THE TRUTH [070-066-4.9]

By: Peter James

Synopsis:

A story of obsession, the ocult, the lives of innocence and
manipulation.  A woman becomes a surrogate mother to a child possessed,
to save her sister and her husband's business and their future.

Also by Peter James:

Dead Letter Drop

Atom Bomb

Angel

Billionaire

Possession

Dreamer

Sweet Heart

Twilight

Prophecy

Host

Alchemist

THE TRUTH

PETER JAMES

LONDON NEW YORK SYDNEY TORONTO

Copyright Peter James Really Scary Books Ltd 1997

All rights reserved

The right of Peter James to be identified as the author of this work has
been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.

This edition published 1997 by BCA by arrangement with Orion an imprint
of Orion Books Ltd

CN 3789

Typeset by Deltatype Ltd, Birkenhead, Merseyside Printed in Great
Britain by Clays Ltd, St. Ives plc

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Robert Beard, FRCS, Felicity
Beard, Andy Holyer, Bruce Katz and Sue Ansel!, who never flagged or
ceased to respond vigorously and with warm goodwill to my ceaseless
barrage of questions in the researching of this novel.

And also to Richard Howorth, Dr. Duncan Stewart, Barbara Haywood, Peter
Rawlings and Dr. A.M.  Anton for their help.

Writing is only in part a solitary task, and as ever I owe a huge thank
you to the invaluable creative input and tireless support of my UK
agent, Jon Thurley and his brilliant right hand, Patricia Preece, as
well as the very considerable creative contributions made by my new
editor, Simon Spanton, my new copy editor, Hazel Ormer, and my US agent,
Brian Siberell at CAA.

And as always" the book could not have happened without the forbearance
of my wife, Georgina, and the tolerance of Bertie who only sometimes
barked during my deepest moments of thought...

Peter James

for Jon Thurley, who gave me the guidance, the will, the hope, and above
all else, the belief.

Prologue

Hollywood Memorial Park Cemetery, Los Angeles, 1996

Permaglow from the city lights makes it brighter than the three men
like.

They were hoping for darkness but all they get is a neon twilight.

One holds a briefcase and a photocopy of a fax, one a flashlight, one
two shovels taped neatly together.  They should not be here, and they
are nervous; this is not at all how they imagined it would be, but
that's the way it is.  The one with the briefcase is smarter than his
colleagues, and he understands: nothing is ever quite as we imagine it.

They have travelled a long way; being here scares them; the thought of
what they are about to do scares them even more.  But neither of these
things scares them as much as the man who has hired them to do this job.

Two of them have never met this man, they have only heard stories about
him; they are not the kind of stories they would want to tell their
kids.  The stories work on their minds even now as they search, fuelling
them with a determination they have never felt before.  They are riding
emotional rapids on a flimsy raft, and the raft has a name: it is called
Fear of Failure.

The beam of the flashlight strikes a gravestone, sweeps away the
darkness as if it is a layer of ancient dust.  Engraved words appear.  A
loved one, long dead; it's the wrong one.  They move on across the flat
ground, past a clump of trees and a small, landscaped mound.

Another headstone; also the wrong one.  They stop, consult the blurred
fax.  They look around them, see marble obelisks, onyx cherubs, granite
slabs, porphyry urns, chiselled endearments, quotations, poems.  But
these men are not readers of poetry, the words do not reach out through
the darkness to them.

"We're in the wrong line, you assholes.  Next line along.  Look, it
shows you clearly, you have to count three lines.  We only counted two."

They find the right line.  Find the right gravestone.

Hannah Katherine Rosewell.  1892-1993.

Dearly beloved wife and mother.

The man checks the fax, reading the fuzzy words with difficulty, then
studies the inscription on the headstone once more.  He is being
methodical.  Finally he nods assent.

Carefully the other two cut the turf and roll it back as if it were a
carpet.

Then they start digging; the man with the fax watches, listens to the
crunch of the blades, the traffic on Sunset beyond the locked wrought
iron gates, watches for shadows that move, for a shape that was not
there last time he looked.  It is a warm night and the soil is dry, it
has the texture of calcium, of old bones that have gone beyond brittle
and crumbled.

A shovel pings as it strikes a stone, and an oath hisses through the
humid darkness.  After a while the men pause to drink from a canteen of
water.

They work for almost three hours before the lid of the coffin is fully
exposed.  It's in good shape, there's still a gleam from the varnish,
rosewood; this is a deluxe, a tree in a rain forest has given its life
for this coffin.

The two men standing on the lid lay their shovels on the ground, then
stretch their backs.  Each is handed a nylon cord with a shackle, which
they clip to the end handles, then they haul themselves up out of the
grave, and stretch their backs again, gratefully.  One licks a blister
on his hand, then binds a handkerchief around his palm.

Even with all three working, it takes several minutes of clumsy, painful
effort to haul the coffin up and onto the ground, but finally they
succeed, and the one with the bandaged hand sits on it, momentarily
exhausted by the effort.  They drink more water, all three peering
anxiously into the night around them.  A small rodent scurries past and
is absorbed by the darkness.

Now they have the coffin out, the urgency with which they have been
working has deserted them.  They stand back from it for some moments,
looking at the brass handles, looking at each other, each thinking their
own private thoughts about how a corpse might look after three years
underground.

They go to work on the screws, remove each of them and pocket them
carefully.  Then they hesitate.  The two who have dug the grave grip the
lid and try to free it, but it's stuck tight.  They try a little harder
and there's a crack like a gunshot as the seal gives and the lid raises
a few inches at one end.

Instantly they drop it again and stagger away.

"Yech, Jesus!" says the one with the bandaged hand.

The smell.

Nothing has prepared them for this smell.  It's as if a septic tank has
been vented beneath them.

They move further away, but the smell is everywhere, the whole night is
thick with it.  The one with the torch gags, then swallows back down a
throatful of vomit.  They shuffle further away still.

Finally the smell recedes enough for them to be able to move back
towards the coffin.  This time they prepare themselves, taking deep
breaths before they heave that lid up and off.

Inside there is fine quilted satin, white, the colour of death.  The old
lady's hair is white also; it is thin and wispy, the same hue as the
satin, but its sheen has gone; her face is brown, like scuffed leather,
patches of bone show through: her teeth forming a rictus smile look like
they have been fleshly brushed.  Her state of preservation owes as much
to the quality of her coffin as it does to the dry Californian climate;
in a more humid soil, in a cheaper coffin, she would look less good.

The smell isn't so bad now, it's being diluted by the fresh air that the
corpse hasn't seen for three years.  The one with the fax looks at his
watch and knows they have a little under three hours of darkness
remaining to them.  He reads the instructions at the bottom of the fax
although he has already memorised them, has been thinking about them day
and night for the past week.

He opens the briefcase he has brought, removes scissors, a scalpel, a
boning knife and a small cool-box.  Working swiftly he snips a tuft of
hair, excises a square of flesh from her chest, then amputates the index
finger of the woman's right hand; no fluid leaks from the cut; the
finger is dry, leathery, like an antique peg.  He places each of his
prizes into a separate compartment that has already been prepared in the
cool-box, then checks the instructions on the fax once more, before
mentally ticking them off.

They screw the lid back onto the coffin and begin the task of shovelling
back the soil.  It goes back in faster than it came out.  But not that
fast.

In the morning one of the security guards passes by; he notices nothing
amiss; he has no reason to.

Chapter One

"It doesn't have a garage," John said.

"I can live with that.  How many houses in London have garages?" John
nodded.  She had a point, maybe it was no big deal.

"I love it, don't you?"

John looked absently at the For Sale sign, deep in thought, studied the
particulars he had in his hand, looked up at the columned porch that was
almost absurdly grand for the house, then at the red-brick walls clad in
ivy and clematis, and back at the turret.  It was the turret that was
really getting to him, hooking him.

In his teens he'd dreamed of being an architect, and had he lived in the
previous century, this was the kind of house he might have designed.  It
was individual, on three storeys, the only detached one in the street,
beyond the end of the Victorian red-brick terrace, and it was the turret
that made it, set if off, gave it an air both of importance and of
eccentricity.

The estate agent, Darren Morris, whom John placed at a mental age of
about twelve, jigged around at the edge of his peripheral vision,
chewing a wad of gum with his mouth open which, combined with his
forward-combed fringe, his stooped back and gangly limbs, made him
appear almost Neanderthal; he looked like he wanted to be somewhere else
needed to be somewhere else - in a hurry, gave out the vibes that they'd
been keeping him from a far more pressing engagement.  John manoeuvred
himself behind him, then, holding the particulars in his teeth, began
mimicking a gorilla scratching its armpits.

Stysan looked away quickly, but was unable to mask her grin.  The estate
agent turned round, but all he saw was John studying the house with
intense concentration.

"South-facing garden," Darren Morris said.  This was the third, or maybe
fourth time he had parted with this nugget of information.  John ignored
it, he was still gazing at the house, trying to keep the interior alive
in his mind.

The sunlight through the bay window in the drawing room, that gorgeous
combination of both airiness and warmth, and of space.  Those wonderful
high-ceilinged rooms.  The deep hall that gave such a great welcoming
feeling as you walked in.  The dining room that could seat twelve, no
problem (not that they had ever entertained that many at once, but who
knows?).  The small room next to it overlooking the garden that Susan
had already bagged for her study.  The cellar that he could one day rack
out and fill with wine.

He looked up at the turret again.  That room up there, with its views
all around, would make the most sensational bedroom.  And there were
four more rooms on the first and second floors that would make a den for
him and spare bedrooms, plus a loft they hadn't even gone up to.

"I really like the garden," Susan said.  "It's a huge garden for
London." John liked it too, the privacy of it, and the fact that on the
other side of the fence was a beautiful park with tennis courts, and a
pond, and acres of grass that were sparkling with frost this morning.
The house needed money spent on it, that was the one serious
consideration.  The roof did not look good, or the wiring or plumbing,
and God knows what other kinds of old-house problems lurked in here.
He'd be hard pushed to find the asking price, without even beginning to
think about repairs and renovation.

The turret got to him again - he couldn't stop looking at it, he was
filled with a sudden deep urge to live in a house with a turret.  But it
wasn't just the turret.  This was the first time he had walked into a
house and thought.

yes, I could spend the rest of my life here.  It had grandeur, but it
was Bohemian also, funky, elegant, it had style.  This would be a great
place to bring clients, he thought.  This was a place that announced:
John Carter has arrived!

But it had no garage.

Suddenly John, who had always wanted a house with a garage, saw no need
for a garage.  There was a small concreted area, enough for one car.

Plenty of spaces in the tree-lined street.  It was peaceful here,
tranquil, there was no noise of London traffic.  An oasis.

He thought about making love to Susan in the bedroom in the turret; he
thought about making love to her outside in the private garden, in the
sunshine, in the summer that was not far off.  It was the last week of
February, they could be in by then.

"I love it," he said.

"And I love you," Susan said, putting her arms around him, hugging him
hard.  "I love you more than anything in the world." Then she looked
longingly beyond him at the house, hugging him even harder.  She was
staring at a piece of the England of her dreams.  The house was
conjuring up for her all kinds of images from books she had read:
Austen, Hardy, Dickens, Trollope, Thackeray, Forster, Greene.  One after
another, descriptions of elegant London houses and country houses came
into her mind.

She had often, in a Californian childhood largely buried in books,
imagined herself in England, living the lives of the characters she read
about, maybe hosting an elegant, witty dinner party, or calling on
someone and being received by a butler, or just hurrying through London
in the rain.

"And I love you too," John replied.

The estate agent moved away and hovered by his car, then looked at his
watch again and dug his hands in his pockets.  Everyone went nuts over
this house, everyone who saw it wanted to buy it but they never did,
because of the horrific twenty-nine-page survey they would get listing
all the problems.  That combined with the asking price, which was much
too high - and from which the vendors would not budge - made this place
a sticker.

He looked at this couple, trying to size them up.  Susan Carter was
American, he guessed from her accent, late twenties, shoulder-length red
hair cut modern, long camel coat over jeans and boots.  She reminded him
of an actress and he was trying to think who, Gorillas in the Mist was
the film.  Then he remembered: Sigourney Weaver.  Yes, she seemed to
have that same mixture of good 1ook and ballsiness.  And maybe a hint of
Scully in The X-Files also.  Yup.  As he looked at her again he could
see even more of Scully coming through.

John Carter was English, a little older, early to mid thirties, he
reckoned. Sharp dresser, tweed trenchcoat, Boss suit, buckled shoes,
looked like a media type, advertising probably.  Straight black hair,
sleek, handsome face, an air of fresh-faced boyishness about him, but
tough with it, there was a definite hard streak in this guy.  He looked
across at the Carter's black BMW M3.  Spotlessly clean, gleaming, went
with John Carter's Mr. Immaculate image, he thought, but he was
surprised there wasn't a personalised plate: the one on the car showed
it to be four years old. Poser's car.

Still holding John and looking at the house, Susan asked, quietly,
vapour streaming from her mouth, "Can we afford it?"

"No, we can't possibly afford it."

She leaned back, the morning sunlight striking her eyes, turning them
lapis-lazuli blue.  These were the eyes John fell in love with seven and
a half years ago and had been in love with ever since.  She grinned.
"So?"

They'd been told that the previous owners had moved overseas.  The place
was empty and must be costing them money - maybe they'd lower the asking
price for a quick sale?

John grinned back.  He was tantalizing her, he was tantalizing himself.
It would be reckless to buy this place, but then again, all his life he
has been reckless.

Chapter Two

The man of whom so many people were afraid presided over his vast office
with an air of courtly ease.

His aristocratic face had become a little gaunt over the years, but his
complexion still retained that unique pampered sheen of the well-born.
His grey eyes, clear, sharp, full of observation and humour, required no
glasses or contact lenses.  His dark hair, elegantly streaked with grey,
was swept with lan back from his temples.

He was dressed in a Savile Row suit, his tie was elegant, winged horses
printed on green silk, his black shoes, out of sight beneath his desk,
glinted like mirrors; his long, slender fingers, which were leafing
through a computer printout, had been finely manicured.  His whole
manner exuded confidence.  He might only have been in his mid fifties.

His name was Emil Sarotzini.

The name was a legend.  People told stories about his fabled life with
the post-war set - on the French Riviera, partying on the Dockers" yacht
in Cannes, dining with Bardot in St. Tropez, lunching with the Grimaldis
in Monaco; and in the US, where he courted stars like Mansfield and
Monroe, and where he was himself courted by the aristocratic circle of
the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers and the Mellons.  It was rumoured that
Warhol had painted an entire collection for him, which Mr. Sarotzini had
forbidden ever to be shown to the public.  And in England, it was
whispered, he had been shielded by the Astors from the glare of the
Profumo scandal.

Other stories about the man were more discomforting, and there were
plenty that would chill people to the marrow.  Some of these stories no
insider ever dared to tell, because, it was rumoured, Mr. Sarotzini had
ears everywhere and disloyalty was not an option.

Rumours surrounded every aspect of his life, and none more so than his
age, which was to some a matter of idle speculation and to others a
disturbing enigma.

No one who worked here was innocent of Mr. Sarotzini's reputation.  It
acted like a magnet: they were repulsed but they were attracted.
Positive and negative.  Intrigue, mystery and speculation had been Mr.
Sarotzini's ever-present shadows throughout his life.  And few people he
met failed to fall under his spell.

The man who was bringing him the information he was awaiting knew more
about Mr. Sarotzini than perhaps any other living person.  And, for this
reason, was even more afraid of him than anyone else.

Klindz opened the panelled double doors and entered the secretary's
ante-room.  She was the sentinel who held all the keys to access Mr.
Sarotzini, and precious few ever even reached this inner sanctum of her
office.  But she barely gave Klindz a glance.

Mr. Sarotzini was visible through the open entrance beyond her, like an
Egyptian god in his hypostyle hall.  His office was mostly in darkness,
one pool of brightness from a gold table lamp illuminating the neat
stack of papers beside the leather blotter on his desk.  There was a
large window but the slats of the blinds were angled and narrowed
against the glare of the midmorning sunlight.

Klindz was six feet, six inches tall, with broad, quarterback shoulders,
close-cropped hair and a blunt boxer's face.  He was dressed in one of
his habitual plain two-piece suits, today a navy one, his tie carefully
adjusted, his shoes scrupulously polished.  The suits were made for him
by Mr. Sarotzini's tailor, but in spite of the expensive cloth and the
careful fittings, he never looked quite at ease in them.  To the casual
stranger he could have been a night-club bouncer, or perhaps a soldier
on leave in borrowed civvies.

Before taking a step forward he swallowed, checked the knot of his tie,
shot a glance down at his shoes, buttoned his jacket.  He knew that,
sartorially, he failed Mr. Sarotzini.  But in every other respect he
prided himself on the way he learned from his mentor and carried out his
wishes.

Mr. Sarotzini had made him everything that he was, but Klindz was aware
that he could just as easily strip it all away from him again, and this
was part of the fear that fuelled his slavish devotion to the man.

"So?" Mr. Sarotzini said, smiling expectantly as Klindz approached his
desk.  The smile relaxed Klindz and his love for this man was so intense
that he wanted to reach across that huge desk and hug him, but this he
could not do.  Many years ago Mr. Sarotzini had forbidden this kind of
physical contact.  Instead, Klindz handed him the envelope, and stood
stiffly to attention.

"You may sit, Stefan," Mr. Sarotzini said, shaking out the contents and
immediately becoming absorbed in them.

Klindz sat, tensely, on the edge of a chair that had once been owned by
an Ottoman prince, whose name he could not remember.  Although Mr.
Sarotzini's office was filled with treasures and antiquities, there was
something about this room that mere money alone could not create, and
that was the sense of power it exuded.

Klindz felt like the little girl, Alice, who had stepped into a world
where everything was so much bigger.  He sat dwarfed by the size of the
furniture, by canvases the size of high-rise buildings that hung from
the walls, by sculptures and busts and statuettes that leered down at
him, by shelves of leather-bound volumes that sneered at anyone of
lesser education than

their wner.  He looked up at Mr. Sarotzini.

It was hard to read his expression.

The room smelt of stale cigar smoke, but the only ashtray, a cut-glass
one on Mr. Sarotzini's desk, was clean.  Klindz knew that Mr. Sarotzini,
who was a man of habit, would have already smoked his first Montecristo
of the day, but would not light his second for another hour.

Mr. Sarotzini held the thin document, just six pages long, with fingers
that were long and bony, softened by hair.  He said nothing until he had
finished reading, and then his face tightened with displeasure.

"What am I to do with this, Stefan?"

This threw Klindz.  Yet he knew, from long experience, that the answers
Mr. Sarotzini required were not always the obvious ones.  He took his
time, as Mr. Sarotzini had long taught him, not rushing into his answer.
"There are no restrictions," he replied, finally.

Mr. Sarotzini's face hardened into a near rage that made Klindz
frightened and confused.  "This is a shopping list, Stefan, a grocery
list. Look, it says, "Twelve bagels, two litres of skimmed milk, butter,
dried apricots, salami." What have you given me this for?"

Klindz's mind swirled.  This wasn't possible, surely, he couldn't
-couldn't have made a mistake - no.  Where could this list have come
from? He thought quickly, thought of the man who had given him this
document, a very great genetics scientist.  Could this fool scientist
have given him the wrong thing?

No, it was impossible.  He'd checked and rechecked it.

Then the expression on Mr. Sarotzini's face changed from rage into a
quiet smile.  "It's all right, Stefan, don't look so worried.  Relax.
I'm only joking.  You must learn to take jokes."

Klindz stared back at him, bewildered, unsure what was coming next.

"This is good," Mr. Sarotzini said, tapping the document.  "It is very
good." Klindz tried not to show his relief: he had learnt never to show
weakness to Mr. Sarotzini.  And gratitude was weakness.  He was expected
to know that the document was good; a reaction was not required.  With
Mr. Sarotzini he was on a learning curve that had no end, and he had
lived with this almost all his life.

He looked down at the soft pile of a Persian rug to avoid giving
anything away in his eyes, and took in the complex pattern; all Persian
rugs told stories, but he did not know what this story was.  He turned
his thoughts to Claudie, focused on her, wondered if Claudie would let
him tie her up tonight and whip her.  He decided he would ask her, and
if she said no he would do it anyway.

Her smell rose from his skin; he thought of her sprig of black pubic
hair and his fear of Mr. Sarotzini turned fleetingly into arousal for
Claudie. Then the fear returned.

He looked up at the painting on the wall directly behind Mr. Sarotzini:
modern art, abstract, he did not understand this kind of art, he did not
know whether it was a good painting or bad, he knew only that it must be
of immense value, of great importance to the world of art, to be in this
room.  Then Mr. Sarotzini skewered his thoughts with his voice.  He
spoke, as usual, in flawless German, although Klindz knew that German
was not Mr. Sarotzini's mother tongue.

"It has taken thirty years.  This is how long we have been looking.
Thirty years, Stefan.  You understand the importance?" Klindz
understood, but remained silent. "You have a weakness, Stefan?"

Klindz was surprised by the question.  He stalled, knowing that with
this man he could not lie.  "Everyone has a weakness.  That is the
Nineteenth Truth," he replied.

Mr. Sarotzini seemed pleased by this answer.  He opened a drawer in his
desk, took out an envelope and handed it to Klindz.

Inside it Klindz found photographs of a man and a woman.  The man was in
his mid thirties, with dark hair and striking, if boyish, good looks.
The woman looked a few years younger; she had red hair that stopped just
short of the shoulders; a pretty face; modern.

There was another photograph, showing her in a T-shirt with straps, and
a short skirt.  She had great legs, slender, a touch muscular maybe, and
he realised they were arousing him; her breasts looked firm inside her
T-shirt and they aroused him also.  He wondered if she smelled as good
as Claudie; he decided he would like to tie this woman up and whip her.

Perhaps with her pretty boy-faced husband trussed up and watching.  Mr.
Sarotzini spoke again, interrupting his thoughts: "Mr. and Mrs. Carter.
John Carter and Susan Carter.  They live in a house in South London,
which they have only recently purchased.  He has his own business, in
multimedia, she works in publishing.  They have no children.  You will
find me John Carter and Susan Carter's weak spots.  All is clear?"

Klindz looked at the photographs again, his excitement deepening.  In
particular he looked at the one that showed Susan Carter's legs and
breasts, and wondered if her pubic hair was also red.  He hoped so.

Mr. Sarotzini had given him Claudie as a gift for being good.  Maybe if
he continued to please Mr. Sarotzini, he would give him this woman as
well. "All is clear," Klindz said.

Chapter Three

As John Carter hurried up to the front entrance of the bank, he was
suffering a bad attack of butterflies.  He was perspiring and he could
not remember when he last felt like this - probably not since those
terrifying summonses to the headmaster's study when he was at school.

His shirt clung to his back, and his brain had locked up, hung itself,
crashed.  He pushed the door, which was clearly labelled PULL, but was
too nervous even to feel embarrassed.

He crossed the foyer, feeling even more like a scared schoolboy, glanced
at the queues at the tellers" desks, got his bearings, then walked over
to the window marked ENQUIRIES.

Even the woman clerk made him feel uncomfortable as she looked at him
through the glass partition, as if his name and description had been
circulated to the entire staff here on some secret blacklist.  Watch out
for this man.

"I have an appointment with Mr. Clarke," he said, his voice withering
like a faltering sales pitch under the clerk's stony glare, and he
worried from her flown of disapproval whether he had incorrectly
pronounced the manager's name.  "That is how you pronounce it?"

She nodded stonily.

John was wearing his most conservative suit, plain navy lightweight,
white cotton shirt, a quiet tie and black lace-up brogues - as well as
his red and white polka-dot boxer shorts, which he wore when he needed
luck. He'd discussed what to wear with Susan both last night and this
morning, and had tried three different ties and four pairs of shoes
before she felt that the image was right.  He looked smart, she told
him, without looking showy.

He thought about Mr. Clarke, wondering, for the umpteenth time, what
kind of a man he was.  He had been thinking about him for a full
twenty-four hours now, ever since the phone call from Mr. Clarke's
secretary yesterday.  He thought about his car also, which was sitting
on a double yellow line down the road from the bank; maybe he'd get
lucky and wouldn't be clamped but it was an anxiety he could do without
right now. He'd had no choice - there were no parking spaces and he was
already fifteen minutes late.

John thought suddenly of a joke he'd heard.  It was about a man who told
his friend that his bank manager had a glass eye.  His friend asked how
he could tell which was the glass eye and which the real eye.  "That's
easy," the man replied.  "The glass eye is the one that looks warmer."

The joke didn't seem funny any more.  John pulled out his handkerchief
and dabbed the moisture that was running from his forehead like a burst
main, silently cursing evolution for sabotaging his body.  Adrenaline
was the problem.  Fifty thousand years ago adrenaline had helped cavemen
flee from the sabre-toothed tiger.  But John didn't need it right now.
He didn't need the glands pumping the stuff out, powering his muscles,
switching up the rheostat of his heartbeat, dilating his pupils,
converting his sweat glands into fire hydrants.  He needed calming down,
and evolution had not equipped him with anything to do that.

He mopped his forehead again; his neck was sticky, the sweating getting
worse.  Not sweat, he thought suddenly, no.  Horses sweat, ladies glow,
men perspire.

John's brain was swirling; he was finding it hard to hold onto his
thoughts.  He felt a brief stab of panic about his car.  How long could
it last

on a double yellow line in Piccadilly?  Ten minutes?  Twenty?

"Would you like to come this way?"

He stooped to glance at his reflection in the glass, nursed back into
place some stray hairs with his finger, straightened his tie, then took
a deep breath.  Control.  All his working life he had been in control.
He knew how to charm people: he was a master at manipulation and he had
charmed the socks off his previous bank manager, Bill Williams.  All he
had to do was keep calm, be polite, friendly, show this Mr. Clarke just
how good the future was looking.

He followed the assistant through a door.  It was all bland blue carpet,
dark wood, the same as it had always been, with just one difference. Mr.
Clarke, instead of Bill Williams.

Bill Williams had been a sucker for technology and for seven years John
had juiced him with it.  They played virtual golf between their offices
on their computers, and occasionally John took him out to his club at
Richmond and they played real golf.  John taught him how to surf the
Net, and where to find the dirty pictures - the totties, Bill called
them - and how to stack them up inside a sequence of files on a hard
disk protected by a password.

John taught Bill Williams more than he ever needed to know about
computers and, in return, Bill gave him all he needed from the bank, and
more, far more, than enough rope to hang himself, Bill often joked.

And now Bill Williams was history.  He had taken early retirement.
Overnight.  Bill had rung him just a week ago, sounding like a man
bereaved, saying he would explain some time but was not at liberty to do
so at the moment.  He apologised, he was truly sorry, but everything
would be fine, he assured John.  They agreed to have a game of golf but
made no date.  The bank would continue to look after John, he was in
good hands. But there was no conviction in Bill's voice.

And there was not much warmth in Mr. Clarke's handshake.  Even less in
his expression.  He was as bald as an egg, his mouth was small and
off-centre and he wore square glasses that did not suit him.  "Mr.
Carter, it's good of you to come at such short notice."

He talked like a ventriloquist, his tiny skewed lips scarcely moving, as
if he was gripping a pin between his teeth.

They sat down.  Mr. Clarke leant forward across an open file containing
several sheets of computer printout.  Without reading them, John guessed
it contained the financial entrails of his business.  Beside them on the
desk was a photograph that he presumed to be of Mr. Clarke's wife and
children. John studied the wife's face.  She looked pleasant - at least
Clarke was human, he thought, feeling a ray of hope.

"You're in the multimedia game," Mr. Clarke informed him.

John nodded, and swallowed.  Mr. Clarke's body language was making him
tense as hell, and he did not like the way the man had said multimedia.

"Yes, technology." Mr. Clarke drew a breath with a hiss and glanced down
at the printout.  "Technology." He smiled.  It was like the flare of a
distant match in a vast, freezing emptiness.  John fleetingly thought
about his car, wondering how long Mr. Clarke was going to detain him,
but the car wasn't important.  He brought his focus back to this
meeting, ran over the answers he had prepared for any of the questions
he figured might be lobbed at him.

"Not a computer man myself," Mr. Clarke said, sitting tightly behind his
desk.  "Don't go for all this technology.  It has a place, of course,
and I can understand why you see the potential."

John looked at Mr. Clarke's dapper suit, at the man's smug face, and
felt the anger rising inside him like a choking fog.  How could anyone,
in a modern bank, in Mr. Clarke's position, make such a crass remark?

Then he noticed an object on the bare expanse of desk that he had not
previously seen.  As he looked at it harder, he could barely believe his
eyes. It was a Bible.  Mr. Clarke had a Bible ostentatiously placed on
his desk.

What was this man, where was he coming from, John wondered. "The
five-year forecast," Mr. Clarke said.  "Who produced it?"

Clarke must be a born-again Christian, he decided.  He could detect
something devout now in the man's expression; something pious; something
messianic.  Maybe Mr. Clarke was on a crusade to save the world from
technology?

John, his heart sinking further, struggled to keep his cool and maintain
his warm, polite, courteous facade.  He rummaged inside his briefcase,
pulled out his laptop computer and powered it up.

Irritation showed on Mr. Clarke's face and John's apology that it would
take a minute or so to boot up only served to annoy the bank manager
further.  John ransacked his brain for something to say to break the
awkwardness of the silence, to try to find common ground between the two
of them.  "Are you - a - golfer?" he said, lamely. Clarke responded with
a single shake of his head. "How long have you - been - with - the -
bank?"

"Fourteen years.  How long is this machine of yours going to take?"
"It's almost done." John stared at the screen, willing it to be ready.
Then, when the computer finally stabilised, John asked, "The plan?  The
five-year plan or the five-year forecast?"

"The forecast, I said." Mr. Clarke's reserves of courtesy appeared to be
running out.  John tapped two keys and his computer crashed.

Blushing, and sweating profusely, he was forced to reboot.  It was all
slipping away from him, everything he had worked for, he could sense it.
The meeting was running dangerously out of control, and John was fast
losing confidence in his ability to pull it back together.

His thoughts flashed to Susan, her happiness in the new house, and all
that they stood to lose if Clarke cut up rough.  And his partner,
Gareth, to whom he had given a stake in the business when he had
started, eight years back, and their staff of sixty, many of whom had
worked for him since leaving college.

He had been rash in taking on so many new employees just recently, in
buying a lot of equipment, in moving to their new offices, in buying the
house, but they were on such an incredible roll that he had been
completely confident.  Now, desperately, he needed to convey that
confidence to Clarke, but it was deserting him.

He gave Clarke a nervous smile.  "Have you?  Always?  Been here,
London?" John heard his voice sounding like a tape being played at wrong
speed.

Mr. Clarke did not reply; he was studying something hard in the printout
He was not looking happy.

Chapter Four

"Where do you think I should put this?"

Harry, the painter, looked at Susan with his big, sad eyes.  He had a
droopy mustache that reminded her of a Mexican bandit in some Western
she had once seen - perhaps The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, she wasn't
sure, and anyhow, it didn't matter.

Her mind was all over the place and not where it ought to have been,
which was on the manuscript she had brought home.  She was finding it
hard to concentrate on her work because she was worrying about John's
meeting with the bank.

It was much easier to watch Harry, much easier to think about the colour
scheme for the house, to look at the books of fabrics and wallpapers, to
walk around the rooms, marking crosses on the walls to indicate where
the power points should go and where the radiators should be fixed, than
to plough her way through a chapter full of equations that explained
gravity.

John had promised to ring her straight after the meeting and let her
know how it had gone.  It ought to be finished now and he hadn't rung.
Maybe that was a good sign, she thought, but she knew she was kidding
herself.  If the meeting had gone well, he'd have rung her straight
away. She was tempted to phone him but held back, not wanting to
pressurise him.

She had been frightened by the state he had been in this morning.  John
was not a worrier, and it was his air of confidence, his calm way of
handling problems, coupled with his terrific, unstoppable drive, that
had most attracted her to him.  He had always known exactly what he
wanted and how to get it.  He told her on their first date, shouting to
be heard above the noise of a crowded bar in Westwood, that he was going
to marry her, and when she had laughed, she had seen the hardening in
his eyes, the determination in his face, and it had turned her on in a
way she had never experienced before.

She'd had plenty of boyfriends, but no one had ever wanted her in the
way she had seen John did.  The following morning, there had been so
many flowers in her office she could hardly get in the door.

She had always felt safe, secure with him: he had never made a promise
he couldn't keep, or a commitment he couldn't meet.  Nothing before had
ever worried him.  Within weeks she had left everything behind her in
California and moved to London.  He had become her world.

But this morning he had been a stranger, fumbling around, pulling out
different shirts, ties, socks, trying them on, changing them, until in
desperation she'd dictated to him what to put on and sent him on his
way, and was left feeling, suddenly, very vulnerable.

She always thought they'd been open with each other, but it wasn't until
somewhere around dawn this morning, after hours of sleepless tossing and
turning, that he'd confessed he was a lot deeper into the bank than he'd
previously told her.  And he was more worried than he had previously let
on about a lawsuit hanging over the company from a composer.

She'd had her suspicions that things had been harder in recent months
than he was admitting but he had always convincingly brushed them aside.
And, anyhow, he'd been through a few tough times in the past years and
always come through.  He'd find a way to come through now; that was the
kind of man he was.

And if he didn't?  Could her income support this place?  It might just
pay the mortgage, but not much else.  British publishing houses were not
renowned for the generosity of their salaries, and in any event, a dark
cloud was hanging over her job right now: the threat of a takeover bid
from an American media giant, which already owned one large publishing
house in London.

And there was an even bigger problem than the house if their incomes
dried up.  How could her kid sister, Casey, be funded?

She stared out of the bay window at the garden for which she had so many
plans.  They both loved this house so much: was it.  possible that it
could be taken away from them before they'd even had a chance to finish
decorating it?

It wasn't just the house that was so wonderful: it was the neighborhood
too.  She was enjoying exploring their new world.  In the past couple of
weeks since they'd moved in, she had discovered a bakery to die for two
minutes" walk away, a specialist wine merchant that it was already hard
to keep John away from, and a great little That restaurant whose owner
kept

bringing them dishes that he refused to charge them for because he had
taken a shine to them.

She had sorted out the kitchen, repapered the shelves, put up a spice
rack and the paper-towel holder, and was really pleased with her prowess
with John's tool kit.  She had written to her parents, enclosing
photographs of the exterior and interior of the house (the interior
labelled, clearly, BEFORE!!!) and she had written to Casey and sent her
photographs as well, not that Casey could ever see them or read the
letter but that did not matter.  Susan kept Casey in the loop on
everything.

Harry was taking his time thinking.  He dipped his roller in the paint,
then applied it to the wall again, up and down, steady vertical sweeps.
In front of her eyes the living room was changing colour from sludgy
beige to Dulux Not Quite White.  She wanted this Not Quite White theme
throughout the house with all the woodwork contrasting in satin black.

Afternoon sunlight spilled onto the bare oak floorboards; outside in the
garden the cherry tree was in blossom.  The house had large rooms and
neither she nor John, who shared similar tastes on most things, wanted
to clutter them.  They had agreed to keep the feeling of space,
airiness, light.

Harry pushed the roller up, against gravity," then down, with gravity,
thinking about her question.  She could see from his expression that he
preferred the down strokes to the up strokes, and wondered if he was
aware that gravity was helping him with the down strokes.

She was big on gravity right now, having spent the last ten days editing
a book on it.  Although adept at physics, gravity had always given her a
hard time, but she took comfort in the fact that it had given Einstein a
hard time also - although, as she confided in John, maybe not quite such
a hard time as herself.

To make matters worse, its author, Fergus Donleavy, one of her favourite
authors and her most successful acquisition for Magellan Lowry, was
trying to be too clever in this book, or so both she and an independent
reader thought.

"There, by the French windowsHarry said finally.  "That's where you
should put it." Then he muttered something about good friends should
that Susan didn't quite catch.

She lugged the Victorian pot stand over to the French windows.  Harry
was right, it looked good there.  They both stood, admiring the piece,
which she'd bought last week in a bric-A-brac shop a few streets away.
Then she made a cup of tea for Harry, coffee for herself, and went back
to the small room next door which she had made her study.  She sat at
her desk, in front of an open window overlooking the garden, and turned
her attention once more to the manuscript.

She forced her way through three equations before the warm air on her
face, and the scents of the garden that it carried, distracted her. This
weather reminded her of California, her childhood in Marina Del Rey, and
her student days on the UCLA campus at Westwood.  The memories were
mixed, happiness tinged with sadness.  The failure of her caring, loving
parents to succeed at what they really wanted to do in life.  The
tragedy that had overtaken Casey, which continued to affect all their
lives.

She sipped her coffee, looked at the blossom on the cherry tree, at the
wooden seat and the small brick patio with the kettle barbecue and
picnic bench, and dreamed for a moment of smoky outdoor evenings and
chilled ros& wine.  Then she turned her attention back to the
manuscript, pushed back the sleeves of John's old shirt that she was
wearing over her jeans, picked up her pencil, chewed it and
concentrated.

Time is a curve, not a straight line.  Linear time is an illusion; we
exist in a space-time continuum; your wristwatch at the top of a
mountain tells time more slowly than your wristwatch at the bottom. This
has nothing to do with gravity, it is relativity; but they are
interconnected.

This was one of the key points Fergus was making, but considering that
this was meant to be a book for the layman, he had not explained it
clearly.  Even she was getting confused.

Some while later Harry knocked at the door and told her he would see her
in the morning.  She waved good-night without looking up from the
manuscript, drank the last drops of cold coffee and marked an indent for
a new paragraph.  A blackbird hopped across the lawn, in and out of the
line of shadows stencilled on the uncut grass by the trees in the park
beyond, its head jerking like a clockwork toy.  She watched it until, as
if it sensed her gaze, it took off.

John had still not called.  She picked up the phone, unable to contain
her anxiety any longer, and the doorbell rang.

She went to the front door and opened it.  A man in brown overalls stood
there; parked behind him in the street was a van with British Telecom
markings.  "I hope I'm not too late?" he enquired.  "I was delayed on
another job.  My office rang you?"

"No, I didn't get any call," Susan replied, her mind more on John and
the manuscript than this visitor.  "But that's no problem." The man
looked relieved.  He held a tool box in one hand and a jumble of wiring
attached to a metering device in the other.  He was a big man, built
like a quarterback, with a blunt face and close-cropped hair. He didn't
look English, more Eastern European, but his accent was North London and
he talked in a way that made him sound, somehow, a little simple.

"If it's too late, I can come tomorrow."

"No, it's fine.  What actually are you doing?"

"I am here to test your lines.  Four lines, plus an ISDN?"

"Yes," Susan said.  "Come in."

The man looked at her: she was even prettier in the flesh than in the
photograph, he thought.  He made a careful study of her eyebrows. Always
the giveaway.  They were red, like the hair on her head.

So now he knew that the pubic hair inside her jeans was also red.  And
that excited him.

Chapter Five

"What the fuck's this?"

"It's a telephone," John Carter's secretary replied, calmly.

John regarded her as if she was plankton in a bucket.  "I know that,
Stella, OK?  I want to know why I have this telephone on my desk and not
the one that was there when I went out this morning."

Mr. Clarke was mostly to blame for John's mood but the traffic warden
who had arranged for his car to be clamped had contributed to it, as had
the news broken to him by his lawyer with whom he had spent most of the
rest of the afternoon.  But Clarke had really trashed his day.  Although
right now John was more focused on the shiny grey BT CallMaster
telephone, which had not been on his desk seven hours earlier.

"British Telecom replaced it.  A man came - said there was no charge. He
replaced all the CallMasters," Stella told him.  "They're exactly the
same as the previous ones," she added, used to John's moods and normally
able to calm him.

John picked up the receiver, punched a button, got a dial tone, then
hesitated.  He'd promised to call Susan after the meeting with Clarke,
and she'd be anxious now because he hadn't.  But what the hell was he
going to say to her?

He replaced the receiver in the cradle, slung his jacket over the back
of his chair and sat down.  "I don't want to be disturbed for an hour,
Stella," he called out, and closed his eyes against a headache that was
becoming acute.  "I'm due to play squash at seven with Archie Warren.
Could you call him and cancel?"

"Do you want anything?  Coffee?"

He shook his head, heard the door shut, and sat motionless.  His insides
were drawn into a tight, hard, knotted ball and he felt queasy.  John
had always had a fear of heights, and he felt this way sometimes on a
balcony or in a cable car, this dreadful, helpless fear that he was
experiencing now.

He had to collect his thoughts, think his way through this, somehow find
solutions to the two different problems that had kicked him into touch
today.  The intercom on his new telephone warbled; he ignored it. A blue
bottle thudded against the window.  Outside, a delivery truck rumbled
along the mews.

He stared bleakly ahead of him.  His life stared back.  Glossy software
packs flamed and mounted on the walls.  How to Play Bridge...  How to
Plant a Herb Garden...  How to Build a Space Rocket...  How to Wire a
House...  How to Make Love Properly...  How to Eat Healthily...
John's business had been built on a simple idea.  His company made
computer programs that told people how to do anything they wanted, and
provided information at the touch of a keyboard.  They'd started with
CD-Roms, but now it was mostly on-line multimedia through the Internet.
On-line medicine had been his biggest success of the past couple of
years - in particular, the Virtual Gynecologist.

He'd pulled off a great coup in getting Harvey Addison, London's most
fashionable obstetrician, to be the presenter of this service to which
women could log on, ask any questions they wanted and get a seemingly
live consultation - although it was, in fact, incredibly smart software
that used pre-recorded filmed responses to every conceivable question,
which gave the illusion that Harvey Addison was appearing live.  People
knew, of course, that it wasn't live, but women loved it.  For just a
couple of pounds they could have their own personal, and thorough,
consultation with the great man - and in their own home!

DigiTrak had been hugely successful.  There were framed gold CDs on the
walls.  Statuettes, plaques.  The company had won innovation awards from
computer magazines, medical magazines, television stations.  Its
products had a good reputation and were respected.

John had made it all happen.  He had smart ideas and a knack for picking
great people and getting the chemistry right.  His sixty employees were
mostly computer-technology graduates, working either on improving the
existing programs or designing new ones.  He looked after his staff,
paid them well, encouraged them.  And last year he had found the perfect
premises, a large mews building in the middle of South Kensington, which
had previously been occupied by an advertising agency.  It had great
open spaces, split levels, wild spiral staircases.  Staff liked working
here and clients liked visiting.  He had proudly named it DigiTrak
House.

The one constant hassle was that the business had always been short of
cash.  As it expanded, DigiTrak gobbled money faster than it made it so
it was constantly chasing its tail.  John wasn't alone: all fast-growing
businesses tended to have the same problem.

But right now he was alone.

Bill Williams, who had protected him, had gone and now he had M Clarke.
And Clarke didn't want to know.  In another year's time, maybe less at
the rate they were growing, they would be in a position to go public.
analyst John had talked to reckoned that if John could deliver the righi
figures, they could float the company for maybe twenty million pounds.
But there was a yawning chasm between now and then.

John looked down at the workload on his desk.  Letters that wer unread,
letters that awaited his signature, purchases to be approved cheques to
be countersigned.  He touched his keyboard and his monitor sprang into
life.  The icon told him he had new mail.  He touched the keyboard
again.  Seventeen new e-mails awaited him.

Susan stared at him from the photograph on his desk, a big, warm smile
on her face that shouted, I adore you!  at him.  He adored her, too, and
he'd needed her right at this moment more than ever.  Susan was smart,
she was level-headed, she had good ideas and she never panicked.  She
was a wonderful person and, he thought bitterly, she deserved better
from him than failure.

He punched a number on his new telephone and eleven voice-real messages
repeated themselves to him; he jotted down on his pad the one he would
phone back when he could summon up the enthusiasm. God knows when.

He buried his head in his hands, pinching the bridge of his nose to try
to relieve the ache, and sat for some minutes, just thinking, compiling
a list in his head of everyone he knew in banking, everyone he knew who
had access to investment money, but he was finding it hard to think
clearly He stood up, wandered around the office looking at all the
plaques an certificates, then unhooked a framed gold CD from one wall,
the firs Home Doctor he'd produced, and stared at it.

This is the kind of work we do, Mr. Clarke, he thought, angrily.  The
best Our products are better than anyone else's, because we care.  Every
single person in this company cares.  You might sneer at technology, but
the women whose lives we've saved because we showed them how to examine
their breasts for lumps aren't sneering at it.

He hung the frame up again then, gripped with a terrible, helpless sense
of frustration, stared around the office, wondering if he would still
have it in a month's time.  Wondering if he would still have anything in
a months time.

He lifted the slats of the blinds and looked out of the window.  Someon
who was trying to get past the truck down below was pissed off an
blasting their horn.  It was going to be a fine evening.  He and Susan
were looking forward so much to this summer in their new home.  How the
hell could he possibly break it to her that they might have to put it on
the market?

And they might not even have her income for much longer if the takeover
of her publishing house went ahead.

Shit.  Oh, shit.  Oh, shit.

He thought about the house.  He loved driving home to it, and almost
every time he pulled up outside he had to tell himself he wasn't
dreaming, this really was his house.  He thought about all the
change-of-address cards they'd sent out, and the friends they'd already
had round to show the place off to.  Everyone had loved it, told them
how lucky they were.  They were going to look foolish, having to move
straight out.  And he thought about his staff.  How could he face them?
How would he feel, throwing them all out of work?  How were they going
to feel?

He sat down on the sofa, beneath the overhang of a huge potted plant,
and closed his eyes again.  Must be positive.  There will be a solution.
You always find solutions.  Remember what you've always told other
people: The best form of revenge is success.  Stuff Clarke by
succeeding.

The intercom on his new telephone warbled; he ignored it; it warbled
again; he ignored it again.  He got up and walked over to the one-armed
bandit, an original, mechanical one he had bought years ago in an
antique shop, slotted in a coin, pulled the lever: a cherry, a lemon and
an orange clattered to a halt.

The blue bottle smacked the window again.  It was trying to get out and
it was trapped.  He knew how it felt.  He was trapped too.  Blue bottles
were also called blowflies, he remembered.  Blowflies ate corpses.  He
thought about a CD they had made called How to Mummify a Corpse.  It had
sold hugely well; they still had it up on the Web.

The phone warbled again.  The horn blasted outside.  His brain was
spinning but got no traction.  He knew what he should have done; he
should have played squash with Archie Warren and he might have felt a
bit better afterwards, but he wasn't up to coping with Archie tonight.
Archie was his most successful friend, but he was loud, garish, and John
always found himself bullshitting about how well DigiTrak was doing just
to keep up with him.  And he wasn't in the mood for bullshitting
tonight.

He made a decision.  He'd leave early, pick up a couple of steaks from
the butcher round the corner from the mews, stop to buy a couple of good
bottles from that terrific little wine merchant Susan had discovered
near their house, and fire up the barbecue.  Then they could sit out on
the brick patio, get smashed and talk their way through this.

The thought of getting smashed cheered him.  He stood up, wormed into
his jacket, slammed his PowerBook into his briefcase and was out of his
office, telling Stella he'd see her in the morning.

But as he walked out into the corridor, his partner, Gareth Noyce,
attached himself to him.  Gareth needed to speak to him.  Urgently.  He
needed to speak to Gareth too, but not now.  He didn't intend telling
his partner unless it became absolutely necessary, because Gareth was
not good at dealing with pressure.  Nor was he much good at dealing with
people.  If you gave him a computer, any computer, didn't matter how bad
shape it was in, didn't matter how pissed off it was with life or how
stressed out, within a few minutes it loved Gareth, treated him as if he
was its favourite uncle, and gave Gareth anything he wanted.  But Gareth
did not have the same charm with people.

Gareth was tall, beanpole thin and, although only just thirty-one, his
hair had been grey for as long as John had known him.  He had a
complexion like someone in intensive care, and dressed in clothes that
looked like he'd partied in them all night.

"Look," he said to John, "we have to talk."

Reluctantly, John went into Gareth's tip of an office and sat down.  As
his partner, John knew he had an obligation to tell Gareth what had
happened with Clarke and the lawyer, but Gareth had only a childlike
grasp of money and it would have meant nothing to him, other than to
panic him.  Gareth lived on a different planet from John, one that had
its own subset of reality.  This was one of the reasons the partnership
had worked so well.  John handled the finance and marketing, Gareth the
technical side.  There was no crossover.

Gareth started talking so fast that John had difficulty catching more
than the basic drift.  It concerned a game they had in development.  A
glitch had surfaced.  It was important to Gareth, but there was nothing
John could do about it, and besides, this problem was nothing, nothing,
compared to the ones John was carrying inside his head.

"It's a configuration parameter problem, right?" Gareth said.  "But it's
not just configuration, right?  We're getting software conflicts - I
mean, for Christ's sake, Microsoft -" Gareth launched into a screed of
technical jargon that lost John in seconds, but carried on, as he
usually did, oblivious to the fact that John had no idea what he was
saying.

John tuned him out.  He let him carry on talking, watched him smoke two
cigarettes in succession, the smell driving him nuts.  He was tempted to
cadge one, but managed to restrain himself.  He'd quit three years ago,
making a promise to Susan, and was staying quit.  Finally, at some
point, when he wasn't even sure whether Gareth had finished or was just
pausing for breath, John stood up.  "I have to go.  We'll talk about it
in the morning."

"You realise this could delay the launch?" Gareth said, darkly.

"Yup, but we can't go with it until it's right."

"I suppose there is a way round it," Gareth remarked, as John reached
the door.

John waited for him to continue.

"Yup," Gareth said, perking up.  "Yup, I know What to do!  Don't worry,
leave it to me."

John left it to him.  He took the lift down to the lobby, wishing he
could find a solution to Mr. Clarke as easily as Gareth had found a
solution to his software problem.

Chapter Six

"This is the master bedroom.  We have one phone in here." Susan pointed
to it.  She even felt proud guiding this stranger around the house - it
was still a novelty to her and she was like a kid with a new toy.  In
particular, she liked showing off this round room in the turret, with
its views in all directions.

Klindz followed the line of her finger and saw the telephone beside the
bed.  He noted the panic button just above the skirting board, but
mostly he was taking in the scents of this room.  He was separating out
the smells this woman had left in this room from those of her husband.

Rich, musky smells from her vaginal juices lingered in the air.  They
were soured by the metallic tang of her husband's semen, still quite
fresh. Maybe they had made love this morning, but if not, certainly some
time during the night.

"Two lines to this phone," she was saying.

Two lines, he heard.  The third was for the fax in her study.  The
fourth was for the burglar alarm.  There were four panic buttons. Klindz
had seen these, by the front and back doors, by the bed and in the
kitchen, right beside the wall-mounted cordless phone; he remembered
their positions exactly.  The ISDN was for Mr. Carter's e-mail. His
thoughts veered to the loft.  He had seen the hatch in the landing and
the thought of it excited him - not as much as the smell from Susan's
vagina or the mental picture he carried of the red pubic hair inside
those jeans, but it excited him a lot.  His heart was full of gratitude
to Mr. Sarotzini for the gift of being here.  Mr. Sarotzini always
seemed to understand the things that excited him
They stopped on the landing.  He pointed up to the hatch.  "The access
by that way is the only one?"

"I think so."

"Is there a ladder that you have?"

"Out back." Susan watched this giant of a man with his odd way of
speaking and wondered if he enjoyed his work.  She wasn't sure why but
he just didn't seem to be in the right job, it didn't fit him.  Maybe he
couldn't get a job doing what he really wanted to do, she thought, and
he was doing this because it was better than nothing.  Because he was
desperate, like a lot of other people.

Susan climbed the ladder first.  Klindz stood beneath her.  It tormented
him to watch her: he was drenched in her smells as he stood there, his
face brushed by her legs as she climbed past him.  She lifted her feet
to another rung and Klindz caught a glimpse of the bare flesh of an
ankle exposed beneath her jeans.  He'd never been aroused by an ankle
before: this was a new experience.

He'd never made love to a woman with red pubic hair before.  He thought
about her husband's sperm and wondered if it would be slippery inside
her.

Above him she pushed open the hatch, and switched on a light.

Klindz looped his metering equipment over his shoulder, then gripping
his blue metal tool box in his hand, he began to climb.

The traffic was moving slowly south of the river.  John sat in his black
BMW coup, with the sun-roof open, Brubeck on the CD turned down low.

He wasn't enjoying the warm summer air eddying in around him nor the
music, which he was playing to try to relax.  With a sudden rise of
impatience he blipped the accelerator, watched the rev counter spin
round to the red line, then did it again, childishly.  The man in the
car in front glanced at him in his mirreit: there was nothing he could
do, they were at an intersection and there were four cars ahead of him.

John was angry with himself now for blowing out tonight's squash game
with Archie Warren.  It might indeed have relaxed him, but more
importantly, Archie, who was making a fortune as a commodity broker in
the City, had terrific connections.  He was one of those people who knew
everyone.  John had joked about Archie's contacts in the past: he had
once told Susan that if she ever wanted to meet the Pope, she should
start by talking to Archie.

He looked at the clock on the dash.  It was six twenty.  He dialled
Archie's mobile on his car phone, but the answering machine kicked in
after one ring.  He tried Archie's office number - if John dashed, he
could still just about make the Hurlingham in time.  But all he got was
Archie's voice-mail. He hung up, disappointed, without bothering to
leave a message. There was a fleck of dust on his sunglasses; he took
them off and blew it away.  Across the road people stood on the pavement
in front of a pub, glasses in hands.  They were winding down for the
day, and there was a carefree air about them that John found himself
envying.

A handful of men were clustered around a brand new Porsche convertible,
parked ostentatiously with two wheels on the kerb, and he thought
gloomily that it would be a long time before he could buy a new car. The
aging BMW had 90,000 miles on the clock, but replacing it was out of the
question now.

The traffic moved on and John dropped down two gears, trod hard on the
accelerator and overtook the car in front, ignoring the flashing lights
and angry hooting as he cut into a gap that did not exist.  He did the
same with the next car, and the next.

He did not slow down until, pulling up outside the house, he realised he
had forgotten to pick up any wine.

He saw the Telecom van.  Susan was in her element, supervising the
workmen, watching all her decorating schemes take shape.  She had a
great talent for decorating.  She also had a great talent for spending
and, right now, they seemed to be haemorrhaging money - money they no
longer had.

For some moments he sat, looking at the house, his heart riding up and
down like a ship at anchor, in a swell.  How was he going to tell her
she had to stop everything?  How was he going to tell her they ought to
postpone the housewarming party?  She had the guest list all worked out
and the invitations were being printed.  They'd decided to include the
close neighbours, although they weren't too sure about the ones next
door, the Merrimans, they were pretty old.  The husband, a retired major
who looked gaga, sat out in the garden in a sun-hat on fine days, just
staring ahead, and once in a while he shouted at the trees.  Every so
often his wife hobbled out on a zimmer frame, and when the old boy saw
her, he would bark a command at her and she would stagger back indoors.

John had teased Susan that he thought they'd really make the party
swing, and Susan told him not to be cruel, that they might be like that
themselves one day.

Her words had touched a nerve.  At thirty-four, old age seemed a long
way off - although, he thought uncomfortably, not so far as it had once
seemed.  Nothing stayed the same, and he'd never felt that so acutely as
now.  In the space of a few seconds your whole life could change.

One thing that had not changed was Susan.  She was still the same
strong, beautiful girl she had been when he had first met her.  She had
accepted so much in marrying him - uprooting, leaving her family behind
and coming to a country where she knew no one but him.  And the way she
had settled down, won the hearts of all his friends, found herself a
great job and run their home, had impressed him even more.  Everyone who
met her liked her - she was lively, warm-hearted and there wasn't a
trace of malice in her.

The only thing that concerned him was the way she had accepted his
determination never to have children - something John had made clear to
her right from the early days of their dating, before he had proposed to
her.  He could see a look in her eyes sometimes when she saw friends"
children, or even when they were out somewhere and they passed a mother
nursing a baby.  He was certain that those moments made it hard for her.
Not that she ever brought it up.

There had been occasions when he had overheard her at parties responding
to a question about when she and John were going to start a family, and
invariably she replied cheerily that they had made a decision not to
have children.  The disarming, end-of-conversation way she put it, as if
this had been her idea instead of one to which she had agreed with mixed
feelings, always made him feel proud of her.

Susan deserved better than Mr. Clarke.

His eyes were watering.  No one was going to take this place away from
him and Susan.  No balding, four-eyed creep of a bank manager, with a
lopsided mouth and a Bible on his desk, was going to wreck the life
they'd created for themselves.

He turned the car round and drove to the wine merchant.

A long time ago someone had done a loft-insulation job here.  The spongy
yellow material was packed into every crevice, and Klindz was pleased
about this as he picked his way carefully along the joists.  He rounded
a corner, stepped over the desiccated skeleton of a mouse crushed in a
trap that someone must have set then forgotten about; small patches of
fur were still attached to the carcass, but any smell of decomposition
had long gone.

There were other smells up here, of a dead bird somewhere close and the
dankness of a cistern full of water, and rotting timber where the
flashing, probably on the join between the chimney and the roof, had
lifted.  But there was only one smell up here that mattered to Klindz,
and with every step he took, he breathed it in deeply.  It was the smell
of Susan Carter, and it was making it hard for him to concentrate.

It was only the ever-present thought of Mr. Sarotzini that helped him to
stay focused.  The thought of what Mr. Sarotzini might do to him if he
failed.  He wondered, sometimes, if Mr. Sarotzini became really angry
with him, how long the pain he inflicted would last.  No pain that Mr.
Sarotzini had given him so far had ever lasted longer than a few days.
But he had seen other people suffer pain inflicted by Mr. Sarotzini.
Pain that had lasted days, weeks, months after they had screamed to be
allowed to die.

People had often spoken of hell on earth - it was an expression with
which Klindz had become familiar from books and films, and he knew it
was just a metaphor.  Even among the survivors of the Holocaust, there
were few people who had experienced a hell of the kind suffered by those
who had angered Mr. Sarotzini.

Susan Carter was right behind him.  She followed him into the total
darkness around the corner, and she was excreting no smells of fear. She
trusted him and that was good.

John sat in his car outside the wine merchant, digging at the cellophane
around the packet of Silk Cut with his thumbnail.  He removed the
wrapping, opened the flip-top lid, tore away the gold foil and pulled
out a cigarette.  The dry, cedary smell reminded him fleetingly of his
childhood. Furtive cigarettes hidden under his socks in a drawer at
school and smoked in a loft or in a derelict bomb shelter beyond the
bounds of the school grounds.

He lit it with the cat's lighter and inhaled deeply.  There was an
unpleasant rush of blood to his head and he felt slightly giddy.  With
the second drag, he felt even more giddy and broke out in a cold sweat.

In disgust he opened the door, tossed the cigarette into the gutter,
then guiltily stared at the opened packet on the seat beside him.  He
got out, dumped it, the cellophane and the gold foil into a litter bin,
then pushed a stick of Doublemint gum into his mouth.  He leant back in
his seat, feeling terrible.  He couldn't go home yet - he needed a drink
before he faced Susan.  There was a pub in the next street along.  He
started the car and headed there.

Anticipation.  Klindz had learned that anticipation could often be
greater than the pleasure that followed.  The Twenty-first Truth stated
that pleasure was merely the release from anticipation.  But he didn't
think this would be the case here, not with this woman.  With Susan
Carter he was certain that the pleasure would be even greater than the
anticipation. "Do you need me any more?" she asked, suddenly.

He said nothing.  He liked her being in this darkness with him, it gave
him a feeling of intimacy between them.  Then she called out again,
"Hallo?  Do you still need me?"

He liked the change of pitch in her voice, this tease of silence was
fun, he was enjoying himself He waited a little longer before calling
back, "No, everything I have need of is up here, thank you."

Klindz followed her back round the corner, directing the torch beam to
guide her, then stood still, watching as she climbed through the hatch,
savouring her smells, which lingered on, greedily lapping them up.

Then he moved back down the loft, and turned his attention to the first
part of the work that had brought him here.  He set down his tool box,
knelt, and from the top tray removed a small metal box, two inches long
and an inch wide.  He also took out a copy of the plans of the house he
had obtained from the Planning Department.  A spider's web rocked just
above his face.

Moving carefully around the loft spaces, he located the optimum
position, then screwed the box to the side of a joist where it would be
safe, concealed by the insulation and not in danger of being trodden on.
It would pick up the signals from the microphone transmitters he was
about to place inside each telephone in the house, and relay them to a
low-orbit satellite.

From anywhere in the world, Klindz would be able to hear every word
spoken in this house, whether it was a phone call or a conversation
taking place in any room.  He had connected the system to the house's
mains electricity supply, but had added a back-up in the event of any
power cut. If necessary he would have to return in three years" time to
replace the nickel-cadmium battery inside this small metal box.  He had
noted the date.

Checking his work, he applied the meter he had brought with him to the
box, and was satisfied with the reading.  Next he made a test
transmission, and was pleased to see that the signal was strong.

Now he had completed the first part of what he had come to do in this
loft.  The next part would take longer, at least two days, he estimated.
But it would give him such pleasure to work up here immersed in Susan
Carter's smells, with her presence all around him.  He thought about the
wisdom of the Eighteenth Truth: Anything that can be dreamed can be
true.

Every night since Mr. Sarotzini had shown him her photograph, Klindz had
dreamed of Susan Carter.  He wondered at Mr. Sarotzini sometimes.  Mr.
Sarotzini always knew exactly what he would like.  In return, of course,
there was always a price he had to pay.  But he did not mind.  For Susan
Carter there could be no price too high.

He closed the hatch and climbed down the ladder.  One quick job to
complete now and then he would be off.  He knew that on his first visit
he must not outstay his welcome.  He had the rest of his life to enjoy
her.

Chapter Seven

When she heard the front door open Susan was in the kitchen.  She went
out anxiously into the hall.  One look at the ghastly white of John's
face told it all.

"Darling," she said, alarmed, swinging his briefcase out of his hand and
setting it on the floor.  She put her arms around him and kissed him.
There was no response: it was like embracing a statue.  She could smell
cigarette smoke and alcohol on his breath - he hadn't smoked for three
years.

"Hon," she said even more alarmed, "what happened?  Tell me?" She held
his face tightly to hers and felt him give, just a little.  "Want a
drink?  A whisky?"

As she worked his tie loose, she sensed a nod.  "I'll fix you a drink,"
she said, aware of her own voice shaking now, not sure how to handle
this, not sure what to say to him.  He was like a stranger.

In the kitchen, she poured him a large measure of Macallan, twisted out
four ice cubes, and added a splash of filtered tap water.  She was about
to pour herself a glass of ros wine, then decided she needed something
stronger and poured another slug of whisky.

"Telecom - were they here?" John said distractedly, looking at a
duplicate work-sheet on the table.

"An engineer - he just left.  He was putting in a ringing converter, I
think he said - does that sound right?" She looked at John.

He shrugged.  On another day he would have mentioned the phone
engineer's visit to his office - Susan was nuts about coincidences - but
he let it go.

Although she had been desperate to hear about the bank, perversely now
Susan found herself wanting to delay getting round to it, and she sensed
that John did too.  "He's coming back tomorrow to install your ISDN
line," she said, "and he's going to put in new wiring for the rest of
the system."

"Good," John said absently.  "I didn't think we had a very good
connection.  Crackly.  Did you get him to check the phones?"

"Uh-huh. He seemed pretty thorough." The conversation dried.

John swirled his drink and an ice cube cracked loudly.  He turned and
faced away from her, towards the window.  "It didn't go too well at the
bank.  The new manager -" He grimaced, took a half-hearted sip of his
drink, then propped his elbows on the pine worktop, cradling the tumbler
in his hands.  "He's a prat, he's just a total prat.  I - I can't
believe -"

Susan slipped her arms round him and gently turned his face towards her,
watching him in alarm.  His voice was unsteady - he was fighting back
tears.  She had never seen him cry before.  "Darling, poor darling," she
said, taking the glass out of his shaking hand, then holding him more
tightly. "Hon, it doesn't matter, nothing matters except you and me."

John pulled out his handkerchief, dabbed his eyes and sniffed.  He said
nothing.

"So what did this new manager say?" she asked.

"He's given me a month to pay off the entire overdraft." He sniffed
again, then was silent.  Very quietly, he said, "If I don't, they're
pulling the plug."

Three miles from the Carters" house, Klindz turned the Telecom van off
the road, drove several hundred yards along the cutting beside the
disused railway siding and pulled up beside the plain blue Ford he had
rented for this switch.

He did not enjoy driving this van, neither was he looking forward to
getting back into the Ford.  Mr. Sarotzini had bought him a beautiful
black Mercedes sports SL600, with black leather seats and a Blaupunkt CD
ten-way autochanger with twenty-band graphic and separate amp with bass
bin, for his thirtieth birthday last October.  The car was in the
underground garage beneath his apartment in Geneva, and he missed it. He
felt cool driving that car; he did not feel cool driving a rented Ford.
But if that Was one of the sacrifices Mr. Sarotzini had forced him to
make to have Susan Carter, he could accept it.

He pulled a thick wad of fifty-pound bank-notes from his pocket and gave
it to the Telecom engineer, who was lying out of sight in the rear of
the van, peering at him like a cornered rabbit.  "The interim payment,"
Klindz said.  "The last amount you are getting when we have finished."

The engineer, a diminutive man close to retirement age, took the money,
looking scared as hell.  "I just hope you did it properly," he said.
Klindz assured him that he had, not that it mattered to the man.  In a
few days" time the engineer would throw himself out of a tower-block
window.  Anything odd that was ever found about the telephone system in
the Carters" house would be down to him, working while the balance of
his mind was disturbed.

Back in the Ford, Klindz switched on his satellite receiver, which was
built into the shell of a mobile phone, and set the voice-activated
digital recorder.  Then he lifted the receiver to his ear, punched in a
channel-seek command and listened.  It required one small tuning
adjustment and then, with perfect clarity, he heard Susan Carter's
voice.

Instantly it aroused him.  Her smell had soaked into his clothes and was
all around him in the car.  He was going to be reluctant to take off
this uniform, which the engineer had "borrowed" for him.  Maybe he would
keep it.

Susan Carter said, "How?  How can they do this?  john?  How can they do
this?"

"They can do what they want," John said.  "It's crazy, I know, but it's
their money and they can do what they want with it."

Susan had been expecting the bank to be tough on him, but not this
ruthless.  "They can't treat people like this," she said.

John drank some more whisky and was regretting having thrown away the
cigarettes.  "They do it all the time, these days."

Susan ran some water into her whisky and sipped it.  She was trying to
think of something positive to say.  There would be a solution to this,
there were solutions to everything, it was just a matter of keeping a
clear head and not panicking.  And of staying confident.  If you looked
confident, people had confidence in you.  Failure in your eyes scared
people away. "Let's take our drinks out in the garden and relax, and
talk this through.

We could go to That restaurant if you like," she said. "I - left the
steaks in the car."

"Steaks?"

John nodded.  "And the wine.  I - thought - I - I'd do a barbecue."

Susan smiled at him gently.  "Sure.  Is that what you'd like?  I could
put some jacket potatoes in the oven."

He shrugged.  "Better start saving money, no more eating out." He pulled
open a cupboard door, peered in.  Then he removed a jar bearing a
Fortnum and Mason label and examined it.  "What's this?"

"Pesto."

"Uh."

"It was in the hamper Archie sent us as a moving-in present."

John continued to stare at it, as if, printed somewhere on the label, he
might find the solution to his problems.  "We shouldn't have gone for
this house, that's the bottom line," he said.

Susan took another sip of her whisky and stared out at the garden.  It
looked so intensely beautiful in the soft evening sunlight, and she
thought about how it would feel to move back into a tiny house, like the
one they had left, or an apartment.  But if they had to, they would, and
they'd make the best of it, and hopefully, in a few years" time, they'd
have enough saved to buy somewhere nicer.

But would they ever find anywhere like this again?

"Have you spoken to Bill Williams?" she asked.  "He'd be horrified if he
knew what was happening."

"Bill's history.  He's out of it.  He's on the golf course."

"I know, but he was your friend.  We had him round for dinner, we took
him to the theatre, to Glyndebourne, to Ascot.  I had to put up with his
two-brain-cell wife.  Surely Bill could do something.  He owes you."

John replaced the jar in the cupboard and picked up his glass again.  "I
don't think Bill can do anything - I was the reason he got stuffed.  One
of them, anyhow.  That's how I read it from Clarke." He drained his
whisky and began to pour himself some more.

Susan made no comment about it: maybe it was the best thing tonight for
him - at least he usually became docile when he was drunk, and not
aggressive, like her father.  Maybe they should both drink themselves
into oblivion tonight.  "What's this Mr. Clarke got against you?  You're
a good customer.  I don't understand why the bank's being so hard
suddenly."

"Officially?  Clarke says the bank is over-exposed in the technology
sector.  They've had their fingers burned by a few high-tech companies
going down on them - a couple of which were Bill Williams's babies.  Our
balance sheet isn't great, and they don't believe our projections.  They
don't think we're going to be able to meet our borrowing repayments and
they're cutting their losses."

"And unofficially?"

"Clarke's a born-again Bible-basher.  Technophobe.  Reckons technology
is the work of Satan - you know the kind of guy." John always trod
carefully around the subject of religion with Susan because she was a
believer.  In the early days of their marriage she had gone to church
quite frequently. He had joined her a few times, reluctantly, while they
were engaged, to pacify the vicar before their wedding, but had
steadfastly refused to go since.  And she went only rarely now.

Susan had a mental image of Clarke as an immaculately coiffed,
cadaverous man, with grey hair and a grey suit.  Although she "had never
met him she was suddenly frightened of him, of his power, of the hold he
had over them.  She remembered now, with chilling clarity, the evening
when Bill Williams had come apologetically to their house in Fulham with
a briefcase full of forms.  He'd told her that she would not have to be
a guarantor for long, he'd see to that personally, just a few months
until DigiTrak's figures improved.

Their figures did start to improve, but then they'd bought this house
and John had told her the bank needed her to stay as guarantor just a
while longer so that Bill's superiors at the bank had the comfort factor
of the security of the house.

Susan knew enough about the law to be aware that if she hadn't co-signed
the papers, the bank would not have been able to touch the house.

Bill Williams was out on the golf course, with a stack of severance
money, a handsome pension and not a care in the world.  She found
herself hating him with a vengeance for landing them in this.

And now Klindz, who was driving the Ford and listening in on the
satellite cellphone, knew they had a problem.  And he thought to himself
that this was good.  Mr. Sarotzini was going to be so pleased with him.

Years ago, Mr. Sarotzini had taught him how to fish for salmon, on a
great estate in Scotland.  Mr. Sarotzini had placed in his hands a huge,
whippy, hand-made rod, with a beautifully engineered reel, and stood
patiently with Klindz for hours, on a river bank, teaching him how to
lay the line far out across the water.

Finally, when Mr. Sarotzini had been satisfied, he had attached the fly
that Klindz had tied under his guidance, to the end of the line, and
allowed Klindz to make his first real cast.

Klindz had never forgotten that moment.  The line snaking out over the
foaming black water of the Dee, the fly touching the surface and then,
seconds later, the explosion of water around it, the flash of silver,
and that incredible jigging sensation through the rod.

That thrill, that same deep thrill he had experienced then, was the same
thrill he was experiencing now.

He could scarcely believe his luck.

"What's the total amount you have to find?" Susan asked.  "Your
overdraft is around five hundred thousand, isn't it?"

John cradled the crystal tumbler in his hands.  "Bill increased it a few
months back to seven fifty.  And we have a quarter of a million term
loan, which is due - Bill would have extended it.  Plus the mortgage on
this place."

Susan swallowed nervously.  Christ, it was even worse than she'd
thought.  A loud crack startled her.

The tumbler had splintered in John's hand.

Susan recoiled in shock as ice, whisky and sparkling shards of glass
fell to the floor.  Blood streamed from John's palm where a silver had
embedded itself.  He pulled it out, then stood still, like a child who
has not fully understood what he has done.

Susan checked that there was no more glass in the wound, then pressed a
wet towel against it, steered John away from the mess and into a chair.
"Hon, try to relax.  You just sit down and I'll do everything."

"I don't want to be poor again," he said.  "No way.  I'm not going back
down that alley."

"We're not going to be poor," she replied quickly, fetching some rags
and a dustpan and brush.  "We're going to find a way out of this.  I'll
go and speak to your Mr. Clarke."

John managed a faint smile.  He could imagine Susan bursting into his
office, and letting rip with her fireball temper.

"Maybe you should try going higher - above Mr. Clarke's head.  Do the
directors of the bank know about this?  Are they happy about losing one
of their best customers?"

"If they fired Bill for loaning me too much, they probably are," John
said. Susan knelt and began to clear up the mess.  "You've had a big
shock today and you're too tense to think straight right now.  Why don't
you go change, and we'll sit outside, light up the barbecue and try to
relax a little? OK?"

Twenty minutes later, comfortably dressed in old jeans and a sweatshirt,
John had flames licking up evenly through the charcoal in the barbecue.
He sat down on the bench and drank some of his fresh whisky.  Susan
brought out a bowl of salad and a clutch of cutlery dropped them on the
table, then joined him.

On the other side of the fence, they heard the voice of the old man next
door.  "Go away, woman!" he shouted.

Then a dog barked excitedly in the park.  There was a deep rumble like
thunder.  John looked up and saw a jumbo jet on its landing approach to
Heathrow, it seemed scarily close and low.

In spite of the warmth of the air he shivered.  If you were poor you
didn't get to fly off in aeroplanes.  If you were poor you were trapped,
you lived your whole life like a fly crawling around inside an empty
jam-jar, scavenging traces that hadn't been licked away, and beyond
caring whether you got out or not.

His mother had been trapped by his father, and then by giving birth to
him.  She'd struggled all through his childhood, trying to find ways to
supplement the dole money in between taking him to school and fetching
him, and she'd found some pretty unsavoury ways.  When you were poor the
world could despise you, could dump on you, and you had nothing to hit
back with.  His mother had had nothing with which to hit back at the
social services people when they'd tried to take him away.  She had had
nothing with which to hit back at his father.

And now he had nothing with which to hit back at Clarke.  It felt as
though Clarke was standing at the top of the long, greasy pole John had
spent his life climbing, and just when he had almost reached the top,
had given him a hard shove sending him hurtling back down towards the
cesspool at the bottom.

"Honey," Susan said, softly, "DigiTrak itself is doing well, right?  I
mean in terms of orders and reputation."

John hesitated.  "Sure."

"There must be other banks that would love to have your business?" John
said nothing.  The sound of the jet was fading.  The sky was turning
deep cobalt; the colour was so intense it seemed unreal.  It reminded
him of a painted backdrop in a theatre.

"If it wasn't for the lawsuit, yes," he said.

"With the composer?  Zak Danziger?  I thought that was sorted out, that
he was dropping it."

"So did I," John replied.  "Tony Barnford thought so too.  We'd agreed a
royalty payment, based on sales."

Tony Barnford was John's lawyer.  DigiTrak had used a piece of music for
the Home Doctor series from a young composer they'd hired, whom Gareth
had discovered, part of which turned out to be a possible copyright
infringement of an old work of one of Britain's highest paid composers,
Zak Danziger.

DigiTrak's composer had denied vigorously that he'd ripped off
Danziger's work, but when the two pieces were played side by side, the
similarities were evident.  The onus of defending the accusation fell on
DigiTrak, and they had little chance of recovering any of the costs from
their youngster.

"What's happened now?" she asked, alarmed.

"Someone sent Danziger to a hot-shot brief.  He's been advised that he
could probably get three to five million out of us.  We have an errors
and omissions insurance limit of one million, and the court costs alone
could easily run to half of that.  Not too many people are going to want
to jump into bed with a five-million-pound lawsuit."

John stood up and gloomily rearranged some of the barbecue coals. Even
the smell, which he normally loved, failed to lift his despondency. He
prodded the steaks, which were lying in his own special hot "n" spicy
marinade, and scooped a few spoonfuls of it over them.

"So," Susan said.  "You have a month.  At least we have time."

Inside the house a phone rang.  John started, then checked himself.
Susan made a move.  "I'll get it, hon."

Then the ferocity of John's reply halted her in her tracks.  "No!" he
said.

"Dammit, leave the fucking thing.  Let the machine get it."

She left it, and on the fifth ring it stopped.

"You haven't any more news about your job?" he asked.

"No."

Susan worked as a non-fiction commissioning editor at Magellan Lowry, a
good, solid company, and one of the few independents left in publishing.
"Not since Peter Traube came in to give me his reassurances that if the
Media International Communications Group take over does go ahead, there
won't be any redundancies in Editorial."

"Traube's the head honcho, right? She nodded.  "Managing director."

"And he's a man of his word?"

Susan thought before she replied, and then said, "No, I don't think he
is."

John drank some more whisky, and watched the trees at the end of the
garden, and in the park beyond, turning dark, like silhouettes against
the sky.  His mind was scrabbling around for straws to clutch.  The bank
would seize the equity in the house, but with Susan's salary, and
cashing in his pension fund and the few stocks and shares he had, they
could, perhaps, just about manage the mortgage for a while.  Except
there was another problem that neither of them had yet spoken about.
Susan's kid sister, Casey.

"OK," Susan said.  "You owe this money, but what about your assets? Your
order book's healthy, you have all the computer and office equipment,
the lease on the offices, that must have some value -"

John cut her short.  "We paid over the odds to get those offices, and
the second-hand value of all our kit is peanuts.  Our cars are mostly
leased." He thought for some moments.  "We'd be talking about a fire
sale," he said, bitterly.  "It's not an option."

"Hon," Susan said, "don't forget the little bit of money I have stashed
away in the States.  It's close on ten thousand dollars and you can have
that if it'll help.  And I could sell my jewellery - not that I have
much." She reached out, took his bandaged hand and kissed his fingers
lightly.

John shook his head.  Casey was in a coma in a home in California. She'd
been there for nine years and might go on living, in her persistent
vegetative state, for many more years yet.  "That money is for Casey.
You need to keep that back for when the insurance runs out," he replied.
"Archie Warren," Susan said.  "Why don't you talk to him?"

"I will."

"It's Tuesday - shouldn't you have been playing squash with him
tonight?"

"I cancelled, wasn't feeling too great."

"I'm sure Archie will be able to help."

Susan moved across and sat on his lap, and looked straight into his
eyes. They were a deep nut brown, hard as nuts sometimes, but there was
a warmth and kindness that never left them.  "We'll survive," she said.
"We can find a solution to this problem.  And if we can't, we still have
each other.  If we have to sell the house, we'll sell it.  We're still
young - well, youngish - we can move back to a smaller place again, even
a little apartment if we have to, start over again.  It's no big deal."

"No big deal," John echoed.  He could see Clarke's face and his lopsided
smirk and the Bible on his desk.  And he wished he could agree with
Susan, but he couldn't.  It was a very big deal, it was huge.

It was everything.

Chapter Eight

"So?" Archie Warren said.  "What do you think?"

They were driving down the Fulham Road in Archie's Aston Martin Vintage
Volante.  The car was brand new: he had taken delivery of it that
morning, and there were only seventeen miles on the clock.  The roof was
down and John was cocooned in the cockpit in cream Connolly hide with
red piping.  The car smelt like a saddlery.  A reverberating boom from
the exhaust accompanied the Dr. Hook song erupting from the speakers,
"I'm rich and I'm having a ball."

Archie Warren was having a ball.

And John, who was normally a bit of a show-off himself, was not up to
all this today.  He felt self-conscious in this gleaming
haemoglobin-coloured monster that was deafening the passers-by, as well
as more than a tiny bit jealous.

In answer to Archie's question, he thought that, driving along like
this, Archie looked like Mr. Toad.  But he didn't tell him that,.

And the more he looked at him, the stronger the resemblance to Mr. Toad
became.  Archie had fair, thinning hair that was more like bum-fluff,
and he'd probably be completely bald on top in a few years" time.  He
was wearing a loud silk tie, chalk-striped suit and tiny oval sunglasses
that were cool to the point of being sinister.

Archie was thirty-four and had the figure of a Vietnamese pot-bellied
pig.  Yet he usually beat John at squash, and at tennis, and could swim
much faster than John and get out of the pool less out of breath.  And,
what made John really mad, was that Archie could do all this in spite of
smoking twenty, maybe thirty, cigarettes a day.

John had always been something of a loner, driven by his ambition, and
had drifted apart from his few childhood friends.  From school he'd gone
to technical college to study architecture, and after only a couple of
months working on the Computer Aided Design systems, he had realised the
potential market for serious and informative software for home
computers.

Building DigiTrak had been his life ever since, and the friends he now
had - not by design, but because that was the way it had happened - were
all, with the exception of Archie, connected in some way to his
business. Susan's friends were drawn from her publishing world.

He probably liked Archie the most because he was different and because
Archie always amused him.  Another part of the attraction was that
Archie was well bred, with a public-school background, and had the
careless air of aristocracy about him to which John secretly aspired.

They had met on a ski lift in Switzerland seven or so years ago, both
highly ambitious men with an enjoyment of the good life.  Although
Archie came from the hunting, shooting, fishing set, he had made his
money, not inherited it.  He had a brace of Purdey shotguns he had
bought at auction for over fifty thousand pounds - an amount that had
staggered John when Archie had told him.  He had an impressive country
estate, a villa in France, a small aeroplane, and the rest.

Archie earned an obscene salary, trading Japanese convertible bonds and
warrants in the City.  In a bad year he cleared a million before tax,
and in a good year a whole heap more.  He spent as much as he could,
some on girlfriends - he was still single - but most on toys and food.

The restaurant to which he took John for lunch seemed happy to oblige
Archie's whim for emptying his wallet.  Its speciality, assiette de
fruits de mer, arrived at the table embedded in crushed ice and stacked
on four tiers, accompanied by a full set of surgical instruments.
Tackling it, with no appetite, John felt like an archaeologist
encountering a cryonically frozen tableau of some past civilisation's
excess.

Archie split open a crab claw and the juice squirted onto John's cheek,
but Archie didn't notice: he was busy chewing the remnants of a sea
snail and washing it down with a glass of Chablis to make room in his
mouth for the crab meat.  John dabbed his cheek discreetly with his
napkin.

"Those whelks are yours," Archie said, pointing.  "And that crayfish."
"Thanks." John removed the legs from a prawn.  He'd had a million
questions he was going to put to Archie today, but so far Archie had
been more interested in talking about his new car and this new
restaurant he'd heard about than suggesting whom John might approach for
funding. And John's hint, earlier, that Archie might like to invest in
DigiTrak had fallen on deaf ears.  That had been his own fault for being
impatient.  He needed to pick a better moment, perhaps now.

They were on to the second bottle, with most of the first one inside
Archie.  "I can think of plenty of places," Archie said, suddenly.  "The
problem.  But you're going to have to get rid of that lawsuit before we
go.

"How do you mean?"

Archie snuck in a quick prawn before the crab meat.  Its tail poked
through his lips as he talked, slowly working its way in and
disappearing. "Settle it."

"[ don't have the money to settle, and besides -"

"John, no one's going to touch you with a barge pole with a lawsuit like
that hanging over you.  That's your problem, that's your real
buggeratio: factor."

John picked up a narrow stainless-steel implement with a hook on the
end. He tapped the prickly spines of a raw sea urchin, but left it on
the stack.  Half the creatures in front of him should have been left on
the ocean floor, he thought.  They looked more like relics from the gene
pool than anything that would pass a selection committee for the human
food chain.

The eyes of a spider crab were eerily fixed on him.  "We have a good
defence," John said.

Archie pulled the head off another prawn and dropped it on his plate,
then dunked the remains in the mayonnaise.  "How about biting the
bullet, letting DigiTrak go under and starting again with new finance?"

"DigiTrak isn't a limited company, it's a partnership.  If it goes
under, I go under.  We lose the house, the lot."

"Shit."

"And there's another problem."

Archie had the grace to stop eating.

"Susan's kid sister, Casey, I told you about her, right?"

Archie's forehead narrowed.  "The one in the home?"

"Yes.  She costs two thousand dollars a month, and the insurance runs out
in September."

Archie whistled.  "That's a lot of boodle.  You're going to pay for her?
"Susan and me, between us.  Susan's going to contribute."

"What about her family in LA?"

John smiled at him and shook his head.  "They haven't a bean.  They can
look after themselves but nothing else."

A waiter filled Archie's glass and put a token splash into John's, which
was still full.  John asked for another mineral water.  Archie nodded at
the stack of crustaceans in front of them.  "Come on, you're lagging."

John selected a half lobster; lobster was normally one of his favourite
but as he ate the first mouthful of this, he was so deep in thought that
he barely noticed it.  "If I do go under, Susan's going to take it
really hard -quite apart from losing everything herself."

Archie nodded.  I'll make some calls this afternoon." He lifted a large
crab onto his plate.

Swallowing an enormous amount of pride, John said, "I - I was wondering,
Arch, if you might be interested in coming into DigiTrak yourself?. It's
a great business, and - we're looking at the very real possibility of
going public in the next couple of years."

Archie shook his head.  "I'll take a look, but I don't think so. Nothing
personal, but I'm a trader not an investor.  I've sunk money into half a
dozen businesses in the past few years - a door-to-door wine outfit, a
car-tyre dealership, a mobile-phone operation.  Truth is, I've saddled
myself with a fucking great mortgage on that pile I've bought in the
country and I'm losing a bundle on my investments.  I don't have the
kind of money you need lying around in readies." Then he smiled at John
kindly.  "But if you get into real shit, let me know.  I'll lend you
something to tide you over."

"Thanks, I appreciate it," John replied, "but I don't want to do that."
Archie, who had never done anything he didn't want to do in his entire
life, smashed open the crab's belly and said, "We all have to do things
we don't want to do, sometimes."

Chapter Nine

"OK, this is how I understand it," Susan said.  "You freeze water and it
turns into ice cubes.  You warm those ice cubes and they turn back into
water. The state of those molecules is reversed, but that change is
still taking place in linear time."

She twiddled with the tag hanging from the new telephone that had been
installed early this morning, before she had arrived in the office.
There had been some fault with her previous phone, apparently, not that
she'd been aware of it.

Fergus Donleavy gave away about as much in his expression as he might if
he'd picked up a bum hand of cards in a poker game.  He was sitting, in
Susan's cramped, hopelessly cluttered office that looked out through
grimy glass on to a Covent Garden rooftop, his tall frame folded like an
Anglepoise lamp into the solitary armchair in front of her desk.

He was dressed in an old tweed jacket, lumberjack shirt, drainpipe jeans
and black boots.  His greying, wavy hair was carelessly long.  His face
was thin and lean, handsome in a Marlboro Country way, which was exactly
what he looked like, Susan always thought - an aging cowboy.

Over the past five years working as his editor she'd grown very fond of
him: he had become almost a father figure to her.  Fergus had been the
first person she'd rung to tell when they'd made the decision to buy the
house, and he'd approved of the area - although a couple of decades ago,
he had warned her, it had been a lot less salubrious.

"You boil an egg," he said, in his quiet voice that was close to a
murmur, "and there's nothing you can do that is going to turn it back
into a raw egg.  A sperm fertilises an egg, there is no way you can
reverse that.  That's linear, but that's chemistry not physics."

Fergus talked laconically, the voice of a man who had been around life's
block a few times, although he wasn't jaded: life was still vibrant for
him. "Susan, the point I'm trying to get over to the readers is to make
them imagine time as being that water.  It can be liquid, fluid, but it
can also be solid, like the ice, three-dimensional.  It's just a
question of how we perceive it at any given moment.  Time is both linear
and static.  It's like Schr6dinger's cat, the wave and the particle -"

Susan stopped him in his tracks.  "Fergus, if I'm confused by your
argument, and I have a physics background, how's the average reader who
has no science background going to feel?"

She had spent the past two weeks grappling with his manuscript. Although
worrying desperately about John's problems with DigiTrak, for which
there was still no solution on the horizon, she had tried her hardest to
concentrate on her work and not be distracted, and all her instincts
were telling her that the manuscript in its current form did not work.
At the end of the day, this would reflect badly on her.

She sipped coffee from the yellow mug John had given her a couple of
years back for her birthday.  On it was printed, in bold black
lettering, YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW WHAT I THINK.

"Fergus, when Einstein published his theory of relativity, there were
something like only five people in the whole world who could understand
it."

Dr. Fergus Donleavy, professor of physics at University College, London,
grinned.  "I heard it was six, actually."

"Well, we want to outsell A Brief History of Time with this one, and
we're only going to do that if people can get their heads around at
least some of it.  I'm not knocking your thesis, it's the way you've put
it across."

Fergus looked at her thoughtfully.  "Is it chapter seventeen you're
worried about?"

Susan genuinely believed this book could be an international
best-seller. Fergus Donleavy had the credentials and the book had the
content.  That was how it had looked from his six-page synopsis.  Now
she had on her desk eleven hundred pages that were almost impenetrable.
He was going to have to drop everything else he was doing for the next
six months and rewrite it.  She was trying to be tactful, and had hoped
that by gentle manoeuvring she would bring him round to see this, but so
far it wasn't happening.

She felt a deep responsibility for this book: she had planted the seed
for it in Fergus's head, sold the outline to her firm and commissioned
it.  It was a great concept: Fergus was going to argue that physics
proved the existence of God - or a Higher Intelligence, at any rate.  He
was going to prove that some being, smarter than humans, had created the
universe.

In the book, Fergus demolished the Big Bang theory.  He trashed
Darwinism as a means of explaining human existence.  He demonstrated how
it was possible to travel faster than the speed of light.  And he had
hard evidence to show that earth was not man's natural habitat - that
the first humans had been brought here from elsewhere in space.

Her mind veered briefly back to John.  He was having another meeting
today, another bank, a contact of Archie Warren, and then he was seeing
Archie.  John had thoughts of trying to put together a consortium of
backers, including people who had a vested interest in DigiTrak, like
the gynecologist Harvey Addison who hosted their best-selling series,
but so far the response had been lukewarm.

It was the lawsuit that was the bitch.  John had now been served with a
writ from Zak Danziger, and it was looking bad.  Although John was
trying to keep up a brave face, she knew that he was running out of
options.  And, to make matters worse, people here at Magellan Lowry were
getting increasingly nervous about the impending takeover.

Tomorrow Archie had invited her and John to Ascot and she was looking
forward to that break from their worries.  Archie did Ascot in style
every year, taking a box, and always brought along a string of
influential people.  Maybe John would meet someone willing to take a
punt.  But it seemed more likely that he'd lose a few hundred pounds on
the horses.

At least Archie's company would be cheerful.  She liked him: he made her
laugh.

And tonight held possibilities too.  They were going to a seriously
smart black-tie do at the Guildhall.  She wasn't sure why they'd been
invited, and neither was John.  The invitation had arrived only a week
ago, as if they were an afterthought.  There seemed to be some link with
a book she had once edited on Oriental antiquities, but beyond that she
was unclear.

