Mr. Sarotzini looked at him impassively. "These are serious accusations, Mr. Carter. I think perhaps you are experiencing some of the stress that your wife has been under You must be tired after your flight. Would you care for some refreshment? Coffee, perhaps?"

  "I want to see Susan. I want to hear her side of what's happened, before I hear from anyone else, OK?"

  "Of course." The banker raised his hands expansively. "In a few moments. We need to talk first, to understand each other a little more."

  John shook his head. "No, I want to see her now. I want to see my wife right now. Then I'll come back and talk to you, if I'm happy - and if I'm not happy, I'm calling the police."

  Mr. Sarotzini examined his keyboard tapped out a command, then swivelled the monitor towards John. It showed in colour, Susan lying at a lopsided angle in a bed, breastfeeding a baby. The clock on the wall, clearly visible above her, showed the time as being now. This wasn't a recording, it was live.

  Relief burst through him. She was all right. Susan was all right, alive. Thank God for that.

  He leaned forward, closer, watching in a swirl of emotions. "When did she have the baby?"

  "Last night, Mr. Carter. She's a very healthy little girl. They are both doing excellently. I can understand your wish to speak with her, but there are important things that you should know first. Please sit. This is going to take a little time."

  John hesitated, then looked over his shoulder: the flunkey was still resolutely blocking the door. The sight of Susan had defused some of his anger, and he sat down in front of Mr. Sarotzini, then watched Susan again. She was looking at the baby and there was a tenderness in her face, such incredible tenderness. It moved him and, at the same time, gave him a pang of anguish. It was going to devastate her to let this baby go.

  "You have been informed, I believe, about the death of Susan's sister, Mr. Carter."

  He looked at the banker. "I had a phone call from Susan's father telling me something totally crazy - that Susan had killed Casey. There's no way, absolutely no way, that Susan would have harmed her."

  Mr. Sarotzini nodded, apparently sympathising with his view, then he said, "I'm afraid it is much worse than that, Mr. Carter. Your wife has killed her sister, Casey, and she maimed Mr. Van Rhoe. He has lost an eye and he has irreparable frontal-lobe brain damage. He is paralysed down the entire length of one side of his body, and he will never work again."

  "Van Rhoe? Miles Van Rhoe?" John stared back at him in disbelief. "Her obstetrician? Susan was responsible?"

  "I regret so."

  This was absurd, totally ludicrous. Some bizarre practical joke was going on, some test he was being put through. His eyes went back to Susan, who was transferring the baby to her left breast. He laughed, thinly. "Come on!"

  But there was no humour in the banker's face. "It is not something I would have thought your gentle wife capable of, Mr. Carter. But how often do we really know anyone?"

  The banker tapped out another command. The image on the screen changed from Susan breastfeeding, to the exterior of a building. It was the clinic, John presumed from the style of architecture, although he didn't recognise this part. A figure emerged from a door, dressed in green scrubs, wearing a surgical face mask and cap, and holding a cellular phone. The camera zoomed in tightly on its face.

  For a moment it was too difficult to make out just from the eyes, who it was, but it seemed to be a woman. Susan? Then, as she dialled the phone, she tugged the mask down from her face, and John could see clearly that it was Susan. Suddenly, she looked over her shoulder, then began to run.

  Other cameras picked her up from different angles as she raced across a flower-bed, a lawn, then down the drive, three men appearing behind her now, chasing her, two in suits, ore in surgical scrubs.

  John watched in horror. Susan tripped over a sleeping policeman and sprawled headlong onto the tarmac drive. She scrambled forward on her hands and knees, grabbed the cellular phone, which had fallen from her grip, and stood up. The man in surgical scrubs had caught up with her and put a restraining hand on shoulder. In a reverse camera angle John could see the man's face: he was about sixty and puffing with exertion. In that same split second, John saw Susan strike out and stab him in the eye with the pointed aerial end of the phone.

  Blanching in shock, John watched the man, whom he presumed must be the obstetrician, sink to his knees with the phone jammed in his eye, then fall sideways. The camera zoomed in on his face. Blood rolled out around the phone; the man lay still.

