by Stella Duffy
As she said later to Molly over dinner, “Bitch was lying through her back teeth. And front ones, though they looked capped anyway.”
“Saz, that’s a bit much from one meeting. Are you sure you weren’t just pissed off with her for being richer and more successful than you?”
“And more gorgeous and better dressed?”
Molly grabbed a couple of prawns from Saz’s plate, “Nah, she couldn’t be more gorgeous.”
“I thank you. Well, naturally I felt a minuscule twinge of something vaguely resembling envy, but it wasn’t just that. I mean, I went to her with a perfectly reasonable request.”
“And no appointment.”
“Strategy.”
“But irritating if you’re her.”
“Maybe. Anyway, what’s the big deal? Yes, she’d have to bend the rules a bit, but it’s not like I was asking her to perjure herself or anything. Richard Leyton’s dead, Chris’s dad is dead, we can’t get the information any other way. Of course, if Chris’s mum gave permission, we’d be able to get at the stuff immediately, he just has this thing that he doesn’t want to upset her.”
“Fair enough.”
“Exactly. And you’d think anyone would understand that. But no, it’s all got to be by the book or not at all.”
“She was just doing her job, Saz.”
“And it’s because of that I don’t trust her. If she’s so hot on doing it all so properly, then she’d already have informed herself about her father’s work, she’d have made it her business to know everything when she took over from him. And I think she probably does.”
“Why do you think she was lying to you?”
“Don’t know, but it makes her a damn sight more interesting than she seemed this time yesterday.”
EIGHT
The next morning, Gary had disappointing news about Chris.
“Sorry, Saz, nothing at all.”
“What, no Chris Marquand ever?”
“None that I could find.”
“Well that’s impossible, there must be something, he is alive, for God’s sake.”
“Of course there’s something, but it’s like I tried to explain yesterday, he could have been registered in any number of ways. The only name you’ve given me is that of his adoptive parents.”
“So that means Chris must have been registered under his birth mother’s name?”
“Very likely.”
“But he must have needed a birth certificate at some point in his life?”
“No, not really, when did you last use yours? And anyway, his parents probably have other documentation about the adoption. Why doesn’t he ask them about that? They may even have the original birth certificate, that’ll give the birth mother’s name.”
Saz sighed and explained Chris’s reasoning again. As both she and Gary agreed, it wasn’t as if they didn’t understand Chris’s motives, it just made things a damn sight more complicated. Either she would have to have another go at Mrs Marquand’s attic files or she was going to have to try to get more on Richard Leyton’s life work from his under-eager daughter.
“And what about Patrick Freeman? How far did your squeaky clean conscience let you get with him?”
“It’s interesting you should ask.”
Saz stopped scribbling grumpy faces on the phone book and paid attention, “Why? What about him?”
“Don’t get too enthused, in fact it isn’t anything really, but—”
“But what?”
“Well, nothing definite.”
“Oh for God’s sake, Gary, get on with it.”
“It’s just a discrepancy with the dates.”
“How do you mean?”
“We are talking about the same Patrick Freeman, also known as Patrick Sweeney, the chef?”
“You know we are.”
“OK, well, Patrick Sweeney/Freeman lists his birthdate in Who’s Who – and a couple of other articles I checked up on – as 30th August, 1959.”
“You have been taking this research seriously.”
“I try to help.”
“So what’s the confusion?”
“The birth certificate signed by Gerald and Eva Freeman, his parents, lists his birthdate as 3rd September, 1959.”
“You’re sure that’s not just the date of the certificate?”
Gary sighed, “Give me a break, Saz, it is my fucking job. I do know the difference between the date of birth and date of registration. On the copy I’ve seen, Eva and Gerald’s baby son Patrick was born on 3rd September, 1959, registered on the 5th. Now we all know people who lie about their age, and this guy is a bit of a media whore, so maybe he has more excuse than most, but while your average bloke might say he was three years younger than he really is, there doesn’t seem a hell of a lot of reason for lying about three days.”
“So you’re saying the Freemans did that thing of reregistering him after someone else had already done so?”
“I’m not jumping to any excessive conclusions. What I am saying is that for some reason Patrick Sweeney, famous chef, real name Patrick Freeman, has stated quite categorically, on several occasions, that his birthday is August 30th when his parents told the state it was September 3rd”
“Could be there was a better horoscope for people born in September that year.”
“Yeah, Saz, big businessmen take a lot of notice of horoscopes in my experience.”
“Or could be someone’s lying.”
“That option had crossed my mind. But look, take it easy, all right?”
“Take what easy?”
“Just don’t go rushing in. Maybe his parents have been lying. Maybe he doesn’t even know there’s a discrepancy. Just be careful.”
“For God’s sake, Gary, I’m hardly going to go and confront him with it just when he’s serving up the main course. Of course, I’ll be discreet. I’ll be careful of his feelings.”
Gary laughed out loud. “It didn’t even occur to me to think about his feelings. I meant be careful of yourself. The guy’s got a ferocious reputation.”
Saz hung up wondering just how dangerous could a bloke be while wearing a silly hat and checked trousers?
