April 26 was looming up. Bump stroked her again, Bump knew this. Suddenly John stirred. "Wasser time?"

  "ten to four."

  "I've got a headache."

  "Probably the brandy. Why don't you take a couple of paracetamol?" He grunted. "Think it went all right?"

  "Yes, I do. It went very well. Archie's Pila is pretty possessive, isn't she? The moment she saw him talking to any other woman she marched across and stood right by him. I noticed it a couple of times. I thought that man from Microsoft was nice - and his wife."

  "Tom Rockney's a good bloke, we're going to get that deal. God, your friend Kate Fox's husband - Mervyn - he's a waste of space."

  "Martin. He's shy."

  "He's brain dead. He's less interesting than watching paint dry. He sat in a corner the whole evening, stuffing his face and drinking, didn't say a word to anyone. I tried introducing him to people a couple of times and he stood there and gawped at them. What the hell does she see in him?"

  "I've no idea." Then, teasing, she said, "Do you think people wonder what you and I see in each other?"

  "At least we're reasonably normal."

  "You think so?" she asked.

  "Glurr," he replied. Then he maude a further series of inane noises.

  "Wrrogggh, glummmm, blingggg, glu glu glarp, glaarrrrrp."

  She giggled. "What's that meant to be?"

  "An intelligent conversation with Martin Fox."

  "How does an unintelligent one sound?" Then suddenly Bump moved sharply and she let out a tiny squeal.

  "Wassermatter?"

  "Bump's moving. Want to feel?" She took his hand and laid it on her abdomen. "Can you feel it? Hi, Bump, want to say hallo to your d-" She clammed up, but too late.

  John removed his hand. "Perhaps he'd like to call Mr. Sarotzini, then?"

  Susan lay in silence, cursing herself for this stupidity. She didn't know why she'd said it, it had just came out. "I'm sorry, honI didn't mean -"

  He climbed out of bed and, without saying anything, padded through to the bathroom. The light came on and then she heard the rustle of paper, the sound of capsules being popped free from their wrappers. Then running water.

  "I'm sorry," she said again, when he came back to bed:

  "Are you? You were bloody revelling in it tonight."

  "I was just trying to act the part," she said quietly, trying to defuse his growing anger. "It wasn't easy."

  "How do you think I felt? Do you think it was easy for me, watching you? Playing Mr. Mighty Proud Dad-To-Be?"

  "Of course I don't. It's hard for both of us."

  "Bullshit. You were loving it, you were lapping it up."

  She lay in silence. He was right, that was the problem. She hadn't thought about Mr. Sarotzini all evening. She'd only thought about how good it felt being pregnant, being congratulated, feeling like a normal, fulfilled woman. How good it felt for once not having to justify, in conversation after conversation, why she and John had decided not to have children, and for once not envying all the other women who did have children.

  There used to be a slang expression she'd read in books, terming women who were pregnant as being in the club. And that was how it felt now. That she had joined a hugely warm and welcoming club.

  She thought back again to Wednesday afternoon with Mr. Sarotzini and his gruesome friend with his secret art haul, Esmond Rostoff, and shuddered.

  She'd tried to tell John her concerns that night when she'd got home, but he hadn't wanted to know. What happened after the baby was born was not their problem, he told her.

  He was wrong. And of course he would be, because it wasn't his baby. How could he possibly understand what she felt?

  John suddenly said, "Harvey's concerned about you. He's going to be away until after the New Year, but he said if you still have these pains then, he'll have a look at you. I'm going to call his secretary on Monday and get a date booked in. If the pains have stopped, then fine, we can cancel."

  "John, Miles Van Rhoe is the best obstetrician in the country - Harvey said so himself, tonight."

  "Harvey says you shouldn't be in pain like this. He thinks Van Rhoe has missed something."

  "Don't you think it would be going behind Van Rhoe's back?"

  "Then tell him, if you feel that way. Tell him you're going for a second opinion. People have second opinions all the time, there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not having you suffer like this, I want Harvey to see you."

  "OK," she said, reluctantly.

