by Jo Furniss
“Don’t touch me.” Her voice was muted behind clenched teeth.
Her father’s fingers dropped. “It’s me, Camille.”
“I know it’s you. Don’t touch me again.”
“We should have gone somewhere private.” He looked around as he said this, casting out blame on a line. “But Teddy said you didn’t trust him—”
“I was right not to trust him,” she said.
“He did me a favor. He owes me.”
“I owe you nothing.” Ed’s voice was low. “I was long gone when you got arrested.”
“Then you did it for money, Teddy. You’ll get your drug deal and buy your way out of whatever mess you’ve got yourself into. Shame I couldn’t buy my way out of nearly fifteen years in prison.”
“Did you just get out?” Camille asked.
“Last year.”
“Last year?” She caught the whine in her voice, hearing again the little girl who got told off for interrupting adult conversations with her childish inquiries. But now a spark of anger told her she wouldn’t wait for permission; she didn’t have to be seen and not heard anymore. She had a right to answers. “Why didn’t you contact me? Or Collin? He’s in—”
“Hong Kong. I thought you were better off not knowing.” He pointed at his withered arm. “Every day I was inside, your memory kept me alive. Even when they hurt me, I thought of you two, free and happy, and it kept me going.”
Camille pressed her palms against her skull, harder and harder, trying to stop herself from flying apart into a million pieces. Over the years, she’d added to the real memories of her father a little color, a little definition, a little delusion. She had redrawn him to her liking. Now, faced with the real man, she recognized her caricature for what it was; like the clients who wanted an archetypal Englishman, she had painted him into the role of a perfect father. But the person standing before her had put his family at risk, had left his kids to fend for themselves, had failed to contact her for a year. Still, he expected sympathy.
The lazy fan above their heads agitated their shadows. A hard laugh escaped her, a bitter shot to douse the tears. If Magnus Kemble knew his daughter at all, he would recognize that she did feel pity for him, but in the manner of a parent watching a child who can’t fasten his pants. “I’ve been looking for you for fifteen years,” she said, her voice calmer than she felt. “I didn’t know if you were dead or alive. That’s torture. That’s solitary confinement. Dreaming up ever more ludicrous fantasies until everyone thinks I’m as naive as a child. It’s a torment, living in hope. You could have stopped it at any time, written me a letter, made one phone call.”
He raised his hand to scratch an eyebrow with a thumbnail, a nervous tic that Collin shared. There was no wedding ring.
“Where is she?” Camille whispered. “Is she in prison? Is that why you’re still in Burma—are you waiting for her to get out?”
He scrubbed at his martyred eyes. “She died a month after we were arrested. Dengue, they said. They didn’t tell me for years. I took all this”—he waved to indicate his injuries—“thinking I was protecting her. But she’d been dead all along. That’s why I didn’t contact you before. Better not knowing. Better without me.”
“Better for you, maybe. Better to take the easy way out.” She thought of her mother saying she was the schmuck who had to muck out the boat. She recalled her whirling skirt as she zipped drugs into her children’s teddy bears. “She always did your dirty work. I bet you don’t have a clue how to survive without her.”
“I don’t,” he said, simply. “This is all I know—this world, this business.”
“Is that why you got in contact now? You think I might be of use to you? That I can help you because I work at the British High Commission?”
“Like I said before, this was Teddy’s idea. And when he came to me, I decided it was time you knew what happened to your mother.”
Camille turned away, pressing her thumbs into her eyeballs to compose herself as her anger dropped away, the final veil of dignity behind which she tried to hide. She was fully exposed and couldn’t fight the tears anymore. A hand squeezed her shoulder. Ed.
“I’m going to leave you now,” he said. “Give you some privacy.”
She looked up at a diluted version of his face. “There will be aftershocks.”
“You promised not to get angry or tearful.”
“Only if you didn’t seduce me. Turns out there’s more than one way to fuck someone.”
“I thought I was giving you what you wanted.”
Magnus Kemble stepped between them to slap Ed on the back. “I’m grateful, even if Camille isn’t so sure. We’ll be in touch.”
