Launch Code

by Michael Ridpath

  ‘No. But I think she knows there are things I’m not divulging. My guess is she assumes they are things that would incriminate me, so she would rather not hear them.’

  ‘But Dad was watching TV with us when Sam was killed,’ said Megan.

  ‘No he wasn’t,’ said Alice. ‘The game was over by the time I got back. I unpacked the groceries and then I went to speak with him in his study. If he had gone straight to the pub after that, he would have had time to kill Sam Bowen. Sam would have let him into his room, and if Sam hadn’t gone to bed right away, he would still be dressed. Believe me, I’ve had plenty of time to think this through.’

  ‘Couldn’t Lars have done that?’ said Megan. ‘He would have been just as worried as Dad about the mention of Pat Greenwald. He could have been worried about Sam claiming he was a Russian spy.’

  ‘Brooke said that Lars didn’t leave the Cottage,’ said Alice. ‘And until just now I didn’t know that Lars spoke to Pat Greenwald about the near-launch as well as Dad.’

  ‘Well, then?’ said Megan. ‘Maybe Lars jumped out the back window?’

  ‘Or maybe he didn’t speak to Pat Greenwald at all back in 1984,’ Toby said. ‘We only have your dad’s word for that.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Alice. ‘Maybe Dad lied. And we know Lars didn’t shoot himself.’

  ‘Oh, you think Dad shot Lars?’ said Megan, with scorn.

  Alice nodded. ‘To keep him quiet. Maybe Lars had figured out what Dad had done. Maybe he was going to tell the police. Or Admiral Robinson.’

  ‘I got the impression Lars knew who killed Sam Bowen,’ Toby said. ‘I think he was about to tell me just before he was shot.’

  ‘Dad knows how to use a rifle,’ said Alice.

  ‘But we don’t have one in the house,’ said Megan.

  ‘And if we did, he wouldn’t have used it,’ said Alice. ‘He’s too smart for that. He would have gotten one from somewhere else.’

  ‘But he was at home when Toby and Lars went for their walk,’ said Megan.

  ‘Was he?’ said Alice.

  ‘No, he wasn’t,’ said Toby. ‘He left the house about the same time as Lars and me. Went out to get plumbing supplies. The police could check on that.’

  ‘If we let them,’ said Alice.

  The three of them stood shivering under the bare branches of the pear tree, thinking about the man inside the house.

  Was he really a murderer?

  ‘No,’ said Megan. ‘I refuse to believe any of this.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Alice, for once showing some sympathy for her younger sister. ‘It’s dreadful to think about, but our father did kill someone. Two people. And that’s not counting Craig all those years ago.’

  Toby’s brain was racing through the possibilities. He didn’t want to believe Bill had killed anyone. Nor did he want to believe that Bill had shot at him. But Alice was right: it did make sense.

  ‘He told me that he believed you had killed Sam,’ Toby said. ‘To protect him. You’re saying he never thought that.’

  ‘Of course he didn’t,’ said Alice. ‘He knew who had killed Sam. The whole time. He knew.’

  ‘Did you tell him you suspected him?’

  ‘No. He and I have this tacit thing going on. He doesn’t ask questions about me, and I don’t ask questions about him. The lawyer’s happy with that. It’s just you and Megan who are screwing everything up.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Toby.

  No apology came from Megan. She was frowning.

  ‘So what do we do now?’ said Toby.

  ‘We stay quiet,’ said Alice.

  ‘And let the police arrest you again?’

  Alice shrugged. ‘It’s my choice. All I want you to do is to respect that.’

  Toby looked up as a flight of geese flew low over the house, and veered left over the marsh towards the Wash, honking.

  Then he faced his wife.

  ‘I’ll respect your choice as far as your own freedom is concerned. But if Bill really did kill people, the police need to know. He needs to be brought to justice.’

  ‘Toby!’ Alice glared at her husband. Then her gaze softened. ‘OK. This is difficult for all of us, you too, Megan. I hate the idea that my father killed anybody. He was wrong. But you heard him, and you heard Sam Bowen. The only reason we are alive today is because of what he did on the Alexander Hamilton all those years ago. And everything he did after that was a result of that day. He made some bad decisions, but they were difficult decisions. He was trying to stop humanity from destroying itself.’

