She said to her brother, “It’s Tim and Gracie,” and she gave him the story with all its ins and outs: Niamh’s intentions, Kaveh’s responsibilities, their father’s position in the matter, Tim’s distress, Gracie’s future needs. She ended with, “We need to do something about all this, Nick. And we need to do it soon. If we wait, there’s no telling what Tim might get up to. He’s that damaged by what’s gone on.”
Her brother removed the gloves he was wearing. From a pocket, he took out a tube of thick lotion. He began to apply this to his hands. She gave idle thought to the reason for this: keeping them soft for Alatea, no doubt. Alatea was a woman for whom a man would want to have soft hands, indeed. Nicholas said, “Isn’t it Niamh’s job to handle how the children are coping and everything else along those lines?”
“Well of course it is, in the natural course of events. Mothers are the carers and their children receive the care. But Niamh’s not going the natural course, not that she ever has since Ian left her, as you very well know.” Manette watched her brother massage the lotion into his hands. For nearly two years, he’d been doing manual labour not only at the factory but also out on the pele project near Arnside, but one would never know it from looking at his fingers, his nails, and his palms. They were like a woman’s, only larger. “Someone has to step up to the mark. Believe it or not, Niamh has every intention of leaving those children with Kaveh Mehran.”
“He’s a good bloke, Kaveh. I quite like him. Don’t you?”
“It’s not about liking him. For God’s sake, Nick, he’s not even their family. Look, I’m as liberal minded as anyone and while they were living with their father, that was fine by me. Better with Ian in a household where there was love enough to go round than with Niamh breathing fire, brimstone, and revenge all over them. But it’s not working out, and Tim’s — ”
“It has to have time to work out, doesn’t it?” Nick said. “It seems to me that Ian’s not been gone long enough for anyone to decide what’s best for his children.”
“That may be the case, but in the meantime, they should be with family. If not with their mother then with one of us. Nick, I know there was no love lost between you and Ian. He was hard on you. He didn’t trust you. He discouraged Dad from trusting you as well. But one of us must provide those children with a sense of security, of familiarity and — ”
“Why not Mum and Dad, then? God knows they have enough space at Ireleth Hall.”
“I’ve spoken to Dad and got nowhere.” Manette felt a growing need to bend her brother’s will to her own. This should have been a simple matter because talking Nicholas into something had always been child’s play, which was one of the reasons his youth had been such a troubled one. Anyone could have talked him into anything. She said, “Look, I know what you’re trying to do and I admire you for it. So does Dad. So do we all. Well, except Mignon, but you’re not to take that personally since she doesn’t know anyone exists on the planet other than herself.”
He glanced her way. He gave her a smile. He knew Mignon as well as she did.
She said, “This would be another plank in the structure you’re building for yourself, Nick. If you do this — if you take the children — it makes your position stronger. It shows commitment. It shows how capable you are of taking on more responsibility. Plus, you’re closer to Margaret Fox School than Kaveh and you can take Tim there on your way to work.”
“Speaking of that,” Nicholas pointed out, “you’re closer to Margaret Fox School than I am. You’re practically in the neighbourhood. Why not you, then?”
“Nick …” Manette knew she was going to have to tell him the truth, so she made it brief. Freddie and dating and the new world of sex as soon as possible, which ended up with previously unknown women at the breakfast table. Hardly a suitable situation into which one might bring children, was it?
Nicholas had kept his eyes fastened on her face as she told him this. He said, “I’m sorry,” when she was finished, and he went on lest she think he was saying he was sorry as a way of refusing her request to take on the children. “I know what Freddie really means to you, Manette, even if you don’t,” were his words.
She looked away, blinking hard. She said, “Be that as it may… You see…”
“I’ve got to get back to work.” He put his arm round her and kissed the side of her head. He said, “Let me talk to Allie about this, okay? Something’s bothering her at the moment. I don’t know what. She hasn’t said yet, but she will. We don’t have secrets between us, so she’ll bring me into the picture in a bit. Until then, you’ll have to give me some time, okay? I’m not saying no about Tim and Gracie.”
ARNSIDE
CUMBRIA
He knew nothing about fishing, but that was hardly the point. Zed Benjamin understood that the point was not to catch fish or even hope to catch fish but rather to look like he was fishing. So he’d borrowed a rod from the tottering owner of his B amp; B, who gave him chapter and verse on her late husband and the wasted hours he’d spent with his fishing line in the waters of this lake, that stream, or whatever bay. She handed over a tackle basket, as well, along with a slicker that fit Zed’s arm but nothing else and a pair of Wellingtons that were altogether useless to him. She pressed a folding stool upon him and wished him luck. Her husband, she told him, had had virtually none. According to her, the man had caught fifteen fish in twenty-five years. He could see the record if he wanted to because she’d kept it, every time the bloody man left the house and returned empty-handed. Could be he’d been having an affair, she said, because when one really put one’s head to the matter-
Zed had thanked her hastily and had driven to Arnside, where he found, with thanks to God, that the tide was in. He’d established himself on the seawall path, just beneath Nicholas Fairclough’s house, and there he’d cast his line into the water. The line was baitless. The last thing he wanted was actually to catch a fish and have to do something with it. Like touch it.
