Текст книги "The Surrogate"

Автор книги: Tania Carver

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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 25 страниц)

7

He had done it. Actually done it. Gone out and got her a baby, just like she had asked, just like he had promised to. Hester couldn’t believe it.

But she looked down at the baby and frowned. It wasn’t right. Not right at all.

She knew what babies looked like. Especially newborn ones. She’d seen them on TV. They were always happy and smiling, with hair. This one wasn’t. Small, wrinkled, shrivelled and pinky blue. More like Yoda than a baby. And it didn’t smile. Just twisted its face up and made a gurgling, wailing noise, like it was being tortured underwater.

But it was a baby, so Hester would have to make the best of it. A baby of her own. And when you had a baby, you had to clothe it and feed it and make it grow. She knew that.

It was wailing now. Hester brought her face into a smile.

‘Do you want feeding, baby?’ Her voice was an approximation of baby talk. Like she had heard on TV. ‘Do you?’ More wailing. ‘Mummy’s got something for you.’

Mummy. Just the word . . .

She went to the fridge, took out a bottle, placed it in the microwave. She had given him a list of what she wanted and he had got the lot. Powdered milk. Bottles. Nappies. Everything the books said.

She waited for the ping. Took it out.

‘Just right,’ she said, squirting some into her own mouth. She stuck the teat into the baby’s mouth, waited while it sucked hard. ‘That’s it. That’s better . . .’

Yes, it was tiny and pink and shrivelled. Yoda. But unlike Yoda its eyes wouldn’t open all the way, no matter how much Hester pulled at them. That wasn’t important, though. She looked down at the infant. She had wrapped it in blankets because that was the right thing to do, but it still looked cold. Like its skin wasn’t the right colour. But it didn’t matter. Hester had a baby. At last. That was the important thing. And she had to bond. That was important too.

She looked down at it again, feeding, managed a smile. ‘I’ve been through a lot to get you,’ she said, her usually broken voice sounding like a baby coo, ‘a lot. I could have just walked in somewhere, taken you, but that wouldn’t have been right, would it? No . . . Because you’d have been someone else’s by then, wouldn’t you? You’d have a different mummy and you’d have to forget her before you met me.’ She sighed. ‘Yes, I’ve been through a lot. But you were worth it . . .’

The baby spat the teat out, began to cough. Hester felt anger rising inside herself. It wasn’t doing what it was supposed to. It should take all the bottle. The book said. TV said.

‘Don’t you fuckin’ do that,’ she said, no trace now of baby talk. ‘Take it . . .’

She shoved the teat back in the baby’s mouth again, forced it to drink. Pushed the rising anger back down.

The baby stopped coughing, took the teat. That was better.

It was shrivelled and the wrong colour. And it wailed and shat all the time. She hated that. But it was a baby. And that was all she had wanted. So she would put up with it.

‘But you’d better start to be like the TV babies,’ she said to its bare head, ‘the proper babies, or there’ll be trouble . . .’

The baby kicked and wriggled, tried to get away from the bottle.

‘No,’ she said, ‘you need to be big and strong. And you’re not finished until I say you’re finished . . .’

Milk ran down the baby’s cheeks. It had finished feeding. Hester kept the teat in place.

She smiled, looked at her watch. Closed her eyes. It would be time for her husband to go out soon.Yes, she had a baby now but his work wasn’t done. There was still the list to be attended to. Then, when he had finished, he would come back to her and they would all settle in. A real family. Complete. She opened her eyes. Smiled. Content with her life.

For now.

8

‘Fancy a coffee?’ The bright and perky voice was in Marina’s ear once more.

Marina turned. Caroline was standing with some of the other women from the group, heading towards the door.

‘A few of us usually head off into town,’ Caroline said. ‘Go to Life for a coffee. Well, those of us who can still drink it. And usually a little something else.’

‘Doesn’t that undo everything you’ve just done here?’ asked Marina.

Caroline laughed, shrugged. ‘What’s life without a few little treats?’

Marina smiled. ‘That’s kind, thanks, but I have to get back to work.’

Caroline, Marina noticed, was now dressed in the latest in designer and high-end high-street maternity wear. She had also done her make-up in the time it had taken Marina to get showered and dressed. How had she managed that?

Caroline smiled again. ‘You sure?’

And Marina saw something in her features she hadn’t noticed earlier. Tiredness, lines around the eyes. Her smile too brittle. Caroline was older than Marina had first thought, older than her peers in the group. She dressed younger, acted younger, but she couldn’t quite hide the extra years.

