by Stella Duffy
The disingenuous smile was startlingly obvious. Saz discarded the thought of bringing Lillian’s revelations into their conversation because she felt that letting Georgina understand how much she did know, even if it managed to startle her out of some of her complacency, would mean giving away too much too early. From her position of semi-ignorance, Saz needed all the leverage she could get. That Lillian and Patrick had demanded she keep their secret was also part of her reasoning – though by no means the most important. If she’d thought it might help, she would have been willing to break their trust, especially now that she felt this was as much her own case as Patrick’s. Means to a still more meaningful end.
Confronted with the deadend honesty offered her, Saz tried the second branch of her attack. She told Georgina that she’d brought Carrie with her because she believed her to be one of Leyton’s adoptees. The suggestion was greeted with complete disbelief. Georgina had glanced only briefly at the well-dressed young woman Saz had brought into the building with her. Glanced at, and then dismissed her as irrelevant when she asked Saz, and only Saz, to follow her into the office – for reasons of confidentiality, of course. Why Georgina thought Saz had brought anyone with her wasn’t clear, though she did refer to Carrie several times as Saz’s “friend”. Friend with an emphasis. Friend that suggested she’d done a little checking of her own into Saz’s life. Saz found it disquieting, but thought it best not to disabuse Georgina of her mistaken view. The longer she left Carrie alone in reception, the more likely Carrie was to make good progress. Besides that, she wanted to talk to Georgina about Carrie, not with her.
Saz knew from Molly’s information that Lees had left the institution where Patrick was born in the late ’60s when his interest in embryology and fertility issues was becoming more acceptable in mainstream medicine. She therefore assumed that his baby-selling activities had been curbed while he put his energy into the new field of research; at least he could follow this one openly and with society’s approval. If Georgina knew anything at all about her father’s involvement with Lees, she must have known that Lees’s tenure in Cornwall ended in 1968 and that his other work took up all his time from then on. Carrie was in her late twenties, though she looked a good three or four years younger. But any face-value judgement would place her as a baby of the ’70s, so much so that when Saz said they believed Carrie’s adoption had also been arranged by Leyton, Georgina expressed what Saz thought to be her first honest emotion of the afternoon. She looked – and sounded – relieved. Her shoulders, which had been tensely, if beautifully held, relaxed from the loose collar at her pretty neck, the slight frown in her otherwise clear forehead disappeared, and she blurted out what sounded almost like a real laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous, she’s far too young! My father couldn’t possibly have had anything to do with her.”
She then caught herself, though just a little too late, and quickly backtracked to explain how all her father’s clients were so old, how Daddy never dealt with younger people, the few adoptions she knew he had been involved in – which she hastened to add had all taken place with the complete knowledge and compliance of all the appropriate authorities, and not with this Doctor Lees that Saz seemed so keen to discuss – were in the ’50s and one or two in the ’60s. Way back when there were so many more babies available for adoption. Naturally, that all changed in the ’70s with widely available contraception and abortion. Saz didn’t really need the thesis-full of information about the changing face of modern society’s procreation methods, but she did enjoy watching Georgina give herself away. If Georgina’s initial statement didn’t quite rate as empirical data, Saz was happy to store it in her really-bloody-likely file. At the very least, Georgina’s revealing expression of relief confirmed Saz’s suspicions, placed her firmly in the camp of knowing a damn sight more than she admitted to. And it made Saz feel fantastic. Getting a little closer to the truth was, of course, her stated aim for being in the building. And it certainly seemed as if she was achieving that. Managing to make Georgina sweat was merely a delicious by-product. It was Saz’s turn to sweat when Georgina asked if maybe she, Georgina, shouldn’t speak to the young woman herself. While Saz knew Carrie’s ample lying skills were more than up to the task, she didn’t really want to expose her to too much of Georgina’s scrutiny. Not least because she didn’t trust Carrie to keep her temper if Georgina pushed too far. She fobbed the solicitor off with a brief explanation of what she knew would be Carrie’s terrible disappointment to hear that Leyton had not arranged her adoption, and how she thought that information would best come from her, not in the less comfortable surroundings of a strange office. If it wasn’t the ideal answer, it was at least the one Georgina accepted, no doubt she was just as eager as Saz to part company.
Saz exited the office still more certain that the woman knew about Lees’ and Leyton’s involvement – quite possibly because Saz’s first visit had prompted her to go through her father’s files. She was a little concerned that Georgina seemed to know a bit more about Saz than was ideal, though it also pleased her that she seemed to have riled Georgina enough to prompt her to make any enquiries at all. And she left the building with Carrie. Carrie left the building feeling – and looking – very smug indeed. Saz didn’t yet know what they had, but she knew from the smirk on her ex-girlfriend’s gorgeous face that whatever Carrie now knew, it had been worth going in for.
They walked into Regent’s Park, semi-naked bodies lying all around, exposing their deathly white Londoners’ skin to massive doses of welcome radiation, and Carrie explained. “I just chatted to him for a bit at first.”
