The Douglas Kennedy Collection #1

by Douglas Kennedy

  I handed over the bank check and said, “If there’s any way we could keep costs within that £2,500, I would greatly appreciate it. My resources are fairly limited.”

  “We’ll do our best,” she said, “but if we do need to track people down and the like, it will run up things.”

  “Right now, I have exactly £4,000 to my name, no job, no bank account.”

  “I understand your position,” she said, standing up. “And, no doubt, we’ll be speaking in the next few days.”

  But the next person I ended up speaking with from Lawrence and Lambert was one of their assistants. Her name was Deirdre Pepinster. She also spoke in the same horsey voice affected by Ginny Ricks—yet with a “this is so boring” inflection that made me uneasy.

  “Now I’ve been trying to reach this Ellen Cartwright for the past two days . . .”

  “But I told Ginny Ricks that she was out of town.”

  “Oh, right. Anyway, turns out she’s on some hiking trip in Morocco—and is completely out of contact until the week after next. And Jane Sanjay, your health visitor, is on extended leave of absence. Canada, I think. Won’t be back for four months at least.”

  “Any chance of tracking her down?”

  “It might run up the bill a little more.”

  “I could take care of it. Especially as she liked me. And I think she’d say nice things . . .”

  “Leave it with me.”

  “And I’m sure I could also find out lots about the woman who’s now with my husband . . .”

  “Let us handle that as well. We too need her background information.”

  “But it’s more hours on the clock, isn’t it?”

  “We want to do the most thorough job possible.”

  I didn’t hear from her again until the end of the week.

  “Right,” she said. “The woman in question is named Diane Dexter. Home address: 42 Albert Bridge Road, London SW11. She also owns a house in Litlington, East Sussex, and an apartment on the Rue du Bac in Paris . . . which is a pretty nice part of Paris, not that Litlington is shabby either. Very handy for Glyndebourne . . . on whose board she sits.”

  “So, she’s rich.”

  “Quite. Founder and chairman of Dexter Communications—a mid-sized, but highly successful marketing company. Privately owned. Very highly regarded. She’s fifty, divorced, no children . . .”

  Until now, that is.

  “Any idea how or when she met my husband?”

  “You’d have to hire a private detective for that. All I’ve been able to find out is the basic details about her.”

  “So you don’t know where they are now?”

  “That wasn’t part of my brief either. But I did get a witness statement from your GP and from Dr. Rodale, who treated you at St. Martin’s.”

  “What did she say?”

  “That you had been suffering from ‘pronounced postpartum depression,’ but responded well to the antidepressants. That was about it, actually. Oh, and I found out what happened at the ex parte hearing. Seems you threatened the life of your son one evening . . .”

  “But that was sheer exhausted anger.”

  “The problem is, you said it to your husband’s secretary. Which means that a third party heard it. Which, in turn, means that there’s third-party evidence. The other problem is that they essentially demanded a hearing by telephone on a Saturday night in front of a judge named Thompson who notoriously sides with the father in cases involving the mental health of the mother, and was presented with this evidence in conjunction with your extended stay in the psychiatric wing of St. Martin’s. And you were also out of the country at the time, which, no doubt, they used to make you appear frivolous . . .”

  “But I was at a funeral . . .”

  “The judge didn’t know that. All he knew was that you were a clinically depressed woman who had threatened to kill your baby, and then left the country at the first possibility. And as it was only a two-week order, I’m certain he had no problem signing it. Sorry . . .

  “Now, back to the witness statements. On the health visitor front . . . it seems that Ms. Sanjay just left the place she was staying in Vancouver and has hit the road, traveling around Canada, but won’t be back in the UK for around four months.”

  “Maybe she has an internet address?”

  “You don’t have it by any chance?”

  I stopped myself from letting out an exasperated sigh.

  “No—but if you call the local health authority . . .”

  “Fine, fine, I’ll follow it up,” she said, sounding bored.

  “And could you ask Ginny to call me, please. The hearing’s next Tuesday, isn’t it?”

