Surrogate – a psychological thriller (25 page)

On the drive back to London, I kept my eyes fixed on the rear-view mirror, scanning the traffic in front of me and behind for Forget's Range Rover. It had to have been him who ran us off the road. Once it got dark, it was one pair of dazzling lights after another. Each car looked the same, and any one of them might have been Forget. I could still feel the impact of his Range Rover ramming the taxi, the metal taste in my mouth and the upside-down, everything-falling nightmare as we plunged down the hill. Occasionally I would cringe as a similar car overtook me, relaxing my hands on the steering wheel only once it was safely past. Any of the thousands of cars on the motorway might be my nemesis. Hunting me. Wanting me dead.

I pulled over for petrol somewhere near Birmingham, and I was so preoccupied that it was only when I had taken out my wallet to pay that I realised I had left the car unlocked. I cursed myself for my stupidity. Then it struck me that Forget could have crawled in the car while I was distracted and was there waiting for me. Yes, that was it. I would be driving along and suddenly he would loom up, pressing a knife against my throat, the blade biting into my neck. Panicked, I dumped two fifty-pound notes on the counter, telling the sales assistant to keep the change. My car seemed to emanate evil as I approached it. Yes, I could almost sense him inside, coiled, waiting to strike. Putting my face up to the glass, I made a visor with my hands. The back seats were empty, and there was nobody inside. Get a grip, I told myself. It felt like a string was being stretched tight in my head – stretched tight until it was ready to snap.

It took a nerve-twisting five hours to drive back to London.

Letting myself into the flat, I gently placed the nylon holdall on the ground, feeling a bit foolish for lugging a sawn-off shotgun around with me. I hadn't needed it after all.

Dumping my keys on the hall table, I went off in search for something to eat.

Mrs Givings might not have believed my story, but at least I now knew why my wife had set out to destroy my life. Revenge. Mole and her lover had extorted me for the same amount that Berkshire RE had dunned her parents for, almost to the penny. Except that Mole had plunged her fingers into my heart and torn out her piece of flesh along with it. Where were the two of them now, I wondered, opening the door to the fridge. It was almost empty, apart from a bag of strong-smelling salad and some cheese. Mole and Forget had probably slipped through the ports and were on their way to collect the money from Switzerland, or wherever they'd sent the cash to. I knew that it was hit-and–miss trying to stop anybody leaving the country. I could see it now, the customs officer waving the happy family through ... I tore off a lump of cheese that should have been thrown out days ago and poured myself a glass of chalky-tasting red wine.

Christ, I felt drained. All I wanted to do was watch something stupid on television, have a bite to eat and go to bed. Yet still thoughts of Mole kept bleeding into my mind like a haemorrhage; if only I could stop obsessing about her for just one night. Carrying my glass of wine through to the sitting room, I swallowed the stale cheese and thought about seeing whether I had made it onto television yet.

Forget was waiting for me in the dark.

He had a baseball bat across his knees and was sitting in the gloom, which was why I had not noticed anything wrong in the first place.

"Hello, Hugo," he said. "I let myself in."

"How did you get in here?"

"Your wife still has keys, remember?"

Forget stood up and held the baseball bat loosely while he switched a table lamp on. He moved with that kind of exaggerated ease people have when they know they are the one in charge.

I nodded to the bat. "Are you planning to kill me, just like you killed Alice and the private detective?"

"Helen Noades' death was an accident. Do you think I enjoy going around hurting people?"

"Oh what, the kind of accident where you accidentally bash somebody's head in with an ashtray?"

"I'm sure you would like to have the grand confession scene like they do in the movies, but I'm not going to do that. Helen wanted to keep your baby. That was never part of the plan. We got into a fight and she got hysterical. She attacked me. I reached for the first thing that came to hand."

"What about the private detective? I suppose you just 'accidentally' poured petrol into his office and set it alight."