‘It would be lovely to have you along.’

Marina returned the smile. ‘Maybe next time.’

‘Okay, then. Next time.’ Caroline turned, went off with her happy, chattering friends, all similarly dressed. They smiled as they passed, and Marina reciprocated, letting it fade once they had all exited.

She watched them go, talking and laughing. They were a group Marina would have instantly categorised, even stereotyped. Middle class, husbands at work, the type of women who would have pain-free births and, by hitting the gym and the fad diets, get their pre-pregnancy figures back within a week. The type of women other women would envy and even secretly despise.

From a distance Caroline looked like she was one of the group, but Marina sensed something different about her. Something separate. Maybe that was why she had wanted Marina to go with them. Or maybe she was just being friendly. No matter. Not her problem. Marina waited until they had all gone, walked through the foyer of Leisure World.

The piped muzak drowned out the shrieks, cries and splashes of schoolchildren cramming in five minutes of play after their prescribed swimming lessons, the multicoloured flume and slide tubes sticking out of the side of the building taking a pounding. She walked through the doors and on to the forecourt. The noise was bad enough but the chlorinated smell was seriously starting to assault her nostrils. She knew things like that happened in pregnancy. The senses were heightened; women became intolerant of scents that had never previously bothered them. She knew one woman from university who couldn’t stand the smell of her own husband. A shiver of dread ran through her body. She hoped nothing like that happened to her.

Outside, she stood on the kerb of the car park on the Avenue of Remembrance, pulled her coat close to her to keep out the November cold, waited for the cab that would take her back to her new office and her afternoon clients. She had showered but her muscles were still aching, throbbing. She would suffer tomorrow.

A few minutes later, a 4x4 went past, tooted. Caroline and her friends. Marina gave a smile that disappeared as the car rounded the corner.

The changes in her life in such a short space of time had been huge. Leaving the comfort and safety of the university to go into private practice – although by the time she left it didn’t feel safe or comfortable – and the fact that Tony, her long-term partner, had proposed to her. But the most important change had been the baby. Unplanned and, initially, unwanted, she was still coming to terms with it. She felt she always would be.

She looked at her watch, getting impatient for the cab, killing time by working out what she would be doing if she were still at the university. Probably preparing for her second-year class, gathering together papers, books and notes in her old office, readying herself for the seminar she would be about to give. Chimerical Masks and Dissociation in the Perception of the Self. Something like that.

The self. Her hands, as they so often did these days, went automatically underneath her coat to her stomach. Began stroking the bump. Slight to a disinterested onlooker’s eyes, but to her enormous. And, she knew, it would only get bigger. This self – her self – was one she barely recognised any more. When she thought of her old life, her old self, she became choked, felt like crying. But she was beyond the tears stage now. Four months beyond.

She felt something flutter. Like butterflies in her stomach. Big butterflies. She jumped, startled and scared. Tried to breathe deeply, calm down. It was natural, it was expected. It was what the body did. But not her body. She didn’t feel it was her body any more. She was just a carrier, a vessel for this child. Which was fine while she was carrying, but when it had left her, what would she be then?

The physical stuff was scary enough – the changes that would occur in her body as the baby grew and demanded life from her, the actual pain of childbirth itself and then how ravaged her body would be afterwards. And then there were the years as a mother to come.

Her first response to the pregnancy was to get rid of it. Get it out of her, don’t let it grow, take her over, like some hideous invasion-of-the-bodysnatchers-type creature. And with her starting up in private practice it was the wrong time, if nothing else.

Tony said he would be fine with whatever she wanted to do. It was her body, after all. So she decided on a termination. But when the time came, she couldn’t go through with it.

Marina had swallowed her fear, tried to live with it. Prenatal yoga, relaxation and meditation, eating the right things, not drinking. Luckily she wasn’t one of those women who were sick all the time and couldn’t eat anything. Or at least not yet. Feeling the baby grow inside her was bad enough. That would have been intolerable. She also thought that being with other pregnant women would help. Take away the fear, the uncertainty. And it had, for a while. But now that she was alone again she felt the old doubts coming back.

She wondered how she had looked to the other women in the class. Long, dark hair, mercifully free of grey. Or rather chemically assisted to be free of grey. A pretty face for a thirty-six-year-old, she thought, just spoiled by worry. She had good bone structure due to her Italian parentage; the worry she had added herself. Her eyes looked sunken, hollow, like a ghost waiting to be brought back to life. Once she had resigned herself to the baby she had hoped it would do that. Four months in and it hadn’t. She was beginning to doubt that it ever would. She needed something else.

