Secrets

by Jane A. Adams

  ‘Pick any conflict, look at any moment in our history and I mean us as a species, not us as a particular race or a particular country or creed or place and the same patterns will be evident. Molly and Edward knew this, recognized this, but unlike most of us, they wanted to try and do something about it. Most of us, believe me, we are just grateful if we can walk away. Little Adis was the first child they rescued, but there were others. Children, adults, families. They hid them, they rehomed them, organized false identities.’

  ‘Rehomed.’ Naomi laughed. ‘You make it sound like stray dogs.’

  ‘I always did prefer dogs to people,’ Gregory told her. ‘As individuals, they always seemed so much more reliable. As a pack, they are loyal to their leaders in a way that humans rarely are.’

  ‘Or should be,’ Naomi said, suddenly angry, though she could not have said exactly why.

  ‘Or should be,’ Gregory agreed. ‘Though I do admire loyalty, I suppose. To the right people.’

  ‘The right people?’

  ‘I don’t think Molly and Edward would agree with my choices, but we all do what we do, according to our natures. My friendship with Arthur Fields, even though I didn’t always like the man, means that I owe a certain loyalty to him. I would like to know who shot him and on whose orders.’

  ‘You didn’t like him? Arthur Fields?’

  ‘Not always, no.’

  ‘Then what makes you owe him anything? If it wasn’t friendship—’

  ‘Coincidence of place, of time, of action. Maybe also because I know it could have been me. It’s self-preservation, if you prefer that as an explanation.’

  ‘I’m not sure what I prefer, never mind believe.’ Naomi frowned. What exactly did she know about Gregory? That he killed people, that he was full of contradictions, that, on occasion, he too had saved lives. That he did have an odd sense of loyalty, one which had led him to some particularly violent actions. ‘These people Edward and Molly helped. How did they hide them? How did they help?’

  ‘Why did the Victorians insist on putting up such damn great angels everywhere?’ Gregory asked.

  ‘I don’t know. But I do kind of like them.’ She looked up instinctively towards the sound of chittering squirrels overhead. ‘Fighting?’

  ‘Yes, two big males, both want the same tree. You still behave as though you’re sighted. I’ve noticed it before.’

  ‘I suppose I do. You can’t change long ingrained habits overnight, I suppose.’

  ‘Does it make you angry?’

  ‘It did.’ Naomi paused, well aware that Gregory was distracting her from the questions she had asked. He did this often, she thought, almost as if he needed thinking time. She decided to allow the distraction, just for the moment.

  ‘For a while I couldn’t get over the anger. I felt like life was over and it was, the life I knew, anyway. But I was lucky. I had family and friends who wouldn’t let me give in. My sister Sam was the biggest help.’

  ‘How?’ Gregory asked.

  Naomi laughed. ‘Oh, stupid, simple ordinary things. When the doctors said I could be discharged in a couple of days, she bought my make-up bag into the hospital. I’d never been a big one for all the slap, you know, but, Sam and I, we’d always looked at it like war paint. You put it on if you were worried about a new situation and you prepared for battle. She knew how hard it was going to be, going outside, facing people again, so she brought me a new lipstick and she sat with me until I could put it on and do my eye shadow and all that stuff and not look like some five year old who’s stolen her mum’s cosmetics. Then after I’d only been out a few days, she took me shopping. Boy, was I scared. The world was so much louder than I could remember it being and I held on to her arm so hard I bruised it. But she was right; you can spend too long standing on the edge of the pool, trying to summon the courage to jump in. I’d lost so much weight in hospital that nothing fitted. Sam said that if I could see myself in a mirror, I’d have hated the way everything just hung on me. She said I’d get to thinking what I looked like to other people, and I’d be upset because I looked a mess, so she took me out and we bought new clothes, and when I got home I just sat and cried and she just sat with me and you know how people usually try to get you to stop crying? Well Sam never did. She just knew I had to cry it all out. That I couldn’t start to get better until I stopped being angry and got on with the grieving, I suppose. In a weird way, I guess she used my vanity to get me through a really difficult time.’

