Surrogate – a psychological thriller (19 page)

"Emily, I'm begging you–"

"Don't you see? This is unmendable. You broke the trust. Every time you look in the mirror, remember that you were the one who rejected me and not the other way round."

"Mole, I want to start again. A bone that's been broken is often stronger after being mended."

"I'm sorry Hugo, it's over. I can't believe anything you say any more."

"You don't believe I had anything to do with Alice's murder?" I said sharply. Righteous anger was building inside me and, truth be told, the slightest moral leverage.

Mole shrugged. "I don't know. I don't know what to believe."

"You just tell me what you want me to do. I would crawl over broken glass to make things better between us."

"Well, first I suggest you pack a bag and get your shaving kit and your condoms, and whatever else you need."

With that I got up, scraping my chair on the wooden floor. I am not ashamed to say that I got down on my knees and rested my head in Mole's lap, begging for forgiveness. Mole looked down at me with a mixture of incredulity and astonishment. Everything I did disgusted her now.

I parted the net curtains in my hotel room and came face to face with a brick wall. What kind of a view could you expect in one of those cheap traveller hotels, I thought, but I figured it was at least close to work. Double bed, dressing table, utility shower. More like a cell than a hotel room. Sitting down again, I retraced just how I had arrived at this moment: one tiny mistake, one error of judgement, and my life had unravelled. Now I was reaping the consequences. The straight and narrow was what they called it; oh yes, the path was straight and narrow indeed, and somehow I had fallen off it. Saturday morning and alone in the empty City. I glanced for the umpteenth time at my phone on the bedside table, hoping somebody had called me back: Currie had gone away for the weekend, and I had even left a message with DI Syal asking for news. Last night I had got drunk alone in my hotel room, hoping it would make me feel better, but of course it only made things worse. I so needed to hear somebody's soft words telling me that everything was going to be okay. But Mole's was the voice I really needed to hear. Every atom of my body yearned for her, to feel the warmth of her skin and smell her marvellous hair. Yet she had not returned a single message. Of course, she had every right to be disgusted with me, but she could not feel as bad as I did. My tongue felt thick and my brain was sluggish, as if somebody had taken a dump in my head. I got up, went to the bathroom and showered, and then heard my phone ringing next door. Then it rang again. Thank God, she had called me back.

There were two messages on my voicemail. One from Dad telling me to return his call, and another from my darling wife.

"Hey, Mole, how are you doing?" I said gently.

"Feeling a little better. It's all come as a terrible shock. First Alice, and now this."

"You know how sorry I am–" I began.

Mole cut me off. "I'm sorry, Hugo. This isn't a conversation about your emotions. What's done is done." She could be so cold sometimes that I wondered if I really knew her. "You still need to be able to see your daughter, though. Come and meet us in the park this afternoon. Don't come to the flat; it's too painful."

What did she mean by still needing to see my daughter? Why, where was she going? "Mole, I never meant for any of this to happen–"

"But it did happen, didn't it? You can't unring a bell, Hugo. You were the one who put your foot through our marriage."

"All I'm saying is–" I said, searching for the right word, "don't rush into anything. We have our daughter. We could rebuild, start again. Christ, we could move somewhere else."

"Don't you think I've thought of that? That would just be moving the problem with us, wouldn't it? It would always be there. I woke up this morning and for a moment felt all right. Then I remembered everything that had happened, and I felt as if you'd knifed me in the head or something." I could hear Nancy grizzling in the background. "Listen, I've got to go. Meet us in the park at one. We could have a sandwich."

I lay back down on the bed and studied the ceiling for a moment, wondering how my life had come to this. Then I decided I'd had enough of these four walls. With a few hours to kill, I had to get out and do something.

