Crossing the Lines

by Sulari Gentill

  “What happened to the sheets?” he asked. “I threw them in the washing machine.”

  “I hung them out when I came home. They’re back in the linen cupboard now,” Madeleine said, hoping he wouldn’t look.

  “Goodo.” Hugh strode back into the kitchen. He seemed more relaxed than Madeleine has seen him in a long while. Fleetingly, she wondered if it was relief. “Bacon and eggs for dinner?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Sure.”

  Hugh didn’t go back into the office that evening. Instead, they watched television, a movie, and two sitcoms, and ate shortbread dunked in tea. And Madeleine remembered how happy they had once been.

  When finally they retired, Madeleine pressed close to him, her leg rubbing a quiet invitation against his. They talked about politics, the most recent skirmish between parties, then Hugh reminded her that she had an appointment with Dr. McCauley the following day, and rolled over to sleep. For a while, Madeleine listened to his breathing. Only when the rhythm slowed to a gentle snore did she accept that he was really asleep, that he intended nothing more. The disappointment was humiliating in itself. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected, but even as he lay beside her, she felt abandoned. And sleep would not come.

  Madeleine slipped out of bed and into the drawing room where she found her laptop and the company of Edward McGinnity.

  ***

  It was not yet nine in the morning when Madeleine knocked on her father’s door. Her grandmother answered in a dressing gown. “Ahhh, Harijini…come in, come in Pu-thaa. I’m still in my housecoat.” The old woman smoothed her long grey plait. “Has something happened?”

  “No, Aach-chi, I have an appointment later. I just wanted to see Dad first.”

  “He’s drinking his tea. Come, come, shall I make you something to eat?”

  “I don’t suppose you’re making dosa, Aach-chi?” Madeleine asked, knowing her grandmother would now do so, and that the pancakes would take a while to prepare. She wanted to speak to her father alone.

  “Hello, Dad.” Madeleine kissed her father and took the chair beside him. He poured her a cup of tea.

  “What brings you here, Madeleine? How is Hugh?”

  “Hugh’s fine, Dad. I need your help with something I’m writing.”

  The old man beamed. He loved being involved in his daughter’s books.

  “It’s a bit sensitive,” she warned. “Do you know a doctor who could test a bloodstain for me?”

  “A bloodstain?”

  “Yes, it has to do with something I’m working on, but I can’t really tell you much more. I have a bloodstained sheet that I need tested.”

  “Tested—for what?”

  The sizzle of dosa being fried in a well-oiled pan came from the kitchen as Madeleine tried to explain. “What they can easily tell me…blood type, whether it’s human, that sort of thing, and where it might have come from.”

  “What has this to do with your writing?”

  “It’s kind of an experiment. Do you know anyone, Dad?” Madeleine knew the Sri Lankan expatriate community was full of doctors, most of whom had their tax returns done by her father. She pulled the sheet out of her bag, folded, wrapped in plastic.

  “Is this legal?” her father asked, alarmed.

  “Yes, of course. It’s not from a crime scene,” she said, with almost complete certainty. “If you could find someone who was willing to test it and write down exactly what they did to test it, then I could recreate the process in my story.” Madeleine didn’t need or want an account of the process, but it was the only thing she could think of which would make the request seem vaguely related to her writing.

  “Asoka Wickramaratne runs a laboratory. I’ll ask him if he can do something.”

  “Thank you, Dad.”

  “Madeleine, where did you get this cloth?”

  “An informant,” she said. “I really can’t say any more.”

  “Has someone been injured?”

  “I hope not. Will you just do this for me, Daddy? No questions. It’s important.”

  Elmo Dhanusinghe sighed, but he agreed. His daughter was a lawyer—he accepted that she knew what she was doing, however odd the request seemed. “You look tired, Madeleine.”

  “I’ve been working a lot,” she said. “I’ll sleep in a bit when this book is finished.”

  Elmo sighed. “I think this will be the book.”

