The Truth

by Peter James

  He tiptoed across and peered in, trembling terribly. The baby was asleep, a thin trail of vapour rising from its mouth. How could any baby survive in this cold?

  His heart whipping the walls of his chest, he stared for some moments at the tiny scrunched-up face, so pink against the white sheets. The flame-red hair, the eyes closed, the tiny lips pursed together, the minute fingers of one hand entwined in the loose weave of the cotton blanket.

  It was hard to believe that this was it, this little creature, so sweet and innocent-looking. Except that he could feel the presence radiating from it. He could feel its raw, hideous energy, and he knew he mustn’t falter, must not be deflected by any emotion, must not allow doubt to enter his mind.

  His teeth chattering with cold and fear, he started to whisper the words of the Lord’s Prayer, so quietly they were barely audible. And as he reached the end of the prayer, he let the raincoat slip to the ground and raised the blade of the stainless-steel knife above his head, gripping the handle in both of his sweating, slippery hands.

  And suddenly he could hear a terrifying hissing. It was the sound of his own blood coursing through his veins.

  It was as if all the valves in his body had been opened, all the taps turned on, and the blood was hurtling through his system. His heart was throbbing, vibrating, shaking on its mountings, sending pains shooting down his chest, his arms, his legs. There was a terrible pain inside his head. His vision blurred. Then, with a clatter, the knife fell to the floor.

  He let out a small, stifled croak.

  Susan, startled awake by the nanny’s shout, scrambled out of her recliner. Panic-stricken, the girl was already running in through the patio doors. Susan followed her upstairs, shouting for John.

  The sight of the closed door deepened her alarm. The nanny sprinted ahead down the landing, hurled it open, then stopped in the doorway. Susan crowded in behind her.

  A man she had never seen before, one of the damned visitors, she guessed, was on one knee, a raincoat spread out on the floor beside him, looking up at them, his face clammy and pallid. Heart in her mouth, she dashed to the cot and stared down. To her relief, Verity was sleeping peacefully.

  She heard the nanny say, in a scolding tone, ‘What are you doing up here?’

  The stranger, sounding short of breath, gasped, ‘I – I’m – so – so sorry – I – ’

  Susan knelt beside the man, trawling her brain for the first-aid protocols she had learnt, years back. He might be having a heart attack. She seized his wrist, searching for the pulse, and shivered. The room felt cold – maybe it was just shock.

  The man grimaced at her apologetically, and then up at the nanny. ‘I – just wanted – to see the baby. The heat – it – I –’

  Susan found the pulse and looked at her watch. The pulse was high, racing.

  ‘I’m all right,’ he said, glancing anxiously at his raincoat. ‘The heat. I’m all right, thank you very much, I’m sorry.’

  Releasing his wrist, Susan turned to the nanny, who had the back of her hand pressed to his forehead, testing his temperature. ‘I think you’d better call an ambulance, he doesn’t look right.’

  He shook his head. ‘No, thank you, I –’ He scooped up his raincoat clumsily from the floor, folded it several times, like a bundle of laundry, jammed it under his arm and stood up. ‘The heat,’ he said. ‘Outside – I made a mistake, didn’t realise how warm it was.’

  ‘You feel very cold,’ the nanny said. ‘Do you have a heart condition? Blood pressure problems?’

  ‘No, no problems, nothing important.’

  ‘You’d better come downstairs and sit down for a few minutes,’ Susan said. ‘Are you OK to walk?’

  ‘Yes, yes, thank you, yes, I’m fine.’

  Susan led the way along the landing, the nanny flanking behind, and stayed close to him on the stairs, ready to grab him if he looked like falling. She led him through to the drawing room and he perched on the edge of the sofa, holding the raincoat on his lap.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ Susan asked.

  ‘No, I –’ He glanced round. ‘I still have my glass of water, thank you.’ He picked it up with a hand that shook so much, water slopped over the top.

  ‘Your husband asked me to show him in here,’ the nanny said to Susan by way of an explanation.

