The Truth

by Peter James

  Caroline answered almost immediately, her voice weak and thin from crying. Susan spoke gently, feeling for her intensely, all thoughts of how dull, vacuous, Stepford-like the woman was now gone from her mind. ‘Caroline,’ she said. ‘It’s Susan Carter. I just heard. I’m so sorry.’

  There was a long silence. Then, when she spoke again, Caroline sounded more composed. ‘It doesn’t seem to make any sense, Susan. Why on earth would he be in a quarry in the middle of Bedfordshire?’

  ‘A quarry?’ Susan asked.

  ‘He had a patient in labour at St Catherine’s nursing home, whom he should have been with at nine o’clock, and he never showed up. I don’t understand it. We had a wonderful holiday, he was so relaxed and looking forward to this year. It – I can’t make sense of …’

  ‘What exactly happened, Caroline? He had a car accident in a quarry?’

  There was another silence and then Caroline Addison said, ‘Did John tell you about the peanut-butter sandwich? I mean, how did Harvey know about it? The peanut-butter sandwich in Adam’s lunch box.’

  Susan remembered something about the Addisons’ boy having an allergy to nuts – but what did this have to do with Harvey’s death? ‘Peanut butter, did you say?’

  ‘The police said he was – he was –’ Then Caroline Addison began sobbing.

  ‘Would you like me to come over?’ Susan asked.

  ‘No … mother … sister … coming. Call you later? Tomorrow? I – I’m sorry.’

  Susan heard the sound of the receiver being replaced. Then she hung up herself, and wished that she was not pregnant; she could use a stiff drink.

  It was starting to grow dark outside and it had only just gone four p.m. She hated these short days of winter and longed, more than ever right now, for the long summer evenings to return. Harvey Addison was dead but she still had not yet taken the news fully on board. A part of him was standing in his surgery yesterday afternoon holding the ultrasound scanner. He had seemed a little edgy, perhaps, but she’d put that down to the embarrassment of seeing a friend.

  Another part of him was standing in the living room, here, just before Christmas, and he was saying, so arrogantly, ‘This really is a delightful little house.’ She had loathed him for that, but he had been kind to her when she’d had her attack of pain that night and he’d been kind to her again yesterday.

  Quarry. Peanut butter. She toyed around in her mind with the seemingly jumbled words Caroline had spoken, but they made no sense.

  She felt badly in need of comforting herself, needed to talk to someone. Five past four; it was five past eight in the morning in Los Angeles. Her parents would be up, they were early risers, and she might catch one of them before they went off to work. She just wanted to hear their voices, to be reassured that some of the foundation stones of her life were still intact.

  When John arrived home Susan came out into the hall to greet him and was appalled by how shaken he looked. He was clutching a copy of the Evening Standard.

  ‘Take a look,’ he said, holding out the paper and tapping the front page.

  ‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘I rang Caroline but she didn’t really say anything.’

  He shook his head. ‘I need a drink.’

  They went through into the kitchen. ‘I’ll get it for you,’ she said.

  ‘I’ll get it – you read the piece.’

  Susan laid the paper on the kitchen table and remained standing as she read it. The front-page splash was the discovery of an IRA explosives cache; the only other item on the page was a surprisingly large photograph of Harvey Addison beneath the headline, TV GYNAECOLOGIST DEATH RIDDLE.

  The article was disappointingly short. It said that Harvey Addison, presenter of BBC Television’s popular The Birth Miracle, and Private Consultation shows, had been found dead early this morning in his Porsche car, in a chalk quarry in Bedfordshire, by workmen. There was a quantity of cocaine in the car. Police were awaiting the result of a post-mortem. He was married with three young children. His wife, predictably, was mystified and in shock.

  Susan looked up at John, who was squeezing out ice cubes into his glass. ‘Did you know he took cocaine?’

  ‘No, but it’s no big deal.’ He stuck the glass under the filter tap and squirted a splash of water in.

  ‘The inference is that he’s overdosed,’ she said.

  ‘Did Caroline say anything?’

  ‘I don’t think she was fully compos mentis. She was talking about peanut butter – their son, Adam, has a nut allergy.’