The invitation had impressive names on it - Mr. and Mrs. Walter Thomas
Carmichael.  She knew that Walter Thomas Carmichael was one of the
richest men in America, a philanthropist and a patron of the arts.
Initially, John hadn't been that keen to accept, but Susan had persuaded
him, telling him that wealthy people would be there and that he might
find someone who could help him.

Susan took Fergus Donleavy out to lunch, which was the gentlest way she
could think of to break the news that he was going to have to rewrite
his book.  In the airy restaurant above Covent Garden they ate scared
tuna, drank Sancerre and talked about everything except the book. Fergus
told her that his daughter by his one and only marriage, which had ended
years back, was starting psychology at Duke University, North Carolina,
in the autumn.  "Now that you've moved into this big house, are you
going to start a family?" he asked.

"No." She could see that Fergus was afraid he'd touched a raw nerve, and
quickly bailed him out: "We made a decision not to have one.  Didn't I
ever tell you?"

Fergus cut a slice of tuna and pushed it around to scoop up the juices,
but did not eat it.  Instead he made a noise somewhere deep in his
throat that could have been either approval or disapproval.  When he
responded, his face was stern, but his voice remained gentle.  "That was
then." He raised his eyebrows.  "You told me that it was John who didn't
want children because he'd had a terrible childhood.  I was under the
impression you went along with that, but hoped to change his mind."

"No," she said awkwardly, because he had touched a nerve inside her.
"The - the move isn't going to change anything."

"It's good that you have such a strong marriage."

Susan had to strain to hear his quiet voice against the babble of
conversation.  "Sure," she said, almost equally quietly.  Fergus knew a
lot of people.  She was wondering whether to tell him about John's
problems. But she decided that, in spite of their friendship, it would
be unprofessional. The purpose of this lunch was Fergus's book, and she
needed to keep the focus on that.

"A lot of people who get married have children because they've run out
of things to say to each other," Fergus said.

She smiled.  "Maybe."

"So it's good that you and your husband still haven't run out of things
to say to each other.  If you haven't run out after seven years, you
probably won't."

"Did you and your wife run out of things to say to each other?" she
asked.

Fergus put the piece of fish in his mouth and chewed it slowly.  He
looked sad, an old wound opening up again.  "There were a lot of
things." He fell silent.

Susan drank some wine, letting the subject drop.

"Something I've never asked you," Fergus said.  "How do you cope with
the biological urges to be a mother?  Or don't you have them?"

Susan glanced around the room, checking out who was sitting near them.
This was a personal conversation and she didn't want anyone from work
hearing her.  The publicity director and three men she did not recognise
were seated at a nearby table, engrossed in a heavy discussion. "Sure I
have them, but I don't let them dictate the course of my life."

Fergus drank some more wine, set down his glass, made that noise again
deep in his throat, and murmured, ""Stars rule man, but a wise man rules
the stars.""

"That's smart.  Who said it?"

"Francis Barrett, in The Magus."

"I didn't know you were knowledgeable about magic."

He inclined his head.  "How well do you know me?"

"I don't know you," she said.  "Not really.  We've been friends a long
time, but I don't know you."

He had a distant smile.  "How well do you know anyone?"

"How do you mean?"

"How well do you know your husband?  Do you really know him?  Do you
know yourself?.  Do you really know yourself?."

Susan raised her hands.  "I - think I do but I - I guess I can't be
sure."

"None of us knows what we are capable of, until we have to do it."
Fergus picked up the stub of lime on the side of his plate and squeezed
the last drops of juice onto the remains of his tuna.

"I thought you were a scientist," she said.  "Magic is the realm of the
paranormal.  How do you reconcile that?"

"Arthur C.  Clarke once said that magic is any sufficiently advanced
technology.  I think he's right.  The paranormal is the name we give to
things science hasn't yet found an explanation for."

"You really believe that?" "Yes," he said.

"You think eventually we'll find explanations for everything?"

"Yes. But I don't know when."

"Or what they will be?"

He shrugged.  "C.  I.  Lewis said there is no a priori reason for
thinking that, when we discover the truth, it will prove interesting."

Susan smiled.  "I hope he's wrong."

Fergus looked at her strangely.  "I think it's quite possible he's
wrong."

She picked up her glass.  "So, if none of us knows what we're capable
of, you think few of us ever fulfill our destiny because we are not
aware of it?" There was a long silence.  Then he said, "You will.  You
will fulfill yours." He looked so serious that it made her want to
laugh, but she held back hard because he looked so serious.  And then
she felt uncomfortable.  He was no longer looking at her, he was looking
through her, into some compartment deep inside her.  And he seemed
deeply disturbed by what he saw.  Almost as if he were afraid.

She felt a sudden wintry chill blow through her.  "What is it?  What are
you looking at?" she asked.

But the expression was gone.  He replaced it with a smile and changed
the subject.

Chapter Ten

John hadn't seen the child on the bicycle.

He was doing fifty and accelerating hard, in a thirty m.p.  limit. The
rat-run.  This was the traffic-dodging route he took home from the
office. Because it was through residential streets, he normally took
care, but tonight he was going much too fast.

With that amount of alcohol inside him, he shouldn't have been driving
at all.  He'd gone for what should have been a quick sandwich lunch with
Archie.  It had turned into an oyster-downing session, accompanied by
champagne mixed with Guinness, over which Archie had delivered the
depressing news that he was having no dice finding investors for the
consortium.

So far the only firm commitment John had had was from Harvey Addison,
who had agreed to invest twenty-five thousand pounds, subject to them
raising the rest of the money.

The lawsuit.  Zak Danziger, that was the problem.  Archie had told him
yet again at lunch today that John had to settle that damned suit.  And
John had tried really hard to do that in the last fortnight.  They'd
even had a meeting at Danziger's lawyer's office, at which John had had
to restrain himself from lashing out at the arrogant little composer.
Danziger had strutted in an hour late, his wiry hair gelled back into
what looked like a fantail, his fatty face covered in designer stubble,
his denim suit ornamented with diamant studs, and proceeded to call
John, in rapid succession, a shit, a thief and a capitalist turd.

John told Archie that his own counsel's opinion was that Danziger's case
might look strong on the surface but had holes in it.  He had advised
John there was a fair chance that Danziger would eventually realise this
and that they should be able to settle out of court, before legal costs
rocketed, for a few hundred thousand pounds - well within the insurance
limits.  The problem was, as Archie had pointed out in response, what
would happen if Danziger refused to settle?

Then when John had got back to the office, Gareth had cornered him. His
partner was in a bad state, shaking with nerves and on the edge of one
of his famous tantrums, telling John he was seriously worried about him.

constant anxiety, particularly if Gareth was ever left to deal on his
own with a major client.  But today John had listened to him, aware that
Gareth was right.  Apparently all the sales team had been complaining
that John's mind seemed totally off the ball.  He hadn't been returning
phone calls, or responding to e-mails or snail mail, nothing.

And it was true, he thought guiltily.  All he had done for the past two
weeks was write proposals to banks and fund-raisers, make phone call
after phone call to everyone he had ever met who might either be a
likely prospect or know one, and turn up to meeting after meeting at
which he was mostly told the same thing: "Great company, great products,
sort out the lawsuit, come back and talk to us again."

He still hadn't told Gareth the truth, knowing that not only would
Gareth freak out but he would immediately tell everyone he knew because
he was hopeless at keeping anything secret.  In many aspects of
business, Gareth had a mental and emotional age of seven.  All geniuses
have their flaws and this was Gareth's.

John was frightened that as soon as word got out his staff would start
looking around for other jobs.  His competitors would be hovering like
vultures.  He had a moral duty to tell them all soon so that they would
not find themselves out of work with just a few hours" notice, but he
couldn't bring himself to do it, not while there was still hope.  And
there was hope, there had to be.  As he drove, fuelled by the two pints
- or maybe three - of real ale he had just downed with Gareth, John felt
a renewed charge of optimism.

Harvey Addison had pledged twenty-five thousand and they weren't making
enough use of his name.  Surely he could use Harvey's commitment to
encourage others?  The gynecologist was famous: he had his own daytime
television show on BBC 1 with huge ratings.  He tried to think of a way
to capitalise on Harvey as he drove.

A single spat of rain burst like an insect on the windscreen, startling
him.  The sky was dark, heavy, laden.  They were going out tonight to
some smart function, something to do with Susan's work, but he couldn't
remember what.  The beer was kicking in now, making him feel drunk, and
he could not see much more than a blur beyond the end of the BMW's
bonnet.  He saw the square hulk of a removals truck ahead, parked along
the kerb.  As he raced towards it, doing over sixty now, he saw a faint
glint, something red, shiny, moving out fast, straight into his path.

It was the front wheel of a bicycle.

Susan looked anxiously at her watch.  It was twenty to seven and they
were due in the City, half an hour's drive away, at seven thirty.  John
had promised to be home in good time so that they didn't have to rush,
but he still wasn't back.

She balled her hands and banged her knuckles impatiently together. Come
on, hon.  She wanted them to get there early because it was at the
pre-dinner drinks, when they could circulate, that they would have the
best chance of finding people whom they might interest in DigiTrak, and
they had already agreed a strategy on how they would work the room when
they got there.

Susan, who was much less shy than John, was good at getting on with it
at parties and introducing herself to people.  She would work the pack
until she found a financier, then signal to John, who would come over
and be introduced by her.  She would move on, hunting out another
prospect.

She was already changed, wearing the black silk dress that she felt she
had worn too many times and which was starting to feel tired, even if it
didn't look tired - although, with luck, there wouldn't be anyone at the
dinner tonight who had seen it before.  She wasn't even sure there'd be
anyone at the dinner they would even know.

Determined to dress to kill, she'd changed earrings, necklaces, brooches
and shoes half a dozen times before she was satisfied that She looked
classy rather than showy.

Come on, John, darling.  Come on!

She tried phoning his mobile, but it was not switched on and debated
whether to try the office.  But he would have left by now, surely?

She sat down on a sofa in the living room, in front of the marble
fireplace, and admired the colour scheme and the paintwork.  She was
really pleased with the soft, warm effect of Not Quite White and it
looked stunningly elegant with the contrasting black woodwork.  As soon
as they'd hung up their pictures and paintings, which they planned to do
this weekend, and got the grey and white striped curtains, which should
be arriving next week, the room would really come alive.

At least, she thought ruefully, the place would be looking wonderful if
they did have to put it back on the market.  But she wasn't going to
dwell on that now.  John needed her to be positive, and she needed to be
positive herself If you believed in something enough you could make it
happen.  If she and John showed people that they believed DigiTrak had a
future, that must help.

She picked up the latest copies of Publishing News and the Bookseller,
which never reached her desk until several days after they had arrived
at Magellan Lowry, and scanned the Company News and the Who's Moved
Where columns, checking for new rumours about the impending takeover or
whether anyone she knew had been promoted into a position where they
might be able to offer her a new job if the crunch came.

Then she remembered that the garbage men collected early on Thursday
mornings, and busied herself emptying the waste-bins into a large black
bin-liner, which she carried out through the side door in the kitchen.

As she opened the door, she was surprised by the wind that had got up
and felt a few spots of rain.  Fergus Donleavy's words at lunch today
echoed again inside her head.  They had been disturbing her all
afternoon. "You will.  You will fulfill yours." Destiny.

And although he appeared to have seen it, Fergus had refused to tell her
what her destiny was.  He would not say another word on the subject
other than to assure her that it was nothing, nothing at all, and that
she should forget it.

But she couldn't forget it.  She had a sense that Fergus had a deeper
interest in the paranormal than he had let on.  Lunch had left her with
a deep chill, a sense of foreboding that was haunting her now even more
deeply.

As she lifted the dustbin lid, a small piece of paper blew out into her
face, then fell to the ground.  As she picked it up, she saw it was a
lottery ticket, with all seven rows filled in, and as she was about to
put it back into the bin, she noticed more in there.  Dozens of them.

"Christ."

She scooped out a handful: a piece of eggshell fell away from one.  All
carried last Saturday's date.  Doing a quick, rough count she reckoned
there were about forty.  At seven pounds each, John must have spent over
two hundred and fifty pounds on the lottery and had said nothing.

She wondered, alarmed, whether he had turned to any other forms of
gambling.  During the first couple of years of their marriage, he had
played in a regular weekly poker school but had stopped when he had got
too busy with DigiTrak.  She knew he gambled with his friends, quite
ludicrously high stakes sometimes, on their regular Saturday-morning
golf games.

A thought struck her: could John have been lying to her about their
financial problems?  Had gambling debts caused them, not business
problems?

No, that was ridiculous.  She knew John too well: he liked a flutter but
he was not an addict.

But then something else she remembered from her lunch with Fergus began
to disturb her.

How well do you know anyone?  How well do you know your husband?  Do you
really know him?  Do you know yourself?.

And she realised that Fergus was right.  She didn't know John, didn't
really know him, and he probably didn't really know her either.  They
just knew little bits about each other, like pieces of a jigsaw that
slowly gave you more and more of the picture the longer you were
together.  She wondered if all couples were like that, strangers who
never realised they were strangers.

The kitchen door slammed, and she looked around guiltily as if she was
prying, which in a way, she felt, she was, dumped the black garbage bag
on top of the tickets, and put the dustbin lid firmly back on.

Going inside, she puzzled again about why Fergus Donleavy had looked so
strange, so frightened.  She wondered if he was just playing some game
with her head, but she didn't think so.  Fergus was not the kind of man
to mess with people's heads.

Was he psychic?  She couldn't get his expression out of her mind.  She
could picture it vividly, the way he had been looking at her, seeing
something.

Her destiny?

Whatever he'd said in denial, he had seen something there.

And it was bad.

John could see the child's face.  A girl, short blonde hair cut in a
fringe, and she hadn't seen him.  She still had not seen him.

His foot was rammed to the floor and the car was juddering and grating
violently as the anti-lock brakes gripped and released.  He tried to
find the horn, missed, his hand jamming uselessly against the boss of
the steering wheel.

And she kept on coming, kept pedalling out from behind that removals
truck, filling the whole road in front of him.

Filling his whole windscreen.

John didn't have time to think, he was just reacting, his ears numb,
ringing with the yowl of his tyres on the tarmac.  He caught a glimpse
of a skip on the other side of the road stacked with broken
plasterboard.

The girl had seen him now.  Her mouth was open, she was staring at him,
she braked, stopped dead, dropped her feet onto the tarmac.  The dumb
girl had stopped dead in front of him.

Get out of

He jerked the wheel over, and the car swerved wildly.  The
skip disappeared, then he saw it again, close, too close, it felt for an
instant as if he was motionless and the skip was hurtling across ice
towards him.

He felt the impact even before he heard it, even before he'd had time to
swing the wheel again.  The car bounced off, like a dodgem, rocked, then
a tremendous metallic boom exploded in his ears.

Then silence.

John sat shaking, unsure in which direction he was facing, trying
desperately to orient himself.  Trying to see the girl.

Oh, Christ, where was she?

Then he saw her behind him.  She had dismounted and was holding her
bicycle, staring at him.  There didn't seem to be any expression on her
face, no shock, no relief, no surprise, nothing.  Blank. He'd missed
her. She was all right.

He had hit the skip instead.

His brain was working jerkily, fumbling with bits of information.  The
noise.  People would have heard the noise.  At any moment they would
start running out of their houses.  But they didn't.  Nothing was
happening. Just the silence, and the girl staring at him
expressionlessly.

And he remembered, with sudden panic, all the alcohol in his system.
Must get out and make sure she's OK, he thought.  But when he tried to
open his door, it was jammed.  He unclipped his seat belt, yanked the
handle and threw his weight against the door.  It gave.

He climbed out onto the road on unsteady legs.  The girl with the red
bicycle was still standing there, staring at him.  He leaned against the
side of the car, feeling a little sick, and looked down in horror at the
dented, twisted, torn, scraped mess that was the driver's side of his
BMW.  The outer skin of the door had been ripped open, as if by a tin
opener, and a clutch of wires and part of the window mechanism were
exposed. "Are you OK?" he shouted at the girl. She gave a single,
shocked nod.

The rear bumper was sticking out sideways like a wing flap.  He tried to
push it back, but it would not move.  The alcohol, he thought.  Got to
get out of here.  He pushed it again, but it still wouldn't move.  Then
in panic he pushed still harder and it bent back, not quite flush but
good enough Someone was running towards him now.

John decided to run, too.  He needed to get the hell out before the
police arrived.

He cast a glance over the rusting skip, climbed back into the BMW and
started the engine.

In his mirror he watched the man who had been running stop, stare at
him, then reach for something inside his pocket - a notebook, or maybe a
mobile phone.

John rammed the gear lever forward and accelerated away, faster than
he'd intended.

Chapter Eleven

John came in through the front door looking like a ghost.

Susan smelt the alcohol before she'd reached him.  He staggered clumsily
into her arms, and she had to take a step back to prevent both of them
falling over.

"Shorry - so late," he said.

As she hugged him, she noticed his face was clammy with perspiration.

"Darling," she said.  "Hon." It hurt her to see him like this, this man
of whom she was so proud, letting himself go, drunk and dishevelled. And
it frightened her.  This pillar of strength on which she had depended
was crumbling and her life was crumbling with it.

How drunk was he, she wondered.  "Hon, are you OK to go out?" He said
nothing.

"I've put your dinner jacket and shirt out on the bed, and your patent
leather shoes and some socks."

He eased free of her, sat on the bottom step of the staircase and sank
his head in his hands.  He was silent for a little while.  Then he said,
with choking emotion in his voice, "I nearly killed a child."

A ripple of goose bumps rose up through her.  "What do you mean? What
happened?  When?  How?"

"It was just now - I was driving too fast.  Stupid."

"Is the child OK?" "Yes."

"You didn't hit him - her-?"

"]No."

"Hon," she said gently, "you have to pull yourself together.  We're
going to be OK, we're going to come out the other side of this."

He looked up, like a child himself, and nodded.

Susan decided that he wasn't as drunk as she had first feared.  He was
as much shaken as drunk.  She had a sudden fear that if she allowed him
to start finding excuses not to get out and meet people, it could be the
start of a slippery slope.  He must pull himself together, and she had
the feeling that she was the only person who could make him.  "You were
keen to go to this do tonight, you said there might be some good people
there to approach -"

"I know," he cut in.  "I just -"

"We've accepted, we should go."

"I must have a shower."

She looked at her watch.  "We don't have time.  Slap some water on your
face and get changed.  Come on, this is for both of us."

"I can't drive - over the limit - I - you want to phone for a taxi?"

"I don't mind driving," she said.  "We have to economise.  I'm sure we
can save a lot just by being careful."

"Bugger that."

"Come on, upstairs!  You're not going to let that man Clarke beat us,
are you?"

John looked at her, and she could see that she was getting through.  The
mention of the name Clarke had triggered a spark of determination in his
face.  "Because that's what you're doing right now.  You're letting
Clarke get you down.  You have to fight back at him.  And you have to
remember, hon, that even if we do lose the business, the house,
everything that we own, that we're still not going to let Clarke win,
because we're going to go on loving each other just as much, and he'll
never take that away from us, ever.  OK?"

"I - I'm shorry," John said.  "I've had a bloody awful day.  No dice.
None at all."

"You can tell me about it in the car," she replied.

Downstairs, fifteen minutes later, she picked up his car keys from where
he had left them on the hall table.

"Let's go in your car," he said, hastily, his voice still slurring a
little, but not so badly.  "Easier to park."

Susan wondered why he was reluctant to take his, but, as she walked
round to the driver's side of the BMW, she saw the reason.  "What
happened?"

He told her the full story on the way.  She took it calmly, trying to
encourage him to snooze for a few minutes, telling him he'd feel better
when they got there, masking her concern.  And she decided to say
nothing about the lottery tickets.  She wasn't going to gain anything by
criticising or prying.  And she had a good feeling about this dinner
tonight - she had picked up positive vibes from the invite.

Maybe they had been invited as an afterthought, or even by mistake, but
she was determined to milk the opportunity for all she could.  What did
they have to lose?

Susan drove recklessly fast, and they made it to the Guildhall only
twenty minutes late, which John told her was almost respectable.

Inside the building, they presented their tickets to a liveried master
of ceremonies, who announced them to a roomful of glittering people who
were not listening.  Their hosts, Mr. and Mrs. Walter Thomas Carmichael,
were presumably somewhere in the vast, elegant hall, with its glittering
chandeliers and fine statues and coats of arms and carvings.

For some moments, overwhelmed by the grandeur of the setting, Susan's
confidence deserted her.  Almost everyone appeared older than her and
John, and she felt as though she had arrived at a club where everyone,
except them, knew each other well.

John was tired.  The alcohol and the shock were wearing off, leaving him
with a dull headache and a thirst.  A waitress came up to them with a
tray containing glasses of champagne or mineral water.  John knew he
needed to sober up and that he should drink water but he took a glass of
champagne.  Before the waitress had moved too far away, he had drained
it and taken a second.

"John..." Susan said.

He felt more confident, and a little punchy now.  "Poor show when the
hosts can't be bothered to meet their guests.  I still don't understand
why we're here."

Susan was scanning the room.  5he had thought an author might be here
whose book on the discovery of rare Oriental antiquities she had edited
for Magellan Lowry six years back.  She turned to John.  "We probably
haven't got long to dinner.  Shall we circulate, give it a whirl?"

He swigged most of his drink.  "Sure, let's go for it."

As they made their way into the crowd, John detoured to a tray laden
with canapes, and stuffed three scallops wrapped in bacon into his mouth
in rapid succession.  When he looked round, Susan had disappeared.  He
swallowed the last of his champagne and, as he did so, caught the eye of
a tall, distinguished-looking man, who seemed to be on his own. The man
smiled at him. "Beautiful room," John said.

The man replied, in a cultured voice that carried only the faintest hint
of broken English, "Yes, a very pleasant room."

They were in perhaps the most beautiful banqueting hall in Britain - the
Queen Mother liked to eat here - but John detected an air of put-down i
the man's tone, as if this room was too small for him, as if he normally
dined somewhere infinitely grander.

John struggled, unusually, to come up with anything more to say.  He
looked at the man's face, trying to put an age on him, but found it
impossible. He was in his late fifties perhaps, but possibly older.  It
was a handsome, distinctive aristocratic face, just a fraction gaunt,
with dark, youthful hair streaker elegantly around the temples with
silver, and brushed immaculately back.

The man's eyes were grey and sharp, alive with observation and twinkle
of humour, and his countenance suggested abon viveur who too care of
himself and an air of rather old fashioned courtly elegance.  He wore a
dinner jacket trimmed with velvet, which John instantly coveted, and his
bow tie put John's small black clip-on one to shame.

"Are you a friend of the Carmichaels?" John ventured, helping himself
more champagne from a tray.

"We go back a long way," the man said, in a polite but rather distant
manner, his eyes overtly roaming the room as if he was in search of more
interesting company.

"Ah." John resisted the urge to swig from his glass and took just a
small sip.  He knew that he needed to find out what this man did but his
companion's attention was elsewhere.

With his nerves still jumpy from the accident, John found it hard to
think of a polite way of moving on.  He glanced around, trying to see
Susan.

"And yourself?." the man said, still distant.  "You are a good friend of
Walter and Charlotte?"

"I - ah - no.  My wife's in publishing - she has an author - Orient
antiquities.  That's how we - the invite -" John lied.

The man inclined his head and, with a polite smile, said, "Charming to
meet you.  If you'll excuse me, I must circulate a little before
dinner."

As the man moved away into the crowd John cursed himself.  Where the
hell was Susan?

He scanned the sea of faces but there was no sign of her.  He tried,
enter the thick of the crowd, but his path was blocked by an
impenetrable wall of people locked in conversation.  He stood by one
group for a couple of minutes, trying to catch the eye of any of the
three men engaged in animated discussion about stock-market prices, but
failed.

Turning away, he noticed an area to the side where people were readir
something.  As he walked over, he saw that it was the seating plan. Aft.

some jostling he got close enough to locate his own and Susan's places.
They had been put on separate tables, which pleased him because it gave
them more opportunities to meet people.

He was on Table Four.  On one side of him was Lady Trouton and on the
other Mr. E.  Sarotzini.  Neither name meant anything to him.  He was
about to set off again in search of Susan when he heard three loud
knocks and a booming voice announced that dinner was served.

According to the plan, Table Four was towards the far end.  Lady Trouton
was already at her place: she looked very old, wore tinted glasses and
did not respond when John said hello.  Not a good start, he thought,
looking at the empty place on his right and hoping that this character,
whoever he was, might be a more promising companion.

As he reached forward to take a look at a menu, the portly man opposite
him nodded without breaking off from his earnest conversation with the
steel-haired woman next to him.  John picked up the menu and glanced at
it.  There were some fine wines, and the food was elaborately described,
six courses ending in a savoury, Angels on Horseback.  No speeches were
listed, and the sole clue on the menu as to the purpose of this dinner
were the gold printed words, A DINNER HOSTED BY MR AND MRS WALTER THOMAS
CARMICHAEL.

As he put the menu back on the table, John was aware of a man taking the
place next to him.  He turned to acknowledge his dinner companion, and
immediately tried to mask his disappointment with a smile.

"So, we meet again," Mr. Sarotzini said, peering at John's place name.
"Mr. Carter.  How very pleasant."

Grace was said.

John held Lady Trouton's chair for her, but she didn't thank him, and
when he tried again to introduce himself/she peered at him suspiciously.
"You are a friend of Walter and Charlotte?" she enquired in a tone of
disdain.

"No," he said.  "Are you?"

A plate arrived, smoked salmon artistically arranged around a mousse.
Simultaneously, a gloved hand poured white wine into one of John's
glasses.  Then a basket of rolls appeared, which Lady Trouton waved away
dismissively, before turning back to John.  "Tell me," she said, "your
views on unemployment."

John, taken aback, unwrapped a pat of butter while he considered the
question.  "It's going to increase," he said.  "Technology is -"

She raised a hand to halt him.  "I'm sorry, dear, I find it difficult to
talk and eat."

John ate a mouthful of salmon, then drank some white wine, Btar,
Montrachet 1982, he remembered from the menu.  He glanced at Mr.
Sarotzini, who had not yet touched his food.

Without looking at him, his neighbour asked: "You are here alone with
your wife?"

John peered around, found the table Susan was sitting at and pointed her
out to the man.

"A fine-looking young woman," Mr. Sarotzini said.

"Thank you."

"How long have you been married?"

"Seven years."

A silence fell between them again.  They ate for a few moments, then
John said, "And you?  You're married?" Mr. Sarotzini nodded slowly.
"Yes."

"Is your wife here?"

John saw sadness in his expression as he replied, "I regret, no." John
sensed that the man did not want to talk about his wife.  Perhaps: they
were separated, or she was ill.  He felt sorry for him.  "Do you have
children?"

Mr. Sarotzini broke off a piece of his roll and buttered it carefully.
His hands, with their long, elegant fingers, were a little unsteady and
seemel to belong to an older man than his face suggested.  "No.  No
children." His grey eyes clouded.  "You are blessed with them?"

"No.  I'm not sure if they're a blessing or a curse!"

There was no reaction from Mr. Sarotzini.  Awkwardly, John picked up his
wine glass, but when he brought it to his lips he discovered it was,
empty.  He hadn't realised he had been drinking so quickly.

He glanced at Lady Trouton, who was engrossed with cutting the salmon
into tiny squares.  "It's the coloureds who are to blame," she announced
suddenly.

John wondered for a moment who she was speaking to, and then realised
she was speaking to him.

"I beg your pardon?"

"We should never have let them in, to drive the buses, back in the
Fifties.  They've taken over, haven't they?  And look at the promise:
Mountbatten made to India.  Now you can't buy a newspaper from a whit.

John looked at her again, and wondered if they were both on the same
planet.  Disturbingly, he knew they were.

Mr. Sarotzini was now engaged in conversation with the man on his right.
John ate his salmon in silence, while Lady Trouton continued, with
studied concentration, to cut hers up into squares, eating only the
occasional morsel.

"A blessing," Mr. Sarotzini said, startling him.  "Children are most
definitely a blessing."

Soup arrived in a silver tureen.  Mr. Sarotzini waited until John had
been served, then tested the soup and seemed to find it wanting.  He
munched a croeton.  "Yes, children.  We must all remember, Mr. Carter,
that we have not inherited the earth from our ancestors, we have
borrowed it from our children."

John was warming towards him a little.  "Do you mind if I ask you - my
wife and I, we're not sure what the purpose of this dinner is?"

"The Carmichaels are just marvelous hosts," Mr. Sarotzini answered.
"They always put on a little gathering for their friends when they are
in London.  They are here, of course, at the moment, because it is Ascot
week. But you know," he said, "they're not people who require much of an
excuse to throw a dinner party."

"No," John concurred, trying to give the impression that he was no
stranger to the Carmichaels" stratosphere.

"Are you a racing man?" Mr. Sarotzini asked.

"Yes.  I prefer the flat season."

"Of course.  Steeplechasing is -" he waved a hand dismissively "- how
should I put it?  - rather inelegant.  Were you at Ascot today?"

"No, I'm going tomorrow." John was thankful for Archie's invitation.
Rack of lamb was served.  The conversation moved on to travel: Mr.
Sarotzini had homes in Switzerland, America, England.  He knew
California well, and seemed familiar with the Venice Beach area of Los
Angeles where Susan had grown up.  "Where did you meet your lovely
wife?" Mr. Sarotzini asked him.

"On the UCLA campus in Westwood," John said.  "I was giving a talk at a
conference on on-line publishing and Susan was working as an assistant
to one of the delegates from Time Warner."

"Synchronicity," Mr. Sarotzini said, giving him a quizzical stare.
"Perhaps you were brought together.  It was meant to be."

"My wife is a fan of Jung.  She believes in synchronicity."

"Are you familiar with the old Chinese proverb, "I hear and I forget, I
see and I remember, I do and I understand?""

"No," John said, "but I like it."

"Your wife," Mr. Sarotzini said.  "I imagine she would like it also?"

"Yes, I expect she would." John was a little surprised by the question.
He cut a slice of lamb, chewed it, then washed it down with a mouthful
of Mouton Rothschild "66.  His glass was instantly refilled.

It did not seem to matter how much John drank tonight, it just made him
feel increasingly alert and alive.  Now he was thoroughly enjoying his
conversation With Mr. Sarotzini, they were getting on fatuously, and
neither had yet asked what the other did.  John was starting to feel
that, if he played his cards right, Mr. Sarotzini might be the man to
help him, and deliberately kept away from the topic of business, not
wanting to seem pushy.

"Your wife," Sarotzini said, suddenly, "does she find it hard,
sometimes, not having children?  Does she find people, at dinners such
as this, making tactless remarks that wound her?"

"Yes.  But she's very good about it."

"And there is no biological reason preventing her from conceiving?"

"We've never checked." John cast a glance at Lady Trouton.  She was
cutting her lamb into tiny squares, totally preoccupied.

"Forgive me for being so personal," Mr. Sarotzini said.  "It is a fault
of mine."

"No problem." John smiled.  "Did you and your wife make a conscious
decision not to have children?"

The question brought back the air of sadness to Mr. Sarotzini's face and
John wished he hadn't asked it.

"Yes," Mr. Sarotzini replied.  "Yes, a conscious decision," he echoed,
and his face seemed to age ten years.

With the arrival of tarte tatin Mr. Sarotzini finally enquired about the
nature of John's business.  At first John gave him only sketchy details,
but then, when he saw the man's interest, he opened up a little more.
And then more still.  By the time port was being poured and the cheese
board presented, John was entertaining Mr. Sarotzini with a detailed
account of his meeting with Clarke.

And Mr. Sarotzini was surprisingly sympathetic, telling John of his deep
scorn for high-street banks.  "You know," he told John wryly, "such a
bank will only lend you money if you can prove to them that you really
and truly do not need it."

John smiled, and said, finally, "So what do you do?"

Mr. Sarotzini smiled back.  "I'm a banker," he said.

John had to make a supreme effort not to let his elation show in his
face or his voice.  "Oh, really?" he said.  "What - what kind of banking
are you involved in?"

Mr. Sarotzini handed him a business card.  On it was printed: E.
Sarotzini. Director.  VOm Bank.

Beneath was aPO box number in Zurich. John studied the card. Something
was missing. "No phone number?" he asked.

"We like to choose to whom we speak, Mr. Carter.  We are most selective.
We have interests in a number of companies in the technology and
biotechnology sectors.  Perhaps we should have a further conversation?"

John pulled out a card of his own.  "Yes," he said.  "Thank you, I'd
like to very much."

Chapter Twelve

It was quiet in the Carters" house.  Klindz, wearing his headphones, did
a routine flick through the channel selector.  He could hear the hum of
the fridge in Susan's kitchen, but in all the other rooms there was
silence.

But even listening to this silence, gave him pleasure, because this was
Susan Carter's silence.

The Carters were out tonight at dinner with Mr. and Mrs. Walter Thomas
Carmichael, and he wondered how they were getting on.  Mr. Sarotzini was
at this dinner also, and Klindz was not quite sure about the agenda
there. Sometimes Mr. Sarotzini only told him so much, leaving him a
little in the dark, almost as if he was teasing him; that was one of the
things that seemed to give Mr. Sarotzini pleasure, playing games with
him.  But Klindz didn't mind.  He knew from experience that Mr.
Sarotzini did nothing without a reason, which always eventually became
clear.

He continued listening to Susan Carter's silence, picturing in his mind
the exact position of every item in that round bedroom in the turret
perfumed with her smells.

It was quiet also in Klindz's attic flat in Pembroke Road in Earl's
Court. The walls, floors and ceiling were lined with soundproofing
material he had installed.  The room beneath the eaves, in which he was
now sitting, his monitoring room, had no windows: it was completely
secure, and as quiet as the grave.

It was also as solitary as the grave.  Klindz felt lonely in London.  He
missed his apartment in Geneva, the only home of his own he'd ever had,
and he felt insecure being so far away from Mr. Sarotzini.  Although he
was never really far away from Mr. Sarotzini.  Physical distance made no
difference because, wherever he was, Mr. Sarotzini was always with him,
connected to his thoughts, guiding his mind, sometimes letting him get
on with it, other times instructing him.  It was as if Mr. Sarotzini
could step in and out of his head, from wherever he was in the world,
and manipulate him.

And Klindz did not mind this.  Mr. Sarotzini had always given him
guidance, and he was never wrong.  Klindz understood implicitly that it
was his life's duty to serve Mr. Sarotzini.

He had been groomed for this role since the earliest days of his
conscious memory, in the chdteau above Lake Geneva to which Mr.
Sarotzini had brought him all those years back and which he had left
only rarely throughout his childhood, mostly to accompany Mr. Sarotzini
on his travels.  Mr. Sarotzini had instilled in Klindz from an early age
that he had been put into this world for a higher purpose than ordinary
mortals, and Klindz had accepted this without question.

And now, here in London, Klindz was afraid that on this important
mission he might fail Mr. Sarotzini.  It wasn't the pain that Mr.
Sarotzini might inflict that worried him.  It was the fear of being
rejected by him that was really terrifying.

But, so far in London, everything was proceeding well, Mr. Sarotzini had
been pleased with the first results, more pleased than Klindz had dared
to hope.  He sensed Mr. Sarotzini's presence in the room with him: Mr.
Sarotzini, at the dinner table, was thinking about him.  Klindz picked
up the warm thoughts, and felt a little less lonely; he was grateful to
Mr. Sarotzini for this small kindness he was showing him.

Klindz tried to send back a signal of gratitude.  Mr. Sarotzini had
taught him that it was possible to transmit thoughts, and even, if you
concentrated hard enough, to influence other people's minds.

He wondered if the signal had reached Mr. Sarotzini.  He wondered if Mr.
Sarotzini was close to Susan Carter and if he could smell her.  Then he
picked up his book, Homer's Iliad in Greek - Mr. Sarotzini had taught
him that one should always read a book in its original language, never
in translation - and began to read.

This was something else he missed in London: his books.  The vast
library in Mr. Sarotzini's house had been his starting point where,
under Mr. Sarotzini's tutelage, he had read every volume on its shelves.
His own apartment was overflowing with books, which he had regretted
having to leave behind.  He valued them far more than he valued the
company of people, for they presented interpretations of the world,
past, present and future, from which he was able to form his own
understandings.

Sometimes he interpreted his understandings with the intricate drawings
he made with his airbrush.  He was a fine artist; Mr. Sarotzini had
often praised his work, and that made him proud.

He missed the gym, too, where he did his daily workout, and the special
muesli with blueberries in the konditorei on Rue de la Conflagration
where he had his breakfast, and the cool breezes off the lake, and his
black Mercedes SL600 - but he understood that that was too conspicuous,
and in London he needed to blend into his surroundings.

And he missed his wardrobe.  He had racks of hand-made suits, in fine
wools, silks and linens, shelves stacked with hand-made shirts and
handmade shoes laid out in long lines.  Mr. Sarotzini had taught him
about the value of quality, and detail.  Everything that Klindz wore was
the best, and the luggage in which he carried them was the best also,
beautiful leather with hand-stitching finish, all of the cases matching.

When he had been alone in Susan Carter's bedroom and had been through
the drawers and wardrobes, he had noted that John Carter's suits and
shirts were brand names, Boss, Armani, Conran, off-the-peg.  It hurt him
to think that Susan Carter could be penetrated by a man who bought
ready-to-wear clothes.  She deserved so much better.  The words of the
Twenty-third Truth came into his "mind: "Mediocrity recognises nothing
higher than itself.  Talent instantly recognises genius."

Many eminent and famous people came as guests to Mr. Sarotzini's chateau
from all over the world: heads of state, cabinet ministers, senators,
royalty, movie celebrities, scientists, industrialists.  Mr. Sarotzini
had taught Klindz to imagine each of these people sitting on the
lavatory, excreting then wiping their backsides.  He wanted to make
Klindz realise that title, rank, noble birth or any level of fame only
made a human being different
from his fellow man in some ways, not all. Susan Carter was different.
She was truly different.

Klindz found himself thinking of Claudie and wondered if Mr. Sarotzini
had put this thought into his mind to distract him from Susan Carter. It
was hard, sometimes, to differentiate between thoughts that were his
own, and those that Mr. Sarotzini planted in his head.

Claudie.  He imagined himself in his apartment with her, doing something
dirty with her; she liked to do things that were dirty.  Before he had
been inside Susan Carter's house, and had stood in Susan Carter's
presence and breathed in her smells, he had missed Claudie.  But no
longer.

On the small desk beside him was an envelope containing a ticket for a
performance of Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne on Sunday.  It was a reward
from Mr. Sarotzini for his good work.  He wished he could take Susan
Carter with him and make love to her afterwards, with the roiling energy
of the music bursting through their bodies.

But that would not be possible.

"Susan," he whispered quietly.

Susan stared at him from every wall.  Photographs he had taken from the
tiny camera concealed behind the badge of his British Telecom uniform
those three glorious days when he had been in her house, They were
grainy, which irritated him.  She was inanimate and that irritated him
too.  He wanted to see Susan Carter move, he wanted to see her undress,
he wanted to see her doing dirty things with her husband.

He wanted, although he did not need, an excuse to hate her husband even
more than he already did.

He switched to a different channel and listened in to his apartment in
Geneva.  From the living room he could hear voices, the television.  He
adjusted a filter and the sound of the television faded.  Then he
listened for other voices, for any sound that Claudie might have a man
in the apartment with her.

He checked out the bedroom and that was fine.  Then he tapped a command
on his computer keyboard.  The screen came to life.  On it appeared a
colour image of Claudie, his favourite photograph of her: she was
sitting naked on a chair, facing the camera, her legs spread open.  He
imagined that it was not Claudie, but Susan Carter.

He picked up the phone and punched a number.  Claudie answered.  He
imagined he was hearing Susan Carter's voice. He asked, "What are you
doing?"

"Watching television."

"What are you wearing?" Teasing. "Nothing much."

"What do you smell of?."

"You," she said.

"I want to see you," he said.

"And I want to see you, too."

He keyed in another command and logged onto the Internet.  A new image
appeared: an empty chair facing the camera.  In a moment, Claudie,
naked, moved into the frame and sat in the chair.  The technology was
not yet perfect.  He was watching her now, in real time, but each
movement was jerky as if in slow motion, as the images travelled down
the cables from Geneva to London.

He stared at the live image of Claudie, naked, her long brown hair
resting on her shoulders.  She was looking directly at him and knew he
was watching her.  But she did not know that in his mind he was no
longer seeing her but Susan Carter, "Touch yourself," Klindz said.

He watched her touching herself.  The mierky images added to the
sensuality.  He watched her pressing her fingers up inside herself He
watched the expression on her face change.  As she worked her fingers, a
certain dreaminess softened her face, and he wondered if this was how it
would be with Susan Carter also.

Then her lips were moving, she was speaking.  Yes, speak to me, oh, my
Susan, speak to me.

"Now let me see you," she said.

Chapter Thirteen

John felt queasy, tired, and he had a blinding headache.  Port always
did this to him, and at the dinner last night he had poured it down his
throat recklessly.

On the advice of his accountant, he had been to see an insolvency
practitioner, and was talking on the phone to him now.  The news he gave
John about what he would be able to salvage from the business if the
bank pulled the plug wasn't good.  If John had seen the writing on the
wall a year back, he could have formed a separate company and started
transferring business into it.  But he hadn't made any such
preparations.

He replaced the receiver, deeply gloomy.  His secretary brought him in a
second cup of coffee and gave him a strange look, making him wonder
whether she'd overheard him.  Stella wasn't stupid, she knew something
was going on, but in her usual discreet way she hadn't asked.

She'd been with him right from the start, when he had been operating
from a tiny office above a pet shop in Maryland, and Gareth had been
moonlighting from his day job in computer graphics at a firm of
architects.  Stella was a bright, sassy girl, pretty and elegant, with
short brown hair, and a tiresome boyfriend she supported, a permanently
resting actor with an ego the size of the Atlantic.  She'd get another
job quickly - anyone in their right mind would snap her up - but losing
her was going to be a terrible blow.

He would have to tell Gareth soon, and all their employees.  So far the
only person in the company who knew anything was the financial
controller, a quiet, efficient, conscientious woman called Janet
Penning-ton. She had prepared the figures for John's pitch documents to
other banks and institutions, and he knew he could rely on her to say
nothing.

He had just thirteen days left until Clarke's deadline.  And last night
there had been a slim ray of hope, the Swiss banker with the odd name.

"How's your headache?" Stella asked.

"Bad." Headaches had become an almost daily feature of his life but this
was the mother of them all.

"I'll give you two more paracetamol before you go."

It was a quarter to ten.  In an hour's time he would have to leave the
office, get home, change into his morning suit and drive with Susan to
join Archie's party at Ascot.

He was glad to be out of the office today - there was no way he'd be
able to concentrate on much in his state - and Susan was right: someone
there might be willing to take a gamble on DigiTrak.  And that banker
last night had given him a couple of tips.  John had checked the horses
in the morning paper and they were both outsiders.  He decided he would
bang them hard.

His head took a turn for the worse, and he pressed his knuckles into his
temples, trying to ease the pain.  Looking lamely up at Stella, he said,
"Be an angel and get me a Coke, please."

"Sure." She smiled sympathetically, knowing from experience that when he
asked for a Coke, he must be in bad shape: it was the hangover cure he
used as a last resort.

John fished in his wallet, and found the banker's card.  E.  Sarotzini.
He started to compose a letter in his head, then picked up his dictating
machine.  As he did so, his telephone warbled.  It was Stella: she had a
Mr. Sarotzini on the line, did John want to speak to him?

Mr. Sarotzini sounded polite, but much more formal than he had last
night, as if he had moved from party into business mode.  "It was very
pleasant to make your acquaintance," he said.

John remembered the man's use of the word pleasant in his rather
condescending appraisal of the banqueting hall, and wondered, his heart
sinking a little, if in the banker's eyes the same mediocrity applied to
himself.

"Likewise," John said.

"I may perhaps see you at Ascot today?" It was clear from the way Mr.
Sarotzini spoke that this remark was merely a courtesy and not a serious
invitation to rendezvous.

"I'll keep a look-out for you.  I've remembered the tips you gave me."

"Don't put your house on them," Mr. Sarotzini said.  "But they are worth
a little flutter."

Something about the way Mr. Sarotzini spoke convinced John that he
should bet on these two horses even more heavily than he had already
intended.

There was a brief silence, and then Mr. Sarotzini said, "I have to
return to Switzerland at the weekend.  I wondered if by any chance you
might be free to join me for lunch tomorrow, Mr. Carter?"

John looked at his diary.  Friday, 18 June.  Lunch with his accountant
was marked in.  "Yes," he said.  "I have something I could move, I can
manage that."

"I will come to your office at midday."

"Sure, fine."

"It would be most helpful if you could have prepared for me the last
three years" audited accounts, your forward projections, your cash flow
-and a five-year plan?"

John tried not to give away his excitement in his voice.

Chapter Fourteen

The Venerable Doctor Euan Freer, Professor of Systematic Theology of the
University of London, and Archdeacon Emeritus of Oxford, was the most
intelligent and influential clergyman Fergus Donleavy knew.

Fergus sat, ignoring the broken spring beneath him, in an ancient
leather armchair in the sitting room of Fergus's residence at the
university. It was a masculine room, with battered furniture, threadbare
rags, sagging bookshelves and a small open grate; the sash window was
raised and the sweet air of fleshly mown grass filled the room from the
communal gardens below.

He took a bite of a digestive biscuit, and drank some coffee, savouring
the cool air in here after the blazing heat of the June sun outside.  He
and Freer were old friends and they had been trying to work out how many
years it was since they had last seen or spoken to each other.

Fergus bided his time while they caught up on each other's news.  He
told Freer that the church had kept him looking young (although he did
not tell him that he had become rather plump and that his hair had
turned alarmingly grey) and Freer, in his black cassock, laughed and
told Fergus he wished he looked as fit as him.

If Freer had not elected this vocation, and the vow of celibacy that
went with his Brotherhood, he could have been a devastating womaniser.
He was good-looking, in a swarthy Latin way that caused many people,
including Fergus, to comment on his resemblance to Robert de Niro.

Freer asked Fergus about his books, and what he was currently working
on.  Fergus became a little subdued.  "It's Steven Hawking, Brief
History of Time territory," he explained.  "But it goes a lot further."

"When's it coming out?"

Fergus shrugged.  He had some rewriting to do, he told Freer, and that
was a bitch.

Freer told him about a book he had published a couple of years back on
the history of exorcism in Britain, and the editor who had made him
rewrite whole chunks of it.  They both agreed that editors were a bitch.

Fergus dunked a segment of digestive into his coffee, shook off the
drips and ate it.  "This bloody woman, Susan Carter," he said.  "I like
her, she's bright, but sometimes she drives me nuts.  She doesn't think
the general public are as smart as I do - she tries to get me to explain
things in baby talk."

Freer smiled.  "But you have faith in her judgement?"

"Yes, I suppose - yes, of course I do." Fergus shrugged again.  "I'm
just pissed off, but that's my problem." He pulled out his cigarettes
and offered one to the priest.

Freer shook his head.  "I gave up - just smoke my pipe occasionally.
There's an ashtray beside you." He settled back in his chair while
Fergus lit his cigarette, and watched him with an expectant smile.  He
knew that this visit was not purely social.  "So?" he said.

Fergus drew deeply on the cigarette, tilted his head and blew the smoke
directly up at the ceiling.  "Nietzsche said that sometimes when you
stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back at you."

Freer nodded, his gentle, alert eyes fixed or Fergus.

"Have you ever had a bad feeling, Euan, about something?"

"Like a presentiment?  A premonition?"

"No, it's more than that.  I don't know how to explain it.  I suppose, I
mean, OK, we both agree that the birth of Jesus it did happen in some
way - although we come at it from different directions, right?"

Euan Freer looked at him questioningly, the thread eluding him:

"The Three Wise Men," Fergus said.  "The Magi.  They saw the bright
light
in the sky, right?  The star?  They knew the messiah had been born.
Right?" Freer nodded, unsure where this was going.

Fergus cut the air in front of him with his hand, smoke trailing from
his cigarette like cotton thread.  "I happen to believe the "star" was a
space craft bringing Jesus from another, smarter civilisation.  You
happen to believe that the Virgin Birth brought him.  But that doesn't
matter.  This is what is important: how do you think those three wise
men felt when they saw that star?"

"They felt that something quite extraordinary was happening."

And that whatever it was they sensed was a force of good?"

Freer smiled.  "I wasn't there.  But yes, probably, that's one of the
things they sensed."

"And now it's the end of the millennium and a lot of people have a sense
that something bad will happen.  There's been a raft of predictions
about this, going back a long way."

The cleric poured more coffee.  "How far do you want to go back?
Nostradamus?  The Bible?"

"Further than that, maybe." Fergus stood up and walked around the room,
then leant against the window-sill and peered down into the garden.  A
man with a ponytail was weeding a bed.  "You must believe that I'm being
serious, Euan."

"I always take you seriously, Fergus.  I even defended the paper you
published in Nature."

Fergus turned, startled.  "You read that?  It was about six years ago."
"Of course.  People's auras.  You still believe that we have auras?"
"It's not a question of believing, it's proven scientific fact."

"And you can read people's futures in these auras?"

"No, I can't do that.  It's nothing visual, nothing physical - it's just
a sense I get."

"And how often have you had that sense?"

"Half a dozen times in my life.  The first was before my mother died
-that was clear, I kept seeing the car accident in my dreams, and I saw
the aura of death around her, and it happened exactly as I saw it."

"And now you've had it again?"

Fergus sat down, crushed out his cigarette and told him exactly what he
had sensed, and what he felt it meant.  Freer listened in silence,
without interrupting.  When he had finished, Fergus could not tell from
his friend's expression whether the priest believed him or not.

"Tell me, Fergus," Freer asked, "these feelings you get - how many have
been accurate?"

"All of them."

For what seemed a long time Freer reflected on this.  Then he asked, "Do
you want to tell this woman?"

"I don't have an image.  I don't have anything to tell her."

"Shall we pray for her?"

Fergus had rejected prayer years ago.  And yet now, here with Canon Euan
Freer, it seemed the right thing to do.

They knelt and said the Lord's Prayer aloud together.  Then Freer said,
"Lord, protect this woman."

And Fergus mouthed silently into his cupped hands: "Susan, whatever it
is you are about to do, don't do it.  Please don't do it."

Chapter Fifteen

The three-pointed star on the radiator of Mr. Sarotzini's elderly black
Mercedes Pullman floated with the eerie grace of a gun-sight tracking a
target, as the chauffeur robotically helmed the limousine through the
London traffic.

John, tense and anxious, watched the view through the smoked glass of
the windscreen.  Thirty years ago, this was the kind of vehicle the
dictator of an emerging Third World nation might have bought to
demonstrate his status.  Now, mellowed by age, it had an imposing,
rather noble presence.

The star hovered on a taxi, then on a cyclist in a smog mask, then on a
traffic light.  A smartly dressed woman crossed the road, a scarf
flapping from her shoulders.  It was a dry morning but heavily overcast,
the darkened glass making it seem even more so, and it had turned cold.
With the air-conditioning set uncomfortably low, it felt wintry in the
car.

Mr. Sarotzini seemed a different man altogether from the person John had
sat with at dinner.  He had the same distinguished appearance and
natural air of superiority, and he was again immaculately dressed -
today in a finely tailored grey worsted suit, yellow Hermits tie, and a
complementing yellow handkerchief protruding with flourish from his
breast pocket.  It was his expression that had changed.

At dinner he had exuded all the charm of a bon viveur, a relaxed man
with barely a care in the world.  Today he was hard, remote, chillingly
serious.  The warmth that John recalled, and the sparkling humour, was
gone, and John's attempts to break the ice had so far failed.  He tried
again
now.

"Those two tips you gave me," he said.  "I really am impressed."

Mr. Sarotzini stared out of his side window, as he had for most of the
journey, his long, elegant fingers calmly entwined in his lap.  Even his
voice seemed different today.  At dinner his accent had carried a
charismatic trace of Italian but that had been replaced with an equally
cultured but harsher, guttural Germanic undertow.  "Horse racing is the
sport of kings and fools, Mr. Carter.  If someone gives you a tip and it
wins, you should put it down to coincidence or corruption, no more or
less."

John looked at him, unsure from his tone which of the two applied in
this case.  Both of Mr. Sarotzini's tips at Ascot yesterday had won, the
first at 20 to 1, the second at 15 to 1.  John had bet two hundred
pounds on each, plus a further fifty pounds on a forecast, and had come
away with a twelve-thousand-pound profit.

Yet instead of being thrilled, as Susan had been - she was treating it
as a great omen - he was kicking himself for not having backed the
horses harder.  If he had been bolder (and if he'd had the money
available, which he didn't), he could have solved all his financial
problems on just those two tips.  Except, of course, he couldn't have
taken a risk big enough for that.

"On your balance sheet, you show a capital loss of $48,751 carried
forward two years.  Can you explain this to me?" Mr. Sarotzini asked.

"Yes, of course, it's..." John had to rack his brains.  "It's the way we
treated the depreciation on some computer graphic equipment we bought
from a bankrupt firm.  We acquired shares in the company at the same
time to give us a loss we could carry forward."

"And in last year's accounts there was a note from the auditor about a
payment of 35,687 pounds into an account at the Credit Suisse bank in
Ziirich.  I did not understand what that was in respect of."

This was a little embarrassing for John, although he felt that, as a
Swiss banker himself, Mr. Sarotzini would understand.  "That was part of
our arrangement with the gynecologist Harvey Addison.  He's very
important to us - he hosts our most successful online show.  But the
deal is that we have to lose - hide - part of his salary overseas."

John was increasingly surprised at the extent of the detail Mr.
Sarotzini had remembered.  The banker had no notes and he had spent less
than half an hour in John's office, scanning the figures that had been
prepared for him, yet everything now seemed to be stored in his head.

"This composer," Mr. Sarotzini said.  "Zak Danziger.  Do you think a
quick settlement is possible?"

John considered his reply carefully, and decided it was wisest to be
truthful.  "No, I don't think so.  At least, he might settle but not
cheaply."

He had been concentrating so hard on the questions that he had not
noticed the car pull up.  They got out and entered a club in Mayfair
that had about it an air of discretion.  The Georgian building, off
Curzon Street, had a certain grandeur, but the exterior was in need of a
fresh coat of paint.  There was no doorman, and no name, simply an entry
bell and the number 3 on the door.

Inside, it became evident, from the reverential manner in which he was
treated, that Mr. Sarotzini was well known here, and he warmly greeted
each member of staff by name.  They passed a porter's desk and entered a
large, panelled hall hung with portraits and a row of green baize notice
boards.

The staff were elderly, but all were unctuously polite to John, treating
him, as he imagined they treated all visitors, as if he were the most
important guest ever to have entered these portals.  Yet from the
silence that fell as he followed Mr. Sarotzini through a doorway and
across another hall, he had the impression that he was being studied and
assessed by them all.

The dining room was decorated in Baroque grandeur, with gilded columns
and crystal chandeliers, yet it was not so large that it lacked
intimacy.  Like everything else about this club, the room seemed a
little tired.  The stuccoed ceiling was stained an uneven ochre from
years of rising nicotine, the green velvet curtains had faded badly, and
the nap had worn thin on the carpet.  Even the handful of other diners,
all elderly men dressed in dark suits, looked a little faded.

John was glad that he had dressed conservatively, in a navy suit, white
shirt and a striped golf-club tie that might have passed for an
old-school tie.

He was given a menu, but Mr. Sarotzini was not.  "I always have the
same," the banker said, sitting with a ramrod straight back.  "But
please help yourself, enjoy.  The food here is really quite pleasant."

John ordered smoked salmon and Dover sole.  The salmon arrived almost
immediately, along with a plate of quails" eggs for Mr. Sarotzini.

Mineral water and white Graves were poured.  John raised his wine glass.
"Cheers, your health."

Mr. Sarotzini smiled politely but did not respond, and John put down his
glass.  He said, awkwardly, "This is very nice, this club.  Beautiful
building." Mr. Sarotzini opened his hands expansively.  "I find it
convenient."

"What's it called?"

"The name is private, known only to members.  This is one of the rules."
Mr. Sarotzini smiled again, but his expression seemed to John to have
turned a little frosty.

"How does one become a member?"

Mr. Sarotzini carefully poured a small mound of salt at the edge of his
plate.  "You have an enquiring mind, Mr. Carter.  Please, time is short
today, permit me to ask the questions.  I must make a report about your
business
this afternoon if we are to have a chance of helping you by your
deadline." Of course."

John squeezed lemon onto his salmon, and his eye caught an oil painting
on the wall depicting a group of cherubs picnicking beneath a viaduct.
There was something carefree about it, in contrast to the atmosphere in
this room, and John fleetingly found himself envying those anonymous
characters their simple pleasure.

Mr. Sarotzini cracked a quail's egg on his plate, shelled it, then
dipped it into the salt.  "Tell me, what are your religious convictions,
Mr. Carter?"

John, an atheist, took a moment to think before answering, wondering if
he was stepping into a minefield.  Was this another Clarke?  Was Mr.
Sarotzini a deeply religious man?  "I - I have an open mind," he said
finally. "How open?"

Mr. Sarotzini's eyes were fixed on his now: it was as if the banker
could see into his mind, and that the truth was the only option.

"I suppose I tend to look towards science for explanations, rather than
religion, mysticism or the Paranormal."

"And your wife?"

"She's a believer - a committed Christian."

"How committed?"

"She goes to church.  She used to go every week, but now only
occasionally."

"And does this difference in your beliefs affect your marriage, Mr.
Carter?"

"No, it's not an issue.  I guess we agreed to differ a long time back,
and we hardly ever talk about it."

"Of course.  Forgive me for being so personal."

They ate in silence.  John waited for Mr. Sarotzini to continue, but
with deep concentration the banker began to shell another egg.  John
wondered if he had disappointed him, and whether he should say something
to retrieve the situation.  But then Mr. Sarotzini said, "Forgive me
again for being so personal, but has religion ever entered your
reasoning for not having children?"

John sensed that Mr. Sarotzini was deliberately trying to avoid the
subject of business, but he was anxious to get back to it.  There were
some big deals in the pipeline that he wanted the banker to know about,
and he needed time to explain these in detail as they would
significantly affect DigiTrak's profits over the next couple of years
and make the figures look much better.

"No, that's not an issue.  Susan's pretty relaxed about religion. We're
godparents to a small boy, and I'm happy about that.  It's no big thing
in our lives."

"But your decision not to have children, Mr. Carter, that is a big
thing?" John tried to side-step the question, but Mr. Sarotzini would
not let him, and John found himself getting into the full story of why
he and Susan had decided not to have children.  He was nearing the end
of his Dover sole before he had finished.

Mr. Sarotzini, eating his boiled fish with slow deliberation, commented,
"So it is your family upbringing that is responsible?"

"Yes."

"You had no stability.  Your father drank, he drove a taxicab, he cut
hair, he bought a corner store and lost his savings.  He became a
salesman, then he dropped out and became a shepherd on a remote Scottish
island. Finally he returned home, bitter and angry, and blamed your
birth for destroying his freedom and his marriage."

John felt a lump in his throat.  It still hurt.  Over the years he had
tried to forget it, to confront it, and once he had even tried therapy,
but nothing had worked.

"And then he threw himself beneath an underground railway train?" John
had been at school then in North London, fourteen years old; it had made
the local newspaper.  Kids whispered and pointed; groups fell silent as
he passed them in the playground.  If your father threw himself under a
train, you were tainted with it.  Whatever sickness in the head your
father carried, you carried too.

Stay away from John Carter he might take you under a train with him. The
banker disinterred a bone from his fish.  "And your mother?" he said.
John did not want to tell Mr. Sartozini about his mother.  He thought
about the presents she used to buy him, and the terrible rows she always
had with his father over how much they cost.  He remembered the model of
Apollo 11, when he'd been hooked on the moon landing.  The Action Man.
The model aeroplanes, the encyclopedias, the Lego sets.

It was around her gifts that his childhood had revolved.  They became
his brother and sister, his best friend, his window on the world.  He
huddled in his room, reading, learning, making models, living his life
vicariously through Action Man's hair-raising adventures, and closed his
ears to the moans of his mother with the men who visited her when his
father was out or away, and to her screams when she opened his bedroom
door some days and blamed him for ruining her life.  If he had never
been born their marriage would have been wonderful.

And always he escaped into his fantasy world.  Into board games,
Dungeons and Dragons and, finally, into computers.

He told Mr. Sarotzini a modified, more palatable version of this. Coffee
arrived.  They had discussed no business over lunch and Mr. Sarotzini
was now looking at his slender, old-fashioned Cartier watch. John
reached beneath the table for his briefcase.  "I have copies of the
accounts and projections for you," he said.

The banker pulled a tiny gold dispenser from his pocket and tapped two
sweeteners into his demi-tasse.  "How thoughtful of you, but that will
not be necessary."

John looked at the man, alarmed by his tone.  The hope that had buoyed
him earlier had been dashed on rocks.  Was it something he had said
during lunch?  This sudden change in Mr. Sarotzini was not making any
sense.  He could not understand why the man should have gone to the
trouble he had and then ask him, only about.  his private life and his
background.

As the banker dabbed his mouth carefully with his napkin, then rose from
the table, John wondered whether the man had all his lights on.  Yet he
had remembered incredible details about the accounts and he had not in
any way seemed a fool.

As the Mercedes headed back towards John's office, Mr. Sarotzini sat in
distant silence.  When John tried to steer the conversation back towards
the chances of the V6rn Bank coming on board, Mr. Sarotzini replied,
finally, that the more he had thought about it, the more Zak Danziger
presented a deeper problem than he had at first realised.

By the time they parted company, John was deeply despondent.  Mr.
Sarotzini hadn't taken any paperwork, he couldn't be interested.

The calendar on the computer in John's office told him that he had
eleven days left.  It was Saturday tomorrow, golf with the lads if he
felt up to it.  On Monday morning he would have eight days left.
Gloomily he picked up the receiver and phoned Archie Warren.

Archie had run out of suggestions.

Chapter Sixteen

The cellar was the only part of the house Susan didn't care for.

The heavy, door had sagged on its hinges and she had to give a
backbreaking heave to move it As it scraped open, she was greeted by
dank-smelling darkness.  She switched on the light and went down the
steps, ducking her head.  She particularly didn't like the
claustrophobically low ceiling, or the little spiders that hung around
everywhere in their webs.

She walked past a cluster of old Chianti bottles, lengths of drainpipe,
empty packing cases and a stack of rusty strips of metal, reached the
chest freezer and opened the lid.  It came free with a loud cracking of
ice from the frozen rubber seal and a blast of cold air.  As she peered
at the contents, she cursed her stupidity in not having labelled
anything when she had stocked up.  She lifted out something that might
have been a leg of lamb, searching beneath it for the frozen tiger
prawns she was sure were in here. She pulled out more packets.  Even
this simple task was an effort today: she was too distracted by her
worries to concentrate on anything normal. They had guests coming
tonight, and she usually loved entertaining, but today it was an ordeal.

Last night John had arrived home more miserable than ever.  He'd had
high hopes of the Swiss banker he'd met at the dinner at the Guildhall,
and so had she after the success of the man's racing tips.  But now it
seemed that, like everything else, it had come to nothing.

She jumped as the boiler, at the far end of the cellar, rattled and
thumped into life.  Then she continued to dig, her hands numbingly cold.
Alex and Liz Harrison were coming tonight.  Alex, who had been John's
best man, was marketing director of a large software company and John
was going to pick his brains to see if he could think of any company
that might buy DigiTrak.  Liz was Susan's closest friend in England,
next to Kate Fox, her colleague in the office.

Harvey Addison and his wife, Caroline, were coming too.  Susan didn't
much care for the gynecologist, whom she thought rather precious and
arrogant, but John wanted to keep him sweet.  If DigiTrak went to the
wall, he planned to offer him a partnership in a new venture.

Susan found Caroline pleasant but dull and self-obsessed.  Attractive,
in a Barbie-doll way, her conversation was limited to the walk-in
wardrobes she was having built, the diet she was on, and updates on her
children, on whom she lavished the same Stepford admiration she held for
her husband.  In the five years that Susan had known her, she could not
remember Caroline Addison ever having asked her a question about
herself.

It was Saturday morning and John was on the golf course.  He needed to
relax, and she was glad that at least he was out in the fresh air for a
few hours.  Then he was going on to the office, to meet a liquidator,
someone Archie Warren had suggested, a bit of a rough diamond, according
to Archie.  The liquidator was going to advise him on how to salvage
what he could between now and when the bank pulled the plug.  Nothing
illegal, John told her last night, but his tone had told her something
different.

His desperation was scaring her.  Until this crisis she had always been
able to trust his judgement, but now she was worried that he might do
something that could land him in trouble.  Or worse.  She was beginning
to fear that he might try to kill himself.

Until now John and she had always discussed everything openly, but now
they could hardly communicate with each other.  He had drunk heavily
again last night and had snapped at her when she had tried to talk about
other avenues they could try.  Then he had fallen asleep in front of the
television.

A bad childhood either destroyed you, warped you, or made you strong.
John's had made him strong; his father's failure had made him determined
to succeed, to prove that failure was not in his genes.  He had never
been a quitter, but now he seemed close to becoming one.  From what he
had said last night, she thought he was beginning, alarmingly, to see
the end as a release.

And she could see that, in some ways, it would be a release.  He could
start again, although it would take time for him to get back to where he
was now, or anything close to it, and yes, it would be a wrench, but if
they had to leave this house, she could accept it.  The serious problem
was Casey.

If only her own job were secure.

When.John had asked her to marry him and move to London, only Casey had
made her hesitant about leaving LA.

Tinseltown held mostly images of tragedy for her.  Her father, a
bit-part actor who hadn't had a role in thirty years, earned a living
gassing up the yachts and powerboats of the rich, the famous and the
just plain successful at Marina del Rey.  At the age of fifty, he had
taken up painting, and still dreamed of being discovered, if not as an
actor, maybe now as a water-colourist.  But Susan knew, sadly, that he
wouldn't be.  He had talent but he didn't have drive.

Her mother, whose biggest movie break had been a part riding an elevator
with Clint Eastwood in Dirty Harry, which had been cut in the televised
version, now worked in a ticket booth at Universal Studios and had
stopped dreaming a long while back.

Casey, who was fun, wacky and stunningly beautiful, had dropped a
contaminated Ecstasy tab at a party when she'd just turned fifteen.  She
had lain ever since in a persistent vegetative state in a clinic.
Susan's mother would not allow life support to be switched off, and
Susan and her father, although with some misgivings, had always
supported her decision.

Susan blamed herself for Casey's condition.  In spite of her parents and
friends telling her repeatedly that it hadn't been her fault, she
couldn't help the guilt she carried.  Her parents had gone away for the
weekend and Casey had been invited to a party.  Susan had been reluctant
to let her go but Casey had begged, promising to be home early, and
Susan had relented.

If only...  Susan had thought a thousand times.

For the first five years, Susan had visited Casey for an hour every day.
She had sat by her bed, talking and playing her favourite rock music.
Slowly it had drifted to an hour "every few days, then once a week.

Since she had moved to England, Susan saw her only twice a year.  She
had compensated for this with the knowledge that the money she and John
made in England would enable her to keep Casey in the luxurious clinic
in Orange County rather than have to put her into state care.  Now the
realisation that she might not be able to help Casey was hurting deeply.

Right at the bottom of the last compartment she found the tiger prawns.
As she packed everything back in, she thought about children, suddenly.
Alex and Liz Harrison had four, two boys and two girls, all three years
apart.  Liz was a perfect mother, attentive, intelligent, attractive,
funny, and Susan, who had always preferred flawed people to perfect
ones, was filled with a deep, irrational loathing for her friend.

And with the loathing came the yearning.

She knew it well: it was an ancient enemy that returned to her every few
months, and she had her ways of dealing with it, of talking herself
through it - until the next time.

All the old arguments came out now.  She told herself there were too
many people in the world, that kids killed the romance in a marriage,
destroyed their parents" freedom, cost a fortune to feed and educate,
and anyhow, she and John might not even be able to have them if they did
want them.  She had stockpiled an arsenal of defences but none worked.

The truth was that she loved John and John did not want children.  She
loved her job, too, and that gave her no time to have children even if
she wanted them.  And besides, she was only twenty-eight, she had plenty
of time, John might change.  Somehow, in time, she would make him
change. Or maybe she would change, and go off the idea for good.

And anyhow, in their current situation, children were more unthinkable
than ever.  So why was she thinking about it?  Strongly.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the front.doorbell, right above her
head.  Who was it?  Harry the painter?  He was due to bring a builder
mate to do some odd jobs, like fixing the cellar door.  No, he was away
on holiday, it was next Saturday he was coming.

She hurried up into the hall.  The bell rang again just before she
reached the door.  Then, as she opened it, she remembered.

The tall, rather simple-looking man in the Telecom uniform stood there,
holding a toolbox in one hand and a large sealed pack in the other.  On
the street, parked behind her little Renault, was the Telecom van. "It
is convenient?" he said. "Yes, yes, of course."

"I was worried you had forgotten, perhaps."

"Er - no - I -" She saw him looking at the bag of frozen prawns in her
hand.  "I'm sorry, I was in the cellar.  No, I hadn't forgotten.  A new
circuit board?  Mother board?  Something like that, you said."

"Exactly like that." Klindz smiled.  It felt good, so good, just being
close to her, smelling her again.  No sperm this time, and he was glad
about that; she did not smell as if she had made love to her husband
since he was last here, and he wished desperately that he could reward
her now, here on the doorstep before they even went inside.

Susan, my darling, you have been a good girl.

Chapter Seventeen

Dr. Doomandgloom needs cheering up.  One of the three boxes on the
screen will cheer him up.  Click either of the other two boxes and he
will stamp his feet, burst into tears and pull the lever that will
release the trapdoor on which you are standing.  The trapdoor will drop
you into a stinking sewer, where you will have to negotiate a maze of
tunnels infested with giant mutant rats and man-eating crocodiles to get
out.

One of the boxes tells Dr. Doomandgloom that in your morning break you
ate a chocolate bar; the second tells him you ate crisps; the third that
you ate an apple.  Clicking on the box that tells him you ate an apple
really makes his day.  His eyes light up, his ears wiggle, he bursts
into song and performs a hand-stand followed by a back-flip.

"What do you think?" Gareth asked.  Then, before John could reply, he
added, "It's coming along, right?"

"I think we have a problem," John said, and undaunted by his partner's
look of sullen hostility, continued, "I think kids will be more enticed
to the sewer than seeing Dr. Doomandgloom look happy.  This has been
bothering me for a while."

"We can change it, but it'll delay the launch and we're already behind
schedule," Gareth said, then added petulantly, "None of the teachers who
read the script felt that way."

John was standing over a workstation in the development room.
Twenty-five of his staff were concentrating all around him, and normally
John would have stopped by each" of them in turn for a brief word.  But
today he was trying to avoid eye contact.  Neither did he want to get
into an argument with Gareth.

Cliff Worrols, ponytailed with granny glasses, dressed in the unofficial
DigiTrak uniform of T-shirt and jeans, looked anxiously up at him,
seeking approval of his work on the Doomandgloom graphics.  John nodded
at him.  The program, aimed at getting kids to understand about
nutrition, was fraught with minefields, but he was too distracted to
apply his mind to it.  It was Wednesday, there were just six days left,
and he had decided to break the news to Gareth today, at lunch-time.

He was also going to have to tell him about his meting with the
liquidator, and about the liquidator's salvage plan.  It needed a few
phoney invoices, a bit of backdating here and there, which meant
screwing the creditors, just a little.  John was concerned that Gareth
might have a problem with this, because he was scrupulously honest to
the point of naivet.

He had decided that the way to sell him the idea was by pointing out
that, if they could salvage some cash, they had a chance of starting up
again and paying back those creditors - something John genuinely
intended to do.

He stared again at the graphics on the computer screen, and at Gareth
and Cliff's anxious faces.

Worrols's phone warbled.  He anssered it, and turned to John.  "Stella.
Call for you."

John took the receiver and Stella told him she had Mr. Sarotzini on the
line.  John felt as if he was standing on a rolling floor.  "I'll take
it in my office," he said.  "See you at one, Gareth.  Good work, Cliff!"
He hurried out.

In the sanctuary of his own room, he picked up the receiver, with a
strong image in his mind of the banker as Dr. Doomandgloom.

"Mr. Carter?  You are well, I hope?" Mr. Sarotzini sounded
better-humoured than he had been on Friday, much more the warm, caring
man John had sat next to at the Carmichaels" dinner at the Guildhall
than the drv, cold one with whom he had had lunch.  But he was a bag of
nerves.  "Yes, thank you.  Thank you for lunch last Friday.  I enjoyed
going to your club very much." He'd dropped the banker a thank-you
letter to the PO box address on his card, and wondered if he had
received it.

Mr. Sarotzini did not mention it.  "I'm so glad you enjoyed it.  It was
a pleasure to meet you again and to get to know you a little better. One
can be so private there.  So many places it is difficult to be private,
do you not find?"

"Yes," John said politely, despite his impatience for Mr. Sarotzini to
come to the point.  From the tone of the man's voice, there might be
hope.

"And your quest for funding, Mr. Carter, how's that progressing?"

"We've had some interest," John lied, trying to stop shaking, aware that
he sounded breathless.  "But nothing firreed up yet."

"Ah."

There was a long silence.  John waited for Mr. Sarotzini, but the
silence continued.  "Is - is there any further information you'd like?"
he asked, trying to think of an enticement he could offer.

"No, I think at this stage not.  I have talked to my associates, and
before I took matters further I wanted to establish that your
requirements remain unchanged."

"Yes, they're unchanged." John's brain was racing.  Before I took
matters further.  That sounded positive.  What else could he tell Mr.
Sarotzini? What had he forgotten last week, or had anything changed
since then? "Well, actually, we've had some good business developments,
since we spoke, which might interest you."

"Ah?  Tell me."

"I can't remember if I mentioned - with Microsoft.  It looks like we
could have a terrific distribution deal - the junior version of our Home
Doctor series.  They came back to us on Monday.  It could become part of
a package with their online version of Encarta."

Mr. Sarotzini did not sound as if he had connected with this.  "Good,"
he said.  "Yes, that sounds very good, most encouraging." He was silent
again.  "So, your requirements are exactly as we discussed?"

"Yes, they are."

"No developments with your lawsuit?"

"I'm afraid not."

"Allow me to come back to you, Mr. Carter, in a few days."

It seemed an odd formality that he still did not use John's first name:
it contradicted Mr. Sarotzini's good-natured tone, John thought.  "The
deadline I have with my bank is next Tuesday."

"Yes, of course, I am aware," the banker replied, chidingly.  "How could
I forget a date of such gravity?  But thank you all the same for
reminding me.  I am indebted to you for the opportunity to help you.  We
will speak again before Tuesday."

The phone went dead.

John stared at the receiver in surprise, then replaced it.  He sat
Sarotzini had phoned him - he had not expected to hear from him again
after the banker had expressed his concerns about Zak Danziger.

Feeling a sudden burst of optimism, he phoned Susan to tell her that
there was still hope.  She was in a meeting so could not talk freely,
but he could hear the relief in her voice.  When he hung up, he decided
not to say anything to Gareth after all, until he had heard from Mr.
Sarotzini again.

If he heard from him again.

But he had a feeling he would.  He reckoned Mr. Sarotzini might at least
come up with some kind of proposal rather than give him a flat
turn-down.

That evening, he suggested to Susan that they went to the That
restaurant round the corner.

The owner greeted them like long-lost friends, gave them a powerful free
cocktail each, and plied them with new experimental dishes all evening,
as well as massive brandies on the house afterwards.

It was close to midnight before they finally rolled out, drunk and
giggly and so stuffed they were groaning.  Unkindly John waddied up and
down the pavement outside the house mimicking the restaurateur: "Hawoo,
plizz, you the now, gieen plawns in coconut!"

Susan, hysterical with laughter, hushed him, and dragged him inside.
They tripped out of their clothes, scattering them over the bedroom
floor, and made love for the first time in almost a fortnight.

And Klindz, who had installed a video camera above their bedroom on
Saturday afternoon silently watched them, on the monitor in his attic
room, aroused and angered by the sight of them making love.

It was erotic to see them give oral sex to each other simultaneously,
and then to watch John Carter climb on top of Susan and enter her.  But
it hurt that John Carter was making love to his woman, and it made
Klindz ache to see the expressions on Susan's face, to see her chewing
her husband's ear, to hear the sounds of her breathing, her cries of
pleasure. It hurt him to see how much she was enjoying this.

She rolled John onto his back and sat astride him.  Then the expression
on the man's face became almost too much for Klindz.  But he continued
to watch, as Carter threw back his head and shouted out, his mouth
bursting with yells of pleasure that bordered on laughter, until he
reached his climax.

Finally, his heart heavy, Klindz switched off the monitor.  He hoped
that, one day soon, Mr. Sarotzini would allow him to punish John Carter
for this.

But at least night tine had something that made him happy.  On the table
beside him, among the remnants of his Kentucky Fried Chicken dinner and
empty Coke cans, lay the white envelope with a Swiss postmark, which
contained his gift.

Mr. Sarotzini did things like this sometimes.  Just when Klindz was
feeling really depressed, Mr. Sarotzini would do something for him.  It
was further confirmation that a part of Mr. Sarotzini resided inside his
head, always knowing his mood, sensing if he was down.

Fondling the envelope, Klindz began to hum, softly, to himself.

Chapter Eighteen

Don Giovanni was sinking through the stage floor and down into hell.
Flames erupted all around him, and Klindz smiled.

Hell.

He remembered the words of the writer, T.  S.  Eliot, whose work Mr.
Sarotzini had encouraged him to study.  "Hell is oneself."

And Don Giovanni kept singing, lamenting, as he went down into hell.
Alone.  The huge voice of the tenor filled the auditorium.  This was
great music, and Klindz could not have been happier.  He was sitting at
Glyndebourne, in his box which could have accommodated half a dozen
people but tonight was for his sole pleasure.

Susan Carter would have enjoyed being here with him.  He smiled,
wallowing in the music that cascaded down on him.  Yes, she would have
enjoyed it.  The air was balmy, and rich with the scents of all the
women in their finery.  None of their scents was as good as the smells
of Susan Carter, but tonight Klindz didn't mind.  He had Mozart to make
him happy, he could wait.  It would be soon now.  And then Susan Carter
was going to make him happy for the rest of his life.

That had been a promise made by the man who always kept his word. Beauty
is truth, truth beauty, that is all ye know on earth and all ye need to
know.  Keats, Klindz remembered.  He had been introduced to Keats by Mr.
Sarotzini.

He had been introduced by Mr. Sarotzini to so much beauty.  To this joy
of great music, to the riches of fine painting, to the sensuality of
great food.  And to so much wisdom.  He recalled a film he had once
watched in Mr. Sarotzini's private screening room.  In it, the actors
Joseph Cotton and Orson Welles met in a gondola high in the air above an
amusement park, the Prata in Vienna.  And that was the point at which
Mr. Sarotzini had stopped the film, instructed" him to listen carefully,
then restarted it.

And Orson Welles, who was playing the role of a man called Harry Lime,
turned to Joseph Cotton, angry but restrained, and said: ""In Italy
for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder,
bloodshed - but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the
Renaissance.  In Switzerland they had brotherly love, five hundred years
of democracy and peace, and what did they produce?  The cuckoo clock.""

Then Mr. Sarotzini had stopped the film again, turned to Klindz and
asked him if he understood.  Klindz, who had never dared to lie to Mr.
Sarotzini, told him that no, he did not understand.  Mr. Sarotzini
replied that one day he would.

And now Klindz looked down into the stalls, which were erupting into
applause, as the curtain fell.  People were rising from their seats and
he rose with them, clapped with them and joined in the call, the cry for
the encore.  And he imagined that he was in that gondola, high above the
Prata, he imagined he was Joseph Cotton and that Harry Lime was speaking
to him.

Below, and around him, the audience chanted, "More!  More!  More!" He
chanted as well, and then he wept for joy.  Tears run down his cheeks.
He wept at the sheer beauty, and because of all the emotions the music
had stirred within him, and because of the magnificence of the secret he
kept in his heart.  He wished he could share it with all these people
who had been swept away, like him, by the music.  He wished he could
rush down onto that stage, and hush them all, and call out: It is near,
it is so near!

But Mr. Sarotzini would never have forgiven him.

So instead he contented himself with looking down at them, watching them
clapping, watching the rapture on their faces.  Few noticed him, alone
in his box, none was aware of the true nature of the elation he was
feeling.

None knew of the white envelope in his pocket, the one in which the
ticket for this box had been sent to him.  None knew that to receive a
white envelope from Mr. Sarotzini was an honour for which there was no
equal on earth.

Minutes later Klindz moved through the jostling crowds pressing
themselves into the exits.  Those who noticed him saw a man in a dinner
jacket, a tall guy, built like an American-football quarterback, a
foreigner, perhaps.  They did not hear the special way the music of
Mozart still played on inside his head.  They did not know he had a
white envelope in his pocket.  They could not hear his thoughts, they
could not know the things that Klindz knew, that secret he carried.

They should have been grateful for their innocence.

That was what Klindz thought as he stood outside, waiting for Mr.
Sarotzini's black Mercedes limousine to collect him.

Chapter Nineteen

The wind flailed John's hair, and the spray flecked his sunglasses.  The
prow of Archie's powerboat skimmed across the glassy blue water of the
Solent, heading towards the battlements of the Royal Yacht Squadron and
the entrance to Cowes harbour.  There was a flat, steady drone from the
twin inboard engines, and an occasional smacking thump as they crossed
another boat's wake.

Archie was now Mr. Toad of the waterways.  In his tiny oval sunglasses
and rope-patterned short-sleeved shirt, he sat at the helm, high up in
the open cockpit, surrounded by the monitors and dials of enough
high-tech navigational aids to have enabled a fleet of spacecraft to
circumnavigate the universe.

Behind them, on the sumptuous, white-cushioned sun-deck, Susan and a
striking brunette Spanish model named Pila, Archie's current girlfriend,
lay spread out, sunbathing topless.

Archie dug his fingers into his gin and tonic, pulled out a small piece
of ice and lobbed it at Pila.  It was a bullseye, landing right in her
belly-button. She sat up with a start.  "You bastard!" She lobbed it
hard back, with wild aim, and John had to duck as it went past him and
struck the windscreen.  He could not tell whether Susan, eyes masked
behind her sunglasses, was awake or asleep.  He smiled as Pila waved him
an apology, then turned and continued looking out across the water at
the vast canvas of the hot June afternoon.

There were boats as far as the eye could see, mostly sail-boats, some on
their own, some grouped in races, all motionless, their sails hanging
listlessly, waiting for even the smallest puff of breeze to fill them.

He watched a fort slip past, breathed in the salt, seaweed, ozone tang
of the sea and could not get the thought out of his mind: it was Monday
tomorrow.  And there had been no further phone call from Mr. Sarotzini.

"So," Archie said, suddenly, "you reckon your Swiss connection, this
Sarotzini man, is blowing you out?"

"I'm sure I would have heard back by the end of the week," John said. "I
did a search on his bank for you," Archie said. "You did?" John was
surprised.

"Uh huh.  The V6rn, right?  V-6-r-n?" Archie spelled it. "Yes.  Thanks,
what did you find?"

"Goose eggs."

"Goose eggs?"

"Zilch.  But that doesn't necessarily mean much.  V6rn could be its
trading name - it might be registered as something different."

The boat thumped hard through the heavy wake from a ferry and spray
fogged John's sunglasses.  He removed them and wiped them, with only
moderate success, on his salty T-shirt.

"Half my clients are banks that only exist on paper," Archie continued.
"You try to trace them back, you end up with nominee directors in
Liechtenstein who are working for nominee directors in Panama, who are
working for the subsidiary of a shell that's registered in the Cayman
Islands.  Classic Mafia money-laundering technique."

John frowned.  "Think this could be Mafia?"

"Do you?" Archie threw the question back at him, and shook out a
cigarette.  He lost his concentration as he reached into a cubby-hole
for his lighter and the boat veered off-course, then rolled sharply as
he overcorrected.  Some of John's gin and tonic slopped out of the
glass.

"I hadn't thought about "This Sarotzini character.  Sounds sort of
Italian.  Is he Italian?"

"No, I assumed he was Swiss, I suppose, I don't know.  His accent is
more German than Italian."

"I can't find anything on him, either.  Nobody's heard of him."

"Is that unusual?"

"There are players who keep a low profile.  Might not be his real name
-you didn't ask him?"

"Oh, sure," John said, with a grin, taking a long pull on his drink.
"First thing I said to him, Arch - "Can I borrow a million quid and, by
the way, is that your real name?""

Archie grunted, his concentration distracted by a flashing orange blip
on one of his navigation screens.  "Don't know what the fuck that
means," he said, twiddling a couple of knobs.  He called up a help menu
and began to study it.  "Keep an eye out ahead."

"I am." John scanned the water: at the speed they were going, sail-boats
came up fast.

Still studying the menu, and fiddling with more dials and buttons now,
Archie said, "It's a long shot, but I've got an Arab client who's
looking for technology companies to buy.  I've given you a hard sell."

"Thanks.  Did he bite?"

Archie hesitated.  "No, I wouldn't say that, but he didn't turn you down
flat.  He's in the frame.  How're you getting on with Big Jim?"

That was the liquidator Archie had recommended.  John had signed and
carefully filed away a load of phoney, backdated documents Big Jim had
helped him prepare, and he was nervous: it was the first time he had
ever done something fraudulent, although the liquidator had assured him
that this went on all time, that it was almost standard practice for any
company going down the tubes.

Archie's Arab didn't sound much of a prospect and John suspected that
his friend had only mentioned it to try to keep up his morale.  He was
dreading tomorrow and all that the coming week was going to bring.
Dreading it.  He was going to have to tell Gareth and the rest of his
staff, although he was going to have one final last-ditch attempt at
reaching a deal with Zak Danziger.  He had asked his lawyer to set up a
meeting for tomorrow, to try to persuade Danziger that if DigiTrak did
go to the wall there would be nothing at all for him.

He wasn't looking forward to that meeting either.  Next to the subhuman
Clarke, Danziger was probably the most unpleasant person John had ever
met.

"Got it!" Archie said suddenly.  "The orange blip.  It's an aeroplane
going overhead!"

"Well, that's useful to know," John said.

Archie gave him a sideways glance, unsure whether he was being serious
or taking the mickey.

John was normally at his desk before eight o'clock, but on this Monday
he'd dragged his feet while getting ready.  Susan, her voice heavy with
emotion, had wished him lots of luck and, unusually for her, had set off
for work before him.

Because he had left late, he got caught up in heavier traffic, and it
was nine fifteen before he reached the office.  Stella greeted him with
the news that Mr. Clarke had phoned and needed to speak to him urgently.

"Fuck him," John snapped, startling her.  He slammed the door behind
him, hung up his jacket, then sat at his desk and switched on his
computer.  A stack of post awaited him and another of e-mail, none of
which he had any enthusiasm to tackle.  His back and the tops of his
shoulders were raw - sunburned yesterday on Archie's boat.

Why had Clarke rung?  To remind him of what he already knew, that he had
just two days left to his deadline?  To gloat?  Calming down a little,
he buzzed Stella and asked her to get the bank manager for him.

Moments later, Clarke was on the line.  He did not sound like the same
Mr. Clarke John had met almost a month ago.

"Mr. Carter," he said.  "This is a very encouraging development!"

John wondered if the man had misheard his secretary and thought he was
talking to someone else.  The only encouraging development he could
think of was either that Clarke was terminally ill or that he was
leaving the bank.  What the hell was he talking about?  "Which
development exactly do you mean?" he asked, cautiously.

"The one and a half million pounds from the V6rn Bank." It was Clarke's
turn to sound a little strange!

John heard the words but took several moments to comprehend them. "The
V6rn Bank?" he echoed, finally his pulse starting to race.

Some of the good humour evaporated from Clarke's voice.  "You do know
about this, I presume, Mr. Carter?"

"Yes - I - I -" John started to bluff.  "I've been in negotiation with
them, but -" He wasn't sure how to go on, and was almost too excited to
think clearly.  "I wasn't expecting the funds quite yet."

"I have explicit instructions from a Mr. Sarotzini.  The sum of one
point five million pounds has been transferred from the VOrn Bank in
Geneva in Switzerland and lodged in a temporary account they have opened
with us, pending transfer to DigiTrak when documentation has been
completed. The V6rn Bank has indicated to us that they anticipate the
transfer should occur by the end of this week.  In view of the
circumstances, Mr. Carter, should it be necessary, I am prepared to
allow you a few days" grace on my bank's original deadline."

John could not believe that this was happening.  He wanted to throw his
arms around Mr. Sarotzini and hug him.  Tears were welling in his eyes,
and his voice was choked.  He swallowed, trying to compose himself, not
wanting Clarke to know that this was a complete surprise.

"Thank you," he said, pausing again to control his voice.  "I appreciate
the extension."

"No bank likes to see a valued customer go out of business," Mr. Clarke
said.  "I can assure you, Mr. carter, that no one is more delighted by
this news than myself."

"I'm sure," John replied, swallowing the man's hypocrisy.  Right now he
was filled with almost as much gratitude towards him as he was towards
Mr. Sarotzini.

Just after he put down the receiver on Mr. Clarke, the phone buzzed.  It
was Stella.  She had Mr. Sarotzini on the line.

"I've just had a call from my bank," John said to him.  "Thank you - I'm
just incredibly grateful."

Mr. Sarotzini replied, in a tone that was coldly formal, "We have
deposited these funds, Mr. Carter, to demonstrate our good faith.  You
have yet to agree to our terms."

John barely heard him.  He was thinking about Susan's face when he told
her the news, about how he was no longer going to have to say anything
to Gareth or his staff, about the house that they were going to be able
to keep, after all.  He didn't care about terms, he was going to have to
accept them.  "Of course," he replied.

"Are you and your wife free to join me at my club for dinner tonight,
perhaps?"

"My wife?" John said, a little surprised.

"Yes, I should like to meet her."

It struck John as an odd request, but he and Susan had no plans, he was
certain, and even if they did they'd have to cancel them.  "Sure, yes -
I -I'm sure she would be delighted."

"Good," Mr. Sarotzini said.  His voice was still cold, but John hardly
noticed.  "My driver will collect you both from your home at seven
thirty this evening."

John was so elated, and his brain was in such a whirl, that all he
wanted to do right now was call Susan and tell her the news.  It did not
occur to him that he had never given Mr. Sarotzini his home address.
"Seven thirty," he said.  "Perfect."

Chapter Twenty

It was quiet in Mr. Sarotzini's club, and John wondered whether the
establishment was more of a lunchtime venue than an evening one.
Although, of course, it was a Monday night.  Only a few tables were
occupied, and many were not even laid.  One elderly steward was
occupying himself by aligning the CUtlery on a.nearby table.

"The Napa Valley," Mr. Sarotzini said.  "Yes.  The French have much
reason to be grateful to the Americans.  When phylloxera destroyed so
many of the great vines of Bordeaux in the 1880s, they were replanted
with rootstock from the East Coast. You have been to any of the wine
regions, Mrs. Carter?  You know the Napa Valley?"

