RISK

by Sam Skyborne

  By 10.30am that morning Antoinette had arrived at her office.

  Toni sat behind her desk observing Antoinette who occupied the small wooden chair that had temporarily been recovered from the swamp of paperwork specifically for this interview.

  Maxine had assumed her usual position, perched on the end of the trestle table in the corner and was helping herself to a steaming black cup from the little stainless steel coffee machine—a luxurious anomaly in the otherwise spartan office.

  “Would you like a cup?” Maxine offered Antoinette.

  “Yes, please!” she said. “I’d love one. My nerves are a bit shot. Strong, straight black, please.”

  “I am the same,” Maxine said. “I think if I did not have coffee I’d fall asleep on my feet.”

  Antoinette nodded eagerly. “I have recently given up all sodas because of all the sugar in them, which is so unhealthy. Now I need to find my caffeine fix in other ways. That really only leaves coffee.”

  Toni took this distraction as an opportunity to study Antoinette a little more closely. She was probably in her late forties and she seemed to be either a cross-dresser or perhaps in the early stages of transitioning. Toni felt it a little too personal to ask. Either way, it surprised her a little when she first saw Antoinette. It really shouldn’t have. She should’ve joined the dots during their telephone conversation, on hearing Antoinette’s deeper voice.

  Antoinette wore a beautiful, peach coloured, rather feminine styled dress. On her feet she had matching pumps, even though she was not very tall and could have got away with high heels easily. Her makeup was thorough but not flamboyant. Even her mannerisms were not excessively affected and she did not seem to be trying particularly hard to “pass”.

  “How long did you know Erika?” Maxine asked, handing her the cup of coffee.

  “We would've been best friends for over a year,” Antoinette said. “She even lived with me on and off.”

  “How did you meet?” Maxine asked.

  “We met at a sexual health support group in Islington,” Antoinette said.

  “Oh? What kind of sexual health group?” Maxine asked.

  Antoinette considered her answer for a few moments. “I am sure Erika won’t mind if I shared with you now. We take confidentiality very seriously, you know.”

  “Don’t worry Antoinette, we will be discreet,” Toni said, joining the conversation.

  Antoinette glanced from Maxine to Toni and back again. “Erika thought she might have been a sex addict and was seeking support and advice on how to deal with it.”

  “Oh?” Toni said. “Any idea why she thought that?”

  “Yes, the poor thing. She confided everything in me. Basically, she found it hard to resist sex. She needed sex like it was a drug. In fact, people could not believe we weren’t lovers.”

  “How so?” Toni asked.

  “Erika was insatiable. But, I was appointed her ‘buddy’ and mentor due to our, shall we say, extreme opposite afflictions. I am proud to say I helped her find her way.”

  Toni pretended to scribbled down a few notes, in order to take the focus off Antoinette so that she felt free to share as much as possible.

  “After many long conversations, more like therapy sessions with me, Erika finally admitted that she had lost her mother at a very young age. We talked this through and I managed to get her to understand the consequences of such a trauma in her early life and that we tend to find substitutions, like drugs, to help us cope or in some way make up for such a great loss. I was the one who finally made her realise that not all drugs are bad. Some drugs are like a cure and provided she was taking the right sort of drugs, God willing, she would be able to get over her ailment.”

  “Ailment?” Maxine said with an unguarded hint of scepticism in her voice.

  “Tell us what you mean, please,” Toni encouraged, trying to reassure Antoinette. The last thing she needed now was Maxine’s radical views frightening off Antoinette.

  “Well, it is a bit like me and caffeine based drinks. I used to be addicted to caffeine based soda-pops. They were bad for me. I have diabetes, you see. So I had to adopt a three stage process of overcoming that addiction. First, stay away from bad influences. Two, replace the drug with the right sort of substitute. Three, help others to combat complacency.”

  “And that’s how you got rid of your caffeine addiction?” Maxine said, glancing pointedly at the cup in Antoinette’s hand.

