Every Secret Thing

by Susanna Kearsley

  I almost could believe that, after what Jim told me next.

  The spring had come to Washington. The cherry-blossom time, when crowds of tourists filled the Capitol to marvel at the monuments and buildings, and enjoy the pleasure, long deferred, of walking out of doors, with winter fading to a small and distant memory.

  Jim, having just passed his sixty-fourth birthday, had purposely slowed in his pace at the office, to give himself time to enjoy days like this one, and so, being in no great rush to get to work, he gave himself permission to take one turn round the Tidal Basin. The Basin, on that day, was perfect; smooth, without a ripple, catching clearly the reflection of the Jefferson Memorial, the arched rotunda shining white beyond the fragrant, pink-bloomed cherry trees that ringed the pool of water and made a such a brilliant show against the clear blue morning sky.

  Breathing deep, in satisfaction, Jim felt good. So good, he was considering a second circuit round the pool when he heard someone laugh.

  A woman. Low, and throaty, and infectious.

  Stopping on the path, Jim held himself in check a moment, not quite ready to believe. And then, he turned.

  It was her. Older, like himself, but definitely her. Her red hair had lightened to something like strawberry blonde, but her figure had held. She was standing not ten feet away from him, holding the bar of an empty child’s stroller and laughing at a little toddling girl with bright red pigtails.

  Jim’s voice didn’t come, the first time, but he coughed and tried again. ‘Amelia.’

  As she had so long ago, again she turned round, slowly, and Jim thought, this time he understood the reason for the hopefulness he saw within her eyes. But he was not the man she’d been expecting. Not the man she’d wanted.

  Still, she recognised him too. And this time, there was no denial. ‘Jim,’ she said, and smiled her wide, familiar smile, as though she were as pleased as he was by their chance encounter.

  ‘How are you?’ she asked. ‘What a wonderful surprise. I’m afraid we’ll have to walk,’ she warned him, as he came across to meet her. ‘This little one won’t sit still in the stroller. She doesn’t like being strapped in.’

  ‘I don’t blame her.’ Jim crouched to the child’s level, smiling. ‘And what’s your name?’

  The little girl just looked at him with interest, and Amelia answered, ‘Katie. She’s my granddaughter.’

  ‘She’s beautiful.’

  ‘Well, thank you. I think so, naturally, but then I’m biased.’

  ‘Gamma,’ said the little girl, and tugged Amelia’s hand, and they began to walk. Jim took charge of the empty stroller, pushing it. He thought of all the ways he could begin their conversation, but he settled on, ‘Just so you know, Andrew told me, a while back, that the two of you weren’t married, so you don’t have to keep up the fiction with me. Makes things easier.’

  ‘Yes,’ she admitted. ‘It does.’

  ‘I should have been able to figure it out from the last time I saw you, when you pretended not to know me. You were working here, then, weren’t you?’

  ‘Yes. I am sorry about that. I felt awful afterwards.’

  ‘No need to. You were just doing your job.’ He didn’t ask her who she’d worked for. He already had a pretty good idea. As a Canadian, she’d likely worked for BSC – one of Sir William Stephenson’s girls. He’d known about them, though he’d never known exactly what they’d gotten up to, in their offices at Rockefeller Plaza. Even now, with everyone grown older and the war reduced to pages in a history book, there still were secrets.

  She said brightly, ‘And you? Have you lived here all this time?’

  And so they talked, as they had always done, of little things.

  ‘You never got married?’ she echoed, as though that surprised her.

  ‘I never had time.’ He smiled down at her. Glanced at the child. ‘You did, though, I see.’

  ‘Yes. I have one son,’ she said. ‘Katie’s father. His wife died last year, so they’re all on their own now. They live with us.’

  ‘You must enjoy that,’ said Jim.

  ‘Yes, I do. Very much.’ She looked down at the little girl, squeezing her hand with affection. ‘I can’t think what I’d do without her.’

  ‘She looks like you.’

  ‘Do you think so? There’s the hair, of course…’

  ‘She has your eyes.’ Jim looked from one face to the other, certain.

