Believing the Lie

remained to be dealt with. He said, “David phoned. I was talking to him when Tommy arrived.”

He could actually feel the change in her. Her breathing altered, one slow intake followed by one very long pause. He said, “The girl would like to meet us, Deborah. Her parents and the boy would be there as well. She prefers it that way, and the solicitor indicated — ”

“I can’t,” Deborah said. “I’ve thought about it, Simon. I’ve looked at it every possible way. Truly, I have. You must believe me. But no matter how I try to twist it, I do think that the bad outweighs the good.”

“It’s irregular, but other people manage it.”

“They may do, but I’m not other people. We’d be asked to share a baby with its birth mother, its birth father, its natural grandparents, and God knows who else, and I know this is trendy and modern, but I don’t want it. I can’t make myself want it.”

“They might well lose interest in the child,” St. James pointed out. “They’re very young.”

Deborah looked at him. She’d been sitting up in bed — not at rest against the pillow — and she swung round and said incredulously, “Lose interest? This is a child, not a puppy. They’re not going to lose interest. Would you?”

“No, but I’m not a fifteen-year-old boy. And anyway, there would be arrangements. They’d be drawn up by the solicitor.”

“No,” she said. “Please don’t ask me again. I just can’t.”

He let a moment pass. She’d turned away. Her hair tumbled down her back nearly to her waist, and he touched a lock of it, saw how it curled naturally round his fingers. He said, “Will you just think about it a bit longer before you decide? As I said, she’d like to meet us. We could do that much if nothing else. You might well like her, her family, the boy. You know, the fact that she wants to keep contact with the child… That’s not a bad thing, Deborah.”

“How is it good?” she asked, still turned from him.

“It indicates a sense of responsibility. She doesn’t just want to walk away and get on with her life as if nothing ever happened to change it. In a way she wants to provide for the child, be there to answer questions should questions come up.”

“We could answer questions. You know that very well. And why on earth — if she wants to be involved in the child’s life — would she choose a couple from London to be the parents anyway, instead of a couple from Southampton? That doesn’t make sense. She’s from Southampton, isn’t she?”

“She is.”

“So you see…”

He reckoned she couldn’t bear another disappointment and he didn’t blame her. But if they didn’t continue to push forward, if they didn’t follow whatever avenue opened up before them, an opportunity could easily be missed and if they wanted a child, if they truly wanted a child …

That was, of course, the real question. Asking it, however, constituted a mine field, and he’d been married to Deborah long enough to know that some fields were too dangerous to venture into. Still, he said, “Have you another solution, then? Another possibility?”

She didn’t reply at once. He had the sense, though, that she did have something else in mind, something she was reluctant to mention. He repeated the question. She quickly responded with, “Surrogacy.”

He said, “Good God, Deborah, that route’s fraught with — ”

“Not a donor mother, Simon, but a host mother. Our embryo, our baby, and someone willing to carry it. It wouldn’t be hers. She’d have no attachment. Or at least she’d have no right to an attachment.”

His spirits plummeted. He wondered how something that for other people was so damnably natural could have, for them, turned into such a mire of appointments, doctors, specialists, procedures, solicitors, questions, answers, and more questions. And this, now? Months and months would pass while a surrogate was sought and interviewed and checked out in every possible way while Deborah took drugs that would do God only knew what to her system in order to harvest (God, what a word) eggs while he disappeared into a lavatory stall with container in hand to make the required, passionless, and loveless deposit and all of this to result — perhaps, if they were lucky, if nothing went wrong — in a child that was biologically their own. It seemed wildly complicated, inhumanly mechanised, and only partially guaranteed of success.

He blew out a breath. He said, “Deborah,” and he knew that she recognised in his tone a form of hesitation that she would not want to hear. That it had to do with his desire to protect her would not occur to Deborah. And that was just as well, he thought. For she hated him to protect her from life, even as she felt life’s blows more than he thought either necessary or good.

She said in a low voice, “I know what you’re thinking. And this puts us at an impasse, doesn’t it?”

“We just see things differently. We’re coming at it from different directions. One of us sees an opportunity where the other sees an insurmountable difficulty.”

She thought about this. She said slowly, “How odd. It seems there’s nothing to be done, then.”

She lay next to him, then, but her back was to him. He switched out the light and put his hand on her hip. She didn’t respond.

WANDSWORTH LONDON

It was nearly midnight when Lynley arrived. Regardless of his promise to her, he knew he should have gone home instead and slept however he was meant to sleep on this particular night, which would be fitfully, no doubt. But instead he made his way to Isabelle’s, and he let himself in with his key.

She met him at the door. He’d expected she would have long gone to bed, and it did seem she’d been there at first. But a light was on next to the sofa in the sitting area of her flat, and he saw a magazine spread out there, evidently discarded when she’d heard his key in the lock. She’d left her dressing gown on the sofa as well, and as she wore nothing beneath, she came to him nude and when he closed the door behind him, she stepped into his arms and lifted her mouth to his.

She tasted of lemons. For a moment he allowed himself to wonder if the taste of her indicated that she was trying to hide the fact that she’d been drinking again. But then he didn’t care as his hands travelled the distance from her hips to her waist to her breasts.

She began to undress him. She murmured, “This is very bad, you know.”

He whispered, “What is?”

“That I’ve thought of little else all day.” His jacket fell to the floor and she worked the buttons of his shirt. He bent to her neck, her breasts.

“That,” he said, “is very bad in your line of work.”

“In yours as well.”

“Ah, but I’ve more discipline.”

“Have you indeed?”

“I have.”

“And if I touch you here, like this?” She did so. He smiled. “What happens to your discipline then?”

“The same thing, I daresay, that happens to yours if I kiss you here, if I decide on more, if I use my tongue… rather like this.”

She drew in a sharp breath. She chuckled. “You’re an evil man, Inspector. But I’m fully able to match evil for evil. Rather, as you say, like this.” She lowered his trousers. She made him as naked as she was herself. She used her nakedness to force action from him.

She was, he found, as slick and as ready as he was. He said, “The bedroom?”

She said, “Not tonight, Tommy.”

“Here, then?”

“Oh yes. Right here.”