  Archie was having a quick cigarette outside the squash court before they went on. On the other side of the wall John could hear the squishing, thwacking, squeaking of the game that was ending. "Great party," Archie said. "Enjoyed yourselves?"

  "Yah. And great news about Susan - you've been keeping that under your hat."

  "We've been a bit worried about the pregnancy," John replied. "Susan didn't want anyone to know until - you know -"

  "Until she was out of danger? Sensible. Going to change your life a bit, having a child. Thought you were always against the idea of breeding. What changed your mind?"

  "It just sort of happened," John mumbled.

  Archie sucked at his cigarette and grinned. "Oh, yes?" He sounded sceptical. "Sure you didn't cave in under her onslaught? Susan's always struck me as being pretty broody."

  While John was struggling to produce a suitable reply, Archie changed the subject. "Hey, this V6rn Bank of yours."

  "Yuh?"

  The door of the squash court opened and two men came through, dripping with sweat. "All yours," said one.

  Archie crushed his cigarette out on the ground. "Weird City."

  "What do you mean?" John followed him onto the court. "Chap called Klindz? Know him?"

  John shook his head and slipped a sweat band onto his wrist. "No, who's he?"

  "Their man in London. Came into the office today, wanted to check us out, do the royal tour. This guy, I'm telling you, is seriously flaky." He shook his head.

  John, worried now, said, "In what way?"

  Archie unzipped his racquet. "This V6rn Bank is privately owned, very old family business, God knows how old, centuries - Switzerland's full of them. They're quiet, discreet, low profile to the point of invisibility. The V/3rn only deals in blue chip, nothing speculative."

  "I thought your bond market was speculative," John said. "Some and some. So you haven't come across this Klindz?"

  "No, I've only ever dealt with a Mr. Sarotzini."

  "The head honcho. Or one of them. Oliver Walton, my colleague who deals with them, says he doesn't know who the fuck runs them. They take this secrecy crap to the point of paranoia. You know, they're a substantial client now and we don't even have a phone number for them. Can you believe it?"

  "Sounds familiar. Don't phone us, we phone you."

  Archie raised an eyebrow. "OK, well, here's the weird bit. This Klindz character, he's six foot four, built like an American quarterback, and he looks like a goon, right? He looks like a fucking night-club bouncer, not a banker. He's wearing a shiny suit, rocks on his fingers, he shakes my hand, then spouts poetry at me."

  "Poetry?"

  "In Latin."

  "You're serious?"

  "It's Horace. I did A level Latin, so I recognised it. "Si pussis recte, si non, quocumque rnodo rein.""

  John grinned. "What's that in English?"

  ""By right means, if you can, but by any means make money.""

  John unzipped his own racquet. "Shows he has a bit of culture. What's your problem with that?"

  "I don't have a problem with that. This is what I have a problem with: he's standing by my desk, looking at Oliver's screen - Oliver's giving him a demo of our system. I go and have a piss and when I come back my cigarette lighter's missing from my desk."

  John looked at him in disbelief. "What?"

  "My gold Dunhill."

  "Missing?" "Yes."

  "It was on your desk? You're sure?"

  "It's always on my desk."

  "Perhaps it fell on the floor."

  "John, I took my desk apart. I grilled the whole bloody room. Nobody else had come in. No one."

  John fought laughter - he couldn't help it, he was finding this comical and he knew he shouldn't.

  Archie looked indignant. "You think it's funny?"

  John, grinning broadly, said, "I'm sorry, I do. Here's this guy, he buys five million quid's worth of bonds and he steals your lighter."

  "Not even my client. I don't get the commission."

  "So what did you do?"

  "What the hell could I do? They've got over fifty million pounds of business with us, I can hardly ask the guy to turn out his pockets." "Didn't you ask him if maybe he'd picked it up by mistake?"

  "I did. He looked at me as if I was a dog turd and said, "I am sorry, I am not a man who smokes.""

  Archie lobbed the ball in the air and whacked it furiously down the court. It hit the tin and died. "Nice friends you've got."

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Swinging cuts were due to be made by Magellan Lowry's new owners, and staff were bracing themselves for redundancy letters.

