The Surrogate
TANIA CARVER
www.littlebrown.co.uk
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Acknowledgements
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Part Two
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Part Three
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
The Surrogate
TANIA CARVER
www.littlebrown.co.uk
Published by Hachette Digital 2009
SPHERE
First published in Great Britain in 2009 by Sphere
Copyright © Tania Carver 2009
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All characters and events in this publication, other than those
clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance
to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without
the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated
in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published
and without a similar condition including this condition being
imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
eISBN : 978 0 7481 1216 6
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www.littlebrown.co.uk
Hachette Digital
An imprint of
Little, Brown Book Group
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London EC4Y 0DY
An Hachette Livre UK Company
To David, thanks for everything
Acknowledgements
Thanks go to David Shelley, Thalia Proctor and everyone at Little, Brown who worked so hard on this book and to Jane Gregory, Stephanie Glencross, Claire Morris, Jemma McDonagh, Tess Barun and Terry Bland at Gregory and Company. Very special thanks to Ildiko Olah and Chris Bews for the research and red wine. All the solid facts were theirs, all the liberties taken were mine. And to those who can’t be thanked by name - thank you. You know why.
Part One
1
There was a knock at the door.
Claire Fielding and Julie Simpson looked at each other, surprised. Claire started to rise.
‘You stay there,’ said Julie. ‘I’ll get it.’ She stood up from the sofa, crossed the living room. ‘Probably Geraint, forgot something. Again.’
Claire smiled. ‘Changed his mind about lending me his Desperate Housewives DVD.’
Julie laughed, left the room. Claire shifted a little to get comfortable, sat back and smiled. Looked around, taking in the presents on the coffee table. Babygros and clothes. Parenting books. Soft toys. And the cards. Claire had thought it would be bad luck to open them before the birth but the others had insisted so she had given in, her doubts soon forgotten.
She moved from side to side, tried to find a soft spot on the sofa, allow the springs to reach an accommodation with her huge, distended stomach. She patted the bulge. Smiled. Not much longer. She leaned forward, grunting with the effort, and picked up her glass of fizzy fruit drink. Took a mouthful, replaced the glass. Then a mini onion bhaji. She had heard such horror stories of women who couldn’t eat anything during pregnancy and were constantly sick. Not Claire. She was lucky. Probably too lucky. She patted her stomach, hoping it was all baby, knowing it wasn’t. She wished she could be like one of those celebs like Posh or Angelina Jolie who got their figure back in about four days after having kids. They claimed it was all diet and exercise but she knew it must be surgery. Real life wasn’t like that for Claire and she knew she would have to work at it. Still. That was the future. She would get her body back, then start a new life. Just her and her child.
She was no longer anxious or depressed. Tearful or bereft. That was all in the past and finished with, like those things had happened to someone else. It had been painful, yes, but it was worth it. So, so worth it.
Claire smiled. She might have felt happier in her life but she couldn’t remember when. She certainly had not felt as happy as this for a long, long time.
Then she heard sounds from the hallway.
‘Julie?’
Thumping on the walls and floor, bangs and scuffles. It sounded like someone was playing football or wrestling. Or fighting.
A shiver ran through Claire. Oh no. God no. Not him, not now . . .
‘Julie . . .’
Claire’s voice was more frantic this time, unable to hide the alarm at what she was hearing, who she imagined was responsible for the noise.
A final thump, then silence.
‘Julie?’
No rep
ly.
With great difficulty Claire managed to pull herself upright from the sofa. The speed with which she got up left her feeling slightly light-headed. She picked up her mobile from the coffee table, left the room and stepped into the hallway. She had a good idea of who to expect there and was ready to call for help. Even the police if needs be. Anything to get rid of him.
She turned the corner. And stopped dead, her mouth open. Whatever she had been expecting, it wasn’t the scene before her. No way could she have expected that. It was horrific. Too horrific for her mind to process. She couldn’t take in what had happened.
Her eyes dropped to the floor and she saw Julie. Or what was left of her.
‘Oh God . . .’
Then she saw the figure standing over her best friend and she began to understand. She knew that her own, ordinary life had stopped with the knock on the door. She was living through something else now. A horror film, perhaps. A nightmare.
The figure saw her. Smiled.
Claire saw the blade. Shining under the hallway light, blood dripping on to the carpet. She tried to run but her legs wouldn’t work. She tried to scream but couldn’t send the right signals from her brain to her mouth. She just dropped her mobile. Stood there, unable to move.
Then the figure was on her.
One punch and everything went black.
Claire opened her eyes, tried to sit up. But she couldn’t move. Her arms, hands, back, nothing. Her eyes closed again. Even her eyelids felt heavy. Very heavy. She tried once more to force them apart, managed. But it was a struggle just to keep them open.
She could only look upwards. Not even from side to side. She recognised the ceiling of her bedroom. The overhead light was on, blinding her. She tried to blink the light away but her heavy eyelids remained closed. She instinctively knew that wasn’t good, so she forced them open, light or no light.
She tried to make out what was happening. A shadow was moving on the ceiling, large and looming, like something from an old black and white horror movie. Doing something out of her line of vision.
Claire remembered what had happened. The figure in the hall, the attack. And Julie. Julie . . .
She opened her mouth, tried to scream. No sound at all came out. A wave of panic passed through her. She had been paralysed in some way. Drugged. She felt her eyes close again. Forced them open once more. It was a struggle, the biggest of her life, but she couldn’t allow them to close. She knew now that if she did, she would be dead.
