The Truth

by Peter James

  ‘Let’s deal with the question of sex when we come to it,’ he said. ‘What I say to my patients is, all that matters is the health of the baby. And if you want your baby to be really healthy you must love it with all your heart while it’s still in the womb. Do you love your baby with all your heart?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He smiled warmly. ‘Good, then it’s going to be a healthy baby.’

  Susan looked up at the nurse, who was beaming at her. So was Van Rhoe, and the warmth was infectious. She was starting to forget the exchange of glances that she’d seen – convincing herself she’d imagined it – and was getting caught up in the excitement. She felt so happy that she wanted to kiss Miles Van Rhoe, and nearly did.

  She followed him skittishly and sat down in front of his desk.

  She was thinking so much about those legs moving on the scan that she found it hard to concentrate on what Van Rhoe was saying, and he had to repeat himself. He was giving her advice about exercise, not lifting things, rest, diet. They had been through most of this stuff before, but she could see why he was so well thought of: he was so thorough, he was treating her as if this was his own baby.

  And he was setting off a chain of thoughts in her mind. Ante-natal classes. People at the office like Kate Fox – especially Kate – were going to think it strange if she didn’t make preparations for the baby after it was born. She would have to keep up some sort of pretence. People who were having babies bought clothes, got the room ready.

  Miles Van Rhoe had asked a question and she’d missed it. She gave him a blank look and said, ‘Sorry, I was somewhere else.’

  ‘Your husband?’ he asked again. She knew this question: he asked it every week without fail. ‘How is he taking all this now?’

  ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Better. Much better now.’ She smiled. ‘I think he’s getting used to the idea.’

  The obstetrician folded his massive hands. ‘This can’t be easy for him. I sympathise.’

  ‘It’s not easy for either of us.’

  He held her with his huge eyes and she wasn’t sure how to read his expression. She thought she saw the tiniest hint of mockery, and realised he’d picked up on the elation she was feeling.

  His expression told her that he thought she was secretly enjoying this, and she wanted to tell him that he was wrong, that this was a waking nightmare, and if she had the chance over again she would have said no.

  But she didn’t tell him this. Because, deep inside, she was aching with happiness.

  Kündz could hardly believe his eyes, but he had no choice. It was there, it had happened. Susan’s face had a green hue, the night vision lens did that. He was looking at her tight buttocks now – they hadn’t fattened out, none of her had, she didn’t look pregnant at all.

  The bedclothes were off, she was spread-eagled across John and she had taken him in her mouth. He was clawing at the sheets.

  This was tough to watch.

  Now she was moving around, so agile, like a horizontal ballerina, she was sliding across his body and she swung her legs over him, and now she was sitting astride him. Kündz could see her back arched as she guided him inside her, heard her let out a tiny cry, but it wasn’t pain, it was just a murmur, she was smiling.

  And this was hurting Kündz so much.

  And he saw John Carter’s face, green too, with a remote expression. He was somewhere else: his penis was inside Susan – but his mind?

  Where is your mind, John Carter?

  Kündz fought the anger that was swelling so big inside him it was hard to contain it. You are doing this to my woman, but your mind is somewhere else – on another woman? Who is she, John Carter?

  One day you will tell me.

  One day you will scream out her name for me.

  Kündz could not watch this much longer. Susan’s ginger green hair tossing and shaking, those breasts, flashes of milky whiteness breaking out of the green, and the nipples, brilliant deep crimson nipples, he wanted to touch those breasts so badly. And he tried to imagine that what Susan and John were doing was not real, just a movie on television, that was all.

  Kündz now remembered the Sixth Truth that Mr Sarotzini had taught him, and it was this: ‘Reality is what you believe it to be.’

  This helped him, but not totally. For the Truths could not help you totally until you understood them totally, and he knew, Mr Sarotzini had told him this, that his understanding was a long way from complete.

  And now, was Susan having an orgasm or was she faking it?

