The Truth

by Peter James

‘Don’t do this to me, Susan,’ John said, shakily. ‘I love you, more than anything in the world.’

  ‘You don’t love my baby,’ she replied. ‘If you really loved me, you would love my baby. You’re either lying to me about all this or you’re an idiot, a blind idiot.’

  John stood up, sharply, sending the chair crashing over backwards. Without saying another word, he stormed past her and took his coat from the rack. He opened the front door and went out, slamming it shut behind him.

  Susan sat down, folded her arms around her abdomen and gave Bump a hug. She sensed the baby nuzzling her in return. She whispered, ‘It doesn’t matter. I love you, that’s what matters. You and me, we love each other, right? I’ll protect you, you’re safe with me, I’ll never let you go. And I’m gonna find out the truth about this. I’m gonna find out just what the hell is going on. But before I do anything, I’m gonna make sure you’re safe.’

  She heard John’s car drive off.

  Then she took the cordless phone off the cradle and dialled. Moments later, she said, ‘Could you give me the number for British Airways, passenger reservations, please?’

  Chapter Fifty

  ‘Zilch,’ said Archie.

  ‘Nothing at all?’ John stuck his squash bag down on the bench in the locker room. He didn’t feel much like playing tonight but knew that the exercise would do him good. It might clear his brain a little and ease the tension that had been racking up inside him for several days now.

  Archie took off his jacket. ‘How’s Susan?’

  John drew breath, silently. ‘Fine. And Pila?’

  Archie grimaced and unbuttoned his shirt front. ‘She’s crazy, nearly bit off my nipple last night. Look, can you see? That’s where she drew blood.’

  Archie’s body was not a pretty sight at the best of times, and the clearly visible scab did not improve it. All the same, John decided he’d prefer to have a nipple half chewed off by a wild Spanish beauty than have no sex at all.

  No sex, and he had had to lie every night next to his wife who was both pregnant with another man’s baby and freaked out of her mind that the baby was going to be used as a sacrifice. Nothing he said would calm her down, and it did not help that he, too, was feeling uneasy about it all.

  He’d contacted the previous owners of the house, a retired architect and his wife – they’d gone to Australia to be closer to their children, who had emigrated years back. He had spoken to both the husband and the wife, and they had sounded charming, normal people. Of course, you couldn’t be completely sure about anyone, but John was as certain as he could be that news of the occult drawings and the severed finger in the loft had come as a total surprise to them.

  As they rightly pointed out, the house had been empty for almost a year before John and Susan had bought it: it was quite possible that there had been squatters who had done this, although Susan didn’t buy the squatter theory. She seemed convinced that these symbols proved that Fergus Donleavy had been telling her the truth.

  John wished Fergus had kept quiet: it had been crazy to worry Susan like this, and the discovery of the symbols couldn’t have come at a worse time. She had already been at a low ebb before Fergus’s death – which had really rocked her – and this discovery had been the final straw.

  And, no question, the symbols were disturbing. The sheer quality of the drawing was eerie: someone had gone to great trouble both to do them and hide them. And they had taken the same trouble over the compartment containing the gruesome finger. The squatter theory made some sense to him. But however much in his heart he wanted to dismiss the other theory, that Mr Sarotzini and Miles Van Rhoe were occult practitioners, the deaths of Zak Danziger, Harvey Addison and Fergus Donleavy preyed on his mind. There was a link, which might be only wild speculation but Donleavy was a respected academic – and Mr Sarotzini’s obsession with secrecy had always bothered John.

  He’d asked Archie to see whether he could find out anything about the Vörn Bank’s connections that might yield any clues, in the hope that it would prove to Susan and himself that her fears were ungrounded.

  It had been a horrendous weekend. Susan had been withdrawn, afraid of being in the house because of the symbols yet equally afraid to go out. And he had asked himself, many times, what choice he would have made if he could turn the clock back. What would their life have been like if they had rejected Mr Sarotzini’s offer? And when this was all over, would their love for each other, their passion, ever get back to how it had been. Or had he, or Susan, or both of them changed for ever?

