Fresh Flesh

by Stella Duffy

Chris glared at her.

  “OK. Don’t talk to your mother. Tell Anna you remember playing with this little boy when you were a bit older, but you can’t remember his name now. Take it to this Leyton woman and see if she knows who it is, say you can’t remember your dad’s mate’s name but wanted to get in contact now he’s died. Ask a picture researcher to help you locate your mother’s long-lost ex-boyfriend for her seventieth birthday present. Whatever, just make it up as you go along. That’s what I always do.”

  “I think you mean lie, Saz.”

  “Yes, Chris, I think I probably do.”

  SIX

  Chris and Saz left his mother’s house and travelled north against the traffic to meet up with their partners for dinner. Molly was already waiting when they arrived, her feet up on the seat opposite, one bowl of olive pips in front of her, the waiter just bringing another bowl, this time with extra bread.

  Saz kissed her girlfriend as she sat down, “Bit peckish?”

  “Bit pregnant. Any news?”

  Saz and Chris brought her up to date with the parent search and she in turn answered their pregnancy questions. Yes, she was well. Just as well as she had been that morning when she’d left for work. As well, in fact, as she had been when she’d last seen Chris at the hospital only three hours earlier. No, nothing exciting had happened in the intervening period. It still wasn’t really moving yet. Nothing that couldn’t more likely be attributed to normal digestion anyway. And finally, wasn’t there something more exciting to talk about than the fact that she was three months’ pregnant and nobody noticed anyway, certainly not the inconsiderate bastards who had no intention of giving up their seats to her on the tube?

  “Moll, that’s because you still look so tall and thin and gorgeous.”

  “That’s very sweet of you, babe, and I’m delighted to say, probably true. Now get that bloody waiter over here so we can order. If Marc insists on working late, he’s perfectly welcome to eat late too. I don’t see why we have to suffer as well.”

  By the time Marc arrived from his office, managing to look penitent, harassed and beautiful at the same time, Molly had just about finished her first course and was waiting hungrily for her main, Saz and Chris were starting on their second bottle of wine and all three were studying the photo of the christening, hoping that their own baby might look quite so angelic at the same age. Marc picked up the photo, looked at it for a moment, smiled at the sight of his boyfriend as a baby and then, in the same breath as he asked for a rare tuna steak, inquired why Gerald Freeman had been at the christening.

  Saz spluttered on her glass of wine, “Who?”

  “Gerald Freeman. Big businessman.”

  Molly shook her head and grabbed a couple of chips from Saz’s plate. “Dead businessman.”

  Saz grabbed the photo from Marc. “You know who this bloke is?”

  “Yes, Saz. As would any other person in the whole of Britain who had even a passing acquaintance with the financial life of this country.”

  “Chris didn’t recognize him either.”

  Chris smiled and poured the last of the wine for Marc, “I have a passing acquaintance with Marc. That’s plenty of intimacy with the City for me, thank you.”

  Over their third bottle of wine, Marc filled them in on details about Gerald Freeman. Eventually only Saz was left listening, Chris and Molly deep in discussion about one of their colleagues whose new orthopaedic techniques were marginally more interesting than Marc’s account of Gerald Freeman’s rise to fame and fortune.

  Finally Saz interrupted him, “Um, Marc? Freeman’s great career in plastics is all very well, but what about the kid?”

  “What about him?”

  “Maybe the kid knows something about Chris’s family.”

  “Why should he?”

  “Why shouldn’t he? I’m grasping at straws here, but it’s all we’ve got. I might as well get in touch with him if I can, see if he does remember anything.” She turned to Chris, “Your parents were white, you’re black. Even to a four-year-old, it might have seemed a bit memorable – the early ’60s were hardly a hotbed of racial integration.”

  Marc frowned, “Well, you could try. I doubt you’ll find him easy to get anything out of though.”

  “Why?”

  “God, Saz, do you really not read the Sunday newspapers?”

