Launch Code

by Michael Ridpath

  A kind of wooden trolley contained yarn and tapestry designs, and a half-completed piece of needlepoint lay neatly folded on top of one of the cabinets. Toby could see it was the view of Barnholt, and Bill had made quite a lot of progress on it since Thanksgiving.

  He sat down and faced his father-in-law, sipping his cup of tea. He felt he should be scared of him, but he couldn’t quite accept that this man had tried to shoot him only twenty-four hours before.

  ‘How’s Beachwallet going, Toby?’

  ‘So far so good,’ said Toby, surprised at the question. ‘The VC is lined up to give us two million. They seem happy with the due diligence.’

  ‘Because if you need any help from me?’

  Toby summoned a smile. ‘Thanks, Bill. We’re going to be fine. We did appreciate your advice at the start.’ There was no way in hell Bill was coming anywhere near Toby’s company now.

  Bill smiled weakly. ‘Good. Give my regards to Piet, won’t you?’

  ‘I will.’

  Toby was pretty sure this conversation about Beachwallet was just a ploy to get Toby into Bill’s study.

  He was right.

  ‘Toby?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What’s going on down there?’

  ‘They’re upset.’

  ‘I can see that,’ said Bill. ‘And I can see they are upset with me. Why?’

  ‘It’s been a lot to take in,’ said Toby. He was determined not to give Bill reason to think they were suspicious of him.

  ‘Do they think I’m a traitor?’

  ‘No,’ said Toby. ‘No, they don’t. We don’t. They know why you spoke to the Russians. And they are proud of what you did on the submarine.’

  ‘Because I think I’m a traitor.’ Bill sighed. ‘Sure I spoke to Pat and Irena from the best of intentions. But I was naïve and so was Donna. We didn’t believe they were KGB and they obviously were. I betrayed my country, and I feel guilty about that. I always will.’

  ‘No harm came of it,’ said Toby.

  Bill grunted. ‘I wish Donna was still around. She had a lot of common sense, that woman. I could use her with me now.’

  ‘I wish I had known her,’ said Toby. It was true, but Toby was mostly thinking that maybe Donna would have stopped Bill from murdering people.

  ‘So if that’s not what’s upsetting them, did you tell Alice that I thought she killed Sam?’

  Toby hesitated. As he thought it through, it seemed the perfect explanation for the hostility downstairs.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Bill seemed to accept it. ‘It’s OK. I can’t expect you to keep something from your wife.’ He ran a hand through his thick grey hair in frustration. ‘No wonder she’s upset. Brooke is no doubt still cross about Craig. And it’s no surprise Megan is grumpy.’

  ‘Yup,’ said Toby. That was pretty well explained then.

  ‘Does Alice know I won’t tell the cops my suspicions?’

  ‘I think so,’ said Toby.

  ‘What about you, Toby?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Do you think she killed Sam Bowen?’

  ‘No,’ said Toby.

  ‘Did you ask her?’

  ‘No. No, I trust her.’

  Bill paused. ‘All right. I get that you trust your wife. I’d really like to trust her too. I guess what I’m asking is, can you give me a reason to?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Do you have proof she didn’t do it?’

  Did he? Not really.

  ‘No,’ Toby said. ‘But we do know she didn’t kill Lars, obviously.’

  ‘All right,’ said Bill. ‘But if it wasn’t her, who the hell was it?’

  Bill’s brown eyes were brimming with distress. Or they seemed to be.

  ‘I don’t know, Bill. I just don’t know.’

  Bill’s mobile phone rang. ‘Hello?’ he said.

  Toby was close enough to identify the voice, if not the words. Admiral Robinson.

  Bill glanced at Toby. ‘Yeah, hi. I can’t talk right now . . . OK, I’ll meet you. Do you want to come here? . . . I know the place. Just above Old Hunstanton . . . OK, I’ll see you at nine.’

  He disconnected. ‘That was Admiral Robinson,’ he said. ‘He wants to see me this evening. I don’t know what he wants to say.’

  Toby did.

