Written in Red

by Annie Dalton

  Anna was horrified. She’d just wanted to shock Tallis out of his complacency. She hadn’t meant to kill him. She flew to unhook his oxygen tube as Catherine arrived back with the tray. Seeing Tallis fighting for breath she said calmly, ‘I’ll do that, Anna. He’ll be fine in a few minutes.’

  Not wishing to be voyeurs, Anna and Tim went to stand at the window while Catherine helped the obviously humiliated Tallis to draw oxygen into his lungs. ‘This happens all the time,’ Catherine said over her shoulder. ‘He’s got advanced emphysema. He comes in every few weeks for respite care.’

  Anna heard her murmur reassuringly to Tallis until the crisis had passed. Then she heard Catherine ask in an undertone, ‘Have you told them yet?’

  Tallis shook his head. ‘Waiting. For you,’ he managed to gasp out.

  Catherine simply looked at him. There was so much history in that look, so much hurt and disappointment. Then she lifted her chin, and Anna saw the return of her earlier resolve. ‘Then I’ll simply have to tell them myself.’

  Catherine set about pouring tea, adding milk and sugar according to people’s preferences. ‘I’ve asked that we shouldn’t be disturbed,’ she told them. She seemed surprisingly composed. It wasn’t the false calm she’d shown at James’s wake. This felt more as if she’d made her peace with whatever was going to follow. She glanced once at Tallis, as if to confirm that she intended to go through with this, then she said, ‘Of all the many shameful things I have done in this life, the one which distresses me the most is that I allowed James Lowell to die still believing that he killed Hetty.’

  Anna felt herself go very still. ‘But that wasn’t true?’

  ‘I believe the technical term for what I did is “the perversion of justice”,’ Catherine said. Tallis made an inarticulate sound of protest. She ignored him and continued talking.

  ‘At the time, I convinced myself, as people who commit terrible crimes so often do, that I’d had no choice. But as the years passed, the burden of my sin became increasingly …’ Catherine paused to search for the right word – ‘unendurable. Once, in my thirties, I tried to kill myself, but I was found just in time. It occurred to me then that God had intervened to spare me. I thought that since I couldn’t confess my sin to anyone’ – she gave an involuntary glance at Tallis – ‘I could maybe find a way to atone. First, I trained as a nurse and then, after long soul-searching, I took holy orders. For many years, I worked overseas. But no matter how hard I worked or how many lives I saved, my guilt at my part in covering up Hetty’s murder refused to diminish.’ She briefly closed her eyes as if she felt her guilt as a physical force, dragging and pulling. ‘And so I came back here to Oxfordshire, to the Little Sisters of Mercy. The day I started work in the hospice – the old hospice – Tallis was brought in. It felt like some cruel divine joke, as if God had walked me around in a great big circle and brought me face-to-face with my own inescapable vileness and stupidity! All those years, all that struggle and here I was right back where I’d started.’

  Oh, my God, Anna thought, you still loved him.

  Catherine saw Anna’s expression and misunderstood. ‘I’ve shocked you,’ she said. ‘You think I’m some kind of monster.’ She gave a bleak little laugh. ‘I sometimes feel that way myself.’

  ‘Actually, I’m confused,’ Anna said. ‘I still don’t know what you and Tallis did and I don’t understand what happened to Hetty or why.’

  Catherine’s eyes went to Tallis. ‘Tell her, Matthew. Tell Anna why Hetty had to die.’

  ‘Don’t do this,’ he told her. ‘Let the dead stay dead, and the past stay past.’

  ‘The past is never past.’ Tim was suddenly angry. ‘People are still being hurt – someone has been killed – because of whatever you and Catherine and the others did back then.’

  ‘Tell them,’ Catherine insisted to Tallis.

  His bland expression had become a fixed mask. ‘You can’t expect young people to understand. Those were different times. Too much was at stake.’

  ‘You had too much at stake,’ Catherine almost snapped. She turned back to Anna. ‘Hetty found out that Tallis had been using her, as part of a honeytrap.’

  ‘Kitty, stop this!’ Tallis almost barked the words. ‘Before you go too far.’

  Anna found herself imagining telling Tansy that a nun had used the term ‘honeytrap’.