  ‘Well, let’s hope she didn’t get my temper, poor thing.’ She glanced down, to check her wristwatch. ‘We’re supposed to meet my husband.’ Then, on inspiration, she said, ‘Will you come with us?’

  Jim hesitated. Shook his head. ‘I really should be getting to the office.’

  ‘Please, Jim, come with us.’ She held his gaze. ‘I’d like for you to meet him.’

  He was powerless, as he had always been against those eyes. He went.

  He wasn’t sure what reception he’d get, or how she’d choose to explain him – a man from her past – but he went, all the same.

  Their hotel was the Willard, only two blocks from the White House, and not far for them to walk. ‘My son,’ she said, ‘wanted to stay at the Watergate. He thought it would be more exciting. I told him that I’d had enough excitement in my life.’

  Jim smiled. ‘So he knows what you did during the war?’

  ‘Oh, heavens, no, I’ve never told him that. I don’t imagine he’d believe it, if I did. No,’ she said in amusement, ‘he thinks I’m a boring old woman.’

  Jim didn’t think much of the son, when he met him. A colourless young man, absorbed in himself; only vaguely aware of his child.

  But the husband, Ken Murray, was different. Jim liked him. Liked the firmness of his handshake, and the honest, level squareness of his gaze.

  ‘So you knew Georgie in New York,’ Ken Murray said. ‘That must have been a time.’

  It took Jim a few seconds to realise Amelia and ‘Georgie’ were one and the same. ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, it was.’

  Ken Murray didn’t ask him what he’d done in wartime. Having been a military man himself, perhaps he understood the barriers of secrecy. He only asked, ‘And what do you do, now?’

  He was an easy man to talk to. In the coffee shop of the hotel, they sat and talked while Katie coloured happily beside them with her crayons. The son lost interest after twenty minutes, and went back up to their room. Jim didn’t miss him. But he did feel at a loss when Katie tugged Amelia’s hand, insistent, and Amelia rose.

  ‘We’ll be right back,’ she said. ‘Excuse us.’

  Left alone, the two men settled back, as though each were deciding how to carry on the conversation. Jim spoke first. ‘You were in the Air Force, in the war, as I recall.’

  ‘I was. I wasn’t very good at it. I got myself shot down.’

  ‘Well, I would guess you had a few adventures.’

  ‘Nothing much to tell,’ Ken Murray told him lightly. Most men who had gone through hell and back again, Jim knew, weren’t keen to talk about it. ‘The people who helped me out, they were the brave ones. And there were so many of them. I remember this one man, in Lisbon – I never did learn what his name was; I wish that I had. He came with the SIS man, to debrief me. A real quiet guy, but he was so concerned about me having to go back into the air that he sent me a note afterwards, with the name of a British official he knew at the Embassy. Said if I went to this man, he would find me a desk job. Intelligence. I didn’t go for it, of course. My squadron needed me – we pilots were in pretty short supply. But it was nice of him to go to all that trouble, for a guy he didn’t know.’ He looked at Jim, and smiled briefly. ‘That’s what I took with me, from the war – what I remember. All the trouble people took, to help a stranger. Made me think the human race still had some hope.’

  Amelia’s voice asked, ‘What did?’

  Turning with a warm-eyed look, her husband said, ‘Oh, we were just talking.’

  Jim found his voice, and said, ‘War stories’.

>   ‘Really?’ Looking at the two of them with interest, she said, ‘Ken never tells me those’.

  ‘There’s nothing much to tell,’ he said again. He watched his granddaughter at play, and added, ‘Anyway, it’s ancient history, now. God willing, this little one will never have to live through days like that.’

  They changed the subject, then, and talked of other things. It was going on for noon when Jim stood, finally, with reluctance. Said goodbye.

  Amelia walked him out. Said the usual things, about keeping in touch. At the doorway she paused for a moment, her gaze on the floor. ‘You said that Deacon told you we weren’t married.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘When did he do that?’ Her voice was casual, as if it didn’t matter, but he wasn’t fooled.

  It took him half a minute to decide what he should answer. ‘I met him in the Fifties once. In Istanbul. We had a cup of tea, and talked. He told me then.’