  ‘I agree he did what he did from the best of motives,’ Toby said. ‘At least as far as speaking to the Russians is concerned. But he shouldn’t have killed an innocent man like Sam Bowen. Or Lars. Or tried to kill me. I’m sorry, Alice: we have got to speak to the police about this, or MI5 or someone.’

  ‘He’s my father, Toby. I won’t do it.’

  Toby swallowed. ‘Then I will.’

  ‘Shouldn’t we talk to Dad first?’ said Megan.

  ‘No,’ said Toby. ‘That will just warn him we are on to him.’ He took a deep breath. ‘And he might become dangerous when he’s cornered, right, Alice?’

  Alice nodded, reluctantly.

  Toby’s phone rang. He didn’t recognize the number, but he did see it was a US international code. He answered.

  ‘Toby? This is Glenn Robinson.’

  ‘Oh, hello, Admiral,’ Toby said, with a meaningful glance at Alice. He wanted her to know to whom he was speaking. Alice shot him a look: don’t you dare tell him about my father.

  ‘I’d like to have a little chat with you, and with your wife and her sisters,’ the admiral said. ‘Informal. I’ve got something I want to share with you.’

  ‘OK,’ said Toby. ‘When do you want to meet?’

  ‘Is this afternoon OK?’

  ‘All right. I’ll try to round up the girls. Where?’

  ‘There’s a pub called The Pheasant in Thurstead. Do you know it?’

  ‘I know the village.’ Thurstead was a few miles inland from Barnholt.

  ‘Good. Say three-thirty?’

  ‘OK. We’ll be there.’

  ‘And, Toby? Please don’t let Bill know you are coming to see me.’

  Toby hung up.

  ‘What was all that about?’ said Alice

  Toby explained.

  ‘Are you coming?’ he asked the sisters.

  ‘I will,’ said Megan.

  ‘You won’t say I think Dad killed Sam Bowen, will you, Toby?’ said Alice.

  ‘I might,’ said Toby.

  Alice shook her head. Fury burned in her eyes. ‘I can’t believe you would do that.’

  ‘Toby?’ said Megan.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I know Alice is pretty certain about Dad’s guilt, but I’m not. Let’s just leave it a day or so, eh? Listen to what the admiral has to say. See what turns up. Think about it some more.’

  Toby knew that if Bill really had murdered the young historian, he couldn’t let him get away with it. He also knew that if he defied his wife on this, his marriage would be over. The Guth family would be destroyed. He knew Alice, she would never forgive him. And although the logical conclusion was that if Alice was willing to lie to protect her murdering father Toby was better off without her, Toby couldn’t accept that. Part of him admired her loyalty and her bravery. Just as part of him admired Bill.

  But she was wrong, and so was her father.

  Megan offered a fudge. An excuse to delay a difficult decision.

  In theory Toby believed that difficult decisions were best taken sooner rather than later.

  He looked at his wife. The anger in her eyes pointed directly at him, hurt. He loved her. Could he really take a decision to lose her that quickly?

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I’ll just listen. So will you come?’

  ‘I will,’ said Alice. ‘And you had better keep your mouth shut.’

  Fifty-Two

  The Pheasant was a large wh
ite-painted pub at the far end of Thurstead’s small high street. The village was a cluster of farms, a few houses, a shop, the church and the pub, most of which straggled along a single road in a shallow valley.

  The pub was clearly very old, but it had been tarted up in a disconcerting melange of fashionable grey paint and modern fonts. Mid-afternoon in November it was almost empty: a lone walker with his map sat at one table in front of the fire, and at another in the corner sat the admiral, drinking a Coke.

  ‘Sorry we’re late,’ said Toby, shaking his hand. ‘It took me a while to round everyone up.’

  By ‘everyone’ he had meant Brooke, who had taken some persuading to leave the hotel and her husband in Hunstanton and drive over to Thurstead in their hired car. But Alice had eventually coaxed her.

  ‘I thought there were four of you?’ the admiral said to Alice.

  ‘Maya’s not here,’ Alice replied. ‘She had to go back to work. She’s a flight attendant.’

  ‘She’s in New York,’ Megan said. ‘But you’ve got the rest of us.’