"That was meant to scare him off. We never intended to kill him. He came to see me when he realised your wife had been my assistant. He was looking for a bribe."

"You could have just paid him off. He wasn't fussy about who he took money from."

I could picture it: Martin Wynn hurling himself at the door trying to get out, shouting for help until smoke overcame him, then passing out. There was no doubt in my mind that Forget had spread petrol around the office and then torched it, locking the detective inside. Forget must have lied to himself so much that he really believed what he was telling me.

"I don't understand what you did this all for."

Forget looked at me almost pityingly. "You really don't get it, do you? It doesn't matter what the question is, the answer is always money."

"You have money. I've been to your house. And what about your reputation? You're never going to get away with this."

"This isn't a children's cartoon," he said, mimicking my voice.
"You're never going to get away with this.
The house belongs to my wife. I have debts. Big ones. Mostly through gambling, and these are to people who don't accept IOUs or let you pay back a little at a time." He smiled ruefully. "The sickest thing is that sometimes I think I enjoyed the feeling of losing more than I did winning."

"So what have you come for?" I asked. "I thought you would have been long gone by now."

"I'm here to offer you a choice," he said. He pulled an amber plastic vial from his pocket and uncapped it, pouring a cairn of pills into his palm. "Sleeping pills. The poor grieving husband, distraught that his wife and child have left him, takes an overdose. Oh, and by the way, you also sign a note confessing to Helen Noades' murder. Guilt. Everybody would understand. After all, who would miss you? Your father? Emily says he despises you. A couple of headwaiters in Leadenhall Market? Take the sleeping pills, and Emily and I will bring up your daughter as if she was our own. You have my word."

Even I managed to smile at this. "Your word. What, the word of a man who has the blood of two people on his hands? The word of an adulterer who's lied and stolen and kidnapped my baby?"

Something must have touched a nerve. Forget became angry. "You're an adulterer as well. Except I didn't go running to mummy when I was a bad boy. Either you take the pills or we'll abandon your baby somewhere." He cocked his head to one side and made a little moue. "I bet you're thinking, 'Nobody could be cruel enough to do that.' You forget. The baby isn't Emily's, it's yours."

"I don't believe Emily would do that."

Forget offered me the pills again. "So, how much is your child worth now?"

"I've got a counterproposal," I said. "There's more money in my holdall. You tell me where my daughter is, and you take the extra cash. You don't want another person's death on your conscience. I'm giving you the chance to get away. The police know the connection between you and Emily, how you dreamt this up together," I lied. "It's only a matter of time before they track you down."

The tip of the gynaecologist's tongue darted between his lips. "How much money are we talking about?" he asked. "I want to see it."

He nodded at me to start walking and picked up the baseball bat. One swing and my brains would be graffiti all over the wall. I raised my hands, and he followed me out into the corridor. "One hundred grand in cash," I said, slowly unzipping the nylon bag.

I swung round and jammed the sawn-off shotgun into his stomach. "Now fuck off," I said.

Instead, Forget swung the bat down on my shoulder. The pills flew everywhere. I dodged the blow, which still caught me, and I dropped the shotgun. It clattered on the floor. First I was standing up, and now I was on all fours. Christ, the pain. Forget must have broken my collarbone or something. We both had the same idea and lunged for the gun, but Forget got there first. Now he was pointing it down at me.

"You little fucker," he said, panting. "Pick up those pills."

I crawled around on my hands and knees trying to find the pills that had rolled against the skirting board and all over the floor. My shoulder throbbed like a pump.

"Now eat them," he said. Gingerly, I put the first one in my mouth, tasting its bitterness. "Not just one at a time, the whole lot," Forget said, resting both cold barrels against my temple.

I looked up at him, but there was no mercy there; his eyes were as expressionless as mackerel. Forget jerked his chin, indicating for me to hurry up.

I cupped my hand and swallowed the handful of pills without water, grimacing at the aftertaste. I would be dead within minutes. Already I imagined that my eyelids were getting heavy.

