Surrogate – a psychological thriller

by Tim Adler

  A small birdlike woman answered the door, and I searched for any family resemblance. She was wearing a pinny and had rubber gloves on. Clearly I had caught Mrs Givings in the middle of doing some housework. "Can I help you?" she asked. If she knew who I was, she gave no sign of it.

  "Are you Mrs Givings? I'm an investigator from the insurance company. I've got some questions to ask you," I said.

  "Insurance company? You never said you were coming. I'm afraid now isn't convenient." She was about to say goodbye when I said, "Mrs Givings, please, it won't take a minute. I tried calling you, but I must have taken the number down wrong. I've come a long way, and I don't want to go back empty-handed."

  "Do you have any identification?"

  "Of course," I said, tugging in my breast pocket for my wallet. I gave her my Berkshire RE business card, which she studied. Her face tightened, and she handed the card back.

  "You've got a bloody nerve coming here," she said, about to close the door again.

  "Please, Mrs Givings." I jammed my wet shoe in the door frame and held on to the door from the other side. This was all beginning to feel like something out of a bad detective novel. Mrs Givings gave a little O of surprise, but I had not come all this way to have the door slammed in my face. "I'm here to help you," I said. "We've decided to settle. I'm here to discuss money."

  Now I saw the resemblance. It was in the eyes. Her eyes were the same as her daughter's, and Mrs Givings was looking at me with dislike. "How much money?" she asked.

  "That's what I'm here to talk about."

  "All right, come in," she said reluctantly. "This is the first time anybody has been to see me since my husband died. All I've ever had is letters from you people. The way you've treated us, it's despicable."

  "I can only apologise for that." I coughed. "There's been a change in policy. New management. How we are treating claimants, I mean."

  We were standing in her cramped hall with its cheap overhead lampshade and anaglypta wallpaper. Everything looked finger-marked and grubby. "The sitting room's on the left," she said. It seemed as if the contents of a much larger house had been crammed inside this one. Silver photographs were crowded together on a table and, sure enough, there was Emily as a little girl about to mount a pony, and another one of Mrs Givings standing over her while she blew out candles on a birthday cake. My heart welled at the thought of my wife, and then I felt pain at how she had betrayed me.

  "I'd like to go over everything one more time," I said, bringing out the little notebook I carried for interminable work meetings. Mrs Givings had been in the middle of clearing out the fireplace.

  "You've had my letters. My solicitor has written to you, too. What else do you need to know?"

  "I just wanted to get the sequence of events clear in my head. Before I make my report."

  "What is there to say? Your company killed my husband. You and your people are responsible for my husband's death," she said simply.

  "I don't understand."

  Mrs Givings snapped off her rubber gloves. "Of course, it was our fault for letting ourselves get talked into it. Your salesman said there was hardly any risk, all we had to do was sign up and we could expect a fat cheque each year. Once we could prove we had enough cash, we would be admitted into the golden circle. Everybody was doing it, he said. Then there was the lunch in the executive boardroom, the fine wine and the silver service. God, the snobbery." She gave an unhappy bark of laughter.

  "We had our daughter in private school and the fees kept going up every year, so the thought of a little windfall dropping through the letterbox was appealing. It meant we could go on holiday or get the car serviced. We weren't being extravagant, we were just trying to give our daughter a middle-class upbringing. What's the expression? The squeezed middle. Yes, that was us. I remember Charlie asking, 'What does it mean, unlimited liability?' I think the salesman even bloody winked, as if to say, they have to put that in. There was no chance of that ever happening, he said, not once in the three-hundred-year history of Lloyd's. I felt as if I was being patted on the head. It never occurred to us that he meant the house."

  She paused for a moment before continuing.

  "Everything was fine for the first couple of years, and we spent the money on school fees and kitting Emily out for sixth form. Then the first demand arrived for ten thousand pounds, which we could meet out of capital, then twenty. Soon we had eaten through most of our savings and still you kept dunning us of money. 'Unexpected circumstances.' 'Difficult market conditions.' There was nothing left after two years. Having burned through all of our money, we thought you would leave us alone but no ... you came after the house."