  ‘I see.’ She nodded, and he knew that she was also choosing her words carefully. ‘How was he? Was he well?’

  ‘He seemed to be.’

  Another nod. ‘I’m glad,’ she said. And then she raised her head to look at him, and smiled as if to prove it. ‘It was really good to see you, Jim. I mean that. Take good care.’

  He never could find a convincing reason, later, why he hadn’t told her everything – that he and Andrew Deacon saw each other once a year, at least, and wrote each other monthly; that they’d done that ever since they’d met in Istanbul; that Deacon wasn’t married, though he’d never, to Jim’s knowledge, taken off the New York wedding ring.

  Jim felt a bit ashamed, in fact, whenever he looked back on his encounter with Amelia. Like he’d stepped between two lovers, who were meant to be together. But the truth was that, like Andrew Deacon, he had liked Ken Murray too. And he himself was only one more player on the chequerboard, who did what Fate decided.

  The crowd was growing thinner in the banquet hall. Little groups of people were collecting by the doorway, as they started saying their goodbyes. I wasn’t ready yet.

  With clearer eyes, I kept my focus on Jim Iveson – this man who’d met me as a child. Perhaps that was why I’d felt so sure I should know him…though I hadn’t been aware my memories stretched so far into the past.

  I said, ‘My grandmother…she’s—’

  ‘Yes, I heard,’ he cut me off, so that I wouldn’t have to say it. ‘I am sorry.’

  It occurred to me that this man, having been a friend of Deacon’s, was a target, too. I thought I ought to warn him, but I didn’t get too far, because the minute that I mentioned the report, he said, ‘You mean his accusations about Cayton-Wood. I knew about that, yes. I knew he didn’t have much luck with it.’

  ‘I might have more.’

  ‘You’ll have a hard time doing it. Especially,’ he said, ‘after last week.’

  I didn’t need to ask him what he meant. There was no way anybody could have missed the story – it had been in all the papers, and on all the nightly broadcasts. A woman like Venetia Radburn couldn’t smash her car into a tree without it making headlines.

  And the journalists and broadcasters had played upon the tragedy. A shame, they’d said, her family had been with her – her great-nephew, such a promising young lawyer, and his mother. All three of them killed, in that one accident. Then, tragedy on tragedy, her son-in-law (which was how they’d described the Colonel, notwithstanding he was her own age) had, in what the reporters liked to call ‘a fit of grief’, done the dramatic thing and gassed himself to death in his garage.

  It had made for good news, but I wasn’t completely convinced. The first three deaths – Venetia Radburn, Patrick, and his mother – those were real enough. I’d seen the pictures. But the Colonel had already died once in his lifetime, and I didn’t put it past him to attempt the trick again.

  Jim’s thoughts were clearly running in the same direction. ‘The British,’ he said, ‘do things very neatly.’

  I half smiled. ‘So you don’t believe that he’s dead either.’

  ‘Men like Cayton-Wood don’t kill themselves. He’s likely on an island, somewhere, soaking up the sun.’

  And I would not be safe, I knew, so long as he remained there. I would always have to watch my step, to look behind me on the street, to never drop my guard. I didn’t want to live like that, but it was how things had to be, as long as Cayton-Wood was living. And he was alive – I knew that in my heart. I knew his shadowy protectors had removed him from the path of justice once again, as they had done before.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Jim said. He was watching me as if he knew my thoughts; as if he knew what I had been through, and what I still had to face. He smiled kindly. ‘No one lives for ever. But the truth survives us all.’

  His face looked tired. We’d been talking for a long time, and the organisers of the small reception had begun to stack the chairs. Our interview was coming to a close.

  I turned my tape recorder off, and started packing up my notebook.

  ‘Did you get what you were after?’ he asked.

  More than I had hoped for. But I only told him, ‘Yes,’ and thanked him, even though the words seemed so inadequate, for what I had been given.

  ‘If you have the time, I’m staying in Toronto for the weekend, at the Royal York Hotel,’ he said. ‘I’d like to buy you dinner while I’m here.’

  I’d said no to Deacon, when he had invited me to dinner, and I’d learnt from my mistake. ‘I’d like that. Thanks.’ And then, because it had only just occurred to me, ‘Do you need a ride back to Toronto? Because I’ve got my car here.’

