Every Secret Thing

by Susanna Kearsley

  All he’d said to me, that night at my hotel, was not to publish Deacon’s story.

  Deacon’s story…

  Deacon had said that himself, on the steps of St Paul’s: I have a story I could tell you…there’s a murder in it…an old murder, but one still deserving of justice. I could only assume, since he’d travelled all that way to tell it to me, that it was the same story Metcalf had meant; the same story that featured in Deacon’s report.

  There it was again, I thought. That damned report. If I could only read it; find out what it was the London Metcalf thought I knew…

  I raised my head and, turning my computer on, began to search through telephone directories. It took a few minutes to find what I wanted. I looked at my watch as I dialled the number. Most people in England would still be in bed, at this hour of the morning. I could only hope James Cavender was an early riser.

  He might not have had much of a chance yet, to search through his uncle’s belongings, his papers, but then again, you never knew. He might have had some luck. The phone rang two times, then a man’s voice came on. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Mr Cavender? It’s Kate Murray calling. I hope I didn’t wake you?’

  The other voice paused, for thought. ‘Oh, Miss Murray. Right. You came to Andrew’s funeral. Only this isn’t James, I’m afraid. It’s the vicar.’

  The friendly young vicar of St Stephen’s Church. ‘Reverend Beckett?’

  ‘You remembered. Yes.’ Another pause. ‘You’ll not have heard, then. About James, I mean. I’m sorry to have to tell you, but he’s dead.’

  I gripped the receiver, aware of its coldness. ‘Dead? How?’

  ‘Well, it was rather a sad thing. A senseless thing. We’ve had a run of break-ins here, these past few months, and I suppose with Andrew’s cottage standing empty, and all his art inside, it made an irresistible target. And James…well, it seems he’d been having a go at Andrew’s papers, and he must have surprised them, poor fellow. He didn’t stand much of a chance,’ said the vicar. ‘There must have been a few of them. The place was an absolute shambles.’

  I said, ‘And he’s dead?’, still unable to fully accept it. It was shock on top of shock, for me. It felt as though I’d only just been speaking to him. ‘When…? I mean…’

  ‘On Sunday night. Quite late. He’d been away, that day.’ He paused, then offered, ‘Was there something I could help you with?’

  ‘What? Oh, no, thank you. I…no, thank you.’ I was only half aware of our goodbyes, of hanging up. My rattled thoughts had focused on one small, disturbing point: It had been Sunday that James Cavender had come to my hotel; that he had waited in the Bugle Lounge to meet with me. Which meant there was a pattern of coincidence.

  Two men had travelled all the way to London just to talk to me, and both of them were dead.

  It might be simply that – coincidence. And yet…

  My hand clutched the receiver in its cradle as my mind began to play connect-the-dots with what had happened back in London and the shooting here, tonight.

  Deacon had known something that involved a murder from the past. Supposing someone didn’t want that murder resurrected? What if Deacon’s accidental death had been no accident? What if he’d been silenced?

  Then James Cavender might also have been killed, not by an ordinary burglar, but by someone who had thought he’d known what Deacon knew.

  And someone thought I knew, as well. The Sergeant Metcalf I had met in London had been very clear on that. I could remember, word for word, what he had told me: ‘I believe you are acquainted with a Mr Andrew Deacon, and that Mr Deacon may have passed you certain information…’

  Did the fact I hadn’t bothered to deny it mean that I was now a target? And my grandmother – had she been killed because somebody thought I might have told her, too? My God, if that were so, then who else might now be at risk, because of me? Who else would anyone have seen me talking to?

  With sudden urgency I picked up the receiver for a second time and dialled a London number. Margot. She would be in Argentina, now, but she called home to get her messages when she was on assignment. I had no idea what to say; what message I could leave…but in the end, I didn’t get the chance. The line just rang and rang, without an answer.

  Hanging up, I fought back my uneasiness and dialled another number. Patrick. He was probably in bed, now – or in someone else’s bed – but even so…

  His room-mate answered on the seventh ring, a little sleepily. ‘Hello?’

  ‘Hello, Noel, it’s Kate. Is Patrick there?’

