by D. B. Martin
‘Pardon?’
‘I take it you are Danny’s father.’ I nearly choked but said nothing, ignoring Kat’s fierce look, and the sister swept on without waiting for an affirmative. ‘Surprising you’ve not remarked on this before.’ She didn’t wait for an answer, which was a relief. ‘Bruising. Possibly suffered whilst in the fit, but unusually large and extensive. A lot of older ones too. We thought at first it could be abuse whilst in care – well, it would have to be. He’s been nowhere else for the last few weeks. You’ll be relieved to know we’ve ruled that out now though.’
Kat nodded vigorously. ‘Thank God. That would have been a nightmare.’
‘Yes,’ the sister looked at Kat over the glasses which had slipped down her nose. There was shade of Miss Liddell to her. Officiousness and the impersonal approach. That was it. You probably had to be on a children’s ward, where your charges might still die despite the advances of modern medicine. You didn’t have to be like that in a children’s home where all you needed to do was care. ‘I’m sure it would have been. However, some routine blood tests have found us the cause, we believe. Surprised it wasn’t diagnosed much younger but maybe he’s been lucky enough to never have a major bleed. Lots of little ones, and badly healed injuries. A few infected areas, but he’s got off relatively lightly considering.’
‘Considering what, sister?’ I asked.
‘He’s a haemophiliac. In plain terms his blood doesn’t clot properly. He carries on bleeding. The bruising is simply bleeding under the skin from blunt trauma. If the skin is penetrated, the bleeding is obvious. If it doesn’t and instead merely bruises, it isn’t. If there was any suggestion of neglect at home, it’s probable the signs have simply been missed whilst there was no serious injury. Have you never noticed anything before, Mr Hewson?’ She glared at me accusingly.
‘What? Oh, oh no – I’m his brief not his father.’
‘His brief?’ Then I shouldn’t have been talking to you.’
‘On the contrary, the more I know in his defence, the better. Is that not so, Miss Roumelia?’
Kat glared at me again, but came to my rescue nevertheless.
‘Anything I know, Mr Juste is entitled to know since he’s retained on Danny’s behalf.’ The sister nodded. ‘Well, we will need to talk to the parents, even if he’s in social services care currently. They do still have parental responsibility until it’s officially removed, and I understand he has siblings. We will need to check them all. It’s genetic.’ She got up. ‘Do you want to go and see him now?’
The unexpected development coincided with another of my own unexpected developments; Binnie, and her warning. I interjected, ‘Sister, can you explain how haemophilia works? I’m a layman where this is concerned.’
‘How it works? He bleeds too much, Mr Juste. We can almost completely counteract the problem by artificially increasing his clotting factor, but that’s it in a nutshell.’ She looked surprised.
‘No, I meant how the genetics work.’ Kit frowned at me but I ignored her. I’d think of an explanation later if I had to. My head was spinning. The most important thing was to find out what the hell it all meant for me right now.
‘Oh, well, I’m no expert. The doctor would be better with that. I’ll ask him to explain when he comes on his rounds.’
‘Thank you.’ She took us to Danny and the rest of the allotted half hour of visiting time before lunch was taken up with I-spy and me eyeing Danny apprehensively. I had no idea what to say to him as an adult to a child, much less as a potential father. I let Kat fill in the greetings and tried, surreptitiously to identify any similarities to myself. There weren’t any. He looked nothing like me – unless you included the set of his chin and the eye colour and ... Christ, no. He could be mine, but then again, he looked nothing like Kimmy. Who did he remind me of – something, someone vaguely in my mind ... Must be me: idiot!
He greeted me with, ‘You going to ask me any more of them rellyvent things?’ I smiled uncomfortably and shook my head.
