‘Is that a good idea?’ Megan said.
‘I think so. It seemed to me like a way around the Official Secrets problem. MI5 can help the police.’
‘Only if they want to,’ said Megan.
‘What do you mean?’
Megan sipped her wine thoughtfully. ‘We know that the US Navy wanted to cover things up. We know that this Admiral Robinson guy has recruited MI5 to help them cover things up. And now Lars has been killed.’
‘Are you suggesting MI5 did that?’
‘Or the CIA. Or the FBI. I don’t know. I am suggesting that they might not want the Norfolk police to discover what really happened.’
‘I see what you mean,’ said Toby. ‘But I’m kind of committed now.’
‘Just be careful,’ said Megan. ‘Please.’
‘OK,’ said Toby. ‘But now I’m not sure what being careful means.’
They heard a car pulling up outside and blue lights danced over the kitchen wall. Toby looked out of the kitchen window and saw two cars parked on the lane beyond the garden walclass="underline" a police vehicle and DC Atkinson’s silver Fiesta. He opened the front door to a pair of armed police officers, who instructed him to draw all the curtains in the house, and not to leave unless absolutely necessary, and then only after informing them. They would keep an eye on the house overnight.
Behind the uniformed policemen stood Atkinson and a fellow detective. While Megan showed them Lars’s room in the next-door cottage, Toby went around the house drawing the curtains. They were already closed in Bill’s tiny study: Bill was on the phone, looking sombre.
Back in the kitchen, Megan opened a couple of cartons of pea and ham soup for the three of them for supper, and warmed them up.
Toby laid the table, and poured them both some more wine.
‘I’m glad the cops are here,’ said Megan. ‘Because whoever killed Lars is still out there. And you realize he might be after you?’
‘I doubt it,’ said Toby. ‘Lars knew something and I don’t. My guess is I was just shot at as an afterthought.’ Yet he had been wondering whether he had been a target in addition to Lars, for some reason he had no way of knowing. He hoped that with the police after him, the shooter would either lie low or leave the county, but he couldn’t be sure of that.
Lars’s killer could be out there in the marshes at that very moment. Toby took a gulp of wine.
‘Did you hear what Dad said about the FBI investigating Mom?’ Megan said.
‘Yes, I did.’
‘I wonder what that was about?’
‘He said they thought she was a peacenik.’
Megan smiled. ‘She was certainly that. I used to wonder how someone who was so strongly anti-nuclear weapons married an officer on a nuclear submarine. Now I guess I know. They must have gotten back together afterward.’
‘I asked Lars about that. About the FBI and that woman, Pat Greenberg?’
‘Greenwald, I think.’
‘All right. Greenwald.’
‘And what did Lars say?’
‘Nothing,’ said Toby. ‘I think I had just about persuaded him to talk, and then he was shot.’
Megan paused, thinking. ‘Didn’t Sam Bowen ask Dad about a Pat Greenwald?’
‘That’s right! Your dad said he had never spoken to her.’
‘But she was a friend of Mom’s. A peace activist.’
Megan ladled the soup into bowls and called out to her father upstairs.
He had managed to track down Lars’s brother’s number in Milwaukee and broken the news to him. The brother had promised to tell their mother, although he doubted she would remember it. And then he would have to tell her again. And again.
They sat in silence as they ate their soup. Bill looked strained, as well he might. Toby liked Lars and had witnessed his death close up. But Lars was an old friend of Bill’s: they had been through a lot together.
‘Who is Pat Greenwald?’ Toby asked him.
‘Who?’
‘You know. The woman the FBI mentioned when they warned you about Donna. You told us this afternoon.’
‘I did, didn’t I?’
‘And Sam Bowen asked you about her. You told him you never met her.’
Bill nodded.
‘Well?’
Bill was silent.
‘Dad?’ It was Megan. ‘You need to stop hiding stuff from us. You need to trust us.’
‘It’s not that simple, Megan.’
‘No, it’s not simple! That’s the point. It’s really complicated. And unless someone takes the initiative to figure out what’s really going on here, Alice will go to jail and Toby will get shot and maybe you will too.’
Megan’s eyes were alight and her cheeks flushed as she glared at her father.
‘I can’t do it, Megan. How many times do I have to tell you, this stuff is secret and it’s secret for a reason? I’ve already told you way more than I should have.’
‘But not enough,’ said Megan. She eyed her father. ‘I get that you and Toby can’t tell the British police what you know, but there’s no reason why I shouldn’t.’
‘Yes there is!’ Bill protested. ‘I trusted you, Megan.’
‘No you didn’t! You didn’t trust me enough. Trust me now. Tell me about Pat Greenwald.’
‘Are you threatening me?’ Bill’s voice was low, as he stared at his daughter.
‘Yes.’ Megan stared back. ‘I will go to the police.’
Bill looked at his son-in-law and his daughter. And sighed.
‘All right. Give me some of that wine.’
THIRTY-THREE
December 1983, North Atlantic
‘Gentlemen. Would you mind leaving the XO and me with Bill and Lars?’
Supper was over, and coffee had been served in the wardroom. It was the first evening Lars and I had been allowed out of the JO Jungle. The Alexander Hamilton had come off strategic alert two weeks early and was heading back to Holy Loch. After some discussion, and some scrabbling around to rearrange schedules so that another SSBN would be in place to cover for her, COMSUBLANT had decided to bring the Hamilton home. There were things to discuss.
Now the Hamilton was off strategic alert and would not be ordered to launch her nuclear missiles, the captain had decided he could set us free. Lars and I had been nervous about mixing with our fellow officers after what had happened. Craig was not just my friend, he was popular with the other officers and with the crew. And I had killed him. And Lars had tried to kill the ship’s commanding officer. If a submarine operates much of the time like a large family, then Commander Driscoll was the father. Patricide doesn’t go down well with the siblings.
It was immediately clear that the half dozen other officers were equally wary about socializing with us. But the captain led by example, welcoming us both vigorously and treating us as if we had merely slipped away from the submarine for a week or so, perhaps on some brief training course, and had now returned. Soon the tension broke into nervous hilarity, almost as if we had all been knocking back a few cocktails before dinner.
I was grateful. I, too, felt part of the Hamilton family, and I felt vulnerable. I realized I craved acceptance from the rest of the crew.
‘It’s good to have you both back in the wardroom,’ said Driscoll once the other officers had left. ‘You will be back on watch from oh-six-hundred tomorrow morning.’
‘It’s good to be back here,’ I said. While both the captain and the XO had visited us frequently in our stateroom over the previous week, this was different. This was normality.
‘The XO and I have concocted a simple story to explain Weps’s death. We outlined it to the officers and the chiefs this afternoon, and they say the crew will accept it. The whole ship feels grateful that the world hasn’t been obliterated, and that is thanks to you gentlemen.’