  ‘I don’t see the connection.’

  ‘Nor did I.’

  John drank some whisky, sat down at the table and swivelled the paper towards him.

  ‘Are they implying he killed himself?’ she asked.

  ‘God knows.’

  ‘The one thing Caroline said was how relaxed Harvey’d been on holiday – and that he’d really been looking forward to this year.’

  ‘It’s a real bugger for DigiTrak,’ John said. ‘Quite apart from the fact that I actually liked him a lot. He was our biggest earner.’ He drank some more whisky.

  ‘I – I guess with these drugs – sometimes you don’t know their true strength, if you buy them from a dealer. You don’t know what you’re getting,’ Susan said.

  ‘He’s a medic,’ John said. ‘He could prescribe himself anything he wanted, I don’t think he would have needed a pusher – but I’m not sure how it works with coke. And a quarry? He drove to a quarry to snort coke? Why did he do that?’

  ‘Maybe he was having an affair, and it was where they had their trysts.’

  John looked at her thoughtfully. ‘Possibility. They snort some coke together, he has a heart attack, she panics and bails out?’ He shook his head. ‘Christ, you’d have thought he’d have a bit more style than a quarry in the middle of winter. Why not go to a hotel for that?’

  ‘He was well known. Maybe he was afraid of being recognised,’ she ventured, watching John drink some more whisky, then rattle the ice cubes around. And, like a member of an orchestra coming in on cue, a gust of wind rattled the window-pane. Then, in silent discord, Bump kicked, once.

  It was as if Bump sensed something was not right.

  You’re reading my mind, Bump, Susan thought.

  And Kündz listening to this conversation, was made happy by it. It almost dispelled the gloom he had been feeling about Susan Carter on her computer. Good girl! he thought. This is better. Oh Susan, now you are making me so much happier.

  Oh, I wish I could forget your earlier foolishness. I wish that so much. I wish I could find some way of not reporting it to Mr Sarotzini. But I can’t.

  And he is going to instruct me to punish you.

  And he stared at the photograph of Susan’s sister, Casey, that he was holding in his hand, and he knew, this was perfect, this would punish Susan badly.

  But Susan would be grateful for this punishment. For the Thirteenth Truth stated that ‘All true gratitude is borne from punishment.’

  Chapter Forty-three

  The Coroner’s verdict at the inquest on Harvey Addison made a few columns in some of the morning papers on Tuesday, 12 March.

  Van Rhoe held the ultrasound scanner to Susan’s swollen abdomen and beamed. ‘The cyst is shrinking,’ he said. ‘It’s almost completely gone, this is very good news.’

  At four o’clock this morning, it sure as hell hadn’t felt like it was shrinking. It had felt like her belly was filled with white-hot rocks that were trying to burn their way out through her insides. During the past few weeks she had been in almost constant pain, and coughing and sneezing were hell. She was sleeping very badly and felt shattered today. ‘So why’s the pain getting worse?’ she asked, testily, pulling her jumper back on.

  Miles Van Rhoe sat back at his desk, picked up his fountain pen and jotted some notes on a card. ‘I’m afraid this stage of pregnancy is frequently painful. You’re getting quite a lot of round ligament pain, which is caused by the stretching of the li
gaments supporting the uterus. You’re feeling a sort of aching, nagging, dragging pain?’

  Susan nodded.

  ‘And it’s more severe on the right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sharp stabs?’

  Again she nodded.

  ‘And these are worse when you stand up after you’ve been sitting for a while?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He smiled. ‘All symptoms of round ligament pain. They’re unpleasant but they’re not doing you or the baby any harm, and they’ll get better in a week or two. Any other problems?’

  ‘A lot of backache.’

  ‘That’s normal.’

  ‘And heartburn.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, jotting all this down.

  ‘And –’ Susan blushed. ‘I’ve got piles.’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s par for the course also.’ He put down his pen and smiled warmly. ‘I know you’re not appreciating all these pains and discomforts, Susan, but I’m delighted you’re having them because they are all signs that you’re carrying a healthy baby.’

