The Most Difficult Thing. Charlotte Philby
after that I could not wrench them away.
He would have been six or seven, the same age as Thomas, his eyes closed as if in sleep, peering out from under a white sheet. His mother’s arms were locked around her son, her face twisted; it was the same expression I saw when I closed my eyes at night.
Here, in Harry’s flat, in this image of someone else’s child, stiff and lifeless under the sheet, I saw the tiny mound of limbs on the driveway of my parents’ home, my own mother’s heart being torn from her body.
I dropped the file as soon as I saw it, turning from Harry, my fingernails running down my arms.
‘Anna?’
‘Who is that?’
Harry’s face gave nothing away, but clearly he knew he was safe to carry on.
‘This is one of the children who died after a TradeSmart contractor was paid to dump seriously toxic waste at the edge of a playground.’
He let the words settle, waiting for me to soak them in.
‘And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. In that folder you’re holding we have transcripts from women, children who …’
He must have seen the unease that spread across my face.
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t be telling you this.’
Taking a step back, he took a final pull of his cigarette before smearing the butt across the windowsill and letting it drop from his hand.
We were silent for a few minutes. I don’t remember taking a single breath as I processed his words, leaning forward, the image of the boy’s body soldering into me, intensified by my desperation for Harry’s faith in me. Desperation not just to know, but to be the one he chose to confide in.
‘Harry, please tell me.’
I could feel the burning in my cheeks as he sat back at the other end of the sofa, cupping his face with his hands. Closing his eyes, he circled his fingers over the dark lids, tracing the grooves of his skull.
Eventually, his hands dropped away from his face and he bent his knees, lowering himself beside me. I moved closer in response, holding out my hands.
‘How can I help? Is there research, or could I …’
He shook his head.
‘Oh, come on, Harry. I could do it, you know I could. You know how committed I am, I could help …’
He looked away, clearing his throat, preparing himself.
‘Of course I know that, Anna. It’s not that I … It’s just …’
The more he resisted me, the more forcefully I pleaded with him.
‘Come on. What’s wrong with you? You have just told me this man is a child murderer, but you don’t want as much help as you can get in exposing him? I live with his son, for God’s sake, Harry. We’re sleeping together. How could you not want to use me?’
How, in uttering those words, did I not understand what was happening?
‘You would do that?’ Holding my gaze, he sniffed. ‘There are complications.’
I stayed quiet then, giving him the space he needed, the room to make the decision for himself.
‘OK.’ He had said it as if to himself. ‘You really want to know, then I’ll tell you. I don’t really know how to … So I’m just going to come out and say it. I’m not writing an article about TradeSmart.’
I stared back at him blankly.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m not writing a piece about Clive Witherall. I’m looking into him, yes, but it’s not for an article. Not for a newspaper. The truth is, I’m working for … an organisation, an agency, let’s say, to help bring down a man essentially responsible for genocide. And yes, we do need your help, desperately. I just don’t know if I can …’
He looked at me for a final time before continuing.
‘The problem is that Clive, he’s an extremely powerful man … What we really need is someone on the inside, someone who can get close to him …’
The realisation slowly dawned. Drawing a cigarette from the packet he had dropped on the sofa, I let it roll between my fingers as I listened.
‘Who is we?’
He held my gaze, unblinking.
My voice sounded more self-assured than I had expected, when I continued.
‘Harry, if you expect me to trust you it has to go both ways. You can’t ask me to be involved with something and not tell me who I’m getting involved with. You can’t think I’m that naive.’
The truth, of course, was that he hardly needed to say, and I hardly needed to push. We both knew what we were talking about. MI5, MI6 … Did it matter which? I wasn’t prepared to ask myself the right questions at the time, let alone to ask him. But the truth is, it can’t have been that easy. There must have been a moment in which I stepped back long enough to question where all this would lead, a chill grazing the bare skin of my forearms. Yet, if there was any doubt, I have pushed it so far into the recesses of my memory that I cannot get it back.
‘You wouldn’t have to report to anyone but me. You would be paid a retainer.’
He said it as an afterthought, having returned from the kitchen with a bottle of whisky and two glasses.
‘Obviously it would come from another source so it didn’t look obvious.’
Had a smile formed on my lips? Or was it something else I was feeling, a sense that I was stepping with each second that passed towards devastating self-destruction?
It was hard to say right now exactly how much money I would receive, Harry added, but enough to make my life comfortable.
‘Only this has to come from you. If you were going to get involved in this, Anna, it would have to be off your own bat. You hear me? For the right reasons – because you wanted to help.’
My expression must have sharpened, a pang of annoyance that he even needed to say this.
‘No one will think any less of you if you decide you can’t. Plenty of people know awful things are happening but choose – understandably – not to get involved. Even if they could help, they don’t. And that doesn’t mean that they’re bad people, it just means—’
‘I get it.’
He considered me for a while, as if noticing something in my face that he had not seen before. After a minute or so, he nodded.
‘If you’re serious … Either way, you need to go away and give it some thought. Let me know, when you’re ready.
‘More than anything,’ he added, drawing a line under the conversation, ‘you must know that I will always be there, if you decide to go ahead. If ever you need me.’
David had already left by the time I woke up. Drawn outside by the light spilling in through every crevice of the house, the sound of the birds perched on the feeder outside the kitchen window, I took my cup onto the patio.
Following the curve of the garden, I walked towards the ornate iron bench which stood next to the door leading out onto the Heath, settling to feel the morning sun brushing against my face, the occasional call of a dog walker, the gurgle of a toddler, rising over the wall.
This is where I was still sitting, nursing a cup of cold coffee, when David appeared through