  Mr. Sarotzini switched off the replay, then slowly, as if he had all the time in the world, formed a bridge with his fingers, and studied John across the top of it.

  John stared back at the banker, feeling sick, the image burning through his mind, replaying itself over and over. There was a tremor in his voice. "Wh - what was he trying to do to her?"

  "Mr. Van Rhoe was going to deliver the baby, Mr. Carter, that was all. She was his patient. She ignored his instructions to remain in London, and did a very foolish thing, getting on an aeroplane and flying out here. He very kindly agreed to come out "himself, to b available for her."

  "How fortunate she came to a clinic you owned."

  Mr. Sarotzini ignored the barb. "I'm afraid Susan has been suffering some form of breakdown, Mr. Carter. Her behaviour has been most erratic."

  John leant forward. "Do you blame her? If I was pregnant and discovered my obstetrician was on a police file for devil worship, I'd run too, Mr. Sarotzini." He watched the banker's face very closely. "Perhaps you knew all about that. Perhaps that was the reason you insisted Susan go to him in the first place."

  Mr. Sarotzini sat up straight, and looked deeply hurt. He sounded hurt, too. "I think, Mr. Carter, you misjudge me. I admit I have kept your wife under surveillance although, as you may be aware, this is not against the law in your country. But have I, in any other respect, behaved in an untoward manner to either of you?"

  John stared back at him in silence. He was trying hard to think his way through what was happening, and had no immediate answer. Was he making a serious misjudgment in accusing the man?

  "Mr. Carter, I have saved your business and your home, and I have tried not to interfere with your lives. We made an agreement and I have stuck strictly to my end of it. Regrettably, your wife has not. She has sought help from surrogacy groups on the Internet, she has consulted lawyers, she has disobeyed her doctor's instructions, she has shown every intention of breaking our agreement and keeping the baby, which is why she is here, and it is why, as you have seen in that regrettable video footage, in an act of total madness she fled from the clinic and savagely attacked Mr. Van Rhoe."

  Mr. Sarotzini's face tightened with anger. "And now you have the effrontery to come here, making insinuations to me about the deaths of a composer and two other people, and about someone else who is in a coma, and to imply that in some way our acquisition of this clinic is connected to the death of your wife's sister." He pointed to the phone on the desk. "Go ahead, Mr. Carter, phone the police, please. It will make us both more comfortable. Ask them to come here. Tell them you wish to make a statement." He lowered his eyes. When he looked up at John again, he said, "And inform them that the directors of the clinic wish to make a statement also." He pushed the phone towards John. "Please, just lift the receiver, ask the switchboard to connect you."

  John pressed his hands tightly together. They felt clammy; his whole body felt clammy. He swallowed. Mr. Sarotzini pushed the phone even closer towards them, and then, in a sharp jerk, even closer still. John fixed his eyes on it. There were two rows of memory buttons, each with a small plastic window containing a typed name. With a sharp screech on the polished desktop, the telephone moved closer still towards him.

  His eyes remained rooted to it. He was unable to lift them, unable to look Mr. Sarotzini in the face. The hideous image of Van Rhoe collapsing to the ground seemed to reflect at him straight from its grey plastic casing. "Would you prefer that I make the telephone call for you?"

  John looked up, bleakly. Susan had been trying to escape, Christ she must have been desperate. But a confrontation here with Mr. Sarotzini wasn't going to get them anywhere. She had - allegedly - killed Casey and the police had not been informed. She had stabbed Van Rhoe, and again no one had called the police.

  Was Sarotzini trying to protect Susan?

  Or hide something?

  "I'm going to talk to Susan before I make any decision," John said. Mr. Sarotzini gestured with his hand. "Mr. Klindz will take you to her room - but a word of warning first, Mr. Carter. I think you need to be careful about what you tell your wife. She is in a state of considerable mental distress. She knows, although she is reluctant to believe it, that she was responsible for her sister's death by disconnecting her air line. But she seems to have blotted from her mind her attack on Mr. Van Rhoe. It is fortunate that there were no witnesses to this incident other than our own staff." He inclined his head, giving John a knowing look.