  With only nine days to Christmas, there were cards up everywhere, and the art department bad plastered glitzy angels and bits of tinsel all around the offices. Some wit had also produced a 3-D cut-out of a well-endowed Santa Claus having a good time with Rudolf but staff were finding it hard to be jolly. All the same, they were trying and everyone was thinking: Maybe it won't be me.

  Meanwhile they went to all the publishing industry parties they could find and networked like crazy. A hundred jobs were being edited out and a hundred and fifty people were employed at Magellan Lowry.

  Susan was about the only person who didn't have a long face: she was happy to take what she viewed as early maternity leave at Christmas and, after that, she'd have to see. She wasn't sure about anything beyond the birth of the baby. All she knew was that the feeling was growing stronger every day that after the baby was born she was not going to be handing it over to Mr. Sarotzini or anyone else.

  She caressed her abdomen. "Hi, Bump," she murmured. "How you doing today? Looking forward to Christmas? Me, too! We're going to buy a tree this weekend. You won't be able to see it, but you can help us choose it, can't you?"

  Bump responded with a tiny kick.

  Her door opened and Kate Fox came in. "Susan, you said you and John hadn't made any plans for Christmas. Well, we're having a big family do, and if you're at a loose end, you'd be very welcome to join Martin and me."

  Susan thanked her warmly, imagining what John would say. "That's very sweet of you but we're going down to the Cotswolds that week to stay with the Harrisohs, but thanks anyway."

  "Not at all. We'll have you over some time early in the New Year."

  earlier this year we had a conversation. You told me that you and John had made a decision never to have children. I'm interested - what's changed your mind?"

  She tried to give a casual shrug and was aware that she didn't do it very well. "Oh, you know, I guess we change, don't we?"

  He gave her a probing stare. "Do we?"

  She lowered her eyes, knowing he wasn't fooled by her reply. But equally he had no way of finding out the truth. Yet something was preying on her mind that she had been wanting to ask him for some time. Now seemed the appropriate moment. "You told me you had a dream, Fergus, back in the summer. Something about my having a child. You said that as I wasn't pregnant it didn't matter. Do you remember?"

  He could still recall it vividly, every detail as fresh as if he had dreamed it last night.

  A baby, a tiny new-born infant, alone in a terrible darkness, crying. He could hear that cry now, the utter terror in it. And then in the dream he had seen Susan Carter fumbling around in the darkness with a torch, crying, unable to find the baby and begging him to help her.

  And his reply in the dream was to tell her no, leave the baby, don't try to find it, let it die. For God's sake, let it die.

  But what was to be achieved by telling Susan that now, other than worrying her? "I don't remember," he said. "Don't recall that at all." "It seemed important to you at the time." He looked uncomfortable. "Not, really."

  "You saw something, didn't you?"

  And then it happened. The pain, worse than ever before. It was as if a bayonet had been rammed into her stomach and twisted. She leant forward, bashing against the table in shock, her mouth open, her eyeballs feeling like they were bursting in their sockets. And then it came again, even worse. Her champagne glass fell and smashed but she didn't notice. The pain, the white-hot blade inside her, was twisting again.

  Fergus was on his feet. There was a babble of voices. Susan heard the word "doctor", then she heard the word "ambulance". And Fergus was saying "pregnant", and then she heard the word "miscarriage."

  And she was on a fairground ride, the restaurant was spinning, she was losing it. And all the time she was trying to tell them Van Rhoe, only call Van Rhoe, no one else.

  And then, as suddenly as it always came on, the pain stopped.

  The nausea subsided, leaving her cold, shivery, dripping with perspiration. There was still a pain inside her but it was no longer acute, just a dull throb. People were standing around her, crowding her in, Fergus, a waiter, a man who stuck his face close to hers and told her he was a doctor.

  "I'm OK," Susan said. "Please, I'm OK, I get these, they're nothing, I have some pills."

  "You keep getting these pains?" asked the man who had said he was a doctor.

  "It's all right, I have just a tiny cyst, I'm under Mr. Van Rhoe. It's not a problem."

  The doctor was giving her a hard look. "Miles Van Rhoe? He's your obstetrician?"

