Every Secret Thing

by Susanna Kearsley

  ‘Yes, for Senhora Marinho. A moment.’

  I waited. As I stepped forward, under cover of the big garage-like doorway, the second door within the courtyard opened and a woman moved to stand within the frame.

  Not the housekeeper, I thought. An older woman, close to Grandma Murray’s age, with pale hair neatly pulled back from a face with quite extraordinary cheekbones. Her English was flawless. ‘Miss Allen?’ she said. ‘Do come in.’

  It was gorgeous inside, lots of dark wood and warm light and elegant carpets, but I didn’t register much of the detail. I paused in the entryway, feeling myself under scrutiny.

  ‘I would have known you at once. You look quite like your grandmother,’ Regina Marinho said. ‘It’s years ago now, of course, but I did see her every day at work. The wedding portrait,’ she explained, and smiled. ‘Mr Deacon kept it on his desk. He liked to look at it. I think he missed her terribly. But then, he always said that she was safer in New York.’

  Which answered at least one of my wonderings. She hadn’t been completely in his confidence. She couldn’t have been, if she’d believed his sham marriage to my grandmother to be real. But she was sharp. And not just in spotting the way I resembled my grandmother, either.

  Her pleasant blue gaze brushed my hand, my left hand, as she led me along to a quiet back sitting room, more like a study, with needlepoint chairs and a fire burning warm in the dark-mantled fireplace. ‘You’re not married, my dear? So then Allen’s your maiden name? That would mean you’re Mr Deacon’s daughter’s daughter, is that right? I am glad that he had children – he so wanted them. Please, sit, I’ll have some tea brought in.’

  She offered me an armchair by the fire and chose one closer to the doorway for herself. I didn’t know whether that was because she wanted me to have the warmth, or because from her own seat, with the tall lamp at her shoulder, she could see my face in full light while her own was half in shadow, far more difficult to read.

  ‘It’s not usually so chilly yet, this time of year,’ she said. ‘I can’t recall the last time that I had to light the fires in September. Are you warm enough? Would you like tea, or coffee?’

  ‘I’ll drink either.’

  Beside her chair, a little round-topped table held a telephone. She lifted the receiver and, pushing what must have been an intercom button, spoke a brief Portuguese phrase to whomever had picked up at the other end; then, veined hands folded calmly in her lap, she gave me back her full attention. ‘So. Is Mr Deacon still alive?’

  I hadn’t expected the question to come quite so soon, or so bluntly. I paused before answering, and it appeared that my pause was an answer enough.

  ‘No, I thought not,’ she said. ‘There aren’t many of us left from the old days. Your grandmother, too? Well, at least they’re together. My doctors tell me it will likely be a few years yet before I can be with my own dear husband, rest his soul. The curse of health.’ Her smile was only faintly visible, in shadow. ‘Did Mr Deacon keep his health, then, till the end? He was always so fit when I knew him, I’m afraid I can’t imagine him any other way.’

  I thought of the old man I’d met that day; how he had creaked to his feet…

  ‘Yes, he stayed very healthy.’

  ‘I did wonder. It has been so many years.’ She turned to me and took the reins in hand. ‘So. Is there something that you’d like to ask me? Something that you wish to know?’

  A sharp woman indeed. But not, I thought, a woman I should fear. I had a feeling, based on nothing more than instinct, she was someone I could trust.

  I took a leap of faith, and said, ‘He died last month, in London. I was with him. It was meant to be a hit-and-run, but I don’t really think it was an accident. I think somebody killed him.’

  ‘Ah.’ She looked completely unsurprised, as though it somehow fit with her long-held image of Deacon that he could not have been felled by any force except by one that wasn’t natural.

  I said, ‘I think that he was killed because of what he knew, and that whoever killed him is now trying to get rid of anybody who might share that knowledge. There have been other deaths.’ I drew a breath, and then went on, ‘Your life might be in danger. There’s a chance that I was followed here today.’

  ‘I see. And so that’s why you’ve come, to warn me?’

  ‘That’s part of the reason.’

  ‘Why else, then?’

