‘Other people to see,’ Sam lied.
‘Of course.’ Salmon pushed himself upright using the arms of the chair. ‘Nice to have met you anyway.’
When the old man was steady on his feet Sam shook his hand. ‘Could I ask one last favour?’
‘Of course.’
‘Not to speak about this to anyone. Official secrets and all that.’
‘Understood. My lips are sealed.’
At the door they shook hands again. As Sam drove off, he saw Salmon watching from the step.
He drove despondently back to the sea front and parked overlooking the water in order to think. Nothing from Rothesay and now nothing from Salmon. He was at the end of the line. And without evidence to the contrary, the record looked set to stand. His father had made a habit of cheating on his wife, so it was possible he’d cheated on his mates as well.
‘Hell!’ He banged his fist on the wheel.
He looked at his watch. A quarter to one. The airport was half an hour away and Waddell’s silence was needling him. He needed to be back down in the capital, hammering on doors for a hearing.
He restarted the engine and engaged first gear. Then as he swung the car towards the promenade, the phone rang. He snatched it up, stamping on the clutch and the brake, hoping the little Ulsterman was deigning to speak to him at last.
‘Yes?’
‘Mr Packer?’
Sam didn’t recognise the voice. He envisaged a press man having been given his number by Julie Jackman.
‘Who is this?’
‘It’s Craigie here. The photographer in Rothesay.’
‘Mr Craigie! Hello.’ He pulled sharply on the handbrake and turned the engine off. The old photographer had promised to keep searching his files and had taken his mobile number just in case. ‘Something’s come up?’
‘Well I’m still not too hopeful, but there’s three more negs I’ve come across which could be from the dates you gave me.’
Sam felt a sudden surge of hope.
‘If you’d care to pop into the shop I could show you the contacts. Then if it’s still no, at least you’ll be sure I never took your parents’ photo.’
‘Trouble is I’m not on Bute any more,’ Sam hedged, quickly calculating how long it would take to return to Rothesay, then rejecting the notion. London was where he needed to be next.
‘Och, now that’s a pity. Well I’ll keep them aside for when you next come back.’
‘Thanks. But I’ve no idea when that’ll be.’
‘Or I could post them if you give me your address.’
After the spread in the morning paper, he didn’t have a usable address any more.
‘No,’ he answered, searching for a way. Suddenly he realised that he was staring at it. Opposite where he’d stopped the car was the café from earlier.
‘Mr Craigie . . .’
‘Aye?’
‘I’ve an idea.’
Ten minutes later and £2.50 poorer, he was staring at a PC screen, watching the e-mail download. The attachment contained three 6 × 6 cm prints, scanned in together on a single page. As the bottom one of the three revealed itself, his breath froze. His father’s grinning visage inched its way onto the screen. And he was with a woman.
It felt like being blasted through a time warp to see him there. Sam was in short trousers again, re-experiencing his childhood’s worst fear – that one day his dad would go away to sea and never return. He could even smell the unfiltered Virginia his father used to smoke. In the picture, the man was hugging his girl like a trophy. A very young woman with peroxide hair.
Sam saved the photos to a disc provided by the café owner then reopened the file in a photo-handling program. He excised the pictures that didn’t interest him and enlarged the one that remained.
His father had been clean shaven on that day back in 1971, closer to the image in the wedding photograph than to Beryl’s memory of him. More the way Sam recalled: steady, soft eyes with a twinkle of mischief – and sheepishness. He’d never thought to wonder why he looked that way. Now he knew the reason.
The fluffy-haired girl seemed to be in her early twenties. A pretty thing with a smile as wide as the Clyde, a grin which said that being with his father on that island was like winning the pools.
Sam printed the picture twice, then shut down the computer.
‘All in order?’ the young man with the nose ring asked.
‘All in order,’ Sam replied.
Back in the car he phoned the Bute photographer again.
‘Thanks for all your efforts, Mr Craigie. I got the pictures okay, but unfortunately none of them were of my parents.’ If the spying story leaked out, the last thing he wanted was to see that snap in the papers.
