by Stella Duffy
“And you’ve got her phone number and address?”
“Oh yes, I’m such a star at totally illegal data retrieval. I’ll fax this lot over to you, shall I?”
“Please. Thank you. Gary, you’re brilliant.”
“Mmm – and Saz?”
“Yeah?”
“You will be careful with this, won’t you? I understand this is a big deal for your client, but it’s going to be a pretty big deal for this Lillian too. Go gently. It’s not as if you’re contacting her through one of those adoption agencies. You did say he’d heard nothing through them yet, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, those people are trained to do this kind of thing. Maybe this woman doesn’t want any contact. She hasn’t exactly made much of an effort to find him, has she? You have thought about that?”
“Gary, I can’t imagine that either Patrick or Chris have thought about anything else since they first decided to start looking. I will be careful. Promise.”
“Good. I’ll leave it with you then. Now if you need anything else, you’d better get on to me in the next fortnight.”
“You’re going on holiday?”
“Finally and permanently. I’ve got a telly job.”
“No!”
“Oh yes. Romantic lead, six-part series. Every chance it’ll go to a second. I’m playing the 1970s’ lover – excessively sexy, gorgeous, shag-fodder.”
“Bloody hell, that’s brilliant. But … Gary?”
“What?”
Saz heard the wariness in his voice. Gary had spent so long slagging off mainstream television she couldn’t believe he wasn’t getting quite a bit of flak for this decision. “Whatever happened to ‘fuck-the-system-I-believe-in-theatre-for-the-people’?”
“Yeah, well, call me a turncoat, pragmatic, Clause-4-discarding middle way Labourite … but I’ve quite got my heart set on being able to pay my mortgage right now. It’s called growing up, Saz.”
“Tell me about it.”
“But hey, I am playing a poof.”
“Oh well, that’s all right then.”
“And I’m still undermining the system by passing on illegally collected information.”
“That too.”
“And that’s enough?”
“Could be.”
“OK. And I’m playing Alan Davies’ love interest.”
“Enough said. Good work.”
Saz hung up laughing at the thought of the man who tempted her sister’s body and spirit away from Jesus to the sins of the flesh attempting to do the screen version. With a man. Two straight men. That ought to cheer up the girlie viewers across the land. It certainly counted as innovative casting.
She thought for just a moment about what to do next and then she picked up the phone to call Patrick. She reasoned that while he might well have preferred the news to be gently broken in person, he would rather know sooner than later that there was a possibility of finding his mother. She didn’t even get as far as dialling the whole number when she was interrupted by a ring on her doorbell and the appearance of two police officers who very carefully told her that Sukie Planchet had been found severely beaten in her flat. And would she mind just answering a few questions?
Sukie had been so badly injured that she was now unconscious in intensive care. And Saz was not only assumed to be the last person who had visited her – “She had your card on her, Ms Martin” – they also knew that Sukie had called her late last night. Apparently the young policewoman thought ten-thirty at night was late. Saz didn’t hold out much hope that she had a raging social life when her official duties were done. It took Saz a few minutes to work out exactly why they were asking her how she knew Sukie. But when she did, she wasn’t very impressed. “Fuck! You think I hurt her?”
The policewoman started to stutter an apology but the older policeman with her was all calm professionalism, “Not at all, Ms Martin. We’re just interested in your reasons for going to visit her. You did say she wasn’t a close friend?”
“She wasn’t a friend at all. I’d never met her before yesterday.”
“So why were you there?”
Saz gave her reasons as sparingly as possible, the briefest of resumés of Patrick’s situation and nothing at all about either Luke or the Leyton law firm. On the other hand, she gave Molly as her alibi with copious details.
The policewoman took Molly’s work number and did her best to reassure Saz, “I don’t imagine anyone thinks for a minute you had anything to do with it, Ms Martin. I can’t imagine a girl would hurt anyone like that.” Saz wondered how recently the policewoman had graduated to be quite so naive, but she smiled gratefully anyway.