  I met her intelligent gaze. ‘I believe this has to do with something that happened when he worked for Ivan Reynolds. I was hoping I could ask you a few questions.’

  She considered this. A moment passed. ‘How much did he tell you of what he was doing in Lisbon, with Reynolds?’

  I couldn’t clearly read her eyes, but something told me I was being tested, so I opted for the path of partial honesty. ‘I know he was placed there by British Intelligence.’

  ‘Then you know more than you ought to.’

  ‘He mentioned a murder. An old one, he told me, but one still deserving of justice.’

  She softened. ‘Yes, that sounds like something he’d say. He was always a great one for justice. In Biblical terms, if need be.’

  I pressed ahead, to take advantage of her contemplative mood. Taking out my palm-sized tape recorder, I set it in plain view, awaiting her permission. ‘I just thought, if you could tell me some of what was going on back then, when you were working with him, then I might be able to piece together what he might have known that someone cared enough to kill him for. He tried to tell me what it was,’ I said, ‘but I…I didn’t take the time, you know, to listen.’

  It was the right approach to take. She held her silence for a moment longer. Then, ‘It’s all such a long time ago, my dear. I don’t know what help I can be to you. But yes, for Mr Deacon’s sake,’ she said, ‘for his sake, I will try.’

  And for an instant, when she turned her head, the light that filtered through the lampshade showed a younger face, as she began to speak.

  She’d been twenty in the year that Deacon came to work for Reynolds.

  She’d been working there herself two years already, as a secretary. Not to Ivan Reynolds himself – he had his own private assistant – but to the other men who had the offices below him, on the first floor, men who came and went with frequency, according to the volatile moods of their employer. In December 1943, there were, by her count, three, who shared her equally: Reynolds’s personal aide, Roger Selkirk; a Spaniard named Manuel Garcia, who kept the accounts; and Vivian Spivey, the man who looked after the firm’s shipping business.

  She liked Roger Selkirk immensely, as did everyone. He was a witty and affable young man, always ready with a joke and quick to laugh, and with an inborn generosity. He often arrived at work in the morning short of pocket money or cigarettes because he’d given them to someone in the street. Regina found his cheerfulness infectious, like a smile so broad one couldn’t help returning it.

  The Spaniard, Garcia, was more of a closed book. Friendly enough in his own way, he nonetheless kept himself very much to himself, leaving on time every evening, retreating alone to the one-bedroom flat that he shared with his equally taciturn wife. Not so easy to know, but Regina still liked him.

  She didn’t like Spivey.

  From the beginning, there’d been something in his face she didn’t trust. His eyes, she thought. They rarely met her own directly, and she felt a bit uneasy when they did. He was lean and round-shouldered, which made all his suits look ill-fitting, and his smile, when he smiled, never seemed to be with you, but at your expense. It was almost a smirk.

  She was not at all sorry when Spivey was taken away from her, then, that December, and given instead to the newest girl, young Jenny Saunders. Regina had been grateful for the decrease in her workload, though she knew it wouldn’t last. A new employee was arriving, and she knew she’d be assigned to him – that’s why they’d shifted Spivey, to make room.

  Thus far the office rumour mill knew little about Andrew Deacon except for his name, that he
came from New York, and of course that he was married. Reynolds wouldn’t hire anybody now who wasn’t married, not since that young American a few months back had tried to get too close to Jenny Saunders. Reynolds was protective of his property. He’d sacked the young American, and cleared the office of all single men who might attempt the same transgression.

  Spivey and Garcia had escaped the purge – they both had wives. And Roger…well, it wasn’t any secret Roger’s interests didn’t run to women, and so he, too, had survived. But others hadn’t been so lucky, and among them had been the curator of the ever-growing private Reynolds art collection, leaving vacant the position Andrew Deacon would be coming now to fill.

  Regina knew a little more about him than the others did, though no one in the office knew she knew. No one – not even Ivan Reynolds – knew the double role she played within the company, nor that she had been placed there with a purpose by the British Secret Service. She’d been volunteered, to start with, by her father, who with several other businessmen, pro-British like himself, had formed a Vigilance Committee to inform on any enemy activity in Lisbon that might come to their attention.