  It was crazy. DigiTrak was doing so well, yet he found it hard to concentrate in the office and stay motivated. All the money they were making didn’t mean anything. Sure, the bank balance was fine, Clake was sickly sweet whenever they spoke and had even asked John if he and Susan would like to come to Wimbledon this summer as guests of the bank.

  John said, ‘I don’t understand how a company can be so – invisible.’

  ‘Easy. Nominee directors, nominee shareholders. This Vörn Bank is probably a subsidiary of another bank, registered somewhere like the Cayman Isles, which is a subsidiary of another bank which is registered in Liechtenstein, which is a subsidiary of another one that’s registered in the Dutch Antilles, and so on. If you have enough money you can be invisible, John. It would make a good on-line game for you for the Internet – hunt the real owners of fictitious companies.’

  John removed his tie and slipped it over a peg. ‘So, this cigarette lighter of yours that you reckon the guy from the bank stole. It could have gone half-way round the world by now?’

  ‘Very witty.’ Archie tugged on his squash shirt. ‘Still pisses me off, that. I can’t get over it. If I see that goon again – what’s his name? Kündz.’

  ‘No way to talk about a valued client, Archie.’

  ‘Yup, well, maybe as he’s a valued client I’ll take him out on my boat one day in a force eight and ask him how he’s enjoying my lighter while he honks over the side. Talking of which, this summer …’ He paused to pull on his sports socks. ‘I thought, if the weather’s half decent, of taking the boat over to France. We could take the girls, have a week cruising along the Normandy and Brittany coast, maybe go over to the Channel Islands. Fancy it?’

  ‘Sounds good, I’d love to.’ Normality, John thought. That’s the answer. Plan things ahead. Get Susan to see there’s life beyond the birth of the baby. Organise things for her to look forward to. Do the whole summer season this year, the Derby, Ascot, Wimbledon, Henley, Glyndebourne, the British Grand Prix, Cowes Week, Last Night of the Proms. Why not? She used to love all that. John pulled his shoes from his bag. ‘Arch, you’ve never heard anything strange about the Vörn Bank, have you?’

  ‘Strange?’

  John nodded. ‘A bank that employs someone who steals cigarette lighters doesn’t sound like the usual image of the respectable Swiss banks we hear about.’

  Archie looked at him. ‘Something’s really bothering you about this bank. What is it?’

  John lowered his voice as someone came into the changing room. ‘This probably sounds nuts. I’m just curious to know if they have any occult connections.’

  ‘Occult?’ Archie started tying one of his squash shoes. ‘You mean black magic, witchcraft, that kind of occult?’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ John pulled a lace tight.

  ‘Actually,’ Archie said, standing up and stretching, ‘it’s quite interesting you should say that.’

  John waited while Archie rummaged in his bag and produced a squash ball, which he squeezed as if he was testing the strength of his hand. ‘Yup, that’s quite interesting.’

  ‘The suspense is killing me, Arch.’

  Archie pocketed the ball, picked up his racquet and examined the strings. ‘What are they called, those occult things?’

  ‘What things?’

  Archie struck the strings with his fingernails and they made a high-pitched ping. He seemed satisfied with the sound. ‘You know, the symbols, mathematical thing
, those five-pointed stars – there’s a word for them.’

  ‘Pentagrams?’

  ‘Yup. Well, this guy I work with, next desk to mine, Oliver Walton.’ He brought the racquet up to his ear and pinged the strings again. ‘Last summer, on a hot day, the air-conditioning was down. He rolled up his sleeves, and I saw this thing on his arm. It was tiny, I thought it was a mole – then I looked closer and realised it was one of these things.’

  ‘A pentagram?’

  ‘Yup. I asked him why he had it, and he went very strange, quite huffy, rolled his sleeves back down, never really gave me a proper answer.’

  ‘What did he say?’ John was disturbed.

  ‘Just mumbled about it being personal, some shit like that. Tell you the truth, it was a busy day and I forgot about it.’

  ‘Do you get on with this guy, Oliver Walton?’

  Archie grimaced. ‘He’s all right to work with. Don’t see him socially, no idea what he does. He’s a closed book, rarely talks.’

