John turned the statuette over, searching for some clue as to its provenance. He knew little about antiques; this felt old, its texture smooth, like glass on a beach polished by the sea and sand, and he guessed it was malachite. It had graceful legs, like a racehorse, a male human torso and a scaly head that reminded him of a gryphon. It did not repulse him, but it was unattractive, rather sinister-feeling. "Don't think I'd mind too much giving this away if it was in my family," he said.

  "It is, now," she replied.

  Their eyes met, for an instant, then John looked away. Susan's emotions were a minefield and he needed to pick every word he said with care. He examined the statue again, wondering if it had some occult significance, but said nothing.

  Last night, he'd slept in a room adjoining Susan's. He'd had only one further conversation with Mr. Sarotzini after his confrontation with him yesterday afternoon, in which the banker had informed him that he had to return to Europe on business, and would leave him and Susan to consider their position. Mr. Sarotzini told him he could stay at the clinic for as long as he wanted, and strongly advised him to remain with Susan until she was fit enough to return to England. John had no intention of doing anything else.

  Susan had been seen this morning by her new obstetrician, a courteous Swiss of few words named Dr. Verlag. Under John's questioning he told them he had removed a small ovarian cyst after the Caesarean and that Susan was fine, she would be able to mother as many more children as she wanted.

  No mention was made of Miles Van Rhoe, and John thought that that was for the best, for now. Just let her keep it blotted out until she was in a stronger mental state.

  This morning, Susan had again told John exactly what had happened when she'd arrived in Casey's room. He wanted to believe her, and what she said had that indefinable ring of authenticity about it. And yet there was a question mark that hung like a gallows across his mind.

  If Susan was able to blot from her mind her attack on Van Rhoe, then was it possible that she had killed Casey and was blotting that out, too? Could Sarotzini possibly have been telling the truth? She had a motive: with Casey dead, she had no financial obligations to prevent her absconding with Verity. But would Susan really have put her love for her unborn baby higher than her sister's life? Not if she was normal. But if she was having a breakdown... if the balance of her mind was disturbed... then what?

  And he had a feeling that Susan was holding back from telling him everything. She wasn't sure about him, she wasn't sure at all.

  Ten minutes after the Lebovics had departed, the second visitors arrived. Mr. and Mrs. Stone, a decade younger than the Lebovics and much better dressed ond, John guessed, also of middle European origin. Like the Lebovics, they, too, were interested only in Verity, virtually ignoring Susan and John, except to hand them a gift, this time in a box tied with ribbon, a magnificent gold chalice that John boggled at and reckoned must be worth thousands.

  Visitors continued to arrive in an intermittent trickle throughout the afternoon. Concerned at the stress on Susan, John spoke to the obstetrician, asking if he could put either a restriction or a total ban on visitors, at least until she was stronger, and Dr. Verlag's curt response was that these people admired the great man, Emil Sarotzini, and had come, many of them right across America, to pay respects to his child. It would be an insult to reject them.

  There was no let-up each afternoon for the next three weeks. The visitors were invariably polite, but mostly reticent, normally addressing Susan and ignoring John. All brought a gift. Some of the women also dispensed advice for care of the baby, about nutrition, sleeping positions, room and bath temperatures. Susan was given remedies for colds, herbs for Verity's bones, and advice on vitamins to add to the baby's milk once she moved from breast to bottle feeds.

  The visitors were invariably middle-aged to elderly, some more affluent-looking than others, and although just about every race was eventually represented, mostly they were white and predominantly of central European extraction, John judged from their appearance, their names and sometimes their voices.

  The first few afternoons he stayed in the room, watching them carefully, and exchanging comical glances with Susan as some departed. Although she was tired, Susan was, at least, showing signs of regaining her sense of humour.

  Many of the gifts were antiques, and dark green or black were the favoured colours, malachite, wood or marble, and often wrapped with black silk ribbon. But there were also some in brass and gold. The largest gift was an ornately carved black lacquered crib. A couple delivered it with great pride and said it had been in their family for centuries. After they had gone, John and Susan exchanged a look of horror. Susan said it gave her the creeps having it in the room and John removed it, putting it in the trunk of his car, and donated it to a startled couple he found in an LA suburb preparing for a garage sale.