  He stopped the tape and the rage that was like a crazed animal trying to tear its way out of him subsided. He switched to channel 9, the bedroom, in real time, seeing what was there now, at this moment, and that made him feel better.

  He watched John reading an Internet magazine. Susan was reading a manuscript. She wouldn’t let John make love to her tonight, she told him she was tired, and that she had to finish this manuscript by tomorrow. Kündz was proud of her: this made him so happy he could almost forgive her for the one slip she had made two weeks ago.

  But not John Carter. He could not forgive John Carter. John must be purified.

  And Mr Sarotzini had promised him this.

  John turned a page of his magazine, then another. Then he gazed up at the ceiling.

  Kündz looked straight into his eyes.

  And John, lying in bed in his dressing gown, had this strange feeling that he was being watched. He wasn’t sure why, but it was making him uncomfortable.

  He glanced at Susan, but she was concentrating on her manuscript. He slipped out of bed, walked over to the window, peered through the curtains. He could see the street lights on the far side of the park, the shadowy outlines of bushes and trees, his own reflection in the glass pane.

  He turned, looked up at the ceiling, then around at the walls.

  ‘What’s the matter, hon?’ Susan said.

  ‘I thought I heard something,’ It was better, John thought than telling her he was being watched by something invisible.

  He stood still and they both listened. ‘Must’ve imagined it,’ he said.

  Then Susan said, ‘Oh, I meant to tell you, I heard something up in the loft earlier. I think we have mice, or,’ she wrinkled her face, ‘rats.’

  John shrugged. ‘Could be a bird.’

  ‘Maybe we should put some mousetraps up.’

  ‘I’ll do it at the weekend,’ John said. ‘Actually, I’ve been meaning to have a good root around up there – haven’t really checked out the loft. Never know, there might be some old masters hidden away up there.’

  Susan grinned. ‘Sure – and the Holy Grail at the bottom of a tea chest.’

  Kündz switched off, leaving the Carters’ house on the default Voice Activated record setting, and picked up the novel by Marcel Proust he was half-way through. John Carter could root around in his loft to his heart’s content. He double checked that the tape machine was on the right setting, then settled down.

  It was not until the next morning, when the computer scanned the tape for anything that might have happened after he had stopped listening, that Kündz heard Susan Carter’s terrible scream.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  In the darkness the solitary candle guttered, tossing a ribbon of light across the old man’s face.

  The curtains were drawn against the night outside, but it made no difference to the old man, with his sightless eyes, who lay motionless in his bed. For him, darkness was a constant and had been so for over a decade now. It was not important, he had seen enough.

  The light that did matter still burned brightly inside his head, behind the cruel, lined carapace of his face. It was fuelled by the knowledge he had retained, and to which he had unfettered access. There were perhaps five thousand books lining the walls of this room, and this man could recite, at will, any line from any page, from any book, and from thousands more books beyond these.

  And he knew, from the change of smell, from the change of the rhythm of the air in
here, that someone had entered the room, and he had identified this person before he had even closed the door behind him. He greeted his visitor good evening, quietly, in a language that less than a thousand people in the world could speak.

  And Mr Sarotzini responded in this same language as he approached the bed, returning the greeting. He inclined his head out of respect to the man, even though he could not see. And he remained standing. Not even Mr Sarotzini was permitted to sit in this room.

  We are all afraid of something. This was the Ninth Truth, and Mr Sarotzini knew it. He had just one fear. And that was this man lying before him in this room that smelt of old leather and decaying paper.

  ‘You have news?’ the man asked.

  ‘Ten weeks. The danger of miscarriage is nearly behind us. Everything is well.’ There was more that he could have told him, but he did not.

  ‘And do we know the sex?’

  ‘No, it is too soon.’

  The man smiled, as if enjoying a cruel, private joke. ‘It will be a girl. For two thousand years they have been waiting for a boy and we are giving them a girl.’