‘Och, I’m sorry to hear that. Well we tried. Can’t do more than that.’
‘Quite right. Good luck to you, Mr Craigie.’
‘And to you, Mr ’em . . . Foster . . .’ The line clicked dead.
‘Oh shit!’ Sam gulped. Craigie had seen the Chronicle. He smelled more trouble coming.
He started the engine and drove off. Within a couple of minutes he was pulling up outside Ted Salmon’s cottage again. This time the front door opened at the first ring.
‘Forgotten something?’ the old man asked uneasily.
‘No. But a photograph has come into my hands. I wanted to show it to you.’
‘Better come in then.’
When they’d moved to the sitting room, Sam presented him with the computer printout.
‘Where’s this popped up from all of a sudden?’
‘It was taken in Rothesay twenty-seven years ago.’
The old submariner reached for a spectacle case on the table beside his chair and slipped on bifocals with heavy, square frames.
‘Bless us! Look at that. Large as life and twice as ugly, that’s your dad all right.’
‘Yes, but the woman?’
He held the photo closer.
‘Well I’m buggered! That was . . .’ He snapped his fingers. ‘Wassername. Oh! It’s on the tip of my tongue. She was a lassie who was er . . .’ He glanced up apologetically. ‘Well, in business, is what she was, to be honest. Looked after the needs of a number of the lads before your dad came along. She was looked on as being a bit special, you know. Not your average totty.’
‘And her name?’
Salmon favoured the photo towards the window to catch the light. He shook his head. ‘It’s gone. Memory’s not what it was. Where was this taken did you say?’
‘On the Isle of Bute. May the 21st, 1971.’
The old man screwed up his face.
‘Wasn’t that the year Trevor died?’
‘Two months later, in July,’ Sam reminded him.
Salmon pursed and unpursed his lips. Then he closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. ‘Something’s coming back. I don’t know if I’m remembering this right, but I’ve a feeling he told me it was more than just physical with this one. I think he might even have fallen in love with her. Or thought he had.’ He looked up. ‘She was quite young, by the look of her. Your dad liked them young, I remember.’
‘But you can’t remember this girl’s name?’
The old man closed his eyes. ‘This is stupid. She was from here. Helensburgh. Used to see her around the town from time to time.’
‘What, recently?’
‘Oh yes.’
Sam’s hopes shot up. ‘Think hard. What was her name?’
‘She married a butcher.’ The old man’s eyes brightened at the recollection. ‘Coggan’s the shop was called.’ He snapped his fingers again. ‘Jo Coggan!’
‘That’s her name?’
‘Yes! Marriage didn’t last long. Jo Macdonald she was, originally.’
‘You’re certain?’
‘Totally. How come I forgot that? Jo Macdonald. Your father called her his little Josephine.’
‘Brilliant,’ Sam smiled. ‘Any idea where she lives in Helensburgh?’
‘No. None.�
� He stared at the photograph again, enmeshed in the memories it had unleashed. ‘Tell you somebody who might know, though, and that’s the minister. I’ve seen her going into the kirk from time to time.’ He looked up suddenly, his eyes widening. ‘You’re not going to tell me she was mixed up in this spying thing? With the Russians? Sort of Mata Hari?’
‘Highly unlikely. But she might remember something.’
Salmon fidgeted a little. ‘If you find her will you do me a favour and not mention it was me that put the finger on her?’
‘Of course. Not a word.’
‘It’s a small town, see.’
‘I understand.’
‘Try the manse. The minister’s been here for over ten years. A decent sort, even for a Presbyterian. And this is probably a good time of day to catch him.’
The manse was on the eastern edge of the town close to the Defence Ministry’s Churchill housing estate. Brown paint peeled from its huge sash windows. The dark-suited minister had just returned from a funeral and was in sombre mood. Keeping Sam standing in the porch, he received the request for information about a parishioner with a degree of suspicion.
‘Might I ask why you’re seeking to speak with Mrs Coggan?’ he demanded. His steel-framed spectacles gave him a cold, ascetic look.
