The Final Reckoning

CHAPTER THIRTY

The silence did not break, even as Rebecca parked the car, unlocked the front door and stormed up the stairs into her apartment. Only once she spoke did Tom understand that, in this respect if no other, Rebecca was like several women he had known: capable of bottling up her fury until she was home – here, in her kitchen – so that she would have the argument where she wanted to have it.

‘Seriously, Tom, what the fuck was all that about?’

‘All what?’

‘Today, with Goldman.’

‘I voiced an opinion, that's all. I-’

‘No, you wrecked that meeting at the most crucial stage.’ Her voice was firm and clear: she was Dr Merton, dressing down an anaesthetist who had administered an incorrect dose. ‘You're meant to be helping me, remember? That was our deal. And there we were, listening to Goldman drone on, telling us what we already knew, and then, just as he's about to get to the-’

‘You already knew all that?’

Her face formed into an expression Tom couldn't understand. ‘No, of course I didn't. But we'd worked it out, hadn't we? From the box.’

‘Sure, but we didn't know any of that detail. Or the context. Or the motivation. I thought you'd be fascinated to hear all that. To understand your father.’

‘This is not therapy for me, OK? In case you hadn't noticed, someone trashed my place today. And we have no idea who they are or what they want. And no idea if they're going to come after me again.’

‘I understand. This is very frightening-’

‘You're damn right, it's frightening.’ The volume was getting higher now. ‘And then you start sounding off, defending vigilante murder, men going around killing people-’

‘Well, can you blame them?’

‘What?’

‘Can you blame them? I mean it, Rebecca. Given everything that had happened to them. They were right: they weren't going to get justice any other way.’

‘How can you say that? You're meant to be a lawyer, for God's sake.’

‘That's exactly why I'm saying it!’ He was shouting now. ‘Oh, yes I used to believe all that crap about “the law” and “justice” and all the fine words. I was a true believer, Rebecca. I was just like your boy Julian.’ He saw a look of scepticism cross Rebecca's face. ‘I know that seems ridiculous now. But I wasn't always like this, you know.’ He pulled at the cuffs of his Paul Smith suit. ‘I used to believe that so long as you worked hard, gathered all the evidence, filed your briefs, then justice would be done. Why do you think I went to the UN? Because I was one of those saps who was going to change the world.’

He was startled to hear himself talk like this; he hadn't voiced these thoughts, even to himself, for so long. But he couldn't stop.

'I was right there, at the very top. The United bloody Nations. And then I was asked to lead for the UN on the Rwanda tribunal. It was a massive job: I was thrilled to get it. I'd be fighting the good fight.

'I began by reading the witness statements, page after page of them: they were just like your father's notebook. Stories that would make you weep. You know what happened there; everyone knows what happened. We knew it at the time. Minimum of eight hundred thousand people killed in the space of three months. Fastest genocide in human history, they reckon; even faster than the Nazis. And, as always, everyone, but everyone, is up to their necks in blood. It was neighbour killing neighbour, one end of a street rounding up the other and slitting their throats with machetes. Nuns stood by while children were herded into churches and torched alive. Nuns, for Christ's sake. And all the stuff that happens every time: teenage girls getting raped, boys having their balls sliced off, brothers forced to sodomize their sisters, men forced to kill their wives. Thousands of pages of it.

‘On the evidence we had, at least a million people should have been in the dock. But guess how many Hutus have been convicted.’

Rebecca looked down at the floor. ‘I don't know.’

‘Go on. Guess how many Hutus have been convicted by the UN tribunal for the Rwandan genocide.’

‘I don't know.’

‘Just guess.’

‘I don't know.’

‘Just fucking GUESS, Rebecca!’

‘Five thousand? A thousand? I don't know!’

‘Twenty-six.’

She said nothing.

‘Twenty-six. That's the grand total after a decade and a half of legal work by dozens of lawyers and God knows how many millions of dollars. Twenty-six people. It's bullshit, Rebecca. Bullshit. You know what they say about lies: the bigger the lie, the more people will believe it? It's the same with mass murder. If you kill ten people, you'll never get away with it. But kill a thousand and you'll never see inside a dock, let alone a prison cell. That's what I learned in Rwanda.’ His voice was trembling.

‘So what did you do?’

Tom steadied himself against the kitchen table. He wanted to sit down, but he knew it would look too much like defeat. ‘The usual. Drinking, smoking, drugs – the things you do when you want to throw your life away.’

‘You had a breakdown?’

‘You could say that. In fact the UN personnel department did say that. Byrne, Thomas – indefinite leave on health grounds. I didn't believe in it any more, that was my illness. I couldn't do a day's work: I knew the whole thing was crap.’

