Believing the Lie (44 page)

About three minutes later, another car emerged and Zed put his
vehicle in gear. But
this
one was driven by a bloke as well, a serious-looking gent with too much dark hair, and he was looking grim and rubbing his head as if he needed to get rid of a migraine.

Then, at last, he saw the woman. But she was on foot. She wasn’t on her mobile this time, but her face was serious and determined. Zed reckoned at first she was on her way to some location nearby and the logical place was the market square, where the cafés made good meeting spots, as did the restaurants and the Chinese takeaways, if it came down to it. But instead of heading there, she went back into the Crow and Eagle.

Zed made his decision in an instant. He switched off the car’s engine and dashed after her. He could, he reckoned, follow her forever. Or he could take the bull by the horns and do some fancy dancing with it.

He pushed through the door of the inn.

MILNTHORPE
CUMBRIA

Deborah was so angry with Simon that she was far beyond seeing red. She was seeing whatever the next colour in the outrage spectrum was supposed to be.

Camera in hand, she’d found her husband with Tommy in the car park. It was, she believed, excellent luck that Tommy was with him. For Tommy was going to be on her side and she knew she was going to need an ally.

She’d given them the information in brief: Nicholas Fairclough waylaying her in the inn, Nicholas Fairclough knowing Scotland Yard was looking into the death of Ian Cresswell, Nicholas Fairclough believing that she—of all people—was the Scotland Yard detective prowling round his life. She said, “There’s only one way he’d’ve reached that conclusion,” at which point she showed them the photo she’d snapped on the previous day. This was of the redheaded man speaking to Fairclough in the market square.

She said, “Right afterwards, Nicholas wanted nothing more to do with me. We were meant to go to Barrow, but that didn’t happen. And then this morning, he was in such a state…You see what this means, don’t you?”

Tommy looked at the picture. Simon did not. Tommy said, “It’s the reporter from
The Source
, Simon. Barbara described him to me. Huge, red-haired. There can’t be two blokes wandering round Cumbria fitting that description and interested in Fairclough.”

Better and better, Deborah had thought. She’d said, “Tommy, we can use him. Something’s obviously going on with this entire lot of people and he’s onto it or he wouldn’t be up here. Let me make contact with him. He’ll think he’s got an in with the police. We can—”

“Deborah,” Simon had said. It was that tone, that maddening tone of she-must-be-appeased.

Tommy had added to this, “I don’t know, Deb,” and he looked away for a moment. She couldn’t tell if he was thinking about what she said or thinking about getting out of the car park before she and Simon had the argument he would be anticipating. For Tommy knew Simon better than anyone. He knew what
Deborah
meant when Simon said it that way. There were reasons for Simon’s concern in some situations—all right, she could admit that—but there was no reason for his concern just now.

She’d said, “This is being handed to us on a platter, Tommy.”

To which Tommy had said, “Barbara told me he was up here three days in advance of Cresswell’s death, Deb. His intent has been to add some interest to a story on Nicholas Fairclough.”

“So?”

“Deborah, it’s obvious enough,” Simon put in. “There’s a chance that this bloke—”

“Oh, you
can’t
be thinking his idea of adding interest to a story was to arrange the suspicious death of a member of his subject’s own family. That’s completely absurd.” And as both of the men started to speak at once, she said, “No. Wait. Listen to me. I’ve had a think about this and there’re things you don’t know. They have to do with Nicholas’s wife.”

It was to her advantage that neither of the men had met Alatea. Neither had met Nicholas Fairclough either, so that was an additional advantage. Tommy said, “Barbara’s looking into Alatea Fairclough, Deb.”

But Deborah said, “She may be doing, but she doesn’t know everything,” and she proceeded to tell them about those things that Alatea Fairclough had to hide. “There’re photographs somewhere, according to Nicholas. She was a model, but the kind of work she did is the kind she’d prefer to keep hidden. She told Nicholas about it, but no one in his family knows. He called it ‘naughty underwear’ and I think we all know what you can read for that.”

“What, exactly?” Simon was watching her with that
look
of his, grave and understanding and worried.

