Believing the Lie il-17

by Elizabeth George

  Who is this person? he reasonably asked. And how do you make sure of all the things you need to make sure of?

  This person is just a womb we’re hiring, was how Deborah explained it to him.

  If that’s what you think the extent of her involvement would be, Simon replied, then you’ve got your head in the clouds. We’re not hiring a vacant room in her house to store furniture, Deborah. This is a life that’s growing inside her body. You seem to think she’ll ignore that.

  There’ll be a contract, for heaven’s sake. Look here, in the magazine, there’s a story about-

  That magazine, he said, needs to go into the rubbish.

  Deborah, however, didn’t toss it away when he left the room. Instead, she phoned David and when she’d done so, she’d sat and looked at the copy of Conception that Barbara Havers had overnighted to her. She gazed at the photos of the six-time surrogate, posing with the happy families she’d helped. She reread the article. Finally, she turned to the back where the advertisements were.

  Everything related to reproduction had some sort of listing, she saw, but despite the hopeful article in the magazine itself, nothing referred to surrogacy. Phoning a legal service listed on the page told her why this was the case. Advertising oneself as a surrogate mother was illegal, she learned. The hopeful mother had to find her own surrogate. A relative is best, she was told. Have you a sister, madam? A cousin? Even mothers have carried their own grandchildren for their daughters. How old is your own mother?

  God, nothing was easy, Deborah thought. She had no sister, her mother was dead, she was an only child of only children. Simon’s sister was a possibility but she couldn’t imagine the madcap Sidney — currently in the throes of love with a mercenary soldier, for heaven’s sake — allowing her million-pound model’s body to be the launching pad for her brother’s child. There were definite limits to sororial love, and Deborah reckoned she knew what they were.

  The law was not her friend in this matter. Advertising everything else related to reproduction appeared to be entirely legal — from clinics offering money to women willing to have their eggs harvested to lesbian couples looking for sperm. There were even adverts for groups who wanted to talk donors out of donating in the first place, along with counseling services for donors, recipients, and everyone in between. There were help lines listed and assistance offered from nurses, doctors, clinics, and midwives. There were so many options heading in so many different directions that Deborah wondered someone didn’t simply advertise in Conception with the single word HELP!

  This thought finally took her to the matter of the magazine itself and how it had come to her attention: through Alatea Fairclough, who had torn out these very same pages that were now eating at Deborah’s peace of mind. With herself in turmoil over the matter, Deborah began to see more clearly how Alatea could be viewing her own situation. What if Alatea knew she couldn’t carry a baby to term? Deborah asked herself. What if she hadn’t yet shared that information with her husband? What if she — just as Deborah herself was proposing to do — was searching for a surrogate mother? Here she was in England, away from her native land, away from friends and relatives who might have volunteered for the job… Was there someone she could turn to in their stead? Was there someone she could ask to carry her petri dish child made with Nicholas Fairclough?

  Deborah thought about this. She compared Alatea to herself. She had Sidney St. James, unlikely candidate though she was. Whom did Alatea have?

  There was a possibility, she realised, one that fitted in with what had happened in the boathouse at Ireleth Hall. She needed to tell Simon about it. She needed to talk to Tommy as well.

  She left the room. Simon had been a good while gone on his walk, and she punched in his mobile number as she descended the stairs. Speaking with Tommy in the car park, he told her they were just about to-

  She told him to wait. She was coming to meet them both.

  Nicholas Fairclough was what stopped her, however. He was the last person she expected to see in the tiny lobby of the Crow and Eagle, but there he was. And he was waiting for her. He rose when he saw her and he said, “I reckoned this is where you’d be.” He spoke as if she’d been making an effort to hide herself from him, and she pointed this out.

  His reply of, “No, I get that much. The best place to hide anything is always in plain sight.”

  She frowned. He was completely altered. He was very drawn and his cherubic face had gone unshaven. He didn’t seem to have had much sleep, for there were circles under his eyes. There was also nothing friendly or affable about him.