  ‘Who are you?’ Susan asked.

  ‘Euan – er – Doctor Freer. Did Fergus Donleavy ever mention my name to you?’

  ‘Fergus?’ she said in surprise.

  ‘He was a very good friend.’

  ‘Fergus Donleavy?’

  ‘Yes.’ He drank some water, the glass clattering against his teeth. ‘A good man. He’s left a very big hole behind him.’

  ‘Are you the professor of theology? And Archdeacon Emeritus of …?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Yes, he has talked about you.’ Her expression softened. ‘I wanted to go to his funeral, but I – I was away. I was very shocked by his death. It was just so …’

  Freer glanced warily at the nanny, then asked Susan, ‘This young lady?’

  ‘Caroline Hughes, our nanny.’

  ‘Would it be possible, Mrs Carter, just for a few minutes, that you and I might speak in private?’

  ‘I’ll go up and check Verity,’ the nanny said, and slipped out of the room, closing the door behind her.

  The clergyman looked up at the ceiling and lowered his voice, as if nervous of being overheard. ‘Mrs Carter, how much did Fergus tell you about your baby?’

  She sat down in an armchair opposite him. ‘He came round on the afternoon of the night he – he died.’ She was silent collecting her thoughts, feeling very lucid, suddenly, far more clear-headed than she had for days. It was comforting to be in the presence of a priest.

  ‘He was tense, but he wasn’t very clear. He told me there was a file on my obstetrician, Miles Van Rhoe, at Scotland Yard – that Van Rhoe was involved in the ritual sacrifice of babies. And that a man with the same name as my baby’s surrogate father, Mr Sarotzini, was a notorious occultist before the war – the devil incarnate, he called him.’

  The priest nodded.

  Then she remembered something else. ‘Oh, yes, it was strange. We were having lunch one day last year, and he suddenly asked me if I was planning to get pregnant – that thought really seemed to worry him.’

  ‘And what did you tell him?’

  ‘I lied – I said no, and that calmed him down. It was a surrogate baby – I don’t know if –?’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ Freer glanced up at the ceiling again, his mind in turmoil. Should he try again to kill the thing – and then himself? Did he have the courage? He could go back up there, before they realised what he was doing. He could go into the room, sweep past the nanny, and do it.

  He should do it.

  Except. He had already failed once. Perhaps that was God’s hand restraining him, trying to show him there was another way, a better way. Or perhaps he just lacked the courage. He took a breath and in a voice that was barely above a whisper, said ‘Susan, did Fergus explain to you what you have here in your house?’

  She frowned, not comprehending.

  ‘Your baby must have the protection of the Church. And you and your husband.’

  ‘Protection?’

  ‘We are going to have to work very hard, you, your husband and I. And we will need the help of others. Is your husband a churchgoer?’

  ‘No. What do you mean “work hard”?’

  Still shaking badly, he drank some more water. ‘Everything Fergus told you is true, but this is not about protecting the baby from being taken for sacrifice, this is something else altogether.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I don’t think we should talk here. You must bring the baby to me, you and your husband, I want to start by baptising her. We must do it quickly. You have been baptised?’

  ‘Yes. Please tell me what it is – what’s going to happen to her.’

  Again his eyes went up
to the ceiling. ‘I don’t know how much the baby can hear. It would be better if you and your husband come to see me. Then we can talk in safety.’

  Susan began to wonder about the man’s sanity. His eyes were looking wild. ‘Verity’s only three and a half weeks old,’ she said. ‘She can’t hear you.’

  ‘Never underestimate her, Mrs Carter. Never make that mistake. Please, always remember that in the years ahead.’ A few beads of perspiration ran down Freer’s face and he dabbed his brow with his handkerchief. ‘Your husband is playing golf?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘He will be back this evening?’

  Susan nodded.

  ‘I want the two of you to come and see me tonight, alone. Can you do that? Leave the baby here with the nanny. It is very important that we start our work as soon as possible. The baby will be getting stronger every day. She will find it progressively easier to resist.’ Then, clutching the raincoat to his chest, he stood up.