  Noel was honest to a fault, if somewhat slow. ‘He isn’t, no, Kate.’ Then, still groggy, ‘Is he not with you?’

  ‘No, Noel. I’m home, in Canada.’

  ‘Ah, well, it must be someone else, then. I’ve not seen him since the weekend.’ I could hear his fridge door open and the clinking of a milk bottle. ‘I thought for sure that he’d gone off with you. The more fool him.’

  I was feeling the first twists of actual panic, now. ‘Noel?’

  ‘Yes?’

  But what could I tell him? I think someone may have harmed Patrick because they thought he knew a secret an old man was trying to tell me…How crazy did that sound? And so I just said, ‘Nothing. Thanks.’

  ‘Not a problem. I’ll tell him you rang.’

  When I put the receiver down this time the cold wasn’t just on the phone, but inside me. The walls of my cubicle no longer felt like a shelter, they felt like a trap. I thought fast. I would have to get out of here. Have to get out of here soon. Couldn’t risk being seen—

  ‘Kate?’ I jumped at the man’s voice that spoke from a few feet behind me, then realised that it was familiar. It was Guy’s voice. Guy Robichaud’s voice. ‘My God, what are you doing here?’ he said. ‘Are you all right?’

  I knew from his reaction that he’d heard about my grandmother. And then I thought, of course he would have heard. He covered crime. He had police-band radios at home, and in his car. He would have heard the call go out. He would have been there, at the scene. I hadn’t even thought to look for him.

  But I was glad to see him now. I couldn’t think of anyone I would have trusted more in time of crisis. He was more than just my colleague. We were friends, and fairly close ones.

  His family had come from New Brunswick, Acadians, hence the French name and French looks, his brown hair almost black, like his eyes, which looked sleepy in the middle of the day or at this hour of the night and hid an intellect that could have sliced through steel.

  He was beside me, now, inside my cubicle, close down where he could see my face and reassure himself I wasn’t injured. ‘You had me so worried. What happened?’

  I told him, ‘My grandmother’s dead.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. And I’m sorry. That’s not what I meant. I meant, why aren’t you at the hospital? They told me you took off…’

  ‘Who did? Who told you?’

  ‘The police. They’ll be relieved to know you’re here.’

  ‘No.’ I said that much too sharply, but I couldn’t help it. ‘You can’t tell them.’

  ‘Kate?’

  ‘Please, Guy, don’t tell them.’ I grabbed at his arm. ‘Look, I can’t explain now, but I need you to promise you won’t tell anyone you saw me here.’

  The black eyes assessed me. ‘Only if you tell me what’s going on.’

  ‘I can’t. You’ll think I’m crazy.’

  ‘Try me.’

  Time was running out, I knew, but Guy, when he dug in his heels, was as fixed as the Rock of Gibraltar. I cast a look around the room – the maze of darkened cubicles, the closed glass doors that led into the stairwells, and the sleeping bank of elevators. ‘Look, all right, I’ll tell you. But not here,’ I said. ‘It isn’t safe.’

  He stood and looked round, as though trying to see the same hazards. ‘Fine, let’s use the library.’

  The microfilm reading room had walls, and a door. In the semi-darkness, Guy leant up against a desk, arms folded
, waiting. So I told him what had happened; what I knew; what I suspected. When I’d finished, he stayed quiet for a moment, but I knew that he believed me. I could tell from his expression, just as he, too, knew me well enough to know that I was genuinely nervous.

  He said, ‘So what are you planning to do?’

  ‘I don’t know. For tonight, I guess get a hotel room, and stay out of sight.’ I had my wallet, in the pocket of my coat. It was the only thing I’d brought with me – I’d needed my identification for the hospital – but I’d been travelling so long I had no Canadian money left in it, only pounds and Euros. And my credit card.

  Guy shook his head. ‘You don’t need to go to a hotel. You shouldn’t be alone, not after this. You should come stay with me. I’ve got plenty of room.’

  ‘No, I can’t. Don’t you see? It might put you in danger.’

  ‘I’ll take that risk.’

