The Truth

by Peter James

  Through his father-in-law’s grief, John thought he detected a sudden edginess to his voice. ‘She’s – she’s at the clinic right now. They – they’re being good about it, John. They understand that she’s having some kind of a breakdown.’

  ‘Breakdown?’ John could hear his mother-in-law saying something in the background.

  ‘She arrived here last night in a – real bad state. I – Gayle and I –’ He fell silent again. ‘John – look, here’s Gayle. She’ll tell you.’

  John heard the scraping sound of the receiver being manhandled, then his mother-in-law’s voice. She sounded deeply distressed, but less distraught than her husband. ‘Hello, John,’ she said. ‘What’s going on? Please tell us what’s going on.’

  ‘Gayle, I’m sorry about Casey, I’m desperately sorry.’

  There was another silence. Then, stiffly, she said, ‘Thank you. You can imagine how we’re feeling.’

  John fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette. ‘Gayle, did I hear Dick right? Susan disconnected Casey’s air-line?’

  ‘She killed her sister. I can’t believe she did this, John, she loved Casey, she loved her more than –’ She drew breath, as if struggling for self-control.

  John waited some moments, then said, ‘Have you spoken to Susan?’

  ‘She’s unconscious.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the clinic. Seems that there might be complications. I had to sign a consent form – allowing them to operate. They’re going to have to do an emergency Caesarean.’

  John tried to make sense of what he was hearing. ‘She’s still in the clinic? What – about –’

  ‘The police?’

  ‘Yes?’

  John sensed the same edginess in her voice that he had noticed in her husband’s. ‘The clinic are being very good about it, John. They – the director had a talk with us. They don’t want a scandal – I guess – I guess any more than we do.’

  A moment ago his mother-in-law had asked him what was going on; he was beginning to feel it was his turn now to ask that same question. Susan had gone to LA and had killed Casey? No way, no way in hell would Susan have harmed Casey. This was all wrong, seriously wrong.

  ‘Gayle,’ he said, ‘listen to me very carefully. You have to get Susan out of that clinic now, right now. I can’t explain why over the phone and you wouldn’t believe me if I tried. Just do it for Susan. Get her to any other hospital, doesn’t matter which one. Will you do that, please?’

  There was another long silence, then his mother-in-law said, ‘John, she’s in the finest clinic in California and they have the best maternity facilities of anywhere there. We have to deal with this, we can’t solve anything by taking her away. We need them real bad right now.’

  ‘Look,’ John said, with growing desperation, ‘I’m coming over on the first flight in the morning. Get her out of there now, right now. Gayle, please believe me. They’re going to kill her too.’

  There was a click. He stared at the phone with incredulity.

  She had hung up on him.

  Chapter Sixty

  The butcher hefted the slab of meat on the block, then raised his long-bladed knife. And Susan saw what he was going to cut. It wasn’t meat at all.

  She threw herself forward, screaming, ‘No! That’s my baby, please, please don’t! Please, oh my God, pleeeease.’

  The knife struck the flesh, skewering the baby on to the board beneath. A tiny geyser of blood bubbled up around the glinting steel, and the baby screamed, a hideous, curdling scream.

  The scream calmed into a sobbing cry. And then a gurgle. And then the gurgle changed into a choking, rattling sound.

  Susan heard the clunk-puff-clunk-puff of a ventilator. Someone was choking, gasping for air.

  Casey.

  Casey writhing on her bed.

  Susan reached out towards her, but the image was fading. Casey turned, smiled as she faded. She looked so happy, so incredibly happy.

  The image dimmed further, then dissolved into the darkness that was rising around her. Susan tried to hold on to the image, but a pain was intruding, a stinging sensation in her abdomen that was growing increasingly sharper. It was different from the pain she had had before. It was bearable, it wasn’t comfortable, but it was bearable.

  And then a shiver ripped through her.

  She saw an image of Miles Van Rhoe sinking to the ground with a cellular phone sticking out of his eye socket, blood gouting from it, his mouth distorted with shock.

  She broke into a sweat of fear.