  ‘You are certain it is a girl?’ Mr Sarotzini asked.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Of course,’ Mr Sarotzini demurred, smarting from the reply that was delivered like a slap. He watched the ribbon of light, trailing backwards and forwards across the old man’s face. This candle provided enough light for visitors to see him, and its scant beam was gentle on his frail skin. The old man had once been striking-looking, with the proud, aristocratic features of Eastern Europe, but now, blotched by liver spots and ravaged by skin tumours, only his silhouette was still proud. And even though he was deeply afraid of this man, the tenderness Mr Sarotzini felt towards him remained undimmed, and if anything, grew stronger with every passing year.

  ‘When will you come again?’

  ‘Soon, when I have more news.’

  ‘And you are confident?’

  ‘Yes, I am confident. I am very confident.’

  It was the answer the old man wished to hear.

  Miles Van Rhoe sounded upset. ‘Why didn’t you phone me about this immediately it happened?’

  Kate Fox barged into Susan’s office and stood in front of her desk, holding what looked like a copy-edited typescript bound with rubber bands. She was mouthing a question, and Susan didn’t have a clue what she was saying. All she could think was that she did not want Kate in this room while she was having this conversation.

  ‘Can you hold?’ she asked Van Rhoe, then covering the mouthpiece, told Kate she’d come and see her in a moment. When her colleague had left the office and closed the door, Susan lifted her hand from the mouthpiece and apologised to the obstetrician. ‘I didn’t phone because it was eleven o’clock at night. And because it was just this one sudden sharp pain and then it stopped. I figured maybe it was some muscle twinging, some after-effect from that probe when you were examining me yesterday.’

  ‘You mustn’t try to diagnose yourself, Susan, and please, the time of day is not important. You have all my phone numbers. I want you to phone me at eleven o’clock at night, or at three in the morning, or five. The only thing that can make me upset is you not phoning me at eleven at night, or three in the morning. We’re a team, you and I, we are working together on this, and we’re going the distance together. You must never do this again. I want you to promise me that.’

  Susan mumbled an apology.

  ‘I want to hear it, Susan. I want you to say loud and clear to me now, “Mr Van Rhoe, any time I have any pain, or any abnormality, or even just any concern, however tiny, however trivial, I will call you, at eleven o’clock at night, or three o’clock in the morning, or five o’clock in the morning”. Come on, say it!’

  Susan said it, then giggled when she had finished. Her other line was flashing but she ignored it.

  ‘OK?’ Van Rhoe said. ‘We understand each other a little better now?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘And you’ve had no more pain since?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No bleeding?’

  ‘None.’

  ‘And absolutely no more pain? Discomfort?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Nothing at all? Not the slightest twinge?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Well, almost nothing, she was lying now, because she did not have time to visit Van Rhoe now. There was still a little pain, but nothing like that sharp twinge last night that had made her scream out.

  And she wasn’t worried – Van Rhoe had done the scan yesterday morning and said everything was fine. If there had been anything wrong, he would have told her, surely?

  ‘Our next appointment is Wednesday,’ Van Rhoe said. ‘And today is Friday. I don’t like the sound of this, Susan. I think you’d better come over and I’ll take a quick look.’

  She was regretting having rung him. ‘I have to go into a meeting.’

  ‘Susan, this baby is more important than any meeting.’

  The rebuke made her feel guilty. ‘I know.’

  ‘I insist you come. Please get in a taxi and come straight over. I’ll see you right away and you’ll be back in your office within half an hour.’

  Susan hung up, gulped a mouthful of mineral water and told Kate she’d be back in half an hour. But she wouldn’t. She knew that, with the traffic, it would be an hour at least, probably more.

  And then, as she reached the door, her secretary buzzed to tell her that John was on the line.

  ‘Take a message,’ she said.

  ‘He just wants to know how you are.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ she snapped. ‘Tell him I’ve never been more fine in my goddamn life.’

