try begging
"You must have seen my face in the newspaper, so I don't think I need an introduction."
Leon sat cross-legged at the shabby table, took out a cigar and asked.
"Nice to meet you, Charles Henderson. No, Jonathan Riddle Jr."
The moment he smiled with the corners of his eyes wide, the man who had been standing across the table and silently glaring at him clenched his fist. The woman hiding behind the man was holding a baby in her arms and shivering. The boy who looked to be about two or three years old, holding the hem of the woman's skirt, followed the soldiers searching the house with his big eyes.
A dozen men were running through a run-down workers' shed in a corner of Red Hill Farm. Outside, just as many were searching.
Actually, I wasn't trying to find that woman.
I already know that she's not here. I've been watching this place since before she disappeared.
The purpose of the search was twofold: to find anything that could lead to tracing the woman, and to put pressure on Jonathan Riddle Jr. by scaring the family.
"Black, white... ."
Just looking at the woman sobbing and pulling at her husband's sleeve, it seemed like the second goal had already been achieved.
"Oh my... Your wife seems quite surprised. I wish I had called in advance."
As Leon leaned back in his chair and muttered a sneer, Jonathan Riddle Jr. also twisted his lips.
"Slow. Two months? Grace said you'd be here in a month at the latest."
Leon's hand, which was bringing a lit cigar to his mouth, stopped.
That woman had her escape plan all set from then on.
Even before he could take a bite of the cigar, a bitter taste appeared in his mouth. Leon suppressed the bitter regret that he should have grabbed it the moment he returned to Chesterfield Station and moved his hand that had stopped. His teeth dug into the end of the cigar.
"That woman doesn't know me as well as she looks."
As if I don't know that woman.
"Campbell."
As Leon nodded, Campbell, who had been standing behind him, opened the file he had been holding in his hand and began to read.
"Leading the attack on the Oakley mail train, planting a bomb on the parade route to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the King's accession to the throne, infiltrating a military unit as a new recruit and setting it on fire, forging identity cards and official documents..."
The recitation stopped as Leon raised his left hand. He looked at Jonathan Riddle Jr.'s face, which had become more ashen than before, and furrowed the corners of his eyes.
"You don't deny it."
It couldn't be otherwise. This is all based on the testimonies of those who participated in the crime.
"This is a crime that deserves to be taken to a concentration camp right away."
The woman's hand, which was holding her husband's sleeve, trembled noticeably, and at the moment when an uncontrollable sob burst out, Leon smiled at her and added.
"Oh, my wife also participated in some of these... ."
Only then did Jonathan Riddle Jr., through gritted teeth, give the answer he wanted.
"I'll answer any questions you have, but just leave my wife and children alone."
Leon nodded to Campbell. The soldiers who had been searching the living room and kitchen immediately went out. When they tried to take the woman and children out, the man stopped them.
"Don't worry. I just want to talk quietly."
The chaotic room soon became quiet. Joe watched through the window as Martha and the children were led by soldiers to the farm owner's house, and reluctantly sat down face to face with the devil when he was urged to do so.
The devil took a cigar out of the cigar case on the table and offered it to Joe, but Joe shook his head in rejection.
After that, Winston asked if Joe knew the whole story of the purge. Joe had no way of knowing, since it was all he had heard on the radio and there had been no contact from Blanchard's people since that day. Joe's expression distorted after hearing Winston's 'kind' explanation.
"There's still work to do."
Damn it. That's what he meant.
Joe was speechless for a moment after learning of Grace's role in the 'Fall of Blackburn', but he finally came to his senses and asked.
"So, what are you curious about?"
Actually, I already knew what he was going to ask. He was going to ask me where I had hidden Grace.
But the question Winston asked was different from what he expected from the very first question.
"What did she call you?"
Joe's brow furrowed. What on earth is his intention? He glared at Winston for a moment before answering curtly.
"article."
