The Polka Dot Girl

by Darragh McManus

  Etienne’s assistant Kim, a thin girl with an electric shock of corkscrew curls, eased open the door and placed a tray on the desk: coffee, sugar, cream. She smiled at me and exited without a word. Etienne did the needful, sweetening and coloring our coffees without asking me how I took mine. I didn’t correct her, I just wanted something hot inside me.

  The Chief took a short sip and heaved a long sigh. “I know, Auf der Maur. In all probability you’re right. But that won’t stop me having regrets about this one for a long time.” She smiled ruefully into space. “The responsibilities of the job, I suppose.”

  I said urgently, “Ma’am, I will get her. That psycho Baton, I’ve got the word out. I’ll find her and nail her for the lot of them.”

  “You sound confident. I’m glad.”

  “I am confident.” My voice, thankfully, held a conviction my soul had yet to fully embrace.

  “Alright. What else?”

  “Okay. This is the big one. I still have no solid evidence— nothing we can use in court—but Azura LaVey is involved. I’m not sure exactly how or how deeply, but she is. I’m stone sure of it. But, like I say…evidence, or lack of. Not enough for a search warrant. Probably not even enough to bring her in for questioning.”

  “Why so? What’s stopping us?”

  “LaVey is a powerful woman. She’s got powerful friends, she’s well-connected… I mean, we could. Just drag her in here, let her sit in a cell for a while, let her get uncomfortable… See how the gracious educator would react to that. But I don’t know, Chief. It could whip up a shit-storm for us. For you. Pardon my language.”

  Etienne nodded, mulling it over. She drained her coffee, head leaning back, almost looking at the ceiling. She delicately replaced her cup on its saucer and said, “I am… At this point I’m almost willing to say ‘fuck it’ and just bring LaVey in. Yes, Auf der Maur, I said ‘fuck.’”

  She wasn’t smiling, which just made the whole thing funnier. I laughed, spluttering coffee, and said, “You cracked a joke. To be honest, I mean, that’s what’s really caught me off-guard.”

  “Mm, well… I have been known to make jokes from time to time. Terrible ones, my daughter insists. Anyway, yes, Azura LaVey. You’re right, she does know powerful people. Our own Chief of Police Ealing is in the same tennis club. And yet I’m inclined to disregard all that anyway, and bring her down here. Like you say, let her sweat in a cell for a while. See if she cracks.”

  “Chief, I appreciate it, but I’m not sure. She’s clever too, Azura. Cunning. Like that lunatic Baton. Go for her now and it could spook the horses, you know? She’d close off all the avenues then, and we’d never know… Give me another few days. Three days, tops. If this thing isn’t done and done by then, we’ll haul her in. What do you think?”

  “Fine. You’ve got three days.” She paused. “I hope you’re right, Auf der Maur. About how to play this. I really do.”

  “Yes, Ma’am. So do I.”

  Etienne turned to her paperwork. I was dismissed, and left.

  “The dead arose and spoke to many. Finally, we get to talk.”

  I had tried my best to keep the sarcasm from my voice but I’m sure it leaked out somewhere, out the side maybe, dribbling past the edge of my words. But how could I not be sarcastic? After several days of chasing her, Odette had actually phoned me. I simultaneously felt relieved, happy, embittered…and bewildered at why I simultaneously felt relieved, happy and embittered. I’d been at my desk a bare five minutes when the call came through and her soft, unhurried tones were there on the other end, whispering in my ear: “Genie. It’s Odette. How have you been?” Which is where my sarcasm came in. She dealt with it graciously enough, saying, “I’m sorry, have you been looking for me?”

  I spluttered, “Have I been…? Yeah, Odette, I’ve been looking for you. For days.”

  “Oh, I am sorry. I didn’t… I must have missed your message.” My face reddened as I recalled my very deliberate decision not to leave a message: phone, note or any other kind. So what the fuck gives you the right to be annoyed with her, Genie? How was she supposed to know you wanted to talk—by telepathy or osmosis, or maybe just a hunch?

  I quit chiding myself and chiding her, and said, “Uh, yeah. Yeah, those things, those machines… Look, we’re talking now so let’s, you know. Let’s crack on with it, huh?”

  “Sure. How can I help the Hera City police? This is about work, I presume?”

  “It is. It is. Uh, it’s about Madeleine Greenhill. I need to ask you a few things. About you and her.”

  A moment of flat silence, then Odette said, “Of course, yes, anything you need. Any way I can help, Genie.”

  “Cool. Alright.”

  I hesitated, unsure how to start, how to broach the subject. A possible can of worms, a Pandora’s box, a hell of a mess. Did I really want to open something like that? But the question was pointless, I didn’t have a choice.

  I took a deep breath and said, “When did you last see Madeleine?”

  “When did I last see her…? Hmm. I’d say maybe…two-and-a- half years ago.”

  “Two-and-a-half years. You’re sure about that?”

