Battle. The thought helped Julia to move. She muscled Sue out of the car, into the bathroom. She was seriously hurt. The mirror and basin were soon splattered with blood, violently red against the white porcelain, demented crimson splashes from a mad artist’s brush. In Julia’s hyped-up state, the mess blurred into hallucination. An unfamiliar landscape and she was walking in it. But as her horrified frenzy died away she felt stronger, more in control.
She soaked towels and bathed Sue’s face, which was already bruising. One of her teeth was missing. Her nose was swollen and shapeless. Her right eye was almost closed. A raw graze ran around her neck, and her left wrist was swollen. Julia brought ice packs, arnica oil and disinfectant from the kitchen.
‘Paracetamol?’ Julia reached into the cupboard and produced a packet. Sue nodded.
‘Thanks,’ she whispered.
‘Let me look at your mouth,’ Julia said.
Sue turned so Julia could inspect the damage.
‘It’s a mess; you’re going to need stitches. You’ll have to see a dentist.’
Sue pressed a hand against her ribs. ‘Fuck, that’s sore,’ she slurred. Her mouth had swollen grotesquely; her lips were thick and rubbery. She looked just like Donald Duck.
‘You’ll live,’ Julia said. ‘You’re going to be very sore for a few days, but you’ll live.’
Sue was too shaken to speak. She shook her head in disbelief. Finally she said: ‘You saved my life, I can’t tell you, I’m –’
‘Don’t say anything,’ Julia said. Then she picked up the envelope from the safety deposit box and threw it down on Sue’s lap.
‘I hope you think this was worth it. Now we’ve got absolutely no chance of getting out of this mess. I’ve killed a man and the security guard saw our faces. It’s over.’ She slumped to the bathroom floor and buried her face in her hands.
Finally Sue found her voice. ‘Don’t be crazy, you didn’t kill him. The gun went off. He killed himself.’
‘I’ll never know that for sure.’
‘He was just a stupid, dick-driven male. Men who beat up women don’t deserve to live.’
‘Shit, Sue! Give the guy a break. You were robbing his fucking bank! I reckon he was entitled to be a bit pissed off with you. It’s over. It’s really over, we’re finished. We’ll have to go to the police.’
‘Don’t be an idiot. It’s not over. Nobody knows us, there’s nothing to identify us. The guard didn’t get a good look at us. He’s probably got concussion after that fall, anyway.’
‘Or he died as well.’
‘Rubbish! These guards are tough, he’ll survive.’
‘What about the people in the bank who saw you with James Wilmot? The police aren’t idiots. You were seen at game reserves and restaurants with him. You can’t believe they won’t trace you quickly?’
‘All the more reason to get out of here first thing in the morning,’ said Sue. ‘They’d never recognise me now, anyway,’ she added, trying to smile.
‘Where do you go from here?’ asked Julia.
‘I’m holding the ace card. Sando’s papers. If he wants them, he’s going to have to deposit a hell of a lot of money into my offshore bank account. Enough for us to go away. To Australia or New Zealand maybe. We can start a new life. I can just see us lying on a beach somewhere in the Indian Ocean, cocktails in our hands – a classic movie ending.’ Her sore mouth twisted in a smile. ‘We’ll prove that crime does pay. Somewhere there’s a place for us, we’ve just got to find it.’
‘What do you mean, “us”?’
Sue shrugged.
‘We’re damaged people, you and I. We should be together. I’m making you an offer, Julia. Nobody’s ever done as much for me as you. Maybe that’s what love is.’
25
6 July 2006 – 8.00 a.m.
Dawn was breaking when Julia finally sat down on the sofa with a cup of coffee. Sue was asleep. Now that all the hype was over she finally had time to take stock. Her head was still filled with images of James Wilmot’s body sliding down the wall of safety deposit boxes. The way he’d stared up at her. But now she felt no guilt. He’d asked for it.
Leaning her head back against the cushions, Julia analysed her feelings. She was in control now. The dynamics had shifted. Now Sue was the vulnerable one. She, Julia, had become more ruthless and determined than she had thought possible. She pressed her head hard against the back of the sofa, feeling her brain working, her thoughts becoming colder, more logical.