That morning the City of London was mostly deserted, apart from a few tourists. A coffee bar was open, and I ordered a flat white. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted a copy of that morning's
Daily Telegraph
someone had left on a table. Sweeping crumbs off the surface, I sat down and rattled the paper open. Somehow I already knew this wasn't going to be good. Skimming the front page, I turned to page three, where they ran the crime stories. There, about halfway down, I saw the headline: "Surrogate Mother Found Battered to Death." There was a photograph of Mole and myself taken at some charity event: me grinning inanely and Mole looking composed, cupping her chin with her hand as she looked coolly at the camera. My heart tightened. Reading the story, my skin crawled as the facts were laid out in black and white for the first time:

A surrogate mother employed by a City tycoon has been found battered to death.

Police found Helen Noades, mid-twenties, dead on the floor of her rented cottage in Goudhurst, Kent, on Thursday night. Miss Noades had been reported missing after being employed as a surrogate mother for insurance boss Hugo
Cox
and his wife, Emily.

Mr
Cox
, chief executive of Lloyd's of London insurance syndicate Berkshire RE, was arrested and held for questioning on Friday night but later released. Their month-old daughter was found abandoned in a car in a multi-storey car park in nearby Tunbridge Wells. The baby was returned to her parents unharmed. Mr Cox was unavailable for comment.

Police found Miss Noades lying dead on the floor of her sitting room, having been repeatedly struck on the head. The savagery of the attack has shocked police officers. Noades moved to London last year after agreeing to act as a surrogate mother for Mr and Mrs Cox.

Detective Inspector Deepa Syal, who is leading the investigation, said: "This innocent young woman was subject to a frenzied attack, and we urge anybody with information about the murder to come forward."

My first reaction was shame mixed with incredulity. Christ, my dad read this paper every day. How dare they say I was unavailable for comment when they hadn’t even tried to contact me? The newspaper had given me an important piece of information, though, that Alice’s real name was Helen Noades. Reading the story again, it dawned on me what had been left out: there was no mention of blackmail or the black Range Rover that had been spotted outside the cottage. I guessed the police were trying to flush out anybody who knew something without giving away their hand. You don't just bludgeon somebody to death without leaving clues, traces. Because, just as Martin Wynn said, all of us leave traces: credit card transactions, mobile phone calls ... somebody out there must know something, a boyfriend or a husband behaving oddly. I folded the newspaper and got up, feeling wobbly on my feet. Everything started crowding in on me: this was only going to escalate, and Berkshire RE was right at the centre of it. I thought about calling Dad and explaining everything. This could jeopardize the merger – squeamish Americans were not going to want anything to do with a chief executive suspected of murder. My head felt as tight as a pressure cooker. No, the first thing I had to do was speak to Mole and ask for her advice. Then I remembered that Mole was probably the last person I could turn to.

The girl behind the counter gave me a funny look as I lurched towards the exit. "Are you all right, sir?" she called after me.

Dogshit Park was my name for the stretch of grass that ran along the river near our flat. It was another foggy afternoon, and my breath smoked as I walked up the path towards the café where we had arranged to meet. Joggers and cyclists overtook me as I ruminated on how best to play this. What was I hoping for? Some reconciliation where we would cry and hug and walk back home, arms around each other? Probably. Mole would be waiting for me at the café and stand up when she saw me. She would say, "Hugo, I was thinking about what you said. About starting again. If I knew you were sorry, if you showed contrition–"

"Darling, that's all I wanted. It was a stupid mistake. I would walk over broken glass rather than hurt you."

"Oh Hugo, I've missed you so much," she would say. And then, looking down at our baby, "We both have."

Instead, I found Mole standing in the toddler park near the baby swings. It was such a cold afternoon that only a few other parents were there. Watching them play with their children, I felt as if there was a window separating me from other people's happiness. Mole was standing with the pram, and the wind ruffled the fur hat she was wearing. She looked so bloody lovely, and I cursed myself for having been so stupid.

"How is our little girl?" I said, trying to sound jovial. Nancy was fast asleep in her cot, wearing a woollen skullcap and with her blanket pulled tight. She shuddered a little in her sleep. Dreaming.

"I think it's good for her to get some fresh air every day. Even if it's cold ... just for half an hour."