  There were censers, crucibles and other jars and vessels, and a large amount of old jewellery, some beautiful, but much of it vulgar and showy with huge stones. The gifts Susan liked best were the linen, which several people brought with pride, the finest Susan had ever seen or touched. She had John remove all the overtly.occult gifts and store them away, not wanting her parents, who came every morning, to see them.

  John did some work for DigiTrak, visiting existing clients on the West Coast and trying to drum up new business, although his heart wasn't really in it. Mostly he bided his time, thinking, trying to understand what was happening, watching Susan, talking to her and trying to coax back into their relationship the closeness they had once had. But always Verity lay between them, like a brick lying in the shattered glass that had been their love.

  Susan continued to insist that Mr. Sarotzini had said she could keep Verity. John did not contradict her, presuming that the banker had his reasons. Perhaps he, too, was concerned about Susan's sanity, and was allowing her to keep the baby until she was strong enough mentally to cope with parting from her. Although John suspected that the man was too ruthless to let feelings of that kind cloud his judgement, and that he must have some other agenda.

  And he felt also that it was a bad decision. The longer Susan spent with Verity, the harder she was going to find parting with her. He was even finding his own emotions getting tangled the more time he spent with the baby, holding her at Susan's insistence, talking to her, teasing her. He wasn't sure that he was getting closer to Verity but it was getting harder, as the baby showed signs of recognising him and as he watched Susan's intense love for her, to remember that this was another man's child. And he no longer saw Verity as SOme distant, disconnected object, but as a frail infant, a fellow human being, helpless and trusting in these two fallible people, Susan and himself who were her world.

  He called Pila in England every couple of days and the bulletins she gave him on Archie remained unchanged. He was deeply distressed by the condition of his friend, and thought constantly about his confrontation with Mr. Sarotzini, and how aggrieved the banker had been when he had suggested a connection between Archie's illness and the deaths of Harvey Addison, Zak Danziger and Fergus Donleavy.

  He replayed over and over the banker's reaction, trying to gauge how a genuinely innocent man might have responded, and concluded every time that Mr. Sarotzini's evasive reply, his reaffirmation of his so-called honourable behaviour, followed by his bald challenge to John to call the police, were those of a man who had something to hide.

  A million questions boiled in his mind. Susan had gone to Harvey Addison for a second opinion and that night he had died. It had been, ostensibly, an overdose of cocaine - but perhaps his death had been set up to look that way? Then Fergus had told Susan what he knew about Sarotzini and Miles Van Rhoe, and that night he had choked on his vomit in a drunken stupor. Again that could have been a set-up. Zak Danziger had died of a drug overdose in a hotel in New York. Again a set-up?

  Archie Warren had gone to his office and e-mailed him files about Sarotzini's company, and that night he had had a stroke and was still in a coma, with a poor prognosis. It was a common belief that occult practitioners could harm victims merely by thinking about them, or by sticking pins in wax effigies of them. Was that what had happened to Archie?

  Was such a thing really possible?

  And why had these things happened? The motive for Zak Danziger's death had been clear enough: to get him off DigiTrak's back. But Harvey Addison? Just because Susan had been to him for a second opinion? Was there something about the baby that Harvey had not been supposed to see or know?

  John knew that Harvey had been a womaniser, and that he took cocaine. It was possible that his death had been a genuine accident. It was possible that Fergus Donleavy's death had been an accident also - Susan had told him that Fergus was a heavy drinker. It was possible that Archie's obesity and incessant smoking had finally taken its toll.

  And just supposing that Sarotzini was prepared to kill people and get involved in illegal cover-ups, then how safe was Susan? Or himself?. What did Sarotzini really want from them?

