Sheer Abandon (43 page)

Her door burst open; Johnny Hadley, the diary editor, came in, looking flustered.

“Carla. Hi. Look, do me a favour, would you? I’m frantic, got to check a couple of things for the lawyers. I’m running a nice story on Sophie Wessex. A few months ago, Jocasta interviewed some woman in the powder room at the Dorchester Hotel, or wherever it was, when there was all that trouble about the bogus sheik, remember? She said how sweet Sophie was, how she always had a kind word for everyone. It never ran, so could you have a rummage in her desk, see if you can find it. It would make a nice bit of background. God, who’s that? Lovely pair of boobs. And talking about Jocasta, she looks a bit like her, wouldn’t you say? Or am I imagining it?”

“No,” said Carla, glancing down at the pictures of Kate, “I’ve said it myself. She’s my latest discovery. Yes, all right, Johnny, I’ll bring the piece in if I can find it.”

She went to Jocasta’s desk and pulled out the top drawer; nothing in that but a stack of old tapes, some rather dubious-looking lipsticks, and a packet of Tampax. The next one looked more promising: cuttings from the paper, printouts of e-mails, a few drafts of articles. Nothing about Sophie Wessex. The third drawer was total chaos: a mass of papers, notes, typed copy, more printed e-mails. Bloody hell. She’d just have a quick rummage and then say she couldn’t find it. It was—

“Oh my God!” said Carla. She sat down suddenly and began to read a set of pages. Feverishly, not once, but two, three times. And then picked them up, took them into her office, shut the door, and read them again.

It was
exactly
what she had been looking for. Only it wasn’t an article about the chatelaine of the toilets at the Dorchester. It was something quite different. A printout from the
Sketch
archives, and another from the
Mail
and yet another from the
Sun
, about a baby, abandoned at Heathrow airport. On August 15, almost sixteen years ago. Whom the nurses had named Bianca. And whose mother had apparently never been found.

Chapter 23

         It was a bit like when President Kennedy was shot, the older people concerned said. And like when Princess Diana had been killed, said the younger ones. You knew exactly what you were doing when you heard about it: or rather read it. And you knew you would never forget the moment as long as you lived.

“Oh, no,” whispered Helen, “oh, no, please no,” as she read the story, read it again, and again, and then sitting there, white-faced under her new tan, concentrating on the pictures of Kate, the extraordinary pictures of Kate, as if by ignoring the words she could will them away.

Jim, literally speechless with rage, was pacing up and down the kitchen, pausing occasionally to bang his fist on the back door; and Jilly, the one most responsible for the horror, sat in the dining room, too shocked even to think, confronted by the very worst of all the scenarios she had imagined since Carla’s phone call, twenty-four hours earlier.

Clio, doing a Saturday morning surgery, was shown the article by the receptionist, excited at the rebirth of the story about one of their patients. “It mentions Mrs. Bradford and her shop by name,” she said. Clio sat in her room, reading and rereading it, wondering how much Kate had contributed to the story herself, and hoping against hope it had been nothing to do with Jocasta. And wondering how Kate’s mother, her real mother, must be feeling when she saw it, as she surely would.

Nat Tucker read it as he sat in his mother’s kitchen, ignoring his father’s exhortations to shift his bloody arse and get on down to the garage, and wondering not only if he should call Kate or just go round and see her, but how he could never have realised how totally gorgeous she was, and enjoying the very clear description of himself and his car. And, with a sensitivity that would have surprised most of his mates and the whole of his family, thinking that it couldn’t be that great, having the fact you’d been abandoned in a cleaning cupboard splashed all over some cruddy newspaper.

