The Truth

by Peter James

  Freer asked Fergus about his books, and what he was currently working on. Fergus became a little subdued. ‘It’s Steven Hawking, Brief History of Time territory,’ he explained. ‘But it goes a lot further.’

  ‘When’s it coming out?’

  Fergus shrugged. He had some rewriting to do, he told Freer, and that was a bitch.

  Freer told him about a book he had published a couple of years back on the history of exorcism in Britain, and the editor who had made him rewrite whole chunks of it. They both agreed that editors were a bitch.

  Fergus dunked a segment of digestive into his coffee, shook off the drips and ate it. ‘This bloody woman, Susan Carter,’ he said. ‘I like her, she’s bright, but sometimes she drives me nuts. She doesn’t think the general public are as smart as I do – she tries to get me to explain things in baby talk.’

  Freer smiled. ‘But you have faith in her judgement?’

  ‘Yes, I suppose – yes, of course I do.’ Fergus shrugged again. ‘I’m just pissed off, but that’s my problem.’ He pulled out his cigarettes and offered one to the priest.

  Freer shook his head. ‘I gave up – just smoke my pipe occasionally. There’s an ashtray beside you.’ He settled back in his chair while Fergus lit his cigarette, and watched him with an expectant smile. He knew that this visit was not purely social. ‘So?’ he said.

  Fergus drew deeply on the cigarette, tilted his head and blew the smoke directly up at the ceiling. ‘Nietzsche said that sometimes when you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you.’

  Freer nodded, his gentle, alert eyes fixed on Fergus.

  ‘Have you ever had a bad feeling, Euan, about something?’

  ‘Like a presentiment? A premonition?’

  ‘No, it’s more than that. I don’t know how to explain it. I suppose, I mean, OK, we both agree that the birth of Jesus it did happen in some way – although we come at it from different directions, right?’

  Euan Freer looked at him questioningly, the thread eluding him.

  ‘The Three Wise Men,’ Fergus said. ‘The Magi. They saw the bright light in the sky, right? The star? They knew the messiah had been born. Right?’

  Freer nodded, unsure where this was going.

  Fergus cut the air in front of him with his hand, smoke trailing from his cigarette like cotton thread. ‘I happen to believe the “star” was a space craft bringing Jesus from another, smarter civilisation. You happen to believe that the Virgin Birth brought him. But that doesn’t matter. This is what is important: how do you think those three wise men felt when they saw that star?’

  ‘They felt that something quite extraordinary was happening.’

  ‘And that whatever it was they sensed was a force of good?’

  Freer smiled. ‘I wasn’t there. But yes, probably, that’s one of the things they sensed.’

  ‘And now it’s the end of the millennium and a lot of people have a sense that something bad will happen. There’s been a raft of predictions about this, going back a long way.’

  The cleric poured more coffee. ‘How far do you want to go back? Nostradamus? The Bible?’

  ‘Further than that, maybe.’ Fergus stood up and walked around the room, then leant against the window-sill and peered down into the garden. A man with a ponytail was weeding a bed. ‘You must believe that I’m being serious, Euan.’

  ‘I always take you seriously, Fergus. I even defended the paper you published in Nature.’

  Fergus turned, startled. ‘You read that? It was about six years ago.’

  ‘Of course. People’s auras. You still believe that we have auras?’

  ‘It’s not a question of believing, it’s proven scientific fact.’

  ‘And you can read people’s futures in these auras?’

  ‘No, I can’t do that. It’s nothing visual, nothing physical – it’s just a sense I get.’

  ‘And how often have you had that sense?’

  ‘Half a dozen times in my life. The first was before my mother died – that was clear, I kept seeing the car accident in my dreams, and I saw the aura of death around her, and it happened exactly as I saw it.’

  ‘And now you’ve had it again?’

  Fergus sat down, crushed out his cigarette and told him exactly what he had sensed, and what he felt it meant. Freer listened in silence, without interrupting. When he had finished, Fergus could not tell from his friend’s expression whether the priest believed him or not.

  ‘Tell me, Fergus,’ Freer asked, ‘these feelings you get – how many have been accurate?’