They were in an alcove, which could not have been" more private.  John
stared at Mr. Sarotzini across a small cut-glass vase of yellow
carnations. The banker was eating quails" eggs.  Susan, who had a plate
of Parma ham and melon, told him that she had been there.

She looked stunning tonight, and John felt more proud of her than ever
before.  She was wearing a new suit, which she had rushed out and bought
after he had phoned her the good news; the jacket was stone-coloured
with black abstract markings, and the matching skirt was plain and
elegant.  Under the jacket she had on a simple white open-necked blouse,
and a silver pendant on a velvet band round her throat.  She always
dressed well, but he had never seen her look classier.

Mr. Sarotzini reeled off a list of towns, villages, vineyards, and Susan
responded enthusiastically.  She talked about soil, escarpments, canyons
and valleys, about specific density, alkaline soil, late harvesting, and
John remembered now that a couple of years ago she had edited a book on
Californian wines, a technical, scientific guide to the industry.

Mr. Sarotzini raised his wine glass and said, "Forsake not an old
friend, for the new is not comparable to him.  A new friend is as new
wine; when it is old, thou shalt drink it with pleasure."" He stared
pointedly at her. "Ecclesiastics," she responded.

Mr. Sarotzini smiled.  "Remarkable." He turned to John.  "You have a
remarkable wife, Mr. Carter.  You are aware of this?"

Susan laughed freely.  "He needs reminding sometimes!"

John grinned.  He peeled a quail's egg, dipped it into some salt and ate
it.  He'd never tried one before, and had decided that if Mr. Sarotzini
ate these for lunch every day, they must be special.  But it was
disappointing. It tasted, in his view, as bland as any ordinary
hard-boiled egg.

Susan was enjoying herself: she had taken an instant liking to Mr.
Sarotzini.  She loved his elegant appearance, his old-world courtly
charm, his cultured voice, the humorous twinkle in his eyes, although
she was finding it hard to put an age on him.  At one moment his
features looked delicate to the point of frailty, particularly in the
way he ate, taking tiny mouthfuls of his shrimps and bread and butter,
chewing slowly like an elderly man nervous of choking.  But at the next
there was an assured, confident flow in the way he moved, in the way his
manicured hands gestured animatedly as he conversed, and in the power
that his erect, lean body radiated.  It was then that she could see a
deep strength within him, the grace and power of a lion.

This was a man she would have loved to have had as an uncle, or a
grandfather.  He had so much knowledge, exuded such passion for life:
she felt she could talk to him for ever.

The conversation moved from wine to opera.  John disliked opera.  He
knew Susan loved it but, even so, her savvy surprised him as she talked,
well able to keep up with Mr. Sarotzini whose encyclopedic knowledge of
wine was nothing compared to his authority on opera.  John found himself
a bystander, left out of the conversation, but he didn't mind. This was
brilliant, he thought.  Susan and Mr. Sarotzini were hitting it off
famously, she was impressing the man, sho was winning this battle for
the money single-handed.

John peeled the last of his eggs while they compared Rimsky-Korsakov
operas, each enthusing about their own favourite, and then, over lamb
cutlets, they moved on to ballet.  John knew even less about ballet and
loathed it even more than opera.

He could see in Susan's eyes that she was captivated.  She had gone
beyond a mere show of good manners, of common courtesy to her husband's
potential business associate.  She had really connected with the man.
Mr. Sarotzini was making plans (with John's permission, of course, he
said, with a smile he would like to take Susan for lunch one day soon,
and afterwards show her his favourite gallery, a room where there were
paintings from the Renaissance of which few knew.  And, perhaps, one
evening a concert?  And Glyndebourne before the end of the season. John
must come to Glyndebourne as "well; they would see something accessible,
Mozart, perhaps, Don Giovanni - would John care to see Don Giovanni?

John was aware, suddenly, that both Susan and Mr. Sarotzini were looking
at him, awaiting the answer to a question he had not heard.  "I'm
sorry," he said, "I was miles away."

"Mr. Sarotzini is inviting us to Glyndebourne," Susan said, "Don
Giovanni? I think you'd enjoy it, it's not heavy."

John thought that he'd rather spend an evening in hospital, having his
gall bladder removed without an anaesthetic, than have to sit through an
opera, but he didn't say this.  Instead he replied politely, "I'd be
delighted."

After dinner they went through: into the club's large drawing room,
which they had to themselves, and settled into wing-back leather chairs.
Coffee arrived, and Mr. Sarotzini insisted John had a brandy.  He
ordered one for himself as well.  John hesitated as a box of Montecristo
cigars was offered, then selected one, acknowledging Susan's glance
which had said, "Go ahead, you're allowed this!" The banker selected one
too.

The conversation had moved to the English romantic poets.  Mr. Sarotzini
favoured Shelley, and quoted "Ozymandias, King of Kings", in its
entirety and, from John's memory, word perfect.

With literature, John was On better terrain: he could get a toehold into
the conversation here.  But he was beginning to feel agitated.  Not one
word of business had been spoken the entire evening, and he wanted to
steer the conversation around to this now, while Mr. Sarotzini was in
such good humour.  All his instincts were telling him that this would be
a smart time to negotiate.

As if he sensed this, Mr. Sarotzini shifted his position in his chair.
For some moments, he worked on his cigar, puffing out several thick
clouds of smoke; then, careful not to disturb the half inch of ash, he
rested it in the ashtray.  He picked up his brandy balloon, and cradled
it in both hands, his fingers outstretched around the contours of the
glass as he seemingly studied the contents.  "I'm glad," he said, "that
we are able to feel so comfortable together."

He gave each of them in turn a piercing stare that made John feel
uneasy.  "It is so pleasant to have so many interests in common." The
banker smiled, an easy, warm smile.  "There is something else we have in
common also."

John watched Mr. Sarotzini expectantly, sucking on his cigar, trying to
draw it back into life.  It was the first he had smoked in several years
and he was enjoying the taste but it was making his mouth hot and
parched.

"You see, Mr. and Mrs. Carter, you are childless.  My wife and I are
also childless, but there is a difference.  You are childless by choice,
my wife and I by unfortunate circumstance." He paused to sip a little
brandy, and there was sadness in his voice when he spoke again.  "My
wife is unable to conceive or bear a child, the result of a cancer
operation some years ago."

John glanced at Susan and saw her looking at the banker with apparent
sympathy.  Susan was again trying to work out his age.  He must be in
his late fifties, she thought, at the very least, and could be quite a
bit older than that.  Perhaps his wife was much younger.

Circling the rim of his glass with his index finger, as if he were
stroking a cat, Mr. Sarotzini said, "This is my proposition.  I am
prepared to give you, Mr. Carter, the one million pounds you require to
pay off your bank, together with the five hundred thousand necessary to
pay off the mortgage on your house, by way of the V6rn Bank acquiring a
fifty-one percent equity stake in your business."

Mr. Sarotzini paused to pick up his cigar and John's brain raced.  On
the surface, this seemed fair, far more so than he had been expecting. A
bank taking an equity stake in a business would customarily want around
thirty to thirty-five percent but, under the circumstances, and
considering that no bank would normally allow any such investment money
to be used for private purposes, the deal seemed, the more he thought
about it, incredibly generous.

Then Mr. Sarotzini continued.  "In exchange for this, I would like you
to be the surrogate parents for the child my wife and I cannot have." He
drew hard on his cigar and blew a long plume of smoke up at the stuccoed
ceiling.

John looked at him, unsure that he had heard correctly.  He caught
Susan's eye and saw the same uncertainty.  "Surrogate parents?  How
exactly do you mean?"

Mr. Sarotzini stared John straight in the eye.  "Mrs. Carter would be
artificially inseminated - in a clinic, of course - with semen provided
by myself.  She would act, until the birth of the baby, as its natural
mother. Then you would hand over this child to my wife and me."

John turned to Susan.  She had gone white and looked rigid with
disbelief.  What the hell's going on here?  Susan was signalling.  And
John signalled back that he had no answer.  Something deep inside him
had gone cold, as if he had been given a lifeline, which had been
cruelly snatched away before he could reach it.  He could not believe
what the man had said.

Susan asked unsteadily, "Why?  I mean, why me - us?" She was in turmoil,
trying to read the expressions on her husband's and Mr. Sarotzini's
faces.

As if anticipating this, Mr. Sarotzini said, calmly, "Mrs. Carter, let
me assure you that your husband was wholly unaware of this proposition.
Please believe that there has been no conspiracy between us over this."

Trying to think clearly through her shock, Susan wanted to say something
that would keep the deal alive for John.  There must be hundreds of
women who would be prepared to have a surrogate child for money.  If
that was what the banker wanted, she could find someone, there were
organisations in America she had read about.  "This isn't something I'd
want to do, but i'll be very happy to help you find someone," she said,
sounding calmer than she felt.

Mr. Sarotzini smiled.  "Mrs. Carter, to choose a parent for one's child
when one's criteria are high is.not an easy matter.  Good looks are
required, a sound medical history, high intelligence.  You have all
these qualities."

She rounded on him, unable to hold back the flash of anger at his casual
arrogance.  "Oh, yes?  How do you know I have these qualities? How do
you know I don't have a wonky circuit in my brain, or some inherited
disease?"

The banker allowed her the outburst with no hint of rancour.  "Because -
forgive me the intrusion - I have done the necessary checking on you."
He gave a placatory smile and raised his hands.  Then his voice became
profound and sincere.  "Mrs. Carter, I appreciate that what I am asking
of you carries an enormity of implications and emotions.  I am not
expecting an answer from you tonight, and I would not like one tonight.
This is something you must think over very carefully, and that you must
discuss privately between yourselves, that you must be absolutely
certain about before giving an answer."

Susan turned to John again and said, accusingly, "What have you told him
about me?  What have you said?"

"Nothing, darling." He shook his head and said weakly, "Nothing.  I
didn't know anything about; this."

There was a long silence.  Unable to face Mr. Sarotzini's stare, Susan
looked anywhere but at him.  She studied the paintings, the faded
curtains, the furniture, the badly worn carpet.  Frightened, and feeling
desperately insecure, she slipped her hand down the side of her chair,
searching for John's, wanting to feel it, to hold it, but it wasn't
there.

In the back of the Mercedes as they travelled home, she held John's
hand, and then suddenly she pulled away from him, leaned against the
window, feeling the cold glass on her cheek, and the sensation of the
darkness and the lights gliding silently by, beyond.

There was just the driver and themselves.  Mr. Sarotzini had remained at
his club, and maybe he was staying there, she wasn't sure, she didn't
register his plans, she was just relieved to have got away from him. She
had a strong urge to tell John to stop this car, she wanted to get out,
determined not to be in Mr. Sarotzini's pocket one second longer. But
she checked herself Her heart was pounding.  She was angry with John, he
had set this up, he must have known about it.  John and Mr. Sarotzini
had been planning this.

Why the hell hadn't he told her?  Had he really thought she was just
going to sit there and say, "Yes, of course, darling, anything to help
the business?"

Suddenly she hated him.

Since they left the club John had barely spoken.  He put an arm round
her now and tried to pull her towards him, but she did not budge.  HonI
'm sorry, I had no idea.  No clue.  You have to believe me."

His voice sounded so small, so miserable, so helpless.  Maybe he was
telling the truth, after all.  She took his hand again and held it,
squeezed it, squeezed her rock, and her rock squeezed back.

She thought about how they had set out so happily this evening, and
about the hopelessness of the mess they were in.  The takeover of
Magellan Lowry and the job she might no longer have in a month's time.
DigiTrak.  The house.  Casey.

One and a half million pounds.

Nine months was not that long.  And, who knows, she might not get
pregnant anyway.  If she tried, perhaps Mr. Sarotzini would let them
keep the money.  And it wasn't that big a deal to have a baby.  What the
hell? She could have the baby, it would be taken arid they'd have their
life back.

And then she started to think how having this baby would affect their
love for each other.  Her carrying another man's child.  Could it ever
be the same between them again?  She turned to John and looked at his
face.  She loved this man so much.  He was her world.  Was anything
worth risking this love for?

And John, sitting in his silence, was turning the same thoughts over in
his mind.  He was trying to gauge how he'd feel seeing Susan with
another man's sperm inside her, another man's child growing inside her,
and the notion upset him.  He was angry with Mr. Sarotzini, angry about
the way in which he had been manipulated and had been made to look a
fool in front of his wife.

"It's out of the question," he said.

Chapter Twenty-one

"Einstein said, "I want to know how God created this world.  I am not
interested in this or that phenomenon.  I want to know His thoughts, the
rest are details.""

That was fine, Susan did not have a problem with it.  She read on
"Einstein said, "People like us, who believe in physics, know that the
distinction between past, present and future is only a stubbornly
persistent illusion.""

She rubbed her tired eyes.  Her whole body felt weary today after a
restless night of lying awake, tossing and turning, churning Mr.
Sarotzini's proposal over and over in her head.

One moment she decided that as John had never wanted a family, this
might be her only chance to experience childbirth; at the next the
thought of being impregnated by someone else, however clinically, filled
her with horror.  And the knowledge that she would have to live with
that not just for the nine months of the pregnancy but for the rest of
her life made her decide each time that no, she could not possibly do
it.

In the corridor outside her tiny office an animated conversation was
taking place about a copy-edit deadline on a book that was being rushed
into print.  Susan sat surrounded by piles of manuscripts.  She chugged
down some coffee, then noticed the flashing icon on her computer, and
checked her e-mail; it wasn't important, just a memo about a two-week
shift in a publication date.

It was pelting outside.  Hard summer rain lashed the rooftop that was
her view; high above it, a crane was swinging a steel girder across the
slate-grey sky.  She liked this attic office.  Magellan Lowry had moved
into this building over seventy years ago, and most of the offices, like
her own, appeared not to have been redecorated since.  But it didn't
matter, it added to the character of the place, to the pleasure of
coming here.  Cracks in the walls, gaps where chunks of plaster had come
away and ugly damp stains were all pasted over with jacket designs,
cartoons and photocopies of brilliant reviews.  And how many other
people in London, she wondered, had a working gas fire in their office?"

She turned her attention back to Fergus Donleavy's manuscript, but
almost immediately her phone rang.  It was her secretary, Hermione, a
seriously bright Sloane whom she shared with Kate Fox, telling her that
Mark Rivas was on the phone.  It was the second time he'd rung this
morning, and he had said it was urgent.

She took the call.  "Hi, Mark," she said.  "Sorry I didn't get back to
you, got stuck in an editorial meeting that went on longer than I
expected."

Mark Rivas was an agent she particularly liked.  He had the knack of
finding good new science writers with original ideas, and he had a
finger on the pulse of what was wanted.

"How's things?" he asked.  "What's the latest on...?"

He didn't need to finish the sentence.  Everyone had their own personal
shorthand for the takeover of Magellan Lowry, and this was his.

"Not much change in the last week.  Rumours about job losses still
flying.

Denials in the trade press."

I saw."

"So?" she said.

"Susan, I have a hot new writer, name of Julian DeWytts, Dr. Julian
DeWytts.  He's stunningly good-looking, very charismatic, and is hosting
his own seven-part series on genetics for BBC 2 this autumn, called The
Gene Lottery.  He's written an accessible book on inherited diseases,
and I thought of you immediately."

Me and how many others?" she asked, good-humouredly. "Four," he said,
which, Susan knew, probably meant eight. "Is there a floor?"

"It's going out to everyone simultaneously."

"And what kind of money are you looking for?"

"A lot," he said.

Susan was a little dubious.  "There's already been a ton of stuff on
genes and inherited diseases," she said.  "Steve Jones has covered the
territory pretty thoroughly, in his books and on television.  And
Dawkins."

"Julian's in a different leagUe.  Take a look at the manuscript - you
won't be disappointed."

She told him she would, and promised that if she was interested she
would get back to him with an offer within ten days, mentally shifting
further back into the future the other five manuscripts she had to read.

Then she started to concentrate again on the first six chapters of
FergUs Donleavy's rewrite.  He was anxious to hear if she felt he was
now on the right track.  She struck her pencil through the second
Einstein quotation, putting a note in the margin, which said:

"Not necessary, you already made this point on page 28." Then she added,
because her tiredness was making her feel punchy today, "I'm not even
sure this entire chapter's necessary.  What does it contribute?"

Kate came in, holding a book.  She was a couple of years older than
Susan, married to an economics researcher, and had two children.  Tall
and well-built, Kate had a booming, jolly personality, and a handsome
face beneath a bob of straight brown hair.  Susan liked her because she
was one of that rare breed of people who are totally unfazed by anything
life throws at them.

Kate was the first person in whom she had confided when she and John had
decided to buy the house - and they had snuck down to see it in an
extended lunch hour.  Kate thought the place was wild, and loved it.
"This the one you meant?" Kate asked.

Susan looked at the cover.  It was a photograph of a pregnant woman's
abdomen, except, as if by X-ray, the foetus was visible inside, snugly
curled up.  The book was titled Pregnancy - The Myths and the Reality,
by Dr. Maria Ariscombe.

Susan turned it over, glanced at the back of the jacket, then looked up
at Kate.  "It's the one you edited, right?"

"It's brilliant.  She's a terrific communicator.  I found it really
helpful myself- it's the best guide to pregnancy." Kate gave Susan a
quizzical look, then smiled.  "Hey!  Is there something you're not
telling me here?"

Susan shook her head, but could not prevent herself blushing.  "It's for
a friend."

She waited until Kate had left her office, then pushed Fergus Donleavy's
manuscript to one side, opened the book and started to read.

"So?" Archie said, as he padded, naked, across the cork matting into the
men's shower room, sweat was running off him.  John was looking at
Archie's flesh.  Great flaps hung from his belly; he was beginning to
develop a figure that would make a Sumo wrestler proud, and yet he had
just thrashed John on the squash court.  Trounced him.

Archie turned on the shower, adjusted the temperature, tilted his face
up into the spray.  "Tell me your friend Sarotzini's terms."

John's lungs were aching - he had really tried in this game today.  But
his mind hadn't been on it.  "They're crazy," he said.  "I mean, the
guy's not in the real world."

Archie soaped his hair.  "You seem pretty pissed off with him."

"I am pissed off with him.  He made me look a fool."

"So what does he want to do?  Sleep with Susan?"

John had been on the verge of telling Archie, but he held back.  What
if-and he knew it was a crazy notion - but what if they decided to
accept Sarotzini's terms?  Susan wouldn't want any of their friends
knowing, and neither would he.  And, in any case, someone else had come
into the shower room.

"No, not that kind of a scene.  It's - it's guarantees," John said.
"Percentages.  Control."

Archie turned off the shower and began to towel his hair.  "Better to
have ten percent of something than a hundred percent of nothing, isn't
it?"

John did not reply.  As he sat on the locker-room bench, tying his shoe
laces, Archie sat down beside him and patted his thigh gently.  "Listen,
it might not seem that great a deal, after you've had this long run
owning the business yourself and doing what you please.  But this is the
real world, John, and few people get to hang on to their businesses.
Sarotzini is offering you a deal.  Would it enable the business to
survive?"

John nodded.

"Would it enable you to keep your house?"

John hesitated.  "Yes."

"Would you be able to draw out the same income you're currently
getting?"

"I don't know, I presume SO."

"Do you get to keep shares?"

"Yes."

"Then what the fuck are you worried about?  Go for it!  Bite the man's
hand off!"

They dressed, went up to the bar, and ordered their usual beers.  John
drank his straight down and requested another.  Archie, puffing on a
cigarette, reminded him that Mr. Sarotzini was the only game in town.

John knew this.  He'd lain awake thinking about it all last night, and
he'd been thinking about it all day today.  Susan had.  told him this
morning that she could do it.  Sure, she could do it.  He wouldn't be
affected, physically, but. And that was where his thoughts hit the
buffers each time.

After her initial anger had subsided, Susan seemed to have taken the
proposition better than he hid, and he admired her for that.  But he
didn't know how she felt now about motherhood.  They hadn't talked about
it for a long time, and on the rare occasions he'd thought the subject
might rear its head, he had quickly steered the conversation away.  Did
she still feel the same way as he did?

He suspected not.  When they had got engaged, he'd tried to encourage
her to be sterilised, but she'd resisted.  He had made no big deal about
that, and she took the pill instead.  But he had seen the way she had
been looking at babies recently.  The way she had held Liz and Alex's
new baby at their barbecue last week.  The way she doted on Kate Fox's
two small children.  Maybe Sarotzini's proposition had touched a nerve
inside her. That this would give her the chance to experience pregnancy
and, perhaps, to be a fulfilled woman.

Did he still feel the same way?

Uncomfortable, suddenly, he tore that thought straight out of his mind,
balled it up, threw it in the bin.  Are you going crazy, John Carter?

But the money was sitting there.  One and a half million pounds under
Mr. Clarke's lock and key.

All they had to do was say yes.

But Archie didn't know the truth.

Chapter Twenty-two

John stayed downstairs long after Susan had taken her manuscript up to
bed.  He went out into the garden and sat there for a while, Archie's
advice resounding in his head.  The skies had cleared and the air was
fresh and cool.  Then he went into the kitchen and poured himself a
whisky on the rocks.  Gloomily he looked at a pile of
interior-decorating magazines, that, only a month ago, they had been
leating through, tearing out pages of anything that interested them.

At last he went upstairs, dragging his weary legs up each step.  Susan
was sitting up in bed in a baggy white T-shirt, reading the manuscript.
He could tell that she was finding it hard to concentrate.

As he came in she smiled, her face pale with tiredness and stress.  Some
loose strands of hair, which she hadn't bothered to flick away, hung
down over her forehead.  She looked so vulnerable, and he felt an almost
overwhelming tenderness towards her.  She was so lovely.  He adored her.
There hadn't been a day, an hour, a moment since they'd met when he had
faltered in his love for her.  Susan was everything to him.

He still had the card in his briefcase that she'd given him soon after
they were married.  There was a soppy-looking bear on the front, and
inside was printed: I LOVE YOU MORE THAN I DID YESTERDAY, BUT NOT AS
MUCH AS I WILL TOMORROW."

And he felt the same way.  After seven years, he still found himself
loving her more every day.

Mr. Sarotzini's presence hung in the air so strongly, it could have been
written on the walls in Dayglo lettering.  All evening, between long
silences in which Susan had read and John had channel-surfed the
television, they had talked about Mr. Sarotzini's offer.  Shortly before
going up to bed, Susan told him that she would do it.  John had not
replied.

Now he sat on the end of the bed.  He was still holding the tumbler and
shook the ice cubes around before he drained the last of the whisky.
"There's no way," he said.  "I'm telling him no.  I could get the
backing to start again, and you can get some freelance work if you lose
your job. And if we lose the house, we lose it.  What the hell?  We were
happy before in our little house.  Right?"

"And Casey?" she said.

The way she said the name startled him.  It was a rebuke.  It was a
reminder that, to Susan, Casey mattered more than anything else
-including him.

He remembered all the times he had sat with Susan at Casey's bedside in
the clinic.  That stunning apparition, lying there, ventilator tube
cannulated into her windpipe, drip line in her wrist.  Her eyes were
mostly closed, and even when they were open she couldn't see the fine
view of the canyon right outside her window, and she was never going to
see it. He knew in his heart, but dared not say it, that it would make
no difference to Casey whether she was in a state home or a luxury
clinic. Casey had no idea where she was; she was never going to know
where she was.

In the morning, Susan sat at the breakfast table, The Times unopened in
front of her, toying with a grapefruit.  She looked up at John, who was
spooning yoghurt onto his cinnamon crunch cereal.

"You'll tell him," she said.  "Hon?"

He pushed a slice of wholemeal bread into the toaster.

"Please?" she said.  "If it's not for us, it's for Casey, OK?"

But it was not OK.  John had made up his mind too.  He was not going to
put either of them through this humiliation.  Mr. Sarotzini must have a
heart, he was thinking.  Perhaps he could buy time by dangling the bait
that he and Susan might agree at some point in the future if he would
help DigiTrak now.

He rummaged around inside The Times and pulled out the Interface
section, which he propped against a tub of Flora.  They just needed
time.  If the Microsoft deal came good they would be out of the woods -
a couple of months, tops, that was all they needed.

Avoiding Susan's eye, he scanned the pages of computer and Internet
technology, forcing each mouthful down to give himself some energy,
aware that he was feeling a little weak from having eaten barely
anything lately.

He needed to be alert today.  In his judgement, he would get just one
shot at bringing Mr. Sarotzini round.  It was not going to be easy.

He gulped down his apple juice, his vitamin pills, his tea, then kissed
Susan goodbye.

"You're going to say yes?" she pleaded.

"I'll sort something out," he said grimly, and left.

At five past ten Mr. Sarotzini telephoned John and asked if they had
come to a decision.

In spite of his preparation, John found himself breaking out in a
nervous sweat, and shaking.  "I'd like to meet," he said.  "I have a
proposal to put to you."

His reply was greeted by a long silence.  When Mr. Sarotzini spoke
again, his tone was icy.  "My car will collect you from your office at a
quarter to one, Mr. Carter.  We will lunch at my club, which I trust
will be convenient."

John wondered if he ever ate anywhere different.  He had planned to
suggest that they met somewhere else, in a restaurant of his choosing,
but before he could respond, the banker had disconnected.

The Mercedes collected John, and he rode alone, but for the silent
chauffeur.  Although at the club he was now on increasingly familiar
territory, the place made him feel uncomfortable, to the point of
intimidation, and some of his remaining confidence left him.

He was greeted politely by the staff and wheeled straight through to the
dining room, as if his arrival had been rehearsed.

More people were eating there than he previously remembered, and there
were strong aromas of food in the room, of roast meat and, more
pungently, of garlic.  Above the general murmur of conversation he heard
the sharp pop of a cork.

Mr. Sarotzini was already at his table, sipping a glass of mineral water
and checking through a load of documents.  He rose to his full height to
greet John, and John noticed for the first time an almost reptilian feel
in his handshake: it was cold, moist and bony.

In surprising contrast, Mr. Sarotzini's voice was warm and sincere, as
was his expression "Mr. Carter, a pleasure to see you again.  It was
enchanting to meet your wife, such a remarkable young lady, truly
remarkable."

"Thank you," John said.  "I think so too." A steward held his chair for
him to sit down, unfolded a starched napkin and placed it on his lap.
"Would Sir care for a drink?" he asked.

"Mineral water, please," John said.  "Perrier or Badot."

"You are a very lucky man, Mr. Carter," Mr. Sarotzini said, sitting
down. "A most fortunate man."

Now, seated across the table from him, John remembered the banker's
awesome presence.  He wondered about Mr. Sarotzini's wife and tried to
form a mental image of her, but could not.  Was she a tall, steel-haired
aristocrat?  A small, dumpy little hausfrau?  A beautiful young
gold-digger?

He made himself concentrate on his reason for being here.  Mr. Sarotzini
looked relaxed: life would go on for him whether DigiTrak survived or
not; he would find someone else to provide a surrogate baby, no problem.
He did not look the type of person to be unduly concerned by anything.
He would go to Ascot, to polo, to the opera, to private art galleries,
to great dinner parties and banquets regardless of whether John and
Susan were a part of his life or not.

A menu was presented, but John gave it hardly a glance.  He wasn't
hungry, and eating wasn't the point of this meeting.  He ordered the
same as he'd had before, smoked salmon and then sole, no wine, he said
in response to Mr. Sarotzini's offer, although he could have happily
drunk a bottle straight down.  He needed to keep a clear head.

When the waiter had moved away, Mr. Sarotzini leant across the table
towards him, and asked, quietly, "You would not mind if I were to take
your wife to the opera, Mr. Carter?  I have the impression that you
yourself are not particular about opera."

"No," John said, momentarily thrown by the question.  He had been
expecting Mr. Sarotzini to get straight down to business.  He took this
as an encouraging sign.  "No, I'm not," he said.  "Please do, she'd love
it.  I'm afraid it's rather wasted on me."

"The next time I come to England, I shall arrange for tickets." Mr.
Sarotzini seemed almost childishly pleased.  Maybe he was lonely, John
wondered.  As rich as Croesus but lonely.  He clung to this dreary club
because he was known here.  He bought friendships, and he thought, even,
that he could buy a family.

Let's keep the illusion going.

Then, very calmly, Mr. Sarotzini said, "I have prepared the documents."

John watched as he spread them out into neat piles, wondering if the
banker had misunderstood him earlier.

"There is a clinic here in London, Mr. Carter, close to Harley Street.
It is owned by the VOrn Bank and offers the finest medical care in this
country. There is nowhere more discreet, more private.  This is where
the insemination will take place."

The smoked salmon and quails" eggs arrived.  John said nothing as Mr.
Sarotzini continued, "You are no doubt aware that it is not against the
law in England to have a surrogate child, but it is illegal for money to
change hands in such an arrangement, other than for expenses."

John, squeezing lemon onto his salmon, nodded.  He'd had a brief word
earlier with his lawyer about surrogate law, wanting to understand at
least the basics.  "This documentation acknowledges myself to be the
legal father, which will circumnavigate the law." Mr. Sarotzini raised
his eyebrows and received acknowledgement.  "Now, who knows what
emotions can take place during a pregnancy?"

John said nothing, watching Mr. Sarotzini's face, listening carefully,
waiting for his chance.

"You will understand that I need to protect my investment, Mr. Carter.
So, your house, and all but the ten percent of the shares in DigiTrak
owned by your partner, Mr. Gareth Noyce, will be transferred into my
ownership until the infant is in my possession.  At this point the house
will be transferred back to your ownership, together with thirty-nine
percent of the shares in DigiTrak.  I trust this will be acceptable."

John cut a piece of salmon, playing for time while he thought out his "
reply.  He put down his knife and fork and played with his napkin.
"Look, there's a problem we need to discuss.  Susan is finding this
difficult.  I think I can persuade her, but I'm going to need time.  We
can't rush into this."

Mr. Sarotzini shook his head, looking relaxed.  "!  don't have that
impression, Mr. Carter.  I don't think your wife finds this difficult at
all.  I think you are misreading her.  On the contrary, I think it is
you who finds it difficult, perhaps."

John was taken aback by the certainty in his voice.  Taken aback because
the man was right.

The banker gestured to John's plate.  "Please, Mr. Carter, eat."

John ate his salmon, like a child scolded by a parent, while he tried to
find a way back into the negotiations.

"This lawsuit that you have with your composer still worries me, Mr.
Carter."

"My barrister feels it's unlikely that Danziger will go the distance. He
feels we have enough evidence to show a judge that we didn't
deliberately set out to steal someone else's work."

"But at what cost?"

John was surprised that the banker was bringing all this up again.  He
relayed everything his barrister had told him, pointing out that
copyright was a grey area of the law, nothing was certain, and maybe if
they had a bank like the VSrn behind them, Danziger would back off or,
at worst, accept a small out-of-court settlement.

They reached coffee without any further mention of the surrogacy, and
John was feeling a little more hopeful.  He had been able to turn the
conversation into a serious discussion about the future potential of
DigiTrak, and to demonstrate to Mr. Sarotzini the company's viability.
The man was a banker, after all.  He might be desperate for a child, but
surely he wouldn't want to let a good business opportunity slip past? Of
all the pitches John had made during the past four weeks, none had been
so receptively received as the one he was making now.  He was certain
that he had swung Mr. Sarotzini into believing in the merits of DigiTrak
in its own right.  Bolstered by this, he made his play.  "This is my
proposition, Mr. Sarotzini.  If you will put up the funding for
DigiTrak, just on an interim basis, I will give you my undertaking to do
my best to persuade Susan.  I'm sure I can, given time."

Mr. Sarotzini raised his tiny coffee cup, holding the handle between his
forefinger and thumb in a dainty manner.  This was not matched by his
expression, which had turned to steel.  His voice had turned hard also,
and impersonal.  "You do not appear to have registered what I said to
you earlier, Mr. Carter.  It is not your wife who has objections to my
proposal, it is you.  Let me make it clear to you that my terms are not
negotiable.  You will understand, if you ever do business with me, that
I am fair to the point of generosity but I am firm.  I have offered you
a solution to your problems.  You have to take it or leave it."

John's heart sank.  He stared back into the grey eyes, and felt clumsy
because Mr. Sarotzini had seen through him.  Clumsy and cheap.  Even his
suit, which was from Paul Smith and had cost a fortune, felt cheap in
Mr. Sarotzini's presence.

He took a breath, hating this man now with all his heart.  "I appreciate
your offer, but it's not acceptable.  My wife and I aren't for sale."

Without any visible reaction, Mr. Sarotzini slowly scooped up the pages
of the documents and tidied them.  There was a matter-of-factness about
the way he did this, as if he really did not care one way or another,
and John watched him helplessly, aware that he had badly misjudged the
banker.

"Mr. Carter, please realise that I do understand the complexities of
emotions in this situation.  It was a thought, an idea I had to help you
out of your dilemma.  We will talk no more of it.  I will transfer the
funds back to Switzerland and that will be the end of the matter." He
paused to wave away a waiter, who was trying to refill his cup.  Mr.
Sarotzini smiled.  "I have enjoyed our brief friendship, Mr. Carter, and
perhaps our paths will cross again one day.  Who knows?"

From beside his chair Mr. Sarotzini produced a slim black briefcase.  He
opened it, put in the documents, and closed each of the catches with a
sharp click.  Then he downed the remnants of his coffee, nodded at the
head waiter and got up from the table.

As John rose also, the finality hit him.  Mr. Sarotzini was moving
towards the door at a speed that startled him, as if John already
belonged in his past.  Hurriedly following him out past the porter's
desk, he thought about the expression on Susan's face this morning.  It
had been that of someone looking forward to a challenge.

Maybe he was being too hasty.  Perhaps this was the perfect solution:
Susan could experience motherhood without them having to bring up a
child.  They would be out of their financial mess.  And she wouldn't
have to worry about Casey - neither of them would.

He followed Mr. Sarotzini into the street with a mounting sense of
panic. Without even turning to acknowledge him, the banker was getting
into the back of his Mercedes.  John realised he had no fax or phone
number, no e-mail address for this man.  His last chance to save his
business, his home and, perhaps, even, his marriage was about to glide
away into the London traffic.

As the chauffeur closed the door, John ran forward.  "Mr. Sarotzini!
Wait, please.  We'll do it!"

For a moment, as the chauffeur climbed in behind the wheel, John thought
the car was going to pull away.  Then the rear window began to slide
down.  Mr. Sarotzini peered through it, staring into John's eyes with an
intensity that scared him.

"Let us be absolutely clear on this, Mr. Carter.  I will give you one
and a half million pounds.  Your wife will bear the child my wife and I
are unable to have.  The day the baby is born you will hand it over to
us. You will never see it again.  We have a deal?"

"We have a deal," John replied.

Chapter Twenty-three

"Nietzsche said, "That which does not kill me makes me stronger.""

On channel 4 on the monitor in Klindz's attic, John Carter, leaning
against the kitchen table, said to Susan, "What time do you have to be
there?"

Klindz, in his armchair, read several more paragraphs of the book on the
German philosopher, Nietzsche, that Mr. Sarotzini had recommended to
him, then looked at the television screen again.

This was the shape of his life now.  He watched, he read, he sketched,
he reported.  Sometimes, at his discretion, he hired extra people to
maintain surveillance on Susan Carter when she travelled.  Nothing could
be missed, no place that she visited, no people she met, no conversation
she had. "Ten," Susan Carter said.

"And you really don't want me to be there, you're sure, hon?" John
Carter asked.

Susan was wearing jeans, a white T-shirt and yachting shoes.  Klindz
liked her in this casual outfit.  She was making supper, roasted peppers
with anchovies, then grilled lamb chops, followed by raspberries and
from age frais.  John Carter did not appreciate the effort his wife made
each evening, cooking for him, and this angered Klindz.  Susan's job was
just as demanding as her husband's, yet she was the one who always had
to work at home too.  He hoped Mr. Sarotzini would allow him to teach
John Carter a lesson for this.

And now, while she worked, John Carter was doing nothing except drinking
whisky.  He was still drinking too much, Klindz thought.  This was
weakness: he didn't need to drink this much, not now he had got what he
wanted.

Klindz was concerned about the amount john Carter drank because
sometimes it made him snap at Susan, and Klindz could see the pain in
her face when he did this, and the pain hurt him.  Burned him.  This
made him hate John Carter even more than he already hated him.

John Carter switched on the television in the kitchen, but he didn't
watch it.  Instead he flicked through the pages of a magazine.

"I'm sure," Susan said.  "I'm really sure, OK?" She'd left beef cooking
the meal and was watering a row of plants in pots along the window-sill.
They might have been herbs, Klindz couldn't tell.  Although he was
becoming an expert on poetry, philosophy, painting, opera, he knew
nothing about plants.  One day Mr. Sarotzini would teach him about
plants, but not yet.

And there was only so much that could be taught, Mr. Sarotzini said.
That which is truly important had to be learned.

Mr. Sarotzini had explained this to him, telling him always to carry
inside his head the words: "I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I
do and I understand."

Klindz read these words now.  Then he looked at the date on his watch.
It was the twenty-first.  And tomorrow was the twenty-second: 22July.
Yes. For three weeks he had watched Jotin and Susan Carter, had listened
to them day and night, and all the time they kept on talking about it,
debating it, discussing their visits to the clinic.

They had been to the clinic eleven times now.  On five occasions John
Carter had gone with Susan, on the rest she had gone on her own for the
injections to improve her chances of conception.  Klindz had listened to
them discussing the doctors they had met there, and they were impressed
with the clinic, there was no doubt about that.

Mr. Sarotzini had been very pleased to hear that.

July 22.  The centre of her ovulation cycle.  Tomorrow.

And that was more than good.

Susan walked out of the kitchen towards the living room and Klindz
switched to channel 3, picked her up, watched her carry the glass vase
she was using as a watering can over to a plant, a potted palm perhaps,
he wasn't sure.  Susan knew about plants: maybe she would teach him
about them.

He carried on watching her, in no hurry to re'turn to Nietzsche,
although he was enjoying the book.  But he was enjoying Susan Carter in
her jeans, white T-shirt and yachting shoes even more.

John Carter came out into the living room now, put an arm around her and
kissed her cheek.  "It's not too late, darling.  We don't have to go
through with this, OK?"

"Everything's signed."

"It doesn't matter."

Susan wished - and neither John nor Klindz could read this - that John
would take his hands off her.  She wished he would stop kissing her,
stop giving her the option to quit, every five minutes.

She had made up her mind, she had come to terms with all the voices
inside her head that screamed at her not to do this, and now all she
wanted was her own space.  She wanted to make a box and hammer a label
on the outside of it that said, NINE-MONTH BOX, and she wanted to climb
inside it, close it, bolt the hatch, have this baby, and let Mr.
Sarotzini take it away.  Then she could climb out and get her life back.

But it wasn't going to be like that, however much she wanted it to be.
And it was this that made her angry, this fear that she was not going to
be in control, that Mr. Sarotzini was already in control and, from
tomorrow, doctors would be in control too, and then the baby, if she
conceived, would be in control, too.  And what was going to happen to
her emotions - and to her marriage?

Layered beneath those fears lay her curiosity.  She had convinced
herself that she was doing this for Casey.  But she knew, also, that she
was doing it for herself A few days ago in a magazine she had read that
it was important for health reasons for a woman to become pregnant at
least once.  She had shown the article to John, taking consolation in
it.

She was dying for a drink, although she'd been told strictly no alcohol
tonight.

Klindz watched in dismay as she poured herself a glass of ros( wine.
This gave him a problem he would rather not have had, because he should
report it.  But if he did, what would happen?  Would they delay?

And the timing, he reflected.  If he reported this one glass she was now
drinking, so much would have to be changed that it hardly bore thinking
about.  And Mr. Sarotzini might be angry with him, might blame him for
not stopping her from drinking.

Just one glass, Susan Carter, that's all.

He remembered something Mr. Sarotzini had taught him, the story of the
strong man who said, "Give me a firm place to stand and I will move the
world."

"We can all be that man," Mr. Sarotzini had told him.  "We can all push
the lever that moves the world, it is inside us, we just have to learn
how to recognise it, how to use it, that is all we have to do."

Susan moved to the dining room and Klindz turned the channel selector to
6.  There wasn't much in this room, just a trestle and some rolls of
wallpaper.  Klindz wasn't sure why she had come in here.

She walked to the window and stared out at the garden.  Now he
understood: she had come in here to be alone.

And Klindz, watching her so closely, almost breathless with adulation,
knew.  He knew.  He was certain that Susan was the lever that would move
his world.  But there was a lack of clarity that bothered him.  There
were events going on, wheels turning.  He thought again of Mr.
Sarotzini's words, "I hear and I forget, I see and I remember, I do and
I understand." July 22. Tomorrow.

The excitement was rising inside him, it had an operatic quality, yes,
like Don Giovanni, the music of the excitement was erupting inside his
head, and he had to struggle to contain himself.

Now the Carters" phone was ringing.  Susan had heard it and hurried
through into the living room shouting to her husband that she would get
it.  She picked up the receiver.

Klindz punched a burton on the control panel and immediately heard the
caller.  He knew this voice: Susan/spoke to this man regularly - she was
editing his new book.

"Susan?" The writer sounded anxious, Klindz thought.  "I'm sorry to
bother you, I need to see you urgently.  Are you free tomorrow, for
lunch or a drink?"

Susan sounded friendly, she liked the man, but she was evasive.  "Oh,
Fergus, I'm sorry, it's not possible.  I'm out of town for a couple of
days."

"How about breakfast before you go?"

She laughed.  "No way] I'm leaving at the crack of dawn."

And Klindz was impressed.  She sounded so natural - she was a great
liar, this lady was terrific.

"Susan, it's important, I really do need to see you."

She promised to call him over the weekend, when she was back.  The
writer again tried to persuade her to meet before she went, but without
luck.  He also tried to get a phone number out of her, but she didn't
have one to give him.  She'd call him, she promised, the moment she was
back. Good girl.

Klindz's adrenaline was racing.  He needed to speak to someone, to share
his excitement.  Even if he was not allowed to say anything about Susan
Carter, he could still share his sense of excitement.

He picked up the phone and dialled Claudie at his apartment in Geneva.
But there was no answer.  He telephoned her own apartment, got the
answering machine and hung up.  She was out and he didn't like that. He
had not spoken to her for ten days, but he did not like the fact that
she was out.  Claudie was his woman, Mr. Sarotzini had given her to him.
Susan Carter was going to become his woman, but until then Claudie was
his woman, and his woman was out.

He replaced the receiver and began to read Nietzsche again.  Mr.
Sarotzini's words came back once more.  "I hear and I forget, I see and
I remember, I do and I understand."

He looked up from the book and watched Susan turning over the lamb
chops, all the time thinking to himself, Tomorrow.

Tomorrow I will understand.

Chapter Twenty-four

The Westwood Clinic was a modern, four-storey building that blended
reasonably unobtrusively with the Victorian red-brick facades of Wimpole
Street.  Inside, it did its best not to look or feel like a hospital.
The entrance was plushly carpeted, there were tapestries on the walls,
vases bursting with fresh flowers, bowls of pot-pourti, and huge sofas.
It could have been the foyer of a small, immensely luxurious hotel,
except for the smell.

The cocktail of disinfectant, fresh laundry and institutional food was
ever present.  Not even the huge bunch of flowers from John, and the
even bigger bouquet from Mr. Sarotzini, could mask it in Susan's room,
which was as plush and spacious as a hotel suite, and had a fine view of
the street as well as a glimpse of Regent's Park.  Dusk was falling, and
in a few minutes they were going to take her into the theatre.  She was
feeling nervous, and very alone.

John had phoned a couple of hours ago to wish her luck, and again
offered to come over.  But she couldn't have him here.  She did not want
him around while she was having this - this thing - done to her.  She
felt as though she was being unfaithful to him, and it was easier to be
alone, not to have to see his face.

The door opened and a nurse came in, followed by a doctor; neither wore
a badge.  She had been introduced to them already but she couldn't
remember their names - maybe, she thought, because she didn't want to.
There was something unreal about being here, and that was how she wanted
it to stay.  It was just a bad dream.  In nine months" time she would
wake up from it.  In the meantime no one, other than herself, John and
Mr. Sarotzini, would know the truth.  Her friends and colleagues would
see her pregnant, sure, but they wouldn't know the truth.  And in nine
months" time they would be telling her how sorry they were, that it was
awful for her and John to have had a stillborn child.  And she'd act out
the charade, and John would too, and then it would be over.

The nurse had a hypodermic in her hand.  Susan hated injections, and it
normally took all her courage to have one in the doctor's surgery. She'd
lost count of the number she'd had today and over the past few weeks.
"Premed the nurse said.

"Premed Susan echoed.  "Right." It didn't matter, they could do what
they wanted.  Her body didn't belong to her for the next nine months.

She felt the prick, and a lot of fluid went in.  A build-up of pressure
began to hurt her arm as the nurse kept pressing the plunger.  There was
a numb sensation in Susan's hand, as if someone had whacked the nerve in
her funny bone.

The nurse jigged out of Susan's line of vision and she saw the doctor's
face clearly now.  He was good-looking, in a
movie-actor-playing-an-American-senator way, with a Mediterranean tan,
dark hair with jet black streaks, like highlights in reverse, and a
perfect smile.  So perfect.  Maybe he was an actor?  She thought he
looked familiar.  Had she seen him in ER? Was he that doctor - what was
his name?  - Dr. Doug Ross?

She wasn't sure if the nurse had finished or not.  Dr. Ross from ER kept
looking at her with that perfect smile.  There were several questions
she wanted to ask him about the show.

She wondered whether she had her arm back yet.  Not that it mattered,
she was feeling nicely floaty.  Like a boat, or maybe a lilo.  And it
was good that Dr. Ross from ER was here.  Could she bring Casey over and
have Dr. Ross from ER look after her?

She was about to ask him this, but he had gone.  The nurse had gone,
too, and now the room didn't look familiar any more.  The walls were
moving, they were changing colour as they slid past her and now she was
fifteen years back, at Epcot, Disney World, in Florida, on a ride,
travelling though a cave and they were going to stop at an exhibit in a
moment.

She tried to turn her head, but it didn't move, and she was aware,
although it didn't bother her, that she couldn't move it.  Someone would
be along in a minute to fix it, probably nice Dr. Ross from ER.

The motion of the ride changed, making her feel giddy.  They were going
up, or maybe they were going down.  Her mind was rising up and her body
was sinking downwards, and then the motion reversed and it was her mind
that was sinking down while her body rose.

Her eyes closed against the giddiness.  They shut out one world but
opened another inside her head.  There were people all around her,
gathered inside her head.

She could see her mother and father, and Casey now, coming into focus.
Casey was standing up, she was fine, they had fixed her.  John was
standing in here too but there was no light on his face and she was
having difficulty identifying which one out of all these people he was.
And Mr. Sarotzini was here too - she could see him clearly and he was
smiling at her, a great warm smile that told her she was doing just
great and everything was going to be fine.

And there was another man she had seen before, but she couldn't put a
name to him and she couldn't place where it was she had seen him.  It
was recently, she knew that much.  She had definitely seen this man
recently. He was a big man, built like a quarterback.

And then her brain connected.  Yes, it was him, the man from British
Telecom who had come to fix the ring tones in the phones.

And this was a strange part of her head she was in, lights
crisscrossing, sharp long slivers of cold white light, like knife
blades.  Lasers.  Hundreds of lasers, their beams making strange
patterns on the inside walls of her skull. And figures were moving in
and out of the darkness between the beams. Her parents had gone now,
Cas4/ too - and where was Dr. Ross?  Mr. Sarotzini was still here and
the man from Telecom, and there were others in here now, strangers
inside her head, they were all looking down at her, but with the lasers
behind them, it was impossible to see their faces.  All she could see
were the silhouettes of their bodies.

Now the lasers were burning away the walls of her skull and she could
see the room beyond them.  She could smell burning, a pungent, aromatic
smell that was both sweet and bitter.  The room was large and packed
with people, all back-lit by the lasers.  She could see glints of shiny
metal.  The people all seemed to be wearing dark polo-necks, but she
still couldn't see their faces, just blackness on blackness.

She could recognise Mr. Sarotzini - even though she couldn't see his
face she could sense his presence.  And in front of him this man from
Telecom, a faceless silhouette carrying the strength of all these people
behind him.

Where was Dr. Ross from ER?  Well, if he didn't want to be here, that
was his loss.  Suddenly she felt very important.  All these people had
come inside her head to see her.  And the man from Telecom was standing
in front of them, laser beams playing on his body now.  He was huge, far
bigger than she remembered, and he had this tremendous physique.  But he
wasn't wearing his uniform and, unlike everyone else here, he was naked,
and he was holding this serpent, and it was uncoiling outwards, reaching
towards her, rising like a striking cobra towards her from this dark
bush of hair that covered his groin.

The serpent shone, it gleamed, and this man from Telecom, with his face
in darkness, didn't need to move towards her.  The serpent was doing
that, it was still growing, and he was standing between her legs now,
and this serpent was reaching out with a hunger, and she wanted it.  She
wanted it desperately.

She cried out for it.

She prayed for it to come closer to her.

And it did come closer.  It was so close that now she couldn't see its
head, but she was starting to feel it, and it felt, oh, it felt quite
incredible, probing around, so geere all looking down at her, but with
the lasers behind them, it was impossible to see their faces.  All she
could see were the silhouettes of their bodies.

see the room beyond them.  She could smell burning, a pungent, aromatic
smell that was both sweet and bitter.  The room was large and packed
with people, all back-lit by the lasers.  She could see glints of shiny
metal.  The people all seemed to be wearing dark polo-necks, but she
still couldn't see their faces, just blackness on blackness.

She could recognise Mr. Sarotzini - even though she couldn't see his
face she could sense his presence.  And in front of him this man from
Telecom, a faceless silhouette carrying the strength of all these people
behind him.

Where was Dr. Ross from ER?  Well, if he didn't want to be here, that
was his loss.  Suddenly she felt very important.  All these people had
come inside her head to see her.  And the man from Telecom was standing
in front of them, laser beams playing on his body now.  He was huge, far
bigger than she remembered, and he had this tremendous physique.  But he
wasn't wearing his uniform and, unlike everyone else here, he was naked,
and he was holding this serpent, and it was uncoiling outwards, reaching
towards her, rising like a striking cobra towards her from this dark
bush of hair that covered his groin.

The serpent shone, it gleamed, and this man from Telecom, with his face
in darkness, didn't need to move towards her.  The serpent was doing
that, it was still growing, and he was standing between her legs now,
and
this serpent was reaching out with a hunger, and she wanted it.  She
wanted it desperately.

She cried out for it.

She prayed for it to come closer to her.

And it did come closer.  It was so close that now she couldn't see its
head, but she was starting to feel it, and it felt, oh, it felt quite
incredible, probing around, so gentle, softly nosing its way, finding an
entrance into her.

She guided it with her hands, helped it, but it was OK, it was fine on
its own.  It nuzzled so gently, just for a moment it tickled, but it was
too big, there was no way, it was not going to be able to enter.

She cried out in fear.

Then a laser lit the man's face a ghostly white.  But his eyes were full
of comfort.  He held her with his dark brown eyes.  And she felt the
serpent starting to work its way in, burrowing, and this now, this was a
great sensation, it was like it was opening her up, pushing, it was so
big it was impossible, but still it kept on, levering its way in,
further, further, inch by inch it was coming inside her, filling her
entire body, and one moment it hurt like hell and she heard herself
emptying her lungs with pain.  Then the pain turned to pleasure.  This
serpent was gliding, surfing its way up inside her, it was pushing these
huge great waves out in front of it, they were swimming up through her,
one following another...
She was shimmering now, she was like heat waves rising from rippling
desert dunes.  She was air, her body had dissolved into gaseous vapour,
she was just particles of energy, she was waves and beams.  And now she
felt her body again, she wanted to keep feeling it, this thing inside
her, to keep feeling it for ever, never to let it go, never, ever, ever,
ever.

Oh, please.

And it was still pushing up, filling her more and more.  She had no idea
where the head was now, it was somewhere up around her stomach and these
waves, she wanted to cry out, wanted to let him know it could come
further, there was room, it might not feel like there was room but there
was, oh, yes, there was room, and she could make more room, and she was
swimming, her whole body was liquid, it was dissolving, and then it was
rippling, her body had become the ocean, there was a swell running
through her and that swell was increasing, and she saw this ghostly
white face, this man from Telecom, his face was right up close now, she
couldn't see anything but his face and she couldn't feel anything else
in the world, just this serpent, just the swell of the ocean, she was
just exploding, she was on fire but this fire was good, she felt this
electricity, it was shooting down her legs, up through her arms, great
spikes of electricity were shooting up into her brain, deep down into
her stomach.

And now she was still, and there was a fuse that was lit, this deep warm
glow burning inside her, and she felt so safe, so wanted, and this
feeling, this depth inside her, she wanted to hold it, wanted to curl up
in a corner with it and live it and never let it go, but she couldn't
hold it, she could not hold the ocean together any more, it was
disintegrating apart inside her, it was erupting and she was surfing,
out in bright sunlight, she was surfing, the waves were inside her,
beneath her, and she was screaming, her whole body was exploding joy,
the ocean was erupting through every cell in her body, blowing her apart
as she screamed, "Please, yes, oh, yes, oh, yes, oh, yes, oh, yes."

There was a long silence.

Motion, it felt like sleeping in a train.  Then Susan realised her bed
was moving, it was being dragged along, she was travelling down a
corridor. She heard a harsh, intrusive sound. Metal shutters? A clatter.
Then darkness.

Chapter Twenty-five

Something was bothering Klindz.  It had been on his mind since Tuesday
night, but now it was coming at him with an urgency that was clouding
all his other thoughts.

Mr. Sarotzini had taught him to open himself up to his intuition, to
free it from its shackles, to nurture it, to learn to trust it.  So he
opened himself up to it now, and Tuesday night returned to him in
precise detail.  The phone was ringing in the Carters" house and Susan
had answered it.  Klindz knew it was this conversation she had had that
was bothering him. He keyed a search command.  The tape wound back,
stopped. He played the section of the tape over, listening carefully.

"Susan?" The writer sounded anxious, Klindz thought.  "I'm sorry to
bother you, I need to see you urgently.  Are you free tomorrow, for
lunch or a drink?"

It was the tone of this man's voice that was bothering him.  And what
was this urgency?  Although Susan was making him rewrite huge chunks of
his book, the deadline was movable - what mattered was getting the book
right.

Klindz's intuition, fuelled by the tone of this man's voice, was
screaming at him.

He played the tape again.  Then again.  Urgently.  This word.  It had
got him by the balls.

For the second night running Fergus Donleavy had woken from the same
nightmare.

It was a simple dream and he could recall it with clarity.  He saw a
baby, a tiny new-born infant, alone in a terrible darkness.  It was
crying, and it was this cry that was the real nightmare: there was such
utter terror in it. Then in the dream he saw Susan Carter: she was
fumbling around in the pitch blackness with a torch, and she was crying,
she couldn't find the baby, and she was begging Fergus to help.

And.  he told her, no, leave the baby, don't try to find it, let it die.
For God's sake, let it die.

Then he woke.

He looked at his wristwatch beside the bed.  There was a dull ache
midway between his eyes.  Jesus, what the hell had he drank last night?
He chucked his feet out of the bed and his body followed, wobbled a
little but stayed upright, one benefit of four hundred thousand years of
evolution as a biped, he thought, but not very clearly, then opened the
curtains.

The Thames was outside, which still surprised him every morning,
although it had always been outside, all the ten years he'd lived in
this docklands flat.

A rusty lighter slid past, heavily laden and low in the water.  The
barge towing it could have been on rails fixed to the river bed, it was
so unshaken by the spring ebb chop.:He watched the froth, the spume, the
shit-brown water then, craning his neck to the.  right, could just see
Tower Bridge.  Grey against a grey sky.  It might be drizzling: it
wasn't much of a day.

He hauled on his dressing gown, found his slippers, padded through to
his den, which, like the living room and dining room and everywhere else
in this flat, apart from the lavatory seat, was covered with pages of
the damned manuscript that this bloody woman was making him rewrite. Oh,
Christ, he was bored with this book, wished he'd never started it, but
he needed the money for the mortgage on this flat, which was not worth
even half the fortune he'd paid, and which his university salary didn't
cover.  There was no way he could afford to dump it and repay Magellan
Lowry their advance.

And, don't forget this, Fergus, this book is important, it's needed:
this book really could change people's thinking.

Bollocks.  It was just a good sales pitch, Fergus, that was all, and you
know that.

And he did know that, but only the modest part of him was buying that
right now.  There was an immodest part, a massive, mountain-sized ego
part of him that didn't buy that at all.  This part was thinking Dr.
Steven W. Hawking has not got it right, and the only truly great
scientific mind in the world holds tenure inside the cranium of Dr. J.
Fergus Donleavy.

He ground coffee beans and tried again to interpret the dream.  He had
an entire shelf of books on dreams: he knew all the possibilities and
none worked for this dream.  Nothing resonated.  He knew the reason, and
the reason frightened him.  This dream was not about symbolism.

This dream was a premonition.

This was the presentiment, the feeling he'd been having of something bad
happening to Susan for these past few weeks, the feeling that had been
worsening every day.

It was even stronger this morning than it had been two days ago, and it
had been strong enough then to have made him call her.

What would he have told her?  She didn't want children, so how could he
warn her that he had seen something really bad to do with her having a
child?

She would dismiss it, reminding him that she and her husband were not
going to have children.

Goddamn you, Susan Carter, stop messing with my head.  He thought of her
face across the table at lunch, the sleek red hair, those beautiful,
intelligent eyes, the way she looked at him with humour, curiosity - and
something else.

Did some part of her want to go beyond a pure editor-author
relationship?

Then an even wilder thought occurred.  Was she making him do all this
rewriting because she was trying to reject her attraction to him? Come
on, Fergus, you trashed more brain cells last night than you realised.
He poured the coffee into the machine, filled it with water and switched
it on.  The morning post and the Independent were on the floor.  He
scooped them up, glanced at the headlines, glanced at the envelopes,
nothing of interest, and sat down again.

Susan hadn't phoned him.  Tuesday night, he had rung her.  It was now
Thursday morning.  She had said she would call and she hadn't.  And
she'd sounded mysterious when he had spoken to her.  Going away, she
said, but she didn't say where.  Surely when people are going away they
say to Manchester or Paris, or wherever the hell they are going.  So why
hadn't she?

Christ.  Did Susan have a lover?  He'd never met her husband, so he
couldn't gauge the man or the relationship.  Women took lovers because
their marriages were unhappy.  Had all those meaningful looks she had
given him been a hint?  A cry for help?  And he'd been too blind to see?

He felt a twinge of anguish.  He had been deeply attracted to Susan from
the moment they had first met.  He liked everything about her.  It
wasn't just her looks, it was the way she moved her hands, the way she
smelt, her voice, her mind, her clothes, her confidence, and the way she
cared for her work, for people, for everything.  If she had a lover, and
this was a big speculation, but if she did, and therefore her marriage
was rocky, now was the time to make a move himself.

He shook his head.  He had to switch his mind from this.  He had to
concentrate on the manuscript.  But he kept coming back to the dream, to
Susan's red hair, her legs, her smile, those brilliant blue eyes, her
freshness, her vitality.

The thought that right now she might be in bed in a hotel room with her
lover was tormenting him.

But the dream tormented him just as much.  It stayed with him through
his shower, through his one slice of cremated toast, through the first
half-hour of his work.

He wanted desperately to talk to Susan.  And he needed to tell her his
dream, to see whether any part of it resonated.  And the parts were:
darkness; a baby crying; Susan trying to find this baby with a torch.
And then himself, telling her to leave it, to let it die.

not be contacted, had a number for her today.

But before he could pick up the phone, it rang.  Maybe it was Susan, he
thought hopefully.

But it wasn't.  It was a man from British Telecom, polite and most
apologetic.  A line fault of some sort.  The computer showed them it was
coming from the equipment Fergus had installed in his flat.  Would it be
possible for an engineer to call?  Would there, perhaps, be someone at
home this morning?

Chapter Twenty-six

A sliver of light appeared in the darkness.  A flat, steady monochrome,
growing a little wider now but no brighter.  Susan, drowsy and
disoriented, watched it, trying to figure it out.

It was a window, she realised.  Trails of rain were sliding down it, and
the sky beyond was the colour of a television screen that was switched
off.  Her bedroom window.  But it was in the wrong place.  John must
have moved it.  Or moved the bed?

She closed her eyes again, but she felt a deepening disquiet.  Something
wasn't right.  She opened them.  Pale grey walls.  Hotel, she thought.
We're away somewhere.  She tried to turn her head to see John.  It took
an enormous effort to roll it a few degrees, just far enough to be able
to see that no one was beside her.

A coil of fear spiralled through her.

This isn't a hotel, I'm in a clinic.

Something had happened that wasn't right.  Something, last night, the
operation She tried to move, but her body was leaden, weighted down like
a diver's.  It took all her energy just to turn her head again, to see
if her watch was on the bedside table, or if there was a clock in the
room, but after a few moments, she gave up.  Her eyes returned to the
wall with the window.  They shifted, stopped at a painting on another
wall, a copy of a Lowry, a wintry northern industrial landscape filled
with matchstick people.  And that was a coincidence, she thought,
incongruously.  She worked for Magellan Lowry and there was a painting
on the wall by Lowry.

A smoke-detector sensor and the nozzles of a sprinkler system poked down
from the ceiling.  Somewhere a phone was ringing.  Her mouth was parched
and her throat was raw.  She tried to think back; fragments of a dream,
or a hallucination, indistinct, a bad dream, the fear was growing.

And at the edge of her peripheral vision the door was opening.  A nurse
came in, efficient-looking, rather hard face, dark-haired, late
thirties.  She stood a short distance from Susan, her mouth opened and
her pale lips moved up and down, and one word at a time, with gaps in
between, her voice reached Susan.  A smell of food had come into the
room, breakfast food, toast, eggs, which increased Susan's nausea.

"Ah.  Good.  She's.  Awake."

The words told Susan that someone else was in the room too, but she
couldn't see who.  Then a man moved right in front of her, blocking her
view of the window.  She had seen him before: dark hair with jet-black
highlights, a Mediterranean tan, yes, Dr. Ross from ER.

He looked at her without speaking, holding her with his friendly brown
eyes, and then he said, "How.  Are.  You.  Feeling?"

Susan felt a little queasy and she also had a raging thirst, but she
didn't want to tell him because she was too tired.  She didn't want to
have to make the effort to drink.  She wanted to go back to sleep. "OK,"
she said.

"You're going to be feeling a bit woozy for a while from the
anaesthetic. Any tummy pains?"

She was able to shake her head.  But a memory was starting to clarify,
rising steadily from some great depth towards the surface, like a
bloated corpse.

She shuddered.

Alarm registered in the face of Dr. Mediterranean Tan from ER.

She could recall, suddenly, the violently erotic sensation inside her of
the serpent, the phallus, the thing, of the man from Telecom.  Christ,
she could see it, could feel it so vividly, it was all rushing back now,
and she was aware that her face was flushing, and she was aware, too,
that it must have been a dream, something Freudian, that was all, it
must have been.

With no warning, a fierce pain ripped through her abdomen; it felt as if
a knife had been plunged in and twisted.  She cried out, gasping, as the
pain struck again.

"It's from the incision.  We'll just take a look at the stitches," the
doctor said.  The nurse lifted away the sheet, untied the front of her
gown, then removed the dressing.  Looking down at her abdomen, Susan
could see the stitches and the livid flesh.

Dr. Ross began explaining to her exactly what they had done in the
operation, but she only half listened because she already knew.  Mr. Van
Rhoe, the obstetrician, had" already explained it to her in great
detail.

Mr. Van Rhoe was the ma Mr. Sarotzini had insisted would take care of
her, and Susan had had to admit to feeling a little flattered.  Miles
Van Rhoe was in a different league from even Harvey Addison.  For over
thirty years he had delivered babies for the rich and famous, for the
aristocracy and the nobility; she had read in newspapers and magazines
that many members of the Royal Family would consider no one else.

And Dr. Abraham Zelig, the.  director of this clinic, had also explained
everything that would happen to her in the greatest possible detail. Dr.
Zelig, Mr. Sarotzini had told her, was one of the world's foremost
authorities, perhaps the foremost authority, on in vitro fertilisation.

Dr. Ross was patiently explaining now to her that they had made an
incision, removed the eggs from her ovary, selected the
healthiest-looking one, mixed it with semen provided by Mr. Sarotzini,
and then returned it to the womb.

As she listened, the pain gone now, and looked back into those kind
eyes, she had a sudden urge to blurt out to him that he was wrong, it
hadn't been Mr. Sarotzini's semen, it had been the man from Telecom's
semen.  But she held back.  Of course she'd had the operation - Christ,
she had the sutures and the pain to prove it.  The stuff in her dream,
that crazy erotic dream, that was all just hallucination.  Anaesthetics
did freaky things to the brain, everyone knew that.

The effort of being awake for just these few minutes was exhausting her.
She started to think about Mr. Sarotzini's semen and felt a sudden wave
of repulsion.  It was inside her, mixed with one of her eggs,
fertilising it at this very moment.  Was she pregnant?

She felt hot, then very cold.  Dr. Ross was there, and then he was not
there.  Then he was there again.  She suddenly remembered that Dr. Ross
in ER was a pediatrician.

Of course, she needed a pediatrician now, or would soon.

The nurse was looking at her strangely.  Dr. Ross went out of focus then
came back in again.  Susan felt dizzy and desperately thirsty.  She
asked now if she could have a drink of water.

Shortly after six o'clock that evening, Mr. Sarotzini's chauffeur pulled
up the Mercedes outside Susan's house, and she was relieved to see that
John wasn't home yet.  She dreaded facing him.  She hadn't even had the
courage to return the call he'd left for her this morning at the clinic.

Mr. Sarotzini had been in to see her at lunch-time, and that encounter
had been awkward.  He had brought her an enormous basket of fruit, which
was in the trunk of the Mercedes now, but in spite of all their common
interests, she had been too tired - or confused - to be able to converse
with him.  She had been relieved when he left.

The sky was dark and it was still raining The automaton chauffeur only
broke his rigid silence to offer to carry her overnight bag inside for
her.  She declined, then immediately regretted it.  The basket of fruit,
and her small bag were heavier than she'd realised, and pulled on the
stitches in her abdomen.

Dr. Mediterranean Tan Ross had been reluctant to let her go home,
wanting her to spend a further night in the clinic, but it was vital she
was in the office tomorrow.  The directors of Magellan Lowry were now
keen for the firm to acquire the Dr. Julian DeWytts book, and tomorrow
was the deadline for upping their bid in the auction.

As she unlocked the front door and stepped into the hallway, she felt a
sense of relief that she had made the right decision.  She could see
straight through to the French windows in the living room, and the
garden beyond.  Even in the gloomy rain, it was looking gorgeous.  It
was a beautiful welcoming sensation, this whole house felt just so
"good.  How could they ever have let it go?

She walked slowly around; she'd only been away one night, but it felt
like a month.  Everything was unchanged, although she noticed that some
of the plants needed watering.  Harry the painter had finished the
dining room and was starting on the first of the spare bedrooms
upstairs, the one that John had chosen for his den, and she was eager to
see how that was shaping.

She stood by the marble fireplace in the living room, first looking out
at the garden, then at the walls of the room, thinking for the hundredth
time how pleased she was with the colour scheme she had chosen.  Some
white colours were bland, or too pink, or too stark and cold.  But this
colour was both fresh and airy.  and, even on this dark day, warm at the
same time.

Soon I'll need to start looking at colours for the baby's room, she
pondered, wondering which of the three spare ones upstairs would be best
for a nursery.  And then with a start, she remembered: What the hell am
I thinking about?

Susan didn't know how she had been expecting John to react when he came
home, but it was none of the ways that she'd imagined.  He said nothing
at all.

Susan was in the kitchen; in spite of her tiredness she was trying to
make a nice meal for them out of pasta and a piece of monkfish she had
in the freezer.  She heard the front door open and shut, and the sound
of John's briefcase thunking down on the bare oak boards of the hallway,
and waited for him to come into the kitchen.  He must know she was here
- onions, chopped garlic and tomatoes were frying on the stove, and the
radio was on.

But he didn't come in.

John had never been a creature of habit.  He was unpredictable,
enigmatic, spontaneous, but in seven years of marriage he had one
invariable routine: the moment he arrived home, he came into the kitchen
and poured himself two fingers of Macallan whisky, with three cubes of
ice and a splash of water, except on Tuesdays, after squash, when he had
a Budweiser instead.

Susan waited, turned down the radio and, to her surprise, heard the
sound of the television.  She went through into the living room.  John
was sitting on the sofa, still with his jacket on, channel-surfing.

"Hi," she said meekly.

He continued to stare at the television, punching the remote every
couple of seconds, before locking his attention on truck-racing on the
Sky Sports channel.

For the first time ever Susan did not know what to say to her husband.
Was he angry because she hadn't returned his call earlier?  She
suspected it was more complicated than that.

She turned away, and walked back to the kitchen, a tear rolling down her
cheek.  She dabbed it with a strip of kitchen towel, and the next one,
stirred the mixture in the frying pan, then leant on the edge of the
sink and stared out of the window.

The kettle barbecue, the wooden picnic table and benches were all glossy
from the rain.  A thrush, the one that was often there, was twitching
around in the grass, which needed cutting.  It dipped its head and began
to pull a worm out of the ground.  It was having a struggle, a
tug-of-war, as if something out of sight beneath the earth was holding
the other end of the worm and pulling just as hard.  Finally the thrush
won and the worm dangled briefly, shrank in short jerks, and disappeared
into its beak.  The food chain, Susan thought.

Rain pricked the puddles on the patio.  We think we're so smart because
we're human, because we're at the top of the food chain.  A robin hopped
around on the lawn, another regular visitor.  Susan watched it, catching
little splashes of the orange colouring on its chest as it hopped
around.  It was a pretty bird, she thought, but it was probably savage.
Robins were tough and mean; if you were a small bird you didn't want to
mess with a robin.

Everything was deceptive.  Nothing was what it seemed.  She blotted up
another tear, taking a deep breath, thinking suddenly: Oh, Christ, what
have I done?

And then, a short while later, she was laying the table and John was
still watching truck-racing, and she was thinking, hoping, that this
thing she'd done, this in vitro fertilisation, maybe it wouldn't work.

Suddenly she hoped, desperately, that it wouldn't.

The next morning, all she wanted to do was to stay in bed.  She forced
herself up, though, because she had to go to the meeting at work today.

She showered and went downstairs.  John was about to dash out of the
front door.  "Made you some coffee, hon," he said.  "On the table."

She kissed him.  "Thanks."

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"Tired."

"Do you really have to go to the office today?"

"I'll come home early."

She kissed him goodbye, went into the kitchen, sat down and picked up
the newspaper.  As she was reading the main front-page story, she picked
up her mug and sipped the coffee.

It had a slightly different flavour from usual.  Not unpleasant, but it
left a faintly metallic aftertaste.  She wondered if John had opened a
different packet.

In the board meeting at Magellan Lowry, coffee had just been brought.
Susan was reporting that there was a bid on the table, she didn't know
who it was from, it could be HarperCollins, she suspected, but she knew
Transworld were interested, so were Random House and maybe Little, Brown
as well.  She'd heard from a friend at Simon and Schuster that they'd
dropped out and, from what little she'd managed to glean from DeWytts"
agent, she reckoned that so had Viking Penguin.  But this latest bid was
175,000 pounds for UK and Commonwealth rights, and that was big money.

She didn't think the book was that special, she told the board.  It
wasn't accessible, in her view, it was too technical and wouldn't grab
the broad, popular readership it was intended for.  "I don't think this
book is going to be big at all," Susan said.  "I think we should pass."

She reached out for the cup that had been passed to her, and took a sip.
It was perfectly drinkable, but seemed to have the same metallic
aftertaste as the coffee John had left her.  She wondered if she was
imagining it.

Chapter Twenty-seven

John brought up the papers and breakfast on a tray.  This was Susan's
weekly Sunday-morning treat.  Only once in seven years- when he'd had a
truly terrible hangover - had he forgotten it.

She was feeling fine today, and she was relieved that their relationship
was getting back to some semblance of normality.  John looked sexy in
his towelling dressing gown, and she felt aroused and had to restrain
herself from slipping her hands inside the robe.  Instead, freeing
herself with only a tinge of reluctance from the last snug remnants of
sleep, she hauled herself up in bed.

The curtains were open and brilliant morning sunshine belted in through
the huge east window of the turret.  She loved this room - it felt like
waking in a castle and they'd decorated it as much like a castle as they
could.  The floor had been kept as bare wood boards, which they'd had
sanded and polished and then thrown with rugs; there was a copper
chandelier, with rather suspect modern wiring, which she'd bought in the
Bermondsey market, and a minimal amount of furniture, all antique.

When they could afford it, they were going to buy a four-poster bed or,
even better, have one made to measure, but that was going to have to
wait a while, although John had said it wouldn't be long.  Already, in
the short time since they'd accepted Mr. Sarotzini's deal, DigiTrak was
booming. Susan told John it was because he was confident, now that he
didn't have his financial worries, and that confidence was infectious.

And he was feeling confident, so much so that he hadn't even bothered
with the lottery or the horses recently.

He kissed her.  "Morning, sleepyhead."

"Morning.  Thanks, that looks great," she said, taking hold of the tray.
The past few days since she had come home from the clinic had been
horrendous.  They had barely talked, and last night John had exploded
because she wouldn't make love to him.  Miles Van Rhoe had told her
strictly that she and John must not make love for a fortnight after the
fertilisation attempt, not even with a condom.  She wasn't to risk any
kind of sexual contact with him.

She met his eyes fleetingly now, and thought she detected in them a
glimmer of understanding.  Maybe today, she thought, would be the start
of the thaw.  They were going to have to deal with this problem.  They
couldn't go on not talking, letting it fester and, besides, this hadn't
been only her decision.  John couldn't keep on walking around the house
looking at her as if she was a leper or a whore.  Surely their love for
each other was strong enough to get them through this.

"How did you sleep?" she asked.

"OK." His voice was tepid, suddenly, imbued with the unsaid "I'd have
slept better after a bonk."

"You?"

"I woke a few times."

There was a strange smell in the room that seemed to have accompanied
John's entrance, a faint stench of brunt rubber.  Maybe the old couple
next door were having a bonfire.  The woman was a pyrbmaniac; she had a
bonfire almost every week, chucked all kinds of rubbish on it while the
old boy sat in front of it.  Susan had seen him from the west window,
which looked right across their neighbors" garden, sitting in his chair,
in his Panama hat, watching the bonfire as if it was a great movie, and
shouting out when it needed stoking.

John poured her coffee, set it down beside her, then climbed back into
bed and turned straight to "the Innovations section of the Sunday Times.
Susan picked up the main section, glanced at the headlines, then took a
sip of her coffee.

She spat it straight out.

John looked at her in alarm.  "What's the matter?"

The taste in her mouth was something else.  She didn't want to tell him,
didn't want to risk upsetting him just when he was in a good mood, but
this coffee was seriously nasty.  It tasted like rusty metal.  And the
stench of burning rubber - she knew now where it was coming from.  It
was the coffee.

"Susan?  Darling?  What is it?  What's the matter?"

It must be her imagination she thought, and tasted it again.  This time
it was even worse and the smell was making her feel distinctly queasy.
Either he was going to have to take the coffee out of the room, or she
was going to have to leave the room" herself.

"Hon," she said, "is this a" different brand?  The coffee?"

"It's the same we always have, the medium roast, the one you like. Why?"

She wondered, wildly, if something from Harry the painter had got into
the percolator, some paint stripper or something.  Surely not.  "It
tastes -different."

John sipped his coffee, then hers, frowning.  "It's fine." Then he put
down his cup and raised a hand.  "Uh-oh.  I've read about this.  You
know why it tastes strange?  You're pregnant."

She sat in silence.  She'd been suspecting it since Friday.  But that
had been so soon - too soon, surely.

Oh, God, please let it be something else.

"It's too soon," she told him.  But she had to get away from this
stench.  "I need some air.  Why don't we have breakfast out in the
garden?"

John shrugged.  "Sure, why not?"

Susan took Pregnancy - The Myths and the Reality and sat in a chair
outside, sipped some orange juice and nibbled a dry biscuit, which was
all she fancied.

The first chapter of the book dealt with the time immediately following
conception.  Susan read that morning sickness occasionally came on
within twenty-four hours.  Revulsion to foods, drinks, smells might
occur almost as quickly.

Then she put down the book and peered inside her nightdress at the ugly
red weal in her abdomen, and the stitches, which were already beginning
to dissolve.  Miles Van Rhoe had promised there would be no scar.

She thought back to the weird dream she had had when she was under the
anaesthetic, and in spite of the warm sunlight, she shivered.

It had been just a dream.  Or a hallucination.  She thought about the
strange man from Telecom, trying to work out why he had been in the
dream.  She knew that everything in dreams was significant and that any
people you saw were there for a reason.  Maybe the man from Telecom
represented work being done on the house.  Maybe she had dreamed about
him because part of the point of her having the operation was to save
the house, and he represented progress with it.  But why him and not
Harry the painter too?  Or any of the other tradesmen who had come and
gone over the past two months.

There had been a time when she and John had discussed their dreams, and
she toyed with mentioning this one, then dismissed the idea: it was too
personal and she did not want to raise the subject of sex.

Abandoning her dream, she returned to the Sunday Times.  When she'd
finished the main section, she picked up the Mail on Sunday and began to
read it.  When she came to an article on page seven, she stopped, read
it carefully, then read it again.

Hon?" she said.

John was buried in a supplement.  "Uh?"

"This composer you've been having the problems with - it was Zak
Danziger, right?"

John did not look up.  "Snivelling little turd."

She handed him the paper, tapping the top of the page with her finger.
"Look, here."

John looked, reluctantly, irritated at being disturbed in the middle of
an article he was reading about a new BMW sports coup(; it was a model
he fancied buying, and he was wondering if Mr. Sarotzini would have any
objections if he splashed out.  Although, of course, he could lease it,
and then the figures wouldn't look bad.

And then he saw the small photograph, the name Zak Danziger, followed by
the word dead.

Gripping the paper tightly he read straight through the article.  It was
short and did not go into detail.  It simply said that British composer
and former rock singer Zak Danziger had been found dead of an apparent
drug overdose in his suite at the Plaza hotel in New York yesterday
morning.  Danziger had written the lyrics for three hit musicals that
had played in over twenty languages around the world and the scores for
over thirty films.  He had been married three times and was estranged
from his current wife.  He left a son and two daughters by previous
marriages. "Bloody hell!" he said.

"What does this mean?" Susan asked quietly.

"It means the lawsuit is brown bread - dead." John smiled.  "I should
feel sorry for the poor bastard, but I don't, not after the way he
behaved.  It's very good news for us.  Mr. Sarotzini's going to be
delighted." He read through the piece again, and said, "God, why
couldn't it have happened a month ago?  We'd have been out of the woods,
wouldn't have had to go through any of -"

He stopped in mid-sentence, having seen the troubled expression on
Susan's face.  "I'm sorry," he said.  "I shouldn't be feeling like this
- I know I shouldn't be happy at news of a tragedy, but I am, with this
bastard I really am."

"It's quite a coincidence, isn't it?" she said, quietly.

"Uh?"

"His dying - so soon." She shook her head.  "It's nothing, I'm being
silly." John gave her a sideways look, then read the report again.  He
remembered the old dictums about not speaking ill of the dead, but he
still couldn't prevent the smile spreading across his face each time he
looked at Danziger's photograph and remembered the composer that
afternoon in his lawyer's office, with his studded denims, lavatory
brush hair and arrogant scowl.

Susan looked at the sky: there wasn't a cloud in it, and she wondered
what was draining all the heat out of the sun today.

Chapter Twenty-eight

Coffee was causing Susan real problems.  Even the faintest scent of it
right now made her stomach feel like she was on a bad funfair ride, and
Fergus Donleavy was due any minute - he ran on caffeine.  She sometimes
thought Fergus had Colombian dark blend double roast rather than blood
in his veins.

It was Tuesday.  Last Wednesday night she had been in the clinic.  In
one week's time her period was due, and she was thinking, maybe this
coffee thing was just coincidence.  Except it wasn't just coffee, it was
the smell of alcohol now too, and cigarettes, and the only thing she
wanted to eat was dry biscuits.

It could be flu, she tried to convince herself.

Sure, Susan Carter, it could be flu.  And that would be a real
coincidence to catch a flu that gave you the same symptoms as pregnancy,
just a few days after you'd been in a clinic having artificial
insemination. Artificial?

That question had taken up residence in the first compartment she
reached each time she took a walk around the inside of her head.  The
man from Telecom was always in there, smiling at her, stepping out of
the darkness towards her, and however much she tried to shut him out,
she couldn't.  Only this man knew for sure whether it had been a
hallucination.

In one week's time, she would know if she was pregnant or not.  She had
to ride this week out and pray hard for her period to come.

Tony Weir experienced a similar reaction to John when he heard of Zak
Danziger's death.  The solicitor's voice down the phone was filled with
good humour, even though.  he'd just lost out on
Lord-only-knows-how-much loot from defending DigiTrak against the
composer.

Tony Weir was the only person who knew the truth about John's
arrangement with Mr. Sarotzini: he'd gone through the VOrn Bank's
documentation with John before he had signed.  A quiet, hard-working
man, Weir had a wise head and lived modestly, although he was a partner
in a major London law firm, pulling in upwards of 350,000 in a bad year.
He had been John's solicitor from the early days of DigiTrak.

"I'm getting the impression," John said, "that Susan thinks there's some
agenda behind this guy's death connected to our deal with the V6rn.
She's in a strange mood - a bit paranoid about things."

Tony chuckled, then said, "This cutting you faxed from the Mail on
Sunday - the New York Police Department don't sound suspicious about the
death.  Danziger had split up with his third wife, just lost a custody
battle, was heavily into drugs - sounds to me like all the ingredients
for depression.  These composers, they're a pretty flaky lot."

"Sure.  And I don't give a fuck.  This guy nearly ruined my business and
my entire life."

"How are your partners working out?"

It was a good question.  John had not seen or heard from Mr. Sarotzini
since he'd handed him the signed documents three weeks ago.  It was a
little surprising, after all the promises the banker had made to Susan
about taking her to the opera, concerts, art galleries, but it was early
days, and he had plenty of time to come good on those.  And, besides,
that wasn't important.  What mattered was that the money had been
transferred to the company's account.

"Fine, terrific," he replied.  "So far, so good."

There was a silence.

Tony Weir was not comfortable about the deal.  He had warned John that
it put him and Susan into" Sarotzini's pocket, and he had even suggested
that Susan should consider counselling before accepting.  But he'd had
to agree with John that DigiTrak weren't exactly knee-deep in other
options.  Now, lowering his voice to almost a whisper, he asked, "So?
Has Susan?  You know?"

"Last Wednesday." John's good humour evaporated and he had a dry,
unpleasant taste in his throat.

"And you're OK about it?"

John had to think.  He would have liked to have confided in Tony Weir
that he felt as if Susan had been violated, and that he had too - that
it was as though she was having an affair right in front of his eyes and
he was powerless to do anything about it.

He wanted to tell Tony Weir that every time he looked at her, even at
the photograph on his desk, all he could think of was Mr. Sarotzini's
sperm inside her.  And he wanted to tell him that she seemed to be
locking him out of her life.  Sure, she smiled at him and talked to him,
kissed him hello and goodbye, good morning and good-night, but shutters
had come down.

But John didn't tell Tony Weir this.  Instead, he said,."Yup, I'm OK
about it."

Klindz was listening to this conversation while he did his housework.
Except that this wasn't just housework, this was ritual, the closest
Klindz came to prayer.

This was purification.

He was purifying his flat, with the same thoroughness and the same
pleasure with which he had purified himself.  He was clean, every part
of him, every crevice, every orifice.  Now he was finishing washing the
walls of the flat, and then he was going to spray them with
disinfectant. It would be as clean as an operating/theatre. This whole
world needed purifying. Mr. Sarotzini understood that.

All the time Klindz was purifying his flat, he was listening: channel 9,
the telephone in John Carter's office, and channel 14, the telephone in
Susan Carter's office.  He listened to both at the same time, that was
no problem.  He had also been listening to channel 17, Fergus Donleavy's
study overlooking the Thames, but the writer had gone out now.  He was
on his way to meet Susan, to take her to lunch at a restaurant called
Mon Plaisir.  Klindz did not like this.  He did not want this man to be
close to his Susan.  He felt a confusion of emotions, anger most of all,
and some sharp, indefinable pain, like a tourniquet tightening somewhere
deep inside his heart.

Klindz had already booked a table at this restaurant, for one, in the
name of Dr. Paul Morris.  He had learned from Mr. Sarotzini's teachings
that a professional title always carried weight.  So Dr. Paul Morris
dined out a lot, always alone.  His real name was Rikky Berendt and he
was sitting at this table now, apparently reading a paperback novel.
Within its pages were contained a directional microphone and photographs
of Susan Carter and Fergus Donleavy.  He was destined for a fruitless
wait.  Susan and Fergus weren't going to turn up.

Klindz had a hard time controlling his temper when he heard Susan say to
Donleavy, who had just arrived in her office, "Fergus, would you mind if
instead of going to a restaurant we went for a walk?"

Klindz heard Donleavy clear his throat and then say, "No, of course not.
Where would you like to go?"

"Anywhere.  I don't mind - a park?  Along the Embankment?"

Klindz, moving fast, dialled a mobile-phone number and two early diners
at Mon Plaisir glanced in momentary irritation at a rather well-dressed
man who put down the book he was reading and answered his cell-phone.

"How far are you from Susan Carter's office?" Klindz asked. "Five
minutes."

"Get there in two."

They were like a couple of tourists, except they weren't carrying
cameras, and they strolled easily in the fine lunch-time sunlight, down
St. Martin's Lane, across Trafalgar Square, stopping to look at the
pigeons and the lions.  Susan had never realised how big these lions
were, she didn't think she'd ever walked across Trafalgar Square before,
never been this close to them.

She was wearing black jeans with a white T-shirt, and a linen jacket,
and it was comfortable in this heat.  Fergus wore what he always wore:
an old tweed jacket, open shirt, rusty cords, iace-up brogues. Seemingly
impervious to the temperature, he seldom wore an overcoat in winter and
equally seldom took off his jacket in summer.

They did not start talking about anything in particular until they'd
reached the Embankment.  Fergus was enjoying his new role as a tourist
guide, and Susan was realising, with some embarrassment, how few of
London's sights she'd learned anything about in seven years.  On their
way past, Fergus explained that Nelson's Column had had to be built
higher than the Duke of York's statue in the Mall, and a short while
later, stopping in front of Cleopatra's Needle, he explained how the
Egyptians erected their obelisks.

And Klindz heard Susan say to him, with a tease in her voice, "How come
you know so much about all these phallic monuments?"

Then he had to listen to Donleavy telling Susan that Egyptian priests
took it in turns, had a rota, to masturbate in the inner sanctums of
their temples.

Seething with anger, Klindz wanted to take Donleavy by the throat and
tell him to stop talking dirty to Susan Carter.

And then, almost as if Donleavy had heard Klindz's thoughts, he changed
the subject, asking, "Where did you go last week?"

"A clinic," Susan said baldly.  "A minor op.  A woman's complaint.  Not
something I want to talk about." That did the trick.  It stopped
Donleavy asking any more difficult questions.  Susan leant on the
Embankment wall and looked out across the water.  "You must love living
by the Thames," she said.  "I think I would."

Fergus grunted, or maybe he cleared his throat - neither Susan nor
Klindz were sure.  He studied a well-dressed man sitting on the
Embankment wall - he might have been a lawyer, or perhaps a doctor,
reading a paperback.  Simple pleasures, Fergus thought, his gaze staying
on the man. Such a simple pleasure to sit on a wall and read a book, but
how often do any of us do it?

Finally, Susan couldn't wait any longer, and asked Donleavy directly,
"What was it you wanted to talk to me about so urgently last week?"

Fergus made that same noise again, deep in his throat, then sat down,
looking a little awkward.  He retied one of his shoe laces.  When he had
finished, he said, "I'm a little bit psychic, hrmmn?"

Susan nodded.  He'd told her about his premonitions, his telepathic
experiences, the auras he could soretimes see around people, and she'd
read most of what he'd written in this area.

"Well, this is going to sound strange, and I don't want to alarm you."
He fell silent.

Susan waited patiently for him to continue.  He rummaged in his pockets,
pulled a cigarette from a battered flip-top pack, then lit it with a
Zippo.  As the smoke drifted past her, she smelt the now familiar burnt
rubber stench.

She watched him draw on the cigarette again, gazed at the shaggy mane of
grey hair that hung down over his ears and touched his shoulders, his
lean, hard-but-warm face, and thought, as she often had, how much he
reminded her of a cowboy, the Man With No Name, the loner of the
prairies.

She had such faith in this man's abilities, and his presence always
excited her.  He carried so much knowledge, so many wild ideas, in his
head.  She loved John deeply, but she had thought, and more than once,
that had she met Fergus under different circumstances, something could
have happened between them.

"I've been getting a recurring dream." He drew on his cigarette again,
without looking at her.  "I know you and John have made a decision not
to have children, but in this dream I see you pregnant."

She prompted, "And?"

He swung his head to look at her, and his eyes narrowed against the
glare of the sun on the water behind her.  A light breeze lifted a few
strands of his hair and batted them around.  "I shouldn't be saying
anything, worrying you, it's nuts."

Susan tilted her head and looked at him sideways, not giving away
anything in her expression.  "But you felt strongly enough about it to
ring me at home."

He smoked some more of his cigarette.  "Well, this is none of my
business, and anyhow, you're not planning to have children, are you?"
She hesitated and saw that he'd picked up on this hesitation.  "No." He
raised his hands.  "So, good.  It's OK."

"And if we changed our minds - decided to have children - is there a
problem?  What have you seen?"

He thought hard, gazing into her face, smelling her perfume, watching
strands of that sleek red hair lifting and dropping in the breeze.  Last
week it had seemed desperately urgent.  But out here, in the sunlight,
she was looking so anxious and vulnerable, and she'd just assured him
she was not about to have a child, and he didn't want to make her worry,
he didn't want to mess with her head.  He just wanted to put his arms
round her and see how she responded.

^ moment sometimes presents itself between people.  A tiny window opens:
within seconds it could shut again.  He sensed now that the window was
open.

He really had thought last week that she was going to have a baby, and
he was picking up vibrations from her now that it was in her mind, but
it didn't seem that anything was imminent.  It wasn't in her mind with
John. But with someone else?  Her new lover?  "Nothing," he said,
finally.  "It would only have been important if you were pregnant."

She nodded, avoiding his eyes.

Then he made his move.  He swung his arms around her shoulders, but she
flinched, backing away, and he ended up holding her rather clumsily. "I
love you, Susan," he said.