  He made no preamble to his remarks. He said, “Look. I know who you really are. And here’s what you need to know: I didn’t touch Ian. I wouldn’t have touched Ian. The fact that my father thinks I might have done something tells you the state our family is in, but it sure as hell doesn’t tell you anything else. You” — and here he jabbed a finger at her although he didn’t touch her — “need to get the hell back to London. There’s sod-all to learn from hanging about. Your bloody investigation is over. And leave my wife alone, all right?”

  “Are you — ”

  “Stay away.” He backed off and when he was far enough, he turned on his heel and left her.

  Deborah remained. She felt her heart pounding hard in her chest and the blood started singing in her ears. There was, she knew, only one explanation when every single statement he’d made was considered. For whatever inconceivable reason, Nicholas Fairclough actually believed that she was the Scotland Yard detective come to Cumbria to look into his cousin’s death.

  There was only one way he could have reached that conclusion, and her digital camera had captured that way.

  MILNTHORPE

  CUMBRIA

  Zed Benjamin had faded out of the picture on the previous day after his brief encounter with Nicholas Fairclough in the Milnthorpe market square. Luckily, there were enough stalls in the square that he’d been able to get out of view of the cafe in which Fairclough had been meeting with the Scotland Yard woman, so after Fairclough had a few final words with her, all it took was a few more minutes of waiting before she emerged from the cafe as well. And then it was nothing to see where she was going since where she was going turned out to be the Crow and Eagle at the junction of the main road through Milnthorpe and the route to Arnside. So on this day Zed had parked himself there in the early A.M., in the vicinity of a NatWest, and he’d been skulking round the cash point for hours, eyes on the inn, waiting for the woman to emerge. This garnered him many a look of suspicion from people going in and out of the bank, and a few pointed words from other people using the cash point. He was even prodded once in the chest by an old bag telling him to “move away, laddie, or I’ll have the coppers on you… I know your kind, I do,” so he began to hope that something would happen soon on the Scotland Yard end of things or he was going to get hauled into the nick for loitering with intent.

  He’d had his morning phone call with Yaffa, and this was on his mind. She hadn’t returned his kissy noises, the reason turning out to be that his mother wasn’t in the room and a show of affection hadn’t been necessary to keep Susanna Benjamin happy. Plus, it also turned out that there were problems developing with Micah out in Tel Aviv, apparently getting a bit weary with playing Yaffa’s brother Ari. In conversation with Micah, she had said attractive in reference to Zed. It was no big thing for goodness sake, she’d told Micah, but he hadn’t been pleased. And while Zed had been dwelling on the fact that Yaffa had used the word attractive to refer to him, she’d gone on to say that there was, sadly enough, a very good chance that she was going to have to move on soon to other lodgings. Quite beside himself was how she put it in reference to Micah. She was afraid his worry over her commitment to him was going to put him off his studies. For a man in medical school, this was out of the question. But you know how it is when a man becomes uneasy about his woman, Zed.

  Actually, Zed had no idea how it was when a man became uneasy about his w
oman since he’d so far spent his adult years avoiding women altogether.

  Yaffa said that she thought she could appease her fiance for a while longer, but only for a while. Then she would either have to move on or she would have to return to Tel Aviv.

  Zed hadn’t known what to say. He was hardly in a position to beg her to stay. He wasn’t even sure why begging her to stay crossed his mind in the first place. Yet that entreaty was what was on the tip of his tongue at the end of their conversation. What was not on the tip of his tongue was have a nice trip home, then, which was something of a surprise to him.

  She’d rung off before he could say anything at all. He wanted to ring her back and tell her that he’d miss her terribly, he hadn’t intended her to think from his silence that he wouldn’t, he’d enjoyed their every conversation, in fact she was just the sort of woman… But he couldn’t go that far. Alas and alack, he thought. They’d have to be Keats and Fanny writing tortured letters to each other and there was an end to the matter.

