by Monica Ali
She couldn’t have vanished without an accomplice. Maybe Mrs. Jackson’s appearance belied her history and she was actually a secret service operative, trained in espionage and subterfuge, and she had arranged the escape. Perhaps she was planning to lace the scones with arsenic and dispose of his body in the river. It was about as credible as anything he’d thought of so far.
He closed his laptop and headed for the door before deciding it would be safer to take it with him. His room bolted only from the inside. Daft really, not as though they couldn’t be stolen out of a car. But cars had, for so many years, served as his office that he felt more secure with his work stowed in them.
He found the bar in Gains and ordered a beer with a bourbon chaser. At this time in the evening the construction workers had already moved on or gone home. There were a few couples at the tables, some youngsters at the pool table with jeans belted under their butts, and in the booth that ran along the back wall there was a party of women, soccer moms on a night out. If they were anything like Cathy they’d be wearing their spandex underpants and best bras for each other, and when they got home to their husbands they’d let it all hang out and wear an old T-shirt to bed.
Grabowski tried to see himself in the mirror behind the bar but it was so densely shelved and stacked with liquor bottles that he could only see one eye and one side of his hair, streaked with gray. He was going to drink his way through the three different bourbons and then as many as possible of the eight different single malts. He ordered another round. The barman sliced lemons and stacked up the slices in a glass. He made up dishes of chips and olives and stowed them under the bar. Busywork, thought Grabber. The way to get through a shift without dying of boredom. He had to get out of this place before he went insane.
A warm wind blew a woman through the door. She pulled up a stool two down from Grabowski.
“Scotch on the rocks,” she said. “Don’t gimme the list,” she said when the barman opened his mouth. “I don’t care.”
She wore a fake fur jacket despite the season, and it probably never got that cold. Her legs were longer than a marathon. Her ankles looked too thin in those platforms.
“I been drinking here two years,” she said to no one in particular. “Do I still have to explain myself ?” She raised her glass. There were lines of dirt beneath her fingernails.
“Seen enough?” she said to Grabowski. “Want me to strip?”
“Didn’t mean to stare,” he said, looking away and then back.
The woman laughed.
“Well,” she said, “not a whole lot to look at around here. A man can be forgiven.”
“If I buy you a drink, how about that?”
She shrugged off the jacket in what seemed to be a gesture of acceptance. Grabowski moved to the stool next to her.
“So, what is it that you do, Mr. . . .”
“John. I’m a photographer.”
“Is that a fact? And what do you photograph?”
“People. I photograph people.”
“So you do portraits. And weddings? Studio shots of families to use on their holiday cards?”
“You don’t sound impressed.” She was attractive, in a been-around-the-block kind of way. She wore her dress short and her blond hair long, tied up high off the back of her swan neck. Her hands were grubby, like a child’s, but he could see now that it was paint beneath her fingernails.
“You do what you gotta do,” she said. “Where you from?”
“From out of town,” said Grabowski.
She laughed again. “No way.”
“What about you?”
“I move around,” she said. “Been here two years, but I’ll be moving on.”
“I meant, what do you do?”
“I paint, John. That’s what I do.” She tapped her glass and the barman filled it up.
“And what do you paint?”
“People,” she said.
“Portraits?” said Grabowski. “Family portraits to hang over the mantelpiece?”
“Ouch,” she said. “Guess I deserved that.”
She lived on the second floor of a two-family house in a huddled street where the garages spilled out their storeroom innards onto the driveways and the cars were all parked in the road. It took her a couple of minutes to stalk around the living room, turning on all the lamps. None of them gave out more light than a candle, and many had been draped with scarves, which struck Grabowski as a fire hazard.
Grabowski asked to use the bathroom. He splashed his face with water and thought about washing his cock but decided that would be tempting fate. He avoided looking in the mirror in case he didn’t like what he saw. The light in the bathroom was the inverse of the sitting room and it would be unforgiving.
He still didn’t know her name.
“Hey,” she said, when he returned. “Would you like to see some of my work? My studio’s in the back.”
He didn’t want to see her work. If it was terrible that would make him feel bad.
“Yes,” he said, “maybe afterwards.”
She laughed. “Afterwards. Okay, I see. You wanna get down to business.”
“Not if you don’t want to,” he said, and suddenly he didn’t want to anymore. He thought she was nice, he liked that she was lippy, liked the way she squared up to him. But the whole thing was sad and weary. It wasn’t her fault, though, and if he left now that would be rude.
“Relax,” she said. “We’re just chilling here.”
In bed she closed her eyes while he worked steadily. He couldn’t tell if she was enjoying it or not. He felt the sweat gather at the small of his back and roll down his flanks. He studied her face, she could have been sleeping, with the smallest smile on her lips. Open your eyes, he told her. She opened them. Look at me. She held his gaze for a short while, then closed her eyes again and wrapped her legs around him.
“Was it okay?” he asked afterward.
She was cross-legged on the bed, rolling a joint on a magazine. She said, “I came, didn’t I?”
“But was it, you know, good?”
