Swimming with Sharks

by Anna Legat

  Sarah exhales through her mouth. It looks like she’s blowing on something hot. ‘I wasn’t sure this time,’ she says.

  ‘I am so, so sorry! I just wanted to disappear for a while, get my thoughts in order. I stayed with old friends of mine, in the Lakes. It was my time out. All I did was curl up in front of the fire, and think. And I realised how much I missed you. I felt like such an idiot – I really did! I didn’t know what had possessed me. Maybe that’s why it took me a while to come back home.’ She enounces the world home with great conviction. ‘But I couldn’t do without you. It was a mistake. I think it was the heat. In fact, I’m sure of that. It fried my brain!’

  ‘Mrs Gray-Ludlow,’ Gillian ventures an interruption, ‘Nicola Eagles is still missing. I know you made … an acquaintance with her,’ – Sarah winces, of which fact Gillian is acutely conscious. It is likely that she blames Nicola for Amy’s meltdown on Itsouru – ‘and I hope you can shed some light on her disappearance. Our hopes are pinned on you.’

  ‘I really don’t know what I can say … Nicola was a … quiet sort of person, shy, I’d say. I felt sorry for her: on her own, kind of lost … I chatted to her. She was easy to talk to. I don’t know what else there is …’

  ‘You were seen with her on the pier on the day she disappeared.’

  ‘That’s where I left her.’

  ‘What did she seem like to you?’

  ‘Well …’ Amy spares Gillian a glance, and pauses to think. ‘Tired, I think. I don’t know. Now that I think about it, she looked tired like she hadn’t slept well. Or maybe like she’d been crying … Red, puffy eyes, quiet – quieter than usual, sort of resigned. I don’t think she said much. Well,’ Amy shrugs, ‘I did most of the talking. I was upset. I was on and on about Sarah and me … I didn’t pay that much attention to Nicola, to be honest. It’s terrible, isn’t it?’ She gazes apologetically at DC Webber.

  ‘I wouldn’t blame myself if I were you,’ he says, rather pointlessly, Gillian believes, since he is not her, and never will be.

  ‘So she said absolutely nothing to give you a clue why she was looking downbeat and tired?’

  ‘No, not that I recall. But it was odd,’ Amy perks up, ‘considering how she was the day before when I saw her with that man … She was playful, threw all caution up in the air. You should’ve seen her, Sarah!’ She is addressing her long-suffering partner as if she wants her to know – her in particular – how happy Nicola was with that man. ‘Until then I was sure she was gay – just didn’t know it yet. But then I saw them. They were kissing, canoodling, God knows what else, right there in everyone’s sight.’

  Gillian shows her the picture of ‘Count Karenin’. ‘Is that the man?’

  Amy examines the image and nods. ‘Yes, that’s the man. Tall, much taller than Nicola. I must give it to her – she took me by surprise. I didn’t realise she had it in her. She saw me too, waved to me. She wasn’t at all embarrassed, which I thought she would’ve been – she was the type, all prim and proper … But not then, not when I saw her that day. She was happy and she was flaunting it!’ Amy clasps her hands together and peers at Sarah with childlike exhilaration. ‘Just like we were seven years ago … I felt a tinge of envy. I wanted that spark back … Maybe that was it – that was what made me doubt us, silly me.’ She gazes at Sarah and her gaze is returned, a guilty plea in Amy’s eyes, tender forgiveness in Sarah’s.

  Gillian is fed up. Do these two really need to exorcise their demons right this minute? She makes a discreet noise. ‘Nicola? Can we go back to Nicola?’

  ‘Yes, Nicola. It’s about Nicola.’ Reluctantly Amy tears her eyes away from her lover. ‘What can I say? She looked – alive! And then … such a transformation! That Monday morning she was spent. Flat, like she didn’t care to breathe.’

  ‘Suicidal?’ Webber suggests.

  ‘Maybe.’

  On the train, Gillian tells Mark, ‘She couldn’t have killed herself and then hid her own body so well that no one would bloody well find it!’