  ‘He makes a lot of dough?’

  ‘Serious dough.’

  ‘Like you?’

  ‘Yah, but I spend it. God knows what he does with it. Probably sticks it under the floorboards.’

  ‘Wrapped in velvet?’

  Archie didn’t get this remark.

  It was half past nine when John arrived home, and he was surprised that Susan’s car wasn’t outside the house. Just to make sure, he checked the street but there was no sign of it.

  As he came in the front door leaden silence greeted him. Susan was not in. There was no note, and no supper had been prepared.

  He dialled the answering service. There was just one message, from a Detective Sergeant Shawcross wanting to make an appointment to come and talk to Susan in connection with Fergus Donleavy’s death. The message had been left at four fifty-five p.m.

  Increasingly worried, he checked out each room, just in case she was lying unconscious somewhere, but when he checked their en suite bathroom, his stomach began to churn. Her toothbrush wasn’t there. A few bottles were absent from the bathroom shelves. Her dressing gown, always hooked on the back of the door, was gone.

  A cupboard door was ajar in the bedroom.

  Her slippers had disappeared.

  And, when he looked further, her large blue suitcase was gone.

  Had it started? Prematurely? It was possible, particularly with the pains she’d been getting, that she’d gone into labour.

  He thought this through. She could have called an ambulance – no, she’d have called Miles Van Rhoe. There was a number for him somewhere, an emergency number, day or night, and he was trying to remember where he had seen it. But if an ambulance had taken her, where was her car? Perhaps she’d driven herself. Why hadn’t she rung him and left a message on his mobile? Surely she would have done that?

  Then the phone rang. He dived for it, and was disappointed to hear Kate Fox’s voice. John told her that Susan wasn’t in, and she asked him to pass on the details for Fergus Donleavy’s funeral. Next Tuesday, a crematorium in North London. He wrote it down on a slip of paper, and told Kate he’d give Susan the message as soon as she came in.

  He put the note on the kitchen table and weighted it down with a pepper-mill. Then he hunted for Miles Van Rhoe’s number, and finally, remembering, found it skewered on a hook on a shelf, along with the menus from the local takeaways.

  He got the engaged tone and hung up. His brain was racing. Had she had an accident? Passed out shopping somewhere? He dialled Van Rhoe’s number again and this time it started to ring. A gong sounded and a recorded voice told him that the call was being diverted. Then there was a ringing tone again, a different pitch, and almost immediately it was answered by a suave male voice saying, ‘Miles Van Rhoe.’ There was a din in the background, a babble of conversation

  And John wondered whether he was making a fool of himself. Perhaps Susan was out with a girlfriend tonight and he’d forgotten. His confidence stripped by this thought, he said, ‘Oh, hello, it’s John Carter, Susan Carter’s husband?’

  The voice that came back was warm and friendly. ‘Yes, good evening, how very nice to hear you. What can I do for you?’

  He was so calm that John knew right away he’d made a mistake in calling him. ‘I – I’m just a little concerned. I got home and Susan’s not here, and there’s no note or anything. I just thought, maybe something might have happened and you’d taken her into the clinic.’

  Now Van Rhoe sounded worried. ‘No, I haven’t heard from her, not since I last saw her a couple of days ago.’

  ‘Is it possible she could have passed out somewhere? Or gone into labour?’

  In spite of the anxiety in his voice, Van Rhoe kept it calm. ‘Well, yes, Mr Carter, these things are possible. I’m sure if she’d gone into labour she’d have rung me. She’s a very level-headed young lady.’

  John did not want to contradict him. ‘Yes, of course, I’m sure too.’

  ‘Have you tried the police? Or the hospitals?’

  ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘It would be worth ringing them. I’m afraid I’m at a medical dinner and I’m about to give a speech in a few minutes, otherwise I’d offer to help you.’

  ‘No, don’t worry, thank you, I can do that. I’m sure she’s all right and I’m just panicking.’

  ‘I’m sure she is, too. Will you call me later, in an hour or so, and let me know if everything is all right?’

