In the Deep

by White, Loreth Anne

  “Fucking protesters,” he mumbled. “They’ve been inside that old homestead. That’s private property—my property. If I get my hands on them, I . . . I’ll cut those fuckers to shreds, cut ’em with a knife. Stick my gaff in them. Make them bleed and feed ’em to the muddies.”

  I cringed at the rawness of his anger, at his cursing. It was frightening because it seemed directed at me as much as the protesters.

  “I didn’t drink all of that wine, Martin,” I said softly. I’d only had a few sips that I could recall. I had no memory of what had happened next. I’d just woken up at the bottom of the boat. He didn’t reply.

  I tried to reconstruct the events of the day. But I could barely even remember starting to eat the chicken and salad.

  The boat entered the basin. Martin swung it around sharply. I lost balance and fell against the side. Pain sparked through my knee.

  I pulled myself back up and sat gingerly on the rear seat. “I know I didn’t drink all that wine, Martin.”

  He said nothing, didn’t even look at me.

  “I know I didn’t,” I said louder. But I wasn’t sure. A soft panic swelled inside me. This had happened before. A couple of times. In that dark space between Chloe’s drowning and my attacking Doug with a knife in the restaurant when I’d seen him through the window dining with his mistress, the woman with whom he’d been cheating on me. I’d tried to slice them both. It was the public breakdown that had precipitated my hospitalization. I suddenly lurched for the gunwale and threw up over the side.

  “Fuck, Ellie!” He wiped something off his sleeve. “Downwind next time, please.”

  THE MURDER TRIAL

  Now, February. Supreme Court, New South Wales.

  Barrister Peter Lorrington rises for cross-examination. Lozza’s stomach fists. She has described to the court how she and Gregg arrived to find Martin’s body. And while the prosecution is not permitted to ask leading questions at this stage, a defense barrister can—and will—in the cross. Lorrington will need to seed his defense strategy early, either directly or indirectly, and Lozza knows she’s vulnerable. She and Gregg are the weak links in the Crown’s case. Lorrington will grill her mercilessly right out of the gate in an effort to undercut the integrity of the entire homicide investigation and seed reasonable doubt. She can feel the gazes of her fellow officers in the packed gallery.

  Lorrington consults his notes, then glances up. Lozza faces him squarely and swallows.

  Silence in the courtroom grows heavy.

  Lorrington’s words come suddenly, like machine-gun fire. “Senior Constable Bianchi, did you touch the body prior to the forensic unit and pathologist’s arrival—did you move it in any way?”

  Lozza hesitates. “The body had already been moved—cut free by a teen diver.”

  “But did you touch it?”

  “Constable Abbott slipped into the water,” she says carefully, unwilling to throw her partner under the bus. “He accidentally bumped the body, and the decedent rolled onto his back.”

  Lorrington rubs his chin pensively. “So this is how you determined it was a homicide?”

  Irritation sparks through Lozza. She calms herself. The barrister is stirring, winding her up, trying to make law enforcement look guilty of something.

  “This is how I came to see the gaff stuck into the chest, and the other puncture wounds, ligature marks, plus the rope tied around the decedent’s ankles.”

  Konikova rises. “Your Honor, I fail to see the relevance—”

  “I’ll come straight to the point, Your Honor,” Lorrington barks. “Detective Bianchi, you and Constable Abbott were the first officers on the scene, is that correct? The first officers to lay eyes on the body of Martin Cresswell-Smith?”

  “Me, Constable Abbott, and Constable Mac McGonigle, who skippered the launch to the site, yes, sir,” Lozza says.

  “So just to be clear, the body was moved by an ordinary duty officer before a properly designated detective and a qualified forensics team from State Crime Command could arrive, is that correct?”

  Lozza clears her throat. “As I stated, Constable Abbott slipped and bumped the body.”

  “So that’s a yes?”

  “Yes,” she says slowly. “But I am a trained detective, sir. I served on the State Crime Command homicide squad for five years.” As Lozza spoke, she saw the trap. She’d walked right into it. Lorrington would circle back to her legacy on the murder squad later in the trial. He was going to drag her personally through the muck to save his client from a guilty verdict. Her chest cramps. She forces herself to keep her gaze locked on Lorrington’s.