  Susan had told him that Sarotzini had lied about his wife and wasn't married. And she told him that he'd talked about his religion and had said that Jesus Christ was an impostor, but she was unclear what his religion was, and urged John to read the books on the occult that she'd left in the bottom of a suitcase at her parents" house.

  He had read them. Some of the chapters that enabled him to understand the significance of the occult symbols in their house and of new-born babies disturbed him deeply. And the daily visitors, with their occult gifts, disturbed him as deeply, as if by the sheer weight of their numbers they lent credibility to his consternation.

  OK, Susan's fears that the baby would be taken and sacrificed the moment it was born had been groundless, but only so far. Perhaps it didn't need to be a new-born baby. Perhaps Sarotzini was keeping Verity for one of the specific dates listed in his book. Walpurgis Night was coming up: 30 April. Or the Summer Solstice on 21 June. Or Lammas, the great Sabbat festival, on 31 July. Or the Autumn Equinox. Or Samhain. There were any number of festivals ahead.

  How deeply were they into something they did not understand? And what was their exit? Handing over Verity? That was no longer an option for him not without tremendous reassurances, backed by hard evidence, that her future safety kould be assured. And, even with that, he doubted Susan would ever consent, not now.

  He said nothing of his fears to her or to her parents. Dick and Gayle Corrigan were having a tough time coping with their grief over Casey, and he knew the room was bugged, probably being watched, and maybe their house and their cars and God only knew what else.

  That feeling of helplessness he'd experienced a year ago in Mr. Clarke's office had returned with a vengeance. But then he'd had at least some idea of what to do and where to turn.

  Now he had none.

  Chapter Sixty-seven

  As the private jet accelerated Susan felt the joins in the ranway bumping beneath them. Verity's mouth opened in alarm, and Susan cuddled her, making soothing noises. The roar of the engines deepened, the plane shook, and then it was riding a cushion of air and Los Angeles was tumbling steeply away beneath them.

  Her ears popped. She held her nose and blew, then Verity started to cry. Susan wondered if her little ears were hurting too - they must be, she decided, and she didn't know how to deal with this.

  She turned to John. "Hon, does it say anything in your CD about how we get Verity to pop her ears?"

  He hauled his briefcase on to his lap and opened it. All the papers in it slid forward from the angle of the climb. Rummaging inside, he pulled out his laptop, powered it up and inserted one of DigiTrak's recent CD releases, which he'd had sent over, titled Dr. Harvey Addison's 1001 Useful Things to Know About Your Baby. He searched through it. Ears popping on an aeroplane was not among them.

  Verity's crying worsened. Mr. Sarotzini, sitting opposite in one of the rearward-facing seats, said, "If you feed Verity, the sucking and swallowing will ease the pressure in her ears, Susan."

  She looked back at him resentfully. With every day that passed she found it harder to accept that Mr. Sarotzini was Verity's father, and regarded even this piece of advice as an intrusion. So what did he expect now? That she was going to expose a breast right here, in front of him, and start suckling Verity?

  And then, she wondered, suspiciously, How did he know what to do? Had he had other babies, like Verity? From other brood-mare mothers, like herself "She'll be OK," she replied. "She'll settle down. It's just the noise of the take-off that unsettled her." Verity bawled even more loudly, her tiny mouth contorting, her face puce. As soon as the jet began to level out, Susan unclipped her seat belt and, a little unsteadily, carried Verity down to one of a cluster of chairs around a small boardroom table at the rear of the cabin.

  There, in privacy, she slipped out her left breast and held Verity's face to it. Within seconds, the baby's screaming faltered, and she began to nuzzle the nipple. Susan watched her contented expression, and felt a glow of warmth, which almost immediately gave way to a feeling of anger that Mr. Sarotzini had been right. "We're going to England," she whispered. "You're coming home with me. Are you looking forward to it?"

  John peered round to check if Susan was OK, but couldn't see her, then looked back at his laptop and clicked on the Introduction icon, which was a small matter of Harvey Addison.

  A second later, Harvey filled the screen, oily smooth and silky-voiced, welcoming every new mother in the world to his essential guide. John's emotions churned at the sight of his friend. He'd been in the studio to oversee the filming of this intro, less than a year ago, and could remember it clearly.