The minute she got off the phone, Saz started another round of calls. After ten minutes with directory enquiries she started with Patrick Sweeney’s agent. Two different secretaries later she eventually got through and asked if there was any chance she might meet up with the great man himself to discuss the possibility of her writing the Sweeney/ Freeman biography. Saz figured that as everyone seemed to think they knew all about him and as almost anyone she mentioned his name to spoke of Patrick as a media starlet, then the people who looked after him might well go for the idea of an authorised biography. It would give him a chance to show off still more and, at the same time, correct any myths about himself. Any myths he wanted to correct, that is.
After the third phone call to his agent, and then a second with his business manager, and a third – albeit briefly – with his wife, Patrick himself called back and asked her to lunch. That same day. With half an hour to spare Saz washed, dressed, left a note for Molly and grabbed a cab into town. Patrick’s restaurant in Soho was closed, but he’d offered to make her lunch there himself, it would be quiet and private. She was ten minutes late, he – though only coming from the kitchen – arrived half an hour later. And brought lunch with him. He then proceeded to tell Saz in which order she should eat her meal. Saz would have complained if the food itself hadn’t been quite outstanding. It was, she didn’t.
Contrary to expectations, Patrick Sweeney didn’t wear a silly hat. Or checked trousers. He greeted Saz in old faded jeans, trainers with holes in each big toe, a perfectly white T-shirt and a rumpled leather jacket over the back of his chair. His long fringe was kept out of his eyes with his youngest daughter’s fuzzy rainbow hairclip, which by some feat of natural grace that Saz couldn’t quite fathom, miraculously didn’t leave him looking like a tosser. He also wore a very sweet lopsided grin, and a locket wit
h pictures of his kids inside. Saz was completely charmed.
When they had finished eating, Patrick sat back and smiled at Saz, “So, this is how it’s going to work. You ask the questions. If I think they’re interesting enough, then you can show me some of your writing. What do you do?”
“Oh, you know, feature journalism, opinion pieces, Guardian Women’s Page, that sort of thing.”
“OK. So if I like what you have to ask, and if you’re still interested once I’ve answered, maybe we’ll talk further after today.”
“Right, well I really appreciate you seeing me, I mean, not knowing anything about me.”
“I was cooking, I wanted a guinea pig to try the meal out on. And you did like it, didn’t you?”
“Hell yeah.”
“Fine, you’ve done me a favour, now I’m doing you one. Anyway, John’s checking you out this afternoon. If you’re crap I just won’t see you again. OK?”
“Yes. Sure. Great. Thank you.”
Saz racked her brain for an interesting question that wasn’t “Why do you tell people your birthday is different from your birth certificate?”, something that might make her sound like the great journo she’d purported to be when she’d spoken to John the manager earlier. Sadly the best she could come up with was “How long have you been married?”
Fortunately it wasn’t a boring question to Patrick. Katy Betterton was clearly the love of his life. “I met her here, she actually came into the kitchen to complain the lamb was too rare.”
“What did you do?”
“Told her to fuck off. And not to bring her baby into my kitchen – she was breastfeeding at the time.”
“Breastfeeding while you were arguing?”
“Yeah. She’s always liked to make people notice her. Having half a dozen screaming kids in tow tends to help. Anyway, I kicked her out, she went, then came back at midnight just as we were getting rid of the last of the punters.”
“With the kids?”
“No, they were at home with the nanny. She apologized about the lamb and asked if I’d make her breakfast.”
“Did you?”
“Devilled kidneys. Cheese sandwich for lunch. And then I moved in. We got married a month later.”
While Saz hadn’t known quite enough about big business to link Patrick with Gerald Freeman, she did have a slightly more meaningful acquaintance with tabloid gossip than she was prepared to let on to Marc. She hadn’t known much about Patrick other than that he was a famous chef with an infamous temper but as a teenager she’d avidly scanned column inches for the lives of interesting girls who were having more fun than she was – Katy Betterton chief among them. A rock chick with a CV of ex-boyfriends that read like the cast list for Band Aid, Katy had lived through the ’80s and early ’90s in a haze of delicious excess, usually with a Premier League footballer lolling somewhere in a coke-fed background. When she and Patrick first met she already had three children from her first two high-profile relationships and very soon afterwards she was pregnant with the first of her three other children with Patrick. And from the look on his face as Patrick told the story, marriage and fatherhood were all they were cracked up to be – and more.
They talked for a while longer, Saz asking obligatory questions about the nature of his business, his relationship with the media, his ambitions for the future. Things were going fairly easily and she was about to slip in a question about how Patrick’s parents had known Chris’s family, when it occurred to her that she could soften up the doting father even more by first asking a few specifics about the children. Not the right move. The smile disappeared, his hands held fast to the edge of the table and the pretty little clip in his hair didn’t look quite so cute.
