The Good Heart Read online

  The Good Heart

  Helena Halme

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Did you enjoy The Good Heart?

  The True Heart

  Chapter One

  A FREE book!

  Also by Helena Halme

  About the Author

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  One

  Helensburgh, Scotland

  It was a cold morning, on 30th January 1985. There was no rain, and Kaisa could just about make out the faint outline of the sun in the distance, low above the Gareloch. The sight of the opaque light behind a thin layer of cloud made Kaisa feel oddly optimistic. She held on tightly to the cup of coffee she’d brewed and inhaled the familiar, comforting smell. She had decided she would drive them to the community centre on the Churchill Estate, on the other side of Helensburgh, where the court martial was to be held. It was only a quarter past eight, and Peter was already wearing his full uniform, with sword; he looked very smart.

  ‘Do you want something else before we go? More tea, or water?’ Kaisa asked. She saw Peter’s straight back through the open kitchen door. He was standing in front of the mirror in the hall, adjusting his cap. Without turning to look at her, or speaking, he shook his head.

  Peter hadn’t wanted her to come to the court. But his lawyer, Lawrence, had told them Kaisa needed to be there to show the court that they were a happy couple. Kaisa had recoiled from the phrase. She didn’t know what happiness was anymore.

  That morning she’d dressed in the black trouser suit that she kept for job interviews, with an off-white roll-neck jumper inside the jacket for warmth. Pammy, her friend on the married patch, and the only Navy wife who still talked to her, had said it was bitterly cold at the community centre, and that they might have to wait around outside for hours before the proceedings started. Kaisa didn’t ask how her friend was so knowledgeable. She wondered if the waiting around was part of the punishment, but there’d been very little information about the day; just the one letter summoning Peter to the court martial at 10 am.

  ‘You are not needed as a witness because you’re my wife; you just need to be present,’ Peter had told her. His eyes were dark, and as usual when he spoke with Kaisa these days, they displayed no emotion whatsoever.

  ‘I’m going to drive,’ Kaisa said to Peter’s back. She could see his image in the mirror, but couldn’t see his eyes under the black peak of his Navy officer’s cap. She thought how handsome he still was, even though he’d lost so much weight. The past few weeks, during the awful state of limbo before the court martial, Kaisa had often coaxed Peter to eat. He’d lost his appetite for food, and life, it seemed. She couldn’t pinpoint the time when he had changed; at first, when the consequences of all her terrible actions had played out, they’d been able to comfort each other. They were like two survivors, thrown together in a sinking ship, bailing out water, fighting together to remain afloat. But slowly, Peter had drifted away from her, into his own shell, into his own world. He’d grown quieter, and wanted to be with her less. Now when Kaisa tried to touch him, he flinched.

  Kaisa knew it was the impending court martial that was playing on Peter’s mind, so she let him be. She understood how much his career in the Navy meant to him, and hoped that when the proceedings were over they would find a way to love each other again.

  Outside, braving the strong winds whipping up the hill where the grey pebbledash houses of the married quarters stood, Peter looked thin and gaunt. When he removed first his sword and then his cap and placed them carefully on the back seat of the car, Kaisa saw the dark circles around his eyes.

  * * *

  Kaisa parked on the sloping car park, and pulled up the handbrake hard. Peter winced; he just couldn’t get used to her driving. Not looking at her, Peter got out and picked up his sword from the back seat. He fixed it onto his belt and walked across the small yard towards the entrance of Drumfork Naval Club, a low-slung, 1960s building. It was used as a social space for naval families, and as everything in Helensburgh, was run-down and grey-looking. Peter noticed the ice on the ground too late and slipped on the steps.

  ‘You OK?’ he heard Kaisa say behind him, but he didn’t have the energy to reply to her. Instead, he cursed under his breath and took a handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe the palm of his hand. There were a few spots of blood. ‘Fuck,’ he said out loud. Glancing down, he saw his uniform trousers had escaped the worst of it and still looked crisp and smart; they still had the deep creases he’d ironed into them that morning.

  Inside, it was even colder than on the windswept hill. Peter rubbed his hands together, keeping the hankie between them in an attempt to stem the blood, which was dribbling out of the fleshier part of his right palm. He nodded to the same Wren who’d shown him into Himmler’s office three weeks before. She didn’t smile as she stood up from the grey plastic chair she’d been sitting on, but her eyes had a kindness to them. Peter moved his face away from hers. During the past weeks he’d heard nothing but condolences, people saying how sorry they were. He didn’t need their sympathy – he needed this to be over and to get back to work. Even Kaisa had nothing but sorrow in her eyes and Peter couldn’t stand it. What he needed was anger; he needed people to understand how angry he was. Angry at Kaisa, angry at Duncan, angry at the Navy for posting him and his new, young, pretty wife to this God-forsaken arsehole of a place, angry at Scotland and the bloody Jocks complaining in their harsh accents, angry at the drab, ugly married quarters on the hillside, overlooking the steely cold Gareloch, angry at himself for being so stupid as to care that his wife had slept with someone else. He put his handkerchief back into his pocket and told himself to calm down.

