The Truth

by Peter James

  ‘Fortunate or convenient?’

  ‘I don’t think Susan would cope very well with the duress of a police interrogation at this moment. Would you care to see her indicted on a homicide charge? And, possibly, an attempted homicide charge as well? She is in a mental state where she is unable to separate reality from what is in her imagination. In time, with gentle treatment and care, she will come out of this. To inform her of Mr Van Rhoe’s condition might, I fear, push her over the brink.’

  John considered this. Susan’s behaviour in recent weeks at home had given him concern, however much he did not want to admit it to himself now or to Mr Sarotzini. ‘She’s been in constant pain for months. It’s not surprising that –’ He checked himself.

  Mr Sarotzini opened out the palms of his hands to John. ‘Who knows? Perhaps it was the combination of pain and stress – almost certainly, I would say. The emotional turmoil of all she is going through. It is harder than people realise to give birth to a baby and then hand it over, never to see it again. Much harder.’

  ‘Yes,’ John said. ‘I’ve learned that.’

  Mr Sarotzini was looking at him strangely now. ‘Susan loves that baby with all her heart.’

  ‘I know,’ John said quietly. ‘I think it would be best if you were to take it – her – now. Every minute that Susan spends with her is going to make it harder. Please take the baby, give me back my business and our home – that’s all I want. Just take her and let us have our life back.’

  For what seemed an eternity Mr Sarotzini studied John in silence. He pressed his fingertips lightly together, forming a bridge once again with his two hands, and continued to study John over the top of them, his eyes never leaving John’s, as if he was reading something written inside them.

  Then he said, ‘I think now it is time for you to go and see Susan.’

  Chapter Sixty-five

  Susan looked up in alarm as John opened the door, shrinking away from him against the headboard and flinging a protective arm around her baby, which continued suckling her exposed breast, obliviously.

  He smiled and received a silent, wary stare in return. She was pale and drawn.

  ‘Hi,’ he said, hesitantly, closing the door behind him, aware that almost certainly Mr Sarotzini was watching him, and avoiding looking up to where the camera might be, not wanting to alarm her further. He shrugged at her and smiled again. ‘How you doing?’

  The room had a sickly sweet smell of baby powder, fresh laundry, and something else that John couldn’t identify but always associated with new-born babies.

  He looked, curiously, at the infant, at its tiny face and minute hands. It’s nose was a miniature replica of Susan’s, he thought, and its flame-red hair was Susan’s too, and this surprised him because – perhaps the situation would have been easier to accept that way – he had imagined the baby would have only Mr Sarotzini’s features.

  Feeling a heave of emotion, he walked across to the bed, sent down and kissed Susan lightly on the forehead. She did not respond.

  ‘She’s lovely,’ he said. ‘Looks like you. Has your hair and your nose.’ He wanted to touch the baby. There was so much of Susan in her – it was even more evident now that he was closer – but a warning gong in his mind made him hold back, told him to keep his emotional distance.

  She dropped her eyes. ‘Her name’s Verity,’ she said, in a flat, detached voice. And then in the same tone, almost matter-of-fact, she said, ‘Casey’s dead.’

  ‘I heard.’ Then he hesitated. ‘I’m sorry, darling, I’m –’ He wasn’t sure what he felt or what to say. ‘I’m really sorry,’ he said, lamely. He reached out with his hands to touch her, to comfort her, but still she did not look at him, keeping her eyes fixed on the baby. He stroked her shoulder lightly, then laid a finger against her cheek but there was still no response.

  ‘He said I killed her.’

  John waited a beat, then said, ‘Who said that?’

  ‘He said I killed Casey. That I disconnected the air line.’

  John watched a solitary tear roll jerkily down her cheek; it was followed by another, then another. He pulled out his handkerchief and dabbed them. It felt like being in a room with a total stranger, not his wife.

  ‘Who said so?’ he asked.

  ‘The nurse. Nurse Caulk. Mr Sarotzini said Nurse Caulk had told him.’ Still without looking up at him she said, ‘It wasn’t like that, I didn’t – I –’

  He dabbed away more tears.

