Oleander Soul

by James Arklie

  ‘Tell you what. We’re joining a march Sunday. It’s a peaceful demo. In the City. Against all this sort of thing. Highlighting the issue of police accountability. Wrongful convictions, that sort of thing. Come and join us. Bring Lily. We’re taking a picnic for Regents Park afterwards. There will be other children there as well.’ She pulled Ollie to her feet.

  ‘Come on. It’ll be a fun day out.’

  Ollie left it as a distant, ‘sounds great’, because her attention had been distracted.

  George Sapphire appeared from the alleyway, walked across to the Café and settled himself at one of the tables.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Ollie went inside, drank a glass full of cold water, rested both hands on the edge of the sink and took some deep breaths. What had she gone and done now? In the past she’d screwed up through drink, drugs and God only knows what else and that she understood.

  But all she wanted to do now was ask some innocent questions and find out about some lost years. Rekindle some lost memories. And even that simple act was bringing her world crashing down around her.

  She heard Lily’s voice outside, collected from school and dropped here by one of the Café’s regular coffee morning Mum’s. Normality. This is what other people do. Hang on to it. Get into it. Become a part of it.

  Lily came in holding Jo’s hand. She was skipping and smiling at something Jo had said. Ollie couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her skip. Isn’t that a sign of happiness and contentment? It was only fair she repaid Jo. She didn’t want to go, but she felt obliged to join the march.

  Ollie crouched down. ‘Guess what, Lils. We have a treat on Sunday. Into the City and then off to the park for a picnic and games with the other Mums and children.’

  She looked up at Jo who smiled thanks, but then asked, ‘Any chance you could see to the customer outside?’

  Ollie had never understood the phrase, ‘heart pounding in your chest’, until now. She took deep breaths, trying to slow it down, then took cutlery, a bottle of water and a glass and went out as calmly as she could.

  As she placed things down George looked up from his paper. A live face is different from a face in a picture. It has animation, nuances, subtle movements that chatter to your subconscious in a sensory speak you cannot hear.

  He smiled and likeable creases appeared in his face. ‘You new?’

  Ollie took in the strong, tanned features, the thick brown hair and the grey-blue eyes that carried a strange intimate depth. There was some East End of London in his voice. She had yet to find out who George Sapphire might be, but he definitely wasn’t scary.

  ‘No. This is my second day.’

  ‘Old pro then?’

  Ollie smiled. ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Nice smile, Babes.’ He put down the paper. ‘What’s your name, then? I know all the others.’

  ‘Oleander.’

  ‘Nice name. Different. A flower. I’m George.’

  He nodded towards Lily who’d come out to a table with her iPad and a glass of something green and healthy. ‘That your little girl?’

  Ollie made her brain step back. She had a job to do on George, but she didn’t want a man about who little was known, getting that close to her daughter.

  ‘What can I get you?’

  He leant back in his chair. ‘How about a favour, because I know I’m too late for lunch and far too late for breakfast, but what I really fancy is smashed avocado, feta and poached egg on some of that wonderful sourdough toast you ladies make.’ He smiled what she assumed was his winning smile.

  ‘What are the chances, Oleander?’

  ‘I’m sure I can make that for you. And coffee?’

  ‘Black and strong.’ He grinned at her and his nuance.

  At four pm Ollie and Lily left. Ollie walked them through the tables. She was new to this, but she was guessing the more George saw of her the better.

  He was leaning back in his chair, the sun full on his face. Ollie thought he was asleep until he spoke.

  ‘Thanks for lunch, Babes. Deserves a drink, so let me know when you’re free.’

  He gave a little wave and smile to Lily. Ollie felt her grip tighten. In Ollie’s pocket her mobile vibrated and she pulled it out. It was a message from Mark Anderson.

  ‘We need to meet. Please. Desperate for us to get away.’

  There were three ‘x’s that concerned her. And an emoji with a large, beating heart. It was childish. But it scared her.