  “That’s right. All our witness statements have to be with the court by close of business on Monday.”

  Which meant that she only had the weekend to track down Jane Sanjay by email . . . if, that is, Jane stopped in some internet café to check her email this weekend, and if the less-than-engaged Ms. Pepinster bothered to even find her address.

  I waited by the phone all day Friday for a call from Ginny Ricks. None came—even though I did leave two messages with Trudy.

  “Sorry, but she’s left for the weekend,” Trudy said when I called the second time. “But I know she’ll be calling you as soon as she gets back from the country on Monday.”

  Ah yes, another weekend in the country—no doubt with her “chap,” who was undoubtedly named Simon, and probably was an old Harrovian who now “did something in the City,” and spoke in the same honk as his beloved, and favored Jermyn Street tailoring, and weekend casual by Hackett’s, and no doubt had a lovely cottage on the Sussex Downs, so handy for those summer evenings at the opera at Glyndebourne, where Diane Dexter was on the board, and would be showing off her new acquisition(s) when this year’s season . . .

  I got up and went into the kitchen—to a small shelf in a cabinet where we kept assorted cookbooks and a London A-to-Z, and a UK road atlas. Litlington in East Sussex was around seventy miles from London—and an easy run from Putney. Before I could stop myself, I phoned information and asked if there was a listing for a Dexter, D., in Litlington, East Sussex. Sure enough, there was such a listing. I wrote it down. For around a half hour, I resisted the temptation to pick up the phone. Then I went back to the kitchen bookshelf and dug out a British Telecom guide to their digital phone services, discovering that if you wanted to make a call and not have your number traced (or appear on the other person’s digital display), all you had to do was dial 141.

  But it took another hour—and that evening’s dosage of antidepressants—to screw up the courage to make the call. Finally, I grabbed the phone, punched in 141, then the number, covered the mouthpiece with my hand, and felt my heart play timpani as it began to ring. On the fifth ring—just as I was about to hang up—it was answered.

  “Yes?”

  Tony.

  I hung up, then sat down in a chair, wishing that I was allowed to mix alcohol with my antidepressants. A belt of vodka would have been most welcomed right now.

  Hearing his voice was . . .

  No, not heartbreaking. Hardly that. In the week or so since this nightmare began, the one thing I felt toward my husband was rage . . . especially as it became increasingly clear that he had been hatching this plot for a considerable amount of time. I kept reviewing the last few months in my mind, wondering when his liaison with this Dexter woman began. Trying to fathom where he met her, whether it was a coup de foudre, or was she the predatory type who swept down on a man who (as I well knew) was fantastically weak and easily flattered. I thought back to all of Tony’s late evenings at the paper, his occasional overnight trips to Paris and the Hague, and that wonderfully extended window of opportunity when I was doing time in the psychiatric unit: all those weeks when his wife and child were conveniently being looked after elsewhere, and he could do whatever he wanted, wherever he wanted.

  The shit. That was the only word for him. And in the midst of my insane distress abou
t being separated from Jack, my clear, ferocious fury at my husband provided a strange sort of equilibrium, a balance to the guilt and anguish that were otherwise eating away at me like the most virulent form of cancer.

  But hearing his voice on the phone was also like one of those out-of-nowhere slaps across the face that shake you out of a stupor and force you to confront the grim reality of your situation. Before this call, there was a part of my brain that was still trying to carry on as if this were really not happening. It wasn’t exactly denial (to use that hateful term), more something like extreme disbelief, underscored by a fairyland need to convince yourself that, any moment now, this entire sick black farce will end and your former life will be restored to you.

  Now, however, there was no sidestepping the hard, cold facts of the matter: he was living in her house, with our son. And he had put into motion the legal machinery to separate me from Jack.

