Believing the Lie - Elizabeth George [5]
With a crick in his neck, he stopped at a cashpoint before catching the bus for the final leg of his journey. His purpose was to check his bank account in the vain hope that he’d somehow miscalculated the last time he’d balanced his chequebook. He had no savings other than what was contained in that single account. He saw the amount and felt his spirits sink. A trip to Cumbria would clean him out, and he had to think, was it worth it? It was, after all, only a story. Give it up and he’d merely be assigned another. But there were stories and there were stories, and this one… He knew it was something special.
Undecided still, he arrived home ninety minutes earlier than usual, and because of this he rang the bell at the building’s entrance to announce himself so his mother didn’t panic when she heard a key in the lock at a time of day when no one was due at the flat. He said, “It’s me, Mum,” and she said, “Zedekiah! Wonderful!” which rather puzzled him until he got inside and saw the source of his mother’s delight.
Susanna Benjamin was in the midst of finishing up a modest afternoon tea, but she wasn’t alone. A young woman sat in the most comfortable chair in the lounge— the chair Zed’s mother always reserved for guests— and she blushed prettily and dropped her head for a moment as Zed’s mother made the introductions. She was called Yaffa Shaw, and according to Susanna Benjamin, she had membership in the same book discussion group as Zed’s mother, who proclaimed this a marvelous coincidence for some reason. Zed waited for more and soon was given it in the form of “I was telling Yaffa only just now that my Zedekiah always has his nose in a book. And not only one but four or five at once. Tell Yaffa what you’re reading now, Zed. Yaffa is reading the new Graham Swift. Well, we’re all reading the new Graham Swift. For the book group, Zed. Sit, sit, darling. Have a cup of tea. Oh my goodness, it’s cold. I’ll get some fresh, shall I?”
Before Zed could manage an answer to this, his mother was gone. He heard her in the kitchen banging about. She turned on the radio for good measure. He knew it would take her a deliberate quarter of an hour to produce the tea because he and his mother had been through this before. The last time it had been the girl working on the till at Tesco. The time before that, and a far better bet, the oldest niece of their rabbi, in London to attend a summer course offered by an American university whose name Zed could not remember. After Yaffa, who was watching him doubtless in hope of conversation, there would be another. This would not cease till he’d married one of them and then the prodding for grandchildren would begin. Not for the first time Zed cursed his older sister, her professional life, and her decision not only not to reproduce but also not to marry. She had the career in science that had been intended for him. Not that he’d wanted a career in science but if she’d only cooperated and given their mother a son-in-law and grandchildren, he wouldn’t be coming home time and again to yet another potential mate lured onto the premises through one pretext or another.
He said to Yaffa, “You and Mum… the same book discussion group, is it?”
She blushed more deeply. “Not exactly,” she admitted. “I work in the bookshop. I make recommendations to the group. Your mum and I… we were talking… I mean, the way people do, you know.”
Oh how he knew. And above all the things he knew was the fact that he knew exactly how Susanna Benjamin operated. He could picture the conversation: the sly questions and the trusting replies. He wondered how old the poor girl was and whether his mother had managed to work her fertility into the equation.
He said, “I wager you didn’t expect to