Fic: Matters of No Moment
I have one of my other shows ready to go (or almost) but also had this now ready too, which it seemed sensible to post first...
Title: Matters of No Moment
Author: lost_spook
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~3890
Characters/Pairings:
Notes/Warnings: Anna, Charles Terrell, Colonel Michael Seaton
Summary: They’re all used to keeping secrets, but maybe it’s the things that go unsaid that matter the most in the end.
Heroes of the Revolution fanfic. Sorry. I tried not to… but maybe not all that hard. I can't quite live without a bit of original fic of some kind here and there. I think this wound up as more fanfic than plain missing scenes (though it’s inevitably that, too). It was originally meant to be writing up the dialogue I had of Anna interviewing Charles Terrell, but then it grew into something else. (The characters involved are those ‘played’ by Gemma Jones, Alfred Burke and Julian Glover.)
The show guide is here, but what matters for this is the basic premise (rebels taking power after the revolution), that Anna is Charles’s daughter (which he doesn’t know until late in the series) and also there’s reference to part of the backstory that isn’t in the episode guide (it was getting too complicated), which is this:
Arran/Colonel Seaton’s resistance group was obviously not the only one, and it was previously affiliated with the activities of a more undercover/peaceful/political group led by Ronald Whittaker, a well-known politician. Charles originally worked for this organisation. However, the plan was always for Arran to take power and make Whittaker head of state, but two years previous to the series, Whittaker died of a heart attack.
***
Matters of No Moment
I. Freedom
Charles Terrell shifted his position and continued to wait, leaning against the wall with his arms folded. He and a group of other minor government officials and employees had been locked into one of the meeting rooms, presumably pending a decision on their fate, or more appropriate accommodation being found. There were a couple of the rebels out in the corridor, standing guard over them. There had been more outside when Charles had looked out of the window earlier. He wondered idly how many rebels were in here, or if he was the only one.
It had been over two hours now, and some of the others were growing louder in their complaints - how long were they going to be kept here, and what about meals, or tea, or access to facilities?
“I wouldn’t,” said Jim Arden, who’d been on the agricultural committee. “They’re probably wondering whether it’s better just to shoot us. Best not to encourage them, not unless what you’re after is the chance to face a firing squad.”
Sir Kenneth Jarrow didn’t take much notice, and only started bellowing at the guards again, until someone else, someone Charles didn’t recognise, pulled him back, and he started complaining to them instead, but he left the door alone, probably a suitable compromise without losing face.
Charles closed his eyes momentarily and pressed his head further back against the wall, despite the uneven panelling behind him, continuing to maintain quiet invisibility insofar as that was possible. Someone at the other end of the room had already said - repeatedly - that the rebels must have had someone, or several people, on the inside, to get in the way they had, the things they’d known - it had all been too well-planned. He wasn’t sure what they’d do if they knew he was one of those responsible. It occurred to him that, given the circumstances, and the combined lesser standing of everyone in this room, they could all have been, but none of them daring to admit it. Unlikely, though, he admitted, stifling his idle foray into humour.
It was unlikely, too, that they’d work it out and leap on him, but there was a difference between things seen and matters discussed, all of little or no importance and those things when one knew there was a reason to count them as significant. And, of course, there was the question of what the resistance wanted to do with a person who was technically a double agent, now they’d won. It might be a lot easier not to have someone like him around.
Charles let his gaze stray across the room again. They were all unharmed as yet, anyway - barring McFarlane, who’d had a nosebleed, but that could be the stress, not anyone else’s work. Summers and Rashid, though, had both sustained minor injuries. One or two of the others were still hovering round them, trying ineffectually to help and somewhat hypocritically shaking their heads over the behaviour of the rebels. Charles looked back at the ceiling again and counted the cracks there instead.
The guard opened the door, and Charles turned his head fractionally to look, though otherwise he remained unmoving. A woman was standing there, talking to the nearest guard, before she peered into the room, searching for someone. He’d seen her before, he was sure, probably a couple of years ago - and in the odd security file. He didn’t know her name but he was sure she was one of Colonel Seaton’s inner circle. She was a tall young woman, slim and perhaps overly solemn-looking, except that was the moment she caught sight of him and gave that thought the lie with a brief, bright smile in his direction.
“Mr Terrell,” she said. “If you could come this way?”
Charles nodded, and separated himself from the wall with an effort. He’d been there a bit too long. As he walked out after her, he thought he heard Arden behind him saying sotto voce to someone: “Firing squad, you’ll see.”
However, once they were out in the corridor, his visitor stopped and held out a hand to him. “It is Charles Terrell, isn’t it? I’m Anna.”
He ignored the gesture, but smiled at her. “Is this a friendly call or -?”
“Don’t worry,” she said, starting to walk on again, and motioning for him to follow. “I’m aware of your work - more than most, I’d say. Part of my job.”
Charles glanced at her as they walked along. “Ah. So, you haven’t finished with me yet, then.”
“I haven’t said anything of the kind,” she said.
