Now—to the real point of this, I have a confession to make. I have agonised over this all your life, and while you were with me I never had the courage to tell you. I knew you would be upset and I knew it would change things, which is why I decided to do it this way.
With this letter there is a key—it fits the cupboard in the back of the grandfather clock I gave you—the one in your hallway.
Inside the cupboard is a box and in there you will find the documents to support what I’m going to tell you now.
Fifty-two years ago your father had an affair. It didn’t last long and I forgave him. I never reproached him about it and you never found out. However—the outcome of that affair was you, Tom.
One night he came home with you in his arms. He also had a few baby clothes, your birth certificate and some photographs of your birth mother.
I hope you are sitting down to read this, son. I can only imagine the shock you must be feeling now. Anyway—I took you. Your dad and I never had any children of our own, so you were a gift I couldn’t refuse.
Despite how you’d been brought into my life, I loved you from the very moment I set eyes on you. You look very much like your father—so how could I not? He never extxted to me why your birth mother gave you up and I never asked. But he assured me that she would not come looking and she never did.
Forgive me, son, and please, try to understand why I kept this to myself. I couldn’t bring myself to spoil things—the things we had as a family. Look in the box and try not to think any worse of me.
Your loving mother.
Tears blurred his vision.
Ruth looked at him tenderly. “Cup of tea, Tom.” She patted his arm and rose to go and put the kettle on.
“Stick a scotch in it…Well she’s really gone and done it this time, hasn’t she?”
“Look—you don’t have to tell me just because I’m here. Like you said, it’s personal and I won’t pry. But if I can help, if there’s anything I can do, then tell me.”
Calladine tossed the letter over to her. “You are one of my closest friends as well as being my work partner—so go on—read it, please. I need to share this with someone, otherwise I’ll go barmy.”
Ruth sat down again opposite him and read through the letter.
“It’s one giant confession she’s making there; one that changes everything, don’t you think?” His voice was faltering. “Why didn’t she just tell me, explain it while she could? Reading that, it’s clear that the mistake was dads, not hers. At least then I could have got used to the idea – asked all the questions.”
“Perhaps she couldn’t, she’d be protecting him. She must have loved your father very much,” Ruth looked up. “She’d know that it would inevitably change how you felt about both your parents and possibly everything else too.”
“I’m a grown man—she could have told me. What did she imagine I was going to do? Go off the rails?”
“She brought you up—from infancy, so she is still your mother, Tom,”
“Not according to that, she isn’t. Not by blood anyway.”
They both fell silent.
“But does that really matter? Freda raised you, loved you and helped to make you the man you are. Surely that must count for something?” Ruth offered.
“Yes, of course it does, I’m not daft. But all these years and I never knew—I didn’t even suspect, not once. She should have told me—they both should have told me. Everyone has a right to know the truth about their parentage.”
“Well, she’s told you now, hasn’t she? And if you think about it, she didn’t have to. So the knowledge must have been a burden for her, and it will have taken some courage to write that.”
Ruth was right. There was no date on the letter, and he wondered when she had written it.
“You need time to take this in. Why don’t you go home? Look in that box and get your head together.”
“I can’t spare the time.” He reached in his desk drawer for the whiskey bottle and poured some into his tea. “Want some?”
“No. We might have to drive somewhere. Look—spending half an hour at home won’t hold up the case. Go and settle this. I’ll take you in my car and you can get it over with.”
“Okay. As long as you stay with me while I open that damn box.
I might need the voice of reason to keep me sane.”
“Hold your hand, more like. Okay, we’ll do this together. You can open Pandora’s Box and air your skeletons—then it’s straight back to the case. Alright?”
He nodded. Until he’d seen for himself what the box contained, he’d be unable to concentrate anyway.
“What I can’t understand …” he began, as Ruth pulled up outside his home. “… is why my dad never said anything. And who was this other bloody woman anyway?”
“Are you sure you’ll be alright doing this? If it’s going to bother you we could leave it.”
“See, even you’re getting cold feet now! But yep—I have to do this, like you say, get it over with.”
“Your dad will have had his reasons for keeping quiet, guilt probably. He’ll have discussed it with your mum when you were tiny, and then as you grew up, it’ll have been buried deep. That’s what families do.”
* * *
Calladine unlocked his front door and made straight for the clock. He took the key from his coat pocket, moved the clock away from the wall and unlocked the door at the back of the casing.
“Here we are then—the complete, hitherto unknown, history of Tom Calladine—the man who wasn’t who he thought he was.”
“Of course you know who you are, Tom. You’re being melodramatic now. You’re who you’ve always been—a good man, a damn good copper and a loving son.”
The box was a biscuit tin that looked as if it dated back to the fifties. He carried it through to the kitchen table and prised it open.
There were a couple of letters inside, a small number of photos and the all-important birth certificate.
“I was registered as Thomas Frank Calladine—Frank after my father. But they weren’t married, so how come?”
“Because your dad will have gone with her to register your birth.
Who was she, then? What’s her name?”
He stared at the document—at a name he’d never before seen or heard of.
“Eve Walker. Mean anything?”
“Not off the top of my head.”
“I don’t understand how you never saw this before. You need your birth certificate for all sorts of things. What about when you needed a passport?” Ruth asked.
“Easy. My mum saw to all that. We went to Majorca when I was twelve and she got everything organised. When I left home I only ever had the cut-down version of the certificate, and that doesn’t have parents’ names on it.”
Ruth picked up one of the photos. It showed a young man, not unlike the inspector, and a pretty blonde woman. They were on a beach somewhere. He had his trousers rolled up and she was holding her shoes in her hand. They looked happy, carefree.
“She could still be alive, you know. Have you thought of that?”
“Alive and local. Who knows, she could have watched me grow up, been someone I saw every day, and I just wouldn’t have known.”
“And, of course, there is something else.” Ruth raised her eyebrows, giving him time to think. “Siblings. You could have brothers and sisters; something else you just don’t know.”
He sighed and stuffed his hands in his overcoat pockets. He didn’t have time to think about all this right now. It was a big deal, and it would need some pondering. He took the photo from Ruth and studied it for a moment. What had gone on between his father and Freda in those distant days when he’d brought him home? How had he explained what had happened and what he’d done? How had she taken to him—a newborn infant? In the letter she’d said she’d loved him instantly, but she must have been angry, jealous even.