  I had another bad, sleepless night. At seven the next morning, I rang Budget Rent-A-Car and discovered that they had a branch in the parade of shops near the East Putney tube station. When they opened at eight, I was their first customer, renting a little Nissan for the day—£32.00 total, as long as I had it back by eight the next morning. “Mind if I pay cash?” I asked. The clerk looked wary—but, after checking with a superior, he said that cash would be acceptable as long as they could make an imprint of my credit card, just in case there were any additional charges. I handed over my maxed-out Bank of America Visa card and hoped I was well on the road when—and if—they ran a credit check on it.

  My luck held. He simply ran the card through his old manual machine, then had me sign several rental forms, and handed me the keys.

  Traffic was light all the way south. I made the market town of Lewes in around ninety minutes—and stopped to ask directions to Litlington. It was another fifteen minutes southeast—past gently rolling fields and the occasional farm shop. Then I turned right at a sign marked Alfriston/Litlington, and found myself entering a picture postcardy image of Elysian England. I had driven into a well-heeled fantasy, of the sort that only serious money could buy. I knew I was looking for a house called Forest Cottage. I got lucky—driving down a particularly winding road, my eyes glancing at every small house sign, I noticed the plain painted marker half buried in some undergrowth. I braked and started to negotiate the steep, narrow drive.

  Halfway up this avenue, the thought struck me: what am I going to do when I get to her house? What am I going to say? I had no planned speech, no strategy or game plan. I just wanted to see Jack.

  When I reached the top of the drive, I came to a gate. I parked the car. I got out. I walked to the gate and looked up at the pleasant, two-story farmhouse around a hundred yards away. It appeared as well maintained as the manicured grounds surrounding it. There was a newish Land Rover parked by the front door. I decided that I would simply open the gate, walk up the drive, knock on the door, and see what would happen. There was a delusional part of me that thought: all I need to do is show my face, and Tony and this woman will be so ashamed of what they’ve done, they’ll hand over Jack to me on the spot . . .

  Suddenly, the front door opened and there she was. A tall woman. Very elegant. Good cheekbones. Short black hair, lightly flecked with gray. Dressed in expensive casual clothes: black jeans, a black leather jacket, a designer variation on walking boots, a gray turtleneck sweater . . . all of which, even from a distance, radiated money. And strapped around her neck was one of those baby slings, in which sat . . .

  I nearly shouted his name. I caught myself. Perhaps because I was just so stunned by the sight of this woman—this stranger—with my son slung across her chest, acting as if he were her own child.

  She was heading toward her Land Rover. Then she saw me. I didn’t know if she’d ever been shown a photograph of me—but as soon as she caught sight of me at the gate, she knew. She stopped. She looked genuinely startled. There was a long, endless moment where we simply looked at each other, not knowing what to say next. Instinctively, she put her arms around Jack, then suddenly pulled them away, realizing . . .

  What? That she had committed the ultimate theft, the most despicable form of larceny imaginable?

  My hands gripped the gate. I wanted to run up to her and seize my son and dash back to the car and . . .

  But I simply couldn’t move. Maybe it was the wallop of what I was seeing, the absolute horror of watching that woman cradle my son. Or maybe it was a paralytic sort of fear, coupled with the disquieting realization that if I overstepped the boundaries here—and created a scene—I would simply be giving them further ammunition against me. Even being here, I knew, was an insane tactic . . . and one that might rebound on me big time. But . . . but . . . I had to know. I had to see for myself. And I had to see Jack. And now . . .

  She suddenly turned away from me, heading back to the house, her gait anxious, her arms clutching Jack again.

  “Tony . . .” I heard her shout. And I was gone. Hurrying back to the car, throwing it into reverse, making a fast U-turn, and shooting back down the drive. When I glanced in the rearview mirror, I could see Tony standing beside her, watching my car disappear.

  I drove nonstop out of Litlington and back to the main road, pulling over into a rest stop, cutting the engine, placing my head against the steering wheel, and not being able to move for a very long time.