She looked back at him, startled, her face flushed.  "Fergus, I -" She
was shaking her head, and he was still holding her shoulders firmly, but
awkwardly, his face close to hers, blocking most of the light.

Then he released his grip, stepped back half a pace.  "Look, I - I'm
sorry, but I can't help it, I really do love you." He smiled sheepishly.
"I - I'm not sure about your situation - with your marriage?"

Susan wondered what she had done to make him feel like this, and tried
to find a way to defuse the situation without hurting his feelings.
"Fergus, I'm sorry, you've rather taken me by surprise." She smiled.  "I
mean, I'm flattered, and I like you a lot.  But I have a good marriage
and I love my husband."

Fergus was blushing profusely now.  "I'm sorry."

She Smiled again, not knowing whether to look at him or down at the
pavement.  "!  like our friendship, Fergus, I really value it."

He smoked the cigarette down to the stub then Crushed it on the
pavement. "I'm around, OK?  You can telephone me any time, day or night,
don t mind.  Just promise me that if anything starts troubling you,
you'll call me.  Will you do that?"

Susan promised.

And Klindz, struggling to contain his fury, decided that Mr. Sarotzini
should hear this conversation.

Chapter Twenty-nine

The picture on the monitor was fuzzy black and white, or more like grey
and white, and it took a while before Susan saw what Miles Van Rhoe was
pointing at with his finger.  Then when she did see it, she wasn't sure
she was looking at the right thing.

"That?" she asked.  "The sort of oval?"

"The inter-uterine sac," the obstetrician told her, sounding as excited
as a kid on Christmas morning.  It was difficult for him to point,
because he was holding the probe with his right hand, and trying to keep
it steady.

Susan was lying with her feet hooked up in stirrups, and a cold,
gelatinously coated vaginal scanner inside her, and she was craning her
neck to see the monitor.

She was still not sure that she was looking at the right thing.  "That -
the dark bit that looks like a bladder?  That's my baby?"

"Yes.  Congratulations, Susan, you are five weeks pregnant.  You are
going to be a mother!"

Susan continued staring at the sac, fascinated.  Then her eyes moved to
the obstetrician's nurse, a tall, rather stern woman in her fifties,
with grey hair pulled back harshly and clamped either side.  The nurse
was smiling, but it was a cold, formal smile, as if she knew something
that Susan did not and was holding it back.

Unnerved by this, Susan looked at the obstetrician and said, "It's all
right?  The baby?  He - she - it's all right?  It's healthy, I mean?"

"Yes, Susan, everything looks absolutely fine.  But please remember it
is very early, and we're only seeing the sac at this stage." Van Rhoe
gently removed the probe and handed it to the nurse.  Then he peeled off
his rubber gloves and went over to the sink.  The nurse handed Susan a
tissue. She put on her knickers and linen skirt, then followed him back
into his minuscule office.

The size of the room surprised Susan: this man regularly delivered
babies for the British Royal Family, the rich and famous, and yet these
consulting rooms, two floors above Harley Street, were not much larger
than a pair of broom cupboards.

She rather liked this modesty: it seemed to make Mile Van Rhoe more
accessible, somehow more human, and it reinforced the strength of his
reputation for her.  He must be pretty terrific for some of his
clientele to put up with this poky little place, she reckoned.

And there was a down-to-earth quality about Van Rhoe that she liked.

She didn't know his age, but put him at around sixty.  He had a large
frame, but he wasn't tall, and a dreadful hairstyle, short and spiky as
if he cut it himself.  His suits were all fine quality but they looked
old-fashioned and tired, as though he'd bought them when he'd first
qualified and worn them ever since.  He had self-assurance though,
buckets of it, huge, finely manicured hands, beautiful blue eyes and a
silky voice to die for.  She felt comfortable with him: he exuded the
endearing air of a favourite teddy bear.

Holding a fountain pen, an old Parker, he said, "So, metallic taste from
tea and coffee and stench of burning rubber.  Cigarette smoke is
Unpleasant and the smell of alcohol makes you nauseous.  Loss of
appetite, apart from a craving for dry biscuits." He jotted all this
down on an index card.  "Anything else?"

"Bath Olivers," she replied.  "They're the biscuits I crave most."

He smiled as he wrote this down, then peered at her over the top of his
half-rims.  "Pity it's not something a little less pricy."

She grinned.  A question sat in her mind, which it was getting harder
and harder to ask.  She had known that she was pregnant before she had
come here - she had done a test that she bought from a chemist, although
she hadn't told John.

She had made the decision that she was going to induce a miscarriage,
and had told John last night that if she was pregnant, she wanted to
terminate it.  Perhaps they could go and see Bill Rolands, their doctor,
who was a personal friend.  John had responded indifferently and it was
impossible to gauge what he felt.  All Susan knew was that this baby
would destroy her marriage, and she could not go through with it.

But now she felt different.  There was such warmth coming from this man
that sitting here in front of him, as he wrote his notes, she felt as if
she had just been congratulated by a teacher on a brilliant essay, which
made her want to go on pleasing him.  And seeing this living thing
inside her had excited her.  She was feeling so proud.

It was a powerful feeling.

She hadn't expected to feel anything like this. And couldn't ask him the
question now.  She had been going to ask him how many weeks she had to
go in which a miscarriage could happen, but now she couldn't.  The image
of the sac was too strong.  Her baby was growing in it.

Van Rhoe rummaged in a drawer and pulled out a fresh hypodermic in its
wrapping.  "I'm just going to give you a little injection," he said.
"Some vitamins that will help the development of the foetus."

She rolled up the sleeve of her blouse, all fear of needles gone.  This
was for the baby.  As he dabbed her upper arm with a swab, he said,
"Before you leave, I'd like you to see my secretary.  We need to make a
regular weekly appointment, at a time convenient for you."

"Weekly?"

"Until we're out of the danger period."

"How long is that?"

"The next couple of months." He dropped the syringe into a receptacle,
and Susan rolled down her sleeve; she had hardly noticed the jab.

"Do you mind if I ask you a personal question, Susan?  How is your
husband taking this?"

She took a moment.  "OK, I guess." Then she blushed a little.  "I - we
haven't made love, since -"

"Is that you or him?"

"I - I'm not sure.  Both?"

He smiled.  "It's not an easy situation."

"No, it's not."

"But you're strong.  You'll get through it."

She smiled back.  "Yes."

Van Rhoe wrote something else on the index card, then looked up again.
"How do you think he'll take this news?"

"I don't know," Susan said. And she didn't.

Chapter Thirty

"We got the contract!" Gareth told John.  "I mean, this is unreal,
right? We've bid on ten jobs in the past month, and we've got nine of
them.  And we could have got the tenth if we'd wanted but we effectively
turned it down.  What's going on?"

John sat in the pub, sipping his beer and smoking the cigarette he'd
bummed from Gareth.  He'd bummed so many from his partner in the past
few weeks that he kept buying new packs for him.  But that was better
than buying a pack for himself.  As long as he was just bumming, it
didn't feel as if he had started smoking again.

He wondered if Susan had noticed the smell of smoke on him; she must
have done, he thought.  In fact, thinking about it, the other evening
she had told him that she didn't mind the smell of coffee any more, that
it had stopped smelling like burning rubber, although it still tasted
metallic; and she had said that she didn't mind the smell of cigarettes
any more, either.

Had that been a barbed hint?  If it had, why hadn't she just said
something?  That was the problem, they weren't communicating: they were
like two strangers living under one roof.  He knew that it was as much
his fault as Susan's.  Probably more.  And he knew the reason.

"How do you mean, what's going on, Gareth?"

Gareth, in a red cotton jacket and baggy green shirt, gave him a
weirding-out look.  "You have to admit this is spooky, right?"

John drew on his cigarette in silence.  It was spooky.

"I mean, these new backers of ours, they must be impressed, right?" Six
o'clock, the pub was filling up.  Someone was playing a slot machine,
and kept reaching a level that set off a twangy musical tune that John
found irritating.  And Gareth was irritating too.  And the fact that
he'd been weak and had started smoking again.

But the real issue was Susan, his marriage, their life.  What life? They
didn't have a life any more.  She was eight weeks pregnant.  Just a
couple more weeks and she would be out of danger of miscarrying, and the
way he was feeling right now, he wanted to go home and throw the bitch
downstairs and make that miscarriage happen.

He crushed out his cigarette.  Gareth was talking and he wasn't
listening. DigiTrak was going so incredibly that he didn't need Mr.
Sarotzini's money any more.  Christ, if Clarke had just let them hang on
for another month they wouldn't have needed Sarotzini and the V6rn Bank
in the first place. There were two things he wanted to happen.  He
wanted Susan to miscarry and he wanted to get Mr. Sarotzini out of his
face.

Except Mr. Sarotzini wasn't around and he hadn't responded to either of
the reports John had sent to the V6rn Bank.  John had asked Tony Weir to
find a loophole in the agreement they had made.  Weir had responded that
there was no problem in finding a loophole - it was illegal for British
law to have a surrogate child for money.  The problem would be with Mr.
Sarotzini, who held legal ownership of DigiTrak and the house until the
baby was handed over.  The deeds, shares, everything were assigned to
him.

Before Susan's pregnancy had been confirmed they had talked about
inducing a miscarriage.  It had been Susan who had made the suggestion.
But she had changed.  She'd become sanctimonious about the baby and
absurdly protective.  Every time he tried to bring up the subject of
miscarriage, she changed the conversation abruptly, or walked away.

He finished his second pint, and ordered a third.  While Gareth talked
enthusiastically about a new RAID server he wanted to order, and
compression algorithms, John drank his beer, getting more and more angry
with Susan.  He finished it, told Gareth he'd see him in the morning and
headed for the door.

He was going home.  He was going to grab that bitch wife of his by the
throat.

He was going to make her miscarry.

""He who begins by loving Christianity better than Truth will proceed by
loving his own sect or church better than Christianity, and end by
loving himself better than all,"" Mr. Sarotzini said to Klindz.

And Klindz, sitting in Mr. Sarotzini's great office in Geneva, replied,
"Samuel Taylor Coleridge."

And this pleased Mr. Sarotzini.  And then he read the list that Klindz
had prepared for him.  "Archie Warren?  Fergus Donleavy?  Tony Weir?
Just these three?  Why is John Carter's name not on this danger list
also?"

Klindz had to think.  "Because," he started, and then he stopped.
"Because that decision has been made," he said, and he knew,
immediately, that this was the wrong answer.

And this answer did not please Mr. Sarotzini, Klindz could see that in
his expression, and suddenly he was afraid.  He could smell his own fear
rising from his body.  He could smell the leather in this room, the
polish that had been applied to the wood, the chemical that had cleaned
the carpet, but he could not smell Mr. Sarotzini.

And this was a strange thing that had Klindz found about Mr. Sarotzini:
he never, ever had any smell and Klindz found this hard.  He was certain
it was a game Mr. Sarotzini played with him, deliberately blocking his
ability to smell him by putting something disabling into his mind.

Klindz had never come across a person before who had no smell. Without
smell, Klindz could not read Mr. Sarotzini.  He was the only person
Klindz had ever met whom he could not read.

Mr. Sarotzini could read every cell in Klindz's body, and he could hear
them.  They were all speaking to him now.  They were deeply afraid.
"Stefan, who made this decision?"

Klindz sensed the temperature in his body changing: for an instant it
rose, then it plunged, dropping away so fast that all his hairs
stiffened, turning hard as needles.

"I believed we had no other option," Klindz said.

Mr. Sarotzini, behind his desk, in his fine suit, barely moved.  "John
Carter, is he special to you, Stefan?" Now he leaned forward a little.
"Tell me, Stefan, would it cause you pain to hurt Mr. Carter?"

Klindz was careful.  He wasn't sure of the answer Mr. Sarotzini was
expecting, he was trying to remember what Mr. Sarotzini had taught him.
It was one of the Truths, the Third, or was it the Fourth?  He couldn't
remember, not exactly, and he did not want the pain Mr. Sarotzini would
inflict if he got it wrong.

"The Fourth Truth, Stefan?  "The only true pain is to hurt the thing you
love?"

Klindz answered, "No, it would not cause me pain to hurt John Carter."
And secretly he was thinking that he would love to hurt John Carter,
more than anything in the world, but he was careful to smother this
thought. Mr. Sarotzini could take thoughts straight from his head and
read them.

And Mr. Sarotzini was standing up now, walking across his office to a
cabinet.  Klindz knew what was inside the cabinet and he did not want
this.

Mr. Sarotzini swung open the teak door to reveal a large television
screen.  He touched a button and the screen came alive.  Klindz braced
himself, using all the training Mr. Sarotzini had given him to control
his emotions, but this was still difficult.

The picture on the screen was of Claudie.  She was sitting, naked, in a
big wicker chair in Klindz's apartment in Zurich, and she was doing what
Klindz had always loved her to do, which was to press her hand up
between her legs while he was intoxicating himself on the smells of her
body.

Claudie was smiling that big, sexy, provocative come-and-take-me smile.
She was playful and she was pretty - but in a different way from Susan
Carter.  Susan had fresh, healthy, all-American outdoor looks, but
Claudie was an indoor girl.  Her glossy black hair was razor cut in Goth
style, and her flesh was as white as death.  But it was soft flesh to
touch: she was slim enough to be vulnerable, but carried just a hint of
voluptuousness.

Being pregnant would make Susan Carter voluptuous, he thought suddenly.

Claudie was moving that hand so slowly, gentle strokes with those long
fingers, and sometimes she brought them out from inside her and sucked
them, and caressed her body with them.  But there was no soundtrack
playing with this recording.

The sound that was coming into this room now, through the speakers on
either side of the television, was live and, Klindz knew, it was coming
from within this building.

The sound was Claudie screaming.

And the sound of her screaming was almost beyond imagination.  The
agony, the fear, the terror, the despair, the pleading it carried.

And Klindz was aware that Mr. Sarotzini was watching him and he must
pass this test.  And this was hard, because he knew exactly what they
were doing to Claudie and the thought of it churned even him up.

Claudie screamed again, and this was even worse, and then she cried out,
"No, please, oh, God, nooooooooooooo."

Her voice turned to a shriek so fearful that Klindz wanted to put his
fingers into his ears and turn away.  But he couldn't.

He daren't.

Then Mr. Sarotzini turned off the television and the speakers, and
closed the cabinet door.  He returned to his desk and asked Klindz, "Do
you love Susan Carter enough to feel pain if you hurt her?"

For the first time in her life, Susan felt she was doing something for
herself and not for someone else.  She was doing it because she wanted
to do it, and it was elating.

Standing on top of the step-ladder in the freshly painted front spare
bedroom that overlooked the street, with two picture ails gripped in her
lips and a hammer in her hand, she felt deeply happy and content.  Maybe
it was the hormone change in her body, or just the excitement she had
felt this afternoon when Miles Van Rhoe had put the ultrasound scanner
on her abdomen and let her listen to her baby's heartbeat.

If John would just calm down about this whole thing, everything would be
perfect.  It wasn't a big deal having this baby, it really wasn't, and
she was doing it for them both, for their marriage, for everything.  And
even though this wasn't their child, it was a human being, it had as
much right to her love and care as if it were their child.  She owed it
that much and she was determined to give it that much.  And it was an
adventure.  And, most important of all, in a little more than seven
months it would be over.  It was just a matter of getting John to see it
that way.

And she would.  She had experienced his stubbornness before: it was like
a defence mechanism for him, a toughness he had developed to shield him
from the horrors of his wretched childhood.  Confrontation never worked
so she just had to be patient, take it a day at a time, be nice to him,
swallow the insults, slowly win him round.

She hammered one nail into the wall, fixing the picture hook on the
pencilled cross she had marked, and at that moment the door crashed open
behind her.  As she turned round in shock, the remaining nail she had
been holding in her mouth pinged onto the bare floorboards.

John was standing in the doorway.  His expression frightened her.  She
could smell the waft of alcohol and cigarette smoke and he seemed to be
having difficulty in holding himself steady and focusing.  He must have
driven home in this state, she thought with horror.  This wasn't the
John Carter she married, this wasn't her rock, she didn't know this man.

"Hi, hon," she said, nervously, because almost anything she said these
days seemed to make him fly off the handle.

He just kept staring at her, and the way he was looking at her unnerved
her.  There seemed - and she hoped she was imagining it - to be pure
hatred in his face.

John was staring at a bitch stranger in his house.  He was thinking that
if he pushed this ladder over, right now, she'd fall to the ground,
which might make her miscarry.  It would be easy, he thought.  She was
balanced precariously on the top step, hammer in her hand, picture hook
hanging lopsided from only one nail on the wall.  He could walk over
there, blunder into the ladder, she wouldn't realise it had been
deliberate. But what if she broke her arm instead?  Or her neck?

And then as she turned her head, instead of a stranger, John saw his
wife standing at the top of that step-ladder, he saw Susan, and she
looked so radiantly happy.  She was in this home that she loved, and she
was doing what she liked to do, decorating, making this place into the
dream they both had.

He took a deep breath, swallowed down the hatred that had been growing
inside him these past weeks, remembered. It's only for seven months, for
Chrissake. And then it will be over.

Nine months, it was nothing, it was already eight weeks now, just seven
months to go, they could handle this, they could keep the lid on this
cauldron of emotions, fuck Sarotzini, fuck everybody.

"How was your day?" he asked.

"I went to Miles Van Rhoe - another scan." Uncertain about his mood, she
decided not to tell him that she had listened to the baby's heartbeat.
"I came home afterwards to work on Fergus's manuscript.  Thought I'd get
a few pictures up in here - thought I'd put up that one of the Suffolk
harbour - the one you've never been crazy about.  It would look OK in
here, don't you think?"

"Sure.  Do I get a kiss?"

Sensing his lightening mood, she blew him a teasing one.  "Pass me that
nail I just dropped, then I'll give you a great big one!"

John knelt, found the nail and she hammered it in.  Then he passed her
up the picture, a rather uninspired sunset behind a fishing port, which
they'd bought some years back in a car-boot sale.

"Fancy a movie?  There's several things on I want to see."

"If you like." She didn't sound enthusiastic. "No?"

"It's just that it's such a gorgeous evening and there won't be many
more this year when it's warm enough to sit out.  Why don't we have a
barbecue?  We haven't for weeks."

John thought about it and she was right.  It was the third week of
September; the summer had slipped past.  "Weather's been shitty," he
said. "That's why we haven't."

But they both knew it had been a glorious few weeks, just the last
couple of days it had rained, that was all.  It was something else that
had been shitty.

Susan hung the picture, straightened it, and John steadied the ladder as
she came down, then put his arms around her and held her.  She nestled
into him, pressed her face to his shoulder, their cheeks touching.  John
smelled her hair, the sweet coconut scent of her shampoo which he liked.
"I love you," he said.

The alcohol and the smoke gave him a manly smell.  When they had first
gone out, he always smelled of smoke and she'd liked that because it
reminded her of her father, who had smoked throughout her childhood.
"And I love you," she replied.  "More than anything in the world."

Instead of having a barbecue, they went to bed and made love.  A few
hours later, John woke up and heard the flick of a sheet of paper as
Susan read her way through further pages of Fergus Donleavy's rewrite,
and he had a close-up view of her left breast.  He realised that her
breasts had become bigger recently, and that was a turn-on.

He gently traced the contour with his finger, stopping to give the
nipple a circular stroke, and Susan wriggled, giving a tiny murmur of
pleasure. "Hungry?" she asked.

"Uh-huh.  What do you fancy?"

"I don't mind, something light.  Scrambled eggs?"

"Sure.  I'll make it." John kissed her and got out of bed.

"God, you've got a hard-on again!" she said.

He grinned.  "Yup, well that's a problem I've always had with you." Then
he pulled a towel around his waist and padded downstairs to the kitchen.

Tonight at any rate, he thought, they had their life back.

Chapter Thirty-one

Ten weeks.  And now it had been pointed out to her, there was no
mistaking it.  Even on this fuzzy grey and white screen Susan could see
it clearly.  She could see the arms, the legs, she could even, when Van
Rhoe indicated, make out a foot.

This is incredible, she thought, this baby, alive, inside me.

A leg moved, then the other, and she wanted to keep on watching, but Van
Rhoe removed the probe and she was left with a whiteout on the screen.

The obstetrician looked down at her and smiled.  "I can confirm
viability, Susan.  Everything looks normal, the baby is healthy, and the
results of the mucal thickness scan are fine, we have no worry about
Down's syndrome. And your worst danger period for miscarriage is now
past."

"Were you worried before about Down's Syndrome?" she asked, suspicious
of his concern.

He reassured her silkily.  "No, but it was too soon to carry out the
examination then.  This Down's syndrome test is routine, Susan, and
you're well below the risk age."

She knew a little about Down's syndrome: older parents had a higher risk
of producing a baby with it, and she wondered if that meant just the
mother or included the father.  Suddenly she shuddered, and Van Rhoe
looked at her, concerned.

"Are you all right, Susan?"

She nodded.  It had been a sudden feeling of revulsion that it was Mr.
Sarotzini's baby and not John's that she had been looking at; that a
part of Mr. Sarotzini was growing inside her.  It was a feeling that
kept returning. Everything would be fine for a few days, and then this
sudden horror came back that she was carrying another man's child.

But it's not just Mr. Sarotzini's baby, this is my baby also, she
reminded herself reassured herself.

And now she was at the point-of-no-return.  Her body had not rejected
the baby and now it was only her mind that could.  Abortion was still an
option, but not one she was even remotely considering.  The image of the
screen replayed in her mind.  Those legs, the way they moved.  That was
-just so - incredible.

"Could I listen to the heartbeat again?" she asked.

"Of course, Susan." He placed the scanner on her abdomen, moving it
around until it picked up the sound, and Susan lay still for some
moments, entranced by the steady boof-boof-boof.

Then Miles Van Rhoe gently lifted her legs from the stirrups and handed
her a paper towel.  As she stood up she felt a power that she had never
felt before.  Even the frosty nurse was smiling.

"Is it a boy or girl?" she asked, and immediately noticed the briefest
glance between Van Rhoe and his nurse - or had she imagined it?  Did
they know something?

"Sixteen weeks is the earliest we can tell," the obstetrician said. "Are
you sure you would like to know the sex in advance, Susan?  Most mothers
don't want to."

"I'm not sure," she said, fretting about the glance between them that
she had seen.  What did it mean?

"Let's deal with the question of sex when we come to it," he said. "What
I say to my patients is, all that matters is the health of the baby. And
if you want your baby to be really healthy you must love it with all
your heart while it's still in the womb.  Do you love your baby with all
your heart?"

"Yes."

He smiled warmly.  "Good, then it's going to be a healthy baby." Susan
looked up at the nurse, who was beaming at her.  So was Van Rhoe, and
the warmth was infectious.  She was starting to forget the exchange Of
glances that she'd seen - convincing herself she'd imagined it - and was
getting caught up in the excitement.  She felt so happy that she wanted
to kiss Miles Van Rhoe, and nearly did.

She followed him skittishly and sat down in front of his desk.

She was thinking so much about those legs moving on the scan that she
found it hard to concentrate on what Van Rhoe was saying, and he had to
repeat himself.  He was giving her advice about exercise, not lifting
things, rest, diet.  They had been through most of this stuff before,
but she could see why he was so well thought of: he was so thorough, he
was treating her as if this was his own baby.

And he was setting off a chain of thoughts in her mind.  Ante-natal
classes.  People at the office like Kate Fox - especially Kate - were
going to think it strange if she didn't make preparations for the baby
after it was born.  She would have to keep up some sort of pretence.
People ho were having babies bought clothes, got the room ready.

Miles Van Rhoe had asked a question and she'd missed it.  She gave him a
blank look and said, "Sorry, I was somewhere else."

"Your husband?" he asked again.  She knew this question: he asked it
every week without fail.  "How is he taking all this now?"

"Fine," she said.  "Better.  Much better now." She smiled.  "I think
he's getting used to the idea."

The obstetrician folded his massive hands.  "This can't be easy for him.
I sympathise."

"It's not easy for either of us."

He held her with his huge eyes and she wasn't sure how to read his
expression.  She thought she saw the tiniest hint of mockery, and
realised he'd picked up on the elation she was feeling.

His expression told her that he thought she was secretly enjoying this,
and she wanted to tell him that he was wrong, that this was a waking
nightmare, and if she had the chance over again she would have said no.

But she didn't tell him this.  Because, deep inside, she was aching with
happiness.

Klindz could hardly believe his eyes, but he had no choice.  It was
there, it had happened.  Susan's face had a green hue, the night vision
lens did that.  He was looking at her tight buttocks now - they hadn't
fattened out, none of her had, she didn't look pregnant at all.

The bedclothes were off, she was spreadeagled across John and she had
taken him in her mouth.  He was clawing at the sheets.

This was tough to watch.

Now she was moving around, so agile like a horizontal ballerina, she was
sliding across his body and she swung her legs over him, and now she was
sitting astride him.  Klindz could see her back arched as she guided him
inside her, heard her let out a tiny cry, but it wasn't pain, it was
just a murmur, she was smiling.

And this was hurting Klindz so much.

And he saw John Carter's face, green too, with a remote expression.  He
was somewhere else: his penis was inside Susan - but his mind? Where is
your mind, John Carter?

Klindz fought the anger that was swelling so big inside him it was hard
to contain it.  You are doing this to my woman, but your mind is
somewhere else - on another woman?  Who is she, John Carter?

One day you will tell me.

One day you will scream out her name for me.

Klindz could not watch this much longer.  Susan's ginger green hair
tossing and shaking, those breasts, flashes of milky whiteness breaking
out of the green, and the nipples, brilliant deep crimson nipples, he
wanted to touch those breasts so badly.  And he tried to imagine that
what Susan and John were doing was not real, just a movie on television,
that was all.

Klindz now remembered the Sixth Truth that Mr. Sarotzini had taught him,
and it was this: "Reality is what you believe it to be."

This helped him, but not totally.  For the Truths could not help you
totally until you understood them totally, and he knew, Mr. Sarotzini
had told him this, that his understanding was a long way from complete.
And now, was Susan having an orgasm or was she faking it?

He stopped the tape and the rage that was like a crazed animal trying to
tear its way out of him subsided.  He switched to channel 9, the
bedroom, in real time, seeing what was there tnow, at this moment, and
that made him feel better.

He watched John reading an Internet magazine.  Susan was reading a
manuscript.  She wouldn't let John make love to her tonight, she told
him she was tired, and that she had to finish this manuscript by
tomorrow. Klindz was proud of her: this made him so happy he could
almost forgive her for the one slip she had made two weeks ago.

But not John Carter.  He could not forgive John Carter.  John must be
purified.

And Mr. Sarotzini had promised him this.

John turned a page of his magazine, then another.  Then he gazed up at
the ceiling.

Klindz looked straight into his eyes.

And John, lying in bed in his dressing gown, had this strange feeling
that he was being watched.  He wasn't sure why, but it was making him
uncomfortable.

He glanced at Susan, but she was concentrating on her manuscript.  He
slipped out of bed, walked over to the window, peered through the
curtains.  He could see the street lights on the far side of the park,
the shadowy outlines of bushes and trees, his own reflection in the
glass pane. He turned, looked up at the ceiling, then around at the
walls. "What's the matter, hon?" Susan said.

"I thought I heard something," It was better, John thought than telling
her he was being watched by something invisible.

He stood still and they both listened.  "Must've imagined it," he said.

Then Susan said, "Oh, I meant to tell you, I heard something up in the
loft earlier.  I think we have mice, or," she wrinkled her face, "rats."
John shrugged.  "Could be a bird."

"Maybe we should put some mousetraps up."

"I'll do it at the weekend," John said.  "Actually, I've been meaning to
have a good root around up there - haven't really checked out the loft.
Never know, there might be some old masters hidden away up there."

Susan grinned.  "Sure - and the Holy Grail at the bottom of a tea
chest."

Klindz switched off, leaving the Carters" house on the default Voice
Activated record setting, and picked up the novel by Marcel Proust he
was half-way through.  John Carter could root around in his loft to his
heart's content.  He double checked that the tape machine was on the
right setting, then settled down.

It was not until the next morning, when the computer scanned the tape
for anything that might have happened after he had stopped listening,
that Klindz heard Susan Carter's terrible scream.

Chapter Thirty-two

In the darkness the solitary candle guttered, tossing a ribbon of light
across the old man's face.

The curtains were drawn against the night outside, but it made no
difference to the old man, with his sightless eyes, who lay motionless
in his bed.  For him, darkness was a constant and had been so for over a
decade now.  It was not important, he had seen enough.

The light that did matter still burned brightly inside his head, behind
the cruel, lined carapace of his face.  It was fuelled by the knowledge
he had retained, and to which he had unfettered access.  There were
perhaps five thousand books lining the walls of this room, and this man
could recite, at will, any line from any page, from any book, and from
thousands more books beyond these.

And he knew, from the change of smell, from the change of the rhythm of
the air in here, that someone had entered the room, and he had
identified this person before he had even closed the door behind him. He
greeted his visitor good evening, quietly, in a language that less than
a thousand people in the world could speak.

And Mr. Sarotzini responded in this same language as he approached the
bed, returning the greeting.  He inclined his head out of respect to the
man, even though he could not see.  And he remained standing.  Not even
Mr. Sarotzini was permitted to sit in this room.

We are all a part of something.  This was the Ninth Truth, and Mr.
Sarotzini knew it.  He had just one fear.  And that was this man lying
before him in this room that smelt of old leather and decaying paper.

"You have news?" the man asked.

"Ten weeks.  The danger of miscarriage is nearly behind us.  Everything
is well." There was more that he could have told him, but he did not.
"And do we know the sex?"

"No, it is too soon."

The man smiled, as if enjoying a cruel, private joke.  "It will be a
girl.  For two thousand years they have been waiting for a boy and we
are giving them a girl."

"You are certain it is a girl?" Mr. Sarotzini asked.

"I know."

"Of course," Mr. Sarotzini demurred, smarting from the reply that was
delivered like a slap.  He watched the ribbon of light, trailing
backwards and forwards across the old man's face.  This candle provided
enough light for visitors to see him, and its scant beam was gentle on
his frail skin.  The old man had once been striking-looking, with the
proud, aristocratic features of Eastern Europe, but now, blotched by
liver spots and ravaged by skin turnours, only his silhouette was still
proud.  And even though he was deeply afraid of this man, the tenderness
Mr. Sarotzini felt towards him remained undimmed, and if anything, grew
stronger with every passing year.

"When will you come again?"

"Soon, when I have more news."

"And you are confident?"

"Yes, I am confident.  I am very confident."

It was the answer the old man wished to hear.

Miles Van Rhoe sounded upset.  "Why didn't you phone me about this
immediately it happened?"

Kate Fox barged into Susan's office and stood in front of her desk,
holding what looked like a copy-edited typescript bound with rubber
bands.  She was mouthing a question, and Susan didn't have a clue what
she was saying.  All she could think was that she did not want Kate in
this room while she was having this conversation.

"Can you hold?" she asked Van Rhoe, then covering the mouthpiece, told
Kate she'd come and see her in a moment.  When her colleague had left
the office and closed the door, Susan lifted her hand from the
mouthpiece and apologised to the obstetrician.  "I didn't phone because
it was eleven o'clock at night.  And because it was just this one sudden
sharp pain and then it stopped.  I figured maybe it was some muscle
twinging, some after-effect from that probe when you were examining me
yesterday."

"You mustn't try to diagnose yourself, Susan, and please, the time of
day is not important.  You have all my phone numbers.  I want you to
phone me at eleven o'clock at night, or at three in the morning, or
five.  The only thing that can make me upset is you not phoning me at
eleven at night, or three in the morning.  We're a team, you and I, we
are working together on this, and we're going the distance together. You
must never do this again.

I want you to promise me that."

Susan mumbled" an apology.

"I want to hear it, Susan.  I want you to say loud and clear to me now,
"Mr. Van Rhoe, any time I have any pain, or any abnormality, or even
just any concern, however tiny, however trivial, I will call you, at
eleven o'clock at night, or three o'clock in the morning, or five
o'clock in the morning".  Come on, say it!"

Susan said it, then giggled when she had finished.  Her other line was
flashing but she ignored it.

"OK?" Van Rhoe said.  "We understand each other a little better now?"

"Sure."

"And you've had no more pain since?"

"No."

"No bleeding?"

"None."

"And absolutely no more pain?  Discomfort?"

"No."

"Nothing at all?  Not the slightest twinge?"

"Nothing."

Well, almost nothing, she was lying now, because she did not have time
to visit Van Rhoe now.  There was still a little pain, but nothing like
that sharp twinge last night that had made her scream out.

And she wasn't worried - Van Rhoe had done the scan yesterday morning
and said everything was fine.  If there had been anything wrong, he
would have told her, surely?

"Our next appointment is Wednesday," Van Rhoe said.  "And today is
Friday.  I don't like the sound of this, Susan.  I think you'd better
come over and I'll take a quick look."

She was regretting having rung him.  "I have to go into a meeting."
"Susan, this baby is more important than any meeting." The rebuke made
her feel guilty.  "I know."

"I insist you come.  Please get in a taxi and come straight over.  I'll
see you right away and you'll be back in your office within half an
hour."

Susan hung up, gulped a mouthful of mineral water and told Kate she'd be
back in half an hour.  But she wouldn't.  She knew that, with the
traffic, it would be an hour at least, probably more.

And then, as she reached the door, her secretary buzzed to tell her that
John was on the line.

"Take a message," she said.

"He just wants to know how you are."

"I'm fine," she snapped.  "Tell him I've never been more fine in my
goddamn life."

John had heard that chocolate was the thing for mice, not cheese.  He
knelt in the loft, pushed a tiny piece onto the spike, set the spring of
the crude trap, and laid it on the orange insulation, alongside a joist.
There was a steady drip...  drip...  drip...  from the feeder pipe in
the water tank just beside him.

He moved away from the mousetrap, picking out the joists and low beams
with the flashlight as he headed into the darkness beyond the range of
the bulb above the hatch, methodically exploring each of the roof
spaces, looking for a Rembrandt the previous owners might have left
behind.  But he had no luck: they hadn't left anything.

A sound close by startled him and he stiffened.  Then he heard it again:
it was nothing, just a bird in the eaves.  He eased past a chimney
breast and frowned as he noticed a crack of daylight ahead.

As he investigated it, he saw that the roofing felt in this space looked
much newer than that in the rest of the loft, and he wondered why -maybe
the previous owners had had a problem with this part of the roof?. If
they had, they hadn't fixed it well, because there seemed to be a tile
missing.

He finished his inspection then climbed down the ladder, closing the
hatch behind him.

It was a fine Saturday afternoon," and Susan was out in the garden.  She
doubted that Miles Van Rhoe would have approved of what she was doing,
which was raking up the leaves that had begun to fall on the lawn. She
was also raking up two McDonalds cartons, a half-eaten burger, a couple
of plastic cups and a McDonalds carrier bag that some asshole had thrown
over the fence from the park during the night.

The beech hedge had started showing a few gold leaves, and the trees in
the park were beginning to turn.  She was looking forward to the fall:
it was going to be beautiful here in the house, watching the changing
colours of the trees and bushes.  That was one thing she loved about
England, the intensity of the seasons that she had never experienced in
LA.

She knelt down to scoop up the small pile of leaves and litter and, with
no warning, the pain happened again.  It felt as though a wire was being
ripped straight through her insides and she cried out, dropping to her
knees, pressing her hands to her abdomen, closing her eyes.

I'm going to lose the baby.

"Susan?  Darling?" John was at her side.  He was staring at her in
alarm. She looked up at him, her eyes unnaturally wide, her pupils
dilated, her complexion waxy.  He put his hand on her forehead which
felt clammy.

She held her breath, waiting for the pain to strike again.  She had to
be ready for it.

"Susan?"

She heard him but did not respond.

"Darling?"

"I'm OK." She held her breath again.

After some moments John eased her to her feet and steered her into a
garden chair.

"I'm OK," she said again.

He was looking at her with deep concern.  "What's causing this?"

"A nerve.  Or something," she said, in a near gasp.  "Or a pulled
muscle.

Cramps.  Wind.  Maybe I'm a little constipated, I don't know."

"Did Van Rhoe say you might get more pain?"

"He.  He said.  Might."

"Cramp?"

She nodded.  Van Rhoe had assured her that nothing was wrong, that it
was probably cramp, and he'd given her some capsules to take against it.
Some vitamin supplement - he seemed to be big into those.  She looked at
John's anxious face, then up at the trees.  She was starting to feel
better now: the pain had gone as fast as it had come.

John's mention of Van Rhoe's name had reminded Susan that when she had
rung the obstetrician yesterday morning he had not seemed as surprised
about the pain as she'd thought he might.  It was almost as if he had
been expecting it.  But then, of course, he would have been, she
realised.  He must get hundreds of calls every day from patients with
all the usual complaints.

"Still got the pain?" John asked, tenderly.

"No, it's gone."

"We'd better ring him."

She shook her head.  "No, hon, it's OK." She smiled, shakily.  "How did
you get on in the loft?  Did you set the traps?"

"You sure you're OK?"

"I'm OK.  Maybe I shouldn't have raked the leaves.  He told me not to do
any heavy work."

"Yup, well, from now on you're obeying your doctor's orders."

She nodded.  Then they were both distracted by the old boy next door;

recently he had been getting worse and they could hear him shouting
urgently to his wife that he'd just peed in his pants. 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-Goldsmith-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
percent 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 991/2 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
1ook4d familiar and he wasn't sure why.  The V6rn Bank.  He saw that the
dealer had been Oliver Walton.

V6rn 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
V6rn 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 V6rn 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
Harrisohs 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, HonI had this thought.  Why don't we
have 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" wirtdow.  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 an 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 That restaurant was organising them and the food - lemon
grass chicken and That 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 That
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 married, 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.

"Good morning, Susan," he said.  "I thought I should enquire how you
were.  And, of course, the baby."

"We're both fine, thank you," Susan said, almost blurting the words,
feeling breathless.  "How are you?"

"Oh, yes, I am well, thank you."

There was a silence in which Susan flailed around for something to say.
There were a million questions she had been wanting to ask him when they
next spoke, but all of them eluded her.  Finally she came up with: "And
your wife, how is she?"

Mr. Sarotzini seemed to hesitate, then replied, "Yes, thank you, she is
well also." There was another silence.  He said, "You must forgive me
for not having been in touch sooner.  I am aware of promises I made to
you about concerts and the opera and art galleries, but I have been
detained by business activities.  I wondered, perhaps, if tomorrow or
Wednesday you were free for lunch, and to come and see a remarkable
collection of impressionist paintings.  I recall from our discussions
that you care for the Impressionist school very much."

Tomorrow was her secretary's birthday and she and Kate Fox had promised
to take her out to lunch.  "Wednesday would be good," she said.

"Perfect, it would suit me better also.  I  will collect you at twelve
forty-five."

Chapter Thirty-five

During the regular Wednesday morning editorial meeting Susan was tense
and finding it hard to concentrate.  She had arrived late in the office,
having changed her mind several times about what she was going to wear
for her lunch with Mr. Sarotzini, and her hair, with which she normally
had no problems, had not come out well after she had shampooed it.

To make matters worse, John had been in a strange mood last night,
almost as if he was jealous that he had not been invited today.  He had
pranced around the bedroom, mimicking Mr. Sarotzini, making crude jokes
about the man's virility and, even though she had not been in the mood,
had virtually forced her to make love, as if to establish his
superiority - or his territory.

When reception buzzed her to tell her that Mr. Sarotzini was waiting,
she put on her navy coat and went downstairs as nervously as if she were
going for a job interview.  She normally felt confident in her most
formal suit, a black two-piece, with a high-collared white blouse, the
neck pinned with a silver brooch, but now she felt stiff and awkward.

Mr. Sarotzini stood in the reception area, in a long camel coat with a
velvet collar, looking out of place among.the racks of new titles.  The
only other occupant was a ponytailed illustrator, who was awaiting his
lunch date.  The banker greeted Susan with a polite smile and a stiff,
almost absurdly formal handshake.

"How very good to see you, Susan," he said, and indicated the door.  "My
car is outside."

It was strange to see him again, this tall, debonair man with his fine
clothes and his worldly air, and to know that his child - their child -
was inside her.  She kept trying to look at his face, to try to learn
more about it, to lock it into her memory.  Her thoughts kept
oscillating: one moment this man was the father of her child, the next
he was a stranger and she could not connect the baby growing inside her
with him.

As they sat in the back of the Mercedes making small-talk about the
weather, Britain's problems with the EC and the worsening state of
London's traffic, Susan was trying to imagine how the baby might look
-which of her features, and which of Mr. Sarotzini's, Bump would
inherit. Mr. Sarotzini had an assertive nose - it wasn't overly large
but it would look better on a boy than a girl, she thought.  But those
grey eyes were gorgeous, anyone would be happy to have them.

She continued to study him over lunch, still trying to put an age on him
and finding it impossible.  He smiled and he looked fifty.  He turned
his head to the right and he looked seventy.  He angled his head down to
concentrate on a quail's egg and he looked eighty.  He turned his head
to the left and he was sixty, tops.  She searched for the usual
telltales of age, but he had no turkey-neck, few liver spots on his
hands and just the tiniest one on his face.  When he smiled, his eyes
were bright and creased with crows" feet but otherwise not excessively
lined.  There was energy in his movement, in the animated way in which
he spoke, once they had moved on to the topics of art and music, and yet
all the time it was there, this aura of old age he wore like a shadow
that he could not quite shake off.

In spite of her earlier nervousness, Susan began to relax a little,
finding him as good company and as charming as when she had previously
dined here with him and John.  He regaled her with anecdotes, privileged
insider little-tattle about great singers, including Pavarotti and Maria
Callas, about great conductors like von Karajan and Previn and Simon
Rattle, about the great composers.  There seemed to be nothing of the
world of classical music that he did not know, and few of the world's
greatest names in this field that he had not met.

Susan listened with interest, but absorbed only part of what he told
her, because all the time she was going over the questions she wanted to
ask him.  She had no appetite, and hardly touched the soup she had
ordered; neither did she eat more than a couple of mouthfuls of her
liver and bacon.

Somehow their conversation had moved to paintings.  Mr. Sarotzini told
Susan stories of great art treasures plundered by the Nazis, and sold
illegally to private collectors around the world, and he regaled her
with case histories of fakes: some of the most famous people in the
world had been duped into paying millions for faked old masters or
Impressionists, and concealed the fact to this day.

It was only when coffee was served that Susan, anxious now about time,
managed to bring up the subject of the baby's future.  Would his wife
look after the baby or a nanny?  It was the first of many questions she
wanted to ask, and the banker answered it with a glib but evasive, "This
is under discussion."

She got the same response to her questions about where the baby would
live, where it would go to school, whether it would be christened or
brought up in any religion at all.  Everything was, in Mr. Sarotzini's
words, "Under discussion."

It rapidly became clear to Susan that the period beyond the birth of the
child was shuttered off, and although she tried not to show it, his
attitude angered and disturbed her.  It seemed strange that Mr.
Sarotzini and his wife should so badly want a child, yet be so undecided
about the kind of life they proposed for it.  Besides, this wasn't just
his baby, it was theirs.  She was the mother, however much Mr. Sarotzini
might have paid, so she had a right to be interested, to be informed, to
be consulted even, on their baby's future.

Mr. Sarotzini rose.  "Time is short, is it not, Susan?  You have a
meeting?"

"Yes, three-thirty."

"You must not worry about the baby.  It will have the very best care in
the world."

"Babies need more than care," she said, as they walked out of the club's
entrance.  "They need love."

"Of course," Mr. Sarotzini said, as the chauffeur opened the rear door
of the Mercedes.  "Love.  Yes, this baby will have so much love, I can
assure you of that, Susan."

Something chilled her about the way he said this.  And as she sank back
into the leather upholstery of the car and the door closed with a thud
against the bright December sunshine, it felt as if they had entered a
smoked-glass vault.  She looked at his face, which had hardened, and
felt even more chilled.

Yes, this baby will have so much love, I can assure you of that, Susan.
Yes, he probably could assure her - he had enough money to fix it, to
fix anything.  And she thought back to that Sunday in September when
she'd read about Zak Danziger's death and had wondered then whether
there might have been any connection: She had dismissed the thought, but
looking at that steely hard face now, it had returned, and it was
disturbing her.  He seemed to switch so effortlessly from being utterly
charming to being icily hard.  How ruthless was Mr. Sarotzini?

"So now, Susan, we are going to visit a dear friend of mine, Esmond
Rostoff.  You have heard of him, perhaps?"

She kicked the name around for a few moments but it rang no bells.  "No,
I don't think so."

"He was a great polo player, legendary.  He has played with them all,
and at one time Esmond owned the world's finest team.  Maybe you have
not followed polo?"

"No."

"Today he owns a huge string of race-horses, but he keeps a low
profile." He smiled.  "But we are not going to look at horses.  Esmond
is a collector of Impressionist paintings.  He is an intensely private
man and only permits his close friends to see his collection.  It was
necessary for me to convince him that you are very special to me."

Susan wondered what he had told the man.  "Thank you," she said,
dubiously, her curiosity to see the paintings lost in the anxiety raging
in her head.

The Mercedes pulled up outside an imposing white Georgian house just off
Belgrave Square.  As they walked up the steps to the front door, Mr.
Sarotzini informed Susan that Esmond Rostoff was a descendant of the
last Russian tsar, and that he owned one of the finest - perhaps the
finest -collections of early Impressionist paintings in the world, finer
than any public gallery.  He hinted that some of these had been removed
secretly from the Hermitage in St. Petersburg in the final days before
the revolution and smuggled out of Russia.

When Susan asked him whether the rest of the collection had been built
legitimately, or from purchases of Nazi loot, he laughed the question
aside.  "Esmond Rostoff is a very proper man, Susan.  He is an
aristocrat of fine breeding.  Such a man has no need to resort to
illicit - or distasteful -methods."

However, Mr. Sarotzini's expression and the feeling she got on arrival
at the house, told her otherwise.  The front door was opened by a
security guard who looked like a Middle Eastern thug; they were received
in a red-carpeted hall, by a butler, who led them through double doors
into a large, ornately decorated drawing room.

Susan had never seen a room decorated like this outside a National Trust
property.  Magnificent old masters hung from the walls: hunting scenes,
portraits, still lifes of game and fruit.  The floor was arranged with
exquisite antique furniture - armchairs, reading chairs, two settles in
front of the fireplace, a chaise longue, a love seat, all upholstered in
fine muted grey coloutings that toned with the carpet and the swagged
drapes.  There were beautiful cabinets and display cases, and no rope
cordoning anything off, Susan thought.  This room was lived in!

Then Esmond Rostoff came in, and someone who looked less like a Russian
nobleman Susan could not imagine.  He was several inches shorter than
herself, sharp-faced, with a chalky complexion, crinkly blond hair,
carefully combed and greased down over the bald patches on his scalp,
and an immaculate goatee beard.  He wore a blue cardigan, emblazoned
with a gilt nautical logo, a monogrammed open-necked shirt and silk
cravat, navy slacks and black suede Gucci loafers.  His wrists, fingers
and neck were dripping with jewellery, and he reeked of a sickly sweet
cologne.

"Daaarrrhhhling!" He greeted Mr. Sarotzini in the most affected accent
Susan had ever heard, giving him a bear hug, kissing him cheek-to-cheek
on both sides and repeating at least half a dozen times.  "It is just
soooo good to see you!" Then he turned to Susan, "I'm just so thrilled
to meet you, my deeearrrr," and gave her a limp, clammy handshake.  "I
am told you are a greaaat expert on the early Impressionists?" He stared
into her eyes with his own beady little ones, as if communicating a
secret shared between her and himself.  This sudden intimacy revolted
her even more than his handshake.

He was grotesque.

She was having the same problem figuring the man's age as she had with
Mr. Sarotzini.  Her first impression was that he was about sixty, but he
was wearing make-up, she could see, and could have been much older.

"No, I'm not an expert, I just love that period, that's all."

"May I offer you a glass of Krug?"

Susan was mindful of the time - it was already a quarter to three.  "No,
thank you very much.  I'd love just a quick look at your paintings, then
I must be away."

He found her eyes again, and once more transmitted that shared secret,
whatever it was.  Was he implying that he knew about the baby?  She had
no idea.  Then, suddenly, he leaned forward and touched the silver
brooch she had clipped to her neck.  "How charming, how simmmmppppply
charming.  Is this a family heirloom?"

"No, it was a birthday present from my husband."

It was a simple brooch, plain, curved, beaten silver with a scrolled
surround, but he continued to hold it as if he coveted it more than
anything on earth.  With his face so close to hers, she noticed that
both his ears were pierced with tiny diamond studs.  He repulsed her
even more.

As he released the brooch, Susan remarked, to be polite, "This is a
beautiful room."

He inclined his head, which almost made him look as though he was
bowing.  "You are just tooooo kind.  It is all in need of revitalising,
like ourselves." He winked at Mr. Sarotzini, who returned a modest
smile.

Rostoff led them into a lift, and the smell of his cologne was so strong
it made her feel queasy as the slow, antiquated car took its time,
descending what seemed to her to be more than just one floor.  Was this
man typical of Mr. Sarotzini's friends, she wondered.  From the easy
familiarity between them they were clearly old chums.  This presumably
was the world in which her child was going to be brought up.  A society
of rich, ageing and, perhaps, lonely people.

Something about Esmond Rostoff seemed to mirror a sadness that she had
felt in Mr. Sarotzini when she had met him previously.  But it wasn't
just a sadness, or sense of loneliness about these men, there was
something else, a closeness, a bond that she was picking up.  It was a
feeling, although she could not in any way put her finger on why, of a
hidden agenda.

They emerged from the lift into a subterranean gallery that left her,
momentarily, in awe.  It was vast, seemingly far larger than the house
would have allowed and, in contrast to the upstairs, the interior design
here, all in black and cream marble, was stunningly modern.

"This is the Van Gogh room," Esmond Rostoff told her, leading her
forward.

She could barely believe her eyes.  There were about thirty paintings,
of varying sizes, plus drawings, rough sketches and unfinished canvases,
and she had never before seen any of the works.

Were these fakes?  They couldn't be, no way.  "How?" she said, her voice
coming out in squeak.  "How did you build up this collection?"

Rostoff smiled then, strutting ahead, led her through into the Monet
room.  "I like beautiful things, Susan.  They are the trophies that make
up for all the bad times one has to endure in life." He gave her a long,
knowing look.  "For me, these are my babies."

Blushing deeply, Susan followed him.  The Monet room was even more
spectacular.  And, suddenly, she felt frightened being here.  All these
paintings were fresh to her eyes.  She had studied history of art at
school and she knew it was impossible, quite impossible, to see so many
paintings by these great artists and recognise none, unless they had
been kept out of public sight for a very long time.  Most private
collectors were proud of their works and loaned them to galleries.  If
they didn't there was a good chance that the works had at some time been
either stolen or looted.  So some had been smuggled from the Hermitage
in 1917, but the rest?

Rostoff wasn't looking at these pictures, he was looking at Susan.  He
was enjoying her reaction.  This was how he got his kicks from this
collection, she realised.  He probably didn't care what the paintings
were, he got his bang out of the secrecy, out of the fact that he owned
them and no one knew.  He was like a child who had hoarded tuck under
his bed.

She looked nervously at Mr. Sarotzini.  Why had he brought her here?  To
show off the kind of high-powered friends he had?  Or because he thought
she would genuinely be interested to see the paintings.  The trophies.

And she wondered, with a chill, if that was all her baby meant to him.
If, like these paintings, Bump was nothing more than a trophy, proof
that if you had enough money, you could buy anything you wanted.  Even
life itself.

And as if reading her thoughts again, Bump stroked her, anxiously.

Don't you worry, Bump, she thought.  You're not going to be anyone's
trophy. I promise you.

Chapter Thirty-six

At five o'clock on Saturday afternoon, just when Susan was beginning to
panic that their friendly That restaurateur had let her down, Lom Kotok
arrived, in a vast, rented van filled with an army of waiters and
waitresses. Susan had only requested two, but she lost count of the
number of people who climbed out of the vehicle and started carrying
covered dishes of food into the house.

Kotok summoned her to the back of the van, raised a conspiratorial
finger and lifted a huge cloth.  Beneath was an ice sculpture of a
leaping salmon.  "Present," he said.  "Look nice on the table."

She kissed him and he looked startled.  "Thank you, you're very kind to
us and we appreciate it."

"You nice people," he said.  "No enough nice people in the world." The
bartender was a strikingly handsome young That, all smiles and dim as a
plank.  After the third attempt at using John's ScrewPull corkscrew he
broke it, embedding the point in his thumb, and had to be driven off to
hospital by Kotok.  John opened the rest of the wine himself, using the
hopelessly inadequate corkscrew on his Swiss Army penknife, then
wandered around sucking his hand which by the time he had finished, was
sore and blistered.  To Susan's annoyance, he picked away at all the
edible bits of garnish on the food.

The guests had been asked for eight o'clock.  By seven thirty, the
furniture had been pushed back against the walls, Mozart was playing on
the CD, the ice salmon looked magnificent as the centre piece on the
food table, surrounded by platters of curried seafood starters, and the
crew of waiters and waitresses had been briefed, including the
substitute bartender.

Bowls of nuts hotter than raw chillies, another gift from Kotok, had
been placed by the smiling staff on every available surface, where they
lurked like land mines.  Susan did not want to offend Kotok, who was not
yet back from the hospital, by telling him that they were seriously,
dangerously inedible.

At twenty to eight, when Susan was just getting out of the shower, she
heard the doorbell ring.  Moments later John called up that Harvey and
Caroline Addison had arrived.

Volubly cursing their rudeness at being twenty minutes early, Susan
tripped across the bedroom, trying frantically to get ready.  Dark rings
and bags under her eyes needed covering up, and she had to put some
foundation and blusher on her pallid skin.

Then, to her horror, she discovered that her favourite black cocktail
dress, which she had laid out in readiness on the bed, was too small.
Holding her breath, she determinedly squirmed into it and somehow pulled
up the zip.

But it was no good: it was tighter than a wet-suit and she pulled down
the zip, admitting defeat.  Determined to stay with black, she opted for
her velvet trouser suit.  But that was no good either - she couldn't
even close the hooks.  Christ, how much weight have I put on?

In the end she dug out an old A-line dress, which hung rather lifelessly
but at least it was black and it wasn't killing her.  She put over the
top a gold-sequined jacket, added some large.  gold earrings, a jungle
print Cornelia James scarf, and was satisfied.

By the time she got downstairs, the television writer Mark St. Omer and
his boyfriend, Keith, a lissom youth with a lock of dyed red hair that
looked like it had been pinned to the side of his face, had also
arrived, and were chatting up the bartender, who was now back from
hospital proudly wearing a blue thumbstall.

She went over to Harvey Addison and his wife, who were standing in a
corner of the living room on their own, while John, in a white
mandarin-collared shirt and charcoal suit, was now opening bottles of
fizz in the kitchen for the bartender, who was unable to put any
pressure on his thumb.

"Susan, you look delightful." The obstetrician, his usual, cool,
dandified self, tonight in a Prince of Wales check suit, pink tie and
flouncing silk handkerchief, kissed her.  Then Susan touched cheeks with
his wife, Caroline, and admired her hand-embroidered black and silver
waistcoat. "I'm so glad you like it," Caroline demurred.  She barely
opened her mouth when she spoke, as if the act of enunciation was too
much of a chore.  The effect was to make her sound bored with
everything.  "Cost me a fortune."

"Where did you get it?

"A little shop in Beauchamp Place.  I won't tell you how much it cost,"
she added, in case Susan had missed her first comment.

"No, don't," Susan said, spoiling Caroline's moment.

Caroline turned towards her husband with a sickly, cooing smile that
made Susan cringe.  "You're so good to me, aren't you, darling?  You
never mind what I spend on clothes."

The obstetrician, preoccupied with his reflection in the mirror above
the fireplace, barely noticed what his wife had said.  Susan saw him
adjust the wave of his coiffed blond hair over each of his ears, then
discreetly pucker his lips at himself.  "What was that, darling?" he
enquired absently.

"I was saying what a wonderfully generous husband you are."

"Ah." He gave himself another furtive glance in the mirror, then turned
to Susan.  "sorry we arrived early.  We have to go on to another bash."
Then he added, in a massive name-drop, "At Kensington Palace."

"Glad you could spare us the time," Susan said, more acidly than she had
intended.  Although she did not care for Harvey Addison, she knew how
important he was to John's business.  All the same the man and his wife
were both irritating her.

"Princess Margaret," Caroline said.  "She throws a little pre-Christmas
bash - we go every year."

"Good, well, just slip away when you have to." Susan heard the bell
ring, and through the doorway saw a waitress letting in Kate Fox and her
husband, Martin.

But before she could break away to greet them, Harvey said, through a
mouthful of sparkling white wine, "This really is a delightful little
house."

Susan stared at him, her anger cranked up several notches.  Considering
that he lived in a cramped, ordinary little terraced house like a
million other Londoners, who was he to call this place little?

"Would you like a nut?" she asked, scooping up the nearest bowl and
offering them first to Caroline, who declined, then to the obstetrician.
He took a greedy handful and shovelled them into his mouth all at once.
"I'm so glad you like the house," Susan said, smiling at him as he
chewed.  A look of surprise, then horror, came across his face.

"You've done so much work since we were last here, in the summer,"
Caroline said.  "I do like the colour scheme - a very unusual shade of
white. It's so warm."

"It's called Not Quite White," Susan said.  She glanced at Harvey again
and noticed, to her satisfaction, beads of perspiration on his brow as
he chewed stoically on, then swallowed.

"Quite spicy, those," he said, squeezing his watering eyes shut and
almost draining his glass.

Kate and her husband were approaching.  Susan turned to greet and
introduce them.  More guests were arriving now - she could see the
Abrahams, and behind them a man and woman she did not recognise.  He
must be the man from Microsoft John had invited.  And she caught sight
of Archie Warren.

"Kate, hi!" Susan said.  And then she stopped in her tracks as the pain
struck without warning, doubling her up in agony.  She couldn't move,
she couldn't think straight, and closed her eyes, trying to shut it off.

I'm losing the baby, she thought, opening her eyes again and staring
helplessly at Harvey Addison.  Oh, God, help me I'm losing the baby.

The obstetrician sprang forward and knelt down.  "Susan?  What's the
matter?  What is it?"

She moaned, then cried out, unable to help it, "Oh...  ohhh... ohhhh."
It was getting worse.  Nothing had ever felt like this before. Nothing.

Addison's face was close to her own - she could smell the nuts and the
softer vinous smell of the alcohol on his breath.

Then, just when she thought she couldn't take any more, the pain began
to subside.  Within seconds it had stopped.

"It's OK." -  She was gasping, crouched, aware that all eyes were on
her.

John was at her side.  "Hon?  You OK?"

She nodded, still breathless, and said, "Yes."

Harvey had a hand on each of her shoulders and was staring at her face
with deep concern.  "Don't worry," he said gently.  "You're OK, Susan.
You're going to be fine."

"The - the baby," she said.  "I thought I was losing it." Harvey's eyes
widened.  "You're pregnant?" She nodded.

"How many weeks?"

"Almost five months," she heard John say.

"Nineteen weeks," she replied.

"I didn't know.  You must lie down," Harvey said.

"I'm fine, it's gone now, I'll be fine.  They - they come and go.  I
have some pills upstairs."

Harvey and John guided her to a sofa and she sat down, drained.  Harvey
stood over her, looking concerned.  His kindness was making her regret
her earlier rudeness.  She heard voices in the background, questions,
John apologising, could sense the awkward silence that he was trying to
break.

"Tell me, Susan," Harvey said quietly, squatting so that he was face to
face with her, "where exactly was this pain?"

Susan told him then related what Miles Van Rhoe had told her, that it
was a tiny cyst, nothing to worry about.

"Miles Van Rhoe is the best there is, Susan, but you shouldn't be
getting pain like that, not from a small cyst, unless there's
something-" He checked himself.

She looked at him anxiously.  "Something what?" She heard the doorbell
ring again.

"It's all right," he said.  "I shouldn't meddle." Then he frowned. "When
did you last see him?"

She thought.  "On Tuesday."

"And you've told him about these pains?"

"Yes.  "

John who had walked across, interrupted.  "Van Rhoe hasn't seen her have
one of these attacks.  I don't think he has any idea how bad they are."

Susan was aware that she had to get up and stop disrupting the party.
Harvey tried to restrain her.  "You must rest, lie down."

She shook her head and hauled herself to her feet.  "I'll be fine now."
She smiled.  "Right as rain."

Just before Susan plunged into the mgle of her guests, Klindz in his
attic, watching anxiously on channel 4, wished he could hold Susan and
comfort her.  He could feel all her pain, and his remoteness from her
now felt worse than ever.  He felt envy, too, for this glamorous party
that revolved around her, envious of John, envious of them as a couple,
and a pang of jealousy each time Susan kissed another guest.  It was
torture to watch her suffer, but it was no less torture to watch her
enjoy herself.

Then he saw Harvey Addison put his arm on her shoulder and heard him
say, quietly, "Susan, we're flying off to the Caribbean tomorrow until
the first week in January.  I don't want to tread on Miles Van Rhoe's
toes, but if you'd like a second opinion at any time when I'm back,
please feel free to call me."

Chapter Thirty-seven

It was like a finger being drawn lightly across her insides.  She was
being stroked.  Bump was stroking her.

It was dark; the clock beside the bed told her it was 3:52 a.m.  John,
lying on his back, was snoring lightly, but she didn't mind, she liked
the sound tonight.  Some nights it annoyed her but tonight she found
something reassuring and cosy about it.

The baby stroked her again.

She whispered, "Hi, Bump, how you doing?  Enjoy the party?"

As if in response there was another stroke, and this was a definite
movement, a finger, tracing lightly, right the way across her abdomen.
Bump was doing fine, really enjoyed the party.  And now Bump was trying
to tell her something, and she thought it was trying to tell her, I love
you, Mom.

"I love you too," she whispered.

It was raining outside, a light patter, and a siren screamed somewhere,
way off.  After the terrible start, the party had gone well and she was
now unable to sleep, still on a high from it.  Everyone had been so
thrilled to learn of her pregnancy, and they'd all congratulated her,
even the man from Microsoft and his wife, whom she'd never met before.
And Kate Fox had wagged a finger at her, and said, "I knew, I guessed,
all that baloney you gave me about wanting to borrow the book on
pregnancy for a friend, indeed."

Susan could not remember ever feeling so proud, so fulfilled, in her
life.

It was 11 December.  Next Saturday Bump would be five months old.

April 26 was looming up.  Bump stroked her again, Bump knew this.
Suddenly John stirred.  "Wasser time?"

"ten to four."

"I've got a headache."

"Probably the brandy.  Why don't you take a couple of paracetamol?" He
grunted.  "Think it went all right?"

"Yes, I do.  It went very well.  Archie's Pila is pretty possessive,
isn't she? The moment she saw him talking to any other woman she marched
across and stood right by him.  I noticed it a couple of times.  I
thought that man from Microsoft was nice - and his wife."

"Tom Rockney's a good bloke, we're going to get that deal.  God, your
friend Kate Fox's husband - Mervyn - he's a waste of space."

"Martin.  He's shy."

"He's brain dead.  He's less interesting than watching paint dry.  He
sat in a corner the whole evening, stuffing his face and drinking,
didn't say a word to anyone.  I tried introducing him to people a couple
of times and he stood there and gawped at them.  What the hell does she
see in him?"

"I've no idea." Then, teasing, she said, "Do you think people wonder
what you and I see in each other?"

"At least we're reasonably normal."

"You think so?" she asked.

"Glurr," he replied.  Then he maude a further series of inane noises.

"Wrrogggh, glummmm, blingggg, glu glu glarp, glaarrrrrp."

She giggled.  "What's that meant to be?"

"An intelligent conversation with Martin Fox."

"How does an unintelligent one sound?" Then suddenly Bump moved sharply
and she let out a tiny squeal.

"Wassermatter?"

"Bump's moving.  Want to feel?" She took his hand and laid it on her
abdomen.  "Can you feel it?  Hi, Bump, want to say hallo to your d-" She
clammed up, but too late.

John removed his hand.  "Perhaps he'd like to call Mr. Sarotzini, then?"

Susan lay in silence, cursing herself for this stupidity.  She didn't
know why she'd said it, it had just came out.  "I'm sorry, honI didn't
mean -"

He climbed out of bed and, without saying anything, padded through to
the bathroom.  The light came on and then she heard the rustle of paper,
the sound of capsules being popped free from their wrappers.  Then
running water.

"I'm sorry," she said again, when he came back to bed:

"Are you?  You were bloody revelling in it tonight."

"I was just trying to act the part," she said quietly, trying to defuse
his growing anger.  "It wasn't easy."

"How do you think I felt?  Do you think it was easy for me, watching
you?  Playing Mr. Mighty Proud Dad-To-Be?"

"Of course I don't.  It's hard for both of us."

"Bullshit.  You were loving it, you were lapping it up."

She lay in silence.  He was right, that was the problem.  She hadn't
thought about Mr. Sarotzini all evening.  She'd only thought about how
good it felt being pregnant, being congratulated, feeling like a normal,
fulfilled woman.  How good it felt for once not having to justify, in
conversation after conversation, why she and John had decided not to
have children, and for once not envying all the other women who did have
children.

There used to be a slang expression she'd read in books, terming women
who were pregnant as being in the club.  And that was how it felt now.
That she had joined a hugely warm and welcoming club.

She thought back again to Wednesday afternoon with Mr. Sarotzini and his
gruesome friend with his secret art haul, Esmond Rostoff, and shuddered.

She'd tried to tell John her concerns that night when she'd got home,
but he hadn't wanted to know.  What happened after the baby was born was
not their problem, he told her.

He was wrong.  And of course he would be, because it wasn't his baby.
How could he possibly understand what she felt?

John suddenly said, "Harvey's concerned about you.  He's going to be
away until after the New Year, but he said if you still have these pains
then, he'll have a look at you.  I'm going to call his secretary on
Monday and get a date booked in.  If the pains have stopped, then fine,
we can cancel."

"John, Miles Van Rhoe is the best obstetrician in the country - Harvey
said so himself, tonight."

"Harvey says you shouldn't be in pain like this.  He thinks Van Rhoe has
missed something."

"Don't you think it would be going behind Van Rhoe's back?"

"Then tell him, if you feel that way.  Tell him you're going for a
second opinion.  People have second opinions all the time, there's
nothing wrong with that.  I'm not having you suffer like this, I want
Harvey to see you."

"OK," she said, reluctantly.

Archie was having a quick cigarette outside the squash court before they
went on.  On the other side of the wall John could hear the squishing,
thwacking, squeaking of the game that was ending. "Great party," Archie
said. "Enjoyed yourselves?"

"Yah.  And great news about Susan - you've been keeping that under your
hat."

"We've been a bit worried about the pregnancy," John replied.  "Susan
didn't want anyone to know until - you know -"

"Until she was out of danger?  Sensible.  Going to change your life a
bit, having a child.  Thought you were always against the idea of
breeding. What changed your mind?"

"It just sort of happened," John mumbled.

Archie sucked at his cigarette and grinned.  "Oh, yes?" He sounded
sceptical.  "Sure you didn't cave in under her onslaught?  Susan's
always struck me as being pretty broody."

While John was struggling to produce a suitable reply, Archie changed
the subject.  "Hey, this V6rn Bank of yours."

"Yuh?"

The door of the squash court opened and two men came through, dripping
with sweat.  "All yours," said one.

Archie crushed his cigarette out on the ground.  "Weird City."

"What do you mean?" John followed him onto the court. "Chap called
Klindz?  Know him?"

John shook his head and slipped a sweat band onto his wrist.  "No, who's
he?"

"Their man in London.  Came into the office today, wanted to check us
out, do the royal tour.  This guy, I'm telling you, is seriously flaky."
He shook his head.

John, worried now, said, "In what way?"

Archie unzipped his racquet.  "This V6rn Bank is privately owned, very
old family business, God knows how old, centuries - Switzerland's full
of them.  They're quiet, discreet, low profile to the point of
invisibility.  The V/3rn only deals in blue chip, nothing speculative."

"I thought your bond market was speculative," John said. "Some and some.
So you haven't come across this Klindz?"

"No, I've only ever dealt with a Mr. Sarotzini."

"The head honcho.  Or one of them.  Oliver Walton, my colleague who
deals with them, says he doesn't know who the fuck runs them.  They take
this secrecy crap to the point of paranoia.  You know, they're a
substantial client now and we don't even have a phone number for them.
Can you believe it?"

"Sounds familiar.  Don't phone us, we phone you."

Archie raised an eyebrow.  "OK, well, here's the weird bit.  This Klindz
character, he's six foot four, built like an American quarterback, and
he looks like a goon, right?  He looks like a fucking night-club
bouncer, not a banker.  He's wearing a shiny suit, rocks on his fingers,
he shakes my hand, then spouts poetry at me."

"Poetry?"

"In Latin."

"You're serious?"

"It's Horace.  I did A level Latin, so I recognised it.  "Si pussis
recte, si non, quocumque rnodo rein.""

John grinned.  "What's that in English?"

""By right means, if you can, but by any means make money.""

John unzipped his own racquet.  "Shows he has a bit of culture.  What's
your problem with that?"

"I don't have a problem with that.  This is what I have a problem with:
he's standing by my desk, looking at Oliver's screen - Oliver's giving
him a demo of our system.  I go and have a piss and when I come back my
cigarette lighter's missing from my desk."

John looked at him in disbelief.  "What?"

"My gold Dunhill."

"Missing?" "Yes."

"It was on your desk?  You're sure?"

"It's always on my desk."

"Perhaps it fell on the floor."

"John, I took my desk apart.  I grilled the whole bloody room.  Nobody
else had come in.  No one."

John fought laughter - he couldn't help it, he was finding this comical
and he knew he shouldn't.

Archie looked indignant.  "You think it's funny?"

John, grinning broadly, said, "I'm sorry, I do.  Here's this guy, he
buys five million quid's worth of bonds and he steals your lighter."

"Not even my client.  I don't get the commission."

"So what did you do?"

"What the hell could I do?  They've got over fifty million pounds of
business with us, I can hardly ask the guy to turn out his pockets."
"Didn't you ask him if maybe he'd picked it up by mistake?"

"I did.  He looked at me as if I was a dog turd and said, "I am sorry, I
am not a man who smokes.""

Archie lobbed the ball in the air and whacked it furiously down the
court.  It hit the tin and died.  "Nice friends you've got."

Chapter Thirty-eight

Swinging cuts were due to be made by Magellan Lowry's new owners, and
staff were bracing themselves for redundancy letters.

With only nine days to Christmas, there were cards up everywhere, and
the art department bad plastered glitzy angels and bits of tinsel all
around the offices.  Some wit had also produced a 3-D cut-out of a
well-endowed Santa Claus having a good time with Rudolf but staff were
finding it hard to be jolly.  All the same, they were trying and
everyone was thinking: Maybe it won't be me.

Meanwhile they went to all the publishing industry parties they could
find and networked like crazy.  A hundred jobs were being edited out and
a hundred and fifty people were employed at Magellan Lowry.

Susan was about the only person who didn't have a long face: she was
happy to take what she viewed as early maternity leave at Christmas and,
after that, she'd have to see.  She wasn't sure about anything beyond
the birth of the baby.  All she knew was that the feeling was growing
stronger every day that after the baby was born she was not going to be
handing it over to Mr. Sarotzini or anyone else.

She caressed her abdomen.  "Hi, Bump," she murmured.  "How you doing
today?  Looking forward to Christmas?  Me, too!  We're going to buy a
tree this weekend.  You won't be able to see it, but you can help us
choose it, can't you?"

Bump responded with a tiny kick.

Her door opened and Kate Fox came in.  "Susan, you said you and John
hadn't made any plans for Christmas.  Well, we're having a big family
do, and if you're at a loose end, you'd be very welcome to join Martin
and me."

Susan thanked her warmly, imagining what John would say.  "That's very
sweet of you but we're going down to the Cotswolds that week to stay
with the Harrisohs, but thanks anyway."

"Not at all.  We'll have you over some time early in the New Year."

earlier this year we had a conversation.  You told me that you and John
had made a decision never to have children.  I'm interested - what's
changed your mind?"

She tried to give a casual shrug and was aware that she didn't do it
very well.  "Oh, you know, I guess we change, don't we?"

He gave her a probing stare.  "Do we?"

She lowered her eyes, knowing he wasn't fooled by her reply.  But
equally he had no way of finding out the truth.  Yet something was
preying on her mind that she had been wanting to ask him for some time.
Now seemed the appropriate moment.  "You told me you had a dream,
Fergus, back in the summer.  Something about my having a child.  You
said that as I wasn't pregnant it didn't matter.  Do you remember?"

He could still recall it vividly, every detail as fresh as if he had
dreamed it last night.

A baby, a tiny new-born infant, alone in a terrible darkness, crying. He
could hear that cry now, the utter terror in it.  And then in the dream
he had seen Susan Carter fumbling around in the darkness with a torch,
crying, unable to find the baby and begging him to help her.

And his reply in the dream was to tell her no, leave the baby, don't try
to find it, let it die.  For God's sake, let it die.

But what was to be achieved by telling Susan that now, other than
worrying her?  "I don't remember," he said.  "Don't recall that at all."
"It seemed important to you at the time." He looked uncomfortable. "Not,
really."

"You saw something, didn't you?"

And then it happened.  The pain, worse than ever before.  It was as if a
bayonet had been rammed into her stomach and twisted.  She leant
forward, bashing against the table in shock, her mouth open, her
eyeballs feeling like they were bursting in their sockets.  And then it
came again, even worse.  Her champagne glass fell and smashed but she
didn't notice. The pain, the white-hot blade inside her, was twisting
again.

Fergus was on his feet.  There was a babble of voices.  Susan heard the
word "doctor", then she heard the word "ambulance".  And Fergus was
saying "pregnant", and then she heard the word "miscarriage."

And she was on a fairground ride, the restaurant was spinning, she was
losing it.  And all the time she was trying to tell them Van Rhoe, only
call Van Rhoe, no one else.

And then, as suddenly as it always came on, the pain stopped.

The nausea subsided, leaving her cold, shivery, dripping with
perspiration. There was still a pain inside her but it was no longer
acute, just a dull throb.  People were standing around her, crowding her
in, Fergus, a waiter, a man who stuck his face close to hers and told
her he was a doctor.

"I'm OK," Susan said.  "Please, I'm OK, I get these, they're nothing, I
have some pills."

"You keep getting these pains?" asked the man who had said he was a
doctor.

"It's all right, I have just a tiny cyst, I'm under Mr. Van Rhoe.  It's
not a problem."

The doctor was giving her a hard look.  "Miles Van Rhoe?  He's your
obstetrician?"

Susan nodded.

"Well, you're in good hands.  I think you should go straight to see him
today."

"I'll call him, thank you, I'm sorry."

"I'd better take you home," Fergus said.

She shook her head.  "I have a meeting in the office, an author coming
in, I can't cancel him."

Fergus looked reproachful.  "YoUr health is more important."

"I'm OK, I'll be fine now." She popped two pills.  Fergus handed her his
glass and she swallowed them with the champagne, downing it in one gulp
so that she didn't have to taste it, hoping it would help dull the pain.
Then Fergus perched on the edge of his chair.  "Did you say you have a
cyst?"

"It's tiny, nothing.  I occasionally get a bit of pain from it, that's
all." The champagne was making her feel light-headed - it was the first
alcohol she'd drunk in ages.

"That wasn't just a bit of pain, Susan.  How long has this been going
on?"

It took her a moment to answer, and then she said, "About three months."

Fergus told her gently, "Susan, I know this isn't a very flattering
thing to say but has anyone told you how terrible you look?"

She said nothing.  He was right, she knew that she looked like a ghost.
A ghost with huge dark rings beneath her eyes.  Not many people had come
out with it, because most of the time she'd masked it with make-up, but
Fergus seemed able to see through it.

"This man, Van Rhoe, his name's familiar," he said.

"Every time anyone famous has a baby, he delivers it.  He's in the
papers a lot." Then, before she realised it, she told him, "Mr.
Sarotzini was adamant that I see him and no one -"

She checked herself in mid-sentence, as she saw a strange look on
Fergus's face.

A chasm of silence opened up between them.  Finally, Fergus bridged it.
"Sarotzini?  Did you say Mr. Sarotzini?"

There was something about the way Fergus said the name that made her
feel uncomfortable.  "Yes."

"Is he your doctor?"

Aware that she'd trapped herself, she tried to think of a suitable
reply. "No, he's a banker.  He helped my husband.  He - he likes to give
advice."

Fergus pulled out his cigarettes.  "Do you mind - if I blow the smoke
away from you?"

"No, go ahead, I'm better about smoke now, doesn't bother me so much."

He lit up then spelled out the name: "S-A-R-O-T-Z-I-N-I?"

"Yes."

"What's his first name?"

This momentarily threw Susan.  She scrolled through her mind, then said,
"Emil."

Unless she had imagined it, his face darkened.

"Why do you ask?  Do you know him?" she said.

He lit his cigarette.  "The name has connotations, that's all.  And it's
an unusual name."

"What connotations?"

And then that knife twisted inside her again.  It wasn't as acute as
before and she managed to swallow the cry before it escaped her lips.
But Fergus noticed.  "Susan, you're not right."

"I'm OK, really, it was just a twinge."

He stared at her in silence, looking dubious.  Then, gently, he asked,
"What are you and your husband doing for Christmas?"

"We're having a quiet one.  Going to spend the week of Christmas through
the New Year down in the Cotswolds with old friends of John -he was best
man at our wedding.  And you?"

"I don't know, I haven't decided.  There's the annual gathering of the
Donleavy clan in Waterford, but I'm not much into ancestor worship.  I
might go to Prague, or St. Petersburg, somewhere that's cold, with real
snow, somewhere that looks like Christmas should look."

"I'd like to spend Christmas somewhere like that, too," she said
wistfully, and glanced down, thinking suddenly about Bump and how Bump
was going to take to the snow in a year or two's time.

"Is it going to be a boy or girl?" Fergus asked.

"I haven't - wanted to know." Then she changed the subject.  "Fergus,
you're becoming a real man of mystery, aren't you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you have this dream, and now you can't remember what it was about
- or you don't want to tell me.  And now this name, Sarotzini, this has
connotations and you don't want to tell me what those are."

He tilted up his head and blew a long jet of smoke at the ceiling.  It
hung there, drifting away slowly over the heads of other diners until
air from a heating duct caught it and it exploded, like surf.  "How old
is this Emil Sarotzini?"

"I don't know - late fifties, early sixties, perhaps."

Fergus shook his head.  "There's no connection, other than perhaps the
Flame."

"What is it with the name?"

He tapped ash off his cigarette, looking thoughtful.  "There was a
strange character back in the twenties with that name.  All kinds of
rumours about him at the time.  That he was into black magic, satanism -
he was tied up with Aleister Crowley, part of that lot." Fergus smiled.
"It was all a long time back in the past.  He's been dead for decades.
Your banker friend, presumably, is very much alive?"

"Yes."

He turned the conversation back to his book, and Susan let the subject
of Mr. Sarotzini drop.  There was one chapter they still did not agree
on: Susan wanted it out, he wanted to keep it in.

Half an hour later they rose from the table, and a waitress helped them
on with their coats.  They paid no attention to the man at the table
nearby who had been eating lunch on his own,- his face buried in a
paperback.  He had already paid his bill and now he stood up.  Casually,
as if he had all the time in the world, he followed them out of the
door.

Chapter Thirty-nine

The grass, coated with the white January frost, crunched underfoot.

The ducks saw the solitary figure approaching and, in a din of quacking,
paddled urgently over to his side of the pond.  He was as certain to
them as any of the landmarks of their world, this man in his crtpe-soled
black shoes, his dog-tooth greatcoat and black cassock, his small
leather satchel slung from his shoulder, the Venerable Doctor Euan
Freer.

He removed a woolen glove, dug a handful of mixed corn from inside the
satchel and scattered it on the ground at the water's edge, gently
chiding the ducks as they trampled each other in their greed.  "Hey,
come on, calm down, there's plenty for all of you." Then ritually, he
counted them, checking that they'd all survived since yesterday.
Twenty-two. Good.

It was a fine morning: the tower of the Hilton Hotel and the rest of the
jagged London architecture, hazy beyond the far trees, looked surreal,
like another planet.  There weren't many people around yet, a few
joggers, some people walking their dogs before they went to work.  Freer
always found innocence in the early morning, a fresh hope that lay as
yet unsullied by the day ahead.

He wanted the coming new millennium to start with this same hope. Fergus
Donleavy knew he'd find him here at the Serpentine any morning after
Mass.  "Happy New Year," he called when he was still some distance
behind the priest.

As Freer turned, Fergus caught those familiar de Niro looks.  "Fergus!
Happy New Year to yourself.  I was just this moment thinking about you.
Now there's a coincidence!"

Fergus shook his proffered hand, grinning broadly.  "I can explain it to
you in mathematics, if you have a couple of hours to spare."

Freer replied, warmly, "You can explain coincidence to me in mathematics
all you like, but it won't kill the magic or the mystery.  And don't
tell me it has for you."

Still grinning, Fergus raised his eyebrows.  Then he hunched inside his
jacket.  It was a cold morning.  "So you do still come here  every day.
The habit of a lifetime."

"there are worse places."

Fergus glanced at the clear water of the pond, with its isolated patches
of wafer-thin ice, the acres of sparkling frosty grass stretching away
into the distance, the majestic trees.  He breathed in the clear, tangy
air, listening to the birdsong.  Yes, there were worse places than this.
"I need to talk to you, Euan."

Freer tossed another handful of corn.  The ducks were sorting themselves
out now: there was enough corn to go round, there always was, but they
never remembered that.  He responded in his soft lilt, without taking
his eyes from the ducks, "I think I know why."

Startled, Fergus dug his hands into his jacket pockets and waited for
the priest to continue.

"Last summer, when you came to see me, Fergus, you talked about a baby,
as yet unborn."

"Yes."

"You had a presentiment about this baby, didn't you?" He threw more
corn.

Fergus nodded.  A traffic helicopter clattered high overhead.

"You aren't alone," the Priest said.  "I'm hearing this from other
sources."

"Good ones?" Fergus asked.

"The Vatican is concerned," Freer replied quietly.  "Many church leaders
around the world are reporting that dreams and visions are disturbing
their flocks, and they are all the same dreams, the same visions."

"The approach of the millennium brings out all the cranks," Fergus
replied.

"So, are you a crank, Fergus?" Freer turned with a sardonic smile to
face him.

"Am I?"

Freer left the question hanging.  "What do you see when you look at
these ducks?"

The frivolous streak in Fergus tempted him say, "Pancakes, spring
onions, chopped cucumber, hoisin sauce," but he resisted.  This wasn't a
time for humour.  He studied them: some were mallards, some had
different markings.  He wasn't sure what Freer wanted him to say.
Finally he said, "Innocence?  Some kind of pecking order?  Some kind of
dependence on a priest who gives them their daily corn?"

"You don't just see ducks?  Pure and simple?"

Fergus smiled.  "What do you think the ducks see when they look at us?"
"Uncertainty.  I give them the corn and that gives them reassurance.
They know me, I've been coming here for years, I've seen generations of
them come and go, but let me try to touch one, to do one thing out of
the normal, and this is what happens:"

Freer demonstrated.  He knelt and tried to stroke one, and in a crackle
of wings and quacks like klaxons, they were gone.  Some dived into the
water and paddled away, others took flight.

Fergus was still not sure what the priest wanted him to say. "Survival?"
he ventured.  "They will only trust the familiar so far, but no
further?"

"Yes, the familiar." Freer nodded.  "There are boundaries, demarcation
lines between what is familiar to them and what is not.  If I step over
that line and do something out of the normal, they panic and are gone.
That's how they survive, like much of the animal world, by taking flight
from danger.  So why don't we do the same, Fergus?"

"Because we're at the top of the food chain and we don't have these
responses any more - we've evolved out of them.  We tend to stand our
ground, fight our corner."

This wasn't the answer Freer was after.  "If these ducks feel a threat,
they can scurry off to a different part of the pond.  Or they can go to
another pond.  They only have a problem when they're breeding, bringing
up their young.  Most of the time they have their mobility and can move
away from what threatens them." He emptied the last of the corn from his
satchel on to the ground.  "Make an analogy between the duck pond and
our planet and you can see why we human beings are different, Fergus. We
don't have another planet we can hop off to.  We have to stay and
confront what threatens us."

Freer turned away from the pond and started Walking slowly.  Fergus kept
by his side.  "I believe in the Virgin Birth, you believe Jesus was
brought by astronauts, that's fine, Fergus, I've never had a problem
with that because we both believe in something.  We believe that a human
was born, or an alien arrived, who was a force of good.  Yes?"

Fergus was hesitant.  "In a manner, yes."

The crystals of frost were sparkling all around them, and the air to
Fergus seemed alive with birds singing.  There was an intensity to this
singing, almost an urgency: they were singing today as if there might
not be a tomorrow.

Freer walked in silence and then said, "So if you can, in a manner,
accept the concept of a force of good, can you, in that same manner,
accept the concept of a force of evil?"

"I came and talked to you about this last summer," Fergus reminded him.
"I know, but you're still a scientist."

"And this somehow demeans me?"

"I'm not saying that, no, not at all, the reverse.  You are rational.
Scientists come with a lot of baggage.  What I'm hearing requires you to
ditch that baggage.  Can you?  Can you cope with something that would be
wholly irrational to science - at least, science as we understand it
now?"

"Give me a left-luggage locker that's big enough."

Freer had the grace to smile.  "You'll still know it's there, you'll be
thinking about it, you'll be influenced by your need to make models of
everything, to make experiments, to see everything repeated in a
laboratory.  Can you really liberate your mind from all of those
constraints?"

"Religion asks why.  Science asks how.  I don't think there's such a big
gap between science and religion, Eutin.  I don't think it matters how
Jesus arrived or even who he really was.  The thing that matters is what
he did and his legacy.  It's the influence he had, the charisma.  He had
a power that people believed - and still believe."

"And acted upon."

"Yes, and still do.  What exactly are you hearing, Euan?  Tell me."
Freer walked on a few paces then stopped.  "There are a lot of prayers
going on around the world.  In the wrong places.  The wrong kind of
prayers."

"What kind?

"It's nothing specific, nothing I can hang my hat on, but it's making me
and a lot of other people very uncomfortable.  Desecration of churches,
a sudden rise in dark rituals.  That kind of thing."

"Like I said, it's the millennium.  All the weirdoes are having a field
day."

Freer shook his head.  "This goes way beyond that.  There's a
concentration, a focus."

"Sure, the millennium."

"There's your baggage again.  You can't leave it - you have to have a
peg you can hang things on before you can feel comfortable."

"OK, let me ask you something.  It's why I'm here."

"I guessed the coincidence of your being here had an underlying causal
factor." The priest smiled.  "Ask me."

"The name Sarotzini?" Freer frowned. "You know it?"

"Emil Sarotzini?  Of course.  Who doesn't?"

"Have you heard it recently?"

"He's dead, Fergus.  He died a long time ago, I don't remember when
exactly, back in the forties."

"Did he have any children?"

"No."

"Are you certain?"

"Yes.  That is one mercy."

"Euan." Fergus hesitated.  "Is there any possibility he could still be
alive?"

Freer gave Fergus a strange look.  "No.  And even if he was, he'd be -"
Freer thought.  "He'd be way over a hundred, a hundred and ten, maybe
more."

Fergus fell silent.  He was thinking back to his conversation at lunch
with Susan Carter, when she'd said, "Mr. Sarotzini was adamant that I
see him and no one -" Then the way she'd stopped, as if she'd said
something she should not have.

For the past month, since that lunch, Fergus had been trying to find an
Emil Sarotzini.  His researcher had checked the phone directories of
just about every country in the world.  She'd checked the register of
births, and the electoral rolls.

The last Emil Sarotzini, or indeed anyone of the name Sarotzini for
which any record existed, committed suicide in Florence, Italy, in 1947,
the day before he was due to be indicted by a war crimes tribunal on a
raft of charges of crimes against humanity.  This Emil Sarotzini had
exterminated two thousand Italian Jews who had sought the help of the
Vatican during the war.  It was a deal he had personally brokered with
Hitler, and even if it had not been actually sanctioned by the Vatican,
there was controversy over whether it had tried to intervene.

"You heard the story?" Euan asked suddenly.  "About Sarotzini's
cremation?"

Fergus shook his head.  "No, I don't think so."

"He was in his coffin, in the oven, for two hours.  When they took him
out there wasn't a mark on the coffin or on him.  Not a singed hair."

"I'd heard something strange happened, but I hadn't heard that.  So what
happened?"

"The chaps in the crematorium were spooked.  They wouldn't put him in
again so he was buried."

"They put a stake through his heart?" Fergus asked.

The clergyman smiled wryly.  "Maybe that's what was needed.  More than a
few people thought he was the devil incarnate."

They walked on a bit.  A spaniel puppy raced towards them, barked, then
raced away.  Fergus heard the thin whine of a dog whistle.  "He was an
illusionist, Sarotzini, wasn't he?"

"He was a lot of things."

"People are susceptible to miracles.  Particularly in countries where
religion is strong, right?"

"The moving statue of Ballymena?  Weeping virgins?  Lactating Buddhas?
Images of the Madonna mysteriously appearing on walls?"

Fergus nodded.  "Maybe the gas went out.  He was an illusionist,
wouldn't be hard for an illusionist to pull a stunt like that, to feign
death, spook a few crematorium workers, boost his mystique.  Be a lot
easier to turn off the gas than survive two hours at four hundred and
fifty degrees Celsius. And create an urban myth in the process."

After a few moments, Freer said, "Why are you asking about Sarotzini?
What's your interest?"

"I have a feeling, that's all."

"A feeling?"

They walked in silence for several paces.  Then Fergus said, quietly,
"Yes.  I can't give you a rational explanation why, but I think
Sarotzini could still be alive."

Chapter Forty

"Susan, what's this doing here?"

Standing in the hall with his coat on, John was staring at a pram.  It
was brand new, still in its wrapping, sporting large Mothercare
stickers.

Susan, in a chunky sweater and baggy jeans, came out of the kitchen, her
hands covered in flour "Hi, darling," she said, going over to him, and
kissing him.  "Scuse hands, I'm making pancakes." Pancakes drowned in
maple syrup were her latest craving.  "It's a present.  It's beautiful,
isn't it?"

"Who the hell's it from?"

"mom.  Well, I guess Mom and Dad - it just arrived this afternoon."
"Terrific," he said sarcastically, removing his coat.  "Very thoughtful
of them.  Maybe we could change it for something slightly more useful,
like a piece of furniture."

Susan looked at the pram, then back at John.  She said nothing.

"I'm sure Mother can take it back.  Presumably that's where it came from
as it's got their name on it?"

"I - I guess."