  The door behind him opened and his lawyer, who had been to see Peter at home, shook his and Kaisa’s hand. Peter flinched; the stone steps had grazed his palm and even though the bleeding had stopped it still hurt.

  ‘You OK?’ The guy, who was probably only a few years older than Peter, asked.

  Peter looked at his hand. ‘Yeah.’

  The lawyer nodded and turned to Kaisa.

  ‘Perhaps, Mrs Williams, you’d like to go in. Sit at the front – they need to see you together.’

  Kaisa nodded and went inside.

  When they’d met previously, the lawyer had also immediately said how sorry he was about the ‘incident’ as he called it. Lawrence Currie was a lieutenant like Peter, but he’d studied law in Edinburgh and had a slight Scottish lilt when he spoke. The accent had put Peter off him at first, but he’d warmed to the man when he’d told Peter that the court martial would ‘run its course whatever you or I may think.’ He’d said that the panel would have decided what the outcome would be even before Peter stepped inside the room. ‘So the best thing is to stand there, reply to any questions as quickly and briefly as po
ssible and get out. You can then get on with the rest of your life.’

  ‘Yes and No responses are the best,’ he’d added.

  Now Lieutenant Currie motioned for Peter to go and sit at the far end of the room. Out of the earshot of the Wren, Peter supposed.

  ‘We’ve got a little time to go over everything,’ the lawyer started.

  He told Peter that he should plead guilty to assault. ‘I will then bring in the mitigating circumstances of you being back from your first patrol, the wee shite, whom you’d considered to be a friend, taking advantage of your pretty, foreign wife, and so on.’

  Peter nodded. He wasn’t looking at the lawyer, but was hanging his head. He was trying not to let the anger rise again.

  ‘Are you OK?’ the lawyer asked, again, touching Peter’s arm.

  Peter looked up. ‘I’m not pleading guilty.’

  The lawyer was silent for a moment, then sighed and said, ‘I strongly advise you to throw yourself at the mercy of the court. They will have sympathy for you.’

  Peter moved his eyes away from Lawrence.

  The lawyer sighed again. ‘Now, don’t forget they will take your sword from you. It means as an officer, you are placing your rank, status and reputation on hold for the duration of the proceedings.’

  Peter nodded. ‘When are we going in?’

  ‘Any minute now. But there’s something else I need to tell you. There will be reporters outside with cameras. One is from the local rag, Helensburgh Advertiser, but there are also the nationals: Daily Mail, the Sun and the Telegraph.’

  Peter put his head in his hands. He thought about his parents, his brother in London, and his sister. They’d all read about his stupid actions, and now they would have to explain it to their friends. Until now he’d been something of a local hero in Wiltshire; his achievements in cricket during his school years had often been written about in the Wiltshire Times, and when he passed out from Dartmouth, there’d been a long article about it in the same local paper. That was partly because Prince Andrew had graduated at the same time, so the Queen had also been there. Still, it was a picture of Peter in the freshly pressed naval officer’s uniform that had appeared inside the paper. Even when he’d married Kaisa, his mother had sent in a wedding picture of them to the paper, which had printed it with the caption ‘Local submarine officer, RN, marries a girl from Finland.’ Now they would have something far juicier to write about. Would they dig out the picture of him and Kaisa on their wedding day? Suddenly a phrase he’d often heard came to his mind: ‘There’s a touch of the pirate about every man who wears the Dolphins.’ He grinned and recalled when he had caught the Dolphins, the badge of the submarine service, between his teeth from a glass of rum. It was an old Royal Navy right of passage on qualification and proved that submariners were a bit wild. He immediately regretted such thoughts and straightened his face. Then the door opened and he was loudly called in by a Naval Provost.

  Two

  The court martial suite of the Drumfork community centre was a large room at the back of the building. There was a long table at one end, and chairs set out on each side, with a gangway left empty through the middle. Kaisa sat at the front, with her blonde head bent and her hands crossed in her lap as if in prayer. The room was full. Peter recognised Pammy and Nigel but avoided looking at the rest of the crowd. The large table had five empty chairs. Another, smaller desk was set to the side, occupied by a lieutenant, the advocate for the Crown, Lawrence said. Lawrence hurried to the empty seat next to the other lawyer and the Provost indicated for Peter to stand in front of the court. As he passed the crowd, Peter’s eyes settled briefly on Nigel, who nodded almost imperceptibly. Moving his eyes away from his friend, Peter saw a colourful round rug in one corner of the room, and on top of it an unruly pile of plastic toys. The room must be used for a play group, Peter thought, and again he felt the urge to smile. ‘For fuck’s sake, keep it together,’ he told himself, and he concentrated on setting his mouth straight.