‘My father was in the Navy. A submariner.’ Sam’s explanation seemed to intensify the reverend’s doubts. ‘He died when I was young, and I’m trying to piece his life together. I’ve just learned that he used to know Mrs Coggan when she was Jo Macdonald.’
The clergyman grunted. ‘You’d better come into the study.’ He led Sam into an oak-panelled room lined with bookshelves. In one corner stood an old roll-top desk, in the other, an exercise bike. ‘Do sit down.’
‘Thank you.’
The minister clasped his hands together. ‘Can I ask what exactly it is you want with Mrs Coggan today?’
‘My father’s life had many sides to it,’ Sam began, treading cautiously. ‘And some of them I’ve only just recently learned about.’
‘One of those being Jo,’ said the minister knowingly.
‘Exactly.’
‘Was it a shock?’
‘Not exactly. My father had a reputation for putting himself about. It was a cause of family friction.’
‘I can imagine.’
‘Still is. I’m trying to ease it by finding out the truth.’
‘I see. Well I don’t know if Jo will be able to speak to you. She’s out of it a lot of the time.’
‘Out of it? I don’t quite understand.’
The minister cleared his throat. ‘Didn’t you know? She’s terminally ill.’
‘I had no idea.’ He had a sudden fear that he would be too late and she’d be gone already.
‘Yes. I don’t think it’ll be long now before the Lord takes her. She’s on morphine a lot of the time. It’s cancer. She’s already lasted longer than expected.’
‘I see. Which hospital is she in?’
‘It’s a hospice. Here in Helensburgh.’ He clasped his hands. ‘How did you hear about her?’
Sam showed him the photograph and explained where it had been taken. The reverend took it in both hands, studying it with fascination.
‘She was a pretty wee thing in those days and no mistake. No wonder she was in such demand.’ They exchanged glances to show that they understood one another. ‘But she’s paying a heavy price for the sins of her early life. I hope the Lord will be merciful in the next. You’d need to be gentle with her. She’s very frail.’
‘I shall be.’
The minister’s eyes became thoughtful. ‘It might be best if I come with you.’
‘I’m sure I can find the place,’ Sam told him, not wanting a witness to the conversation he hoped to have. ‘If you just tell me the address . . .’
‘Actually it’s next door.’ The clergyman stood up. ‘But I will come with you, because I want to make sure she’s prepared to see you.’
Jo Coggan, née Macdonald, lay propped on pillows in a small, ground floor room whose windows overlooked a large garden that was dark with the foliage of rhododendrons. Her head was without hair, her skin a bloodless cream. No way to tell her age, but Sam calculated she was about fifty. As he walked towards the bed she lifted a frail hand. Her eyes were small brown pools of pain which widened in astonishment as he drew nearer.
The minister had forewarned her of her visitor’s identity and as Sam approached, he backed towards the door. ‘Leave you to it,’ he whispered.
‘Thanks,’ Sam murmured, shaking his hand.
‘You’re so like him.’ Jo Coggan’s voice was cracked and feeble, her Scots accent broader than Sam had expected. ‘It’s incre-dible.’
‘You’re okay then, Jo?’ a nurse called from the door.
‘Yes, Jen. I’m okay.’
‘Press the bell if you need anything.’
‘I will.’
The nurse left them.
For a while his father’s one-time girlfriend lay looking up at him as if all her energy had been drained by the few words she’d uttered. Then her lips began to move, shaping her thoughts so they could come out as sounds.
‘So you’re Sam.’
He sat on the chair beside the bed. There was nothing about this woman that he could recognise from the photograph.
‘How did you find out about me?’ she asked hoarsely.
He showed her the picture and her eyes filled with tears. ‘Och, I lost that wee snap years ago! Where on errth did you get it from?’
Sam explained about the ferry tickets he’d found in his father’s deed box and the chance meeting with the Rothesay photographer. She looked down at the picture, biting her lip.