"You can take it back tomorrow - you've got time now.  Want me to put it
in your car?" He saw her hurt expression.  "Susan, come on!" He cupped
her face in his hands and kissed her lightly on the forehead.  "You
don't want to keep the bloody thing,.surely."

She stared back at him, too choked to speak.  Something about the pram,
sitting in the hall, looked so natural, as if it belonged here.  It made
the house feel complete. "Susan, hello?" No response.

"Susan, we don't need a pram.  As soon as the baby's born, Mr. Sarotzini
is taking it away, that's the deal.  I'm sure he can get his own pram.
I'll put it in the car for you.  OK?"

"OK," she whispered.

As John bent down to pick it up, she felt a sudden panic grip her, as if
he was taking away something that belonged to her, that he had no right
to take.  "John -" she began, but before she could say anything else the
pain exploded inside her.  She clutched her abdomen, let out a terrible
scream and doubled up.  She screamed again, then again, sank down onto
her knees, curled up, screaming, screaming, screaming.

John knelt down beside her.  This was ripping him apart, seeing her
suffering these terrible attacks.  And this one seemed worse than ever.
"Hon, darling, shall I call an ambulance?"

She looked at him in terror, but she didn't seem to be focusing.  Her
whole body contracted with a violent jerk and she let out a low moan.
Her eyes closed and her face looked so pitiful that John was close to
tears. "Darling?" he said.  "Darling?  I'm calling an ambulance."

She reached out, got hold of his wrist with her floury hand.  "Nnnn.
Nnnnnn." She was breathing in short bursts, her face a deathly grey.
"Nnno.  OK.  I'm OK, I'll be OK."

"Hon, you're not OK."

" She shuddered.  John, panic-stricken, thought she was dying.  In the
old days women frequently died in childbirth or through complications,
it must still happen.  Oh, God, please don't let it.  Not Susan, please
not.

He barely realised that he was praying.

Then she gave his wrist an extra hard squeeze.  "Please don't call an
ambulance.  Call Mr. Van Rhoe."

She opened her eyes and John stared right into them, frightened eyes
with hugely dilated pupils.  "Fuck Van Rhoe," he said.  "OK?  Fuck this
creep. Months, this has been going on and he tells you it's nothing,
it's just some tiny cyst.  Well, I'm not having this any more, I don't
trust this guy.  He may have the greatest reputation in the universe but
you shouldn't be having pain like this.  I'm calling an ambulance."

"It's going - going now."

"Are you sure?"

She nodded insistently.  "I'm OK.  It goes, it always goes.  Please, I
don't want to go to hospital, please, John."

There was something in her voice that got to him.  "Harvey Addison's
back from Barbados this week and I've booked an appointment for you for
tomorrow afternoon.  We're going to see him.  I don't want any argument
from you.  If he says this pain is OK, then fine, end of story, but I
want this second opinion and I want it from him."

Susan shook her head.  "No, I'm OK, it's not long now, three months, I
can put up with -"

And then her stomach arched out, she threw back her head and cried out
in pain to the heavens.  All she saw was a blur, then the pain came
again, and this time it wasn't just one knife twisting inside her, it
was two knives, four knives, she didn't know any more, she was losing
consciousness and she could see John's face and she could smell a trace
of burnt rubber on his breath, and then this pain, she could feel this
pain, it was coming again, like a furnace raging in her guts, melting
her insides.

She screamed so loudly it felt as if something had ripped loose in her
throat.

And then she was lying down, feeling terrible nausea, she wasn't sure
where she was and she panicked that she was in hospital.  But she
wasn't, she was on the sofa in the living room and she could hear John's
voice on the phone.

He was saying, "I appreciate it, Harvey, very much.  I made the
appointment with your girl before Christmas - just wanted to double
check.  You know about it?  Great.  That's very kind of you, they're
definitely getting worse.  She won't let me call an ambulance.  How was
your holiday?  Good.  And Caroline?  Good.  OK, four thirty tomorrow, at
your consulting rooms.  I'll bring her over myself."

Harvey Addison's consulting rooms were in a converted detached Edwardian
house close to Hampstead High Street.

The obstetrician turned into the driveway, parked in the forecourt bay
marked with his name, checked his hair in the mirror, and climbed out of
the black Porsche Cartera that John Carter's CD and on-line series, the
Home Doctor, had paid for.  He pressed the button on the key fob and the
car beeped and winked its lights at him, confirming that the alarm was
set.

Although it was mild for January, he was still used to the warm
Caribbean sunshine he had reluctantly left behind, and felt chilly.  But
he was in a good mood today: the jet-lag that had plagued him since
arriving back from Barbados on Saturday had all but gone, and he was
feeling fresh and alert.

And some seriously good news had come in the morning post.  A letter
from the BBC.  His ratings were increasing: 3.8 million, up from 3.2
million four months ago.  For a daytime television show the figures were
brilliant - hell, when it had been on BBC2, The X-Files in prime time
only pulled 6.3 million.

He strode quickly through the first few spots of an impending downpour,
his cashmere coat and his coiffed blond hair flapping, and ducked in
through the side entrance to avoid having to walk through the waiting
room.  He paused to glance at his reflection in the glass - the tan was
still looking good - then went into his office suite and fixed Sarah,
his receptionist and nurse, with a come-to-bed smile in those brilliant
blue eyes of his.  And she fixed him back with her brown eyes.  An
invisible wire cracked tight between them, and a smile ran down it both
ways, colliding in the middle.

He was thinking, One day, you and I, one day.

And she was thinking, You have a gorgeous wife you adore, and three
beautiful children you adore, and what chance do I have?  And, anyway,
even though you look gorgeous, you're a terrible flirt, and would I
really want that situation?

And the answer, which she didn't want to hear, and kept slamming away in
a filing cabinet in her brain, was Yes, yes, I do, and maybe, who knows,
one day?  But not now.  His agenda was full.  And the day ahead was
full.

"Good morning," she said.

"Hi, gorgeous.  How's the diary?"

She turned it round for him to read.  He glanced at the date, Thursday,
"January, then scanned the, entries.  "Four thirty, Susan Carter, that's
John Carter's wife."

"Yes, I know."

"Look after her when she arrives - give her some tea or something if I'm
running behind."

"Of course." She told him the urgent messages, and reminded him of a
patient who was due to go into labour that night.  She told him the BBC
had rung, wanting to set up another meeting about the new series
proposal they'd put to him.  And then, giving him a rather odd look, she
said, "There's a man waiting to see you - a Mr. Klindz?"

He frowned.  "Who's he?"

"I don't know.  I thought he must be someone you knew.  He seems to know
you.  I told him you never saw anyone without an appointment, but he's
absolutely adamant that he must see you."

"Is he a rep?"

"I don't think so."

"So who is he?  He's not the pervert who wrote to us wanting to buy all
our used surgical gloves?"

Sarah shook her head with a smile.  "He said something like you'd
understand the importance when you met him."

Harvey lowered his voice and tapped his head.  "A nutter?"

She gave a your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine shrug.

He felt uneasy, suddenly.  Who was Klindz?  A private detective?

Someone from the Medical Complaints Board?  He hung up his coat. "You'd
better get me Sally Hurworth.  Did she say when the bleeding started?"

"She noticed it when she woke up this morning."

He opened his office door.

"Are you going to see this Mr. Klindz?" she asked.  "Or shall I get rid
of him?"

He thought for a moment, edgy about who this man was, and remembered the
many skeletons in his closet.  "I'll give him two minutes.

But not yet.  Let me make these calls.  Anyone else waiting?"

"No, your first appointment's late."

Five minutes later, Harvey Addison sat behind his elegant antique desk
and watched the tall, powerfully built, unsmiling man come in and close
the door behind him.  The man was wearing a BurberT trench coat over a
shiny suit, a roll-neck sweater, expensive, rather flashy black shoes,
and had a leather carting case slung over his shoulder.  He didn't look
like a rep or a private detective.  Harvey Addison wasn't sure what he
looked like - he was built like an American footballer, but he had an
air of menace, not of a sportsman.

"Mr. Klindz, how can I help you?"

Klindz sat down in front of the impressive desk and lowered his bag to
the floor.  He looked at the obstetrician silently, and then said, in
his perfect English accent but with clumsy grammar, "Mr. Addison, are
you a man who is familiar with the work of Thomas tt Kempis who died in
fourteen seventy-one?"

Harvey Addison was not and he told Klindz this, deciding that the man
clearly was a nutter, but he was still wary of him.  He had an intensity
about him which, combined with his physique, gave him the scaT,
unpredictable air of a fanatic.

Klindz responded, "Thomas Kempis said: "It is much safer to obey than to
rule.""

This was also the Eleventh Truth, but Klindz decided that Harvey Addison
did not need to know this.

Addison had no idea where this man was coming from, and he was
regretting having agreed to see him.  And then Klindz made him feel a
whole lot more uneasy: "Mr. Addison, I am of the certain knowledge that
you are a busy man.  If you agree to do what I ask of you, you will
never see me again, you will never hear from me again, I will get out of
your face. But if you are not prepared to agree, I will destroy your
life.  Do we understand each other?"

Addison wondered whether the man was armed, whether to buzz Sarah and
get her to call the police, or dial them himself.  "MM," he said, trying
to keep his cool.  "I don't think I understand you at all."

Klindz unzipped one side of his shoulder bag and produced an envelope
from which he pulled out several large photographs; he laid them in a
line on the obstetrician's desk.  The photographs were of the same woman
and children who were smiling out from the silver frames on this desk,
but just in case Harvey Addison had any problem with their
identification, Klindz spelled it out for him.  "This is your wife,
Julia, and this is your son, Adam. This one is your elder daughter,
Jessica, and this one here, the girl on the bicycle, is your younger
daughter, Lucy."

The obstetrician stared in nervous silence at the pictures.  His wife
and the children all had suntans, so these must have been taken within
the last few days.  Briefly anger over me his fear of the man.  Threaten
my family, he thought, lift one finger to harm any of my family, and you
are a, dead man, Mr. Klindz.

Klindz picked up the photograph of Harvey Addison's son.  "Adam," he
said.  "It was his fifth birthday on Sunday, you had a Punch and Judy
man come to your house at fourteen Curlew Gardens, Adam was sick
afterwards and you told him he was silly to have eaten so much.  He has
a peanut allergy.  Just one nut could kill him, that is correct?"

But before Harvey Addison had a chance to speak, Klindz continued, "Your
daughter Jessica, who is seven, kept you awake last night, because she
was scared of the thunderstorm.  At three fifteen she came into bed with
you and your wife.  You told her a story about a sheep called Boris."

Good, Klindz thought, he could smell fear starting to rise from the man,
which always made him feel comfortable.  He could smell anger too, but
it was nothing compared to fear.

"What the hell is all this about, Mr. Klindz?  Spying on me and on my
family.  What game do you think you're playing?"

Klindz ignored the questions.  "Mr. Addison, you have a code of client
confidentiality in your profession, the Hippocratic Oath.  You cannot
discuss a patient, but I have to ask you to break this confidentiality.
She is not a patient yet, and she will not become one until you have
reached this afternoon, so we'll talk about her."

Harvey Addison was finding this man's tortuous way of speaking a little
hard to navigate.  "Who is she?"

"Her name is Susan Carter.  There is something that is very important
for you to understand about this situation before you see her."

Addison's voice became brittle: he was close to exploding.  "Oh, yes?"

"Susan Carter is pregnant, but John Carter is not the father.  She is
acting as a surrogate mother in exchange for a large amount of money, I
imagine.

you are not aware of this."

"I don't believe you."

"She has an ovarian cyst which, from time to time, is twisting and this
is causing the pains.  If she were a normal patient, and these were
normal circumstances, Mr. Van Rhoe would have operated to remove this
cyst."

The surprise of this information helped Harvey Addison to contain
himself "What do you mean by a normal patient?  And what is this rubbish
about her being a surrogate mother?"

"You will have to accept my word for it, Mr. Addison, Susan Carter is a
very special patient.  As you know, such an operation carries a risk of
the mother aborting.  Mr. Van Rhoe is not in a position to take that
risk."

"I can't comment about a patient, let alone one I haven't yet seen, Mr.
Klindz, but operations to remove ovarian cysts are carried out
frequently on pregnant women with only minimal risk to the foetus."

"I am instructed that it is not merely the risk of spontaneous aborting.
There is unquantifiable damage that may be inflicted by the anaesthetics
on the baby's developing brain."

"With respect, Mr. Klindz, I don't know where you are getting your
information from but that is ludicrous."

"I have not paid this visit to argue with you.  These are not my
instructions.  I wish to remind you of the words of Tomas hid Kempis.
"It is much safer to obey than to rule.""

"Mr. Klindz, I'm going to call the police."

Klindz smiled.  "Mr. Addison, I am not in any way of the opinion that
this is your best option.  You have a more important phone call to make.
You need to phone Adam's school.  The packed lunch your wife has given
Adam.  Something has happened to this lunch, a terrible error.  Somehow,
Mr. Addison, your little son, Adam, who has this allergy to peanuts that
can kill him in minutes, somehow Adam has peanut-butter sandwiches in
his packed lunch."

Harvey Addison thought about his son, with his flop of blond hair,
permanent grin, and passion for bringing insects into the house.  Adam,
whom he had kissed goodbye not much more than an hour ago.  He stared at
the man sitting in front of him and wanted to hurt him.  He felt a
loathing for this man that was cracking the concrete edifice of his
emotional dam.

Klindz watched Harvey Addison's knuckles clench and whiten.  He could
read the obstetrician's mind clearly: the man was deciding whether to
assault him with his bare hands, but he was afraid of him.  He thought
about it too long, the moment for spontaneity passed, his anger was
dissolving into fear for his child.

And now Klindz could really breathe in this man's fear: it was so
strong, the atmosphere in this room was thick with it - not such a good
perfume as the scents of Susan Carter but it had its own attraction.

Harvey Addison reached for his phone, but Klindz's hand was already
there.  "Mr. Addison, you have plenty of time.  Adam is in class, doing
a geography project, all about the Serengheti - you have visited the
Serengheti?"

"Bugger the Serengheti."

"You should know things about the Serengheti, Mr. Addison.  Adam may
come home from school tonight and ask you questions.  It is worth
visiting, I can assure you.  It has ready insect species that would
interest Adam. But you must take care with the time of year.  To see the
wildebeest on the move, their annual migration, that is something you
should not overlook, Mr. Addison.  But you are right, we should not
digress.  For the moment, Adam: when he finishes this class, he has gym.
Then he will have his shower and it is not until after his shower that
he will open" his lunch box.  At a quarter to one.  You have three and a
half hours to save his life, Mr. Addison, and I'm offering you such a
simple deal.  You save the life of Susan Carter's baby, and I will help
you save your son Adam's life."

In the silence that followed, Klindz soaked up the smell, he bathed in
it, he was becoming energised by it, and always, when this happened, his
thoughts turned to Mr. Sarotzini.  He felt such gratitude towards Mr.
Sarotzini, such incredible gratitude.

"And what are you expecting me to do to save the life of Susan Carter's
baby?"

"Nothing, Mr. Addison." Klindz smiled.  "That's the beauty of it.  It is
so simple.  You have to do nothing.  You take an ultrasound scan, you
tell Mr. and Mrs. Carter that the cyst is small, it is tiny, and these
pains, they may be bad when they happen, but they are not serious, it is
no worse than an insect bite.  That is all you have to do, it is so
simple."

"And if I'm not happy with the scan, you expect me to shut up and live
with this on my conscience?"

Klindz pulled a portable video player from his leather bag, switched it
on, pushed in a tape, and trned the screen towards Addison.

When the tape stabilised, it showed a woman in her late twenties, lying
on the couch in this room.  A man, half undressed, was lowering his head
between her legs.  The date, displayed at the top of the screen said,
Tuesday, 9 January.

Klindz let the tape run on, glancing every few seconds at the
obstetrician, who was watching the screen stonily.

Eventually the man changed his position, preparing to mount the woman:
the camera now showed a perfect side profile of Harvey Addison.

Klindz said, "This lady is a patient of yours, her name is Charlotte
Harper.  Her husband is the cardiologist Kieran Harper.  Also he is one
of your oldest friends - you were his best man at their wedding.  I am
not of any opinion that your conscience affects you too much, Mr.
Addison." He switched off the machine and waited.  It was some moments
before Harvey Addison lifted his eyes from the blank screen and looked,
like a stricken animal, at Klindz.

"I have further instructions to relay to you, Mr. Addison.  If you do
not allay Mr. and Mrs. Carter's fears totally this afternoon, there will
be consequences for the rest of your family that I shall be unable to
prevent. Your daughter Lucy, who is so pretty, will be so disfigured by
acid you will not recognise her, your daughter Jessica will lose both
her eyes, and your wife Caroline will be paralysed from the neck down."

Klindz replaced the video player in the carrying case, along with the
photographs, and stood up.  "I will remind you one more time to think
about the words of Thomas ti Kempis.  I am not waiting for your answer.
We will know that at half past four this afternoon."

And then, as Klindz reached the door, he turned and added, "Don't forget
to telephone the school.  Please have a nice day."

Chapter Forty-one

John arrived home late to collect Susan for her appointment with Harvey
Addison.  He was in a foul mood.  And it was a foul afternoon, January
at its worst, four p.m.  and it was almost dark, rain drumming on the
fabric roof of the car, great fat sheets of it bursting out of puddles
and slapping the windscreen like sea against a break/water.

As he drove through the clogged London traffic, Susan sat beside him,
the A-Z open on her knees, deciding it was best not to speak, just to
let him concentrate and hopefully calm down.

Her silence irritated him, and she had the radio tuned to some classical
music that irritated him even more.  It was really depressing stuff, a
violin that sounded like a rusty swing-door.  He switched to Virgin and
turned up the volume on a track of techno rock.  Then he glanced at
Susan.  If she told him that Bump had ben enjoying the music he would
brain her.  But she didn't say anything.

For.  several minutes he drove on in silence, then said, "You took the
pram back to Mothercare?"

Susan said nothing.

There was an advert on the radio now.  He turned down the volume. "You
took the pram back?" he repeated, accelerating hard.  "Keep an eye open
for the turning, I always miss it.  Arthur Street, immediately after
Vane Place."

"Vane Place," she said, peering down at the A-Z, then at the street
names on their left.  "I'm taking it tomorrow - it's been raining like
this all day."

"Have you phoned them?"

"Who?"

"Mothercare.  "

"This is it, next left, slow down, you're going to miss it.  Slow down!"
she said.

They did miss it.

As he held the ultrasound scanner to Susan's abdomen, Harvey Addison
couldn't believe what he was looking at.  This thing on the screen,
which was angled away, thank God, from Susan and John Carter, was the
size of a grapefruit.

It could be a dermoid cyst, a benign teratoma, which was a semi-solid
mass of skin, hair, teeth, lungs, or it could be a compound malignant
ovarian cancer.  There was no way to tell without a biopsy, and that
required an operation.  And Susan Carter could not have an operation.

He could see why she was getting these attacks of pain It had been
twisting round on itself and untwisting.  The pain came from the
twisting motion.  Although agonising, this in itself was not harmful.
The danger would be if it seized up in a twisted state, because all the
blood vessels supplying it would become blocked.  Then it could undergo
ischaemic necrosis, and turn gangrenous.  He tuned the machine to make
the image more fuzzy than it need be.

John came over and peered at the screen "What can you see?" he asked.
The obstetrician knew that John wouldn't know what he was looking at.
"Nothing," he said, more loudly than he normally spoke, for the benefit
of Klindz's unseen microphone.  "It's too small to see.  It must be a
tiny cyst. It's quite amazing how painful they can be sometimes."

He switched off the machine, absently telling Susan that she could put
her blouse back on, deep in thought about what might happen to her.

It could be malignant, in which case if it wasn't removed it would kill
her.  It might turn gangrenous, and there were clear danger signs that
that could be happening, in which case she would lose the baby and die
of chemical peritonitis if she wasn't hospitalised.  Or it might be
benign.  It might stay as it was, continuing to twist, giving her
continual dull pain, and the occasional acute pain that hurt like hell.

Today was 11 January.  The baby was due 26 April.  If she could cope
with the pain for another two months, then perhaps he could persuade
this madman, Klindz, that they should go for a Caesarean.  It would be
eight months then, just a month premature; its chances of survival would
be good.  But two months of this pain?  It was inhuman to put her
through that.

He wanted desperately to find a way of asking John and Susan the truth
about the baby.  Was she really having a surrogate child?  It seemed
unbelievable, but he dared not say anything now.  He would ask John
quietly some time soon, when they were alone together.

He also wanted to know what Miles Van Rhoe's position was.  There was no
way he could have failed to diagnose exactly the same thing as himself.
Did Klindz have a hold on him, too?

Harvey Addison felt a deep sense of outrage.  This was criminal.  All
his medical training and experience was telling him that this cyst had
to come out.  His eyes shot up to the ceiling.  He'd spent his lunch
break searching for the hidden camera, for a microphone, and he had
found nothing.

He was scared out of his wits.

The peanut-butter sandwich had been in Adam's lunch box.  And Caroline
couldn't believe it when he'd phoned and told her that Adam had a
peanut-butter sandwich in his lunch box.  She'd told him there was no
way it could have come from their home, she kept no peanut butter or any
peanut-based products in the house, she was scrupulously careful about
it.

He wanted badly to speak to V/an Rhoe, but he couldn't do that from
here, not if he was being watched and listened to.  And what if Van
Rhoe" was also under observation?

Sitting down at his desk again, he gave a reassuring smile to Susan and
John that made him feel uncomfortably guilty.  Then he told them there
was nothing to worry about, it was just a tiny cyst, exactly as Miles
Van Rhoe had diagnosed.  It was best just to live with it, keep taking
the pain-killers when it got really bad, be a brave girl.

Watching them leave, he hated himself.  But it would be all right: as
soon as he had the opportunity he'd tell them the truth.  He would go
straight home from the office, scoop up Caroline and the children and
drive them all to the nearest police station and get this whole thing
into the hands of the authorities.

He sped through the rest of his appointments, and then, at ten past six,
grabbed his coat - his secretary had already left - and hurried outside.

The Porsche, black as the night in the rain-lashed car park, beeped at
him and winked its lights when he hit the button on the key fob.  Then
he opened the driver's door and the dome light came on.  That was when
he saw the figure sitting patiently in the passenger seat.

He jumped.

"Good evening, Mr. Addison," Klindz said.  "Did you have a nice day?"
Harvey Addison stood rigid, frightened.  His instincts told him to run,
but that wasn't going to do him any good; this man Klindz knew where he
lived.  Running wasn't going to get him anywhere, talking was his best
option.

He climbed into the Porsche and closed the door.  Suddenly it felt very
quiet in here.  He was wondering, how the hell did this man get in here?
The alarm was still set.  He had been sitting in the car with the alarm
set, and the sensors in the car detected even the tiniest movement.

Christ, what kind of a freak is this man?

Klindz said, "You did well, Mr. Addison, I am pleased with you, and when
I report this to Mr. Sarotzini he will be pleased with you also.  Just
one thing bothers me, and I will explain this to you as you drive -
please drive now."

The obstetrician weighed up his options.  He was trying to think
clearly, but fear was causing a blizzard of confused thoughts inside his
head.  "W-where?"

"I will direct.  Navigation is a skill Mr. Sarotzini has taught me."

"Mr. Sarotzini?  Who's he?"

"Turn left.  This is a good car.  I also have a German car, a Mercedes,
I like it very much.  It's the sports one, you know, but I think I have
a more complicated sound system than you.  Your speakers in here are
very small. I can recommend some to you that will give you much better
quality.  I see your radio was set to classical music stations.  The
speakers you have here are really more suited to rock music."

"I really need to get home, Mr. Klindz.  I have a patient in labour due
to give birth in a few hours, and I must have some supper and then get
over to her."

"She is a fortunate lady to have such a diligent obstetrician, Mr.
Addison. Now - straight on over the lights - Mr. Addison, in your lunch
hour today you did not go out.  You were looking around your room.  You
were trying to find a microphone?  A camera?  What would you have done
if you had found these things?"

There was an air of quiet menace in the man's voice that riddied Harvey
Addison with fear.  "I was curious how you knew so much about me, how
you got the pictures."

"Curiosity is an impure thought.  This is one of the Truths, Mr.
Addison."

"Pardon?"

"Turn right at these next lights, please.  These actions, this looking
for a camera, a microphone, I find these cause concern.  Trust must be
absolute, Mr. Addison."

A wild thought was going through Harvey Addison's head.  He wondered if
he could accelerate hard, put the car into a slide and slam the
passenger side of the Porsche into a lamp-post.

"Do you understand the need for purification, Mr. Addison?"

"In my work I understand the need for sterility, for cleanliness."

"Don't let any thoughts of killing me take root in your mind, Mr.
Addison.  If you crash this car you will arrive home to.find that your
wife, Julia, and your three children, Adam, Jessica and Lucy, have
suffered in the manner I have already explained to you.  You go straight
over the next lights.  From purification can come absolute trust."

Increasingly frightened with every mile that passed, Harvey Addison
could get nothing further from the man.  They were driving north on the
M1 now in silence.  Then, several miles inside Bedfordshire, Klindz
calmly instructed him to turn off the motorway.

They headed into the darkness of the countryside, passing a sign to a
place called Bfogborough, Addison's fear deepening as they left the
lights and the comfort of other cars behind them.  And then it deepened
even further still, when Klindz directed him onto a dirt road which,
after a few hundred yards, ended in a vast, deserted quarry.  The
headlights picked up a stationary car, a Ford.

"That's my car," Klindz said.  "I appreciate the lift.  Please pull up
beside it"

and then switch off the engine, we should not cause unnecessary
pollution.  We must all be concerned about the environment, the ozone
layer.  Are you concerned about the ozone layer, Mr. Addison?"

The obstetrician switched off the engine and, in a quavering voice,
assured Klindz he was concerned about the ozone layer.  Then he added,
"I - I thought you had a Mercedes?"

He was shaking with terror.

Klindz smiled at him.  "Yes, but she is in Switzerland, in Geneva.  I
think it is as well because she would have got dirty on this road.
Please switch on the interior light."

Harvey Addison did as he was told.  With the wipers stopped and the rain
quickly frosting the screen, he felt even more enclosed and trapped.

Klindz removed a pouch from his shoulder bag and unzipped it. Inside was
a piece of cardboard, the barrel of a ball-point pen, and a cellophane
packet containing a fine white powder.

Unhurriedly and carefully he made a slight convex curve in the
cardboard.  Then he poured white powder on to it.  "This is cocaine, Mr.
Addison.  You like cocaine very much, don't you?"

Surprised that Klindz knew about this as well, and determined to keep
all his wits about him, he said, "I don't want any right now, thank
you."

Klindz sounded genuinely hurt.  "Mr. Addison, this is a reward for doing
so well today.  Please, enjoy, we have plenty of time, there is so much
night in front of us.  I have brought you this for your purification."

The darkness, the remoteness, the silence.  Christ, how the hell could
he have let himself into this situation?  In London he could have done
something - he could have run, shouted.  Surely he could have done
something?  How the hell could he have been so bloody stupid as to have
ended up here?

He felt close to tears.  His children, Caroline, what did this madman
want from them all?  What did he want from him, now, here?

"Please, Mr. Addison, enjoy yourself.  The quality is quite outstanding,
I am sure you will agree."

Harvey Addison's hands were trembling so much he could hardly grip the
barrel of the pen.  Hesitantly, he took a very small sniff - and then,
within seconds, everything seemed much better.  There was a surge inside
him.  He felt a power gripping him, this was great, this power, his
whole stomach constricted, and a wave that started deep in his belly,
rippled, spreading outwards through his whole body.  It was pure,
incredible pleasure, so strong it evacuated his lungs.  This was sex,
this was pure orgasm, but this was orgasm that went on building,
spreading outwards through him, just on and on, wave after wave, each
becoming stronger, more intense.

"This is incredible!" he gasped.  "My God, this is incredible!"

Klindz nodded, he was glad, he was happy.  He urged Addison to take
another snort.

The obstetrician shook his head.

"Please," Klindz said.  "Do this for me.  It will be even better."

And Harvey Addison did not really want to stop now.  This stuff was so
good - he'd never had anything this good.  He held the barrel of the pen
to his left nostril, closed the right, and snorted hard.  And instantly,
this was just so incredible!

And for Klindz the only disappointment was the smell, the beautiful,
harsh smell of this man's fear had faded.  But that was a small price to
pay for this man's purification.  Because Harvey Addison needed this
purification to achieve his absolute trust.

And to achieve this trust, Harvey Addison must experience the Fifth
Truth, which stated, "The only purification is eradication."

This was something he would explain to the obstetrician in a moment.

Chapter Forty-two

Susan sat at her desk, staring out of the window, running through the
things she needed to do.  Wallpaper, she thought suddenly, and wrote it
down on her pad.  Pram, Mothercare, she wrote down.  The cursor of her
computer blinked steadily and she could hear the whir of the machine's
fan.  Ante-natal exercises, she added.

The rain was still tipping down - it had not stopped all night.  The
garden looked sad, waterlogged, the beech hedge and many of the trees
stripped of their leaves, fallen twigs and branches strewn on the lawn,
bits of rubbish that had blown in, or been thrown in, flapping or
rolling around.

On her way back from shopping at lunch-time, she'd seen the old boy next
door being taken away in an ambulance, but she didn't know why, and his
wife, Mrs. Walpole! didn't answer the door when she'd popped round later
to see if there was anything she could do for her.

It was Friday, and she was relieved it was the weekend tomorrow and that
John would be home: She was glad too that she still had Fergus
Donleavy's manuscript to work on - she hadn't realised quite how much
she would miss the intellectual stimulation of work, or how much she
would miss the human contact of going into the office.

Although she had a few girlfriends with whom she could organise lunches
and coffee mornings and teas, plus a ton of books she wanted to read,
and she could break up the days with the Today programme and Woman's
Hour and The Archers on Radio Four, concerts on Radio Three and Classic
FM, plus varibus other radio and television treats she'd discovered - as
well as housework and cooking - she had still not got used to her own
company.

As if sensing her mood; Bump was restless today, shifting around,
kicking, punching, having a good old rough-and-tumble.  Vivaldi was
playing on the CD, the Four Seasons.  Bump still preferred Mozart but
was getting to think Vivaldi was pretty OK.

"You think Vivaldi's cool, don't you, Bump?" she asked softly. But there
was no response.  "You asleep, Bump?" Still no reaction.

"That's OK, you sleep.  Wish I could sleep as much as you do.  Wish I
could go to sleep and wake up on April the twenty-sixth..."

Her voice dried because she wasn't sure about that any more.  A lot of
thoughts were going through her mind, and some seemed to be driving her,
thoughts that she couldn't help but were just there, as if someone was
putting them there.

And the biggest one, which was there all the time and would never
completely go away, was what kind of father Mr. Sarotzini was going to
make for Bump.

There was another problem: she was sleeping badly in spite of feeling
tired all the time.  She'd been having a lot of weird dreams recently,
and last night's had stayed with her - it was still spooking her.

In the dream she was in a vast house, every room of which was painted
black.  She couldn't find her baby and was running, panic-stricken, from
room to room, but they were all empty.  Then, finally, she had found Mr.
Sarotzini, and he'd smiled at her and told her not to worry, the baby
was fine, but she didn't trust him.

She'd tried looking up the dream in a couple of books on dream analysis,
but they said different things, which made her even more confused.  And
anyhow she didn't need to analyse this dream to figure it out: she knew,
in her heart, exactly what it meant.  She had been just clutching at a
straw that maybe it meant something else.

She clicked on her mouse and Netscape came up on her screen.  Clicking
the mouse again, she opened the search engine Yahoo, and typed in the
word SURROGATE, then clicked again.  A whole list of headings appeared:

center for surrogate parents and egg donation. woman tow o man fertility
center. surrogate mothers" network.

She worked her way through the first ten, then the next ten, but didn't
find what she was looking for.  She finally exited from Netscape, called
up the Usenet Newsgroups and again entered the search command
SURROGATE..This time, after half an hour of going up blind alleys, she
hit paydirt.

surrogate.  legal.

There were forty different topics under this heading but two immediately
caught her eye and she checked out the first of these.  It gave the
references for the court transcripts of all cases in the British and US
courts where the surrogacy had been challenged.

Then she checked out the second newsgroup topic, which turned out to be
an information helpline, and felt a beat of excitement.  It was exactly
what she needed.

She composed an e-mail in her head, then typed it out, read it through
carefully, and clicked on the command to send it.  Then, in case John
came home unexpectedly, she cleared it from the screen At that moment
the phone rang.  It was John.  "Harvey Addison," he said. "I've just had
a call from Caroline."

Sitting in his flat in Earl's Court Klindz was watching Susan typing on
her keyboard, and he was appreciating the Vivaldi she was playing.  This
was a good thing, playing music for the baby, he approved of that.  But
there was too much glare coming off her computer screen and the lens of
his camera couldn't pick up the detail of what she was typing.  She was
surfing the Net, but he didn't know why.  He didn't know what she was
looking at and she was not giving him any clues.

Only her face gave him clues.  This expression she had.  He didn't like
this expression, he was not comfortable with it, he was worried by it.
"Susan," he chided.  "I hope you're being a good girl, Susan."

He could hear the putter of the keys: she typed fast, using all her
fingers. Klindz liked it when she did that - she looked so confident, so
in control of her machine and this, he remembered from Mr. Sarotzini's
teachings, was a very Zen thing.  It was good to be in control of your
machine, to know your machine, to love your machine, because all things
respond to love.

You must love even the things you hate, even the people you hate, and
Klindz did love the people he hated, and he remembered the words of the
poet, Byron, who had said; "Now hatred is by far the longest pleasure.
Men love in haste, but they detest at leisure."

Klindz was in awe of this wisdom.  He watched Susan; she'd had no pains
today, and that was good, he did not like to hear her cry.  And he hoped
so much, so very much, that Susan was not going to give him a reason to
hate her, because he would find that hard - maybe too hard.

He watched her face, breathed in her remembered smells, and breathed
them in again, more deeply, the pangs of longing worsening.  He looked
at the concentration on her face, the soft pale skin of her neck, and he
wanted to kiss it, to hold her, to feel the warmth of her breath against
his own flesh.  Why had he ever thought that it might start to get
easier?

He watched her fingers on the keyboard and he wondered if she was in
search of wisdom.  And as he listened to the sound of her typing, his
computer was listening also.  But it was not the clicking that it heard,
it was the electrical pulses inside Susan's computer - these pulses that
were inaudible to the naked ear - and it was translating these pulses,
almost as fast as she could type, back into words that appeared on
Klindz's screen. And now he read:

hello, i need help, please, on my legal position: i m a surrogate
mother, almost seven months" pregnant.  my husband and i have accepted
payment for this.  i would now like to know, if i decided to challenge
the legitimacy of this arrangement, and offered to repay the money we
have been given, what position would be.  is there e lawyer you could
put me in touch with who specialises in this area?

And Klindz said quietly, to himself, "Oh, Susan, my darling, meine
liebe, my cherished one, what are you doing, my darling?  What are you
doing?" He shook his head. He would have to report this to Mr.
Sarotzini, and this made him frightened for Susan.  Mr. Sarotzini would
be angry, and Klindz did not want this, he really didn't, he did not
want Mr. Sarotzini to be angry with Susan, but he must report this. What
alternative did he have?  And he knew that the answer was none, there
was no alternative.

Susan gripped the receiver tightly to her ear.  She had heard John
clearly, yet she still said, "What?"

"Harvey's dead."

She could picture the obstetrician vividly in her mind, standing over
her yesterday, tall, slim, his normally arrogant expression softened
into a warm smile, holding the ultrasound to her tummy.  "I - I don't -
I can't believe it.  What happened?"

"I'm not sure," he said.  "Caroline just rang me in a terrible state. He
was found dead in his car."

"But we - we saw him yesterday.  He was fine.  Did he have an accident?"
"No I - I -" He was silent for a moment.  "I don't think an accident.  I
don't know, she wasn't clear - more like a heart attack or a stroke, an
aneurysm or something."

"Shall I call her?"

"I - yes - you want to do that?"

"Yes.  God, I invited her over for a coffee morning next week.  I rang
her yesterday."

"I have to go to a meeting at Microsoft, then I'll come home."

"This is awful," she said.  "I can't believe it."

"I can't either," he said.

She hung up, the full shock of it hitting her now.  The image again of
him yesterday afternoon, holding the ultrasound scanner on her tummy.
Now he was dead.

With trembling hands, feeling as if the whole world around her had
destabilised, she looked up the Addisons" number in the book and
dialled.

Caroline answered almost immediately, her voice weak and thin from
crying.  Susan spoke gently, feeling for her intensely, all thoughts of
how dull, vacuous, Stepford-like the woman was now gone from her mind.
"Caroline," she said.  "It's Susan Carter.  I just heard.  I'm so
sorry."

There was a long silence.  Then, when she spoke again, Caroline sounded
more composed.  "It doesn't seem to make any sense, Susan.  Why on earth
would he be in a quarry in the middle of Bedfordshire?"

"A quarry?" Susan asked.

"He had a patient in labour at St. Catherine's nursing home, whom he
should have been with at nine o'clock, and he never showed up.  I don't
understand it.  We had a wonderful holiday, he was so relaxed and
looking forward to this year.  It - I can't make sense of..."

"What exactly happened, Caroline?  He had a car accident in a quarry?"
There was another silence and then Caroline Addison said, "Did John tell
you about the peanut-butter sandwich?  I mean, how did Harvey know about
it?  The peanut-butter sandwich in Adam's lunch box."

Susan remembered something about the Addisons" boy having an allergy to
nuts - but what did this have to do with Harvey's death?  "Peanut
butter, did you say?"

"The police said he was - he was -" Then Caroline Addison began sobbing.

"Would you like me to come over?" Susan asked.

"No...  mother...  sister.iI coming.  Call you later?  Tomorrow?  I -
I'm sorry."

Susan heard the sound of the receiver being replaced.  Then she hung up
herself, and wished that she was not pregnant; she could use a stiff
drink.

It was starting to grow dark outside and it had only just gone four p.m.
She hated these short days of winter and longed, more than ever right
now, for the long summer evenings to return.  Harvey Addison was dead
but she still had not yet taken the news fully on board.  A part of him
was standing in his surgery yesterday afternoon holding the ultrasound
scanner.  He had seemed a little edgy, perhaps, but she'd put that down
to the embarrassment of seeing a friend.

Another part of him was standing in the living room, here, just before
Christmas, and he was saying, so arrogantly, "This really is a
delightful little house." She had loathed him for that, but he had been
kind to her when she'd had her attack of pain that night and he'd been
kind to her again yesterday.

Quarry.  Peanut butter.  She toyed around in her mind with the seemingly
jumbled words Caroline had spoken but they made no sense.

She felt badly in need of comforting herself, needed to talk to someone.
Five past four; it was five past eight in the morning in Los Angeles.
Her parents would be up, they were early.risers, and she might catch one
of them before they went off to work.  She just wanted to hear their
voices, to be reassured that some of the foundation stone of her life
were still intact.

When John arrived home Susan came out into the hall to greet him and was
appalled by how shaken he looked.  He was clutching a copy of the
Evening Standard.

"Take a look," he said, holding out the paper and tapping the front
page.

"What happened?" she asked.  "I rang Caroline but she didn't really say
anything."

He shook his head.  "I need a drink."

They went through into the kitchen.  "I'll get it for you," she said.
"I'll get it - you read the piece."

Susan laid the paper on the kitchen table and remained standing as she
read it.  The front-page splash was the discovery of an IRA explosives
cache; the only other item on.  the page was a surprisingly large
photograph of Harvey Addison beneath the headline, GYNECOLOGIST DEATH
RIDDLE.

The article was disappointingly short.  It said that Harvey Addison,
presenter of BBC Television's popular The Birth Miracle, and Private
Consultation shows, had been found dead early this morning in his
Porsche car, in a chalk quarry in Bedfordshire, by workmen.  There was a
quantity of cocaine in the car.  Police were awaiting the result of a
postmortem. He was married with three young children.  His wife,
predictably, was mystified and in shock.

Susan looked up at John, who was squeezing out ice cubes into his glass.
"Did you know he took cocaine?"

"No, but it's no big deal." He stuck the glass under the filter tap and
squirted a splash of water in.

"The inference is that he's overdosed," she said.

"Did Caroline say anything?"

"I don't think she was fully compos mentis.  She was talking about
peanut butter - their son, Adam, has a nut allergy."

"I don't see the connection."

"Nor did I."

John drank some whisky, sat down at the table and swivelled the paper
towards him.

"Are they implying he killed himself?" she asked.

"God knows."

"The one thing Caroline said was how relaxed Harvey'd been on holiday -
and that he'd really been looking forward to this year."

"It's a real bugger for DigiTrak," John said.  "Quite apart from the
fact that I actually liked him a lot.  He was our biggest earner." He
drank some more whisky.

"I - I guess with these drugs - sometimes you don't know their true
strength, if you buy them from a dealer.  You don't know what you're
getting," Susan said.

"He's a medic," John said.  "He could prescribe himself anything he
wanted, I don't think he would have needed a pusher -"but I'm not sure
how it works with coke.  And a quarry?  He drove to a quarry to snort
coke? Why did he do that?"

"Maybe he was having an affair, and it was where they had their trysts."
John looked at her thoughtfully.  "Possibility.  They snort some coke
together, he has a heart attack, she panics and bails out?" He shook his
head.  "Christ, you'd have thought he'd have a bit more style than a
quarry in the middle of winter.  Why not go to a hotel for that?"

"He was well known.  Maybe he was afraid of being recognised," she
ventured, watching John drink some more whisky, then rattle the ice
cubes around.  And, like a member of an orchestra coming in on cue, a
gust of wind rattled the window-pane.  Then, in silent discord, Bump
kicked, once.

It was as if Bump sensed something was not right.

You're reading my mind, Bump, Susan thought.

And Klindz listening to this conversation, was made happy by it.  It
almost dispelled the gloom he had been feeling about Susan Carter on her
computer.  Good girl!  he thought.  This is better.  Oh Susan, now you
are making me so much happier.

Oh, I wish I could forget your earlier foolishness.  I wish that so
much.  I wish I could find some way of not reporting it to Mr.
Sarotzini. But I can't. And he is going to instruct me to punish you.

And he stared at the photograph of Susan's sister, Casey, that he was
holding in his hand, and he knew, this was perfect, this would punish
Susan badly.

But Susan would be grateful for this punishment.  For the Thirteenth
Truth stated that "All true gratitude is borne from punishment."

Chapter Forty-three

The Coroner's verdict at the inquest on Harvey Addison made a few
columns in some of the morning papers on Tuesday, 12 March.

Van Rhoe held the ultrasound.  scanner to Susan's swollen abdomen and
beamed.  "The cyst is shrinking," he said.  "It's almost completely
gone, this is very good news."

At four o'clock this morning, it sure as hell hadn't felt like it was
shrinking.  It had felt like her belly was filled with white-hot rocks
that were trying to burn their way out through her insides.  During the
past few weeks she had been in almost constant pain, and coughing and
sneezing were hell.  She was sleeping very badly and felt shattered
today.  "So why's the pain getting worse?" she asked, testily, pulling
her jumper back on.

Miles Van Rhoe sat back at his desk, picked up his fountain pen and
jotted some notes on a card.  "I'm afraid this stage of pregnancy is
frequently painful.  You're getting quite a lot of round ligament pain,
which is caused by the stretching of the ligaments supporting the
uterus.

You're feeling a sort of aching, nagging, dragging pain?"

Susan nodded.

"And it's more severe on the right?"

"Yes."

"Sharp stabs?"

Again she nodded.

"And these are worse when you stand up after you've been sitting for a
while?"

"Yes."

He smiled.  "All symptoms of round ligament pain.  They're unpleasant
but they're not doing you or the baby any harm, and they'll get better
in a week or two.  Any other problems?"

"A lot of backache."

"That's normal." "And heartburn."

"Yes," he said, jotting all this down.

"And -" Susan blushed.  "I've got piles."

"I'm afraid that's par for the course also." He put down his pen and
smiled warmly.  "I know you're not appreciating all these pains and
discomforts, Susan, but I'm delighted you're having them because they
are all signs that you're carrying a healthy baby."

"Great," she said.  "Terrific." She gave him a wan smile and shrugged.
"He's healthy all right - boy, can he kick.  I think he's gonna play
football for Engl -" She checked herself, and then said, more flatly,
"For Switzerland."

A shadow flitted across Van Rhoe's face and was gone.  "One thing I
promise you, Susan, is that I won't keep you suffering any longer than
is strictly necessary.  The big advantage, of course, with a Caesarean
is that we don't have to wait for labour, we -"

"Caesarean?" she interrupted.

"Yes," he said.  "Of course.  With your cyst..."

She shook her head.  "No, I've been reading about natural birthing. I've
got books on technique and people who've been through it, that's what I
want to do."

Van Rhoe gave her an avuncular smile.  "Susan, I'm afraid I am not an
advocate of natural birthing.  In my opinion, it's something primitives
did before there were obstetricians and hospitals, and there are quite
unacceptable risks involved.  I'm going to need to operate to remove
what remains of your cyst and it makes sense to do that at the same time
as the Caesarean."

He leaned forward and intertwined his long, hairy fingers.  "Susan, you
have nothing to fear from a Caesarean.  It's the safest way of giving
birth for both mother and child."

She shook her head again.  "I've made up my mind I want to have the baby
born by natural birthing.  I want to be conscious when my baby is born,
I want to bond with him - or her."

He seemed to be listening to what she said, she thought, taking it on
board: there was sympathy in his expression.  "Susan, even if I agreed
with the concept of natural birthing, I would have to advise you against
it here. I know you're a diligent and caring person, and you're doing
your very best for this baby, but you must try to avoid bonding with it
otherwise you are going to find parting with it very painful."

"I'm going to find it very painful anyway."

"Of course you are.  A mother's instincts are very powerful, more
powerful perhaps than anything else on earth." He tapped his forehead.

"Susan, you need to be finding ways, in here, of reducing your
attachment, not increasing it."

"Surely how it's born doesn't make any difference to its future", she
said. "All right, I hand the baby over to Mr. and Mrs. Sarotzini after
it's born, but the baby needs to be born with love, not brutality.  I'm
suffering all this pain now.  I can put up with it if at least I know
it's going to be worthwhile and my baby will have a beautiful, bonding,
pain-free birth."

"If you want your baby to have a pain-free, trauma-free birth, Susan,
then the only possible way to do this is via a Caesarean."

She wondered, suddenly, whether Harvey Addison would have given her the
same answer.  "Did you know Harvey Addison?" she asked, changing the
subject.

He was giving her a strange look now, she thought, that made her wonder
whether he knew she'd been for a second opinion.  No, that was
impossible!  ;

"Our paths crossed from time to time.  Why, did you know him?" He
hesitated, and then said, "Of course!  Your husband made programmes with
him.  I saw a report on the inquest in the paper this morning.  Death by
misadventure.  I think the coroner must have been lenient with him."
"Why do you say that?"

"Well, I don't want to speak out of turn, but as he was a medical
practitioner I would have thought he should have known what was a safe
dose of cocaine and what was not."

"Implying?" she asked. He raised his eyebrows. "That he committed
suicide?"

"It looks very much that way to me," he said.  "You don't agree?"

"I've seen his wife - widow - a few times." Susan was silent.  Always
the peanut-butter sandwich surfaced.  There seemed to be a connection
but, at the same time, no connection.  The police had dismissed it,
saying that the sandwich must have been put there by another child -
several had had peanut-butter sandwiches in their lunch boxes that day.
They could make no link between a peanut-butter sandwich and an
obstetrician dead from a cocaine overdose.  Even Harvey's phone call to
the school had been treated as a typical case of parental anxiety,
rather than as anything suspicious.

"And what does his widow say?" Van Rhoe asked.

Susan was too tired to dredge up the peanut-butter story for him.  Maybe
Harvey'd had a brainstorm?  He tried to kill his son then, in a fit of
remorse, killed himself?.

That did not fit together very well, yet Susan could not dismiss the
connection between the peanut-butter sandwich and his death.  It was
another coincidence, and it made her uncomfortable.

She told Van Rhoe she looked forward to seeing him again the following
week.

Almost the middle of March, and there was no sign of winter ending yet.
It was a bitterly cold, dry morning and, outside on the Harley Street
pavement, Susan pulled her long navy coat tightly around her and
fastened the belt.  "How you doing, Bump?" she said.  "You warm enough
in there?"

Bump didn't respond.  He must be asleep, she thought.  She wasn't sure
why she kept think of the baby as he, and she hadn't asked Van Rhoe to
tell her the sex again, but for some reason she felt sure Bump was a
boy.

It was just before midday; her car was safely parked in an underground
lot and, although she was feeling tired she didn't want to go home yet.
Instead she decided to walk down to Oxford Street and take a look in
Marks and Spencer's.

By the time she'd battered her way through the crowded street to reach
the store, which was further than she had realised, she was exhausted.
She bought a fresh orange juice in the food department, then sat down on
a chair she found near the men's department.

She broke the seal on the juice, removed the cap and drank.  Miles Van
Rhoe's attitude to natural birthing was angering her.  It's my baby, she
thought defiantly.  It's my decision.

Bump kicked.  This wasn't his usual penalty-shot-for-England kind of a
kick: it was more tentative, more a nervous tap, as if he was trying to
attract her attention.  And she felt the baby's nervousness transmit to
herself.

"Love you, Bump," she whispered, and her eyes watered.  "Oh, God, how
the hell am I going to let you go?"

Feeling more rested after a few minutes, she made her way to the
children's department.  The spring clothes were in, and she wandered
slowly around looking at the baby clothes, exchanging tentative me-too
smiles with other pregnant women there.  The sight of these other women,
picking up armfuls of garments and heading towards the cash desks,
heightened her sense of sadness.  She wished she could do the same.

Her mind racked through the dates again.  March 12 today.  Bump was due
on 26 April.  Just over six weeks.  And then?

She had the phone number and the address of the lawyer in London who
specialised in surrogacy law, which she'd got from the helpline on the
Internet, but in spite of all her doubts about Mr. Sarotzini she hadn't
yet plucked up the courage to phone her.

She couldn't phone her.  They had made a deal with Mr. Sarotzini and she
was honouring her part of it.  She had to, somehow - she had to get
herself through this, get herself through these crazy thoughts of
keeping the baby.  Only six and a bit weeks and then it would be over.
Six and a bit weeks.  That was all.  Just six and a bit weeks.

With tears streaming down her face, she fingered a row of all-in-one
suits with matching socks, in vivid colours, then a row of cotton
outfits, lingering over a tiny sailor suit.  She lifted it up, put it
back, then lifted it up again and, unable to stop herself, marched over
to the cash desk with it.

Just a present, she thought.  A little going-away present for Bump.

Chapter Forty-four

"So tell me, how is she?"

"Not good.  I'm afraid she's really not at all good."

Mr. Sarotzini sat at his desk in his Geneva office, his thumb stroking
the receiver he held cradled to his ear.  "How do you rate her chances
of survival?"

"She is deteriorating, Emil.  I can't give you any guarantees that
she'll survive.  I'm extremely concerned about her condition.  If these
were ordinary circumstances -"

"Of course."

"Or if she were a normal patient, I would have her in today, right now,
not even risk a further twenty-four hours, it's that serious," Miles Van
Rhoe said.

"I understand.  The date today is March the fifteenth.  Six weeks
remain."

"Give or take."

"So tell me our options?" Mr. Sarotzini stroked the receiver again, his
large leatherbound diary open on his desk in front of him.

"The cyst is so big there's barely room for it to keep twisting, and it
will stop moving altogether shortly.  If that happens when it's still
twisted, the blood supply will be cut off, and within a few days it will
start turning gangrenous.  If we do nothing then, the baby and Susan
Carter will both die."

"And how long before you can safely remove the baby?"

"I don't want to do it for another month.  I want to be absolutely sure
there is no danger of the lungs not being mature enough to support the
baby - there would be too many risks.  At eight and a half months I
would be comfortable."

"It would be a shame to lose Susan Carter."

"It would, I agree, but that's not our priority."

There was a pause, then Mr. Sarotzini said, "You will bring her into the
clinic the moment you sense any danger?"

"Yes, I'm monitoring the situation very carefully and Stefan Klindz has
a private ambulance on permanent standby - we can't risk her being
whipped off into a hospital."

"Good.  You will keep me informed?"

"Of course."

Chapter Forty-five

She hadn't intended to take the books home.  But the cheerful young
salesgirl in the shop had been so insistent.  That was what the books
were for, she'd told Susan, you couldn't really get an idea of how any
of them were going to look until you held them up to the walls in your
home. Susan found herself kneeling on the floor of the smallest of the
spare rooms, surrounded by pattern books of baby and children's
wallpaper, and half listening to Kaleidoscope on Radio Four.

It was Monday, 18 March.  She was more aware of the date now, in her
pregnancy, than she had ever been before in her life, and almost daily
she compared her condition against the calendar in her book, seeing how
her swollen abdomen compared to the illustrations, making sure
everything corresponded.  She knew that Bump was covered in vernix,
according to her book a greasy, cheesy material that stopped him
becoming waterlogged from his constant immersion in the amniotic fluid.
The book told her also that if born premature, his chances of survival
would be 95 percent; this was a 5 percent improvement on a fortnight
ago.  He - or she -was about thirty-seven centimetres long and weighed
about nine hundred grammes.

She had told Bump all this.

It was going to be a long week.  John was away until Wednesday night on
business up in the north of England and Scotland.  She didn't mind being
in the house on her own, but she was going to miss him, and miss having
her days broken up.  She was going to the cinema tomorrow with Kate Fox,
and she'd offered to take Caroline Addison out for lunch on Wednesday,
but Caroline wasn't sure whether she'd feel up to it.

The doorbell rang.

Susan looked at her watch, slightly irritated.  It was just after four
thirty. She wasn't expecting anyone and the afternoon short story, which
she always tried to catch, was broadcast at four forty-five.  She'd been
particularly looking forward to today's as it was by an author she knew.

On the other hand, she was pleased to have a visitor, any visitor, to
relieve the loneliness, even if it was Jehovah's Witnesses with whom she
could get into an argument, or a youth with a speech impediment selling
dusters.

It was Fergus Donleavy.

He stood on the doorstep, the collar of his jacket turned up against the
acid wind, hands in his trouser pockets, anxiety in his face.

"Susan, you got my message?"

She was both surprised and pleased to see him.  "No, what message?"

"On your machine.  I rang this morning."

She put her hand to her mouth.  "Oh, God, I've been out.  A doctor's
appointment, I completely forgot to check my messages.  Come in.  Would
you like some tea?"

"I was on my way back into town - is it convenient?"

"Yes, it's nice to see you," she sad.  "Actually, this is good timing, I
have, some queries on the manuscript, on chapter twenty-three.  I was
going to ring you."

They went through to the kitchen and she put the kettle on. "So how are
you?" he asked. "Oh, fine, I guess."

Susan could see from his expression that she hadn't fooled him.  He
paced around the kitchen, looking restless.  While the kettle was coming
to the boil, she got out a mug for Fergus and a glass for herself and
opened a tin of shortcake.  Fergus sat down at the kitchen table and
munched a piece.  Then, looking out of the window, he asked, "Is that a
cherry, that tree?"

"Uh-huh."

"A flowering cherry - or do you get fruit from it?"

"We didn't get any fruit last year.  I think it must be ornamental."

He took another piece of shortcake, and held it without eating it.  "Did
you ever go to the blossom festival in Washington?  They have it every
May."

"Washington DC?"

"Yes."

She shook her head.  "I never went to Washington DC.  I keep feeling I
ought to one day, pay homage to my nation's capital."

He nodded, abstractedly.There seemed to be something on his mind, but he
was taking his time getting around to it.  He looked out of the window
again.  "I didn't notice the cherry tree before."

"It was here last week."

He smiled, bit in half the shortcake he was holding and stared at the
segment that remained as if it were an object of art, or a relic of
immense importance.  When he had finished chewing, he cleared his
throat.  "How are the pains?"

"They're OK."

He studied her face with concern.  "You still don't look right.  You're
seven months" pregnant, you should be glowing.  Five to seven months is
meant to be a woman's best time."

"I know, I read the books."

"And your obstetrician, Miles Van Rhoe, is happy about your condition?"
"He says the cyst is shrinking.  Actually I had a bit of a ding-dong
with him last week." She poured water into Fergus's mug, then began
prodding the teabag with a spoon to speed up the steeping.  "He's
adamant that I have a Caesarean.  I want to have the baby naturally.  Do
you take milk in tea?  My brain's going, I can't remember."

"Yes, thanks.  Look, it's your baby, Susan, if you want it born
naturally, that's your right.  You tell him that's what you want, and if
he doesn't like it, then you'll go to another obstetrician."

She poured herself some apple juice, brought the mug and glass over to
the table and sat down.  "It's not as simple as that."

"Oh?"

Susan blushed.

"I'm sorry, I'm out of order," he said.

"No," she said.  "No, you're not.  It's just -" Her voice trailed off.
She picked up her glass and sipped the cold juice.

Fergus looked out of the window again.  Susan's eyes followed his gaze.
The robin was hopping around on the lawn, looking for some crumbs she
had thrown out earlier that he might have missed.  Then Fergus said,
"When we had lunch, before Christmas, you mentioned the name Sarotzini."

She tried to sound off-hand but it didn't come out that way.  "Yes?"

"I don't know what the connection is, and if you want to tell me it's
none of my business, that's fine, I'll shut up."

"It's none of your business," she said.

In the silence that followed, she was surprised at herself.  Her reply
had come out spontaneously and she felt a little embarrassed now.  She
fiddled with her cup, tilted the tin of shortcake towards Fergus.  "Have
another?"

But she could read in his face that this wasn't going to go away, and
part of her didn't want it to.

He was staring at her.  His hands slid to his jacket pockets and pulled
out his cigarettes and lighter.  "How do you find Miles Van Rhoe?"

"I like him." She paused.  "He's very thorough, very kind.  Well, I did
like him up until last week.  Now I'm fast going off him." She smiled.
"He has a rather sour nurse, but I do think he's brilliant.  Why?"

"Scotland Yard have a file on him."

She looked at him in surprise.  "A file?  What kind of file?"

He stirred his tea, although it didn't need stirring.  "Scotland Yard
have an occult investigation team, as part of their porn squad.  It's
main purpose is to monitor satanic and black magic organisations,
covens, seeing which ones are involved in child pornography, checking
out rumours of sacrifice, that whole arena.  It's the child abuse angle
that's their main focus."

A cold ripple shimmied through her.  "What does Miles Van Rhoe have to
do with this?"

"The team raided a black mass in North London about four years ago"
after a tip-off that a new-born baby was going to be sacrificed." He set
down the spoon on the table, then looked her straight in the eye. "Miles
Van Rhoe was at that mass."

"Miles Van Rhoe?" The room felt odd, suddenly, as if she was viewing it
through a distorting mirror.  The walls seemed narrower, the ceiling
higher.  "My Miles Van Rhoe?" She did not want to believe this.

"The society obstetrician." He raised his eyebrows at her for
confirmation, saw her anxious nod, then went on.  "They didn't find
anything.  But they reckoned that was because the coven knew they were
coming, they'd been warned."

"And Miles Van Rhoe was there?  Are you sure?"

"One hundred percent."

"And how do you know this?"

He gave her a look that she immediately understood.  Fergus had a lot of
friends in high places.  "I had lunch with the deputy police
commissioner on Friday - in a private dining room at Scotland Yard,
which was rather smart."

She smiled distractedly in acknowledgement of this.  "So what happened
after this raid?"

"One of the guys from the Yard leaked the titbit about Van Rhoe to a
reporter on the Evening Standard, called Ben Miller.  His editor
wouldn't go with it - probably nervous a libel action.  Miller decided
to take it to Private Eye.  Rang up the editor, arranged to meet - but
he never got there. He threw himself under a tube train on his way."

Susan swallowed, her mouth dry.  "What are you trying to say to me,
Fergus?"

He held up the cigarette packet.  "OK if I...?"

"Sure." She got him an ashtray.

He pulled out a cigarette.  "Do you know much about the occult in Europe
in this century?"

"When I started at Magellan Lowry, I was an editorial assistant on a
kind of history of the occult."

"Is there any one name that stands out in your memory?"

"Aleister Crowley?"

"Why him?"

"All the legends about him, I guess.  Wasn't he called the Wickedest Man
in the World?"

"That's what he styled himself, yes.  Your book didn't mention the name
Sarotzini?"

"No, I'm sure it didn't."

"No books ever do.  He was too smart ever to let his real name get
printed - even to let his existence get known outside a privileged inner
circle - and he used a raft of aliases.  A lot of people reckoned that
Emil Sarotzini was the Antichrist.  The Devil incarnate.  When Crowley
styled himself the Wickedest Man in the World, Sarotzini was his role
model.  That's who Crowley wanted to be like.  How old is this Emil
Sarotzini that you know?"

"Late fifties, perhaps.  It's hard to tell."

Fergus lit his cigarette and drew on it.  "Emil Sarotzini is alleged to
have died in nineteen forty-seven, although that may have been a ruse to
avoid a war crimes tribunal."

"How old was he then?" she asked.

"Sixty, perhaps older.  He was pretty good at reinventing himself and
hiding his past."

She thought briefly about how difficult it was to pin an age on Mr.
Sarotzini, but, doing a quick calculation, this would put him at a
hundred and ten.  No way.  "It can't be the same man," she said.

"No."

She sipped enough apple juice to moisten her mouth.  She felt deeply
uneasy but, at the same time, there was something surreal about this
conversation, as if it were some game Fergus was playing, rather than
for real.  "Fergus, are - are you trying to tell me that Miles Van Rhoe
is planning to use my baby as a sacrifice in some kind of ritual?  Is
that what you're saying?"

He stared at her with an air of desperation.  "Susan, look, I don't know
what I'm saying.  I don't know why I'm here, putting these crazy
thoughts into your head, worrying you.  I shouldn't have come, it was
wrong of me, I'm sorry, I don't know why I'm doing it, why I'm telling
you all this."

But he did know, he knew exactly why he was telling her this, although
he still could not really believe the situation himself There was a
mistake somewhere in all this, a terrible mistake, and he was going to
end up with egg all over his face, looking an utter fool for jumping to
conclusions. But what else could he have done but come here?

The inside of Susan's head was just a mass of confused data.  It was
like a billion busy little creatures in there all running around, all
carrying jumbled-up bits of information, looking for the right places to
put it and for the right sequences to put it in.  She did not know why
he was telling her this.  But she kept thinking of Harvey Addison,
couldn't get him filed away, and the name of Zak Danziger, the composer
who had given DigiTrak grief last year, was floating around in all that
chaos too.  And a conversation she'd had at lunch with Fergus last year.

So you think few of us ever fulfill our destiny, because we are not
aware of it? she had asked.

And Fergus had replied, You will.  You will fulfill yours.

And the thought rose up inside her, like a bloated corpse rising through
black water, Mr. Sarotzini and Miles Van Rhoe are going to sacrifice my
baby.

Impossible.  Absurd.  Ludicrous.  Miles Van Rhoe was the most famous
obstetrician in England.  And the evil Mr. Sarotzini had died in 1947,
and even if he hadn't he'd be at least a hundred and ten years old now.
She closed her eyes trying to visualise Mr. Sarotzini, to see whether
there was any remote possibility through clever surgery, diet, vitamins,
whatever, that he could be that old.  But there was no way, she figured.
With brilliant plastic surgery you could maybe knock a decade off your
looks, but not half a century.

Fergus Donleavy had been working too hard on his book.  All the wiring
inside his head had gotten crossed, it was shorting out.  That probably
explained the embarrassing pass he'd made at her.  He couldn't handle
the pressure of the deadline he was under.  The poor guy was losing it.

And Bump rolled over contentedly inside her.  Bump agreed.

But there was a dark unease riding inside her, and guilt was nagging at
her.  She wasn't being honest with Fergus.  Not that her secret would
make any difference, but she wanted suddenly to unburden it to him.  She
wanted to ease his mind.

And she wanted him to know, so that he could give her some confirmation,
some reassurance that all was OK, that Mr. Sarotzini was really a
kindly, caring man, that the Miles Van Rhoe who was a satanist was a
totally different Miles Van Rhoe from the one Fergus had mentioned.  She
wanted him to know so that all this crazy nonsense could be buried
totally and utterly.  Once and for all.

She wanted something to staunch the fear that had begun as a small
flutter of doubt in her heart, but was now turning into a drumbeat
inside her chest.

"Fergus," she said, "there's something I haven't told you - I haven't
told anyone this, OK?  Not even my parents."

He tapped a column of ash off his cigarette and changed his position in
his chair, looking at her expectantly.

"If I tell you this, it doesn't go any further, OK?"

He nodded solemnly.

"This baby - my baby." She hesitated.  "John isn't the father."

Fergus did not move a muscle.  He didn't even blink.

"I'm having a surrogate baby for Mr. Sarotzini.  We agreed to do it to
stop John's business going bust, and losing everything - including this
house."

She suddenly felt a huge sense of release, as if a massive spring that
had been wound up inside her, day after day for months on end, had now,
finally, been released.  She was telling someone her secret. She was
sharing it with someone.  At last.

God, it felt good to talk.

Fergus said nothing.  He watched her, smoked another cigarette,
listening, nodding in agreement that Susan and John had had no choice
and that anyone might have done the same in her position.

When she had finished, she was floating on a high from her sense of
release.  Then she looked at him with a guilty smile.  "John and I made
a pact that we wouldn't tell anyone, now or ever."

"I'm glad you've told me, Susan," he said, feeling even more deeply
troubled now than when he had arrived.  "I'm very glad."

He needed time to collect his thoughts, unsure what to say to Susan.  He
was out of his depth here and needed to talk to Euan Freer, urgently.

He left, having said little more.

Chapter Forty-six

Mr. Sarotzini said that all things must lose momentum and stop, this was
a law of nature, this was entropy.  Klindz understood this law.

Mr. Sarotzini taught Klindz that Gautama Siddhartha believed that the
quest for truth was like a wheel that required a fresh push every
twenty-five centuries.  The year 2000 marled the passing of twenty-five
centuries that had begun at 500 Bc.  A new push was required.  Mr.
Sarotzini told him it was coming.  He told Klindz he should be proud
that he was a part of it, and Klindz was proud.

And the photograph he held in his hand of Susan's sister, Casey, also
made him proud.  He thought of the Thirteenth Truth.  All true gratitude
is borne from punishment.

Susan was going to be grateful.  But she would have to wait to feel this
gratitude, there would be time for this, there would be an occasion. Now
was not that time.  Now he had a problem on his hands, and this problem
was called Fergus Donleavy.

This was why he was sitting in the darkness in Fergus Donleavy's flat
overlooking the Thames, with a heavy bag on the floor beside him.  In
the bag was a 12-volt car battery and a set of battery clips.

He watched the river through the open curtains; it was a fine view, much
better than the one from his flat in Earl's Court, which only looked out
on to the rear wall of the building behind.  He could see the hull of an
empty lighter riding at anchor, dark as a silhouette; there was a heavy
chop tonight, a fast tide.  The orange glow from the street lighting
shimmered on the water like plastic wrapping.

The telephone rang.  Four rings, then the answering machine kicked in.
Klindz droped his eyes to his watch; it was nine fifteen p. m.  He heard
Fergus Donleavy's recorded voice apologising for being out, a series of
clicks and beeps, then a rich", soft-spoken voice.  "Hello, Fergus, this
is Euan Freer returning your call.  I'm sorry not to have got back to
you sooner. Call me at home tonight, it doesn't matter what time, or
else I'll be in my office tomorrow." There was a click, then Klindz
listened to the sound of the machine resetting itself.

Yes, he thought, Euan Freer.  I know who you are.

He was enjoying himself here: he liked to be a part of other people's
lives, even if it was only for short periods.  He liked to share in the
minutiae of their existences.  He stared up at the alarm sensor,
watching for the tell-tale red light to come on if it detected the
slightest movement from him.  But it detected no movement, and it
wouldn't.

Since Klindz had entered four hours ago, disarming and resetting the
alarm from the code he had obtained by listening to the touch-tone beeps
each time Fergus Donleavy had set it, he had not moved.  He could sit
like this for hours, he didn't mind.  They had taught him, as a small
child in the village in Africa, to stalk animals, they had taught him
how to blend in, how to be totally still.  That was all they had taught
him, that was all he had known before Mr. Sarotzini had come for him. It
was good discipline to sit still like this now.  It was always harder to
notice an object that was not moving than one that was.

He wondered how Susan was and hoped there had been no more pains today.
This was the one bad thing, being out like this, away from his
monitoring equipment, not being able to see or hear Susan, just having
to try to guess what she was doing.  It made him miss her even more.

Something was happening.  He heard a key, the door opened and the alarm
audio warning started beeping.  Then it became silent.  The light in the
room came on but that didn't cause Klindz any problems.  He wasn't
dazzled by it because he had already fixed the dimmer switch so it
wouldn't turn above the minimum setting.

The light was just bright enough to enable Fergus Donleavy to see both
Klindz, and the handgun Klindz was holding.

Klindz did not often take this gun with him - Mr. Sarotzini had warned
him that one had to be careful with a gun in England.  He wondered if
Fergus Donleavy appreciated the special treatment he was getting.

And, from Fergus Donleavy's expression, he decided no, this man did not
appreciate it.  But that did not matter.  Klindz was here to enjoy
himself, and he had Mr. Sarotzini's permission to do this.  And this,
this thing he was about to do, this was going to give him a great amount
of pleasure.  This would make Fergus Donleavy sorry he had ever put his
arm around Susan, around his woman, and tried to kiss her.  Klindz
concentrated hard to control himself, to maintain the correct balance
between his emotions, to ensure that he did not allow the anger he was
feeling to grow so strong that it would interfere with the pleasure.

Fergus had been drinking tonight.  Badly disturbed by what Susan Carter
had told him, he'd stopped at the pub on the way home and sat on his own
in a corner, downing several whiskies in succession, feeling in need of
them, deep in thought, trying to fend off the inevitable conclusion to
which he was being drawn.

Emil Sarotzini.  Miles Van Rhoe.  A surrogate baby.

It was unthinkable that Susan could be the mother.  Yet someone had to
be.  But her?  Susan?  Why her?

Someone had to be.

He wanted, desperately, to believe he was wrong.  And yet. Someone had
to be.

He'd rung Euan Freer four times, and each time got the answering
machine.  Maybe he was at home now or had returned the call and left a
message.  He hoped so, he hoped to hell so.  He had to see him tonight.

Now he had an intruder, and he was getting confused signals from his
brain.  Logic was telling him that the alarm was on, so this man could
not" be here, he must be a figment of his imagination.  But Fergus's
memory was telling him that he'd seen this man before.  He looked like a
man who'd come to fix his telephones some time last year, and therefore
the man was OK.

But the gun was telling him that the man was definitely not OK, and it
was setting off a fight-or-flight response in him.  Fergus knew all
about fight-or-flight response: he'd written an entire book on the
subject.  An animal under threat gets into a state of high arousal and
has two options, to run or to fight.  If it does neither it gets a rapid
build-up of adrenaline, which can be uncomfortable and trigger an
anxiety attack.

Fergus did neither: the gun didn't look like it was going to let him get
any closer or any further away.  So he stood still and, in a sudden
flash of anger said, "Who the fuck are you?"

Klindz replied, "Help yourself please, to a drink, a whisky, Mr.
Donleavy." Fergus knew his reflexes were blunted by the booze inside
him.  And there was something about the man's voice, an innocence, a
childlike malevolence in the request that made him feel he could be
dealing with a wacko here.  He decided his best course was to humour
him.

"Thank you, I could do with one."

Then as he turned towards his drinks cabinet, he saw that the tumbler
and the bottle of Bushmills had already been set out for him, together
with a bucket of ice, a napkin carefully folded over the top, and olives
in a crystal bowl.

This skewed him.  He looked at the man again.  The man was watching him
and the gun was watching him.  Was this some practical joke by - by
whom?  Some kind of surprise party?  This had to be a set-up.  Some
television show - Jeremy Beadle?  One of those stunts?  He unscrewed the
cap of the bottle and poured in a splash.

"To the top," the man said.  "You fill it to the top."

The slender comfort Fergus had been starting to feel slid away now as
the tone of the intruder's voice hardened.  He filled the glass right to
the top, his hands trembling, the adrenaline roaring, his blood feeling
like an express train going through a tunnel.

The whisky slopped over the top and he stopped pouring.

"Drink a little," the man said.  "Make room for some ice.  Have an olive
-they're the ones you like, with anchovy inside."

Fergus obeyed him, trawling his brain, trying to make sense of this man.
He can't have been thinking straight, he can't be the man from Telecom,
he must have met him somewhere else, but where?  Did they eat olives
somewhere?  Meet in a bar?

Where?

A connection was forming, one that he did not want to make, but it was
growing faster every second, every picosecond, nanosecond, attosecond.
Sweet Jesus.

But it couldn't be, it was too soon.  This was too soon after he'd seen
her. There was something else going on here, some other agenda.  But
what?

He debated whether he could use the glass as a weapon, but he knew that
he had already left it too late, he hadn't fought and he hadn't run, and
now he was trapped by his adrenaline and his brain was near to seizing
up.

He could throw the glass.

But that wasn't going to help him.  It would anger the man and the thing
to do - the one thing he had to do right now - was humour this man, keep
him calm, try to engage him in conversation, find out his problem.  Was
he a fan, pissed off about something he'd written? "Drink more, please."

He drank some more, and the man smiled his approval.  The whisky was
starting to act like a turbo boost.  Half the glass was empty now, and
it was getting harder to focus.  What the hell?  There was some kind of
joke going on here that he hadn't yet latched on to.

"Drain the glass, please, all the way down."

Fergus fixed him with a stare.  He'd had enough, he couldn't drink any
more, he was already seriously drunk.  But the stare the man returned
was so filled with warmth, with good humour, that Fergus, inexplicably,
felt that he would hurt the man's feelings if he disobeyed..him.

Obediently he drained the rest of the tumbler and then it slipped from
his fingers, disappeared.  He heard the sound of breaking glass but it
seemed a long way away.

Then the man said, "Take another glass from the cabinet, please."

"I've, hr, had sh, sh, "enough." His voice slurred, he patted his
pockets for his cigarettes.  "Smoke?  You like one?"

"Smoking is very bad for you," Klindz said.

Fergus grinned, feeling absurdly relaxed suddenly.  "So - so'sh drink."
"Smoking is worse, it really is, Mr. Donleavy.  Please believe me, I am
aware of all the medical arguments.  Good health is a gift we should not
squander.  Please have another whisky."

Fergus went unsteadily to the cabinet, removed another tumbler, then
picked up the bottle and, barely able to guide it straight, slopped some
whisky into the glass.

As he took the first sip of this second glass of whisky, someone let the
brake off and the whole room started moving.  He tried to take a second
sip, and then the floor came hurtling up to greet him.

Some time later, Fergus didn't know how much later it was except that it
was still dark, he woke.  His head was pounding, his mouth was parched,
and he was aware of something happening, movement, he was being shifted,
or carried, or something.  Then he was motionless again. Then the pain
came.

His groin exploded.  Steely fingers shot up inside him, they felt like
they were clawing at his brain, trying to rip it out of his skull and
pull it down through his gullet.  Other fingers tore at his stomach, his
liver, his kidneys, fingers with brass hooks were trying to scoop out
the insides of his ribcage, of his hips, of his pelvis.

The scream that erupted inside him didn't get beyond the end of his
throat; something had happened to his mouth, it felt as if it had gone,
been stoved in.  And this made the pain worse.  His body wanted to
double up but it couldn't move, something was sitting on him, or holding
him, he didn't know, he didn't care, he couldn't think clearly about
anything except the pain.

It came again, and this time it was worse.  His whole body shrank, then
contracted, and as it contracted, the pain shot up through his stomach
and down through his thighs.  It burst into his arms, his head, then it
pulled back, drawing in every muscle, every sinew in his body,
constricting them, cinching them, then it released them, and this
release felt as if a molten cannonball had been sent hurtling around
inside his belly.  He could feel the sweat bursting out of his skin,
then the vomit rising.  It stayed trapped in his gullet.  He was trying
to breathe now, but he couldn't, he was choking.

He vomited through his nostrils and pain lanced the inside of his head.
Some air came in, a scrap, he coughed, his lungs clawing for more.  He
opened his eyes and he saw the face that his brain reminded him belonged
to the man who had come to fix his telephones.

Klindz smiled, Fergus Donleavy looked so undignified strapped down on to
his bed, with a balled flannel taped into his mouth as a gag, and his
trousers and underpants around his ankles.  Klindz had been careful, he
had wound towels beneath the ligatures, there would be no marks.

Nor would there be marks from the two callipers that were clipped to
Fergus Donleavy's scrotum and connected by a coiled length of wire to
the car battery and the transformer.

Klindz said, "So you are conscious again, Mr. Donleavy?  There are a few
things I might, perhaps, my friend, have missed.  You can enlighten me.
Fill in the gaps.  You see, sometimes there are places you have been
where the signals are not good.  Shall we begin with your lunch at
Scotland Yard? I don't even know what you ate.  Was it a good lunch? Was
the bread good?  Mr. Sarotzini told me the quality of the bread is
always a good indicator of the quality of a restaurant."

Fergus spluttered, choking again, the name, Sarotzini, resonating in his
addled thoughts.  Klindz knew he heeded to be careful: he wanted to make
it last as long as possible, to share with Fergus Donleavy this pleasure
he was feeling.  He wanted, so very much wanted, this intelligent man to
share a little in his wisdom and, more essentially, in the greater
wisdom of Mr. Sarotzini.  He hoped now, tonight, among other things, he
would be able to teach Fergus Donleavy to understand the Thirteenth
Truth, that All true gratitude is borne from punishment.

He really wanted Fergus Donleavy to be grateful to him.

Because if Fergus Donleavy was grateful to him, if he was truly
grateful, then his purification would be so much more complete.

Through his fading haze of alcohol and rising haze of pain, Fergus
shivered.  He could see the aura around Klindz.  He shivered again, even
more deeply, his soul riddied with terror.  The colour of the aura
around this man was different from any colour he had ever seen before.

And he knew with certainty now that his worst fear was coming true.

Chapter Forty-seven

There was a lump, an air bubble, a crease, something in the damned
wallpaper, and every time Susan tried to iron it out, it just popped up
further along, and she was getting fed up with this.  She couldn't get
the joins straight either, and she wished now that she'd got Harry the
painter to do it, instead of trying to be stuart and doing it herself.

Except she wanted to do it herself- and not merely for something to do.
This room was special, she wanted to have her own touch in here in every
sense.  She had worked on it until late last night, and was hoping to
have got it finished before John came home tonight.  She might just do
it, if it wasn't for these damned air bubbles.

The doorbell rang.  Her watch said eleven twenty.  It might be Harry's
builder friend, who should have been here first thing this morning to
take a look at the roof; there was a damp patch above one of the spare
bedrooms, which John had said was caused by a couple of missing tiles,
and now at least they could afford to have the work done to the roof
that the original survey had recommended.

She opened the front door to see a slightly built man who looked like an
ageing hippie; he had straw-coloured hair pulled back in a ponytail, a
thin body, and a grin, a great big fat warm grin, that was spreading
across his reedy little face.  His eyes lit up with it, and before he
had even opened his mouth, she was infected by his good humour and
almost started laughing with him.

"Overslept," he said, with an apologetic shrug.  "I'm really sorry."
"Joe?  You're Joe, right?"

"Yup, that's me.  Mrs. Carter?"

"Yes, I was getting concerned - I have an appointment." She glanced at
her watch.  "I have to be in Harley Street at half two.  You want to
come in?"

"It's the roof, right?"

"Uh-huh."

"Harry said you'd had a couple of estimates and you reckoned you was
being ripped off."

"Yes."

"I'll check the outside first - got my ladders on the van." He jerked
his thumb at a dilapidated hulk in the street that looked more like
something that had been abandoned than parked.

"Would you like a cup of tea?"

"I'd murder a cup of tea." He rubbed his forehead.  "Wow, that's a
hangover, really done my head in, know what I mean?"

She smiled.  "Shall I get you some paracetamol?"

"I'm on them, thanks." He slouched off, with a cheery roll of his head,
in his donkey jacket, baggy trousers and holed plimsolls, and hefted
open the rear doors of his van.

John arrived home shortly after eight o'clock.  As he pulled up the BMW
outside the house and reversed into a space, he did a quick calculation.
It was Wednesday, 20 March.  Only five weeks to go now.  Five weeks and
Susan would give birth to this baby, and they could hand it over and get
their life back.

He wanted their life back more than anything in the world.  DigiTrak was
going so well, they now had the money to start doing the renovation work
the house needed and to take holidays, to go off on luxury weekend
breaks, to eat out in restaurants without having to worry about the
cost. They had enough money to have all the freedom they used to enjoy
-even more freedom now that Susan wasn't working full time - but they
weren't doing any of these things.

It was as if time had frozen and they were living in limbo, and time
wouldn't start moving forward again until after the baby was born and
this was all over.  He felt he hardly even knew Susan.  Sure she always
greeted him warmly when he arrived home, made great meals - if rather
too many with pancakes in them - but her life, her thoughts, her
consciousness were increasingly centred obsessively around the baby, not
him.

Her pains scared him, but poor Harvey Addison had said they were
nothing, and Miles Van Rhoe said the cyst was getting smaller and that
most of the current pains she was experiencing were normal.  John still
wasn't happy about this.  He'd talked to a couple of women at work who'd
had children and, sure, they'd had some pains, but neither had had
anything like this.  Susan had talked to Liz Harrison and Kate Fox, and
they'd had nothing like these pains either.  Van Rhoe had told Susan she
couldn't make comparisons, that no two pregnancies were the same, and
maybe that was true.  But, all the same, he was worried.

He was worried also about Susan's attachment to the baby.  There was
nothing specific - just little things all the time.  The business over
the pram that her parents had bought: he'd discovered it still in the
boot of her car two weeks after he'd put it there.  She claimed she'd
forgotten about it, but he didn't believe that.  Then, on Saturday, he
had been rummaging in a dustbin, trying to find an article in a
newspaper that had been thrown out, and he'd found a balled-up sheet of
paper with a list of boys and girls names on it in Susan's handwriting.
Julian had been underlined.  So had Oliver and Max.

He hadn't said anything - she seemed very emotional right now so he was
trying to keep calm and avoid any confrontation.  But he was concerned
that something was brewing in her mind, and that maybe she was inwardly
starting to reject the idea that she would have to part with the baby.

He had decided he ought to have a private word with Miles Van Rhoe, and
see what suggestions he had for helping Susan through the period after
the birth.  This was something neither of them had ever discussed, how
she was going to feel after the baby had gone.

Surrogacy was in the newspapers quite often these days and he had
noticed mentions of counselling.  Maybe if he did a search on the
Internet he might find a help group who could give him advice.

When he entered the house there was no sign of Susan.  He called out,
"Darling, hi!" but there was no response.  He put down his suitcase and
briefcase, hung up his coat and called out again, "Hon!  "Hi!"

Had she had another attack of pain?  She'd sounded fine when he'd rung
her a few hours earlier on the mobile - she'd just got home from her
weekly appointment with Van Rhoe and had told him the obstetrician was
happy with everything.  Her car was outside, she must be home.  Then to
his relief he heard her voice up above him.

"Just finishing!"

He climbed the stairs, then called out again.  "Where are you?"

"In here!"

There was a strong smell on the landing that he thought was paste, and
he could see the door of the little spare room ajar and the light on. He
walked down towards it.  "Susan?"

"Come and take a look!"

He went in.  And he stopped dead.  And he thought, Oh, shit.

Scenes from nursery rhymes covered every wall.  Susan, in overalls over
her dungarees, was balanced on a plank between two step-ladders,
smoothing a section of this wallpaper in place.  "How do you like it?"
she asked, beaming at him with happiness.

"Susan, what is this?"

"Bump's room.  Figured I'd better start getting it ready, in case, you
know..." She gave him a doolally grin.  "Sort of premature, it could
happen, it's best to be prepared."

John looked at Jack and Jill, at Little Bo-Peep, at the bright yellow
background, and wondered if she had flipped.

Keeping calm, with considerable effort, he walked over to her.
"Darling," he said gently.  "Hon, look -"

She turned away from him, carried on smoothing out the strip, trying to
get the join straight.  "Like it?" she asked.  Her voice was oddly
detached: it sounded as if it was a stranger talking, not Susan.
"Pretty, isn't it?  I got curtains to match, and I got extra material to
make a covering for the cot. This room is the best because it gets the
morning sun and it's cool in the afternoon, I think that's best for a -"

He raised his voice but still kept the tone gentle.  "Susan!  Darling!
Listen! This baby - we are not keeping this baby.  As soon as it's born,
Mr. Sarotzini is taking it away, it isn't going to be coming home, we
don't need a baby's room here."

Now she sounded hurt.  "We have to keep up appearances, John.  We agreed
that.  All my friends have been asking me which is gonna be the baby's
room.  Kate Fox told me I was mad not getting the room ready, in case it
was premature."

"Susan, you could have just painted the room a bright colour, you didn't
need to get this wallpaper.  If you'd just painted it we could have used
it as another spare room."

She turned towards him and the look on her face scared him.  He'd never
seen venom like this in her eyes before.  She dunked the pasting brush
in the tin and left it there.  Then she came down the step-ladder, and
he braced himself, because she was balling her fists and he thought for
one moment she was going to strike him.

She stopped, spitting distance in front of him, and said, "I went to
Elizabeth Frazer this afternoon.  The lawyer at Cowan, Walker - you've
heard of them?"

He stared at her in disbelief: was she about to tell him she was
divorcing him?  "They're one of the big London law firms, yes."

"Elizabeth Frazer is the one who's been in the news recently -
specialises in surrogate cases.  She's the one I was recommended.  Want
to hear what she said?"

It felt suddenly as if the floor was made of quicksand and he was sinking
into it.  "Recommended?  By whom?"

"By the helpline on the Internet," she said, in a matter-of-fact way.
John stared at a panel showing Little Miss Muffet: the spider dangling
beside her looked a friendly spider, it wouldn't scare anyone.  He did
not want to hear Elizabeth Frazer's opinion, he really did not.

Susan said, "She thinks we have a strong case."

John put his hands lightly on Susan's shoulders, and drew her gently
towards him.  Her hair had a coarse, unwashed smell, which was unlike
her: she always took great care of appearance and hygiene.  Was she
going to pieces?  "Hon, it doesn't matter how strong the case is because
we're not fighting it.  I don't want someone else's baby in my life,
can't you see that?"

She moved away from him with hid fetal ferocity that spooked him.  This
really was a stranger in the room.

"It's my baby, it's not someone else's baby, it's mine." She tapped her
swollen abdomen.  "This - see it?  This is me.  It's my egg that's made
this baby, OK?  It's my body that this baby is growing inside.  It's me
that's getting all this pain.  This is my body.  This is my decision."

John walked towards her and tried to put his arms around her again,
anxious to try to tame this wild creature, to talk reason into her
before things went any further, but "she pushed him away so sharply that
he lost his balance, tripped over an unopened tub of paste, and fell on
to the bare floorboards.

Susan walked out of the room.

John climbed to his feet, shocked and mentally dazed, with a large
splinter painfully embedded in his thumb.  He sucked it, thinking hard.
What on earth had got into Susan?  Was it three nights of being on her
own?  Had he been stupid going away on business, leaving her with too
much time on her own to think about everything?

He found her downstairs, in the kitchen, taking tomatoes out of the
crisper in the fridge.  He stood, working on his splinter, pinching the
skin hard either side trying to force the point out and grip it with his
nails or his teeth, while she ran the tomatoes under the tap.  Then she
put them on the wooden cutting block and started slicing them.

"Tomatoes stop you getting prostate cancer," she said, without looking
round.  "I read it in a magazine.  You have to eat a lot of tomatoes. We
haven't been having enough tomatoes in our diet, I'm going to change
that."

John looked uncomfortably at the sharp, serrated knife in her hands, but
all the same he went up behind her, put his arms around her waist and
kissed her on the neck.  "I love you, Susan."

She yielded a little and he felt the curve of her back pressing into him
in acknowledgement.  She laid down the knife, but she didn't turn round.
"I don't want this thing to destroy us, Susan."

"It's not a thing," she said calmly, like a head teacher now.  "It's a
baby."

"If you want to have a baby, if this is so important to you, OK, let's
have a baby, but let's have one of our own."

"I want this one."

"Susan, honI don't know what it is.  I don't know what this lawyer
woman's put into your head today."

"She hasn't put anything into my head.  She just told me the facts.
Surrogate mothers are allowed to charge expenses but nothing beyond
that.  We could easily show a judge that the paying off of the overdraft
and our mortgage was the consideration for the arrangement and that it
was illegal.  If the judge ruled for us, Mr. Sarotzini would have to
hand back the shares in DigiTrak and the deeds of this house.  We could
go before a judge in chambers the moment Bump is born, ex parte, and get
an interim injunction and we could apply to have Bump made a ward of
court."

John found her use of legal jargon distancing.  "Susan, I understand how
you feel.  Turn round, look at me."

She ignored him.

He tried to nuzzle closer, but she squirmed away.  "Susan, come on, hon,
we've always been close.  Don't you remember something you said to me
after the first time we ever made love?"

Silence.

"You looked me in the eyes and you said, "Let's promise always to be
truthful with each other, no matter what happens." Remember?"

She still said nothing.

"You're not being truthful with me now.  We should have discussed this
before you went shooting off to a lawyer." He held her to him again and
this time she yielded a fraction.  "You have this huge biological change
going on in your body right now.  All these mothering instincts are
coming out, and they're bound to - it wouldn't be normal if they didn't
- but they're affecting you.  Maybe rather than seeing lawyers, what we
should be doing is seeing a counsellor.  Shall we try and find a
counsellor who specialises in this area?"

Taking her continued silence as a good sign, he hugged her a little
tighter and softened his voice.  "Look, honey know you've been through a
lot, and you've been brilliant about it.  It's nearly over.  Forget the
deal now and just think about us.  How do you think I feel?  You wont me
to look at this baby, this child, the adult it's going to grow into,
every day for the rest of my life?  Knowing that half of it is Mr.
Sarotzini?"

She still said nothing.

"And feeling the guilt that we reneged on a deal we'd made?  And that we
deprived Mr. and Mrs. Sarotzini of their child that they wanted so
desperately?"

Susan said quietly, barely louder than a murmur, "Fergus Donleavy thinks
Mr. Sarotzini is going to sacrifice the baby."

John wasn't sure he'd heard her right.  "He said what?"

"Scotland Yard have a file on Miles Van Rhoe.  He said Mr. Sarotzini
died in nineteen forty-seven.  Mr. Sarotzini wants me to have this baby
so that he and Miles Van Rhoe can sacrifice it at a black mass."

" What?"

"It's true."

John released Susan.  This was so absurd that he started grinning - he
couldn't help it.  "When did he come out with this gem?"