  "Fortunate or convenient?"

  "I don't think Susan would cope very well with the duress of a police interrogation at this moment. Would you care to see her indicted on a homicide charge? And, possibly, an attempted homicide charge as well? She is in a mental state where she is unable to separate reality from what is in her imagination. In time, with gentle treatment and care, she will come out of this. To inform her of Mr. Van Rhoe's condition might, I fear, push her over the brink."

  John considered this. Susan's behaviour in recent weeks at home had given him concern, however much he did not want to admit it to himself now or to Mr. Sarotzini. "She's been in constant pain for months. It's not surprising that -" He checked himself Mr. Sarotzini opened out the palms of his hands to John. "Who knows? Perhaps it was the combination of pain and stress - almost certainly, I would say. The emotional turmoil of all she is going through. It is harder than people realise to give birth to a baby and then hand it over, never to " see it again. Much harder."

  "Yes," John said. "I've learned that."

  Mr. Sarotzini was looking at him strangely now. "Susan loves that baby with all her heart."

  "I know." John said quietly. "I think it would be best if you were to take it - from her - now. Every minute that Susan spends with her is going to make it harder. Please take the baby, give me back my business and our home -that's all I want. Just take her and let us have our life back."

  For what seemed an eternity Mr. Sarotzini studied John in silence. He pressed his fingertips lightly together, forming a bridge once again with his two hands, and continued to study John over the top of them, his eyes never leaving John's, as if he was reading something written inside them. Then he said, "I think now it is time for you to go and see Susan."

  Chapter Sixty-five

  Susan looked up in alarm as John opened the door, shrinking away from him against the headboard and flinging a protective arm around her baby, which continued suckling her exposed breast, obliviously.

  He smiled and received a silent, wary stare in return. She was pale and drawn.

  "Hi," he said, hesitantly, closing the door behind him, aware that almost certainly Mr. Sarotzini was watching him, and avoiding looking up to where the camera might be, not wanting to alarm her further. He shrugged at her and smiled again. "How you doing?"

  The room had a sickly sweet smell of baby powder, fresh laundry, and something else that John couldn't identify but always associated with new-born babies.

  He looked, curiously, at the infant, at its tiny face and minute hands. It's nose was a miniature replica of Susan's, he thought, and its flame-red hair was Susan's too, and this surprised him because - perhaps the situation would have been easier to accept that way - he had imagined the baby would have only Mr. Sarotzini's features.

  Feeling a heave of emotion, he walked across to the bed, sent down and kissed Susan lightly on the forehead. She did not respond.

  "She's lovely," he said. "Looks like you. Has your hair and your nose." He wanted to touch the baby There was so much of Susan in her - it was even more evident now that he was closer - but a warning gong in his mind made him hold back, told him to keep his emotional distance.

  She dropped her eyes. "Her name's Verity," she said, in a flat, detached voice. And then in the same tone, almost matter-of-fact, she said, "Casey's dead."

  "I heard." Then he hesitated. "I'm sorry, darling, I'm -" He wasn't sure what he felt or what to say. "I'm really sorry," he said, lamely. He reached out with his hands to touch her, to comfort her, but still she did not look at him, keeping her eyes fixed on the baby. He stroked her shoulder lightly, then laid a finger against her cheek but there was still no response. "He said I killed her."

  John waited a beat, then said, "Who said that?"

  "He said I killed Casey. That I disconnected the air line."

  John watched a solitary tear roll jerkily down her cheek; it was followed by another, then another. He pulled out his handkerchief and dabbed them. It felt like being in a room with a total stranger, not his wife. "Who said so?" he asked.

  "The nurse. Nurse Caulk. Mr. Sarotzini said Nurse Caulk had told him."

  Still without looking up at him she said, "It wasn't like that, I didn't - I -" He dabbed away more tears.

  "My parents think I killed her, too. I didn't, John. People can say what they want, think what they want, but they can't take away the truth from you, can they?"