  ‘You still don’t accept the drowning?’ He yawns. A big and heavy man, only thirty-four but already looking middle-aged and on the flabby side, Webber exudes the air of a man in authority. Gillian certainly lacks his gravitas. She looks like his older prodigal sister who had never grown up, while he’d had to take care of the whole ailing family since he was twelve. She is glad to have Webber back from holiday and on the case: hands on. He is good at putting his family on the back burner: all four of them – the wife, Kate and the three girls, whose names Gillian forever forgets. Sometimes she watches him, efficient and dedicated, and wonders: is his work an escape from the mounting challenges of his family life? She never bothers to pause long enough to answer the question. More pressing matters are usually at hand.

  ‘No, I don’t accept suicide. For one, we have Nicola’s blood in the chalet. Two, we have no suicide note. Three, we have a body.’

  ‘Somebody else’s body,’ Webber points out. ‘Maybe that body is unrelated? Nicola Eagles disappeared on Wednesday, 4th February. That person was killed at least two days later. Maybe one has nothing to do with the other?’

  ‘There’s a link, I’m sure of it. We just have to find it.’

  ‘You were sure it was Amy’s body. Now that we have Amy back alive and kicking –’

  ‘We’ll have to look elsewhere,’ Gillian finishes his sentence. ‘Could it be Nicola after all? Maybe Robert Eagles lied. Maybe he was mistaken. Maybe it is her …’

  Webber shakes his head. ‘The postmortem translation came when you were on your course last week. He wasn’t mistaken. No DNA match between the body and Nicola Eagles. It’s someone else.’

  ‘It ties in with Nicola. Somehow it does …’ Gillian insists. She has to think about it. Now that the wretched DI’s course is behind her, useless as it was but dutifully attended at Scarface’s insistence, she can refocus her energies on the case. He has tried to keep her away from it – damage control he calls it – after Robert Eagles made an official harassment complaint, but the dust has settled, nothing came of the complaint and Gillian is back in the saddle. The pit bull has her teeth into it once again. ‘I want to see that postmortem first thing tomorrow morning,’ she tells Webber, but he can’t hear her. His chin is bouncing on his chest and a wheezy snore escapes his gaping mouth. He is asleep.

  Fritz greets her at the door. He is caressing her legs with affection. She has to play hopscotch to avoid being tripped over by him. As soon as she enters the kitchen the game is over and Fritz sits to attention by the fridge, demanding food with the insistent yodel he had once exuded at the police station. ‘All right, I’ll feed you first, shall I?’ She takes an opened can of cat food out of the fridge to Fritz’s visible delight. ‘Then I’ll have my tea.’

  Fritz had never gone missing. He’d run off and hidden somewhere in the house, silent and invisible, playing dead. He waited for Gillian to leave before he took matters into his own paws, surviving the five days of her absence by drinking from toilets and feeding on the large indoor population of spiders. He made a mess but only in one corner of the downstairs closet, where he used a floor mat as a litter box. When Gillian returned from the Maldives she found Fritz alive and well, asleep on her bed. At first, there was something of a Mexican standoff, Fritz refusing to accept Gillian was the rightful owner of her house, but soon they kissed and made up. A cat flap was installed in the kitchen door. Fritz became a household name.

  Gillian makes her tea while he is crunching cat biscuits. It is a comforting feeling to have a living creature in the house, making noises, breathing and generating enough fuss to take Gillian’s mind off the eerie emptiness that fills every nook and cranny. She misses Tara and her constant dramas, her untidiness and her moods. The house has flatlined since she went away. Even though there were many days when they would pass each other like two ships in the fog, without a word, just knowing that Tara was up there, in her messy room, with headphones on her ears, painting her toenails livid red a
nd ignoring her mother blatantly and unashamedly, was all Gillian needed to be happy. She simply had to know she was not alone.

  She puts her mug on the floor – the tea is too hot and there is no milk in the house to cool it down with – and decides to have a little talk with her child. Tara is staying at her father’s, in South Africa. Another three weeks and she will be back. But Gillian can’t wait that long. She knows only too well what Africa is like: rife with danger, callous and unforgiving. When she was young and – let’s face it – stupid, Gillian brushed by dark characters and narrowly escaped the many lethal encounters that Africa threw at her with an abundant hand. She was stupid enough to hardly notice them then, but today a cold shiver runs down her spine when she thinks back to those days.