  ‘My parents think I killed her, too. I didn’t, John. People can say what they want, think what they want, but they can’t take away the truth from you, can they?’

  ‘No,’ he replied.

  ‘She was my reason for living.’

  There were a couple of hard chairs in the room. John pulled one up to the bed and sat down, ignoring his hurt feelings at the remark. ‘I know. You did everything you could for her. She was lucky to have had you.’ He looked at the baby again, at the tiny puckered mouth sucking greedily, and at the hair, the flame-red Susan hair and the tiny turned-up nose.

  He searched for traces of Mr Sarotzini in its face, but could see none. It was all Susan, just a miniature clone of her. Or perhaps that was wishful thinking.

  ‘You were a wonderful sister to her,’ he said. ‘You did everything you could for her. You made her life a lot nicer than –’ He fell silent, thinking of the video he had seen of Susan plunging the aerial of the mobile phone into Van Rhoe’s eye, and shuddered. Mr Sarotzini had been right not to tell her: she was in a bad enough state of shock as it was.

  Then he leant forward and whispered in her ear, not caring whether he could be overheard or not, ‘I don’t believe you killed her. And I love you more than anything on earth.’

  She looked up at him, a fleeting, uncertain glance, then silently back down at the baby.

  He watched her with a heavy heart. What a mess he’d got her into. Suddenly he found himself hating his bank manager, Mr Clake. Mr Clake with his Bible on his desk was to blame. If he’d only let things be, the business would have turned round and none of this, none, would have happened.

  And now his wife was lying in a hospital bed, accused of murdering her sister and maiming another man, and a stranger’s baby was suckling her breasts.

  Oh, God, how had he ever let himself agree to Sarotzini’s crazy demands? Why hadn’t he been strong enough to say no, forget it? They could have coped – OK, they’d have lost the business and the house, but they would have had each other. Instead, they had this nightmare that was destroying them both.

  Susan glanced up at him, watched him for some moments, then gazed down at her baby again. She said, very quietly, ‘Mr Sarotzini is going to let me keep her.’

  John looked at her in amazement.

  And then, peering nervously up at John again, she asked, ‘Are you?’

  Chapter Sixty-six

  The first visitors came at two fifteen the following afternoon. An elderly, rather shabby couple, dressed in clothes of good quality but which should have been given to a jumble sale years ago – or perhaps had come from one, John thought.

  The woman’s badge read Mrs M. Lebovic. She had blue-rinsed hair, ruby lipstick, gaudy jewellery and wore a velvet cloche hat. Mr S. Lebovic carried a trilby in his hand, wore a drab, frayed tie and looked meek. They might have been Hungarian, John thought. Or Polish or Rumanian, somewhere like that.

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ the woman said, in a thick Brooklyn accent, ignoring both Susan and John and stepping right up to the sleeping cot. The man followed her, approaching Verity with an air of humility and awe. Then both of them stood still, as if the cot were an altar, closed their eyes and mouthed a silent prayer.

  It reminded Susan eerily of the night that Mr Sarotzini and the other people, including the old man in the wheelchair, had come into her room.

  ‘Are you friends of Mr Sarotzini?’ John asked, taking an instant dislike to them.

  The man carefully levered a package wrapped in old newsp
aper from his raincoat pocket and, ignoring John, held it out to Susan, who was watching him warily. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘For the new-born.’

  The object was surprisingly heavy, and Susan nearly dropped it. She pulled off an elastic band, then unfurled the paper to reveal a dark green figurine. It was neither human nor animal, probably some mythological creature, she assumed, not caring for it very much. ‘Thank you,’ she said, uncertainly.

  ‘It is her heritage,’ the man said, then turned to follow the woman, who was already at the doorway.

  ‘Wait,’ Susan said. ‘I don’t know your connection with –’

  They were gone, leaving more quickly than they had arrived as if anxious that they had outstayed their welcome.

  She gave John a who-were-they? look.