First of all, so overwhelmingly, that it would be top of her list until she’d found a way, she wanted revenge on Magnus. She would seek him out and corner him like a trapped animal. She would punish him, however long it took. The longer the better. The slower, the more painful and more shameful the better. The new Julia would have no compunction about what she did. She knew how to plan and execute a crime. She had already killed. Magnus would pay for the years of abuse and humiliation.
She visualised Magnus tied up and at her mercy. She would burn him, twist cigarettes out on his face, stub them into his eyes. She would cut him, in all the places that hurt the most. She would push him down into a bath of boiling water and hold his head under until he almost died. She shuddered with pleasure just thinking about it.
Next Julia’s thoughts turned to the woman who had turned her life upside down. Sue had snatched her at her most vulnerable moment, perhaps even saved her life. The intense attraction that had sprung up between them had forced her to become a new woman. A dangerous woman. The old Julia had gone. The darkness in Sue matched something similar in her, there was no escaping that. But she couldn’t save Sue. She had to save herself. She would have to cut out all sentiment and forget Sue if she was to survive. The new Julia knew there was only one person in this game. The murder of James Wilmot had changed everything. She would be the survivor. Much as she cared for Sue, she cared for herself more. There was no room for sloppy emotions in this game.
Sue had told her things she would rather not have heard. Some things she couldn’t begin to imagine even thinking about, let alone doing. But whatever she had done, however evil she’d been, no other person had ever touched Julia so intensely. But the time for sentiment was over. The new Julia wasn’t going to allow anything to stand in her way, not even Sue. Not even the thought of the two of them alone, in love, and far away from this poky blood-stained little town. It couldn’t happen. It was fairy-story stuff. Julia didn’t do fairy stories anymore.
After Sue’s suggestion that they go away together, Julia had taken her hand. ‘This isn’t a good plan, Sue,’ she’d said quietly. ‘I’m not the right person. Get away from here and start a new life, away from all this mess. You’ll do much better without me.’
‘I don’t want to do better without you.’
‘You don’t mean it. Look at the two of us. We’re from different worlds. I don’t even know what I want to do next. I’m still waiting to find out.’
‘For fuck’s sake,’ Sue cried. ‘You’re not thinking of going back to Johannesburg, are you? To that plastic life? All those charities and orchid shows. Do yourself a favour, Julia, get off it!’
‘Of course I’m not going back, don’t be crazy.’
Sue’s wounded face crumbled; she began to cry. She leaned her head against Julia’s shoulder and her body shook with sobs. Julia helped her to the nearest bed and propped her up on a pillow. She talked calmly to her until she quietened. It was the first time Julia had seen her vulnerable, and with it she felt the shift in the balance of power. After she’d recovered a little, Sue started talking about her past.
‘I’ve always been self-destructive – any shrink could tell you it must have something to do with my childhood,’ she said, lying on Julia’s bed, her bruised and swollen face resting on the white pillows.
‘I had a crappy childhood, crappy everything you can imagine. My mother ran away with hippy dropouts, all free love and fuck the consequences. She didn’t have a clue who my father was. My grandmother
brought me up. We lived in an inner city council estate in south-east London, where everyone drank, took drugs, had sex. I’m talking about kids here, heroin addicts as young as nine years old. Girls of twelve having abortions. It wasn’t that I didn’t enjoy playing chicken on the motorway, stealing rich kids’ bikes, setting things on fire. But it wasn’t a great start to life. No jobs waiting when you finished school – if you finished. No bright shiny university degree followed by a bright shiny future. No hope.’
‘But you’re so much more than your past,’ Julia said.
It was as if she hadn’t spoken. Despite her sore, twisted mouth, Sue wasn’t going to stop telling Julia these sad, horrifying things.
‘I used to fantasise that I had another family somewhere,’ Sue continued. ‘Perfectly ordinary people, the kind I saw at the supermarket, cousins who worked in shops and offices, uncles who mowed lawns at weekends, aunts who baked cakes. They all existed somewhere in my imagination. They were out there, looking for me. But they never turned up.’
