The Truth

by Peter James

  Susan, did Fergus explain to you what you have here in your house?

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

  Verity’s tiny hand was stroking her breast as she fed. Susan stared down, feeling an immense closeness and love for her. It was incredible: this was her baby, she had carried this creature inside her body and now her body was feeding her.

  Never underestimate her, Mrs Carter, never make that mistake. Please, always remember that in the years ahead.

  She looked so pretty, so innocent, so adorable, in her white cotton all-in-one sailor outfit. How could she ever change?

  The man from Telecom. Would he come along one day and change her?

  Her mind was drifting. The pink hue outside was deepening.

  Fergus had tried to warn her and she hadn’t listened. He had tried to tell her what she might be bringing into the world and she hadn’t wanted to hear.

  ‘I’m not going to let them,’ she whispered. ‘They think they can come and take you one day and use you in their rituals. But they can’t. I will never let them, never. I promised you that when you were just li’l ole Bump inside me. Remember that?’

  When Verity finished feeding, Susan opened her handbag and took out the number Mr Sarotzini had given her, where he had assured her he could be reached day and night. She dialled it.

  He answered on the second ring.

  ‘Mr Sarotzini,’ she said. ‘It’s Susan Carter.’

  There was a pause and then he said, pleasantly, ‘Hello, Susan, how are you?’

  ‘I want you to listen to me very carefully. I’m on the fourteenth floor of the London Hilton and I have Verity in my arms. If you don’t do exactly what I tell you, I’m taking her with me out of the window.’

  Chapter Seventy-one

  Kündz said, ‘Let me talk to her.’

  He had driven the Mercedes limousine to Heathrow because he wanted to be with Mr Sarotzini when he went to Susan.

  ‘Just take me to the London Hilton in Park Lane, Stefan. You are familiar with this hotel?’

  Mr Sarotzini was sitting in the rear of the car. It was dark and Kündz could not see Mr Sarotzini’s face in the mirror, and this made him uncomfortable. Mr Sarotzini was in a bad mood and this made him uncomfortable also. Kündz wanted him to be in a good mood when he met Susan, because he was afraid for her. She was behaving foolishly; he needed to speak to her, to warn her of the dangers of angering Mr Sarotzini.

  Oh, Susan, Susan, my darling Susan, why have you done this?

  It was Saturday night, and the traffic was heavy. The drive in from the airport took forty-five minutes, and it was nearly eleven when they pulled up outside the hotel entrance. A boisterous group of people in evening dress came out through the revolving doors.

  Mr Sarotzini had said nothing on the journey, and only broke his silence now to say, ‘Wait here.’

  The rear door opened. Kündz heard the rustle of a bank-note, and then the doorman was in front of him, waving him forward into a space on the packed forecourt. Anxiously he watched Mr Sarotzini enter the hotel. Then he peered up. Susan was in a room: her light might be any of the ones he could see.

  Please be sensible, Susan, oh, please be a sensible girl. I don’t want to have to punish you.

  Every day Kündz tried to avoid thinking about the baby, but he couldn’t help it. Mr Sarotzini had promised him that one day he would be together with Susan. He, Susan and Verity, the three of them together, a family, a unit, a trinity. He longed to hold the baby in his arms, the tiny creature with Susan’s red hair that was his daughter, to have her look into his eyes and reach out her arms towards him, and to hear her say, Daddy!

  Instead it was John Carter’s eyes that she looked into.

  For the past four weeks he had been experiencing new and confusing emotions. He saw the world in a different light, a world that no longer centred around himself but around his tiny child. How he wished he could sweep Susan up in his arms and kiss her tenderly and tell her that it was he, not Mr Sarotzini, who was the father and that they were going to be together for ever, that he would protect her and Verity. No one would ever harm either of them. And how he wished he could tell her that Mr Sarotzini sanctioned their love!

  Oh, Susan, will you ever know quite how much I love you? Will your child – our child? Will she? Please, you must be sensible, my darling, you must not play games with Mr Sarotzini.

  You must not jeopardize our future happiness.

