The Truth

by Peter James

  By the time they parted company, John was deeply despondent. Mr Sarotzini hadn’t taken any paperwork, he couldn’t be interested.

  The calendar on the computer in John’s office told him that he had eleven days left. It was Saturday tomorrow, golf with the lads if he felt up to it. On Monday morning he would have eight days left. Gloomily he picked up the receiver and phoned Archie Warren.

  Archie had run out of suggestions.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The cellar was the only part of the house Susan didn’t care for.

  The heavy door had sagged on its hinges and she had to give a back-breaking heave to move it. As it scraped open, she was greeted by dank-smelling darkness. She switched on the light and went down the steps, ducking her head. She particularly didn’t like the claustrophobically low ceiling, or the little spiders that hung around everywhere in their webs.

  She walked past a cluster of old Chianti bottles, lengths of drainpipe, empty packing cases and a stack of rusty strips of metal, reached the chest freezer and opened the lid. It came free with a loud cracking of ice from the frozen rubber seal and a blast of cold air. As she peered at the contents, she cursed her stupidity in not having labelled anything when she had stocked up. She lifted out something that might have been a leg of lamb, searching beneath it for the frozen tiger prawns she was sure were in here. She pulled out more packets. Even this simple task was an effort today: she was too distracted by her worries to concentrate on anything normal. They had guests coming tonight, and she usually loved entertaining, but today it was an ordeal.

  Last night John had arrived home more miserable than ever. He’d had high hopes of the Swiss banker he’d met at the dinner at the Guildhall, and so had she after the success of the man’s racing tips. But now it seemed that, like everything else, it had come to nothing.

  She jumped as the boiler, at the far end of the cellar, rattled and thumped into life. Then she continued to dig, her hands numbingly cold. Alex and Liz Harrison were coming tonight. Alex, who had been John’s best man, was marketing director of a large software company and John was going to pick his brains to see if he could think of any company that might buy DigiTrak. Liz was Susan’s closest friend in England, next to Kate Fox, her colleague in the office.

  Harvey Addison and his wife, Caroline, were coming too. Susan didn’t much care for the gynaecologist, whom she thought rather precious and arrogant, but John wanted to keep him sweet. If DigiTrak went to the wall, he planned to offer him a partnership in a new venture.

  Susan found Caroline pleasant but dull and self-obsessed. Attractive, in a Barbie-doll way, her conversation was limited to the walk-in wardrobes she was having built, the diet she was on, and updates on her children, on whom she lavished the same Stepford admiration she held for her husband. In the five years that Susan had known her, she could not remember Caroline Addison ever having asked her a question about herself.

  It was Saturday morning and John was on the golf course. He needed to relax, and she was glad that at least he was out in the fresh air for a few hours. Then he was going on to the office, to meet a liquidator, someone Archie Warren had suggested, a bit of a rough diamond, according to Archie. The liquidator was going to advise him on how to salvage what he could between now and when the bank pulled the plug. Nothing illegal, John told her last night, but his tone had told her something different.

  His desperation was scaring her. Until this crisis she had always been able to trust his judgement, but now she was worried that he might do something that could land him in trouble. Or worse. She was beginning to fear that he might try to kill himself.

  Until now John and she had always discussed everything openly, but now they could hardly communicate with each other. He had drunk heavily again last night and had snapped at her when she had tried to talk about other avenues they could try. Then he had fallen asleep in front of the television.

  A bad childhood either destroyed you, warped you, or made you strong. John’s had made him strong; his father’s failure had made him determined to succeed, to prove that failure was not in his genes. He had never been a quitter, but now he seemed close to becoming one. From what he had said last night, she thought he was beginning, alarmingly, to see the end as a release.

  And she could see that, in some ways, it would be a release. He could start again, although it would take time for him to get back to where he was now, or anything close to it, and yes, it would be a wrench, but if they had to leave this house, she could accept it. The serious problem was Casey.