Sue’s voice rose in pitch as she talked. She was near to tears again.
‘Everyone felt sorry for me with my third-hand school uniform and my weird pink hair, but they stopped feeling sorry when they caught me sucking the English master’s dick after class. They didn’t throw me out; I was only thirteen, so he got the bullet. Then I started a girl gang and we terrorised the neighbourhood. We performed cutting rituals before girls could join; really painful things. We even drank each other’s blood. We beat up old ladies, kidnapped kids and beat them up too. We stole things, set houses on fire by sticking petrol bombs through letter boxes.’
Julia’s stomach turned. She might be getting harder, but this was horrific to listen to.
‘Didn’t you ever have a decent boyfriend?’
‘Plenty of sex, but nothing you’d exactly call “decent”. I liked bad boys best. First abortion at fourteen, the second at sixteen, botched job, so it meant I’d never have kids. Not that I ever wanted them. I avoid love and all that crap.’
She lay silent for a moment.
‘You know what, Julia? I’ve always been the woman that bad, sick guys pick on. They’re like heat-seeking missiles, targeting me, screwing me up. But I’m over it. Men suck. I want a new life.’
Julia watched her intently. ‘How did Ollis Sando get such a hold over you?’
‘I guess I built up this fantasy world, where we were the stars, but it got out of hand and I couldn’t control it. I was the ideal plaything for Sando. Promiscuous, defenceless, no friends or family, ripe and ready for adventure. A true victim. Then everything started to go wrong.’
‘How?’
‘Sando wanted me to have sex with a Russian investor.’ Sue’s voice wavered. ‘It was bad. He was a monster. My wrists and ankles had rope burns for months afterwards. Sando hadn’t meant it to go as far as it did.’
‘What happened?’
‘I pushed him off a balcony.’
‘A balcony?’
‘The twelfth floor of the Michelangelo Hotel.
‘Oh, my God, Sue, I read about that in the newspaper. It was reported to be suicide. Wasn’t it headline news about a year ago?’
‘Yes,’ Sue turned away. ‘Sando fixed it, gave out the story that the guy was depressed.’
‘And now Sando’s blackmailing you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Couldn’t you call his bluff?’
‘He videoed it. The Russian broke two teeth and smashed my cheekbone. I had plastic surgery afterwards. You can see everything on the video, and it’s definitely me pushing the disgusting bastard off the balcony.’ After he’d untied me and was ready for some other perverted activity, I laced his drink with some sleeping pills, and then got him outside to look at the lights of Sandton. He was small, drugged and mean, so it wasn’t hard to tip him over.’
‘Oh, my God...’
‘Sando and I did such crazy things. I keep wondering if he meant it to go on for as long as it did. Did he want me to tell him to stop? I don’t know why I didn’t. Except that I loved all the darkness and violence too. I can’t deny that – try to make him out to be the only one who was twisted and sick. Maybe I need it in my life.’
‘You’ve got to see that Sando was the villain here, Sue, what a twisted creep. You were just another victim.’ Julia took Sue’s hand and kissed it. ‘Are you feeling better?’ She smoothed Sue’s hair back from her forehead.
‘The room keeps swimming in and out of focus. I need to sleep.’ Sue stroked Julia’s hand and looked up at her with such naked trust and affection that Julia felt a moment’s remorse for what was going to happen next.
‘Julia,’ Sue said, ‘I mean it, about us going away together. I hate sloppy stuff and all that crap, but you’re very important to me. I’ve never trusted anyone more.’
‘Thank you,’ Julia said. She lay on the bed with Sue, smoothing her hair, and holding her. But she already knew what she was going to do.
Thin, wintry morning light was streaming into the house. Julia washed her coffee cup, wiped down the sink and tidied up the kitchen before she returned to the bedroom. Sue was asleep in the narrow white bed, the bruises on her face a vivid contrast to the white sheets. Dark marks circled her throat in a purple band where Wilmot had choked her. But she was sleeping peacefully, her thumb in her mouth, like a child.