  “No, Marc, I really don’t read any of the rubbish they write about how well the offspring of the rich and famous are doing, thanks to Mummy and Daddy’s connections. Who did this boy grow up to be? William Hague?”

  “Patrick Sweeney.”

  “The chef? The shouting one?”

  “The very same. Bloody good cook though.”

  “Why’d he change his name?”

  “Perhaps he didn’t want anyone to think he became rich and famous by trading on Mummy and Daddy’s connections?”

  “Yes, thank you. Right, well, you boys had better get the bill for tonight then, I’ve got a feeling my next dinner out is going to be a damn sight more expensive than this.”

  Patrick Sweeney was a forty-year-old success story. Only child to Sir Gerald Freeman, wealthy industrialist of the sort often cited in Sunday supplements as the cream of the crop. Patrick’s mother had died when he was just eight years old and since then his father had groomed him to take over the family business. He bitterly disappointed the dynastically ambitious Sir Gerald, however, when at eighteen he turned his back on the planned business degree and his great expectations in plastics, and started work instead as a trainee chef in one of the capital’s tackier hotel kitchens. Patrick changed his name to avoid suggestions he was trading on his father’s fame and became a career dishwasher. Eight years later, by dint of a brilliant left hand with a pot scrubber, an enviable ability to imbibe vast quantities of hard alcohol and harder drugs to all hours and still emerge chirpy enough to fight market traders at four-thirty in the morning, he was running his own kitchen and featuring rather more often in the Sunday supplements than his own father. He cleverly eschewed the tumult of television offers coming at him from all sides until he was finally offered a vehicle with himself both as star and executive producer – and therefore holder of absolute power – and then the money really started rolling in. He bought his first restaurant at thirty-two, all with his own hard-earned cash and then, at thirty-four he finally agreed to discuss business with his father. Three months later the second generation Freeman industry was born.

  Thanks to Marc’s intervention, Saz now knew all she cared to know about Patrick Sweeney’s brilliant career. None of it, though, was likely to get her an interview with the notoriously difficult chef. From what little she knew about his personal myth, a request to help her look into a friend’s parentage, just because he happened to feature in an old photo, was likely to get her nowhere. Fast. She’d need to go to him with something juicier than that.

  It was Molly who suggested an alternative. Her appetite finally sated, she eventually came to bed after devouring half a packet of fig rolls when they got home from the restaurant.

  “You’re not going to sleep tonight, are you, babe?”

  “Not until I work out how to get to meet this Patrick, no.”

  “Are you going to ask Gary to check up on Chris?”

  “Yeah, I was going to call him in the morning.”

  “Then ask him about the Freemans too.”

  “Why?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, bribery, corruption, any of those things you’re so good at.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. I mean, come on, there must be something odd about them. Marc seems to think they’re this amazing dynasty of successes. And quite frankly, there’s nothing that makes me more suspicious than a big success. Got to be something bad in there somewhere.”

  “You, my darling, are a wicked cynic.”

  “But I’m probably right.”

  “Probably. So what do I do once I have this bribe-worthy information?”

  “Give Pa
trick a call, have a little chat, threaten to reveal his mother was once a man—”

  “Very likely.”

  “Shut up, I’m telling you how to do your job. Then Patrick says of course he remembers every detail of Chris’s christening and yes, his father did happen to leave Chris’s birth parents’ names and addresses on his death bed, you get the info and Bob’s your uncle.”

  “And Janet and John are Chris’s parents.”

  “Something like that, yes. And now that’s sorted, do you think you can relax enough to allow me to get to sleep?”

  “I’ll give it a go.”

  “Good. We mothers need our rest, you know.”

  Saz lay still, listening as Molly’s breathing slowed to sleep rate. She would call Gary in the morning, but it was more a gesture than anything else, she didn’t expect any major revelations from her friend at St Catherine’s House. She was pinning those hopes on the visit to Richard Leyton’s daughter she had planned for the afternoon. She lay in the quiet dark and tried very hard not to fidget and disturb Molly, waiting for the night’s alcohol intake to do its work and calm her racing brain enough to allow welcome sleep. Tired overtook tension at two in the morning. Four hours later she got up for her run.

