Believing the Lie

“Well of course it is, in the natural course of events. Mothers are the carers and their children receive the care. But Niamh’s not going the natural course, not that she ever has since Ian left her, as you very well know.” Manette watched her brother massage the lotion into his hands. For nearly two years, he’d been doing manual labour not only at the factory but also out on the pele project near Arnside, but one would never know it from looking at his fingers, his nails, and his palms. They were like a woman’s, only larger. “Someone has to step up to the mark. Believe it or not, Niamh has every intention of leaving those children with Kaveh Mehran.”

“He’s a good bloke, Kaveh. I quite like him. Don’t you?”

“It’s not about liking him. For God’s sake, Nick, he’s not even their family. Look, I’m as liberal minded as anyone and while they were living with their father, that was fine by me. Better with Ian in a household where there was love enough to go round than with Niamh breathing fire, brimstone, and revenge all over them. But it’s not working out, and Tim’s — ”

“It has to have time to work out, doesn’t it?” Nick said. “It seems to me that Ian’s not been gone long enough for anyone to decide what’s best for his children.”

“That may be the case, but in the meantime, they should be with family. If not with their mother then with one of us. Nick, I know there was no love lost between you and Ian. He was hard on you. He didn’t trust you. He discouraged Dad from trusting you as well. But one of us must provide those children with a sense of security, of familiarity and — ”

“Why not Mum and Dad, then? God knows they have enough space at Ireleth Hall.”

“I’ve spoken to Dad and got nowhere.” Manette felt a growing need to bend her brother’s will to her own. This should have been a simple matter because talking Nicholas into something had always been child’s play, which was one of the reasons his youth had been such a troubled one. Anyone could have talked him into anything. She said, “Look, I know what you’re trying to do and I admire you for it. So does Dad. So do we all. Well, except Mignon, but you’re not to take that personally since she doesn’t know anyone exists on the planet other than herself.”

He glanced her way. He gave her a smile. He knew Mignon as well as she did.

She said, “This would be another plank in the structure you’re building for yourself, Nick. If you do this — if you take the children — it makes your position stronger. It shows commitment. It shows how capable you are of taking on more responsibility. Plus, you’re closer to Margaret Fox School than Kaveh and you can take Tim there on your way to work.”

“Speaking of that,” Nicholas pointed out, “you’re closer to Margaret Fox School than I am. You’re practically in the neighbourhood. Why not you, then?”

“Nick …” Manette knew she was going to have to tell him the truth, so she made it brief. Freddie and dating and the new world of sex as soon as possible, which ended up with previously unknown women at the breakfast table. Hardly a suitable situation into which one might bring children, was it?

Nicholas had kept his eyes fastened on her face as she told him this. He said, “I’m sorry,” when she was finished, and he went on lest she think he was saying he was sorry as a way of refusing her request to take on the children. “I know what Freddie really means to you, Manette, even if you don’t,” were his words.

She looked away, blinking hard. She said, “Be that as it may… You see…”

“I’ve got to get back to work.” He put his arm round her and kissed the side of her head. He said, “Let me talk to Allie about this, okay? Something’s bothering her at the moment. I don’t know what. She hasn’t said yet, but she will. We don’t have secrets between us, so she’ll bring me into the picture in a bit. Until then, you’ll have to give me some time, okay? I’m not saying no about Tim and Gracie.”

ARNSIDE CUMBRIA

He knew nothing about fishing, but that was hardly the point. Zed Benjamin understood that the point was not to catch fish or even hope to catch fish but rather to look like he was fishing. So he’d borrowed a rod from the tottering owner of his B amp; B, who gave him chapter and verse on her late husband and the wasted hours he’d spent with his fishing line in the waters of this lake, that stream, or whatever bay. She handed over a tackle basket, as well, along with a slicker that fit Zed’s arm but nothing else and a pair of Wellingtons that were altogether useless to him. She pressed a folding stool upon him and wished him luck. Her husband, she told him, had had virtually none. According to her, the man had caught fifteen fish in twenty-five years. He could see the record if he wanted to because she’d kept it, every time the bloody man left the house and returned empty-handed. Could be he’d been having an affair, she said, because when one really put one’s head to the matter-

Zed had thanked her hastily and had driven to Arnside, where he found, with thanks to God, that the tide was in. He’d established himself on the seawall path, just beneath Nicholas Fairclough’s house, and there he’d cast his line into the water. The line was baitless. The last thing he wanted was actually to catch a fish and have to do something with it. Like touch it.

Now that Scotland Yard knew that he was in the vicinity, he had to take care. Once they clocked him — whoever they were — his job was going to be even more difficult. He needed to know exactly who they were — assuming it was a they, because didn’t they work in teams like on the telly? — because if he could suss them out before they sussed him out, his position to strike a deal was going to be a hell of a lot stronger. For if they were here on the sly, then the last thing they would want was to have their mugs printed on the front page of The Source, alerting Nicholas Fairclough to their presence, not to mention to their intentions.

Zed had reckoned they’d turn up at Arnside House eventually. He was there to take note when that occurred.

The stool had been an excellent idea. After he took up his position along the seawall, he alternated between standing and taking a load off as the hours passed. But nothing of a suspicious nature or any nature at all happened across the lawn at Arnside House, and he was growing rather desperate to learn something — anything — useful to his story when Alatea Fairclough finally came outside.

She walked straight towards him and his thought was Bloody, bloody, double bloody hell. He was about to be discovered before he’d learned a damn thing useful, and wasn’t that just how his luck was running these days? But she stopped far short of the seawall and stood looking out at the endlessly undulating mass of the bay. Her expression was sombre. Zed reckoned she was thinking about all the people who’d met an untimely end in this area, like those poor Chinese sods — more than fifty of them — caught in the darkness in the incoming tide and phoning home like E.T., desperate for rescue that did not come. Or the bloke and his son caught by the tide and a sudden fog bank and disoriented round by foghorns that seemed to come from everywhere. Considering this, Zed reckoned the edge of Morecambe Bay was a perishing depressing place to live, and Alatea Fairclough looked about as perishing depressed as one could get.

Hell, he thought, was she considering the possibilities of offing herself out there in the treacherous waters? He hoped not. He’d be meant to rescue her, and they’d both likely die if it came to that.

He was too far to hear its ringing, but Alatea’s mobile phone seemed to go off, because she took it from the jacket she was wearing and flipped it open. She spoke to someone. She began to pace. Ultimately, she looked at her watch, which glittered on her wrist even at this distance. She glanced round as if worried she might be observed and Zed ducked his head.

God, she was a beautiful woman, he thought. He couldn’t understand how she had ended up here, in the back of beyond, when a woman like her belonged on a catwalk or at least in a catalogue wearing skimpy knickers like those Agent Provocateur models with their sumptuous bosoms bursting out of brassieres and the brassieres always matching their knickers and the knickers themselves showing lots and lots of firm and delicious thigh so that one could so easily imagine all the delights of-

Zed brought himself up short. What the hell was going on with him? He was being completely unfair to womankind, thinking like this. He was particularly being unfair to Yaffa, who was back in London working on his behalf and helping out with the insanity of his mother and… But what was the point of thinking about Yaffa since Micah was on the back burner of her life, studying medicine in Tel Aviv like the good son of a mother, which Zed himself was not?

He bashed his forehead with the heel of his palm. He took a chance and cast a look back at Alatea