Her less trusting colleague continued with the story, “The main problem at the moment, Ms Martin, is that we couldn’t find any next of kin.”
“No one?”
“No. We tried the churches – she’s clearly very religious.”
The younger woman interrupted, “You know, the flat, all those cards? But we went to the four local congregations and none of the churches knew anything about her.”
Saz concentrated her attention on the policeman, hoping that by doing so she would get them out of her place as soon as possible. “From what she told me, I didn’t get the impression that she had much faith in organized religion. I think that’s why she was so happy to have a chance to pray with me.”
Completely oblivious to the mounting irritation of her partner, the young policewoman went on, “And Miss Planchet hasn’t got a job either. Then, when we asked around, her neighbours also said they didn’t know her. Not well, anyway. And you know, all her things were in such a mess, the whole flat was totally turned upside down. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
It was only after the policewoman had started on her graphic description of Sukie’s injuries, quite possibly inflicted with the plaster angel Saz had noticed the day before, that the older policeman finally managed to shut her up and get to the actual point of their visit. “So we were hoping you might come to the hospital to identify Miss Planchet for us.”
“But you know who she is, you just said.”
“We know she was found in that flat. We can only assume she is Miss Planchet. But it’s not definite.”
“I really don’t know the woman.”
“But you’ve spoken to her. She let you into her house quite happily.”
“So this way you can kill two birds with one stone?” The minute the words were out of her mouth, Saz regretted them, “Sorry, I mean, you need me to identify her and this gives you a chance to check up on me too?”
The policeman simply smiled and offered her a lift to the hospital.
Saz sat in the back of the police car, unable to clear her mind of the picture of a pale, thin woman in a faded, pink cardigan, offering both her Bible and an outstretched hand, welcoming her in. Welcoming in whoever beat her up. The policewoman chattered throughout the journey and, while Saz was happy to pick up what information she could, she wouldn’t have wanted to be in the young woman’s shoes later, dealing with a disapproving old-school colleague.
Evidently an old man who lived in Sukie’s block had called them out at five in the morning when he took his dog for a walk and noticed her door was unlocked. The policewoman thought Sukie was lucky to have been found so soon. Saz thought the policewoman had an odd concept of what constituted good fortune. They’d checked through Sukie’s records, gone through the mess of papers scattered over her floor. Unfortunately almost all of them were God-relevant and none offered any clues as to family or friends. When they found Saz’s card in Sukie’s Bible, they decided to contact her. It had taken all of four hours to eliminate the possibility that Sukie might be identified by anyone else. Saz hardly felt that half an hour of prayer and another hour of discussion made her the ideal witness to Sukie’s life.
Saz stood beside Sukie’s bed. The policewoman wasn’t exaggerating. Sukie had been comprehensively beaten up. In the brief two minutes she was allowed at th
e bedside, Saz’s stomach churned at the thought of the extreme violence that resulted in the bruised and battered body laid out before her. And she was well aware that her reaction was only to what was obvious, to the dark-mottled and broken skin. According to the variety of drips and monitors Sukie was hooked up to, a great deal of damage had also been inflicted under the surface. As she turned away she comforted herself with the thought that the small, wiry woman had at least fought back as well as she could – the broken and bloody fingernails were a sad testament to that.
After a brief detour to the ladies’ loo to throw up – shock and a sick sense of guilt uniting against her body – she confirmed that the woman in the bed was indeed the Sukie Planchet she had met the day before. She gave the police her mobile number and, refusing their offer of a ride home, made straight for Patrick Freeman’s restaurant. Saz had no idea of what was the right order to take the new developments. She would tell Patrick about Lillian Hope, definitely sometime in the next few hours, but not until she was capable of talking rationally. Too many things were happening far too fast all of a sudden and Saz knew she wouldn’t be able to deal with the potentially good news until she’d at least attempted to make some headway with the really bad news. She also knew Sukie had been beaten up after she’d mentioned to Luke that Gerald Freeman’s ex-mistress had talked to her. While it sickened Saz to think this could have had something to do with Luke, it also seemed a little too immediate to be mere coincidence. She wasn’t ready to speak to him again yet – not until she was more certain of her suspicions anyway – but she did think it was maybe time to have another go at Georgina Leyton. This time with Patrick by her side.