  There is no answer on Tara’s mobile. It rings, in vain, and takes her to the all too familiar message on the answer phone. Gillian won’t give up: she dials Deon’s home number.

  ‘Sorry, did I wake you?’

  ‘Nothing new,’ he says, almost indulgently. ‘I wasn’t sleeping. They aren’t home anyway.’

  Gillian’s heart jumps to her throat. ‘What time is it? Shouldn’t you put a curfew on them? You know how dangerous the streets are at night.’

  ‘It’s only ten. They went to a nightclub. It’s safe. It’s a safe part of town. As safe as they come. Relax.’

  She tries to do just that. This may be a good time to discuss Charlie. ‘I’ll have to trust you,’ she says, ‘but can you trust that boy? Charlie … What do you make of him?’

  ‘He’s all right.’

  ‘But … ?’

  ‘No buts. He’s all right.’

  A groan escapes her. Deon’s economy with words is frustrating. Not to mention his lack of observational powers. ‘Did you find out what his second name is?’

  ‘No. Why should I?’

  Gillian is at a loss. ‘You invite a stranger into your house. The least you can do is ask his name.’

  ‘It’s Charlie, isn’t it?’

  ‘It’s Charles Outhwaite. That’s what he says his full name is. I think you should know.’

  Deon tut-tuts into the receiver. ‘Good grief, Gillian, you never used to be like that!’

  ‘Like what precisely?’

  ‘Neurotic. Unreasonable.’

  ‘For God’s sake, Deon! We’re talking about a total stranger whom our daughter picked up, like a bloody stray, halfway round the globe! We know nothing about him. For all we know he could be a serial killer or a psychopath! Tara, on the other hand, is a fresh-faced, gullible young girl. Not a clue! And she’s totally irresponsible. God knows what they’re getting up to –’ The rest of the sentence won’t pass her lips, perhaps because she is too embarrassed to voice her reservations, perhaps because she doesn’t quite know how to phrase them or perhaps because deep down she realises how ludicrous they are.

  ‘Not under my roof – they’re not. I put them in separate bedrooms.’ He murmurs something else under his breath, but all Gillian can make out is: ‘pretty randy in the night … it’s either them or the rats …’

  The knock on the door saves her from further torture.

  Her late-night visitor is a woman. She is in her late thirties, average height, average build, her face drawn and showing signs of tiredness or lack of sleep. Her eyes are underlined with dark circles. She has the appearance of someone who has recently lost lots of weight – her clothes are too baggy, her skin sagging around the jaw. Something weak and vulnerable shifts in her eyes, something immature. By looking at her, Gillian ventures a guess that the woman is both unmarried and childless.

  ‘I’m sorry to trouble you this late, but I believe you have my cat, Fritz. I found this note,’ she passes a scrap of paper to Gillian. ‘My name is Nicola Eagles.’

  Of course! Gillian was right: the woman is unmarried and childless. She recognises the face from the photo she still has somewhere in her unpacked bags. The bouncy curls are missing and so is the strawberries-and-cream complexion, but the childlike expression in the eyes is unmistakable.

  ‘Miss Eagles, come in! I’ve been looking for you all over the … world!’

  Fritz recognises his mistress without the need for an identity check. He watches her at first from a safe distance under the coffee table, then produces a couple of his trademark yodels and trots towards her merrily with his tail up. ‘Oh Fritz, my boy!’ she lifts him from the floor and cuddles the creature lovingly. ‘I hope he wasn’t too much trouble?’

  ‘No, none at all!’ Gillian thanks God that Fritz won’t be able to verbalise his concerns, especially the ones about being left home alone for several days without food or water. ‘He was as good as gold! I’ll miss him when he’s gone,’ she lies.

  ‘Thank you for looking after him.’ Nicola is heading for the exit with the gratified feline in her arms.

  Gillian is alarmed. Surely, the woman intends to explain herself to her? Surely, there is an explanation! All she had got so far was a few pleasantries and an expression of gratitude for cat-sitting. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ she asks briskly.

  ‘I don’t want to trouble you any more.’

  ‘Oh no! It’s no trouble. Except that I’ve no milk. Is that all right?’

