The Girl in the Water

by A J Grayson

Amber’s never liked the ‘Find My Friends’ app on our phones, so the easiest way of pinning down her location isn’t an option. But there are other ways to track a friend, or a wife.

  She needs money, whatever she’s doing. I’ve been checking the banking app on my phone zealously since I lost track of her. A credit card trail would have been immensely helpful, but Amber seems not to be using the card. A woman who swipes a card for everything, from topping up the gas tank to purchasing a 65-cent pack of chewing gum – ‘It all goes for points, David. How are we going to get a free flight to the Caribbean if we don’t collect the points?’ – has suddenly gone credit-card-silent for a day and a half. Only a single ATM withdrawal off the debit card, the maximum daily amount, the afternoon she left.

  She’s trying to stop me finding her. Clever thing.

  And I know precisely why.

  Amber’s departure from home left little in the way of mystery. She’d already got too close to the truth when she found my briefcase, but we’d dealt with that. A little higher dose, and it all became a haze. Something to be explained away.

  But when the knife made its appearance, there was really no turning back then.

  I’ve been trying to control my anger over that. I originally had it tucked away in the drawer in my desk – somewhere I’d normally have thought she’d never venture. But then my nerves had mounted. She’d never normally have ventured into my study at all, and yet she’d done that. And stayed there, and broken into my briefcase. If she’d done all those things, then the feeble lock on my prefab desk didn’t seem like it would stop her if she chose to go further – and the longer I dwelt on it, the more certain it seemed she actually would go back into the study, searching for more. From being a decent hiding place, it began to seem like the most at-risk spot for discovery of any I could choose.

  So I’d opted for a place that seemed totally beyond the realm of possibility. The back of our closet is home to suitcases and baggage. Nothing to do with the present moment. No reason to dig around back there, burrowing through cases and duffels. A decent spot, until I had the time to get rid of things more permanently. The last place she’d look.

  You would have thought.

  Amber didn’t find it at the close of the day, either, when drinking and dreams could be called on to blur away the experience. She found it in the middle of the afternoon, when the concentration of the drug in her system would have been at its weakest.

  For a moment, this fact distracts me. Amber’s been away a day and a half now. That’s a day and a half off dosage, and this is the most worrying reality of all. Without the drugs, things are going to go south. Radically, and more so with each hour that passes. I haven’t been able to get to her physically, and I’m not sure I’m going to be able to get this back in control in time.

  She has all the pieces, now. She even saw that t-shirt. Damn it, this woman has derailed my plans. Threw off everything I’ve been working for.

  There’s nothing left to do, in these circumstances, but face the consequences.

  It’s she, of course, who will have to face them. The limits I set have been reached, and breached, and responsibility for that reality rests with her.

  God, it was my dream to keep her safe.

  But not every dream really does come true. Sometimes blood is the price to pay for peace, and there is a kind of safety that comes only through death.

  Suddenly, a buzzing in my pocket.

  It takes a physical shake of my head to snap me out of my contemplation, but I focus on the buzzing and the ring, and slide my fingers beneath the layers of denim to retrieve my phone.

  I smile.

  Amber’s face is on the screen. An old snapshot: her teeth wide in an enormous smile. The one that always flashes up when she calls.

  Someone is coming out of her hiding.

  The line connects as I pull the phone to my cheek. My mouth moves automatically. ‘Amber! Oh God, finally. I’ve been trying to—’

  But I can’t get out another word. Her voice carves through mine. It isn’t soft or sweet in its usual way.

  ‘I’m driving to the apartment,’ she announces. ‘I’ll be there in an hour. I expect to see you.’

  I draw in a quick breath to reply, but I’m stopped by the sudden silence of a dead line. Amber has hung up on me. I’ve never known her to hang up on anyone.

  But then, that voice didn’t sound like Amber. It was emotionless. Hollow. And I’ve only ever heard her talk in tones like that once before.

  It’s the final sign. All that can be done now is orchestrate the end of this well.