  Emil Sarotzini got out of the elevator at the fourteenth floor, oriented himself with the room numbers, then turned left, walked down the corridor and stopped outside room 1401. A DO NOT DISTURB sign hung on the door. He rang the bell.

  There was no answer.

  He rang the bell again, for longer. Then waited. Then he rang the bell again.

  At last he heard the sound of a safety chain being removed. It was followed by the clunk of a lock. Then the door opened and he was confronted by a large, bearded man, in a white towelling dressing-gown. A blonde girl was sitting up in the bed and leather clothing was strewn on the floor.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’ the man asked, in a thick, Irish accent.

  Holding his ground and his icy calm, Mr Sarotzini replied, ‘I’ve come to see Susan Carter.’

  ‘Who?’ The man’s surprise was clearly genuine.

  ‘Susan Carter,’ he repeated.

  ‘You’ve got the wrong fucking room.’ He slammed the door.

  Through the spyhole of room 1402, opposite, Susan watched Mr Sarotzini turn and walk away. Verity, who had enjoyed her eight p.m. feed, was sleeping peacefully.

  ‘Why did you not check, Stefan? Why did you not confirm for me that Susan Carter was where she said she was?’

  ‘There are other Hiltons in London,’ Kündz replied. ‘It is possible that –’

  ‘No.’ Mr Sarotzini cut him short. ‘It is not possible. She was most specific. Room 1401 of the London Hilton in Park Lane. They have no Susan Carter registered. They are not aware of any woman with a baby staying in this hotel.’

  Kündz felt a burst of happiness that Susan had not been there. He had been scared for her; there was no knowing what Mr Sarotzini might do when he was angry, but now there was a paradox. Susan was not there, so Mr Sarotzini had not been able to harm her. So Susan was safe. But this had inflamed Mr Sarotzini’s anger more. So now she was in even greater danger.

  Oh, Susan, I’m so proud of you. Stay free, run, hide, stay free, you and my baby, our baby, our daughter!

  And, suddenly, Kündz had a plan forming in his mind. If he could find her, he could help her to hide. He could keep Mr Sarotzini away from her.

  But that would be disloyal to Mr Sarotzini. He had never been disloyal to Mr Sarotzini in his life. He was not even sure he could be disloyal, however much he wanted to. Even the idea made him afraid.

  Then the thought of what Mr Sarotzini might make him do to Susan, to punish her, made him even more afraid. He could still hear Claudie’s screams sometimes, when he closed his eyes, and that was difficult. He did not know how he would cope with Susan screaming – he was afraid that perhaps he might not be able to handle that.

  ‘I will find her,’ he said, as he pulled up the Mercedes outside Mr Sarotzini’s club.

  ‘That will not be necessary, Stefan. Susan will contact me again. She is unbalanced. When people are unbalanced they have to be treated very carefully, you need to understand that. You will now return to your flat in Earl’s Court. I will call you in the morning.’

  For the first time ever, Kündz disobeyed Mr Sarotzini’s instructions. He did not drive home, but instead to South London, to the Carters’ street, where he parked the Mercedes a safe distance away from the Carters’ house.

  He could see John Carter’s BMW, but there was no sign of Susan’s Volkswagen. As he switched off the engine he felt a sudden deep swirl of fear. Did Mr Sarotzini know he was here? What would he do to him if he found out?

  Kündz kn
ew the answer to that. But he knew also that Mr Sarotzini could not know that he was here. Unless, and now he was worried again, unless he could pick up Kündz’s fear. But he doubted that tonight. Mr Sarotzini was weary from the journey, it was late, he would be going to sleep.

  It was worth the risk. It was worth everything.

  He stayed in the Mercedes, watching, listening. The nanny was a loose cannon. She could return home at any time, she might already be back now, although he didn’t think so, there had been no voice-print activity from her in the house since seven thirty this evening. Just to make sure, he dialled in on his mobile phone and activated the remote playback. Nothing there of consequence. Just a series of phone calls from John to friends asking if they had seen Susan. Now he was calling the police, telling them his wife had had a breakdown and gone off with their baby.

  Maybe John Carter really did not know where she was. Or maybe it was just a great act.