Stuff and bloody bother, Deborah thought. She said, “We can read for that everything from catalogue pictures of leather goodies for the sadomasochistic crowd to pornography, Simon. I think we can agree on that, can’t we?”

“You’re right, of course,” Tommy said. “But Barbara’s on this, Deb. She’ll sort it out.”

“But that’s not all, Tommy. That’s not everything.” Deborah knew Simon would not be pleased with her next direction, but she intended to take it anyway because it had to be explored, because it was surely connected to Ian Cresswell. “There’s surrogacy to consider.”

Simon actually went pale at this. Deborah realised he thought she intended to bring up this most personal of matters with Tommy standing there as an arbitrator of their disagreement and their pain. She said to her husband, “Not that. I just think it’s likely Alatea can’t carry a baby to term. Or she’s having difficulty with pregnancy. I think she’s looking for a surrogate and I think that that surrogate might well be Ian Cresswell’s wife, Niamh.”

Simon and Tommy exchanged a look. But they hadn’t seen Niamh Cresswell, so they didn’t know. She went over it with them: Nicholas Fairclough’s desire for a baby, Alatea’s possession of a magazine with all of the advertisements in the back removed, Niamh Cresswell’s appearance and the very clear indication that she’d been
doing something surgically to improve it—“One doesn’t have breast enhancement on the National Health” was how Deborah put it—and the simple logic of a woman who’s lost her man and believes she has to have a replacement and wants to do something to increase her chances of finding that replacement…“Niamh has to finance all this. Carrying a baby for Alatea is the answer. It’s illegal to profit from surrogacy, but this is a family matter, and who’s going to know if money is exchanged? Nicholas and Alatea certainly aren’t going to tell a soul. So Niamh has their baby, she hands it over, they hand her the money, and it’s done.”

Simon and Tommy greeted this with silence. Tommy looked down at his shoes. This was the moment when they were going to tell her she was off her nut—oh, how
well
she knew these two men in her life—so she went on. “Or perhaps, even better, Nicholas Fairclough doesn’t even
know
about the arrangement. Alatea’s going to fake the entire pregnancy. She’s quite tall, and there’s a very good chance she’d never show a pregnancy till very late in term. Niamh takes herself out of the picture for a few months and when she’s ready to deliver, Alatea joins her. They come up with a pretence, they—”

“God, Deborah.” Simon rubbed his forehead while Tommy shifted his feet on the ground.

Inanely, Deborah thought how Tommy always wore Lobb’s shoes. They must have cost a fortune, she reckoned, but of course they would last forever and the pair he had on he’d probably had since he was twenty-five years old. They weren’t scuffed, of course. Tommy’s man Charlie Denton—valet, butler, man Friday, equerry,
whatever
in Tommy’s life—would never have allowed scuff marks on Tommy’s shoes. But they were worn and comfortable, rather like friends, and—

Simon was speaking and she realised she’d deliberately plugged her ears to his words. He would think that all this had to do with her, with them, with this stupid open adoption business, which, of course, he had no idea she’d put a stop to, so she decided to tell him then and there.

“I phoned David,” she said. “I told him no. Definitely not. I can’t cope with it, Simon.”

Simon’s jaw moved. That was all.

Hurriedly, Deborah said to Tommy, “So let’s say Ian Cresswell found out about all of this. He protests. He says that their children—his and Niamh’s—are already putting up with just about enough in their lives and they can’t be asked to cope with their mother carrying a baby for his cousin’s wife. There’s too much confusion. He puts his foot down.”

“They’re divorced,” Tommy pointed out gently.

“Since when did divorce mean people stop trying to control each other if they can get away with it? Let’s say he goes to Nicholas. He appeals to him. Nicholas knows what’s going on or he doesn’t know but in either case, the appeal goes nowhere so Ian says he’s going to have to talk to Nicholas’s father about it. The last thing anyone wants is to have Bernard Fairclough drawn into this. He’s already spent most of Nicholas’s life believing he’s a wastrel. And now this, this terrible division in the family—”

“Enough,” Simon said. “Really. I do mean it. Enough.”

The paternal tone behind his words was an electric shock, thirty thousand volts running through her body. Deborah said, “
What
did you say to me?”

