Believing the Lie (75 page)

Nicholas Fairclough made very short order of letting Deborah feel his wrath. He jerked his car to a halt in the driveway and leapt out onto the gravel. He strode towards her saying, “Who the hell
are
you, then? What are you doing here?” For a man whose previous meetings with her had been conducted in such a mild-mannered fashion, Fairclough was completely transformed. If eyes could be said to blaze, his were doing just that. “Where is he? How much time do we have?”

Deborah felt pinned by the ferocity of the questions and only able to express herself inarticulately. She stammered, “I don’t know…How long do these things take? I’m not sure. Mr. Fairclough, I tried…You see, I did tell him there was no story to be had because that’s the truth of the matter. There is no story.”

Fairclough drew himself up at that, as if Deborah had placed her hand on his chest to stop him. He said, “Story? What? Who the hell
are
you? Christ, d’you work for
The Source
as well? Montenegro didn’t send you?”

Deborah frowned. “
The Source
? No. That’s something entirely…Who on earth’s Montenegro?”

Nicholas looked from her to Arnside House and back to her. “Who the hell
are
you?” he demanded.

“Deborah St. James, as I always was. As I said I was.”

“But there’s no film. There’s no documentary. We’ve worked that out. There’s bloody
nothing
you’ve told us that’s true. So what do you want? What do you know? You’ve been to Lancaster with that bloke from
The Source
. He’s told me as much. Or can I not believe him, either?”

Deborah licked her lips. It was cold and damp and miserable out of doors and the fog was becoming thicker as they spoke. She wanted a coal fire and something hot to drink if only to hold the cup in her hands, but she couldn’t leave with Fairclough blocking her way, and her only option left was the truth.

She was there to help the Scotland Yard detective, she informed Nicholas Fairclough. She’d come with her husband, a forensic specialist who evaluated evidence during investigations. The newsman from
The Source
had, for some reason, concluded that she was the detective from the Met and she’d let him think that in order to give the real detective and her husband time to do the work they’d come to do regarding the death of Ian Cresswell undisturbed by a tabloid.

“I don’t know anyone called Montenegro,” she concluded. “I’ve never heard of him. If it is a him, and I daresay it is? Who is he?”

“Raul Montenegro. Someone trying to find my wife.”

“So that’s what she meant,” Deborah murmured.

“You’ve talked to her?”

“At cross purposes, I expect,” Deborah said. “She must have thought we were speaking of this Raul Montenegro while I thought we were speaking of the reporter from
The Source
. I’m afraid I told her he’s in Windermere, but I meant the reporter.”

“Oh my God.” Fairclough headed towards the house, saying over his shoulder. “Where is she now?”

“Inside,” and as he began to jog towards the door, “Mr. Fairclough? One thing more?”

He stopped, turned. She said, “I tried to tell her this. I tried to
apologise. What I mean is…The surrogacy situation? You’ve absolutely nothing to fear. I told Mr. Benjamin there was no story in it and there isn’t. And besides, I completely and utterly understand. We’re rather…Your wife and I…We’re rather sisters in this matter.”

He stared at her. He was pasty faced anyway, but Deborah saw that now all colour had left his lips as well, rendering him ghostlike in appearance, aided by the fog that curled at his feet. “Sisters,” he said.

“Yes indeed. I, too, so much want a baby and I haven’t been able to—”

But he was gone before she was able to conclude.

WINDERMERE
CUMBRIA

When Tim returned to Shots!, Toy4You was behind the counter chatting with an Anglican priest. They both turned as Tim entered the shop, and the priest gave him the kind of once-over that spoke of an evaluation being made. Tim concluded he was there as a fellow actor for Toy4You’s film, and he registered this with a lurch of his gut that rapidly formed itself into a hot ball of anger. A fucking vicar, he thought. Just another bleeding hypocrite like the rest of the world. This pathetic excuse for a human being stood up in front of a congregation every Sunday and did his bit with the Word of God and handed out communion wafers and then on the side when no one was the wiser off he went to do his filthy business with—

“Daddy! Daddy!” Into the shop burst two children—a boy and a girl—in neat school uniforms and behind them a woman looking rather harried and studying her watch and saying, “Darling, I am
so
terribly sorry. Are we too late?” She went to the priest and kissed his cheek and linked her arm through his.