She checked her watch, stamped her feet. The cab driver had said goodbye to his tip.

From within her bag, her mobile rang.

Sighing, she extracted her hand from her coat, went to answer it. ‘Yes.’

‘Marina? Marina Esposito?’

She knew that voice. It took her a few seconds to place, but she did it. And gave an involuntary gasp. DCI Ben Fenwick. She exhaled slowly.

‘Ben Fenwick?’

‘Yes, Marina, hi. Sorry to bother you. I need to talk to you.’

‘Oh.’ She looked round. And there in front of her was Martin Fletcher. Advancing on her, features twisted by hate.

She screwed her eyes up tight, opened them again. Nothing but the cold car park, the missing cab. The faint sounds of screaming children in the background. Martin Fletcher had gone. But Ben Fenwick’s voice was still on the phone.

‘Marina? You still there?’

‘Yes . . . yes, Ben. I’m still here.’

‘Look, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.’

That was all she needed to hear and immediately the barrier was back up. ‘Look, I’m . . . I’m busy. Can we do this another time?’

‘I’m afraid not. We’ve got a problem.’

‘What kind?’

He sighed. ‘The worst kind.’

She wanted to push the button, end the call. Get into her cab – if it ever arrived – and forget Ben Fenwick had phoned. Instead she said, ‘What kind of problem?’

‘A new case has come up and we need help.Your help.’ He paused as if thinking over what to say next. ‘Look, I realise this may be difficult for you . . .’

She saw Martin Fletcher advancing towards her out of the corner of her eye again, felt blind, trapped panic rise in her chest. She blinked him away, breathed deeply.

She kept her voice low, contained. ‘What is it?’

‘It’s . . . it’s not really the kind of thing we can discuss over the phone. Best if we talk in person.’

She felt a shiver run through her. Say no. Say no. Say no. ‘Okay. Where . . .’

‘I’ll get a car sent to pick you up.’

‘When?’

‘No time like the present.’

‘But I’m . . . busy. Clients ...’The words sounded weak, even to her ears.

Fenwick sighed, evidently thinking again. ‘Please don’t take this the wrong way, but with all due respect, Marina, I think when you hear what I’ve got to say, you may find it takes precedence.’

She said nothing, thought. He took her silence as a need for more explanation, reassurance.

‘Look, I’m sorry about what happened before. We all are. It was horrific, unacceptable. Totally. If there was . . . if we could have done things differently . . .’

‘Not your fault,’ she said, her voice small and unconvincing.

He sounded relieved. ‘It won’t be like that this time. I promise. I give you my word.’

Despite everything she felt a slight thrill at Fenwick’s words. Perhaps enough time had passed to want to get away from the office. Like childbirth, she thought with a grim smile, the memory of the pain dissipates so you can go through it again.

‘Okay, send the car. Give me a couple of hours.’

‘Can you come quicker? It really is urgent.’

‘Right away then. I’m standing outside Leisure World. Tell the driver to hurry. It’s freezing here.’

‘Thank you, Marina. He’ll find you.’

She put the phone away while he was still thanking her. Smiled to herself. Didn’t even attempt to suppress the thrill that ran through her. Whatever they wanted her for must be bad, she thought. Psychosexual deviance was what she specialised in.

Another shudder went through her. Phil. She would be working with Phil.

She had tried to put him out of her mind. Concentrate on her life with Tony, the impending baby. But there he was again, Fenwick’s phone call summoning him up. He didn’t dress like any of the other coppers, but his clothes always showed off his broad shoulders and slim waist. She had thought he played rugby when she first met him but she soon found out that wasn’t him. He wore his childhood on his face; the nose that had been broken and reset, the small scars he still carried from fights that only showed up when he was angry. But it was the eyes she remembered most. The eyes that had drawn her in. His melancholic, poet’s eyes. Because when she talked to him, he listened. Actually looked her in the eye and listened. He would remind her a few days later of something she had said, proving it. And it wasn’t a trick, an affectation, it was the way he was. She imagined how this could make him a good policeman, but it had done something more to her. Made her feel wanted, special.

No wonder she fell for him. And now she would be working with him again. Well, things were going to be different this time. They would have to be. Because she might have told Fenwick that what happened with Martin Fletcher wasn’t his fault. But with Phil it was a different story.

Her cab chose that moment to arrive. She waved him off, told him he’d taken too long. The driver got out, started to argue, but the arrival of a police car behind him and the presence of a policeman seemed to shut him up.