  ‘She sounds very wise.’

  ‘Daft as a brush, she is. But yeah, I guess she is wise too. She’s a great mother, devoted to her kids. Just a big kid herself in a lot of ways. We’re very close. I miss them, moving around the way we have. I really miss them.’

  ‘Then go home,’ Gregory said. ‘It’s not a hard choice to make, is it?’

  ‘We’ve sold the house.’

  ‘Good. So buy another. Buy it close to the ones you love.’

  It was apt advice, Naomi thought. And so obvious she wondered why she hadn’t thought about it for herself. ‘Do you have people to love?’

  ‘Love? No. As I said, there are people I have loyalties to, but less and less as time goes by.’

  ‘Who helped Molly and Edward? You said it must have been this Clay.’

  ‘At first, yes. Later, I think they expanded their own network. But they continued to work with Clay. As I said, most of those they saved, they created a life for. False papers, a false past. It isn’t so hard with children, I don’t suppose. They can be persuaded to forget. New memories fill the old spaces.’

  ‘If you think that, then you don’t know children,’ Naomi told him.

  ‘Maybe so. Anyway, eventually it seems there was a falling out.’

  ‘About?’

  ‘I would be speculating,’ Gregory said.

  ‘Speculate away.’

  ‘Shall we sit? The view from here is very pretty. I could describe it to you.’

  ‘All right, but save the description and just get on with the story.’

  They settled down on a bench. The sun was even hotter in this spot and Naomi breathed in the warm, scented air and allowed her body to relax. Somehow, she felt more at ease than she had felt in weeks. Gregory’s simple analysis of their situation had focused her mind, clarified things. She now felt faintly ridiculous that they had made life so hard for themselves, but perhaps it was just that they had not been ready to accept it was as simple as that.

  ‘You were speculating,’ she reminded Gregory.

  ‘I was. Yes. From time to time, Clay would … how can I put this? Choose to keep the children Edward saved. He trained them, educated them more often than not saw them through university and helped them into influential jobs. Sometimes they came back to join his organization.’

  ‘Organization?’

  ‘I think that was what caused the rift. Edward believed that these children deserved a second chance. That they should be, well, rehomed, as I put it before and left to be whatever they wanted to be. Clay believed that there were some who could never be rehabilitated. That life, childhood, as it should be, had ended for them and nothing could bring that back. So he channelled their anger and their hatred; their need for revenge or restitution and he trained them accordingly. Sent them out into the world to do his bidding and to build his empire.’

  ‘Empire? That sounds rather grandiose.’

  ‘It’s this view,’ Gregory told her. ‘You really should let me describe it to you. It evokes the grandiose.’

  Naomi laughed. ‘You are a very strange man,’ she said. ‘So, these other children—’

  ‘I think Clay may have sent one of them to kill Molly,’ Gregory told her.

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘Because, unlike Edward, who understood that although you may not like everything that happens, some things are beyond your remit; some secrets need to be kept. Molly Chambers, I believe, long ago shed those particular illusions or, if you prefer, dispensed with that particular
safety net. Molly doesn’t just know where the bodies are buried, she helped put quite a few of them in the ground and, now Edward is dead and gone, I don’t think she cares who knows that or who else she might have implicated. Molly is what I suppose you could term a loose cannon. Frankly, she scares the hell out of me, and I’m not directly implicated in anything she may or may not have done. Clay is in it up to his neck and Molly knows that.

  ‘What I still can’t figure out is how the assassination failed. Why Molly is still here.’

  ‘Because the would-be assassin shot himself,’ Naomi said.

  Gregory laughed softly. ‘I don’t believe that for a minute,’ he said. ‘I just have two questions. One is, how did Molly kill the man Clay sent to kill her and the second is, when will he try again?’

  THIRTY

  DI Barnes, as Alec had speculated, was not a man to take rejection easily. He felt that his nose had been well and truly put out of joint and, even if he couldn’t hope to get to the bottom of things, felt he at least owed it to himself to try.