He gave a short laugh. “Look, it’s only been a couple of hours. No need for anyone to come galloping to my rescue as yet. Might even learn something useful, leaving me in there. Mind, with that lot, that’d be optimistic. But, no, you came and pulled me out. So - you want something.”
“Well, you’re right,” she said, as they rounded a corner. “I’m hoping you’ll agree to be a member of the Emergency Government. We need people like you.”
Charles raised his eyebrows. That he hadn’t expected. “No,” he said, instantly, “no, no, no! I’ve done enough now, do you understand that? You lot get to take power and try if you can to make a better job of it than the last lot - and I go home.”
Anna didn’t argue. She merely looked at him for a moment, and then said, quizzical and faintly mocking, “Home?”
It might even have been an innocent question and her tone merely in his imagination, but though he said nothing and only held fire on the arguments till they were elsewhere, he knew she was right, and he’d already lost.
*
II. Interview
Anna led the way into the study. As soon as she sat down at the desk, she opened up the card folder and began sorting through sheets of paper, determined to be detached, brisk and professional as ever throughout the upcoming interview. It wasn’t quite routine, but she should treat it as if it were. Any coincidentally personal element of the business was known only to her, and was of no relevance. Still, she supposed, if she was curious, that wasn’t unnatural. She’d never had the chance to get to know the man who was technically her father, not until now.
“Our previous government already had a file on you,” Anna explained in response to a quizzical glance from the documents’ subject.
“You must have inherited quite the library,” said Charles Terrell, sitting at the opposite side of the desk and watching her closely. “What did you do before? Files aren’t the safest things to have lying around.”
Anna looked up with a brief smile. “I am the filing system we had. For what you’d call staff, anyway. I interviewed people - for central, that is - and allocated their initial assignments.”
“And now it’s my turn?”
“We’re proposing to make you prime minister,” she said. “We don’t want too many unpleasant surprises a few months down the road. It’s a matter of precaution for everyone, you included. We’d better go through these papers; you can confirm the details, and then I’ll have a few further questions.”
Charles eyed a tape machine to the side. “You’re making a recording?”
“Things have got to be official now, haven’t they?” she said. “Besides -”
Charles watched her. “This is primarily for the Colonel’s benefit, isn’t it? I understand. Let’s just get it over with, then. It’s not going to be that exciting, I’m afraid. Not all that edifying either.”
Anna nodded, and they went through the motions: switching on the tape, announcing the date, time and their names (though she kept to Anna only), and confirming some of the other documents - birth certificate, internal documentation concerning his posts within the previous two governments, and prison records.
“Well, I’d say that’s everything covered already,” said Charles, once that was done. “Can we go?”
Anna shot him a warning look, nodding back to the tape.
“Yes, sorry,” he said. “And your questions?”
Anna smoothed out the form in front of her. “Just a few more details we need. Now, significant others?”
“None, Miss Miller.”
She put the pen down, and paused the tape. “Don’t be so bloody silly. Now, I’m going to start recording again, and when I do, answer properly, please!”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, not sounding it. “Was that the wrong answer?”
“People are going to attack us by any means they can,” Anna said. “Forewarned is forearmed. If there is anyone who has information about you, anyone who has an emotional claim on you, anyone other people can use against you, or who -”
Charles held up a hand. “Yes, yes. I suppose it’s all just a little more awkward than I expected.”
“You’re supposed to be good at talking,” she said, and turned the pen about in her hands. There were, after all, so many ways this could fall apart. “That’s all you have to do. Ready?”
He nodded, and she released the pause button. “Now. Significant others, relationships?”
“Not many - I wasn’t joking before. I’ve tended to keep my distance,” said Charles. “You’ve been in the resistance for long enough. You should understand that. And I was in what you might call enemy territory. You make friends for political reasons, and then you betray them. Doesn’t make for the best of working relationships. And before that, there was other resistance activity; before that half the time I had to work at keeping out of prison. Safer to keep out of other people’s way.”
“Even so,” said Anna. “Any names I should know?”
Charles tapped the desk with his fingers while he considered the question, causing her to glare again, and he desisted. “I was the youngest by far, so you needn’t worry about family. My parents died years ago, my older brother in the war. My sister might be around somewhere, she might not. She married a few years before all this kicked off and her husband didn’t care much for the rest of us. And, as I said, then I became a political risk and I stopping keeping up with the Christmas cards. And if you mean partners, none worth mentioning.”
“Mr Terrell -”
He sounded impatient now. “Miss Miller! One of them’s dead, one I haven’t seen for over thirty years, and the other was - well. She’s gone, too. Nobody else is worth mentioning, I promise.”
“Names?” said Anna, unrelenting but dispassionate. It wasn’t important; she was only being thorough. It was only belatedly that she reflected that thoroughness in this case might have been unwise, but what had been asked couldn’t be taken back.
