The Truth

by Peter James

  Tony chuckled, then said, ‘This cutting you faxed from the Mail on Sunday – the New York Police Department don’t sound suspicious about the death. Danziger had split up with his third wife, just lost a custody battle, was heavily into drugs – sounds to me like all the ingredients for depression. These composers, they’re a pretty flaky lot.’

  ‘Sure. And I don’t give a fuck. This guy nearly ruined my business and my entire life.’

  ‘How are your partners working out?’

  It was a good question. John had not seen or heard from Mr Sarotzini since he’d handed him the signed documents three weeks ago. It was a little surprising, after all the promises the banker had made to Susan about taking her to the opera, concerts, art galleries, but it was early days, and he had plenty of time to come good on those. And, besides, that wasn’t important. What mattered was that the money had been transferred to the company’s account.

  ‘Fine, terrific,’ he replied. ‘So far, so good.’

  There was a silence.

  Tony Weir was not comfortable about the deal. He had warned John that it put him and Susan into Sarotzini’s pocket, and he had even suggested that Susan should consider counselling before accepting. But he’d had to agree with John that DigiTrak weren’t exactly knee-deep in other options. Now, lowering his voice to almost a whisper, he asked, ‘So? Has Susan? You know?’

  ‘Last Wednesday.’ John’s good humour evaporated and he had a dry, unpleasant taste in his throat.

  ‘And you’re OK about it?’

  John had to think. He would have liked to have confided in Tony Weir that he felt as if Susan had been violated, and that he had too – that it was as though she was having an affair right in front of his eyes and he was powerless to do anything about it.

  He wanted to tell Tony Weir that every time he looked at her, even at the photograph on his desk, all he could think of was Mr Sarotzini’s sperm inside her. And he wanted to tell him that she seemed to be locking him out of her life. Sure, she smiled at him and talked to him, kissed him hello and goodbye, good morning and good-night, but shutters had come down.

  But John didn’t tell Tony Weir this. Instead, he said, ‘Yup, I’m OK about it.’

  Kündz was listening to this conversation while he did his housework. Except that this wasn’t just housework, this was ritual, the closest Kündz came to prayer.

  This was purification.

  He was purifying his flat, with the same thoroughness and the same pleasure with which he had purified himself. He was clean, every part of him, every crevice, every orifice. Now he was finishing washing the walls of the flat, and then he was going to spray them with disinfectant. It would be as clean as an operating theatre.

  This whole world needed purifying.

  Mr Sarotzini understood that.

  All the time Kündz was purifying his flat, he was listening: channel 9, the telephone in John Carter’s office, and channel 14, the telephone in Susan Carter’s office. He listened to both at the same time, that was no problem. He had also been listening to channel 17, Fergus Donleavy’s study overlooking the Thames, but the writer had gone out now. He was on his way to meet Susan, to take her to lunch at a restaurant called Mon Plaisir. Kündz did not like this. He did not want this man to be close to his Susan. He felt a confusion of emotions, anger most of all, and some sharp, indefinable pain, like a tourniquet tightening somewhere deep inside his heart.

  Kündz had already booked a table at this restaurant, for one, in the name of Dr Paul Morris. He had learned from Mr Sarotzini’s teachings that a professional title always carried weight. So Dr Paul Morris dined out a lot, always alone. His real name was Rikky Berendt and he was sitting at this table now, apparently reading a paperback novel. Within its pages were contained a directional microphone and photographs of Susan Carter and Fergus Donleavy. He was destined for a fruitless wait. Susan and Fergus weren’t going to turn up.

  Kündz had a hard time controlling his temper when he heard Susan say to Donleavy, who had just arrived in her office, ‘Fergus, would you mind if instead of going to a restaurant we went for a walk?’

  Kündz heard Donleavy clear his throat and then say, ‘No, of course not. Where would you like to go?’

  ‘Anywhere. I don’t mind – a park? Along the Embankment?’

  Kündz, moving fast, dialled a mobile-phone number and two early diners at Mon Plaisir glanced in momentary irritation at a rather well-dressed man who put down the book he was reading and answered his cell-phone.