  So, this was what it was all about.

  Emily's parents had been two of the small investors Dad had so disparaged, those little people who were collateral damage while he fleeced the company. These were the people who paid for his Hermes ties, Turnbull & Asser shirts and Lobb shoes. The truth was that the investor pool had grown too big. Our salesmen had become too greedy for commissions. I remembered a story Dad had told me about one of his heroes, Joseph Kennedy, father of the US President, who realised it was time to get out of the stock market when his shoe-shine boy started giving him share tips. The Wall Street crash happened shortly after.

  "Tell me, once you'd gone through your capital and sold the house, how much did you repay Berkshire RE?"

  "You must know the figures. About a million pounds. Everything we owned."

  One million pounds.

  The same amount as the ransom demand.

  Mrs Givings picked up the poker and started raddling the grate, spilling ash onto the hearth. "Charlie started having a recurring dream. He was on the upper deck of a double-decker bus with a steering wheel coming up through the floor. The bus was out of control, and he couldn't steer it." She looked at me sharply. "That tells you something about his state of mind, doesn't it? When the solicitor's letter arrived telling us we had to sell the house, that was the final straw. He felt he had failed as a father and as a provider. He nailed a belt to a door in the basement and hanged himself. It was our daughter who discovered him."

  There was a lump in my throat, and I found it difficult to swallow. I could see everything: the leather belt being nailed to the door frame, the buckled loop being slipped over Mole’s father neck, and then the pair of shoes twisting in a shaft of sunlight ... "I am so sorry," I said. "I really had no idea. You must accept my unreserved apology." We sat there in silence for a moment while I tried to think of what to say next. I still needed to find out whether she knew where Emily was, though. "Mrs Givings, I do need to know more about your daughter."

  "I don't see what she's got to do with it."

  "Please, it's important."

  "I really don't see–"

  "The payout will be more depending on the level of mental distress."

  Mrs Givings hesitated before continuing. "To be honest, I don't think she ever got over discovering her father like that. I didn't have much time for Emily with all our money troubles. I was too busy trying to keep Charlie on an even keel. He was depressed. I blame myself. I see now that my daughter needed me too."

  "And your daughter, where is she now?"

  "I don't see–"

  "Dependents ... the settlement."

  "Before we go any further, I want to hear more about this settlement. How much money are we talking about?"

  "Everything you paid out. Believe me, Mrs Givings, I'm on your side. I believe the risks never properly explained, that you never understood what you were getting into–"

  Mrs Givings considered what I had just said. "Very well, then. She works down in London. In a doctor's office, a gynaecologist. We–" she paused. "We haven't spoken for some time. We've become estranged. Something like this ... affects everybody. It's like a stone thrown into a pond. The ripples go on and on forever."

  I pulled out my phone and found a photograph of our baby daughter. "Tell me," I said, handing the phone to her. "Do you know
who this is?"

  "What's this got to do with–"

  "Please, Mrs Givings, it's important."

  Mrs Givings studied the phone for a moment. Outside the rain had turned into the third act of King Lear, hammering down on the cars parked outside.

  "I have no idea," she said with a shrug, handing the phone back.

  "She's your granddaughter."

  Mrs Givings burst out laughing, and again I recognised Emily from her laugh. They shared the same kind of laughter. "Don't be ridiculous. I'm not a grandmother."

  "And I am your son-in-law."

  When she realised I wasn’t joking, Mrs Givings sat down in one of the chintz-covered armchairs. I shifted on the sofa. "Mrs Givings, I am the chief executive of the Lloyd's syndicate you lost your savings to. I realise this has come as a complete shock. First, I am so sorry about what has happened. I can truthfully tell you I had no idea. Many others lost everything as well. As I said, I don't believe the risks were ever properly explained. But I think it goes deeper than that. I believe that you and others were the victims of fraud. I think there was enough money to cover any losses but that money was creamed off by others."