‘We were in love, y’know. Terribly in love. It broke m’heart when he passed away.’ Then she looked questioningly at him. ‘But this was all so long ago.’
‘I know. It’s why I’ve come. To learn about my father. And about you.’
She looked afraid suddenly, as if the past was a place she wanted kept hidden. She pressed a tissue to her eyes before settling back on the pillows, engulfed by weariness. ‘I get so tired,’ she gasped, turning her face away. Her neck glistened with perspiration.
‘Yes. I’m very sorry. I’ll try not to tax you too much.’
‘You were eleven years old, when he died,’ she whispered.
‘That’s right.’ He wondered where to begin. ‘Did he ever talk to you about . . .’
‘About you? Oh yes. All the time. You were the apple o’ his eye. Couldn’t do no wrong. He always told me you’d go into the Navy one day, but as an officer. Because you were clever and because he’d made sure you got a better edication than he had.’ She turned her face towards him. ‘Did you?’
‘I did.’
‘Submarines too?’
‘No. Intelligence Branch.’
He watched for her reaction. When it came it shook him, because it confirmed his fears. There was shock, then despair. Finally a dreadful weariness passed across her face. She turned her head away and closed her eyes.
‘Intelligence . . .’
‘Yes.’
‘So you know . . .’
‘A Russian defector told us.’
She nodded and a tear squeezed between her lids. For a full half-minute they stayed silent, her tortured features a mirror of the agony inside his own head.
‘I’ve waited twenty-seven years,’ she whispered eventually. ‘Twenty-seven years waiting for someone to come.’ She opened her eyes and dabbed them with a fresh tissue extracted from the sleeve of her bed jacket. ‘But I never dreamt for one moment it would be his own son.’
Sam leaned forward. ‘Please. Will you tell me about it?’
She tugged at the bed sheet as if to cover herself more.
‘How much do you know about me?’ she whispered.
He decided to be blunt. ‘I’ve been told that you worked as a prostitute and had several clients who were sailors.’
‘Several. Oc
h, you make it sound like I was big time. There might have been a dozen at the most.’ She spoke without any sign of shame and took in a deep breath to sustain herself. ‘But yes. I earned a little money from business. Life here was dull in them days. I had a mother to look after who’d gone senile. Having men pay me for doing what I liked doing anyway seemed a harmless way to earn some cash. But I was only an amateur at it. Months would go by without a single client.’ The effort of speaking was exhausting her. She lay back with her eyes closed. ‘Just get me breath,’ she croaked.
‘Of course.’
When she opened her eyes again, she forced them wide. The whites were yellow and brown veined.
‘I gave it all up for ye da, y’know,’ she said, looking at him intently. ‘After I’d been going with him a while, I gave it up. Cos I loved him, you see. Loved him to bits.’
Her mouth puckered suddenly, whether from physical pain or a mental hurt, Sam couldn’t tell. But he knew he had to press on, to discover the extent of his father’s betrayal. ‘These sailors you . . . you took in, you knew from the start that they had access to military secrets?’
‘Och, I didn’t know anything of the kind,’ she protested. ‘To me they were just men who’d been shut away in the dark for too long. They were all decent fellers. I made sure o’ that because I turned away the rough ones. I wasn’t that desperate for the cash.’
‘And many of them were married, of course.’ He’d sounded unintentionally reproachful.
‘Och, you’re no a prude, are you?’ she snapped. ‘Telling me I was a wicked woman taking your father away from your mither? Let me tell you something. In his heart your father left that woman long before he met me.’ She began to pant for breath again. Sam gave her time to recover.
‘Tell me about him, Jo,’ he probed, more gently this time. ‘Tell me how he came to be spying for the Russians. Was it blackmail?’
She nodded. There was the look of a cornered animal about her. ‘They sought him out because he was the wireless operator,’ she whispered. ‘Followed him around, in secret like, until they knew more about his life than he did himself.’
She adjusted her position in the bed, then reached feebly for the glass on the bedside table. Sam picked it up and held it for her while she drank.
‘Thank you.’
The Lucifer Network Page 16