Charles gave a short laugh. “If I can remember! Elizabeth - Elizabeth White, she was the first one. We were - well, no, I don’t think we even were engaged. We might have been. But it all came to nothing - I got arrested for the first time. Only briefly, but I thought I’d better not go near Elizabeth for a while. Tried sending a message, but that was the last contact between either of us. When I went round again, she’d gone away, and shortly after that the fighting started up. She married someone else, anyway, a friend told me that.”
“And that’s all?”
Charles gave her a puzzled look. “It was thirty years ago and more. What do you expect? I’ve been arrested at least six times since then. If you want to go chasing her up to ask her more, then good luck. I’ve no idea what her married name was, and she’s probably forgotten me. If she’s even still alive, but I like to think so.”
“It’s only a question,” Anna said, and then wondered if she’d sounded defensive. She returned to being detached: “The others?”
“Other two,” he said, sounding slightly aggrieved at her way of putting it. “One of them’s dead, as I told you. You don’t need to know anything more.”
“Unless she has any connections who might be -”
“We were both in the resistance back then. It’s possible I don’t know her real name, either. But her relatives don’t know me, so we’re safe, and that’s all you’re worried about, isn’t it, Miss Miller?”
“You don’t know her name, either?” Anna picked up on his phrasing, and raised an eyebrow in his direction.
“Well, the last -” Charles gave her a smile, and shifted in his chair. “Five or six years ago, I had a contact with you people. Or probably not your lot specifically. It was Whittaker I was with, not your Colonel.”
Anna shrugged. “Same thing in the end. Didn’t you know that?”
“Hard to be sure when everything’s so secret, isn’t it? Anyway, her. She called herself Alice, but I doubt that was her real name, any more than ‘Anna’, or ‘Arran’ or the rest.”
“You had an affair with your contact?” Anna gave the microphone a belated, guilty look, aware she’d lost her impersonal attitude again. “What the hell were you thinking?”
Charles lifted his head. “I didn’t say that. We met a few times - for reasons of passing on information as instructed, but it -”
“Well, that isn’t worth mentioning, then, is it?” She didn’t bother keeping the impatience out of her voice. He was wasting time, bringing up trivia. Then she looked down intently at a line on the paper in front of her, amused at herself, because she felt irked that he seemed to count this as more important than his affair with her mother.
“You were the one asking. I’m just telling you. And I wouldn’t mind knowing who she was, if you know. I thought you might.”
“No!” Then Anna stopped the tape again. “Can you please take this interview seriously? I am not -”
“The self-confessed human filing system for the main resistance group? If you’d let me finish, I assume, since she stopped coming, that something happened. I’d like to think she was assigned elsewhere, but I’m realistic. I wouldn’t mind knowing what name to remember her by, that’s all.”
Anna frowned at him. “Mr Terrell, I don’t know any possible Alices who may or may not have belonged to other branches of the resistance five or six years ago. Do you think that’s important now?”
“Her name?” said Charles. “Yes. Yes, I do. Or wasn’t it names you stored away, wasn’t that important? Was it only code name and role best suited to, possible weaknesses, was that all you needed to know?”
Anna held his gaze. She knew exactly what her role had been. What it was now, that was the part that scared her. She’d become Anna and left Catherine Miller behind. Peace, if they could make it last, left no real excuses not to reclaim her original identity, and she would rather not. “Well, it was, then, wasn’t it? Let’s get this over with.”
“Why me?” he asked, suddenly, and more softly. “Of course, I know none of this is how it was supposed to go. Your Colonel was supposed to fight Hallam, beat him down, and then make Whittaker head of state. So, it’s broken right from the start now, isn’t it? But the Colonel’ll do well enough, I’d say. And then for this role, there’s you. You’re the obvious choice, not me. So I’m wondering why.”
She folded her arms. “Do you want me to go over my reasons yet again?”
“Not why me,” said Charles. “You’re not listening. Why not you?”
Anna swallowed. “I’m better at working behind the scenes.”
“All right,” said Charles, holding up his hands. “All right. And I’ve agreed, so I suppose it isn’t my business.”
“No. It isn’t. And if you want to discuss it, we can, but not in the middle of this interview. And I still don’t understand why you wanted to bring up some -”
“Maybe you’re too used to this to appreciate how much one little piece - one small illusion - of normality of -” Charles gave a shrug. “One place of safety. If we couldn’t already trust each other in that situation, then we were both dead, or in serious trouble. So. It mattered. I suppose you’ve never known anything else, have you? This life of mistrust. I can remember what it was like before. So could she. There was trouble enough, of course, but it wasn’t like this.”
“Still don’t have any clue about any bloody Alice,” said Anna, firmly, looking down at her papers, and straightening them. She had the feeling they weren’t exactly having the same conversation any more, and she wasn’t sure where she’d lost track of it. “And I told you, I deal with recruits, with people. I go over their strengths and weaknesses and I decide where they can best be used -”
“So this is my assignment? Provided I don’t fail this one last test.”
“Pretty much. So, shall we get on?” said Anna, resorting to sarcasm. “I’ve got a whole lot of other questions, and it’d be nice to get at least half of them done this morning.”