  "What do you mean? What others?"

  "I mean by the chairman of the syndicate, by my father."

  We both sat there allowing my words to sink in. "Are you telling me that you and Emily are married?" Mrs Givings said finally. "Why would she marry you? You're probably the one person she despises most in the world. You and your father. She blamed both of you for what happened to us. I remember her saying that some people could only be made to understand, to feel somebody's pain, by punishing them for what they had done."

  "She said that? She used those words?"

  "You know what, I've had enough of this. I'm going to phone her right now."

  I rose from the sofa, blocking her way. "She won't answer your call. She hasn't been taking mine. Please–" I raised both my hands. "Just listen to my story."

  I went through the whole thing, from meeting her daughter, what, a year and a half ago (it felt like a different life), to the ransom demand and becoming the prime suspect in a murder investigation. Then Emily finding out about my adultery and disappearing with our daughter before I discovered her own affair.

  "Emily and her employer planned this together right from the start, I'm sure of it. They must have roped Alice into it. Money, I guess. Something went wrong. Maybe Alice had second thoughts ... anyway, Emily panicked and fled with our baby – and a million pounds of my money."

  If I had hoped to gain my mother-in-law's sympathy, I was wrong. "It all sounds so far-fetched. False identities. Kidnappings. Ransoms. Like something you'd watch on TV."

  "What could I possibly have to gain by lying to you?"

  "I don't know. I just don't believe you."

  "Think about it, Mrs Givings. This was about revenge. Payback for what happened to your husband and her father and something for which, believe me, I am truly sorry." Perhaps this is what it had all been about, the furthest point of my journey, my coming to this sodden, dreary Welsh town, prostrating myself before my mother-in-law.

  "Surely you're not asking me to believe that my daughter is capable of something like this."

  "I'm not asking you, I'm telling you."

  She shook her head. "I really must ask you to leave."

  "Mrs Givings, you are my only hope. Please, if you know where your daughter is, if you know anything, you must tell me."

  "I told you. We haven't spoken for months. I don't know where she is. And even if I did, I wouldn't tell you. You're the last person in the world I would help."

  If she was going to push me, I was going to shove her back. Hard. "Mrs Givings, if you don't tell me where your daughter is, you will never see your granddaughter. I will make sure of it."

  "My granddaughter? I didn’t even know that Emily was married until you walked in. From everything you’ve told me, how do you know this baby is even yours? Now I want you to get out before I call the police. Get out. Get Out. GET OUT."

  Chapter Thirty Six

  On the drive back to London, I kept my eyes fixed on the rear-view mirror, scanning the traffic in front of me and behind for Forget's Range Rover. It had to have been him who ran us off the road. Once it got dark, it was one pair of dazzling lights after another. Each car looked the same, and any one of them might have been Forget. I could still feel the impact of his Range Rover ramming the taxi, the metal taste in my mouth and the upside-down, everything-falling nightmare as we plunged down the hill. Occasionally I would cringe as a similar car overtook me, relaxing my hands on the steering wheel only once it was safely past. Any of the thousands of cars on the motorway might be my nemesis. Hunting me. Wanting me dead.

  I pulled over for petrol somewhere near Birmingham, and I was so preoccupied that it was only when I had taken out my wallet to pay that I realised I had left the car unlocked. I cursed myself for my stupidity. Then it struck me that Forget could have crawled in the car while I was distracted and was there waiting for me. Yes, that was it. I would be driving along and suddenly he would loom up, pressing a knife against my throat, the blade biting into my neck. Panicked, I dumped two fifty-pound notes on the counter, telling the sales assistant to keep the change. My car seemed to emanate evil as I approached it. Yes, I could almost sense him inside, coiled, waiting to strike. Putting my face up to the glass, I made a visor with my hands. The back seats were empty, and there was nobody inside. Get a grip, I told myself. It felt like a string was being stretched tight in my head – stretched tight until it was ready to snap.

  It took a nerve-twisting five hours to drive back to London.