Simon said, “It doesn’t take a Freudian to know where this is coming from, Deborah.”

The electric shock turned in an instant to fury. Deborah began to speak. Simon cut her off.

“This is a flight of fancy. It’s time for both of us to get back to London. I’ve done what I can here”—this to Tommy—“and unless we want another go at the boathouse, I daresay what appears to be the case about Ian Cresswell’s death is indeed the case.”

That he would actually dismiss her like this…Deborah had never wanted to strike her husband, but she wanted it badly in that moment.
Temper, Deb, temper,
her father would have said, but never had her father been taken so lightly by this man who stood implacably before her. God, he was insufferable, she thought. He was pompous. He was so bloody self-righteous. He was always so sure, so certain, so 100 percent full of his sodding scientific knowledge, but some things had
nothing
to do with science, some things had to
do with the heart, some things weren’t about forensics, microscopes, bloodstains, computer analyses, graphs, charts, amazing machinery that would take a single thread and connect it to a manufacturer, a skein of wool, the sheep it had come from, and the farm on the Hebrides where that sheep had been born…She wanted to scream. She wanted to scratch out his eyes. She wanted—

“She does have a point, Simon,” Tommy said.

Simon looked at him and his expression asked his old friend if he’d entirely lost his mind.

Tommy said, “I don’t doubt there was bad blood between Nicholas and his cousin. Something’s not right with Bernard as well.”

“Granted,” Simon said, “but a scenario in which Ian’s former wife…” He waved off the entire idea.

Tommy then said, “But it’s too dangerous, Deb, if what you’re saying is true.”

“But—”

“You’ve done good work up here, but Simon’s right about going back to London. I’ll take it from here. I can’t let you put yourself in harm’s way. You know that.”

He meant more than one thing. All of them knew it. She shared a history with Tommy and even if she hadn’t done, he would never allow her to come close to a danger that could take her from Simon as Tommy’s own wife had been taken from him.

She said numbly, “There’s no danger here. You
know
that, Tommy.”

“If murder’s involved, there’s always danger.”

He’d said all he would say on the topic. He left them, then, and left her with Simon there in the car park.

Simon had said to her, “I’m sorry, Deborah. I know that you want to help.”

She’d said bitterly, “Oh, you know that, do you? Let’s not pretend this isn’t about punishing me.”

“For what?” He sounded so
bloody
surprised.

“For saying no to David. For not solving our problem with one little word: yes. That’s what you wanted, an instant solution. Without
once
considering how it would feel to me with an entire second
family hovering out there, watching my every move, evaluating what sort of
mummy
I’d be…” She was close to tears. This infuriated her.

Simon said, “This has nothing to do with your phoning David. If you’ve made up your mind, I accept it. What else can I do? I might have other wishes, but—”

“And that’s what counts. That’s what always counts. Your wishes. Not mine. Because should my wishes be granted in any matter, the power shifts, doesn’t it, and you don’t want that.”

He reached towards her, but she backed away. She said, “Just go about your business. We’ve said enough at this point.”

He waited for a moment. He was watching her, but she couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t look at his eyes and see the pain and know how far back into his past it reached.

He finally said, “We’ll talk later,” and he went to his car. Another moment and he’d driven away, out of the car park and about his business. Whatever it was. It didn’t matter to Deborah.

She left the car park herself. She went towards the front door of the inn. She’d got just inside when she heard someone say, “Hang on. You and I need to talk,” and she turned to see that, of all people, the redheaded giant was coming in the entrance. Before she had a chance to say anything, he continued. “Your cover’s been blown. It can be on the front page of
The Source
tomorrow or you and I can strike a deal.”

“What sort of deal?” Deborah asked him.

“The kind that gets us both what we want.”

GREAT URSWICK
CUMBRIA

Lynley knew that Simon was right about Deborah: She needed to stay clear of things from this point forward. They didn’t know exactly what they were dealing with and anything that might put
her into danger was unacceptable on so many levels that most of them didn’t bear talking about.

He’d been wrong to bring them into this. It had seemed a simple enough job that he could sort through with their help in a day or so. That wasn’t turning out to be the case, and he needed to finish things before Deborah did something that he, she, and Simon would regret.