The Organization (30 page)

Charlotte had been released that morning.  Erin sent Harriet a diginote to let her know everything went smoothly with Charlotte being released, and that Charlotte knew where to find her but needed some time.  It was already well into the evening.

“No,” Harriet said flatly.

“Well,” he said, “It’s only a matter of time.”

“I’m sure,” Harriet replied. 

Each hour that had passed had been agony.  Harriet would look at the brass hands on the grandfather clock and then confirm that the displayed time was correct by asking Navigator what time it was.  Six hours had passed, then seven.  Seven turned into eight, eight into nine, and nine into ten.  With each return of the large brass hand to the Roman numeral XII, her hopes sank even further.  Charlotte wasn’t coming.

At first, Harriet thought that Erin meant that Charlotte needed a bit of time – a couple of hours perhaps – to sort herself out before coming to see her.  She understood that Charlotte would want to take care of some basics – a shower, a meal, perhaps even a walk outside or a quick shopping trip to buy new clothes with whatever money she had in her savings or Erin was willing to lend her.  But even while Harriet told herself that, she knew that she was just trying to fool herself.  No, Erin said that Charlotte needed time, and by that she meant both time and distance – from Harriet.  Charlotte didn’t want to see her.

Thomas crossed over to her and held out his arms, offering Harriet a goodbye hug.  Harriet allowed him the gesture, although she couldn’t tear her thoughts away from Charlotte.

“I’ll see you soon, Thomas,” she said.

“Be safe, Harriet,” he replied. 

He picked up the pieces of luggage as though they were weightless, slinging the straps crisscrossed over his body and carrying the remaining suitcase by its handle.  Wordlessly, Harriet opened the door for him and closed it behind him.

#

Harriet arrived to work in a worse mood than usual.

“Good morning, Ms. Spencer,” Anna greeted.

“Have I had any visitors scheduled for today, Anna?” Harriet asked, realizing after she asked that she hadn’t returned the greeting.

Anna blinked a couple of times and replied, “No, Ms. Spencer.  You have two committee meetings today but no –”

“All right, never mind,” Harriet said, opening the door to her office.

“Were you expecting someone?” Anna asked.  Harriet could hear the concern in her voice, worried that she was somehow to blame.

“No,” Harriet replied.  She entered her office and closed the door behind her.

Once at her desk, Harriet called up her diginotes, holding her breath that there would be a new message waiting from Erin – or, better yet, from Charlotte herself.  She scanned through the messages and saw no personal notes waiting for her, save one from Naomi, which she ignored for now.

She briefly considered getting in touch with Naomi.  She knew that her message was probably asking when they could see each other.  When Harriet last saw her, when she showed up at her office and they went for a coffee, Harriet told her that they would see each other again soon.  Naomi’s demeanor and tone of voice had troubled Harriet at the time.  Naomi had wanted to talk, and Harriet had sidestepped her attempts at a serious conversation.

Harriet could do it again, she thought.  Even if she wanted to talk about them, their future, where they were headed together, Harriet felt confident she could turn the conversation into flirtation, flirtation into sex, and that sex would be distraction enough – at least temporarily.

Is that what I want?
  She understood the benefit of distracting Naomi, but what about herself?  Did she want sex to distract her from the knowledge that Charlotte was out there, free, walking the streets of London, sipping tea in Erin’s kitchen, laughing over a bite to eat – and that Charlotte didn’t want to see her?

She sighed, stretching in her chair.  She knew that would be a mistake.  She needed to stop seeing Naomi, to find some way to break things off cleanly and without too much damage, rather than prolong the inevitable simply because she was feeling lonely and hurt.

There was a knock on her door before Anna poked her head in, asking, “May I get you a cup of coffee, Ms. Spencer?”

“Fine,” Harriet snapped at her.  She closed her eyes and said, “Sorry.  Yes, that would be lovely.  Thank you, Anna.”

“Right away, Ms. Spencer,” Anna replied.

After the rift twelve years earlier, when Joanna, Paul, and Geoff disappeared, Daniel died, and Charlotte went to prison, they stopped using the house at 85 Westchester Place as well as the Bird’s Nest.  Thomas returned to London, and he and Harriet together scouted out a new location to regroup.  They found such a location about a forty-five minute walk from her Parliament office. 