I offered Mole the folded over newspaper. "Alice's murder has made the papers."

"I know."

"What do you mean, you know?"

"A reporter called last night. I told her you were away."

"You knew about this and still you didn't tell me?"

"What could I say? It's out of our hands now. The police told me not to say anything without going through them. At least you're in the clear."

"Not exactly, no. They might still call me in for more questioning. Now they know what I did, it gives me a motive. Mole, do you realise how much is at stake here? Not just me or us, but the merger. Do you really think the Americans are going to go ahead with this hanging over us?"

"What does your dad say?"

"I haven't had the guts to speak to him. He left a message on my mobile. He must have read the story already in the paper. I feel so ashamed." I paused to see if Mole was going to say anything to make me feel better. Nothing. "The paper said that Alice’s real name was Helen Noades. Remember, the woman in the nursing home also said she was called Helen. I was thinking, we don't know anything about Alice's family. I mean Helen's, or whatever the hell her real name is."

"Leave it to the police. Somebody will tell them. Hugo, this isn't going to be a one-off newspaper story. This is going to be television, front-page news. Fat-cat City boy has affair with murdered surrogate mother. You know how much the press hates bankers. They're going to rip us both limb from limb."

"I'm not a banker, I'm in the insurance business."

"They won't care." Women could be so less emotional than men sometimes; despite everything, Alice was somebody we had lived with us, shared meals with. I remembered laughter. Christ, Mole had even taught her how to boil an egg.

"And there's still the money, Hugo. Where's that gone? All your shares, plus we're mortgaged to the hilt."

"I know, I know. The police are trying to trace the money, a bank in Panama–"

Mole gave a little laugh. "That could take months, or even years. Meanwhile, the repayments are going to start. What if you're suspended from work? What are we going to do then?"

Another couple was chatting and laughing as they pushed their buttoned-up toddler in a swing, and I envied their happiness.

"So, have you given any thought to what I said?" I asked "About wanting to start again?"

Mole shook her head. "I haven't decided anything. I need to go away. Get my head straight. Reporters started ringing our doorbell this morning. They're hanging around outside the flat."

I took a step forward. This was not how I had expected the conversation to go. "Mole, please–"

She ducked her head. "I never told you, but my father was unfaithful to my mother," she said. "I always swore that would never happen to me."

I found myself begging again. I was prepared to do anything, say anything to hang on to my marriage. "Alice planned this from the start. The camera phone. Right from the moment she met us, she intended to blackmail me. It was, what do they call it–" I snapped my fingers trying to remember "–a honeytrap."

"You made your bed and now you're lying in it."

It was hopeless. Perhaps Mole was right and this really was unmendable. In my mind's eye I let go of the balloon and watched our marriage drifting away over the rooftops.

"How long will you go away for? How will I contact you?"

"A week or so. Until things have died down or they've made an arrest," she said ambiguously. "You can move back into the flat while we're away. After that, I just don't know. You really hurt me, Hugo."

"Emily, what do I need to do to prove to you–"

Mole leaned over the pram and fussed with Nancy's blanket. Straightening up she said, "Hugo, can I give you some advice? Get a lawyer. I'm sorry, but for all I know you did lose your temper with Alice. I can't believe anything you say any more. You lied about having an affair with her–"

"I didn't lie. I just didn't tell you–"

"Same thing."

"I've seen how this works on television. Only guilty people need lawyers. I've got nothing to hide."

"If you say so. I'm sorry, Hugo, you really are on your own now."

I watched Mole pushing the pram back along the path towards our flat and dug my hands into my pocket for warmth. The words of the song that Mole had played that first night when I stayed over floated back to me: "When the train left the station/It had two lights on behind/The red light was my baby and the green light was my mind." Now my daughter was leaving me again, and I had the sense neither of them was ever coming back.

That was almost the last time I saw my wife.

