Wavewalker

by Stella Duffy

  “So?”

  “Well, she wouldn’t tell me anything really. Just that she contacted some of the people who’d been living in the House when she was a baby. She went to visit this guy Chris in San Diego and he told her about Michael. Rose must have mentioned Michael?”

  “Yeah, the guy who killed himself? Rose says she thinks Max did it.”

  “So does Chris apparently. And once she knew that, she kind of just went mad.”

  “Mad?”

  “Crazy. She burnt all her stuff about Max. And not just Max, she burnt everything. I came home from a trip to New York and she was out in the back yard throwing everything on to a fire. Photos of Anita, cuttings about Max, a little corn doll John had made her and she’d kept for all those years. All in the fire. I screamed at her and tried to put it out – they were photos of my own sister she was burning. But she was real cold, just said he’d killed them all. The next morning she’d gone, booked a ticket to London and gone. We thought she must have contacted Max, but now that you’re here … and you say he didn’t seem to know Jasmine was in London, well…”

  “But the money. How could she afford all that time with no work? And the flights? More to the point, how can she afford me?”

  “Insurance. Not Anita of course, that would have been far too sensible for Anita, but John. He had quite a bit of money put away – which made it even more awful that they’d died in that rundown old place. There was some legal loophole and John’s first wife and children weren’t eligible. I never really understood why, but it all went to Jasmine. Lump sum, cleverly invested by my very clever husband and Jasmine got an eighteenth birthday present of fifty thousand dollars. There was talk of her contacting John’s children and giving them something, we hoped she would, but I don’t think she ever did anything about it. I think the Max obsession kind of stopped her thinking about anything else.”

  “So why do you think she’s employed me?”

  Julia turned back from the window and smiled.

  “Do you have children Saz?”

  “No. I’m gay.”

  “That’s not exactly a reason not to have children.”

  “No, but it kind of stops you getting pregnant by accident.”

  Julia smiled. “I guess it would. Anyway, before I was a mother, I thought I’d love them all the same, care for them all the same. I thought it would be equal.”

  “It’s not?”

  Julia shook her head.

  “Not with me. I have five children of my own. The result of a fantastic sex life with a man I’ve loved since the day I met him. They’re all of them very different and very special, but the truth is, that while I do love them all, the only one I’ve ever felt completely … at one with, was my sixth child, my extra baby we used to call her. I’ve always felt I really knew Jasmine. And um … oh damn…”

  Julia was crying as she looked up.

  “I don’t feel good about this Saz. I think she might be using you to get back at him.”

  “I don’t know how. She already knows much more than I do.”

  “Proof then. You’re collecting proof. I expect she means to confront Max with it.”

  “And then?”

  “Then I expect she’ll kill him.”

  Julia smiled at Saz through her tears,

  “And you know? If it’s true, if Max did kill my sister, then nothing would make me happier.”

  wavewalker

  I am impatient now. Hot for it.

  This is like waiting for a lover, a slow lover.

  The anticipation is physical pain, the culmination will be hot blood release.

  I want to hurry, to do it, to have it done.

  But I will work according to my plan.

  They are so close now. We are all so close.

  I bite my lip to stop myself calling out, to lock in the words that promise betrayal.

  I bite deep enough of my own flesh to bleed and taste the iron.

  I like it.

  I am my father’s daughter.

  CHAPTER 33

  At first it only rated a small mention in the Telegraph –

  Esteemed doctor, Maxwell North has been reported missing having failed to attend his central London clinic for the past two days. Investigations continue.

  After another two days, when it became clear that the routine police investigations were leading to nothing, pressure began coming in from higher quarters. Certain “pillars of the community”, having relied on Dr North for discretion, were not in the least pleased to discover that he really did seem to be missing. The ambitious detective who had reluctantly taken on the case was forced to take it a lot more seriously than he had at first expected and approached Caron about taking the search on to a wider level. Originally, he’d seen little glory in finding yet another missing doctor – in his experience they regularly turned out to be stress-related suicides, carbon monoxiding themselves to death in the garages of their country cottages – but now it looked as if things could get juicy and he impressed on his wife the chances of glorious promotion and on Caron the seriousness of his mission. Caron McKenna, almost installed in her new home assured the charming young policeman that he should do whatever he saw fit.

