Nicky knew they’d been lovers, she and Raul. She’d never lied about that. He’d also known she was on the run from Montenegro. In a world in which fixated stalking had become just one more thing a woman had to worry about, Nicky had had no trouble believing that she needed to be protected from this multimillionaire from Mexico City, a powerful man determined to have what she’d promised him, a man in whose home she’d lived for five years.
But Nicky had never known everything about her, about Raul, and about what they’d been to each other. The only one who knew the story from start to finish was Montenegro himself. He’d changed his life to be with her; he’d altered hers to bring her into a world she’d had no chance to make her own before she’d met him. But there had been elements of Raul that he’d never made quite clear to her, just as there had been elements of herself that she’d never made quite clear to him. The result had been a nightmare from which the only chance of awakening was to run.
She was pacing and considering her final options when Lucy Keverne rang. She made her announcement tersely: The woman from the previous day had returned, and she hadn’t come alone. “I had to tell her the truth, Alatea. Or at least a version of it. She left me no choice.”
“What do you mean? What did you tell her?”
“I kept it simple. I told her that you’ve had trouble becoming pregnant. She does think your husband knows, however. I had to make her think that.”
“You didn’t tell her about the money, did you? How much I’m paying… Or the rest… She doesn’t know the rest?”
“She knows about the money. She worked that out easily enough because I’d told her about the egg harvesting yesterday and she knew money was connected to that, so she reckoned there had to be money connected to the surrogacy, and I could hardly deny it.”
“But did you tell her— ”
“That’s all she knows. I needed money. End of story.”
“Not about— ”
“I didn’t tell her how, if that’s what you’re worried about. She doesn’t know— and no one will ever know, I swear it— about faking the pregnancy. That part is yours and mine to hold: the ‘friendship’ between us, the holiday together too close to the due date, the delivery of the baby… She knows nothing of that and I didn’t tell her.”
“But why did you— ”
“Alatea, she gave me no choice. It was either tell her or face arrest, and that would hardly put me into the position of helping you later, when all this dies down. If it dies down…”
“But if she knows and then there’s a baby later on…” Alatea went to the bay window and sat. She was in the yellow drawing room, its cheerful colour doing little to mitigate the dull grey day outside the house.
“There’s more, Alatea,” Lucy said. “I’m afraid there’s more.”
Alatea’s lips felt stiff as she said, “What? What more?”
“She had a reporter with her. The choice she gave me was to talk to him or to have Scotland Yard— ”
“Oh my God.” Alatea slumped in the chair, her head lowered, her hand holding her brow.
“But why is Scotland Yard interested in you? And why is The Source trying to write about you? I have to ask because the one thing you promised— you guaranteed this, Alatea— was that no one could possibly root out the deception. Now between Scotland Yard and a tabloid, we both stand in very good stead to be— ”
“It’s not you. It’s not me,” Alatea told her. “It’s Nicky. It’s the fact that his cousin drowned.”
“What cousin? When? What’s this got to do with you?”
“Nothing. It’s got nothing to do with me and nothing to do with Nicky. It’s just what brought Scotland Yard up here in the first place. The journalist was here to do a story on Nicky and the pele project, but that was weeks ago and I don’t know why he’s come again.”
“This is a mess,” Lucy said. “You do know that, don’t you? Look. I do think I’ve managed to keep the reporter from getting a story out of all this. What’s there to report? You and I talking about a surrogacy arrangement? There’s no story in that. But as to the woman… She claimed that she could produce the detective from Scotland Yard with a wave of her hand and he said that she was the detective, which she denied. But she wouldn’t say more and by that time things were falling apart and… For the love of God, who was this woman, Alatea? What does she want with me? What does she want with you?”
“She’s gathering her information,” Alatea said. “She’s making sure she knows who I am.”
“What do you mean, who you are?”
The instrument of another, she thought, eternally never who I wish to be.
VICTORIA
LONDON
Barbara Havers spent the morning keeping her nose to Isabelle Ardery’s assigned grindstone, which had a great deal to do with meeting a clerk from the CPS on the invigorating subject of comparing all the statements taken from everyone connected to the summer death of a young woman in a north London cemetery. She hated this kind of work, but she did everything save salute when Ardery gave it to her. Better to prove herself in ways beyond her manner of dress, she reckoned, which was today letter perfect, as a matter of fact. She’d donned her A-line skirt, navy tights, and perfectly polished court shoes— well, there was one little scuff but some spit had taken care of that— and she’d topped this with a new wool sweater that was finely knitted and not, mind you, of her usual heavy-gauge fisherman’s variety. Over that she’d shrugged into a subtle plaid jacket and she’d even put on the single piece of jewellery she owned, which was a filigree necklace purchased the previous summer at Accessorize in Oxford Street.
Hadiyyah had heartily approved of her ensemble that very morning, which told Barbara she was developing more skill in the putting-oneself-together-professionally department. She’d come to Barbara’s bungalow as Barbara was indulging in the last bit of her Pop-Tart, and heroically she’d ignored the fag smouldering in the ashtray in favour of complimenting Barbara on her growing talents in fashion.
Barbara noted that Hadiyyah was not wearing her school uniform, and she asked about this. “Holiday today?”
Hadiyyah bounced from foot to foot, hands on the back of one of the two chairs at Barbara’s kitchen table, which was little larger than a chopping board and generally did duty as that as well. The little girl said, “Mummy and I… It’s special, Barbara. It’s for Dad and I must take the day off school. Mummy phoned and said I was ill today but it was only the littlest lie because of what we have planned. It’s a surprise for Dad.” She hugged herself in glee. “Oh just wait, wait, wait,” she cried.
“Me? Why? Am I part of the surprise?”
“I want you to be. So Mummy says you can know but you mustn’t say a word to Dad. D’you promise? See, Mummy says she and Dad had a row— well, adults do row sometimes, don’t they— and she wants to give him a cheer-you-up surprise. So that’s what we’re doing today.”
“Taking him somewhere? Surprising him at work?”
“Oh no. The surprise’ll be when he gets home.”
“Special dinner, I’ll bet.”
“Much, much better than that.”
To Barbara’s way of thinking, there wasn’t anything better than a special dinner, especially if she wasn’t the one who had to cook it. She said, “What then? Tell me. I’m sworn to secrecy.”
“D’you promise and double promise?” Hadiyyah asked.