  ‘How far are you from Susan Carter’s office?’ Kündz asked.

  ‘Five minutes.’

  ‘Get there in two.’

  They were like a couple of tourists, except they weren’t carrying cameras, and they strolled easily in the fine lunch-time sunlight, down St Martin’s Lane, across Trafalgar Square, stopping to look at the pigeons and the lions. Susan had never realised how big these lions were, she didn’t think she’d ever walked across Trafalgar Square before, never been this close to them.

  She was wearing black jeans with a white T-shirt, and a linen jacket, and it was comfortable in this heat. Fergus wore what he always wore: an old tweed jacket, open shirt, rusty cords, lace-up brogues. Seemingly impervious to the temperature, he seldom wore an overcoat in winter and equally seldom took off his jacket in summer.

  They did not start talking about anything in particular until they’d reached the Embankment. Fergus was enjoying his new role as a tourist guide, and Susan was realising, with some embarrassment, how few of London’s sights she’d learned anything about in seven years. On their way past, Fergus explained that Nelson’s Column had had to be built higher than the Duke of York’s statue in the Mall, and a short while later, stopping in front of Cleopatra’s Needle, he explained how the Egyptians erected their obelisks.

  And Kündz heard Susan say to him, with a tease in her voice, ‘How come you know so much about all these phallic monuments?’

  Then he had to listen to Donleavy telling Susan that Egyptian priests took it in turns, had a rota, to masturbate in the inner sanctums of their temples.

  Seething with anger, Kündz wanted to take Donleavy by the throat and tell him to stop talking dirty to Susan Carter.

  And then, almost as if Donleavy had heard Kündz’s thoughts, he changed the subject, asking, ‘Where did you go last week?’

  ‘A clinic,’ Susan said baldly. ‘A minor op. A woman’s complaint. Not something I want to talk about.’

  That did the trick. It stopped Donleavy asking any more difficult questions. Susan leant on the Embankment wall and looked out across the water. ‘You must love living by the Thames,’ she said. ‘I think I would.’

  Fergus grunted, or maybe he cleared his throat – neither Susan nor Kündz were sure. He studied a well-dressed man sitting on the Embankment wall – he might have been a lawyer, or perhaps a doctor, reading a paperback. Simple pleasures, Fergus thought, his gaze staying on the man. Such a simple pleasure to sit on a wall and read a book, but how often do any of us do it?

  Finally, Susan couldn’t wait any longer, and asked Donleavy directly, ‘What was it you wanted to talk to me about so urgently last week?’

  Fergus made that same noise again, deep in his throat, then sat down, looking a little awkward. He retied one of his shoe laces. When he had finished, he said, ‘I’m a little bit psychic, hrmmn?’

  Susan nodded. He’d told her about his premonitions, his telepathic experiences, the auras he could sometimes see around people, and she’d read most of what he’d written in this area.

  ‘Well, this is going to sound strange, and I don’t want to alarm you.’ He fell silent.

  Susan waited patiently for him to continue. He rummaged in his pockets, pulled a cigarette from a battered flip-top pack, then lit it with a Zippo. As the smoke drifted past her, she smelt the now familiar burnt rubber stench.

  She watched him draw on the cigarette again, gazed at the shaggy mane of grey hair that hung down over his ears and to
uched his shoulders, his lean, hard-but-warm face, and thought, as she often had, how much he reminded her of a cowboy, the Man With No Name, the loner of the prairies.

  She had such faith in this man’s abilities, and his presence always excited her. He carried so much knowledge, so many wild ideas, in his head. She loved John deeply, but she had thought, and more than once, that had she met Fergus under different circumstances, something could have happened between them.

  ‘I’ve been getting a recurring dream.’ He drew on his cigarette again, without looking at her. ‘I know you and John have made a decision not to have children, but in this dream I see you pregnant.’

  She prompted, ‘And?’

  He swung his head to look at her, and his eyes narrowed against the glare of the sun on the water behind her. A light breeze lifted a few strands of his hair and batted them around. ‘I shouldn’t be saying anything, worrying you, it’s nuts.’