“I’m making my first proper confession and you’ve stopped the tape,” said Charles. “I was unprofessional enough to entertain feelings for my contact. There you go. Exactly the kind of thing you wanted to know, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sorry,” said Anna. “It’s only that I’m not sure you’re taking this seriously, and, believe me, the Colonel is, so you have to. Mr Terrell -”
“It won’t happen again,” said Charles. “Switch your tape back on. What next? Favourite food, have I ever had the measles, did I ever fight on the wrong side?”
“You’ve been reading my list,” she said and stared back at him, refusing to give ground. Then she sighed and with a small quirk of her mouth, she lied again: “Honestly. I don’t know. Sorry. Alice is enough, though, isn’t it?”
“Probably,” he said. And even though he was the one answering the questions, and she was the one withholding information, it felt suddenly as if it was the other way around.
*
III. Evidence
Colonel Michael Seaton closed the card file cover, and stared ahead at the wall. The tape had finished playing some time ago. Neither that nor the file had contained anything particularly startling, but there had been three things he’d noticed and they’d only built on the suspicions that had prompted him to send for the files.
“Is there something wrong?” Jamie Bradley asked, coming along to remove the papers. He was one of Seaton’s men, or supposed to be, currently acting as Terrell’s secretary. “Sir?”
“What?” said the Colonel, and then got to his feet. “Maybe, maybe not. A question, a coincidence, and a lie, that’s all.”
Jamie hesitated, standing in front of him, waiting in case the Colonel had orders. “I don’t understand, sir.”
“No, damn it,” said the Colonel. “Neither do I. It makes even less sense than I thought. Perhaps it isn’t anything. What do you think?”
The secretary looked around him, as if for inspiration. “I don’t know. Mr Terrell’s not done anything specific I could exactly -”
“Terrell,” said the Colonel, and didn’t bother to hide his amusement. “No, probably not. Oh, get on - get out!”
Bradley pulled a face that either he’d thought the Colonel hadn’t seen, or maybe he didn’t care, but he removed the file and tape and left.
Seaton had been concerned about Terrell - still was, to some extent - because the man was an unknown quantity, but he wasn’t the real problem. It was Anna that he was wary of, precisely because they both knew each other too well by now. He knew when she was up to something; he didn’t need documents or recordings for that. It was only the whys and the wherefores that needed explaining.
Elizabeth White, he thought, which would mean nothing to anyone else, wouldn’t even to him now if he hadn’t listened to that tape, or read the transcript while studying Anna’s papers as well as Terrell’s. What the hell was she playing at? Of course, it was a common name, it could be a coincidence, but taken together with an odd question and a pointless lie, it started to look a hell of lot less like one. It just didn’t make sense, though, not as a conspiracy, anyway.
He cursed the empty room, Terrell, and Anna, and then determined that he would damn well find out what it was about and put a stop to it, before Anna took actions of her own.
“What now?” said Anna from behind him, suddenly, causing him to start. “Something else gone wrong?”
He swore, and swung round. “Bloody hell, woman, can’t you knock?”
“Jamie said to come in - said you were in here,” she said, with a wary lift of her eyebrows. “Well, then? What’s rattled your cage?”
The Colonel considered the truthful answer to that. He had a feeling she wouldn’t be surprised if he told her. They knew each other too well by now. It had been a long time, and longer in experience than in years. Instead he only shook himself slightly, and snapped at her: “What hasn’t, you mean?”
“No change there, then,” said Anna, and grinned at him. He refused to be fooled.
*
IV. Prisoner
It was like too many other times, Charles thought, sitting at the table opposite Anna, with the guards hardly any distance away. He could talk, use empty words, and ask questions, but he couldn’t say any of the things he wanted to say. Neither could she, even if she was willing to talk, which she didn’t seem to be.
“You need to make a statement,” he said to her. “It’s important. Why you did it, everything.”
Anna stared ahead, not at him, past him.
“It is important,” he said again, with more emphasis, because it was the only thing he could say. He thought of his formal “interview” with her, wondering what she hadn’t been saying back then, the fact she knew and he didn’t; then of meetings with officials in the previous government, calmly discussing matters that anyone with a conscience should rage at. With Alice: layers within layers - an innocent, mild affair of a few months over a drink or two and the odd meal that was the cover for the passing of information that couldn’t be spoken, that perhaps was the cover for exactly what it seemed. Perhaps. The disconnect between what was said and what was left unsaid went on and on. He wasn’t sure he’d noticed it before, but suddenly it scared him.
Anna still said nothing.
“Woodfield’s seeing to your defence,” Charles said, and saw the flicker of surprise in her eyes. He got to his feet. It had taken considerable effort just to get this interview, and what was it worth? Still, it wasn’t as if he’d made up his mind yet what he did want to say to her even if he ever had the chance - what to say to Anna, to Catherine, to the woman who’d killed their glorious leader, to his unexpected daughter?
He moved away, ready to go. “Tell the truth,” he said, and then gave a slight smile, because it was a little ironic, given that it was perhaps still partially a lie. “Tell the truth and shame the devil.”