  ‘Great,’ she said. ‘Terrific’ She gave him a wan smile and shrugged. ‘He’s healthy all right – boy, can he kick. I think he’s gonna play football for Engl –’ She checked herself, and then said, more flatly, ‘For Switzerland.’

  A shadow flitted across Van Rhoe’s face and was gone. ‘One thing I promise you, Susan, is that I won’t keep you suffering any longer than is strictly necessary. The big advantage, of course, with a Caesarean is that we don’t have to wait for labour, we –’

  ‘Caesarean?’ she interrupted.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Of course. With your cyst …’

  She shook her head. ‘No, I’ve been reading about natural birthing. I’ve got books on technique and people who’ve been through it, that’s what I want to do.’

  Van Rhoe gave her an avuncular smile. ‘Susan, I’m afraid I am not an advocate of natural birthing. In my opinion, it’s something primitives did before there were obstetricians and hospitals, and there are quite unacceptable risks involved. I’m going to need to operate to remove what remains of your cyst and it makes sense to do that at the same time as the Caesarean.’

  He leaned forward and intertwined his long, hairy fingers. ‘Susan, you have nothing to fear from a Caesarean. It’s the safest way of giving birth for both mother and child.’

  She shook her head again. ‘I’ve made up my mind I want to have the baby born by natural birthing. I want to be conscious when my baby is born, I want to bond with him – or her.’

  He seemed to be listening to what she said, she thought, taking it on board: there was sympathy in his expression. ‘Susan, even if I agreed with the concept of natural birthing, I would have to advise you against it here. I know you’re a diligent and caring person, and you’re doing your very best for this baby, but you must try to avoid bonding with it otherwise you are going to find parting with it very painful.’

  ‘I’m going to find it very painful anyway.’

  ‘Of course you are. A mother’s instincts are very powerful, more powerful perhaps than anything else on earth.’ He tapped his forehead. ‘Susan, you need to be finding ways, in here, of reducing your attachment, not increasing it.’

  ‘Surely how it’s born doesn’t make any difference to its future’, she said. ‘All right, I hand the baby over to Mr and Mrs Sarotzini after it’s born, but the baby needs to be born with love, not brutality. I’m suffering all this pain now. I can put up with it if at least I know it’s going to be worthwhile and my baby will have a beautiful, bonding, pain-free birth.’

  ‘If you want your baby to have a pain-free, trauma-free birth, Susan, then the only possible way to do this is via a Caesarean.’

  She wondered, suddenly, whether Harvey Addison would have given her the same answer. ‘Did you know Harvey Addison?’ she asked, changing the subject.

  He was giving her a strange look now, she thought, that made her wonder whether he knew she’d been for a second opinion. No, that was impossible!

  ‘Our paths crossed from time to time. Why, did you know him?’ He hesitated, and then said, ‘Of course! Your husband made programmes with him. I saw a report on the inquest in the paper this morning. Death by misadventure. I think the coroner must have been lenient with him.’

  ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Well, I don’t want to speak out of turn, but as he was a medical practitioner I would have thought he should have known what was a safe dose of cocaine and what was not.’

  ‘Implying?’ she asked.

  He raised his eyebrows.

  ‘That he committed suicide?’

  ‘It looks very much that way to me,’ he said. ‘You don’t agree?’

  ‘I’ve seen his wife – widow – a few times.’ Susan was silent. Always the peanut-butter sandwich surfaced. There seemed to be a connection but, at the same time, no connection. The police had dismissed it, saying that the sandwich must have been put there by another child – several had had peanut-butter sandwiches in their lunch boxes that day. They could make no link between a peanut-butter sandwich and an obstetrician dead from a cocaine overdose. Even Harvey’s phone call to the school had been treated as a typical case of parental anxiety, rather than as anything suspicious.

  ‘And what does his widow say?’ Van Rhoe asked.

  Susan was too tired to dredge up the peanut-butter story for him. Maybe Harvey’d had a brainstorm? He tried to kill his son then, in a fit of remorse, killed himself?

  That did not fit together very well, yet Susan could not dismiss the connection between the peanut-butter sandwich and his death. It was another coincidence, and it made her uncomfortable.