"Wait a minute, I've got a better idea," the gynaecologist said. He grabbed the back of my collar, hauled me up and told me to walk into the sitting room, jabbing me in the back with the sawn-off shotgun. If only I could get the room into focus. Everything seemed to be revolving in figures of eight.

"I'm bored with this," Forget said. "Go outside onto the balcony. Don't try any funny business. Your wife will play the grieving widow for a bit, and then we'll live comfortably on your money."

I slid the balcony door open and stepped onto the patio. It was bitterly cold and I shivered involuntarily, wind ruffling my shirt. "Promise me you won't hurt my baby," I said. Already I could feel myself getting sleepy. My eyelids were starting to close as the pills took effect. Another few minutes and it would all be over. No, I was not going to let this happen. In my heart I had made a solemn oath to protect my child, and I was going to keep that promise.

Forget grinned and motioned for me to stand by the balcony. Canary Wharf glowed before us, and it felt like that moment in the Bible where the Devil tempts Jesus with all the countries in the world he could rule.

"You know," Forget said, "I've seen a lot of cunts in my life, and your wife's is by far the prettiest."

"Please, don't do anything to my child."

"Now, get up on the balcony. Either you jump or I'll blow a hole in you right now." He took a step closer and prodded me in the gut. "You know, Dante had a special place reserved in hell for people like you and me."

"Yes, and who's that then?"

"The adulterers."

"Well," I said. "I'll be seeing you in hell."

I grabbed him and threw both of us over the side. Forget was so surprised that he dropped the shotgun, and it clattered onto the cement. For a moment I wondered if it was going to go off as I felt the gynaecologist’s centre of gravity shift and he came toppling after me. I closed my eyes, but not before I glimpsed the lit-up health club skylight rushing towards us. I screwed my eyes shut even tighter: this was going to hurt. What the hell was I talking about? This wasn't just going to hurt, we were both going to die.

This was going to be bad. For a moment, I glimpsed the skylight rushing towards us, and then glass splintering as we crashed through it. Pieces of glass were spinning right towards me, and I shut my eyes tight as we hit the swimming pool. Hard. The water was like cement. Bubbles exploded around us, and it was so cold I wanted to scream. In the confusion I let go of Forget and felt us drifting apart. All I wanted to do was get out of the water. I kicked upwards, desperate to reach the surface. My head broke the water and I gasped, trying to get as much air into my lungs as possible. Around me was broken glass and bits of wood from where we had burst through the skylight. I was conscious of cuts on my face and arms, but to my surprise there wasn't more blood. Amazingly, we had not been cut to ribbons as we fell through the skylight.

Somebody grabbed me from below in a clumsy rugby tackle.

Forget had his arms around me as we grappled underwater, trying to reach my throat. Christ, he was strong. I tried fending him off, but I was becoming very drowsy. The sleeping pills were really coming on strong.

We turned and turned again as Forget forced his hands around my neck, trying to squeeze the life out of me. Above us the silver ceiling rippled. The gynaecologist looked unhinged as he bore down, his face filling my vision as pressure built and the roar of blood in my head became intolerable. Desperately, my hand groped for anything I might use, and my fingers touched a piece of glass. I scrabbled for the shard as it bobbed away just out of reach. Finally I got my fingers round it as my arm broke the surface, and I plunged it down into what I hoped was his back.

Forget screamed and let go, his hands clutching his neck. Blood ribboned, pouring out of him, and I kicked away, trying to get to the other end of the pool as the water turned cloudy with blood. Forget came after me, his hands grabbing my ankles as I ploughed on. It was like a nightmare where something just out of sight is grabbing at you – no matter how fast you went, it was always gaining. I could see a swimmer standing up in the shallow end of the pool looking astonished. "Help," I yelled before I went under. Forget was pulling me back down, and I swallowed a great mouthful of water. Clouds of silver bubbles escaped from my mouth. Forget's powerful arms were pulling me down into the depths. He was far too strong for me, and I had already made the decision to give in. Then Forget's hands weren't there anymore.

