Deborah frowned. “The Source? No. That’s something entirely… Who on earth’s Montenegro?”
Nicholas looked from her to Arnside House and back to her. “Who the hell are you?” he demanded.
“Deborah St. James, as I always was. As I said I was.”
“But there’s no film. There’s no documentary. We’ve worked that out. There’s bloody nothing you’ve told us that’s true. So what do you want? What do you know? You’ve been to Lancaster with that bloke from The Source. He’s told me as much. Or can I not believe him, either?”
Deborah licked her lips. It was cold and damp and miserable out of doors and the fog was becoming thicker as they spoke. She wanted a coal fire and something hot to drink if only to hold the cup in her hands, but she couldn’t leave with Fairclough blocking her way, and her only option left was the truth.
She was there to help the Scotland Yard detective, she informed Nicholas Fairclough. She’d come with her husband, a forensic specialist who evaluated evidence during investigations. The newsman from The Source had, for some reason, concluded that she was the detective from the Met and she’d let him think that in order to give the real detective and her husband time to do the work they’d come to do regarding the death of Ian Cresswell undisturbed by a tabloid.
“I don’t know anyone called Montenegro,” she concluded. “I’ve never heard of him. If it is a him, and I daresay it is? Who is he?”
“Raul Montenegro. Someone trying to find my wife.”
“So that’s what she meant,” Deborah murmured.
“You’ve talked to her?”
“At cross purposes, I expect,” Deborah said. “She must have thought we were speaking of this Raul Montenegro while I thought we were speaking of the reporter from The Source. I’m afraid I told her he’s in Windermere, but I meant the reporter.”
“Oh my God.” Fairclough headed towards the house, saying over his shoulder. “Where is she now?”
“Inside,” and as he began to jog towards the door, “Mr. Fairclough? One thing more?”
He stopped, turned. She said, “I tried to tell her this. I tried to apologise. What I mean is… The surrogacy situation? You’ve absolutely nothing to fear. I told Mr. Benjamin there was no story in it and there isn’t. And besides, I completely and utterly understand. We’re rather… Your wife and I … We’re rather sisters in this matter.”
He stared at her. He was pasty faced anyway, but Deborah saw that now all colour had left his lips as well, rendering him ghostlike in appearance, aided by the fog that curled at his feet. “Sisters,” he said.
“Yes indeed. I, too, so much want a baby and I haven’t been able to— ”
But he was gone before she was able to conclude.
WINDERMERE
CUMBRIA
When Tim returned to Shots!, Toy4You was behind the counter chatting with an Anglican priest. They both turned as Tim entered the shop, and the priest gave him the kind of once-over that spoke of an evaluation being made. Tim concluded he was there as a fellow actor for Toy4You’s film, and he registered this with a lurch of his gut that rapidly formed itself into a hot ball of anger. A fucking vicar, he thought. Just another bleeding hypocrite like the rest of the world. This pathetic excuse for a human being stood up in front of a congregation every Sunday and did his bit with the Word of God and handed out communion wafers and then on the side when no one was the wiser off he went to do his filthy business with—
“Daddy! Daddy!” Into the shop burst two children— a boy and a girl— in neat school uniforms and behind them a woman looking rather harried and studying her watch and saying, “Darling, I am so terribly sorry. Are we too late?” She went to the priest and kissed his cheek and linked her arm through his.
The priest said, “Mags, ninety minutes. Really,” and sighed. “Well, William and I have examined Abraham and Isaac, Esau and Jacob, Ruth and Naomi and the alien corn, and the brothers of Joseph from every angle, and it’s been most illuminating and— I think that William will agree— entertaining as well. But, alas, you are too late now. We’ll have to rearrange. William’s got something on, and I’ve an appointment as well.”
Murmurs of apology, profuse, from the wife. Children hanging upon the priest’s either hand. A rescheduling of the family’s annual Christmas picture to be sent to all the relatives and off they went.
Tim was hanging back, lurking in a corner of the shop with the pretence of examining the digital cameras all locked to their display shelves and rather in need of dusting. When the priest and his family made their noisy, happy exit, Tim came forward. William Concord was on Toy4You’s name tag. Tim wondered what it meant that the bloke kept it on as he approached. He reckoned it had nothing to do with having forgotten to remove it. Toy4You wasn’t a forgetful kind of man.
He came round the counter and locked the door of the shop. He reversed the Open sign to Closed. He turned off the overhead lights and jerked his head to indicate that Tim was to follow him into the back.
Tim saw that the back of the shop had been altered, and it was little wonder that Toy4You wasn’t able to accommodate the priest and his family for their yearly photo. A man and a woman were in the process of setting up an entirely different design from what had been in the studio, and now a rough replica of a Victorian children’s nursery stood in place of the dramatic columns and background sky. As Tim watched them at work, they brought in three narrow beds, one of them occupied by a child-size department store mannequin wearing Shrek pyjamas and, oddly, a schoolboy cap. The other two were empty and at the foot of one the woman laid an enormous stuffed dog, a St. Bernard by the look of it. The man rolled into position a faux background window that opened onto a starry night sky, and in the distance, a crude representation of Big Ben shone with the hour midnight.
Tim didn’t know what to make of all this until another individual materialised from the storage area. Like Tim, he was a young adolescent. Unlike Tim, he was very sure of himself and moved with purpose onto the set, where he leaned against the mock window and lit a cigarette. He was outfitted head to foot in green, with slippers that curled up at the toes and a cocked hat set at a jaunty angle on his head. He jerked his chin in a hello to Toy4You as the other two individuals faded through the storage area, from which Tim could hear the murmur of conversation and the sound of shoes and clothes dropping to the floor. As Toy4You did some business with a rolling tripod and a rather impressive video camera, the man and the woman returned to the set. She was now in a white nightdress with a high ruffled neck. He was outfitted as a pirate captain. Unlike the other two, he was the only one wearing a mask, although the hook that emerged from his right sleeve was enough of a clue to the permanently clueless as to the bloke’s supposed identity. Of course, the permanently clueless would never wonder what he was meant to be doing in Victorian London instead of where he should have been which was, naturally, on a sailing ship in Never Never Land.
Tim looked from these characters to Toy4You. He felt momentarily queasy as he wondered what his part was supposed to entail. Then he spied a nightshirt lying at the foot of one of the beds with a pair of round-framed spectacles folded on top, and from this he understood that he was the older of the two brothers and at some point meant to put on the costume provided.