  Fifty-Four

  Bill shut himself in his study, only coming down to the kitchen to wolf down the fish and chips Toby brought from a shop in the next village. To say the silence around the kitchen table was awkward would be an understatement.

  Toby had told the three sisters about Bill’s arrangement with the admiral to meet him above Old Hunstanton later that evening. Brooke decided to stay at Barnholt to see what, if anything, happened.

  Megan had suggested that they all watch a repeat or two of Friends in the living room. It was a good call, bringing back memories of the girls crowded around the TV when they were children, and distracting them from the destruction of their family in front of them.

  Bill put his head around the door at about twenty to nine, announcing he had to go out. Only Toby acknowledged him.

  ‘You know, despite what the admiral says, I still can’t believe Dad killed anyone,’ said Megan, as they heard him drive off in his Range Rover.

  ‘I’m sorry, Megan,’ said Alice. ‘I know it’s unbelievable, but it happened.’

  ‘Maybe he’ll be able to prove to the admiral that he’s innocent?’

  ‘Perhaps someone at the plumbing place will remember him,’ said Toby. ‘Did anyone see the tap he was talking about buying?’

  No one had.

  ‘His best theory is that I did it,’ said Alice with contempt. ‘And I know I didn’t.’

  ‘What do we do?’ said Brooke. ‘When Dad comes back?’

  ‘Depends what he does,’ said Alice. ‘He may want to talk to us. Confess. Or he may have confessed to Admiral Robinson. Maybe he’ll hand himself in to the police.’

  ‘But what if Dad just comes back and says nothing?’ said Brooke. ‘Goes to bed?’

  ‘Then we go to bed,’ said Alice.

  ‘But we can’t just pretend none of this happened!’

  ‘We’ll have to,’ said Alice.

  Toby was with Brooke on this. Alice glanced quickly at him. A warning shot.

  Bill being a murderer was bad enough. So was Lars being killed. And Sam Bowen. But Toby could see the decision he had put off re-emerging. Whether to tell the cops about Bill, and lose his wife. Or keep quiet. And what? Live for ever with a father-in-law who he knew was a murderer.

  It wouldn’t work.

  Toby would need courage to do what he had to do; he wasn’t sure he had it. There had to be some way of avoiding the decision, of finessing it somehow.

  Pray for a miracle. Maybe Megan was right; maybe Bill would be able to convince the admiral of his innocence.

  He was finding the waiting difficult, and Friends was irritating the hell out of him.

  Brooke’s phone rang. ‘It’s Justin,’ she explained. She withdrew to the kitchen, and reappeared a minute or so later. ‘I’m just going to pick him up from the hotel. I told him about Bill. He wants to be here, and I’ve got the car.’

  ‘I’ll go and get him, if you like,’ said Toby. He wanted to be doing something. And he wanted to talk to Justin alone. Reluctantly, he could see that Bill must have killed Sam. But it was harder to believe he had shot his old friend Lars. Whereas Justin?

  Brooke glanced at her sisters. It was clear she wanted to stay with them. ‘Thanks, Toby. I’ll give you the address of the hotel.’

  Fifty-Five

  Alice heard her husband drive off. She would have preferred Justin not to be around when Bill returned; his presence would make things even more awkward. But she hadn’t been able to think of a way of discouraging Brooke from asking him to come over, especially when she herself badly wanted Toby to be there. She should just have come right out and said it wasn’t a good idea.r />
  Too late now.

  The episode of Friends came to an end.

  ‘Another?’ said Megan.

  ‘Let’s have one from the first series,’ said Brooke.

  ‘You find one, Brooke,’ said Megan.

  While Brooke fiddled with one of the three remotes, Megan’s phone rang.

  ‘It’s Maya,’ Megan said to the others. ‘Hi, Maya. I’ll put you on speaker. Alice and Brooke are here.’

  She tapped her phone and placed it face up on the coffee table.

  Maya’s voice crackled through the room. ‘Hi! Is Daddy there?’

  ‘No. He’s off meeting Admiral Robinson.’

  ‘Good.’

  The three sisters exchanged glances at this, wondering why that was ‘good’.