  "No," he replied.

  "She was my reason for living."

  There were a couple of hard chairs in the room. John pulled one up to the bed and sat down, ignoring his hurt feelings at the remark. "I know. You did everything you could for her. She was lucky to have had you." He looked at the baby again, at the tiny puckered mouth sucking greedily, and at the hair, the flame-red Susan hair and the tiny turned-up nose.

  He searched for traces of Mr. Sarotzini in its face, but could see none. It was all Susan, just a miniature clone of her. Or perhaps that was wishful thinking.

  "You were a wonderful sister to her," he said. "You did everything you could for her. You made her life a lot nicer than -" He fell silent, thinking of the video he had seen of Susan plunging the aerial of the mobile phone into Van Rhoe's eye, and shuddered. Mr. Sarotzini had been right not to tell her: she was in a bad enough state of shock as it was.

  Then he leant forward and whispered in her ear, not caring whether he could be overheard or not, "I don't believe you killed her. And I love you more than anything on earth."

  She looked up at him, a fleeting, uncertain glance, then silently back down at the baby.

  He watched her with a heavy heart. What a mess he'd got her into. Suddenly he found himself hating his bank manager, Mr. Clarke. Mr. Clarke with his Bible on his desk was to blame. If he'd only let things be, the business would have turned round and none of this, none, would have happened.

  And now his wife was lying in a hospital bed, accused of murdering her sister and maiming another man, and a stranger's baby was suckling her breasts.

  Oh, God, how had he ever let himself agree to Sarotzini's crazy demands? Why hadn't he been strong enough to say no, forget it? They could have coped - Off, they'd have lost the business and the house, but they would have had each other. Instead, they had this nightmare that was destroying them both.

  Susan glanced up at him, watched him for some moments, then gazed down at her baby again. She said, very quietly, "Mr. Sarotzini is going to let me keep her."

  John looked at her in amazement.

  And then, peering nervously up at John again, she asked, "Are you?"

  Chapter Sixty-six

  The first visitors came at two fifteen the following afternoon. An elderly, rather shabby couple, dressed in clothes of good quality but which should have been given to a jumble sale years ago - or perhaps had come from one, John thought.

  The woman's badge read Mrs. M. Lebovic. She had blue-rinsed hair, ruby lipstick, gaudy jewellery and wore a velvet cloche hat. Mr. S. Lebovic carried a trilby in his hand, wore a drab, frayed tie and looked meek. They might have been Hungarian, John thought. Or Polish or Rumanian, somewhere like that.

  "She's beautiful," the woman said, in a thick Brooklyn accent, ignoring both Susan and John and stepping right up to the sleeping cot. The man followed her, approaching Verity with an air of humility and awe. Then both of them stood still, as if the cot were an altar, closed their eyes and mouthed a silent prayer.

  It reminded Susan eerily of the night that Mr. Sarotzini and the other people, including the old man in the wheelchair, had come into her room.

  "Are you friends of Mr. Sarotzini?" John asked, taking an instant dislike to them.

  The man carefully levered a package wrapped in old newspaper from his raincoat pocket and, ignoring John, held it out to Susan, who was watching him warily. "Please," he said. "For the new-born."

  The object was surprisingly heavy, and Susan nearly dropped it. She pulled off an elastic band, then unfurled the paper to reveal a dark green figurine. It was neither human nor animal, probably some mythological creature, she assumed, not caring for it very much. "Thank you," she said, uncertainly.

  "It is her heritage," the man said, then turned to follow the woman, who was already at the doorway.

  "Wait," Susan said. "I don't know your connection with -"

  They were gone, leaving more quickly than they had arrived as if anxious that they had outstayed their welcome.

  She gave John a who-were-they? look.

  "Mr. and Mrs. Lebovic." He took the statuette from her. "Friends - Christ, this is heavy - friends of Mr. Sarotzini? Relatives? What did he say? It is her heritage? What the fuck does that mean?"

  Susan looked at Verity, who was sleeping peacefully. "Maybe it's some family heirloom they've been keeping."