  Antoinette, shook her head. “I figured out it was not a caffeine addiction. But it was a journey and from the lessons I have learnt, I am able to help cure others suffering from their own addictions.”

  “What was the ‘bad influence’ in Erika’s life?”

  “That bitch!” Antoinette said plainly, draining about half the mug in one big gulp. “Oh, good coffee!” She held her mug up to Maxine. “May I have a little more.”

  Maxine smiled curiously at Antoinette and topped up her mug.

  “Who is that?” Toni asked, hoping that Antoinette might give them the name of anyone who had a grudge big enough for murder.

  “Her ex-wife, of course. Lucy-Lucifer. I was very relieved when she finally left that evil woman!”

  That was the last thing Toni expected. “Why? What did Lucille do?”

  “She was a gold-star, hated men and turned Erika against them. She led poor little Erika astray… seduced her. Made her like her and she did not really love her… not really. She used Erika as a trophy wife, to show off at her political events.”

  “You think it is Lucille who was responsible for making Erika gay?” Maxine asked, unable to disguise the shock in her voice.

  “Erika had been engaged to a church-going man until she met Lucille.”

  Toni could see that this was pressing Maxine’s buttons, so, when their eyes met across the table, Toni shot her a warning look.

  “What was the ‘right sort of’ substitute drug for Erika then?” Maxine asked, still not calm but holding it together.

  “It was not her high sex drive that was the real problem.” Antoinette said. She looked for a place to put down her mug. Not finding anywhere she decided to rest it on her knee. “Like me and soda-pops. It’s not the caffeine that’s the problem. It’s the sugar.” When neither Toni nor Maxine said anything, she continued. “In Erika’s case it’s sleeping with women. We found that sleeping with men satisfied her. Her desire for sex diminished and she was then able to control it more.”

  “So you encouraged her to sleep with men to cure her homosexuality?” Even Toni felt a little riled.

  “Little Erika was not a homosexual.” Antoinette said, the word homosexual sounding like a repulsive explosion in her mouth. “But, yes, I did what I could to help her overcome her sex with women addiction.”

  “How exactly?” Maxine asked.

  “Oh, I didn’t do that much. I just let her use my flat when she needed to. You see, I travel quite a lot.”

  “You let Erika use your flat to entertain… men?” Maxine asked obviously struggling to understand.

  “How many men?” Toni asked, “Do you know any of their names?”

  “Yes, I do. I tried to meet all of them so that they would know not to try any funny business and that Erika had backup if needed.”

  Toni pushed a notepad and pen towards Antoinette. “Please, Antoinette, could you write down their names and anything you know about them, such as, their contact details.”

  “I don’t need to.”

  Toni was confused.

  “I kept a log. Here, I’ll show it to you.” Antoinette reached into her matching peach handbag and pulled out a small notebook. She handed it to Toni.

  Toni flicked through it. Inside was a list of names, at a glance about twenty, with dates and telephone numbers.

  “These were all Erika’s lovers?” Toni asked.

  Antoinette nodded.

  “And you kept this list?”

  “Yes. When, for some reason, I couldn’t be there to greet them, Erika wo
uld write down their contact details instead. I told her she needed to be careful. You will see some of the names are written in her handwriting.”

  Sure enough Toni saw that there were two distinct handwritings.

  “Where did Erika meet these men?” Maxine asked.

  “At the club. Victor’s door policy is a lot more inclusive, shall we say. Men are allowed, gay, straight or trans, no matter. Victor doesn't discriminate against men.”

  Toni and Maxine caught each other’s eye communicating the unspoken—finally something specific.

  “Antoinette, do you think that one of these guys could have hurt Erika?”

  “No,” Antoinette looked pretty confident, “as I said, I made sure of that.”

  “Could it be possible that there are people who Erika took home or had sex with who were not included in this list?” Toni asked.

