, he never connected with his brother. I’m sorry to say our best assessment is that he lived a possibly short life on the streets—maybe having assumed a new name, or a nickname—and has since died.”