  There were questions Susan desperately wanted to fire at him. ‘Please,’ she said, ‘Can you –?’

  ‘I should go,’ he said, interrupting her. ‘I don’t think my presence here is good. I will help you, but you and your husband must trust me. I – is – is it all right if I call a taxi?’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Central London – the Brompton Road.’

  ‘There’s a local minicab firm who’re good, and cheaper than a black cab. Shall I call them for you?’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  Susan walked through to the kitchen, and dialled the number off the card on the wall. She felt so sick with fear she could barely give her address when the taxi firm answered. Euan Freer was someone of whom Fergus had spoken highly. Far too highly for her to dismiss him as a crank.

  When she returned to the drawing room he was seated once more on the sofa, his hands together in front of his face, eyes closed, and he was mouthing a prayer. She stood in the doorway, not wanting to intrude, waiting for him to finish, remembering Fergus’s disturbed expression at lunch last year, his agitation when she had seen him last.

  The bell rang. Was that the taxi already? So quickly? She went to the front door and opened it. A blue Ford saloon with a roof aerial was sitting outside with the engine running. She turned to fetch the priest, but Euan Freer was already in the hallway, raincoat clutched untidily to his chest.

  ‘My taxi?’

  ‘Yes, I think so.’

  He handed her a card, and looked at her imploringly. ‘This is my home address and phone number. You and your husband will come tonight to see me?’

  She hoped she would be able to persuade John. ‘I’m not sure what time he’ll be back.’ Then she remembered something. ‘The nanny – she’s going to a concert tonight with a friend. I told her it would be all right.’

  ‘Come afterwards, it doesn’t matter. As late as you like. You will come?’

  She nodded. ‘I’ll talk to her. Maybe we can get a relief nanny for a few hours.’

  ‘Good.’

  She glanced at the card. ‘Please, Doctor Freer, tell me what you meant when you said that Verity will find it progressively easier to resist. Resist what?’

  ‘Let me explain tonight, in private,’ he said. Then, casting an anxious glance at the upstairs landing he hurried out, down the porch steps and over to the taxi.

  Susan stood watching as he opened the rear door and clambered in. Then she caught a glimpse of the driver’s face as he turned to greet the priest with a broad smile.

  Her mouth fell open in shock. ‘No,’ she whispered. ‘No. No. No.’

  Even before the priest’s door had closed, the car was accelerating fiercely away, the tyres squealing on the road.

  Racked by shivers she tripped down the steps and broke into a run. ‘Stop!’ she screamed. ‘Stop! Get out! Doctor! Doctor Freer! Get out! Oh, please get out!’

  She sprinted helplessly after the car, watching it draw further and further away. The brake lights came on, but it barely stopped at the junction at the far end before turning right and disappearing.

  ‘Stop!’ she yelled, futilely. ‘Please stop! For God’s sake get out!’ She sank to her knees in the middle of the road, sobbing. The driver’s face burned in her mind. The smile.

  That same smile she had seen before when he had come to fix the telephones. That smile as he had come towards her in the clinic. It was him. She was certain beyond any doubt.

  The driver was the man from Telecom.

  Chapter Seventy

  John played well.

  For the first time in many weeks he felt relaxed. He’d had a couple of beers, heard some new jokes. For a few precious hours, his troubles with Susan and Sarotzini had been pushed into the background. As he turned into his street, he was replaying in his mind his chip out of the trees on the fourteenth, which had struck the pin and gone down for an eagle, winning him the game. Still revelling in the memory, he pulled up outside the house.

  Something was wrong.

  Susan’s car was gone.

  His immediate reaction was that the car had been stolen – she hadn’t driven since they had come back from the States. The little VW had been standing on the patch of concrete outside the house for weeks.

  John ran into the house and was greeted by the nanny, who came hurriedly downstairs, dolled up with make-up and smartly dressed in white trousers and a jacket. He could tell from her expression that something was wrong. ‘Oh, I thought it might be Mrs Carter coming back,’ she said.