  John promised he would. Then he sat down at the table and asked directory enquiries for a list of the local police stations and hospitals. The Daily Mail newspaper lay on the table along with the morning post. There was an opened letter from Susan’s mother, a couple of circulars addressed to him and an electricity bill.

  He jotted down the numbers the operator reeled off, then rang each in turn. No police station had any report of Susan Carter, and no hospital had admitted her.

  He wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or even more concerned.

  At eleven o’clock he rang Miles Van Rhoe again and told him Susan still had not appeared. There was a roar of talk going on in the background that made it hard to hear. The obstetrician sounded as if he’d had a few drinks, which annoyed John. He thanked John for keeping him informed, and suggested he tried another circuit of the hospitals and police.

  John tried again, still with no success. Then he began ringing round all her friends, even Caroline Addison whom he woke up, but without success.

  Susan had vanished.

  Chapter Fifty-one

  It was here, leaving the Customs hall, that the biggest danger lurked. Susan was feeling leadenly tired as she pushed the baggage cart out into Arrivals, the exertion making her perspire.

  She scanned the crowds, the nameboards and placards that were being held up. She was looking for a face, she didn’t know whose face, maybe Mr Sarotzini’s, more likely one she wouldn’t recognise but which would recognise her.

  Although she was five thousand miles away, she wasn’t dropping her defences, not for a moment. Her eyes peeled the faces, and she bit her lip, glancing behind her, all around her, picking up people she recognised from the plane, letting them go again. There had been five possibilities on the flight: five men travelling alone who could have been following her. She had deliberately hung back in the baggage hall, watching them, letting them go ahead of her. She couldn’t see any of them now.

  She knew that she’d been lucky that no one had queried her condition when she’d checked in; in advanced pregnancy, without a doctor’s letter, they could have refused to let her on the aeroplane. But she hadn’t put on much weight in her face, and the bulky coat she wore concealed her bulge.

  Bump had slept most of the way over but was awake now. He was troubled, too. Susan looked all around her again – she could feel Bump’s anxiety, her throat was dry, she wanted to get out of here quickly.

  It was a murky, wet afternoon. In the Alamo lot she couldn’t see anyone to worry about. It was quiet, one group of tourists
piling themselves into a people carrier and a couple who looked like they could be on honeymoon loading up a convertible. With perspiration guttering down her, Susan fumbled around with the seat-belt adjustment of her rental car, trying to let it out so that it would fit over her extended abdomen. Then she drove up to the checkout barrier.

  ‘Welcome to LA, Bump,’ she said, a few minutes later as she trod on the gas pedal and accelerated on to the freeway. Bump responded by turning and rolling over inside her. Bump was relaxed again, now that they were in the car and away, but Susan wasn’t. She was watching every car behind her in her mirrors.

  ‘They want you for their rituals, they want to do hideous things to you, Bump, I don’t know what kind of things, but they’re not getting a chance. You’re going to be born here, in California, you’ll be safe here. Your granny and grandpa are going to help me look after you. You’ll like them. They never made a success but they found their own kind of peace in life – well, they would have done if this thing hadn’t happened to Casey.’

  Susan fell silent. The wipers swung backwards and forwards in front of her, a truck thundered past so close that she swerved away from it, and a four-track on her inside gave her an angry blast on its horn. Now she was watching a sedan that was right on her tail – it had been there for a couple of minutes. She accelerated and the sedan accelerated. She slowed, the sedan slowed.

  She tensed. Just one man on his own driving. Then the sedan peeled away, heading for an exit ramp. Susan breathed out. She concentrated on her driving for a while, and then she said, ‘You’re going to like Casey, she’s your auntie. I mean, she’s not going to be like a normal auntie who takes you out, buys you presents, that kind of stuff, but that doesn’t mean she won’t love you any less. You understand?’

  Bump turned and rolled again in acknowledgement. Bump was going to adore Casey.

  Susan switched her mind to medics. She needed someone to recommend an obstetrician. That wasn’t going to be a problem – she had plenty of friends here, and she knew this place. Within twenty-four hours she’d be deluged with more recommendations than she could handle.