Chapter 29

I must drift off, because I’m woken by the phone ringing. I jerk myself up and lunge at the bedside table, but when I get the receiver to my ear, all I can hear is dialling tone. This is getting creepy, but I don’t know what to do. Hoping that the noise hasn’t woken Mutti, I sink back on the pillows and watch the pink-tinged daylight breaking over the rooftops. I put on my dressing gown and drift into the lounge, gazing through the new pane in the French window across the dense maze of terraced houses and council blocks that stretch away, till scruffy Lower Holloway gives way to leafy Tufnell Park. I won’t tell Mutti for now.

The nausea is still there, but it’s accompanied by a ferocious physical energy. The only way of getting rid of any of it is the gym. The place is humming with the kind of successful people who have to exercise early in the morning, because that’s the only ‘window’ they have left in their busy diaries. I’m not even sure whether pregnant women are supposed to run on treadmills, but I don’t care. I hide myself among them, hoping nobody will spot that I’m a fraud, running until my thighs are seizing up and sweat has saturated my bra. I heave weights above my head, watching in the mirror as my muscles contract into sinewy shapes, lifting and lowering again, and again, until I lose count. At home, Mutti’s is probably just shaking off the sleeping tablet fuzz. I hope she’s OK. Make mental note to call DI Jenkins about the stone through my window.

Leaving my kit in a locker, I walk the pavements for miles until I reach Holborn. It’s mid-morning by the time I’m standing outside the office of a smart legal firm. It’s a cliff face of glass and steel, refracting a dazzling broken jigsaw of the building opposite in the morning sun. A receptionist with a painted-on smile and geometric hair looks unblinking at me.

“Mr Andris Kovács, please.”

“Is Mr Kovács expecting you?”

“No, but I think he’ll want to see me.” She picks up a phone and dials a number.

“And who shall I say is calling?” Before she’s had a chance to write down my name, I’ve pushed through the turnstile with a girl in high heels and am hurtling up through the atrium in a glass lift. When I get out, I find myself facing a long glass wall with a row of offices. Helpfully, there are name signs on each door. Less helpfully, there’s another dragon with savage red lips outside the office of Andris Kovács LLB, partner.

“I’m sorry, you don’t seem to have an appointment.”

“I don’t need one,” I say and walk past her open mouth. I’d like to bang the door shut in her face, but it’s got one of those hydraulic mechanisms which makes it shuffle to a silent close. He’s wearing a pin-stripe suit every bit as well cut as the jeans he was wearing yesterday and has a phone tucked between ear and shoulder.

“Er, you might have to bear with me one moment,” he says into it, and turning to me. “Miss Mueller, this isn’t at all convenient.”

“It’s convenient for me,” I say, sitting down in a chair opposite him, putting my bag on my lap, and looking him straight in the eye.

“Look, I’m sorry about this,” he says into the phone, “but something’s come up.” I wait for him to put the phone down. He straightens his blue silk tie. In any other situation, I’d be too overwhelmed by his devastating looks to even say hello.

“Mr Kovács,” I say, “or should I call you Andy? Anyway, I’m fed up of playing games of cat and mouse, and pretending to be pally. It’s all a front, and I want to know the truth.”

“I’m sorry?”

“The pictures, Mr Kovács. Where are they?”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”

“Really? I reckon you and your father would make quite good mug shots for our rogues’ gallery on The Crime Programme. Or maybe you’d like to see yourself in a dramatic reconstruction film telling the story of a major art theft.”

“Don’t talk such rubbish.”

“I’m serious.”

“And I am too. I presume there are professional guidelines even for your tawdry profession and barging into my office has got to be breaking every rule in the book. Not to mention making wild allegations without an iota of evidence.” He picks up the phone. “What’s the name of the person in charge there?”

The thought of Sarah hearing what I’ve said takes my breath away.

“Well?”

