Dead Secret (18 page)

I shake my head. “I’d rather know. Look, I have to ask you this. Do most people round here still think he did it?”

“Some said your father; some said Cory. Everyone had a
theory
. Nobody could prove any of them. Not even the police. But it’s a long time ago… people forget. There are so many young ones and incomers in the village who don’t know anything about what happened here.”

I hear a key in the lock of the front door.

“That’ll be Donald,” she says, and she moves swiftly out into the hall. I hear their voices murmuring. Donald comes into the kitchen, his jeans and workman’s boots covered in dry mud and dust.

“This is Rebecca,” says Kirstin.

I stand up. He looks curiously at me, nods.

“I’ll not shake hands,” he says, holding up blackened,
work-soiled
hands. He looks at Kirstin. “I’ll just go and have a bath and change.” I hear his heavy footsteps disappearing upstairs.

I look out of her kitchen window at the sweep of the hill and the bay of the loch nestling below. Lochglas. The grey loch. It is so utterly tranquil. How could such ugliness have germinated here, grown and taken shape in the face of this beauty?

“Where do you think her body is?” I ask Kirstin suddenly, and she looks taken aback.

“You’ve heard the story about the car park?”

I nod.

“I suppose it’s possible. But I’ve always wondered if Kath’s buried out in the loch.”

What she really means is, she always wondered if Da did it. If Cory did it, she was in the car park. If Da did it, she was in the loch. The grey loch.

“I hate the thought of it,” she continues, “because Kath was frightened of water. She couldn’t swim and I can’t bear it, the thought of her lying there, trapped in seaweed, bloated and puffy with the water. I’ve never told anyone this but… but
every
morning for the last twenty years I have looked out on the loch…” Her voice begins to waver uncontrollably and I want to reach out to her, but I don’t feel I know her well enough to touch her. “And I’ve said, ‘Morning Kath.’ Just in case she’s there, like, you know? Morning Kath. It makes me feel better.”

She sips from her mug, trying to regain control.

“What about now, Kirstin? Right now, who do you think did it?” It is almost an appeal.

“Me?” She exhales deeply, blowing her cheeks out and
avoiding
my eye, looking into the depths of her mug.

“I don’t know,” she says slowly. “That’s as honest as I can be.”

“I’m sorry that it’s going to end like this,” I say. “I’m sorry we can’t know one another. But I can’t ever tell Sarah… I just can’t tell her.”

Kirstin nods.

“I understand. I know that sometimes you have to cut people out of your life.” She reaches out suddenly for my hand,
following
her instinct in the way I didn’t, a surprise gesture that both touches and embarrasses me. “I’m sorry I had to do that to Joe… to your dad. I liked Joe when Kath first got together with him. And I know what she was like. Kath was difficult. There was no doubt about that. But there was nothing she did that could have deserved… nothing. And I’m not saying Joe did it. I’m just
saying
that I couldn’t bear to see him and wonder. For as long as I had even the tiniest doubt, I couldn’t look at him. And he knew that. I know that’s wrong if he was innocent. But I couldn’t… I’m
sorry if I hurt him. I’m not saying it was fair. But it wasn’t fair what happened to Kath. And she was my sister… You
understand
? She was my sister.”

Sisters. Sister Sarah. Blood is thicker than water. But as it turned out, our blood was diluted, and where did that leave us, Sarah and me? Half-sisters. Nearly sisters. Has that been the root of the distance that has grown between us over the years? Somewhere deep inside us, have we always known?

I told Kirstin that I couldn’t ever tell Sarah the truth.
Telling
Sarah would not be like telling Father Peter, a conversation without consequences. Sarah loved Da. Ironic that he is the only parent we have shared, and the only one we do not have in
common
. But she doesn’t know that. How could I take him from her, tell her that the man she loved wasn’t really her father? That her real father was some rich bastard who brought her mother champagne then dumped her in the foundations of a car park?

There is something else. I know it is not my information to give. I know if she were to be told, it should have been Da who told her. But he is not here. In his absence, there is a little part of me that won’t be stilled, that thinks she has the right to know. To tell her would be like telling her that the life she lived never really existed. It was just a fantasy. But not to tell her is to allow her to go on living a lie. More secrets. More shadows.

You see the dilemma. It masquerades as something else,
another
problem altogether. For the dilemma is not just whether to tell, or not to tell. The dilemma is how to untangle the knotted
threads of my own motivation. I can pick either course of action and hug it closely to my chest, warm myself with the embers of my own rectitude. I was right for this reason, for that reason. But there will also be another possibility, another reason for doing what I do.