  Susan nodded.

  "Well, you're in good hands. I think you should go straight to see him today."

  "I'll call him, thank you, I'm sorry."

  "I'd better take you home," Fergus said.

  She shook her head. "I have a meeting in the office, an author coming in, I can't cancel him."

  Fergus looked reproachful. "YoUr health is more important."

  "I'm OK, I'll be fine now." She popped two pills. Fergus handed her his glass and she swallowed them with the champagne, downing it in one gulp so that she didn't have to taste it, hoping it would help dull the pain. Then Fergus perched on the edge of his chair. "Did you say you have a cyst?"

  "It's tiny, nothing. I occasionally get a bit of pain from it, that's all." The champagne was making her feel light-headed - it was the first alcohol she'd drunk in ages.

  "That wasn't just a bit of pain, Susan. How long has this been going on?"

  It took her a moment to answer, and then she said, "About three months."

  Fergus told her gently, "Susan, I know this isn't a very flattering thing to say but has anyone told you how terrible you look?"

  She said nothing. He was right, she knew that she looked like a ghost. A ghost with huge dark rings beneath her eyes. Not many people had come out with it, because most of the time she'd masked it with make-up, but Fergus seemed able to see through it.

  "This man, Van Rhoe, his name's familiar," he said.

  "Every time anyone famous has a baby, he delivers it. He's in the papers a lot." Then, before she realised it, she told him, "Mr. Sarotzini was adamant that I see him and no one -"

  She checked herself in mid-sentence, as she saw a strange look on Fergus's face.

  A chasm of silence opened up between them. Finally, Fergus bridged it. "Sarotzini? Did you say Mr. Sarotzini?"

  There was something about the way Fergus said the name that made her feel uncomfortable. "Yes."

  "Is he your doctor?"

  Aware that she'd trapped herself, she tried to think of a suitable reply. "No, he's a banker. He helped my husband. He - he likes to give advice."

  Fergus pulled out his cigarettes. "Do you mind - if I blow the smoke away from you?"

  "No, go ahead, I'm better about smoke now, doesn't bother me so much."

  He lit up then spelled out the name: "S-A-R-O-T-Z-I-N-I?"

  "Yes."

  "What's his first name?"

  This momentarily threw Susan. She scrolled through her mind, then said, "Emil."

  Unless she had imagined it, his face darkened.

  "Why do you ask? Do you know him?" she said.

  He lit his cigarette. "The name has connotations, that's all. And it's an unusual name."

  "What connotations?"

  And then that knife twisted inside her again. It wasn't as acute as before and she managed to swallow the cry before it escaped her lips. But Fergus noticed. "Susan, you're not right."

  "I'm OK, really, it was just a twinge."

  He stared at her in silence, looking dubious. Then, gently, he asked, "What are you and your husband doing for Christmas?"

  "We're having a quiet one. Going to spend the week of Christmas through the New Year down in the Cotswolds with old friends of John -he was best man at our wedding. And you?"

  "I don't know, I haven't decided. There's the annual gathering of the Donleavy clan in Waterford, but I'm not much into ancestor worship. I might go to Prague, or St. Petersburg, somewhere that's cold, with real snow, somewhere that looks like Christmas should look."

  "I'd like to spend Christmas somewhere like that, too," she said wistfully, and glanced down, thinking suddenly about Bump and how Bump was going to take to the snow in a year or two's time.

  "Is it going to be a boy or girl?" Fergus asked.

  "I haven't - wanted to know." Then she changed the subject. "Fergus, you're becoming a real man of mystery, aren't you?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "Well, you have this dream, and now you can't remember what it was about - or you don't want to tell me. And now this name, Sarotzini, this has connotations and you don't want to tell me what those are."

  He tilted up his head and blew a long jet of smoke at the ceiling. It hung there, drifting away slowly over the heads of other diners until air from a heating duct caught it and it exploded, like surf. "How old is this Emil Sarotzini?"

  "I don't know - late fifties, early sixties, perhaps."

  Fergus shook his head. "There's no connection, other than perhaps the Flame."

  "What is it with the name?"