Tangerine

by Christine Mangan

  I wasn’t sure if it was the way she looked at me—detached, as though we were no longer bound together by blood—or her voice, low and challenging, and which in that moment I could only read as a threat. Or perhaps it was the simple realization that the one woman I had always trusted, the only real family I had left, had abandoned me, betrayed me. The knowledge of that threatened to smother me, such that I let out a strange, demented cry as I lunged toward Lucy once more—this time, toward the pages in her pocket.

  I had to know, I told myself, pushing away her hands that she held up in self-defense, my nails sinking into her flesh. I had to know what was on the passport, whether my aunt simply did not believe me, or whether she was working with her, with Lucy—whether it was my best interest or my fortune that she had on her mind. And so I pushed and pulled. I scratched until I felt the blood, her blood, beneath my fingernails. I did everything I could until I tasted copper, until I felt two powerful arms pull me away.

  “Alice.” Maude was crying, her face drained of color.

  I stopped. I looked up into my aunt’s face, into the fear that flooded her features. Her hair had started to come undone, strands of it falling down her face. I turned toward Lucy and saw that she looked equally affected, her pinned hair now falling around her shoulders, her dress askew, her stockings torn, the evidence of my violence written there, across her body. An apology rose on my lips but I stopped, feeling the weight of her papers between my hands. I had to know. And so I cast a hurried glance at the words written on the passport now grasped between my fingers. SOPHIE TURNER. I struggled to breathe.

  She was, I realized with a sinking feeling, still one step ahead.

  Sixteen

  Lucy

  IT WAS EASY ENOUGH TO CONVINCE MAUDE SHIPLEY THAT her niece was going mad.

  After that initial telephone call, we had spoken a handful of times before her arrival in Tangier, and I had reported on her niece’s movements, her state of mind, remembering all the while the words that Alice had once spoken to me—about the fear, after her parents’ death, that her aunt had wanted to commit her. The fear that her aunt thought she was mad, the fear that she might just be right.

  Alice’s episode that afternoon had only helped. I had almost pitied her, watching how confident she had been, convinced that she was about to best me. As she stood before us, her eyes wide, dazed, her fingers turning the same pages of the passport back and forth, over and over, as if it would somehow change what was printed there, I had been half-tempted to rush to her, to take her in my arms and forgive her for everything that she had done. Instead I had looked away, brushed the instinct aside.

  She couldn’t have known that I had already switched passports. That the idea had come to me while sitting in Youssef’s studio, that day he had tried to blackmail me. I had sat still in the moments afterward, afraid to move, to betray any indication of weakness. Only when I had worked it all out in my mind at last did I allow myself to smile, to shift. And then, steeling myself for his response, I had said, “Before I give you the money, I need you to do something for me first.”

  Youssef’s eyes had narrowed, surprised no doubt by the audacity of my request.

  I held his gaze. “I need a new passport.”

  “And why would I do that?” He laughed. “So that you can disappear without paying me?”

  “You’ll be paid—and in advance. But if I don’t get new papers, well, what would be the point of paying you to keep quiet? The police will figure it out sooner or later. New papers are my only way out of Tangier. Otherwise I might as well spend my money on enjoying my final hours.” I held my smile, though I could feel it, shaking against my teeth.

  Youssef paused, considering my words. I could see him weighing them, carefully, as I had known he would. After all, what did he care if I left Tangier, as long as he got something first? Yes, he would have preferred a longer con, one that continued to earn him something over time, but if forced to choose between nothing and something—he was smart, and I knew where he would fall.

  “All right,” he conceded. “I know a man who might be able to help.” He pointed his brush at me. “But only after I have been compensated.”

  I nodded. “Agreed.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Any tricks, and our deal is off.”

  “Understood.” I stretched out my hand toward him. “Shall we shake on it?”

