Chapter 11

Sixteen years ago, a woman – at that time, more a girl – named Deborah Brown agreed to surrogate for a couple struggling to conceive.

Not the kind of decision anyone makes lightly. You don’t rush it, go in half-arsed. No. You go slow. Make the right decisions. Ensure that everyone knows where they stand.

Contracts have to be drawn up. Surrogacy is not illegal in the UK, but there are measures in place to ensure that everyone is happy. That no one gets hurt.

Beyond the obvious, of course.

It’s a simple business on paper. What you’re doing is renting a womb. In theory, it’s letting out a flat for nine months or giving someone a loan of your car.

Except it’s not.

Because when it comes to people’s bodies, emotions follow fast.

I don’t know that I ever really wanted children. I certainly used to argue with Elaine about it.

Susan once asked me why, when we’d been together so long, me and Elaine never even considered starting a family.

I didn’t tell Susan about the fights we had.

Or why Elaine had become distracted in the moments before our car was knocked off the road and she was killed.

That conversation about…

Children.

Like I said, people get emotional.

Watching Wickes tell me about this woman, Deborah Brown, I noted how he lit up. Something dancing in his eyes when he mentioned her name.

Investigations require dispassionate distance. He’d lost his with this woman.

Deborah Brown.

Mary Furst’s birth mother.

Aye, that’s the part that knocked me flat on my arse as well.

The problem lay with Jennifer Furst. She’d suffered traumatic surgery in her youth: having a child could kill her. No joke, no slim chance.

A real heartbreaker for someone who thought about nothing except family. In her youth, Jennifer had believed that a family of her own would end all her problems. She would become a real human being, a fully rounded person.

Talk about buying into the myth.

Surrogacy seemed a sensible option. But she realised the risks of asking a close friend or anyone they knew to act as the surrogate. So she and her husband set out to find someone.

A difficult task.

Like I said, while surrogacy isn’t illegal in the UK, there are measures in place.

You can’t advertise. Either that you’re looking for a surrogate or that you wish to be one.

Maybe I can understand the reasons for that. Any industry based on such a personal matter would be open to all kinds of disastrous loopholes.

All the same, they searched for someone.

That someone turned out to be Deborah Brown.

Deborah was eighteen years old at the time. An art student facing expulsion and bankruptcy. Looking for a way out. Something that could help her get back on track.

Jennifer spent time with Deborah. The two of them became close. Built a relationship of trust.

One of the things you learn fast in my line of business is that trust is an overhyped virtue. Relationships can fall apart with the smallest of cracks.

Later, Deborah would say that she thought they had become closer than sisters.

She’d be wrong, of course.

“There’s something you’re holding back.”

He shook his head. “But you see where this is going?”

“Deborah was important to you. You were close to her.”

He nodded. Closed his eyes, and kept his hands on top of the table. Rocked gently in his chair, keeping time to some melody only he could hear. “Close to her? I loved her.”

The pregnancy itself was uneventful.

The two women – Jennifer and Deborah – spent a lot of time together. Maybe more than they should have. Part of the agreement drawn up stated that after the baby was born, Deborah would sever all ties with the family.

Closer than sisters?

Chalk that up to delusional.

I could see Jennifer Furst’s point of view. For her, it was a business arrangement. She got what she wanted. Deborah got what she wanted. Everyone was happy.

“Deborah was looking for a family,” I said.

Wickes nodded. “She wasn’t close to her parents, then. Had a sister, but even if the lass kept an eye out for Deborah, they weren’t close. The sister never had Deborah’s best interests at heart.” He closed his eyes again. Close to tears? Hard to imagine this giant of a man welling up, but I could feel it in the same way you sometimes feel a storm coming over the hill.

Hearing Wickes tell me the story, I reckoned that things had got complicated before the ink on that agreement was even dry.

Any agreements between surrogates and parents are private. They cannot be upheld in a court of law.

In Scotland we have a law of verbal contract. All it takes is for two people to state their intent and the agreement is binding. There are grey areas, of course. This was one of them.

As the birth grew closer, Jennifer started to back off from her friendship. Treating the whole thing professionally; a transaction and little more.

Deborah didn’t take too kindly to the cooling off of what she thought was a close friendship. Put this down to her being younger than Jennifer?

Maybe.

Or maybe she was just more innocent.

That’s the way Wickes played it up in his version of events. Like Deborah wasn’t cynical enough to grasp what was really going on.

I’ve been around long enough to realise that there is no such thing as pure innocence. That naivety is more often a cover than a truth.

Made me wonder why Wickes was making such a conscious effort to fool me. And himself.

I loved her.

Aye, love’ll do funny things to a person, right enough.

When Mary was born, everything happened according to the agreement. The parental order was signed, meaning that Deborah Brown was no longer Mary’s legal mother, even if her name would still appear on the birth certificate.

Jennifer Furst expected Deborah would just back off.

Take the money and run.

Like I said, these things have a habit of getting complicated.