Marina got in the passenger door of the police car.

Hoped this would be just the displacement activity she needed to take her mind off her own troubles.

9

H e watched them go in and he watched them come out.They didn’t see him, didn’t even know he was there. Not a clue. So sure were they of their place in the world, their importance in it. Safely inside their own protective little bubble.They would soon find out how unsafe they were.

Or at least one of them would.

He knew they wouldn’t see him. He was too good for that. Prided himself on it. Sitting in the car park of Colchester’s Leisure World, a clear view of the front entrance, just far enough back not to attract any attention. But he could see them. Talking and laughing as they emerged from their yoga session, their full, distended bellies sticking out in front of them.

Surrogates. All of them. If he wanted them to be.

He had the list, knew which one would come next. Knew the order.

It wasn’t for the babies. He didn’t care about that. It was all about the hunt. Planning. Preparation. The chase.The thrill.The kill. He had always enjoyed hunting. The breed of animal was unimportant.

There she was, his next prey. She had stopped to talk to another one on the pavement.This one didn’t have such a big belly; in fact she was barely showing at all. His prey wanted the new one to go with them. But she wouldn’t. His prey didn’t seem too bothered, just walked away with her pack.

Past his own vehicle. Didn’t even stop to look at him. He grinned. An invisible god with the power of life and death.

She got into her own car, drove away.

He didn’t need to follow her. He knew where she was going. He would catch up with her later. Instead he turned his attention back to the one left on the pavement.The new one who didn’t want to go with them. He shouldn’t have been interested in her but he was.There was something about her. She was alone, apart from the pack. But not because of weakness.The opposite, he sensed.A strength, an attitude.

He smiled. He liked that in his prey. A challenge. Something to work with. Something to break down.

He knew he should be driving away, but he couldn’t take his eyes off her. She wasn’t like the others. He sensed cunning, intelligence. Just from the way she stood, her body language as she talked on her phone. There was nothing he could do about her now, but she would be filed away. And one day, at a time of his own choosing, he would come back for her.

And then he would have fun.

He was about to start his engine when a taxi arrived. She bent down, spoke to the driver.The driver wasn’t happy with what she said. There was going to be a fight. He sat back, watching. This would be interesting. But before anything could happen, another car pulled up and the driver got out.There was no mistaking who this person was. Even if he didn’t know him, he knew the type. A policeman. He could see that from here.

The taxi driver drove away, clearly unhappy. The woman got into the unmarked police car and was driven away.

Interesting. Curious. He would look out for her, watch for her. She wouldn’t be forgotten.

With nothing else to stay there for, he turned the ignition, drove away.

She had been marked.

10

It was nearly lunchtime when Phil Brennan turned the Audi off the main road. Aware of the constant ticking of the clock, he had made the drive to Braintree as fast as he could. He had pushed the Audi to the legal limit, done everything short of sticking the siren on the roof.

The satnav pinged, informing them that they had reached their destination. Clayton Thompson reached across the dashboard and turned it off.

‘Hate those things,’ he said.

‘Thought you’d be all for them. Know how you love a gadget.’

Clayton shrugged. ‘Yeah, but it’s just their smug little voices. Like the top brass have put them here to spy on us. Like we have to stick to the journey. If we know a short cut or a better route they tell us we can’t use it, that they know best.’

Phil gave a grim smile. ‘Clayton, I think you’ve just discovered a metaphor for policing in the twenty-first century,’ he said.

He looked out of the window. They were on an industrial estate in Braintree, a few miles south of Colchester, just off the A12. Low-level metal and brick buildings surrounded them, stretching all the way from the main road to the railway line running from London to East Anglia. Directly ahead of them was a double set of metal mesh gates bearing the name B & F METALS. Behind the gates was another low-level metal and brick building with a forecourt on which stood a pair of huge cranes and several trucks and lorries. Cars were parked at the side. Metal canisters were piled all around: old gas bottles, fire extinguishers. Further on were huge square bays made out of old railway sleepers in which sat various kinds of scrap metal, piping, wire and old electrical appliances. One of the cranes was moving, a grabbing claw on the end of it. As they watched, it lifted a massive handful of metal from a bay, swung it round and deposited it into the back of a waiting high-sided lorry.

Phil shared a look with Clayton, turned off the engine.

‘Come on,’ said Clayton, getting out of the car, ‘let’s do it.’

‘Yeah,’ said Phil. ‘Clock’s ticking.’

Clayton stopped to give him a look. ‘Nothin’ to do with the clock. Just a relief to get away from that awful music you keep playin’. Glasvegas? You listen to some shit.’