She laughed and lit the joint and took a deep inhale. “So what do you want, a medal?”
“Sorry. It’s been a while.”
“My art sucks,” she said. She was smiling and looking away, and rubbing at her thigh.
“No,” he said, “it doesn’t. Why don’t we go and look at it? I’d like to see.”
“Fuck off,” she said. “Don’t patronize me.”
Grabowski sighed internally. It was a method he’d developed with Cathy, where he let his breath seep back into his bones. Women were liable to go berserk if you sighed when they were working themselves up.
“Don’t put yourself down,” he said.
“I’m not,” she said, and her face crumpled. “It just sucks, that’s all.”
She switched on the television and they watched it sitting up in bed, like an old couple. He was weary to the bone. He didn’t even know if she wanted him to stay. If he asked then she’d take that as a sign of his insensitivity, because he should be able to tell what she wanted, although they had only just met.
“You can go if you want,” she said, as if she had read his mind. Her eyes were red from the weed. She was older than he’d thought at first.
“Perhaps it’s best,” he said.
When he was dressed he said, “I’ll call you.”
“Right,” she said. “You don’t even know my name.”
“I’m sorry,” he said, and he meant it. He wasn’t sure what it was that he’d done wrong but he felt almost overwhelmed with sadness.
“Get out,” she said, and turned the volume up.
He had only just fallen asleep when he was woken by his cell phone. He groped for it in the dark.
“Christ, it’s the middle of the night, Nick.”
“I don’t know what gave me the idea, but I thought this was something urgent.”
“Yeah, okay,” said Grabowski, turning on the light. “What have you got?”
Nick cleared his throat, the way he always did before giving his report. “Lydia Snaresbrook is not a common name. I only found three potentials. One was born in Stirling in 1954, bit outside your age range; the second was 1967, which was over the other side of the bracket, age-wise. The third was born around the right time, in 1962 in Wiltshire. Her parents are recorded as Mary Joanna Snaresbrook, housewife, and Joseph Renfrew Snaresbrook, banker and US citizen. So she’s the one I worked on first. I haven’t done the others yet. Thought you might want to hear this right away.”
“I’m sure you’ve got your meter running,” said Grabowski. Nick’s information never came cheap. “So better get on with it.”
“I couldn’t turn anything up on her.”
Grabowski waited. Nick wouldn’t call in the middle of the night with nothing to tell.
“I couldn’t find anything. Not a marriage certificate, driving license, parking ticket, credit record, not one damn thing.”
“The lady vanishes,” said Grabowski.
“So I checked the deaths register.”
Grabowski held his breath.
“Lydia Snaresbrook was born on the twenty-fifth of April 1962. She died on the thirtieth April of the same year. A cot death at five days old.”
Grabowski couldn’t speak. He offered up a silent prayer of thanks.
“Grabber,” said Nick. “Are you there?”
“I’m here.”
“So what do you want me to do now? Want me to trace the other Lydias?”
“No. That’s fine. That’s good work. Figure out what I owe you and let me know.”
“Was it helpful?”
“Yeah, it was helpful,” said Grabber, trying to keep the excitement out of his voice. “I mean, it wraps it up.”
“Okay, boss,” said Nick. “Wraps what up?”
“It was nothing,” said Grabowski. “Dead end. Listen, I’m going to get some sleep, but thanks for the call.”
There was no way he could sleep, so he didn’t even try. He went over the pictures that he had one more time. He paced the room. It was happening. This was really happening. The biggest scoop of his life. The biggest fucking scoop of anyone’s life. And it was his.
It was his to fuck up. He had to get everything right. At four o’clock in the morning, when by rights he should have had a hangover, his head was clearer than it had been in years.
He didn’t have to prove anything. Of course he didn’t. All he had to know was that he wasn’t being a total prick. He should have asked Nick to e-mail him copies of the birth and death certificates. He’d do that in the morning. American father on the birth certificate. Maybe whoever had planned all this for her had been able to procure a dual passport on the back of that.
There were other shots he needed to get. He didn’t have any good ones of her with her boyfriend. Never the right angle from wherever he’d been hiding, on their tail. He knew how the piece would run: front page, six inside double-page spreads at least. As long as he knew what he knew, as long as he made the story stack up, the papers would print it. Actual proof wasn’t necessary. The papers didn’t need that when it was a story they wanted to run. They’d insinuate an affair between two celebrities out of no more than a kiss on the cheek. He knew how they’d do this. COULD THIS WOMAN BE . . . That’s how the headlines would read. Ten years after her disappearance in mysterious circumstances, after crank sightings and bizarre assassination claims, could this small American town hold the secret to what really happened that fateful September day? In the spirit of inquiry and the public interest . . . They’d send the reporters and they’d turn up on her doorstep and by the time the news broke she’d have fled in the night, unless she could explain herself.
Grabowski went into the bathroom for a glass of water. He looked in the mirror. He rubbed his hand over his stubble. He checked his profile. A little heavy in the jowls but not bad. His hair was still thick, and if anything the gray suited him better than brown. Cathy used to tell him he had kind eyes, before she decided she hated him. He stared at them and wondered what was kind about them. He’d always thought they looked a little mournful himself.