***
Crossposted from Dreamwidth -- Comments there:
Title: Matters of No Moment
Author: lost_spook
Rating: PG
Word Count: ~3890
Characters/Pairings:
Notes/Warnings: Anna, Charles Terrell, Colonel Michael Seaton
Summary: They’re all used to keeping secrets, but maybe it’s the things that go unsaid that matter the most in the end.
Heroes of the Revolution fanfic. Sorry. I tried not to… but maybe not all that hard. I can't quite live without a bit of original fic of some kind here and there. I think this wound up as more fanfic than plain missing scenes (though it’s inevitably that, too). It was originally meant to be writing up the dialogue I had of Anna interviewing Charles Terrell, but then it grew into something else. (The characters involved are those ‘played’ by Gemma Jones, Alfred Burke and Julian Glover.)
The show guide is here, but what matters for this is the basic premise (rebels taking power after the revolution), that Anna is Charles’s daughter (which he doesn’t know until late in the series) and also there’s reference to part of the backstory that isn’t in the episode guide (it was getting too complicated), which is this:
Arran/Colonel Seaton’s resistance group was obviously not the only one, and it was previously affiliated with the activities of a more undercover/peaceful/political group led by Ronald Whittaker, a well-known politician. Charles originally worked for this organisation. However, the plan was always for Arran to take power and make Whittaker head of state, but two years previous to the series, Whittaker died of a heart attack.
***
Matters of No Moment
I. Freedom
Charles Terrell shifted his position and continued to wait, leaning against the wall with his arms folded. He and a group of other minor government officials and employees had been locked into one of the meeting rooms, presumably pending a decision on their fate, or more appropriate accommodation being found. There were a couple of the rebels out in the corridor, standing guard over them. There had been more outside when Charles had looked out of the window earlier. He wondered idly how many rebels were in here, or if he was the only one.
It had been over two hours now, and some of the others were growing louder in their complaints - how long were they going to be kept here, and what about meals, or tea, or access to facilities?
“I wouldn’t,” said Jim Arden, who’d been on the agricultural committee. “They’re probably wondering whether it’s better just to shoot us. Best not to encourage them, not unless what you’re after is the chance to face a firing squad.”
Sir Kenneth Jarrow didn’t take much notice, and only started bellowing at the guards again, until someone else, someone Charles didn’t recognise, pulled him back, and he started complaining to them instead, but he left the door alone, probably a suitable compromise without losing face.
Charles closed his eyes momentarily and pressed his head further back against the wall, despite the uneven panelling behind him, continuing to maintain quiet invisibility insofar as that was possible. Someone at the other end of the room had already said - repeatedly - that the rebels must have had someone, or several people, on the inside, to get in the way they had, the things they’d known - it had all been too well-planned. He wasn’t sure what they’d do if they knew he was one of those responsible. It occurred to him that, given the circumstances, and the combined lesser standing of everyone in this room, they could all have been, but none of them daring to admit it. Unlikely, though, he admitted, stifling his idle foray into humour.
It was unlikely, too, that they’d work it out and leap on him, but there was a difference between things seen and matters discussed, all of little or no importance and those things when one knew there was a reason to count them as significant. And, of course, there was the question of what the resistance wanted to do with a person who was technically a double agent, now they’d won. It might be a lot easier not to have someone like him around.
Charles let his gaze stray across the room again. They were all unharmed as yet, anyway - barring McFarlane, who’d had a nosebleed, but that could be the stress, not anyone else’s work. Summers and Rashid, though, had both sustained minor injuries. One or two of the others were still hovering round them, trying ineffectually to help and somewhat hypocritically shaking their heads over the behaviour of the rebels. Charles looked back at the ceiling again and counted the cracks there instead.
The guard opened the door, and Charles turned his head fractionally to look, though otherwise he remained unmoving. A woman was standing there, talking to the nearest guard, before she peered into the room, searching for someone. He’d seen her before, he was sure, probably a couple of years ago - and in the odd security file. He didn’t know her name but he was sure she was one of Colonel Seaton’s inner circle. She was a tall young woman, slim and perhaps overly solemn-looking, except that was the moment she caught sight of him and gave that thought the lie with a brief, bright smile in his direction.
“Mr Terrell,” she said. “If you could come this way?”
Charles nodded, and separated himself from the wall with an effort. He’d been there a bit too long. As he walked out after her, he thought he heard Arden behind him saying sotto voce to someone: “Firing squad, you’ll see.”
However, once they were out in the corridor, his visitor stopped and held out a hand to him. “It is Charles Terrell, isn’t it? I’m Anna.”
He ignored the gesture, but smiled at her. “Is this a friendly call or -?”
“Don’t worry,” she said, starting to walk on again, and motioning for him to follow. “I’m aware of your work - more than most, I’d say. Part of my job.”
Charles glanced at her as they walked along. “Ah. So, you haven’t finished with me yet, then.”
“I haven’t said anything of the kind,” she said.