  “Mm-hm. Yes. She started taking music lessons aged 17 and she stopped coming to me after about six months. So, yes, I think that’s about right. But I could check my diary if you need me to be more exact.”

  I said quietly, “Right. It’s just that, uh, I have information that you and her remained acquaintances after that. After the music thing ended. That you saw her fairly regularly, actually. Up until quite recently.”

  “You… Hmm. How odd. That someone would say that. May I…? Do I know the person who told you this?” “I don’t think so. Is it true, Odette?”

  “No, it certainly is not true, Genie. It’s completely untrue. Who…? Sorry, I shouldn’t ask you that.”

  “So you haven’t seen Madeleine Greenhill recently.” “No.”

  “Well, maybe you’ve met someone she might have known. Mutual acquaintances, people like that.”

  “No. That is, not to my knowledge.You do believe me, don’t you?”

  “I’m just doing my job here, Odette. Asking questions and doing my job.”

  “But you believe me? You, the Genie I used to live with. Not Detective Auf der Maur. You believe me.”

  Did I believe her? I suppose so. I mean, I had no reason not to. And I suddenly realized it didn’t really matter anyway. Odette had nothing to do with this, Misery’s information was all screwy, someone got a hold of something all wrong and twisted it into a relationship that obviously didn’t exist.

  “Odette, that’s fine. That’s all I needed to know. You say you didn’t have any connection to Madeleine, it’s good enough for me. So, uh, we’re done. I’ve no more questions.”

  She sighed, clearly relieved. “Thank you, Genie.”

  “Sure. Listen, I got a shit-load of things to do. I’m gonna have to bail on you.”

  “That’s alright. I know you’re busy with this investigation, such a big crime after all… So how is it going anyway? Your case.”

  “Um…okay. You know, slow and steady. We’re getting there.” “And how are you? You’re on top of things?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I guess so, yeah. Things are—a little crazy sometimes. I, ah…” I laughed. “Ha! You wanna hear a funny story?”

  “One of your grisly cop tales, no doubt,” Odette said playfully. “Go ahead.”

  “The day I called to Datlow? After we spoke, you remember, I was telling you about Madeleine. Anyway, that day. After you’d gone back upstairs I turned back onto the street and, ah…someone tried to run me over. Swear to God. So whaddya think of them apples?”

  I laughed again. Odette gasped in shock. “Oh my God! Genie! Are you alright? I mean, of course you’re alright, you’re talking to me now. But seriously. Someone tried to kill you? What happened?”

  “Not much. She basically, this crazy bitch gunned her car for me. Big mother of a thing. Engine sounded like an art
iculated truck. I dived out of the way, fired off a few shots, she skedaddled. And all this right outside your door. On prosperous Datlow Street. What would the neighbors think!?”

  “And did you catch her?”

  “Nah, she… I know who it was, though. She broke through the traffic, I was on foot. So I didn’t get her that day. But I will. I hope.”

  “Uh-huh… Well, me too, I hope you catch this—maniac. My God… Well, here’s hoping you find her. Or her car, maybe. I’m sure there can’t be that many cars with a stick shift in Hera. Most use automatic, don’t they?”

  It felt like my blood had suddenly chilled, like something from the cheesy vampire stories I devoured as a child. As though someone had injected below-zero dry ice into my veins. I felt a cold, pure horror descend on me as I realized: I hadn’t told Odette that Erika Baton drove a car with a manual gear-stick. She knows.

  I whispered, “What did you just say?”

  “I said I hope you catch her. Because, you know, attacking a police officer… This woman is obviously a menace. A very dangerous person.”

  I thought hard, running it through the circuits in my head faster than the speed of light, and came back to the same conclusion again and again: she knows. Odette knows. And by extension Odette is involved—in the killing of Madeleine and the attempt on my life.

  No. It couldn’t be. This is madness, I told myself, not really heeding it at the same time. Odette’s a goddamn music teacher. She’s a well-bred princess, she likes haute cuisine and scouting for antique furniture and reading ostentatiously obscure novels. She does Pilates, for Christ’s sake, she laughs at her horoscope in the paper and her mother is one of Hera’s most renowned charity dames. This is Odette, dumb-ass. The woman you shared a home and a life with. The woman you loved, and maybe still love.

  I must have misheard. That’s it, some wicked little part of me wanted to hear her say something damning and I heard it. I thought I heard it. But she never said it. Except she did. I think she did. Oh, shit.

  She was speaking again: “…you okay? Genie. Are you okay? You’ve gone awfully silent.”

  I replied on auto-pilot, mumbling some trite deflection, some bullshit excuse that I don’t remember exactly. Then Odette was saying goodbye and hanging up the phone. The pips sounded in my ear and withdrew to nothingness as I sat there, dumbstruck, receiver in my hand, a fearful hammering in my heart.

  I still didn’t want to believe it but a part of me believed it. My head was in denial, my gut screaming to be heard. She knows. She’s involved. This woman you loved for three years tried to have you killed.