Their new meeting place was at 112 Bermondsey Street, a modest four-story structure sandwiched between a café and a residential building.  They set up the ground floor as an antiques shop and installed Ethan as the proprietor.  On the second floor, they carefully stowed away their important supplies and files, hidden among the masses of broken and worn-out furniture, tucked into drawers and inside of cabinets.  Ethan relocated to the building to use the third floor as his residence, and on the fourth floor they had their meeting space, Harriet’s office, and a second office for their research.  The place would stand up to a light search, as the fourth floor would appear to be an extension of Ethan’s home.

Harriet had left work that evening, unsure at first of where she would go, but she ended up at the Bermondsey Street house.  She was prepared to key into the building but she saw that the ground floor shop’s lights were on, and she found the front door unlocked.

“Sorry, we’re closing,” Ethan’s voice rang out from behind a large bookshelf.  He walked out from behind it, and his furrowed brow relaxed momentarily as he saw her standing there.  “Oh, hello Harriet.”  The crease in his forehead returned as he asked, “Everything all right?  There isn’t a meeting tonight, is there?”

Harriet shook her head and replied, “No, there’s no meeting.  And everything is fine.”

“Okay, good,” he said.  He looked at her expectantly.  Ordinarily Harriet would head straight up to her office, but tonight she lingered in the shop.

She ran her hand absently over the handsome cabinet next to her, admiring the craftsmanship, and asked, “This is late for you to be open, isn’t it?”

“It is.  Believe it or not, but we actually had a real, paying customer tonight.  He bought that old cedar chest – the one that had been over in the corner for ages.”

“Oh, the trunk with all the scratches?  Hmm,” Harriet replied noncommittally.

“That’s the one,” Ethan said.  He paused and then asked, “Is there anything I can do for you, Harriet?”

She thought about asking Ethan if he had eaten yet, but as she considered the phrasing of such a question and looked at his slightly wary expression, her motivation seemed to dissipate. She flashed a small smile and said, “No, nothing.  I’m just going to be upstairs for a bit, catching up on some work.”

He nodded and replied, “Just let me know if you need anything.”

“Of course,” she said, heading for the stairs.

Chapter Fifty-Four

Harriet felt the weight of the bottle of scotch resting against her body as she let herself sink far back into the cushions of the sofa.  She was alone.  She kept catching herself in moments of forgetting that Thomas had moved out.  Without having him around, without his presence encouraging her to avoid being at home, she found no reason not to just lie there on the sofa indefinitely.

Up until the last few miserable days, she had imagined that she would go to Erin’s flat, where Charlotte would be waiting to see her, having counted down the days until they could be together again.  But clearly that was not how it was going to happen, and she had let her fantasy take over and cloud her cautious nature.  Instead, Harriet did her own kind of counting, listening to the tick-tock of the grandfather clock in her sitting room as the seconds passed by.

The doorbell rang.  She stretched her shoulders back as she sat up.  “Navigator, what time is it?”

“23:08,” Navigator responded.

She picked up the bottle of scotch from the sofa, where it had landed after it slid off her chest at some point, and placed it on the table.  She smoothed out her robe and fastened the belt around her waist.

With each step toward the door, she felt more awake.  Uncharacteristically for her, she didn’t check the peephole before opening the door.  As her hand touched the knob, Harriet knew with striking certainty who would be on the other side.  Harriet opened the door to find her, bathed in moonlight and walking away, but then looking over her shoulder toward the door, apparently having heard it open.

“Charlie,” Harriet said.

With her hands shoved into her pockets, Charlotte lingered several feet from her door.  “I shouldn’t have come here,” she said.  Those were not the words Harriet thought she would hear.

Harriet blinked and said, “I’m glad you’re here.  Will you come inside?”

Charlotte hesitated and then took the few steps to walk through the door, coming unbearably close to Harriet without making any physical contact – no kiss, no reaching out to draw her into a hug, not even a simple touch to her hand.

Charlotte hovered in the foyer as Harriet closed the door.  “I wanted to thank you,” Charlotte said, her voice somewhat hushed.

“Thank me?” Harriet asked.

“Erin told me how you had been working with her, and how you met with the governor of Drake Hall – that you convinced her to give me a positive recommendation.”