  SEVEN

  Gary was Saz’s sister’s ex-boyfriend. So ex, in fact, that Cassie couldn’t remember the last time she had seen him, let alone why they had broken up, though if pushed she might have dredged up an image of someone never content with almost happy if abjectly depressed would do. A fairly unsuccessful actor for the past ten years, Gary had recently expanded his repertoire of angry young men to include a few slightly less angry older men. Not enough of an expansion though, to guarantee him any more than the maximum one episode of The Bill and two fringe plays a year. Following his last blistering Time Out review – “Perfectly adequate if you really want to go all the way to Battersea for a very dull production of one of Harvey’s early plays” – he was now back to his regular job at St Catherine’s House. Though Gary had worked on and off for years registering deaths, he also knew a little about births. That and rather a lot more about illegal data retrieval. Though not without some persuasion.

  “Saz, it would be a very bad thing for me to look up Patrick Freeman.”

  “No, it wouldn’t. It’s not really wicked. I could even do it myself, you just have faster access.”

  “And further access, you know that.”

  “I know, but I’m only asking you to check birth certificates – though of course if anything else does turn up—”

  “You’d like to know?”

  “Well, there’d be no point in you keeping it to yourself, would there? You know, his parents’ names, addresses and National Insurance numbers aren’t exactly going to be of huge interest to you.”

  “Saz, the birth certificate doesn’t necessarily tell you anything.”

  “Tells you who the parents are.”

  “Not always. If he was adopted like your friend, in that case the parents could always lie.”

  “What?”

  “The kid could be registered in London by the mother on one day, taken away and registered in Liverpool by completely different people the next.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  Saz was not impressed, she’d been hoping for something slightly more concrete, “OK, well then … I don’t know. But I guess if anyone who’s registering a birth might be lying, then it doesn’t really matter what information you get for me, does it?”

  “You’re not going to be put off, are you?”

  “Look, Gary, I’m honestly only really interested in anything you can get me on Chris, he’s my job, and I do have his permission. This Patrick Freeman idea is just a wild card.”

  Gary laughed, “Are you trying to tell me you’ve got a hunch, Saz?”

  “Fuck no, you know I’m nowhere near that clever. I just figured I might as well try to get what I can while I’ve got you on the phone. And remember, I did go all the way to Battersea to see you in that play.”

  “True. In that case I do owe you. I’ll see what I can do. Give me a call tomorrow morning and maybe I’ll have something for you.”

  “Gary, you’re an angel.”

  “No, Saz, for you, I’m a criminal.”

  “So you are. And I’m very grateful.”

  Saz hung up, delighted her wheedling skills were so successful. Now for Georgina Leyton.

  Saz only knew one solicitor personally – her pisshead friend Claire, who had become a lawyer rather more by accident than intent, and still didn’t know how to behave in front of her own mother, let alone an important client. Other than Claire though, Saz imagined all other solicitors to be anal retentive paranoids living in dark, cramped offices surrounded by boxes of mouldy files that hadn’t been touched for years, sad obsessives who’d be delighted to have the chance to rifle through their old papers for anything that might be of use, welcoming the breath of fresh air that a young, new face brought into their otherwise dusty lives.

  Not this one. Georgina Leyton worked in a mid-sky oasis of big money and fine design, on the tenth floor of a new building at the south edge of Regent’s Park. The view from the reception area was of smooth green, the hot and sticky city kept safe behind floor to ceiling windows. The office was silently air-conditioned to a temperature just below that which was comfortable on Saz’s bare arms. Clearly Georgina Leyton’s clients didn’t wander summertime London in thin T-shirts. The whole floor was taken up with just one large central reception area and six individual offices leading from it in a semi-circular, no doubt feng shui’d, arrangement. Far from dusty and dank, this particular shrine to wealth was cool, airy and calm. Although not exactly welcoming. Not without an appointment, anyway.

