Estocada
Page 39
‘Delighted,’ he said.
The service was low-key, in keeping with what Tam suspected his father would have liked. A couple of hymns. A eulogy from Cally MacBraine and another from a local teacher who used to fly-fish with the old man in his retirement. Then came a final prayer and the slow procession through the dripping pines to the village graveyard.
By mid-afternoon, the wake was in full swing. Tam circulated with a bottle of Laphroaig, shepherding guests towards a display of photos he’d spent some care in putting together. Dad in his youth when he played competitive hockey, proudly receiving a trophy. Dad on his wedding day, his new bride standing beside him. Dad bent over the infant Vanessa, trying to tempt her with a buttercup. Heads nodded. Stories were shared. One woman, who’d regularly called on the old man before his departure to the nursing home in London, shed a tear.
By seven o’clock The Glebe House was near-empty again. Assuming he’d said the last of his goodbyes, Tam stepped into the dining room with the bottle of Laphroaig to find Ballentyne and Sanderson already seated at the table. Tam hesitated for a moment, taken by surprise. This was where the madness began, he thought, with Sanderson tucking into home-made scones. The memory of finding a stranger at this same table seemed to belong to another life.
‘You did your father proud.’ Ballentyne got to his feet and extended a hand. ‘You must be relieved it’s all over.’
Tam waved him back into his seat and murmured a thank you for helping out with the fees at the nursing home. Under the circumstances, the money had been more than welcome.
‘Our pleasure. It was the least we could do.’
Ballentyne wanted to know how the business was bearing up, now that Tam was back at the helm.
‘It’s slow, I’m afraid. The Germans have stopped coming, as you might imagine, and no one else seems to have money to spend.’
‘Difficult.’
‘Indeed.’
Tam was looking at Sanderson. Something appeared to be troubling him. So far he hadn’t said a word.
‘I spent some time with your stepdaughter in Berlin.’ Tam unscrewed the cap on the bottle. ‘You must be very proud of her.’
Sanderson didn’t respond. When the silence became uncomfortable, Ballentyne cleared his throat.
‘A tot or two might be very welcome.’ He nodded at the bottle. ‘If you’re offering.’
Tam fetched glasses from the kitchen and poured three generous malts. He had no idea what to expect next.
‘There were two reasons we came up,’ Ballentyne said carefully. ‘One of them, of course, was your father.’
‘And the other?’
‘Bella, I’m afraid.’
‘Afraid?’ Tam felt the first prickle of apprehension. ‘Something’s happened to her?’
‘Indeed.’
‘Some kind of accident?’
‘Probably not.’
‘Then I don’t understand.’
Ballentyne fell silent. He’d said enough. The rest had to come from Sanderson.
‘The bloody girl’s defected.’ Sanderson at last looked Tam in the eye. ‘She’s bailed out. Joined the opposition.’
Tam stared at him. He didn’t know what to say.
‘You’re serious? She’s joined the Nazis?’
‘Worse. The Russians.’
‘The Russians?’ Tam was trying to absorb the news. ‘Why on earth would she do that?’
Sanderson shook his head. He couldn’t say, couldn’t begin to fathom it. You bring someone up. You lavish all that time and love and God knows what else on her, and then something like this happens.
‘To be frank, it’s a nightmare.’ He reached for his glass. ‘I still can’t believe it.’
Ballentyne nodded. The news, he agreed, had come as a terrible surprise.
‘We thought it best to have a quiet word in private,’ he explained. ‘Before the papers get hold of it. We understand you two were close.’
Tam nodded, said nothing. Bella had been on his mind ever since his return from Berlin and one of their conversations had been haunting him for weeks. They’d been in bed in her apartment. In a moment of seeming frankness Bella had told him about the importance of belief, of having something overwhelming in your life. Total commitment, she’d said. Total otherness. A kind of surrender. At the time he’d wondered exactly what she meant. Now, he knew.
‘No one saw this coming?’ he asked Sanderson. ‘Even in your line of business?’
Sanderson wouldn’t answer. Tam put the question again, this time to Ballentyne. He, after all, had known Bella well. Probably better than her stepfather.
‘Alas, no,’ Ballentyne said. ‘Thinking back, there were all kinds of clues but what use is hindsight?’
‘What kind of clues?’
‘She had a boyfriend at Oxford. Nice lad. Committed Commie, of course, but that was nothing unusual. She was really keen on him. Really smitten. Her first love, really, and all the more powerful for that. She brought him up to Skye. We met the lad. He wanted to join the Marines for some reason. We never fathomed why.’
‘So what happened to him?’
‘He fought in Spain with the International Brigade and never came back.’
‘Killed?’
‘Either that or he ended up in Moscow. I don’t think she ever got over it. Oliver…?’
‘You’re probably right,’ Sanderson shook his head, still unable to grasp the scale of his stepdaughter’s betrayal. ‘Impossible. You think you know someone. You think you can trust them. They’re kith and kin, for God’s sake. And then something like this happens. Her mother affects not to be surprised. I must say that makes her a great deal wiser than me.’
Tam toyed with his glass for a moment. For some reason the revelation about Bella was beginning to raise his spirits. Someone with a cause, he told himself. Someone prepared to take a risk or two. Someone who had the guile and the guts to fool a great number of people who should have known a great deal better. In ways he couldn’t explain, it was hard not to envy her.
Tam’s eyes travelled from one face to the other. Then he raised his glass.
‘Here’s to my dad,’ he said softly. ‘And those lucky Russians.’
*
Snow arrived early that winter. A freezing Christmas came and went and the drifts in the mountains were still thigh-deep by the onset of spring. In early March the postman struggled up the lane to The Glebe House with a handful of mail. Amongst the bills and the booking cancellations was an envelope with a Russian stamp and an indecipherable postmark. Tam put a match to the kindling in the open fire and settled at the kitchen table. Bella, he thought.
The card was plain and black-edged, the kind he’d sent to friends and relatives after his father had died. Tam opened it. He recognised the handwriting from a note she’d once left at his Berlin hotel. There were no endearments, no hint of a memory worth sharing, nothing about the life she’d made for herself, just a curt, two-line message.
Hitler will take the rest of Czecho next week. Probably the 14th or the 15th. Never say we weren’t warned. RIP.
We?
Tam stared at the card and then got to his feet. Bella was probably right. Reports on the wireless had been warning of a German move on Prague but nothing he’d heard had been this specific. Next week? The fourteenth or the fifteenth? He gazed down at the fire. The kindling, to his satisfaction, was well alight. He hesitated a moment on the icy flagstones and then ripped the card in half before consigning it to the flames. Half-close his eyes and he could see Renata’s face. She was sitting at the table that first night when Tam had arrived in Karlovy Vary. Edvard was beside her. They were sharing a second bowl of his mother’s onion soup. And they were laughing.
‘RIP,’ he murmured, watching the fragments blacken and curl in the heat.
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About Graham Hurley
GRAHAM HURLEY is the author of the acclaimed Faraday and Winter crime novels. Two of the critically lauded series have been shortlisted for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Award for Best Crime Novel. His French TV series, based on the Faraday and Winter novels, has won huge audiences. An award-winning TV documentary maker, Graham now writes full time. He lives with his wife, Lin, in Exmouth.
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First published in the UK in 2018 by Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Graham Hurley, 2018
The moral right of Graham Hurley to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (HB) 9781784977894
ISBN (XTPB) 9781784977900
ISBN (E) 9781784977887
Author photo: Laura Muños
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