‘Wait. Please.’ Riley touched her arm. She had to find some way of bringing this to a conclusion. If this was just ‘silliness’ as Barbara described it, then so be it. She could simply chalk it up to experience. Maybe Jacob, the woman’s husband, was unwell. But having seen her reaction to the emails, Riley wasn’t so sure. There was clearly something going on here, lurking beneath the surface, and Barbara knew what it was. ‘He must have wanted someone to know what he knew about Sir Kenneth Myburghe, otherwise, why send me the emails?’
Barbara didn’t respond, although she stayed where she was, no longer intent on flight.
‘Why Tristram?’ Riley urged her. ‘Is that name important to him?’ It occurred to her that without confirmation that Jacob Worth and Tristram were one and the same person, she was still at square one.
‘What happens,’ Riley continued, ‘if he sends these emails to someone else — maybe one of the tabloids? They won’t be put off so easily. And they won’t be subtle about it, either. If they smell a story, they’ll come looking for him in droves.’
It was this point which seemed to penetrate the woman’s mind. She nodded and sighed deeply, as if reaching a decision she had been considering for a long time. She led Riley over to the deserted reference section and invited her to sit.
‘He won’t speak to you,’ she explained softly. ‘He doesn’t — speak to women, I mean. It’s part of…what happened to him.’
‘How do you mean?’ Riley leaned in close, intrigued. ‘Part of what?’
‘I can’t tell you much… that’s up to him if he wants to. But Jacob was… in the Falklands — in the Navy.’ Barbara spoke concisely. She seemed calmer now, as if unburdening herself was helping. ‘He was with the Defence Intelligence Group, working in Latin America. He never says much, but I know he was working with the British embassies down there, trying to get support against the Argentinians. This was in nineteen eighty-two. He’d been over there for a couple of weeks, travelling about. Then on the fourth of May, he was told to join some other officers on HMS Sheffield. There was to be a conference of some sort and Jacob and a friend named Tom Elliott, were to brief the meeting about what they’d found.’
‘The Sheffield?’ Riley trawled her memory for details with a sense of foreboding. ‘But wasn’t that-?’
‘She was hit by an Exocet. It didn’t explode, but the ship caught fire. Jacob and Tom were in a wardroom for the conference when the missile struck. A bulkhead door was blown off by the impact and entered the wardroom. It broke Jacob’s leg, but… Tom was crushed. He was taken off the ship with Jacob, but he died of his wounds. There was nothing they could do. It was such a waste.’
Riley waited, saying nothing.
Barbara took a small handkerchief from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. ‘You asked about Tristram earlier. He uses the name after one of the other ships. He said it’s safer than using his own name. It’s useless telling the man, but he blames himself for not saving Tom’s life. The Navy told me he couldn’t have done anything — that the door was too heavy for one man to lift, and the damage was too severe — but he won’t listen. In the end, what with the wounds and that, it all got too much; he suffered a breakdown.’ She shrugged. ‘He’s been like it ever since. Bouts of depression, anger, insomnia — guilt, too, which is worse, poor man. But there’s no getting to him. God knows, we’ve all tried.’
‘Is that why he’s working where he is?’ Riley tried to be tactful, knowing this must be difficult for Barbara to talk about.
‘Yes. He tried other jobs. I mean, his career in the Navy was over, but he did try. Securicor was one place, but when they asked him to do night shifts, he couldn’t sleep properly in the day and it began to tell on him. Tom’s son, Ben — he’s a policeman — helped by taking him out for drives and suchlike. But it didn’t last. Then he saw the attendant position advertised down at the Job Centre and applied.’ She shook her head slowly, eyes somewhere in the distance.
‘That must have been very hard.’
‘Harder for him than me, love.’ Barbara looked up with a touch of fire in her eyes, and Riley saw the pride that Jacob’s wife still felt for him, in spite of his problems. ‘Much harder. Especially when friends asked why — knowing his background in the navy, I mean. But he said that’s what he wants.’ She shrugged. ‘And that’s where he’s been ever since. It suits, him, you see. He feels safe down there. Removed. A bit like being on board ship, I think. He’s on his own for the most part, but there’s always people he knows who pop in for a chat. They never stay long because they know it’s not needed, but it’s enough. He likes to read, and he does puzzles and such, like Sudoku. He draws, too — people, mostly — and makes model ships and stuff. He was always good with his hands like that.’
Riley nodded and felt an unbidden thought creep into her mind. Would that include putting together a fake bomb? ‘But why all this stuff about Myburghe? He wasn’t on board the Sheffield, was he?’
‘Not him, dear. That’s the whole point, isn’t it?’ Riley was about to ask her what she meant, but Barbara twisted her fingers together and continued, ‘What you said about other people… the tabloids. I couldn’t have that happen. It would destroy him. Could you get someone to talk to him? A man, I mean. He won’t talk to you — not alone, anyhow.’
‘But he contacted me,’ Riley pointed out.
‘I know, love. He probably thought…’ She paused and looked embarrassed, and Riley thought she knew why.
‘He thought Riley was a man?’
‘Yes. Sorry.’ Barbara took a deep breath. ‘He’s not good around women these days. I don’t know why. He used to be so confident — a bit of a charmer, actually.’ She stared off into the distance, a faint smile bringing a light to her face as the memories came flooding in. Then she shook herself and continued, ‘I don’t want him talking to others about it. He could get into trouble, couldn’t he, saying things like that? And the tabloids don’t care who gets hurt, do they? Myburghe is important, after all.’
‘You know who he is, then?’
Barbara nodded, eyes flickering beyond Riley as if she didn’t want to make contact. ‘Oh, yes. I know who he is.’ She dropped her head, but not before Riley saw a flash of something deep in her eyes. It might have been anger, but it was too brief to tell.
‘Did Jacob talk about him?’
‘Sometimes.’ She waved vaguely. ‘He talks about…things, now and then. Things he remembers. I’m not sure he knows what he’s saying most of the time. But he mentions Myburghe more than most things.’
Riley held her breath, her heart thudding. This time, while Barbara was talking, she’d seen something more in her face, and heard something in her tone of voice when she talked about Myburghe.
Was it contempt?
When Barbara didn’t speak, Riley urged her, ‘Go on.’
‘Well, he’s the man who got so friendly with those lords, wasn’t he?’
‘Lords?’ Riley leaned forward and touched the woman’s arm. Instinct told her this was important. ‘What lords, Barbara?’
‘Well, they’re not real lords, are they?’ Barbara said dismissively. ‘Not like ours, anyway. Except to their own kind, probably. What is it they call those people in Colombia? Those awful cartels… the drug lords.’
Riley made the return trip to London in a daze. She’d been on the brink of dismissing Jacob Worth as a certified head-case, a man living under massive delusions, when suddenly she’d been snapped back to basics by Barbara Worth’s revelations about her husband’s background and his connection with Sir Kenneth Myburghe. Whatever she’d hinted about the former ambassador had been fuelled by her husband’s ramblings and would have to be verified. Unfortunately, the only person who could do that — apart from Myburghe, and she wasn’t about to ask him — was Jacob.
And Jacob either couldn’t or wouldn’t talk to a woman.