  “I think so, too,” Madeleine said, not because she believed or even wanted it to be true, but because it made her father happy to think so.

  ***

  Ian Denholm returned with Bourke and O’Neil. Denholm took the seat beside Edward, the detectives sat opposite.

  “How’s Kaufman?” Edward spoke to his lawyer.

  Bourke replied. “Mr. Kaufman is out of surgery, but it will be a few hours before we can talk to him.”

  “I see.”

  “Ms. Meriwether has, however, given a statement. Mr. Denholm has convinced us that it might be time to take yours.”

  Edward glanced at Denholm. The lawyer nodded. “Go ahead, Ned. It’s time to set the record straight.”

  Edward answered Bourke’s questions, detailing and explaining the events which resulted in the hospitalisation of Elliot Kaufman.

  “So you claim you were trying to render assistance to Mr. Kaufman?” Bourke asked.

  “There was blood everywhere. I was trying to put pressure on the wound.”

  “And what was Ms. Meriwether doing at this time?”

  “She was trying to pull me off.”

  “Why?”

  “I suppose she didn’t realise I was trying to help him.”

  “Why would she think you were attacking her husband?”

  “She was hysterical.”

  “Would it surprise you to know, Mr. McGinnity, that Ms. Meriwether says in her statement that you stabbed Mr. Kaufman with your fountain pen?”

  That it surprised him was obvious. Edward pulled back from the interview table shocked, puzzled. He shook his head. “She couldn’t have said that.”

  O’Neil pushed across a copy of Willow Meriwether’s signed statement. Edward scanned it quickly at first, and then slowly as if a careful reading would change its meaning. He pushed the paper back. “She couldn’t have seen that. It’s not what happened.”

  “Why would she lie, Mr. McGinnity?”

  “I don’t know…maybe she’s confused. It all happened so quickly.”

  “Could it be that you’re confused, Mr. McGinnity?”

  “No.”

  “Then you are lying.”

  “No.”

  Denholm intervened. “It seems to me, gentlemen, that you have nothing other than the unsubstantiated allegation of a hysterical young woman on which to detain my client.”

  “Your client’s fingerprints were on the fountain pen, Mr. Denholm.”

  “It was his pen. He used it earlier today. And surely if my client had plunged the pen into Mr. Kaufman’s neck you would expect his palm and not his fingerprints.”

  “Have you examined the security footage?” Edward asked the detectives suddenly.

  “What security footage?”

  “The security system…my agent had it installed after the break-in. Every room in my house is monitored.”

  Bourke made a note. “We’ll look into that. In the meantime, can you tell us what you and Ms. Meriwether were arguing about?”

  Edward hesitated. “I was informing Ms. Meriwether about one of her husband’s vices. She didn’t want to hear it.”

  Bourke glanced at his colleague. O’Neil raised his brow. Clearly they had made some assumptions about the nature of the vice. Edward didn’t bother to disillusion them.

  “Why?” Bourke asked.

  “Because he’s her husband, I expect.”

  �
�I meant why did you feel the need to tell her? Surely, it was between them?”

  “I suspected that Elliot Kaufman was using steroids,” Edward said irritated, defensive. “I was concerned that any resultant volatility in his mood might place her in danger.”

  “What is the exact nature of your relationship with Ms. Meriwether?” Bourke sounded almost bored now.

  “I’ve already answered that question, Detective. Ms. Meriwether and I are friends. We are not involved in any other way.”

  There were no new questions after that, though the interview continued for another hour. At that point, Ian Denholm became impatient and demanded that the detectives either charge his client or release him. They elected to release him.

  Possession

  Edward dropped the shopping bags and fell spreadeagled into a bed so tautly made the weight of a grown man barely caused a wrinkle. The superior suite was large, elegantly appointed and, in its particular favour, quite free of blood. His own house was once again a crime scene, being cordoned off, examined, bagged, and labelled—its owner, excluded. The clothes Edward McGinnity had been wearing had been retained by the police. His wallet and the other contents of his pockets, aside from his phone, had been returned to him in a large paper envelope. As a result, he’d been able to purchase some exorbitantly priced polo shirts and jeans at the exclusive arcade in the foyer.