  It had been through her father, too, that she had first met Alvaro Marinho. She had fallen for him instantly, and would have married him a year ago had it not been for his insistence that she was still needed where she was. And Ivan Reynolds, while he only hired married men, demanded that the women he employed all be unmarried.

  So Regina had kept to her post. Her job, for the British, involved mostly watching the mail, intercepting particular letters coming in and going out, and seeing that they got to Alvaro so he in turn could pass them on to be examined – opened expertly and then resealed without a trace, returned to her as though they’d never left her desk. She kept a careful log of Reynolds’s visitors; from time to time she listened in on phone calls, but she couldn’t get within his private circle. She’d tried getting close to Roger, but for all his friendly nature he had proved to be too circumspect, and so now they were bringing Andrew Deacon over.

  She remembered the day he arrived at the offices.

  Monday, it was, and a dreary grey day that was playing on everyone’s nerves. Even Roger had come in unsmiling. Garcia had been called upstairs to answer some question or other about the accounts, while Spivey, skulking at his desk, grew by the minute more intolerable.

  Jenny Saunders stepped out of Spivey’s office with a face that looked distinctly unimpressed. ‘I’m getting coffee,’ she announced, and her normally pleasant American voice had an edge. ‘Would you like a cup?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ Regina said. ‘I’ve just had one.’

  ‘I might be a while.’ The door closed behind her with a force that fell just short of an actual slam, and Regina, with a smile of understanding, turned her own attention to the filing cabinet.

  Nothing moved in the office. It wasn’t until she turned back to her desk that she saw him, and his presence caught her so off guard she nearly dropped the file she was holding.

  ‘Oh,’ she said. And then, recovering, ‘You must be Mr Deacon.’

  She had no idea when he had come in, or how long he’d been standing there, but she didn’t think it had been very long – he didn’t strike her as the sort of man who’d be so unmannerly as to just stand there and watch without letting her know he was there in the room. She was good at reading people; she could always spot a gentleman.

  He said, ‘I am, yes. Sorry if I startled you.’

  ‘I didn’t hear you come in, that’s all.’

  ‘Yes, well, I’ll try not to do it again.’ He had quite lovely eyes, she thought. Blue and alive, in his otherwise ordinary face. He was dressed well without being flashy – grey suit, white shirt, navy-blue tie, and a grey hat that he’d taken off and was holding in one hand, politely.

  A gentleman, Regina thought again, and she was glad that she had been assigned to work for him. She told him, ‘I’m Regina Sousa. You can call me Regina, it’s what everybody does. I’ll be your secretary. Let me show you where your office is.’

  It was the largest office, last one down the passage, in a corner of the building with tall windows on two walls, and an impressive desk of polished rosewood. Deacon didn’t seem to take much notice of the windows or the desk, but looked, she noticed, at the paintings on the walls.

  ‘It’s very nice,’ he said.

  ‘I’m glad you like it. Mr Reynolds wants to meet with you for lunch. He said he’d come down here himself and fetch you later.’

  ‘Fine.’ He’d only brought a briefcase, and he set it down now on the desk and asked her, ‘Are you very busy at the moment?’

  ‘Not really, no. I have two letters Mr Selkirk wanted typed by noon, but—’

  ‘Then perhaps when you’ve done those, if you have time,’ he said, ‘you’d bring us both some coffee, and we’ll talk.’

  ‘All right.’

  When she came back, he looked more settled at his desk. She had expected that the room would look too large for him; she hadn’t thought that such a quiet man could fill the space, and yet somehow he did, and did it in a way that made the room seem it had always been his own. This was remarkable, to her, because as far as she could see he’d added nothing to the room except two items that he must have carried with him in his briefcase. She saw them as she came around to set the cup of coffee on his desk: a modern novel, and a photograph.