  “And how long was the wait before Detective Sergeant Corneil Tremayne and the rest of the forensic team from State Crime Command did arrive?”

  “Two hours and twenty-three minutes,” says Lozza. “They deployed from the Sydney area, flew into Agnes Basin via helicopter, and were brought into the channel by boat. There was a storm. It delayed them for a period.”

  “And what did you at the crime scene do during that period?”

  “Constable Abbott cordoned off the area around the body. I left the jetty and went up the trail to where there is an old, abandoned farmhouse.”

  “Alone?”

  “Yes,” Lozza says quietly, her mind going back to that day, to the horrific scene she’d found. “I went alone.”

  THEN

  ELLIE

  Over one year ago, October 26. Jarrawarra Bay, New South Wales.

  Light streamed in through open blinds, flat and searingly bright. The room was hot. My head pounded. My whole body hurt. Birds—awful birds in brilliant colors—flitted and screeched from branch to branch outside the window.

  With a jolt I realized I was in my new house. My new bedroom. Naked beneath a tangle of damp sheets. I could taste the sourness of old alcohol and vomit in my mouth, and a metallic tinge . . . blood? I touched my tongue to my bottom lip. It was swollen, cut. My pulse quickened. Cautiously I turned my pounding head to the side. My clothes lay in a crumpled pile on the floor. A sense of horror dawned. I reached under the sheet and felt between my thighs. Sticky. Swollen. Sore.

  I scrunched my eyes tightly shut as fear rose and circled like a tangible creature. Disjointed shards of memory sliced through my brain. Thunder. White lightning. Pummeling rain—the scent of it on dry soil. Martin pulling his truck into a driveway. Bats in the tree above the garage. Him half carrying me up some stairs. Then . . . nothing. A black hole. My fear tipped toward terror. Was it happening again? The blackouts?

  I pushed myself up into a sitting position, caught sight of myself in the mirrored closet doors across the room. I was in a double bed and barely recognized the woman with the tangle of dark hair who stared back at me with puffy eyes, dark circles, a cut lip, red insect bites all over her face.

  I put my hand to my brow.

  Think, dammit! Remember.

  But I couldn’t.

  I glanced at the pillow beside me—dented where a head had lain. A bottle of water had been placed beside a digital clock on the bedside table. Condensation formed on the outside. Still cold. It hadn’t been there long. Had Martin put it there? The clock read 2:56 p.m.

  The sound of a vehicle reached me through the open window, wheels crunching over gravel.

  I stumbled out of bed and staggered to the window. I blinked out into the harsh light. I was on a second floor. Down below, the driveway was empty, a garage door open. Relief pinged through me. Martin was gone with the truck. I couldn’t let him see me like this—I had time to pull myself together, figure things out.

  In the adjacent bathroom I found that my cosmetic bag had been placed on a white marble counter. Everything was white, from the tiles to the fresh towels. My cosmetic pouch had been emptied, my toothbrush and toothpaste placed neatly in a cup next to the basin. I avoided my reflection while I hurriedly brushed my teeth and cleaned the sour taste out of my mouth. I took a scalding shower. As soap made contact with my private parts, my skin burned. I te
nsed. Whatever had happened last night, sex had been aggressive. A memory surfaced—or was it a nightmare? Me trapped, restrained, fighting someone off. I shook off the image. I did not want to acknowledge to myself that it might not be from a dream. Edgy, I toweled off and combed the tangles from my wet hair.

  The mirrored cabinet above the basin housed the rest of the contents from my cosmetic bag, including my bottle of painkillers and . . . the container of Ativan tabs.

  I stared at it, my heart beating faster. Martin. He’d unpacked my cosmetic bag. He’d seen my pills. I opened the drawer beneath the counter and felt a wash of horror. He’d also found my backup stash of pills from my suitcase. He’d put them all into this drawer.

  A mix of rage and anxiety crackled through my chest. How dare he go through my things? Surely he should respect my privacy? Surely there were boundaries even within a marriage? Doug had always given me space. I couldn’t imagine Doug ever unpacking all my things, especially my cosmetics. Or was I wrong? Did people do this?