"On Monday."

He looked for the whisky bottle, saw it, and poured himself three
fingers.  Then he broke out some ice cubes.  "I thought Fergus was a
sensible guy.  What on earth did he tell you crap like this for?"

"Because he cares about us."

John splashed a little tap water into his glass, shook the mixture
around, and drank some.  Then he sucked his splinter again.  "Do you
believe him? What he said?"

Susan felt guilty that she'd let Fergus in on their secret.   -" She
wasn't sure what she believed.  She'd tried ringing him several times
yesterday and today, but all she'd got was his answering machine.  He
had still not rung her back, and this surprised her because he normally
returned calls promptly.

She'd been churning the same question John had asked over and over in
her mind ever since Fergus had left.  Whatever the truth was, she was
certain that Fergus knew something about Mr. Sarotzini or Miles Van Rhoe
that he wasn't telling her.  He was holding something back.  Maybe she
shouldn't have told Fergus about the surrogacy.  Perhaps that had been a
mistake.  Perhaps he might halve told her more if she'd kept that bit
quiet. But why?

All she knew now was that she felt confused and incredibly tired.  It
was an effort to think.  But each time she did think, she felt
increasingly frightened.  "I don't know," she said, finally.  "I don't
know what I believe. Last year I had a very strange conversation with
him, at lunch one day.  He told me suddenly, out of the blue, that I
would fulfill my destiny." "Fulfill your destiny?" She nodded.

"What kind of New Age crap is that?"

"Fergus isn't into New Age."

"I don't know what he's into," John said.  "It sounds like he's losing
his fucking marbles."

Susan stared at the tomatoes.  "You want supper in here or in front of
the television?"

"Let's have it in here and talk," he said.  "Tell me exactly what he
said about this sacrifice stuff."

Susan told him what Fergus had told her about Emil Sarotzini, that
people had called him the Antichrist, the Devil incarnate, that he had
been the role model for Aleister Crowley, and that he had purportedly
died in 1947 but might not have done.

"So Mr. Sarotzini is a one-hundred-and-ten-year-old superman?"

She smiled.  "He can't be."

John smiled also, relieved to see she had some sense of humour back.
"No.  And if he is a hundred and ten I want to know what pills he takes,
because I want some too!"

Then she told him about the Scotland Yard file on Miles Van Rhoe, and
the obstetrician's presence at a coven meeting where they had been
allegedly going to sacrifice a child.

John shook his head, grinning in disbelief.  "I'm sorry, I just don't
buy this.  I mean, OK, the fact that Van Rhoe is famous doesn't mean
anything, there are plenty of people with respectable facades who get up
to freaky stuff when they're off duty.  But it's just absurd."

He sucked the splinter again.  "I mean, look at it rationally.  Here you
have not just any ordinary guy but the most famous obstetrician in the
country.  He's delivered royal babies.  The police raid a black-magic
mass, and find him there, dancing naked around a pentagram or whatever,
and it never hits the press?  Come on, get real.  The police love this
kind of stuff. You can be absolutely certain that if it really had been
your Van Rhoe, some cop who'd been on that raid would have been on the
phone to every paper in London within an hour, flogging the story."

"Fergus said a journalist from the Evening Standard tried to go with the
story but his editor wouldn't run it.  He then tried to take it to
Private Eye, but died before he could.  Don't you think that's a bit
sinister?  You don't want to believe this, do you, John?  You're trying
to blank it out.  You don't care.  You just want to hand this baby over
and wash.your hands of it. Well, it's not so easy for me."

John sat down on the edge of a chair.  "I understand that, hon.  But
let's look at the facts.  There is no way the Mr. Sarotzini we are
dealing with is a hundred and ten years old, right?"

Reluctantly, Susan nodded.

"OK, so Fergus is wrong to put crazy thoughts in your mind about him.
And in the same breath he's telling you Miles Van Rhoe is a closet
satanist who sacrifices babies."

"I've known Fergus a long time," Susan said.  "He's straight, he's
honest, he's highly respected in a wide range of circles, he's not the
kind of man to make wild accusations."

"I know, I've always respected him too.  If it'll set your mind at rest,
why don't I call him, have a word win him?  I just think he's got his
wires crossed on this one.  There's just a coincidence of the names
here, that's what I think.  And another thing, why you?  There are
thousands -probably millions - of unwanted babies born around the world
every day. If they want babies for sacrifices there are places they
could get them for a few pounds.  Why pay all this money?  Why should
Mr. Sarotzini have gone to all this trouble."

"Exactly," she said, challengingly.  "Why?"

"We know that.  It was a combination of looks, ancestry, intelligence.
Mr. Sarotzini told us all the reasons." He stood up, held her again,
eased her gently round to face him.  "Maybe Fergus is under a lot of
strain.  Stress affects people in different ways.  Sometimes the most
together person can just crack up and have a breakdown.  Fergus has his
wires crossed.  This has to be a coincidence."

"That's one of the big differences between you and me," Susan said. "You
can accept coincidences, they don't mean anything to you, you just think
they're pure random chance.  I don't.  And I really don't buy this one.
And I don't buy that Fergus is cracking up, either."

She tried phoning Fergus Donleavy twice that evening.  And after she had
gone to bed and fallen straight into a troubled sleep, shortly after
ten, John tried, but all he got was the answering machine.  He left a
message.

Chapter Forty-eight

Susan could hear Joe clumping around above her in the loft.  She was
checking the wallpaper in Bump's bedroom, smoothing it down in a few
places where it had curled since yesterday, and moistening it where
there were still air bumps, trying to flatten them.

Then she heard the phone ringing, and hurried out, down the landing,
past the ladder up to the loft, through into the master bedroom to catch
it before the answering machine did.  It was a dead heat.  The caller
got her recorded voice together with her live voice.

"Hang on!" Susan said.

The caller waited patiently until the machine had lost interest, then
Susan said again, "Hallo?  Sorry about that!"

It was Kate Fox, at the office.  Her voice sounded oddly formal.
"Susan?"

"Kate, hi, good seeing you last week."

"Yes, er - thanks for the lunch."

"The roast peppers, with the tomatoes and anchovies, did you like them?
That was the first time I'd tried that - it was a Delia Smith recipe."

"Yes, they were good." There was a brief silence.  "Susan, I don't know
if you've already heard..."

"Heard what?"

"About Fergus Donleavy?"

"What - what's happened?" Susan's nerves jangled as if a violin bow had
been drawn across them.

"I've just had a call from a reporter wanting to speak to Fergus
Donleavy's editor, to get a quote about him.  It was the first I knew
about it.  Then two detectives came round.  They've been interviewing
us.  I wondered if you knew any more."

"I don't know anything.  Detectives?  What's he done?  What's happened?
Tell me?"

There was a long, awful silence, and then Kate said, "He's dead."

"Dead?" Susan felt as if she had been enveloped in a terrible blackness.
"Fergus is dead?"

"Yes, I'm afraid so."

Susan's legs buckled and she sank down on the edge of the bed, the
mattress making a tiny creaking sound beneath her.  There was something
unreal about this.  Kate must have made a mistake, she must.  "I - I saw
him on Monday.  I've been trying to get hold of him for the last couple
of days - I left messages - I -" She stopped talking as tears flooded
her eyes.  "Just a moment?  she said, sniffing, looking around for a
tissue.  She found one in her dungarees pocket and dabbed her eyes with
it, feeling a stark, terrible, overwhelming sense of loneliness.

Fergus dead?

There was heavy clumping up above her, then hammering, then the whine of
some power tool.  She was shivering: it was cold in here.  There was a
mistake, there must be.  Fergus was too huge an intellectual, too,
young, too big a personality to die.

"I gave the detectives your number - I hope that's all right?  One was
called Shawcross, Detective Sergeant Shawcross.  They wanted all of
Fergus's contacts."

- what -" Her voice was choked and she stopped again, sniffed, stared
around the empty room through a mist of tears.  "What's happened, Kate?
How?  How did...?"

There was another silence before Kate spoke again.  "He was found by a
girlfriend last night.  She'd been worried because she hadn't heard from
him, and she had a key so she went round there."

This was why he hadn't been returning her calls.  Susan felt sick,
desperately sick.  "And?  What had happened?  Was it a heart attack?"

"They haven't had the post-mortem yet but the police said it looked like
booze."

"Booze?"

"It sounds like he choked on his own vomit in a stupor.  He'd been dead
for some time, at least a couple of days."

Susan stared at the floor.  The power tool whined above her head again.
She was thinking of Fergus, sitting here in the kitchen, so alive, so
real, and her brain was churning.  Sure, he enjoyed his drink - she
remembered the entire bottle of champagne he had downed at lunch just
before Christmas - but he'd never struck her as a hard-hitting boozer.
Yet she'd never really known him outside work.

"I can't believe this, Kate.  I can't believe he's - dead.  Tell me it's
- it's not -"

"I'm really sorry, he seemed like a nice guy."

He was more than a nice guy, Susan thought, but she said nothing.  She
didn't want to talk any more, not right now, she wanted some quiet
around her, some space, she wanted just the privacy of her thoughts.
He'd been dead for some time, at least a couple of days.

Monday afternoon, he'd come round to see her.  Now it was Thursday
morning.  How soon after had he drunk himself into a stupor?  And why?
"Kate, what - did they say - about funeral arrangements?"

"I didn't ask them," Kate said.  "Has he got a family?"

Susan remembered him at lunch in December, talking about Christmas, and
joking about not wanting to spend it with his family in Ireland ancestor
worshipping, - he'd called it.  "Yes," she said.  "In Ireland, and his
ex-wife is in the States.  I'll try to find out the arrangements.  I
guess there are people at Magellan Lowry who might like to go."

"Yes, I would imagine so."

She thanked Kate for letting her know and hung up.  Then she stood up,
walked across to the south-facing window and looked down at the garden
through a stream of tears.  There had been a heavy frost last night and
some of it remained on the lawn, an arc that the sun hadn't reached.

She looked at the cherry tree, and she could hear Fergus's voice as he
sat in the kitchen, cradling his mug of tea, looking out of the window.
Is that a cherry, that tree?

Choked on his own vomit.

Susan...  I don't know why I'm here, putting these crazy thoughts into
your head, worrying you.  I shouldn't have come, it was wrong of me, I'm
sorry, I don't know why I'm doing it, why I'm telling you all this.

Choked on his own vomit.

So you think few of us ever fulfill our destiny, because we are not
aware of it? You will, you will fulfill yours. Choked on his own vomit.

She could not get that line, that image, that crude, ugly image out of
her mind.  It didn't figure.  Fergus was smart, he was not going to have
choked to death on his own vomit like some poor derelict on a street
corner, no, no way.

This wasn't right.

Harvey Addison, who was a doctor, who must have understood about drugs,
died of an overdose.  Was that right?

Was Zak Danziger's death right?

She heard a voice calling out, distracting her.  "Yo?  Yo, "1o, hello,
Mrs. Carter?  "Lo?"

It was coming from below her.  Joe was standing in the hallway.

"Ah, there you are!" he said, as she came downstairs.  "Sorry, I thought
you was down here.  I've found something weird up in the loft, and I
mean, weird." He rolled his eyes and Susan wondered if he was stoned.

"Oh, yes?" She didn't want to be distracted from her thoughts about
Fergus.  And Joe was a chatterbox.  He was a fund of knowledge on
Victorian houses, no question, and some of the things he'd told her
yesterday were interesting but she didn't want to talk to him now. "You
all right?" he asked, looking at her closer.

"Fine." She nodded, and sniffed.  "I just - had a bit of a shock, that's
all." Then she noticed it was past midday and she hadn't offered him any
elevenses.  "Would you like something to drink?"

"Murder a cup of tea.  You sure you're all right?" She nodded.  "Thanks.
A bereavement."

"Someone close?" "A good friend."

"I'm sorry - terrible thing, death, the big wipe-out.  Wow." He raised
his hands.  "Got to make the most of life, you never know..."

"No," she said.  "You never do."

As she put the kettle on, he changed the subject.  "How long have you
lived here, in this house?"

"We moved in end of April, last year.  Coming up to a year, I guess." He
hunched up on a chair and took the shortcake he was offered, gratefully.
"I tell you, what you've got up there...  phew!" He pointed at the
ceiling, then expelled air from his mouth in a low whistle.

Choked on his own vomit.

She tried to focus on the builder, but it was hard.  "It's worse than we
thought, the roof?." she asked.

He nibbled the biscuit.  "No, the roof's fine, just a couple of tiles
off and a bit of flashing that's lifting, fix that no probs." He paused.
"It's what's up there that's blowing me away."

She looked at him darkly, her imagination clogged by images of Fergus
Donleavy choking on his vomit.  "What is up there?"

"Well, if I thought it was yours, I'd keep me mouth shut." He finished
his biscuit and Susan offered him another.  "But it isn't yours, you're
not the type."

The kettle boiled.  Susan poured water into the mug and prodded the
teabag with the spoon.  "The type for what?" He was beginning to
irritate her.  Why couldn't he just come out with it and tell her
straight?

He popped half of the biscuit into his mouth and chewed.  "The occult."

Susan knocked over the cup, then leapt back from the work surface as
scalding tea poured on to the legs of her dungarees.

Joe jumped to his feet and helped her mop up the mess.

"Thank you," she said, when they were straight again.  "What did you
mean exactly, the occult?"

"In the loft."

Frowning, she poured him a fresh cup.  "The loft?  I don't think I'm
quite on your bus." Shakily, she added milk, then handed him the mug.
"Sugar?" "Three, please."

He spooned it in, and then he said, "Did you know the people who lived
here before?"

"No, they moved abroad.  The husband got transferred by his company -we
never met them."

Joe nodded.  "I think you'd better come and take a look.  You OK on a
ladder?"

"I'll be fine."

He held the ladder for her as she climbed.  When she reached the top and
had to haul herself over the sharp edge she began to think this hadn't
been such a smart idea.  Being careful not to put any weight on Bump, or
to jar him, she hauled herself slowly and clumsily off the ladder, and
crawled on her knees on to the first joist.

Then she stood up, steadying herself on a rafter, getting her balance,
frightened now of falling and harming the baby.  Joe clambered up after
her, then switched on a powerful torch.  In the beam she saw a dead
mouse in a trap; it looked as if it had been there a while.  She
remembered that John had caught a lot of mice last year; he must have
forgotten to check recently, she thought, making a mental note to remind
him.

Perspiring heavily from the exertion, and apprehensive both of falling
and of what she was going to see, she followed him, extra mindful of his
instructions to tread only on the joists.  They squeezed past the
chimney breast and into the right-hand side of the dark roof space.  It
was here that Joe had been working, she could see the power tool; strips
of roofing felt were hanging down and some had "been removed completely.
She noticed also that an area of the loft insulation had been lifted.

Joe pointed the beam of his torch up at a panel where the felt had been
removed and Susan could see that something had been drawn or airbrushed
there in black.  As she neared it, she saw what it was.  A pentagram.

She could not believe her eyes.  It was like a slap, a taunt, a sick
joke.  She swallowed, her throat dry and tight, and she was trembling as
if an electrical current was running through her.  The ink or the paint,
or whatever it was, looked bright; it had been done recently.

The beam moved to the next panel and there was another symbol she
recognised: the looped-key shape of an ankh.  Then another symbol, a
hideous one that looked like a weather-vane with a skull on the top.

Then Joe dropped the beam down to the space between the joists where he
had lifted the insulation.  She saw a reversed swastika.  Then in
another space she saw a goat's head inside an inverted pentagram.  And
what surprised her, almost above everything, was that the detail in
these drawings was quite incredible.  These hadn't been scrawled up here
by children, they had been drawn with intense care and artistry.

Her mind was flooded by Fergus Donleavy's words, all the seemingly
fantastic things he had told her about the occult connections and
activities of Mr. Sarotzini and Miles Van Rhoe, and now this incredible,
eerie stuff here, in her house.  ;

It was as if there was a link - but there couldn't be.  This really had
to be" a coincidence.

She shivered.  Coincidence.  She was doing it herself now, she was doing
the thing she had always attacked in John and in others, she was trying
to shrug off as a coincidence something that she didn't want to face.
And a voice in her head was telling her that this was wrong.

The builder was looking at her.  "So what do you make of this?" he
asked. "What do you make of it?"

"Heavy.  This is heavy.  And you haven't seen the best bit."

He knelt down, lifted away another section of the orange insulation,
then shone his torch down onto a metal box, about four-inches long and
two inches wide, with wires running from it.

"What's that?" she asked.

"Something to do with your telephone system.  I'm not sure what it does
exactly - might be a ringing converter.  Do you have a lot of phones in
the house?"

"Yes."

"Probably what it is."

Susan remembered the man from Telecom who had been working up here.
Christ, had he seen these symbols?  What had he thought?

And then something launched itself from her memory.  The man in the
dream, hallucination, whatever, that night in the clinic, that strange
erotic hallucination when that man from Telecom had been making love to
her.

She looked down at the symbols again, then up, and she noticed more
panels each time she looked.  A lot of the symbols she didn't recognise.
Bump stirred inside her, restless suddenly.  Are you picking up my
anxiety?

I'm having crazy thoughts.  This man from Telecom.  These symbols.  The
dream.  Has to be a coincidence. A meaningless coincidence. Please let
it be.

"It's not this gizmo," the builder said, as he carefully lifted away the
metal box, revealing a small indent cut neatly beneath it.  It was in
the shape of a miniature grave, and lined with black velvet.  "It's
this.  This is what's really blown me away."

Susan peered closely.  Lying in the velvet was a slender object.
Although it was shrivelled and leathery-looking, there was no mistaking
what it was. A human finger.

Susan's scalp constricted and a slick of fear rode down her spine.  The
whole roof space seemed to be shrinking around her.  She turned away in
revulsion from the finger, then her eyes were drawn back to it.  She
wanted to touch it, to know that it was real and not something from a
joke shop, but she was too frightened.  It was real, no question, and it
looked like a woman's.  "Instead she glanced up and then around, stared
at the meticulously painted occult symbols in each panel that had been
concealed by the roofing felt.

"How far along the roof do these go?"

"Not very far," Joe said.  "I've worked it out.  They're directly above
just one room.  The one you're decorating with the little kiddie
wallpaper."

Chapter Forty-nine

Klindz watched Detective Sergeant Rice.  The policeman was doing a
thorough job, and this was only right.

Susan had been deeply shaker by what her fool builder had shown her, and
Klindz was angry at the man, Joe, for distressing her.  He was aware
that an unborn child can sense" its mother's stress, and this was so
unnecessary, to upset the baby like this.  But now the policeman,
Detective Sergeant Rice, was standing in the living room in his uniform,
and looked a picture of authority.  His presence gave reassurance, his
influence was calming; this was a policeman who was a credit to his
force.

Time was nearly up now.  Mr. Sarotzini had been informed by Mr. Van Rhoe
that this cyst inside Susan was badly twisted and its blood supply was
cut off.  This meant that it was about to start turning gangrenous.

Klindz took the photograph of Casey from a drawer and studied it once
more.  A pretty girl: there was so much of Susan in her.  It was too bad
what he had to do, but it was Susan's fault.

Then he took from the same drawer a cigarette lighter, a gold Dunhill
with the initials AW engraved on the lid.  This was a nice lighter,
beautifully made.  It had such elegance that it made him wish he smoked:
he could have enjoyed the pleasures of using such a lighter.  He flicked
open the lid and listened to.  the hiss of escaping gas, then closed it
again. Yes, such engineering excellence.  This was a lighter that was as
beautifully constructed, in its own way, as his Mercedes car or his
Rolex wristwatch or his Church shoes.  Quality.  The more he discovered
about quality the more he admired it.  There was beauty in quality and
beauty was truth.  The poet Keats had written that.

The detective said to Susan and John, "Did you look in the loft when you
bought the house?"

John replied, "I just had a" glance around.  Actually, I thought there
was something strange last time I went up there - something about the
roofing felt - but I couldn't work out what.  Now I realise it's been
disturbed."

"But you don't know when?"

"No."

"The surveyor's report didn't say anything."

John showed him the survey, which made no mention of the markings. "Has
anybody been up in this loft since you bought the house?"

John and Susan looked at each other.  "An engineer from Telecom," she
said.

"No one else?"

"Other than the builder, I don't think so, no," Susan said.

"Maybe the rest of the body's buried in the garden," John said, then
immediately regretted his joke.  The detective was looking at him too
seriously.

"We could dig Jt up for you, sir, if you like," he said.

"No," Susan said, quickly.  "No, I don't want that."

Rice looked distastefully at the finger.  "I'll have Forensic check this
out, see what we can find out about it."

"Presumably it has some occult ritual significance," John said.  "Cut
off someone during some rite."

"Or it might have been taken from a corpse in a graveyard - or a
mortuary," the policeman countered.  Then, folding it carefully in the
velvet, he asked, "So, you don't know anything about the people you
bought this house from?

"No," John answered.

The detective nodded.  "Might be worth making some enquiries, see if
they can throw any light on this." Then he grimaced.  "That's the most
likely scenario, that they were up to some occult practices."

"Great," John said.  "Maybe we should have the place exorcised."

"If you believe in that sort of thing," the detective replied,
dismissively. His radio crackled, then Klindz heard a staccato voice
come from it, something indecipherable.  Rice wrote his name and phone
number on a sheet of paper, which he tore from his notepad.  "If there's
anything else you think of, you can reach me on this number."

Then he left.

Susan closed the front door, then rounded on John.  Her voice was quiet
at first, and rapidly got louder.  "You knew about this.  You're in with
them, aren't you?"

"In with who?"

"This is the part of the deal you didn't tell me about.  Don't lie to me
John, don't."

"Hon!"

"Don't lie to me."

John raised his arms in the air.  "I'm not lying to you, honI don't know
what you're talking about."

"Oh, yes, you know.  This has been planned, hasn't it?  You're giving my
baby to Mr. Sarotzini so that he can sacrifice it - he and Van Rhoe -
and you're in this with them."

John tried to put his arms around her, but she stepped back from him,
pressed herself against the wall, and shouted, "Keep away from me!"

John stayed where he was.  "Hon, you got all this shit from Fergus
Donleavy.  I told you, from all the stuff he said, he must have had his
wires crossed, and now he's dead from a drinking binge.  I think the
poor bastard must have been flipping out - had a nervous breakdown or a
brainstorm or something.  I'm really shocked that he's dead, I liked the
guy a lot, but what he said to you on Monday, I mean, I'm sorry, but
he'd lost it."

Susan  stared at John coldly.  "No, you're wrong.  Fergus tried to warn
me about Mr. Sarotzini and Van Rhoe, and now they've killed him.  You'll
probably find they murdered Harvey Addison and your composer, Zak
Danziger, as well."

John moved away from her in despair.  "Come on!  What did Harvey have to
do with any of this?"

"You explain it!" she shouted at him.  "You tell me how come all that
freaky stuff is right above my baby's bedroom!  Tell me about that for a
coincidence."

John went through into the kitchen and sat down on a chair.  He put his
head in his hands.  Susan came to the doorway and stood there, white as
a ghost.  "Hon, you chose the bedroom," he said quietly.  "You could
have decorated any of the four spare rooms.  You chose that one."

She said nothing for a moment, and then, "Why are you refusing to
believe this?  Or are you lying to me?"

"Don't do this to me, Susan," John said, shakily.  "I love you, more
than anything in the world."

"You don't love my baby," she replied.  "If you really loved me, you
would love my baby.  You're either lying to me about all this or you're
an idiot, a blind idiot."

John stood up, sharply, sending the chair crashing over backwards.
Without saying another word, he stormed past her and took his coat from
the rack.  He opened the front door and went out, slamming it shut
behind him.

Susan sat down, folded her arms around her abdomen and gave Bump a hug.
She sensed the baby nuzzling her in return.  She whispered, "It doesn't
matter.  I love you, that's what matters.  You and me, we love each
other, right?  I'll protect you, you're safe with me, I'll never let you
go.  And I'm gonna find out the truth about this.  I'm gonna find out
just what the hell is going on.  But before I do anything, I'm gonna
make sure you're safe." She heard John's car drive off.

Then she took the cordless phone off the cradle and dialled.  Moments
later, she said, "Could you give me the number for British Airways,
passenger reservations, please?"

Chapter Fifty

"Zilch," said Archie.

"Nothing at all?" John stuck his squash bag down on the bench in the
locker room.  He didn't feel much like playing tonight but knew that the
exercise would do him good.  It might clear his brain a little and ease
the tension that had been racking up inside him for several days now.
Archie took off his jacket.  "How's Susan?" John drew breath, silently.
"Fine. And Pila?"

Archie grimaced and unbuttoned his shirt front.  "She's crazy, nearly
bit off my nipple last night.  Look, can you see?  That's where she drew
blood."

Archie's body was not a pretty sight at the best of times, and the
clearly visible scab did not improve it.  All the same, John decided
he'd prefer to have a nipple half chewed off by a wild Spanish beauty
than have no sex at all.

No sex, and he had had to lie every night next to his wife who was both
pregnant with another man's baby and freaked out of her mind that the
baby was going to be used as a sacrifice.  Nothing he said would calm
her down, and it did not help that he, too, was feeling uneasy about it
all.

He'd contacted the previous owners of the house, a retired architect and
his wife - they'd gone to Australia to be closer to their children, who
had emigrated years back.  He had spoken to both the husband and the
wife, and they had sounded charming, normal people.  Of course, you
couldn't be completely sure about anyone, but John was as certain as he
could be that news of the occult drawings and the severed finger in the
loft had come as a total surprise to them.

As they rightly pointed out, the house had been empty for almost a year
before John and Susan had bought it: it was quite possible that there
had been squatters who had done this, although Susan didn't buy the
squatter theory.  She seemed convinced that these symbols proved that
Fergus Donleavy had been telling her the truth.

John wished Fergus had kept quiet: it had been crazy to worry Susan like
this, and the discovery of the symbols couldn't have come at a worse
time. She had already been at a low ebb before Fergus's death - which
had really rocked her - and this discovery had been the final straw.

And, no question, the symbols were disturbing.  The sheer quality of the
drawing was eerie: someone had gone to great trouble both to do them and
hide them.  And they had taken the same trouble over the compartment
containing the gruesome finger.  The squatter theory made some sense to
him.  But however much in his heart he wanted to dismiss the other
theory, that Mr. Sarotzini and Miles Van Rhoe were occult practitioners,
the deaths of Zak Danziger, Harvey Addison and Fergus Donleavy preyed on
his mind.  There was a link, which might be only wild speculation but
Donleavy was a respected academic - and Mr. Sarotzini's obsession with
secrecy had always bothered John.

He'd asked Archie to see whether he could find out anything about the
V6rn Bank's connections that might yield any clues, in the hope that it
would prove to Susan and himself that her fears were ungrounded.

It had been a horrendous weekend.  Susan had been withdrawn, afraid of
being in the house because of the symbols yet equally afraid to go out.
And he had asked himself many times, what choice he would have made if
he could turn the clock back.  What would their life have been like if
they had rejected Mr. Sarotzini's offer?  And when this was all over,
would their love for each other, their passion, ever get back to how it
had been. Or had he, or Susan, or both of them changed for ever?

It was crazy.  DigiTrak was doing so well, yet he found it hard to
concentrate in the office and stay motivated.  All the money they were
making didn't mean anything.  Sure, the bank balance was fine, Clarke
was sickly sweet whenever they spoke and had even asked John if he and
Susan would like to come to Wimbledon this summer as guests of the bank.

John said, "I don't understand how a company can be so - invisible."
"Easy.  Nominee directors, nominee shareholders.  This Vrsn Bank is
probably a subsidiary of another bank, registered somewhere like the
Cayman Isles, which is a subsidiary of another bank which is registered
in Liechtenstein, which is a subsidiary of another one that's registered
in the Dutch Antilles, and so on.  If you have enough money you can be
invisible, John.  It would make a good on-line game for you for the
Internet - hunt the real owners of fictitious companies."

John removed his tie and slipped it over a peg.  "So, this cigarette
lighter of yours that you reckon the guy from the bank stole.  It could
have gone half-way round the world by now?"

"Very witty." Archie tugged on his squash shirt.  "Still pisses me off,
that.  I can't get over it.  If I see that goon again - what's his name?
Klindz." "No way to talk about a valued client, Archie."

"Yup, well, maybe as he's a valued client I'll take him out on my boat
one day in a force eight and ask him how he's enjoying my lighter while
he honks over the side.  Talking of which, this summer..." He paused to
pull on his sports socks.  "I thought, if the weather's half decent, of
taking the boat over to France.  We could take the girls, have a week
cruising along the Normandy and Brittany coast, maybe go over to the
Channel Islands.  Fancy it?"

"Sounds good, I'd love to." Normality, John thought.  That's the answer.
Plan things ahead.  Get Susan to see there's life beyond the birth of
the baby.  Organise things for her to look forward to.  Do the whole
summer season this year, the Derby, Ascott Wimbledon, Henley,
Glyndebourne, the British Grand Prix, Cowes Wek, Last Night of the
Proms.  Why not? She used to love all that.  John pulled his shoes from
his bag.  "Arch, you've never heard anything strange about the V6rn
Bank, have you?"

"Strange?"

John nodded.  "A bank that employs someone who steals cigarette lighters
doesn't sound like the usual image of the respectable Swiss banks we
hear about."

Archie looked at him.  "Something's really bothering you about this
bank.  What is it?"

John lowered his voice as someone came into the changing room.  "This
probably sounds nuts.  I'm just curious to know if they have any occult
connections."

"Occult?" Archie started tying one of his squash shoes.  "You mean black
magic, witchcraft, that kind of occult?"

"Uh-huh." John pulled a lace tight.

"Actually," Archie said, standing up and stretching, "it's quite
interesting you should say that."

John waited while Archie rummaged in his bag and produced a squash ball,
which he squeezed as if he was testing the strength of his hand.  "Yup,
that's quite interesting."

"The suspense is killing me, Arch."

Archie pocketed the ball, picked up his racquet and examined the
strings.  "What are they called, those occult things?"

"What things?"

Archie struck the strings with his fingernails and they made a
high-pitched ping.  He seemed satisfied with the sound.  "You know, the
symbols, mathematical thing, those five-pointed stars - there's a word
for them."

"Pentagrams?"

"Yup.  Well, this guy I work with, next desk to mine, Oliver Walton." He
brought the racquet up to his ear and pinged the strings again.  "Last
summer, on a hot day, the air-conditioning was down.  He rolled up his
sleeves, and I saw this thing on his arm.  It was tiny, I thought it was
a mole - then I looked closer and realised it was one of these things."

"A pentagram?"

"Yup.  I asked him why he had it, and he went very strange, quite hurry,
rolled his sleeves back down, never really gave me a proper answer."
"What did he say?" John was disturbed.

"Just mumbled about it being personal, some shit like that.  Tell you
the truth, it was a busy day and I forgot about it."

"Do you get on with this guy, Oliver Walton?"

Archie grimaced.  "He's all right to work with.  Don't see him socially,
no idea what he does.  He's a closed book, rarely talks."

"He makes a lot of dough?"

"Serious dough."

"Like you?"

"Yah, but I spend it.  God knows what he does with it.  Probably sticks
it under the floorboards."

"Wrapped in velvet?"

Archie didn't get this remark.

It was half past nine when John arrived home, and he was surprised that
Susan's car wasn't outside the house.  Just to make sure, he checked the
street but there was no sign of it.

As he came in the front door leaden silence greeted him.  Susan was not
in.  There was no note, and no supper had been prepared.

He dialled the answering service.  There was just one message, from a
Detective Sergeant Shawcross wanting to make an appointment to come and
talk to Susan in connection with Fergus Donleavy's death.  The message
had been left at four fifty-five p.m.

Increasingly worried, he checked out each room, just in case she was
lying unconscious somewhere, but when he checked their en suite
bathroom, his stomach began to churn.  Her toothbrush wasn't there.  A
few bottles were absent from the bathroom shelves.  Her dressing gown,
always hooked on the back of the door, was gone.

A cupboard door was ajar in the bedroom.

Her slippers had disappeared.

And, when he looked further, her large blue suitcase was gone.

Had it started?  Prematurely?  It was possible, particularly with the
pains she'd been getting, that she'd gone into labour.

He thought this through.  She could have called an ambulance - no, she'd
have called Miles Van Rhoe.  There was a number for him somewhere, an
emergency number, day or night, and he was trying to remember where he
had seen it.  But if an ambulance had taken her, where was her car?
Perhaps she'd driven herself.  Why hadn't she rung him and left a
message on his mobile?  Surely she would have done that?

Then the phone rang.  He dived for it, and was disappointed to hear Kate
Fox's voice.  John told her that Susan wasn't in, and she asked him to
pass on the details for Fergus Donleavy's funeral.  Next Tuesday, a
crematorium in North London.  He wrote it down on a slip of paper, and
told Kate he'd give Susan the message as soon is she came in.

He put the note on the kitchen table and weighted it down with a
pepper-mill.  Then he hunted for Miles Van Rhoe's number, and finally,
remembering, found it skewered on a hook on a shelf, along with the
menus from the local takeaways.

He got the engaged tone and hung up.  His brain was racing.  Had she had
an accident?  Passed out shopping somewhere?  He dialted Van Rhoe's
number again and this time it started to ring.  A gong sounded and a
recorded voice told him that the call was being diverted.  Then there
was a ringing tone again, a different pitch, and almost immediately it
was answered by a suave male voice saying, "Miles Van Rhoe." There was a
din in the background, a babble of conversation And John wondered
whether he was making a fool of himself.  Perhaps Susan was out with a
girlfriend tonight and he'd forgotten.  His confidence stripped by this
thought, he said, "Oh, hello, it's John Carter, Susan Carter's husband?"

The voice that came back was warm and friendly.  "Yes, good evening, how
very nice to hear you.  What can I do for you?"

He was so calm that John knew right away he'd made a mistake in calling
him.  "I - I'm just a little concerned.  I got home and Susan's not
here, and there's no note or anything.  I just thought, maybe something
might have happened and you'd taken her into the clinic."

Now Van Rhoe sounded worried.  "No, I haven't heard from her, not since
I last saw her a couple of days ago."

"Is it possible she could have passed out somewhere?  Or gone into
labour?"

In spite of the anxiety in his voice, Van Rhoe kept it calm.  "Well,
yes, Mr. Carter, these things are possible.  I'm sure if she'd gone into
labour she'd have rung me.  She's a very level-headed young lady."

John did not want to contradict him.  "Yes, of course, I'm sure too."
"Have you tried the police?  Or the hospitals?"

"No, not yet."

"It would be worth ringing them.  I'm afraid I'm at a medical dinner and
I'm about to give a speech in a few minutes, otherwise I'd offer to help
you."

"No, don't worry, thank you, I can do that.  I'm sure she's all right
and I'm just panicking."

"I'm sure she is, too.  Will you call me later, in an hour or so, and
let me know if everything is all right?"

John promised he would.  Then he sat down at the table and asked
directory enquiries for a list of the local police stations and
hospitals.  The Daily Mail newspaper lay on the table along with the
morning post.  There was an opened letter from Susan's mother, a couple
of circulars addressed to him and an electricity bill.

He jotted down the numbers the operator reeled off, then rang each in
turn.  No police station had any report of Susan Carter, and no hospital
had admitted her.

He wasn't sure whether to be relieved or even more concerned.

At eleven o'clock he rang Miles Van Rhoe again and told him Susan still
had not appeared.  There was a roar of talk going on in the background
that made it hard to hear.  The obstetrician sounded as if he'd had a
few drinks, which annoyed John.  He thanked John for keeping him
informed, and suggested he tried another circuit of the hospitals and
police.

John tried again, still with no success.  Then he began ringing round
all her friends, even Caroline Addison whom he woke up, but without
success.

Susan had vanished.

Chapter Fifty-one

It was here, leaving the Customs hall, that the biggest danger lurked.
Susan was feeling leadenly tired as she pushed the baggage cart out into
Arrivals, the exertion making her perspire.

She scanned the crowds, the nameboards and placards that were being held
up.  She was looking for a face[ she didn't know whose face, maybe Mr.
Sarotzini's, more likely one she wouldn't recognise but which would
recognise her.

Although she was five thousand miles away, she wasn't dropping her
defences, not for a moment.  Her eyes peeled the faces, and she bit her
lip, glancing behind her, all around her, picking up people she
recognised from the plane, letting them go again.  There had been five
possibilities on the flight: five men travelling alone who could have
been following her. She had deliberately hung back in the baggage hall,
watching them, letting them go ahead of her.  She couldn't see any of
them now.

She knew that she'd been lucky that no one had queried her condition
when she'd checked in; in advanced pregnancy, without a doctor's letter,
they could have refused to let her on the aeroplane.  But she hadn't put
on much weight in her face, and the bulky coat she wore concealed her
bulge.

Bump had slept most of the way over but was awake now.  He was troubled,
too.  Susan looked all around her again - she could feel Bump's anxiety,
her throat was dry, she wanted to get out of here quickly.

It was a murky, wet afternoon.  In the Alamo lot she couldn't see anyone
to worry about.  It was quiet, one group of tourists piling themselves
into a people carrier and a couple who looked like they could be on
honeymoon loading up a convertible.  With perspiration guttering down
her, Susan fumbled around with the seat-belt adjustment of her rental
car, trying to let it out so that it would fit over her extended
abdomen.  Then she drove up to the checkout barrier.

"Welcome to LA, Bump," she said, a few minutes later as she trod on the
gas pedal and accelerated on to the freeway.  Bump responded by turning
and rolling over inside her.  Bump was relaxed again, now that they were
in the car and away, but Susan wasn't.  She was watching every car
behind her in her mirrors.

"They want you for their rituals, they want to do hideous things to you,
Bump, I don't know what kind of things, but they're not getting a
chance. You're going to be born here, in California, you'll be safe
here.  Your granny and grandpa are going to help me look after you.
You'll like them. They never made a success but they found their own
kind of peace in life -well, they would have done if this thing hadn't
happened to Casey."

Susan fell silent.  The wipers swung backwards and forwards in front of
her, a truck thundered past so close that she swerved away from it, and
a four-track on her inside gave her an angry blast on its horn.  Now she
was watching a sedan that was right on her tail - it had been there for
a couple of minutes.  She accelerated and the sedan accelerated.  She
slowed, the sedan slowed.

She tensed.  Just one man on his own driving.  Then the sedan peeled
away, heading for an exit ramp.  Susan breathed out.  She concentrated
on her driving for a while, and then she said, "You're going to like
Casey, she's your auntie.  I mean, she's not going to be like a normal
auntie who takes you out, buys you presents, that kind of stuff, but
that doesn't mean she won't love you any less.  You understand?"

Bump turned and rolled again in acknowledgement.  Bump was going to
adore Casey.

Susan switched her mind to medics.  She needed someone to recommend an
obstetrician.  That wasn't going to be a problem - she had plenty of
friends here, and she knew this place.  Within twenty-four hours she'd
be deluged with more recommendations than she could handle.

She exited the freeway at Venice and it was only a couple of miles now.
Just a couple of miles and she'd be home.  London was a long way away,
another planet.  Maybe it had all been a bad dream, and London didn't
really.  exist, or maybe it did, but in a parallel universe and, in
another parallel universe, Fergus Donleavy was still alive.

This was her reality now, here.  She wiped away a tear with the back of
her hand.  Bump was real.  This was her one certainty.  Bump was the
most real thing ever, in her entire life.

And, in just a few minutes now, they'd be home and safe.

And now she had to figure out what she still had not yet figured out.
Which was what the hell she was going to tell her parents.

Chapter Fifty-two

Computers talk to each other, they shake hands down telephone lines and
across radio waves, they trade digital data.

This concept, excited Klindz, this world he could not see that went on
inside boxes.  It had the magic of telepathy, but it was more focused,
so much more precise, so much easier to use.

He found it incredible.

Three computers were talking to each other now - it was like a
conference call.  One was a circuitsboard in a tiny metal box clipped to
the underside of Archie Warren's Aston Martin; one was inside a
satellite orbiting the Earth; and the third was located in the rack of
computers that lined one wall of Klindz's windowless monitoring room in
his attic flat.

This computer here, right in front of him, was not happy.  It switched
on a warning light and an audible alarm.  Archie Warren's Aston Martin
had deviated from its normal route after squash on a Tuesday night.  It
should be heading home, but it wasn't.  It was going in the opposite
direction.  It was going back towards the offices of
Loeb-Goldsmith-Saxon.

The tyres squealed as Archie pulled into the entrance of the underground
car park.  He did this deliberately, to impress the night-security man;
with this Aston Archie was like a big kid showing off his toy.

The night-security man, whose badge bore the name Ron Wicks, nodded at
him from behind his glass window.  Ron Wicks saw a fat prick in a flashy
motor.  He didn't know it was an Aston Martin, he wasn't interested in
cars, he couldn't tell an Aston Martin from a Toyota, he didn't give a
shit about them.

The only thing Ron Wicks cared about was whether his wife, Min, whose
breast cancer had spread, would live to see their first grandchild born
in three months" time, because that was what Min desperately wanted.
There was nothing unusual about an employee arriving at nine thirty p.m.
This company traded around the clock with the world; people were coming
and going all the time in their flash cars and their flash suits.

Archie, driven by curiosity and by a desire to help John, who had seemed
genuinely worried, rode the twenty storeys in the bronze elevator.
Something was going on with John Carter and this deal with the V6rn Bank
that was chewing him to pieces.  Archie had repeatedly questioned his
friend, but John had not been forthcoming.  The only thing Archie could
come up with was that the bank might have links with organised crime,
and that John might be under some pressure over repayments - or at least
something like that.  But why wouldn't John tell him that?

The elevator doors opened and he stepped out into a dark corridor.
Almost instantly, the lights came on.  They were on a sensor that worked
off human body heat, switching on when people came into a room and off
when they departed.

The dealing room where he worked was deserted.  As he opened the door
the lights came on with just the faintest click.  The cleaning people
had already been: the detritus of the day was gone, no half-empty coffee
cups and soft-drink cans littered the desks, it all looked pristine and
reeked, squeaky clean, of polish.  Only the computers were awake, the
screens glowing different colours.  Flying toasters drifted across one,
tropical goldfish swam across another.

Archie sat at his desk and, out of habit, because it was like a drag
from which he could not break free, he logged on, and quickly looked at
the US government bonds page to check there had been no drastic
movements of the Dow Jones.  He also checked the Japanese Futures in
Chicago.  No movements worth noting since he'd left the office, he was
relieved to see, and he hoped it would stay that way until five tomorrow
morning, when his trading day began.

Glancing furtively at the door, he slipped from his desk to the one
alongside it, belonging to Oliver Walton.  The chair, although the same
as his own, felt quite different, and the keyboard, also identical, felt
lighter. He entered the log-in command, and when asked for his user
name, he typed, using the house style of the company, the man's initial
followed by his surname: oalton.

The computer then requested his password, and Archie had no problem with
this: he'd watched Oliver Walton's fingers countless times as he logged
on, knew exactly which keys he touched and in which sequence.  It had
never occurred to him before that there was any point in knowing Oliver
Walton's password, but now this little titbit came good.

He typed:

And then he wondered, Why ver/iT?  But he didn't dwell on it.  He was
now into Oliver Walton's system.  He studied the screen carefully,
trying to orient himself with the layout, which was pretty much the same
as on his own computer, the standard software package that all employees
used. Vertical columns of icons.  A row of analogue clock faces
horizontally along the top of the screen, covering key time zones across
the globe.  An organiser on the left of the screen displaying a list of
priorities for tomorrow.

He tried a quick scan through Walton's file headings then, after
glancing warily around once more, typed in a search command for the
name, V6rn Bank, and pressed the return key.

Moments later a list of what appeared to be file headings appeared but,
to his surprise, they were in a language he could not identify, perhaps
Greek, he thought, trying to recall any Greek texts he might have seen
in his schooldays.  He looked for familiar letters, Alpha, Beta, Gamma,
Delta, Omega, but there were none.  Maybe it was a code, except it
didn't look like one.

He moved the egg-timer cursor to the top line and double-clicked on it.
There was a brief pause and then the screen filled with data, a mass of
numbers, letters, symbols, all completely unintelligible.  He
laboriously opened each of the other file headings in turn, which all
appeared to be encrypted in this same code.

Glancing anxiously at his Watch, he knew Pila was going to be livid with
him for being so late, but he couldn't help that.  He turned his
attention back to the screen, clicking on each of the icons in turn, in
the hope of discovering a program that would translate the code, but
without luck.

Computers had never been his forte; there might be something simple that
he needed to do, and maybe if he spoke to John and described the code,
he'd be able to tell him what it was.  He reached for the phone, then
hesitated, thinking about the time again, and had a better idea.

He started a new file, then opened the first heading and saved the
contents off into the new file.  Then he copied this file across to one
of his own private files, deleted all traces from Walton's screen of
what he had done, and logged off.

Sitting back at his own desk, Archie hastily typed out an e-mail to
John, attaching the file.  He sent it, then logged off, and phoned Pila
to tell her he'd be over to pick her up;in twenty minutes.  She yelled a
torrent of abuse at him.

"Hey!  Calm down."

"Calm down?  Me - why I calm down?  You say half past eight you gone be
home.  I cook the dinner ready for half past eight - you know the time
is now?  Huh?  Ten o'clock."

"I've been in hospital.  Emergency."

"Hospital?" Her whole tone changed.  "No, oh, no, darling, what
happened?"

"I had emergency surgery to have my nipple reattached."

There was a moment of silence.  For an instant she sounded shocked.

"No, you -" Then she cottoned on.  "You bastard!  You make me all
worried!"

"I'll be home in twenty minutes.  Get your clothes off!"

"No sex!" she said.  "Food!"

As he walked back down the corridor to the elevators, with a big grin on
his face, he didn't notice that the lights in the dealing room had
stayed on.  They should have switched off automatically but they hadn't,
because someone else had entered the room, from another door.

Oliver Walton sat down at his desk, and typed a command on his keyboard
for a log trace.  It took him less than a minute to find what he was
looking for.  Then he punched out a number on his phone.

Klindz answered on the first ring.  He said, "Yes." And then he said,
"Yes," again.  He flipped open the lid of the gold Dunhill cigarette
lighter he was holding, heard the hiss of escaping gas, then closed the
lid and replaced the receiver.  He stared at the lighter.  The gold
casing had a gridded pattern so it was not smooth, it was like frosted
glass.  The reflection was just shadow, a blur.  He flicked open the
lid, then closed it again.  He liked this action: it was so well
engineered, this lighter, it was a real pleasure to open and close the
lid.

He telephoned Mr. Sarotzini at his home number in Switzerland.  "I need
your energy for a communication," he said.

"This is early, Stefan.  I was not expecting your call until tomorrow
morning."

"This is a different situation, an emergency."

"You need my energy now and you need it again tomorrow morning?

You are not leaving me much time to recover my strength."

"This is necessary," Klindz said.

"You have in your hand a personal object?"

"Yes."

"Good.  I am with you now.  Can you feel me?"

"I can feel you."

And he could, he really could.  Klindz concentrated hard and, after only
a few moments, he felt the connection between the two of them
increasing, getting stronger and stronger until it felt as if Mr.
Sarotzini had slipped out of his own body and into Klindz's.

"Now tune in the object, be gentle with it, let it speak," Mr. Sarotzini
said. Klindz did as he was told.  He held the lighter gently, cradling
it in the palm of his massive hand, and allowed the feelings, the
imprint, the vibrations, the memories of this lighter's owner to pour
out into his hand. He felt the tiny pulses spread out and upwards
through his body.  He was a modem now.  He was shaking hands with this
lighter's owner across the airwaves, they were finding a matching
vibration level between them... now they were connecting...  they were
exchanging signals.  Yes...  good...  this was good...  the image was
forming.

Klindz saw an underground car park.  A man who needed to lose weight was
walking across it.  He could smell cigarettes on this man.  The car park
was almost empty, just six cars.  On was a red convertible, and this man
had almost reached it.

Klindz opened the lid of the cigarette lighter with a sharp flick, and
heard the click.  He shut it again, click.  Then he opened it again.
Shut it again.  Each time a satisfying click.  Mechanical excellence.

He could feel every atom in its owner's body.

Archie opened the door of his Aston Martin, clambered in, closed it.  It
shut with a solid thud.  It was a hand-made door, hand-fitted, it was
beautifully engineered.  As he turned the ignition key, there was a
click as the electrics came on.  And there was another click as the CD
powered up. And there was another click, but this was distant, faint, so
faint, so deep inside his head that Archie barely noticed it.

The engine rumbled into life, and it sounded like an orchestra.  Archie,
the conductor, blipped the accelerator.  The tremor of power rocked the
Aston Martin and the music of the exhausts filled the car park.

Archie pressed his left foot down on the clutch, but nothing happened.
Puzzled, he tried again.  The signal travelled from his brain to his
foot, but his foot did not respond.  He tried a third time, and still no
success. Gone to sleep, he thought! It's gone numb.

He tried to shift position in his seat, but now his arms wouldn't do
what he told them either.  This was freaky.  He saw the rev counter
hovering around the thousand mark, dipping and rising.  He could hear
the rumble of the engine, the boom of the exhaust, and he had his sense
of smell, no problem with that, he could smell the rich aroma of the
Connolly hide leather interior.

He heard another strange click inside his head, much louder than before.

Someone was tapping on the window.  Archie wanted to look round, he knew
he must look round, but he couldn't, his head wouldn't rotate.

A voice - Archie didn't recognise it, it might be the car park
attendant. The voice was shouting, "Oi?  Oi?  Hello in there, hello?"

Archie wondered if the man wanted a light.

At half past eleven, the phone rang.  John, sitting downstairs in front
of the television, snatched up the receiver, hoping it was Susan - it
must be Susan, please be Susan.

It was Pila.  She sounded worried, angry, hurt, and a little drunk.

"Hello, John," she said.  "Look I's worried, I sorry it's late but I's
really worried.  Archie say he was playing squash with you tonight."

"Uh-huh."

"He telephone me, I don" know, hour and half ago, he was gone be here in
twenty minutes.  I try ringing him, no answer his home, his mobile, his
office.  Where he gone?"

John told her the truth, that he had left Archie at the club at nine
o'clock.  But he wasn't going to tell her that Archie had half a dozen
girlfriends on the side at any one time, and might well have stopped off
for a quick bonk on the way home.

And he decided not to tell her that Susan wasn't here, because he didn't
want this crazy Spanish wildcat jumping to conclusions about Archie and
Susan having run off together.  He told her not to worry, Archie would
turn up, and that if she was really worried she could try the police
stations and the hospitals, just in case he'd had an accident.

After he'd hung up, he poured himself a brandy and finally broke open
the pack of cigarettes he'd had in his briefcase for two months.

Susan had packed and gone somewhere.  Now Archie had disappeared. For a
wild moment his brain connected the two of them, but he instantly
dismissed it.  If they were running off together tonight, Archie would
hardly have played squash with him first.  In any case, Archie was
genuinely fond of Pila, far more fond of her than John could remember
him being of any previous girlfriend.

And Susan, nearly eight months pregnant, was not about to run off with
anyone.  Except Mr. Sarotzini.

Never.

Was Archie helping Susan to hide?

No way.  He lit the cigarette and the first puff made him giddy.  He
took a second and that felt better: the taste was sweet, intoxicating,
comforting; he felt as if he'd had a rush of adrenaline to his chest.

Archie was not involved in this.  He wasn't devious.  If Susan had asked
Archie to help her, Archie would have told him.  Archie was his friend,
his chum, not Susan's.  Archie was off bonking somewhere, simple as
that.  But Susan?

Where the hell was Susan?

As he drew on his cigarette and drank his brandy, he ran through the
list of possibilities for the hundredth time tonight.

It was a pitifully short list.

Chapter Fifty-three

"He's been like that for an hour," Ron Wicks said.

He stood beside Archie's Aston Martin with the two uniformed police
officers, who had just arrived.  The cat's engine was still running and
the air was thick with exhaust fumes.

One officer opened the door and tapped Archie on the shoulder.  "Sir,"
he said.  "Good evening, sir?"

Archie didn't react.  He sat, eyes open under the brightness of the dome
light, staring ahead.

"He's not said anything?" the second policeman asked.

"Not a word."

"Catatonic," the first policeman said.  "I've seen someone go like that
with shock, a father at a car accident when his daughter was
decapitated."

"He might have had a stroke," the other said.  "Have you called an
ambulance?"

"No," Ron Wicks replied.  "I didn't know what I ought to do."

"I'll call one." The officer spoke into his radio.

Archie made a strange upward flicking motion with his thumb.

"You say he keeps doing this?  With his thumb?" the second policeman
asked.

"Yes," Wicks said.  "Think he's trying to signal to us?"

"Dunno," the man said, frowning.  "It's odd.  Looks more like he's
trying to light a cigarette."

The house sat six blocks back from Venice Beach, but it was more than
just a few hundred yards of distance that separated it from the
million-dollar homes hunched along the promenade.

It was small, a humble single storey with a dormer and the warped
clapboard was badly in need of the same lick of paint it had been
needing for a decade.  Once it had been white, now it was the colour of
nicotine.

Beneath the corrugated iron mail-box was a peeling strip of lettering
spelling the name Corrigan.

The vehicles parked outside were in a similar condition.  Her father's
pick-up had a list to starboard, and her mother's Corolla just looked
plain sad.  Anyone walking their dog along this neighbourhood could have
been forgiven for thinking that a couple of hillbillies lived in here.
But they'd have been wrong.

They'd have been surprised by the back yard, with its immaculate
flower-beds and its carefully pruned fruit trees, and they'd have been
even more surprised by the interior, elegantly crammed with antiques,
books and paintings, many of which - all those of boats and seascapes -
were by Susan's father.

Susan lugged her blue suitcase up to the front porch, then stood, tense,
and with a lump in her throat.  It felt strange arriving like this,
unannounced, a child fleeing home to its parents.  Was she coming back
to Los Angeles for good?  Had her life with John been just a seven-year
interlude?  Her emotions were in turmoil, and she was exhausted from the
flight and the time difference.  It was six p.m.  here in Los Angeles,
two a.m. London time.  The pain in her abdomen was terrible, just solid,
endless, red-hot-knife pain now and all the time it felt like it was
getting steadily Worse.

She still had a key in her purse, but she decided not to use it.  This
was not the occasion to waltz in, like some great happy surprise.
Instead she pulled open the fly-screen, stepped inside the porch out of
the rain, and rang the doorbell.

Her mother, Gayle, answered it and stood there for several seconds, jaw
open.  Susan stared back at her, lamely.  Her mother was wearing jeans,
a sweatshirt and slippers, and she'd put on a little more weight since
Susan had last seen her, over a year ago.  Otherwise she seemed little
changed. Perhaps the lines in her face were etched even deeper, as if
someone had just gone over them with a charcoal pencil, and her hair,
shovelled up and clipped untidily, now had more grey than blonde in it.
Her mother has been slim and strikingly beautiful, but since Casey's
tragedy she'd put on weight, which had stayed, and she'd let herself go,
right down to her red-varnished nails, which used to be neat and were
now badly chipped.

A smell of cooking came out of the door.  Her mother was always making
casseroles, Susan could never remember a time when the house hadn't
smelt of something good cooking, and this now stirred so many memories.

A whole raft of questions was flooding into those wide blue eyes of her
mother's.  Your pregnant daughter did not suddenly pitch up on your
doorstep with a suitcase, thousands of miles from home, if everything
was fine.  No way.

"Hon, what's-?"

Susan swallowed, managed a smile, then before she could say anything,
she started to cry.  The next moment she was in her mother's arms and
she was a kid again, just a kid who'd fallen over and hurt her knee, and
her mom was hugging her, holding her hard in spite of that big bump
between them, and everything was going to be better in a minute, it was
all going to be better.

Everything was going to be fine.

Susan had a shower and a short rest.  Then they sat in the family room,
Susan on the antique settle, her parents in battered armchairs either
side of her.  She could remember the day her mother had bought the
settle, years back, in a garage sale in Santa Monica.  Her father, Dick,
with his thin, craggy face, furry eyebrows, alert eyes, wistful Henry
Fonda smile, and faded denim overalls that reeked of turpentine, stared
at the bottle of beer he was holding in his rough, paint-stained hand,
and listened.

Susan, who had thought she'd become so much stronger than her parents,
was feeling even more like the child she'd left behind, oh-so-many years
back.  She felt as though she was being interrogated over a
misdemeanour.  "John's in league with them," she said, registering the
horror in their faces - except that she wasn't sure whether it was
horror or just plain disbelief.

Her mother said, "Tell us more about what you found in the attic."

"The loft," Susan corrected.  She described the symbols that she could
remember, and then the finger.  The finger disturbed them.

"This deal that John did with the bank, what kind of say did you have in
it?" her father asked.

"It was my choice." Susan shrugged.  "I went along with it because -"
She hesitated.

"Because you trusted John?" her mother prompted.  "Sure you did."

"I always liked John," her father said, "but he's a hustler.  I always
felt he put ambition above everything else."

Susan winced as the pain suddenly became acute.  It might have been the
baby moving.

"I think we should get you to a doctor tonight," her mother said,
anxiously.

Susan shook her head.  "I'm just very tired.  It'll be better tomorrow,
after I've had some sleep."

"I'm getting you seen by a doctor tomorrow.  We'll go down to the
medical center, get you in to see Dr. Goodman, you'll like him, he's
just the nicest doctor you could ever meet."

Susan sipped her apple juice.  The air in the room felt sluggish, and
she wondered whether she was dreaming all this.  It just seemed so
bizarre to be here, sitting alone with her parents like this.  The
silver clock on the mantelpiece had come out of an old Packard car and
ran off a battery tucked away behind it.  The clock said seven
twenty-five, and she did a calculation.  It was three twenty-five a.m.
in England.

She suddenly felt guilty that she hadn't left a note for John and
wondered if she should call him to let him know she was all right, and
that she was going to stay over here until the baby was born and until
it had the protection of the courts.

But then he would know where she was, and he'd tell Mr. Sarotzini or Van
Rhoe.

And they would come and get her.

Klindz, sitting in his flat in Earl's Court, listened to Susan saying,
"I can't let my baby go.  I can't let it go and be killed."

Then he heard her mother say: "If this man Sarotzini shows up here..."
Susan's father, Dick Corrigan, said, "We have to be practical, Gayle.
Susan's tired and she's pretty emotional right now.  She's had a bad
shock and she's had a long flight.  These flights knock the hell out of
you even when you're strong - remember how we felt when we got back from
Europe that time?"

Her father continued, "I don't think we ought to make any decisions
right now.  I think Susan needs a bite to eat, a good night's rest and
then we'll talk about this in the morning."

"I'm telling you one thing, Dick," her mother said.  "There's no way
she's handing over that baby, not to anyone."

"Gayle, I don't think we ought to rush to any conclusions right now.
We're here for you, Susan, and we're gonna take care of you, but I think
we're gonna find there's some other explanation for all this," her
father said.

"There's been a lot in the news about surrogate babies just recently,"
her mother said.  "There was a documentary on Channel Nine last week.
Maybe we should find a help group for Susan, get some advice?"

Dick Corrigan raised his voice.  "But if John doesn't want this baby,
how's Susan gonna make him change his mind?  Tell me that."

"He will," Susan said, with quiet determination.  "When my baby's born,
he'll change his mind, won't he?"

Klindz smiled.  This was all working out so well.  Oh, Susan, I'm so
proud of you.

Shortly after half past seven in the morning, John arrived in his
office, drained and fraught with worry.

He hadn't slept.  The one time he had started to nod off, around half
past three, Pila had rung him, totally hysterical, from a pay phone at
St. Thomas's Hospital, to tell him that Archie was in intensive care.

If he'd driven straight there and promptly had a row with the ward
sister, who wasn't going to let him or Pila see Archie because they
weren't relatives.  When he got to Archie's bedside, it was a
distressing sight. His friend stared blankly ahead, neither responding
nor reacting to anything John said, occasionally making an odd flicking
motion with his thumb.

A bolshie junior houseman pumped John for information, then lectured
him.  He told John that Archie was grossly overweight for his height and
age, a heavy smoker, doing a crazily stressed-out job.  He had played a
hard game of squash, immediately followed by alcohol, and had then gone
back to work in the office.  That made him a pretty good candidate for a
whole raft of problems, and a stroke was one of the possibilities high
on the list.  They wouldn't know more until they got the test results
back in the morning.

John sat at his desk, his whole life apparently in tatters.  He was
beside himself with anxiety about Susan, and deeply upset about Archie -
hell, he and his friend were the same age, and he'd always considered
Archie indestructible.  OK, so he wasn't overweight and he didn't really
smoke any more, but he was just as stressed as Archie.  If something
could happen to Archie, it could equally easily happen to him.

He closed his eyes.  Where are you, Susan, darling, hon?  Oh, Jesus,
where the hell are you?

He tried hard to put himself in her position.  She was pregnant, she was
terrified that Sarotzini and Van Rhoe were planning to sacrifice the
baby, she was freaked out by the occult shit up in the attic, she was
gutted by Fergus Donleavy's death, and now she didn't even trust him.

Everything, in her mind, was a conspiracy against her or, more
particularly, against her baby.

Somehow, he had to talk sense to her.

Although he wasn't sure what sense was any more.  His tired brain was
thinking about all that weird shit up in the attic.  About Archie's
colleague with the pentagram tattoo and the V6rn Bank as a client.  He
was thinking about how Zak Danziger had conveniently died soon after the
V6rn Bank had become involved.  About Harvey Addison dying after they'd
gone for a second opinion.  Fergus Donleavy dying after warning Susan.
Now Archie, down with a stroke or whatever.

But how the hell could all that tie together?  It couldn't.  It was easy
to get spooked and jump to conclusions; being calm and rational was much
harder.  It could be just a chain of coincidences, and Susan, with her
hang-up about coincidences, could have got herself into a state over
nothing. But however much he told himself that, he couldn't convince
himself. Not totally.  Worry burrowed away at his confidence,
undermining it further all the time.

Susan, where are you?  i She wasn't at any of their friends", so where
might she have gone. Where would he have gone in her shoes?  What was
the natural instinct of anyone in trouble?  To head for the comfort of
home, of parents? California?

She couldn't have gone to LA, surely.  And, anyway, you weren't
permitted to fly if you were heavily pregnant.

Jesus, Van Rhoe would do his tank if Susan had left the country - he
didn't even want her to leave London, not even for a few hours.  He
checked his watch.  Seven forty-five.  That made it eleven forty-five
p.m.  in Los Angeles; late, but that couldn't be helped.  He looked up
Susan's parents" phone number in his address file, and dialled it.

His father-in-law answered, sounding as if he had just woken up.  His
tone was more formal and cooler than normal.  Probably because it was
late, John reasoned.

"Dick, look, I'm sorry to bother you, and I don't know how to explain
this very well - but I think Susan might have had some kind of
breakdown.  I arrived home last night and there was no sign of her.  She
seems to have packed a bag and left.  I wondered if by chance you or
Gayle had heard from her, or whether she'd come over to you?"

There was a brief silence, then Dick Corrigan said, "No, I - Gayle and I
-we didn't hear from her for a couple of weeks - er, Sunday last she
called. Sounded fine, a little tired but fine."

John asked him to call if they heard from her.  He promised he would,
asking John to do likewise, then hung up.

John sank his head into his hands.  Just in case Susan had sent him an e
mail he switched on his computer, and logged on.  The usual twenty or so
awaited him.  Then, scanning through them, he saw that one was from
Archie Warren, sent at nine forty-seven p.m.  last night, with an
attachment.  He double-clicked on the message and read it:

john, all the stuff on vSrn bank here seems to be encrypted. loads of
files.  if you can decode this file, let me know and i'll copy the rest
over to you.  read than eat this.  arch.

John stared at it, thinking.  Archie hadn't mentioned this at squash
-and, from the time it had been sent, he must have gone back to the
office afterwards.  Archie had found the files on the V6rn Bank, and
then he had had a stroke?

Could there be a connection?  Was he crazy to try to make one?

Or crazy to dismiss it?

He double-clicked on the attachment, to open it, and seconds later his
screen was filled with a jumble of letters, numbers and symbols,
meaningless to him.  He called Gareth and asked his partner to come into
his office.

A few minutes later, looking more hung-over than usual and dressed in
clothes that appeared to have been retrieved from a laundry basket,
Gareth was staring at his screen.  "PGP," he announced.

"Pretty Good Privacy?" John said.  It was one of the Internet's standard
encryption systems.

"Yup."

"Can you decode it?"

Gareth looked at him as if he were addressing a child of three.  "Sure,
no problem.  Give me a Cray supercomputer and four years off and I'd be
in with a sporting chance."

"Shit.  You serious?"

Gareth turned back to the screen.  "What's the provenance of this?"

"How do you mean?"

"Does it come from someone who knows what they're doing?"

"Yes, I would think so."

Gareth lit a cigarette.  "So it's probably an NP-complete problem."
"Uh?"

"Nondeterministic polynomial."

"Want to give it to me in English?" "Sure.  You're fucked."

"Great, that's really helpful, Gareth."

"To read this, you need to have the encryption phrase - the sender would
have it, and the recipient.  When you encrypt something in this system,
you provide a key, 8-bit, 16-bit, 24-bit, or even higher, depending on
how sophisticated you are.  It works on a doubling principle, like the
grain of rice on the chessboard."

"What grain of rice?"

"You stick one grain of rice on the first square, two on the second,
four on the third, eight on the fourth, sixteen on the fifth and so on.
By the time you reach the sixty-fourth square you have three times the
entire world annual production of rice, or something like that.  That's
the same principle on which this works."

John stared at him with a feeling of helplessness.  "So?  There's no way
we can read this?"

Gareth looked round for an ashtray, then flicked ash into the wastepaper
basket.  "How urgent is it.

"Seriously urgent."

Gareth paced up and down the office and windmilled his arms.  "Urn,
right, OK, urn, I have a friend, right?" He moved towards John and
lowered his voice, looking around, nervously.  "We were at Sussex
together - he's now at GCHOO you know, the top-security government
listening place.  They have a Cray there, and he's told me this,
strictly off the record, that they have the keys to most Internet
encryption systems.  He's into real ale.  I could try to have a drink
with him at the weekend."

John shook his head.  "This is really urgent, Gareth.  Couldn't you do
anything quicker than that?"

His partner looked at the screen again, and said, resignedly, "Oh, all
right, do me a copy.  I'll give it a go, no guarantees."

And Klindz, in a club-class seat, was eating a breakfast of omelette,
chipolata sausage and mushrooms, on an early-morning British Airways
flight to Geneva.

Chapter Fifty-four

His room looked out on to the vineyards and olive groves on the southern
slopes of the Ligurian hills.  Down below, on the ribbon of road that
mirrored the river's tortuous path across the floor of the valley, lay
the burnt-out remains of one of Mussolini's last convoys.

He.  was thirteen.  The war had been over for two years.  Local kids,
garages and scrap dealers had long ago picked the carcasses of the
trucks and half-tracks clean of anything that could be flogged as a
souvenir, or carted away on the back of a van, and now just the hulks
remained.  They had started to rust.

This was his life, this room with its low, slanted ceiling and narrow
slit of a window, and its dull little paintings of flowers, and its
views out over the valley, which was lush in winter and arid in summer,
and up towards the firmament.  This room and his books were his life. It
was the rear of the attic, and there was a sheer drop of several hundred
feet below; no one could see in.  No one in the village, apart from the
couple beneath him who owned the house, fed him, and slaked his thirst
for knowledge with a constant supply of books, knew that he was here.
Only a tiny handful of people in the whole world even knew that he
existed.

Which was why, when they came for him, he was not expecting it. He never
saw those people who burst into his room that night.  It happened in a
rush of darkness.  He was asleep and then he was awake, with a blindfold
over his eyes and a foul-tasting gag forced into his mouth.

Whispered voices around him, he did not know how many, he knew only that
he was frightened, and that they were mostly women's.  They dragged him
from the bed and on to the floor, then hoisted him on to the table that
was also his desk.  All the time they repeated, over and over and over,
"ll Diavolo...  11 Diavolo...  11 Diavolo."

He heard the woman who looked after him, Signora Vellucci, screaming for
them to leave him alone, warning them of terrible vengeance, but they
ignored her.

His nightshirt was ripped off him, and then he was being prodded, poked,
examined like a calf at market.  A woman's voice said, in a pause
between the chanting, "El hail padre, deve averio anhe lui." It is on
his father, it must be on him also.

Another woman, who was pushing the hairs on his head apart, examining
the scalp beneath, murmured that Emil Sarotzini's son even had the
devil's hair.

Then a finger probed his anus, pushed hard, coarsely up inside, making
him cry with pain into his gag.  The finger was retracted, just as
harshly, a remark was made that he did not catch and there was a roar of
laughter. Then silence.

Fifty years later, he could still remember this silence.

He could remember the hands that gripped his wrists, his ankles, his
thighs, like a vice.  One arm went round his neck, pulling his head so
tightly down on to the table that" he could hardly breathe.

He could remember the fingers seizing his penis and pulling it sharply
upwards.  And he could remember the panic as he felt the fingers close
around his scrotum and another woman's voice saying: "We are not allowed
to kill him, but we can make sure the Sarotzini line ends with this boy.
He will be the last."

And then the pain, oh, yes, the pain between his legs from the blade of
the knife.  And all the loss that followed from it.

And the words of the Tenth Truth, "A man who feels no thirst for
vengeance feels no pain." These words he remembered every time he
thought back to that night.

No one from that village had ever given birth since 1947.  Ajane
d'Annunzzi was dying, it was known as the Village of the Damned.  No one
understood what it was about this place, whether it was something in the
water from the chemical plant upwind or the high fungi diet the locals
ate.  Doctors and scientists, concerned about growing infertility around
the world, had done many studies, and Ajane d'Annunzzi had achieved fame
in medical papers, but no conclusions had been reached.

Mr. Sarotzini was thinking about this now as he stared across his desk
at Klindz.

It was necessary to think about this.

"How was your life before I found you, Stefan?" Mr. Sarotzini asked. "It
was nothing."

"And how did I find you?"

"The Voice," Klindz said.  "It was the Voice that came to you."

"And what did this Voice tell me?"

"It told you where I was living, where it was possible that you would
find me, in a village, in Tanzania in Africa.  I was five years old."

"And what were you doing in this village?"

"I was learning to track game." "And?"

"That was all."

"And where did you come from, Stefan?"

"I don't know."

"A missionary nun who was raped by a game warden?"

"I don't know."

"Why did the game warden rape the nun?"

"I don't know."

"What.do you know, Stefan?"

"That you came for me."

"And why did I come for you?"

"The Voice guided you."

"And why did it guide me?

Klindz gazed down at the thick Persian carpet.  "Because you had need of
me.  Especially you had need of a gene I carry.  A rare gene."

"And does this Voice guide you, Stefan?"

"You guide me."

"And what are you, Stefan?"

""An infant crying in the night: An infant crying for the light: And
with no language but a cry.""

"Who wrote that, Stefan?"

"Tennyson."

"And who is your light, Stefan?"

"You are."

"So why do you disobey me?  Why have you turned weak?  Because you are
in love?  The pleasures of the flesh?  These pleasures are a
distraction, they are there in your mind every waking moment, they drive
you, role you, obsess you, yes?"

Klindz had no answer.

"Why did you allow Susan Carter to go to America, Stefan?"

"Because you instructed me to."

"And you always obey me?  Are you my Pavlovian dog?  Do you salivate
when I ring bells?"

Klindz hesitated, and he knew this was a dangerous thing to do.  "Yes."
"Do you salivate when you think of Susan Carter?" Again Klindz
hesitated.

"I gave you Susan Carter, Stefan, and you let her go to America."

"My powers are limited," Klindz replied.  "I do not have the authority
to restrict her."

There was a flash of anger in Mr. Sarotzini's face.  "One telephone call
to the airport, Stefan, to inform them how many weeks pregnant she was,
and they would not have permitted her to fly.  That was all you needed
to do."

Klindz lowered his head in shame.

"Look at me, Stefan.  you are weakened by your love."

Klindz raised his head and stared back at Mr. Sarotzini, but had no
answer.  Mr. Sarotzini might have congratulated him for having the
presence of mind to ensure Miles Van Rhoe was flown over to America
immediately, to be there even before Susan Carter landed, but this was
not a moment for praise.

"You understand this baby is going to need a father, Stefan?"

Klindz swallowed, nervously.  "Yes."

"Did I honour my pledge to you, Stefan?"

"Yes."

"And it was good?"

"It was good."

"As good as you had dreamed?"

Klindz replied: "Virgil said there are two gates of Sleep.  One is said
to be of horn, through which the Spirits of Truth find an easy passage.
The other made of ivory, through which the gods send up false dreams to
the upper world."

"And through which gate did you enter Susan Carter?"

Klindz thought for a moment because, with Mr. Sarotzini, all questions
were traps.  "The horn," he said.

Mr. Sarotzini smiled.  "You remember, Stefan, the Fifteenth Truth?"

Klindz replied, ""To achieve your dream is strength.  To repeat your
dream is weakness.""

And now from a drawer in his desk, Mr. Sarotzini produced a barber's
razor and handed it to Klindz.  "Is this sharp?"

Klindz tested the keenness of the blade with his finger.  He told Mr.
Sarotzini that it was sharp.

Mr. Sarotzini took a cigar from a box on his desk but did not light it.
"Only you and I will ever know the truth, and this baby is the truth."
He examined the band on the cigar, then stared at Klindz.  "I kept my
part of our bargain and now you must keep yours.  Are you ready to
purify yourself, Stefan?  To protect yourself against future temptation?
To show me that I am wrong and you are not weakened by your love, but
strengthened by it?"

Klindz stifled a fleeting surge of panic.  He did not want to do this,
he really did not, but he could not disobey.  And he must demonstrate to
Mr. Sarotzini that he was not weakened by his love.  He tried to calm
himself. It would be for the best.  He trusted Mr. Sarotzini absolutely,
and Mr. Sarotzini would not make him do this unless it was for the best.
It was going to be painful now, but it would be for the best.  And he
had made his pledge.

He drew a breath and said, "I am ready."

Mr. Sarotzini went to the cabinet and opened the door.  Then he turned
on the videotape player and Klindz shuddered.  He knew what was coming
next and he did not want to watch this, but Mr. Sarotzini was presenting
him with no alternative.

He had to watch.

Claudie appeared on the screen.  She was naked.  The left side of her
body was a milky white colour, those flesh tones that had so excited
Klindz once, that he had found so sensuous.  But the right side was a
pinky colour and the texture was quite different, and the nipple was
missing from the breast.

She was held by chains, one around her neck that rose tightly to the
ceiling, one around each ankle, securing them to the floor, and one
around each arm, holding them out in the crucifixion position.  She was
staring at the camera and there was such horror in that face, such
terror, and she was screaming, pleading, her eyes bulging with fear.

On the tape, Klindz watched himself enter the frame now and go up close
to her.  He was holding a knife in his hand, a small boning knife that
was as sharp as a razor, and he had no choice, he had to continue with
the job he had begun days before.

He remembered that when he had been close up to Claudie, he had tried to
communicate that he was sorry, that he really did not want to do this.
And Klindz, watching this now, was pleased that this attempt to
communicate with her did not show.

He observed himself make a small horizontal incision below her left
shoulder blade, being careful not to cut into the flesh itself, and then
-even he flinched as he watched what followed - he continued his task of
skinning her alive.

After a few minutes, Mr. Sarotzini stopped the tape and said to Klindz,
"You would not want to hear Susan Carter scream like this?"

Klindz said that he wouldn't, and he meant it, he really wouldn't.

Mr. Sarotzini said, "When you have done your duty, Klindz, I will keep
my second pledge.  Susan Carter will be yours for ever."

Klindz stared back at Mr. Sarotzini, stared hard into his eyes, and felt
the same trust he always had in the man.  It was the right thing, it
must be done.

Taking the barber's razor, he went through into the washroom behind Mr.
Sarotzini's office and closed the door.  Swiftly, he unbuckled his
trousers, let them fall to the floor and then he dropped his cotton
boxer shorts.

Claudie was now, finally, mercifully, dead.  But Susan Carter was alive.
And if Susan Carter tempted him again, tried to seduce him again, or
even just tried to run away again, he understood that Mr. Sarotzini
would make him punish her the same way he'd had to punish Claudie.  And
he could not bear to do this, because he loved Susan.  He had to save
Susan from this.

He tested the blade of the razor again, then fought off his nerves, his
hesitation, his doubts, by reminding himself that Mr. Sarotzini had
experienced this same pain himself, and that he was saving Susan
Carter's life.  And perhaps some of Mr. Sarotzini's powers were so
strong because of the way he was.  And that if he wanted to become as
strong as Mr. Sarotzini, he must become like him.

Yes, now he understood, this was Mr. Sarotzini's way of telling him, of
making him understand.  And he did, and it was beautiful.

And he was saving Susan Carter's life.

Flooded with gratitude to Mr. Sarotzini, he gripped his scrotum, and his
testicles hurt as he squeezed them, as he pulled them tight against the
sac, searching for the base of his penis.  But this pain was nothing
compared to the pain that now followed as he sliced the blade of the
razor through the skin and then through the gristle, blood spurting over
his hand and dripping in an increasing trickle on to the tiled floor.

He bit his lip, stifling a cry of pain through clenched teeth.  He was
shaking, his eyes narrowed.  He tried desperately to keep his hand
steady, fighting the pain, perspiration torrenting down him.  There was
more, a long way to go, he tried to keep up the concentration, to keep
going.  I'm saving your life, Susan.  Tiny grunts, moans, hisses escaped
from his mouth: he clenched his teeth even tighter, his body contorting,
twisting, bending then straightening.

He must not scream.

A dagger shot right up into his guts, skewering the base of his skull,
exploding into needles that ripped through his brain, then down through
his body again.  He doubled over, let out a roar of pain, followed by a
terrible, shocked groan; and then, unexpectedly, the bloodied sac was
free in his hand.  Near delirious with agony, he dropped it into the
lavatory bowl and pulled the chain.  Blood sprayed into the bowl.  He
looked down at the blood streaming on to his thighs and the floor,
grabbed a handful of lavatory paper, balled it and pressed it up between
his legs.

Then, unable to stand the pain any longer, he knelt, pressed his red-hot
forehead against the cool tiles of the lavatory wall and retched.  He
retched again.  He was being weak, he knew, and this scared him.  Mr.
Sarotzini would not approve of this, he had to be strong, had to find
strength, had to draw on reserves.  Mr. Sarotzini was waiting for him,
he had already taken enough time, he must show strength.

He retched again, and then he vomited.  Afterwards his head felt a
little clearer.  Staggering to his feet, he took the gold Dunhill
lighter from his pocket, and opened the lid.  Then, silently reciting
each of the Truths in turn, he removed the bloodied paper, and applied
the flame to the ragged skin.  He felt the pain, the smell of singeing
flesh filled his nostrils, but the Truths gave him strength.  He
continued to repeat them over and over, one after another, until they
became like a mantra, and he went on saying them until the wound was
cauterised and he had somehow forced the pain into retreat, reduced it
to a numb throbbing.

He washed the bloodstains off his shirt-tails, cleaned his hands,
straightened his tie, then returned, walking slowly because it hurt
terribly to walk.  to Mr. Sarotzini's office.  He informed Mr. Sarotzini
that he had honoured his pledge.

But this, still, was not enough.  Mr. Sarotzini nodded, but he was not
looking pleased.  He told Klindz, "Now you must explain to me, Stefan,
why you have not yet punished Susan Carter for going to the obstetrician
Harvey Addison?"

Klindz was unable to give this explanation.  His brain was burning, the
terrible pain was returning, but he dared not let it show.

"There is a weakness you have, Stefan, which is so dangerous.  Do you
understand the danger?"

Klindz swallowed, then nodded.

"And you are angry, Stefan?"

Klindz nodded "again.  He wanted to sit down, to lie down, to grip his
crotch, to double up, to vomit again, but he could do none of these
things in the presence of Mr. Sarotzini.

"You are angry at your weakness?  At Susan Carter?  You must direct your
anger, Klindz, you must focus it.  You have brought with you the
photograph?"

Klindz pulled the photograph of Casey from his pocket.

Mr. Sarotzini nodded at him.  Klindz took out the Dunhill lighter and,
with it, set fire to the photograph.  The banker held out his hand, took
the burning photograph, and brought the flame to the end of his cigar.
Then he dropped the burning photograph into the glass ashtray on his
desk and they both watched as the last corner of it burned.  "You have
something personal from Susan Carter, Stefan?"

Klindz produced the tiny handkerchief, embroidered with a blue "S" that
he had taken from the laundry basket in Susan's bathroom.  She had never
missed it.

Mr. Sarotzini looked at his watch; then, holding the cigar in the crook
of his finger drew deeply on it.  "Are you grateful, Stefan?  Do you now
feel gratitude for all I have done for you?" , Klindz dared not open his
mouth because he was afraid the pain would show in his voice.  He had
already shown Mr. Sarotzini one weakness, it was unwise to show him
another.  And he knew that Mr. Sarotzini was playing with him now,
trying to trip him up.  And from out of his terrible pain a warning
screamed at him.  The Twelfth Truth: "Gratitude is weakness."

"I am aware of being privileged, but that is through birth and not
charity."

Mr. Sarotzini looked delighted.  "Good, Stefan, that is such a good
answer!  Now, we need energy.  You must hold the handkerchief, the
connection will be made better through you than me.  Close your eyes.
Tune in the handkerchief.  Let it speak."

Klindz saw a tiny room, a child's room, a row of fluffy toys on a shelf,
a flamenco-dancer doll inside a cellophane tube.  A woman was sleeping
in this room.  It was Susan Carter.

It was twelve thirty-five p.m., local time, three thirty-five a.m.  in
Los Angeles.

Chapter Fifty-five

Casey ran on ahead along the hiking trail, though the craggy crimson
bluffs and towering boulders, her flaxen hair shimmering beneath the
blazing Colorado sun.  Susan and her parents lagged behind.

Then Casey stopped and turned, a great big grin on her face, and
shouted, "Hey, come on, you guys, you're gonna miss the show!"

She sprinted down the ramp alongside the auditorium steps, and on to the
stage of the deserted amphitheatre.  Then she stood, in her jeans,
sneakers and Save the Whales sweatshirt, hands on her hips, and hollered
to Susan, her parents, and six thousand empty seats: "This is it, once
in a lifetime, Casey Corrigan performing live at the Red Rocks.
Yeeeaaaahhhhhhhh!"

Then, using a short stick she had picked up as a pretend mike, she burst
into Cyndi Lauper's "Time After Time", singing at the top of her voice,
throwing herself wildly around the stage.  Then she followed it with
Tina Turner's, "What's Love Got To Do With It?".  Half-way through she
paused. "C'mon, join in, mom, Dad, Susan.  C'mon...  Susan,
Susaaannnnnnn. Susaaaaaannnnnnnnnn.  Susaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnn."

Susan woke in panic, disoriented.  Casey's voice echoing in her mind.
The bed was too small, the window was in the wrong position.  Where was
John?

Then she remembered.  She was home, in her old bedroom, in her parents"
house.  She was drenched in perspiration, deeply afraid. Casey. Casey
was crying.

Something was wrong with Casey.

I flew over from London yesterday.

The pain in her abdomen was worse than last night.  Her back was aching
like hell - probably from the bed, which had been built for a child, not
for a heavily pregnant woman.  She turned on the light and her watch
told her it was three thirty-five a.m.

The Red Rocks.  She could remember that day clearly.  It was ten - more
like twelve - years ago, when they'd gone on a family hiking holiday in
the Rockies.  Casey, just turned fifteen, had been the reatest fun on
that trip.  To look at, she was blossoming into a stunning young woman,
but inside she was still a playful child, full of confidence and no
cares in the world.

Susan could remember standing up there in the vast, deserted auditorium,
Denver and the plains way down below them, watching her and suddenly
getting that feeling of dread.  She'd hardly been able to sing the words
because of the foreshadowing she had that something bad was about to
happen.  It was almost as if she had realised that Casey was too kind,
too big-hearted, too friendly for this mixed-up world to be able to
leave her alone, and that somehow it was going to draw her in, corrupt
her, change her, drag her down to its own level.

Three weeks later Casey took the tab and was changed for ever.

That hadn't been the first time she'd picked up feelings about Casey.,
Often when they had been kids, even when they were miles apart, she
could tell how Casey was feeling.  One afternoon she'd had a terrible
pain in her right arm, and discovered when she got home that Casey had
fallen off her bike and broken her right arm.

Susan knew that telepathy between twins was common, and although it was
rarer among ordinary siblings, there were plenty of cases of it.  Even
during these past years when she'd been in England, there had been
moments when she was certain she knew what Casey was thinking, or had
felt that Casey was trying to get a message through to her.

She had that feeling now, intensely strongly.  A feeling that Casey was
frightened.

Bump was awake also - she could feel one of his feet pushing out the
skin of her abdomen.  He was thrashing around, agitated, as if he was
trying to communicate something to her, as if he, too, could sense his
aunt's distress.

Outside in the night a siren wailed.  She swung herself out of bed, put
her feet on the floor, stretched as far forward as she could over her
swollen abdomen towards her toes, then straightened herself right up,
trying to ease her back pain.  She looked at the bed which, along with
her suitcase on the floor, took up most of the space in this small,
narrow room.  It was sagging visibly in the middle.

A row of fluffy toys stared down at her from a shelf above the bed; a
flamenco-dancer doll, with jet black hair and an inane smile, sat inside
the cellophane tube in which it had been given to her, brought back
years ago from some relative's travels.

She padded across to the window, parted the thin curtains and looked
out.  There was a full moon and this, together with the background glow
of the streetlights, made it so bright she could have read a book in the
back yard.  A creature leapt over the fence, she didn't see what it was
- a cat, or maybe a coyote or a raccoon.

Then, without warning, she was hit by a giddying wave of nausea. Unable
to move, she gripped the window-sill, hung on to it, trying to keep
upright, trying not to fall on the floor and pass out.  She leant
forward, pushing her head out of the window, so at least she would vomit
into the garden, and closed her eyes.

After a few moments the cool night air began to revive her, and the
nausea faded.  But she stayed longer, breathing in the salty ocean tang,
until the dizziness had passed.  Then, wide awake now, she eased herself
down on the edge of the bed.  Her watch said three forty.  She did a
calculation.  Three forty a.m.  here made it eleven forty a.m.  in
London.  It was hardly surprising she felt so wide awake: it was the
middle of the morning for her.

What was John doing?

In his office, phoning around everyone they knew, trying to find her?
For an instant she weakened, wanted to feel his arms around her, to hear
his voice, to hear him tell her that he wasn't in league with Mr.
Sarotzini and Miles Van Rhoe.  She wanted so badly to hear it from him
now, she wanted him to say it to her face.  To swear it.

But he couldn't do that because he was in league with them.  She thought
back to that first night she met Mr. Sarotzini, in his club.  It was so
transparent a set-up.  Had the dinner at the Guildhall, where John had
met Mr. Sarotzini, or purported to have met him, been a set-up too, just
to fool her?

How far back did John's links with Mr. Sarotzini go?  She started
thinking about the myriad nights when John had arrived home late, or
even stayed away somewhere on business.  Had those nights been when the
coven, or whatever it was they called it, met?

Then she tried to think through it more rationally.  Could John really
have been a satanist long before she'd married him?  If so, why had he
never talked about it, never tried to convert her?  Perhaps it was
connected to DigiTrak's problems, a last resort for John.  And he hadn't
had the courage to tell her.

Zak Danziger, who had been a threat to DigiTrak, had died weeks after
Mr. Sarotzini had become involved.  But why had Harvey Addison died?
That made no sense, and she could see no connection.  Fergus had been
delving, that's why he had died.  She had told John what Fergus had
said, and John had reported this to Mr. Sarotzini, who had had him
killed.  And ever since Mr. Sarotzini had put in the money, the business
had been booming: John had said they'd got almost every contract they'd
bid for.

Susan knew from the book she had edited on the occult, and the one she
had read on the flight, and from movies she had seen, that occultists,
black magicians, satanists, whatever, could influence people.  They
could manipulate them, hurt them, paralyse them, blind them and even
kill them just by concentrating their thoughts on them, just by thinking
of them.  It was like the voodoo doll into which people stuck pins, no
different.

Was John in league with them, or had he simply offered them a deal?  A
baby for sacrifice, no questions asked, in exchange for money and for
them using their powers to help his business.

And he hadn't had the guts to tell her.

She thought again of that dream (hallucination?  reality?) in the
clinic." The man from Telecom.  The masked people.  What if it had been
real and not a dream or a hallucination?  Had John been there as well,
one of the masked people, and she hadn't recognised him?

Fergus had said that Emil Sarotzini was the devil incarnate.

But Emil Sarotzini would be a hundred and ten years old, at least.

If he was the Devil incarnate, there was no reason why he couldn't be a
hundred and ten years old.  Or older.

Then she had an even wilder thought.  Was Archer Warren one of them too?
Their Tuesday night squash games: did they really play squash?

What about all their other friends?  She'd never met any of John's
relatives - he had cut himself off from what fragments of family he had.
What if all his friends were members of the coven and he'd brought her
over, unsuspecting and naive, from America?  Delivered her to his coven.
And all this crap of his about not wanting children - this had been
simply to buy time, to preserve her intact for her true intended role as
a brood mare.

Oh, God, Susan, what the hell are you thinking? "Susaaaaaannnnnnnnnn?

She shivered.  The cry sounded so close, as if Casey was here in the
room with her.  Bump thrashed again as if he'd heard it too.  Casey
needs you, he was trying to tell her, urgently.

She pulled on her dressing-gown, quietly opened her bedroom door and,
like a child again, tiptoed past her parents" bedroom and downstairs.
Using the phone in the kitchen she dialled the clinic's number.  After
four rings, she got a recorded voice saying the switchboard was closed
until seven a.m.

Her anxiety deepening, she dialled directories and asked if there was a
night emergency number for the Cypress Palisades Clinic in Orange
County.  The operator told her there wasn't.

The nausea was returning.  Susan looked at the kitchen clock/which said
three forty-five, and checked it against her watch, which said three
forty-two. Three and a quarter hours before anyone would be at the
clinic to answer the phone.

As she hung up, another wave of nausea swept through her.  It was
followed by another and now she was going to be sick.  She just made it
across to the sink and threw up violently.  The pain inside her felt
like a red-hot poker that was being twisted.  Then she threw up again,
tears streaming from her eyes.  She wished her parents would wake, that
her mother would come down here and hold her forehead the way she used
to whenever she'd been sick as a child.  But since Casey's tragedy both
her parents had been on medication at night, and slept in drugged comas.

She threw up again, her legs buckling with exhaustion, barely able to
support her.  There was no more food to come up, she was vomiting
foul-tasting, acrid bile now.  She coughed, her lungs aching, her eyes
blurred, waiting for it to pass now, and for the pain in her guts to
subside.