  Kündz had wanted to arrange a special nanny for Susan but he had not been permitted to do so. Mr Sarotzini was insistent that Verity should be brought up in a normal environment. He had reminded Kündz of the words of the Twenty-third Truth, which stated, ‘I hear and I forget; I see and I remember; I do and I understand.’

  Mr Sarotzini wanted Verity to do and to understand. To live in the ordinary world and, by doing so, to understand it better. When she was older, that was when they would begin their work on her. Until then, it was necessary to protect her but nothing more.

  It had been useful having Susan and John Carter away from the house for three weeks. This had enabled Kündz to conceal the monitoring equipment so well that no one would ever find it, not unless they demolished the house brick by brick – and, he prided himself, unlikely even then.

  He let himself in through the front door, using his own key, closed it carefully and moved swiftly to the bottom of the stairs, where he would be out of sight of anyone emerging either from the kitchen or the drawing room. He could hear John’s voice on the telephone: it was coming from the drawing room.

  Then he stood still for a few moments, breathing in Susan’s scents, savouring them. It was so good to smell her again this strongly. The house needed this, needed her smells – it had been such a lonely place without them while she was away in America. Now she was everywhere again, she was all around him, and this made him deliriously happy.

  He felt he had come home.

  Whisky and cigarette smoke came to him strongly. Reluctantly, he tuned out Susan’s scents and began to concentrate on his task here. He moved stealthily up to the drawing-room door, which was ajar, and peered in.

  The television was on, the sound muted. John Carter was sitting on a sofa with his back towards him, talking, it sounded, to a hospital.

  Kündz waited, the hatred he felt for this man powering up inside him, increasing with every second that he watched him, until, like a demon possessing him, it took control and moved him forward, closer, silently covering the few yards of carpet until he was right behind John. On the television, two men were sitting by a campfire, smoking cigarettes and, although he could not hear them now, Kündz knew they talking about the meaning of life. He had seen this film also: the men were talking crap, it had angered him then and it added to his anger now.

  He waited until John finished his call and hung up the receiver, and then he said, ‘Good evening, Mr Carter.’

  John spun his head round, and Kündz hit him, three inches beneath the chin, with a karate chop that knocked him off the sofa and on to the floor but was not heavy enough to break his neck. Kündz did not want to kill him too quickly.

  John lay there, winded and gagging, his ears numb, spikes of pain shooting through his skull, looking up in shock at the huge man towering over him. Then, gathering his wits, he pushed down with the palms of his hands on the floor, trying to lever himself up. Kïndz kicked him hard underneath his chin, a single kick that shattered his jaw and several teeth, and pitched him violently on to his back.

  Dazed, but numb to the pain, John stared, unfocusing, at Kündz. Slowly he began to gather his thoughts. Who was he? A madman? Burglar? What the hell did he –? Then, as his vision improved, something in his brain connected. The face. In the clinic in California. He looked like the man, the flunkey, who had taken him up to Mr Sarotzini’s office that afternoon when he had arrived.

  Kündz stood over John, with his hands in his pockets, and said, ‘Mr Carter, I need you to tell me where Susan has gone.’

  John tried to speak, but the movement of his jaw hurt so much he cried out in pain. Gripping his chin with his hands, and dribbling blood, he mumbled, ‘Don’t – don’t know.’

  He was trying to think clearly. Had Sarotzini sent this man?

  The hatred was so strong now as he stared down at John that it was almost tearing Kündz apart. Are you enjoying this, Mr Carter? he wanted to ask. How does this compare to screwing your wife?

  There were so many things Kündz would like to do to him right now that he was finding it hard to decide where to start. ‘I’m going to hurt you, Mr Carter, I’m going to hurt you so very much. You are aware of the reasons I have?’

  John looked back at him, bewildered. ‘I don’t – she – this afternoon – she went – didn’t say –’

  ‘You are not understanding me very well, Mr Carter.’ Kündz smiled at him. He wanted John Carter to relax, to calm down, to listen. He wanted him to know why he was being punished. He wanted John to be grateful. The Thirteenth Truth stated that all true gratitude is borne from punishment. And John would be grateful if he could understand, really understand the importance of this child his wife had given birth to.