  Zed was so consumed with his thoughts about Yaffa and Micah and the great irony of stumbling across a woman who was — let’s face it — perfect for him, only to find her engaged to another man, that when Nick Fairclough turned up at the Crow and Eagle and went inside, the importance of this didn’t register at first. He merely thought, Ah, there’s old Nick Fairclough, and he’d pulled his cap more firmly down on his head and slouched to reduce his size so as to make himself less noticeable. It was only after Fairclough’s visit to the inn was so brief and only after he strode out with a stony expression on his face that Zed realised what one and one amounted to, which was Fairclough plus the detective equals Something Worthy of Note Happening.

  Then the detective herself came out. She was on her mobile. A detective on her mobile meant that Developments were about to develop. Fairclough had left and the detective was following. Zed needed to be following as well.

  His car wasn’t far away. He’d parked on the pavement just a short distance down the Arnside Road, so he dashed for this as the red-haired woman went round the corner of the inn, where, no doubt, her own car was parked. He fired his car up and waited for her to emerge. No way was she going anywhere at this point without him on her tail.

  He counted the seconds. They turned into minutes. What was it? he wondered. Car trouble? Flat tyre? Where the hell was she…?

  Finally, a car did emerge from the car park round back of the Crow and Eagle, but this was no hire car and she wasn’t driving it. It was, instead, a sleek copper-coloured antique thing of the sort costing God only knew what, and it was driven by a bloke who looked perfectly at ease in it, not to mention well-heeled, because how else could he have afforded the thing? Another guest at the inn, Zed concluded. The bloke took off towards the north.

  About three minutes later, another car emerged and Zed put his vehicle in gear. But this one was driven by a bloke as well, a serious-looking gent with too much dark hair, and he was looking grim and rubbing his head as if he needed to get rid of a migraine.

  Then, at last, he saw the woman. But she was on foot. She wasn’t on her mobile this time, but her face was serious and determined. Zed reckoned at first she was on her way to some location nearby and the logical place was the market square, where the cafes made good meeting spots, as did the restaurants and the Chinese takeaways, if it came down to it. But instead of heading there, she went back into the Crow and Eagle.

  Zed made his decision in an instant. He switched off the car’s engine and dashed after her. He could, he reckoned, follow her forever. Or he could take the bull by the horns and do some fancy dancing with it.

  He pushed through the door of the inn.

  MILNTHORPE

  CUMBRIA

  Deborah was so angry with Simon that she was far beyond seeing red. She was seeing whatever the next colour in the outrage spectrum was supposed to be.

  Camera in hand, she’d found her husband with Tommy in the car park. It was, she believed, excellent luck that Tommy was with him. For Tommy was going to be on her side and she knew she was going to need an ally.

  She’d given them the information in brief: Nicholas Fairclough waylaying her in the inn, Nicholas Fairclough knowing Scotland Yard was looking into the death of Ian Cresswell, Nicholas Fairclough believing that she — of all people — was the Scotland Yard detective prowling round his life. She said, “There’s only one way he’d’ve reached that conclusion,” at which point she showed them the photo she’d snapped on the previous day. This was of the redheaded man speaking to Fairclough in the market square.

  She said, “Right afterwards, Nicholas wanted nothing more to do with me. We were meant to go to Barrow, but that didn’t happen. And then this morning, he was in such a state… You see what this means, don’t you?”

  Tommy looked at the picture. Simon did not. Tommy said, “It’s the reporter from The Source, Simon. Barbara described him to me. Huge, red-haired. There can’t be two blokes wandering round Cumbria fitting that description and interested in Fairclough.”

  Better and better, Deborah had thought. She’d said, “Tommy, we can use him. Something’s obviously going on with this entire lot of people and he’s onto it or he wouldn’t be up here. Let me make contact with him. He’ll think he’s got an in with the police. We can — ”

  “Deborah,” Simon had said. It was that tone, that maddening tone of she-must-be-appeased.