Now that Scotland Yard knew that he was in the vicinity, he had to take care. Once they clocked him — whoever they were — his job was going to be even more difficult. He needed to know exactly who they were — assuming it was a they, because didn’t they work in teams like on the telly? — because if he could suss them out before they sussed him out, his position to strike a deal was going to be a hell of a lot stronger. For if they were here on the sly, then the last thing they would want was to have their mugs printed on the front page of The Source, alerting Nicholas Fairclough to their presence, not to mention to their intentions.
Zed had reckoned they’d turn up at Arnside House eventually. He was there to take note when that occurred.
The stool had been an excellent idea. After he took up his position along the seawall, he alternated between standing and taking a load off as the hours passed. But nothing of a suspicious nature or any nature at all happened across the lawn at Arnside House, and he was growing rather desperate to learn something — anything — useful to his story when Alatea Fairclough finally came outside.
She walked straight towards him and his thought was Bloody, bloody, double bloody hell. He was about to be discovered before he’d learned a damn thing useful, and wasn’t that just how his luck was running these days? But she stopped far short of the seawall and stood looking out at the endlessly undulating mass of the bay. Her expression was sombre. Zed reckoned she was thinking about all the people who’d met an untimely end in this area, like those poor Chinese sods — more than fifty of them — caught in the darkness in the incoming tide and phoning home like E.T., desperate for rescue that did not come. Or the bloke and his son caught by the tide and a sudden fog bank and disoriented round by foghorns that seemed to come from everywhere. Considering this, Zed reckoned the edge of Morecambe Bay was a perishing depressing place to live, and Alatea Fairclough looked about as perishing depressed as one could get.
Hell, he thought, was she considering the possibilities of offing herself out there in the treacherous waters?
He hoped not. He’d be meant to rescue her, and they’d both likely die if it came to that.
He was too far to hear its ringing, but Alatea’s mobile phone seemed to go off, because she took it from the jacket she was wearing and flipped it open. She spoke to someone. She began to pace. Ultimately, she looked at her watch, which glittered on her wrist even at this distance. She glanced round as if worried she might be observed and Zed ducked his head.
God, she was a beautiful woman, he thought. He couldn’t understand how she had ended up here, in the back of beyond, when a woman like her belonged on a catwalk or at least in a catalogue wearing skimpy knickers like those Agent Provocateur models with their sumptuous bosoms bursting out of brassieres and the brassieres always matching their knickers and the knickers themselves showing lots and lots of firm and delicious thigh so that one could so easily imagine all the delights of-
Zed brought himself up short. What the hell was going on with him? He was being completely unfair to womankind, thinking like this. He was particularly being unfair to Yaffa, who was back in London working on his behalf and helping out with the insanity of his mother and… But what was the point of thinking about Yaffa since Micah was on the back burner of her life, studying medicine in Tel Aviv like the good son of a mother, which Zed himself was not?
He bashed his forehead with the heel of his palm. He took a chance and cast a look back at Alatea Fairclough. She was heading back towards the house now, her phone call finished.
For a time, that appeared to be the highlight of Zed’s day. Wonderful, he thought. Another nought to add to the noughts of his accomplishments in Cumbria. He spent another two hours pretending to fish before he began to pack it in and consider what to do next.
Things changed, however, as he was trudging back in the direction of the Promenade and his car, which he’d left in Arnside village. He’d just reached the end of the seawall that defined the boundary of Arnside House when a car approached and made the turn into the driveway.
It was driven by a woman. She looked as if she knew where she was going. She pulled up to the front of the house and got out, and Zed crept — as well as a man six feet eight inches tall can actually creep — back the way he’d come.
Like him, she was a redhead. She was casually dressed in jeans, boots, and a thick wool sweater the colour of moss. He expected her to walk directly to the front door, some friend of Alatea’s come to call, he reckoned. But she did not do so. Instead, she began to prowl round the house like a third-rate burglar. Moreover, she took out a digital camera from her shoulder bag and started taking pictures.
Ultimately, she approached the front door and rang the bell. She waited, looking round her as if to see if anyone — like Zed himself — might be lurking in the shrubbery. While she waited, she took out her mobile and seemed to check it for text messages or something. Then the front door opened and without an exchange of more than ten words, Alatea Fairclough let her into the house.
But she sure as bloody hell did not look happy about having to do so, Zed realised. He also realised with a surge of pure joy that his wait had paid off. He had the scoop he needed. He had the sex in the story. He had the identity of the detective sent up from London from New Scotland Yard.
ARNSIDE
CUMBRIA
When Alatea answered the door, Deborah instantly read the alarm in her expression. It was out of all proportion to the appearance on her doorstep of anyone other than a surprise visitor intent upon harming her, so for a moment Deborah was taken aback. She scrambled for words and came up with, “I have a feeling Mr. Fairclough isn’t at home, but it’s not Mr. Fairclough I need anyway.”