  51

  The actual torture always took place in the basement den, never anywhere else in the house. Just that one room, purpose-crafted to their needs.

  Bringing the constant string of girls there posed their most serious challenge, as the snooping eyes of neighbours would surely start to question it if there wasn’t some legitimate explanation to be offered. It’s why they’d purchased the house in that location, in Santa Cruz, where none of them could claim to be from. Close enough to get to easily, but not a place where they were known to the locals. So when Ross had signed the paperwork and agreed to be the one who would move into the house, they’d also agreed that the young girl they’d lured into helping them would be presented as his niece. ‘My brother’s little Miss Emma Sunshine,’ he’d call her, with suitable familial emotion.

  No one could be too surprised that a niece would come to visit her beloved uncle, nor that she would bring her friends with her. It’s what normal girls did.

  So Ross would stay in the house, providing them all with the right facade, while the others would play the role of his buddies. Their comings and goings would hardly be noticed. They would be able to access the house when it was needed, coordinated with Emma bringing by one of her ‘friends’. And then they could do what they wished.

  Downstairs, they’d over-prepared for their first venture into the unknown. Ralph had ripped out the walls and insulated them with soundproof padding, before re-plastering and painting them exactly as they’d been before. The room was a vault for sound. They’d placed a television inside, rented a VHS of a slasher film and cranked it up to its maximum volume, then stood outside, only feet from the wall that rose above the den. Silence. They couldn’t hear one fucking scream.

  Then there had been refitting the door with something reinforced, with better locks.

  And, of course, the bed. There needed to be a place for the action itself.

  A bed proper didn’t seem right. If ever anyone came by, unlikely as that possibility was, it would be better to have the room look like a den than a bedroom, so they’d opted for a pull-out sofa. Not as comfortable as a proper mattress, of course; but then, they never intended this room to be a place of comfort.

  Then the grooming began. The hardest part had already been accomplished: finding their little recruiter. Emma Fairfax was a loner of a kid: no friends, unhappy home life. As Gerald had monitored her from the street across from her school, she had mingled only occasionally with others, obviously not one of the ‘in crowd,’ mostly drawn to other outcasts, which was perfect for their purposes. She was also obviously poor. Other students burst from the school doors into recess and drew out Walkmans and CD players; Emma had nothing. Even her clothes looked second-hand and tired.

  Positively perfect.

  Gerald had taken his time with the approach to Emma. None of them had done this before, and so they exercised an abundance of caution. He’d watched her long enough to know that after school she often went and sat in a local park, watching other kids play and fiddled with her schoolbooks. That seemed the most plausible way in. So, a few weeks later, on the bench next to Emma Fairfax on a semi-sunny day, sat a middle-aged man in a comfortable sweater, an undersized dog on a rope leash.

  She’d immediately loved the dog. Asked if she could pet him. Took delight in his slobbery tongue.

  Two days later, when Gerald was back at the same spot, she a
sked if she could throw his ball.

  The following week, he confessed that his nephew was too old to play with the dog any more, and if she ever wanted to come by, he only lived a few streets away, and she could play to her heart’s content.

  She’d been at the house the next afternoon.

  Emma had eventually agreed to play the role they wanted for her, once sufficient ‘preparations’ had taken place. Grooming, by another name. They didn’t let her know what it was all about, of course, though they all suspected she probably had some idea. But a careful balance of bribes and suitably menacing threats, following weeks of increasing familiarity and conditioning, was all it took to convince her to come on board, and to be quiet about doing so. The girl with nothing could have her Walkman and her CDs, and new shoes and adult friends and whatever else they would dangle in front of her. Only she could speak to no one, and if she did – if she ever did – not only would the gifts stop, but they’d blame everything on her. Say she stole it all. Say she was a pervert kid who was doing her own thing in the house – sick, depraved stuff that she’d be shunned for forever – and blaming them out of spite.