TWENTY-FIVE
Saz sat hunched on the tube oblivious to the tourists and Oxford Street shoppers looking forward to another hot afternoon in the sticky capital, and then pushed her way through an irritating swathe of slow strolling lunch-timers to Patrick’s Soho workplace. Ignoring the outraged maitre de, she walked directly through the muted crowd of elegant diners into the kitchen, grabbed Patrick away from the stove, in the process ruining a perfectly good venison steak that required split-second timing. She was well aware that this intrusion risked his famed wrath but, exhibiting the potential of a much greater anger herself, she demanded he leave the twenty covers still to be dealt with, take the rest of the day off and go with her to Georgina Leyton’s office. She took a brief moment to explain who Sukie was, well aware that Patrick had specifically asked not to be told about his father’s mistress, but certain that this was one lack of delicacy he was going to have to deal with. Faced with Saz’s combination of intense fury at the ghastliness of the attack on Sukie and agreeing with her awful sense that this didn’t just seem like a random act, Patrick agreed to leave the restaurant. They would, however, have to exit by the back door; there was no way he was going to walk through his own dining room and depart in the middle of lunch when half a dozen people were waiting for the delectable scallop dish that had been excessively praised in three different reviews only the weekend before. Not while they were paying thirty quid a head for the privilege anyway.
Sukie had confirmed Patrick’s assertion that the solicitor had been a constant figure in Sir Gerald’s private and public life. She’d also implied he’d not been the nicest of people. Patrick had discovered the adoption letter from Leyton to his father, and now they’d found the other letter about Jonathan Godwin. If they’d been able to find information in the mess Patrick had made of his father’s study, then Saz simply didn’t believe that Georgina Leyton hadn’t come across anything among her own father’s things. She hoped that with Patrick Freeman beside her, she’d be able to prompt a little more cooperation from the solicitor.
Saz and Patrick made it to the Leyton offices in a record six minutes and near silence. After a whispered telephone conversation, the receptionist told them they were welcome to go through to Ms Leyton’s office. She hadn’t been expecting them, of course, and therefore they were extremely lucky to get a window in her very tight schedule, but she would naturally be delighted to see Patrick and his friend. The beautiful boy receptionist used the word friend like a weapon. This time Georgina Leyton was wearing a pale pink suit, something businesslike and yet also very sheer at the same time.
She looked at them both with a small smile, “Nice to see you again, Ms Martin. I didn’t realize you knew Patrick?”
Patrick answered her, “She’s doing some work for me.”
She welcomed Patrick with a warm and effusive hug, then offered Saz an exceedingly weak handshake. She showed them to separate seats; they went exactly where they were told with no demur. Georgina was obviously very good at directing people. She pulled Patrick over to herself, settling him into her own ergonomically perfect chair and lifted herself onto the desk in front of him. Patrick was therefore offered a gloriously clear view of Georgina’s perfect, smooth, summer-bare thighs. Saz was directed to a half-size sofa, placed in front of the desk where a client’s chair would normally have been. Even if Georgina hadn’t had her back to her, Saz would have been at a disadvantage. As it was, perched uncomfortably on what felt like a bench for penance-hungry religious ascetics, Saz was suddenly the ungainly little sister intruding on her big brother and the very experienced babysitter.