  He looked up and saw Mr. Sarotzini watching him. The banker had returned to accompany them personally to England. John had been wary of accepting his invitation to fly them home in his private jet. If Sarotzini wanted to get rid of him and Susan, a thousand miles out over the Atlantic would have been as good a place as any. But then so would the clinic have been, he reasoned. If Sarotzini's people could cover up Casey's death, then his own and Susan's would not have posed a problem either.

  Mr. Sarotzini had told him that commercial airliners were breeding grounds for bugs; it was in the best interests of Verity's health that they accepted. And, John had to admit, he was enjoying the novelty: this plane was the size of a commercial airliner, and had proper beds. And he'd got a certain thrill of power going through a separate section at Los Angeles airport; being, however fleetingly, in the realm of the super-rich was seductive. But not seductive enough to dull his wits.

  Mr. Sarotzini said, quietly, "So, Mr. Carter, the two of you have had three weeks in which to consider my terms. You have arrived at an answer?"

  "I haven't had any terms from you," John said fractiously.

  The banker looked at him reproachfully. "I conveyed them to Susan. I would have thought, perhaps, during the past three weeks you would have discussed them?"

  "Susan's in a state of shock. She needs counselling, therapy, probably a long haul with a psychiatrist. She doesn't trust you or me or anyone right now. She believes you and I are in cahoots and that we have a hidden agenda. How can you expect her to think rationally? She's a strong girl, she's doing her best, she's coping, but that's all she's doing. She's coping, she's trying to be a good mother, OK? If you have terms you want to discuss, you discuss them with me."

  "I am permitting Susan to keep the baby. She has told you this?"

  "She's under that impression. Presumably my feelings don't count."

  "You are her husband, Mr. Carter. You are at perfect liberty to say no. I would understand."

  John stared at the banker, at his coldly arrogant face, his immaculate suit, his shiny loafers, his expensive tie, reclining but alert, like a basking reptile, in his wide seat. "Would you?" John said, cynically. "Would you really?" He looked back at his computer screen, at Harvey Addison's face frozen now, still, motionless.

  Dead.

  "Exactly how long does Susan get to keep her for?"

  Mr. Sarotzini raised his hands. "Susan is Verity's mother. How long does a mother keep any child?" He leant forward and, unhurriedly, pressed his fingertips together forming the familiar bridge. "Of course, Mr. Carter, I understand. It is not easy for you."

  "That's something I will have to discuss with Susan when she's fit and ready. I also have a number of conditions for you."

  The banker looked at him quizzically, as if amused by his presumption. "Yes? Please tell me."

  "The first is that I want Susan under doctors of our own choosing from now on."

  There was no reaction. "And the second?"

  "I don't want any more surveillance. No more bugging of my house, no more cameras."

  "Give me no cause for alarm, Mr. Carter, and further surveillance will not be necessary."

  "Susan ran because she was scared you were going to take the baby away."

  "That is no longer an issue."

  "So there will be no more surveillance?"

  "No more, Mr. Carter."

  Their eyes met and John tried to gauge the sincerity of this statement. But he couldn't. "Third thing, I don't want anyone else coming to harm." John watched the man's face carefully, but there was no visible reaction.

  "You require a bodyguard? Someone to protect Susan and Verity - and yourself?."

  "That's not what I meant," John said. This time he saw a definite tightening around the man's mouth and eyes. "And I want phone numbers where I can get hold of you. I want to know how often you expect to see Verity, what she will be told about who her father is, and who will pay for her upkeep." He hesitated. "And I want to understand what's going on. Why did you want to have this baby so much? Why are you willing to give her up? This is not making any sense to me."

  "In your Bible, Mr. Carter, there is an eloquent line in, I believe, St. Paul's letter to the Corinthians. ""Now we see through a glass darkly. Then, we shall see clearly."" You are familiar with this line?"

  "I'm familiar with the quotation, but it's not my Bible, I'm not religious."