The priest said, “Mags, ninety minutes. Really,” and sighed. “Well, William and I have examined Abraham and Isaac, Esau and Jacob, Ruth and Naomi and the alien corn, and the brothers of
Joseph from every angle, and it’s been most illuminating and—I think that William will agree—entertaining as well. But, alas, you
are
too late now. We’ll have to rearrange. William’s got something on, and I’ve an appointment as well.”

Murmurs of apology, profuse, from the wife. Children hanging upon the priest’s either hand. A rescheduling of the family’s annual Christmas picture to be sent to all the relatives and off they went.

Tim was hanging back, lurking in a corner of the shop with the pretence of examining the digital cameras all locked to their display shelves and rather in need of dusting. When the priest and his family made their noisy, happy exit, Tim came forward.
William Concord
was on Toy4You’s name tag. Tim wondered what it meant that the bloke kept it on as he approached. He reckoned it had nothing to do with having forgotten to remove it. Toy4You wasn’t a forgetful kind of man.

He came round the counter and locked the door of the shop. He reversed the
Open
sign to
Closed.
He turned off the overhead lights and jerked his head to indicate that Tim was to follow him into the back.

Tim saw that the back of the shop had been altered, and it was little wonder that Toy4You wasn’t able to accommodate the priest and his family for their yearly photo. A man and a woman were in the process of setting up an entirely different design from what had been in the studio, and now a rough replica of a Victorian children’s nursery stood in place of the dramatic columns and background sky. As Tim watched them at work, they brought in three narrow beds, one of them occupied by a child-sized department store mannequin wearing Shrek pyjamas and, oddly, a schoolboy cap. The other two were empty and at the foot of one the woman laid an enormous stuffed dog, a St. Bernard by the look of it. The man rolled into position a faux background window that opened onto a starry night sky, and in the distance, a crude representation of Big Ben shone with the hour midnight.

Tim didn’t know what to make of all this until another individual materialised from the storage area. Like Tim, he was a young adolescent. Unlike Tim, he was very sure of himself and moved with purpose onto the set, where he leaned against the mock window and
lit a cigarette. He was outfitted head to foot in green, with slippers that curled up at the toes and a cocked hat set at a jaunty angle on his head. He jerked his chin in a hello to Toy4You as the other two individuals faded through the storage area, from which Tim could hear the murmur of conversation and the sound of shoes and clothes dropping to the floor. As Toy4You did some business with a rolling tripod and a rather impressive video camera, the man and the woman returned to the set. She was now in a white nightdress with a high ruffled neck. He was outfitted as a pirate captain. Unlike the other two, he was the only one wearing a mask, although the hook that emerged from his right sleeve was enough of a clue to the permanently clueless as to the bloke’s supposed identity. Of course, the permanently clueless would never wonder what he was meant to be doing in Victorian London instead of where he should have been which was, naturally, on a sailing ship in Never Never Land.

Tim looked from these characters to Toy4You. He felt momentarily queasy as he wondered what his part was supposed to entail. Then he spied a nightshirt lying at the foot of one of the beds with a pair of round-framed spectacles folded on top, and from this he understood that he was the older of the two brothers and at some point meant to put on the costume provided.

It all seemed the height of stupid to Tim, but there was a modicum of relief in the setup. When he’d seen the Last Supper film and the Jesus-in-the-garden piece, he’d reckoned they’d be engaged in something equally blasphemous here, although he hadn’t liked to think what it would be. And while he truly didn’t much care at this point whether the subject of their film was going to be blasphemous or not, he’d rather worried over the possibility that his upbringing
would
out at the very last moment, and he’d find himself unable to perform according to whatever directions would be recited to him from the other side of the camera.

He needn’t have worried as things turned out. As Wendy moved onto the nursery set and Captain Hook took up a position off-camera, Toy4You approached Tim with a small glass of water, which he handed over. From his pocket, he took a vial and from the vial,
he shook out two different pills. He gave them to Tim with a nod that indicated he was meant to swallow them.

“What’re…?”

“Something to help with authentic close-ups,” Toy4You said. “Among other things.”

“What d’they do?”

