by Gareth Rubin
‘I swear to God …’ Tibbot began.
‘I couldn’t find it,’ the Sec muttered. A little blood seeped from his nose, over his top lip and into his mouth. He spat it out and glared at me. ‘You arrived and I stopped looking.’
So it had all turned on that. He had found the box of medicines but I had disturbed him before he got the book. If I had come just a few seconds later, things would have been so different. ‘It had all the buyers and their orders,’ I told Tibbot. ‘He would have needed it to take over.’
Tibbot walked away a couple of paces. ‘How did you get involved in all of this?’ he asked Grest.
‘I was a blue. Just like you.’
‘Not like me. What happened?’
He swallowed painfully. ‘Had a call a couple of years back, woman taken to hospital after a fight. Didn’t sound like much.’
But the woman was Rachel, admitted to hospital after her struggle with Lorelei; and Grest told her that she would escape prosecution if she told him everything. Instead of reporting it, however, he had shoved her into Richard Larren’s care, with her car as a down payment. He didn’t want to arrest them; he wanted a cut.
Tibbot wiped his hand over his head. ‘How much did you take to keep it quiet?’
‘Thirty per cent.’
‘Why did you kill Lorelei?’
And then Grest smiled, a horrible monkey grin. ‘I didn’t,’ he said.
‘What?’ I whispered.
The life had returned to him. ‘I didn’t. She was alive when I got here, and still alive when I left her.’ I didn’t understand what he was saying. ‘She told me where the stuff was, so I left her alone and went to the girl’s room to get it.’ He turned to look at me. ‘Then I heard you come in.’
‘Don’t lie to me,’ warned Tibbot.
‘What then?’ I demanded.
‘You went in there and she says something.’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know. “Who’s there? I can’t see.” Something like that. Then there’s all this splashing, like a fight.’
Sometimes we hear a phrase or name, and know for certain that we have heard it before. I was sure those had been her words. I heard them from her lips: Who’s there? I can’t see.
‘And?’ asked Tibbot. His voice was low and dangerous.
Grest spoke to me again. I could tell he was enjoying it now. My face must have betrayed my feelings, the sense of falling. ‘I left you to it.’ He laughed. ‘When I came out the girl’s room, you were bent over the bath with your back to me, so I just left.’ He turned to Tibbot. ‘Not what you thought, is it? Backed the wrong horse? You can smack me again and again, but you know it’s like I say it was.’ Tibbot threw him to the side and he crumpled to the floor. I placed my head in my hands.
‘Did anyone else come in?’ Tibbot demanded fiercely.
‘No, mate.’
‘He’s lying,’ said Tibbot.
But I saw the scene as he had described it. Who’s there? I can’t see. Lorelei was speaking those words, until they were drowned by surging water.
Grest shook with laughter. ‘So someone killed her, mate, but it wasn’t me.’ He looked in my direction. ‘They’ll get what’s coming to them, though.’
I ran to Lorelei’s room, collapsing into the seat at her dresser. My hands dropped on to the table and under my palm I felt something hard and polished: her hairbrush. It still had some of her hairs entwined in it.
‘Is he telling the truth?’ Tibbot said quietly. I hadn’t heard him come in.
‘I think so.’
But what he was implying – it just couldn’t be true. I wouldn’t have done that. We know ourselves and our own lives, don’t we? Or is that what happens when we begin to mirror the divided world around us? We become strangers to ourselves. No, it couldn’t be true.
‘We have to decide what to do,’ Tibbot said. His tone was different. He was trying to work things out too.
I gazed at her hairbrush. ‘Were you keeping a watch on me?’ I asked. ‘When I went to Great Queen Street?’
‘And when you left. I had a feeling you weren’t going to leave things alone. The thing about the Secs is that they just can’t imagine someone doing to them what they do to everyone else all the time.’ There was a pause. Tibbot looked around. ‘She travelled overseas, didn’t she? Met all those foreign actors and Presidents. I bet she brought stuff back with her. Perfect way of doing it. Besides, she’s on our posters: Victory 1945. Pin-up girl for the Party. No one’s going to stop her and go through her case. It would be like stopping Blunt.’