  ​​ * * *

  Back in the new apartment Ollie unpacked the meal she’d brought with her from the Café. Lily showed Grannie Alesha her latest game on the new iPad. They all ate together round the table. Ollie breathed in the simple beauty of a rare moment.

  Later, she took an hour on her own. She unpacked the Apple MacBook Pro and set it up on a desk in the corner of the lounge. She connected to the WiFi for their apartment. The last time she’d used a laptop it had been stolen and she was looking for a buyer. She’d used the laptop to place the advert.

  She spent time setting up a gmail address and finding her way around Safari. In the end, she also set up Google Chrome because it was familiar to her.

  At eight pm with a Glenfiddich and a glass of red wine, her mother saw it coming.

  ‘Ollie. Don’t, please. Stop. Look at what we have. Do you want to tear this down?’

  ‘Mum. I need to know. I need to rebuild a part of my brain. I’m not tearing anything down.’

  ‘Oh yes, you will.’

  ‘I went to the police today. Asked them about Dad’s disappearance. Trying to get answers to the questions you wouldn’t answer.’

  Alesha sipped her whiskey and adjusted her glasses. ‘So, tell me what you found out.’

  Alesha listened until she could stand no more. She patted the arm of her chair and Ollie went and sat there, put an arm around her mother’s shoulders and kissed the tight grey curls on top of her head.

  ‘Was it really so bad, Mum?’

  ‘Yes, it was bad. You were a ten-year old girl come home from school. You walk in the back door and there is this huge puddle of blood. All over. More like a sea. They say you slipped in it and you screamed and screamed. A neighbour came and then the police.’

  ‘Was he my real Dad.’

  ‘His body wasn’t there, but yes, the blood belonged to your biological father if that’s what you mean by real Dad.’

  ‘And his name was Billy Jones.’

  Alesha nodded. ‘But they’ve never found his body. Or who killed him.’

  Ollie went to her bag and took out the picture the detective had printed. She handed it to her mother. ‘Why, Mum? Why would somebody kill him? Why no body? He can’t have walked out, he had no blood left inside him, so someone took it.’

  Alesha sipped her whiskey and Ollie saw the distant, uncommunicative woman reappear. ‘I don’t want to think about it anymore. It was in the past, Ollie. The police investigated and found nothing. It’s gone. Happened. Can’t be changed.’

  Ollie pressed her. ‘But don’t you want to know?’

  No answer.

  Ollie kept chasing the line that could lead to disaster. ‘So why did we have to move? Why can’t I remember all this?”

  Alesha grew impatient. ‘Ollie, you were a traumatised ten-year old. No one knows what you saw, only what you found. It’s gone from your mind. Your mind did it to look after itself. Blocked it. It’s a funny thing the brain. Look at me, I’ve got something that makes me forget and I’ve forgotten its name.’

  And you’ve forgotten you said that yesterday, thought Ollie. Maybe her mother was right. Self-protection.

  Ollie knelt at her mother’s feet. ‘Mum. Tell me. Please. Because soon you won’t remember. It will be gone and lost forever.’

  Alesha looked down and tenderly stroked the side of Ollie’s face with the back of her hand. ‘Best that way, love. Let this disease take my brain, it’ll be for the best.’

  The Manipulator

  ‘The m
anipulator will often resort to punishing the victim with silence, not responding to calls or emails, creating fear of abandonment and a greater need and uncertainty in the victim.’

  Chapter Seventeen

  Ollie checked her mobile. There were three more messages from Mark, all pleading. He was in a room at the Hoxton. Ollie thought of the money. Desperate, illusory men like Mark become cash machines. She’d learnt over the years how to tap in the pin code. This was a habit she wanted to get rid of, but right now she might as well take everything she could get.

  She left her mother babysitting and walked through the streets of London enjoying the balmy June evening. It was getting close to the longest day and she thought of an evening picnic in Hyde Park with Lily and her mother. They could get a taxi and Lily could wheel her Grannie down to the lake and the ducks.

  She smiled at the idea. Normal family, normal life. Do all the things she’d watched others do as she walked the streets and footpaths looking for business and the opportunity to steal.