  Toby fetched drinks: white wine for Megan, tomato juice for Brooke and Alice and a half pint of bitter for him. When he returned to the table, the admiral was conducting a stilted conversation with Alice about how pretty Norfolk was. But as soon as Toby set the drinks down, the admiral got down to business.

  ‘Thanks for coming, and for not telling your father.’ Alice had told Bill they were driving to Hunstanton to see Brooke and Justin. Not a bad little lie since it plausibly explained why Bill was left out of it. There was even a chance that Bill had believed it.

  ‘I shouldn’t be here,’ the admiral went on. ‘I’m speaking to you informally, as a private citizen. And mostly as your father’s friend.’

  ‘OK,’ said Alice.

  ‘You know I was the executive officer on the Alexander Hamilton’s last patrol, and you may know that after that I spent many years in naval intelligence, which is how I have contacts with the British security services. I may have retired, but I still take very seriously my obligation to keep what happened on that last patrol secret.’

  ‘We understand,’ said Alice, slipping into her natural role as speaker for the sisters.

  ‘I believe all of you know what that was. Your mother told you before she died, and then Sam Bowen confirmed it, right?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Alice. The others around the table all nodded.

  ‘OK. That should never have gotten out, but it’s too late now, and at least it makes it easier for you to understand what’s going on.’

  ‘Which is what, exactly?’ Toby asked.

  ‘Is the name Pat Greenwald familiar to you?’

  Toby glanced at Alice before replying. ‘Yes.’

  The admiral raised his eyebrows. Megan nodded. Alice stared at Toby.

  And Brooke shook her head. ‘Who’s she?’

  ‘Bill told us a little bit about her,’ said Toby to the admiral. ‘All of us but Brooke.’

  ‘OK. And how much do you know about her?’

  Toby turned to Alice with his eyebrows raised. He had promised not to pass on her suspicions to the admiral, but this was just confirming what the admiral already knew.

  She gave Toby a tiny nod.

  ‘We know she was a peace activist,’ Toby replied. ‘We know the FBI thought she was a KGB agent. And we know Bill and Lars spoke to her. About the near-launch.’

  ‘OK.’ The admiral leaned forward, pulling his thick dark eyebrows together. ‘What I am going to say now is off the record. I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I kind of feel I owe it to you. And to Bill.’

  He sipped his Coke. ‘What Bill did on the submarine was very brave. At the time, I was all for locking him up and launching the missiles, as was the captain. Fortunately, we were unable to do that, which is why we are all alive today. You guys wouldn’t even have been born.

  ‘I owe Bill everything. We all do. You should be proud of your father.’

  ‘We are,’ said Alice, flatly.

  ‘The problem is . . .’ The admiral hesitated, looking around the table. He took the plunge. ‘The problem is that I am pretty sure that your father killed Sam Bowen. And I think he may well have shot Lars da Silva as well.’

  Alice and Megan said nothing. Brooke recoiled and checked her sisters’ reaction, waiting for a protest that never came. ‘That’s crazy,’ she said at last.

  ‘I’m sorry. I don’t think it is.’

  ‘Alice, tell him that’s crazy.’

  Alice sighed. ‘I think he’s right, Brooke. I think Dad did kill Sam Bowen.’

  ‘No!’ Brooke exclaimed.

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ said Megan.

  ‘We were discussing it this afternoon when you called,’ said Toby. ‘But why do you think he did it?’

  ‘Because he gave secrets to the Russians thirty-five years ago. And because Sam Bowen was on the brink of discovering it.’

  ‘You knew he spoke to the Russians all along?’ said Toby, remembering Bill’s description of his conversation with the XO, as he then was, at the fort in Groton.

  ‘I had a pretty good guess that he had. I chose to ignore it.’

  ‘Do the police know?’

  ‘No. And neither do MI5, or the FBI. Yet. Just me. And you.’

  They sat in silence for a few moments, letting this thought sink in. ‘OK,’ said Toby. ‘Are you going to tell them?’

  ‘That’s why I wanted to speak with you.’ The admiral’s dark eyes bored into each of them. ‘I don’t intend to tell them. And I suggest that you don’t either.’ He raised his eyebrows in a question.

  ‘OK,’ said Alice.

  Megan nodded.

  Brooke looked at her two sisters and then nodded also. ‘As long as someone tells me what the hell Dad has done.’