  ‘I am no longer yours to control, Matthew.’ Catherine drew herself up in her chair. ‘And I will go just as far as I think necessary.’

  ‘You were saying Hetty found out she’d been used,’ Anna reminded her.

  ‘Yes. She was furious. Worse than furious, she was sickened and ashamed. She’d started working for him in the belief that she was part of something noble, helping to save the world.’ Once again she gave Anna that bleak smile. ‘When she’d only been helping Tallis to help Tallis.’

  ‘How about you?’ Tim asked Catherine. ‘Did you want to save the world?’

  She shook her head. ‘Nothing so noble. I just wanted Tallis. I wanted him from the first time I saw him. He had this way of making me feel so absolutely – essential. I’d never been essential to anyone. It was like a drug – as you knew it would be,’ she said to Tallis.

  ‘Kitty, I don’t know why you’re dredging up all this ancient history in front of these young people. You’re embarrassing yourself.’ Tallis was attempting to sound authoritative but he was beginning to look trapped.

  ‘I’m not embarrassed, Matthew. I’m finally telling the truth, something I should have done decades ago. Then maybe I could have had a real life instead of this – charade.’ For the first time Catherine’s voice became unsteady. She turned to Anna. ‘I’m sure Isadora has told you how persuasive Tallis was in those days?’

  Anna heard Isadora saying, I’d have followed him through fire.

  Catherine took a sip from her cup. ‘He said when we had enough money we’d go away together, maybe South America; somewhere we could make a fresh start.’

  ‘A fresh start based on murdering one of your best friends?’ Anna suggested.

  Catherine blinked. She seemed horrified. ‘No, this was before – before what happened in the hotel.’ She seemed to lose her thread. ‘I honestly didn’t know about Hetty’s baby. I didn’t know she’d had a child …’ Her calm had deserted her. She looked around the room in a kind of panic as if she might try to escape.

  Tallis seized his chance. ‘You see? You are just upsetting yourself, my love.’ He patted her knee. ‘You were always more fragile than the others. Sometimes I think you imagined things that—’

  Throwing him a disgusted look, Tim simply talked over him. ‘What happened at the hotel?’ he asked Catherine. His voice, professional but friendly, seemed to bring her back to herself.

  ‘Hetty told Tallis she was breaking off with him. She said she’d known criminals who were more honest. Tallis pretended to have these high ideals but he was out for whatever he could get. He asked me to meet him in this bedsit that he and I used sometimes. He was almost hysterical. “She’s going to blow everything sky high. She’s going to expose me.” I’d never seen him so out of control. It was the first time I’d ever felt that I was the stronger person.’

  Until now, Anna thought.

  ‘Eventually, I was able to calm him down. He started mocking Hetty for being so naive. She’d accused him of being a criminal, yet some ridiculous code of ethics made her feel she had to follow through on her last commitment for him before she went off into the sunset with her American.’

  ‘What was her last commitment?’ Anna asked.

  Catherine looked away. ‘She had to meet a man at the Palmeira Hotel in Chelsea.’

  ‘Someone Tallis needed to keep sweet?’ Tim said.

  Catherine nodded. ‘Sometimes it was just dinner or being some foreign delegate’s plus one at some society party.’

  ‘But sometimes men expected more?’ Anna suggested.

  ‘I don’t think Hetty minded that too much at the start. I th
ink it just felt like a part she was playing, a part in a thrilling spy movie. It was a strange time for young women,’ Catherine said. ‘The rules were changing but nobody quite knew what the new rules were supposed to be.’

  Catherine told them that Hetty had gone up to her room at the Palmeira to wait for Tallis’s man to show up. In fact, Tallis had already fixed him up with someone else, a girl he judged a safer bet than a disillusioned Hetty who was on the verge of leaving Tallis and England forever.

  ‘I don’t think Matthew ever planned to kill Hetty.’ Catherine threw a look at a grim-faced Tallis. ‘He just wanted to frighten her enough to ensure her silence.’

  ‘But James Lowell got in the way?’ Anna said.

  ‘I don’t know what made James follow her to the hotel that day. But everyone knew he loved Hetty. It’s possible he went to beg her not to go away with this American.’

  Catherine said Tallis had told her to wait in the hotel bar while he went up to talk to Hetty.