Mole once said that if the worst ever happened, the place she wanted to hide in was the linen department of Peter Jones. You had the sense that nothing bad could ever take place there, she told me. At the time I hadn't understood what she meant. Today I understood. Everything in my life was flying apart, the ground beneath my feet becoming gluey and unstable. Mole had taken our daughter away last night and, moving from room to room in our now-empty flat, I had a growing sense of disquiet that this was the last I would see of them. Every song that came on the radio seemed to be about me and my situation: I can't make you love me; Money, it's a crime; Baby, please don't go. Oh stop being so bloody morbid, I thought. Of course she's coming back; they've gone away for only a week until things have cooled down with the press. Still, I felt a grain of anxiety because, once again, Mole was not answering my calls, and I had no idea where my wife and daughter had gone.

Being at a loose end that Sunday, I decided to buy Nancy some baby clothes, and I used the underground car park to avoid the handful of reporters hanging around our main entrance. At least there weren't any television trucks. Yet.

The baby department was on the far side of Peter Jones, through the electrical department, and I remembered that encounter with Mole's work colleague, what, less than a year ago? Back then I had been draped in comforting veils of illusion: today I saw things as they really were – I had betrayed my little family and lost all my money, and I was still the prime suspect in a murder investigation. The only other lead the police had was the black Range Rover, and Syal had telephoned to say that, without a licence plate, it could take weeks to find it. There were thousands of the bloody things all over Britain.

I was standing on the very spot in Peter Jones where Mole had said goodbye to her friend, gazing idly across the flat-screen TVs and laptops, when I first noticed the changing digital picture frame. For some reason I couldn't understand, a feeling of uneasiness took hold: a luxuriantly sleepy puppy replaced a smiling kid with gappy teeth as the snaps revolved and then a photograph of a handsome middle-aged couple. The photo swapped again. For a moment I did a double-take and then I realised what the problem was.

It was the photograph Mole kept on her mantelpiece.

The one of her dead parents.

What were Mole's dead parents doing on display in a department store? I walked over and inspected the frame more closely. The slide show went round again. Puppy. Smiling kid. Middle-aged couple.

I collared a sales assistant. "That picture frame. Where do the photos inside it come from?"

The sales assistant stopped smiling and looked perplexed. "I'm sorry? That's what they come with. We just switch it on. Is there a model you'd like to look at?" he said, gesturing towards the display.

I pushed past him, anxious to get out. Something that had been there right from the start was growing inside me, spreading like cancer. Things that never made sense; questions that Mole seemed to duck about her childhood. If Mole's prized photo of her mum and dad was a stock image, then what else hadn't she told me? Why pretend that both parents were dead? Was it because of something they had done to her, something she couldn't tell me about?

Lurid images of Mole's childhood revolved in my head as I braved reporters hanging around outside our block. Thankfully there were only a handful of them, poor sods who must have pulled the short straw to get this bit of doorstepping. The story had not escalated yet, as it would do once word got out that I'd had an affair with the murder victim. For now I was the grateful father of a baby thankfully returned after a kidnap ordeal. Recognising me, the reporters started coming forward, vying with each other to see who could ask the rudest question: "Mr Cox, do you have any idea who killed Helen Noades?" "Mr Cox, where has your wife gone to? Have you rowed? When's she coming back?" I snapped a terse "No comment" as my sweaty fingers fumbled with the door keys. I couldn't seem to get them in the lock. To my right somebody shouted, "Did you murder Helen Noades?"

That one brought me up short.

Finally I got the front door open and slammed it shut, leaving reporters shouting questions. I was panting.

Mole kept her childhood photograph album in a cupboard next to the utility bills. Once, shortly after we had gotten to know each other, we had gone through this album, sitting up in bed after having made love. It was one of my fondest memories. Mole gave a running commentary as she turned the pages. This had been her childhood home; there she was hugging another girl at her fourth birthday party and as an awkward teenager on a French exchange trip. "Look at me trying to be so sophisticated," she snorted. The way she snorted when she laughed was one of the things I loved most about her.

I was about to pull the album down when I heard the telephone. I let it ring, too afraid to pick it up. What if the police were coming for me? The moment the phone stopped ringing, the carpet, the furniture and everything else in the room went quite dead. The telephone started up again.