“The series editor’s name is Sarah Phillips,” I say, trying to look as though I don’t care whether he calls her or not. I dictate her direct number, one digit at a time. He scribbles it on a pad. And looks at me.

“First I’m going to phone my father.”

“There’s nothing he can tell you that you don’t know already.”

“I’m just trying to find out what’s going on.”

“Really?” I say. “Either he or my mother is lying, and I know who I’d put my money on.” I’m on his side of the desk now, trembling with anger.

I grab him by the lapels, and I’m shaking him, spitting in his face as I shout. “My mother trusted your father!” – by now I’m blubbing out of control. “And he took advantage of her in the vilest way possible.” I shake him, screaming at the top of my voice, “And now you are both trying to fuck us over again.”

Andy tries to push me away, but I’m gripping him with superhuman strength. “Have you got any idea,” I yell, “what it’s like growing up with a mother who is so disturbed that she’s got to anaesthetise herself with booze all the time? Have you?” My nose is an inch away from his. “So that you couldn’t count on her getting through any routine event without completely losing it? Not a school play, not a birthday party, not a trip to the swimming pool.”

Out of the corner of my eye I see somebody else enter the room, and as that happens Andy pushes me again. This time I lose my grip because by now I am shuddering and crying, my strength vaporised. One push is enough to put me off balance. I stumble backwards and hit the floor with a thud, jerking my head back. A bolt of pain shoots down my neck. I’m struggling to get back onto my feet, but somehow it’s difficult. I feel as though I’m at the bottom of a swimming pool with Andy towering above me, and the other person looming into view. I struggle to focus. Shiny brass buttons on a blue jacket. I feel a big hand clamp round my arm and pull me. But I’m not sure who it is.

“That’s enough now. Come with me, please.” I can hear snatched bits of conversation, but none of it makes sense.

“Hold on… her head…” The voices are muffled. Nobody finishes a sentence. It’s like a bad edit, with shots cut in half and spliced together randomly and stray bits of audio popping up out of sync. I hear a groan, and realise it’s my own voice. Then, “She’s bleeding…” I flop back down, the ground swinging beneath me.

The next thing I know, I’m sitting on a sofa holding a wet compress on the back of my head. And Andy’s there with a cup of hot, sweet tea. He’s terribly solicitous and, of course, still fantastically good looking.

“I’m sorry”, I groan. “I didn’t mean—”

“It’s OK, just forget about it.”

“What I mean is I just got a bit carried away.”

“It’s understandable.”

“It is?”

Andy excuses himself and lets the first aider take over. She examines my head and checks my reflexes. My hair is wet with congealing blood at the back, but the cut is small, perhaps I haven’t got concussion after all. She gives me some painkillers and puts some liquid plaster on the cut. After she’s gone, the red-mouthed dragon puts her head round the door. And gives the sweetest smile.

“Mr Kovács is just finishing his conference call. He’ll be with you in a minute.” She disappears, leaving me alone. I look around. There’s lots of white light, and it’s hurting my eyes. I take a make-up mirror out of my bag and clean up the smears of mascara. Then I put on my coat and find my way back to the lift.

I start walking down High Holborn, feeling hot and limp. It’s still quite early, the morning is clouded but close, and heat is radiating up from the pavement making me sweat. That constant queasiness pursues me, as though I’m trapped in a rocking boat. And now I’m exhausted too. I look round for a cab. The paracetamol must be wearing off because my head’s beginning to throb again, and now I’ve got stomach cramps as well. Where on earth is a taxi when you need one? I keep walking, with an eye on the traffic. I see one, but as it comes closer I can see it’s full. Then there’s another, empty and coming straight towards me. I step out into the road, just as it sails on past. The backdraft slaps me in the face. There’s a tight spasm in my stomach.

I crouch on the edge of the curb holding my tummy. I think I’m about to be sick. There’s a tap on my back. I turn to see a policeman.

“Are you OK, madam?”