  The novel was The Robe, by Lloyd C Douglas, this year’s winner of the Pulitzer. She had a copy of the book herself, at home, and owned it for the reason Andrew Deacon did – because it was the codebook. He would use it for the messages that he’d be sending out, through her, to Alvaro, and for deciphering the notes that came back in reply. Like her, he’d write the coded messages in ink that turned invisible, on otherwise innocent letters of business. The code, even if it were detected, was useless to anyone who didn’t know the codebook, consisting as it did of strings of numbers – 0512217 being the fifth word in the twelfth line of the two hundred and seventeenth page.

  Because they shared a codebook, he’d be able to send messages to her, as well, and she to him, in secret, if the need arose.

  She shifted focus from the novel to the photograph. It sat inside a handsome leather folding frame he’d angled round to see while he was working; not for other people’s eyes.

  He saw Regina looking, and he said, ‘My wife, Amelia.’

  ‘Oh.’ It was a coloured photograph. She looked at the softly red hair of the woman; the laughing green eyes and the plain ivory folds of the wedding dress. ‘She’s very beautiful.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, glancing away. ‘Yes, she is.’

  ‘You must miss her.’

  ‘I should miss her more if something were to happen to her. She’s safer to stay in New York, while this war’s on.’ He swivelled his chair and reached out for his coffee cup. ‘Thank you for this. Please, sit down.’

  It took her less than half an hour to tell him what she knew about the people working there. He took no notes, but paid careful attention, and when she was done he seemed satisfied.

  Thanking her, he smiled. ‘You’re a very keen observer, Miss Sousa.’

  ‘Regina.’

  ‘Regina, then. You seem to have this business well in hand. I can’t think why I’ve been brought over.’

  ‘Because I can’t go where Reynolds goes. The dinners, and the gatherings. You can. You’re on his level.’

  ‘Yes, well, that rather depends on how well he and I get on, doesn’t it? We shall see.’

  She could have told him that he needn’t worry. She’d worked for Ivan Reynolds long enough to know that Andrew Deacon was exactly the sort of a man he would like. And indeed, she could tell from the moment that Reynolds stepped into the office, at lunchtime, that she had been right.

  It always interested her to see the reaction of people meeting Reynolds for the first time. He was not what most expected – neither tall nor swaggering, looking a little untidy as though he had dr
essed in a hurry, his grizzled dark hair never totally tamed by the comb. Yet whereas Deacon’s office would have looked too large for many men, it looked too small for Reynolds. He commanded every room that he walked into, and he did it with an energy she’d never seen in any other man.

  Deacon didn’t really react one way or another; he simply stood and offered his hand in introduction, and Reynolds’s features relaxed into something approaching a smile.

  ‘Glad to have you,’ he told Deacon. ‘You came highly recommended. Has Regina here been showing you the ropes?’

  ‘She has, yes.’

  ‘Well, that’s good. That’s very good.’ The handshake over, Reynolds coughed and looked around, his shrewd eyes taking in the wedding portrait on the desk before they moved on. ‘What do you think of your view?’

  Deacon, his back to the window, said, ‘I like it very much.’ He nodded at one of the paintings that hung on the nearest wall. ‘The Kandinsky is especially fine.’

  The painter’s name meant nothing to Regina, who knew little about art, but Reynolds seemed to be well pleased. He said to Deacon, ‘I can see we’re going to have a lot to talk about, at lunch. You’d better get your hat.’

  They stayed out a considerable time. They weren’t back when Regina returned from her own lunch, to find Roger Selkirk making himself comfortable at her desk, tipped back in the chair with his arms folded, talking to Jenny.

  ‘Hullo,’ he said, as she came in. ‘I like that scarf. It suits you.’

  She shrugged her coat off, hung it on its peg, and smiled. ‘All right, what are you after?’

  ‘My dear girl, why would you think I’m after anything?’

  ‘You aren’t here to compliment my fashion sense.’

  Jenny, looking happier again, said, ‘He’s been dying to ask you about Mr Deacon.’

  ‘Hardly dying,’ Roger said. ‘I’m merely curious.’

  Shooing him out of her chair with a good-natured wave of her hand, Regina sat. ‘I’m surprised you weren’t down here this morning.’