Tess Gerritsen: In Their Footsteps

Beryl said again, “No,” and pulled away from Helena ’s outstretched hand. Suddenly she whirled and fled in a rustle of blue silk across the ballroom.

“Thank you. All of you,” said Jordan coldly. “For your most refreshing candor.” Then he, too, turned and headed across the room in pursuit of his sister.

He caught up with her on the staircase. “Beryl?”

“It’s not true,” she said. “I don’t believe it!”

“Of course it’s not true.”

She halted on the stairs and looked down at him. “Then why are they all saying it?”

“Ugly rumors. What else can it be?”

“Where’s Uncle Hugh?”

Jordan shook his head. “He’s not in the ballroom.”

Beryl looked up toward the second floor. “Come on, Jordie,” she said, her voice tight with determination. “We’re going to set this thing straight.”

Together they climbed the stairs.

Uncle Hugh was in his study; through the closed door, they could hear him speaking in urgent tones. Without knocking, they pushed inside and confronted him.

“Uncle Hugh?” said Beryl.

Hugh cut her off with a sharp motion for silence. He turned his back and said into the telephone, “It is definite, Claude? Not a gas leak or anything like that?”

“Uncle Hugh!”

Stubbornly he kept his back turned to her. “Yes, yes,” he said into the phone, “I’ll tell Philippe at once. God, this is horrid timing, but you’re right, he has no choice. He’ll have to fly back tonight.” Looking stunned, Hugh hung up and stared at the telephone.

“Did you tell us the truth?” asked Beryl. “About Mum and Dad?”

Hugh turned and frowned at her in bewilderment. “What? What are you talking about?”

“You told us they were killed in the line of duty,” said Beryl. “You never said anything about a suicide.”

“Who told you that?” he snapped.

“Nina Sutherland. But Reggie and Helena knew about it, too. In fact, the whole world seems to know! Everyone except us.”

“Blast that Sutherland woman!” roared Hugh. “She had no right.”

Beryl and Jordan stared at him in shock. Softly Beryl said, “It is a lie. Isn’t it?”

Abruptly Hugh started for the door. “We’ll discuss it later,” he said. “I have to take care of this business-”

“Uncle Hugh!” cried Beryl. “Is it a lie?”

Hugh stopped. Slowly he turned and looked at her. “I never believed it,” he said. “Not for a second did I think Bernard would ever hurt her…”

“What are you saying?” asked Jordan. “That it was Dad who killed her?”

Their uncle’s silence was the only answer they needed. For a moment, Hugh lingered in the doorway. Quietly he said, “Please, Jordan. We’ll talk about it later. After everyone leaves. Now I really must see to this phone call.” He turned and left the room.

Beryl and Jordan looked at each other. They each saw, in the other’s eyes, the same shock of comprehension.

“Dear God, Jordie,” said Beryl. “It must be true.”

From across the ballroom, Richard saw Beryl’s hasty exit and then, seconds later, the equally rapid departure of a grim-faced Jordan. What the hell was going on? he wondered. He started to follow them out of the room, then spotted Helena, shaking her head as she moved toward him.

“It’s a disaster,” she muttered. “Too much bloody champagne flowing tonight.”

“What happened?”

“They just heard the truth. About Bernard and Madeline.”

“Who told them?”

“Nina. But it was Reggie’s fault, really. He’s so drunk he doesn’t know what he’s saying.”

Richard looked at the doorway through which Jordan had just vanished. “I should talk to them, tell them the whole story.”

“I think that’s their uncle’s responsibility. Don’t you? He’s the one who kept it from them all these years. Let him do the explaining.”

After a pause, Richard nodded. “You’re right. Of course you’re right. Maybe I’ll just go and strangle Nina Sutherland instead.”

“Strangle my husband while you’re at it. You have my permission.”

Richard turned and spotted Hugh Tavistock reentering the ballroom. “Now what?” he muttered as the man hurried toward them.

“Where’s Philippe?” snapped Hugh.

“I believe he was headed out to the garden,” said Helena. “Is something wrong?”

“This whole evening’s turned into a disaster,” muttered Hugh. “I just got a call from Paris. A bomb’s gone off in Philippe’s flat.”

Richard and Helena stared at him in horror.

“Oh, my God,” whispered Helena. “Is Marie-”

“She’s all right. A few minor injuries, but nothing serious. She’s in hospital now.”

“Assassination attempt?” Richard queried.

Hugh nodded. “So it would seem.”

It was long past midnight when Jordan and Uncle Hugh finally found Beryl. She was in her mother’s old room, huddled beside Madeline’s steamer trunk. The lid had been thrown open, and Madeline’s belongings were spilled out across the bed and the floor: silky summer dresses, flowery hats, a beaded evening purse. And there were silly things, too: a branch of sea coral, a pebble, a china frog-items of significance known only to Madeline. Beryl had removed all of these things from the trunk, and now she sat surrounded by them, trying to absorb, through these inanimate objects, the warmth and spirit that had once been Madeline Tavistock.

Uncle Hugh came into the bedroom and sat down in a chair beside her. “Beryl,” he said gently, “it’s time…it’s time I told you the truth.”

“The time for the truth was years ago,” she said, staring down at the china frog in her hand.

“But you were both so very young. You were only eight, and Jordan was ten. You wouldn’t have understood-”

“We could’ve dealt with the facts! Instead you hid them from us!”

“The facts were painful. The French police concluded-”

“Dad would never have hurt her,” said Beryl. She looked up at him with a ferocity that made Hugh draw back in surprise. “Don’t you remember how they were together, Uncle Hugh? How much in love they were? I remember!”

“So do I,” said Jordan.

Uncle Hugh took off his spectacles and wearily rubbed his eyes. “The truth,” he said, “is even worse than that.”

Beryl stared at him incredulously. “How could it be any worse than murder and suicide?”

“Perhaps…perhaps you should see the file.” He rose to his feet. “It’s upstairs. In my office.”

They followed their uncle to the third floor, to a room they seldom visited, a room he always kept locked. He opened the cabinet and pulled a folder from the drawer. It was a classified MI6 file labeled Tavistock, Bernard and Madeline.

“I suppose I…I’d hoped to protect you from this,” said Hugh. “The truth is, I myself don’t believe it. Bernard didn’t have a traitorous bone in his body. But the evidence was there. And I don’t know any other way to explain it.” He handed the file to Beryl.

In silence she opened the folder. Together she and Jordan paged through the contents. Inside were copies of the Paris police report, including witness statements and photographs of the murder scene. The conclusions were as Nina Sutherland had told them. Bernard had shot his wife three times at close range and had then put the gun to his own head and pulled the trigger. The crime photos were too horrible to dwell on; Beryl flipped quickly past those and found herself staring at another report, this one filed by French Intelligence. In disbelief, she read and reread the conclusions.

“This isn’t possible,” she said.

“It’s what they found. A briefcase with classified NATO files. Allied weapons data. It was in the garret, where their bodies were discovered. Bernard had those files with him when he died-files that shouldn’t have been out of the embassy building.”