  He laughed then, an amused sharp noise that let him indulge in his triumph over the helpless American girl. And I had wanted to give him that before I did what I had to next. His hand felt rough in my own, but I clasped it and shook—as if I had lost, as if he had won, as if the gesture was an acknowledgment of defeat.

  Later, out in the streets, I had laughed, marveling that I had once ever doubted his worth.

  I WAITED UNTIL MAUDE had convinced her niece to rest, until she had tucked her into bed, as though a child, and emerged a short time later, looking troubled and worn.

  “You were right,” she said, her body sinking into the fabric of the sofa. I sat beside her. “Thank you for telephoning me, Sophie. For letting me know what has been happening. I’m afraid Alice has always been prone to such—episodes.” She reached out, placing her hand on top of my own.

  Her touch was dry, cold, as if she were immune even to the heat of the desert, as if not even the elements of nature could threaten to overwhelm her. She was implacable. Unmovable. She was, I could not help but think, a woman wasted on a girl like Alice. I imagined what I might have been, the things I might have accomplished, had fate chosen to bestow upon me a relation such as the woman in front of me.

  I quickly pushed the thought aside.

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll confess I had hoped that John was just off with his friends, on a silly little adventure of some sort. It wouldn’t have been surprising, knowing him.” She fixed her gaze on me. “You were here when he went missing. What do you think happened?”

  I considered my words carefully before I responded, casting aside those pieces of information that did not serve a purpose here. “I don’t know. They seemed fine, at first, but then it started to become apparent that something was wrong. And then Alice confided in me, about the other woman.” I shook my head. “The last time I saw John, they had a terrible fight. I don’t know what happened after that. I just don’t know,” I whispered, forcing all the emotion I could into those final words, so that they sounded ominous, haunting, so that both of us could feel them refusing to disappear.

  She nodded. “The question now, I suppose, is what should be done.”

  I affected surprise. “With Alice, you mean?”

  “Yes.” She sighed. “I confess, I’ve never really known what to do when it comes to Alice, what the right thing is. She’s rather like my brother, in that respect. I never knew what to say to him either.” She shook her head, a shadow sweeping across her features. “It all seems too much, in a way. That such misfortune should fall upon one girl, so many times. First her parents, and then that boy in Vermont. Now this.” She shook her head. “And this silly business with her old roommate. I don’t understand it at all. She was adamant, you know, that the girl had something to do with the accident at Bennington too. It took all my powers of persuasion to convince the police there that she was out of her mind, that she was just confusing it all—the accident, the girl’s disappearance.”

  I felt the weight of her words—of Alice’s accusation—deep within my stomach. “Was it the police who suggested it to her?” I asked, and seeing Maude’s confusion, I continued on, unable to turn back. “About her roommate, I mean. I imagine they could be rather forceful, if necessary.”

  Maude shook her head. “No, this was Alice entirely. Why do you ask, dear?”

  I blinked, my vision seeming suddenly hazy—obscured, I thought. But then, no—I shook my head, the fluttering in my ear strong and persistent. Unrelenting, I decided. “It just sounds so fantastical,” I said quickly. “So unbelievable. Almost like—” I paused, casti
ng my eyes downward. “Forgive me for asking, Miss Shipley, but has Alice ever been committed?”

  Maude’s eyes cut to mine, hard, hesitant. “No. Why do you ask?”

  “She seems so—fragile. And you mentioned about the episodes.” I shifted, slightly. “I know we weren’t always the greatest of friends, but there was always something that seemed rather delicate about her,” I continued, thinking back to the day I met her, letting the words become truth. “I worried for her, about her.” I paused. “I had an aunt who was in quite poor health. She used to—well, she used to claim things that weren’t really true. That someone had come into her house and touched her lamps, that someone had moved her furniture. My parents, they decided in the end that it was kinder to put her someplace where she could be looked after.”