  If only her own job were secure.

  When John had asked her to marry him and move to London, only Casey had made her hesitant about leaving LA.

  Tinseltown held mostly images of tragedy for her. Her father, a bit-part actor who hadn’t had a role in thirty years, earned a living gassing up the yachts and powerboats of the rich, the famous and the just plain successful at Marina del Rey. At the age of fifty, he had taken up painting, and still dreamed of being discovered, if not as an actor, maybe now as a water-colourist. But Susan knew, sadly, that he wouldn’t be. He had talent but he didn’t have drive.

  Her mother, whose biggest movie break had been a part riding an elevator with Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry, which had been cut in the televised version, now worked in a ticket booth at Universal Studios and had stopped dreaming a long while back.

  Casey, who was fun, wacky and stunningly beautiful, had dropped a contaminated Ecstasy tab at a party when she’d just turned fifteen. She had lain ever since in a persistent vegetative state in a clinic. Susan’s mother would not allow life support to be switched off, and Susan and her father, although with some misgivings, had always supported her decision.

  Susan blamed herself for Casey’s condition. In spite of her parents and friends telling her repeatedly that it hadn’t been her fault, she couldn’t help the guilt she carried. Her parents had gone away for the weekend and Casey had been invited to a party. Susan had been reluctant to let her go but Casey had begged, promising to be home early, and Susan had relented.

  If only … Susan had thought a thousand times.

  For the first five years, Susan had visited Casey for an hour every day. She had sat by her bed, talking and playing her favourite rock music. Slowly it had drifted to an hour every few days, then once a week.

  Since she had moved to England, Susan saw her only twice a year. She had compensated for this with the knowledge that the money she and John made in England would enable her to keep Casey in the luxurious clinic in Orange County rather than have to put her into state care. Now the realisation that she might not be able to help Casey was hurting deeply.

  Right at the bottom of the last compartment she found the tiger prawns. As she packed everything back in, she thought about children, suddenly. Alex and Liz Harrison had four, two boys and two girls, all three years apart. Liz was a perfect mother, attentive, intelligent, attractive, funny, and Susan, who had always preferred flawed people to perfect ones, was filled with a deep, irrational loathing for her friend.

  And with the loathing came the yearning.

  She knew it well: it was an ancient enemy that returned to her every few months, and she had her ways of dealing with it, of talking herself through it – until the next time.

  All the old arguments came out now. She told herself there were too many people in the world, that kids killed the romance in a marriage, destroyed their parents’ freedom, cost a fortune to feed and educate, and anyhow, she and John might not even be able to have them if they did want them. She had stockpiled an arsenal of defences but none worked.

  The truth was that she loved John and John did not want children. She loved her job, too, and that gave her no time to have children even if she wanted them. And besides, she was only twenty-eight, she had plenty of time, John might change. Somehow, in time, she would make him change. Or maybe she would change, and go off the idea for good.

  And anyhow, in their current situation, children were more unth
inkable than ever. So why was she thinking about it? Strongly.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by the front doorbell, right above her head. Who was it? Harry the painter? He was due to bring a builder mate to do some odd jobs, like fixing the cellar door. No, he was away on holiday, it was next Saturday he was coming.

  She hurried up into the hall. The bell rang again just before she reached the door. Then, as she opened it, she remembered.

  The tall, rather simple-looking man in the Telecom uniform stood there, holding a toolbox in one hand and a large sealed pack in the other. On the street, parked behind her little Renault, was the Telecom van.

  ‘It is convenient?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, yes, of course.’

  ‘I was worried you had forgotten, perhaps.’

  ‘Er – no – I –’ She saw him looking at the bag of frozen prawns in her hand. ‘I’m sorry, I was in the cellar. No, I hadn’t forgotten. A new circuit board? Mother board? Something like that, you said.’

