The Truth

by Peter James

  Susan grinned. ‘At least I’m not as bad as him.’

  ‘Yet.’

  ‘Thanks a lot.’

  John kissed her. Then he asked, ‘Darling, that survey we had done – any idea where it is?’

  ‘In the file you have on the house – it’s in one of those piles on the floor in your den. Why?’

  John walked a few paces backwards, trying to spot the section with the missing tile. ‘It had a report on the roof.’

  ‘Problem?’

  He shook his head. ‘Got a tile off, that’s all.’

  ‘Harry, the painter, I think he knows someone, a handyman. Want me to call him?’

  ‘I think you should have a rest.’ His eyes shifted back to the roof. John was not an expert on roofs but something was bothering him about that loft. Something was not right.

  But he had no idea what.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Archie Warren sat at his desk in the dealing room of Loeb-Goldsmid-Saxon, twenty storeys up in the City of London. It wasn’t much of a desk. It was about the size of a fold-down table on the back of an airline seat, and had leg room to match. All it contained was a computer screen, keyboard, two telephones, an ashtray, a packet of cigarettes, a gold Dunhill lighter and a paper cup of coffee.

  Like all the other sixty traders in this room, Archie had a phone jammed to each ear, while his fingers hammered the keyboard. He dealt in Japanese convertible bonds and warrants, buying and selling them for his clients, which were companies, banks, pension funds, and a handful of seriously rich individuals.

  It was six fifteen a.m. Archie had been at his desk for an hour and ten minutes and had smoked two cigarettes. Smoking was banned but Archie didn’t give a shit, and neither did Oliver Walton next to him, or half the other people in this room who slugged out their working week on the stalks of their nerves. On a quiet day Archie turned over one hundred million dollars worth of business.

  There were six traders in Archie’s section; the company had two thousand employees world-wide, but Archie and his colleagues had produced 40 per cent of the company’s entire profit for the past three years. No one was telling Archie he couldn’t smoke here.

  Names of clients chased each other down his screen, Morgan Grenfell, Scottish Widows, Newton’s, Nomura, Sumitomo Trust, Julius Baer, State Street, Soros. A voice bellowed down the squawk box from Tokyo: ‘Yamaichi are a buyer of ten million dollars of Sumitomo bank convertibles at 99½ or better.’

  As the Tokyo market closed, Archie lit his third cigarette and did a quick audit of his positions in preparation for the day ahead in London. He did a flick through the overnight trades coming in from Japan, and as he did so, noticed a trade for five million dollars in a little traded issue, and this immediately drew his attention. The name of the client looked familiar and he wasn’t sure why. The Vörn Bank. He saw that the dealer had been Oliver Walton.

  Vörn Bank. Why did that name ring a bell? Archie yawned. Maybe if he hadn’t drunk so much port last night he’d have a few more brain cells to swing together today. He turned to his colleague. ‘Hey, Ollie, the Vörn Bank. Who are they?’

  ‘Switzerland,’ Walton said. ‘Private bank. Private private.’

  Archie knew what that meant. ‘Serious players?’

  ‘Big time.’

  Archie leant back in his chair and sucked at his cigarette, thinking hard. Then he connected.

  John was sitting in his new BMW. He’d decided to buy it – the business was going so well it could easily afford it, and he did not imagine Mr Sarotzini would be concerned by this one extravagance.

  In almost five months he’d received just a brief fortnightly phone call from the banker. Mr Sarotzini wanted a bulletin on Susan and barely commented on John’s regular reports on DigiTrak, other than to say it all looked satisfactory.

  There had been no mention of his promises to take Susan out, and he had not once called her. Perhaps, John wondered, he thought she might find it awkward. He sensed that Susan was disappointed not to have heard anything.

  And maybe Mr Sarotzini was right, because he and Susan seemed to be coping by not talking about it. They were five months into it now, only four or so to go, and they were handling it, they were keeping the lid on the emotional cauldron, and he was proud of Susan’s stoicism.