  ‘All of them.’

  For what seemed a long time Freer reflected on this. Then he asked, ‘Do you want to tell this woman?’

  ‘I don’t have an image. I don’t have anything to tell her.’

  ‘Shall we pray for her?’

  Fergus had rejected prayer years ago. And yet now, here with Canon Euan Freer, it seemed the right thing to do.

  They knelt and said the Lord’s Prayer aloud together. Then Freer said, ‘Lord, protect this woman.’

  And Fergus mouthed silently into his cupped hands: ‘Susan, whatever it is you are about to do, don’t do it. Please don’t do it.’

  Chapter Fifteen

  The three-pointed star on the radiator of Mr Sarotzini’s elderly black Mercedes Pullman floated with the eerie grace of a gun-sight tracking a target, as the chauffeur robotically helmed the limousine through the London traffic.

  John, tense and anxious, watched the view through the smoked glass of the windscreen. Thirty years ago, this was the kind of vehicle the dictator of an emerging Third World nation might have bought to demonstrate his status. Now, mellowed by age, it had an imposing, rather noble presence.

  The star hovered on a taxi, then on a cyclist in a smog mask, then on a traffic light. A smartly dressed woman crossed the road, a scarf flapping from her shoulders. It was a dry morning but heavily overcast, the darkened glass making it seem even more so, and it had turned cold. With the air-conditioning set uncomfortably low, it felt wintry in the car.

  Mr Sarotzini seemed a different man altogether from the person John had sat with at dinner. He had the same distinguished appearance and natural air of superiority, and he was again immaculately dressed – today in a finely tailored grey worsted suit, yellow Hermès tie, and a complementing yellow handkerchief protruding with flourish from his breast pocket. It was his expression that had changed.

  At dinner he had exuded all the charm of a bon viveur, a relaxed man with barely a care in the world. Today he was hard, remote, chillingly serious. The warmth that John recalled, and the sparkling humour, was gone, and John’s attempts to break the ice had so far failed. He tried again now.

  ‘Those two tips you gave me,’ he said. ‘I really am impressed.’

  Mr Sarotzini stared out of his side window, as he had for most of the journey, his long, elegant fingers calmly entwined in his lap. Even his voice seemed different today. At dinner his accent had carried a charismatic trace of Italian but that had been replaced with an equally cultured but harsher, guttural Germanic undertow. ‘Horse racing is the sport of kings and fools, Mr Carter. If someone gives you a tip and it wins, you should put it down to coincidence or corruption, no more or less.’

  John looked at him, unsure from his tone which of the two applied in this case. Both of Mr Sarotzini’s tips at Ascot yesterday had won, the first at 20 to 1, the second at 15 to 1. John had bet two hundred pounds on each, plus a further fifty pounds on a forecast, and had come away with a twelve-thousand-pound profit.

  Yet instead of being thrilled, as Susan had been – she was treating it as a great omen – he was kicking himself for not having backed the horses harder. If he had been bolder (and if he’d had the money available, which he didn’t), he could have solved all his financial problems on just those two tips. Except, of course, he couldn’t have taken a risk big enough for that.

  ‘On your balance sheet, you show a capital loss of £48,751 carried forward two y
ears. Can you explain this to me?’ Mr Sarotzini asked.

  ‘Yes, of course, it’s …’ John had to rack his brains. ‘It’s the way we treated the depreciation on some computer graphic equipment we bought from a bankrupt firm. We acquired shares in the company at the same time to give us a loss we could carry forward.’

  ‘And in last year’s accounts there was a note from the auditor about a payment of £35,687 into an account at the Credit Suisse bank in Zürich. I did not understand what that was in respect of.’

  This was a little embarrassing for John, although he felt that, as a Swiss banker himself, Mr Sarotzini would understand. ‘That was part of our arrangement with the gynaecologist Harvey Addison. He’s very important to us – he hosts our most successful online show. But the deal is that we have to lose – hide – part of his salary overseas.’