  Miss Eagles is trapped in the armchair with Fritz in her lap as she struggles through her story. She is a very bad liar: her lips are dry and she keeps moistening them with her tongue; she is pulling at her cardigan’s buttons, doing them up and undoing them continually. She points out that she has already explained everything in the consulate, to the Head of Security, the very kind Mr Jones, who insisted on being referred to by his first name, Ross (presumably to put the poor creature at ease). She told him everything she could remember and he took down notes which, he said, would be passed on to the police. Could Gillian – perhaps – obtain those notes and let her go home now? Considering that she is rather exhausted? She only got home this morning …

  She positively shrinks when Gillian insists on hearing it all over again. She is flushed, and flustered and clearly very, very anxious to get her story right the second time round. Gillian is sure the only uncensored part of Miss Eagles’ account is the bit about the very kind Mr Jones – Ross.

  ‘So, please, help me get my facts in order,’ she presses her, ‘I’ll have to investigate this matter in full, write a report … Plenty of paperwork, believe me! It simply won’t go away by itself. A crime has been committed. It’s a clear case of abduction. It cannot go unresolved.’

  ‘I don’t wish to press charges,’ Miss Eagles ventures gingerly, a glint of hope in her eyes.

  ‘It’s not that easy. We’re talking about a serious crime. It’s in the public interest to bring the perpetrators to justice. Those people, if they go unpunished, will do it again, to another innocent person. Next time round it could end in a tragedy. We can’t let it happen.’

  ‘Of course not.’ She is quick to surrender. ‘It’s just that I know so little. They kept me locked up in a tiny cabin. I saw nothing, heard nothing … I slept – I slept a lot. I was drugged, I think. There’s nothing I can tell you.’

  ‘Are you sure they released you without any ransom being paid?’ Gillian is relentless. ‘It’s not a crime to pay a ransom to kidnappers …’

  ‘No … I mean, yes! I am sure. They just let me go. In Marseille. Perhaps they realised I had no way of paying them anything.’

  ‘You are worth quite a bit. We checked.’

  ‘Well, I don’t know … I really don’t. Maybe it wasn’t enough for them? I wasn’t worth the trouble?’

  ‘So they just let you go?’

  She nods, wordless. She probably knows Gillian doesn’t believe her so she has given up on trying to convince her.

  Gillian sighs. She is frustrated. She stands up, looks out of the window into the obscure night outside. She hasn’t drawn the curtains. The rain is pounding on the glass as if it’s trying to get inside. She gazes back at Nicola Eagles – an enigma. Here, in her lounge, sits a woman whos
e death she thought she was investigating. The woman, for whom Gillian has been looking high and low, has come into her house of her own accord to tell her a pack of lies. What sort of bloody game is she playing! She seems to be protecting her kidnappers – why?

  ‘I am amazed they let you go. It’s amazing!’ Gillian repeats herself, rather pointlessly.

  ‘Yes. I don’t understand any of it myself. Perhaps I was lucky?’

  Despair makes Gillian clench her fists. She wants to claw the woman and shake the truth out of her. She drills her with her eyes, forcing her to look back at her. She says, ‘Look here, Miss Eagles. You might’ve been lucky. Damn lucky, if you ask me! But we have a body on our hands. A woman. She is cold dead. No identity. She wasn’t as lucky. Can you help me here? Anything? Anything at all?’

  There is a tangible change in Nicola Eagles’ face: the discomfort of an unseasoned liar is replaced with guilt. Her fingers abandon the buttons of her cardigan and clutch her chest. She speaks in a small, frightened voice.

  ‘I saw a woman. She was wearing a striped dress. They threw her overboard. I think she was dead. I watched her dress fill with water. She went down and she wasn’t … I mean, she wasn’t doing anything, didn’t try to swim or … She was dead.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Right at the start … When I woke up for the first time. The thing that woke me was the police boat. It was loud. I saw it leave. I heard a woman scream after them, “Pamagitze! Viernis.” She was screaming for help, calling for them to turn back – she must’ve been Russian … Then I heard shouting – an argument, or something to that effect. Agitated voices … I couldn’t make out what it was about – it was in Russian –’ She halts halfway through the sentence, draws in air sharply and falls into a despondent silence.