  Running. She had been running.

  Christ, how badly had she hurt him?

  And how had he found her? How had he known she was here? John. It must have been John who had told him. John must have phoned her parents and somehow gotten out of them where she was and he’d told Van Rhoe. So now Mr Sarotzini would know she was here.

  And now through the darkness she felt the red glow of light against her eyelids. She opened her eyes and she was flat on her back staring up at a white ceiling and a sprinkler system. A face filled her line of vision, a stranger, a woman in a white gown, a nurse, with high cheekbones, a pretty face with short blonde hair, and she was smiling. Susan stared groggily at her.

  ‘Congratulations, Susan, you’ve had a little girl!’

  Susan looked at her blankly.

  ‘Your baby,’ the nurse said. ‘You’ve had a girl!’

  And Susan connected with this word baby. Baby.

  ‘Girl?’ Susan said, confused. Bump was a boy, she was sure Bump was a boy. ‘Where – where is – she? Can I –?’ And then she was gripped by a sudden deep anxiety as the memory returned. ‘Casey? How’s Casey?’

  The flicker of a hesitation. ‘Casey?’

  ‘My sister. Where am I?’

  ‘You’re in the Pacific Palisades Clinic.’

  ‘My sister, Casey, how is she?’

  All smiles now. ‘Casey Corrigan?’

  Susan nodded.

  ‘In the Laguna wing? She’s your sister? What a lovely girl!’

  Susan felt relieved. Casey was fine, she could see it in the smile.

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  How was Van Rhoe? Had that been a dream? Why wasn’t the woman saying anything about him? It must have been a dream.

  ‘Are you a little tender?’

  She had to think about this for a minute. Her brain was woozy, still a little confused. She felt uncomfortable lying flat, it was hurting her stomach. She told the nurse this.

  ‘I’m afraid you will be a little tender. I’m going to give you something for the pain.’

  ‘My baby – I – I was having a boy.’

  ‘A lot of women get surprised, Susan. Lots of women think they’re having a boy and then they have a girl. She’s a beautiful little girl.’

  They were lying to her. She’d had a boy and they were taking him away. ‘Can I sit up?’

  ‘Just rest a while longer until you’re fully round from the anaesthetic, and then I’ll take you through to your room and bring your daughter in.’

  Daughter. Susan liked the word: it gave her a feeling of pride. She felt a light prick in her thigh, and then the pain subsided, but did not entirely go away. And the hazy thought rode through it: Daughter.

  You’ve had a baby.

  A girl.

  Bump was a boy.

  As her thoughts became clearer, her fear deepened. What if this wasn’t her baby but someone else’s that they were going to show her? To trick her? How would she know? How did she know Mr Sarotzini hadn’t already taken her baby away? They might be going to sacrifice it today, they might be doing it at this moment. One of her books had told her that new-born babies add great power to rituals because of their innocence.

  She had tried to run. They had come after her. She had stabbed Van Rhoe through the eye.

  Good. He was one of them. He deserved it.

  She tried to sit up and immediately slumped down, crying out in shock at the acute pain. It felt
like her stomach was ripping open. She turned her head to the left, then right. All she could see was a drip stand, monitoring equipment, bare walls. And a clock that said seven ten. She looked for a bell, a phone, but there was nothing in reach.

  She lay still, her thoughts becoming clearer, fretting, thinking about the baby, thinking about Casey last night. About Van Rhoe. Casey’s disconnected air line. What had happened? Casey’s air line. How? How could it? Had the pressure blown it apart? Why hadn’t anyone been there? What would have happened if she hadn’t come and – and –?

  She tried to remember what had happened. The pain. The nurse. Van Rhoe. She’d been running away. A policeman had come. It felt real and unreal at the same time.

  I must have dreamt it.

  Finally, after what seemed an eternity later although the clock told her only another twenty minutes had passed, the nurse returned with two orderlies. They wheeled her along a corridor into a room and lifted her into the bed.