Patrick shook his head, “No. We don’t talk about the kids. Katy’s middle daughter Marina died a year after our first baby was born. It took forever and it was really fucking horrible. She had leukaemia, we were splattered over all the papers, we did all the right charity things we were supposed to and …” Patrick faltered, fiddled with the linen tablecloth. “And nothing made it any better. It was all bloody awful. Still is. It doesn’t go away. And over time, Katy and I have found that talking about it doesn’t help either. I mean talking about it to strangers. So, we’ll leave that bit out for now, all right?”
The smile was back, but Saz knew she’d been clearly warned. And while anyone else might have chosen to back off then, following up with a few innocuous questions about his cooking style, she decided to push on anyway, “Then I wonder if I could just ask, before we finish, why is it you tell people your birthday is the 30th of August when on your birth certificate it says you were born on the 3rd of September?”
Patrick Sweeney didn’t answer. He picked up Saz’s bag and then he picked up Saz, carried them both to the door and dropped them into the street. He locked the door behind him. Saz had just found out where too far was.
NINE
Three hours later, as Saz was gingerly applying half a tube of Arnica to her bruised knees, the doorbell rang. And rang again. And again. Then the whole flat resounded to the clamour of furious knocking. By the time she’d made it down the hall she was expecting the wood to be broken through any minute.
Patrick Sweeney stood on her doorstep, red-faced and practically foaming at the mouth, “So who the fuck are you?”
“I’m sorry?”
“I said, who are you?” Patrick pushed past her into the flat, looking into each of the rooms, presumably to check if anyone else was around.
Saz raced after him, “Look, you can’t just come barging in here like this. What do you want?”
Patrick rounded on her, “I want to know who the fuck you are. You’re not a journo, you can’t be. You wouldn’t have made such a twat of yourself today if you were. That lot know how to lie a fuck of a lot better than you do.”
“Obviously.”
“So I want to know why you’ve been checking up on me. And John couldn’t find anything about you. Did Briony put you up to this? Are you working for her?”
“I don’t even know who Briony is.”
“Ex-wife.”
“I’m not working for anybody. Well no, actually I am, but not in the way you think.”
“Right, so what were you doing this afternoon?” Patrick stood in the middle of the lounge, dwarfing the space with his anger. Saz figured honesty was the most sane policy. At least it might get him safely sitting down.
She told Patrick about Chris, adding just a little of her own baby story but not too much, she didn’t want to overdo it on their first real conversation. Or test any latent homophobia he might be harbouring. Not while he was in her own home, anyway. Then she told him about her findings in Mrs Marquand’s attic and showed him the christening photo.
“How did you know this kid was me?”
“I didn’t. Chris’s boyfriend recognized your father and we assumed the child was probably you.”
“Well, these are my parents and that’s me. These two certainly weren’t my mother and father’s closest friends or anything like that. At least not from when I was old enough to know. I don’t recognize them at all. And I certainly don’t remember the photo being taken.”
Saz was disappointed, she had hoped Patrick might have been able to tell her more about why his parents had been there that day.
Patrick was still more concerned with what she knew about him, “OK, you found this photo, but the thing about my birth certificate – where did you get that?”
Saz really didn’t want to give Gary away, but at the same time she realized her knowledge of the discrepancy was what had made Patrick assume the worst about her. She explained a little of her source, not naming Gary and making it sound as much as possible as if she had forced the information out of him. His face fell when she explained what Gary assumed was the reasoning behind the discrepancy.
“I assumed a similar thing myself. The problem is that I only found out last month.”
“About the birth dates?”
“Yeah. That’s why I was so fucking angry with you. Since my father died there have been a few journalists wanting to do life pieces on him, and I was prepared to go along with it at first, but once I started going through it all, letters from the solicitor, that sort of thing – well, that’s when I found out about the dates.”
“So you knew you were adopted?”
“Always. But it was supposed to be a big secret. The only people who knew were me and my parents.”
“You never told anyone?”
“Just the two wives. No one else.”
“That’s a big thing to keep to yourself.”
“Well, I also knew they never wanted me to do anything about it, so there really wasn’t any point in telling anyone. My parents told me the truth, but that was it. We didn’t talk about it. Ever. And my father made it very plain that he’d be fucking pissed off if I ever tried to find out the rest of the story. Emotional blackmail at its strongest.”
“And very successful?”
“I didn’t make a move until my father died. Anyway, the point is, once I did start looking into it, I realized there was more to it than I’d expected. And I really want to find out the truth myself before any of the fucking journos do. And God knows someone probably will.”
“So why did you agree to speak to me this morning?”
“I didn’t. At least not in the way you thought. I assumed you were lying about something, I just didn’t know what it was. I agreed to talk to you so I could find out. But because your angle was the biography, I assumed it was me you wanted to know about. That’s why I was so furious when you brought my parents into it. You touched on something very raw. Very new.”
Having exposed himself that much, Patrick decided he might as well tell Saz the whole story. As he explained though, the whole story was still a very incomplete one. After Gerald Freeman died, Patrick finally felt free to uncover the truth of his past. As he explained to Saz, he’d already started going through the usual, lengthy channels. So far there had been no developments.
“But if you’re doing it for your friend, maybe I should get you on my case too?”