‘We’re here to see how you are, Danny.’ Kat replied, sitting carefully on the side of his bed. I stood at the end casting a long shadow. He looked from her to me and then back to her. He seemed very small and insignificant in the wide bed, rails high on the side Kat wasn’t sitting and a tube snaking from one arm to the bag of yellowish-clear fluid dripping slowly into him. Clotting factor, I assumed. The bed cover was an exotic patchwork of colour – I suppose because this was a children’s ward and it was an attempt to inject life into what was otherwise sterility and disease. Danny looked very pale against it. A small pale patchwork piece. I felt sorry for him. It felt odd.
‘I got something wrong with me blood,’ he told us proudly. ‘Makes me different, don’t it?’ Without Kat to temper me I might have corrected him to ‘makes you ill,’ but instead I nodded.
‘Very different, Danny. Quite an exception.’ Kat eyed me coldly. ‘But you need to be well, as well as different. We have things to do, don’t we? When you’re better.’
‘I didn’t do it, honest – Mister Big.’
‘Mister Big?’
‘Danny’s nickname for you,’ Kat explained over her shoulder. I could see the trace of irony in her smile even from the oblique angle I was looking from.
‘Why am I Mister Big, Danny?’ I asked, astonished to have been given a nickname. Nicknames were for the people you liked, weren’t they? There was nothing between Danny and me, apart from dismay on my side and distrust on his.
‘’Cos you is. You’re the big-shot who’s going to get me off.’
I shook my head. ‘No, Danny. I’m not going to get you off.’
‘Lawrence!’ Kat looked agonised.
‘We’re going to get you off – when you’re well enough to help me.’ I wasn’t focusing on Kat as I tried to hold the boy’s gaze, but I saw her body slump with relief. ‘If you still want me on your case, that is?’
‘Do I ever!’ My nine-year-old self jumped back at me, skinned knees, cuts and bruises, snotty nose. Enthusiasm personified – and hero-worship. But never haemophilia, I thought wryly. If Danny suffered from it – why didn’t I? And try as I might, I still couldn’t imagine myself bedding Kimberley Hewson – ten years younger or not. The doctor’s explanation of how it came about suddenly became of immense importance. Distantly remembered equations of X and Y chromosomes and the essential pairing of them to produce characteristics and biological predisposition plagued me. It was far too vague to be more than an inkling of why Binnie might have warned me off Win, but it was enough. He could have been telling me a pack of lies merely to get his hands on the Johns’ folder – or rather, I hoped against hope he’d been telling me a pack of lies.
I waited out the remainder of the half-hour, trying to fix on our inane games rather than my genetic make-up until the buzzer signifying the end of morning visiting sounded. We promised to return, leaving the small rag of a boy in his patchwork bed looking wistfully after us. I steered Kat determinedly back to the sister’s office.
‘Why?’ she asked when we got there.
‘The doctor’s explanation.’ But the doctor had been called away.
‘But why is it so important?’
‘I just need to understand – all the implications. Family.’ Her mouth made an ‘oh’ shape but no sound came out. She watched me as the ward sister explained.
‘Emergency,’ she told us tersely, ‘but he wrote this down for you.’ I took it from her – a sheet torn from a note pad, spiral bound with the torn edge curling like ringlets.
‘Oh, and by the way, we’d like to cross-match blood, and maybe store some from his father, mother and close relatives if they match. Part checking and part useful in case he ever has an accident or a major operation and we need to transfuse. It’s becoming the norm to do that now for any of our patients who might be compromised in the future, especially since unfortunately Danny has quite a rare blood group too – AB negative.’
Kat checked the address on the record and
nodded, saying to me as we left.
‘This is going to get complicated again. They’re going to find out about you aren’t they?’ I had to keep reminding myself that she meant it only in terms of my relationship to Kimberley, not to Danny. Uncle, not father.
‘Let’s face that when we come to it, Kat.’
What the doctor had written on the paper looked like nonsense at first.
M D
XX XY
G: XXXY: B
Recessive allele on X masked in phenotype by dominant allele on other; hence females carriers, males exhibitors.
‘Which translates as?’ Kat asked.
‘Which translates as genetics. He’s explaining dominant and recessive genes and why Danny is haemophiliac and I suppose why Kimmy isn’t. Or me, I added in my head.