“It’s nothing,” I say. He helps me to my feet, and scrutinises me. Oh God, he thinks I’m drunk. How loud do I have to say that Iam not like my mother, for Christ’s sake.

“Officer,” I say, speaking as clearly and unslurringly as I can, “I don’t suppose you can help me find a cab?”

I tell the driver to take me home. I’ll just clean myself up and lie down for a few hours. Everything will be fine. Then we hit a pothole and my stomach sends out another spasm. I feel my pulse shoot up. Something disgusting and wet creeps down the inside of my leg.

“Tell you what,” I call up to the driver. “Take me to the nearest hospital.”

On the pavements of Farringdon Road, girls in neat little suits and pumps are rushing between offices. They weave their way through the stationary traffic carrying loaded cardboard coffee cup holders. There’s a billboard advertising a new film, an Evening Standard vendor shouting out the headline news. We’ve trundled under the railway bridge, towards the traffic lights before I’ve clocked “Arrest in Stamford Hill murder” on the newspaper placard. That is what it said, isn’t it? I crane my head round, but it’s disappearing behind us. There don’t seem to be any more newsstands, along the miles and miles of pavement. I call Jenkins, but his number’s on voicemail.

At the hospital, I lever myself out of the cab, thighs pressed together and trying not to breathe. No sudden moves. Hurrying as slowly as I can, it’s an agonising waddle from the forecourt into Accident and Emergency. I reach the main entrance through a curtain of cigarette smoke. Inside, I pass a fat woman bursting out of a minidress with her head bent over a grey cardboard bowl. I steer a wide circle around her, fearful that the odour of vomit is going to make me heave too.

“The current waiting time is three hours,” says the receptionist. “As you can see, it’s very busy.” Really? I can only see a only few people sprawled out over the metal benches.

“I’m bleeding.”

“The triage nurse will come and see you,” says the girl with a flat, impassive expression that makes me want to slap her. On TV medical dramas they seem to get very excited about people who are actually bleeding. They run around “resus” looking concerned, and put up drips, measure blood pressure and exchange many meaningful looks over the patient as they are working. It doesn’t seem worth pointing this out to the receptionist.

A man with an impressive cut on his forehead makes space for me to sit down. I sit there for a long time, listening to a woman in stiletto sandals and tight jeans complaining in a screechy voice about “that Shaylah”, and how she “turned round and told her what she thought of her”.

The stomach cramps are still there, though at least they don’t seem to have become any worse. There are a few ragged old magazines lying around with straplines like “My cross-dressing son murdered my daughter” and “Five-year-old’s ten foot tapeworm”. My eyes settle on a television that is suspended high up on the wall. It’s playing some kind of game show.

After just one hour, a nurse calls my name, but it’s a false alarm. A further hour and I’m ushered into a cubicle. I lie on the bed because there is nowhere else to sit. And as I do so, the cramps worsen. Over the next twenty minutes, the pains get more and more intense, and there’s still no sign of a medic. Then the curtain is pulled aside, and a nurse puts her head through.

“Do you think I could have something for the stomach ache?” I ask. She gives me a disparaging look, as though she knows that I’m suffering the morning-after effects of too many pints of lager and a curry.

“The doctor won’t want you to have anything until he’s seen you,” she says.

“How long do you think that might be?”

“I’m sorry but we’re very busy,” she says, as she disappears.

As the curtains swing back together I get a feeling as if someone has plunged a screwdriver into my guts. Churning cramps. My knees pull themselves up to my abdomen of their own free will. Sweat has broken out on my forehead, but my mouth is dry. The sense of loneliness is desperate.

I can’t imagine a baby surviving inside me now. It would seem like an earthquake for her. And after the earthquake, the tsunami. I can feel a large, gelatinous bulk slide into my pants, and as it does so, the pains begin to subside. A feeling of disgust overwhelms me and I try to drag off my underwear, to get the fearsome, disgusting, alien mass away from me. I’m scrambling up the bed, dragging and ripping at it, just as the sharp sound of metal rings swishing along the curtain pole announce the arrival of the doctor.