  Rousing, Edward rolled off the bed and divested himself of the overalls he’d been given when his clothes were taken as evidence. He showered and shaved using the complimentary hotel toiletry pack before he called Leith Henry.

  “No, I’m okay. I’m staying at The Warwick,” he said as she exploded with concern and outrage. “You don’t need to come, Leith. I’m just going to go to sleep and deal with it in the morning.”

  He argued with her for a time, assuring her that he was fine, that there was no point in dropping everything and rushing over. She wanted to know details. He promised to recount it all in minutiae the next day.

  Edward put down the receiver. It was quiet. Not just audibly, but visually. Surrounded by tasteful, unobtrusive colours, uncommitted décor designed to soothe, he was nevertheless beset by a churning restlessness. Agitated, Edward contemplated seeking some ease of mind in the minibar, before he turned back to take the hotel stationery and pen from the table beside the phone. Everything, it seemed, was going to hell. He’d lost Willow, he couldn’t ring Andy, and suddenly his life was full of detectives and violence and allegations. It was not as he would have written it, but then, this was not his doing. He needed to regain some control, a grip on whatever rudder was his to grasp. And so he wrote.

  ***

  Madeleine wasn’t sure why she told Dr. McCauley about the bloodstained sheets. Perhaps it was just that she needed something to say. Whenever conversation faltered, the psychiatrist only seemed to write more furiously in his notes. It unnerved her. What could he be writing when she wasn’t saying anything? And so she kept talking because then at least, she presumed, he’d be writing what she said.

  “Why did you not just ask Hugh about the stain?” McCauley posed in response.

  “I don’t know…” Madeleine already regretted keenly that she’d mentioned it.

  “Do you imagine that the stain could be sinister in some way?”

  “I’m not sure. He didn’t mention it.”

  “So you feel he’s being secretive?”

  “I just thought he’d mention it.”

  McCauley made a note. “Perhaps Hugh was simply embarrassed that he’d soiled the sheets.”

  “We’re talking about blood, not bed-wetting,” Madeleine said, exasperated.

  “So you make a distinction between bodily fluids?”

  “Just blood.”

  “You seem to be getting a little agitated, Madeleine. Would you say you’re feeling anxious?”

  “No, I’m not anxious.” The psychiatrist was making her anxious but surely that didn’t count.

  “You write crime fiction, do you not?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “I wonder if the violent themes you explore in your work are not having an influence here. Do you think that perhaps you are subconsciously turning a mundane mishap into something menacing and suspicious?”

  For a moment, Madeleine floundered. “No.”

  He smiled at her. “If you were completely honest, Madeleine, wouldn’t you say that you’re responding to this stain as if you were your own hero”—he flicked through his notes—“Edward McGinnity, private eye?”

  Madeleine cringed. Private eye? For God’s sake! “That’s insane. No.”

  McCauley wrote a few notes, his brow furrowing down over his eyes. After a time, he looked up again. “Tell me, are you still having trouble sleeping?”

  “No,” Madeleine said quickly.

  “Hmmm.” He looked closely at her face and made one more note.

  Madeleine felt a slight flutter of panic. Her father had said she looked tired. Perhaps that’s what McCauley saw, too. “I have been working late, but that’s because I want to finish this book, not because I can’t sleep.”

  “Insomnia is nothing to be ashamed of, Madeleine. You don’t need to make excuses, just to acknowledge and deal with it.”

  “I’m not—”

  “I’d like you to keep a sleep diary, Madeleine. Just write down each day what time you go to bed, when you get up, and what part of that time you actually slept.”

  “But—”

  “I’d really like you to work with me on this, Madeleine. Surely it’s not too much to ask for the sake of your health.”

  Madeleine was beginning to hate McCauley. “Yes, of course. I’ll keep a diary.”