  Mark opened the door and dragged her into his arms. He was in a tee-shirt and cotton boxers. His erection was immediate and hard against her.

  ‘Ollie. Thank God.’

  As he clawed and pawed at her clothes and then her, she noticed an open hold-all in one corner, the contents were spilled across the floor. It looked as though he’d already moved out of his apartment.

  He took her in a couple of rushed, sweaty, grunting minutes and he was still hard. He thought it was pure sex that would win her over.

  He was on his back, breathless. ‘Ollie, we are so good together.’

  Ollie’s brain fired a warning from the darkness. In his mind their relationship had moved on much further than simply call girl and client. His brain had already flipped it, building it into something much bigger, but something it wasn’t. She had to stop this one now, before any rejection he received from her provoked a violent response.

  A minute later she knew it was already too late. He rolled to the side of the bed, reached down and rolled back with airline tickets. There were two. Heathrow to Sao Paolo, Brazil. He clearly thought Ollie was willing to leave her daughter and dying mother behind. His fantasy was too advanced. Deadly already. She thought drily that now would not be a good time to mention her lack of passport.

  ‘Open tickets, Ollie. We can go tomorrow, next week. We can go now if you want to.’

  He was on one elbow, staring down at her. There was passion in his eyes. A recklessness. How did she get out of this?

  ‘Mark. You have to give me a few days. I have to make arrangements for Lily and Mum.’

  ‘They can join us later. But I have to get away, Ollie. I won’t leave without you. If you need money, I have plenty. What’s mine is yours, Ollie. All of it.’

  Ollie felt the panic start in her gut and move up her body to stop her breath and then freeze her brain.

  She had to keep playing for time. Find a way to put some distance between Mark and her.

  ‘What’s the rush? We can carry on doing this. I like this Hotel.’

  ‘Ollie, I told you. I have to do something and then I have to run.’

  ‘Can’t you hide out here?’

  ‘Ollie, there’s a man and if I don’t do what I’m told he’ll kill me. No way out. It’s black and white.’

  Ollie was searching Mark’s eyes. They flicked from side to side as he stared at her. She could see the fear dancing in them. ‘Go to the police. Tell them about this man. They’ll stop him.’

  He threw himself on his back in a gesture of hopelessness. ‘What world do you live in, Ollie? There are people out there and life means nothing to them.’

  Well, in that world, actually, she thought. And I have for most of my life.

  He reached down beside him for his mobile. ‘Here. Want to see the face of a killer?’ He scrolled through a couple screens then held out the mobile.

  ‘If you see this man, be very scared.’

  Ollie blinked and swallowed hard as she stared into the eyes of George Sapphire.

  ​​ * * *

  It was midnight and Ollie was a storm in the tranquility of the summer night. She called Mike Stockton as she walked back to the apartment.

  ‘You bastard. You didn’t tell me George Sapphire is bloody killer.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Don’t you sodding ‘what’ me. George Sapphire is a killer. Probably a contract killer for all I know.’

  Mike Stockton’s voice was calm. Patronising. ‘Well done, Ollie. You’ve already found something out. How? Who told you?’

  ‘Never you mind who bloody told me. You want me to go out with, sleep with, spy on, someone who kills for a living. What about my family?’

  ‘Too late, Ollie. You’ll have to work it out. I told you we employed you for your survival skills. So, use them. And just so you know, I didn’t know he was a killer.’

  The mobile went dead. She resisted the temptation to bin it. Chewed her lip as she thought about whether to do that runner with Mark. She could get a passport somewhere, a forgery or a temporary one. Go and hide in South America somewhere.

  Reality, Ollie. No money. You won’t get a passport and there is no way your mother can travel. Catheters, bags, medication…..you’ll kill her.

  How the hell had she stepped over this line? Two days ago, she was living a shit life, but even a shit life with regularity and rhythm provides a sense of security. And now? Can I walk away, she thought? She had cash and she had assets in the laptop and iPad. Probably a couple of grand. Get out of London and that was rent for a couple months.