I hesitated. ‘What about Nick now? Will they release him?’
‘Yeah, I think Grest wanted your husband out of the way so he could get the contact information and take over – one hundred per cent is better than thirty. But Grest will be a good boy now. I’ve told him that if he doesn’t, I’ll have a word in a lot of ears. Spread it around.’ He went over to the poster for The Lucky Lady, with Lorelei in a red silk gown, her face set behind a carnival mask made of red lace, and a spinning roulette wheel. There was a smaller image of her singing – it was a musical, it seemed.
‘What will they do about her death? NatSec, I mean.’
He sighed. ‘Blame it on an intruder, I expect. Burglary that went wrong. Close the file.’
‘Are you certain they will close it?’
‘You can’t tell with these people. But I think so.’ He wiped sweat from his brow. ‘Jane?’
‘Yes?’
‘Will you do something for me?’
‘Of course, what?’
‘When your husband gets out, will you keep schtum about all this? Even from him. It’s just that the fewer people who know, the safer it is for me, you understand?’
‘Yes, of course.’ I owed him that a hundred times over.
I grabbed on to the thought of Nick returning home to us, and looked to the speckled light slipping through the window.
25
I worried that, despite our leverage over him, Grest wouldn’t keep his word about releasing Nick. All morning I wavered between staring out the front window and trying to find ways to distract myself. I didn’t tell Hazel – even though I was bursting to do just that – in case it raised a false hope. Then, a little after eleven o’clock, as I was making some tea, there was a key in the lock and Nick stood on the threshold. I flew to him, and the two of us stood hugging each other as tightly as we could. ‘God, I love you,’ I whispered. And all the doubts and worries – how he had kept it from me that he and Lorelei had been involved in the black market and how it had come back to haunt us all – were buried under that truth. I would think about them later, but not now.
‘I love you too,’ he whispered back, kissing me. I knew that was true.
I wondered if he was aware of my involvement in his release, but I kept my word to Tibbot about not mentioning it – maybe one day I would be able to tell him. Luckily, the mark where Grest had hit me was small enough to be covered up by my rouge, and hopefully Hazel wouldn’t say anything. Nick called up the stairs to her and she squealed at his voice, almost tumbling down to the hall.
I held them both until he fought away from me, telling me he did need to breathe every once in a while. ‘Let’s go to that café in Victoria Park,’ he said. ‘I have a craving for ice cream.’
I just burst into laughter and drew them both to me again. Hazel kissed my cheek.
‘What was it like in there?’ Hazel asked with an untouched dish of ice cream melting in front of her. She had been too excited to eat it.
‘Oh, it was all right, really. Just boring. I spent most of my time thinking what I would buy you for your birthday,’ he replied with a wink. At home I had helped him to splint and bind the wrist Grest said had been broken by one of the guards. Nick told us it was just a sprain.
‘They didn’t hurt you?’
‘No. I think they knew they had made a mistake as soon as I got through the door; they were too embarrassed to admit it, though, so they kept me
there for a while.’ He kissed her forehead and she pushed him away. ‘I won’t be taking you there on holiday but it wasn’t too bad. Now, do you want that ice cream or am I having it?’
‘I’ll have it, please. But I’m just going to the –’
‘It’s over there,’ he said, pointing. I watched her go through the shabby door to the toilets. ‘Has there been any more news about Lorelei? Anything from the police?’ he asked me.
‘No, I don’t think so.’
‘Hmm, well, I expect we’ll find out eventually.’
I hoped so. ‘What was it really like?’ I asked.
‘Not an unmitigated delight. Worse than I told her, but they didn’t get the thumbscrews out. They threw a punch or two, but I’ll live. Bread and cold clear soup three times a day – that was probably the worst of it. Really, I was telling the truth when I said I think they realized their mistake pretty early on, but they’re NatSec, aren’t they? So they can’t admit to getting things wrong, or we little people will start to get ideas about them.’ He ate a small slice of cake that the waitress brought him. We waited until she was gone before speaking again in lower tones.