  She was allowed to sit up. They propped her with pillows. All kinds of medical paraphernalia surrounded her, machines, stands, pumps, a battery of blinking, flickering, winking dials and gauges; she had a drip in her wrist, a groin drain from her abdomen, and she was catheterised.

  The nurse’s lapel badge identified her as Greta Dufors. All smiles (Susan wondered whether she had any other expression), she told Susan she was going to bring her daughter now.

  There was a cot beside the bed, with pink sheets and a pink cotton blanket. The room had a window with a view out over the canyon, an opened door on to an en suite bathroom, a large television, two armchairs, a vase of flowers, bright modern paintings on the walls. But no telephone.

  Susan heard crying, and then, making soothing noises, Nurse Dufors brought in a tiny baby in a pink vest and diaper, its face scrunched up like a rubber ball as it howled.

  ‘Here she is!’ Nurse Dufors said. ‘Here’s your mummy!’

  As Susan stared at this little creature, its tiny arms and legs stretching and contracting, her suspicions evaporated. It looked so helpless, so frightened, so confused.

  So utterly beautiful.

  She reached out instinctively and took the tiny bundle, and that was all she needed. As she held it and marvelled at how incredibly beautifully formed it was, and felt its movements, she knew, straight away, that this was Bump, this was the baby she’d been carrying inside her. She kissed her head and said, ‘Hello, my darling, it’s OK, it’s OK!’

  And the baby stopped crying and made a contented gurgle.

  ‘There, that’s better,’ Nurse Dufors said. ‘See what an instant effect you have!’

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ Susan said. ‘I’ve never seen a baby so beautiful. You are, aren’t you? You’re so beautiful!’

  Nurse Dufors opened the front of Susan’s gown and Susan put the baby’s mouth to her nipple. There was a tiny stinging sensation, then she felt the baby’s gums gripping her and the milk being sucked out. She was close to tears. This feeling, this tiny creature, her child – she was breast-feeding her child. It was so incredible she could barely believe it.

  ‘She’s drinking!’ she exclaimed. ‘She’s feeding!’

  Nurse Dufors nodded back, beaming. ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’

  ‘She is,’ Susan said. ‘She’s the most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen.’ She cradled the little bundle that was her child with her left arm, and smelled baby powder and soap, and stared down at the wrinkled face, the tiny hands that were waving around, and she noticed the hair. There was a surprising amount of it, sleek, flame-red hair.

  ‘Yes, you are gorgeous! My darling, you’re incredible, you know that? You’re just incredible!’

  She wanted her parents to see her, and John, and Kate Fox and Liz Harrison and all her other friends, and she couldn’t stop looking at her, looking at her hands, her face. My baby, she was thinking. My baby! You are my baby, you are! You really are! And I don’t care about all the pain you caused me, it was worth it, it was worth every second!

  She kissed her forehead, and then she kissed her again, and when she next glanced up, Nurse Dufors had slipped away. She was alone in the room with her baby. And suddenly, she had no idea why, she said, ‘Verity.’

  As if in acknowledgement, the baby glanced up, and Susan felt an instant communion with her. ‘Like that name, do you? I like it too, it’s a nice name. Verity. Know what Verity means?’

  Verity sucked even harder on the nipple, as if to say she didn’t know, it wasn’t important, this nipple was the thing that was important.

  ‘It means The Truth,’ Susan said.

  Susan carried on watching her – she couldn’t take her eyes off that tiny mouth, those hands, that little nose, this little incredible miracle she was holding. And when, finally, she did take her eyes off her and looked up again, Mr Sarotzini was standing in front of the bed.

  A chill blast of fear guttered through her.

  She held Verity even tighter. She was not going to let go of her, no way.

  Mr Sarotzini was smiling. ‘Good. Excellent, Susan! How are we doing?’

  Susan didn’t return the smile. ‘Fine.’

  He stepped closer to the bed. ‘She’s a very beautiful little girl. I am informed that, considering she’s a month premature, she’s a good weight. And she’s fit as a fiddle, she’s really a terrific baby.’