  It was going to work out fine. They had the business and the house and this new car. He’d offered to buy Susan a new car too, but she was quite happy with her battered Peugeot. He’d bought himself the convertible he’d been hankering after, dark metallic blue with cream-leather interior, air con and all the toys – he was playing with some of the toys now as he sat in the early-morning jam on the Albert Bridge. Seven fifteen was early for a hold-up here: roadworks were causing the problem.

  There was so much business coming in at DigiTrak that for the past couple of months he’d been having to go in this early just to cope with the workload. Gareth was close to a nervous breakdown.

  John hit the selector on the CD and sent Phil Collins’s voice soaring around the car. He’d recently seen a programme on television that said if you played rock music it got your brain going, so he’d taken to playing it on his way into the office each morning. After a few moments he tuned his brain into the prospect of Christmas, which was only three weeks away. Where to spend it? What to get Susan? The usual problems. Except worse than usual.

  He’d like to have gone skiing, as they had in previous years. Archie had suggested he and Susan join him and Pila, in Switzerland, but skiing wasn’t an option with Susan’s condition. And, anyway, she didn’t want to travel. Miles Van Rhoe wanted her close to hand. And maybe that was sensible. John was worried about her; she was still getting those terrible pains. Originally Van Rhoe had insisted they were cramp, but a couple of weeks back he’d diagnosed an ovarian cyst. He said it was nothing to worry about, but he hadn’t seen Susan have an attack of pain.

  Susan insisted that Van Rhoe was the best obstetrician in Britain but John had doubts about the man. It seemed strange to him that one day the pains were from cramp, the next, a cyst. Had Van Rhoe failed to spot the cyst before?

  But it wasn’t just the pains, it was … His thoughts were interrupted by his mobile phone.

  ‘We squashing tomorrow?’ Archie asked.

  ‘Yup – booked the court.’

  ‘Just found out something interesting. This bank of yours, the one that’s backing you, it’s called the Vörn Bank?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘I just discovered they’re clients of our firm. How’s that for a coincidence?’

  John thought about this. ‘How come you didn’t find that out before?’

  ‘They’ve only been clients for a couple of months.’

  ‘What do you know about them?’

  ‘What do you want to know about them?’

  ‘I don’t know, it’s not so important now. I originally wanted to check them out before we climbed into bed with them.’

  ‘And now you’ve been shagged by them without a condom so it’s a bit late, I guess.’

  ‘Maybe you could use a better metaphor.’

  ‘Uh?’ Archie knew nothing about that part of the deal.

  Suddenly the line was breaking up and it was hard to hear him. ‘Nothing, it’s OK.’

  ‘Hey.’ Then John didn’t catch the next word. All he caught through the crumbling line was, ‘… movement. Gotta …’ Then ‘Eight. ’Bye.’

  The traffic moved and John dialled Susan. She wouldn’t have left yet, she didn’t usually leave for the office until shortly before nine.

  ‘Hi,’ she answered, sounding surprised and pleased to hear him.

  ‘Listen,’ John said. ‘I just had an idea about Christmas. I know the Harrisons have invited us, but I don’t want to have to spend it with their brats. How about just the two of us going to a hotel in England? A nice country-house hotel, somewhere close to London.’

  Susan was silent, then she said, ‘Hon, I had this thought. Why don’t we ha
ve a real family Christmas at home? Mom and Dad don’t have any plans – why don’t we bring them over as a treat, a present?’

  John’s heart sank. And then it rotated sharply when Susan added: ‘I thought, you know, with the baby, Mom could help out.’

  ‘Uh?’

  ‘She might get a real bang out of the idea that she’s – she’s going to be a grandmother. Could be kind of useful to have her stay for a month or two after the baby’s born.’

  John didn’t notice that the traffic lights at the end of the bridge had changed to red, and jammed on his brakes far too late. The BMW howled to a stop almost half-way into the junction. Horns blared and lights flashed at him but he hardly noticed. All he could think about was what Susan had just said. ‘Susan, what do you mean?’