Phil stared at him, said nothing.

‘With all due respect, boss,’ mumbled Clayton, his eyes dropping.

Clayton had an attitude on him. Phil knew that. Most of the time he tolerated it because his junior was a damned good copper, but sometimes he overstepped the mark. Phil often wanted to hit him. But just as often wanted to praise him.

‘Well at least it’s better than that stuff you listen to,’ said Phil. ‘Just how many songs do we need by black ex-gang members boasting about their genitals and their bank accounts?’

Clayton didn’t answer, just looked sullenly at the ground, a naughty schoolboy facing detention.

‘Now get your head straight,’ said Phil. ‘We’re going in.’ He started off, Clayton trudging behind him.

They knew this wasn’t going to be an ordinary death-message delivery. In running a routine check on Claire Fielding’s boyfriend Ryan Brotherton before coming to his place of work, they had found something interesting. He had done time in HMP Chelmsford for assault. The reports were over five years old, but from what they could gather it had been a previous girlfriend he had assaulted. This had made them all the more interested in talking to him.

Phil and Clayton walked into the yard. Men, barrelchested and shaven-headed for the most part, dressed in dirty work clothes, went about their business. Phil knew immediately that they had been clocked. He also guessed that most of the men who worked here had had run-ins with the police before so weren’t inclined to help them or ask what they were doing here. They would assume it was bad news and hope it didn’t concern them.

They found an office at the corner of the main building, the glass streaked with grease and dirt. They knocked on the door. It was answered by a woman; blonde and middle-aged, but fighting it hard. Petite but pneumatic, her breasts, lips and expressionless forehead screaming surgery, she was dressed like a secretary in an eighties porn film. As the smile she gave them faded once she worked out who they were, Phil reckoned she might have had a run-in with the law too. For something entirely different.

He held out his warrant card, Clayton doing likewise, and introduced themselves. ‘DI Brennan and DS Thompson. Could we come in?’

‘What’s this about?’ Her voice had a hardness that no amount of surgery could soften.

‘Better we talk inside, I think.’

Looking round warily, she reluctantly led them into the office. Inside was bare-walled and functional. Not a place for interior designers or feng shui consultants. Two desks, two computers, two phones. A charity calendar on the wall. Metal filing cabinets.

‘What’s this about?’ she said, not offering them a seat.

‘We’re looking for Ryan Brotherton,’ said Clayton, trying to move his eyeline away from her breasts and, Phil noticed, not entirely succeeding.

Knowing she had his DS, she turned to Phil, stuck them out further.

‘What’s it concerning?’

‘It’s a private matter.’

No one moved. The phone rang. She ignored it.

‘Shouldn’t you get that?’ Phil said. ‘Might be work.’

She still didn’t move.

‘Want me to?’ said Phil, moving towards the desk.

She beat him to it, grabbing the receiver and saying, ‘B and F Metals,’ then listening. ‘Right, Gary, can I call you back in a minute?’ She put the phone down, turned back to them.

‘Ryan Brotherton?’ said Phil, reminding her.

‘And I want to know why you need to see him.’

‘Look,’ said Phil, trying to keep a lid on his irritation, ‘he’s not in any trouble, he’s not done anything wrong. We just need to have a few words with him.’

He looked at her, didn’t break eye contact. She wavered, looked away. ‘I’ll go and get him.’

She left the office, walked across the yard. Clayton watched her go.

‘You okay?’ said Phil.

Clayton shook his head as if coming out of a trance. His face was unreadable. ‘Yeah, uh . . . not your average scrap-metal dealer,’ he said.

‘This is Essex, remember,’ said Phil, trying not to look, but unable to stop his eyes tracking her swinging hips like a spectator at Wimbledon. ‘Wonder why she wants to work here? Surrounded by all those men?’

‘Maybe that’s your answer,’ said Clayton, not bothering to disguise his leer. ‘Might consider a change of career . . .’

‘Focus, sonny. Think with your brain, remember. Look around. See anything that might help us?’

Clayton scanned the office, giving it close scrutiny. He shook his head.

‘Me neither.’ Phil returned his attention to outside the window.

As they watched, the pneumatic secretary walked to the bottom of the grabber and gestured to the man in the cockpit. He swung the arm over a bin and left it dangling there as he put the brakes on and opened the cab door, leaned out. Phil got a good look at him. He was big, and not unattractive, fine-featured. His hair was close-cropped, his upper torso very well muscled. He listened to what the woman said, his eyes going to the office, following her pointing arm. He didn’t look pleased.