My head broke the surface again, and I looked wildly around to see whether he had given up. No, he was floating face down in the water in an expanding cloud of blood. The water was dark with the stuff, and Forget's clothes ballooned around him. I kicked my way to the edge, coughing and choking. I could still feel Forget’s hands around my throat. With one supreme effort I hauled myself up out of the pool and lay coughing and retching on my side. I felt exhausted, with nothing left to give. But I still had to get those pills out. I stuck two fingers down my throat and started heaving as the enormity of what had just happened sank in.

I had just killed another person.

Another man's blood was on my hands.

With that, I puked my guts out onto the tiles, half-digested sleeping pills in the bile. I paused for a moment, still dry heaving. Then I went again, vomiting whatever was left in my stomach. Finally, I wiped an elastic string of spittle with my wrist. My eardrum also ached. We had hit the surface so hard that water had shot up my nostrils, hurting my sinuses. I wanted to bang my head with my fist to get the stuff out. Instead I just lay there waiting for the excruciating pain to go away. The swimmer stood over me, keeping his distance as if I was contagious. "Are you all right?" he asked. Did I bloody look all right? I rolled onto my back. "Please. Call the police," I managed to say. Despite everything, life was seeping back into me. I had never felt so rawly alive. I was alive and Forget was dead, and that was all that mattered.

An hour later I was sitting on my living room sofa wearing a tee-shirt and tracksuit bottoms. Everything hurt, and I felt grey with pain. I was coming down now and, catching sight of myself in the bathroom mirror as I applied TCP to my cuts, I thought I looked like death. From the balcony I had watched Forget's body being carried into the ambulance. A police car was parked in the courtyard below with its lights still churning. A policewoman had placed the sofa throw around me as I sipped smooth, delicious-tasting coffee laced with sugar in my living room. There was a lot of explaining to do: a police officer took my statement, and I told him to phone Detective Inspector Syal, who could vouch for everything I had said. I was taking another sip when there was a knock at the door. DI Syal herself came into the room, looking mightily pissed off.

"What the hell has been going on?" she asked me. Even the PC looked embarrassed.

"I did warn you," I croaked. My throat felt sore as hell. "You didn't listen."

"I left a message saying that we had traced the car, and still you had to play the hero."

"I didn't play the hero. He came after me."

Syal's face softened a little when she saw the state I was in. "Are you all right?" she asked. "Are you hurt?"

"As all right as somebody can be who has just fallen three stories through a glass window," I said. It hurt every time I breathed.

"Why did Forget come here? Your wife had already run away with him, and he had your money as well. I don't understand."

"He wanted me to leave a note confessing to Alice's murder and then kill myself. That way all his loose ends would be neatly tied up. He literally put a gun to my head." I managed to smile at this. If my sense of humour was coming back, I must be starting to feel human.

"Your own shotgun that you planned to shoot him with."

I decided to ignore that. "So, what are you going to do about finding my baby? My wife still has my child and a million pounds of my money." I looked at the chair where less than an hour ago Forget had been planning to kill me. "Will you tell his wife? He had a son of his own, you know." I wondered how Forget's son would grow up, knowing what his father had done.

For the first time, the detective looked compassionate. "Yes," she said. "We will inform his family. His wife needs to identify his body. I'm going to have to arrest you, though. For manslaughter. I believe that you acted in self-defence, but it's not up to me to decide."

"Wait. A man tries to kill me and I'm the bad guy here? My wife has two people's blood on her hands. Not just Alice Adams or Helen Noades or whatever the hell her name was, but the private detective as well. Forget told me that he'd gotten too close, that he'd figured out their scheme. They set fire to his office to destroy the evidence."

"Leaving him locked inside." Syal grimaced.