  ***

  Madeleine was cursing by the time she got out to her car. She wiped away enraged tears with her sleeve, frustrated that her fury would choose to express itself this way, that she couldn’t stop the collapse, however many calming breaths she took. Madeleine wanted to be haughty, disdainful. She didn’t want to cry. McCauley was a smug, condescending bastard! She wasn’t going back. She just wouldn’t. Who did Hugh think he was insisting she see that sanctimonious buffoon? God, how Edward would hate McCauley. She could see him putting the psychiatrist in his place.

  In this thunderous frame, Madeleine pulled into her pebbled driveway, neither surprised nor disappointed that Hugh wasn’t home. Throwing her bag at the couch on the way through, she sat on her bed and wept. It was a confused grief, a black choking soup of insult, disenchantment, and fear. She wanted to stamp her foot, to hit back…but at what, she didn’t really know.

  The laptop sat on her bedside table and Madeleine reached instinctively for it—refuge, the chance to hide in another life. She ran a hand over the aluminium casing, comforted, a gentle easing of the mind, a perceptible slowing of the breath. For a flickering moment she wondered if McCauley was right…was writing her alcohol? Was she anaesthetising herself from her own life? The thought was fleeting, subsumed by a swell of resentment which broke and pounded the memory of McCauley and any possibility of the worth of his counsel.

  The bloody sheets played on her mind. They just didn’t make sense. As far as she could tell, Hugh had not cut himself. It could have been a nosebleed, she supposed, but why hadn’t he mentioned it? And what had he been doing in bed in the middle of the day? Even so, she deeply regretted mentioning the sheets to the psychiatrist. It seemed petty and it was a betrayal of Hugh. Madeleine knew that and she was certain McCauley did too. It frightened her that McCauley was aware of this lapse, this weakness in her marriage and her character.

  Madeleine lay back on the bed. Edward lay beside her. She knew that she was daring madness to take her, but right then she cared little. She was defiant now. This was her mind, and she would invite into it anyone she pleased. And Edward McGinnity pleased her. My God, he pleased her.

  Ed
ward, too, knew he was courting disaster. But in the anonymous solitude of the hotel room with his own life turning against him, he longed for her company. Not to write, specifically, as much as be with her. He made love to her because he wanted to, regardless of what effect it would have on the story he was crafting for Madeleine d’Leon.

  “I could stop thinking about you tomorrow,” Madeleine whispered, staring past his shoulder at the ceiling.

  “Could you?” he murmured.

  “Yes, it’s just imagination if you can stop. Delusion has a life of its own.”

  “I see. Will you stop?”

  “I don’t want to. I just meant that I could. There’s nothing wrong with me.”

  “Hmmm, but what’s wrong with me?”

  She trailed her finger idly across his chest. “You? That’s easy, you’re slumming it in this genre so you can understand the mind of a crime-writer. You literary types go to ridiculous lengths for authenticity.”

  He laughed. She left her hand on his chest as he did so, embracing the open warmth of his laughter. It was so natural to be with him. There was no chance of misunderstanding…he lived in her head, after all.

  “What are you going to do now?” she smiled as she noticed the yellow Vauxhall Cresta on the bedside table.

  He kissed her shoulder. “About what?”

  “About Willow’s allegation.”

  Edward rolled onto his back and closed his eyes. “I don’t know, Maddie. I don’t understand why she…” He shook his head.

  Madeleine propped herself up on one elbow and gazed at him.

  “Do you know?” he asked.

  “Not yet. Maybe that’s what she thought she saw, Ned. It was all very confused.”

  “She said I stabbed him!”

  “Eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable—and not because people are lying.”

  “I wish I hadn’t said anything. I should have known.”

  Madeleine sat up. His sadness prickled, reminded her that Willow Meriwether was the love she’d written for him. Suddenly she wondered about her own motives.

  “Were you surprised?” she asked quietly. “That Willow didn’t believe you, that she took Elliot’s side? Was it out of character?”