  Tommy had added to this, “I don’t know, Deb,” and he looked away for a moment. She couldn’t tell if he was thinking about what she said or thinking about getting out of the car park before she and Simon had the argument he would be anticipating. For Tommy knew Simon better than anyone. He knew what Deborah meant when Simon said it that way. There were reasons for Simon’s concern in some situations — all right, she could admit that — but there was no reason for his concern just now.

  She’d said, “This is being handed to us on a platter, Tommy.”

  To which Tommy had said, “Barbara told me he was up here three days in advance of Cresswell’s death, Deb. His intent has been to add some interest to a story on Nicholas Fairclough.”

  “So?”

  “Deborah, it’s obvious enough,” Simon put in. “There’s a chance that this bloke — ”

  “Oh you can’t be thinking his idea of adding interest to a story was to arrange the suspicious death of a member of his subject’s own family. That’s completely absurd.” And as both of the men started to speak at once, she said, “No. Wait. Listen to me. I’ve had a think about this and there’re things you don’t know. They have to do with Nicholas’s wife.”

  It was to her advantage that neither of the men had met Alatea. Neither had met Nicholas Fairclough either, so that was an additional advantage. Tommy said, “Barbara’s looking into Alatea Fairclough, Deb.”

  But Deborah said, “She may be doing, but she doesn’t know everything,” and she proceeded to tell them about those things that Alatea Fairclough had to hide. “There’re photographs somewhere, according to Nicholas. She was a model, but the kind of work she did is the kind she’d prefer to keep hidden. She told Nicholas about it, but no one in his family knows. He called it ‘naughty underwear’ and I think we all know what you can read for that.”

  “What, exactly?” Simon was watching her with that look of his, grave and understanding and worried.

  Stuff and bloody bother, Deborah thought. She said, “We can read for that everything from catalogue pictures of leather goodies for the sadomasochistic crowd to pornography, Simon. I think we can agree on that, can’t we?”

  “You’re right, of course,” Tommy said. “But Barbara’s on this, Deb. She’ll sort it out.”

  “But that’s not all, Tommy. That’s not everything.” Deborah knew Simon would not be pleased with her next direction, but she intended to take it anyway because it had to be explored, because it was surely connected to Ian Cresswell. “There’s surrogacy to consider.”

  Simon actually went pale at this. Deborah
realised he thought she intended to bring up this most personal of matters with Tommy standing there as an arbitrator of their disagreement and their pain. She said to her husband, “Not that. I just think it’s likely Alatea can’t carry a baby to term. Or she’s having difficulty with pregnancy. I think she’s looking for a surrogate and I think that that surrogate might well be Ian Cresswell’s wife Niamh.”

  Simon and Tommy exchanged a look. But they hadn’t seen Niamh Cresswell, so they didn’t know. She went over it with them: Nicholas Fairclough’s desire for a baby, Alatea’s possession of a magazine with all of the advertisements in the back removed, Niamh Cresswell’s appearance and the very clear indication that she’d been doing something surgically to improve it — “One doesn’t have breast enhancement on the National Health” was how Deborah put it — and the simple logic of a woman who’s lost her man and believes she has to have a replacement and wants to do something to increase her chances of finding that replacement … “Niamh has to finance all this. Carrying a baby for Alatea is the answer. It’s illegal to profit from surrogacy, but this is a family matter, and who’s going to know if money is exchanged? Nicholas and Alatea certainly aren’t going to tell a soul. So Niamh has their baby, she hands it over, they hand her the money, and it’s done.”

  Simon and Tommy greeted this with silence. Tommy looked down at his shoes. This was the moment when they were going to tell her she was off her nut — oh, how well she knew these two men in her life — so she went on. “Or perhaps, even better, Nicholas Fairclough doesn’t even know about the arrangement. Alatea’s going to fake the entire pregnancy. She’s quite tall, and there’s a very good chance she’d never show a pregnancy till very late in term. Niamh takes herself out of the picture for a few months and when she’s ready to deliver, Alatea joins her. They come up with a pretence, they — ”