He gave a short laugh. “Look, it’s only been a couple of hours. No need for anyone to come galloping to my rescue as yet. Might even learn something useful, leaving me in there. Mind, with that lot, that’d be optimistic. But, no, you came and pulled me out. So - you want something.”
“Well, you’re right,” she said, as they rounded a corner. “I’m hoping you’ll agree to be a member of the Emergency Government. We need people like you.”
Charles raised his eyebrows. That he hadn’t expected. “No,” he said, instantly, “no, no, no! I’ve done enough now, do you understand that? You lot get to take power and try if you can to make a better job of it than the last lot - and I go home.”
Anna didn’t argue. She merely looked at him for a moment, and then said, quizzical and faintly mocking, “Home?”
It might even have been an innocent question and her tone merely in his imagination, but though he said nothing and only held fire on the arguments till they were elsewhere, he knew she was right, and he’d already lost.
*
II. Interview
Anna led the way into the study. As soon as she sat down at the desk, she opened up the card folder and began sorting through sheets of paper, determined to be detached, brisk and professional as ever throughout the upcoming interview. It wasn’t quite routine, but she should treat it as if it were. Any coincidentally personal element of the business was known only to her, and was of no relevance. Still, she supposed, if she was curious, that wasn’t unnatural. She’d never had the chance to get to know the man who was technically her father, not until now.
“Our previous government already had a file on you,” Anna explained in response to a quizzical glance from the documents’ subject.
“You must have inherited quite the library,” said Charles Terrell, sitting at the opposite side of the desk and watching her closely. “What did you do before? Files aren’t the safest things to have lying around.”
Anna looked up with a brief smile. “I am the filing system we had. For what you’d call staff, anyway. I interviewed people - for central, that is - and allocated their initial assignments.”
“And now it’s my turn?”
“We’re proposing to make you prime minister,” she said. “We don’t want too many unpleasant surprises a few months down the road. It’s a matter of precaution for everyone, you included. We’d better go through these papers; you can confirm the details, and then I’ll have a few further questions.”
Charles eyed a tape machine to the side. “You’re making a recording?”
“Things have got to be official now, haven’t they?” she said. “Besides -”
Charles watched her. “This is primarily for the Colonel’s benefit, isn’t it? I understand. Let’s just get it over with, then. It’s not going to be that exciting, I’m afraid. Not all that edifying either.”
Anna nodded, and they went through the motions: switching on the tape, announcing the date, time and their names (though she kept to Anna only), and confirming some of the other documents - birth certificate, internal documentation concerning his posts within the previous two governments, and prison records.
“Well, I’d say that’s everything covered already,” said Charles, once that was done. “Can we go?”
Anna shot him a warning look, nodding back to the tape.
“Yes, sorry,” he said. “And your questions?”
Anna smoothed out the form in front of her. “Just a few more details we need. Now, significant others?”
“None, Miss Miller.”
She put the pen down, and paused the tape. “Don’t be so bloody silly. Now, I’m going to start recording again, and when I do, answer properly, please!”
“Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, not sounding it. “Was that the wrong answer?”
“People are going to attack us by any means they can,” Anna said. “Forewarned is forearmed. If there is anyone who has information about you, anyone who has an emotional claim on you, anyone other people can use against you, or who -”
Charles held up a hand. “Yes, yes. I suppose it’s all just a little more awkward than I expected.”
“You’re supposed to be good at talking,” she said, and turned the pen about in her hands. There were, after all, so many ways this could fall apart. “That’s all you have to do. Ready?”
He nodded, and she released the pause button. “Now. Significant others, relationships?”
“Not many - I wasn’t joking before. I’ve tended to keep my distance,” said Charles. “You’ve been in the resistance for long enough. You should understand that. And I was in what you might call enemy territory. You make friends for political reasons, and then you betray them. Doesn’t make for the best of working relationships. And before that, there was other resistance activity; before that half the time I had to work at keeping out of prison. Safer to keep out of other people’s way.”
“Even so,” said Anna. “Any names I should know?”
Charles tapped the desk with his fingers while he considered the question, causing her to glare again, and he desisted. “I was the youngest by far, so you needn’t worry about family. My parents died years ago, my older brother in the war. My sister might be around somewhere, she might not. She married a few years before all this kicked off and her husband didn’t care much for the rest of us. And, as I said, then I became a political risk and I stopping keeping up with the Christmas cards. And if you mean partners, none worth mentioning.”
“Mr Terrell -”
He sounded impatient now. “Miss Miller! One of them’s dead, one I haven’t seen for over thirty years, and the other was - well. She’s gone, too. Nobody else is worth mentioning, I promise.”
“Names?” said Anna, unrelenting but dispassionate. It wasn’t important; she was only being thorough. It was only belatedly that she reflected that thoroughness in this case might have been unwise, but what had been asked couldn’t be taken back.
Charles gave a short laugh. “If I can remember! Elizabeth - Elizabeth White, she was the first one. We were - well, no, I don’t think we even were engaged. We might have been. But it all came to nothing - I got arrested for the first time. Only briefly, but I thought I’d better not go near Elizabeth for a while. Tried sending a message, but that was the last contact between either of us. When I went round again, she’d gone away, and shortly after that the fighting started up. She married someone else, anyway, a friend told me that.”