Carla, who had seen the pages the night before at proof stage and felt extremely satisfied with herself, was having a little trouble confronting the reality. Of course she had only been doing her job; of course Jilly, clearly shocked and even frightened, had confirmed (Carla having put her phone onto “record” when she spoke to her, as instructed by the lawyers) that yes, it was correct, and abandoned baby Bianca was indeed Kate; and of course nothing had changed and Kate still clearly had a dazzling future as a model. But somehow, seeing her there in the paper, in all her young vulnerability, with her small sad history spelt out for the almost two million readers of the
Sketch
to be entertained by as they ate their breakfasts, Carla didn’t feel quite so pleased with herself.

Martha saw the story trailed on the front page of the
Sketch
while she was out on her early run: “The abandoned baby: now tipped as the latest face in fashion. Meet Bianca Kate, modelling for the first time in the
Sketch
today.” She read the story, put the paper, folded neatly, into a rubbish bin, ran back to her apartment, showered and dressed in one of her constituency suits, and drove down to Binsmow. She arrived, as promised, at the vicarage at eleven thirty, did a brief legal clinic, and went to a school summer fair. That evening she and her parents attended a charity concert in Binsmow town hall, where she bought five books of raffle tickets and won a rather grubby-looking bottle of bubble bath. She left Binsmow early next morning, after going to communion and then breakfasting with her mother, who was engrossed in the story of Bianca Kate, the abandoned baby, which had found its way into the
Sunday Times
as well as the
Mail on Sunday
. She agreed it was the most dreadful thing to abandon a baby and that she couldn’t imagine anyone doing such a thing, then drove back to London and her apartment, where she spent the day working and dealing with personal admin. In the evening she went to the gym, where she did a spinning class and swam thirty lengths of the pool.

Ed, who had left four messages on her landline, several more on her mobile, and a couple of text messages as well asking her to call him to discuss, among other things, a trip to Venice he had organised, was first hurt, then annoyed, and finally seriously anxious when she failed to answer any of them.

And Kate, her golden, dazzling day turned dark and ugly, sat in her bedroom, the door firmly locked, crying endlessly and silently, and feeling more wretched and ashamed than she could have believed possible.

When Gideon found Jocasta, she was sitting on the grass by the lake, still and stunned, holding the paper close to her, wondering how such a thing could possibly have happened, and cursing Carla with a venom which surprised even her.

“Can I persuade you to talk about this?” said Gideon.

“I suppose so,” she said, turning a face, swollen with crying, to him. “It’s something horrible, Gideon, something I—well, something I was implicated in.”

“But you weren’t there,” he said when she had finished. “It’s not your story. It’s nothing to do with you.”

“Gideon, it is, it is. Oh God, I have to go to London. Go and see Kate. I really have to.”

“All right, my darling one. If you have to. Maybe I should come with you. I’m worried about you, you look dreadful.”

“No,” she said, leaning forward to kiss him, resting her head briefly on his shoulder. “I’ve got to do this by myself.”

“All right. If that’s how it is.”

“It is. Oh, Gideon, it’s such a horrible thing to happen. To a little girl.”

“What, being abandoned at an airport? It is indeed. But she has a lovely family now, from the sound of it—and maybe she told Carla herself. Maybe it wasn’t your fault at all, nothing to do with you.”

“I asked Carla that when I rang her,” said Jocasta, starting to cry again, “and she said Kate didn’t tell her anything, only that she was adopted. She got it all—she said—from the archives.”

“She could well have done.”

“Yes, but I had a lot about Kate in my desk; I think she found that. And she certainly didn’t warn the poor little thing what she was going to do. She admitted that. Bitch! It’s so cruel, so dreadfully cruel.”

She blew her nose, managed a wobbly smile. Gideon looked at her, then back at the newspaper.

“I suppose,” he said quite quietly, “no one has mentioned any resemblance between you and this girl?”

Jocasta started to laugh: a loud, almost hysterical laugh.

“Yes,” she said, “actually they have.”

Clio decided she should ring Jilly Bradford. She had liked her so much and she could imagine how dreadful she must be feeling. There were no quotes from her, or indeed from any of the family. Including Kate.