  ‘Exactly like that.’ Kündz smiled. It felt good, so good, just being close to her, smelling her again. No sperm this time, and he was glad about that; she did not smell as if she had made love to her husband since he was last here, and he wished desperately that he could reward her now, here on the doorstep before they even went inside.

  Susan, my darling, you have been a good girl.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Dr Doomandgloom needs cheering up. One of the three boxes on the screen will cheer him up. Click either of the other two boxes and he will stamp his feet, burst into tears and pull the lever that will release the trapdoor on which you are standing. The trapdoor will drop you into a stinking sewer, where you will have to negotiate a maze of tunnels infested with giant mutant rats and man-eating crocodiles to get out.

  One of the boxes tells Dr Doomandgloom that in your morning break you ate a chocolate bar; the second tells him you ate crisps; the third that you ate an apple. Clicking on the box that tells him you ate an apple really makes his day. His eyes light up, his ears wiggle, he bursts into song and performs a hand-stand followed by a back-flip.

  ‘What do you think?’ Gareth asked. Then, before John could reply, he added, ‘It’s coming along, right?’

  ‘I think we have a problem,’ John said, and undaunted by his partner’s look of sullen hostility, continued, ‘I think kids will be more enticed to the sewer than seeing Dr Doomandgloom look happy. This has been bothering me for a while.’

  ‘We can change it, but it’ll delay the launch and we’re already behind schedule,’ Gareth said, then added petulantly, ‘None of the teachers who read the script felt that way.’

  John was standing over a workstation in the development room. Twenty-five of his staff were concentrating all around him, and normally John would have stopped by each of them in turn for a brief word. But today he was trying to avoid eye contact. Neither did he want to get into an argument with Gareth.

  Cliff Worrols, ponytailed with granny glasses, dressed in the unofficial DigiTrak uniform of T-shirt and jeans, looked anxiously up at him, seeking approval of his work on the Doomandgloom graphics. John nodded at him. The program, aimed at getting kids to understand about nutrition, was fraught with minefields, but he was too distracted to apply his mind to it. It was Wednesday, there were just six days left, and he had decided to break the news to Gareth today, at lunch-time.

  He was also going to have to tell him about his meeting with the liquidator, and about the liquidator’s salvage plan. It needed a few phoney invoices, a bit of backdating here and there, which meant screwing the creditors, just a little. John was concerned that Gareth might have a problem with this, because he was scrupulously honest to the point of naïveté.

  He had decided that the way to sell him the idea was by pointing out that, if they could salvage some cash, they had a chance of starting up again and paying back those creditors – something John genuinely intended to do.

  He stared again at the graphics on the computer screen, and at Gareth and Cliff’s anxious faces.

  Worrols’s phone warbled. He answered it, and turned to John. ‘Stella. Call for you.’

  John took the receiver and Stella told him she had Mr Sarotzini on the line. John felt as if he was standing on a rolling floor. ‘I’ll take it in my office,’ he said. ‘See you at one, Gareth. Good work, Cliff!’ He hurried out.

  In the sanctuary of his own room, he picked up the receiver, with a strong image in his mind of the banker as Dr Doomandgloom.

  ‘Mr Carter? You are well, I hope?’ Mr Sarotzini sounded better-humoured than he had been on Friday, much more the warm, caring man John had sat next to at the Carmichaels’ dinner at the Guildhall than the dry, cold one with whom he had had lunch. But he was a bag of nerves. ‘Yes, thank you. Thank you for lunch last Friday. I enjoyed going to your club very much.’ He’d dropped the banker a thank-you letter to the PO box address on his card, and wondered if he had received it.

  Mr Sarotzini did not mention it. ‘I’m so glad you enjoyed it. It was a pleasure to meet you again and to get to know you a little better. One can be so private there. So many places it is difficult to be private, do you not find?’

  ‘Yes,’ John said politely, despite his impatience for Mr Sarotzini to come to the point. From the tone of the man’s voice, there might be hope.

  ‘And your quest for funding, Mr Carter, how’s that progressing?’