A confusing swirl of images, mixed through with the white glare of ceiling lights. And breaking through it all, a familiar face in a white coat is looking at me, with an expression of shock and concern. I can’t quite focus on who it is. Don’t care.

“Something’s come out, it’s come out. Get it away,” I shriek.

“Lie down, just relax and let us do this,” he says, pressing me back onto the bed, and shouting out, “Nurse! Now!” The nurse appears in moments, and holds me round the shoulders while the doctor eases my knickers down with latex-gloved hands. He wraps the thing into a large piece torn from the roll of sterile blue paper, and leaves the cubicle with it. The memory of it coming out plays over and over again in my mind. I’m shaking and shouting, and pushing it away even though I know it’s gone really, but it feels as though it’s still there. The rational side of my mind can’t take control and stop me juddering and scrambling back along the bed.

“It’s OK, it’s gone. Stay still.” I can feel the nurse holding me down, and the sharp prick of an injection. Bit by bit, the shaking stops, and the replayed sensations grind to slo-mo and then a freeze frame. Even with the fluorescent lights piercing my eyelids, I can feel my breathing and pulse subside, and I must drift off. I don’t know how long I’m out for. The nurse shakes me.

“I’ve got a cup of tea for you here, if you feel up to it.” I’m still trembling, so she holds it and lets me sip the hot, sweet liquid until I’m calm enough to grasp it myself. Another swish of the curtains and the doctor is back. Recognition kicks in. It’s Jon. With a stethoscope. I jerk with surprise and spill some of the tea on the surgical gown I seem to be wearing. He puts out a hand to steady me, and helps me hold the cup level.

“How are you feeling?”

I shrug but don’t manage to say anything, because I’m shocked how lovely he is, and how pleased I am to see him. I scrutinise his face for the arrogance I saw there before.

“So you are a doctor then,” I say.

“Yes, sorry about that.”

“No, I didn’t mean – it’s OK, it’s fine. It’s good.” He smiles a disarmingly charming smile.

“And in my medical capacity there is one good thing I can tell you. You won’t need to have any further surgery.”

“I suppose that’s something.”

“But it might take a day or two before you are back to normal.” He’s folded his arms, with one hand on his chin and a worried look.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude,” I say. “Bit of a shock. Is there something else you wanted to say?” He looks embarrassed.

“Nurse, would you give me a moment, please?” She nods and steps through the curtains. He sits down on the bed next to me. “I do need to ask you something,” he whispers. “Were you – um? When we, I mean… am I just jumping to conclusions when I wonder? ”

“I’m sorry, this is going to sound very irresponsible,” I say. “But I don’t know.”

“What exactly don’t you know? Were you pregnant before – when we…?”

“Oh, no. At least I don’t think so. I only realised a few days ago.”

“So who is the…?”

“That’s it. I don’t know.” I’m bracing myself for him to be judgemental, with every possible justification.

“So,” he says. “It is possible?” And he points to himself.

“Possible that it was yours? Yes. But it’s not what it looks like.”

“What does it look like?”

“Well, as though I’m… What I mean is – there is one other person. Possibly.”

“I see.” He nods. “The hapless goyishe photographer?”

“Yes.” I expect him to say something nasty. But he doesn’t. He just stands there looking at me.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I should have got in touch.”

“Would have been nice and all. Even if I was only in with a fifty-fifty.”

“Are you trying to say that you would have wanted me to have your baby?” His redness intensifies, and I’m sure I’m not imagining that I can make out a certain wetness in his eyes.

“Look, forget about it.” He turns to go, then seems to have second thoughts. “This is all totally unethical, and I’ll probably get struck off if anybody finds out, but can I give you a call later on? Maybe we could have that coffee?”