by Sarah Dunant
‘As it was we were very fortunate. Or so it seemed then. Carolyn Hamilton was our first choice. She was young, healthy and intelligent. She came from a large family and was obviously fond of children, although had not thought of having a family of her own. She had lived for many years with a woman who could have none of her own so she had some understanding of the pain childlessness could cause. Also, as you no doubt know, she was at a difficult time in her own life. Her career was going badly and she was even contemplating giving it all up and trying something else, perhaps going back to college or even beginning her own business. But to do this she needed money, and, as you also know, she was very heavily in debt. Last of all there was something about her that none of us could have predicted—her extraordinary similarity to Mathilde. It seemed to us that she had been delivered by fate. Assuming, of course, that she would be willing.
‘Of course we made it as tempting, and as easy, as possible. Needless to say there was never any question of intimacy between her and me. Conception would take place by means of artificial insemination and she would be paid for each attempt, regardless or not of whether she conceived. If and when she did conceive over the course of the first few months she would be paid a sum of ten thousand pounds. Then at birth, when the baby was handed over, a further fifty thousand would be added. Yes, it was a lot of money. Deliberately so. On the other hand I don’t believe it was an easy decision. Indeed to be frank with you I still don’t quite understand why she agreed. It is, believe me, something I, we, have thought about a great deal over the last few months. Certainly she was genuinely moved by our plight, that much was clear right from the start. Also she and Mathilde liked each other, got on very well. And, of course, she needed the money. But more than that I can’t say. Mathilde herself has another theory. She believes that Carolyn felt in some way trapped, that all through her life other people had made decisions for her, and this was one chance for her to take control, do something for and by herself. How far that is true I cannot say. All I can tell you is that she did agree and almost immediately.
‘We drew up a contract. The terms were simple. Aside from the money, and of course a promise of complete secrecy, our only other stipulation was that as soon as conception had taken place she should come and live with us here so that as far as possible we could be involved in the pregnancy of what would be our child. In return she asked that we keep on her flat in London and arrange for communication between her and her guardian to take place as if she was still living there. It seemed that she was as concerned as we were to keep the matter absolutely confidential. We agreed and, as you know, her correspondence was all duly posted in London. No one knew where she was.
‘In the event conception took a little under three months. During that time she travelled to France on a number of occasions for artificial insemination. At the beginning of May pregnancy was confirmed and she came to live with us at Villemetrie.’
He paused. It had been a long speech and he seemed to have run out of saliva halfway through. I could hear a sticky dryness in his voice. She had heard it too. She looked up at him and frowned, then leant over to the table and poured him out a glass of water. He took it without acknowledging her. As he gulped it down I found myself staring at the ski runs of old flesh stretching between his chin and his neck. He seemed to have become scraggier as I watched. I had an image of an old man sitting in his glass and steel tower rotting away, his skin flaking and dropping off while a foetus ducked and swam in an ocean of fluid. Such a story. The old king and the barren young queen; a fairytale filled with the magic of gynaecological science and the goodwill of a graceful peasant girl willing to sacrifice her body in return for riches. I could almost hear Frank chortling in the background. Didn’t I tell you, Hannah, everyone has something to sell? But you know what they say about supping with the devil…All in all a Grimm fairy tale, and so weird that I could find no immediate reason for not believing it. I wondered briefly why he had decided to tell me. Certainly if I had been him I might have gambled on another lie: an informal adoption of an accidental baby would have made equal sense and, although he wasn’t to know it, might have given me equal satisfaction. Except, of course, either way we would have reached the same point. And the same question. What happened to spoil a happy business arrangement?
‘I don’t like mysteries any more than you do, Miss Wolfe. If I knew I would tell you. All I can say is that for most of the pregnancy everything went absolutely according to plan. After some initial sickness Carolyn was well and active. She lived here in the summerhouse which gave her privacy when she needed it. She walked and visited Paris and the countryside around. She and Mathilde spent a good deal of time together, involved in the process of the pregnancy, reading, talking about it. Miraculously for us, it seemed, she felt able to share it with us. In short she was in excellent spirits, content, indeed I would say almost happy with her decision. There was certainly no hint of what was to come.
‘Of course, as the pregnancy progressed and became more obvious it became advisable for her to spend more time here. At first she didn’t seem to mind. Then, towards the end of the year, something changed. Having spent long periods of time with Mathilde she now actively avoided her company and she spent more and more time on her own alone in the summerhouse. Thinking that perhaps she was becoming anxious about the birth we didn’t impose. On the contrary we let her be. Our doctor assured us it was only natural for her to feel unsure, perhaps even overwhelmed by what was happening to her. She had at times during the pregnancy suffered from intermittently high blood pressure, not enough to cause any serious worry, but enough to force her to rest. Bearing this in mind he warned us against pressurizing her. We did as he suggested and gave her more space. We spent an uncomfortable Christmas together: we preparing ourselves for the birth of our baby, she now apparently equally distressed by the prospect. Then in the middle of January she came to me and asked to be released from the contract. She said she would find a way to pay back all the money and would never divulge the identity of the father, but that she had decided that she couldn’t go through with it, it was her child and she wanted to be its mother.