  John was increasingly surprised at the extent of the detail Mr Sarotzini had remembered. The banker had no notes and he had spent less than half an hour in John’s office, scanning the figures that had been prepared for him, yet everything now seemed to be stored in his head.

  ‘This composer,’ Mr Sarotzini said. ‘Zak Danziger. Do you think a quick settlement is possible?’

  John considered his reply carefully, and decided it was wisest to be truthful. ‘No, I don’t think so. At least, he might settle but not cheaply.’

  He had been concentrating so hard on the questions that he had not noticed the car pull up. They got out and entered a club in Mayfair that had about it an air of discretion. The Georgian building, off Curzon Street, had a certain grandeur, but the exterior was in need of a fresh coat of paint. There was no doorman, and no name, simply an entry bell and the number 3 on the door.

  Inside, it became evident, from the reverential manner in which he was treated, that Mr Sarotzini was well known here, and he warmly greeted each member of staff by name. They passed a porter’s desk and entered a large, panelled hall hung with portraits and a row of green baize notice boards.

  The staff were elderly, but all were unctuously polite to John, treating him, as he imagined they treated all visitors, as if he were the most important guest ever to have entered these portals. Yet from the silence that fell as he followed Mr Sarotzini through a doorway and across another hall, he had the impression that he was being studied and assessed by them all.

  The dining room was decorated in Baroque grandeur, with gilded columns and crystal chandeliers, yet it was not so large that it lacked intimacy. Like everything else about this club, the room seemed a little tired. The stuccoed ceiling was stained an uneven ochre from years of rising nicotine, the green velvet curtains had faded badly, and the nap had worn thin on the carpet. Even the handful of other diners, all elderly men dressed in dark suits, looked a little faded.

  John was glad that he had dressed conservatively, in a navy suit, white shirt and a striped golf-club tie that might have passed for an old-school tie.

  He was given a menu, but Mr Sarotzini was not. ‘I always have the same,’ the banker said, sitting with a ramrod straight back. ‘But please help yourself, enjoy. The food here is really quite pleasant.’

  John ordered smoked salmon and Dover sole. The salmon arrived almost immediately, along with a plate of quails’ eggs for Mr Sarotzini. Mineral water and white Graves were poured. John raised his wine glass.

  ‘Cheers, your health.’

  Mr Sarotzini smiled politely but did not respond, and John put down his glass. He said, awkwardly, ‘This is very nice, this club. Beautiful building.’

  Mr Sarotzini opened his hands expansively. ‘I find it convenient.’

  ‘What’s it called?’

  ‘The name is private, known only to members. This is one of the rules.’ Mr Sarotzini smiled again, but his expression seemed to John to have turned a little frosty.

  ‘How does one become a member?’

  Mr Sarotzini carefully poured a small mound of salt at the edge of his plate. ‘You have an enquiring mind, Mr Carter. Please, time is short today, permit me to ask the questions. I must make a report about your business this afternoon if we are to have a chance of helping you by your deadline.’

  ‘Of course.’

  John squeezed lemon onto his salmon, and his eye caught an oil painting on the wall depicting a group of cherubs picnicking beneath a viaduct. There was something carefree about it, in contrast to the atmosphere in this room, and John fleetingly found himself envying those anonymous characters their simple pleasure.

  Mr Sarotzini cracked a quail’s egg on his plate, shelled it, then dipped it into the salt. ‘Tell me, what are your religious convictions, Mr Carter?’

  John, an atheist, took a moment to think before answering, wondering if he was stepping into a minefield. Was this another Clake? Was Mr Sarotzini a deeply religious man? ‘I – I have an open mind,’ he said finally.

  ‘How open?’

  Mr Sarotzini’s eyes were fixed on his now: it was as if the banker could see into his mind, and that the truth was the only option.

  ‘I suppose I tend to look towards science for explanations, rather than religion, mysticism or the paranormal.’

  ‘And your wife?’

  ‘She’s a believer – a committed Christian.’

  ‘How committed?’

  ‘She goes to church. She used to go every week, but now only occasionally.’

  ‘And does this difference in your beliefs affect your marriage, Mr Carter?’

  ‘No, it’s not an issue. I guess we agreed to differ a long time back, and we hardly ever talk about it.’