  “Of course Detective, Max and I have very recently chosen to lead separate lives, but naturally I’m concerned about him and it certainly isn’t like him not to let the office know. I’ll co-operate fully. You should just do whatever is necessary.”

  He did and the next day most of the tabloids carried pictures of the handsome Dr North, his wealthy and beautiful artist wife and jumped to the, obvious to their readers, conclusion that as Caron had moved out of their marital home, Max must have run off with another woman. And after another day of fruitless if salacious speculation the papers gave up, no one called the police, the journos went back to their stories of randy vicars and Max remained resolutely missing.

  Max and Grant had talked long into the San Franciscan night about Jasmine and just what she could be planning.

  “I’m sorry to say this Max, but she isn’t really all that together, you know. I know she’s Anita’s daughter, maybe even your daughter … and all, but…”

  “You really don’t have to wrap this up neatly for me Grant, whether Jasmine is my child or not is hardly relevant. There have been vital advances in our work in the past few months and I will not allow anything to damage our standing. It may be that she has come here to discredit me, certainly from what this Sarah has been telling you, that’s what it sounds like. It’s the kind of thing the English press would adore. With the results just in from the Toronto House and your efforts in San Francisco, things are going extremely well – she must not be allowed to harm the Process.”

  “You know Max, I don’t know if she really cares at all about the Process. I think it’s much more likely she’d want to actually talk to you.”

  “Well, if all Jasmine wants is a father figure, then we really don’t have a problem. But from what you’ve told me, I’m concerned that we shouldn’t underestimate her.” Max questioned and Grant answered for over an hour, but the result was the same in the end. Unless Jasmine or Sarah showed up again, there was nothing either of them could do. Max called the next day to ask Grant about the English woman.

  “I don’t know, I don’t feel like she’s entirely trustworthy, that’s why I called you in the first place, but then again, she didn’t seem to know that much either. I’m not even sure that she does know Jasmine.”

  “But she knows about her?”

  “She does now, Milly says she’s been up to visit Rose and you know how she talks.”

  The conversation went on and on, Max becoming more frustrated as his questions, only half-formed due to his own need for secrecy, remained unanswered. He finished the conversation with an urgent plea that Grant call him if anything – or anyone – turned up.

  “You know, a photo of Jasmine might be nice, I haven’t seen any pictures of her since she was about eleven, I wouldn’t know her if I fel
l over her.”

  And indeed, Max didn’t know her when she woke him at four the next morning. Although it didn’t take him long to find out who the woman was standing at the foot of his bed.

  “Hi Daddy, it’s me.”

  “What?”

  Max reached for the bedside light and Jasmine shone a torch in his face.

  “Don’t do that Daddy. Don’t turn the light on. It’s only me. Surely you remember me – you know, Anita’s daughter? You remember Anita? You were the last person to see her weren’t you? Alive, I mean?”

  “What do you want?”

  Jasmine laughed.

  “Now that’s not very friendly is it? And after all these years too! How about a nice father daughter chat? Come on, get up, it’s time to go.”

  And the thin young woman with long blonde hair like her mother and her own father’s shockingly pale blue eyes, laid down the torch and reached along the length of the bed until she was almost level with Max’s chest, close enough for him to smell her skin, touch the softness of her hair as it fell on his chest, feel the cold grip of fear as she placed one wiry hand against his throat and with the other held the point of a sharpened steel knife to his rapidly beating heart. In the darkness she cut into him just a little, just enough to make him bleed a drop or two. Max tensed against the shock of the knife and Jasmine laughed.

  “Gee Dad, aren’t you pleased to see me?”