  ‘I’m in Brooklyn,’ said Maya. ‘I’ve just seen Henry Greenwald, like you asked me to. He had some very interesting things to say.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘He was reluctant to talk at first, but I persuaded him. I told him two people had been killed, one of whom was Sam Bowen. He said Sam had approached him on Facebook and they arranged to meet up in Brooklyn next Friday. I asked him whether he remembered his mother meeting any Russians or any submarine officers.’

  ‘And did he?’

  ‘Not the Russians. But he said when he was about six he saw his mother talking to a man in their kitchen. The man was wearing a blue uniform. His mother was really angry with Henry, and told him never to breathe a word to anyone about it, which is why he remembers it so well. As he got older, he assumed that his mother was having an affair with the man, and that really upset him. But in 1996, just after his mother was murdered, the FBI came to talk to him about his mother’s contact with the KGB, and asked him and his father the same question I did.’

  ‘And did he tell them?’

  ‘No, he didn’t,’ said Maya. ‘He was sixteen. He was angry with the FBI for trying to ruin his mother’s reputation so soon after she had died. Plus he didn’t want his father to find out. But he was relieved at least to know that the naval officer was a spy rather than a lover.’

  ‘But he told you just now?’

  ‘I said I was persuasive. And his father died a few years ago.’

  ‘That all figures,’ said Megan, glancing at Alice. ‘It must have been Dad she met.’

  Alice nodded.

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ said Maya. ‘That’s not good, is it? It means he was spying for the KGB.’

  Alice took a deep breath. ‘Hi, Maya, this is Alice. There is something you should know. We think that Dad was spying for the KGB and he probably killed Sam Bowen and Uncle Lars too. Admiral Robinson told us as much this afternoon.’

  ‘My God!’ said Maya. ‘That can’t be true! Is the admiral going to arrest him?’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ said Alice. ‘He’s talking to him now.’

  ‘I don’t believe it.’ There was the sound of a muffled sob down the phone line. ‘I’d better go,’ said Maya. ‘Tell me as soon as you have news.’

  Megan picked up her phone and disconnected. ‘It all hangs together,’ she said.

  ‘It does,’ said Alice.

  The phone beeped in Megan’s hand, and she checked the screen. She read for a few seconds.

  ‘Oh my God!’ she said. ‘No! No, this cannot be what I think it is.’

  Her face creased in anguish: a mixture of horror and fear.

  ‘What?’ said Alice.

  ‘It’s an email from Dad. To all of us.’

  ‘What does it say?’

  ‘Take a look.’

  ‘No – read it out, Megan!’

  ‘OK.’ Megan bit her lip, and then began to read from her phone, haltingly:

  ‘Dear Alice, Brooke, Megan, and Maya,

  I’ve just spoken to Glenn. He told me that you know everything.

  I’m truly sorry.

  I love you all so much.

  Goodbye.

  Dad

  ‘Oh God!’ said Brooke. ‘Does that mean?’

  ‘He’s killed himself,’ said Alice.

  ‘Are you sure?’ said Brooke, scrabbling frantically for her own phone. ‘Can’t it mean something else? I don’t know, perhaps he’s running away?’

  They all looked at each other.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Alice.

  ‘Perhaps not,’ said Megan.

  ‘Let me see,’ said Alice, grabbing Megan’s phone. ‘Yeah. I think it does mean he’s planning to kill himself.’

  ‘If he hasn’t already,’ said Megan.

  ‘Oh God,’ said Brooke.

  ‘We’ve got to focus,’ said Alice. ‘He may not have done it yet.’

  ‘How do you know?’ said Brooke.

  ‘I don’t, but we have to assume he’s still alive until we are sure we are too late. Now, where is he? Toby said he was meeting the admiral at Old Hunstanton.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Are there any pubs there?’ said Megan. ‘Perhaps they’re meeting at a pub.’

  ‘Bound to be,’ said Alice.

  ‘Wait!’ said Brooke. ‘Didn’t Toby say above Old Hunstanton?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Megan. ‘I think he did.’

  ‘I’ve been driving on that road the last couple of days,’ said Brooke. ‘There are cliffs above Old Hunstanton. Between the village and Hunstanton itself.’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Alice. ‘There’s a lighthouse there and a cliff path to the town.’