  The receptionist was polite enough when she walked in, but he evidently didn’t appreciate unexpected visitors arriving, messing up his perfect appointments schedule. After a whispered telephone conversation, he looked at Saz, over-arched eyebrows indicating his surprise that she’d even been let into the building, let alone that his boss had agreed to see her.

  “Ms Leyton wasn’t expecting you?”

  “No. I just popped in. Thought it might be easier this way.”

  Actually Saz had thought it might be easier to surprise Georgina Leyton, rather than call ahead and ask for the privileged information she knew wasn’t likely to be forthcoming. At least this way Georgina Leyton might have to fob her off in person as opposed to getting her receptionist to do so.

  Adam, the non-smiling receptionist, wasn’t impressed, “Yes, of course. Anyway, as this is evidently such an important issue …” He left the rest of the sentence hanging in mid-air just long enough to indicate how much she was pissing him off, and then he directed her down the short corridor to a large office on the left. It was clear Saz hadn’t made a new friend.

  The woman who greeted her at the office door was small, thin and depressingly perfect. Though an inch or two shorter than Saz, her four-inch heels and designer suit contrived to give the appearance of legs that seemed to make it all the way up to somewhere past Saz’s shoulders. Her sleek hair was cut into a classic symmetrical bob, dyed darkest blue-black, her chiselled cheek-bones and sheer brows fighting against the shining hair for supremacy in the severe-but-bloody-gorgeous stakes. Georgina Leyton was wearing a black linen suit that emphasized every fine inch of her miniature catwalk body and managed to look perfectly respectable while at the same time suggesting more than a hint of eminent shaggability. Her french-manicured nails were long and flawless, her jewellery understated but elegant, and the scent of Thierry Mugler’s “Angel” wafting from her body was still as clean, clear – and expensive – as it must have been when she put it on at seven that morning. Georgina was beautiful, relaxed and in control. Saz was not. She tried to put her innate distrust of the rich to one side, tried hard to take Georgina Leyton at face value and not judge the woman by her accent and clothes, by the ease with which she clearly inhabited h
er own wealth. But her attempts at fairness were impossible. Saz loathed the woman on sight. Not the best of attitudes with which to start a begging interview.

  And not the best of begging interviews either. Maybe Georgina Leyton really and truly did care about the binding requirements that meant her father’s papers had to remain totally confidential. Maybe it was Saz’s fault for making a snap judgement and deciding Georgina was going to be difficult the minute she set eyes on her, thereby setting herself up for a hard time. Whatever the cause, Georgina Leyton wasn’t giving anything away.

  “I’m sorry, Ms Martin, I do understand your client’s predicament, but there really isn’t anything I can do.”

  “Don’t you know anything about it?”

  “About my father’s practice when I was a newborn baby? No, Ms Martin, I don’t.”

  Saz checked her itchy slapping hand and forced a smile, “No. Sorry. I didn’t mean that, of course you wouldn’t know about Chris’s adoption. I meant, maybe you’ve looked through your father’s stuff?”

  “Not in total by any means and only where absolutely relevant to current clients.”

  “Well, couldn’t you check? Your father must have known about the adoption, there’s papers from him to Chris’s father, there must be originals, correspondence that prompted the other letters?”

  Georgina half smiled, clearly amused by Saz’s evident stupidity, “Yes, there probably are. But, you must understand, my father was in this business for almost fifty years. Even if I had the right to do so – which I don’t – it would take forever. And anyway, I simply don’t have the time. So I am sorry to disappoint you, but I really must get on.”

  Saz stopped at the door. “What if we demanded to see the papers, could we do that?”

  Georgina Leyton’s smile stayed fixed on her face, “Well, of course you could try. Anyone can attempt to get a court order to do so. It might take some time though.”

  Five minutes later, Saz was out on the muggy street again, no more informed about Chris’s parentage, but rather more certain that Georgina Leyton had something to hide.