She got a recorded message in Jilly’s slightly dated, upper-class accent. She left a message, saying how sorry she was, and then pressed her buzzer for the next patient. What an awful mess. Poor little Kate. God, these newspapers had a lot to answer for. Surely Jocasta couldn’t have done this. But it was her paper.

Back in her flat, feeling half ashamed, she decided to call her. Her mobile was on message. Clio left her number, asked her to call, and was still wondering if she could be bothered to make herself anything more than a sandwich, when Jocasta rang.

“Hi, Clio. It’s Jocasta. How are you?”

“Fine. I just saw the article about Kate and—”

“It was nothing to do with me, Clio. Honestly. Well, only in the most indirect way and—well, actually I’ve left the
Sketch
.”

“You’ve left? Why?”

“Oh…bit of a long story. Look, I’m in Ireland at the moment, about to fly to London. I’m going to try and see Kate, because I do feel responsible. In a way.”

“Jocasta, you’re talking in riddles.”

“I know. Sorry. Look, if I haven’t been beaten up by the Tarrants, could we meet this evening? I could come to you, if you like. It’d be good to talk it through with someone who knows Kate. Would you mind?”

“Of course not. Don’t be silly. Just call me.”

“Is that Mrs. Tarrant?”

“Yes?”

It was a soft voice with a slightly north-country accent.

“Mrs. Tarrant, you don’t know me, but I think I could be Bianca’s mother. You see, I left a baby at the airport seventeen years ago—”

“Sixteen years,” Helen said sharply. She thought she might be sick.

“What? Oh I’m sorry, I thought it said seventeen.”

Helen slammed the phone down and burst into tears; and greatly against her will, feeling every word threatening to choke her, she called Carla Giannini.

Carla had called first thing: bright and confident. Weren’t the pictures lovely, didn’t Kate look great, they must all be so proud of her. Helen had been so shocked she had mumbled something totally inane.

“Would Kate like to speak to me, I wonder?”

“No,” said Helen in the same quiet, numb voice, “no, I’m sure she wouldn’t.”

“Well, later, perhaps. Tell her I’ve had several offers for her already.”

“What sort of offers?”

“Modelling agencies. Of course, that is entirely up to you.”

“I’m so glad something is,” Helen said icily. She was beginning to regain her confidence.

Carla ignored this. “There is one thing, Mrs. Tarrant—one thing I should warn you about. You could get calls. From women claiming to be Kate’s mother. We’ve had a couple already. I would advise you to let us handle these for you. Put any calls on to us. It’s—”

“I don’t want you to handle anything for us,” said Helen, and she could hear the loathing in her own voice, the rage and the misery. “You’ve done enough damage—please leave us alone.”

And she put the phone down, very carefully. What was she going to do? How were they going to get through this? How?

After two more phone calls from women, she realised, very reluctantly, that they couldn’t do it alone.

Carla was brisk and efficient. “Just redirect them all to us.”

“And suppose—suppose one of them was genuine?” The words hurt her to speak them. “How would we know?”

“We would ask for proof of some kind.”

“What sort of proof?” said Helen, desperately.

“Well, is there anything at all that you know, about the way Kate was abandoned, that wasn’t in the story? Like the time it was, or what she was wearing.”

“I don’t think so,” said Helen bitterly. “Every wretched detail is there.”

“Try and think of something. And call me back.”

So far, Helen couldn’t.

She went and opened the dining-room door without knocking, looked at Jilly with cold dislike.

“I think I’d like to take you home. Jim and I both feel we need to be on our own with the girls.”

“Of course,” said Jilly humbly. “But no need to take me, I’ll get a cab. There haven’t been any calls for me, have there?”

“I’ve stopped answering the phone, we’ve had so many. Jim’s going out to buy an answering machine.”

“Oh dear, how dreadful. Who from?”

“Other reporters mostly. From other papers. Do we have anything to add, could they interview Kate, that sort of thing.”