  CHAPTER 34

  Saz flew in to Gatwick, stood up long before the seat belt sign had flashed off, pulled her bag out of the overhead locker and hugely irritated several first class passengers as she clambered her way to the front of the plane and the exit, thereby pointedly not earning herself a friendly “Thanks for flying with us” from the irritated crew. She ran out of customs through the blue channel and directly to the taxi rank where she caught a cab to Helen and Judith’s flat in Clapham, paid from her rapidly thinning wad of cash and let herself into her friends’ home. They’d given her a key three years ago when she first started investigative work – “just in case”. She knew they’d both be at work but was hoping she’d find Molly in, sleeping after another long night shift. She wasn’t disappointed. Saz pushed open the door to the spare room and saw Molly stretched out on the futon on the floor.

  She lay sleeping, flat on her back, pillows either side of her head with a thick strand of long black hair twisted in her left hand. Saz smiled and put her bags down very carefully. She undressed as quietly as she could, shivering a little as her bare feet touched the cold floor tiles. Molly stirred a little, twisting the strand of hair she was holding and moving the sheet down from her shoulders. Saz could see Molly was wearing her red tartan nightshirt and grinned, it still had the gaping holes around the neck where Molly had ripped it off her the first time they’d gone away together. An early relationship weekend with Molly’s parents in Dunoon and Saz had been too cold and too shy to be naked in Molly’s mother’s house. But Molly hadn’t.

  Saz was naked now and shivered again, this time with the mounting pressure of desire. The past few weeks of Maxwell North obsession had limited their sex life to the occasional kiss and hug or brief, purely orgasm-destined, functional fucks. Saz looked down at Molly and remembered just how much she loved playing in Molly’s arms. Twisting and turning and taking hours to do it or not to do it, the coming a by-product, not the only goal of their coupling. Molly knew exactly how to do it to her – and fast, but Saz had worked out how to give herself an orgasm when she was three or four, for her the main enjoyment of sex, and thus that which she missed most during her years of celibacy before Molly, was the touching, the kissing, the wet smiling laughing giggling grunting and licking of the before and after. She desperately missed the touch, the interplay of passive and active interchangeable action, the soft electric friction of skin on skin.

  Saz knelt across Molly so that the sheet held her down. Molly opened her eyes in surprise and then smiled with pleasure almost immediately. She started to lift her arms but Saz’s knees pushed them down tighter.

  “Stay there. I want to look at you first.”

  “Just look?”

  “I’m looking with my hands.”

  Saz closed her eyes and ran her fingers gently over Molly’s face. The heavy eyes, the small nose, her fine lips, slightly dry from sleep and the tiny scar on her lower lip from a baby years’ accident. The lips kissed Saz’s fingers and then spoke.

  “I missed you, Saz.”

  Saz nodded, her eyes still closed, “Sshh. I’m looking.”

  She slid down the hard futon until she was lying beside Molly, pulled the sheet over herself and reached out one hand to touch Molly’s shoulder, feeling through the rip in the thin soft nightshirt material, along the sharp collarbone to the cavity at the bottom of her throat. Saz kept her fingers there for a moment, feeling Molly’s breath rise in and out, the gentle double tremor of her pulse, checking the rhythm until they were breathing in unison. In and out breaths falling together, she took her hand down to Molly’s small, tall woman’s breasts, her eyes still closed, she felt the skin darken at the nipple. Her touch was very soft, very still, very deliberate. Her hand pushed through the rip in the shirt, easily tearing threads, widening the opening even more and crossed to the long appendix scar left on Molly at thirteen, puckered in the centre and silky with age. She pushed a little against it and ran her fingers along the fine, irregular seam, hard scar tissue running right down to the edge where Molly’s nearly flat stomach tipped over into the thick, very dense pubic hair that had horribly embarrassed the twelve-year-old girl and now delighted the love of that girl’s woman self. Saz ran her hand just over the top of the hair, slowly, backwards and forwards, almost not there, almost there. Molly’s breath quickened in time with Saz’s and she turned to Saz, ripping the nightshirt down the centre and pushing Saz’s hand into her, with her free hand she pulled Saz’s head to her mouth and kissed her, forcing her tongue between her lips, across the teeth, tasting the woman who had slept all night on a plane, tasting the sour mouth of her lover who had come so fast to find her she hadn’t bothered with the niceties of kissing protocol.