If I stay silent, will it be because I want power that she doesn’t have; the power of secret knowledge? The power of truth? Da will be all mine and she will never even know. If I tell her, will it be because somewhere deep inside I am fuelled by malice? Perfect Sarah, with her pretty blonde hair and blue eyes. If only we had peeled all those layers of love and hate back, I would know. But we are not quite there yet. The strings of puppet Sarah are in my hand. I am in control; I can cut them with a single snip.

Am I jealous of Sarah? I don’t know any more. Perhaps a little. Of her perfection, her simplicity. The way she always chose
order
where I opted for chaos. I despised her order. But how often do you despise what you cannot have? I know that now I feel a sense of loss. It would be different had I always known; the trauma comes from unexpected revelation. I want her, my little sister, now that she no longer
is
my sister. I want her back.

But don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to be Sarah. Don’t want her life, her job. Don’t want Des. Definitely don’t want Des. Da always said he thought Des had a good enough heart. Da didn’t know about the washing-machine night. I never forgave Des for that.

Sarah and I were doing the crossword in the sitting room when he came in.

“Your father,” he said as he closed the door, and he shook his head with a silly, rueful little smile.

“What’s he up to now?” asked Sarah.

“I went into the kitchen and he’s sitting there on top of the washing machine, not doing anything, just looking at the floor,” said Des, wide eyed. “On top of the bloody washing machine! I said, ‘All right Joe?’ And he said, ‘Fine thanks Des.’”

Des rolled his eyes. “Do you think his mind’s going? That’s the way my mother went when the dementia started.”

Des’s mum died last year, and the fact that he looked after her is the reason he says he isn’t married yet. I think there’s a rather more fundamental reason. With apologies to Sarah, no woman in her right mind would have him. I was mad with him for
suggesting
Da was losing his mind. Typical, snotty Des. Da could be off-beat, even eccentric, at times but that’s because he had an interesting mind. Des is so stolid he couldn’t see Da was smarter than him. “I’d find Mum wandering in the garden at midnight or walking to the shops in her slippers,” continued Des.

I could have wrapped his diamond-patterned tie round his thick, stupid neck. And I probably would have if Da hadn’t come in just then and gone into his tool box for something. Probably something to fix the machine. I expect he was just having
thinking
time, sitting there on top of it. Sarah hurriedly picked up the paper.

“Here’s a clue, everyone,” she said self-consciously, her face flushed. “Win the argument and say Amen to that. Four words… four, three, four and four.

“Any letters?” asked Des.

“First word starts with H.

“Now,” said Des. “If we just think about…”

“Have the last word,” Da said absently, and wandered out again.

He was good at working out clues, Da. Better than me. I have all these pieces assembling in front of me that I don’t know how to make sense of. There are two pictures on the jigsaw box and I don’t know which one I have the pieces for. There we all are, in fragments in front of me: Da, Mother, Cory, Peggy and Charlie, sister Sarah, and me. But how do we all fit together?

The next piece is easy. I have kept this one till last because I know it fits in the picture somewhere. I head into town, ask directions to his offices. He has come a long way since my mother’s time. The offices are two storeys high with an exterior of gleaming glass and polished chrome. A national company. He has an office in Glasgow, another in Yorkshire. I stand across the road at a bus stop and watch. I can see the
reception
through the swing doors. Fresh flowers. Exotic green pot plants in corners. Women who look like they are auditioning for an American soap with gleaming hair and tight skirts and kitten heels. I can see their mouths move in conversation. They talk, smile, walk, sit, oblivious to the fact that someone stands outside and watches them.

But it is not them I am waiting for. I keep moving into the shadows, away from the direct sunlight, watching. I wait for over an hour just to catch a glimpse of him. I know it is him as soon as he appears. I stiffen when he comes into view; watch him. Even all these years after those newspaper photographs were taken, he is still recognisable. But I have the feeling that in some instinctive place I would know him anyway.

He walks right up to the desk at the window of the first floor. You can tell he is important just by the way he walks. The cut of
the suit. The proprietorial way he puts his arm round the
secretary’s
shoulder when she stands up. She fetches him some papers. He smiles. He sits on her desk. I watch every last movement. The way his hand goes to his hair every so often and smooths it back; the way he tilts his head when he listens. Yes, I know him.