“What about?”
“Switchboards.”
“What?”
“Theirs is Swedish, it’s bloody tricky. One of the most complicated actually. And they only had it installed a month ago. I’ve worked with a couple though, gave him a few tips.”
“And had him eating out of your hand? I wouldn’t have thought he was that easily pleased.”
“He’s not. The Wimbledon tickets are what really got him going.”
“What Wimbledon tickets?”
“Good question. I told him your girlfriend works for the LTA. Said we get free tickets every year.”
“And he believed you?”
“Why shouldn’t he? He works in a world where people fly off on Concorde to shop for the weekend – or that Georgina does anyway – I don’t imagine he found it too hard to believe you’d get him tickets.”
“For next week?”
“Details Saz, details.”
“Details count.”
“I told him I’d send a bike in the morning. Detailed enough for you?”
“Not bad. So what else did you get out of him other than his unfeasibly excessive love of tennis?”
“Saz, it’s not only dykes who like tennis, you know.”
“I don’t like tennis. And neither do you. And neither does Molly come to that.”
“Yeah, but I wasn’t going to contradict his view of the stereotype bollocks. Not when we were getting on so well, anyway.”
“You got all this in half an hour?”
“You were gone almost forty-five minutes and I got all that in ten of them. And it gets better. Didn’t you notice how much nicer he was when we left?”
“All I noticed was that he looked like death warmed up.”
“Yes, well, that’s because he took a little poorly while I was there. Went off to the bathroom to throw up, in fact. He must have been gone – well, all of about fifteen, twenty minutes, I reckon.”
Carrie opened her bag and, ignoring the supine sunbathers around them, started to pull things from it as Saz looked on in amazement.
“I have here the three alarm combinations necessary to get in and out of the building safely, Adam’s password into the company’s filing system, and” – Carrie flourished a healthy handful of jangling keys – “both the spare set of building keys and the spare pass key that opens all the offices on Leyton’s floor. Georgina’s offi
ce chief among them. Impressive or what?”
Saz grabbed Carrie’s arm, looked for a bench to sit on and marched her over to it. She checked briefly to make sure it was more or less clean so she didn’t ruin their good clothes and then sat down, pulling Carrie down beside her.
“Careful, this has to go back by six, don’t forget!”
“Carrie, the suit does not matter.”
“I beg to differ …”
“Shut it! OK. It’s impressive. It’s all very impressive. The suit, the hair and most of all, your incredible feat of thievery. I’m impressed. I’m stunned. I’m fucking amazed. Now keep your bloody voice down and explain just how it is you managed to pull off such an act of astonishing wickedness.”
Carrie started to speak and Saz interrupted her, “And please, tell it so I don’t have to call Claire from a police station and get her to bail us both out before she goes to bed tonight.”
Carrie grinned and leant in towards Saz, “You remember the brunette?”
“Is this relevant?”
“Very. She’s a naturopath.”
“And?”
“Well, you know how you thought Adam looked like death warmed up?”
Saz uttered a cautious, “Yes.”
“I made him sick.”
“Carrie, you make me sick half the time. What’s that got to do with the brunette?”
“In addition to being a great shag, she also knows loads about herbs. All sorts. Which ones to use for …”
“Headaches, period pains and menopause. Of course she does, you can get that from any health shop. Give me traditional drugs any day. Damn sight faster for a start.”
“Well, actually, I was thinking more of the herbs you can take for increased sexual desire.”
“I would have thought you’d be the last person who’d need help there.”
“Nah. Always ready to give anything new a try. Anyway, she also knows about emetic herbs.”
“What’s an emetic herb?”
“Makes you throw up.”
“You gave him something to make him throw up?”
“Yeah, it’s bloody lucky he’s not as dismissive of herbal stuff as you are – I offered him a nice refreshing cup of tea. He drank it down, pronounced it deeply enjoyable and ten minutes later went off to the bathroom to commune with the porcelain.”
“Carrie, that’s awful.”
“Worked though.”
“Yes, but … will he be all right?”
“He’ll be fine. If he was at a Roman orgy it would be perfectly acceptable. Eat, vomit, shag, eat, vomit, shag someone else.”
“OK. Enough. Sounds a bit bloody dodgy to me.”
“Ah yes, Saz, but hey,” Carrie tossed the keys on to Saz’s lap, “think of how much thinner and more attractive he’ll be to the other lads when he goes out tonight.”
“So he’s gay?”
“Saz, how many straight boys do you know that go clubbing on a weekday night?”
THIRTY-EIGHT
As Carrie said when they let themselves into the office, it wasn’t as if they were actually breaking and entering. They weren’t breaking anything. So it was really only half a crime. Carrie’s nonchalance hadn’t rubbed off on Saz. In fact, it was her very ease with the whole concept that unnerved Saz so much. On their way back to Georgina’s building, she made several attempts to instil some sense of danger into Carrie’s plans for the evening. To little avail.
“But there must be security cameras?”