  She told Van Rhoe she looked forward to seeing him again the following week, and left.

  Almost the middle of March, and there was no sign of winter ending yet. It was a bitterly cold, dry morning and, outside on the Harley Street pavement, Susan pulled her long navy coat tightly around her and fastened the belt. ‘How you doing, Bump?’ she said. ‘You warm enough in there?’

  Bump didn’t respond. He must be asleep, she thought. She wasn’t sure why she kept think of the baby as he, and she hadn’t asked Van Rhoe to tell her the sex again, but for some reason she felt sure Bump was a boy.

  It was just before midday; her car was safely parked in an underground lot and, although she was feeling tired she didn’t want to go home yet. Instead she decided to walk down to Oxford Street and take a look in Marks and Spencer’s.

  By the time she’d battered her way through the crowded street to reach the store, which was further than she had realised, she was exhausted. She bought a fresh orange juice in the food department, then sat down on a chair she found near the men’s department.

  She broke the seal on the juice, removed the cap and drank. Miles Van Rhoe’s attitude to natural birthing was angering her. It’s my baby, she thought defiantly. It’s my decision.

  Bump kicked. This wasn’t his usual penalty-shot-for-England kind of a kick: it was more tentative, more a nervous tap, as if he was trying to attract her attention. And she felt the baby’s nervousness transmit to herself.

  ‘Love you, Bump,’ she whispered, and her eyes watered. ‘Oh, God, how the hell am I going to let you go?’

  Feeling more rested after a few minutes, she made her way to the children’s department. The spring clothes were in, and she wandered slowly around looking at the baby clothes, exchanging tentative me-too smiles with other pregnant women there. The sight of these other women, picking up armfuls of garments and heading towards the cash desks, heightened her sense of sadness. She wished she could do the same.

  Her mind racked through the dates again. March 12 today. Bump was due on 26 April. Just over six weeks. And then?

  She had the phone number and the address of the lawyer in London who specialised in surrogacy law, which she’d got from the helpline on the Internet, but in spite of all her doubts about Mr Sarotzini she hadn’t yet plucked up the co
urage to phone her.

  She couldn’t phone her. They had made a deal with Mr Sarotzini and she was honouring her part of it. She had to, somehow – she had to get herself through this, get herself through these crazy thoughts of keeping the baby. Only six and a bit weeks and then it would be over. Six and a bit weeks. That was all. Just six and a bit weeks.

  With tears streaming down her face, she fingered a row of all-in-one suits with matching socks, in vivid colours, then a row of cotton outfits, lingering over a tiny sailor suit. She lifted it up, put it back, then lifted it up again and, unable to stop herself, marched over to the cash desk with it.

  Just a present, she thought. A little going-away present for Bump.

  Chapter Forty-four

  ‘So tell me, how is she?’

  ‘Not good. I’m afraid she’s really not at all good.’

  Mr Sarotzini sat at his desk in his Geneva office, his thumb stroking the receiver he held cradled to his ear. ‘How do you rate her chances of survival?’

  ‘She is deteriorating, Emil. I can’t give you any guarantees that she’ll survive. I’m extremely concerned about her condition. If these were ordinary circumstances –’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Or if she were a normal patient, I would have her in today, right now, not even risk a further twenty-four hours, it’s that serious,’ Miles Van Rhoe said.

  ‘I understand. The date today is March the fifteenth. Six weeks remain.’

  ‘Give or take.’

  ‘So tell me our options?’ Mr Sarotzini stroked the receiver again, his large leatherbound diary open on his desk in front of him.

  ‘The cyst is so big there’s barely room for it to keep twisting, and it will stop moving altogether shortly. If that happens when it’s still twisted, the blood supply will be cut off, and within a few days it will start turning gangrenous. If we do nothing then, the baby and Susan Carter will both die.’

  ‘And how long before you can safely remove the baby?’

  ‘I don’t want to do it for another month. I want to be absolutely sure there is no danger of the lungs not being mature enough to support the baby – there would be too many risks. At eight and a half months I would be comfortable.’