  He had spent an hour ensconced with the young officer who had acted as liaison with Tariq Nasir, the home office representative, but learnt nothing new. Had spent a good deal of time looking over the crime scene photographs from the Gilligan and Hayes office and then even longer looking at the photographs from the warehouse where the security guard had been attacked, but after all that, was no further.

  When the news came mid-afternoon that the security guard had finally regained consciousness, Barnes, having gained the assent of his opposite number, was on his way to the hospital even before he had ascertained whether or not the injured man was fit to talk. En route, he called Bill to check that he’d heard about his friend and made arrangements to come over and have another chat with him after. He wondered about Alec and if he’d come to any new conclusions; if he’d shown Molly Chambers that photograph.

  He wondered about a lot of things and most particularly, why anyone should go to such elaborate lengths to kill two men and then steal nothing – that, of course, was if Molly was telling the truth about that, which, on balance, seemed a tad unlikely.

  Barnes pulled into the hospital car park and tried to remember the directions he’d been given. He made his way up to the high dependency unit and gave his name to the nurse on reception, then showed her his ID. Behind her, a bank of monitors blinked and beeped and CCTV cameras filmed patients in their beds. Other staff moved across the screens. As she spoke to him, the nurse’s gaze flicked back and forth from his face, to the cameras and the screens. Barnes wondered which one represented his security guard.

  ‘I told the other gentleman, he really isn’t in a fit state to talk,’ she said.

  ‘Other gentleman?’ Not a police officer, then, he thought wryly.

  ‘Said he was a lawyer, or something. I asked him if the storage company had sent him and he said it was about compensation, so I assumed—’

  ‘What did he look like, this other man? Did he show you any ID?’

  ‘He gave me a business card, said I should pass it on to Tony’s wife when she visited him. He was a young man, dark hair, not as tall as you. Nice-looking.’

  ‘OK, thanks. Mrs Clark isn’t here?’

  ‘No, she’s been here most of the time and his brother’s sat with him too, but once he’d woken up and the doctor told her they thought he was going to be all right, we managed to persuade her to go home for a bit and get some sleep. She was all in, poor thing.’

  ‘Did you tell the other man that?’

  ‘No, but he didn’t ask any questions, anyway. Just gave me the card.’

  ‘Can I see it?’

  The nurse fished about in her desk. The card was unprinted on the reverse, but a mobile phone number had been written neatly across the centre. On the front was the name of a company and another phone number.

  ‘Did he give his name? Only there’s no name on the card, just the company.’

  ‘Oh, yes. He said he was a new employee, that his personal cards hadn’t come back from the printers yet. He said to call that number and ask for Nathan.’

  She looked quizzically at him. ‘Look, I didn’t give out any personal information, you know. And I did a quick Internet search after he’d gone. It’s a real company. I don’t think it was just some journalist looking for a story. We’ve had a few of those, all right.’

  ‘Good thinking,’ Barnes said, also thinking just how easy it would be to set up a company webpage, then wondering just why he was so suspicious.

  ‘Has he said anything?’

  She shook her head. ‘Nothing much. You can have a chat with the officer that’s been sitting with him, if you like. There’s been a police person here all the time.’

  Barnes told her he’d appreciate that. He watched as she crossed from reception desk to ward and pressed a buzzer on a com unit. A moment later a uniformed officer came out from behind the glass doors. They hissed closed behind him.

  Barnes introduced himself. The officer nodded. ‘I was told you might be calling by,’ he said. ‘Not much to tell you, I’m afraid.’

  ‘He’s said nothing?’

  ‘Rambled a bit. Something about an old woman and a girl, but it could be anything and nothing. He kept saying they came too early or something like that.’

  Molly Chambers? Barnes thought. Was the man recalling when she had come to collect something from the locker? But who was the girl?

  ‘And nothing about the attack?’