What if he was wrong about Lydia?
Grabowski went and sat down on the bed and worked the rosary beads through his fingers.
He didn’t have to prove anything. Only to himself, beyond all reasonable doubt. And there was only one way to do that.
Chapter Nineteen
Lydia found her rubber boots in the staff room and went to hose down the kennels. The volunteers had set up two grooming tables in the fenced grass run behind the yard and were working on the Kerry blue and a white-socked mongrel who had come in yesterday thatched with mud and twigs. The other dogs sprinted the length of the run or indulged in darting skirmishes or pottered amiably between the fence posts sniffing each one. The hose water hit the ground and sparkled where it sprayed up again. Lydia looked over at the far kennel where the pit bull was housed. He sat glumly at the wire door. After he’d bitten Topper on the foreleg he’d been condemned to solitary exercise.
Esther came out of the office. She wore her army fatigues and her work boots, with her gray hair tied up beneath a cap, and Lydia thought she looked distinguished, like an off-duty general.
The pit bull turned circles of delight as Esther approached. “Wouldn’t it be great,” Esther called back to Lydia, “if people were this pleased to see you every time you walked in the room? I only put him back in the kennel ten minutes ago.” She opened the kennel door and received the dog’s ministrations and slipped him a piece of basted bone from her pocket. She locked him back in.
Lydia turned off the hose and began sweeping down with a broom. “Well, it might get a little wearying in the end.”
“You’re right,” said Esther. “Thing is, you’d know it was an act. But the dog’s always genuine.”
Lydia laughed. She wondered if she should tell Esther about her plan with the bracelet because now there was going to be a delay in getting the money. This morning she’d driven into the city and the first three jewelry stores she visited didn’t deal in secondhand. The next two did usually but they weren’t buying at the moment because the market, they said, was poor. They told her places she could send the bracelet that would pay her for the weight of the gold. Lydia knew that the inlaid garnets would be worth more than that. The last place she tried was interested but the guy who did their valuations was away on vacation. They told her to come back in around ten days.
“How long can we keep going,” said Lydia, “if we don’t get some more cash in?”
“We’re not going down without a fight,” said Esther. “I’ve arranged a personal overdraft. Something will turn up.” She shrugged and dragged the hose to the next kennel.
Lydia decided not to say anything. She didn’t know how much she would get for the bracelet, and how much it would solve.
“You ever get the sense that Rufus knows how you’re feeling?” said Esther.
“Yes,” said Lydia. “Guess that’s me projecting onto him.”
Esther scratched the back of her arm where she’d just caught it on the wire netting. She was forever covered in bruises and scrapes, as if she completed an assault course every day. “Maybe,” she said, “but not necessarily. Dogs are more sensitive to humans than any other animal. If you hide a dog’s toy and then look over to where you’ve hidden it, a dog will follow your gaze. No other animal can do that. Even a chimp can’t do that, and they’re supposed to be a whole lot smarter, whole lot closer to us.”
“I’ll start giving Rufus more credit, then,” said Lydia. “By the way, I’m going out for a drink with the girls this evening if you’d like to come.”
“Thanks,” said Esther, “but I won’t. I’ve got some bookkeeping to do tonight. See if I can squeeze some blood out of a stone.”
They met at Dino’s, the Italian restaurant, and got a table by the river, which was overhung with weeping willows. The water shone green and gold in the sun. The
restaurant walls were covered in rustic hand-painted plates, and in the open kitchen the Mexican chefs threw and caught and stretched pizza dough in a kind of cabaret.
“Let’s get prosecco,” said Amber.
“Okay,” said Tevis, “are we celebrating something?”
“Only life in general,” said Amber.
“Wait a minute,” said Tevis. “Here, take this crystal. No, just let it lie flat in your palm.”
They all looked at the hexagonal stone on Amber’s hand until Tevis obscured it by placing her palm a few inches above it.
“I’m getting a reading,” said Tevis. “Yes . . . yes . . . got it. Amber’s in love.”
“I am not,” said Amber, blushing.
“Amber,” said Lydia, laughing, “you’re not holding out on us?”
Amber pushed her bangs out of her eyes. “Well, I had another date.”
Tevis set the crystal spinning on the table. “Did he come back to yours or did you go back to his?”
“Neither. We kissed on my front steps.”
Tevis took off her jacket, rolled her shirt cuffs, and let down her hair, as if her Realtor’s business-wear was too constricting for this conversation. “That’s always the best part,” she said. “Downhill all the way from here.”
“Oh my God, I hope not,” said Amber.
“I’m just kidding,” said Tevis, giving Amber’s hand a squeeze.
“It was great, though,” said Amber.
“A dentist should know his way around a mouth,” said Lydia.
“He does,” said Amber. “You know, I think I could really fall for him.”
“If you haven’t already, you mean,” said Lydia. She looked at Suzie, but Suzie seemed hardly to be listening. She was slowly shredding pieces off a paper napkin and rolling them between her fingers.