‘He’s received her damaged X chromosome and also a damaged Y chromosome from his father which has resulted in the problem. If he’d been a girl he would only have had one damaged chromosome – the X from his mother. The other X from his father would have been OK. He would have been a carrier, but not suffered from the condition himself.’
‘Oh, my God – what bad luck. Poor Danny. So his father must be a carrier as well to have passed it on? ’
‘Yes, poor Danny. Seems he’s got the worst of all deals all round.’
‘Is this why you didn’t want children – in case you pass it on like this?’ She hesitated, ‘because if your sister has the recessive gene then presumably maybe do you too? And it would also explain why you’ve been looking so bad recently. Are you OK?’
‘As far as I knew, Kat, I’m clear – if not perfect, genes-wise.’
‘But doesn’t it affect the whole family? And it’s not about perfection, Lawrence. If it’s in your genes, it’s in your genes. You can’t help being ill.’
‘That’s booze, not bad luck.’
‘But you can’t be sure?’
‘I have an extensive medical every year – the price of being self-employed. It provides life assurance cover as well as professional indemnity. I’m either paying a ton of money for a load of crap, or I’m fine.’
‘Then, if you are fine, Danny can’t be related to you.’
‘Not necessarily. I could simply be a means to pass the problem on but not suffer from it, like my mother and father. Remember I might not have the condition but I could have the problematical Y chromosome without having a problematical X as well. I wouldn’t know that without a test to check for it and I’ve never had the need for one.’
‘Until now.’
‘If I’m not having children, it’s immaterial, isn’t it?’ She didn’t answer. ‘It’s just another piece of evidence to damn me with, Kat – if Win or Jaggers got hold of it. Connections, links.’
‘But you would be sure ...’
‘I don’t need to be.’
‘Maybe you don’t, but Danny needs to know about his family and his origins.’
I studied her expression, trying to see if her argument suggested secrets suspected. She looked back bold-eyed. No, the expression wasn’t the one of someone party to a dirty secret. I countered, ‘And what good would that do Danny? He knows who his family is – his parents and brothers and sisters. What else does he need to know? Believe me, it’s not that relevant to the future, only the past.’
‘But you’re his family too.’
‘Only if I choose to own to that.’
‘Jesus, Lawrence – I thought you’d got it.’
‘Got what?’
‘The need for honesty.’
‘I am being honest. I’m just not necessarily going to make a big thing out of it. It’s a bit odd to have your unacknowledged uncle defending you, isn’t it? He may not even want me to be his uncle.’
‘Oh really – Mr Big.’ The sarcasm was as obvious as the name.
‘Oh all right, if it helps. I’ll look into it.’ It was my reason to check too. It made it easier for me to legitimately have a blood test – privately. The problem would be in explaining the results.
We left the hospital and I got the cab to detour past Somerset House to complete my other errand. More nonsensical paperwork.
‘Molly Wemmick. There was nothing on her. We know about Jaggers and his father. We know nothing about Molly, or why she appears to come and go nowhere. I want to see her birth certificate.’
‘Why?’
‘I suspect she’s a ruse.’
‘Explain.’
‘I wasn’t sure to start with but I don’t think she exists. Money-laundering probably. A useful fake ID. When I looked around the trustees’ offices on the third floor, Jaggers and his father obviously occasionally grace theirs with their presence, but Molly Wemmick’s hadn’t been used in months. Now either she’s a very absent absentee, or she doesn’t exist. They use her identity to launder money – through bank accounts and investments in her name. Dirty money in, clean money drawn back out later on. FFF is a business not a charity – they provide a commodity not kindness. They’re in the baby business.’ I kept the other startling discovery to myself: that Molly Wemmick and my wife appeared to be one and the same. Time enough to go into that when I knew whether my wife was Molly Wemmick or Molly Wemmick was my wife. The birth certificate should tell me that.
‘They trade in babies?’