  ‘Nothing useful. His wife asked him and he said he heard a noise, looked up, saw something crashing down and that was it.’

  So, that was it, Barnes thought. He thanked the officer and watched as he crossed back towards the ward, pausing to clean his hands with gel before he was buzzed back through. He still had hold of the business card.

  ‘I’m supposed to give that to the wife,’ the nurse said.

  ‘Right. Yes. I don’t suppose you could take a photocopy for me?’

  ‘This is a nurse’s station in a high dependency unit, not office supplies,’ she said. ‘We don’t have one here.’

  ‘OK, no problem.’ He wondered at the sudden change of tone and assumed he had just outstayed his welcome. Taking out his phone he photographed the card on both sides and then handed it back. ‘Tell Mrs Clark that she should check this out with the local police before she acts on it,’ he said. ‘Could be a con.’

  The nurse frowned. He glanced back as he left; she was staring at the card as though it might bite her. No doubt upset that the ‘nice-looking’ young man might not be all he seemed, Barnes thought and then wondered if he was just overreacting. Why wouldn’t it just be an insurance company doing a bit of low key ambulance chasing? Or maybe even the storage company, doing a bit of damage limitation.

  Because it felt wrong, that was why, Barnes thought and then wondered if there was anything about this case that didn’t feel wrong.

  ‘OK, leaving aside your stupid idea that Molly may have killed that young man,’ Naomi said, ‘what really doesn’t make sense is if this Clay really wants Molly dead, why hasn’t he done something about it? It’s been getting on for three weeks, since—’

  ‘At a guess, simply because another attack on her would draw more attention than he’d like. Presently, although there is the link of the same weapon being used in the Molly incident as in the two killings, Arthur Fields and this Norris character, there’s not much else, so far as the police are concerned anyway—’

  ‘You didn’t know Herbert Norris, then?’

  ‘No, can’t help with that one, I’m afraid. It’s possible he was a part of Clay’s organization or that he had some contact with Molly, or even that he was something to do with Arthur.’

  ‘You’re talking about Clay’s organization again,’ Naomi accused. ‘What sort of thing are we talking about here?’

  They had arrived back at the car and Naomi heard the beep as he unlocked the doors. ‘What kind of car is it?’

  ‘A blue one.’ Greg
ory sounded amused. ‘In you go, big dog.’ Napoleon deposited in the back, Gregory helped Naomi into her seat. ‘Truthfully, Naomi, I don’t know how large. Clay is a man I’ve avoided assiduously. I’ve never knowingly worked for him and I’ve never knowingly provoked him either. I’m not like Molly.’

  ‘So, what do you think he’ll do?’

  ‘Wait a little while, then arrange for a heart attack or something similar.’

  Naomi went cold. ‘So, if he could do that, why send a man with a gun? It seems like grandstanding.’

  ‘Exactly right,’ Gregory said. ‘Clay means to send a message, I think. The shooting of Arthur Fields was dramatic. It made the national papers and the international news. Arthur had friends, prominent enough that they didn’t want to be seen at his funeral and who promptly erased all associations with his business. Herbert Norris’s death does not seem to have created major waves, but Molly. Now that’s another story. Molly and Edward are part of a lot of people’s pasts.’

  ‘You say people wanted to distance themselves from Arthur Fields, but I don’t get why. Importing Chinese pots doesn’t seem very dodgy.’

  ‘Actually, that was the one element of Arthur’s life that was totally genuine and totally above board. So far as I know, he didn’t even use it as a cover for anything. You have to keep one part of your life clean. Pay your taxes, know your subject. Care about it. Do that with enough conviction and enough skill and you’re halfway there. You have to live your legend; your cover story. Live it completely. There’s no point going off half cocked; you’d be blown in a matter of days.’

  ‘So, what else did he do?’

  ‘Like I told you before, he was an economic hit man. A word here, a bit of pressure there. A promise made on behalf of … well, whoever.’

  ‘And those who didn’t attend his funeral. Were they afraid of connections being made?’