  ‘Mr and Mrs Lebovic.’ He took the statuette from her. ‘Friends – Christ, this is heavy – friends of Mr Sarotzini? Relatives? What did he say? It is her heritage? What the fuck does that mean?’

  Susan looked at Verity, who was sleeping peacefully. ‘Maybe it’s some family heirloom they’ve been keeping.’

  John turned the statuette over, searching for some clue as to its provenance. He knew little about antiques; this felt old, its texture smooth, like glass on a beach polished by the sea and sand, and he guessed it was malachite. It had graceful legs, like a racehorse, a male human torso and a scaly head that reminded him of a gryphon. It did not repulse him, but it was unattractive, rather sinister-feeling. ‘Don’t think I’d mind too much giving this away if it was in my family,’ he said.

  ‘It is, now,’ she replied.

  Their eyes met, for an instant, then John looked away. Susan’s emotions were a minefield and he needed to pick every word he said with care. He examined the statue again, wondering if it had some occult significance, but said nothing.

  Last night, he’d slept in a room adjoining Susan’s. He’d had only one further conversation with Mr Sarotzini after his confrontation with him yesterday afternoon, in which the banker had informed him that he had to return to Europe on business, and would leave him and Susan to consider their position. Mr Sarotzini told him he could stay at the clinic for as long as he wanted, and strongly advised him to remain with Susan until she was fit enough to return to England. John had no intention of doing anything else.

  Susan had been seen this morning by her new obstetrician, a courteous Swiss of few words named Dr Verlag. Under John’s questioning he told them he had removed a small ovarian cyst after the Caesarean and that Susan was fine, she would be able to mother as many more children as she wanted.

  No mention was made of Miles Van Rhoe, and John thought that that was for the best, for now. Just let her keep it blotted out until she was in a stronger mental state.

  This morning, Susan had again told John exactly what had happened when she’d arrived in Casey’s room. He wanted to believe her, and what she said had that indefinable ring of authenticity about it. And yet there was a question mark that hung like a gallows across his mind.

  If Susan was able to blot from her mind her attack on Van Rhoe, then was it possible that she had killed Casey and was blotting that out, too?

  Could Sarotzini possibly have been telling the truth?

  She had a motive: with Casey dead, she had no financial obligations to prevent her absconding with Verity. But would Susan really have put her love for her unborn baby higher than her sister’s life? Not if she was normal. But if she was having a breakdown … if the balance of her mind was disturbed … then what?

  And he had a feeling that Susan was holding back from telling him everything. She wasn’t sure about him, she wasn’t sure at all.

  Ten minutes after the Lebovics had departed, the second visitors arrived. Mr and Mrs Stone, a decade younger than the Lebovics and much better dressed and, John guessed, also of middle European origin. Like the Lebovics, they, too, were interested only in Verity, virtually ignoring Susan and John, except to hand them a gift, this time in a box tied with ribbon, a magnificent gold chalice that John boggled at and reckoned must be worth thousands.

  Visitors continued to arrive in an intermittent trickle throughout the afternoon. Concerned at the stress on Susan, John spoke to the obstetrician, asking if he could put either a restriction or a total ban on visitors, at least until she was stronger, and Dr Verlag’s curt response was that these people admired the great man, Emil Sarotzini, and had come, many of them right across America, to pay respects to his child. It would be an insult to reject them.

  There was no let-up each afternoon for the next three weeks. The visitors were invariably polite, but mostly reticent, normally addressing Susan and ignoring John. All brought a gift. Some of the women also dispensed advice for care of the baby, about nutrition, sleeping positions, room and bath temperatures. Susan was given remedies for colds, herbs for Verity’s bones, and advice on vitamins to add to the baby’s milk once she moved from breast to bottle feeds.

  The visitors were invariably middle-aged to elderly, some more affluent-looking than others, and although just about every race was eventually represented, mostly they were white and predominantly of central European extraction, John judged from their appearance, their names and sometimes their voices.

  The first few afternoons he stayed in the room, watching them carefully, and exchanging comical glances with Susan as some departed. Although she was tired, Susan was, at least, showing signs of regaining her sense of humour.