  ‘Maybe he’s going to jump?’ said Brooke.

  ‘Sounds like it,’ said Alice.

  ‘He could take pills,’ said Megan. ‘Or shoot himself.’

  ‘He doesn’t own a gun,’ said Alice.

  ‘That we know of,’ said Megan. ‘He shot Lars, remember?’

  ‘There are cliffs. He’s suicidal. They’re right there; all he has to do is jump.’

  ‘You’re right,’ said Megan. ‘Let’s go! I’ll drive Brooke’s car.’

  ‘I’ll call Toby,’ said Alice. ‘He’s going to be a lot closer than we are.’

  Fifty-Six

  Toby pulled over and checked the address of Justin and Brooke’s hotel on his phone. He was on the outskirts of Hunstanton, a Victorian seaside resort. Toby didn’t know the town at all – he had only driven through it with Alice once – but according to his phone he wasn’t far from the hotel. He had kept an eye out for Bill’s red Range Rover as he had driven through the village of Old Hunstanton, but he hadn’t spotted it. Easy to miss in the dark.

  On the drive he had been figuring out how to raise Lars’s death indirectly with Justin. Find some way of ascertaining whether Justin had still been at the police station the previous afternoon when Lars had been shot.

  The phone buzzed. It was Alice.

  ‘Toby! We think Dad’s going to kill himself! On the cliffs. We think he’s going to jump. Can you get there?’

  ‘What! How do you know? Did he call you?’

  ‘He sent an email to all of us.’

  Toby turned the car around and headed back the way he had come, as Alice swiftly explained what had happened. It made sense to him. For someone as proud as Bill, the humiliation of exposure would be extreme. Humiliation in front of his family as much as anyone else.

  He had noticed a road called Cliff Parade on his way into town, a clue that the cliffs were nearby.

  He was there in a minute, and turned left on to the road. Straight ahead stood a squat white lighthouse. The parade curved left between a row of stiff suburban houses on one side and a stretch of green on the other. The street was well lit, which made it harder to see beyond the pools of light on the grass to what were presumably cliffs and beyond that the sea.

  He decided it would be easiest to look for Bill’s red Range Rover first, then look for Bill.

  The lighthouse seemed a natural place for Bill and the admiral to meet. Toby turned off the parade into a short road which passed the lighthouse towards a car park. At nine-thirty on a dark November night it wa
s empty, save for two cars, one of which was the Range Rover.

  Toby stopped next to it and jumped out. The Range Rover was only yards from the cliff edge. It was a dark night; the sky was black in all directions, the sea a barely perceptible different shade of ink. A stiff, cold breeze was blowing in from the north. Toby couldn’t make out any beach, and in fact he could hear waves breaking against rocks below and out of sight. It must be high tide.

  Where to try first? He jogged back to the lighthouse, which was shut up tight.

  ‘Bill!’ he shouted. He checked all around the building: no sign of anyone.

  What if he didn’t get to Bill in time? What if Bill had already jumped? Would that be such a bad thing? If Bill really had killed Sam Bowen and Lars, shouldn’t he be allowed to judge himself? To choose his own punishment?

  Toby wasn’t sure. Despite what his father-in-law had done, Toby didn’t want him to die. More importantly, Toby’s wife and her sisters didn’t want him to die.

  Toby had to find him.

  He trotted over to the fence that lined the swathe of grass, and that stopped walkers from getting too close to the cliff edge. He hopped over it, and fought his way through bushes until the sea opened up before him.

  It was a long way down, and the waves were indeed beating against the rocks at the bottom. He couldn’t see a body, but it was too dark to be sure.

  If Bill had already jumped, Toby was too late anyway. He was looking for an upright figure above the cliffs, not a floating body below.

  Which way?

  To the west, Cliff Parade ran towards the town, to the east lay the car park and a path along the cliffs heading back towards the village.

  The admiral had specified Old Hunstanton rather than Hunstanton. Toby took the path eastwards.

  He jogged along the edge of the car park. Away from the street lighting, it was very dark.