  ‘I will,’ said Alice.

  ‘Toby?’

  Toby didn’t know what to do. He was being asked to join a conspiracy to protect a traitor and a murderer. But he was being asked by his wife and by a retired admiral. Was it really up to him to spoil everything?

  What were the consequences? Bill would go to jail, probably for the rest of his life. That would be . . . unfortunate, after what he had done to keep the human race alive, but it was justice.

  He would lose the Guth family. Somehow, the stress of the previous few days had made him feel closer to them. Toby needed to be part of a family, a proper family. Losing them would hurt.

  And his wife would never speak to him again. That would more than hurt; that would be unbearable.

  ‘Don’t you think we should speak to Bill about it?’ said Toby.

  ‘We discussed this,’ said Alice. ‘You said we shouldn’t. And you were right.’

  ‘But maybe Admiral Robinson could?’

  The admiral nodded. ‘I’ve been thinking that. I’ll try to persuade him to give himself up. Who knows? He may convince me that he didn’t kill the historian, but I think that’s unlikely. In the meantime, I want you to keep quiet about the near-launch and Pat Greenwald and any suspicions you may have that Bill killed anyone. That’s important if it is the police who are asking, or MI5, or even if it’s me in my official capacity. Will you agree to that?’

  The three women nodded.

  And so, in the end, did Toby.

  Fifty-Three

  It was dark by the time they drove back to Barnholt. Alice went in Brooke’s car to explain to her what she could about their father, and Toby drove Megan.

  ‘Having fun, Toby?’ Megan said, as they pulled out of the pub car park.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  Toby didn’t say anything.

  ‘I guess my father really is a murderer after all,’ Megan said.

  Toby glanced at her. He could barely make out her face, but she seemed close to tears. And who could blame her?

  ‘I guess so.’

  ‘But I thought he was a good man. A great man.’

  ‘He was,’ said Toby. ‘He is. Whatev
er he has done can’t take away from what he did on that submarine thirty-five years ago.’

  ‘Can’t it? I get that he’s in trouble, but killing people is not the answer. And only yesterday he tried to shoot you!’

  ‘Yes.’ Toby shuddered. ‘Yes, he did.’

  ‘And now we are happily driving back to the house. With a murderer inside it. Do you think he’ll try and kill one of us?’

  ‘No,’ said Toby, trying to sound as confident as he could. ‘No. As long as we all keep quiet and don’t let on we suspect him.’

  ‘You’re not going to tell the police, are you, Toby?’

  ‘I’ll leave that up to the admiral. For now.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Toby. ‘I really don’t know.’

  ‘A cup of tea, anyone?’ said Toby when they were in the kitchen.

  Brooke was still sobbing from the short car journey. She hadn’t taken what Alice had told her well. Which was unsurprising, really.

  ‘Tea?’ said Megan. ‘What is it with you English people? I was thinking more of a glass of wine.’

  ‘I’ll have one,’ said Alice. Her face was pale, but her jaw thrust out in a determined way which was familiar to Toby.

  ‘OK,’ said Brooke.

  ‘All right. Me too,’ said Megan.

  Toby boiled the kettle, and got out some mugs and tea bags.

  Then Bill appeared.

  The three sisters and Toby froze. Brooke stopped mid-sob.

  Bill couldn’t help but notice. ‘You’re back,’ he said.

  ‘We are,’ said Alice, coldly.

  ‘Hi, Brooke,’ said Bill. He walked over to the kitchen table to try to kiss her. She sniffed and turned away from him.

  Bill straightened. ‘Toby. I’d like to have a chat with you about something. Can you come up to my study?’

  Toby forced himself to smile. ‘Shall I bring you up a cup of tea?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Bill, clearly thankful for a glimpse of friendliness.

  Toby poured five mugs, and followed Bill up the stairs carrying two of them.

  Bill’s study was tiny, and extremely tidy. A sign of someone who had spent several years living and working in cramped enclosed spaces. A desk bearing a computer screen was wedged under a window looking out at the blackness of the marsh and night sky. A bookshelf took up one wall, and two wooden filing cabinets another. There were at least four photographs of Donna at various stages of her life: one their wedding photograph, and one with the four grown sisters by the pear tree outside the Barnholt house. Five good-looking women.