"Hello," I said cautiously.

"Is that Mr Cox? My name is Claire Hall, and I'm a reporter with the
Daily Mail
."

"I'm sorry, I can't speak to you right now."

"Mr Cox, I only need a few minutes–"

"The police have told me not to speak to the press," I lied.

"Did you have an affair with Helen Noades?" she said.

I slammed our phone down in its cradle and felt sweat pop on my forehead. My heart contracted. Jesus Christ, they really were zeroing in on the truth. Were the police feeding them lines, hoping to pressure me into a confession? If the
Daily Mail
got hold of it, the public were going to convict me before I had even been arrested.

The telephone burst into life again. Lying in its cradle, it looked as black and deadly as a scorpion. I approached it as if it might hurt me.

"Oh, he picks up the phone at long last," said Dad. "What the fucking hell have you gotten us into?"

"I'm sorry, Dad, I was meaning to phone you back."

"I've been ringing since yesterday. You haven't returned a single call. I've had Bob Grauerholtz on the phone telling me he doesn't think the merger's going to happen. His board is getting twitchy."

"But why? What's happened has nothing to do with the deal."

"The Americans have got their panties all bunched up. In any case, why the hell didn't you talk to me first? Jesus H Christ, were you ever going to tell me? Or were you just going to let me read about it while I ate my fish-and-chips?"

"Dad, I can explain. I- I- I-," I stammered. My childhood stutter had come back as if my hard drive was stuck.

"No, let me explain, you fucking clanger. First thing tomorrow morning you come out here. We have a crisis meeting with the board to decide what we're going to do to contain this. I want this kept tighter than a nun's arse."

I held the receiver away from me as Dad ranted down the phone. He sounded unhinged, foaming at the mouth. "Dad, please–" I started, and I waited until he had shouted himself out before trying again. "Dad, there's something you need to know ... something that isn't in the papers yet. I went to bed with Alice before she died. Just the once. A one-night stand. It gives the police a motive for murder."

Pause. "You've got some gorgeous pussy like Emily waiting for you at home and you go and dip your wick somewhere else? You need your head examined."

"I know, I know, I–"

"Does she know about this?"

"Yes. Alice filmed us in bed together and tipped off the police about the video. Mole has taken the baby away for a few days until this dies down. It's all my fault."

"Oh for fuck's sake, don't start crying. Listen. You come and see me tomorrow with Rosenthal, and we'll see if we can salvage anything out of this mess. What a fucking monkey's wedding."

I wandered around the house in a daze, not quite knowing what to do. My thoughts turned back to the fake photograph. I was starting to suspect that my wife had lied to me right from the beginning. We had both been lying to each other. But why hadn’t Mole told me the truth about her childhood? Had her parents abused her as a child, which was why she had to fabricate these perfect impostors? Inconsistencies built up, things that never made sense but I had been too in love to question.

My heart was racing as I pulled out Mole’s photograph album and turned the heavy leaves. There was her childhood home, a big suburban house photographed in the snow. It struck me only now how modern the photo looked, at least compared with the others. Slowly I worked my fingernail under the glue and eased the photo away. There on the back, in tiny diagonal letters, was the name of an estate agent, Barnaby & Freer, with a website address. My scalp crawled.

So Mole's childhood home had been a fiction as well. It took only moments to find it, still on the estate agent's website. The house had been on the market in a suburb of Derby – not Nottingham, where Mole said she had grown up – at around the time we met. And I started to wonder: if this memory was invented, how many others were lies? Pages turned faster and faster. Mole riding a pony. Mole in a school play, on a school trip, at the swimming pool. I began tearing the pages out and ripping them in two, not caring which ones were real and which were false. A kind of red mist descended as I sat there, wanting to destroy them all. Tearing the last one in two, I stopped for a moment to contemplate what I had done. Then my shoulders heaved. Everything I had put my faith in, everything I believed to be true, had turned out to be a lie.