  ‘We’ve had some interest,’ John lied, trying to stop shaking, aware that he sounded breathless. ‘But nothing firmed up yet.’

  ‘Ah.’

  There was a long silence. John waited for Mr Sarotzini, but the silence continued. ‘Is – is there any further information you’d like?’ he asked, trying to think of an enticement he could offer.

  ‘No, I think at this stage not. I have talked to my associates, and before I took matters further I wanted to establish that your requirements remain unchanged.’

  ‘Yes, they’re unchanged.’ John’s brain was racing. Before I took matters further. That sounded positive. What else could he tell Mr Sarotzini? What had he forgotten last week, or had anything changed since then? ‘Well, actually, we’ve had some good business developments, since we spoke, which might interest you.’

  ‘Ah? Tell me.’

  ‘I can’t remember if I mentioned – with Microsoft. It looks like we could have a terrific distribution deal – the junior version of our Home Doctor series. They came back to us on Monday. It could become part of a package with their online version of Encarta.’

  Mr Sarotzini did not sound as if he had connected with this. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Yes, that sounds very good, most encouraging.’ He was silent again. ‘So, your requirements are exactly as we discussed?’

  ‘Yes, they are.’

  ‘No developments with your lawsuit?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘Allow me to come back to you, Mr Carter, in a few days.’

  It seemed an odd formality that he still did not use John’s first name: it contradicted Mr Sarotzini’s good-natured tone, John thought. ‘The deadline I have with my bank is next Tuesday.’

  ‘Yes, of course, I am aware,’ the banker replied, chidingly. ‘How could I forget a date of such gravity? But thank you all the same for reminding me. I am indebted to you for the opportunity to help you. We will speak again before Tuesday.’

  The phone went dead.

  John stared at the receiver in surprise, then replaced it. He sat quietly, analysing the call. It was definitely a plus that Mr Sarotzini had phoned him – he had not expected to hear from him again after the banker had expressed his concerns about Zak Danziger.

  Feeling a sudden burst of optimism, he phoned Susan to tell her that there was still hope. She was in a meeting so could not talk freely, but he could hear the relief in her voice. When he hung up, he decided not to say anything to Gareth after all, until he had heard from Mr Sarotzini again.

  If he heard from him again.

  But
he had a feeling he would. He reckoned Mr Sarotzini might at least come up with some kind of proposal rather than give him a flat turndown.

  That evening, he suggested to Susan that they went to the Thai restaurant round the corner.

  The owner greeted them like long-lost friends, gave them a powerful free cocktail each, and plied them with new experimental dishes all evening, as well as massive brandies on the house afterwards.

  It was close to midnight before they finally rolled out, drunk and giggly and so stuffed they were groaning. Unkindly John waddled up and down the pavement outside their house mimicking the restaurateur: ‘Hawoo, plizz, you tlie now, gleen plawns in coconut!’

  Susan, hysterical with laughter, hushed him, and dragged him inside. They tripped out of their clothes, scattering them over the bedroom floor, and made love for the first time in almost a fortnight.

  And Kündz, who had installed a video camera above their bedroom on Saturday afternoon silently watched them, on the monitor in his attic room, aroused and angered by the sight of them making love.

  It was erotic to see them give oral sex to each other simultaneously, and then to watch John Carter climb on top of Susan and enter her. But it hurt that John Carter was making love to his woman, and it made Kündz ache to see the expressions on Susan’s face, to see her chewing her husband’s ear, to hear the sounds of her breathing, her cries of pleasure.

  It hurt him to see how much she was enjoying this.

  She rolled John onto his back and sat astride him. Then the expression on the man’s face became almost too much for Kündz. But he continued to watch, as Carter threw back his head and shouted out, his mouth bursting with yells of pleasure that bordered on laughter, until he reached his climax.

  Finally, his heart heavy, Kündz switched off the monitor. He hoped that, one day soon, Mr Sarotzini would allow him to punish John Carter for this.