  ‘I won’t. If something happened, Guy…’ I thought about my grandmother, and shook my head. ‘No.’

  ‘Well, a hotel is out of the question.’

  I sighed. ‘All right, then, tell me – where else can I go? There’s nowhere. Nowhere I’ll be safe.’

  Guy turned towards me in the darkened room. ‘Well, actually…’ He straightened from the desk, on inspiration. ‘There is one place.’

  WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20

  I couldn’t get my eyes to open.

  It was an unsettling sensation, to feel fully awake and aware and yet not have control of my eyelids, as if they were fastened shut. Frowning, I tried again, focusing all of my effort on that one small task.

  It worked. I lay very still on my back for a moment and let my gaze wander the ceiling, the walls, not remembering where…

  Then it all flooded back, and I knew where I was.

  I was in Scarborough, a suburb of Toronto. Guy had brought me here early this morning, before the sun rose. I remembered a dark street of two-storey brick houses shouldered together, garages protruding in front, so alike that I’d wondered how people could ever remember which house was their own.

  Like the street in Ali Baba where the thieves had had to mark the door with chalk so they could find their way back to it in the night.

  To make quite sure that no one would be able to retrace our steps, Guy had made the taxi driver let us out a few streets over from the one we wanted, and I’d had to follow him along the barren, streetlit sidewalks, with my arms wrapped tightly round me as defence against the early morning cold. I’d had to hurry to keep up. His strides were long.

  We hadn’t spoken in the taxi. We’d both felt the need for secrecy. But I’d had questions, and with no one else around, I’d dared to ask him, ‘You’re sure about this?’

  ‘Oh, yeah. Tony’s OK.’

  I had given him a quick and wary glance. Guy had come to the Sentinel two years ago after leaving the Sunday night newsmagazine of a major Canadian network. There’d been three of them doing the show, on TV – one had handled the high-profile stories, and another the glitzy stuff. Guy, in his own words, had worked as the ‘sewer rat’, digging down deep for the hard-hitting pieces that no one else wanted to do. The first two reporters were recognised more when they went out to restaurants; Guy’s work had won awards. But he’d mixed with some pretty unsavoury characters – bikers, and convicts who’d claimed they’d been wrongly convicted, and…

  I’d stopped, on the sidewalk. ‘He’s not one of your Mafia friends, is he?’

  ‘Who, Tony? No. Tony’s not even Italian. His last name is Shaw.’

  ‘But you’re sure that you can trust him?’

  ‘I can trust him.’ Not a hint of hesitation. ‘So can you.’

  The house had looked the same as all the others, ordinary. The outside light was off, as was the front hall light inside, and so I only saw a shadow when the door swung open. Someone tall. A man. A big man. Broad across the shoulders. Powerful.

  His name might have been Irish but his accent was all English. Rough-edged, northern English. ‘That was quick. You did it how I told you?’

  ‘Yeah, we changed cabs a couple of times,’ Guy had said.

  ‘Good lad. Come in, then.’ As the door had closed behind us he had flipped the front hall light on, and I’d gotten my first good look at his face. It had matched the voice, and body – craggy, hard as stone along the jawline, self-assured. He would have been my father’s age, I’d thought, or maybe slightly younger, judging by the greying of his light brown hair, the lines around his eyes. ‘Kate?’ he’d guessed, and offered me his hand. ‘I’m Tony. Welcome. You don’t have a suitcase? Well, that’s not a problem. We can find you what you need.’

  The ‘we’ in this case had included his round and sympathetic wife, Marie. Between them they had found me clean pyjamas and a toothbrush, and a dozen other comforts and conveniences – a cup of tea, a pair of slippers, paperbacks to read.

  I only saw the bed. Exhaustion hit me like a ton of bricks, and wrapped in all the trappings of security – a giant man to guard the door, a bedroom with a lock, and all inside a house where nobody would ever think to look for me – I gave myself to sleep.

  I didn’t dream.

  I slept so deeply that I lost all sense of time, and my surroundings. Even now, awake, and knowing where I was, I felt disoriented still, so much so that I half suspected there’d been something in my tea besides the tea.