  But Stockton would find her. Small would find her. Mark would use his legal contacts to find her. She couldn’t run and she couldn’t hide.

  The monkey felt the pressure and started hopping with joy. It knew she was trapped and there could be fun times ahead.

  Day Three

  Chapter Eighteen

  DI Donna Small had retrieved the evidence bagged at the scene of the murder of Billy Jones. Andy stood beside her and they passed the unopened plastic between them, holding each bag up for examination.

  Donna threw a bag onto her desk. ‘There’s sod all here.’

  ‘Because there was no body, Boss. No prints or DNA, other than family. It’s like forensics collected all this just to make it look like they were doing something.’

  ‘But his blood was all over the floor. Someone slit his throat?’

  ‘According to forensics, splatter pattern supports that.’

  ‘Someone killed him. Left him lying there. For how long?’

  ‘Given the amount of blood the injury was severe. He will have bled out and died in five to ten minutes.’

  ‘They watched him die?’

  ‘Guess so, Boss. If they hung around long enough to move him.’

  ‘Blood trail?’

  ‘No, Boss.’

  ‘How do you move a body that is soaked in blood and lying in a pool of blood, without leaving a trail?’

  ‘Must have picked him up.’

  Donna Small wasn’t convinced. ‘Really, Andy? What about blood drips as they carried him?’

  Andy offered. ‘Cleaned up behind them?’

  ‘Report mention anything? Disinfectant smells, residues? Did they examine the mop and bucket from the cupboard or under the sink.’

  ‘Not in the report, Boss.’

  ‘Bloody hell. Carried then. At least two people. Strong. Assume male. But they will have stood in the blood. It will be on their shoes and leave a trail. On clothes they will have disposed of…. What did the wife say?’

  ‘Alesha Soul. She was at a neighbour and rushed home. Alibi holds. It was normal for Oleander to come home on her own from school.’

  ‘Neighbour who responded?’

  ‘Statement says she responded to the screams, rushed in, saw the blood but not a body, dialed 999.’

  ‘What was Billy Jones doing at home? Didn’t he have job?’

  ‘Carpenter for a local business and was m
eant to be on site five miles away.’

  ‘He went home for some reason. Anyone ask Alesha why?’

  ‘They did and she doesn’t know. His Boss at work checked the job and found it finished. The assumption made was that he decided to skive off for a couple of hours.’

  ‘Arrives home early to discover someone in the house who kills him. Robbery gone wrong.’

  ‘That was the conclusion, Boss.’

  ‘Bloody lazy, that’s what that is. Robbery gone wrong means the robber leaves the body and runs like hell. They don’t stand there and watch the person die and then remove the body.’

  ‘And nothing was missing, Boss.’

  ‘Shit.’ She pulled at her ponytail and watched Andy start to repack the evidence bags.

  ‘How long between time of death and when they found Oleander Soul sitting in her father’s blood?’

  ‘Estimate of two hours, Boss.’

  ‘Billy Jones…hold on, why’s her name Soul when he was Jones?’ Andy shook his head.

  Donna Small sighed. ‘Billy Jones skives off early, gets home about two to two-thirty, is killed, his body removed from the building without trace, Oleander arrives home at four-thirty and slips into the pool of blood and starts screaming.’

  ‘Strange one, Boss.’

  ‘What do you mean, strange one? You’re a bloody detective, we don’t have ‘strange one’s’ we have clues. I want to re-interview Alesha and all the neighbours still living there. Someone must have seen or heard something.’

  ‘There aren’t many clues to work off here, Boss.’

  ‘Except the obvious one.’

  ‘Boss?’

  ‘We have one set of bloody footprints and we know who they belong to. We have one person at the scene of crime.’

  ‘Soul? But she was only ten.’

  ‘And what? Too young to kill? We know that’s not true.’ Small tossed an evidence bag into the box.

  ‘And that makes Oleander Soul our main suspect.’

  ‘That’s a stretch…’