  I exhaled forcefully.

  Whatever my feelings, Martin had now seen all my drugs. I snatched the Ativan container from the cabinet, opened it, and hurriedly swallowed a pill, desperate now to take the edge off the full-blown panic attack threatening me. I replaced the container and saw he’d also put my bottle of multivitamin capsules in the cabinet, so I popped one of those, too, followed by a headache pill.

  Wrapped in a towel, I went into the bedroom and slid open the mirrored closet door in search of clothes. The first side I opened was Martin’s. I stared bemused at the impossibly neat stack of T-shirts. Color-coded. And his hangers holding button-down shirts had been placed at precisely even intervals. It was creepy. Cold. Too organized. How had I not noticed this streak in him before? Probably because we hadn’t lived together yet. After we married he’d stayed at my place only on occasions. The rest of the time he was back and forth between winding up his business and his apartment in Toronto.

  I opened the other half of the closet. He’d hung and folded my clothes, too, including my bras and panties in matching color groupings. A chill crawled down the back of my neck. Everything of mine had been touched and ordered by him.

  I found a sundress, and as I pulled it over my head I felt the Ativan taking effect. It was a relief. Once dressed I did my makeup, trying to minimize the puffiness of my eyes and the redness of the mosquito bites. Then I wandered downstairs in bare feet.

  Everything downstairs was white. The room was open plan, clean lines, minimalist. Huge pieces of abstract art provided the only slashes of color—streaks of bloodred, black upon yellow. Glass sliding doors opened onto a lawn that rolled down to trees along the river. The Bonny River, I presumed. I could see the mouth, where the brown bled into the aquamarine sea. Beyond the mouth was a rocky point where waves crashed and foamed, spray blowing white into the wind.

  I padded into the living room, the white tiles smooth beneath my feet.

  “Martin?” I called.

  Silence echoed through the hollowness of the stark house.

  “Martin!” I called louder.

  No answer.

  I saw a closed door to my left. I tried the handle. Locked. Martin’s office? Why would he lock it? My feeling of disquiet deepened.

  The kitchen was huge. Again, all white, even the dishcloths. No dirty plates in the sink. No lingering coffee cups. The wine fridge was fully stocked with an array of whites and rosés plus two bottles of prosecco. A small craving pinged through me as I studied the chilled bottles, but I opened the main fridge, instead, in search of cold water. This fridge contained ciders, beer. I found bottled water. I opened the cap and swigged, but I was stopped by a sudden sense of being watched. I lowered the bottle, turned. The sensation of being observed intensified.

  “Martin?” I said softly, but I could see no one there.

  I went to the sliding door and stepped out onto the patio facing the river. The air was heavily scented with the sea. The sense of being watched lingered. I glanced up into the trees. As I did, two sulphur-crested cockatoos screamed and swooped down at me. I gasped and ducked. They fluttered, cackling into the sky. My heart hammered.

  I turned in a slow circle, seeking the source of my unease. There was a vacant lot to my left—a tangle of drab vegetation. To my right was a neighboring property. I studied the second-story windows of the house that looked into our yard. A sheer curtain moved, possibly stirred by the hot breeze because I could see no one. The background noise of raucous birds was intense.

  I walked over the coarse grass and down the slope toward the boathouse that Martin had said would be ideal as my studio.

  Everywhere, droplets glimmered in the sun. It had clearly rained heavily last night. It was making the ground steam. Gum trees dripped. The blades of grass were sharp-edged under my feet, like everything else in this place was sharp.

  Inside the studio the walls were also bright white—a kitchenette, a tiny bathroom, a daybed. A lone black-and-white clock hung above the bed. The clock was the exact same design as the one I’d seen on the wall of the living room in the main house. The boxes I’d shipped from Canada were stacked in front of the kitchenette counter. Glass sliding doors opened onto a small wooden deck that narrowed into a dock that led into the dark river.

  I walked toward the daybed. It was covered in a white quilt. From the indentations it looked as though someone had lain on it recently. Sticking out from under a corner of a pillow was a piece of dark fabric. I lifted the pillow. It was a hair tie, a scrunchie. I picked it up.