  After around ten minutes, I forced myself to sit back up in the seat, turn the ignition key, put the car into gear, and head back toward London. I don’t remember exactly how I got there. Some basic autopilot took over. I made it back to Putney. I dropped the car back at Budget, garnering a quizzical look from the clerk behind the desk when I handed in the keys so early. An hour later, I was lying on my bed at home, having taken double the recommended dose of antidepressants, feeling it deaden all pain, rendering me inert, inoperative for the rest of the day. That night, I also took double the dose of sleeping pills. It did the trick—comatose for eight hours, up in a fog until dawn. At which point, I started the double-dosing of antidepressants again.

  And then it was Monday, and the phone was ringing.

  “It’s Ginny Ricks here,” my lawyer said, sounding terse, preoccupied. “Sorry we couldn’t chat on Friday—another ghastly day in court. But just to bring you up to speed on everything—Deirdre has finished all the witness statements, which we are lodging at court this afternoon. I’ll be instructing the barrister today, and the hearing’s at the high court tomorrow morning at ten-thirty. You know where that is, don’t you?”

  “Well . . . uh . . . I’m not . . .”

  “The Strand. Can’t miss it. Ask anyone. And I’ll have Deirdre positioned just outside the main entrance to spot you coming in. We’ll be outside the courtroom somewhere within the building. And I presume you have something smart but simple to wear. A suit would be best. Black even better.”

  “I’ll see what . . . sorry, I . . .”

  I lost track of the sentence.

  “Are you all right, Sally?” she asked, sounding a little impatient with my vagueness.

  “Bad night . . .” I managed to say.

  “Sounds like a desperately bad night. And I hope you’ll ensure that you have a far better night tonight—because, though you will not be called upon to testify tomorrow, the judge will be looking you over, and should you seem somewhat out of it, that will definitely raise concerns. And additional concerns are about the last thing we need right now.”

  “I promise to be . . . there,” I said.

  “Well, I should certainly hope so,” she said.

  Sandy had been away all weekend with her kids at a friend’s house on the Cape—so we hadn’t spoken. Immediately she could hear the fog in my voice. Immediately she guessed that tranquilizers were being taken in excessive amounts. I tried to reassure her. I failed. She pressed to know if something further had happened to tip me into this Valley of the Dolls state. I couldn’t tell her about the weekend visit to East Sussex—and the sight of Jack in
the woman’s arms. Part of it was due to the fact that, beneath my druggy haze, I felt so ashamed and humiliated about having gone down there in the first place. But I also knew that Sandy herself was still in a desperately fragile state. Her sadness and regret—the sense of loss for a man whom she had so clearly adored, even after he discarded her like a broken-down armchair—were both poignant and unnerving. And I knew that she would obsessively worry for the next twenty-four hours if I revealed the reality of my current mental state. Not, of course, that she wasn’t terrified about the outcome of tomorrow’s hearing.

  “You must call me the moment you’ve heard the judge’s decision. What did your lawyer tell you today?”

  “Not much. Just . . . well, we’ll see, I guess.”

  “Sally—how many antidepressants are you taking right now?”

  “The recommended dose.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Why would I . . .”

  I shut my eyes as yet another sentence lost its way somewhere between my brain and my mouth.

  “Now you’re really scaring me,” she said.

  “Think, I dunno, maybe one too many earlier.”

  “Well, don’t take any more for the rest of the night.”

  “Fine.”

  “You promise me?”

  “You have my word.”

  Of course, I popped one shortly thereafter. I didn’t need sleeping pills that night—because the extra dosage of antidepressants packed a sucker punch. But then, at five that morning, I snapped back into consciousness, feeling toxic, feverish, ill. Like someone who had just crashed out of an extended flight in the druggy stratosphere . . . which, indeed, I had.

  I sat in a hot bath for an hour, a steaming washcloth over my face for most of the time. I dried my hair, I ignored the haggard face in the mirror, I went into the kitchen and made a pot of coffee. I drank it all. Then I made another pot and drained it too. When I returned to the bathroom and attempted damage control with the use of pancake base and heavy applications of eyeliner, my hands were shaking. Toxicity, caffeine overload, terror. The most oppressive terror imaginable. Because I was about to be judged—and though I kept telling myself that Ginny Ricks knew what she was doing, I still feared the worst.