  ‘She is,’ Susan said, holding her even tighter, as tight as she dared, and looked down at her again. ‘You are, aren’t you? Yes, yes, you are. You’re terrific! And you know it, don’t you?’

  Susan looked up and saw the smile on Mr Sarotzini’s face, and it sent another shiver through her. Now he was going to say something to her about Van Rhoe, she thought. But he didn’t. He just kept on smiling.

  ‘I’ll come and see you again in the morning,’ he said.

  And then he was gone.

  Susan switched Verity to her right breast, and after a while Nurse Dufors returned and showed her how to burp the baby, changed the diaper for her, and tucked Verity up in her cot.

  Then Susan was alone again. She listened to the sound of her baby breathing, and played Mr Sarotzini’s words over and over in her mind. I’ll come and see you again in the morning.

  That meant Mr Sarotzini wasn’t going to try to take Verity tonight, didn’t it?

  And he had said nothing about Van Rhoe. If she had really stabbed Van Rhoe through the eye someone would have said something. It had been a dream, a bad dream, a nightmare.

  Then she thought that maybe that was how she felt about Van Rhoe. Freud had said that the emotions you repressed in the daytime were released in your dreams. Perhaps the anger at the pain she had felt for so many months, or the deception, or a combination of everything had made her want to kill him.

  And she could kill him, she knew, that was the frightening thing. She could, she really could, kill anyone who tried to take Verity away.

  She looked down at the contented sleeping face, so tiny, so frail, so innocent. ‘I won’t,’ she said. ‘I won’t let them. I won’t let them take you, I promise you.’

  Chapter Sixty-one

  Susan was woken by footsteps. And by the faint sound of a musical instrument playing. A flute.

  Her eyes sprang open. The door was ajar and light spilled into the room from the corridor. A shadowy figure was moving towards her, then stopped in front of the cot. The light caught the left side of its face. It was Mr Sarotzini.

  The door swung closed, reducing him to a silhouette.

  She watched him, throbbing with fear, afraid to move, not wanting to signal to him that she was awake, silently bracing herself, ready to spring if he tried to lift Verity from the cot. As her brain raced she tried to work out the time. Verity had had a feed just after midnight. The nurse had changed her and lifted her into the cot.

  Mr Sarotzini leant over the cot and began chanting, quietly and intently. His voice was low, and Susan could barely hear him. As she strained to make out what he was saying, she realised the l
anguage was one she had never heard. It sounded like Latin, but it wasn’t – she knew a little Latin, having done a course at school.

  What the hell was he doing? What was he saying? The sight was so surreal she wondered whether she was asleep and dreaming this. Then she felt indignant at the intrusion, and at the stupidity of disturbing a sleeping baby.

  Plucking up the courage, she said, ‘What are you doing?’

  Mr Sarotzini ignored her and continued his chanting. Then, still without looking at Susan, he turned away, and melted back into the darkness. The door opened; she could see him clearly for an instant in the light now and, in the background, she could hear the flute more clearly. He bowed respectfully to Verity, then closed the door and Susan was in darkness again.

  But not alone.

  She heard the rustle of clothes: another shadowy figure was moving towards the cot. Susan swallowed, her mouth dry. Was this some kind of ritual – or preparation?

  Louder than before, her voice trembling, Susan said, ‘Who’s that? What are you doing?’

  The door opened again, and in the throw of light she could see a woman standing over the cot, a stern, middle-aged woman with a heavily lined Slavic face. She was wearing a black polo-neck jersey, large, ugly jewellery, and exuded a heavy, aromatic scent that reminded Susan of incense. Behind her another person entered the room and the door closed again.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Susan said, increasingly frightened.

  Like Mr Sarotzini before her, the woman ignored Susan and began to chant in a low intonation, in that same unfamiliar language. Then she, too, turned away, opened the door, bowed and was gone.

  Another person moved towards the cot, and as he reached it, the door opened once more and the light struck his face. Susan became convinced that she was dreaming. He looked like the man from Telecom who had come to her house, and like the man in the strange dream – or hallucination – she’d had in the WestOne Clinic during her insemination operation.