She tried to move her lips, make sounds, call for help. Nothing. No matter how loudly she screamed in her head - and it felt like she was screaming all the time now - all that trickled out of her mouth was a puppy-like whimper.
She saw the shadow on the ceiling move closer to her.
No, don’t . . . get off me, get away from me, don’t touch me, don’t touch me . . .
Useless. Just made her head hurt, her inner ear trill.
Claire felt her eyelids being pulled down again, fought to push them up. It was getting harder each time. As was breathing, her lungs slowing with each poisoned breath she took. Panic and fear only helped her heart to speed-pump the crippling drug round her body. She knew she didn’t have long.
Somebody help . . . please . . . just break down the door, help . . .
The shadow of the figure now loomed above her, blocking out the overhead light. Claire felt confusion on top of fear and panic: who were they? Why were they doing this?
Then she saw the scalpel. And she knew.
Not my baby . . . please, not my baby . . .
The figure bent over her, light glinting along the scalpel’s razor-edged blade.
No . . . help me, oh God, help me . . .
Began to cut.
Claire felt nothing. Saw only the intruder’s grotesque shadow thrown across the ceiling, the light exaggerating the sawing motion of the arm.
God, no, please . . . please someone, help me, help me, no . . .
Eventually the figure straightened up. Stood over Claire. Smiled. Something in its hand, red and dripping.
No . . .
Another smile and the red, dripping thing was taken from her sight. Claire couldn’t scream or move. She couldn’t even cry.
The shadow moved towards the door and was gone. Claire was left alone, screaming and shouting in her head. She tried to pull her arms up, move her legs. No good. It was too much effort. Even breathing was too much effort.
She felt her lungs slow down. Her eyelids close. She could hear the pump of blood round her body slowing down, down . . .
She tried one last time to fight it but it was no use. Her body was closing down. And she was powerless to stop it.
Her lungs stopped inflating, her heart stopped beating.
Her eyes closed for the final time.
2
‘Oh my God . . .’
Detective Inspector Philip Brennan, Chief Investigating Officer with the Major Incident Squad, donned surgical gloves, pulled the hood of his pristine crinkling paper suit over his head and stood on the threshold of hell. He knew that when he pulled back the yellow crime-scene tape and entered, he would be crossing a line between order and chaos. Between life and death.
He lifted the tape, stepped inside. So much blood . . .
‘Jesus . . .’
The tape fell back into place, the line crossed. No going back now. He took in the scene before him and knew he would never leave this apartment, mentally or emotionally, until he had found who had done this. And perhaps not even then.
The hallway looked like an abattoir. Covered in so much blood, as if several litres of red paint had been dropped from a great height, splashing up the walls and over the floor like a grisly action painting, fading to brown as it dried. But paint didn’t smell like that. Like dirty copper and rancid meat. He tried breathing though his mouth. Felt it on his tongue. Tasting as bad as it smelled. Sweat prickled his body, adding to his discomfort.
‘Can someone turn the heating off?’ he shouted.
Other white-suited individuals moved about the apartment. Intense, focused. He noticed that a few of them were carrying paper bags, some full. They were issued in extreme cases to catch any vomit that might contaminate the crime scene. One of the officers acknowledged his request, went to find the thermostat.
The body still lay in the hallway, ready to be stretchered off to the mortuary for autopsy. The SOCOs had finished extracting every last piece of information from the scene but had left the body in place so Phil could examine it, find something to kick-start his investigation.
He looked down, swallowed hard. A woman was lying there, her torso twisted, her arms outstretched and grasping, as if she had been trying to hang on to the last breath as it left her body. She was dressed in jeans and a T-shirt. A vicious slash had taken out both jugular vein and artery on either side of her neck. He could see she had struggled by the patterns made by her arms in the blood on the wooden floor. Like bloodied angel’s wings.
Phil looked to a SOCO officer standing beside him.
‘Okay if I cross?’
The SOCO nodded. ‘Think we’re done with this one. Got everything we need.’
‘Photos?’
The SOCO nodded again.
Phil stepped over the body, careful not to track blood into any other room. The bedroom door was open. He walked towards it, looked in. And felt his stomach pitch and roll.
‘Oh God, this is a bad one . . .’
A white-suited silhouette heard Phil’s voice, detached himself from a group of similarly dressed figures at the end of the hall, came to join him in the doorway. ‘Like we ever get good ones?’
‘Not as bad as this . . .’ The smell was stronger here. He couldn’t describe it; it was life, it was death, it was everything the human body was. It was something he had smelled before. It was something he knew he would never forget.
As he looked at the body on the bed, he felt his chest constrict, his arms shake. No. This was no time for a panic att
ack. He breathed deeply through his mouth, forced his emotions down, his breathing back to normal. React as a copper, he told himself; it’s up to you to make order out of this chaos.
Detective Sergeant Clayton Thompson, one of Phil’s team. Tall and in good shape, the white of his hood emphasising his tanned features, his usually self-confident, even cocky, smile replaced by a frown of concentration. ‘Should have waited for you to turn up before going in, boss. Sorry.’
Phil always made a point of assembling his team at any crime scene. Entering together got them pooling their initial responses, sharing their theories, working towards a common conclusion. He was slightly annoyed that Clayton hadn’t waited for him, but given the severity of the situation, it was understandable.
Philip Brennan 01 - The Surrogate Page 1