"Yeah, Joe. Are you on good terms with your brother?"
Joe nodded without hesitation.
"Hmm... Well, I guess we're on good terms if he took money from me and gave it to me as an Easter present."
Joe's face twisted as he had received a large sum of money from Grace last Easter, but had no idea it was the author's money.
Those were the good old days when I was just chasing the maid's butt without knowing what was going on. Leon stopped the useless introduction and got to the main point.
"That woman must have come to you sometime between the night of December 23rd and the early morning of December 24th last year. What did they talk about?"
It was predicted that once the woman's brainwashing was released, she would feel a desire for revenge. However, on the day of the purge, the woman's actions showed a stronger sense of betrayal and resentment than expected.
Leon believed that the woman must have figured out something from her conversation with the author. Something he didn't know.
"Grace said she had something to ask me. Whether I was really my father's child...."
Leon, who had been silently listening to Jonathan Riddle Jr., felt uneasy. It felt like something important was missing.
"That's all."
"No, that's not all."
White smoke poured out with a sigh. Leon suppressed his anger and warned the guy who was thinking nonsense.
"You don't know who I am. I've been judging the lies of your comrades for ten years. And my experience tells me that you are lying. Don't try to fool me."
Whether or not he was the woman's blood relative, the bastard did not give in and just kept talking nonsense.
"We are not comrades anymore."
"That's right. The guys who share the same cell with you in the concentration camp probably think the same. They think you're not a comrade, they're a traitor."
Joe was shaken by the threat of being sent to a concentration camp if he didn't tell the truth. It was a place full of guys who had been captured because of Grace's betrayal. They would surely retaliate against him and his family.
Damn it. Joe kept swallowing the same words over and over again.
I should have caught it that day.
It seemed like he was going to do something. It was fortunate that he turned his arrows on the perpetrators and not himself, but he only told me the location of his base and didn't show up in person to take revenge.
Knock. Knock.
Joe's musings suddenly stopped as the tip of his index finger, with its neatly trimmed nails, began tapping the table with a steady rhythm.
He stared blankly at Winston, who was silently pressuring him to quickly reveal what he had hidden. He was perplexed. He could not understand why he had come all the way here to demand something more when he had already achieved his goal of avenging his father by clearing out his base.
"What on earth do you want to know? As for Grace's whereabouts, I don't know. I want to know that more than anyone else."
At those words, Winston's eyes turned fierce.
"I asked what we were talking about."
"Why do you need to know that? It's a private matter between us siblings. It has nothing to do with the rebels."
"I told you to stop lying."
Leon snatched the bastard by the collar as soon as he finished stubbing out his cigar on the old table.
"Ugh... ."
This damn rat. If he had been on bad terms with that woman, I would have made him open his mouth like the other rats right away. Leon grabbed the bastard by the scruff of his neck and glared at him with hazel eyes right in front of his nose.
"He told me to tell him everything he told her."
Leon let go of the stubborn man's collar and took a fresh cigar out of the case.
"I'll give you time to think about it until I finish smoking this. After that time, you and your wife will be sent to a concentration camp, and your children will be sent to an orphanage."
Jonathan Riddle Jr.'s face, visible through the haze of smoke, looked quite distressed. What on earth, why must he hide it? He agonized as if he had been asked to choose which of his wife and children to kill, and only when his cigar was no more than the length of his thumb, did he abruptly rise from his seat.
The man who had been rummaging through the kitchen cupboards placed a worn-out diary in front of Leon. As he turned the pages, a name written in cursive caught his eye.
"Ah, that's the infamous fox's diary."
Joe glared at Winston as he began to flip through his mother's diary, then roughly swiped his hand down his face.
Shit. Shit. I'm so sorry, Mom.
It was a humiliating moment for him and his deceased mother. The devil would surely enjoy looking into the shameful affairs of his mother, his enemy.
But contrary to Joe's expectations, Winston's face grew paler as the pages turned.