  Many of the gifts were antiques, and dark green or black were the favoured colours, malachite, wood or marble, and often wrapped with black silk ribbon. But there were also some in brass and gold. The largest gift was an ornately carved black lacquered crib. A couple delivered it with great pride and said it had been in their family for centuries. After they had gone, John and Susan exchanged a look of horror. Susan said it gave her the creeps having it in the room and John removed it, putting it in the trunk of his car, and donated it to a startled couple he found in an LA suburb preparing for a garage sale.

  There were censers, crucibles and other jars and vessels, and a large amount of old jewellery, some beautiful, but much of it vulgar and showy with huge stones. The gifts Susan liked best were the linen, which several people brought with pride, the finest Susan had ever seen or touched. She had John remove all the overtly occult gifts and store them away, not wanting her parents, who came every morning, to see them.

  John did some work for DigiTrak, visiting existing clients on the West Coast and trying to drum up new business, although his heart wasn’t really in it. Mostly he bided his time, thinking, trying to understand what was happening, watching Susan, talking to her and trying to coax back into their relationship the closeness they had once had. But always Verity lay between them, like a brick lying in the shattered glass that had been their love.

  Susan continued to insist that Mr Sarotzini had said she could keep Verity. John did not contradict her, presuming that the banker had his reasons. Perhaps he, too, was concerned about Susan’s sanity, and was allowing her to keep the baby until she was strong enough mentally to cope with parting from her. Although John suspected that the man was too ruthless to let feelings of that kind cloud his judgement, and that he must have some other agenda.

  And he felt also that it was a bad decision. The longer Susan spent with Verity, the harder she was going to find parting with her. He was even finding his own emotions getting tangled the more time he spent with the baby, holding her at Susan’s insistence, talking to her, teasing her. He wasn’t sure that he was getting closer to Verity but it was getting harder, as the baby showed signs of recognising him and as he watched Susan’s intense love for her, to remember that this was another man’s child. And he no longer saw Verity as some distant, disconnected object, but as a frail infant, a fellow human being, helpless and trusting in these two fallible people, Susan and himself, who were her world.

  He called Pila in England every couple of days and the bulletins she gave him on Archie remained unchang
ed. He was deeply distressed by the condition of his friend, and thought constantly about his confrontation with Mr Sarotzini, and how aggrieved the banker had been when he had suggested a connection between Archie’s illness and the deaths of Harvey Addison, Zak Danziger and Fergus Donleavy.

  He replayed over and over the banker’s reaction, trying to gauge how a genuinely innocent man might have responded, and concluded every time that Mr Sarotzini’s evasive reply, his reaffirmation of his so-called honourable behaviour, followed by his bald challenge to John to call the police, were those of a man who had something to hide.

  A million questions boiled in his mind. Susan had gone to Harvey Addison for a second opinion and that night he had died. It had been, ostensibly, an overdose of cocaine – but perhaps his death had been set up to look that way? Then Fergus had told Susan what he knew about Sarotzini and Miles Van Rhoe, and that night he had choked on his vomit in a drunken stupor. Again that could have been a set-up. Zak Danziger had died of a drug overdose in a hotel in New York. Again a set-up?

  Archie Warren had gone to his office and e-mailed him files about Sarotzini’s company, and that night he had had a stroke and was still in a coma, with a poor prognosis. It was a common belief that occult practitioners could harm victims merely by thinking about them, or by sticking pins in wax effigies of them. Was that what had happened to Archie?

  Was such a thing really possible?

  And why had these things happened? The motive for Zak Danziger’s death had been clear enough: to get him off DigiTrak’s back. But Harvey Addison? Just because Susan had been to him for a second opinion? Was there something about the baby that Harvey had not been supposed to see or know?

  John knew that Harvey had been a womaniser, and that he took cocaine. It was possible that his death had been a genuine accident. It was possible that Fergus Donleavy’s death had been an accident also – Susan had told him that Fergus was a heavy drinker. It was possible that Archie’s obesity and incessant smoking had finally taken its toll.