This promptly made things worse. “What do you want?” Alatea said abruptly. She looked beyond Deborah’s shoulder as if expecting someone else to come charging round the corner of the building. “Nicky’s at work.” She glanced at her watch, an enormous gold and rhinestone affair that suited her well but would have looked ridiculous on a woman less dramatic in appearance. “He’ll be on his way to the pele project by now.”
“Not a problem,” Deborah said cheerfully. “I was taking some shots of the exterior, to give the producer an idea of setting and where he can conduct his interviews. The lawn’ll work wonderfully, especially if the tide’s in when they’re here. But there’s always a chance it’ll be pouring buckets, isn’t there? So I’m hoping to get some shots of the interior of the house as well. Would that be all right? I don’t want to trouble you. It shouldn’t take long. It’ll be very informal.”
Alatea’s throat worked with a swallow. She didn’t move from the doorway.
“A quarter of an hour, I expect.” Deborah tried to sound jolly: nothing to fear from me. “It’s the drawing room I’m interested in, actually. There’s good ambient light and some background interest as well.”
Reluctant didn’t do justice to the manner in which Alatea admitted Deborah into the house. Deborah could feel tension virtually oozing from the woman, and she was forced to wonder if Alatea had a man other than her husband inside somewhere, playing at Polonius behind a convenient arras.
They went towards the yellow drawing room, passing the main hall, whose sliding doors were closed. These revealed more impressive panelling along with windows combining translucent glass and stained glass fashioned in the shape of red tulips and green leaves. Someone, Deborah decided, could indeed have been lurking in that room, but she couldn’t imagine who it might be.
She made light chat. The house was remarkable, she told Alatea. Had it been featured in any magazines? The Arts and Crafts movement was so clean and sympathetic, wasn’t it? Was Alatea interested at all in a documentary about the restoration of this building? Had she been approached by any of the myriad television programmes that featured period homes? To all of this, Alatea’s answers were monosyllabic. Bonding with the woman was not going to be a simple matter, Deborah concluded.
In the drawing room, she switched to another topic. How did Alatea like living in England? It had to be very different from what she was used to in Argentina, Deborah expected.
Here, Alatea looked startled. “How do you know I’m from Argentina?”
“Your husband told me.” Deborah wanted to add, Why? Is there a problem with your being from Argentina? but she did not. Instead, she examined the room. The object was to get Alatea over to the bay window where the magazines were, so Deborah took a few shots of prospective areas in which interviews could occur, easing over in that direction.
When she got there, though, the first thing she saw was that Conception was gone from the fan of journals. This was going to make things tricky but not impossible. Deborah took a photo of the two chairs and the low table in front of the bay window, adjusting for the light outside so as to show both interior and exterior equally. She said as she did so, “You and I have something in common, Mrs. Fairclough.” She looked up from her camera and offered a smile.
Alatea was standing by the door as if ready to bolt. She gave a polite smile and looked supremely doubtful. If they had something in common, it was clear she hadn’t a clue what it was, aside from being women who were, at the moment, standing in the same room of her house.
Deborah said, “We’re both trying for a baby. Your husband told me. He saw I’d seen the magazine. Conception?” She added a helpful lie, “I’ve been reading it for ages. Well, for five years now. That’s how long Simon and I — that’s my husband — have been trying.”
Alatea said nothing to this, but Deborah saw her swallow as her eyes moved to the table where the magazine had lain. Deborah wondered if she’d removed it herself or if Nicholas had done so. She wondered, too, if Nicholas worried about his wife’s state of mind and state of body as Simon worried about her own.
She said, as she took another photo, “We started out au naturel, Simon and I, hoping that nature would take its course. We went from there to monitoring. Everything from my monthly cycles to my daily temperature to the phases of the moon.” She forced a chuckle. It wa
sn’t pleasant to reveal this sort of thing to anyone, but Deborah saw the importance of doing so and, even, the potential for comfort that such a revelation could bring. “Then, there were the tests,” she said, “which Simon less than adored, I can tell you. After that were the endless discussions about alternatives, visits to specialists, and talks about the other possibilities for parenthood.” She paused in her photographing to say to Alatea with a shrug, “Turns out I’ll never carry a baby to term. Something’s wrong with the way I was manufactured. We’re onto adoption now, or something else. I’d like surrogacy but Simon’s not on board.”
The Argentine woman had come into the room, closer now but still at a distance. Her colour had altered, Deborah saw, and she was clasping and unclasping her elegant hands. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears.
Deborah knew what she was looking at. She’d felt the same for years. She said quickly, “I’m terribly sorry. As I said, I saw the magazine when I was here earlier. Your husband said you and he were trying. He said you’d been married two years, and… Mrs. Fairclough, I’m very sorry. I hadn’t meant to upset you. Please. Here. Sit down.”
Alatea did sit, although not where Deborah would have wished it. She chose the inglenook of the fireplace, a padded seat just beneath a stained glass window that sent light streaming onto her crinkly hair. Deborah approached her but remained a safe distance, saying, “It’s difficult. I know. I actually lost six before I found out the truth about my body. They might be able to do something about it someday, all things about science considered. But by then I’ll probably be too old.”
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