  Maude watched me now, her eyes sharp, missing nothing. “I had considered it,” she said, breaking the silence. “After her parents died. She was inconsolable, you know. Beyond normal grieving.” She glanced at me, hurried and quick, so that I knew her next words would be important. “She had convinced herself that she was to blame for their deaths.”

  I remained silent, letting the idea grow in the light between us: the image of the poor orphaned girl whose presence had wrought so many deaths. And then, though I couldn’t explain why, I felt as though something had been decided. As if Maude had used the time, the silence, to question, to ponder, to decide. She turned to me, and I no longer saw a lost and confused woman but rather one with a purpose, with a plan.

  Her eyes narrowed. “I was sorry to hear about your family’s misfortunes. I had meant to tell you that earlier.”

  “Oh?” I asked, eyebrows raised, eager to see what it was that she seemed to have arrived upon—and what part Sophie Turner would have to play in it.

  “Yes.” She paused. “You see, I have an idea, but it would require some assistance.” When I did not object, she continued, “I would need you to do something for me, in Spain, if you thought you could manage it. And you would be compensated, of course, for your time. Alice receives a small monthly allowance from her trust, and I could have this sum forwarded to you there, in the meantime. The bank would handle all the details, so you wouldn’t have to worry about a thing.”

  “Yes, I see,” I said, though I didn’t quite, not just yet. But I knew that I would soon, that Maude trusted me completely, that she believed the woman who sat before her, Sophie Turner, was good and decent and worth helping. And while it was true that I had already made a plan, I was intrigued to see where Maude was heading, if her plan might be more beneficial in the long run.

  I weighed the risks, considered the odds—brought to mind that sad, anonymous room in the boardinghouse—and quickly agreed.

  Maude nodded in acknowledgment. “Her behavior today has convinced me what must be done.” She looked away, toward the window. “Of what should have been done, long ago.”

  Seventeen

  Alice

  THE POLICE CAME EARLY THE NEXT MORNING.

  I had expected them to, of course, knew that the time between when they would knock on my door and when I would be left in peace—in quiet, in that in-between state where I could still pretend that something horrible hadn’t happened, that it was all just a dream—was inching closer and closer.

  John was dead. They had told me the day before—Maude and Lucy—though it had still failed to become real, to work itself into my mind as the truth, something concrete and unwavering that could not be challenged, changed, or altered. I had lain in bed, Maude tucking me in as though I were a child, an invalid, a problem she could never quite manage to shake, and I felt the word reverberating in my mind. Dead. It was all too familiar, and yet somehow foreign. It couldn’t be true, I wanted to tell my aunt, feeling her tug and pull at the sheets. John couldn’t be gone, couldn’t be dead. He was the one, I wanted to explain to her, the one who was supposed to pull me up and out of the depression, out of the darkness that had swirled around me ever since that bitter cold night in Vermont. Since before that, even. He couldn’t be gone, couldn’t be dead.

  My mind simply would not accept it. Not even later, when they showed me his body under the harsh, glaring lights of the coroner’s office, the color draining from my face as I stepped backward, staggering, conscious all the while of Aunt Maude beside me, of the officers’ eyes evaluating my every movement, every intake of breath. I felt them—all of them—waiting, watching, for the tears, for the hysterics. For a performance that I did not seem to have the energy to enact.

  I turned away, setting my face to stone.

  “Madame?”

  I looked up at the two officers, their faces hesitant, uncertain—as if they were afraid, I thought. I wanted to laugh then, for what on earth had they to fear from me? I wanted to know. I was moved to ask them—but then the weight of the moment, the emotions that I was supposed to be feeling, that they were expecting me to display, became all too much. I nodded at the men—a clipped little gesture, something like a bow—and started to back away, heading toward the door. It was the same feeling I had experienced at Café Hafa, at countless other moments in my life, when the panic had started rising in me, the feeling of being trapped threatening to overtake me so that I needed nothing so much in that moment as to be able to leave the space I was confined within. Despite this, I paused, looking to my left, to my right, convinced that there was something missing, something I was forgetting.