  Letting myself into the flat, I gently placed the nylon holdall on the ground, feeling a bit foolish for lugging a sawn-off shotgun around with me. I hadn't needed it after all.

  Dumping my keys on the hall table, I went off in search for something to eat.

  Mrs Givings might not have believed my story, but at least I now knew why my wife had set out to destroy my life. Revenge. Mole and her lover had extorted me for the same amount that Berkshire RE had dunned her parents for, almost to the penny. Except that Mole had plunged her fingers into my heart and torn out her piece of flesh along with it. Where were the two of them now, I wondered, opening the door to the fridge. It was almost empty, apart from a bag of strong-smelling salad and some cheese. Mole and Forget had probably slipped through the ports and were on their way to collect the money from Switzerland, or wherever they'd sent the cash to. I knew that it was hit-and–miss trying to stop anybody leaving the country. I could see it now, the customs officer waving the happy family through ... I tore off a lump of cheese that should have been thrown out days ago and poured myself a glass of chalky-tasting red wine.

  Christ, I felt drained. All I wanted to do was watch something stupid on television, have a bite to eat and go to bed. Yet still thoughts of Mole kept bleeding into my mind like a haemorrhage; if only I could stop obsessing about her for just one night. Carrying my glass of wine through to the sitting room, I swallowed the stale cheese and thought about seeing whether I had made it onto television yet.

  Forget was waiting for me in the dark.

  He had a baseball bat across his knees and was sitting in the gloom, which was why I had not noticed anything wrong in the first place.

  "Hello, Hugo," he said. "I let myself in."

  "How did you get in here?"

  "Your wife still has keys, remember?"

  Forget stood up and held the baseball bat loosely while he switched a table lamp on. He moved with that kind of exaggerated ease people have when they know they are the one in charge.

  I nodded to the bat. "Are you planning to kill me, just like you killed Alice and the private detective?"

  "Helen Noades' death was an accident. Do you think I enjoy going around hurting people?"

  "Oh what, the kind of accident where you accidentally bash somebody's head in with an ashtray?"

  "I'm sure
you would like to have the grand confession scene like they do in the movies, but I'm not going to do that. Helen wanted to keep your baby. That was never part of the plan. We got into a fight and she got hysterical. She attacked me. I reached for the first thing that came to hand."

  "What about the private detective? I suppose you just 'accidentally' poured petrol into his office and set it alight."

  "That was meant to scare him off. We never intended to kill him. He came to see me when he realised your wife had been my assistant. He was looking for a bribe."

  "You could have just paid him off. He wasn't fussy about who he took money from."

  I could picture it: Martin Wynn hurling himself at the door trying to get out, shouting for help until smoke overcame him, then passing out. There was no doubt in my mind that Forget had spread petrol around the office and then torched it, locking the detective inside. Forget must have lied to himself so much that he really believed what he was telling me.

  "I don't understand what you did this all for."

  Forget looked at me almost pityingly. "You really don't get it, do you? It doesn't matter what the question is, the answer is always money."

  "You have money. I've been to your house. And what about your reputation? You're never going to get away with this."

  "This isn't a children's cartoon," he said, mimicking my voice. "You're never going to get away with this. The house belongs to my wife. I have debts. Big ones. Mostly through gambling, and these are to people who don't accept IOUs or let you pay back a little at a time." He smiled ruefully. "The sickest thing is that sometimes I think I enjoyed the feeling of losing more than I did winning."

  "So what have you come for?" I asked. "I thought you would have been long gone by now."

  "I'm here to offer you a choice," he said. He pulled an amber plastic vial from his pocket and uncapped it, pouring a cairn of pills into his palm. "Sleeping pills. The poor grieving husband, distraught that his wife and child have left him, takes an overdose. Oh, and by the way, you also sign a note confessing to Helen Noades' murder. Guilt. Everybody would understand. After all, who would miss you? Your father? Emily says he despises you. A couple of headwaiters in Leadenhall Market? Take the sleeping pills, and Emily and I will bring up your daughter as if she was our own. You have my word."