After five minutes he goes back to his office. I have seen him, really seen him. I feel high with it, pumped up, ferocious. I half walk, half run back towards town to pick up my car. My cheeks are red with the heat and the exertion, my heart pumping just enough that I am aware of its rhythm in my chest. The gears crunch as I move the car. My legs shake on the pedals and I let the clutch up too quickly, the car jerking to a stalled halt. I turn the key again impatiently, rev the engine, kangaroo hop forward. Back to Cory Construction, round the back to the car park and wait in a side street across the road opposite the
entrance
. He leaves early, at quarter past five, and I watch him get into a flash convertible. A young man’s car that only an old man could afford.

Nothing in the mirror. The car indicator ticks as I signal left, follow him out through the town. He goes through the traffic lights and it turns to amber as I approach. I put my foot down on the accelerator, sail through as it turns red. It is me who is in charge, in control. I am watching him; he is not watching me. I am the pursuer; he the pursued. It gives me such a feeling of power, like he is an animal and I am tracking him. Sniffing him out. Left. Right. Right again. Round the town centre, out into the open road.

A few miles out of town he slows, turns left, drives up a hill lined with pink rhododendron bushes. There is a small,
exclusive
development of maybe four or five houses at the top, with
spectacular views out across the hills. It is a cul de sac. He turns into his driveway and I see him glance at my old battered car as I drive past and on to the end of the road to turn.

The driveway has two stone lion gate heads at the
entranceway
. I slow going past, see the extensive front lawn with a sprinkling fountain, catch just a glimpse through the trees of a detached house. An extensive, red-roofed house with a sun deck at one end and a conservatory at the other. I can hardly bear the thought of it. Twenty-five years of luxury while my mother turned to dust under a ton of earth and concrete. We have things to talk about, James Cory and I. But not yet. Not quite yet.

This whole thing has become like a scab that I can’t stop picking. There are times, like in Terry Simons’ house, when it gets too sore to continue and I vow to leave the wound alone, let it heal. But as soon as the immediate pain dies down, the compulsion creeps back and I can’t keep my fingers away. I know that when I lift the crust of the scab, chances are I am going to remove more than dead skin. I’m going to pull new, fragile skin with it and draw blood. But even then, I just can’t seem to stop. I can’t stop pick, pick, picking.

Terry Simons is bothering me. The ring. On the square.
On the square.
The phrase goes round and round inside my head and I don’t know why. It leads me back to the library, a half hunch, but what am I looking for? Masons. Masons.
An Inside Story: The Secret World of Freemasonry,
it says in the library catalogue. The book is there on the shelves when I look, a dark red cover with bold black writing on the spine. Inside, there’s a whole section on the police, a separate one on the judiciary. I flip over the pages, my eyes lighting on an extract from a newspaper cutting about the controversial memoirs of a senior policeman. 1969. David Thomas, Head of Monmouthshire CID. “The insidious effect of Freemasonry among the police has to be experienced to be believed.”

A serving police officer’s testimony. “We all knew it
happened
. If two men were up for promotion and one belonged to
the lodge, well all other things being equal… The boss said it was the same with any kind of club. If you knew a man through the golf club, it was going to make you closer. You were going to get to know them better over a round of golf. It wasn’t
corruption
, it was human nature, he said. In the end I decided to join. It was just a club, and a club that you were better in than out of.”

Scandals. The collapse of Scotland Yard, 1877. And then a hundred years later, history repeating itself.

That was London. What was happening 600 miles away in Inverness? I close the book. It’s a strong word, corruption. A
tiger
of a word. But sometimes corruption is quieter than a tiger. Sometimes it’s a worm. It’s slow burrowing, goes so deep you
scarcely know it’s there any more. Is Terry Simons corrupt or merely misguided in defending Cory? I push down the
alternative
– that Cory really is innocent. I can’t know about Simons until I know what influences him.

And sometimes you don’t even know what influences
yourself
.

A quote from my mother’s letter that I found in the bureau comes back to me. ‘The Masonic mafia’ she had written
flippantly
. It was clear from what she wrote that David Carruthers had been a Mason. Was Cory? Probably. But did that mean
Terry
Simons automatically felt a duty to him, either consciously or subconsciously? Because corruption… well, it seems to me it isn’t always deliberate, straightforward, black and white. You know what it is? It’s
see you in the club… why don’t you join us… one of us
. Papes. Prods. Muslims. Jews. Little boxes, little boxes. Masons. Opus Dei. The Tribe of Angels. Black boxes, white
boxes
. Boxes like Tariq and I would have ended up in.

Maybe it does matter if Cory was a Mason and maybe it doesn’t. Maybe it’s simpler than Masons and non-Masons.
Maybe
it’s just about insiders and outsiders. Some of us are always going to be outsiders. It’s what we know and what we expect. Da was an outsider. But James Cory? He was an insider. I
know
you, James Cory. One of us. Not guilty.