  For a moment the room seemed to sway in front of Peter’s eyes, but he managed to steady himself by closing them for a second. A court official nodded for Peter to remove his sword. With shaking hands, he struggled to unclasp it from its scabbard. He thought he’d prepared himself for this naval tradition, but now when it came to it, his hands wouldn’t obey his commands. Eventually Peter managed to get the sword free, and he placed the gold-handled weapon on the table in front of him.

  The official, a small man with a serious expression, proceeded to tell everyone to stand. There was a hush as five men, also wearing full dress uniforms, their swords awkward in their hands, walked in and settled down in the chairs facing Peter. The Captain, the President of the Board, who wore small half-moon glasses perched at the end of his long nose, sat down in the middle, with the two commanders on either side. A lieutenant, a submariner Peter had once been introduced to, but whose name now escaped him, went to sit at the far end of the table, and a very young looking sub-lieutenant with a pink face, sat nearest to the lawyers. Neither looked at Peter.

  That Peter didn’t know any of the Board came as a great relief to him. His mouth felt dry and he swallowed hard. The men gazed gravely at him and then the President asked him how he pleaded. Peter said he was ‘Not guilty.’ He tried to make his voice as steady as possible, but there was a tremble at the last syllable. He heard whispers behind him, and avoided looking at his lawyer. Lying awake the previous night, he’d decided he just couldn’t admit to guilt. Even though he’d punched Duncan first, it was his so-called friend who had done the unthinkable. Even Himmler had said so on that awful day of the fight.

  Peter was then told to sit down. The lawyer next to Lawrence got up and told the sorry tale of Peter’s ‘assault’ on Duncan. The Naval Provost who’d been at the pool and the two lifeguards then gave their account of the fight that Peter had started. Peter zoned out, trying to keep his nerves steady.

  When the prosecution had finished the President said, ‘Over to you Lieutenant Curry.’

  Just as he’d told Peter outside, Lawrence spoke about the mitigating circumstances and how Peter ‘had been pushed to the edge.’ He paused and leaned over to his desk to pick up a piece of paper. ‘With your permission, Sir, I’d like to read out a short statement from the other party.’ There was a collective intake of breath, then a murmur from the crowd.

  ‘Silence, please,’ the Captain said, and nodding at Lawrence added, ‘Go on.’

  With a clear voice, Lawrence read out a statement from Duncan in which he said he was sorry about his indiscretion against ‘his fellow naval officer, and friend, Lieutenant Williams,’ and that he had not suffered any long-term medical consequences from the incident. He also stated that he was not planning now, nor any time in the future, to seek any kind of compensation for the actions against his person. After Lawrence had finished reading, the courtroom filled with a low chatter, causing the Captain to raise his head and give the room a stern stare. ‘Please, I must insist on silence.’

  Looking at Lawrence, he said, ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Sir,’ Lawrence replied. He sat down, giving Peter a glance and a quick nod.

  ‘The court will adjourn to consider its decision,’ the President said and everyone got to their feet.

  When Peter was called back inside, his eyes shifted to the table, where his sword had been moved so that the tip was pointing towards him. So they’d found him guilty. Peter’s feet felt heavy, as if he were in chains, while he walked slowly towards the end of the room. Would they dismiss him from his beloved Navy? He could see Kaisa was again seated at the front, with her head turned towards him, her red-rimmed eyes looking at Peter.

  The next part of the proceedings went by in a flash. Peter was told that he could continue to fulfil his duties for Her Majesty’s Submarine Service, and keep his rank, but that he’d be fined £500, to be taken from his salary in the next six months. The court was dismissed and the Board, led by the Captain, clattered out of the roo
m; Peter was handed his sword. The court official gave him a long stare as he held the weapon flat in his hands. Peter placed his sword inside the scabbard, attaching it back to the belt smoothly this time. He wanted to smile, but thought better of it. He took hold of the handle, and immediately felt himself stand taller.

  Lawrence came up to him and shook his hand. ‘You took a chance; that could have been much worse.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Peter said. He was a little curious about how the lawyer had got the statement from Duncan, but he didn’t ask. He didn’t want to know anything about that bastard ever again.

  Outside, the reporters ambushed Peter and Kaisa, as they tried to rush to their car. The flash hurt Peter’s eyes and he pulled his cap further down.

  ‘Give us a smile, Keese,’ one reporter, mispronouncing Kaisa’s name, shouted, and Peter could feel Kaisa lean closer to him. He took hold of her hand and pushed past the reporters. He saw Lawrence stay behind to answer their questions.

  In the car, Kaisa put her hand on Peter’s thigh. She didn’t say anything, just stared at the road ahead of them. He looked at her small, slender fingers, with their nails bitten to the quick. When had she started biting her nails? He realised that he felt nothing under her touch. Usually the pressure of her hand so close to his crotch would have caused an immediate reaction; but now there was nothing. She removed her hand to change gears.