  Antoinette shook her head but Toni could see doubt creep across her face.

  “Why are you asking all these questions?” Antoinette asked. “Do you think one of these men had something to do with her murder? I thought they found the man who did this to poor Erika? The police said it was a mugging outside the club.”

  “One last thing. Do you know if Erika brought anyone to your flat the night she was murdered?” Toni asked.

  “I did check the log when I was questioned by the police. There is nothing written in there. So, no.”

  “When was the last time you saw Erika?” Maxine asked.

  “It was about two days before she…”Antoinette looked visibly upset. “I think…think….”” She took out a handkerchief from her bag and dabbed her eyes. “I was heading to New York to see some relatives for a week. She came to my flat to wish me well on my trip… If only I had not gone…”

  Toni realised they were not going to get any more useful information from Antoinette and the conversation was soon going to degenerate into an unnecessarily emotional discussion. She looked up, catching Maxine’s eye.

  “Thanks for your time, Antoinette,” Maxine said, resting a hand on Antoinette’s shoulder. “You have helped us a lot. If you think of anything else just give us a call.” She handed her one of Toni’s business-cards and expertly guided her to the door, escorting her out of the office.

  Toni got up and went over to the whiteboard. She grabbed the blue marker and added Antoinette as b.f.f. to it.

  “Have you heard anything that ridiculous before?” Maxine let her outrage run free as she re-entered the office. “Blaming Lucille for making Erika gay and then helping her cure her addiction… by encouraging some kind of corrective sex!”

  Toni did not even know where to start on this. “Whether right or wrong, I believe Antoinette was doing what she thought was helping her best friend.” Toni really did not want to get into this argument right now. She grabbed her coat and headed to the door. “Did you want a lift or would you prefer to debate ethics?”

  Maxine obviously decided the lift was worth it. “Either way, I think the list of lovers needs a much closer look.”

  “Yes, we can start that tomorrow as soon as we have the addresses for them,” Toni said.

  Toni wished she had thought through her offer of a lift to Maxine’s sister’s house a little more thoroughly. But, when she had heard that Maxine’s transport plans involved two tubes and two busses to get to a destination on her own route home she couldn’t not offer. Unfortunately, it was only when they were almost at the car that she remembered that her car was full of boxes of case files.

  “What are all these?” Maxine asked as she picked up a file from the passenger seat.

  “Just put them in the back seat,” Toni said, walking round to the driver’s door.

  “These are the Erika case files?” Maxine asked. “Should you be driving around with them like this, just strewn in your car? Never mind, I don’t need to know,” Maxine added thinking better of her question.

  Once Toni had pulled out of the car park, Maxine picked up a file from the foot-well.

  “Have we at least covered off the conventional suspects in this case yet?” Maxine asked. “Like Lucille? Do we know she didn’t knock off her wife for sleeping around?”

  “I have Lawrence looking into her whereabouts at the time of the murder.” Toni was getting irritated with Maxine’s tendency to teach her to suck eggs. “Their marriage does sound quite fraught. Neither could have been happy. Erika clearly had multiple lovers, which I can’t imagine Lucille being too keen on.”

  “One can't second guess someone else's relationship,” Maxine said not looking up. “They might have had an ‘arrangement’ or something that worked for them.”

  “Does none of this infidelity bother you?” Toni asked.

  Maxine looked up at Toni, as if evaluating her. Then finally she said, “I stopped trying to understand relationships and what works and what does not a long time ago. There are some kinks in human nature one can't just iron-out with logic and sometimes people find unconventional routes to happiness. You should try it sometime.” She turned her attention back to the file on her lap leaving Toni bristling.

  “It says here that there were signs that Erika had had sex before she died,” Maxine said.

  “If you can call that sex,” Toni poked the report in Maxine’s hand. “Then yes. But there were no fluids or DNA so that is not particularly useful.”

  “So we also have no way to confirm the gender of the lover?” Maxine said.