All Harriet could think of was how distant Charlotte seemed.  “If I could have done something sooner…”

“I’m sure you would have, had there been any way,” Charlotte said without much conviction.

“I’m sorry, Charlie.  I can’t imagine what these past twelve years have been like for you,” Harriet said, taking a step closer.

Charlotte folded her arms across her chest and said, “I don’t need your pity.”

Harriet replied, “Well, it’s a good thing that I don’t pity you.”

Charlotte looked as though she didn’t believe her.  “I spent twelve years in prison.”

“And you could have contested the charge, and perhaps have not gone to prison at all.”  Before Harriet had time to keep in her temper in check, the words had slipped out of her mouth.

“Uh-huh, right.”  Charlotte smirked.  “And do you think that… lie… you made up would have held up to scrutiny?  That I was some kind of informant?”

Harriet said quietly, “I didn’t have a lot of time to come up with an explanation. It was the best I could do.”

“And where would be the records?  What information would I have given you – what would you have been willing to reveal about the organization to show the police that I had given you valuable information?”  She was so angry.

“I don’t know, Charlie.”

With knitted brows, Charlotte said, “If there had been a trial,
you
would have been examined.  Your life, when and how you met me, how you met me through Joanna… Joanna, who disappeared at the same time that someone fitting her description tried to assassinate the Prime Minister.”  Her voice was shaky but calmer as she asked, “How could I have contested the charge?”

“You said you didn’t want my pity,” Harriet said, feeling heavy with sadness.

“I don’t.”

“So what do you want then?  Do you want me to apologize?” 

Harriet closed the distance between them and took Charlotte’s hands in hers, feeling like she was almost forcing the contact.

Charlotte made no reply. 

Softening her voice, Harriet said, “I’m sorry, Charlie.  I’m so, so sorry that I could spend the rest of my life apologizing to you and I still wouldn’t be able to express how sorry I am.”  Harriet felt a tear slip down her cheek and she released her grip on Charlotte’s hands so she could brush the tear away.  “But you’re not the only one to have lost something that night.”

Harriet saw a glimpse of uncertainty in Charlotte’s eyes before she said, “Don’t tell me you had a difficult time finding someone to warm your bed.”

Just loud enough to hear, Harriet said, “I meant Daniel.”

Charlotte’s eyes filled with tears, and Harriet moved to embrace her.  Charlotte responded stiffly, resisting Harriet at first, and then finally let her body rest heavily against Harriet’s, allowing herself to be held. 

Harriet stroked the back of her hair with one hand and murmured, “It’s all right.”  She could feel Charlotte’s breath growing ragged as she gulped for air and hot tears fell on her shoulder.  Harriet rocked her gently as they stood there. 

Charlotte wept for a long while as Harriet struggled with her own emotions – so grateful to have Charlotte in her arms again and yet so heartbroken to see how she was hurting.

Eventually Charlotte pulled back and wiped her red, swollen eyes.  “Sorry,” she mumbled.

“Stay here tonight,” Harriet urged her.  Harriet saw the look of concern on her face before adding, “Just to sleep.”

Charlotte nodded and Harriet led her upstairs by the hand.

Charlotte slept heavily on her side and atop the blankets.  Harriet curled up next to her and watched the slow, steady movements of her chest.  Instead of counting tick-tocks, she counted Charlotte’s breaths until she eventually succumbed to sleep.

#

Harriet awoke before Charlotte did and again found herself just watching her.  Charlotte had rolled onto her back in her sleep, her head tilted slightly toward Harriet on the pillow.  Charlotte looked so peaceful that Harriet didn’t want to leave her side, and she remained in bed for another half hour, at least.  Finally, Harriet leaned over and softly kissed her forehead before getting out of bed.

Harriet was making tea when she heard her footsteps on the stairs.  She reached for a second teacup, removing it from where it hung from a brass hook on the wall.  The floorboards of the hallway creaked just outside the entrance to the kitchen, and so Harriet asked her, “Would you like a cup of tea?”

When she didn’t hear a response, Harriet turned around to look at Charlotte, and saw her staring toward the back of the kitchen, to the place where Daniel had died.  In that spot, Harriet had placed a candle stand table with a potted plant.