  ‘So I waited and I waited then in the mirror I suddenly caught sight of James hurriedly leaving the hotel. I was sure Matthew hadn’t said anything about James coming. I had this terrible feeling – that something had gone wrong. I didn’t know what to do, so I just went on waiting. Maybe fifteen minutes or so later, the barman called me to the phone. It was Matthew telling me to go up to Hetty’s room. I took the lift up to her floor, and he pulled me inside before I had a chance to knock. Right away I saw Hetty lying on the floor. I’d never seen a dead body but I immediately knew she was dead. Matthew said I just had to stay calm and do exactly what he said and everything would be all right. He said there had been an accident. James had got upset and there had been some kind of scuffle and Hetty had hit her head and lost consciousness. Then, after James had left, she’d started to come round. Matthew said he’d only had a few crucial seconds to decide what he should do. He decided this was his one shot at saving everything he and I had worked for together.’

  Catherine raised her eyes to meet Anna’s. ‘He strangled her.’

  Tallis drew a sharp hissing breath.

  ‘He said he’d done that so the police would think it was some unsavoury sexual shenanigans gone wrong. He said I had to help him dispose of – the body. He said it was the only way we’d be able to be together.’

  Tallis opened his mouth, but didn’t say whatever he’d been going to say.

  ‘It was the kind of ludicrous scenario only a completely deluded young woman could believe,’ Catherine said. ‘You never really meant to run away to South America with me, did you, Matthew? You can tell the truth about that at least.’

  ‘No.’ Tallis had hardly moved his lips. ‘I never meant to run away with you to South America or anywhere.’ He didn’t seem contrite so much as coldly furious that his former lover had exacted this admission.

  ‘You see! The first glimmer of truth. There might be hope for you yet!’ Tears stood in Catherine’s eyes. ‘Now tell them what you made me do.’

  Tallis threw up his hands. ‘All right, I’ll tell them! I told her to take the sheet off the bed then I made her help me wrap the body in it. Luckily for us, Hetty had bought a ridiculously outsize suitcase for her travels. We took her things out and’ – he gestured – ‘put her in.’

  ‘I’d never realized how small and slight she was.’ Tears spilled down Catherine’s cheeks and she quickly brushed them away. ‘That night we sneaked out with the case and took it down to the river. Matthew said it would be high tide. Then we just bundled her into the water and watched her disappear.’ She shuddered as if she was suddenly back beside the Thames, watching as the water sucked Hetty’s body down into the dark.

  She turned back to Anna. ‘That’s what happened. That’s what I allowed myself to be made a party to. My justification, believe it or not, was that I deserved to be happy with the man I loved.’ She gave a despairing laugh. ‘I told you I was a monster.’

  ‘Are you happy now, Kitty?’ Tallis said savagely. ‘Do you feel righteous and cleansed now that you’ve dragged us both so pointlessly through the mud? And it was pointless!’ He turned aggressively to Anna. ‘The police won’t dare to lay a finger on me.’

  She was disgusted. Tallis had taken one life that they knew of, and had blighted countless others, including Iona’s and Sabina’s. The damage he’d caused still went on and on, spreading like ripples in a pool. Yet he showed no sign of remorse. He still believed he could operate outside normal human laws and be protected by his mysterious ‘people’.

  Anna was half out of her seat when Tim said, ‘Anna came here because she thought she should warn Catherine that she might be in danger. From what Catherine’s just told us, you’re an extremely dangerous and unprincipled man. But, if you’ll excuse me saying’ – he shot a look at the angry old man gripping the arms of his wheelchair – ‘I can’t see you physically attacking Isadora or James, unless you paid someone else to do it.’

  Tallis went to speak but Tim quickly held up his hand. ‘And you obviously need Catherine far more than she now needs you.’

  ‘Thank you for reminding me of my complete dependency,’ Tallis said drily.

  ‘I thought it was time someone did,’ Tim told him. ‘But my point is that there’s still something very significant that we’re missing.’

  Tim was right, Anna thought. Catherine had supplied a crucial missing piece of the puzzle, but they were no nearer to finding out who had killed James.

  ‘Matthew and I have some thoughts about that.’ Catherine sounded hesitant. ‘There was someone we all knew at that time, someone who might have a grudge against the Six and Matthew.’ She glanced at Tallis and he gave a reluctant nod.