Finally she rinsed out her mouth, and then the sink and began to feel a
little better, except now she had a raging thirst.  She poured herself a
glass of iced water from the fridge and drank it straight down.  Then
she made her way upstairs again.  It was like climbing a mountain.  At
the top she stopped, doubled up in pain, and had to wait until the
attack passed before she was able to move.  She made it back to her
bedroom, and sat down on the edge of the bed.

Her forehead was burning, and she knew she had a temperature. Something
was seriously wrong inside her, she was certain - and scared.  It wasn't
smart being all this distance away from Van Rhoe.  Even if he was a
satanist and was going to sacrifice her baby, he was a good doctor, the
best.  He would know what the pain was and do something about it. Maybe
I'm going into labour.

She had none of the early-warning symptoms Van Rhoe had told her to look
out for, no contractions - unless these new pains were contractions. No
blood.  No mucus plug.

She lay back and closed her eyes, but her brain was whirring too much to
sleep.  Casey, Casey, Casey.

Casey was calling out to her.

She wondered if she could make it if she drove.  She could call a taxi.
But the nausea was coming back and she felt too ill to move anywhere
right now.  She looked at her watch: five after four.  Three hours, I
can call you. I'll get mom or Dad to bring me over first thing, you can
relax, I'm here in LA, I'm near you, I'll see you in a few hours.  I
love you.

There was a book at the bottom of her suitcase somewhere.  She knelt
down, rooted around through her badly packed belongings, and finally
found it.  Exhausted by even this exertion, she clambered back into bed
with it.

It was the second of two reference books she had bought in an occult
shop in Covent Garden.  She'd read the other on the flight, but this one
appeared to go into more detail in the areas that interested her.

She stopped scanning when she reached the section headed "Amulets and
Talismans", and started reading carefully.

According to Sir E. H.  Wallis Budd, the egyptologist, the essential
difference between an amulet and talisman is that an amulet exercises
its protective powers continuously and in general around its owner
whereas a talisman is called on to perform some isolated task of
protection. Possession of items She stopped reading.  The finger in
velvet in the attic: had that been an amulet or a talisman?  Then, as
she read on, the egyptologist confirmed that bones, teeth, hair,
spittle, blood and body parts all made powerful amulets and talismans.

Bump's hands pushed sharply outwards.  Then he rolled, and pushed again,
and suddenly into her head came an image of the man from Telecom.

"What do you want?" she shouted at him.  And then she bit her lip: she'd
shouted aloud. I'm delirious. "Susaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn."
Bump rolled again. "Susaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn."

Casey was desperate and she wasn't imagining it.  "It's OK," she
whispered.  "I'm coming."

She swung herself out o bed, pulled on the leggings and sweatshirt in
which she'd travelled, stuck her feet into her flat shoes, pulled on her
camel coat and grabbed her handbag.

"I'm coming, Casey," she whispered again.  "Calm down, I'll be with you
as quickly as I can."

She let herself out of her bedroom, tiptoed past her parents" door and
down the stairs.  They creaked but no one stirred in the house, and she
was relieved.  She didn't want to have to explain to her parents what
she was doing - she could tell from their expressions last night that
they hadn't been sure whether to believe her or whether she was cracking
up.

She'd made them promise not to tell John she was here if he called, and
just after they'd all gone to bed, shortly before midnight, the phone
had rung and she had hurried from her room, stood outside her parents"
door, and had heard her father say, No, I- Gayle and I- we didn't hear
from her for a couple of weeks - er, Sunday last she called.  Sounded
fine, a little tired but fine.

She closed the front door, using her key to soften the click of the
latch, then climbed into her rental car.

It was a forty-minute drive in daytime but, in the pre-dawn quiet, Susan
was in Orange County and heading towards the canyon in less than a
quarter of an hour.  It had stopped raining, but the road still had a
glossy sheen from the water.

She suddenly saw flashing lights in her rear-view mirror, a whole broad
band of them; it looked like a spacecraft was coming up the freeway
behind her, and nervously, she moved across to the exit lane and slowed
right down.

A convoy of fire trucks hurtled past, followed by two police patrol
cars. Then not just one ambulance, but a whole fleet.

And, oh Christ, no, she could see where they were heading.  She could
see the red glow that was too thick, too concentrated to be street
lighting.

Her distress deepening, she stamped on the gas pedal, pushed the needle
up past ninety m.p.  then a hundred m.p., chasing them, and two miles
on, steadily gaining on their taiMights, she followed them down the exit
ramp and along the four-lane road that went through the small village.
More emergency vehicles howled past her and crashed the stop light
ahead.  Susan crashed it too, beyond caring, a tight knot of fear in her
gullet.  This road had changed since she was last here, a year back, she
thought.  More flashing lights appeared in her mirror.  She drove past a
new development and she wondered - she hoped - whether some miracle had
happened and they were all on the wrong road.

And then, to her disbelief, the convoy started to turn left.  Braking
hard, she shouted at them, through the windshield, "Wrong way, you're
taking the wrong -"

And then she stopped shouting.

They hadn't.

They weren't going to Casey's nursing home.

They were going to a different part of the canyon.  And, she remembered
now, there was a big lumber warehouse a mile or so up there.  That's
where they were going!

She lowered her window and felt a welcome blast of air on her face as
she accelerated again.  It was OK, there was no fire at the clinic.
Casey was safe.  The sirens screamed on up there above her like mad
animals, and perspiration sloughed off her.  "I'll be right with you,
Casey," she said.  "Just coming up to the entrance now."

The imposing white Doric pillars, each engraved with the words CYPRESS
PALISADES CLINIC, were right ahead.  She put on her right-turn signal,
then halted to let a car opt, one of the night staff or a doctor, she
presumed, the headlights momentarily dazzling her.  Then she accelerated
hard up the long, tree-lined driveway, braking sharply every fifty yards
to crash over the sleeping policemen.

The clinic was a handsome modern building, three storeys high, spread
out along the ridge of the canyon with fine views in daylight out
towards the ocean and inland across the desert.  It was a medium-sized,
luxury private hospital, with a high reputation both for cosmetic
surgery and for its facilities for long-term care patients like Casey.

Most of the building was in darkness, but lights were on in the
downstairs hall and in a few upstairs windows.  Whenever she'd been here
in the past, the parking lot had been full; now there was only a handful
of vehicles parked outside.

Susan pulled into a bay, then got out of the car and looked anxiously up
at Casey's room.  It was on the second storey, with a row of
window-boxes full of flowers that her mother kept up all year round, but
she couldn't see these now.  There was a faint tinge of burning wood in
the air, and the distant wall of sirens pricked the silence of the
night.

She walked as fast as she could towards the main entrance, but the
automatic glass doors remained shut as she approached them.  A sign on
them read, AFTER 10 P.M.  PLEASE USE BELL.

She pressed the button.  Then, when nothing happened, she pressed it
again.  After an eternity, a uniformed security guard, who must have
weighed a good three hundred pounds, ambled into view, gave Susan a
cursory inspection, nodded at her then ambled away again.  A full minute
later, the doors slid open.

As she went inside, the guard was sitting behind the front desk with a
National Rifle Association magazine open in front of him.  "Help you?"
"All right to go see my sister?"

He raised his eyebrows as if to say, At this hour?  "You know where she
is?"

"Room 214 in the Laguna wing."

He tapped his computer keyboard.  "Name?"

"Hers or mine?"

He gave her a weary look.  "Hers."

"Casey Corrigan."

"And yours?" Susan Carter."

He studied the screen, then tapped some more keys.  There was a sharp
whir and a pass card printed out on a machine beside him.  He pushed it
into a plastic holder and handed it to her.  "Know your way?"

"Yes." She pinned the card to her coat lapel.  "Thank you."

"No problem.  Have a good one." He returned to his magazine.

The place reminded her of the V6rn Bank's clinic in London.  The
designers had done their best to make it look more like the foyer of a
hotel than a hospital lobby.  The walls were panelled in light
cedarwood, hung with huge tapestries, and groups of comfortable chairs,
separated by plants and vases of fresh flowers, were spread around the
perimeter of the marble floor.  But, again like the bank's clinic in
London, the sterile smell was the giveaway.

The swift surge of the elevator car brought on another bout of nausea
and dizziness.  As she stepped out "into the blue-carpeted corridor she
had to lean against the wall and close her eyes.  Don't black out, she
thought. Not now, please, not now.

The elevator doors shut behind her with a hiss and the only sound in the
corridor was the thudding of her own heart, the flat hum of the
air-conditioning fans and a beeping sound, a steady, beep...  beep...
beep... beep.

She opened her eyes and stared down the long corridor, each of the doors
labelled with a typed name in a small metal holder.  This was the
long-stay floor.  All the patients, like Casey, were in a persistent
vegetative state, and most of the names on the doors were familiar to
her as she stumbled past them.  D.  Perimutter.  Sally Shulman.  Bob
Tanner.  Casey Corrigan.

A red light was flashing above Casey's door.

Her heart in her mouth, Susan ran, stumbling, down to it, and pushed
open the door.  The room was in darkness; just a faint haze of green and
orange light from the dials of the machines that kept Casey alive and
monitored her every breath, heartbeat and brain signal.  Three small red
lights were flashing, and another audible warning was sounding, a shrill
pip-pip-pip-pip.

Susan fumbled for the light switch and snapped it on.  The brilliant
overhead light dazzled her momentarily, and then she saw Casey lying in
bed, just like she always was.  Except Casey was motionless.  The
ventilator was still clunk-puffing away, but Casey's chest wasn't rising
and falling, like it should, like it always did.

It wasn't moving at all.

And the colour of Casey's face behind that naso-gastric tube, did not
look right.  Her cheeks were usually rosy, as if this great long rest
she was having.  was doing her good.  But they weren't rosy now, they
were the colour of spent chewing gum.

Susan's eyes swung up to the monitors then jumped along the dials to the
ECG.  Normally there would be steady spikes.  But now instead of any
spikes there was an unflickering green line, and on another monitor next
to it, three words were flashing on and off: AIR SUPPLY DOWN!

Her eyes sprang to the ventilator, and she saw immediately what was
wrong: the connector dock, linking Casey's breathing appliance to the
rubber output tube from the ventilator, had come apart.  The oxygen was
being pumped uselessly out into the room.

Shouting for help, Susan tried to jam the two parts of the line
together. She felt the hard blast of air, got them together but they
sprang apart the moment she released them.  They needed a clip, or tape,
something. "HELP!" she screamed.  "Help, someone, help, please help me!"
She ran out into the corridor.  "Help!  Please help!"

There was no sign of anyone.  Her brain raced, as she tried to think
what to do.  Someone must come along, there had to be someone on duty,
it was more important to try to keep the air flowing.  Christ, how long
had Casey been like this?

She went back into the room, grabbed the two lines and forced them back
together.  A moment later, Casey's chest rose and fell faintly; at least
some air was now going into her again.  Susan stared at her, that
beautiful face, framed by her long golden hair - a much prettier colour
than her own, Susan had always thought - and thit terrible grey colour
of her face.

She stretched forward and touched Casey's face.  It was cold, like
putty. She'd never felt human skin as cold as this.

Grabbing the two halves of the air line, she forced them back together.

"HEELLLLLLP!" she screamed again.  "Please, please, someone help!  Oh
God, please help!"

Then the pain came.  It felt like a steel band being tightened around
her, crushing her, crushing everything inside her.  Unable to help it,
she cried out, doubling up.  But somehow she managed to cling to the
line, trying desperately to concentrate on holding the two halves
together.  And then it felt as if some huge steel blade was twisting
inside her, ripping through her internal organs, and the pain was
unbearable.  Her head felt as if it was separating from the rest of her
body, there was an unbearable pressure on her ears, they were imploding.

She screamed in pain, screamed for help for Casey.  The floor suddenly
tilted, rising steeply past her face, and she was struggling to stay on
her feet now, they were losing their hold.  The walls swung beneath her.
The carpet smacked her in the face.

She lay, unable to move, her nostrils pressed against the carpet.  She
could smell the cleaning fluid that had been used on it.

The pain was coming again, that blade twisted around inside her, ripping
upwards through her guts.  Bile was rising up her throat, she wanted to
throw up and she was fighting against it with all her concentration.

She mumbled, unable to speak because she was swallowing back the vomit,
"Help me, someone, please, help me."

Somehow she was still holding the two pieces of line together, clutching
them as if they were the only thing she had in the world.

Hang in there, Casey, don't die on me, please don't die on me.

And then the pain went off inside her like a detonation, and the
ferocity of it this time sucked everything out of her, all the light out
of her eyes and out of her brain.  Everything was swallowed by a vast,
unbearable vacuum of agony.

When she next saw something, it was very dim.  A face she didn't
recognise, a woman, in a white nursing gown, sleek black hair, a lapel
badge right close up to her face which read, PAT CAULK, SNR NIGHT NURSE.

"Casey," Susan whispered, urgently.

The nurse was holding her wrist - maybe she was taking her pulse, Susan
wasn't sure.  The nurse's arm was right across her face and the sleeve
of the gown was pushed almost into Susan's mouth, muffling her voice.

"Casey," she whispered again.  "Please -" Then her words slipped, along
with consciousness, from her grasp.

Chapter Fifty-six

John cancelled a lunch meeting with clients because he was too worried
about Susan to concentrate, and stayed closeted in his office, dialling
home every half-hour or so in the hope that Susan might be back, or at
least had left a message on the answering service.

But the only messages all moriing were just a rambling one from Joe, the
builder, about materials he needed to buy, one from Liz Harrisoff asking
Susan to lunch next week, then an incomprehensible, hysterical one from
Pila.

John immediately rang the hospital, and got himself put through to the
intensive care nursing station.  He lied to the nurse who answered that
he was Archie Warren's brother, and asked how he was doing.

To his dismay, Archie was not doing well.  He was still unconscious, on
life support, and as yet they'd still not been able to diagnose what was
wrong.  The only positive news was that there appeared to be no damage
consistent with a stroke, which left a mystery virus as the most likely
explanation.  But until they found out what it was - if they found out
-they had no way of treating him.  It was literally wait and see.  He
would either improve, remain as he was or deteriorate.

Deeply depressed, John hung up.  If Harvey Addison were alive he could
have rung him, asked the name of the best neurologist in the country and
pulled strings for him to see Archie.  He stared gloomily at his coffee.
Everything was beyond his control.  He was feeling frighteningly
isolated, and helpless.

Susan was not with any of her friends or her parents.  Either she'd had
a breakdown and was wandering the streets somewhere, or she had gone
into hiding in a hotel, or - he hesitated about this, although he knew
it was a real possibility - perhaps Mr. Sarotzini had abducted or
kidnapped her.

At half past five in the afternoon, John was just putting down the
receiver after yet another fruitless call home and debating whether to
phone the police and report Susan missing, when Gareth Noyce came into
his office with a load of computer printout.  "You never asked me to do
this for you, right?" he said, excitedly.

"Do what?" John asked, then realised what he was talking about.  "You've
decoded it?"

"Not me, exactly.  You now owe a big favour to a real ale expert in
Gloucester.  My friend could go to jail for this - we're talking about
the Official Secrets Act, right?  Actually I promised him a
pre-production copy of Dr. Doomandgloom for his kids and he seemed
pretty happy with that."

John seized the printout, then immediately felt disappointed as he
scanned the pages.  On each were just columns of trades; this was a
ledger record of the VOrn Bank's transactions, dating back about seven
months. On each row was the name of a company, some of which he
recognised but many he didn't, followed by a date, the number of shares
held, the total number of shares issued, the percentage of total held,
the current trading price and the twelve-month high and low prices.
"Thanks, Gareth," he said, trying to sound enthusiastic.  "This is
great."

"Good, see you," his partner responded, and was gone.

John rubbed his eyes, then, starting with the first of fifteen sheets,
began to read carefully through the names, wondering if he might pick up
any clues about the V6rn Bank.  Cr(dit Suisse.  First Boston.  IBM. P&O.
Glaxo Welcome.  Dai Ichy Kany.  Espirito Santo.  AOL.

By the time he was half-way down the twelfth page, he had begun to skim
and almost missed the name: CYPRESS PALISADES CLINIC.

His eyes jumped back to it in surprise, and he read it again to make
sure he wasn't mistaken.  The ledger showed that the V6m Bank had
acquired one hundred percent of the shares in the Cypress Palisades
Clinic on 7 September last year.

He read it through yet again, then thought, carefully, trying to make
double sure he wasn't getting this wrong.  CYPRESS PALISADES CLINIC. NO,
he wasn't mistaken, he knew the name too well, he'd been there himself,
many times.  Nerves began to stir uneasily inside him.

It was the clinic that Susan's kid sister, Casey, was in.

Chapter Fifty-seven

Unsmiling faces.  Rows of eyes.  A massive, dazzling light.

The pain.

It felt like two people were trying to tear her in half by twisting her.
The twisting hardened, the pain roared like a furnace inside her and she
rose up, crying out pitifully, thrashing, delirious, trying to get away
from it. Firm but gentle hands pushed her down.  Drool ran out of the
corner of" her mouth.

Then another wave of this pain smashed through her, and with a sudden
burst of energy, she screamed out for help, for anything.  She didn't
care if she died, anything, anything would be better than this pain.

And suddenly she heard a voice she recognised.  "Try to relax, Susan.
We're going to give you an anaesthetic that will put you out, and when
you come round, the pain will have gone."

English, she thought, clawing ragged bundles of thoughts out of her
memory.  English.  An English accent.  She found the face where the
voice had come from, locked on to it, thinking.  Large eyes.  Calm,
suave voice.  I know you.  And then it came back.  Of course.  She
recognised these large eyes now, and finally, with a squirm of terror,
she connected the face to the voice.

Miles Van Rhoe.

No no no no no no no. Miles Van Rhoe. Nooooooooooooooo.

The obstetrician was standing over her, as if it was perfectly normal
for him to be seeing her in California.

She shook her head, yammering with fear, pleading with her eyes at the
other faces.  Help me.  You have to help me.

Then another surge of pain, and with it a gagging bout of nausea, and
all she could do was wait until it passed.

"Please!" she gasped.  "Someone must listen to me!  This man is going to
take my baby, he's going to sacrifice it, he's going to use it for one
of his rituals, he does black magic, satanism, please, someone believe
me!  He has a record with the police, with Scotland Yard in England,
phone them, someone, please, phone them, you must believe me!"

Van Rhoe smiled at her, with a hurt expression.  "Susan, you're a little
delirious and you really don't know what you're saying.  We're not going
to harm your baby.  Your baby is special.  It's going to be the most
special baby that has ever been born and you're going to be such a proud
mother!"

"Don't believe him!" she said, avoiding his stare.  "Please, someone,"
she said, looking at each of the other faces in turn.  "Call the police,
don't let him!"

They all stared back, watching her with concern, like medical students
grouped around some freak case.  One of the faces belonged to a woman
she had seen recently, but she could not work out how recently or where.
A badge.  This woman had been wearing a lapel badge, she remembered
suddenly, and now she could attach a name to the face.  Pat Caulk.  Yes,
the badge on her lapel, standing over her in Casey's room, PAT CAULK.
SNR NIGHT NURSE.

"Where am I?" Susan said.

"You are in the Cypress Palisades Clinic, Susan," Van Rhoe told her.
"You're in a very fine place, you're a fortunate young woman.  If you'd
collapsed somewhere else, you might not still be with us now."

"Casey?  How - how is -?" Then another wave pain drowned everything.

Through the haze of agony she saw a needle.  Felt a prick in her wrist,
then saw sticking plaster.  She was being cannulated.  She heard Van
Rhoe say, quietly, "We must wait for him, he doesn't want to miss this."
John?  Was it John they were waiting for?

The pain was subsiding, and her terror grew.  She tried again, looking
at everyone except Van Rhoe.  "Please, someone believe me!  He's going
to hand my baby over to Mr. Sarotzini.  They're all in league.  They're
satanists, they really are, I know it sounds incredible, but they really
do do these things.  They sacrifice babies."

They were looking at her, but they weren't reacting.  Didn't they hear
her?  Didn't they hear what she had just said?

Something was going into her arm, she could feel the pressure of the
fluid.

What are you all?  Shop-window dummies?  Hello?  Hello?

Then, suddenly, she felt calmer.  Tiredness was seeping through her. She
fixed each of them in turn with her eyes.  You don't care?  OK, fine.
You don't have a problem with what Mr. Sarotzini wants to do with my
baby? OK, that's fine by me, do it, have it on your conscience, it's not
my problem.  It isn't.

She smiled at them but they didn't smile back.

Morons, she thought.  Stuffed dummies.  Do you know how sh- sh-shilly
you all, you A voice asked quietly, "How much longer will she survive?"

Another, also quietly, said, "We have to keep her alive, somehow, until
he gets here."

Then silence.

John arrived home in mental turmoil.  The V6rn Bank had bought the
Cypress Palisades Clinic in September.  Why?

Why?

What the hell did they want with a clinic in California?  There was
only, one possible reason - and that was that they wanted the clinic
because Casey was there.  To think it was merely chance that she was
there would be stretching coincidence way beyond the bounds that he was
prepared to accept.

But why did they want or need to own the clinic where Casey was?  It
made no sense to him, and yet he knew there must be a reason.  Mr.
Sarotzini would do nothing without a reason.

He checked the phone for messages and also scrutinized the house,
looking for some sign that Susan had been back, if only to collect
something, but could see nothing.

He poured himself a whisky, sat down in the kitchen and lit a cigarette.
Either Susan had gone into hiding somewhere, maybe with a friend who
wasn't telling him.  Or...
Then he had a thought.  Hurriedly, he changed into his grubbiest jeans
and an old sweatshirt, took the step-ladder and a torch out of the
garage and carried them upstairs.  He set up the ladder beneath the
ceiling hatch, then clambered into the loft.

Using the flashlight and the meagre throw of the loft light for
guidance, he squeezed past the chimney breast and into the right-hand
side of the roof space where Susan had brought him just a couple of days
ago, and where he in turn had brought the policeman, Detective Sergeant
Rice. Some creature, a mouse, probably, scurried away into the shadows.

The beam struck the strips of roofing felt that hung down like sleeping
bats, and he eyed again, with revulsion, the occult symbols painted on
each exposed panel.  He lowered the beam to the joists, and it
illuminated more of the symbols that lay exposed where the insulation
had been lifted away.

He checked out the small metal box, that Susan had thought was a ringing
converter.  It was about four inches long, with Telecom markings, and a
cluster of wires ran out of it.  They were thin and looked, to his
untrained eyes, like telephone wires.  He followed them across to the
eaves where they entered a plastic junction box of a kind he had seen
many times before.

Ignoring it, he returned to the area where the joists had been exposed,
knelt, set down the torch carefully, and began, methodically, to rip
away more of the insulation.

After five minutes of exertion, his hands prickling with fibreglass
splinters, he nearly missed the wire.  It was pressed down neatly,
covered in black tape, which itself was camouflaged by a coating of
mastic to make it look like an innocent sealant.

He tried to lift it, but it would not budge.  It had been laid expertly,
nestling into a tiny channel that had been cut for it and held firm by
staples.  Someone had gone to enormous trouble to lay this wire, he
realised, as he tracked its course through meticulously drilled holes in
each joist, until he reached its destination, a small plastic-cased
object, recessed into the ceiling, directly above, he calculated, their
bedroom.

He went downstairs and returned with a set of screwdrivers, a pair of
insulated pliers, and insulating tape.  First he cut through the wire,
and wound insulating tape around the ends.  Then he set about unscrewing
the fixing plate that held the plastic object and, finally, after some
moments of struggling, he eased out the dome-shaped object.

It was heavy for its size, no more than a couple of inches across, and
from the tiny glass lens, less than a quarter of a millimetre wide, its
function was immediately evident.  He stared at it in shock.  He'd
reckoned on finding a bugging device up here but not a video camera.

He went down into their bedroom, switched on the light and stared up at
the ceiling.  It was easy to see why he had never noticed it: the hole
above the bed was scarcely larger than a pin prick, and concealed within
what appeared to be a natural crack.

Back up in the loft, he traced the wire along in the opposite direction,
pulling away the loft insulation as he went, and after a few minutes,
arrived at its destination: a shiny black metal casing, about a foot
long, eight inches wide and four inches deep, recessed snugly between
the joists and carefully camouflaged by two pieces of grubby hardwood
bonded around it.

There were no clues as to what it was, although he had a good idea.
Ignoring it for now, he began the laborious task of tracing the end of
each of the other eleven wires than ran off the device.  He found a
second camera above the room that Susan had decorated for the baby, and
further cameras above each of the other spare rooms, then all but one of
the rest of the wires disappeared into a wall channel that appeared to
drop down towards the next floor.  No doubt there were cameras watching
every downstairs room also.

The last remaining wire was more heavily insulated than the rest and
connected, he discovered, into the house's mains electricity supply.

When John climbed down onto the landing, holding the heavy metal box
under one arm, he was shaking with anger, outraged at this invasion of
his privacy but at the same time deeply disturbed.  He rang Gareth
Noyce's home number and got his answering machine.  Then he tried his
mobile, figuring he would probably be in his local pub in Camden Town.

From the background hubbub when Gareth answered, John knew he'd" guessed
right.  "Gareth, where are you?  In the Duke's?"

Gareth sounded giggly.  "They,"re having a regional ales night.  I'm
just drinking something called Dead Pig.  It's eight percent proof, for
Chrissake!"

"Listen, drink it slowly.  I need you to look at something for me - wait
till I get to you before you get pissed, OK?"

"Well, you'd better hurry," his partner said.

John got in his car, and started the arduous journey to North London,
hoping, desperately, Gareth would still be compos mentis when he got
there.

Focusing with some difficulty, Gareth removed one panel of the outer
casing of the box with a screwdriver purloined from the publican.

He squinted at the innards, screwing up his eyes against the trail of
smoke from his cigarette, then beamed with delight.  "Yes.  Wow!  Gosh,
there's an 851, I'm surprised about that.  Oh, this is interesting," he
said. "Yes, brilliant, that's really clever!"

John waited.  Gareth continued his examination and running commentary.
"This is powerful, I mean, like, there's more power than you're going to
need here.  Know how these work?"

"No, that's why I'm here," John said patiently.  He sipped the pint of
Dead Pig real ale his partner had insisted on buying him even though he
was driving.

"It's the first generation that doesn't need a wok," Gareth said.

"A wok?"

"A satellite dish.  This is an Iridium, right?  So it doesn't need a
satellite dish!"

John frowned.

"It sends signals digitally up to one of seventeen low-orbit
satellites."

"What kind of signals?"

"Anything - audio, video, e-mail.  They can be picked up by anyone who
has a base station, anywhere in the world.  The system's brilliant! I've
been reading about them but this is the first one I've seen.  I was
going to suggest to you that we ought to have these ourselves - they're
really just very sophisticated mobile phones."

Gareth probed around further with his screwdriver, like a child with a
new toy,.  scarcely aware of his partner's silence.

An hour and a half later, when John arrived home, the protective haze of
alcohol was wearing off, and he was now very frightened.  If Mr.
Sarotzini was behind this bugging of their house he would have known
everything that was going on.  Had Harvey noticed something in his
examination of Susan that he wasn't supposed to have seen?  But what?
And if he had noticed anything untoward, why hadn't he told them then
and there?

Fergus had died the night after he had been to see Susan and had put all
the occult thoughts in her head.  Why?  Had he angered Mr. Sarotzini -
or frightened him?  And now Susan had disappeared.  Maybe she had gone
into hiding.  Or, which was more likely considering what he now knew,
Mr. Sarotzini had become concerned and kidnapped her.

The sheet of paper on which Detective Sergeant Rice had written his
phone number hung from a hook on the dresser.  He pulled it down, then
removed the cordless phone from its cradle.  As he switched it on, the
tone indicated that a message was waiting.  With unsteady fingers he
stabbed out the number to retrieve it.

It was from his father-in-law in Los Angeles, and he was sounding very
distressed.

Chapter Fifty-eight

Susan opened her eyes and the room was empty.  There had been people all
around her and now they'd gone.  Or had she imagined them?

No, they had been real.  She panicked.  The baby?  Have I had the baby?
Have they taken -?

Bump's hands pressed hard against the inside of her abdomen and her
anxiety subsided.  "I'm not going to let them," she whispered.  "I'm
promised you, they won't take you, Bump, I'm not going -"

The wave of pain caught her unawares - it happened so fast she didn't
even feel it coming.  Oh, sweet Jesus.  She gritted her teeth,
determined not to shriek.  She was going to ride this one out, oh,
Christ, oh, you bastard, oh, you, shitcreepfuckyoufuckyoufuckyou pain,
oh, no, please, please, please stop. NOW! STOP!

She was gasping for air; she could taste amalgam in her mouth, and
blood; tears were streaming down her face.  But the pain had STOPPED!

And the room was empty.  There was no one in it.  Nothing!  Just medical
apparatus, shelves stacked with boxes of hypodermics, vials, surgical
gloves, disposable wipes.

She tried to swing herself off this bed - this thing, this trolley - she
was on, but her legs wouldn't work, the signals from her brain didn't
seem to be reaching them.  She pulled at the edge of the trolley with
her hands, hauled herself painfully over to her left.  For an instant
she was aware of air beneath her, then she was toppling, head first. She
flung out one arm to brace herself and the other she curled protectively
around her abdomen as she crashed, with a cry of shock, on to the hard
terrazzo-tiled floor.

Her left arm was suspended awkwardly in the air above her face, and she
thought for a moment she had broken it.  Then she realised that the drip
line was holding her like a foul-hooked fish.

She ripped the line out of the cannula, then put both her hands on her
abdomen to check on the baby.  Bump was moving around, he was fine.
Relieved, she crawled on to her knees and, holding the edge of the
troller, hauled herself up.  But as soon as she let go, her legs gave
way and she crashed back to the floor.  "Sorry," she whispered to Bump.
"I'm sorry." Desperately, she started crawling on her hands and knees
towards the door.  "Get you out of here, Bump, going to get you out of
here, somehow going to get you out of here."

The door was closed.  She grabbed the handle, pulled, and it swung open.
Outside was a corridor, and a sign on the far side saying THEATER 6.
People were approaching.  She could hear rapid footsteps and a trundling
sound.  Before she had time to close the door, two orderlies wheeled
someone past on a gurney but they didn't see her.

She made a determined effort once more to get up.  This time her legs
held, just.  She gripped the side of the trolley for several seconds,
until she felt confident enough to let go.  Her heart was thrashing, or
maybe it was the baby's heart, she didn't know.  She was only thinking
about one thing, and that was getting out of here.

Then she saw that all she was wearing was a hospital gown, and that she
was barefoot.

How long have I been here?

She looked at her wrist, but her watch had been removed.  Across the
corridor was an observation window into Theater 6.  Checking the
corridor both ways, she padded unsteadily over to it, praying for her
legs to hold. The clock on the wall said two twenty.

Confused, her brain leapt between time zones, trying to figure it out.
It had been around four in the morning that she'd got here, and now it
was two twenty?  It must be afternoon now, she reasoned, unless she'd
been here even longer than that.

Another wave of pain was starting.  And voices were approaching.  She
looked, frantically, for an escape route.  The corridor stretched into
the distance in both directions with operating theatres all the way
down.  She ran, stumbling and swaying, in the opposite direction to the
voices.  The pain was worsening, but she didn't care, she had to fight
it.  She ran past a window where an operation was in progress, glimpsed
a sea of green cloth, bright yellow light, a patch of bare human flesh.

Crossing a junction, she saw a door marked CHANGING ROOM, and burst in
through it.  To her relief it was empty.  There were racks of surgical
gowns, open lockers filled with white clogs, and several suit jackets
hanging on pegs.  Then, before she could do anything, a blowtorch fired
up inside her.

Stifling a cry, Susan sank, doubled up and drooling, on to a bench.
Don't scream not going to scream.  Teeth grinding, eyes bulging, nails
digging into her palms, she fought back.  Her insides were on fire, and
the flame of the blowtorch was being turned up stronger and stronger.
The pain was going to win this bout, she was swaying, she was going to
black out. Got to keep conscious.

The floor rose towards her.

She pushed it back.

Her head was spinning, trying to detach itself, to free itself from this
agony.  She clung to a gown hanging from a peg, held on to it grimly
with all the strength that remained to her and somehow, she didn't know
how, but somehow she rode this beast out until it sank back into its
lair, the flame flickered, receded, went out.

Susan staggered to her feet, feeling giddy as hell.  Going to faint. Not
going to faint.

A rack of gowns came towards her and she pushed herself away.  Head
between legs to stop fainting, she remembered, and she tried to do it
but the baby was in the way.  She took several more deep breaths, which
helped. She was going to be all right, she was getting stronger again.

She grabbed a gown, pulled it on, tied the tapes, then pushed her feet
into a pair of white clogs.  They were too big but it didn't matter. She
took a mask out of a dispenser, pulled it over her nose and mouth,
fumbled with the tapes.  Then, from another dispenser, she took a hat
that was like an elasticised J-cloth, and dragged it over her hair.

She looked in the mirror, and a sickly-looking nurse stared back.  Good.
Throwing a nervous glance at the door, she checked through the jackets
that were hanging up, patting them for bulges.  In the breast pocket of
the fourth she found what she was looking for: a cellular phone.

The power button lit up when she pressed it, and there was a reassuring
beep.  And the door opened."

Susan froze.

Two men in suits came in, doctors, she presumed.  They were deep in
conversation; one gave her a cursory nod, the other didn't even glance
at her.  She slipped out past them into the corridor, and as she did so
she saw a group of people walking towards the room from which she had
fled.

She turned and hurried away in the opposite direction, her feet slipping
around clumsily inside the cloggs.  There was a fire EXIT sign ahead,
down at the far end.  She broke into a stumbling run, reached the door,
pushed down the bar.  It opened.

She was outside.

It was daylight, and a light drizzle was falling.  She was at the back
of the clinic somewhere, in a service area.  Steam rose from a vent in a
low, one-storey building ahead that looked like an annex.

There were windows above her, and Susan pressed herself hard against the
wall so that she couldn't be seen from them.  Then, holding up the
phone, she tried to dial 911.  But her fingers were shaking too much,
and the wrong digits appeared on the display.  She lost valuable seconds
finding the Clear button, wiping the display and redialling.

As she was about to hit the Send button, out of the corner of her eyes
she saw someone emerge from a door at the far side of the courtyard.  It
was a nurse in uniform.  She looked across at Susan, smiled, then took
something from her pocket, and Susan relaxed as she saw what it was:
cigarettes.  The nurse lit up.

Susan turned and walked away, trying to look nonchalant, as if she'd
just finished a cigarette herself, and skirted around the side of the
building, trying to remember, from all her previous visits to Casey, the
geography around here.  The terrain.  There was the long driveway down
to the main road, a quarter of a mile or so.  No other road, just the
shrubbery of the canyon, and miles of arid scrubland beyond.

She pulled at the two-inch base of the aerial, trying to extend it, but
the top was broken and it wouldn't come out any further; then she
pressed the Send button, brought the phone to her ear, and moments later
heard the voice of the emergency operator.

"Police," Susan said.  "Quickly, please."

There were shouts right behind her, and she turned in alarm to see two
men sprinting towards her.  A third person, this one dressed in surgical
scrubs, burst out of a door behind them, and stared venomously straight
at her, before racing after the others, towards her.

Susan kicked her feet out of the clogs and stumbled into a run.  After
only a few paces, the pain started coming at her again, but she ignored
it, increasing her speed, trampling through a flower-bed, then tripping,
stubbing her toe and almost losing her balance as she blundered through
a low hedge and into a rockery.  Somehow she kept on her feet, put on
more speed, sprinting now in spite of her huge burden, running as fast
as she'd ever run in her life across prickly grass that was damp and
slippery from the drizzle.

Then she reached the tarmac of the driveway, and the footing was better.
A faint voice somewhere was saying, "Hello?  Hello?  Hello, caller, are
you all right?" For a moment she couldn't figure out where it was coming
from.

She turned her head to look behind her.  The two men in suits and the
one in surgical scrubs were only yards away and gaining on her.  Then
she yelled, breathlessly, into the receiver, "Please - help me, I'm, I'm
at -Palisades Cypress Clinic, Orange County.  Please - come - they -
murder my baby."

She didn't see the sleeping policeman that tripped her.  She just felt
an agonised jarring in her foot and then she was flying forward,
helplessly, and flung her arms around her baby as she smacked face down
on to the tarmac, the phone skittering out of her hand.

She could hear the footsteps of the men behind her and, near crazed with
panic, she scrambled forward, grabbed the phone and somehow got back on
her feet all in one motion.  The men were yards away now, at full
sprint, the one in surgical scrubs out in front was going to catch her.
She heard him calling out to her, his familiar, smooth, urbane voice.
"Susan, stop, you must stop!" ;

As Miles Van Rhoe reached her, grabbing at her shoulder, she lashed out
wildly with her arm at his face and, to her shock, the aerial of the
cellular phone plunged into his right eye.

Everything seemed to go into slow motion, as if she was seeing a video
in freeze-frame.  Blood gouted out around her fingers, which were still
gripping the phone.  Van Rhoe's surgical face mask fell away to reveal
his mouth hideously twisted.  Then his body began to fold in on itself,
sinking to the ground.  The cellular phone, grotesquely wedged in his
eye socket, slipped from Susan's grip.

Whimpering with terror, she tried to turn but, as if she were in a
nightmare, her feet would not move.  She lashed out with her left fist
at a second man who was trying to grab her, and punched him on the jaw.
He snatched at her gown and she punched him again, sank her teeth into
his wrist then twisted free.  Now her legs were working - but he had her
gown once more.  She pulled with such force that she ripped free of it,
stumbled forward and broke into a run again.  There was a line of trees
ahead, and then the road beyond that.  She could see the road.

It wasn't far.

It really wasn't far.

She didn't look left or right, she just ran straight out through the
white pillars, flailing her arms, screaming for help, the image of Miles
Van Rhoe sinking to the ground, with the cellular phone sticking out of
his eye and blood trickling down his face, blinding her to almost
everything else.  The road was empty.  Without pausing, she turned left
and started running downhill.  She could hear the footsteps inches
behind her; a hand grabbed her shoulder; she found another spurt of
speed; the hand grabbed her shoulder again.

She could hear a siren.

A glint of metal appeared ahead.

Then the most beautiful sight she had ever seen: a police patrol car
rounded the bend in front of her.  It screeched to a halt and before the
policeman even had a chance to open his door, Susan was there, at his
window, and he was smiling at her, a tubby man, with great chubby
cheeks.

It felt as if a huge lever had been pulled inside her, and everything
started to shut down.  She clutched the window frame as the door swung
open, and then he was holding her, had his big comforting arms wrapped
round her.

And now the pain was coming again.

She looked into the policeman's eyes.  "Please help me," she whispered.
"Don't let them take me back in there."

And then the pain erupted.  She doubled up, closed her eyes and just
heard the voices.  They sounded faint, so faint, they could be miles
away, she didn't care, she was safe now, the baby was safe, they were
both safe, she was with the police and she just had to deal with this
pain, that's all, her baby was safe, just the pain to deal with now.

One voice said, "I'm sorry, Officer, this patient's sister died last
night and she's flipped."

Another voice said, "She has a delusional personality.  She's imagining
we're going to take her baby away and use it for some kind of devil
worship."

Then the first voice, said, calmly, "She's dangerously sick - the poor
young woman has a gangrenous cyst, which is giving her peritonitis, and
this is causing her to hallucinate.  If we don't operate immediately we
are going to lose her."

Then a third voice, kindly but firm, said, "Lady, you hear that?  Can
you hear me?  Can you hear what I'm saying to you?  You're not at all
well, and you've cut your hand.  These kind people are going to take you
back inside now.  This is the best place for you to be, you just relax
now, OK?  If you have to be sick, this is the best place in the whole of
Orange County! They're gonna take good care of you.  Real good care of
you and your baby!"

Chapter Fifty-nine

"John?  I appreciate you returning the call," Dick Corrigan said.  "It's
-" There was a long pause.  John waited, impatiently.  "It's - John, I
don't - know how to put this -" he broke down in tears.

John felt a stab of panic.  "Dick, what is it?  What's happened?" He
looked at his watch.  Ten forty.  A quick calculation told him it was
two forty p.m. in Los Angeles.  The cushion against reality from his two
pints of Dead Pig an hour or so earlier was fast wearing off.

"John - ah - we've -" His father-in-law was fighting to control his
voice. John, waited, trying to give him space.  He had always liked the
man, partly because he reminded him of one of his early screen idols,
Henry Fonda.  Dick Corrigan had the same build, the same quiet dignity,
and John felt genuinely sad that success had never happened for him.

"I'm afraid something real bad's happened, John.  I - I - oh God..."
Dick Corrigan began to sob.

John went cold.  Oh, Christ, what the hell was it?  Nothing to Susan,
please not, please don't let anything have happened to her.  "Dick,
what? What's happened?" he asked, urgently.

"I - I'm sorry, this is -" There was another long silence.  "Casey -"
Dick said, getting her name out with difficulty.  "Casey's died."

It took a moment to sink in.  The room seemed to darken around him.
"Casey?" It was the last thing he had expected to hear.  "Oh, God," John
said.  "I'm sorry, Dick, I'm really sorry." But inwardly, although
shocked, he felt an enormous sense of relief- that it wasn't bad news
about Susan.  He tried to mask this in his voice.  "What happened?"

There was another long silence.  Then Dick Corrigan said, "Susan killed
her."

John almost dropped the cordless phone.  There was a terrifying baldness
in the statement that sent a slick of goosebumps coursing up his spine.
"What?  What did you say, Dick?  What do you mean?"

"It - was her air line.  Susan - did something - a connector - she
separated a connector - I - oh, God, John, what's happening?"

He was sobbing again.

A maelstrom of thoughts swirled through John's head.  The V6m Bank owned
the clinic.  Was this something to do with Mr. Sarotzini?  Some trick?
"Susan was in England.  She couldn't -"

His father-in-law composed himself.  "John, I wasn't straight with you
-last night when you rang.  I told you Susan wasn't here.  Well, she was
here. She - ah - she'd begged me and Gayle not to -"

"She's with you?  Susan's with you?  She's in LA?" John paced restlessly
around the room.  He sat on the edge of the kitchen table, stood up
again, crossed the room, leant against the sink, then turned, stared at
the window, at his stricken, ghostly reflection.  "You say she's with
you?"

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 blimking, 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
breastfeeding 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
klarrison 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 sen
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 language 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 Westwood Clinic during her insemination operation.

He seemed to chant for longer than the previous two, and when he had
finished, instead of turning away, Susan saw him move closer towards
her, and lean over the bed, lowering his face until it was inches from
her own. She could feel his breath, warm and minty, as if he had
recently brushed his teeth, and his skin smelt freshly washed or
scrubbed with a bland soap, and she could hear his breathing, which was
slow, long, deep sniffs, as if he was inhaling some substance - almost,
she thought, as if he were snorting coke straight from her skin.

She stared back at the face she could not see, petrified, trying to
shrink away, but the bedding beneath her would not yield.  I'm dreaming
this, I must be dreaming this.  Please, God, let me be dreaming this.

Her whole body was quivering, and the pulse in her wrist was jigging.
Was this the start of the sacrifice ritual she'd been reading about? The
Great Rite?

Could she take them by Surprise, grab Verity and run?

She didn't even know where her clothes were.  Run where?  Barefoot and
in her hospital gown?  Straight back into the arms of the same
policeman?

Thankfully the man moved away.  He opened the door then lingered,
staring at her, giving her a "long, strange look.  He seemed to be
smiling. Then he was gone.

And now the door opened again, and an old man appeared in a wheelchair,
being pushed by a nurse she recognised.  Nurse Caulk.  The man was
elderly, his eyes half closed as if he was blind, and he had a rug
around his shoulders.  The door closed and they were in darkness again.

Susan could hear Nurse Caulk wheeling him over to the cot, and then
heard his voice which, although frail and faltering, had a quality that
sent slicks of fear down Susan's spine.  There was something about it,
hatred, bitterness, spite, malevolence, conceit, all these things
underpinning the intonations, and delivered with an authority, a
mesmeric, oratorical style in spite of his ailing body that reminded her
of the shrill evil in Hitler's voice at a Nuremberg rally, and
penetrated deep into her soul.

She wanted him out of here; she did not want him in this room with her
baby, did not want him speaking to Verity, did not want him communing
with her.  She tried to tell him to go, now, at once, but her mouth
would not work, no sound would come out.  She just stared at his
silhouette, juddering helplessly.

Then the door opened.  Someone else was coming in.  And in the burst of
light she saw to her shock just quite how old this man in the wheelchair
really was.  A centenarian, at least.  His skin, gridded with creases
and mottled with liver spots, hung shapelessly from his cheekbones, and
his eyes, heavy-lidded, remained closed, like those of a basking
reptile.  Only his hair retained any vestiges of youth, carefully tended
and brushed immaculately in a way that reminded her of Mr. Sarotzini.

His gums had shrunk, like a corpse's, and his lips glistened with
spittle. It was like a rotting skull chanting to Verity.

Go, please go, get out, please go, go, GO A WAY!

But the words yammered silently inside her head.  He continued on, a
litany of evil pouring from his drooling mouth and his crumbling teeth.
Go away, please, go away, please, go away.

Then the man turned towards her.  The reptilian lids quivered, as if
they were about to open, and Susan shrank back in terror.  She did not
want to see his eyes, did not want to meet his gaze.  And at that
moment, the light faded again and the terror surging inside her, erupted
into a volcano of fear, and then she was falling, tumbling, being swept
helplessly by a breaking roller of molten lava into a searing turmoil of
darkness.

Chapter Sixty-two

Verity was crying.

Susan opened her eyes.  The curtains were opaque.  It was still dark,
but not as dark as it had been.  The blackness of the night had turned
to predawn shades of grey.

Verity was still here, thank God, thank God, thank God.

Fear, formless and indefinable, swirled through her veins.  Had she
dreamed of the people in her room?  She reached out, found the light
switch, pressed it, then blinked hard against the glare.  Verity's
crying strengthened.

"It's OK, hon, darling, Mom's here." Susan sat up, oblivious to the pain
in her abdomen and looked lovingly at Verity.  The wall clock said four
twenty.  She reached over and lifted the baby from her cot.  "It's OK,"
she whispered, tiredly.  "You're just a little hungry, that's all.  It's
OK.  You and me, we're OK."

When Susan next woke, the room was flooded with daylight.  Something was
wrong.

She couldn't hear Verity.

In panic, she sat up, wincing against the pull of her stitches and the
stinging pain from the incision in her abdomen, which seemed much worse
this morning, and looked anxiously into the cot.

Verity, wide awake, was staring back at her with her beautiful eyes.
Round black pupils in orbs of shining lapis-lazuli.

Relief that she was still here burst through Susan.  She reached over,
ignoring the pain, and kissed her lovingly on the head.  Immediately
Verity started crying.

"Hungry again?  You are on greedy little baby, you know that?  Well, I
think you're greedy, but I don't have much experience in these matters,
you know.  I mean, I haven't been a mother before and I guess you
haven't been a baby before, so we're both new to this, right?"

Susan glanced at the clock on the wall.  Eight ten a.m.  "Seem to be
setting ourselves a regular four-hour pattern."

Verity responded by crying even more loudly.  Holding her breath against
the pain of the movement, Susan hauled her out of the cot, hugged her,
then rocked her gently.  "It's OK, it's OK!  I'm not criticising you,"
she said soothingly.  Then, opening the front of her gown, she guided
Verity's mouth to her left nipple.

Verity gripped hard and Susan cried out in surprise.  "Owww!  Hey!
Steady as you go, OK?  Have a little care here, I'm fragile too!"

Verity settled down, sucking contentedly.  Susan watched her.  Then
suddenly her throat felt tight, constricted with fear.  She studied the
concentration on Verity's tiny pink face, loving her and fearing for her
more desperately every second.

There's no way I could ever let you go, not to anyone, she thought.

After Verity had finished feeding, Susan put her back in the cot, and
watched her curl up contentedly and go back to sleep.

Then she lay thinking.  Although she was able to move a little, every
movement hurt like hell, and she was severely restricted right now - she
was still catheterised and cannulated and still had the groin drain. She
opened the front of her gown wider and examined the stitches.  It was a
grisly sight, and she wondered, but didn't care right now, how bad a
scar she would have.

She had to phone someone who would believe her.  Her parents.  She had
to find a phone and call them, get them to come over with a lawyer. They
needed to get on to the surrogate helpline, get advice, find out where
they stood, contact the lawyer she'd been to see in England, Elizabeth
Frazershed have an associate over here, she'd be bound to.

A phone.

She looked around the room and could see where it ought to be, but it
wasn't here, it had been removed.

Her eyes watered and she clenched her hands with silent rage.  She felt
so utterly, utterly helpless.

A while later Nurse Dufors, all smiles as usual, came into Susan's room
with a breakfast tray.  She removed the catheter and the cannula and the
groin drain, and helped Susan hobble painfully the few steps to the
bathroom.

"Were you here last night?" Susan asked.  "All night?"

"No, I went off duty after your baby's midnight feed.  Did you come up
with a name yet?"

Susan hesitated.  She didn't want anyone to know, she decided, not yet,
she wanted to share as little as possible of her baby with, anyone here.
"I -haven't got that far.  I was expecting a boy."

"That's very common, you know.  A lot of mothers expect a boy and then
get surprised."

"I can understand that.  I don't know why I was expecting a boy."

"Girls are less trouble," Nurse Dufors replied, breezily.

As Susan sat down on the lavatory seat, she said, "I don't have a phone
in the room.  Could you do me a favour and bring me one?" Immediately
she caught the sudden stiffening in the nurse's face.

"No problem," she replied.

"And could we do something else - some time.  I'd like - I'd like to
show the baby to my sister, Casey.  Could you help me up to her room?"

Nurse Dufors turned away.  "Sure, I - I'll take you up - when you're
stronger.  I don't think today."

She helped Susan wash and get back into bed, then went out of the room.
Susan reminded her about the phone and she promised she would look into
it right away.

Susan forced down a little dry toast, although she wasn't hungry, and
drank some tea and apple juice.  Nurse Dufors did not reappear with a
phone.  Susan rang the bell above her bed then, exhausted, lapsed into a
doze.

When she next opened her eyes, her father was sitting beside the bed,
watching her, and her mother was standing over the cot, looking at
Verity with a strange intensity.  Susan smiled, feeling an immense sense
of relief. "Thank God," she said.

"She has your grandmama's eyes," her mother said, barely glancing at
her.

Suddenly her relief at seeing them was tinged with unease.  Susan wasn't
sure if it was her imagination, but her parents looked awkward, as if
they were posing for a Jan van Eyck tableau, and her mother's voice
sounded stilted.

"She's beautiful, isn't she?" Susan said.  The wall clock said ten
twenty-five. A while yet before Verity's next feed.  Good.  Lowering her
voice almost to a whisper, she said, "They're here, the people I told
you about, they've found me, they're gonna take the baby, you have to
get me - us -out of here."

Her father stared at her with an expression she could not read, his
Adam's apple bobbing inside his open-necked checked shirt.  He was
unshaven and, although he always dressed in casual, working men's
clothes, he never normally left the house without shaving.  He looked
gaunt and haggard, his skin drawn.  Once, when she had been a kid, he
had seemed so strong; now he looked weak, helpless - and old.  Susan
wondered, suddenly, whether he was sick.

Then she saw that her mother, too, was looking pale and drained, as if
she had been up all night.  And frightened.

"Has your father's nose," her mother said, in that stilted voice again,
as if she were trying to change the subject.  "A real Corrigan nose that
one.  See the way it turns up at the tip?" She moved away from Verity
and paced up and down the room, wringing her hands and looking at
Susan's father as if for help.

"We - we have to go.  You have to get me out of here," Susan said, even
more urgently than before.  "The people I told you about, don't you
remember?  The staff here - I think they're in league with them.  You've
got to get me - us - Verity and me, and I think maybe Casey, too, away
from here -"

She stopped as she saw the fleeting eye contact between her parents, and
her mind shot back again to the beeping warning signal, Casey's terrible
complexion, the disconnected air line.  "Is Casey OK?" she said,
suspiciously.

Her father looked at her again and she saw his Adam's apple bobbing
again, the way it always did when he was nervous about something.
"Casey's fine," he said.  "She - she's good."

Gayle Corrigan walked out of the room and closed the door behind her.
Her father sat still in silence.  It seemed to Susan that there was
something he wanted to say, but he stood up and went over to the window.
"Grand view," he said.

Susan couldn't believe this.  Shaking with terror now, she said, "Dad!
They're gonna take Verity!  Don't you believe me?" She raised her voice,
until she was shouting, not caring whether she woke Verity.  "Dad!  For
God's sake you have to get me out of here!  Daaaddddddd!  Listen!  Oh,
God, please LISTEN to me!"

The door opened and Nurse Dufors came in, followed by Susan's mother,
who was red-eyed, as if she'd been crying.

Nurse Dufors turned to the Corrigans and said, "I'm afraid she's finding
everything rather distressing at the moment.  Why don't you let her get
some rest today and come back tomorrow?"

Susan's father nodded.

"No!" Susan pleaded.  "Dad, Mom!  No, don't leave me, you have to take
me away - you -"

She couldn't believe her eyes.  They were just walking obediently out of
the room.  Her father stopped in the doorway, fixed her with another
stare that seemed to be a mixture of bewilderment, pity and reproach,
and then they were gone.

Nurse Dufors raised a finger to her lips and said, as brightly as ever,
"Susan, please, calm down!  You're going to wake your daughter!"

"Look, you don't understand, please -" Susan tried to get out of bed.
The nurse placed a firm but gentle restraining hand on her shoulder.

"You and your daughter both need rest right now."

Susan stared up at her: a pleasant face, handsome rather than pretty,
with dark hair pulled back a tad severely, in her mid-thirties Susan
guessed.  Could this woman help her?  "I - I need to talk to you, in
confidence."

The nurse suddenly produced two pills and tiny paper cup of water.

"Take these, Susan, and you'll feel much better." Susan looked at her
warily.  "What are they?"

"Mild painkillers."

Mistrustful, Susan feigned swallowing them, dropping them from one hand
into the other.  Then she said, "I don't want to stay here, I want to go
to another clinic - or hospital - or home."

The nurse frowned.  "You are in the best place in the whole of
California. Why do you want to move, Susan?"

Susan hesitated.  Would she believe her if she told her the whole story?
Maybe that's why her parents were acting so strangely - because they
didn't believe her, because they thought she was nuts.  Or had John
gotten to them and convinced them she was nuts?  "So why won't anyone
bring me a phone?" she asked.

Nurse Dufors smiled again.  "The phone!  I'll go get it sorted for you
right away!"

Susan waited until she was out of the room, then pushed the two pills
between the mattress and the covering slip.  She looked at Verity again,
still sound asleep, then lay back, exhausted, and closed her eyes,
listening for the return of Nurse Dufors" footsteps.

Chapter Sixty-three

To John's relief the flight took off on time, and landed early, twenty
minutes ahead of schedule, at twelve forty-five; but it was another hour
and a quorter before he was in a rental car and heading out on the
freeway towards Orange County.

Throughout the entire eleven hours of the flight he'd been churning over
and over the same territory, trying to work out what best to do when he
arrived, a steady fuse of anger burning inside him.  Whether he should
first try to convince Susan's parents of the danger Susan was in or go
straight to the clinic and deal with the situation as he found it.

Given what Dick Corrigan had told him over the phone about the air line,
the police were not an option.  Finally he ruled out his parents-in-law,
also.  He needed to speak to Susan, and hear her version of what had
happened with Casey.  He just could not believe Susan had harmed her kid
sister.  Unless...
The thought hung like a vapour trail.  Unless...  unless in some
twisted-up thought spiral Susan figured that by killing Casey she was
freeing herself of the financial obligation to support her and that,
therefore, keeping the baby and breaking the deal with Mr. Sarotzini
would be fine. Breakdown?

He found that hard to accept.  He knew Susan too well.  She was strong,
she was a coper.  Yes, she had been deeply upset by Fergus Donleavy and
Harvey Addison's deaths.  She had been spooked by what Donleavy had told
her about Van Rhoe and Sarotzini's occult connections.  But enough to
have pushed her over the brink and sent her to America to kill her
sister?  He didn't think so.

It was a fine afternoon, warm enough to turn on the air-conditioning in
the car.  John slowed as he approached the white Doric pillars at the
entrance to the Cypress Palisades Clinic, then deliberately drove on
past, checking out the place.  The gates were open and there was no sign
that any additional security had been introduced by its new owners.  ^
long line of sprinklers threw spray across the lawns, and a Hispanic
gardener was pushing a barrow laden with cuttings along a woodchip path.

Nearing, the grounds, the road wound up into a canyon.  He pulled up a
quarter of a mile on, turned the blue Chevrolet round, then killed the
engine and lit a cigarette, gathering his thoughts once more as he
smoked it.  He felt surprisingly alert after the long flight, the payoff
from sticking to soft drinks and eating little.

The VOm Bank had bought the clinic six months back.

They had told Dick and Gayle Corrigan that Susan had murdered Casey, but
they were going to keep it under wraps.

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.

Maybe they didn't want a scandal.  But Sarotzini had been watching them,
and listening to them ever since - how long?  Since before they had
moved in?  He would know that Susan was having doubts about handing over
the baby.  Maybe Sarotzini had decided to frame her, as a precaution.
She could hardly fight a custody battle if she had a murder charge
hanging over her head.

He wondered if he was being too far-fetched.  But he was beginning to
realise that, so far as Mr. Sarotzini went, nothing was too incredible.

When Susan next opened her eyes, Mr. Sarotzini was in the room, sitting
beside the bed, staring into the cot in a rather detached way.  He
looked more like a man admiring an exhibit in a museum, than a father
adoring his child.  She had no idea how long he'd been there.

"Good morning, Susan.  How are you feeling?"

She took some time to consider this question.  Her abdomen felt as if it
had just been used as a target in a knife-throwing competition, her
backside had gone to sleep, she had pins and needles in her thighs, as
well as a raging thirst and a.headache.  "Fine," she said, guardedly and
unsmiling.  Then she remembered, and said, petulantly, "I'd be even more
fine if someone brought me a telephone."

Mr. Sarotzini pointed to the bedside table, and she saw a phone sitting
on it, plugged into the socket.

"We removed it for your own protection, Susan," he said,
good-humouredly.

"What do you mean?"

"Perhaps it is better that you do not remember.  Your behaviour was
-shall we say?  - a little erratic yesterday."

"What do you mean, erratic?"

He raised a hand, as if to signal the subject was closed.  "And how is
Verity this morning?"

Startled, she asked, "How do you - know - her name?"

"It's a pretty name, so appropriate."

"How do you know it?" she asked again, more insistently.

He raised his eyebrows.  "Perhaps I know you too well, Susan."

She shook her head.  "No, I don't think you do, I don't think you know
me at all." She glanced anxiously at Verity, who was sleeping
peacefully.

Mr. Sarotzini continued to smile at Susan.  "I am so very proud of you.
You are going to make a wonderful mother, I always knew you would."

"What went on last night?" she asked, sternly.  "Who were all those
people, and what did they think they were doing - you, and all of them
-coming into my room?  And who was playing the music?  The flute?"

He folded his hands neatly together and gazed at Verity, with a
strangely distant look in his eyes.  "It was a little blessing ceremony
for the new-born child."

"A blessing?" she retorted, scathingly.

He turned his head and stared at Susan.  "My dear Susan, there is so
much you are going to have to learn.  There really is such a very great
amount."

Susan stared icily back at him.  "Mr. Sarotzini, Verity is my baby.  I
am her mother and you need to understand that what I say counts.  If you
ever again want to bring your weirdo friends to a party in my room in
the middle of the night, I don't care what your reason is, you ask me
first, OK?"

Mr. Sarotzini moved his focus from Susan to Verity, then back.  "Susan,
I know you've been dredging up the law on surrogacy and taking advice,
but you don't have to worry." He smiled again.  "You really do not have
to worry.  I just wanted to see proof for myself that you could love
this child as much as if she were a child of your very own.  And you
have given me that proof."

Susan's thoughts went haywire.  He knew?  He knew that she'd been to a
lawyer?  How?  Had John told him?

Of course he had.  John was in on this.  John had told him.

"I - I don't quite know what you mean," she replied.

"I think we can do business together, Susan, that's what I mean.  We
made one deal for you to have this baby, I think we can come to another
arrangement that will enable you to keep her."

She stared back at the aristocratic face, the silver-flecked hair, the
finely tailored suit, the elegant tie, feeling astonishment - and a
strong tinge of suspicion.  "I can - keep - Verity?  You're going to let
me?  Keep her?" "A baby belongs with its mother, Susan."

"What about your wife?"

He ignored the question.  "Tell me, how much do you love Verity?"

She gave a nervous half-laugh.  "I - I don't know, I can't measure it. I
love her with all my heart."

"Si parva licet componere magnis," Mr. Sarotzini replied.  ""If one may
measure small things by great." Virgil." He looked at Verity fondly, yet
with a certain distance, a remoteness.  "Your husband?  How will you
deal with this problem?"

Susan looked at him suspiciously.  What exactly had he and John agreed?
"When John sees Verity, I'm sure..." She hesitated.

Mr. Sarotzini said, "If you can imagine something, then it exists."

She frowned, still on guard, thin said, a little cynically, "So if I can
imagine John loving Verity, he will?  Just like that?"

"Indeed."

Suddenly, Susan understood what was going on.  Of course; "When we met
in London, you told us how much you and your wife wanted a child, and
that you couldn't have one because she had had a cancer operation. Was
it a boy you wanted?  A son and heir?  Is that why you don't want
Verity?"

There was a long silence.  She watched his face like a hawk, but instead
of shiftiness, all she registered was sadness.

"Susan," he said finally, "I told you a small white lie when we met." He
fell silent again.  Then he said, "I have no wife.  I have never
married."

The words hung in the air.  They didn't dissolve but they weren't
absorbed into Susan's brain for a long time.  She just heard them
repeating, echoing, endlessly going round and round.  The banker's face
was rigid, as if he were trying to shield himself from his own emotions.
His eyes had become two wells of sadness.

"Not married?" she says.  "You - you don't - you have no wife?"

And as she looked at him, she couldn't help feeling sorrow for the man
in spite of her shock.  But with it came the growing, angry realisation
that she had been conned.  And confusion.

"A small white lie?" she said.

He seemed to be ageing as they spoke.  His shoulders sagged, he clenched
his hands, and creases like fault lines were breaking out along his
forehead.  When he spoke, it was no longer the voice of a powerful,
man-of-the-world international banker, but the voice of a lonely old
man.

"Susan, I - I cannot explain this easily.  This is not something that
will take just a few minutes."

"I'm very confused, I don't understand what you want.  What's going on?"

"Let me try to explain.  You see, I am the last in the line of a very
old family.  We can trace our ancestry back in direct lineage for
twenty-five thousand years before the birth of Jesus Christ, the Great
Impostor.  I have a duty to pass on the baton.  I cannot be the one to
let this die out, to end this line, Susan.  Not now, not at this time in
history." He looked again at Verity.  "Not when our greatest dream has
finally come true."

"What baton?  What dream?"

He was quiet for a moment, and then he answered, "My religion." Susan
felt the hairs rise on the back of her neck.  Fergus's words came back
to her.  Was it possible?  The devil incarnate.  Was she was sitting
here with the devil incarnate and his baby?

Her baby.

Fathered by the man who had murdered Fergus?

Had she conceived the devil incarnate's child, carried it in her womb,
given birth to it?

She looked at Verity and then at Mr. Sarotzini, feeling a prickle like a
current running through her.  And there was a power coming from this
man, she could feel it.  Her skin was crawling as if it was alive with
static electricity.  But the devil incarnate?  What did it mean?  What
had Fergus meant?  What was the devil incarnate?  A madman?  An
obscenely rich dilettante with delusions of grandeur?

Someone who had the power to kill Zak Danziger, Harvey Addison, Fergus
Donleavy?

She looked at her innocent baby, then at Mr. Sarotzini again.  "What
religion?" she asked.  "You're a devil worshipper, is that it?"

He smiled.  His confidence seemed to be returning and, with it, his
stature and assurance.  "And you worship the Great Impostor, Susan, who
teaches us that we are all cursed with Original Sin.  That we are born
evil and corrupt and we can only obtain salvation through divine grace.
Through pouring money into a church collection box." His face regained
its normal good-humoured expression.  "Look at your daughter, look at
her - look at Verity.  Is she evil?  Is she corrupt?  Is that how she
has been born? Is that how you see her when you look at her, hold her,
suckle her?  An evil, corrupt monster?  Is it, Susan?"

"It's not that simple."

"No, you are right," he said wistfully.  "It is not that simple and we
have much to talk about.  It will take many days, Susan.  Perhaps at the
end you will still not agree with me, but you will understand the
validity of my reasoning.  And you will agree to bring up Verity in my
customs and in my family's religion."

Susan shook her head.  "I'm sorry.  I'll bring up my child in my customs
and in my religion.  You can't just walk into my life and think you can
buy my beliefs.  They're not for sale, I'm sorry.  End of story."

Mr. Sarotzini nodded, and sat in silence.  Verity rolled her head and
opened her eyes.  He touched the baby's hand with his finger, then stood
over her and made faces at her, trying to get her to smile.  Just
watching this intimacy made Susan angry and possessive.

Then, lowering his voice, as if he didn't want the baby to hear, Mr.
Sarotzini said, "I can ruin your life, Susan.  It will take just one
phone call."

It wasn't the words he'd said, or the way he said them.  It was
something in his face as he spoke that truly frightened Susan.  She saw,
for the first time, the power, an immense, dark power.  And it stripped
away all her new-found confidence.  Mesmerised, she said, "I - I don't
understand?" "You have been told that your sister, Casey, is dead?"

She stared at him in disbelief, as if convinced he was playing a game
and had said this to shok her.  "What?  What did you -?"

Her voice fell away.  "Casey?" she said, her scalp tightening.  He was
not playing a game.  Black, icy water swirled in her guts.  Mr.
Sarotzini went out of focus.  "Casey.  Dead?" There was a mistake here,
there had to be.  Please God let there be.

"You have not been told?"

She looked for some sign in his blur of a face, something she could
reach out to that could give her hope, that would tell her perhaps that
he had made a mistake.  Her voice came out as a squeak.  "Dead?" It
wasn't possible, "Casey was fine, she was alive, she -"

"I am aware how much you loved her, Susan."

He was so calm, so matter-of-fact.  Casey was dead and Mr. Sarotzini was
being calm.  She wanted to lash out at him, scream at him.  Instead she
spoke quietly, her voice stretched tight, at its outer limits, on the
verge of breaking up altogether.  "What - what do you mean, Casey's
dead?."

He returned her stare, saying nothing.

Something was all wrong.  about this.  Casey wasn't dead, she'd been in
her room, the air line - something - disconnected - Her grip on reality
seemed to be shrinking away from her.  She sniffed, her eyes filling
with tears.  "The nurse said - she said Casey was OK, she -"

"She's dead, Susan," he said, with a sudden coldness.  "Would you like
to see her corpse?"

She covered her mouth with her hand, closed her eyes, shaking terribly.

"It isn't true, please tell me it isn't true."

"She's dead."

"Wh - when?  When did - did she - die?"

"You know the answer to that, Susan.  You were in her room at four
o'clock yesterday morning, holding her severed air line."

And as she looked at him she saw what he was implying.  Tears streaming
down, she shook her head, barely able to believe this.  "Oh no," she
said.  "No, no, no, no, you've got this wrong."

He stared resolutely back at her.

"I loved Casey." She broke down, sobbing, and it was some moments before
she was composed enough to speak again.  "I loved her so much.  I agreed
to have Verity to help Casey, to pay for Casey to stay here, that's why
I agreed." She fumbled for a tissue to staunch the tears.  "I loved her,
Mr. Sarotzini, I couldn't harm - her, I -" Now she was crying too much
to talk.

Verity, picking up on her distress, began to cry too.  Mr. Sarotzini
lifted her from the cot and placed her in Susan's arms.  Almost
instantly Verity quietened, and the effect of holding her baby calmed
Susan a little also. She looked at him imploringly.  "Please tell me it
isn't true?"

Mr. Sarotzini said, "Susan, I believe you did not intend to harm her,
that what you did was caused by the emotional state you were in, and I
am sure that in your mind at the time you did it with the best
intentions."

"I didn't - I didn't do it, I did not kill her.  The air line was broken
when I got there.  Nurse - the nurse - Caulk, Nurse Caulk, ask her -"

Mr. Sarotzini looked at her with an expression of deep compassion.
"Susan, do you think I would entrust you with my child if I thought you
had really intended to harm Casey?  I believe it was a temporary state
of mind, a moment of madness borne from despair.  But would a judge and
jury believe you?" Suddenly, his tone hardened again.  "All I have to do
is pick up the phone and call the police and give them the affidavit I
have from Nurse Caulk, and you'll be spending the next ten years of your
life in and out of prison, fighting court battles."

Susan was unable to believe what she was hearing, and barely able,
through her grief, to comprehend.  "You think I did it?  You really
think I did it?"

"Do you recall what you did yesterday afternoon, Susan?  It was hardly
the behaviour of someone in their normal frame of mind."

Running.  She remembered running.  Lunging out.  Miles Van Rhoe sinking
to the ground with a cellular phone jammed in his eye.  Was that what he
meant?  Yesterday afternoon?

It wasn't a dream?

"And please think about this, Susan.  If I make that call, you will
never see Verity again.  I will be given immediate custody, no argument.
And, Susan, this is important for the future.  There is no statute of
limitations for murder in the state of California.  I can pick up the
phone right now, or in ten years" time, or in twenty years" time.
Perhaps at the end of it you'll get the death penalty, perhaps you'll
get life, perhaps you'll be committed to an institute for the criminally
insane.  possibly you'll go free."

"Please, please stop." She was shivering terribly, trying to think
straight, to think back to when she arrived, to reconstruct those
moments.  Could she have done it?

Casey is dead.

Could she have done it?  Could she?  Could Mr. Sarotzini be right?

Had she hurt Miles Van Rhoe, too?  Why hadn't he been in to see her? Had
she killed him, too?

Van Rhoe hadn't been in to see her because he'd gone back to England,
that was why...  if he had ever really been here at all...  yesterday
afternoon...  Reality was slipping away...  Do you recall what you did
yesterday afternoon, Susan?

A tremor rocked through her.  She hugged Verity even harder, as if the
baby was all the reality left to her in the world.  Her brain was
screaming at her no, no way did she harm Casey.

But it was also reminding her of all the discussions she'd had with her
parents and the doctors over the years, about not giving Casey
medication if she got sick and letting her slip away.  It was her mother
who had fought for the ventilator.  Susan had studied all the literature
available on people in persistent vegetative states, and believed that
Casey shouldn't have been given a ventilator.  If she could breathe on
her own, fine, but with almost zero brain activity, if she couldn't
breathe on her own, then was there any point in keeping her alive?

Oh, God, how she'd wanted her to slip away, wanted it so much.  In those
early days, she and her father had even talked about finding a way to do
it themselves.  Except neither of them ever could have done, they loved
her too much.  Didn't they?

Hadn't she?

And they had been hoping for a miracle, or a breakthrough in
neurosurgery.  It was possible: so long as Casey was still alive, it was
possible that one day she might smile and laugh again, and stand on the
stage at the Red Rocks and sing her heart out.

Do you recall what you did yesterday afternoon, Susan?

Mr. Sarotzini leant forward and stroked Verity's head lightly with his
index finger.  "Susan, I can't tell you how much it would hurt me to put
you through all this.  Not, of course, to mention the trouble I would
have in finding another mother as wonderful as yourself, but you must
believe that if you make me, I will do it, you will leave me no
alternative." "Then go ahead, do it." She nodded at the phone.  "Do it."

He looked at her seriously.  "You need to think this through, Susan."
"Do it," she said, bitterly.

"They will come here and arrest you, Susan.  I have the legal
documentation with me, establishing myself to be Verity's father.  I
will fly to Switzerland with her today and you will never see her
again." He continued to stroke Verity's head; she was fast asleep now.

Casey was dead.  Nothing mattered any more.  She didn't care what
happened any more.  She felt drained, her batteries were flat.  They
could kill her too.  As if in protest, Verity suddenly opened her eyes,
stared, blinking at Susan, then went back to sleep.  Me, she seemed to
be saying. Me, I matter.

Susan held her closer, tighter, suddenly jolted back to sense, and
lowered her voice.  "I won't bring her up under your terms, Mr.
Sarotzini.  I will not bring up my child to be a devil worshipper, or
any other loony things you might want her to do, I won't, so you'd
better make that call, just do it, do it now."

He lifted the receiver and calmly asked the operator to put him through
to the Orange County Police Headquarters.  Susan watched him, as if he
were some figure in a distant landscape, her thoughts in turmoil,
see-sawing wildly.  Casey was dead.  Verity was connected to that,
somehow. Casey, the air line, the dark room, the broken air line - she
could picture it so vividly.

Or could she?

Mr. Sarotzini said into the phone, "Homicide division, please."

She closed her eyes and heard him say, "Yes, good morning.  I am a
director of the Cypress Palisades Clinic, and I wish to report the
suspected murder of one of our patients." There was a pause, and then
Mr. Sarotzini said, "Of course, certainly." There was another pause.
"Yes, of course...  the patient's name...  it is Casey Corrigan." He
started to spell it out.

Something snapped inside her and Susan screamed at him, "Stop!  Please,
no, no, no."

Verity's eyes opened in alarm.  Susan was sobbing uncontrollably.
"Please don't, please, please, I didn't do it, I didn't, please.  Please
don't take Verity, too." She held her even more tightly.  "Please,
please, let me keep her, I'll be a good mother, I promise I will!" She
closed her eyes again, sobbing and hugging her baby.

There was silence.

The silence continued.  She opened her eyes.  Mr. Sarotzini was holding
out the receiver to her.  She took it and listened, unsure what she was
expected to say.  And then she realised.

There was no connection.

Mr. Sarotzini had an icy smile.  He took back the receiver and hung up.
"I think it is so wise that this was only a rehearsal, Susan.  Don't
you?" She said nothing.

And Mr. Sarotzini said, more kindly now, "It is the Nineteenth Truth
that tells us that only in the vortex of our deepest fear can we see
with true clarity."

Chapter Sixty-four

John slowed for a sleeping policeman, then accelerated on down the
drive.  As he came round to the front of the clinic, he saw that the
visitors" car park was almost empty, which was normal.  The clinic had
never seemed busy - he could barely remember seeing anyone other than
staff on all the previous occasions that he'd been here.

Maybe that feeling of privacy and seclusion was the reason for its
success, he speculated, as he locked the Chevrolet and walked, under the
watchful eye of a closed-circuit camera, through the automatic doors of
the main entrance, into the plush cool of the wood-panelled lobby. Today
the quietness made him uneasy.

"Help you, sir?" The man on duty at the desk was black, about forty, and
an honours graduate in courtesy.

"I've come to see my wife, Susan Carter."

"And your first name, Mr. Carter?"

John told him, he entered it on his keyboard and, seconds later, the
computer printed out his name, time of entry and pass number.  The guard
tore it off, slipped it into a plastic lapel holder and handed it to
John.  Then he picked up his telephone, stabbed a button, and said,
breezily, "I have Mr. John Carter to see Mrs. Susan Carter, two zero
one, Monterey Wing."

He replaced the receiver and gave John a beamer of a smile.  "Someone'll
be right with you to take you up." He pointed towards the cluster of low
chairs.  "Have yourself a seat."

"It's OK, I know my way around.  Tell me where she is and I'll find
her."

The guard gave him an apologetic look.  "I'm sorry, Mr. Carter,
everybody has to be accompanied - security policy."

"Wasn't last time I was here," John said, testily, and remained
standing, pacing around distractedly.  He picked up a brochure on the
clinic and flicked through it, glancing at pictures of the rooms,
operating theatres, views, the grounds.  But he could find no mention of
the new owners.

"Mr. John Carter?"

The voice was tinged with a guttural mid-European accent.  John turned
to see a tall, unsmiling man with close-cropped hair and massive
shoulders, staring at him.  Dressed in a dark, shiny suit, plain black
tie and shiny black loafers, he didn't fit here.  He looked like a
minder, not a medical orderly.

Guardedly, John said, "Yes."

"This way, please, you will follow me."

In contrast to his powerful appearance, the man walked lamely, in a
hobbling gait, as if he were in pain.  John followed him across to the
elevator, and as they stood waiting for it to arrive, he was aware that
the man was studying him intently.

"How is my wife?" he asked, awkwardly, feeling as if he was undergoing
some physical inspection.

The man bristled, as if John had asked a forbidden question, then
replied, stiffly, "She is satisfactory."

The double doors opened and John stepped into the car, which was wide
enough to accommodate a gurney.  Continuing to stare at him, the man
pressed a button for the third floor.

The doors closed slowly and a little jerkily, then the elevator began to
ascend.  Satisfactory.  Susan was satisfactory.  Whatever that meant.
Was Susan under guard?  Presumably.  To protect other patients from her?
Or, more likely, to prevent her from going anywhere.

"Slow elevator," John said, disconcerted by the scrutiny what was still
going on, and trying to break the awkward silence.  But the response was
a narrowing of the man's eyes and an even more intense stare.  Then John
noticed that the man's fists were clenched tight, his knuckles white.
His whole face was taut and he was quivering, as if struggling to
contain some private rage.

Alarmed, John eased himself back, away from him, but within a few inches
he was pressing against the wall.  The light on the panel indicated 3
and the car stopped with a jerk.  But the doors remained closed.

The man looked at them, glanced at the panel, then stabbed a button.
Nothing happened.  He tried again, with the same result.  Then, with a
sudden burst of fury, he punched one of the doors with his fist Then he
punched the door again, even harder.

John watched the display of temper, saying nothing.  He had a feeling
that if he opened his mouth, the man might switch his aggression to him
- he looked nuts, a psycho, well on the edge of losing it.

Without uttering a sound, the man took another swing, and this time he
struck the door with such force that John could see it bulge and light
appeared down the centre.  He hit it again, then again, then again, then
again, setting up a reverberating metallic drumming sound, and shaking
the car so violently that John became apprehensive that they were in
danger of plummeting downwards.

Then he stopped, and again tried a button on the panel.  The car jerked
up a couple of inches, halted, and the doors, mercifully, opened.

With the drumming sound still in his ears, and his temper worsening,
John followed the man out, down a corridor and into a small room
occupied by a secretary, who was concentrating on her keyboard and
barely glanced at them.  There was an open door behind her and the man
gestured for him to go through.

John entered a large, well-furnished office that smelled faintly of
cigar smoke, then stopped in his tracks.  Seated behind the desk, framed
by Venetian blinds behind him and a workstation to his right, was Emil
Sarotzini.

John stared at the banker, surprised.  It had not occurred to him that
he might be here.  The door closed behind him with a quiet click.

The banker stood up, smiling courteously, and extended a rigid hand.
"Mr. Carter, how very pleasant to see you here in the United States.
Please sit down."

John shook his hand coldly, and remained standing.  "I asked to be taken
to Susan, not to you."

"In good time," the banker said.

"I want to see her now.  How is she?"

"I have just been with her.  She is fine."

"That's not what I've heard."

"She is fine, Mr. Carter, I can assure you."

"I'm not interested in your assurances."

Remaining calm, Mr. Sarotzini replied, "Perhaps I should remind you that
you were interested a year ago, Mr. Carter, when I was all you had."

"Yes.  I must have been a bloody fool.  I had no idea quite how
ubiquitous you were."

The banker looked at him quizzically.

"What a coincidence that your bank should acquire the one clinic in the
world in which Susan's sister is a patient," he said sarcastically.
Then, digging in his jacket pocket, he produced a tiny dome-shaped video
camera, and thrust it across the desk.  "I think this belongs to you."

Mr. Sarotzini cradled it in his bony fingers, examining it for some
moments.  "No, Mr. Carter, I regret I am not familiar with this object.
It is a lamp of some kind, perhaps?"

"Let's cut the crap.  I  found twelve of these concealed in the ceilings
of my house and a satellite transmitter.  You've been bugging Susan and
me. You've been spying on us.  Is this how you get your rocks off?.
Watching us in bed?  This is outrageous, grotesque."

The banker sat down and made a gesture for John to sit also, which he
ignored.  After studying John solemnly for some moments, seemingly deep
in thought, he said, "Events have proven the surveillance to have been a
wise precaution, Mr. Carter, would you not agree?"

"I didn't think voyeurism was your style, Mr. Sarotzini.  For some
foolish reason, I thought you were a gentleman.  You're not even going
to apologise?"

"On the contrary, Mr. Carter, you should thank my colleague, Mr. Klindz,
for his foresight." Mr. Sarotzini inclined his head, and John suddenly
realised that someone else was in the room.  He spun round and saw that
it was the man who had brought him up here.  He was standing behind him,
squarely blocking the door, and acknowledged John's glance with a hint
of mockery in his eyes.

Mr. Sarotzini's tone became icy; "Perhaps you would care to explain, Mr.
Carter, why your wife disobeyed Mr. Van Rhoe's explicit instructions not
to leave London and instead, recklessly, with no thought of the baby's
well-being, flew out here?"

Angrily, John replied, "I'd have thought you knew the reason, since
you've been able to hear everything in our house for God knows how long.
She was scared, OK?  Zak Danziger died, then Harvey Addison, then Fergus
Donleavy.  The one connection between all three was you.  And she was
informed that her wonderful obstetrician, whom you insisted on, Mr.
Miles Van Rhoe, has a Scotland Yard file as a devil worshipper.  And now
my friend Archie Warren's in a coma, and guess what?  He was trying to
find out information about you when it happened.  Then I find that the
V6rn Bank has bought this Clinic - and suddenly Susan's sister is dead.
And -" John checked himself from saying something about Emil Sarotzini
the war criminal, who had died in 1947.

Mr. Sarotzini looked at him impassively.  "These are serious
accusations, Mr. Carter.  I think perhaps you are experiencing some of
the stress that your wife has been under You must be tired after your
flight.  Would you care for some refreshment?  Coffee, perhaps?"

"I want to see Susan.  I want to hear her side of what's happened,
before I hear from anyone else, OK?"

"Of course." The banker raised his hands expansively.  "In a few
moments.  We need to talk first, to understand each other a little
more."

John shook his head.  "No, I want to see her now.  I want to see my wife
right now.  Then I'll come back and talk to you, if I'm happy - and if
I'm not happy, I'm calling the police."

Mr. Sarotzini examined his keyboard tapped out a command, then swivelled
the monitor towards John.  It showed in colour, Susan lying at a
lopsided angle in a bed, breastfeeding a baby.  The clock on the wall,
clearly visible above her, showed the time as being now.  This wasn't a
recording, it was live.

Relief burst through him.  She was all right.  Susan was all right,
alive. Thank God for that.

He leaned forward, closer, watching in a swirl of emotions.  "When did
she have the baby?"

"Last night, Mr. Carter.  She's a very healthy little girl.  They are
both doing excellently.  I can understand your wish to speak with her,
but there are important things that you should know first.  Please sit.
This is going to take a little time."

John hesitated, then looked over his shoulder: the flunkey was still
resolutely blocking the door.  The sight of Susan had defused some of
his anger, and he sat down in front of Mr. Sarotzini, then watched Susan
again.  She was looking at the baby and there was a tenderness in her
face, such incredible tenderness.  It moved him and, at the same time,
gave him a pang of anguish.  It was going to devastate her to let this
baby go.

"You have been informed, I believe, about the death of Susan's sister,
Mr. Carter."

He looked at the banker.  "I had a phone call from Susan's father
telling me something totally crazy - that Susan had killed Casey.
There's no way, absolutely no way, that Susan would have harmed her."

Mr. Sarotzini nodded, apparently sympathising with his view, then he
said, "I'm afraid it is much worse than that, Mr. Carter.  Your wife has
killed her sister, Casey, and she maimed Mr. Van Rhoe.  He has lost an
eye and he has irreparable frontal-lobe brain damage.  He is paralysed
down the entire length of one side of his body, and he will never work
again."

"Van Rhoe?  Miles Van Rhoe?" John stared back at him in disbelief.  "Her
obstetrician?  Susan was responsible?"

"I regret so."

This was absurd, totally ludicrous.  Some bizarre practical joke was
going on, some test he was being put through.  His eyes went back to
Susan, who was transferring the baby to her left breast.  He laughed,
thinly.  "Come on!"

But there was no humour in the banker's face.  "It is not something I
would have thought your gentle wife capable of, Mr. Carter.  But how
often do we really know anyone?"

The banker tapped out another command.  The image on the screen changed
from Susan breastfeeding, to the exterior of a building.  It was the
clinic, John presumed from the style of architecture, although he didn't
recognise this part.  A figure emerged from a door, dressed in green
scrubs, wearing a surgical face mask and cap, and holding a cellular
phone.  The camera zoomed in tightly on its face.

For a moment it was too difficult to make out just from the eyes, who it
was, but it seemed to be a woman.  Susan?  Then, as she dialled the
phone, she tugged the mask down from her face, and John could see
clearly that it was Susan.  Suddenly, she looked over her shoulder, then
began to run.

Other cameras picked her up from different angles as she raced across a
flower-bed, a lawn, then down the drive, three men appearing behind her
now, chasing her, two in suits, ore in surgical scrubs.

John watched in horror.  Susan tripped over a sleeping policeman and
sprawled headlong onto the tarmac drive.  She scrambled forward on her
hands and knees, grabbed the cellular phone, which had fallen from her
grip, and stood up.  The man in surgical scrubs had caught up with her
and put a restraining hand on shoulder.  In a reverse camera angle John
could see the man's face: he was about sixty and puffing with exertion.
In that same split second, John saw Susan strike out and stab him in the
eye with the pointed aerial end of the phone.

Blanching in shock, John watched the man, whom he presumed must be the
obstetrician, sink to his knees with the phone jammed in his eye, then
fall sideways.  The camera zoomed in on his face.  Blood rolled out
around the phone; the man lay still.

Mr. Sarotzini switched off the replay, then slowly, as if he had all the
time in the world, formed a bridge with his fingers, and studied John
across the top of it.

John stared back at the banker, feeling sick, the image burning through
his mind, replaying itself over and over.  There was a tremor in his
voice. "Wh - what was he trying to do to her?"

"Mr. Van Rhoe was going to deliver the baby, Mr. Carter, that was all.
She was his patient.  She ignored his instructions to remain in London,
and did a very foolish thing, getting on an aeroplane and flying out
here. He very kindly agreed to come out "himself, to b available for
her."

"How fortunate she came to a clinic you owned."

Mr. Sarotzini ignored the barb.  "I'm afraid Susan has been suffering
some form of breakdown, Mr. Carter.  Her behaviour has been most
erratic."

John leant forward.  "Do you blame her?  If I was pregnant and
discovered my obstetrician was on a police file for devil worship, I'd
run too, Mr. Sarotzini." He watched the banker's face very closely.
"Perhaps you knew all about that.  Perhaps that was the reason you
insisted Susan go to him in the first place."

Mr. Sarotzini sat up straight, and looked deeply hurt.  He sounded hurt,
too.  "I think, Mr. Carter, you misjudge me.  I admit I have kept your
wife under surveillance although, as you may be aware, this is not
against the law in your country.  But have I, in any other respect,
behaved in an untoward manner to either of you?"

John stared back at him in silence.  He was trying hard to think his way
through what was happening, and had no immediate answer.  Was he making
a serious misjudgment in accusing the man?

"Mr. Carter, I have saved your business and your home, and I have tried
not to interfere with your lives.  We made an agreement and I have stuck
strictly to my end of it.  Regrettably, your wife has not.  She has
sought help from surrogacy groups on the Internet, she has consulted
lawyers, she has disobeyed her doctor's instructions, she has shown
every intention of breaking our agreement and keeping the baby, which is
why she is here, and it is why, as you have seen in that regrettable
video footage, in an act of total madness she fled from the clinic and
savagely attacked Mr. Van Rhoe."

Mr. Sarotzini's face tightened with anger.  "And now you have the
effrontery to come here, making insinuations to me about the deaths of a
composer and two other people, and about someone else who is in a coma,
and to imply that in some way our acquisition of this clinic is
connected to the death of your wife's sister." He pointed to the phone
on the desk.  "Go ahead, Mr. Carter, phone the police, please.  It will
make us both more comfortable.  Ask them to come here.  Tell them you
wish to make a statement." He lowered his eyes.  When he looked up at
John again, he said, "And inform them that the directors of the clinic
wish to make a statement also." He pushed the phone towards John.
"Please, just lift the receiver, ask the switchboard to connect you."

John pressed his hands tightly together.  They felt clammy; his whole
body felt clammy.  He swallowed.  Mr. Sarotzini pushed the phone even
closer towards them, and then, in a sharp jerk, even closer still.  John
fixed his eyes on it.  There were two rows of memory buttons, each with
a small plastic window containing a typed name.  With a sharp screech on
the polished desktop, the telephone moved closer still towards him.

His eyes remained rooted to it.  He was unable to lift them, unable to
look Mr. Sarotzini in the face.  The hideous image of Van Rhoe
collapsing to the ground seemed to reflect at him straight from its grey
plastic casing. "Would you prefer that I make the telephone call for
you?"

John looked up, bleakly.  Susan had been trying to escape, Christ she
must have been desperate.  But a confrontation here with Mr. Sarotzini
wasn't going to get them anywhere.  She had - allegedly - killed Casey
and the police had not been informed.  She had stabbed Van Rhoe, and
again no one had called the police.

Was Sarotzini trying to protect Susan?

Or hide something?

"I'm going to talk to Susan before I make any decision," John said. Mr.
Sarotzini gestured with his hand.  "Mr. Klindz will take you to her room
- but a word of warning first, Mr. Carter.  I think you need to be
careful about what you tell your wife.  She is in a state of
considerable mental distress.  She knows, although she is reluctant to
believe it, that she was responsible for her sister's death by
disconnecting her air line.  But she seems to have blotted from her mind
her attack on Mr. Van Rhoe.  It is fortunate that there were no
witnesses to this incident other than our own staff." He inclined his
head, giving John a knowing look.

"Fortunate or convenient?"

"I don't think Susan would cope very well with the duress of a police
interrogation at this moment.  Would you care to see her indicted on a
homicide charge?  And, possibly, an attempted homicide charge as well?
She is in a mental state where she is unable to separate reality from
what is in her imagination.  In time, with gentle treatment and care,
she will come out of this.  To inform her of Mr. Van Rhoe's condition
might, I fear, push her over the brink."

John considered this.  Susan's behaviour in recent weeks at home had
given him concern, however much he did not want to admit it to himself
now or to Mr. Sarotzini.  "She's been in constant pain for months.  It's
not surprising that -" He checked himself Mr. Sarotzini opened out the
palms of his hands to John.  "Who knows? Perhaps it was the combination
of pain and stress - almost certainly, I would say.  The emotional
turmoil of all she is going through.  It is harder than people realise
to give birth to a baby and then hand it over, never to " see it again.
Much harder."

"Yes," John said.  "I've learned that."

Mr. Sarotzini was looking at him strangely now.  "Susan loves that baby
with all her heart."