“The deal is on?”
“Consider yourself on standby.”
“This is a one-time thing. One consignment. I need the money by Friday. And then I’m never setting foot in fucking Burma ever again.”
“Myanmar, Teddy. It’s a different country now. New name, new rules.”
“Same old merchandise. Same old faces.”
“You seem happy to take the same old cash.”
“You think I’m here for my health?” Ed gestured at the man’s mangled arm as he walked away. “If you need me, I’m at the hotel. That whisky won’t drink itself.” He dropped a pile of soft notes onto the table before striding out the arched door into the temple lights.
Chapter 48
Amanda tasted the musty lipstick, pushing it around her mouth like Ed’s whisky-heavy tongue. She rubbed her lips together and pulled them back to reveal bloodied canines. The effect gave her a shudder. Of what, she thought? Fear? Excitement? Certainly adrenaline. The woman in the mirror was a force to be reckoned with. Call me Lizzy Skye.
She cracked the bedroom door and peeped down the corridor. Empty. She propped it open with a shoe and skittered along to the lift lobby, where a console table held a blue-and-white vase of orchids and a telephone. She pressed 1 for housekeeping and requested a turndown service for room 513. Right away, ma’am. She scooted back to her room.
No one stirred during the five minutes it took for a maid to arrive pushing a cart loaded with toiletries. Amanda used her hand mirror to watch the corridor. The maid tapped at room 513, waited a few seconds, and then used a card on a lanyard to unlock the door. Amanda mentally crossed off one option; she wouldn’t be able to steal an entry card from the cart.
Plan B.
She waited until the maid was inside and then walked along to the room, handbag under one arm.
“Excuse me,” Amanda said as she ducked inside.
“I’m sorry, ma’am.”
“Could you leave me, please?” she said, all breezy white privilege. “I need to lie down. Sunstroke.” The maid backed out and closed the door. Amanda pressed her hands and forehead against the wood, watching through the peephole the distorted image of the woman pushing the trolley toward the lift. She glanced into the bathroom, which smelled of citrus. On the marble unit beside the sink stood a bottle of clonazepam.
This has to end. Now.
Amanda went to the main room. The long windows were wide open, and the noise from the street below was as discordant as her heartbeat. The room was a crime scene. Blood everywhere—smeared across sheets, soaked into towels, a distinct handprint on one pillow. How could Ed be capable of such violence? And whoever he’d hurt like this—so much blood—how did he get her out of the hotel, past the receptionist who’d said the couple left together, who must have seen her with his own eyes?
Maybe this was just the start, and Ed planned to finish it later? But why would a woman return for more of this horror? She thought of the clonazepam in the bathroom. A sedative to make her compliant?
She’d seen enough. She had to stop it. At least save one more victim from him.
She gathered all the bottled water she could find, dropping an empty in the bin. The cheap wafer-thin bottles, Amanda knew, meant the lid could be pulled off without breaking the plastic seal. She did this now with o
ne bottle, holding it away from her body so the spillage was soaked up by the rug. She opened several bottles and left them beside the bed.
In the bathroom, she tipped a handful of clonazepam pills into the toothbrush mug. How many would be enough to slow him down? She tipped in a few more. Then she let the tap run until the water was steaming. She poured a dribble over the pills and left them to soften into mush. With a teaspoon, she got a good dose of clonazepam into each water bottle, shaking them to dissolve. She wiped the bottles clean with a flannel, placing one next to the bed, on the left: Ed’s side. One beside his toothbrush at the sink. One more on the console. Good. Maybe that would do it. A dose of his own medicine. Then she could work out what to do next.
But something bothered her. Ed wasn’t a big fan of water.
She looked around the room and spotted a black leather tray on the coffee table. It held a heavy glass and small ice bucket. And a small bottle of Japanese whisky, sealed with a cork. She unfolded a sheet of headed notepaper from the tray: Dear Mr. Bonham, The Management would like to thank you for your patronage of our hotel. Please enjoy this gift with our compliments, from all the staff at the Oriental. Amanda added the remainder of the clonazepam to the whisky and swirled it around before arranging the bottle on the tray.