“And that’s all?”
Charles gave her a puzzled look. “It was thirty years ago and more. What do you expect? I’ve been arrested at least six times since then. If you want to go chasing her up to ask her more, then good luck. I’ve no idea what her married name was, and she’s probably forgotten me. If she’s even still alive, but I like to think so.”
“It’s only a question,” Anna said, and then wondered if she’d sounded defensive. She returned to being detached: “The others?”
“Other two,” he said, sounding slightly aggrieved at her way of putting it. “One of them’s dead, as I told you. You don’t need to know anything more.”
“Unless she has any connections who might be -”
“We were both in the resistance back then. It’s possible I don’t know her real name, either. But her relatives don’t know me, so we’re safe, and that’s all you’re worried about, isn’t it, Miss Miller?”
“You don’t know her name, either?” Anna picked up on his phrasing, and raised an eyebrow in his direction.
“Well, the last -” Charles gave her a smile, and shifted in his chair. “Five or six years ago, I had a contact with you people. Or probably not your lot specifically. It was Whittaker I was with, not your Colonel.”
Anna shrugged. “Same thing in the end. Didn’t you know that?”
“Hard to be sure when everything’s so secret, isn’t it? Anyway, her. She called herself Alice, but I doubt that was her real name, any more than ‘Anna’, or ‘Arran’ or the rest.”
“You had an affair with your contact?” Anna gave the microphone a belated, guilty look, aware she’d lost her impersonal attitude again. “What the hell were you thinking?”
Charles lifted his head. “I didn’t say that. We met a few times - for reasons of passing on information as instructed, but it -”
“Well, that isn’t worth mentioning, then, is it?” She didn’t bother keeping the impatience out of her voice. He was wasting time, bringing up trivia. Then she looked down intently at a line on the paper in front of her, amused at herself, because she felt irked that he seemed to count this as more important than his affair with her mother.
“You were the one asking. I’m just telling you. And I wouldn’t mind knowing who she was, if you know. I thought you might.”
“No!” Then Anna stopped the tape again. “Can you please take this interview seriously? I am not -”
“The self-confessed human filing system for the main resistance group? If you’d let me finish, I assume, since she stopped coming, that something happened. I’d like to think she was assigned elsewhere, but I’m realistic. I wouldn’t mind knowing what name to remember her by, that’s all.”
Anna frowned at him. “Mr Terrell, I don’t know any possible Alices who may or may not have belonged to other branches of the resistance five or six years ago. Do you think that’s important now?”
“Her name?” said Charles. “Yes. Yes, I do. Or wasn’t it names you stored away, wasn’t that important? Was it only code name and role best suited to, possible weaknesses, was that all you needed to know?”
Anna held his gaze. She knew exactly what her role had been. What it was now, that was the part that scared her. She’d become Anna and left Catherine Miller behind. Peace, if they could make it last, left no real excuses not to reclaim her original identity, and she would rather not. “Well, it was, then, wasn’t it? Let’s get this over with.”
“Why me?” he asked, suddenly, and more softly. “Of course, I know none of this is how it was supposed to go. Your Colonel was supposed to fight Hallam, beat him down, and then make Whittaker head of state. So, it’s broken right from the start now, isn’t it? But the Colonel’ll do well enough, I’d say. And then for this role, there’s you. You’re the obvious choice, not me. So I’m wondering why.”
She folded her arms. “Do you want me to go over my reasons yet again?”
“Not why me,” said Charles. “You’re not listening. Why not you?”
Anna swallowed. “I’m better at working behind the scenes.”
“All right,” said Charles, holding up his hands. “All right. And I’ve agreed, so I suppose it isn’t my business.”
“No. It isn’t. And if you want to discuss it, we can, but not in the middle of this interview. And I still don’t understand why you wanted to bring up some -”
“Maybe you’re too used to this to appreciate how much one little piece - one small illusion - of normality of -” Charles gave a shrug. “One place of safety. If we couldn’t already trust each other in that situation, then we were both dead, or in serious trouble. So. It mattered. I suppose you’ve never known anything else, have you? This life of mistrust. I can remember what it was like before. So could she. There was trouble enough, of course, but it wasn’t like this.”
“Still don’t have any clue about any bloody Alice,” said Anna, firmly, looking down at her papers, and straightening them. She had the feeling they weren’t exactly having the same conversation any more, and she wasn’t sure where she’d lost track of it. “And I told you, I deal with recruits, with people. I go over their strengths and weaknesses and I decide where they can best be used -”
“So this is my assignment? Provided I don’t fail this one last test.”
“Pretty much. So, shall we get on?” said Anna, resorting to sarcasm. “I’ve got a whole lot of other questions, and it’d be nice to get at least half of them done this morning.”
