Майкл Ридпат - Launch Code

‘So who do the police think killed Lars?’

‘Hard to say,’ said Toby. ‘But I know Justin is on their list.’

‘That’s good for Alice, right?’ said Megan.

Alice sighed. ‘Not necessarily. The police think Justin and I are having an affair.’

‘That’s nonsense!’ spluttered Bill, flinging down his sandwich in contempt.

‘Is it?’ said Megan.

Toby glared at her.

‘Of course it is,’ said Alice. ‘He and I had dinner together in San Francisco in September. Otherwise, I’ve scarcely seen him.’

‘And, you may have noticed, Alice is married,’ Toby said. ‘To me.’ He was keen to dismiss Megan’s suggestion without fuss. He didn’t want to think about it; he didn’t want to doubt his wife. Because he knew he could if he let himself.

Megan looked at the two of them. ‘Hey, I’m sorry, Alice. And Toby.’

‘OK,’ Alice said. There were a number of different ways Alice could say ‘OK’. The three others around the kitchen table knew that she meant to forgive Megan.

‘Did Justin mention Sam Bowen at all when you saw him in San Francisco?’ Toby asked.

‘No,’ Alice replied. ‘It was a few months ago. October, I think. I guess it may have been before Sam had started asking questions.’

‘We don’t know when that was,’ said Megan, glancing at her father. ‘Sam must have been researching the book for several months at least.’

Bill shrugged.

Alice hesitated. ‘But he did start talking about Craig — you know how Justin has always been obsessed with him. He asked me whether I knew what had really happened on the submarine, how Craig had died. He couldn’t believe it was just an accident, and he said Brooke had told him I knew more than she did. Which was true.’

‘Did you tell him?’ said Bill.

‘No,’ said Alice. She hesitated. ‘Although I kind of implied that Craig had been in favour of launching the missiles. I didn’t really mean to — what I said was that Dad and Lars were the only officers on the sub who didn’t want to launch. Justin got upset at that and asked me for details. I backtracked and said I didn’t really know what happened, it was just an impression. But it was clear he took it badly.’

‘Do you think he guessed what really happened?’ Toby asked.

‘I don’t think so,’ said Alice. ‘I suppose he might have figured it out afterward, but I don’t see how.’

‘It looked to me like he was genuinely surprised when Lars claimed he had killed Craig by accident,’ said Megan.

Toby pondered what Alice had told them. ‘If Justin thought that the father he admired so much had actually been in favour of starting a nuclear war, he would be upset. He would be even more upset if Sam was going to tell the whole world about it.’

‘I wondered about that,’ said Megan. ‘Upset enough to kill him?’

Toby shrugged. ‘Maybe.’

‘Maybe not,’ said Alice.

They munched their sandwiches in silence.

‘I wish we knew what the police knew,’ Toby said.

‘What do you mean?’ said Megan.

‘I mean they will have done a load of forensic analysis. They will have interviewed dozens of witnesses. They’ll have checked alibis. They’ll have searched Sam Bowen’s stuff, and his phone records. And they won’t tell us any of it.’

‘Why should they?’ said Alice. ‘Especially if they still think I’m guilty.’

‘Did you talk to MI5 about Pat Greenwald?’ Megan asked Toby.

Bill flinched.

‘No,’ Toby said, glancing at his wife. ‘I decided not to.’

‘Good,’ said Bill.

‘Did you know she’s dead?’ said Megan to her father.

He raised his eyebrows. ‘No. No, I didn’t. How come you know?’

‘Googled her last night,’ said Megan. ‘She was murdered. In New York.’

‘How awful,’ said Bill. He was clearly trying to give his words the correct weighting of concern: enough to register that that was an awful way for anyone to die, not enough to suggest he was especially concerned.

‘Yeah. It is awful. And it was in 1996. The same year the FBI came looking for you.’

Bill chewed his sandwich, trying — and succeeding — to control his annoyance with his daughter.

‘Did they find who killed her?’ said Alice.

‘No. The newspaper report said it was a mugging gone wrong.’

Bill’s shoulders seemed to relax slightly.

‘There’s more to Pat Greenwald than you have told us, isn’t there, Dad?’ said Megan.

‘I’ve told you what I can,’ said Bill.

‘Oh, yes?’ said Megan. ‘And was that the truth?’

‘Of course it was the truth!’ snapped Bill.

‘But not the whole truth?’ Megan glanced at Toby. ‘The reason Sam Bowen and Uncle Lars were killed has something to do with that woman. It must have!’

‘I don’t know,’ said Bill.

Megan turned to Alice. ‘Come on, Alice? You must agree with me?’

Alice didn’t answer. But she was glaring at her father.

Toby spoke. ‘Don’t lie to us, Bill.’ He hadn’t thought before he spoke those words: they were more direct than would be expected from a recent son-in-law hiding behind politeness. But he said them quietly and sincerely, and that gave them power. He wanted to trust his father-in-law. He wanted Megan and Alice — and Brooke and Maya — to trust him.

He could see that was something Bill wanted also.

‘All right,’ Bill said. ‘There are some things to do with Pat I left out when I told you about her before. And some things that were not strictly accurate.’

Megan, Toby and Alice listened in suspicious silence as Bill explained a bit more about what had happened after he had quit the Navy: about seeing Pat Greenwald in Central Park in 1984, and the trip he and Donna took to Paris to talk to a Russian physicist.

And then he told them about another meeting one evening later on that year.

June 1984 New York

I got a job in a bar on the Upper East Side after I was discharged, while I waited for the business school semester to start. I was staying with Donna in her tiny studio apartment. This was fine for me — her studio was many times the size of the JO Jungle — and she coped pretty well. I was tidy, I was considerate. It was great to be together.

I found adjusting to civilian life a bit of a shock. I had been in the arms of the Navy since the age of eighteen and I had gotten used to the structure. It wasn’t so much my own liberty to do what I liked that bothered me, as much as everyone else’s. It kind of bugged me if people didn’t do what they were supposed to. The manager who ran the bar was a nice guy, as were the other staff, who were mostly students or actors, but the operation was slapdash. Glasses unwashed, drinks unpoured, counter unwiped.

I would just have to get used to it. I was going to have to adjust to the civilian world, rather than the civilian world adjusting to me.

From what the others told me, the bar used to be a thriving pick-up joint, but the AIDS scare was taking its toll. Weekends could get busy, but it was quiet early in the week. One Monday evening a morose-looking guy of about forty in a crumpled suit drank his way through a few whiskeys, chatting to me disjointedly as I kept him topped up. He was foreign, probably an expat banker.

After we had closed up for the night, I was surprised when he emerged from the shadows outside the bar.

‘Can I have a quiet word?’ he said.

I tensed. The man didn’t look like a mugger, or a guy trying to pick me up — not that there was much of that any more with the fear of AIDS.

A con man, probably.

I turned to face him. ‘No,’ I said, firmly.

‘My name is Vassily Sapalyov,’ he said. ‘I am a colleague of Irena Boyarova. I believe you know her?’