‘You may or may not understand when I tell you that I refused. She was over seven months pregnant. The baby, my baby—or rather our baby as we’d come to think of it by then—was almost ready to be born. It was clear from my deteriorating health that this would be our last chance. I offered her more money. I told her I would set up a trust fund for any other children she might have in the future. That she and they would be financially secure for the rest of their lives. I even offered her visiting rights, so she could see the child at certain times every year. And when I had nothing else left to offer I threatened. The contract she had signed was legally binding. She had understood that when she signed it. If she tried to break it I would take her to court and force her to give up the baby. Of course I would never have done it. The contract would never have stood up in a court of law and the scandal would have destroyed us all. She knew that.
‘She asked me to give her a week to think about it. That was on Sunday IIth. For the next six days we waited. She said nothing. On the next Saturday morning she asked Maurice, the driver who I believe you have already met, if he could take her into town to buy a present for her guardian’s birthday. I admit I was concerned, but I felt that a refusal would be an admittance of mistrust, and would make things even worse between us. Of course he had instructions to accompany her everywhere. Which he did. Except in the changing-room of one of the big department stores. She was a long time inside. And when he made inquiries…well, there was another exit and she was no longer there. So simple. Anyway, once she had gone there was nothing we could do. Given the situation we could hardly call in the police. She knew that as well as we did. We checked the airports and the train stations, but she was nowhere to be found. We waited all afternoon, hoping against hope that she might come back. After a while we called her London apartment but there was no answer. Finally on Saturday
night Daniel flew over to try to find her. But, as you know, by the time he arrived it was already too late. Two days later we heard the news.’
He was silent for a moment. ‘Obviously what happened between Saturday morning and Saturday night we will never know. For a while I think we hung on to the hope that her death might not have been deliberate; that perhaps the emotional strain of the leaving and the physical strain of the travelling could have triggered off high blood pressure and she might have suffered some kind of fit and fallen into the water. Certainly our doctor has suggested as much. But that was before the inquest and the news of the suicide note. It must have been a sensitive coroner to find a way to soften the verdict. I suppose there may be such a thing as too much guilt, too many people let down and disappointed. I can only imagine that that, along with the pressure to repay what was a large amount of money, and the fear that I might indeed pursue her and the baby, drove her into an action of despair. A despair which, I need not add, has since become ours.’
Beside him Mathilde was sitting still as a rock. He slid a long thin hand over hers and held it tightly. She didn’t appear to register the pressure. They sat there for a while, statues of sorrow. He shook his head and sighed. ‘When we heard what had happened I had to decide whether or not to go to the English police. Obviously what had taken place here was relevant to her death. On the other hand nothing I could have told them would have brought her back. Her or the child. And, given the nature of the circumstances, even if I had managed to keep it out of the inquest it would have been bound to become public eventually. It is ironic. The French, unlike the English, are not obsessed by the sexual misdemeanours of their national figures. A mistress or two would hardly be worth the cost of the ink on the page. But illegal surrogacy leading to suicide? I have been in newspapers long enough to know it would have proved irresistible. The effects on my reputation I will leave you to imagine. But more important would have been how it would have destroyed the little time and privacy that Mathilde and I have left together. And that is something I would do anything to protect.
‘You will now understand why I chose not to tell you the truth when I first met you. This business has brought enough heartache to my family without the risk of it being made public now. I had hoped you would be satisfied with my explanation. When you turned up this afternoon with the postcards it was clear that Daniel was right and you were not. As I’m sure you know, the postcards in themselves prove nothing. And should you be contemplating taking them to the authorities I could, of course, deny all knowledge of them. I probably don’t need to add that my word against yours might be something of an unfair contest. However, it is not my intention to blackmail or threaten you. On the contrary. It is more a question of throwing myself on your mercy. The coroner’s report was accidental death. It was, in the end, I think a fair description. And one that it would be kinder to all of us, particularly the memory of Carolyn herself, to leave unchallenged. Of course I appreciate you have a job to do, and a responsibility to your client. I understand I cannot force you into secrecy. All I would ask is that, in as far as you feel it possible, you and your client respect our desire for privacy. There will be little enough of it left.’