‘Was there questioning?’
‘Twice, by the same man. He looked more like an accountant than a Sec.’ That didn’t sound like Grest – presumably they had people who specialized in interrogation. ‘He was in this big high chair behind a desk and I had to sit on a low stool in the corner of the room like a child. Each time the questions were exactly the same: Why did I kill Lorelei? Who was I working for? Did she listen to Churchill’s speeches? Did she have a normal sexual appetite or was she abnormal?’ He forced down a grin. ‘But that’s when I knew I was safe – there was nothing that they actually suspected me of; they were just hoping I would volunteer something. And besides, they knew I was at Fred Taggan’s house when she died. It was just them flexing their muscles a bit. You would think they had better things to do with their time. God knows why they thought I was involved in anything. Probably given some duff information by a Citizen Informant – one of my patients or a neighbour or something. Bloody CIs. They’re vermin. Anyway, how did you bear up?’
‘It wasn’t easy. But I was OK.’
He took my hand in his. ‘Was Charles any help?’
I thought back to how he had been. ‘Hardly,’ I said, trying not to sound too bitter.
He suppressed a smile. ‘Well, he’s not brilliant on the sympathy front, is he? But he’s harmless. Lorelei used to call him “Hopalong” when he wasn’t around. His limp.’
‘Did she?’
‘Oh, yes. It was a bit rich from her, really.’
‘How so?’
He started eating Hazel’s ice cream. ‘Oh, after the War she was taken round all the forces hospitals so the chaps could meet the lovely young actress and she could stroke their fevered brows. Lot of blokes with shell shock and the like. Charles was quite churned up and she kept the act up with him, asking him how he was feeling, telling him to let it all out, that sort of thing.’
‘I see.’
‘Yes, old Charles is all right. Actually, he can be quite warm sometimes.’
‘He hides it well,’ I said.
‘He does rather.’
‘Maybe he just needs a girlfriend.’
Nick almost howled. ‘Now that’s something I never considered in relation to Charles. I’m afraid I don’t think he’s much of a Casanova. From what I can tell, he wants nothing more than to marry some quiet girl who will love, honour and especially obey, before she pops out a couple of sons and they all spend Sundays in perfectly dull silence.’ He looked a bit shifty. ‘In fact, I’m not certain that he has ever “had” a girlfriend. If you catch my drift.’ He winked. I smacked him on the shoulder. ‘Perhaps that’s why he’s like he is.’ I smacked him again, harder. ‘Ouch! All right, I get the message. Now, tell me how you got on with Hazel.’
‘Well. Yes, well.’
‘Good. I’m really glad. God knows what the poor kid’s going through. I’ll take some time off work and spend it with her.’
‘Good idea.’
He rubbed my hands. ‘I thought about you a lot,’ he said.
‘What were you thinking?’
‘I was thinking that if I get sent to a re-education camp, all I’ll have to look forward to are letters from you. And that’s not much good because you may be an English teacher but whenever you leave me a note I can make neither head nor tail of it.’
‘Do you want me to slap you?’
It was a joy just quietly cooking for us all that evening, making up a recipe involving the lard, flour and eggs we had in the house and the carrots and turkey ham we managed to buy on the way home. I created a sort of pie that was more successful than I had expected.
When Nick and I went to bed, there was absolute silence in the street for the first time that I could remember. No one was shouting at the neighbours; no police car was tearing along in pursuit of a petty criminal. The air was still and heavy, and I think being cooped up in his cell for three days meant Nick had a lot of pent-up energy that I was perfectly happy to help him expend. I lost myself then.
‘I do love you,’ he said.
‘I hope so. My God, it was so hard with you in there.’
‘I won’t be going back.’
‘Thank heaven.’ I waited a minute, thinking. ‘Nick, shall we have another baby?’
He kissed me again. ‘Let’s think about it later,’ he said.