‘Goodbye, Sue, forgive me,’ Julia whispered as she bent down and kissed Sue lightly on the forehead. The Judas kiss.
Then she took the car and drove to the police station.
26
6 July 2006 – 8.00 a.m.
When I arrived at the police station, Julia McEwen was already in the interview room with Zak Khumalo and Director Mandile. I knew at a glance that this was the woman I’d seen at the arts festival. Sometimes being right was no pleasure at all. This was definitely one of those times. Under any other circumstances, this tall, elegant woman, dressed in a black tracksuit, would be on her way to gym for a workout with her personal trainer, but here she was, in the interview room of the Grahamstown police station. Not the best of settings. She looked cool, composed and unruffled as she faced us.
I introduced myself. Julia McEwen responded with a nod.
‘Please tell us your name,’ I said.
‘Julia Anne McEwen.’
‘Are you the wife of Magnus McEwen and is your address Bright Water, 91 The Fountains, Houghton, Johannesburg?’
‘Yes,’ Julia said calmly.
I watched her across the interview table. Her hands lay quietly in her lap. She wore diamond studs and her dark hair was short and spiky, following the graceful line of her neck. It didn’t seem possible that she could be involved in violent crime.
‘Why have you come here today?’
‘I’ve already told these officers. I’ve come to report that a man has been shot.’
Zak shifted in his chair. ‘Please, tell us what happened.’
I could see that Zak was unnerved by Julia McEwen’s calm, cool demeanour. I had to admit that I was too. But I believed that she was in deep shock. I had seen so many people after traumatic shootings or accidents, who had that weird aura of calm about them – as if they had been muffled in cotton wool.
‘Since I was taken hostage a few months ago, I’ve been living in this area with my – well, the person who abducted me. Last night we broke into the Bank of the Eastern Cape in the High Street. There was an... incident. The manager was killed in the vault. Accidentally.’
Zak pushed back his chair, its legs scraping the floor noisily. He looked at me, eyebrows raised. ‘Zak Khumalo, leaving the room at 08.45 hours,’ he said as he left.
‘May I have some water?’ Julia McEwen asked.
While I poured a glass from the water filter in the corner, I watched her staring blankly at the ceiling lights. I wanted dozens of questions answered. I passed Julia McEwen the glass and she lowered her eyes from the ceiling and gave me a cool, assessing look.
‘Thank you,’ she s
aid.
‘We want to hear about your abduction and what’s happened to you since. But before we get to that, please tell me what happened last night. My colleague Detective Inspector Khumalo has gone to visit the scene. He will be back shortly to corroborate your statement so please be as accurate as possible.’
‘We broke into the vault. The bank manager followed us. There was a struggle and the gun went off.’
‘Who pulled the trigger?’
The words curled in the air between them like dark smoke.
‘My abductor killed him.’
‘Please describe what happened.’
‘We were all struggling together. It was pitch dark. He attacked us. He could have called the police, or the security guards, but he attacked us. He fought us. My abductor had a gun and shot him.’
‘What about your abductor? Where was he standing?’
‘She. My abductor is a she.’
‘She? A woman?’
‘Yes. She was standing next to him with the gun. She pulled the trigger. Her name is Sue Kellon.’
Director Mandile drew in his breath sharply.
I almost smiled, Director Mandile had been made a fool of. After all the leads, all his important detective work, he’d been foiled by two white women. If Julia McEwen hadn’t handed herself in, he would still be out there looking for two black men.
Two hours later I emerged from the interview room. Some of my questions had been answered, but certainly not all of them.
Julia McEwen told us she had escaped from a house in a pan-handle off Graham Street in which she had been held captive, after the murder of James Wilmot. She explained that Kellon had been injured during the fight with Wilmot and wasn’t physically able to restrain her anymore. So she had taken her chance and escaped. She had remained calm and composed throughout the interview. Only once did she demand a lawyer, after she accused me of treating her like a suspect and not a victim. When I’d suggested contacting her husband she stared at me coldly. ‘That won’t be necessary,’ she said.
Now I See You Page 21
