A Place of Hiding (Inspector Lynley, #12)(197)
He couldn’t rid his head of the stories, even now, when he most needed to: fifty-three years of them, told over and over but never worn out and never unwelcome until this moment. Yet still, they came on, whether he wanted them or not: 28 June 1940, 6:55 P.M. The steady drone of approaching aircraft and the steadier rise of dread and confusion in those gathered at the harbour in St. Peter Port to see the mail steamer off, as was their simple custom, and in those whose lorries were queued up to deposit their loads of tomatoes into the holds of the cargo vessels... There were too many people in the area and when the six planes came, they left the dead and the wounded behind them. Incendiary bombs dropped upon the lorries and high explosives blew them into the sky, while machine guns strafed the crowd without regard. Men, women, and children. Deportations, interrogations, executions, and enslavements all came after that. As did the immediate winnowing out of drops of Jewish blood and the countless proclamations and mandates. Hard labour for this and death by firing squad for that. Control of the press, control of the cinema, control of information, control of minds.
Black marketeers rose up to make a profit from the misery of their fellows. Unlikely heroes developed from farmers with radio receivers hidden in their barns. A people, reduced to scavenging for food and scavenging for fuel, marked time in circumstances that seemed forgotten by the rest of the world as the Gestapo moved among them, watching, listening, and waiting to pounce on anyone who made a single wrong move.
People died, Frankie. Right here on this island, people suffered and died because of the Hun. And some people fought him only way that they could. So don’tyou ever forget that, lad. You walk proud. You come from stock that knew the worstof times and lived to tell about them. Isn’t just any lad on this island can say thatabout what happened here, Frank.
The voice and the memories. The voice continually instilling the memories. Frank could shake neither one, even now. He felt he’d be haunted the rest of his life. He could drown himself in the Lethe, but that would not suffice to wipe clean his brain.
Fathers were not supposed to lie to their sons. If they chose to become fathers in the first place, it should be to pass along the life’s truths that they’d learned at the knee of experience. Whom else could the son of a man trust if not the man himself?
That was what it came down to for Frank as he stood alone on the quayside, observing the water but seeing instead a reflection of the history that had ruthlessly moulded a generation of islanders. It came down to trust. He’d given it as the only gift a child can ever give to the distant and awesome figure of his parent. Graham had taken this trust happily and then abused it mightily. What then remained was the frail latticework of a relationship built of straw and glue.
The rough wind of revelation had destroyed it. The insubstantial structure itself might never have been. To have lived more than half a century pretending he was not responsible for the deaths of good men...
Frank did not know how he would ever scrape together a fond feeling for his father from the foul detritus which that single fact left in Graham Ouseley’s wake.
He did know he could not do it now. Perhaps someday... If he reached the same age...If he looked on life differently at that point in time... Behind him, he heard the line of traffic begin to move at last.
He turned and saw that the lorry at the junction had finally managed to disentangle itself from its situation. He climbed back into his own car then and eased into the stream of vehicles leaving St. Sampson. He headed with them towards St. Peter Port, picking up speed at last when he cleared the industrial area in Bulwer Avenue and burst from it onto the road that followed the elongated crescent of Belle Greve Bay. He had another stop to make before returning to the Talbot Valley, so he kept on south with the water on his left and St. Peter Port rising like a grey terraced fortress on his right. He wound up through the trees in LeVal des Terres and pulled into Fort Road not fifteen minutes after the time he’d agreed to appear at the Debieres’ house.
He would have preferred to avoid another conversation with Nobby. But when the architect had phoned him and had been so insistent, habitual guilt produced sufficient motivation for Frank to say, “Very well, I’ll call in” and to name the time he’d most likely turn up. Nobby answered the door himself and took Frank into the kitchen, where in the apparent absence of his wife, he was getting the boys’ tea. The room was unbearably hot, and Nobby was greasy-faced with sweat. The air was heavily laden with the odour of a batch of fish fingers previously burnt. From the sitting room came the noise of a computer game in operation, with suitable explosions rhythmically sounding as the player skilfully obliterated bad guys.
“Caroline’s in town.” Nobby bent to inspect a baking sheet that he eased out of the oven. The current set of fish fingers steamed upon it, producing a further malevolent odour. He grimaced. “How can they stand these things?”
“Anything their parents hate,” Frank noted.
Nobby shoved them onto the work top and used a wooden spoon to push them onto a plate. He grabbed a bag of frozen chips from the fridge and dumped these onto the baking sheet, which he returned to the oven. In the meantime, on the hob a pan boiled enthusiastically. It sent a cloud of steam to hover like the ghost of Mrs. Beeton above them. Nobby stirred this and lifted out a spoonful of peas. They were unnaturally green, as if dyed. He looked at them doubtfully, then dropped them back into the boiling water. He said, “She should be here for this. She’s better at it. I’m hopeless.”