‘And/or kids. They source the product – the child – and put them together with the client, the family – for a price. I suspect all the other charities Margaret was involved in – MADU, Children without Boundaries and Casualties of War, played their part in the process too and if we delved far enough we’d find the Wemmicks firmly entrenched behind all of them. I haven’t had the time to research them all properly, but the signs are all there.’
‘Jesus! Lawrence – this is awful – and I helped!’
‘You didn’t know. We’ve had this scenario before, remember? You can be involved without knowing you’re just a pawn. You and I and Danny have all been pawns along the way, maybe even Margaret too, but that’s all going to change now.’
The girl on reception was bored silly, but she took my money and produced the documents Louise had requested. It was twice the fee Louise had told me. I quibbled.
‘It’s what was requested, Sir. We had to search a long way back. Do you want them or not?’
I took them, grumbling about extortion and feeling the excessive heat of the day combining with my annoyance to turn me into a furnace. I felt old and tired again. The rain of last night hadn’t cleared the air. The storm hadn’t come. It had merely been a damp squib lining up another humid day. We were in the basement and it was hotter than hell down there. It seemed to be a trend in official buildings to kill the air-con as soon as it was needed. No doubt the place would freeze in winter and the red faces of today would turn blue instead then.
Kat nudged me. ‘What do they say?’
‘Let’s get out of here before I wither and die.’ Sweat trickled down my cheek and under my chin. She still looked pristine. What the hell was it that she saw in me? I wanted to ask her, but it would make me look foolish again – or worse still, needy. I waited until we were back in a cab with the windows wound right down and en route to my place before I opened the buff envelope the girl had exchanged for half the contents of my wallet. Sure enough two birth certificates nestled in there, and a note. I’d half expected there to be nothing, but the fee had implied there was something – and more than I’d anticipated. Indeed, it was a lot more than I’d anticipated. Molly Wemmick was far from make-believe. She was very real – or had been. I silently handed over the birth, and death certificate too. No wonder the fee had been twice that quoted. I’d acquired Molly Wemmick’s whole life, not merely her birth details. A note attached mentioned that here was also a name change by deed poll registered for a Molly Wemmick, but that was held at National Archives, and had only been picked up because the researcher had to do such an extensive search on the name to find the certificates. If I wanted that I would have to visit the National Archi
ve Offices at Kew.
‘Jesus! So you’re right – she doesn’t exist? This is awful – and I was helping them!’
‘Oh no, she does exist.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Like my colleague Heather said, I’ve been walking round with my eyes closed for years. Let me tell you some other interesting facts about Molly Wemmick, as well as her dates of birth and death.’
The traffic was queued back for miles so there was plenty of time for me to tell Kat what I’d found in the three FFF offices. Jaggers, the judge and Molly – Margaret.
‘So this Jaggers was at the children’s home and was the one to bully you into, my God – I don’t even want to say it?’
‘Yes, and set my brother Win up and made it look as if I had.’
‘But you said his name was different?’
‘Then. But so was Margaret’s for a while – she was Margaret Green when I married her. Now she’d be Molly Wemmick if she were still alive. Name changes are easy.’
The original Molly Estella Wemmick was born 18th July 1869 and died in 1932. The most recent incarnation of her was the version that was also my wife – created by the name change in May 1999; one month before her death. If ever there’d been a bigger pawn in a devious game, it was me.
‘So what does that mean for you?’
‘Maybe Jaggers is the main man, but Margaret was to be the tallyman – for both Danny and for me,’ I added thoughtfully. ‘Now I need to find out what debt they planned on collecting, and how.’
19: Girls
I got the taxi to drop Kat back to the social services offices in Morden and instead of going home and burying myself under the duvet as I’d wanted to, I faced the latest assault on my grip of reality that Margaret’s alter ego had presented with practical action. I didn’t know whether the twins knew anything of value, but their proximity to Kimberley’s age must make them greater candidates for closeness to her than either Binnie or Sarah. I had to find out, anyway. I’d made the decision to contact them as I watched Kat walk reluctantly away from the idling taxi. I rang the number on the list for Jill and got her salon. It was in Camberwell.