  The threats they’d give the girls themselves would be far severer. Severe enough that if Emma ever cracked, not one of them would risk supporting her story. Gerald and Ralph had taken some convincing, but Ross had known from the outset that this would mean the need for a touch of violence, some pain, inflicted on each of them the first time they were brought in. Nothing too dramatic, but enough to give their threats credence. It couldn’t just be all about their own gratification and fun. They had to ensure they wouldn’t get caught. That the girls wouldn’t talk.

  It was elaborate, thought through, and thoroughly planned out.

  They were all on board.

  And most importantly, it all worked.

  It had been a Thursday afternoon the first time all the gears went into motion. Emma came by shortly after school had ended. She had a ‘friend’ in tow, and brought her to the kitchen door, as she’d been instructed. She entered with her, to make the experience feel normal. Said she’d meet her downstairs in a second. Ralph, who’d been waiting at the door, offered to show her the way to the TV room.

  Emma never joined her downstairs, of course. As the other girl had stepped into the den, Ralph had closed the door swiftly behind her, and the click of the bolt lock was audible.

  Two other men were inside. The sofa was folded out into a bed, covered in red sheets.

  Gerald was already half undressed. Ross, standing nearest the girl, swung a backhand that landed in her chest, knocking the wind out of her as she collapsed backwards onto the bed.

  Gerald was already at her feet. ‘Listen, kid,’ was all he said, ‘if you want to live through this, then for the next twenty minutes you don’t make a fucking sound.’

  52

  The last man’s body was slenderer than the other two, barely a bulkier frame than the woman who had started it all. A cancer deep in his bowels had emaciated his flesh, and any signs of happiness had long since departed from his features. Ports for the chemotherapy protruded from his wrist and his side, and the sense of hopelessness was written across him.

  But the cancer was not to be allowed to kill him. He had stolen life from the innocent, so his would be stolen from him.

  It was the only way.

  He died with his eyes open, as if seeking to stare into the heavens, despite the captive space. A final human desire in an inhuman man.

  Fingers pushed down his lids. He was to be denied even this.

  Peace was not to be this man’s end. He was simply to be stopped. And he was.

  And the world sang out more beautifully than it ever had before.

  53

  Amber

  The front entrance to our apartment building has never looked as ominous as it does this afternoon. Windsor, our peaceful little town, home to an uninspired edifice that on this particular day fills me with immeasurable apprehension. I stand before it, dreading every brick.

  But I’m here, and I’m not stopping now.

  I get out of my car and depress the button on my key fob on impulse. The locks close with a chirp, almost as quickly as I remember that this isn’t the plan of action I’d decided upon. Keep an easy, open route away. It’s always in the last steps that a fleeing housewife is caught out in films. She makes it out of the bedroom, down two flights of stairs and through a maze of furniture, only to find the latch on the glass patio doors is locked and she’s condemned to face the reflection of her killer in the black glass, just as the axe falls and …

  Christ sakes.

  The paranoia is powerful. But I do want to keep the doors unlocked, and I chirp the fob again. Then, with nothing left to prevent me doing so, I walk.

  Within a few seconds I reach the low wall surrounding the front garden. My nose is tickled by its familiar scents. It’s an odd thing, to have gardenias fill up your nostrils on your way to what can only be sorrow and grief.

  I slide my key into the front entrance, which opens onto the common landing for all the apartments in the building. The hairs on my neck are already at alert. I could admit that I’m afraid, if it wouldn’t sap the resolve from me right at the moment when I need it the most. So I don’t. There is no fear. Only purpose.

  I climb the single flight of stairs to our door and swap keys. Before I insert it into the lock, I decide to test the knob. It’s possible David is already here, waiting inside – but the knob holds fast. I experience a swell of relief. I want to stage our meeting the way I think it should go, not have it dictated by his presence.

  Of course, he could just have locked the door behind him. The hairs rise again and more anxiety finds its way into my throat. But I’m not stopping.