  Toni had to dig deep. “Why? It's obviously a man.”

  Maxine raised her eyebrows.

  “What? Read the report properly. That was not just sex. You think a woman is capable of brutally sodomising another woman like that?” Toni was horrified.

  “Yes,” Maxine said evenly, “I do think women are just as capable of committing exactly the same crimes as men.”

  Toni gripped the steering wheel but chose not to argue.

  “I see it also says that no DNA was collected from any of the suspects. I assume these include her list of lovers,” Maxine continued.

  “Actually, I don’t know whether the police ever saw this little list. They were not looking for lovers. They were pretty sure it was a mugging and that her sexual assault was unrelated.”

  “We found DNA at one of our crime scenes back home. Maybe when we pay our lover-boys and girls a visit we can get a swab.”

  “The list is all male!” Toni pointed out, still incredulous at the suggestion a woman could do that to her lover.

  “Do you know any ‘addict’ who doesn’t relapse occasionally?”

  “You seriously think a female could have done that?” Toni jabbed at the report.

  “Leaving no fluids sounds to me like it could have been someone using a dildo.”

  “Or the end of that cricket bat that they found with her blood on it in James Walker’s stuff.”

  “The report does not mention any other fluids on the bat.”

  “That is not a description of loving sex, Maxine. I don’t care how liberal you are. That is effectively rape.” Toni almost forgot she was driving.

  “Toni, if you don’t mind me saying, you do have a tendency to judge.”

  “No, I have a moral compass!”

  “So what will you do, if one day one of your lovers, male or female for that matter, confesses to having a ‘rape’ fantasy, or wants you to overpower them, or try something slightly less vanilla?”

  “What I do in bed is none of your business!” Toni’s blood was boiling. She was on the verge of dumping Maxine on the side of the road and quite frankly she did not care how she got to her sister’s.

  Instead, she turned on the radio and decided to focus on more pleasant things, like the traffic and idiot van drivers, to get through the journey.

  Toni was surprised to hear Maxine knew anyone in the UK and even more so to find she had a sister living in London. Beyond being told her sister lived in Highgate with her husband, Toni did not know much and she certainly was not comfortable delving any further, unlike Maxin
e who clearly had no qualms about getting very personal and even referencing her sex life.

  Finally, after fifteen minutes of awkward silence, they reached the right road.

  “Thanks, you can drop me here,” Maxine said, indicating a space next to the curb outside a terrace of Georgian houses.

  Toni pulled over.

  “Laters Mendez,” Maxine called as she closed the car door.

  Toni waited for a few minutes under the guise of seeing that Maxine got inside okay. In reality, she was just curious to see what Maxine’s family looked like.

  The front door opened and a short man, in suit-trousers and shirt with neatly trimmed hair open the door. Moments later a little girl of about five or six with a long dark ponytail came running out and launched herself at Maxine who swooped her up and popped her on her hip.

  Toni suddenly felt awkward like she was spying on an intimate moment. She turned on her car indicator and pulled away to find herself a space in what would be almost stationary traffic around the North Circular Road.

  Toni finally found a parking-space about two blocks from her home on the Haringey ladder in North London. The parking situation had become a pain in the butt over the past few months. It seemed anyone who lived in London now wanted to own a car, which they never seemed to use but just left parked in her road. If she did not need her car for stakeouts or to cart stuff around, all too frequent activities, she would have got rid of her old banger a long time ago. The old estate car had seemed like a good idea when she first started the PI business. It was comfortable and reliable enough to go almost anywhere and there was the added bonus that it was big enough for her to sleep in if the need arose. However, it did not take long for her to realise that owning such a gas-guzzler in London was not the best idea.

  As she walked up the little path that led to her building she noticed that the communal front-door that serviced all the flats was standing ajar. This was very unusual as her upstairs neighbour was incredibly vigilant about security and seemed to have a sixth sense that detected whenever Toni had forgotten to double lock the door.