Well, having been through such a shock it was only natural that he wouldn’t want to commit to something like that straight away. But lying there I saw a rich future with my belly swelling and knowing looks from other women on the Tube; followed by the two of us each taking a hand of our young child as we walked the corridors of the National Museum or through the grassy paths of Victoria Park.
My cheek rested on his chest and I could smell the musk on his skin.
The moon was poking through the misty sky when I spoke to him later.
‘Nick,’ I whispered.
‘Yes,’ he muttered in the dark, his voice muffled by the stillness.
‘About Lorelei.’
He reached out and rubbed my back. ‘It’s over now. All of it.’
‘It isn’t, though.’ I shivered in the night chill. I had been thinking about what Grest had said. His wild implication about me. ‘We don’t know what happened to her.’
‘The most likely thing is that it was just an accident. You said she had been drinking.’
‘Champagne. There was a bottle there.’
‘Well, there you go. She got drunk on her own – not for the first time – and slipped down. Drowned. It happens sometimes. More often than you would think.’
‘Still, it seems so strange.’
He sighed deeply, becoming more awake. I could see bruises on his stomach that were the result of his time with NatSec. ‘People die a hundred different ways. The only thing you can be sure of about the human body is that it will keep surprising you.’
I rubbed my skull with my knuckles. ‘What about the investigation now?’
‘I don’t know. I presume NatSec will continue with it, though I don’t know why it’s anything to do with them. They probably have “areas of enquiry” they’re following up, or whatever they call them. It’s nothing to do with us and I’m happy to be out of it now.’ I understood. He had good reason to want to let it all go. But I couldn’t. ‘For Hazel’s sake, I hope if she was killed by someone, then they catch him, but, otherwise, I just want nothing more to do with it.’
I stared through a gap in the curtains into the dark.
‘Lorelei wasn’t her original name, was it?’
‘No. It was Anne,’ he said.
‘You never mentioned that.’
‘Why on earth would I? Why do you care?’
‘I used to see her in the films. It was as if I knew her.’
‘She hasn’t acted for years.’ He was getting annoyed, but I couldn’t stop.
/> ‘Did you get on with her? I mean, you saw her at parties, didn’t you? And you had friends in common from when you were together.’
‘We were polite to each other. We weren’t friends.’
I pulled the blankets tighter. ‘How did you meet?’
‘Mutual friends.’
‘And why did it end?’
‘I was told she was having an affair.’
‘Oh. Oh, darling. Who was it?’
He hesitated. ‘Someone in the Party.’
‘In the Party?’ That hesitation suggested there was more to it. ‘Someone senior?’
‘John Cairncross,’ he said through the dark.
‘Cairncross?’ The traitor Cairncross. At first I was amazed. But then why was that so unlikely? As the beautiful face of our idealistic young nation, she must have been introduced to them all. To those of us who lived in the Republic, the part she had played in the new regime was as great as Philby’s or Burgess’s.
‘She denied it but she was lying, I could tell. She did that a lot, even to me, and I could always tell.’ I had never before detected any real bitterness in him towards Lorelei. But then I had hardly asked him about her – deep down, I think I had been afraid of what I might hear. ‘Lorelei and I were not friends. Yes, she was exciting to be with, but I can’t say I liked her very much as a person – let alone as a mother to Hazel. Now, the past is past. Let’s not rake it up.’
‘I … yes, of course.’ I came to myself. ‘I’m so sorry. After all you’ve been through.’ I wanted him to be open with me about her; but, if I were being truthful with myself, as I lay there in bed with him and there was silence outside in the street, I would have taken a future together over total honesty.
‘Yes,’ he muttered. His breaths slowed and deepened in his throat.
John Cairncross. I lay in the dark and worked it out. It had been four years since he had pleaded guilty to using his place in the Politburo to sabotage our food production in return for American money. Four years since Lorelei’s last film and four years since the last story about her in the Morning Star. Surely that was no coincidence – his fall had resulted in hers, the taint running from one to the other. So she was no longer for public consumption. Even now, her death hadn’t been reported – the censors had cut her out of our history.