  ‘Of course. Forgive me for being so personal.’

  They ate in silence. John waited for Mr Sarotzini to continue, but with deep concentration the banker began to shell another egg. John wondered if he had disappointed him, and whether he should say something to retrieve the situation. But then Mr Sarotzini said, ‘Forgive me again for being so personal, but has religion ever entered your reasoning for not having children?’

  John sensed that Mr Sarotzini was deliberately trying to avoid the subject of business, but he was anxious to get back to it. There were some big deals in the pipeline that he wanted the banker to know about, and he needed time to explain these in detail as they would significantly affect DigiTrak’s profits over the next couple of years and make the figures look much better.

  ‘No, that’s not an issue. Susan’s pretty relaxed about religion. We’re godparents to a small boy, and I’m happy about that. It’s no big thing in our lives.’

  ‘But your decision not to have children, Mr Carter, that is a big thing?’

  John tried to side-step the question, but Mr Sarotzini would not let him, and John found himself getting into the full story of why he and Susan had decided not to have children. He was nearing the end of his Dover sole before he had finished.

  Mr Sarotzini, eating his boiled fish with slow deliberation, commented, ‘So it is your family upbringing that is responsible?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You had no stability. Your father drank, he drove a taxicab, he cut hair, he bought a corner store and lost his savings. He became a salesman, then he dropped out and became a shepherd on a remote Scottish island. Finally he returned home, bitter and angry, and blamed your birth for destroying his freedom and his marriage.’

  John felt a lump in his throat. It still hurt. Over the years he had tried to bury it, to confront it, and once he had even tried therapy, but nothing had worked.

  ‘And then he threw himself beneath an underground railway train?’

  John had been at school then in North London, fourteen years old; it had made the local newspaper. Kids whispered and pointed; groups fell silent as he passed them in the playground. If your father threw himself under a train, you were tainted with it. Whatever sickness in the head your father carried, you carried too.

  Stay away from John Carter he might take you under a train with him.

  The banker disinterred a bone from his fish. ‘And your mother?’
he said.

  John did not want to tell Mr Sartozini about his mother. He thought about the presents she used to buy him, and the terrible rows she always had with his father over how much they cost. He remembered the model of Apollo 11, when he’d been hooked on the moon landing. The Action Man. The model aeroplanes, the encyclopaedias, the Lego sets.

  It was around her gifts that his childhood had revolved. They became his brother and sister, his best friend, his window on the world. He huddled in his room, reading, learning, making models, living his life vicariously through Action Man’s hair-raising adventures, and closed his ears to the moans of his mother with the men who visited her when his father was out or away, and to her screams when she opened his bedroom door some days and blamed him for ruining her life. If he had never been born their marriage would have been wonderful.

  And always he escaped into his fantasy world. Into board games, Dungeons and Dragons and, finally, into computers.

  He told Mr Sarotzini a modified, more palatable version of this.

  Coffee arrived. They had discussed no business over lunch and Mr Sarotzini was now looking at his slender, old-fashioned Cartier watch. John reached beneath the table for his briefcase. ‘I have copies of the accounts and projections for you,’ he said.

  The banker pulled a tiny gold dispenser from his pocket and tapped two sweeteners into his demi-tasse. ‘How thoughtful of you, but that will not be necessary.’

  John looked at the man, alarmed by his tone. The hope that had buoyed him earlier had been dashed on rocks. Was it something he had said during lunch? This sudden change in Mr Sarotzini was not making any sense. He could not understand why the man should have gone to the trouble he had and then ask him only about his private life and his background.

  As the banker dabbed his mouth carefully with his napkin, then rose from the table, John wondered whether the man had all his lights on. Yet he had remembered incredible details about the accounts and he had not in any way seemed a fool.

  As the Mercedes headed back towards John’s office, Mr Sarotzini sat in distant silence. When John tried to steer the conversation back towards the chances of the Vörn Bank coming on board, Mr Sarotzini replied, finally, that the more he had thought about it, the more Zak Danziger presented a deeper problem than he had at first realised.