  Susan tilted her head and looked at him sideways, not giving away anything in her expression. ‘But you felt strongly enough about it to ring me at home.’

  He smoked some more of his cigarette. ‘Well, this is none of my business, and anyhow, you’re not planning to have children, are you?’

  She hesitated and saw that he’d picked up on this hesitation. ‘No.’

  He raised his hands. ‘So, good. It’s OK.’

  ‘And if we changed our minds – decided to have children – is there a problem? What have you seen?’

  He thought hard, gazing into her face, smelling her perfume, watching strands of that sleek red hair lifting and dropping in the breeze. Last week it had seemed desperately urgent. But out here, in the sunlight, she was looking so anxious and vulnerable, and she’d just assured him she was not about to have a child, and he didn’t want to make her worry, he didn’t want to mess with her head. He just wanted to put his arms round her and see how she responded.

  A moment sometimes presents itself between people. A tiny window opens: within seconds it could shut again. He sensed now that the window was open.

  He really had thought last week that she was going to have a baby, and he was picking up vibrations from her now that it was in her mind, but it didn’t seem that anything was imminent. It wasn’t in her mind with John. But with someone else? Her new lover? ‘Nothing,’ he said, finally. ‘It would only have been important if you were pregnant.’

  She nodded, avoiding his eyes.

  Then he made his move. He swung his arms around her shoulders, but she flinched, backing away, and he ended up holding her rather clumsily. ‘I love you, Susan,’ he said.

  She looked back at him, startled, her face flushed. ‘Fergus, I –’ She was shaking her head, and he was still holding her shoulders firmly, but awkwardly, his face close to hers, blocking most of the light.

  Then he released his grip, stepped back half a pace. ‘Look, I – I’m sorry, but I can’t help it, I really do love you.’ He smiled sheepishly. ‘I – I’m not sure about your situation – with your marriage?’

  Susan wondered what she had done to make him feel like this, and tried to find a way to defuse the situation without hurting his feelings. ‘Fergus, I’m sorry, you’ve rather taken me by surprise.’ She smiled. ‘I mean, I’m flattered, and I like you a lot. But I have a good marriage and I love my husband.’

  Fergus was blushing profusely now. ‘I’m sorry.’

  She smiled again, not knowing whether to look at him or down at the pavement. ‘I like our friendship, Fergus, I really value it.’

  He smoked the cigarette down to the stub then crushed it on the pavement. ‘I’m around, OK? You can telephone me any time, day or night, I don’t mind. Just promise me that if anything starts troubling you, you’ll call me. Will you do that?’

  Susan promised.

  And Kündz, struggling to contain his fury, decided that Mr Sarotzini should hear this conversation.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  The picture on the monitor was fuzzy black and white, or more like grey and white, and it took a while before Susan saw what Miles Van Rhoe was pointing at with his finger. Then when she did see it, she wasn’t sure she was looking at the right thing.

  ‘That?’ she asked. ‘The sort of oval?’

  ‘The inter-uterine sac,’ the obstetrician told her, sounding as excited as a kid on Christmas morning. It was difficult for him to point, because he was holding the probe with his right hand, and trying to keep it steady.

  Susan was lying with her feet hooked up in stirrups, and a cold, gelatinously coated vaginal scanner inside her, and she was craning her neck to see the monitor.

  She was still not sure that she was looking at the right thing. ‘That – the dark bit that looks like a bladder? That’s my baby?’

  ‘Yes. Congratulations, Susan, you are five weeks pregnant. You are going to be a mother!’

  Susan continued staring at the sac, fascinated. Then her eyes moved to the obstetrician’s nurse, a tall, rather stern woman in her fifties, with grey hair pulled back harshly and clamped either side. The nurse was smiling, but it was a cold, formal smile, as if she knew something that Susan did not and was holding it back.

  Unnerved by this, Susan looked at the obstetrician and said, ‘It’s all right? The baby? He – she – it’s all right? It’s healthy, I mean?’