‘Look at those guns,’ said Clayton. ‘Whoever he hit didn’t stand a chance.’

Ryan Brotherton got out of the cab and made his way across the yard to the office. Not in a good mood. He reached the cabin, opened the door, stepped inside. The space was small enough; with his large frame as well as the two of them, he seemed to suck all the air from the room.

‘Yeah?’ he said.

Phil held out his warrant card again. ‘DI Brennan and DS Thompson,’ he said.

‘So?’

‘Can we have a word, please?’

Brotherton shrugged.

Phil noticed the pneumatic secretary trying to enter the office. ‘In private.’

Brotherton noticed her entering too, didn’t try to stop her. ‘This is Sophie. Anything you have to say to me can be said in front of her.’ His face twisted into an expression that on someone else could have been a smile. ‘And I’ve found, Mr Brennan, that when your lot are around it’s better to have a witness.’

Phil weighed his options. Reassure Brotherton that he had done nothing wrong, insist on privacy. Or just say what he had to say to this unpleasant man, no matter how painful, and get out. He decided on the latter.

‘I’m afraid we’ve got some very bad news to tell you, Mr Brotherton.’

Brotherton said nothing, waited.

Phil and Clayton exchanged a glance. Phil continued. ‘It’s your girlfriend.’

Brotherton frowned. Sophie joined him. ‘Girlfriend?’

‘Claire Fielding.Your girlfriend.’

‘You mean ex-girlfriend,’ said Sophie quickly before Brotherton could speak.

Phil looked between the two of them. He knew what was happening. ‘Ex-girlfriend. I’m sorry.’

‘So? What about her? What’s she done now?’ He took a step forward, hands instinctively bunching into fists. ‘What’s she said about me now, eh? What lies has she come out with this time?’

Phil kept his face straight, his voice neutral. ‘What lies has she told before, Mr Brotherton?’

Brotherton gave a harsh bark. It could have been a laugh. ‘Don’t pretend you don’t know.You wouldn’t be here otherwise. ’

‘Would this have something to do with your assault charges?’ said Clayton.

‘You know fuckin’ well it does. Just because I’ve done time for assault over five years ago you think you can keep dredgin’ it up all the damned time. Every time some bird makes some allegation you automatically come to me. Well I’m sick of it. Any more of this and I’ll get my solicitor on to you.’

‘That won’t be necessary, Mr Brotherton,’ said Phil. ‘There won’t be any more allegations against you. At least not from Claire Fielding.’

Another snort. ‘Why? She been given a restrainin’ order? Stop pesterin’ me?’

‘No, Mr Brotherton,’ said Phil, ‘she’s dead.’

He waited, scrutinising Brotherton and Sophie’s faces for the slightest out-of-place expression, to file away for a later date. The two of them exchanged glances. Sophie looked to be about to say something but Brotherton shushed her. ‘What happened?’ he said, voice flat.

‘She was murdered. In her flat, last night.’

His jaw sagged slightly open, his eyes went blank. Phil imagined that for him it was quite a display of emotion. Brotherton’s usual range probably went all the way from anger to anger.

‘What . . . what...’Then a thought struck him. ‘She was pregnant, wasn’t she?’

‘She was, Mr Brotherton. With your baby?’ said Clayton.

‘So she said,’ said Brotherton, the anger in his words indicating that whatever grieving process he had undergone for Claire Fielding was now officially over.

‘What d’you mean by that?’ said Phil.

‘What I said. Oldest trick in the book, innit? You wanna catch a man, you tell him you’re pregnant.’ He made an expansive arm gesture, looked round the office. ‘I mean, look at this place. I’m not bleedin’ Alan Sugar, but this is all mine. I own it.’

‘Your company?’ said Phil.

Brotherton nodded. ‘I do all right out of it. And women, when they see that, they think, ooh, I’ll have a bit of that for myself. Better than workin’. So what’s the easiest way to do it?’ He shrugged, gave a self-satisfied smile as if he had just explained a particularly thorny issue to the Oxford University debating society. ‘Exactly.’

‘Well she’s dead now, Mr Brotherton, so your empire is safe.’

Brotherton nodded, failing to pick up the sarcasm in Phil’s tone.

‘So who’s the F?’ asked Clayton.

‘What?’ Brotherton was clearly irritated by the question.

‘The F. In the sign out there. B & F Metals.’

Brotherton shrugged. ‘Bought him out. Kept the name so people knew who they were dealing with.’