Ignoring Saz completely, Georgina then embarked on a five minute catch-up period with Patrick – introduced with a brief note to Saz that they’d known each other for years, had often met through their fathers. The conversation involved a wealth of information about how well Georgina was doing, how high she was flying and, naturally, how fantastically energetic her sex life was. Eventually she returned her ice-blue gaze to Saz who felt even more uncomfortable than she had the first time she’d tried to make headway in that office. Obviously Georgina Leyton found ill-at-ease clients a boon. “Saz, isn’t it? Unusual name. Now, what can we do for you? Of course, anything to help Patrick …” She left the sentence hanging in the air while she held his hand in hers and then kissed it, and Saz wished Patrick had been sitting beside her so he also could see Georgina’s smirk.
Saz explained that now Patrick’s father had died, he wanted to find out what he could about his birth parents. And that she also had another client in a similar situation – and the link between both her clients was Richard Leyton. Then she watched in amazement while Georgina started to cry, big fat tears rolling down her perfect cheeks. Shaking her head she took Patrick’s hand, “It’s so awful, isn’t it, darling? To lose one’s father. Of course you must be so upset. I do feel for you – and to have to add in this search as well. How can you possibly cope?”
Patrick mumbled something about getting on with it because he had to, and Saz re-routed the conversation back to the search for relevant information. But Georgina was having none of it. She shook her head and expressed the depth of her eloquent sympathies. Patrick was grateful; Saz tried to ask her about Richard Leyton’s involvement in the adoption; Georgina said how awful it must be. Every time Saz tried to ask a direct question about her father’s role in any of the adoptions, Georgina came over all moved and distressed. And for some reason Patrick said practically nothing at all, just took Georgina’s manicured hand and excessive sympathy as if her attention were the sum total of his needs and the only reason he’d popped in.
When Saz, irritated beyond belief by Georgina and infuriated by Patrick’s lack of assistance, finally asked outright if they could possibly have access to Richard Leyton’s papers, she was met with absolute incredulity that she could be so gauche as to ask Georgina to break every oath in the solicitor’s rule book. She refused to contemplate anything so far from common practice. No, she would make it her business to go through all the papers herself and pass on anything that would possibly be useful. It was the very least she could do for her old friend. Though, of course – she added, looking directly at Saz – it was unlikely there would be anything much as her father had been most particular about security.
It took a good fifteen minutes more fo
r Georgina to adequately convey the vast depth of her enormous sympathy, using each new bout of compassion to evade another question from Saz, by which time the receptionist was standing at the door, practically dragging Georgina from the room. A cab was waiting to take her to City Airport, Geneva wouldn’t wait. But it seemed Chris and Patrick would have to. Georgina hugged Patrick again, commiserated some more and would have been out the door without a further word if Saz hadn’t physically stood in her way.
“Look, Georgina, I’m sorry, but you can’t just run off like this.”
The small woman stood her ground, looked calmly at Saz with perfectly shaped pursed lips, her sympathy-eyes quite dry, “Of course not, Ms Martin.” She turned and smiled at Patrick, rubbed his shoulder with an over-fond hand that ended up on his cheek. “Of course I don’t want to just leave like this. But I do have a meeting to get to and you did arrive unannounced. Still, as I’ve already said, I promise you both, the minute I get back from Geneva I’ll make it my absolute priority to go through everything my father left behind.” She held Patrick’s hand again, “You have my utmost assurance. If, even by the slightest chance, the files I have contain anything at all about this matter, I’ll pass on the teeniest scrap of information to you.” Her cool fingers wandered back to his cheek again, “Now, I’ll be back on Monday and believe me, I’ll make it my only mission the minute I’m free.”
They followed her out to the lift. Saz got in with mounting fury that this woman, whom she assumed knew so much more than she was letting on, was able to walk away, having given them nothing at all. They both watched in silence as she climbed into her taxi, Patrick waving pleasantly as it joined the throng of traffic heading east. They turned down the street and into Regent’s Park, Saz silent as she tried to contain her day’s worth of built-up anger, Patrick walking alongside her, not quite certain what he’d just experienced, even less sure of how to talk to Saz about it. They headed for the nearest shaded bench and sat down.