  I closed my eyes again, and turned my face against the pillow. That was a mistake, because the images flowed up to fill the darkness – Grandma’s face, and the smile I would not see again. Broken glass, and the sight of her lying there dead in the kitchen.

  I sat up, eyes open. The images stopped.

  I wasn’t aware that I’d made any sound, but I must have done, because a moment later there was a sharp knock from the hallway, and Tony’s voice said, ‘Kate, are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I tried to tell him, but my voice refused to carry so I cleared my throat and tried again. ‘I’m fine.’ The room was light, and so I asked, ‘What time is it?’

  His answer surprised me. ‘Two-thirty.’

  Two-thirty. I’d slept through the morning and into the afternoon.

  ‘Want me to bring you some tea?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, you don’t have to, I can get it…’

  ‘It’s no bother. Be back in a minute.’

  I was up and dressed when he got back, and sitting on the bed, which was the only place to sit. He set the tray of tea and muffins on the bed beside me and then stood a little distance off, concerned, I thought, with giving me my space.

  ‘So,’ he said, ‘you like the room?’

  ‘It’s beautiful.’

  ‘My daughter’s room,’ he said, with pride. I’d guessed that. It was wallpapered in little blue forget-me-nots all over, on an ivory ground, with blue and pink checked curtains at the window. There were dolls, well loved, along a shelf beside the closet door, and on the dresser was a painted wind-up carousel, with pink and yellow horses. ‘She doesn’t live here anymore, she’s all grown up,’ he said, ‘and on her own. She travels different places, teaching English. At the moment it’s Korea.’

  ‘Is that her?’ I nodded to a photograph propped up beside the carousel – a smiling, dark-haired girl with large brown eyes.

  He looked where I was looking, and then turned away and told me, ‘No, that’s Angie, her best friend. The two of them grew up together, thick as thieves.’

  I’d raised my teacup almost to my mouth before remembering how heavily I’d slept, and my suspicions. I paused, and tried to sniff the tea without him noticing, but Tony, I was learning, didn’t miss much.

  With a smile he said, ‘Go on, it’s safe to drink. We haven’t spiked it.’

  Whether he and Marie had spiked the last one, he didn’t say, but he put my deep sleep last night down to the room. ‘It’s got extra-thick walls, and the window’s unbreakable. No way for noise to get in.’

  It was the unbreakable window that did it. I cou
ldn’t not ask. ‘Tony? What do you do?’

  He said, ‘Guy didn’t tell you?’

  ‘No.’

  Leaning on the dresser he looked once more at the picture of the brown-eyed girl, and then, as though deciding I deserved an explanation, he said, ‘Angie, there, was murdered in her final year of high school. Boyfriend did it. She had given him the boot a month before; he wasn’t having it. He threatened her, she went to the police, but in the end there wasn’t much that they could do. And so she died. He stabbed her.’ His mouth became a grim line in his hardened face. I saw the sadness. ‘Lovely girl, she was. And she’d been like a second daughter in this house. I blamed myself, for not protecting her. And so I started doing what I could to see that others didn’t die as Angie did.’ He folded his strong arms across his chest. ‘It isn’t me, alone. I’m only one link in a chain of people. Women come to us, we hide them, give them new lives, new identities, and move them to a place where they’ll be safe, where they can start again.’

  I understood the nature of Guy’s interest in the man. It was a daring thing to do – like a privately run Witness Protection Programme. Not entirely legal, if they were actually providing false identities for people, but then in this case one could argue that the end excused the means. After all, the underground railroad hadn’t been entirely legal, either, and the law, I had learnt, didn’t always defend the right people.

  I didn’t know what he’d been told about me, but I thought that he should know, ‘I’m not a battered woman.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ He straightened. Once again I realised just how large a man he was – he seemed to fill the room. He sauntered past me to the door, and turned. ‘That doesn’t mean that you don’t need protecting.’

  Guy was back at dinner with an update.

  We were eating in the dining room. I didn’t think anything of that, at first, till it struck me that this was a room not much used, and that Tony and Marie had moved the meal so that I wouldn’t have to sit beside the window in their kitchen.