We both sat there for a moment contemplating Martin Wynn's grisly end. Finally I said, "Listen, I've got a proposal for you."

Syal sat down on the leather footstool facing me. For once, rather than talking over me, she wanted to hear what I had to say. "Go on," she said.

"You arrest me, or whatever it is you need to do," I said, rubbing my throat, "but let me phone Emily first. Let me try and get my daughter back. She won't want to leave the country with her if she can. Nancy's not hers, you see."

"What makes you think your wife will pick up the phone? You told me she's on the run. She could be anywhere by now."

"No. Forget told me they planned to disappear, somewhere abroad, I guess. So she must be still in the country. Everything has changed now that Forget is dead. First Alice and now her–" I still couldn't bring myself to say the word lover. "–her accomplice." I remembered what the man in the sauna had said, about how his dog had turned out to be a rat. In the end, do any of us know who another person really is?

DI Syal sat back looking sceptically at me. "If she agrees to hand your baby back, we will be there. The moment she hands over the child, she'll be under arrest."

"She mustn't know that the police are involved. Otherwise she'll run."

Syal gestured with her eyes for me to use the phone. "Go on," she said. "You can make one call."

I lifted the phone out of its cradle and jabbed in Emily's number. I knew it off by heart by now. Please pick up, I said silently. Just for once, take my call. Four rings and my heart sank as the phone went through to voicemail again. Emily's bubbling voice told me to leave a message. I said hoarsely, "Emily, it's me. Forget’s dead. There's been enough killing. This is where it ends, this is where it stops. I know everything, by the way. I went to see your mother in Wales, and she told me what had happened about your father. Listen, Emily, I'm truly sorry. For what we did to you, I mean. You got your pound of flesh. You win, Emily, I get that. Just give me my little girl back. You can keep the rest."

With that, I replaced the handset, and we both just sat there, willing it to ring. We both jumped when the phone rang minutes later. I could see from the caller ID that it was Emily, and I punched the speakerphone button.

"Hello?" I said cautiously. I could hear her breathing on the other end.

"What do you mean, he's dead? What have you done to him?"

Already I felt righteous anger. Her lover had broken in to our flat, tried to murder me, and all she was concerned about was him? "He came here and tried to kill me. I don't have to justify myself to you." Syal motioned for me to calm down.

"Are we on speakerphone?" she asked suspiciously.

"Sorry, force of habit."

"Do the police know yet?" she asked with a husk in her voice. I looked up at Syal, who shook her head. "No, no I haven't– not yet anyway. This changes everything. Listen, Emily, I know you don't love me and probably never did."

"That's not true ..."

"But give me my little girl back. You can keep the money. Be logical about it. You don't want to start a new life like this. I just want you to go."

There was a pause on the other end while Emily weighed up my offer. Syal made a rolling gesture with her finger, as if to say, keep her talking. Finally Emily said, "Can you come up to Morecambe tomorrow afternoon? I'll meet you on the beach at five o'clock. I'll have Nancy with me. How do I know you won't call the police?"

"I just want my daughter back. I don't care if I never see you again." I remembered how deserted the seaside resort had been out of season. What was she doing up there? That was where Alice's family lived. I remembered the bleak seaside promenade. "Morecambe beach, what, in the north of England?"

"Yes, that's the place."

"The beach stretches a long way. How will I find you?"

"Don't worry. We'll find you. Park your car at Hest Bank station and start walking." Pause. "Hugo?"

"Yes. I'm still here."

"I never meant any of this to happen, you know. Things went wrong. It was the company I hated, not you."

My wife’s words came back to me. "You can't unring a bell, Emily."

We hung up, and I sat back on the sofa feeling utterly drained. It was well past midnight, and all I wanted to do was finally close my eyes. Something was nagging at me, though, something that Mole had mentioned. Then I got it. I said, "Alice's funeral is tomorrow at three o'clock in Morecambe. My wife is planning to be there."