  ‘Well, you know, women often have their mothers come stay, look after the baby, because they’ve done it before, they know what –’

  John raised his voice. ‘Susan, we’re not keeping the baby! Day one, the day it’s born, Mr Sarotzini takes it. For God’s sake, don’t start getting your mother involved, this is just going to make it worse for you – us.’

  There was a silence. John waited a moment, cars still hooting at him, drivers gesticulating angrily as they wove their vehicles around him. Then he checked that the line hadn’t disconnected. ‘Susan?’ he said. ‘Hallo?’

  He heard a sniff. Then another sniff. She was crying.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Susan took a bus and then the tube to work. There were no parking spaces at Magellan Lowry and, in any case, she didn’t mind the journey, which took close to an hour each way, as it gave her time to read.

  But this morning, sitting upstairs on the double-decker bus, she gloomily watched the rain sliding down the windows, unable to concentrate on the manuscript she was trying to finish, which was yet another new theory on how the Egyptian pyramids had been built. It would interest Fergus Donleavy, she thought, because the author claimed to have definitive proof that the pyramids had been built on the instructions of aliens.

  Her emotions were in turmoil and she was feeling very tired. Housework was exhausting her, and she’d stuck an ad for a daily help in the local newsagents’ window. So far she’d had no response.

  God, it was only Monday, a whole week’s work to get through, and all she wanted was to go home, curl up and sleep. She’d woken with a dull ache in her abdomen, which was new, and she was afraid that it was going to turn into one of the ghastly sharp pains again. She was putting on weight now, which she was not happy about – although John liked her enlarged breasts – and the bump was just starting to show. And she was going through a phase of craving dark, bitter chocolate. She took a bar out of her handbag now, broke off a square and slipped it into her mouth, sucking it, resisting the temptation to bite, to make it last longer.

  They were having a big supper party at home on Saturday and she wished she could cancel it – although it had been her idea in the first place. She was determined for life to go on as normal and not be a wimp to her pregnancy – surely all women went though this pain and tiredness? – and, besides, they hadn’t yet had a house-warming party.

  She pulled her battered Filofax out of her handbag and looked through the checklist. John had bought her a Psion electronic organiser for her birthday last year; she had almost got the hang of it but still preferred the familiarity of her old leather-bound friend. They’d invited fifty people, a dozen of whom couldn’t come, which left them to cater for either thirty-six or thirty-eight plus themselves – they were still waiting to hear from Harvey Addison and his wife. Susan had told John she thought it rude of the obstetrician to leave it so late, and John had promised to call him this morning.

  She went through her checklist. The waitresses were confirmed: the owner of the Thai restaurant was organising them and the food – lemon grass chicken and Thai vegetable curry. The drink, red and white wine plus Australian fizz, was being delivered on Friday morning from Bottoms Up, on sale or return, and they were lending the glasses.

  They’d debated about whether to have a disco and dancing. Susan was for it but John was against: half the people coming were to do with his business and he had said he wanted it to be a networking evening. To compensate she had bought several hundred poppers, streamers, blowers, silly hats, as well as boxes of crackers.

  The tough thing was going to be everyone at the party congratulating her on being pregnant and asking when the baby was due.

  She flicked a few pages of her Filofax and glanced down the Christmas card list. She’d already mailed off the ones to the US, with a specially large one for Casey, as the last postal dates had come and gone, and she should complete the English ones this week. Turning to her Christmas presents page, she made a mental note that she should do the tradesmen’s tips next week.

  Then she looked at the list of presents for John. Three books that he wanted. A wild waistcoat to go under his tuxedo. A Victorian bronze horse statuette she’d bought in the antique shop near the Thai restaurant, and a golf gizmo she’d ordered from the Innovations catalogue, which hadn’t yet arrived – a kit for making a lost ball give off a bleep. John would be upset if there wasn’t at least one gizmo in his stocking.

  She would send a huge bouquet of flowers to Casey, and as for her parents – well, that would depend on whether or not they came over. If they didn’t she’d buy them a treat, maybe a weekend at Caesar’s at Vegas.