Whisky or water. Choose your poison.
In the lobby, Amanda positioned herself behind a huge display of white lilies, hidden from sight but close enough to overhear the reception desk, where visitors came to complain about trivial matters in a persistent drone like mosquitoes. The cloying smell of the wilting flowers made her sneeze, and she fished in her handbag for a tissue, which came away smeared red like Ed’s bedsheets. Without using a mirror, she replenished her lipstick. The lobby hummed with activity, bodies moving along set routes in the manner of ants. The motion formed a central circle of empty space, an expanse of marble like a theater in the round, onto which Ed strode.
Her stomach flipped at the sight of him. It was the same feeling she’d had when she first saw him at that party in the Alps, corralled by women. A lost soul who needed rescuing. What a stupid fantasy, she thought. I’m the one who was waiting to be rescued. All her blustering about independence. All her pride. Her resentment of the famous—infamous—Dependant’s Pass. She’d always been ready to cast herself as damsel in distress. The victim who ran into the arms of the wolf. She and Ed relished their roles of predator and prey, the only two with reason to stray from the path.
Now, he commanded the stage, strolling toward reception—toward Amanda—while talking on the phone.
“Listen, Jo-Jo, I’ll be there when you get home from the sleepover tomorrow. I’m catching the red-eye.”
He listened. Eyes on the lilies, but unseeing.
“Jo-Jo—”
Nodding.
“Josie—”
Thumbs pressing into his eyes.
“We can talk about the new school later. I’m at the hotel, packing to leave.”
He held the phone away from his mouth so Josie couldn’t hear his exasperated sigh.
“I’m in my room, right now, packing. Where’s Amanda?”
Listening.
“When you see her, tell her I love her.”
A beat.
“I know you always tell her. And I love you too. Bye.”
A beat.
“Bye.”
Ed put the phone in his pocket and rolled his eyes at the receptionist, smiling.
“There was a woman asking for you, sir.”
Amanda shrank deeper into her seat. Bloody hotel staff were too good.
“Was she young and beautiful?” Ed asked.
The receptionist laughed. “They are all beautiful, sir.”
“True enough. Was it Camille?”
Amanda sat up higher. Camille Kemble? That little troublemaker.
The receptionist shook his head and tapped at the computer. “Ah, no, sir. It was a Mrs. . . . Miss Elizabeth Arina Skye.”
“No idea who that is.” Ed shrugged, unconcerned.
“And you had a message from Mr. Magnus—”
“Magnus Kemble?”
The receptionist’s eyes flicked up. Amanda couldn’t read the significance of the look: admiration or alarm? Both.
“It’s okay; he won’t come here, bringing your establishment into disrepute.” Ed waggled his eyebrows to show he was joking, but as he turned away, the receptionist started whispering to a colleague. Amanda ignored them and watched Ed walk into the waiting maw of the lift. None of it made sense. Was Camille Kemble’s blood spattered across the room? Ed had said he would do anything to stop her domestic worker campaign. Pest control, he called it that night at the restaurant. Or maybe he’d just taken a fancy to her, chosen her as his victim. But seeing him in action with the receptionist . . . he was the same as ever. The same cocky, charming Ed. She had expected to find him unrecognizable from the man she knew: a psychopath, hiding behind a mask. Instead, this felt like any holiday they’d ever taken; Amanda waiting in the lobby while he joshed with the staff. And what had he said to Josie on the phone? If you see Amanda, tell her I love her. And then: I know you always tell her.
Josie had never one single time passed on a message from Ed. Not once.
Amanda jolted, knocking one of the lilies, which released a shower of rusty pollen. As she pulled out her phone, she heard Ed’s voice again. I know you always tell her. Although Amanda never felt she knew Josie, not really, she assumed Ed did. But if he didn’t know his daughter—if he took her for an innocent despite all the evidence to the contrary—then who knew the real Josie?