In the silence that followed the clock ate further into his life. He sat like a corpse in his chair, his hand still clutched over hers, her eyes still on the floor. I had come here predisposed to disbelieve him. Out-manoeuvred and used, it was in the interests of my bruised pride to keep him and his sexy, slimy assistant in horns and tails. On the other hand, I’m the one who’s always telling Frank how women can sometimes get there quicker than men because they’re not humping their inflated egos around with them. Everything he had said fitted with the facts as I knew them: the timing, the money, the motivations, the states of mind. Even her volte face made its own kind of unsatisfactory sense. Pregnant women are supposed to be volatile beings. Even I knew that much. And nine months is long enough to change your mind. As the baby grew inside her, began dolphin-dipping its way around her womb, so the theoretical would have turned into the real. What had begun as any baby would have become her baby; mother and child, more binding than any legal contract. Which brought us to the very last mystery of all. Why this young woman, so apparently determined and so literally full of life, should run away from one trap only to catch herself in another, this time even more powerful and crushing. The high blood pressure story I could neither refute nor accept. A little research would sort it out, but my instinct was that if a post mortem hadn’t found it, it was unlikely. What did that leave? Another seismic emotional shift? Had that last walk been, as Belmont claimed, a series of faltering footsteps in a fog of guilt and fear? Or could it have been a push from behind as punishment for a broken contract? I admit that one got me excited. If it had been a question of adoption rather than surrogacy it might have made sense. But even without the suicide note I couldn’t make it fit. Revenge would have been an act of ultimate self-destruction. More than anything, Belmont needed her alive. She was—to use his own phrase—his last chance. Killing her was literally killing a part of himself. But discarding murder still didn’t explain suicide. From whichever angle you looked at it, it didn’t completely add up. Except in some ways that was what gave it its final credibility. Why go to the trouble of creating such an elaborate tale only to leave loose ends? Life is always messier than fiction. That’s why we need stories to tidy it up.
Of course, mythically speaking, this is the moment where the private investigator steps in with the three subtle but penetrating questions which act as the litmus paper between truth and deception. I felt suddenly homesick for store detection and Mrs Van de Bilt’s shopping sprees in duty-free ports. And good old English policemen, corrupt in the more predictable ways. I was adrift in a welter of facts. Question number one: was I really such a good private detective?
‘Madame Belmont?’ When in doubt over content go for strategy. She looked up at me. And her eyes were clear. Any pain there might have been in the story retold had passed away. ‘Do you have anything to add? Anything that might explain what happened to Carolyn after she left here.’ She shook her head. ‘You spent a lot of time with her during the pregnancy. You must have noticed the change as it was taking place. Or have some idea what could have caused it.’
She glanced away, and I noticed she was careful not to look at him. I was getting a clear message from her reticence. The story had been told for both of them. She was just here as window dressing, to be seen but not heard. Except the last time we’d met she hadn’t struck me as being the chronically shy type. After a small pause which might have passed for thought she said: ‘I’m sorry. I can’t help you any more than I have already. All I can say is that by the time she left I think she had come to see it as her child and not ours. And because of that what had once seemed possible was no longer.’
Belmont flicked a glance at her, a glance and a slight frown. Maybe it was just incomprehension. In which case that made two of us. As an explanation it was one for the birds, or the sybils. It occurred to me that Belmont might again be telling more of the truth than I wanted to believe, and that despite her perfect grooming the lady of the house might indeed have been turned doo lally by loss and the children she couldn’t have. I shuffled around for a while in the darkness. The shaft of light when it came was weak and flickering. But it was all I had. Luckily it grew stronger as I got nearer.
‘There’s only one thing I don’t understand. You said that if you adopted a child it would inevitably lead to some publicity and that was something you were eager to avoid. But when Carolyn had the baby and handed it over to you wouldn’t the same thing have occurred? I mean people would have started asking questions about the baby anyway.’
He nodded, almost as if he was pleased by the question. ‘I congratulate you, Miss Wolfe. You’re absolutely right. There is one thing I omitted to tell you. When Carolyn conceived so did Mathilde. Officially that is. Of course, there had been too many disappointments for us to risk a fu
ll public disclosure. The few—and they were very few—people that we told knew the news had to remain a closely guarded secret. We made it clear that in order to minimize the chance of miscarriage Mathilde would be constantly supervised, and stay close to home for the duration of her pregnancy. It was hardly a great sacrifice. Our marriage has always been more private than public property, and since my heart attacks I have long ceased to be of much interest to the gossip columnists. Daniel is much more profitable fodder.’
Despite myself I let that one go. ‘What about doctors? You could hardly fool them.’
‘In terms of specialists, Mathilde had been seeing an American gynaecologist. That she did or didn’t continue to consult him was nobody’s business but her own. In fact throughout the process of AID and the pregnancy Carolyn was looked after privately by my own doctor. He has cared for myself and my family for over thirty years. He treated Carolyn with exactly the same expertise and attention he would have given to my wife.’
A faithful retainer? Recently blinded or just loyal and therefore very rich? ‘So how did you explain an eight-month miscarriage? Or did you and the doctor just agree to forget the whole thing?’