  ‘Yes, Susan, everything looks absolutely fine. But please remember it is very early, and we’re only seeing the sac at this stage.’ Van Rhoe gently removed the probe and handed it to the nurse. Then he peeled off his rubber gloves and went over to the sink. The nurse handed Susan a tissue. She put on her knickers and linen skirt, then followed him back into his minuscule office.

  The size of the room surprised Susan: this man regularly delivered babies for the British Royal Family, the rich and famous, and yet these consulting rooms, two floors above Harley Street, were not much larger than a pair of broom cupboards.

  She rather liked this modesty: it seemed to make Miles Van Rhoe more accessible, somehow more human, and it reinforced the strength of his reputation for her. He must be pretty terrific for some of his clientele to put up with this poky little place, she reckoned.

  And there was a down-to-earth quality about Van Rhoe that she liked. She didn’t know his age, but put him at around sixty. He had a large frame, but he wasn’t tall, and a dreadful hairstyle, short and spiky as if he cut it himself. His suits were all fine quality but they looked old-fashioned and tired, as though he’d bought them when he’d first qualified and worn them ever since. He had self-assurance though, buckets of it, huge, finely manicured hands, beautiful blue eyes and a silky voice to die for. She felt comfortable with him: he exuded the endearing air of a favourite teddy bear.

  Holding a fountain pen, an old Parker, he said, ‘So, metallic taste from tea and coffee and stench of burning rubber. Cigarette smoke is unpleasant and the smell of alcohol makes you nauseous. Loss of appetite, apart from a craving for dry biscuits.’ He jotted all this down on an index card. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Bath Olivers,’ she replied. ‘They’re the biscuits I crave most.’

  He smiled as he wrote this down, then peered at her over the top of his half-rims. ‘Pity it’s not something a little less pricy.’

  She grinned. A question sat in her mind, which it was getting harder and harder to ask. She had known that she was pregnant before she had come here – she had done a test that she bought from a chemist, although she hadn’t told John.

  She had made the decision that she was going to induce a miscarriage, and had told John last night that if she was pregnant, she wanted to terminate it. Perhaps they could go and see Bill Rolands, their doctor, who was a personal friend. John had responded indifferently and it was impossible to gauge what he felt. All Susan knew was that this baby would destroy her marriage, and she could not go through with it.

  But now she felt different. There was such warmth coming from this man that sitting here in front of him, as he wrote his notes, she felt as if she had
just been congratulated by a teacher on a brilliant essay, which made her want to go on pleasing him. And seeing this living thing inside her had excited her. She was feeling so proud.

  It was a powerful feeling.

  She hadn’t expected to feel anything like this.

  And couldn’t ask him the question now. She had been going to ask him how many weeks she had to go in which a miscarriage could happen, but now she couldn’t. The image of the sac was too strong. Her baby was growing in it.

  Van Rhoe rummaged in a drawer and pulled out a fresh hypodermic in its wrapping. ‘I’m just going to give you a little injection,’ he said. ‘Some vitamins that will help the development of the foetus.’

  She rolled up the sleeve of her blouse, all fear of needles gone. This was for the baby. As he dabbed her upper arm with a swab, he said, ‘Before you leave, I’d like you to see my secretary. We need to make a regular weekly appointment, at a time convenient for you.’

  ‘Weekly?’

  ‘Until we’re out of the danger period.’

  ‘How long is that?’

  ‘The next couple of months.’ He dropped the syringe into a receptacle, and Susan rolled down her sleeve; she had hardly noticed the jab.

  ‘Do you mind if I ask you a personal question, Susan? How is your husband taking this?’

  She took a moment. ‘OK, I guess.’ Then she blushed a little. ‘I – we haven’t made love, since –’

  ‘Is that you or him?’

  ‘I – I’m not sure. Both?’

  He smiled. ‘It’s not an easy situation.’

  ‘No, it’s not.’

  ‘But you’re strong. You’ll get through it.’

  She smiled back. ‘Yes.’

  Van Rhoe wrote something else on the index card, then looked up again. ‘How do you think he’ll take this news?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Susan said.

  And she didn’t.

  Chapter Thirty