“No video. Too expensive. Half the buildings in London just have them for show.”
“You wouldn’t think they’d scrimp on something like security when they’ve spent so much on the building itself.”
“Nah, they’ve put a lot of faith in the alarm system. It’s very flash, Adam said.”
“He was particularly free with his information.”
“I asked nicely. Like I was interested. Didn’t treat him like a bimbo receptionist – unlike some people I could mention.”
“I wasn’t rude to him!”
Carrie smiled, “No, but you probably didn’t make much of an effort. I know you when you’ve got a bee in your bonnet about something.”
“I had other things on my mind the first time I met him. And even more the second time. That bee you so glibly refer to happened to be the fact that a woman I’d spent the afternoon with had just been beaten senseless by some still-to-be-found tosser. No doubt someone intimately connected with Georgina Leyton herself.”
“You don’t know that.”
“No. But I know Georgina’s involved somehow and therefore I hardly have time to waste exchanging pleasantries with the staff.”
“Naturally. But the poor boy’s bored senseless. I think he just liked having someone to talk to.”
“You certainly found his good side.”
Carrie winked, her face a somewhat scary leer in the half light, “Trust me Saz, everyone’s got a good side – you might just have to turn them over a couple of times to find it.”
Carrie let them into the building and Saz tried very hard to persuade herself that Carrie was right about the video camera which automatically followed them as they hurried across the foyer. Once Carrie had turned off the main building alarm, they then took the stairs up to the Leyton offices as Saz had no intention of finding herself stuck in a lift should anyone suddenly decide to pop into the office at three in the morning. At least they could always run down the stairs. Again Carrie used two different keys and a password to disable the alarm and get them into the reception area; it really was a very complex system, practically failsafe – though not once she’d established it was also a system she’d worked with several times before – and stolen the keys and password. They made straight for Georgina’s office where Saz opened the filing cabinets in a far more traditional way – with an old-fashioned skeleton key. She then spent the next twenty minutes going through Georgina’s files, which was not quite as easy as she might have expected. For a woman who appeared so impeccably groomed, Georgina Leyton’s filing cabinets were in a hell of a mess. Then again, Saz’s recent presence in her life might have had something to do with the chaos – Georgina may well have been prompted to riffle through anything she had on Patrick just to make sure she knew as much as she should. As much as she needed to know to stay ahead of Saz. Carrie meanwhile attached herself to Georgina’s computer. Saz was going nowhere near it. Not while Carrie was trying several different passwords to get in. And another three. And another. Each time hoping she wasn’t about to be ejected from the system completely. She found it on the tenth try. And kicked herself for not thinking of it sooner.
“Bloody hell, Saz, you’ve really got this girl worried.”
“Why?”
“Her password is Lees.”
“Brilliant. Let’s hope she stays worried.”
“OK. Here goes.”
The two women worked on in concentrated silence and as much darkness as they could manage. The huge glass windows had no curtains or blinds and London’s lack of real night gave them a glow of dull orange to work by. Saz supplemented the street illuminations with a tiny torch and Carrie did her best to turn the monitor as far as possible from the window, shielding any extra light spill by sitting right up against the screen, eyes glued to the coloured dots as she quickly scanned through Georgina’s correspondence for the last week.
“Nothing here, if she’s been writing to anybody about your enquiries she’s been doing it by hand.”
Saz didn’t look up from the file she was going through, “Or e-mail.”
Carrie smiled, “For a girl who hates these things, you do think awfully logically sometimes. We’ll make a technophile of you yet.”
“I don’t hate them. I just don’t understand them. Doesn’t mean I don’t know they exist. I do live in the real world you know. Molly has e-mail at work.”
“Hampstead’s not the real world.”
“Carrie, shut the fuck up and get on with it. I don’t want to
be still sitting here when the cleaners come in.”
Carrie did as she was told: she followed a labyrinthine path through a technophobe’s nightmare and, barely containing her gloating pride at her own prowess, recalled all Georgina’s e-mails from the past fortnight. Messages both received and sent that Georgina believed she had safely deleted. Carrie scrolled through them, the various letters about wills and inheritance, memos regarding divorce settlements and alimony payments. A couple of personal notes to what had to be Georgina’s boyfriend – or if he wasn’t her lover, then she was talking very dirty to a complete stranger.
“God, I love the Internet, all that stuff out there and you think you’ve got rid of it, deleted, wastebasketed, whatever. But it’s really just hiding in the ether, waiting for someone to call it back into being.”
“You make it sound like magic.”
“It is. If you know how to use it. And – fuck me, but baby I do!” Carrie jumped back from the screen, light spilling into the room, “Saz! Get over here and look at this.”
“This” was a tersely worded series of e-mails between Georgina and Lees, Georgina more and more concerned, his replies calming her, insisting nothing was on record, nothing could be proved and that Georgina was over-reacting. Carrie’s initial enthusiasm was dampened a little when she realized there was nothing solidly incriminating. “Sorry, I thought I’d found something more exciting than this.”