  John had heard that chocolate was the thing for mice, not cheese. He knelt in the loft, pushed a tiny piece onto the spike, set the spring of the crude trap, and laid it on the orange insulation, alongside a joist. There was a steady drip … drip … drip … from the feeder pipe in the water tank just beside him.

  He moved away from the mousetrap, picking out the joists and low beams with the flashlight as he headed into the darkness beyond the range of the bulb above the hatch, methodically exploring each of the roof spaces, looking for a Rembrandt the previous owners might have left behind. But he had no luck: they hadn’t left anything.

  A sound close by startled him and he stiffened. Then he heard it again: it was nothing, just a bird in the eaves. He eased past a chimney breast and frowned as he noticed a crack of daylight ahead.

  As he investigated it, he saw that the roofing felt in this space looked much newer than that in the rest of the loft, and he wondered why – maybe the previous owners had had a problem with this part of the roof? If they had, they hadn’t fixed it well, because there seemed to be a tile missing.

  He finished his inspection then climbed down the ladder, closing the hatch behind him.

  It was a fine Saturday afternoon, and Susan was out in the garden. She doubted that Miles Van Rhoe would have approved of what she was doing, which was raking up the leaves that had begun to fall on the lawn. She was also raking up two McDonalds cartons, a half-eaten burger, a couple of plastic cups and a McDonalds carrier bag that some asshole had thrown over the fence from the park during the night.

  The beech hedge had started showing a few gold leaves, and the trees in the park were beginning to turn. She was looking forward to the fall: it was going to be beautiful here in the house, watching the changing colours of the trees and bushes. That was one thing she loved about England, the intensity of the seasons that she had never experienced in LA.

  She knelt down to scoop up the small pile of leaves and litter and, with no warning, the pain happened again. It felt as though a wire was being ripped straight through her insides and she cried out, dropping to her knees, pressing her hands to her abdomen, closing her eyes.

  I’m going to lose the baby.

  ‘Susan? Darling?’ John was at her side. He was staring at her in alarm. She looked up at him, her eyes unnaturally
wide, her pupils dilated, her complexion waxy. He put his hand on her forehead, which felt clammy.

  She held her breath, waiting for the pain to strike again. She had to be ready for it.

  ‘Susan?’

  She heard him but did not respond.

  ‘Darling?’

  ‘I’m OK.’ She held her breath again.

  After some moments John eased her to her feet and steered her into a garden chair.

  ‘I’m OK,’ she said again.

  He was looking at her with deep concern. ‘What’s causing this?’

  ‘A nerve. Or something,’ she said, in a near gasp. ‘Or a pulled muscle. Cramps. Wind. Maybe I’m a little constipated, I don’t know.’

  ‘Did Van Rhoe say you might get more pain?’

  ‘He. He said. Might.’

  ‘Cramp?’

  She nodded. Van Rhoe had assured her that nothing was wrong, that it was probably cramp, and he’d given her some capsules to take against it. Some vitamin supplement – he seemed to be big into those. She looked at John’s anxious face, then up at the trees. She was starting to feel better now: the pain had gone as fast as it had come.

  John’s mention of Van Rhoe’s name had reminded Susan that when she had rung the obstetrician yesterday morning he had not seemed as surprised about the pain as she’d thought he might. It was almost as if he had been expecting it. But then, of course, he would have been, she realised. He must get hundreds of calls every day from patients with all the usual complaints.

  ‘Still got the pain?’ John asked, tenderly.

  ‘No, it’s gone.’

  ‘We’d better ring him.’

  She shook her head. ‘No, hon, it’s OK.’ She smiled, shakily. ‘How did you get on in the loft? Did you set the traps?’

  ‘You sure you’re OK?’

  ‘I’m OK. Maybe I shouldn’t have raked the leaves. He told me not to do any heavy work.’

  ‘Yup, well, from now on you’re obeying your doctor’s orders.’

  She nodded. Then they were both distracted by the old boy next door; recently he had been getting worse and they could hear him shouting urgently to his wife that he’d just peed in his pants.