  ‘She’s gone out? In the car?’

  ‘With Verity,’ she said, nervously.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mr Carter.’

  ‘What do you mean you don’t know?’ he said, snapping at her and then immediately regretting it. ‘Sorry.’

  She smiled understandingly. ‘Mrs Carter sent me out to the shops to get some groceries shortly after the gentleman – the priest – left. When I got back she and Verity had gone.’

  ‘What time was that?’

  ‘About two o’clock.’

  ‘She didn’t tell you she was going out?’

  ‘No.’

  John looked at his watch; it was seven twenty.

  ‘I’ve been worried – perhaps something was wrong with Verity and she took her to the doctor or the hospital,’ the nanny said. Then, sounding more reassuring than she looked, she added, ‘I’m sure she’ll be back soon.’

  ‘Five hours? What did the priest want?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said, openly.

  ‘This was the man who arrived as I was leaving?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You didn’t hear anything he said to my wife?’

  ‘No, he wanted to talk to her in private.’

  John looked at her distractedly. ‘He didn’t say anything to you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And there’s been no call, no message?’

  ‘No, nothing. There were several visitors to see Mrs Carter and the baby – I told them they’d have to come back.’ She swallowed nervously. ‘There is one thing – 1 don’t know if it’s significant – but as the priest was leaving, Mrs Carter ran after the car. I don’t know if he’d forgotten something, but she came back looking extremely distressed.’

  John frowned, then thought for a moment. ‘Freer. Doctor Freer. Was that his name?’

  ‘I – I think that’s how you introduced him.’

  Out in the street a car hooted. The nanny made a move towards the door, but John got there first and saw a dilapidated Citroën 2CV outside, with the engine running. There was a young man in the driver’s seat.

  ‘Oh, that’s my friend,’ the nanny said. ‘I’ll just go and tell him I have to cancel tonight – I’ve been trying to phone him but he’s been at a cricket match all day.’

  ‘You’re going to a concert, aren’t you?’

  ‘I’ll cancel it, Mr Carter. I was going to tell him when he arrived. I didn’t want to go until Mrs Carter got back.’
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  ‘Go,’ John said. ‘No point ruining your evening.’

  She looked hesitant. ‘Don’t you think I –?’

  ‘Go,’ he said. ‘Have a good time!’

  ‘You’re really sure?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She looked delighted. ‘Thanks!’ She waved cheerily at the driver of the car, then darted back inside to fetch her bag. She told John she’d be home early, and then she was gone.

  John lugged in his golf bag and trolley from the car, and stored them away in the cupboard under the stairs, his brain racing. Sarotzini hadn’t taken her. If she and Verity had been snatched she wouldn’t have driven in her car. Where was she?

  Had she gone back to America?

  No, surely not.

  Then where?

  He went into the kitchen, picked up the phone and dialled directory enquiries. When they answered, he asked if there was a Canon Freer listed, and gave them a variety of spelling options.

  He was given two numbers. One was a flat in the Brompton Road. The other was at University College, London. He tried the flat first and got an answering machine. He left a message, asking for Canon Freer to call him back, urgently. Then he tried the university number.

  There was no answer.

  The double glazing made the room eerily quiet. It was a fine evening outside: the London skyline, streaked with crimson, had a pink hue.

  Verity was feeding hungrily. Behind her, the television was on, mute. Susan surfed the channels with the remote, barely noticing anything. Inside her head she surfed her brain in the same detached way.

  She was crying. She had been crying all afternoon. She was thinking about Euan Freer. What had happened to him? The same thing that had happened to Fergus, Harvey, Zak Danziger and maybe even Archie Warren? She had phoned the numbers on his card repeatedly, every half-hour, desperate to hear that he was unharmed, that he was home, that she had only imagined the man from Telecom’s face in the minicab.

  And she was crying for her loss of Fergus. He had been trying so hard to tell her something and she hadn’t listened – not in the way that he’d needed her to listen.