“I’m making my first proper confession and you’ve stopped the tape,” said Charles. “I was unprofessional enough to entertain feelings for my contact. There you go. Exactly the kind of thing you wanted to know, isn’t it?”
“Yes, sorry,” said Anna. “It’s only that I’m not sure you’re taking this seriously, and, believe me, the Colonel is, so you have to. Mr Terrell -”
“It won’t happen again,” said Charles. “Switch your tape back on. What next? Favourite food, have I ever had the measles, did I ever fight on the wrong side?”
“You’ve been reading my list,” she said and stared back at him, refusing to give ground. Then she sighed and with a small quirk of her mouth, she lied again: “Honestly. I don’t know. Sorry. Alice is enough, though, isn’t it?”
“Probably,” he said. And even though he was the one answering the questions, and she was the one withholding information, it felt suddenly as if it was the other way around.
*
III. Evidence
Colonel Michael Seaton closed the card file cover, and stared ahead at the wall. The tape had finished playing some time ago. Neither that nor the file had contained anything particularly startling, but there had been three things he’d noticed and they’d only built on the suspicions that had prompted him to send for the files.
“Is there something wrong?” Jamie Bradley asked, coming along to remove the papers. He was one of Seaton’s men, or supposed to be, currently acting as Terrell’s secretary. “Sir?”
“What?” said the Colonel, and then got to his feet. “Maybe, maybe not. A question, a coincidence, and a lie, that’s all.”
Jamie hesitated, standing in front of him, waiting in case the Colonel had orders. “I don’t understand, sir.”
“No, damn it,” said the Colonel. “Neither do I. It makes even less sense than I thought. Perhaps it isn’t anything. What do you think?”
The secretary looked around him, as if for inspiration. “I don’t know. Mr Terrell’s not done anything specific I could exactly -”
“Terrell,” said the Colonel, and didn’t bother to hide his amusement. “No, probably not. Oh, get on - get out!”
Bradley pulled a face that either he’d thought the Colonel hadn’t seen, or maybe he didn’t care, but he removed the file and tape and left.
Seaton had been concerned about Terrell - still was, to some extent - because the man was an unknown quantity, but he wasn’t the real problem. It was Anna that he was wary of, precisely because they both knew each other too well by now. He knew when she was up to something; he didn’t need documents or recordings for that. It was only the whys and the wherefores that needed explaining.
Elizabeth White, he thought, which would mean nothing to anyone else, wouldn’t even to him now if he hadn’t listened to that tape, or read the transcript while studying Anna’s papers as well as Terrell’s. What the hell was she playing at? Of course, it was a common name, it could be a coincidence, but taken together with an odd question and a pointless lie, it started to look a hell of lot less like one. It just didn’t make sense, though, not as a conspiracy, anyway.
He cursed the empty room, Terrell, and Anna, and then determined that he would damn well find out what it was about and put a stop to it, before Anna took actions of her own.
“What now?” said Anna from behind him, suddenly, causing him to start. “Something else gone wrong?”
He swore, and swung round. “Bloody hell, woman, can’t you knock?”
“Jamie said to come in - said you were in here,” she said, with a wary lift of her eyebrows. “Well, then? What’s rattled your cage?”
The Colonel considered the truthful answer to that. He had a feeling she wouldn’t be surprised if he told her. They knew each other too well by now. It had been a long time, and longer in experience than in years. Instead he only shook himself slightly, and snapped at her: “What hasn’t, you mean?”
“No change there, then,” said Anna, and grinned at him. He refused to be fooled.
*
IV. Prisoner
It was like too many other times, Charles thought, sitting at the table opposite Anna, with the guards hardly any distance away. He could talk, use empty words, and ask questions, but he couldn’t say any of the things he wanted to say. Neither could she, even if she was willing to talk, which she didn’t seem to be.
“You need to make a statement,” he said to her. “It’s important. Why you did it, everything.”
Anna stared ahead, not at him, past him.
“It is important,” he said again, with more emphasis, because it was the only thing he could say. He thought of his formal “interview” with her, wondering what she hadn’t been saying back then, the fact she knew and he didn’t; then of meetings with officials in the previous government, calmly discussing matters that anyone with a conscience should rage at. With Alice: layers within layers - an innocent, mild affair of a few months over a drink or two and the odd meal that was the cover for the passing of information that couldn’t be spoken, that perhaps was the cover for exactly what it seemed. Perhaps. The disconnect between what was said and what was left unsaid went on and on. He wasn’t sure he’d noticed it before, but suddenly it scared him.
Anna still said nothing.
“Woodfield’s seeing to your defence,” Charles said, and saw the flicker of surprise in her eyes. He got to his feet. It had taken considerable effort just to get this interview, and what was it worth? Still, it wasn’t as if he’d made up his mind yet what he did want to say to her even if he ever had the chance - what to say to Anna, to Catherine, to the woman who’d killed their glorious leader, to his unexpected daughter?
He moved away, ready to go. “Tell the truth,” he said, and then gave a slight smile, because it was a little ironic, given that it was perhaps still partially a lie. “Tell the truth and shame the devil.”
***
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