  ‘No, no, thank you, but my driver’s in the parking lot.’ He checked his watch. ‘Unless he’s given up on me. I’ve been a little longer than I said I’d be.’

  He stood, and helped me with my coat, and walked me out. A gentleman. The parking lot was busy, thick with slowly rolling cars and milling people.

  ‘There he is,’ said Jim. ‘I guess I won’t be stranded after all.’

  I couldn’t see his car at first. My view was blocked by a reversing van. But as it pulled away, I saw the long, black Lincoln Continental, and the man who stood beside it, leaning on the driver’s door, arms folded.

  ‘I believe,’ said Jim, ‘that you and Matt already know each other, don’t you?’

  Matt Jankowski’s gaze met mine across the space between us, and he smiled.

  I was so surprised to see him that I couldn’t think of anything to say.

  I slowly turned to Jim, beside me, and all of a sudden I knew where I’d seen him before. He had been at the next table over, at Dean and Deluca’s, in Washington, sitting behind Jenny Augustine. My mind began to flip through memories, like a rapid slideshow: Matt’s voice, telling me that Jenny would be fine. She’s with a friend of mine. A friend of hers, too, as it happens. Further back, Matt saying how he had been sent to Lisbon by a former senior partner in his firm, a man who had been FBI…

  I said to Jim, with certainty, ‘You have a corner office.’

  ‘Yes, I do.’ His brows came down a fraction. ‘How did you know that?’

  I only smiled. So now I knew just how Matt’s old man in the corner office had been able to identify me. Jim had been a friend of Deacon’s; he had known of Deacon’s death. He’d also heard about my grandmother’s. And that meant he most likely would have known that I was missing. It would have been simple enough to compare the recent photographs of me that had been run in the Toronto papers to the ones that Matt had sent from Portugal.

  I understood that now. And more. I gave myself a mental shake for missing all the clues. They’d all been there – he’d been in nearly every story I had heard, from the beginning, though he’d been different things to different people, filling many roles. A very active piece, I thought, upon the chequerboard.

  ‘Be careful, now,’ he said. I let him take my elbow; let him usher me between the cars, the people. ‘Matt’s a tough young man to read, sometimes,’ he tol
d me. ‘That’s a good trait for a lawyer, but…he’s cautious when it comes to certain things, I’ve noticed. If that ever changes, well, you take my advice, Katie. Give him a chance. It wasn’t for my sake alone that he did what he did.’ As we neared the Lincoln, he said, in a louder voice, ‘I’ll let you two figure out the details of that dinner.’ And with a briefly affectionate squeeze of my shoulder, he let himself into the car.

  Matt stayed standing outside with me, shoulders hunched in his heavy black overcoat, hands swallowed deep in the pockets, and as the silence stretched he coughed and said, ‘How are you?’

  ‘Fine, thank you.’ I waited, then asked, ‘Did you get the tape?’

  ‘Yes, thanks.’ He looked at me. ‘That was an idiotic thing to do, you know that? You could have been killed. If I’d known you were going to do that, I’d…’ He bit the end off the sentence, unfinished, and glanced away sharply, as I thrust my own hands defensively into my pockets.

  ‘He’d have tried to kill me anyway. He still might.’

  Matt frowned, as though the thought disturbed him. ‘You’re not back at your grandmother’s house, are you?’

  ‘No.’ The lawyer, my grandmother’s lawyer, had offered me the keys, but I had left them in his care. ‘No, I’m staying with friends.’

  He didn’t ask with whom, or where. For all I knew, he might already have had Tony’s address in his pocket; might have known exactly where I’d been. He only said, ‘And the police are giving you protection?’

  I shrugged, without taking my hands from my pockets. ‘They’ve done what they can.’

  The wind swirled cold between us for a moment, then he told me, ‘I could do a better job.’ His voice was casual, but his eyes, when they found mine, were anything but.

  I was suddenly very aware of Jim Iveson, sitting in the front seat of the Lincoln Continental, with a clear view through the windshield. Not quite certain of my answer, I looked down.