  The fabric of the scrunchie was deep green with skeins of gold thread braided through. A long strand of auburn hair had been trapped in a skein. Wavy hair. I frowned as a memory surfaced—Lennin watching us argue from the sales office window. It was followed by an earlier memory—the brunette with the Martin doppelgänger. I recalled the way the man I’d thought was Martin had looked right through me. A doubt began to whisper in my head.

  No, Ellie, no, do not do this again.

  I’d started going really crazy when I’d begun to suspect Doug was having an affair. I’d started seeing signs everywhere.

  But you were right, Ellie. He was having an affair. You found out in the end.

  Yes, but some of the things were imagined.

  Right, like you imagined the man in the garage was Martin. But he was a doppelgänger, not Martin. So the brunette you saw with him means nothing to you.

  But what about the brown hair trapped in this scrunchie on this bed?

  I lifted the scrunchie to my nose and sniffed. As I did, I heard a noise. I froze. Listened. Heard it again—a thud.

  Quickly pocketing the scrunchie, I exited the studio. No one on the lawn. I could see no movement through the big glass windows of our house. I made my way to the garage along the fence of the neighboring property. I entered the side door. It was dim inside. No truck. Martin had not yet returned. As my eyes adjusted I saw the garage interior was as neat as Martin’s closet. A wet suit hung from a hanger. A stand-up paddleboard leaned against the wall. Tools hung in an orderly fashion on the wall above a worktable. A fishing knife lay on the table next to a gaff like the one I’d seen on the Abracadabra. Perhaps it was the same one.

  I exited the garage, and immediately that sense of being watched grew powerful. I stood still, shaded my eyes, and carefully studied the windows of the house next door above the fence tangled with jasmine.

  The curtains twitched again in the window on the second floor. I tensed as a woman appeared, then quickly retreated out of sight. I stared at the empty space, wondering why on earth she hadn’t just waved hello.

  “Hey!” I called as I went up to the fence, suddenly angry at being spied on and made to feel uncomfortable in my own yard. “Hey, hello!” I called up from the jasmine-tangled boundary.

  Nothing moved.

  I cursed and went back inside the house, intending to phone Martin and find out where in the hell he was and ask him what was up with the neighbor.

&
nbsp; I located my purse upstairs, rummaged around inside it, found my wallet, my passport, boarding passes, plane tickets . . . no phone.

  I emptied the contents of the purse onto the bed.

  My phone was gone.

  I spun around. It wasn’t on the bedside table, not in any drawers, not in the bathroom. I hurried back downstairs and came to a halt in the middle of the living room, my head pounding. The white house felt clinical, like a cage. When had I last used my phone? Sydney Airport? Maybe I’d lost it there. I had no idea how to reach Martin. I couldn’t see any landline phone in the house, either. I rattled the handle of the locked door to what I presumed was Martin’s office. Definitely locked.

  And even if there was a landline in there, I couldn’t recall Martin’s mobile number. I usually just hit his contact details in my cell. Did anyone remember phone numbers these days?

  I found my sandals, went outside again, and made my way back to the garage. The thudding I’d heard earlier had sounded like it had come from behind the garage.

  I reached the corner of the garage and heard a crack of twigs. I froze, listening, my heart beating irrationally fast. Why was I feeling scared? It was the constant screaming of birds that was grating on my nerves. I proceeded around the corner . . . and stopped dead.

  Martin stood there covered in blood. A massive knife in his hand dripped with blood. Shock registered on his face. He took a quick step toward me.

  I screamed, and stepped backward.

  His face cracked into a grin. He laughed and waggled the knife at me. “You startled me, Mrs. Cresswell-Smith.”

  Another memory slammed through me—my hands trapped above my head, my thighs being forced open. My mouth turned dry. I took another step backward.

  His features shifted again, darkening now. He took another step toward me.

  “What are you so afraid of, Ellie?”

  THEN

  ELLIE

  My brain cracked into primal mode. I spun to flee. But Martin lunged forward and clamped his bloody hand around my arm.