Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [151]
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,