  Then, before Kündz knew it, John Carter had his hand around a small, solid table and was swinging it with all his strength into his shin.

  With a cry of shock, Kündz staggered backwards and fell heavily across the arm of the sofa. John Carter was up on his feet, running through the doorway and out into the hall. Even more enraged by pain, Kündz threw himself, hobbling, after him.

  John reached the front door, and pulled the handle of the Banham latch, but it did not move. Oh, Christ. The lock pin was down. With fingers trembling so much they would barely work he pushed it up, tried again. The door swung open then stopped with a jerk and a loud clank after a few inches, as the safety chain was yanked taut.

  In desperation he slammed the door shut. How the hell had the safety chain got on? How? How? How? He tore at it with his fingers, then he was being yanked back fiercely by his hair, his legs were kicked out from beneath him and he crashed backwards on to the floor with a sob of despair.

  In fury, Kündz stamped on John’s right kneecap, with all his force, shattering it.

  The pain and the shock jerked John upright up like a marionette. He bellowed in agony, fell back, writhing, rolling his head, thrashing, pummelling the floor with his fists. He rolled left, right, moaning terribly, white-hot knives of pain shooting out through him in every direction. Oh, God, let me die, he thought. Let me die. Anything, please, just stop this pain, kill me, please kill me. He clutched at the rug with his fingers, bit into a tuft with his teeth, yammering, crying, the pain exploding through his eyes, ears, his scalp.

  Then he was pulled over on to his back and his neck was pinioned to the floor by the man’s shoe.

  John’s eyeballs were rolling, sweat was pouring down his face and he was gagging, struggling for breath, choking on his own blood. Kündz smiled at him. ‘The First Truth, Mr Carter, states that from pain comes real love. I would like you to think about that. I would like also for you to understand that I am doing this to help Susan. If you knew what I am risking to help her then you would love me, Mr Carter, you really would. Please think very hard and tell me, where is she?’

  He pressed down hard with his foot. Too hard. There was a crunch of bone, John Carter’s eyes bulged and he made a gurgling sound. Kündz released the pressure, a fraction.

  ‘Sssshon’t know,’ John groaned, ‘don’t know. I shon’
t know. Pleeassssh believe me.’

  Kündz pulled from his pocket a small penknife and opened the blade. ‘I don’t like it when you make love to your wife, Mr Carter. I’m going to make it hard for you to do that in future.’

  Still keeping his foot firmly on John’s neck, Kündz began to bend his legs, lowering himself down, his left leg hurting badly. Then he gripped the belt of John’s trousers, and jerked it open.

  John let out a terrible cry; his body shook, his arms flailing.

  Then Kündz heard a noise behind him.

  He turned. The front door was open, the safety chain pulled tight. A woman called out, ‘Hello? Mr Carter? Hello?’ It was the nanny, Kündz recognised her voice and clamped his hand over John’s mouth.

  ‘Coming!’ Kündz called out. ‘Close the door so I can take the chain from it.’

  The door closed. Kündz, thinking quickly, grabbed John’s right wrist and made a deep slash across the vein and in a fraction of a second did the same to the left wrist. Then he hurried through into the kitchen, pausing to rinse his knife under the tap and dry it.

  Then he unbolted the rear door, let himself out into the garden and slipped away, over the fence and into the darkness of the park, and made his way swiftly back to the Mercedes.

  He had parked sufficiently far back that the nanny, whom he could see clearly in the porch light, would barely even have heard him start the car. And, besides, all her concentration was on the front door. He could see her unlocking it again now, and pushing it open, just a few inches until the chain ran out of slack.

  When Kündz arrived home, twenty minutes later, a message awaited him from Mr Sarotzini: ‘I have an appointment with Susan at 10 a.m. tomorrow. You will collect me from the club at 9 a.m. This time she will not let me down.’

  Chapter Seventy-two

  It was a wet Sunday morning: heavy summer rain was pelting down. Kündz drove the huge Mercedes at a steady 70 m.p.h. along the fast, undulating road through Buckinghamshire countryside. The stretch they were currently on was three-lane, with a double white line that had alternating breaks for overtaking. The clock on the dashboard showed it was nine fifty.