  “Hang on Molly, I’ve got morning breath.”

  “I don’t care. I want you. Do it. Now.”

  Saz did, her hands on Molly, seeing, feeling who she was loving, her eyes still closed she let the fingertip, tongue-tip, sense memory identify her lover. Saz felt Molly tensing, her thigh muscles growing taut as she prepared to come, she kept kissing and with her free arm held Molly tight, breast to breast, tensed and swayed, Molly’s back arcing upwards, her shoulders stiffening, her mouth fiercer, more insistent, their teeth clashed against each other and Saz pulled her head away, opening her eyes. Molly lay in her arms, in the circle of her body, eyes closed, eyelids fluttering fast, face drawn in the tight smile/grimace of close to perfect anticipation. Saz bent her head to kiss Molly’s breast and just as she started to leave a soft breath there, Molly grabbed her in a crushing hold and came in a deep, fast contraction, fitting their bodies tight to each other.

  They lay quiet for a while, Saz’s head on Molly’s heaving stomach. Molly was drifting back to sleep when she felt wet by Saz’s head, she reached down her hand to touch her.

  “Babe? Are you crying?”

  Saz looked up.

  “Sort of.”

  Molly pulled Saz up to her.

  “Why? Is it me? I’m sorry, I’ve been working all night, I know you probably want me to … “

  “No. No, I don’t actually. I just wanted to touch you. Wanted your skin, your smell. It’s not that. Not sex. Not you.”

  “The job?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. I’m just tired I think. I’ve had so little sleep in the past week and it’s all so confusing and I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be doing any more and … I’ve missed you so much.”

  “Good. I’m glad you missed me. I thought you might be liking the travelling and being busy so much you wouldn’t need me. I think maybe I’m not
exciting enough for you.”

  “No. You are. You are exactly exciting and exactly safe enough for me. Quite frankly I could do without any more bloody excitement.”

  “OK, then listen. We’ll sleep now, and then when we wake up … “

  “But…”

  “Just for a couple of hours. I’ll set the alarm, we’ll get up by three I promise. We can wash, eat something – you can clean your teeth – and then you get on with whatever you have to do. I can’t say it’s cool, because it’s not. I’m really unhappy about having to leave my place but I want it sorted out soon. So, while I’d much rather spend the next few days canoodling with you, the sooner you get on to the case, the sooner we’ll have our normal lives back again.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Yeah, well it’s not just me who wants it all fixed up you know. Judith and Helen aren’t exactly unaware that there’s something happening. You can’t have friends who are cops and then not expect them to notice when something fishy’s going on. Now kiss me goodnight and go to sleep. I want you to finish this job so we can go back to being a nice normal suburban couple.”

  “Yes darling, I love you when you’re masterful.”

  “Mistressful and shut up.”

  Saz closed her eyes and kissed Molly easily, finding her lips with blind eyes, no ordinary perception needed.

  But even as she folded herself into Molly’s arms and settled into the sleep that had been waiting for days, Saz couldn’t rid herself of the feeling that there was something wrong, something she’d missed, something bad just waiting to happen. Even in Molly’s arms, still warm from the sex, she felt an uneasy cold as she fell into sleep.

  CHAPTER 35

  Max lay in the room trying to work out why he hadn’t recognized her sooner. Maybe it was her voice. She had a strange accent – part English, part American. Or rather, the English of an American trying to sound English. Like she’d been trying a little too hard to round out the vowels, clip the consonants. Actually he remembered wondering once if she was a South African trying to hide her long, flattened vowels from the other Process workers. He thought for a while and then dismissed the sound of her voice. It was a useless line of enquiry and not likely to do him any good anyway. He had seen her though, this girl had come to work for him for a while, calling herself Janet, she’d helped out on a couple of courses and then disappeared. He’d met her through his work, she was just another, just like all the rest. She’d tell him what she needed soon enough, he’d give it to her, heal her wounds if he could and then she’d let him go. Like everyone else, she’d listen to him and do as she was told. Max assured himself that this was so and then went on to his next thought – himself.