  ‘His name was Alec Faber,’ he said. ‘His father was a prominent civil servant at the Foreign Office. Alec had come down from Oxford, and was starting out in the lower echelons of the FO. He was also a heavy gambler, and generally into shortcuts. This meant he was often strapped for cash. Through his father, Alec had access to all kinds of sensitive information. We received a tip-off that he might be selling secrets to the Soviets via an unlikely little left-wing group in Oxford. To my surprise, this turned out to be true, but I kept that interesting discovery to myself.’

  Anna sat back in her chair. She remembered Isadora’s story of finding a distraught Hetty in her room. It’s not about politics, it’s about money. ‘You were blackmailing this man?’

  ‘Can we just scroll back a bit?’ Tim asked Tallis. ‘Your department – I’m guessing MI5? – was working day and night to stop the flow of sensitive information going to the Soviets, but you were actually profiting from it?’

  Tallis shrugged. ‘Alec and I both profited from it. I also had other ways of “keeping him sweet” as one of you so charmingly put it.’

  ‘Hetty,’ Anna said.

  ‘Alec liked her. In fact, he became besotted by her, which initially worked in my favour.’ He shot them a humourless smile. ‘But then one evening he had a whisky-sodden crisis of conscience and let it slip to Hetty that he’d been giving me money and why. Hetty, being Hetty, came and confronted me. I thought she was threatening to expose me, so when the accident happened I took the chance to be rid of her.’

  ‘Now tell them the rest, Matthew,’ Catherine said.

  Tallis gave an irritated sigh. ‘I don’t know why you’re so sold on confession, Kitty, my love. It really is terribly tedious.’ He rubbed his gnarled hands over his face and Anna remembered her first glimpse of him in the memorial gardens and how she’d imagined he might be an actor or maybe a jazz musician. Despite the advanced state of his illness, Tallis still felt compelled to perform.

  ‘The rest, Matthew,’ Catherine insisted.

  He passed his hand over his thinning white hair. ‘I could see everything blowing up in my face, so I made what you’d call a pre-emptive strike and reported Alec’s activities to my superiors. The scandal was hushed up of course, or it was hushed up as much as possible. The country was still reeling from the Profumo–Keeler a
ffair, not to mention the Philby scandal,’ he explained. ‘Her Majesty’s Government couldn’t afford to be seen to have another rotten apple in the barrel.’

  ‘What happened to Alec Faber?’ Tim said.

  Anna heard someone knocking softly on the door.

  ‘He lost everything,’ Catherine said, before Tallis could speak. ‘His family disowned him, just cast him out. Overnight he became a – pariah.’ She swallowed. ‘He lived on the street for a few years. I saw him a few times in Hackney with his dog on a piece of string. Then he disappeared. I always hoped it was because he’d somehow got his life back together. But if you’re looking for someone with a valid reason to hate us …’ Her sentence trailed away.

  The person knocked again, more forcefully this time. ‘Is Sister Mary Catherine in here?’ a young and distinctly annoyed voice demanded. Anna suspected it was the girl with the nasal tube. Catherine still hadn’t fixed the DVD player.

  ‘I’ll be with you in a moment,’ Catherine called. ‘Go back and wait for me.’

  She drew a breath, clasping her hands in front of her chest. For a moment, she was a nun again. ‘I’d already decided that I would go to the police,’ she told them, ‘whatever the consequences. But now that you’ve heard my story, I’ve left myself no choice, which I find strangely liberating.’ She gave Tallis a wistful smile. ‘You owe me this, Matthew, don’t you think?’ She accompanied them to the door, white-faced and resolute. Tallis had wheeled himself over to the window, turning his back on all of them, the only power he had left.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ Tim said as soon as he and Anna were back in his car. ‘I’m exhausted. I hate to think how you must feel.’

  Anna managed a tired smile. ‘Was it worse than sitting through your little nieces’ Barbie movie?’

  ‘That’s a tough one.’ Tim said, turning the key in the ignition. ‘My nieces are terrifyingly Machiavellian, but unlike Matthew Tallis they’ll presumably grow out of it.’

  She patted his knee. ‘Thanks for coming. It made a big difference that you were there.’