  I shove the key into the lock and turn. I’m not so deadened by my fear as to miss the fact that the world sways as I do. A palpable motion. The edges of my vision aren’t clear, either. Sounds come into my ears in magnified form – from the interior mechanics of the lock, which clank like metal hammers, to the scrape of wood against wood as I push the door from its frame. Then wood on carpet, clawing its way slowly along the floor.

  I push cautiously. I’ve often wished I were the kind of person who bursts through doors, energetic and unafraid; but that’s never been me. For a moment, though, I have a memory of flinging open a door. Was it this one? Was it yesterday? Did it happen at all? It’s a hazy memory, linked to a situation I can no longer recall.

  Today I push more timidly than usual. For once, I’m genuinely unsure what I want to see on the other side. Do I want David to be there, worried and concerned? Do I want him to be condescending, infuriated, ready to be challenged?

  Do I ever really want to see him again at all?

  I feel the pit in my stomach opening up.

  I’m only saved as the haze clears and reveals an empty kitchen. Empty. I smack a hand against the light switch, and a few flickers later the hospital-like glow of the fluorescent tubes confirms the vision. He isn’t here.

  My release of breath is so strong it casts an echo off the refrigerator. Sadie catches it from one of the upper floors and I immediately hear the familiar trample of her short legs bounding down the staircase. She rounds the corner and comes at full pace up to my ankles, burying a wet nose in my legs.

  Her old leash isn’t hanging on the wall. There’s a new one there, shiny and never been used.

  A vivid, red condemnation.

  I so want to reach down and pet her, to do something so down and out normal as to greet my dog in a mess of orange fur and hugs. Like every day. But my stomach is a rock.

  ‘David!’ I shout. The word emerges bestially, but there’s no response. No sound but Sadie’s enthusiastic pleading.

  I’m up the steps that lead from the kitchen to our bedroom faster than I’ve ever ascended them before, Sadie at my heels and certain this is some new game with play and treats at its conclusion.

  I want the evidence in hand when David arriv
es. Too much of my past few days has been the stuff of suspicion and extrapolation. I want concrete reality between my fingers as he tries to deny what I’ve discovered.

  The closet opens with its familiar creak and I have all my hanging clothes shoved out of the way in a single movement. The customary piles of sweaters and other odds and ends are stacked behind, including, in its usual place, my yellow duffel bag. Right where I remember it being.

  I rip it from the pile, flinging it onto our bed. For a moment reality wobbles around me. It’s hard to separate this moment from my earlier discovery here – from that moment when the bag first yielded the knife and the truth that David had hidden it away from me. The memory and my present seem to overlap, like the blurred lines of an old-fashioned 3D movie’s red and blue layers.

  I blink a few times, willing the distortions away. My bag is on the neatly made bed, singular and in the present tense. All that’s left from the memories is the awful knowledge of what’s inside. The one concrete thing that proves what David really is.

  I wrap my trembling fingers around the zip and pull.

  Tears immediately fill my eyes. I realize I’m not surprised. I’m devastated, but I’m not surprised.

  I see no knife. No towels. No blood.

  There is nothing in the bag.

  David’s been cleaning up after himself again. I recognize the antiseptic smell of the same cleaner from before, beneath the desk. It wafts up from my open bag in condemnation.

  The tears well more deeply. All hope of David’s innocence is now completely gone. My honest man is nothing of the kind. All my dreams are a myth and the love I’ve known in my heart has been nothing more than the crafted fakery of a man I should never have trusted in the first place. He’s been lying to me, and my skin is a pepper of fire and suspicion – a feeling I recognize, in this moment, that I’ve had before, though ‘before’ has become such a fog of deceit that I can’t pinpoint when.

  Eventually, for lack of any reason to remain in the bedroom, I descend the stairs, leaving Sadie locked behind me. Somehow I don’t want her to have to witness what’s to come. My little ageing ball of innocence – let her go on loving David. I don’t think there’s any way that I can.