A smile flicked at the corners of his mouth. Whiskers grew there. He hadn’t shaved well that day. “They aid with the performance we require of you. Go ahead. Take them. You’ll see soon enough how they work, and I expect you’ll enjoy their effect.”

“But—”

Toy4You’s voice altered. He whispered fiercely, “Take them, goddamn it. This is what you wanted so bloody
do
it. We’ve not got all night.”

Tim swallowed them. He felt nothing and wondered if they were something to make him relax or to make him unconscious. Were they the date-rape drug? Was that a pill? He wasn’t sure. He said, “Do I put on that nightshirt? I’m John Darling, aren’t I?”

“You’re only half-stupid then,” Toy4You said. “Just stand by the camera till you get the call.”

“What call?”

“Christ. Shut up and see.” And to Peter Pan and Wendy, he said, “You two ready?” And without waiting for an answer, he moved behind the camera and the other young boy and the nightgowned woman took up position: the boy on the edge of the windowsill and the woman kneeling upright on the bed.

Tim saw from the lighting that her nightgown was so sheer that all of her was visible through it. He swallowed and wanted to look away, but he found he couldn’t for she was lifting the nightgown slowly and sensually over her head as Peter Pan advanced upon her. She presented her breasts to him and Toy4You said, “Now,” to Tim.

“But what’m I s’posed to
do
?” he asked desperately, even as he felt the stirring within him as all of his organs began doing what they were meant by nature to do.

“Getting to bed a bit late, you are,” Toy4You murmured as he
filmed the action on Wendy’s bed, where she was lowering Peter’s tights and Peter was presenting himself to the camera. She began to minister to him. “Up to the wee hours reading in the library, you were. Into the nursery you go, only to find your sister and Peter Pan in the midst of tut tut tut. But you fancy Peter yourself once you see what he’s got on him, you do.”

“So I…? What do I do?”

“Fuck it, just go onto the set. Follow your inclinations, for God’s sake. I know you have them. We both know you have them.”

And the worst was he did. He
did
. Because even as they were holding their whispered conversation, Tim couldn’t tear his eyes away from what was being filmed. And he didn’t know what it meant that Peter unveiled himself engorged with blood and Tim kept watching and his body kept reacting and he
wanted
to watch and he wanted something else only he didn’t know what it was.

“Go. Bloody go,” Toy4You said. “Peter and Wendy will show you what to do.” He looked away from the camera for a moment, directing his gaze to Tim’s crotch. He smiled. “Ah. The miracles of modern medicine. Don’t worry about a thing.”

“What about him?” Tim asked as Toy4You turned back to the camera.

“Who?”

“The…Captain…You know…”

“Don’t worry about him either. He fancies Peter. Always has done. Fancies all the Lost Boys. Fancies you as well. He’ll show up and sort you out for consorting with Peter once Wendy exits stage right. Okay? You got it? Now get bloody in there because we’re wasting time.”

“How’s he going to sort me?”

Toy4You shot him a look. “Exactly the way you’ve wanted to be sorted from the first. All right? Got it?”

“But you said you would—”

“Fuck it, you idiot. What did you really expect? Death on a biscuit? Now go.
Go
.”

MILNTHORPE
CUMBRIA

Deborah drove back to the Crow and Eagle in Milnthorpe as the fog began to billow across the road in a great grey mass like the effluent of a thousand smokestacks somewhere out in the bay. The railway viaduct that took trains into the Arnside station was only a shadowy form that she passed beneath on her way out of the village, and Milnthorpe Sands was entirely lost to view with only the wading birds closest to shore punctuating the grey with a darkness that huddled and shifted in a solid mass as if the ground itself were sighing.

The headlamps of cars did little to pierce the gloom, merely reflecting the light back onto the driver. When, occasionally, a pedestrian was present—foolhardy enough to be walking along the verge in such weather—he emerged without warning as if popping out of the ground like a Halloween ghoul. It was an unnerving experience to be on the road. Deborah was grateful when she reached the car park of the inn without incident.

Tommy was waiting for her as he’d promised. He was in the bar with a coffee service in front of him and his mobile pressed to his ear. His head was bent and he didn’t see her, but she caught the remainder of his conversation.