  It was Lucy, I suddenly realized.

  I had been looking for Lucy.

  This time, I did laugh.

  “Madame.” I heard the officer speak again, could feel Aunt Maude’s sharp eyes on me, but still, I could not respond, could not do anything but turn and walk away, out of the coroner’s office, out into the hallway filled with doors, though none of them seemed to hold the exit I was searching for. I pushed up against one, and then another, each of them refusing to yield. There was no way out—I was trapped, stuck in this labyrinthine hall.

  A figure emerged in front of me. “Madame McAllister?”

  No one had ever called me by my husband’s name. I thought about the absurdity of it: hearing it for the first time while standing only steps away from his corpse. “Shipley,” I whispered, my voice trembling. “My surname is Shipley.”

  The man frowned. “All right, Madame Shipley.” He paused, indicating the door next to him. “Follow me, please.”

  The man standing in front of me was not particularly large, his eyes reaching just a fraction above my own, and yet there was something about him, something that made me pause, something that made my heart begin to pound in fear. He was quite obviously of a higher rank than the two previous officers that I had spoken with, and I wondered what he wanted. I looked at the door that he had pointed toward, filled with panic at the thought of what might be hidden just behind it. There was too, somewhere at the back of my mind, the vague realization that I should ask exactly who he was and what he wanted, but the only question I could manage was, “Where are we going?”

  “To my office,” he answered simply, offering no more explanation than that.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned to find Aunt Maude, a light sheen of sweat breaking just above her lip. “You heard the man, Alice,” she said, her voice terse. “Let’s go inside.”

  The man frowned, disappointed, it seemed, that she would be accompanying us.

  His office was sparse, little else dotting the walls besides the thin layer of yellow paint that seemed to be peeling, flaking in the corners. I settled into one of two chairs placed in front of his desk, Aunt Maude taking the other.

  Once we were seated, the officer lowered himself into his own chair behind the desk and leaned forward. “Madame Shipley,” he began. “Do you know of any reason why a man by the name of Youssef might have been in possession of your husband’s articles?”

  I shook my head, surprised by the question, for whatever it was that I had been expecting, it was not this. But then something poked, needled, and I reme
mbered what Lucy had said the other night to the policeman, about Youssef.

  “No,” I whispered, my voice low and hoarse. “I have no idea.”

  He frowned, watching me. “Are you quite all right, madame?”

  I considered telling him then. About Lucy, about how she had deliberately mentioned Youssef to the policeman, how she had, more than likely, been responsible for whatever it was that they were talking about. I considered telling him this and everything else that had happened—but then I noticed the way that he was looking at me, his features sharp and narrow, and the words died on my lips.

  “Could I have a glass of water, please?” I asked instead.

  He looked irritated at this request but nonetheless signaled to one of his officers standing just outside the door. A few moments of silence passed until at last a glass of tepid water was placed in front of me.

  “Thank you,” I murmured. I placed the glass back onto his desk, watching as a small puddle formed, the ring that encircled it eventually sinking into the wood beneath. I could feel Aunt Maude’s eyes on me, but I could not bring myself to return her gaze. Not just yet.

  “I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?” I asked the man, stalling.

  He sat back in his chair and sighed. “My apologies, madame. I am Officer Ayoub,” he said. “Now, I understand you knew the man.”

  I frowned, placing a hand to my temple, wondering if anyone else had noticed just how stuffy and confined the office was. “Who?” I asked, not knowing, in that moment, who he was referring to.

  “Youssef,” he responded, his voice curt, the word overenunciated. “Or perhaps you knew him as Joseph. He is the man responsible for your husband’s death, madame.”

  “No,” I responded, shaking my head at the impossibility of the idea. No, they had got it all wrong. I could feel Aunt Maude stir beside me.

  “No?” Ayoub raised his eyebrows. “Do you mean that you do not know him, or that he is not the one responsible?”