The phone came to life, and Amanda thought, Screw anonymity. Self-preservation gave way to survival instinct. She had to know what Josie was doing. For the first time in days, she felt sure about something: This is all about Josie.
00 days, 01 hour, 05 minutes.
And another new post. Her third in one day. A drawing of a bird, a sparrow. Jo-Jo Sparrow, Amanda thought. Jo-Jo Fucking Sparrow. She jabbed the delicate bird hard enough to knock it from the sky.
In the future: It’s D-Day, so nothing.
In the past: Everything. Even the future.
Post 10 of 10: The Final Moment
Teddy and my mother tussle for long seconds on the bare earth of the cliff top. Then she bends toward the dishwater sea, almost pulling him over the edge, and he is forced to retreat. He rights himself while she stays down, staring into the waves. It looks to me as though an invisible person way down on the beach has her by a cord around the neck. Like she’s a kite. Or a dog. She waits, cowering, a dog on a lead.
Something in Teddy returns, and he grabs her arms once more, this time pulling her back from the edge. He lifts and carries her, toes dragging two lines in the dirt, to the safety of the grass. They stand there, panting. When she finally raises her head and looks him in the face, he reaches out to her for the last time, but only to throw her to the ground. She sprawls under her mess of tangled hair, while he wipes his hand over his face. He is wet with sea spume; we all are. I can see that he wants to say something, but it hurts too much. He told me once that feelings cut you from the inside. We both hurt him, my mother and I, with our sharp feelings. He takes a step toward the cliff edge—I almost run to him—but then he stops and strides away down the hill. The buffeting wind covers the scramble of my feet as I skirt around the gorse bush so he doesn’t see me hiding there.
As Teddy disappears around the bend in the path, she gets to her feet. I watch a peregrine falcon, fighting to hover in the wind. Its tail dips side to side, but it doesn’t waver; it has spotted prey and only needs to wait for the right moment. Then it drops like a stone, its body tucked into the shape of a teardrop. I walk to where my mother is brushing her clothes clean of dirt and droppings.
“What did Teddy mean?” My voice startles her. “When he said he wouldn’t do it again?”
She collects all the flailing strands of her hair and pulls up her hood, forcing them inside.
�
�Did he mean he wouldn’t raise another man’s child again?”
“Josie—”
“He’s not my father.”
“Josie—”
“When were you going to tell me?”
“He is your father. He adopted you at birth. He loves you.” She looks at me slyly. “Sometimes I think too much.”
I kick at the dirt, but we’re too far back for it to go over the edge. “How can you love someone too much?” I ask. “Surely any amount is better than not enough.”
“Jo-Jo—”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Josie, does he touch you?” She comes toward me and puts her hands on my wrists. Her fingers are hot. Her pulse is bouncing. She’s getting a thrill out of this.
“Why are you asking me now?” I say.
Her eyes skate over mine.
“I’ve lived with him for ages,” I say. “If you think he’s a, whatever you’re trying to suggest—pedo—why did you leave me with him?”
“Please answer the question, Josie. I’ve been too frightened to ask before. Because I didn’t know what to do if you said yes. And I’m sorry for that. But after the way he was just then, pushing me toward the edge—you saw him—I know he’s capable of anything. I didn’t realize it before, but he is. And I’m here now. I can help you. So does he? Touch you?” She’s squeezing my wrists in her hot hands.
“Don’t be disgusting.” I pull away from her. “He’d never hurt me.” I walk onto the spit of land where it points to the sky.
“Come away from the edge, Josie, please.”
“Are you going to keep this baby?”
Way down below, the ribs of a shipwrecked boat protrude from the murk. The tide must be going out. Rocks are emerging.
“Can we go home and talk? In the warm.” Her voice shivers. She’s in shock, I think. “It’s such a long way down the hillside. I’m not sure I can make it.”
“You’ll get down. I’ll help you.”
She comes closer, standing beside me on the cliff top.
“I want to know about the baby. What you’re going to do with it.”
“Her. It’s a girl.”
We watch a gray wave race to shore. I brace myself for the impact, but it comes to nothing on the beach.