"I know." John said quietly.  "I think it would be best if you were to
take it - from her - now.  Every minute that Susan spends with her is
going to make it harder.  Please take the baby, give me back my business
and our home -that's all I want.  Just take her and let us have our life
back."

For what seemed an eternity Mr. Sarotzini studied John in silence.  He
pressed his fingertips lightly together, forming a bridge once again
with his two hands, and continued to study John over the top of them,
his eyes never leaving John's, as if he was reading something written
inside them. Then he said, "I think now it is time for you to go and see
Susan."

Chapter Sixty-five

Susan looked up in alarm as John opened the door, shrinking away from
him against the headboard and flinging a protective arm around her baby,
which continued suckling her exposed breast, obliviously.

He smiled and received a silent, wary stare in return.  She was pale and
drawn.

"Hi," he said, hesitantly, closing the door behind him, aware that
almost certainly Mr. Sarotzini was watching him, and avoiding looking up
to where the camera might be, not wanting to alarm her further.  He
shrugged at her and smiled again.  "How you doing?"

The room had a sickly sweet smell of baby powder, fresh laundry, and
something else that John couldn't identify but always associated with
new-born babies.

He looked, curiously, at the infant, at its tiny face and minute hands.
It's nose was a miniature replica of Susan's, he thought, and its
flame-red hair was Susan's too, and this surprised him because - perhaps
the situation would have been easier to accept that way - he had
imagined the baby would have only Mr. Sarotzini's features.

Feeling a heave of emotion, he walked across to the bed, sent down and
kissed Susan lightly on the forehead.  She did not respond.

"She's lovely," he said.  "Looks like you.  Has your hair and your
nose." He wanted to touch the baby There was so much of Susan in her -
it was even more evident now that he was closer - but a warning gong in
his mind made him hold back, told him to keep his emotional distance.

She dropped her eyes.  "Her name's Verity," she said, in a flat,
detached voice.  And then in the same tone, almost matter-of-fact, she
said, "Casey's dead."

"I heard." Then he hesitated.  "I'm sorry, darling, I'm -" He wasn't
sure what he felt or what to say.  "I'm really sorry," he said, lamely.
He reached out with his hands to touch her, to comfort her, but still
she did not look at him, keeping her eyes fixed on the baby.  He stroked
her shoulder lightly, then laid a finger against her cheek but there was
still no response. "He said I killed her."

John waited a beat, then said, "Who said that?"

"He said I killed Casey.  That I disconnected the air line."

John watched a solitary tear roll jerkily down her cheek; it was
followed by another, then another.  He pulled out his handkerchief and
dabbed them.  It felt like being in a room with a total stranger, not
his wife. "Who said so?" he asked.

"The nurse.  Nurse Caulk.  Mr. Sarotzini said Nurse Caulk had told him."

Still without looking up at him she said, "It wasn't like that, I didn't
- I -" He dabbed away more tears.

"My parents think I killed her, too.  I didn't, John.  People can say
what they want, think what they want, but they can't take away the truth
from you, can they?"

"No," he replied.

"She was my reason for living."

There were a couple of hard chairs in the room.  John pulled one up to
the bed and sat down, ignoring his hurt feelings at the remark.  "I
know. You did everything you could for her.  She was lucky to have had
you." He looked at the baby again, at the tiny puckered mouth sucking
greedily, and at the hair, the flame-red Susan hair and the tiny
turned-up nose.

He searched for traces of Mr. Sarotzini in its face, but could see none.
It was all Susan, just a miniature clone of her.  Or perhaps that was
wishful thinking.

"You were a wonderful sister to her," he said.  "You did everything you
could for her.  You made her life a lot nicer than -" He fell silent,
thinking of the video he had seen of Susan plunging the aerial of the
mobile phone into Van Rhoe's eye, and shuddered.  Mr. Sarotzini had been
right not to tell her: she was in a bad enough state of shock as it was.

Then he leant forward and whispered in her ear, not caring whether he
could be overheard or not, "I don't believe you killed her.  And I love
you more than anything on earth."

She looked up at him, a fleeting, uncertain glance, then silently back
down at the baby.

He watched her with a heavy heart.  What a mess he'd got her into.
Suddenly he found himself hating his bank manager, Mr. Clarke.  Mr.
Clarke with his Bible on his desk was to blame.  If he'd only let things
be, the business would have turned round and none of this, none, would
have happened.

And now his wife was lying in a hospital bed, accused of murdering her
sister and maiming another man, and a stranger's baby was suckling her
breasts.

Oh, God, how had he ever let himself agree to Sarotzini's crazy demands?
Why hadn't he been strong enough to say no, forget it?  They could have
coped - Off, they'd have lost the business and the house, but they would
have had each other.  Instead, they had this nightmare that was
destroying them both.

Susan glanced up at him, watched him for some moments, then gazed down
at her baby again.  She said, very quietly, "Mr. Sarotzini is going to
let me keep her."

John looked at her in amazement.

And then, peering nervously up at John again, she asked, "Are you?"

Chapter Sixty-six

The first visitors came at two fifteen the following afternoon.  An
elderly, rather shabby couple, dressed in clothes of good quality but
which should have been given to a jumble sale years ago - or perhaps had
come from one, John thought.

The woman's badge read Mrs. M.  Lebovic.  She had blue-rinsed hair, ruby
lipstick, gaudy jewellery and wore a velvet cloche hat.  Mr. S.  Lebovic
carried a trilby in his hand, wore a drab, frayed tie and looked meek.
They might have been Hungarian, John thought.  Or Polish or Rumanian,
somewhere like that.

"She's beautiful," the woman said, in a thick Brooklyn accent, ignoring
both Susan and John and stepping right up to the sleeping cot.  The man
followed her, approaching Verity with an air of humility and awe.  Then
both of them stood still, as if the cot were an altar, closed their eyes
and mouthed a silent prayer.

It reminded Susan eerily of the night that Mr. Sarotzini and the other
people, including the old man in the wheelchair, had come into her room.

"Are you friends of Mr. Sarotzini?" John asked, taking an instant
dislike to them.

The man carefully levered a package wrapped in old newspaper from his
raincoat pocket and, ignoring John, held it out to Susan, who was
watching him warily.  "Please," he said.  "For the new-born."

The object was surprisingly heavy, and Susan nearly dropped it.  She
pulled off an elastic band, then unfurled the paper to reveal a dark
green figurine.  It was neither human nor animal, probably some
mythological creature, she assumed, not caring for it very much.  "Thank
you," she said, uncertainly.

"It is her heritage," the man said, then turned to follow the woman, who
was already at the doorway.

"Wait," Susan said.  "I don't know your connection with -"

They were gone, leaving more quickly than they had arrived as if anxious
that they had outstayed their welcome.

She gave John a who-were-they?  look.

"Mr. and Mrs. Lebovic." He took the statuette from her.  "Friends -
Christ, this is heavy - friends of Mr. Sarotzini?  Relatives?  What did
he say?  It is her heritage?  What the fuck does that mean?"

Susan looked at Verity, who was sleeping peacefully.  "Maybe it's some
family heirloom they've been keeping."

John turned the statuette over, searching for some clue as to its
provenance.  He knew little about antiques; this felt old, its texture
smooth, like glass on a beach polished by the sea and sand, and he
guessed it was malachite.  It had graceful legs, like a racehorse, a
male human torso and a scaly head that reminded him of a gryphon.  It
did not repulse him, but it was unattractive, rather sinister-feeling.
"Don't think I'd mind too much giving this away if it was in my family,"
he said.

"It is, now," she replied.

Their eyes met, for an instant, then John looked away.  Susan's emotions
were a minefield and he needed to pick every word he said with care.  He
examined the statue again, wondering if it had some occult significance,
but said nothing.

Last night, he'd slept in a room adjoining Susan's.  He'd had only one
further conversation with Mr. Sarotzini after his confrontation with him
yesterday afternoon, in which the banker had informed him that he had to
return to Europe on business, and would leave him and Susan to consider
their position.  Mr. Sarotzini told him he could stay at the clinic for
as long as he wanted, and strongly advised him to remain with Susan
until she was fit enough to return to England.  John had no intention of
doing anything else.

Susan had been seen this morning by her new obstetrician, a courteous
Swiss of few words named Dr. Verlag.  Under John's questioning he told
them he had removed a small ovarian cyst after the Caesarean and that
Susan was fine, she would be able to mother as many more children as she
wanted.

No mention was made of Miles Van Rhoe, and John thought that that was
for the best, for now.  Just let her keep it blotted out until she was
in a stronger mental state.

This morning, Susan had again told John exactly what had happened when
she'd arrived in Casey's room.  He wanted to believe her, and what she
said had that indefinable ring of authenticity about it.  And yet there
was a question mark that hung like a gallows across his mind.

If Susan was able to blot from her mind her attack on Van Rhoe, then was
it possible that she had killed Casey and was blotting that out, too?
Could Sarotzini possibly have been telling the truth? She had a motive:
with Casey dead, she had no financial obligations to prevent her
absconding with Verity.  But would Susan really have put her love for
her unborn baby higher than her sister's life?  Not if she was normal.
But if she was having a breakdown...  if the balance of her mind was
disturbed...  then what?

And he had a feeling that Susan was holding back from telling him
everything.  She wasn't sure about him, she wasn't sure at all.

Ten minutes after the Lebovics had departed, the second visitors
arrived. Mr. and Mrs. Stone, a decade younger than the Lebovics and much
better dressed ond, John guessed, also of middle European origin.  Like
the Lebovics, they, too, were interested only in Verity, virtually
ignoring Susan and John, except to hand them a gift, this time in a box
tied with ribbon, a magnificent gold chalice that John boggled at and
reckoned must be worth thousands.

Visitors continued to arrive in an intermittent trickle throughout the
afternoon.  Concerned at the stress on Susan, John spoke to the
obstetrician, asking if he could put either a restriction or a total ban
on visitors, at least until she was stronger, and Dr. Verlag's curt
response was that these people admired the great man, Emil Sarotzini,
and had come, many of them right across America, to pay respects to his
child.  It would be an insult to reject them.

There was no let-up each afternoon for the next three weeks.  The
visitors were invariably polite, but mostly reticent, normally
addressing Susan and ignoring John.  All brought a gift.  Some of the
women also dispensed advice for care of the baby, about nutrition,
sleeping positions, room and bath temperatures.  Susan was given
remedies for colds, herbs for Verity's bones, and advice on vitamins to
add to the baby's milk once she moved from breast to bottle feeds.

The visitors were invariably middle-aged to elderly, some more
affluent-looking than others, and although just about every race was
eventually represented, mostly they were white and predominantly of
central European extraction, John judged from their appearance, their
names and sometimes their voices.

The first few afternoons he stayed in the room, watching them carefully,
and exchanging comical glances with Susan as some departed.  Although
she was tired, Susan was, at least, showing signs of regaining her sense
of humour.

Many of the gifts were antiques, and dark green or black were the
favoured colours, malachite, wood or marble, and often wrapped with
black silk ribbon.  But there were also some in brass and gold.  The
largest gift was an ornately carved black lacquered crib.  A couple
delivered it with great pride and said it had been in their family for
centuries.  After they had gone, John and Susan exchanged a look of
horror.  Susan said it gave her the creeps having it in the room and
John removed it, putting it in the trunk of his car, and donated it to a
startled couple he found in an LA suburb preparing for a garage sale.

There were censers, crucibles and other jars and vessels, and a large
amount of old jewellery, some beautiful, but much of it vulgar and showy
with huge stones.  The gifts Susan liked best were the linen, which
several people brought with pride, the finest Susan had ever seen or
touched.  She had John remove all the overtly.occult gifts and store
them away, not wanting her parents, who came every morning, to see them.

John did some work for DigiTrak, visiting existing clients on the West
Coast and trying to drum up new business, although his heart wasn't
really in it.  Mostly he bided his time, thinking, trying to understand
what was happening, watching Susan, talking to her and trying to coax
back into their relationship the closeness they had once had.  But
always Verity lay between them, like a brick lying in the shattered
glass that had been their love.

Susan continued to insist that Mr. Sarotzini had said she could keep
Verity.  John did not contradict her, presuming that the banker had his
reasons.  Perhaps he, too, was concerned about Susan's sanity, and was
allowing her to keep the baby until she was strong enough mentally to
cope with parting from her.  Although John suspected that the man was
too ruthless to let feelings of that kind cloud his judgement, and that
he must have some other agenda.

And he felt also that it was a bad decision.  The longer Susan spent
with Verity, the harder she was going to find parting with her.  He was
even finding his own emotions getting tangled the more time he spent
with the baby, holding her at Susan's insistence, talking to her,
teasing her.  He wasn't sure that he was getting closer to Verity but it
was getting harder, as the baby showed signs of recognising him and as
he watched Susan's intense love for her, to remember that this was
another man's child.  And he no longer saw Verity as SOme distant,
disconnected object, but as a frail infant, a fellow human being,
helpless and trusting in these two fallible people, Susan and himself
who were her world.

He called Pila in England every couple of days and the bulletins she
gave him on Archie remained unchanged.  He was deeply distressed by the
condition of his friend, and thought constantly about his confrontation
with Mr. Sarotzini, and how aggrieved the banker had been when he had
suggested a connection between Archie's illness and the deaths of Harvey
Addison, Zak Danziger and Fergus Donleavy.

He replayed over and over the banker's reaction, trying to gauge how a
genuinely innocent man might have responded, and concluded every time
that Mr. Sarotzini's evasive reply, his reaffirmation of his so-called
honourable behaviour, followed by his bald challenge to John to call the
police, were those of a man who had something to hide.

A million questions boiled in his mind.  Susan had gone to Harvey
Addison for a second opinion and that night he had died.  It had been,
ostensibly, an overdose of cocaine - but perhaps his death had been set
up to look that way?  Then Fergus had told Susan what he knew about
Sarotzini and Miles Van Rhoe, and that night he had choked on his vomit
in a drunken stupor.  Again that could have been a set-up.  Zak Danziger
had died of a drug overdose in a hotel in New York.  Again a set-up?

Archie Warren had gone to his office and e-mailed him files about
Sarotzini's company, and that night he had had a stroke and was still in
a coma, with a poor prognosis.  It was a common belief that occult
practitioners could harm victims merely by thinking about them, or by
sticking pins in wax effigies of them.  Was that what had happened to
Archie?

Was such a thing really possible?

And why had these things happened?  The motive for Zak Danziger's death
had been clear enough: to get him off DigiTrak's back.  But Harvey
Addison?  Just because Susan had been to him for a second opinion?  Was
there something about the baby that Harvey had not been supposed to see
or know?

John knew that Harvey had been a womaniser, and that he took cocaine. It
was possible that his death had been a genuine accident.  It was
possible that Fergus Donleavy's death had been an accident also - Susan
had told him that Fergus was a heavy drinker.  It was possible that
Archie's obesity and incessant smoking had finally taken its toll.

And just supposing that Sarotzini was prepared to kill people and get
involved in illegal cover-ups, then how safe was Susan?  Or himself?.
What did Sarotzini really want from them?

Susan had told him that Sarotzini had lied about his wife and wasn't
married.  And she told him that he'd talked about his religion and had
said that Jesus Christ was an impostor, but she was unclear what his
religion was, and urged John to read the books on the occult that she'd
left in the bottom of a suitcase at her parents" house.

He had read them.  Some of the chapters that enabled him to understand
the significance of the occult symbols in their house and of new-born
babies disturbed him deeply.  And the daily visitors, with their occult
gifts, disturbed him as deeply, as if by the sheer weight of their
numbers they lent credibility to his consternation.

OK, Susan's fears that the baby would be taken and sacrificed the moment
it was born had been groundless, but only so far.  Perhaps it didn't
need to be a new-born baby.  Perhaps Sarotzini was keeping Verity for
one of the specific dates listed in his book.  Walpurgis Night was
coming up: 30 April.  Or the Summer Solstice on 21 June.  Or Lammas, the
great Sabbat festival, on 31 July.  Or the Autumn Equinox.  Or Samhain.
There were any number of festivals ahead.

How deeply were they into something they did not understand? And what
was their exit?  Handing over Verity?  That was no longer an option for
him not without tremendous reassurances, backed by hard evidence, that
her future safety kould be assured.  And, even with that, he doubted
Susan would ever consent, not now.

He said nothing of his fears to her or to her parents.  Dick and Gayle
Corrigan were having a tough time coping with their grief over Casey,
and he knew the room was bugged, probably being watched, and maybe their
house and their cars and God only knew what else.

That feeling of helplessness he'd experienced a year ago in Mr. Clarke's
office had returned with a vengeance.  But then he'd had at least some
idea of what to do and where to turn.

Now he had none.

Chapter Sixty-seven

As the private jet accelerated Susan felt the joins in the ranway
bumping beneath them.  Verity's mouth opened in alarm, and Susan cuddled
her, making soothing noises.  The roar of the engines deepened, the
plane shook, and then it was riding a cushion of air and Los Angeles was
tumbling steeply away beneath them.

Her ears popped.  She held her nose and blew, then Verity started to
cry. Susan wondered if her little ears were hurting too - they must be,
she decided, and she didn't know how to deal with this.

She turned to John.  "Hon, does it say anything in your CD about how we
get Verity to pop her ears?"

He hauled his briefcase on to his lap and opened it.  All the papers in
it slid forward from the angle of the climb.  Rummaging inside, he
pulled out his laptop, powered it up and inserted one of DigiTrak's
recent CD releases, which he'd had sent over, titled Dr. Harvey
Addison's 1001 Useful Things to Know About Your Baby.  He searched
through it. Ears popping on an aeroplane was not among them.

Verity's crying worsened.  Mr. Sarotzini, sitting opposite in one of the
rearward-facing seats, said, "If you feed Verity, the sucking and
swallowing will ease the pressure in her ears, Susan."

She looked back at him resentfully.  With every day that passed she
found it harder to accept that Mr. Sarotzini was Verity's father, and
regarded even this piece of advice as an intrusion.  So what did he
expect now?  That she was going to expose a breast right here, in front
of him, and start suckling Verity?

And then, she wondered, suspiciously, How did he know what to do? Had he
had other babies, like Verity?  From other brood-mare mothers, like
herself "She'll be OK," she replied.  "She'll settle down.  It's just
the noise of the take-off that unsettled her." Verity bawled even more
loudly, her tiny mouth contorting, her face puce.  As soon as the jet
began to level out, Susan unclipped her seat belt and, a little
unsteadily, carried Verity down to one of a cluster of chairs around a
small boardroom table at the rear of the cabin.

There, in privacy, she slipped out her left breast and held Verity's
face to it.  Within seconds, the baby's screaming faltered, and she
began to nuzzle the nipple.  Susan watched her contented expression, and
felt a glow of warmth, which almost immediately gave way to a feeling of
anger that Mr. Sarotzini had been right.  "We're going to England," she
whispered.  "You're coming home with me.  Are you looking forward to
it?"

John peered round to check if Susan was OK, but couldn't see her, then
looked back at his laptop and clicked on the Introduction icon, which
was a small matter of Harvey Addison.

A second later, Harvey filled the screen, oily smooth and silky-voiced,
welcoming every new mother in the world to his essential guide.  John's
emotions churned at the sight of his friend.  He'd been in the studio to
oversee the filming of this intro, less than a year ago, and could
remember it clearly.

He looked up and saw Mr. Sarotzini watching him.  The banker had
returned to accompany them personally to England.  John had been wary of
accepting his invitation to fly them home in his private jet.  If
Sarotzini wanted to get rid of him and Susan, a thousand miles out over
the Atlantic would have been as good a place as any.  But then so would
the clinic have been, he reasoned.  If Sarotzini's people could cover up
Casey's death, then his own and Susan's would not have posed a problem
either.

Mr. Sarotzini had told him that commercial airliners were breeding
grounds for bugs; it was in the best interests of Verity's health that
they accepted.  And, John had to admit, he was enjoying the novelty:
this plane was the size of a commercial airliner, and had proper beds.
And he'd got a certain thrill of power going through a separate section
at Los Angeles airport; being, however fleetingly, in the realm of the
super-rich was seductive.  But not seductive enough to dull his wits.

Mr. Sarotzini said, quietly, "So, Mr. Carter, the two of you have had
three weeks in which to consider my terms.  You have arrived at an
answer?"

"I haven't had any terms from you," John said fractiously.

The banker looked at him reproachfully.  "I conveyed them to Susan.  I
would have thought, perhaps, during the past three weeks you would have
discussed them?"

"Susan's in a state of shock.  She needs counselling, therapy, probably
a long haul with a psychiatrist.  She doesn't trust you or me or anyone
right now.  She believes you and I are in cahoots and that we have a
hidden agenda.  How can you expect her to think rationally?  She's a
strong girl, she's doing her best, she's coping, but that's all she's
doing. She's coping, she's trying to be a good mother, OK?  If you have
terms you want to discuss, you discuss them with me."

"I am permitting Susan to keep the baby.  She has told you this?"

"She's under that impression.  Presumably my feelings don't count."

"You are her husband, Mr. Carter.  You are at perfect liberty to say no.
I would understand."

John stared at the banker, at his coldly arrogant face, his immaculate
suit, his shiny loafers, his expensive tie, reclining but alert, like a
basking reptile, in his wide seat.  "Would you?" John said, cynically.
"Would you really?" He looked back at his computer screen, at Harvey
Addison's face frozen now, still, motionless.

Dead.

"Exactly how long does Susan get to keep her for?"

Mr. Sarotzini raised his hands.  "Susan is Verity's mother.  How long
does a mother keep any child?" He leant forward and, unhurriedly,
pressed his fingertips together forming the familiar bridge.  "Of
course, Mr. Carter, I understand.  It is not easy for you."

"That's something I will have to discuss with Susan when she's fit and
ready.  I also have a number of conditions for you."

The banker looked at him quizzically, as if amused by his presumption.
"Yes?  Please tell me."

"The first is that I want Susan under doctors of our own choosing from
now on."

There was no reaction.  "And the second?"

"I don't want any more surveillance.  No more bugging of my house, no
more cameras."

"Give me no cause for alarm, Mr. Carter, and further surveillance will
not be necessary."

"Susan ran because she was scared you were going to take the baby away."

"That is no longer an issue."

"So there will be no more surveillance?"

"No more, Mr. Carter."

Their eyes met and John tried to gauge the sincerity of this statement.
But he couldn't.  "Third thing, I don't want anyone else coming to
harm." John watched the man's face carefully, but there was no visible
reaction.

"You require a bodyguard?  Someone to protect Susan and Verity - and
yourself?."

"That's not what I meant," John said.  This time he saw a definite
tightening around the man's mouth and eyes.  "And I want phone numbers
where I can get hold of you.  I want to know how often you expect to see
Verity, what she will be told about who her father is, and who will pay
for her upkeep." He hesitated.  "And I want to understand what's going
on.  Why did you want to have this baby so much?  Why are you willing to
give her up?  This is not making any sense to me."

"In your Bible, Mr. Carter, there is an eloquent line in, I believe, St.
Paul's letter to the Corinthians.  ""Now we see through a glass darkly.
Then, we shall see clearly."" You are familiar with this line?"

"I'm familiar with the quotation, but it's not my Bible, I'm not
religious."

"I don't require you to be religious, Mr. Carter.  I am simply
explaining that although at present you do not understand my decision to
leave Verity with her mother, one day you will.  It is not necessary to
understand everything.  Man has lived on this planet for four hundred
thousand years without understanding the universe around him.  That is a
far more vexing problem than why a baby girl should be allowed to remain
with her natural mother, is it not?"

"You might have a reason that's rather less cosmic," John replied.
"Perhaps you were hoping for a boy, and a girl doesn't suit your
purposes. Or does she have some rare genetic disorder that's going to
kill or cripple her and you don't want to be landed with an invalid?"

Mr. Sarotzini gave John a look of profound sadness, as if John had
wounded him deeply.  "And there is no place in your heart, Mr. Carter,
for simple compassion?  You would not entertain in your harsh judgement
of me the possibility that I, too, am a human being, and am capable of
simple human emotions?  Perhaps because you perceive me as wealthy, this
puts me on a pedestal where I cannot be touched by the kinds of feelings
and responses common to other people?"

The distress in the banker's voice took John by surprise.  The man
sounded genuinely close to tears.  John was not sure what to say.  Then
the banker continued.  "I have done everything in my power for you and
Susan.  I saved your business and your home, and I have risked disgrace
and prison to save Susan from a possible murder charge.  Can you not
understand how fond I have grown of dear Susan?  How much it would hurt
me to see her unhappy?  If I take Verity away, it will unhinge her
further.  And what purpose would it serve?  Just to satisfy the whim of
an old man."

"What about your wife?" John said, softening a little, moved by the man
but not sure he was telling the whole truth.  "You told Susan that you
have no wife."

Mr. Sarntzini lowered his eyes.  "Would Susan ever have agreed if she'd
known that?  I don't think so.  I'm just an old man, Mr. Carter, old and
lonely, who wanted to leave something of himself behind on this planet
when he died." He nodded a few times, still looking down.  "And, thanks
to you and Susan, I have done that.  Susan will make a better mother
than any nurse or nanny I could hire.  You - you and Susan will make
better parents, give Verity a happier upbringing than I could ever hope
to do. That's all, that is my only agenda, that is the truth, Mr.
Carter." He looked up at John abjectly.

John's emotions were in disarray.  Had he misjudged this man?  Had he
been swept along by Fergus's wild stories of satanism?  Jumping to
conclusions about the occult drawings in the loft?  Maybe Mr. Sarotzini
did practise the occult in some form - the religion he'd told Susan
about, which she hadn't understood - but the occult wasn't necessarily
bad, was it?  There were plenty of good occultists, wlite witches,
weren't they called?

Was that how Sarotzini had amassed his wealth?  Through the occult?
Through casting spells?

The thought was absurd.  Yet it was absurd also to be sitting in this
private jet, absurd that his gentle wife had killed her sister and
maimed her obstetrician, absurd that they were taking home a baby that
he hadn't even fathered, and that they would have to live a lie that he
was the father for -?

For how long?

Until Mr. Sarotzini came to claim her?

"I presume," John said, "that you are going to release the shares in my
business and the deeds to our house?"

The question seemed to take Mr. Sarotzini by surprise.  "Our
arrangement, Mr. Carter, was that you would hand over the baby to me on
the day it was born, and I would then return the deeds and shares to
you.  This has not happened.  You and Susan have not yet earned my
trust.  How do I know that you will not decide, when you return to
England, to put Verity out for instance - for adoption by strangers?"

John exploded, "That's ludicrous!"

"Yes," he said quietly.  "I would like to hope so.  But Susan, as you
have admitted, is unbalanced.  Who knows what is going through her
mind?"

"Susan intends to keep Verity.  She loves her more than anything in the
world - far more than she loves me."

Mr. Sarotzini smiled.  "All is well, then.  You need not fear for the
shares or deeds."

"So when do I get them back?"

"When I am convinced." He smiled again and settled back in his seat.
Then he pointed to John's laptop.  "Please, you have work to do.  Don't
let me interrupt you any longer."

John stared back at him, seething with rage, all feelings that he might
have misjudged the man swept aside.  It was all he could do to restrain
himself from getting out of his seat and grabbing the banker by the
throat. There was nothing to be gained by an outburst.

He stared back at his computer screen, at the motionless face of Harvey
Addison, and tapped a few keys, clearing the screen, trying to clear his
mind, his rage turning slowly to despondency.  He was tired of being Mr.
Sarotzini's puppet, tired of having his life controlled by this man.
When they had gone into this, he had been able to see a clear exit at
the far end. And just a month ago he had thought that when the baby was
born, it would all be over.

Now, it seemed, that had been" only the beginning.

They would be landing soon.  Susan was dreaming, and Verity, curled in
her arms, her tummy full of milk, was sleeping soundly.  In the dream
she was in a room she did not recognise: it was a large room and she was
alone with Mr. Sarotzini and another man who was in the shadows at the
back; a very old man in a wheelchair.

Mr. Sarotzini said, "Susan, dear Susan, it is time now for you to
understand what I am."

"What are you?" she asked.

"I am an instrument, that is all.  I am merely an instrument for a
Higher Power, Susan, just a humble servant of this Power, that is all, a
messenger, a link in a chain, given a duty to carry a baton and to pass
it on.  This baton is a genetic code that contains knowledge from far
back in history, a knowledge of all the Truths.  It is a knowledge,
Susan, whose time has come."

Then with a trace of bitterness, he said, "Regrettably I am not
physically capable of passing it on.  The Power has made me search for
two others who carry this gene, and there are few on earth who have it,
a mere handful of people.  It has not, been easy.  The first success was
twenty-five years ago, when the grave of an old man in Bavaria led me to
the male, a small boy who was living in Africa."

Susan asked him, "Is this boy, the carrier of this gene, is he Verity's
father?  Is he the man from Telecom?" She felt lost, like a small child,
like Alice in Wonderland.  Her voice echoed around this chamber as if
she was in a cave.  "Is he the man who was in the room - when - when I
was being fertilised?  Are you Verity's father, or is this man?  This
boy you found?"

"It's not important."

"It is.  It is important.  It's everything.  I want to know the truth.
Tell me the truth."

"You, dear Susan, are Verity's mother, that is what counts."

"And the father?  Who is the father?  Is it the man from Telecom?  The
man who was in the room in the Westwood Clinic?"

"There are some things it is better never to know."

"I want the truth." "There are many Truths."

"Please, Mr. Sarotzini, don't play games with me."

"The Twenty-eighth Truth states that sometimes it is better to believe
than to know.  The Thirty-fourth Truth states that reality is what you
believe, not what you want to believe." He smiled.  "So similar and yet
so different.  It is beholden on all of us to find those Truths with
which we are comfortable, and live by those.  And it is more beholden on
you, than on anyone else.  Because one day, Susan, your baby will change
the world." "Why me?  Why my baby?"

"Because you also carry this gene.  You must never be afraid, you must
only be proud."

"What is this gene?  How do you know I carry it?"

"We searched for twenty-five years for a female who carried it, Susan.
Last year, finally, we were successful.  We found the grave in Los
Angeles of a lady called Hannah Rosewell."

"Hannah Rosewell?  My grandmother?" Susan replied in astonishment. "We
performed DNA tests on her remains."

"My grandmother?"

"There are a mere handful of people in the entire world who carry this
gene, Susan, and forces beyond nature have kept them far apart.  The
ApoE-AA.  This is the gene of my tribe."

"Your coven?"

Mr. Sarotzini ignored the remark.  "If you have this gene you will live
for at least a century, and probably longer.  It is the strongest, most
resistant gene in our species.  We identified it in your family through
a search through longevity records.  Your grandmother, Hannah Rosewell,
lived to a hundred and one.  It's a privilege to carry this gene, Susan,
and when two people who carry this gene meet and produce a child, they
are producing a human of a strength that has not been seen in thousands
of years." "Why not?"

Now Mr. Sarotzini's face was close to her own, so close, and he was
smiling, smiling so fervently.  "Because, Susan, the Great Impostor's
followers have prevented it.  For two millennia the world has been in
the grip of a conspiracy of evil.  My people have been labelled
gnostics, witches, heretics.  They have been hunted, persecuted,
tortured, butchered."

The jolt of the wheels on the runway woke Susan and woke Verity also.
Mr. Sarotzini was staring hard at her.  Susan looked away, and when she
looked back, Mr. Sarotzini was still staring at her.  She felt strange
and disoriented.

Outside it was a fine Sunday morning.  London was in bloom.  It was
spring, and it felt like summer here in the jet as the engines died and
the air-conditioning was switched off.

But then the stewardess opened the exit door, and a wind blew in, a
harsh, savage wind that felt as if it had come from somewhere else, some
distant place, carrying to Susan in its icy blast all the depths of an
Arctic winter.

Chapter Sixty-eight

In contrast to the grand, post-modernist reception area of the law firm,
Elizabeth Frazer's office was small and sparsely decorated.  A framed
drawing of the Bridge of Sighs hung on the otherwise bare walls.  There
was a photograph on the desk of a man and two small children on skis
posing in front of a chairlift.  A vase of flowers on the desk.  Two
shelves of law books.  Otherwise it was just stacks of files, some piled
on the floor behind her desk, others on the window-sill, obscuring the
view of another office block across the Aldwych, and a computer
terminal.

Susan had told him that Elizabeth Frazer was the country's leading
specialist in child law, and his own lawyer had agreed.

She was in her late thirties.  A tall, wiry woman, with curly brown hair
and steel-rimmed granny glasses, dressed in a denim blouse and black
trousers, she had the air of a radical student revolutionary who had
never mellowed.  She was not unpleasant, but there was a brittleness
about her with which John did not feel comfortable.

Coffee arrived, and the solicitor dealt him a cup.  "This is all very
different from when your wife came to see me in March," she said. "You
told her that she had a strong case."

"You've given me a lot of new information, Mr. Carter.  Under the Human
Fertility and Embryology Act, the donor has complicated rights when he
is not anonymous.  When Mrs. Carter came to see me, I advised her that
our best chance would be to take out a Prohibitive Steps Order, which
can taken against either a parent or someone who tries to act as a
parent."

"But Mr. Sarotzini would actually have to be served with this?"

"Yes."

"That could be difficult - I mean, embarrassing.  I would rather he
didn't know."

Scathingly, she said, "If he doesn't know he's not allowed to take your
daughter away, what is to stop him?"

John had no immediate answer.

She glanced at her scrawled notes on a large pad.  "Your wife's mental
state is the biggest problem here.  You won't tell me exactly what she's
done - and you will have to before we go to court.  But you say this Mr.
Sarotzini has sufficient evidence to enable serious criminal charges to
be brought against her?"

"Yes."

"And is she guilty?"

"No, of course not..." He hesitated.  "No.  And one of these I don't
believe at all.  The other -" He thought about the video of Susan
stabbing Van Rhoe.  "I mean - it would be a question of interpretation.
She did something in self-defence and, I think in her mental state, she
over-reacted."

"What's your opinion of your wife's mental state?"

John grimaced.  "I think she's in a bad way.  She was close to a
breakdown - if not actually having one - in the last couple of weeks of
her pregnancy. Our family doctor saw her yesterday and his diagnosis is
that she's suffering post-natal depression."

"Which kind?"

"Puerperal psychosis." "That's the worst kind."

"Yes."

"So she has delusions?  Hallucinations?  Suicidal tendencies?  And she's
very tired?"

"Yes, all of those.  He's prescribed antidepressants and he's arranging
for the community psychiatric nurse to visit her.  He's also suggested I
should think about a residential nursery nurse for a period of time -
either that or have her admitted to hospital."

The solicitor glanced at her notes again.  "Verity was born three weeks
and three days ago."

"Yes."

"We're going to have problems if we try going the Prohibitive Steps
Order route.  If Susan starts telling a judge all this stuff you've been
telling me about satanism and black magic, she's not going to get a
sympathetic hearing, unless you can come up with some convincing
evidence.  All judges are aware that this occult activity really does go
on, but most of the time it's a bunch of perverts using the trappings as
an excuse for child abuse.  And do we have enough to convince anyone
here?  Tell me honestly, Mr. Carter, do you believe that Verity is in
danger from the occult?"

"I don't know," John said.  "I really don't know."

"You've found weird stuff in your attic, but you have no idea how long
it's been there.  Anything else?"

"No," he said.  "Not tangible."

"Your wife's fears could be connected to her mental state. Hallucinatory
in nature?"

"I have a lot of respect for Susan, but she's in a bad way.  Yes, they
could be connected, I just don't know."

She pulled a plastic dispenser from a drawer in her desk and, with a
daintiness that surprised John, clicked two artificial sweeteners into
her coffee.  "I think a better option for us would be to apply to have
Verity made a ward of court, on the grounds of your wife's mental
state."

"What does that mean?"

"It means effectively that the court would have custody of Verity, it
would act in loco parentis.  It would decide everything to do with
Verity and monitor her future.  No one could remove her from England
without the court's permission."

"And I would have to testify that Susan was not in a fit mental state to
look after her?"

"No, we'd have a psychiatrist do that."

"Would Mr. Sarotzini have to be notified?"

"As the biological father, yes."

John shook his head.  "That's the problem.  I'm scared of what he would
do."

"Surely that's the point of why you are here, because you're scared of
what he might do, or try to do?

John nodded gloomily.  "Yes.  But it's not that simple."

"You realise you might have another problem if we go to court?  The
court might decide that Mr. Sarotzini is a better parent to bring up the
child than your wife."

Chapter Sixty-nine

The Venerable Doctor Euan Freer walked through the fine May sunshine. It
was a Saturday and normally this would be his quiet day, but this was
not a normal day.

He was wearing a suit, which was unusual for him: he habitually wore
clerical robes, and when not in robes then a dog collar, at least.  But
today there was nothing outwardly to identify him as a priest, he looked
like an overweight, middle-aged businessman with an imposing presence
and greying hair, pessimistically carrying a raincoat over his arm on
such a fine day.

He was perspiring heavily, but this wasn't from the heat of the
afternoon sun, it was from his nerves.  He was shaking inside.  On his
face there was a grim mask of determination but inside the mask there
was fear.

And inside the raincoat there was a sabatier kitchen carving knife. He
had to do this.  There was no choice, it had to be done, and quickly.
With every day that passed, the news of this infant, this monster, this
beast, gave strength and confidence to its people.

There were channels he should have gone through, sanctions he should
have sought, but their bureaucracy alarmed him.  It could take years
and, in any case, there would be informers inside the Church.  And
besides, in the end, what could the Church do?  Make a feeble
condemnation?  Issue a public warning?  Increase the prayers?  What
teeth did the Church have?

This was a decision he had had to take by himself, and the least he
knew, from the guidance he had sought in his own prayers, that for this
deed he had the highest sanction of them all.

It was the only one he needed.

A swirl of leaves rose up from the verge "and rattled past his face with
the fury of a striking serpent.  The wind plucked at the roots of his
short-cropped hair, a deep, icy wind full of hatred, that had slid
inside his skin and was blowing though his veins.  He could feel it
shaking his sinews, he could hear it screaming in his ears, he could
feel it freezing the sweat on his skin.

But he walked determinedly on, down to the end of the street.  He did
not know this part of London well.  He'd never been in this tree-lined
street before, but he knew it was the right street - he knew that,
without even having to look at the sign bearing its name.  He could feel
the presence here.

He walked on, until he reached the house with the turret.

The temperature was in the early seventies.  It was too hot in the
garden for Verity: she was asleep in her room, in her cot, after her
noon feed.

Susan lay, with her eyes closed, in a recliner in the garden.  Caroline
Hughes, the nanny sent by the agency, who had been with them for three
days now, sat at the barbecue table assembling a farmyard-animals mobile
that Kate Fox had brought round this morning.

Caroline was a pleasant girl in her late twenties, solidly built with
short brown hair cut like a page boy, and dressed in a cream blouse and
a pleated navy skirt.  Clipped to her belt was the radio intercom,
relaying the sounds from Verity's room.  All was quiet there, just the
strong, steady, reassuring noise of her breathing.

Across the fence, Susan heard the swishing of a lawn sprinkler.  Both
the old people had died, within a couple of days of each other
apparently, and someone had rented the house, so Lorn Kotok at the That
restaurant, who knew everything, had told her - although he'd heard it
was in a pretty grim state.  Susan had not yet caught a glimpse of her
new neighbors.

She was exhausted Dr. Patterson had given her some capsules, and
yesterday they'd turned her into a zombie.  Despite all John's attempts,
she had refused to take them today.  She wanted to be able to think
clearly, but it didn't seem to make any difference.  The same confused
thoughts and fears haunted her brain.  Casey.  The air line. The broken
connector. She had got out of her car, gone into Casey's room and found
the air line separated.  Surely she would remember if - if she had -?

She shivered.  It was as though there was a compartment in her mind that
she could not reach.  She had been in her car and then she had been on
the floor in Casey's room holding the two separated bits of air line.
Some space in between was locked in that compartment.  The same
compartment that contained something that had happened with Miles Van
Rhoe.  She had been running and then Miles Van Rhoe was sinking to the
ground with a cellular phone sticking out of his eye.  And still no one
had said a word about him.  Every time she mentioned his name to John,
he blanched and changed the subject.  Yesterday she had rang Van Rhoe's
office and spoken to his ice-queen secretary, who told her that Miles
Van Rhoe was out of the country.

If he was away, abroad, he must be all right, mustn't he?

But she still felt that John was trying to protect her from something -
or, as she suspected more strongly, was trying to hide something from
her. The truth?

What truth?

Was John playing for time, just keeping her sweet?  Helping Mr.
Sarotzini?  Were they going to come for Verity today, tomorrow?  Next
week?  When?

John had met with the lawyer, Elizabeth Frazer, on Tuesday.  When he'd
come home, he said there was nothing they could do because any action
they took would involving serving papers on Mr. Sarotzini.  Elizabeth
Frazer hadn't said anything about that to her.

Had John been lying?

Maybe her parents were in on this too?  On all their visits to the
clinic, she'd repeatedly told them exactly what had happened that
pre-dawn morning in Casey's room - at least, as much as she could recall
- and although they had nodded convincingly, she had caught those
glances between them, those furtive, fleeting moments of eye contact.

And, sometimes, in her darker moments, Susan wondered if there had been
another reason why they glanced at each other.  Did I do it?  Had I
flipped?

Am I insane?

Her mouth was parched.  Her lemonade stood on the grass beside her, but
she was too tired even to reach down for it.

The constant stream of visitors was wearying.  For the past three days
it had been just like in California; and it was much the same mix of
people, mostly middle Europeans but others too.  All were unfailingly
polite: they came to pay their respects, left their gifts and departed.
Even so, mistrustful, Susan sat in vigilant guard by the cot throughout
every visit.

Verity had received so many gifts that they were starting to have
problems over where to put them.  Two of the spare rooms were already at
capacity.  She heard the doorbell ring.  Must be after two: the visitors
never came before then, as if observing the courtesy of allowing her the
mornings to herself.  John could deal with them, or the nanny.  She
drifted into a troubled doze.

John had the entire contents of his golf bag spread out on the hall
floor in an endeavour to find his swipe card for the clubhouse locker
room. Late for his game, and in a filthy mood, he opened the front door
and saw an overweight but distinguished-looking man in a business suit
with a raincoat over his arm, perspiring heavily.  He reminded John of
someone, and then he realised who: the actor Robert de Nifo.

"Good afternoon," the man said, in a gentle, cultured voice.  "My name
is Doctor Freer.  I was a friend of Fergus Donleavy."

"Ah," John said.  The man didn't look like a medic.  "Yes.  Very sad,
that. Terrible."

"It was, it was quite terrible," Freer said.  "Tragic.  He was a fine
man, remarkable intellect.  Formidable."

John wasn't in the mood right now for eulogies.  And he'd always thought
Susan had been a bit too fond of Fergus Donleavy.  "Is my wife expecting
you?"

"No, no, I just called, on the off-chance.  I hope it's not -?"

"Susan's resting at the moment.  She's very tired."

Freer tried not to show that he was pleased by this news.

"Would you like to come in?  You're welcome to wait, but I don't want to
wake her."

"Well, if it's no trouble?".

John glanced at his watch.  One twenty.  He had to get going.  He went
through to the garden and signalled for the nanny.  "Caroline," he said
as she came hurrying in, "Doctor Freer's come to see Susan.  He'll wait
until she's woken up.  Could you look after him?"

"Yes, of course, Mr. Carter." She turned to the priest.  "Would you like
to sit out in the garden?"

Freer mopped his brow with his handkerchief.  "Thank you.  If it's no
trouble, I would prefer to sit inside in the shade."

"Of course." She looked at John for instructions.

"It's cool in the drawing room," John said.

She led him through.  John knelt down again and began hastily to repack
his golf bag.  He heard the nanny ask the priest if he would like a
drink, and the priest, politely, requested a glass of water.

Euan Freer sat down on a large, comfortable sofa.  The young woman came
in with a tumbler of iced water.  "Can I hang that up for you?" she
asked.

He placed a protective arm over his raincoat, which lay carefully folded
beside him.  "No, thank you, it's fine." He smiled at her.

"I'll be outside," she said.  "I'll let Mrs. Carter know you're here as
soon as she wakes."

He thanked her and sipped his water.  He heard the front door open then
close and a few moments later the sound of a car starting and driving
off.  Then silence.

He stood up and walked over to the window.  A woman in a cotton dress
lay sleeping in a lounger - Susan Carter, he presumed.  The young woman
who had brought his drink was seated at table near her, absorbed in
threading cotton through an object, a mobile of some sort.  No sign of
the baby: it must be in its room.

Good.

Scooping up his raincoat he walked quickly into the hallway, then stood
still, holding his breath, listening.  Trying to be quiet, he climbed
the stairs, panting from the exertion as he reached the top and
perspiring even more heavily now, his nerves in shreds.

He stopped and listened.  His heart was tugging inside his chest and his
throat felt tight.  He looked down at the empty hall, then turned and,
stared along the landing.  It was cold here and the air felt sluggish,
as if all the energy was being drained from it.  A door was ajar at the
far end.

A voice inside his head told him to forget this crazy idea, to go back
downstairs, to leave this house, to make an appointment with the bishop
and deal with this via the proper channels.

And yes, yes, that would be much easier.  Walk away.  Forget about this.
Yesterday, when the plan had been forming in his mind, it had seemed so
simple.  He had slept remarkably well and had woken this morning with
his conviction strengthened and his courage high.  But now that he was
actually here, he felt daunted.

And taking a life, any life It was sanctioned, yes, in the Bible, but
Closing his eyes, he prayed, "Oh, God, give me strength." Then, as
quietly as he could, he tiptoed down the landing, entered the room and
closed the door behind him.

The cold air made him gasp.  A vapour trail rose from his mouth.  His
eyes jumped around, looking for an air-conditioning unit, but could see
none.  The curtains were drawn and it was dim in the room, but not dark.
There to his right, against the wall, was a plain, simple cot, prettily
draped in white, embroidered linen, with a small rug in front of it on
the otherwise bare floorboards.

He tiptoed across and peered in, trembling terribly.  The baby was
asleep, a thin trail of vapour rising from its mouth.  How could any
baby survive in this cold?

His heart whipping the walls of his chest, he stared for some moments at
the tiny scrunched-up face, so pink against the white sheets.  The
flame-red hair, the eyes closed, the tiny lips pursed together, the
minute fingers of one hand entwined in the loose weave of the cotton
blanket.

It was hard to believe that this was it, this little creature, so sweet
and innocent-looking.  Except that he could feel the presence radiating
from it. He could feel its raw, hideous energy, and he knew he mustn't
falter, must not be deflected by any emotion, must not allow doubt to
enter his mind.

His teeth chattering with cold and fear, he started to whisper the words
of the Lord's Prayer, so quietly they were barely audible.  And as he
reached the end of the prayer, he let the raincoat slip to the ground
and raised the blade of the stainless-steel knife above his head,
gripping the handle in both of his sweating, slippery hands.

And suddenly he could hear a terrifying hissing.  It was the sound of
his own blood coursing through his veins.

It was as if all the valves in his body had been opened, all the taps
turned on, and the blood was hurtling through his system.  His heart was
throbbing, vibrating, shaking on its mountings, sending pains shooting
down his chest, his arms, his legs.  There was a terrible pain inside
his head.  His vision blurred.  Then, with a clatter, the knife fell to
the floor. He let out a small, stifled croak.

Susan, startled awake by the nanny's shout, scrambled out of her
recliner. Panic-stricken, the girl was already running in through the
patio doors. Susan followed her upstairs, shouting for John.

The sight of the closed door deepened her alarm.  The nanny sprinted
ahead down the landing, hurled it open, then stopped in the doorway.
Susan crowded in behind her.

A man she had never seen before, one of the damned visitors, she
guessed, was on one knee, a raincoat spread out on the floor beside him,
looking up at them, his face clammy and pallid.  Heart in her mouth, she
dashed to the cot and stared down.  To her relief, Verity was sleeping
peacefully.

She heard the nanny say, in a scolding tone, "What are you doing up
here?" The stranger, sounding short of breath, gasped, "I - I'm - so -
so sorry I--"

Susan knelt beside the man, trawling her brain for the first-aid
protocols she had learnt, years back.  He might be having a heart
attack.  She seized his wrist, searching for the pulse, and shivered.
The room felt cold -maybe it was just shock.

The man grimaced at her apologetically, and then up at the nanny.  "I
-just wanted - to see the baby.  The heat - it - I -"

Susan found the pulse and looked at her watch.  The pulse was high,
racing.

"I'm all right," he said, glancing anxiously at his raincoat.  "The
heat.  I'm all right, thank you very much, I'm sorry."

Releasing his wrist, Susan turned to the nanny, who had the back of her
hand pressed to his forehead, testing his temperature.  "I think you'd
better call an ambulance, he doesn't look right."

He shook his head.  "No, thank you, I -" He scooped up his raincoat
clumsily from the floor, folded it several times, like a bundle of
laundry, jammed it under his arm and stood up.  "The heat," he said.
"Outside - I made a mistake, didn't realise how warm it was."

"You feel very cold," the nanny said.  "Do you have a heart condition?
Blood pressure problems?"

"No, no problems, nothing important."

"You'd better come downstairs and sit down for a few minutes," Susan
said.  "Are you OK to walk?"

"Yes, yes, thank you, yes, I'm fine."

Susan led the way along the landing, the nanny flanking behind, and
stayed close to him on the stairs, ready to grab him if he looked like
falling.  She led him through to the drawing room and he perched on the
edge of the sofa, holding the raincoat on his lap.

"Can I get you anything?" Susan asked.

"No, I -" He glanced round.  "I still have my glass of water, thank
you." He picked it up with a hand that shook so much, water slopped over
the top.

"Your husband asked me to show him in here," the nanny said to Susan by
way of an explanation.

"Who are you?" Susan asked.

"Euan - er - Doctor Freer.  Did Fergus Donleavy ever mention my name to
you?"

"Fergus?" she said in surprise. "He was a very good friend."

"Fergus Donleavy?"

"Yes." He drank some water, the glass clattering against his teeth.  "A
good man.  He's left a very big hole behind him."

"Are you the professor of theology?  And Archdeacon Emeritus of...?" He
nodded.

"Yes, he has talked about you." Her expression softened.  "I wanted to
go to his funeral, but I - I was away.  I was very shocked by his death.
It was just so..."

Freer glanced warily at the nanny, then asked Susan, "This young lady?"
"Caroline Hughes, our nanny."

"Would it be possible, Mrs. Carter, just for a few minutes, that you and
I might speak in private?"

"I'll go up and check Verity," the nanny said, and slipped out of the
room, closing the door behind her.

The clergyman looked up at the ceiling and lowered his voice, as if
nervous of being overheard.  "Mrs. Carter, how much did Fergus tell you
about your baby?"

She sat down in an armchair opposite him.  "He came round on the
afternoon of the night he - he died." She was silent collecting her
thoughts, feeling very lucid, suddenly, far more clear-headed than she
had for days.  It was comforting to be in the presence of a priest.

"He was tense, but he wasn't very clear.  He told me there was a file on
my obstetrician, Miles Van Rhoe, at Scotland Yard - that Van Rhoe was
involved in the ritual sacrifice of babies.  And that a man with the
same name as my baby's surrogate father, Mr. Sarotzini, was a notorious
occultist before the war - the devil incarnate, he called him."

The priest nodded.

Then she remembered something else.  "Oh, yes, it was strange.  We were
having lunch one day last year, and he suddenly asked me if I was
planning to get pregnant - that thought really seemed to worry him."
"And what did you tell him?"

"I lied - I said no, and that calmed him down.  It was a surrogate baby
- I don't know if-?"

"Yes, I know." Freer glanced up at the ceiling again, his mind in
turmoil. Should he try again to kill the thing - and then himself?.  Did
he have the courage?  He could go back up there, before they realised
what he was doing.  He could go into the room, sweep past the nanny, and
do it. He should do it.

Except.  He had already failed once.  Perhaps that was God's hand
restraining him, trying to show him there was another way, a better way.
Or perhaps he just lacked the courage.  He took a breath and in a voice
that was barely above a whisper, said "Susan, did Fergus explain to you
what you have here in your house?"

She frowned, not comprehending.

"Your baby must have the protection of the Church.  And you and your
husband."

"Protection?"

"We are going to have to work very hard, you, your husband and I.  And
we will need the help of others.  Is your husband a churchgoer?"

"No.  What do you mean "work hard"?"

Still shaking badly, he drank some more water.  "Everything Fergus told
you is true, but this is not about protecting the baby from being taken
for sacrifice, this is something else altogether."

"What is it?"

"I don't think we should talk here.  You must bring the baby to me, you
and your husband, I want to start by baptising her.  We must do it
quickly. You have been baptised?"

"Yes.  Please tell me what it is - what's going to happen to her." Again
his eyes went up to the ceiling.  "I don't know how much the baby can
hear.  It would be better if you and your husband come to see me. Then
we can talk in safety."

Susan began to wonder about the man's sanity.  His eyes were looking
wild.  "Verity's only three and a half weeks old," she said.  "She can't
hear you."

"Never underestimate her, Mrs. Carter.  Never make that mistake. Please,
always remember that in the years ahead." A few beads of perspiration
ran down Freer's face and he dabbed his brow with his handkerchief "Your
husband is playing golf?."

"Yes."

"He will be back this evening?"

Susan nodded.

"I want the two of you to come and see me tonight, alone.  Can you do
that?  Leave the baby here with the nanny.  It is very important that we
start our work as soon as possible.  The baby will be getting stronger
every day.  She will find it progressively easier to resist." Then,
clutching the raincoat to his chest, he stood up.

There were questions Susan desperately wanted to fire at him.  "Please,"
she said, "Can you -?"

"I should go," he said, interrupting her.  "I don't think my presence
here is good.  I will help you, but you and your husband must trust me.
is - is it all right if I call a taxi?"

"Where are you going?"

"Central London - the Brompton Road."

"There's a local minicab firm who're good, and cheaper than a black cab.
Shall I call them for you?"

"Thank you," he said.

Susan walked through to the kitchen, and dialled the number off the card
on the wall.  She felt so sick with fear she could barely give her
address when the taxi firm answered.  Euan Freer was someone of whom
Fergus had spoken highly.  Far too highly for her to dismiss him as a
crank.

When she returned to the drawing room he was seated once more on the
sofa, his hands together in front of his face, eyes closed, and he was
mouthing a prayer.  She stood in the doorway, not wanting to intrude,
waiting for him to finish, remembering Fergus's disturbed expression at
lunch last year, his agitation when she had seen him last.

The bell rang.  Was that the taxi already?  So quickly?  She went to the
front door and opened it.  A blue Ford saloon with a roof aerial was
sitting outside with the engine running.  She turned to fetch the
priest, but Euan Freer was already in the hallway, raincoat clutched
untidily to his chest. "My taxi?"

"Yes, I think so."

He handed her a card, and looked at her imploringly.  "This is my home
address and phone number.  You and your husband will come tonight to see
me?"

She hoped she would be able to persuade John.  "I'm not sure what time
he'll be back." Then she remembered something.  "The nanny- she's going
to a concert tonight with a friend.  I told her it would be all right."

"Come afterwards, it doesn't matter.  As late as you like.  You will
come?"

She nodded.  "I'll talk to her.  Maybe we can get a relief nanny for a
few hours."

"Good."

She glanced at the card.  "Please, Doctor Freer, tell me what you meant
when you said that Verity will find it progressively easier to resist.
Resist what?"

"Let me explain tonight, in private," he said.  Then, casting an anxious
glance at the upstairs landing he hurried out, down the porch steps and
over to the taxi.

Susan stood watching as he opened the rear door and clambered in. Then
she caught a glimpse of the driver's face as he turned to greet the
priest with a broad smile.

Her mouth fell open in shock.  "No," she whispered.  "No.  No.  No."

Even before the priest's door had closed, the car was accelerating
fiercely away, the tyres squealing on the road.

Racked by shivers she tripped down the steps and broke into a run:
"Stop!" she screamed.  "Stop!  Get out!  Doctor!  Doctor Freer!  Get
out!  Oh, please get out!"

She sprinted helplessly after the car, watching it draw further and
further away.  The brake lights came on, but it barely stopped at the
junction at the far end before turning right and disappearing.

"Stop!" she yelled, futilely.  "Please stop!  For God's sake get out!"
She sank to her knees in the middle of the road, sobbing.  The driver's
face burned in her mind.  The smile.

That same smile she had seen before when he had come to fix the
telephones.  That smile as he had come towards her in the clinic.  It
was him.  She was certain beyond any doubt.

The driver was the man from Telecom.

Chapter Seventy

John played well.

For the first time in many weeks he felt relaxed.  He'd had a couple of
beers, heard some new jokes.  For a few precious hours, his troubles
with Susan and Sarotzini had been pushed into the background.  As he
turned into his street, he was replaying in his mind his chip out of the
trees on the fourteenth, which had struck the pin and gone down for an
eagle, winning him the game.  Still revelling in the memory, he pulled
up outside the house.

Something was wrong.

Susan's car was gone.

His immediate reaction was that the car had been stolen - she hadn't
driven since they had come back from the States.  The little VW had been
standing on the patch of concrete outside the house for weeks.

John ran into the house and was greeted by the nanny, who came hurriedly
downstairs, dolled up with make-up.  and smartly dressed in white
trousers and a jacket.  He could tell from her expression that something
was wrong.  "Oh, I thought it might be Mrs. Carter coming back," she
said.

"She's gone out?  In the car?"

"With Verity," she said, nervously. "Where?"

"I don't know, Mr. Carter."

"What do you mean you don't know?" he said, snapping at her and then
immediately regretting it.  "Sorry."

She smiled understandingly.  "Mrs. Carter sent me out to the shops to
get some groceries shortly after the gentleman - the priest - left. When
I got back she and Verity had gone."

"What time was that?"

"About two o'clock."

"She didn't tell you she was going out?"

"No."

John looked at his watch; it was seven twenty.

"I've been worried - perhaps something was wrong with Verity and she
took her to the doctor or the hospital," the nanny said.  Then, sounding
more reassuring than she looked, she added, "I'm sure she'll be back
soon."

"Five hours?  What did the priest want?"

"I don't know," she said, openly.

"This was the man who arrived as I was leaving?"

"Yes."

"You didn't hear anything he said to my wife?"

"No, he wanted to talk to her in private."

John looked at her distractedly.  "He didn't say anything to you?"

"No."

"And there's been no call, no message?"

"No, nothing.  There were several visitors to see Mrs. Carter and the
baby - I told them they'd have to come back." She swallowed nervously.
"There is one thing - I don't know if it's significant - but as the
priest was leaving, Mrs. Carter ran after the car.  I don't know if he'd
forgotten something, but she came back looking extremely distressed."

John frowned, then thought for a moment.  "Freer.  Doctor Freer.  Was
that his name?"

"I - I think that's how you introduced him."

Out in the street a car hooted.  The nanny made a move towards the door,
but John got there first and saw a dilapidated Citroin 2CV outside, with
the engine running.  There was a young man in the driver's seat.

"Oh, that's my friend," the nanny said.  "I'll just go and tell him I
have to cancel tonight - I've been trying to phone him but he's been at
a cricket match all day."

"You're going to a concert, aren't you?"

"I'll cancel it, Mr. Carter.  I was going to tell him when he arrived. I
didn't want to go until Mrs. Carter got back."

"Go," John said.  "No point ruining your evening." She looked hesitant.
"Don't you think I -?"

"Go," he said.  "Have a good time!"

"You're really sure?"

"Yes."

She looked delighted.  "Thanks! She waved cheerily at the driver of the
car, then darted back inside to fetch her bag.  She told John she'd be
home early, and then she was gone.

John lugged in his golf bag and trolley from the car, and stored them
away in the cupboard under the stairs, his brain racing.  Sarotzini
hadn't taken her.  If she and Verity had been snatched she wouldn't have
driven in her car.  Where was she?

Had she gone back to America? No, surely not. Then where?

He went into the kitchen, picked up the phone and dialled directory
enquiries.  When they answered, he asked if there was a Canon Freer
listed, and gave them a variety of spelling options.

He was given two numbers.  One was a flat in the Brompton Road.  The
other was at University College, London.  He tried the flat first and
got an answering machine.  He left a message, asking for Canon Freer to
call him back, urgently.  Then he tried the university number.

There was no answer.

The double glazing made the room eerily quiet.  It was a fine evening
outside: the London skyline, streaked with crimson, had a pink hue.

Verity was feeding hungrily.  Behind her, the television was on, mute.
Susan surfed the channels with the remote barely noticing anything.
Inside her head she surfed her brain in the same detached way.

She was crying.  She had been crying all afternoon.  She was thinking
about Euan Freer.  What had happened to him?  The same thing that had
happened to Fergus, Harvey, Zak Danziger and maybe even Archie Warren?
She had phoned the numbers on his card repeatedly, every half-hour,
desperate to hear that he was unharmed, that he was home, that she had
only imagined the man from Telecom's face in the minicab.

And she was crying for her loss of Fergus.  He had been trying so hard
to tell her something and she hadn't listened - not in the way that he'd
needed her to listen.

Susan, did Fergus explain to you what you have here in your house?

Your baby must have the protection of the Church.  And you and your
husband.

Verity's tiny hand was stroking her breast as she fed.  Susan stared
down, feeling an immense closeness and love for her.  It was incredible:
this was her baby, she had carried this creature inside her body and now
her body was feeding her. Never underestimate her, Mrs. Carter, never
make that mistake.  Please, always remember that in the years ahead.

She looked so pretty, so innocent, so adorable, in her white cotton
all-in-one sailor outfit.  How could she ever change?

The man from Telecom.  Would he come along one day and change her? Her
mind was drifting.  The pink hue outside was deepening.

Fergus had tried to warn her and she hadn't listened.  He had tried to
tell her what she might be bringing into the world and she hadn't wanted
to hear.

"I'm not going to let them," she whispered.  "They think they can come
and take you one day and use you in their rituals.  But they can't.  I
will never let them, never.  I promised you that when you were just I'll
ole Bump inside me.  Remember that?"

When Verity finished feeding, Susan opened her handbag and took out the
number Mr. Sarotzini had given her, where he had assured her he could be
reached day and night.  She dialled it.

He answered on the second ring.

"Mr. Sarotzini," she said.  "It's Susan Carter."

There was a pause and then he said, pleasantly, "Hello, Susan, how are
you?"

"I want you to listen to me very carefully.  I'm on the fourteenth floor
of the London Hilton and I have Verity in my arms.  If you don't do
exactly what I tell you, I'm taking her with me out of the window."

Chapter Seventy-one

Klindz said, "Let me talk to her."

He had driven the Mercedes limousine to Heathrow because he wanted to be
with Mr. Sarotzini when he went to Susan.

"Just take me to the London Hilton in Park Lane, Stefan.  You are
familiar with this hotel?"

Mr. Sarotzini was sitting in the rear of the car.  It was dark and
Klindz could not see Mr. Sarotzini's face in the mirror, and this made
him uncomfortable.  Mr. Sarotzini was in a bad mood and this made him
uncomfortable also.  Klindz wanted him to be in a good mood when he met
Susan, because he was afraid for her.  She was behaving foolishly; he
needed to speak to her, to warn her of the dangers of angering Mr.
Sarotzini.

Oh, Susan, Susan, my darling Susan, why have you done this?

It was Saturday night, and the traffic was heavy.  The drive in from the
airport took forty-five minutes, and it was nearly eleven when they
pulled up outside the hotel entrance.  A boisterous group of people in
evening dress came out through the revolving doors.

Mr. Sarotzini had said nothing on the journey, and only broke his
silence now to say, "Wait here."

The rear door opened.  Klindz heard the rustle of a bank-note, and then
the doorman was in front of him, waving him forward into a space on the
packed forecourt.  Anxiously he watched Mr. Sarotzini enter the hotel.
Then he peered up.  Susan was in a room: her light might be any of the
ones he could see.

Please be sensible, Susan, oh, please be a sensible girl.  I don't want
to have to punish you.

Every day Klindz tried to avoid thinking about the baby, but he couldn't
help it.  Mr. Sarotzini had promised him that one day he would be
together with Susan.  He, Susan and Verity, the three of them together,
a family, a unit, a trinity.  He longed to hold the baby in his arms,
the tiny creature with Susan's red hair that was his daughter, to have
her look into his eyes and reach out her arms towards him, and to hear
her say, Daddy! Instead it was John Carter's eyes that she looked into.

For the past four weeks he had been experiencing new and confusing
emotions.  He saw the world in a different light, a world that no longer
centred around himself but around his tiny child.  How he wished he
could sweep Susan up in his arms and kiss her tenderly and tell her that
it was he, not Mr. Sarotzini, who was the father and that they were
going to be together for ever, that he would protect her and Verity.  No
one would ever harm either of them.  And how he wished he could tell her
that Mr. Sarotzini sanctioned their love!

Oh, Susan, will you ever know quite how much I love you?  Will your
child -our child?  Will she?  Please, you must be sensible, my darling,
you must not play games with Mr. Sarotzini.

You must not jeopardize our future happiness.

Emil Sarotzini got out of the elevator at the fourteenth floor, oriented
himself with the room numbers, then turned left, walked down the
corridor and stopped outside room 1401.  A do not disturb sign hung on
the door.  He rang the bell.

There was no answer.

He rang the bell again, for longer.  Then waited.  Then he rang the bell
again.

At last he heard the sound of a safety chain being removed.  It was
followed by the clunk of a lock.  Then the door opened and he was
confronted by a large, bearded man, in a white towelling dressing-gown.
A blonde girl was sitting up in the bed and leather clothing was strewn
on the floor.

"Who the fuck are you?" the man asked, in a thick, Irish accent.

Holding his ground and his icy calm, Mr. Sarotzini replied, "I've come
to see Susan Carter."

"Who?" The man's surprise was clearly genuine.

"Susan Carter," he repeated.

"You've got the wrong fucking room." He slammed the door. Through the
spyhole of room 1402, opposite, Susan watched Mr. Sarotzini turn and
walk away.  Verity, who had enjoyed her eight p.m. feed, was sleeping
peacefully.

"Why did you not check, Stefan?  Why did you not confirm for me that
Susan Carter was where she said she was2"

"There are other Hiltons in London," Kundz replleu.  "it is possible
that-"

"No." Mr. Sarotzini cut him short.  "It is not possible.  She was most
specific.  Room 1401 of the London Hilton in Park Lane.  They have no
Susan Carter registered.  They are not aware of any woman with a baby
staying in this hotel."

Klindz felt a burst of happiness that Susan had not been there.  He had
been scared for her; there was no knowing what Mr. Sarotzini might do
when he was angry, but now there was a paradox.  Susan was not there, so
Mr. Sarotzini had not been able to harm her.  So Susan was safe.  But
this had inflamed Mr. Sarotzini's anger more.  So now she was in even
greater danger.

Oh, Susan, I'm so proud of you.  Stay flee, run, hide, stay free, you
and my baby, our baby, our daughter!

And, suddenly, Klindz had a plan forming in his mind.  If he could find
her, he could help her to hide.  He could keep Mr. Sarotzini away from
her.

But that would be disloyal to Mr. Sarotzini.  He had never been disloyal
to Mr. Sarotzini in his life.  He was not even sure he could be
disloyal, however much he wanted to.  Even the idea made him afraid.

Then the thought of what Mr. Sarotzini might make him do to Susan, to
punish her, made him even more afraid.  He could still hear Claudie's
screams sometimes, when he closed his eyes, and that was difficult.  He
did not know how he would cope with Susan screaming - he was afraid that
perhaps he might not be able to handle that.

"I will find her," he said, as he pulled up the Mercedes outside Mr.
Sarotzini's club.

"That will not be necessary, Stefan.  Susan will contact me again.  She
is unbalanced.  When people are unbalanced they have to be treated very
carefully, you need to understand that.  You will now return to your
flat in Earl's Court.  I will call you in the morning."

For the first time ever, Klindz disobeyed Mr. Sarotzini's instructions.
He did not drive home, but instead to South London, to the Carters"
street, where he parked the Mercedes a safe distance away from the
Carters" house.

He could see John Carter's BMW, but there was no sign of Susan's
Volkswagen.  As he switched off the engine he felt a sudden deep swirl
of fear.  Did Mr. Sarotzini know he was here?  What would he do to him
if he found out?

Klindz knew the answer to that.  But he knew also that Mr. Sarotzini
could not know that he was here.  Unless, and now he was worried again,
unless he could pick up Klindz's fear.  But he doubted that tonight. Mr.
Sarotzini was weary from the journey, it was late, he would be going to
sleep.

It was worth the risk.  It was worth everything.

He stayed in the Mercedes, watching, listening.  The nanny was a loose
cannon.  She could return home at any time, she might already be back
now, although he didn't think so, there had been no voice-print activity
from her in the house since seven thirty this evening.  Just to make
sure, he dialled in on his mobile phone and activated the remote
playback. Nothing there of consequence.  Just a series of phone calls
from John to friends asking if they had seen Susan.  Now he was calling
the police, telling them his wife had had a breakdown and gone off with
their baby.

Maybe John Carter really did not know where she was.  Or maybe it was
just a great act.

Klindz had wanted to arrange a special nanny for Susan but he had not
been permitted to do so.  Mr.-Sarotzini was insistent that Verity should
be brought up in a normal environment.  He had reminded Klindz of the
words of the Twenty-third Truth, which stated, "I hear and I forget; I
see and I remember; I do and I understand."

Mr. Sarotzini wanted Verity to do and to understand.  To live in the
ordinary world and, by doing so, to understand it better.  When she was
older, that was when they would begin their work on her.  Until then, it
was necessary to protect her but nothing more.

It had been useful having Susan and John Carter away from the house for
three weeks.  This had enabled Klindz to conceal the monitoring
equipment so well that no one would ever find it, not unless they
demolished the house brick by brick - and, he prided himself, unlikely
even then.

He let himself in through the front door, using his own key, closed it
carefully and moved swiftly to the bottom of the stairs, where he would
be out of sight of anyone emerging either from the kitchen or the
drawing room.  He could hear John's voice on the telephone: it was
coming from the drawing room.

Then he stood still for a few moments, breathing in Susan's scents,
savouring them.  It was so good to smell her again this strongly.  The
house needed this, needed her smells - it had been such a lonely place
without them while she was away in America.  Now she was everywhere
again, she was all around him, and that made him deliriously happy.

He felt he had come home.

Whisky and cigarette smoke came to him strongly.  Reluctantly, he tuned
out Susan's scents and began to concentrate on his task here.  He moved
stealthily up to the drawing-room door, which was ajar, and peered in.

The television was on, the sound muted.  John Carter was sitting on a
sofa with his back towards him, talking, it sounded, to a hospital.

Klindz waited, the hatred he felt for this man powering up inside him,
increasing with every second that he watched him, until, like a demon
possessing him, it took control and moved him forward, closer, silently
covering the few yards of carpet until he was right behind John.  On the
television, two men were sitting by a campfire, smoking cigarettes and,
although he could not hear them now, Klindz knew they talking about the
meaning of life.  He had seen this film also: the men were talking crap,
it had angered him then and it added to his anger now.

He waited until John finished his call and hung up the receiver, and
then he said, "Good evening, Mr. Carter."

John spun his head round, and Klindz hit him, three inches beneath the
chin, with a karate chop that knocked him off the sofa and on to the
floor but was not heavy enough to break his neck.  Klindz did not want
to kill him too quickly.

John lay there, winded and gagging, his ears numb, spikes of pain
shooting through his skull, looking up in shock at the huge man towering
over him.  Then, gathering his wits, he pushed down with the palms of
his hands on the floor, trying to lever himself up.  Klindz kicked him
hard underneath his chin, a brutal kick that shattered his jaw and
several teeth, and pitched him-violently on to his back.

Dazed, but numb to the pain, John stared, unfocusing, at Klindz.  Slowly
he began to gather his thoughts.  Who was he?  A madman?  Burglar?  What
the hell did he -?  Then, as his vision improved, something in his brain
connected.  The face.  In the clinic in California.  He looked like the
man, the runkey, who had taken him up to Mr. Sarotzini's office that
afternoon when he had arrived.

Klindz stood over John, with his hands in his pockets, and said, "Mr.
Carter, I need you to tell me where Susan has gone."

John tried to speak, but the movement of his jaw hurt so much he cried
out in pain.  Gripping his chin with his hands, and dribbling blood, he
mumbled, "Don't - don't know."

He was trying to think clearly.  Had Sarotzini sent this man?

The hatred was so strong now as he stared down at John that it was
almost tearing Klindz apart.  Are you enjoying this, Mr. Carter?  he
wanted to ask.  How does this compare to screwing your wife?

There were so many things Klindz would like to do to him right now that
he was finding it hard to decide where to start.  "I'm going to hurt
you, Mr. Carter, I'm going to hurt you so very much.  You.are aware of
the reasons I have?"

John looked back at him, bewildered.  "I don't - she - this afternoon
-she went - didn't say -"

"You are not understanding me very well, Mr. Carter." Klindz smiled at
him.  He wanted John Carter to relax, to calm down, to listen.  He
wanted him to know why he was being punished.  He wanted John to be
grateful. The Thirteenth Truth stated that all true gratitude is borne
from punishment.  And John would be grateful if he could understand,
really understand the importance of this child his wife had given birth
to.

Then, before Klindz knew it, John Carter had his hand around a small,
solid table and was swinging it with all his strength into his shin.

With a cry of shock, Klindz staggered backwards and fell heavily across
the arm of the sofa.  John Carter was up on his feet, running through
the doorway and out into the hall.  Even more enraged by pain, Klindz
threw himself, hobbling, after him.

John reached the front door, "and pulled the handle of the Banham latch,
but it did not move.  Oh, Christ.  The lock pin was down.  With fingers
trembling so much they would barely work he pushed it up, tried again.
The door swung open then stopped with a jerk and a loud clank after a
few inches, as the safety chain was yanked taut.

In desperation he slammed the door shut.  How the hell had the safety
chain got on?  How?  How?  How?  He tore at it with his fingers, then he
was being yanked back fiercely by his hair, his legs were kicked out
from beneath him and he crashed backwards on to the floor with a sob of
despair.

In fury, Klindz stamped on John's right kneecap, with all his force,
shattering it.

The pain and the shock jerked John upright up like a marionette.  He
bellowed in agony, fell back, writhing, rolling his head, thrashing,
pummelling the floor with his fists.  He rolled left, right, moaning
terribly, white-hot knives of pain shooting out through him in every
direction.  Oh, God, let me die, he thought.  Let me die.  Anything,
please, just stop this pain, kill me, please kill me.  He clutched at
the rug with his fingers, bit into a tuff with his teeth, yammering,
crying, the pain exploding through his eyes, ears, his scalp.

Then he was pulled over on to his back and his neck was pinioned to the
floor by the man's shoe. John's eyeballs were rolling, sweat was pouring
down his face and he was gagging, struggling for breath, choking on his
own blood.  Klindz smiled at him.  "The First Truth, Mr. Carter, states
that from pain comes real love.  I would like you to think about that. I
would like also for you to understand that I am doing this to help
Susan.  If you knew what I am risking to help her then you would love
me, Mr. Carter, you really would. Please think very hard and tell me,
where is she?"

He pressed down hard with his foot.  Too hard.  There was a crunch of
bone, John Carter's eyes bulged and he made a gurgling sound.  Klindz
released the pressure, a fraction.

"Sssshon't know," John groaned, "don't know.  I shon't know.  Pleeassssh
believe me."

Klindz pulled from his pocket a small penknife and opened the blade."

"I don't like it when you make love to your wife, Mr. Carter.  I'm going
to make it hard for you to do that in future."

Still keeping his foot firmly on John's neck, Klindz began to bend his
legs, lowering himself down, his left leg hurting badly.  Then he
gripped the belt of John's trousers, and jerked it open.

John let out a terrible cry; his body shook, his arms flailing.

Then Klindz heard a noise behind him.

He turned.  The front door was open, the safety chain pulled tight.  A
woman called out, "Hello?  Mr. Carter?  Hello?" It was the nanny, Klindz
recognised her voice and clamped his hand over John's mouth.

"Coming!" Klindz called out.  "Close the door so I can take the chain
from it."

The door closed.  Klindz, thinking quickly, grabbed John's right wrist
and made a deep slash across the vein and in a fraction of a second did
the same to the left wrist.  Then he hurried through into the kitchen,
pausing to rinse his knife under the tap and dry it.

Then he unbolted the rear door, let himself out into the garden and
slipped away, over the fence and into the darkness of the park, and made
his way swiftly back to the Mercedes.

He had parked sufficiently far back that the nanny, whom he could see
clearly in the porch light, would barely even have heard him start the
car. And, besides, all her concentration was on the front door.  He
could see her unlocking it again now, and pushing it open, just a few
inches until the chain ran out of slack.

When Klindz arrived home, twenty minutes later, a message awaited him
from Mr. Sarotzini: "I have an appointment with Susan at 10 A.M.
tomorrow.  You will collect me from the club at 9 a.m.  This time she
will not let me down."

Chapter Seventy-two

It was a wet Sunday morning: heavy summer rain was pelting down. Klindz
drove the huge Mercedes at a steady 70 m.p. along the fast, undulating
road through Buckinghamshire countryside. The stretch they were
currently on was three-lane, with a double white line that had
alternating breaks for overtaking.  The clock on the dashboard showed it
was nine fifty.

There was little traffic going the same way; more was coming from the
opposite direction, heading into London.  A massive truck blattered
past, blinding Klindz with spray and shaking the limousine with its
slipstream. He increased the speed of the wipers.

Mr. Sarotzini had said nothing about last night, and Klindz presumed
that this meant that he did not know he'd disobeyed him.  All the same
he was nervous that Mr. Sarotzini might say something.

He had woken feeling low this morning; and deeply uneasy.  Instead of
feeling elated about John Carter, he felt flat.  He did not understand
why. He felt dirty, as if he needed a bath, except that he had already
had a shower.  It would be different when he saw Susan again.  Then he
would feel fine.

But he was scared of Mr. Sarotzini's mood today.  It was bad, far worse
than yesterday.  He could not ever remember Mr. Sarotzini in such a
black mood.  He was scared of what Mr. Sarotzini might instruct him to
do to Susan.

"Last night, Stefan," Mr. Sarotzini said.

Klindz stiffened, saying nothing.

"Last night, when Susan Carter telephoned me for the second time."
Klindz watched him in the mirror, nervous that Mr. Sarotzini was going
to question him about John.  The banker was looking out of the window,
stroking his chin, taking his time before he continued.  "She explained
to me, Stefan, that she wanted to know she could trust me to come alone.
That is why she put me to the test yesterday."

The ominous tone in Mr. Sarotzini's voice increased Klindz's anxiety.

"She saw your face, Stefan.  As you were driving away the creepy little
priest, Doctor Freer.  She saw your face."

Klindz knew this.  He had seen hers too, he had seen that flash of
recognition.  "Yes, it was a mistake," he answered.

He could deal with it.  When he saw Susan, he would be able to explain
and she would understand.  He was just a shitty little priest, vermin.
He was history.

"Too many mistakes, Stefan.  I think your love for this woman is
clouding your judgement."

The harsh, scolding tone of Mr. Sarotzini's voice sent a chill through
him.  Before he could respond, Mr. Sarotzini continued, "You are making
mistakes all the time, Stefan.  I am losing count of the number you have
made just recently.  You allowed Susan Carter to flee to the United
States. You allowed the priest, Doctor Freer, to be alone in that room
with Verity.  " And now you have disobeyed my instructions.  You did not
go straight home to your flat in Earl's Court last night, you went to
the Carters" house."

Klindz froze.  He connected with Mr. Sarotzini's eyes in the mirror,
then stared ahead once more at the road.  How?  How?  How?

Then he realised, and another much deeper chill coursed through him. Of
course.  The nanny.  Mr..Sarotzini had not permitted him to select a
nanny himself; he had told him that the choice of the nanny needed to be
random.  But there was nothing, nothing in Mr. Sarotzini's world that
was ever random.

Mr. Sarotzini had put the nanny there not just to look after Verity. She
was there to spy on him.

"Susan Carter is dangerously unstable, Stefan.  She has reminded me over
the telephone of the promises I made to her husband that there would be
no more killing and that there would be no more bugging.  She is making
threats to harm the baby, to kill herself and the baby.  She says that
if she ever sees you again, she will kill Verity."

"I will explain everything to her," Klindz said, trembling..  "I will
calm her down, she will understand."

"I cannot take this risk, Stefan." There was a terrible finality in Mr.
Sarotzini's voice.

Klindz drove on in silence.

"You have brought about this situation, Stefan, and I will give you the
choice of how you deal with it.  Either you will kill Susan Carter or
you will have to stay away from her for ever."

"I cannot kill her," he said quietly.

They were approaching a slow-moving van Klindz pulled out to overtake,
but a stream of cars was coming in the other direction.  He pulled back
in.

"Then you will stay away from her for ever."

"My duty is to teach Verity the Troths," Klindz said.

"Verity has been born with the knowledge of all the Truths, Stefan. This
is what makes her special.  This is what makes her unique.  She will
require no one to teach her these.  As she grows older she will simply
know them.

They will be second nature to her.  As will many other things."

"You promised me I could have Susan for ever."

"The Twenty-seventh Truth states that nothing lasts for ever.  It is the
law of entropy.  Disorder naturally increases with the passage of time.
Not even promises last for ever, Stefan."

Klindz drove on in silence.  He tried to imagine killing Susan and he
could not.  He tried to imagine living without ever seeing her again. He
could not.

Without his protection, what would happen to Susan?  She was too
freespirited, too strong-willed.  One day she would anger Mr. Sarotzini
again. And then?

Claudie's screams echoed inside his head.

He pulled out again to see beyond the van.  In the distance a large
truck was approaching.  There was time, just time, if he accelerated
hard.

But he swung back in again.  Then, looking at Mr. Sarotzini in the
mirror, he said, "I have failed you.  I am impure.  The Fifth Truth
states that "The only purification is eradication.""

Klindz swung the steering wheel hard over to the right.  The Mercedes
veered out from behind the van straight across the oncoming lane.
Straight into the path of the oncoming truck.

Susan, my love, this is for you, this is how much I love you, so much
more than you will ever know.

Klindz heard Claudie's screams once more.  Then, for the first time in
his life, he heard Mr. Sarotzini's scream.

And that was worth everything.

The massive truck hit the limousine broadside, sheering off its roof
then dragging the mangled wreckage along for two hundred yards beneath
its wheels, before slithering off the road on to the verge and coming to
a halt in a wide ditch.

Seconds after the driver jumped clear from his cab, the petrol from the
Mercedes" tank exploded in a ball of fire, taking the track up in flames
with it.

Epilogue
Ting...  ting...  ting...  ting...  ting...
The noise was driving Susan nuts.  She had a copy-edit deadline of the
end of the following week for an anthology of Fergus Donleavy's
writings, and she had been working all weekend on it.  The book had been
her idea and she'd persuaded Magellan Lowry to commission a bright
science journalist - who, some years back, had coincidentally written a
profile on Euan Freer - to put it together.

It had been a slow process, a five-year labour of love, but she felt she
had done Fergus justice with it, and it would be a fitting tribute to
the man. Ting...  ting...  ting...  ting...  ting...
She could hear it through the ceiling.  That damned gerbil, Buzzy
-they'd bought it for Verity as a fifth birthday present a fortnight
ago.  It was going round and round on the treadmill in its cage.  And
she could swear, sometimes, that Verity encouraged it.  Every time Susan
settled down to work, the gerbil started its goddamn aerobics.

She was wrestling with a difficult section of the book.  One of Fergus's
many thoughts on the theories of time.  She remembered trying to get her
head round this passage once before, when she'd been working on the
manuscript of the last book Fergus had written, which had been published
posthumously.  It had had good reviews, but had not been the brilliant
best-seller she'd hoped for.  But she was consoled by the knowledge that
Fergus would have preferred it that way: good reviews from his peers had
always meant more to him than his sales figures.

Time is a curve, not a straight line.  Linear time is an illusion; we
exist in a space-time continuum.

Sometimes she hoped that was true, that time was an illusion, and that
people did not simply die and cease to exist; that everyone who had ever
existed still did exist.  But that hope had its flaws.  She wanted
Fergus still to exist.  And Harvey Addison.  But not Mr. Sarotzini.

She kept the newspaper cutting of Mr. Sarotzini's death in a drawer of
her desk: it was a constant reaffirmation to her that he really was
dead.  It was a small article, just a few column inches, stating that a
Swiss banker, Emil Sarotzini, and his chauffeur, Stefan Klindz, had been
killed when their Mercedes had collided with an articulated lorry on the
A413 in Buckinghamshire.

She had been a little surprised, but not disappointed, that no obituary
of Mr. Sarotzini had appeared in any newspaper.

Ting...  ting...  ting...  ting...  ting...
She looked at her watch.  Four p.m.  John would be back from golf in an
hour, and they'd have to get going soon after that.  He was playing with
Archie Warren, who had now recovered fully from his stroke and was fine,
although he'd been advised never to play squash again.

Ting...  ting...  ting...  ting..  ting...
Exasperated she looked up at the ceiling and shouted, "Verity!  Shut
that bloody thing up!"

Almost immediately, the noise stopped.  Silence!  Sweet, precious
silence! Not that Verity was a noisy kid: on the contrary, she was
almost worryingly quiet at times.  A loner, she wasn't good at mixing
with other children, preferring her own company sitting up in her room
reading voraciously or playing on her computer.  The teachers at her
school said she was advanced for her age - probably, the head had
explained, the advantage of being an only.  child with a literary
mother.

She and John had been trying for three years now for another baby, but
so far without success.  They'd had all kinds of tests and there was
nothing wrong.  It just hadn't happened.  Yet.

There was something Susan carried in her heart, which was that she
wanted, more than anything, to believe that John was Verity's father.
Sometimes, although John didn't like to talk about it, she sensed when
she saw him talking to Verity, or playing with her, that he, too,
believed it himself.  And, as she had constantly told herself, it was
possible.

Even though Verity had been born a month premature, she'd been a
good-sized baby and had surprised everyone by how strong she was. Maybe
she had been conceived a month earlier than everyone had thought, and
John really was her father.

Every few months she had a strange recurring dream, in which Mr.
Sarotzini was sitting beside her bed.  He would smile sadly at her and
say, "Susan, the Twenty-eighth Truth states that sometimes it is better
to believe than to know."

There was something else Susan carried in her heart.  It was the memory
of a conversation she'd had in her room in the clinic with Mr. Sarotzini
soon after Verity had been born.  He had said to her, Look at your
daughter, look at her, look at Verity.  Is she evil?  Is she corrupt? Is
that how she has been born?  Is that how you view her when you look at
her, hold her, suckle her?  An evil corrupt monster?  Is it, Susan?

She believed, fervently, that Verity was born pure and innocent, the way
all babies were.  How they grew up and changed was as much due to the
moulding they received from their parents as from their genes.  If she
and John could show Verity enough love and care and warmth and humanity,
then they could overcome whatever bad genes Verity might have inherited.
They could destroy whatever it was Mr. Sarotzini might have had planned
for her.

That was why she had decided never to have a nanny and only to work
freelance from home.  She wanted to be there for Verity.  She wanted to
be the best mother it was possible to be.

Shortly after five, she heard the sound of the front door opening, the
rattle of golf clubs, the thump of the bag being dumped on the hall
floor.  Then John came limping into her office, looking sunburned and
gorgeous, and kissed her on the forehead.  "Hi," he said.

His limp was permanent but, fortunately, his only legacy from the savage
attack on him in the house.  The doctors had said it was the quick
action of the nanny that had saved his life.  The police never found the
assailant, neither did they ever come up with a motive for the attack.
John's memory of the man was hazy but his description was enough for
Susan to be pretty certain who he had been.  She had told John she
thought he was one of Mr. Sarotzini's henchmen, but she never told him
about her night in the Westwood Clinic.

"Hi, hon," she said.  "How was the game?"

"Good, I played well."

"Did you win?"

"Lost on the eighteenth - it was all on the last putt and Archie sank a
blinder.  I just want to have a quick shower.  Are we going?"

"Yes, of course." She looked at him testily.

"Sure, no problem, I'll get ready.  Where's Verity?"

"Upstairs.  She was playing with her computer, that new Endangered
Species game of yours."

"Is she enjoying it?"

"Uh-huh, I guess so." Susan found it hard, sometimes, to know what
Verity was thinking.

"She ought to be outside on a day like this."

"So should I." Susan smiled.  "Guess I'm not setting her a good example.
I'll go get her ready."

Susan went upstairs and along the corridor to Verity's room.  The door
was closed as usual.  She went in, and saw Verity, in dungarees and a
T-shirt, sitting in front of the computer screen.  She was studying
something intently, her face framed by her long red hair, her mouth
puckered in concentration as she tapped the keyboard, then moved the
mouse across the pad.  Susan heard the trumpet of an elephant.  "How you
doing, hon?"

Verity raised a hand, signalling her not to interrupt.  "I'm moving
elephants to a new watering hole."

Susan walked over to the gerbil's cage and peered in.  "Hi, Buzzy, you
were a noisy little -"

The gerbil was lying motionless on its side on the floor of the cage.
Susan shot a glance at Verity.  Christ, had she noticed?  She opened the
cage door warily, because Buzzy had sharp teeth and had bitten her
nastily a week ago, and touched the little creature lightly with her
finger.

It was rigid.

Verity was still absorbed in her game.  Susan picked up the gerbil and
held it in the palm of her hand, studying it.  She frowned.  The head
was at a strange angle.  When she touched it, it was loose, as if it was
only attached by skin and not bone.  Then she saw blood in its mouth and
over its tiny incisors.

A cold slick travelled down her spine.  "Verity," she said, her voice
several octaves higher than normal.  "What's happened to Buzzy?"

"Buzzy's dead," Verity said, nonchalantly, moving her mouse again and
tapping more keys.

"How did this happen?"

"He was annoying you so I broke his neck.  It's the best way to do it."
She leaned forward to peer more closely at something on the screen.

Susan was unsure how to handle this.  "You killed Buzzy?  You killed
your pet?  I thought you liked Buzzy."

Verity shook her hair away from her face.  Then she stared at her mother
levelly and said, "The only true pain is to hurt the thing you love."

"What?" Susan said, in amazement.

Verity turned back and resumed her game.

Susan walked over to her, and put an arm around her shoulder.  "What did
you say, hon?"

Verity turned back towards her, breaking free of Susan's arm with a
ferocity that startled her.  "Leave me alone!"

"It's nearly half past five, you have to get ready for church."

"Not going to church.  I don't want to go to church.  We go every week
and it's boring and I don't want to go any more." She burst into tears
and began screaming, "Donwannago!  Donwannago!"

John came into the room.  "What the hell -?"

He stopped as he saw the gerbil in Susan's hand.  And the look of steel
in Susans eyes.

Susan knelt down and, with her free hand, pulled the computer's plug out
of the wall socket.  Then she stood up, grabbed Verity by the neck of
her T-shirt and yanked her out of the chair.

"We're just getting ready for church," Susan said, brightly.