‘Did they fire you?’

‘They would have. But Henning – my boss – he covered for me. Kept me on the payroll, looked out for me. I think he was worried that if they cut me loose, I might do something to myself.’

‘And would you?’

‘I thought about it.’

The silence hung in the air – until he broke it. ‘And then I decided I wouldn't be a sap any more. I'd get wise, like everyone else. Law's a racket, so you might as well enjoy the benefits. Everyone else was doing it, so why not me?’

‘What do you mean, it's a racket?’

‘Put it this way, Rebecca. You wouldn't want to meet my latest clients on a dark night.’ He tried to smile, but all that came was a wince. ‘That's the difference between me and Julian, you see. He hasn't learned the lesson yet. But I have.’

‘What's the lesson?’

‘There's not going to be a brighter tomorrow, and no one cares what happened yesterday, so you might as well live for today.’

‘No one cares what happened yesterday? You really believe that?’

‘I do now. And it seems your father did too: he looked around the world and saw that no one gave a fuck what happened to the Jews. Not really. Not enough to bring the guilty to justice. So he and his friends did it themselves.’

‘How dare you presume to know what my father felt about anything?’

‘I'm just repeating what Henry-’

‘You think I'm proud of what we found out today? You think it was OK to go around killing and killing and killing like that?’

‘They were Nazis for Christ's sake!’

‘What if they'd got it wrong, Tom? Eh? What if they'd accidentally killed the wrong man? You don't think that happened?’ She took a step towards him so that they were standing and shouting at each other, just a few inches apart.

‘I'm sure they were-’

‘And who gave them the right to do it? Who set them up as judge and jury and executioner?’

‘Oh, for God's sake. If they didn't have the right, who did? It's a bit much for us to sit here, judging the people who lived through all that. It was different for them, they-’

‘Lived through it?’ Her eyes were wild now. ‘You don't think I've lived through it? Are you kidding? I lived through every hour of that war, over and over since the day I was born. Can you imagine growing up in a house that's dark even when the sun's shining? Can you imagine growing up knee-deep in blood, surrounded by all these ghosts? Where even the biggest drama in your life is nothing compared to this great big thing, this vast shadow that hangs over everything else?’

‘I, I thought he hardly ever…’ Tom stumbled. ‘You told me your father didn't like to talk about it.’

‘He didn't. But he didn't have to. It was in every room, without him saying a word. This sorrow. Do you know what one of the ghetto fighters once said? “If you could lick my heart, it would poison you.” That's what my father was like. So don't tell me I didn't live through it, I lived through-’

And the sentence faltered, as she choked back tears. Without a conscious thought he closed the gap between them, placing his arms around her, trying to calm her with his embrace. But she would not be calmed, hammering instead at his chest, her fists two hard balls.

He could not help himself now. He lifted her chin and guided by an impulse he had held back too long, moved his lips to touch hers.

The kiss was urgent, hungry, powered by the desire that had thumped through him from the first instant he had laid eyes on her. At first she resisted, her hands clutching at his shirt, but it did not last. Her mouth was just as ravenous as his. The first touch of her tongue sent a current through him, a charge that made him harden in an instant. She could feel it as he pressed against her.

The smell of her was strong now. She pulled off his jacket and rapidly set to work on the buttons of his shirt, unpopping them one after another, then letting out a moan as she touched the warm skin of his chest. Tom placed a hand on her waist, feeling the naked flesh above her belt, when he heard it, a trilling sound that instantly sucked the oxygen from the room. Panting and breathless, she pulled away – and reached for the phone.

‘Oh, hi, Julian.’

Of course, thought Tom, suddenly aware of the blood pulsing around his entire system. Young Julian's lovelorn antennae had probably been twitching the moment they had kissed. He watched Rebecca nod and ‘uh-huh’ her way through the conversation, eventually reaching for a pad to scribble down an address. As she leaned across for a pen, her trousers separated from her top, revealing a narrow sliver of her back and the barest glimpse of the top of her underwear. He wanted her with an intensity that frightened him.

She hung up. ‘That was Julian, calling to ask how it went. He'd spoken to his father. Said he seemed “exercised” by our conversation.’

‘Exercised? Is that good or bad?’ It was a struggle to speak.

‘Julian couldn't tell.’

‘All right. Well, maybe we can go back and see him tomorrow.’

‘Julian reckoned we should try to see him tonight.’

Those antennae were obviously well honed: even from a distance, Julian Goldman was conspiring to ensure Rebecca Merton and Tom Byrne did not get any closer.

She was biting her lip.

‘What is it?’

‘He said he got the distinct impression his father wanted to tell us something. Something important.’