  And then, as if reminding her that there was someone else who should not be left off the Christmas-present list, she felt a light stroking inside her. This had only started happening a few days ago and it was an incredible sensation.

  She put her arms protectively around her abdomen. ‘Hi, Bump,’ she whispered. She had started calling the baby Bump because she did not want to think about a real name. John had told her that if they gave it a name – Alice or Tom or Nicholas or whatever – they might start getting too attached. ‘This is your first Christmas, Bump. How do you feel about it? Have you written out your list for Santa yet?’

  Mr Sarotzini had not been in touch with her since that morning he had come into her room at the clinic after the operation. She had told John that she didn’t mind, that it made things easier, but deep down she did. She was hurt because it made everything seem even more clinical and businesslike than it need be.

  What was going to happen to Bump?

  What kind of life was Bump going to have with Mr Sarotzini? What kind of parent would an elderly man make? And what about Mrs Sarotzini? She’d had cancer, which was why she couldn’t have children, according to Mr Sarotzini. Was she sick now? Or a glamorous international jet-setting clothes-horse, who didn’t have time to have babies, found it easier for other people to have them for her? Like those women who insisted on having Caesareans so their vaginas didn’t get stretched? Sure Mr Sarotzini could afford anything – but was that going to be enough? Was Bump going to be stuck in a nursery in some remote Swiss mansion, to be wheeled out and shown to his parents once a day – a trophy child?

  As if echoing her concerns, Bump stroked her again.

  The bus was slowing for a stop. It seemed fuller than usual today – people going into town for their Christmas shopping, she guessed. A heavily pregnant woman began walking down from the front of the bus. Susan caught her eye, giving her a me-too smile, with which the woman failed to connect.

  Suddenly, before she realised it, Susan’s eyes were watering with the terrible homesickness she’d felt earlier when John had rung.

  However much her mother and father had failed in their acting careers, they had still been good parents to herself and Casey – in as much as any child could judge these things. They had always been there for her when she’d needed them, home had always been a welcoming place, and they’d never grown bitter over either the failure of their careers, or the tragedy of Casey. Susan knew they would love to become grandparents, and she remembered how disappointed they had been when she had told them, soon after getting m
arried, that she and John did not intend to have a family.

  Now she was pregnant and she wanted to share something of this with them. She wanted to see the delight it would bring to their faces, wanted to experience the sensation of being with them and sharing this, this – this what?

  Joy?

  Or, as John had said, would it be cruel to do this to them? To raise their hopes and then have to tell them the baby was gone, dead, stillborn? Was John right that it was best to keep it quiet, as far as they were concerned?

  She couldn’t do that. What if they found out from someone that she was pregnant? Or had been pregnant and hadn’t told them? That would be much worse, surely.

  Why, she wondered, had she made that remark to John about her mother staying on in England to look after the baby? It had just come out so naturally, as if she really believed that was going to happen.

  She shook her head. I really am in a bad state, she thought.

  Shortly before eleven that morning, Susan was typing a rejection letter to a promising writer from the slush pile. The book, on case studies of people driven by their genes to commit crime, had had good readers’ reports and she had liked the young writer’s style. But the board had felt the book, clearly a modified PhD thesis, too scientific for a broad readership.

  She was trying to find a way to let the writer down gently by encouraging him to find a way to rewrite the book more commercially, when her phone intercom rang. It was her secretary, telling her she had a Mr Sarotzini on the line.

  Susan’s brain went into tilt. Weird, she thought, that he had been on her mind only an hour or so earlier this morning. ‘I’ll be with him in a moment,’ she said, and released the button, feeling, suddenly, like a bag of jelly.

  Absurdly, she ran her fingers through her hair, tidying it, tossed some away from her forehead, then looked behind her to make sure her door was shut. Then she pressed the button again. ‘Put him through, Hermione.’

  A moment later she heard his unmistakable voice, pleasant, courteous, a little more formal than before, a little stiffer.