  It couldn’t be true. There had to be another explanation. I hadn’t a clue what that might have been, but there had to be one. I needed there to be another explanation, something that made sense out of all this, something that made me slap my head and smile and say, “Ah! Of course! How stupid I’ve been, how could I ever have doubted her?”

  I needed that badly, like a drug. In fact I needed an actual drug but I didn’t do drugs, so I needed a drink. I needed to get out of there and fix one. So I got out, stumbling to my car and driving home in a horrified daze.

  Chapter 22

  Rose

  BY the time I’d skulled my second whiskey I’d decided: I would let this Odette thing lie for the moment. No telling Etienne, no telling Cella, nobody. I needed to know myself for sure, and I’d no way of doing that just yet. The thought of wrongly accusing her of something so heinous, so enormous… Our relationship was dead in the water—I finally accepted it—but that didn’t mean a potential friendship had to be strangled at birth. And besides, what practical different would arresting Odette make? If she was involved, she’d clam up and say nothing, and worse, serve as a warning to the others that we were closing in. If she wasn’t, well… The consequences of that particular fuck-up could reverberate for the ages. Anyway, Odette wasn’t the ringmaster here; however she was connected to all this, surely it was tangential at worst. Maybe she’d become mixed-up in something, an innocent standing on the edges, just more collateral damage in this bloody war…

  Nah, I didn’t really believe it myself, either. And yet I didn’t act on it. I couldn’t. Something stopped me, some hesitancy, some bind with the past. I needed to know for sure. For her sake, and for mine.

  I lit another cigarette and let a third splash of whiskey fall into the china cup. My apartment was dim, cold and depressing—perfect surroundings in which to drink myself miserable. I thought about turning on the gas heating but decided against it. I felt like I deserved to sit here, in this broken- down old armchair and this chilly, gloomy place. It felt appro- priate to my mood, and that mood was black.

  Too black. I was in danger of drowning in it, being swamped in regrets and conflicting impulses and booze-sodden self-indul- gence. When you don’t know what to do, my mom used say, just do something. The act of beginning creates its own narrative. So get back out there, Genie. Get back in the game.

  I drained the last of the whiskey and cradled the empty cup in my hands. I’d purchased this china tea-set in a charity shop for next to nothing, along with a scuffed suede jacket, a book of surrealist poetry and a lamp-shade that I hadn’t yet got around to buying a lamp for. The cup had a design on the side, like chinaware often does; a delicate illustration of a flower, a lovely, simple blossom, a daffodil or buttercup. Click: a light went on. Buttercup—that’s what Poison Rose’s trick had called her the night of Madeleine’s murder. What Erika Baton had whispered to me as she leaned over to end my life. So, another tick in Erika’s “guilty” account.

  I thought about Rose then. I pictured her stumbling from that sordid encounter in a dockside alleyway, maybe taking a nip from her ever-present alcoholic crutch, looking around for more trade, hoping for more but unlikely to find it. I saw her enter Whinlatter, lurch towards the water, swaying, looking sick and destitute, then… Then she sees Madeleine’s body, floating on the water, lifeless and destroyed, in stark, terrible black and white. I pictured Rose retching from the shock, putting a hand to her mouth, holding it down—that stomach would be used to anything, wouldn’t it? Imagining her, shaking that wrecked old head, sad and tender, then shambling back to find a phone and report what she’d seen.

  There might be something more to discover down there. Something I had missed, some detail I’d overlooked. Whinlatter Docks, where this had all begun. Fuck it, it was worth a shot. Anything was better than crashing out here, feeling sorry for myself. I rinsed out my mouth with a half-can of flat coke and spat viciously into the wash-basin. Get up, get out, get moving. Begin at the beginning and let the rest take care of itself.

  It was raining when I reached Whinlatter, a weak, greasy pall of murkiness and foreboding. The day was turning dark though it wasn’t late. Talk about pathetic fallacy. I felt as if the elements were mocking me, the gods of weather crying and laughing at me from their celestial balconies. I’m not sure what I was looking for: a clue, a vibe, the ghost of something. Maybe an actual ghost. I pulled my collar up around my face and strode the docks, thinking of Madeleine, calling on her, whispering: “Come on, kid. Give me something. Talk to me…”

  The area was almost deserted—a few sailors doing whatever sailors do about 100 yards seaward, distant sounds of engines firing up, cutting out, being manhandled back to life. Isolated shouts, angry swears, an oddly bitter laughter. Christ, what a place to spend your every day. I kept walking, down further, past Piers 19, 20, 21. Then I was at Pier 22, the site of Madeleine’s doom. It looked normal by daylight, bland and unremarkable, almost too normal. I felt like there should be a marker at this spot, a cenotaph, something to record that a young girl lost her life here, violently and needlessly. Something to honor that death.

  “You’re that cop, right?”

  I turned around. Two girls were sheltering from the rain under the jutting wooden roof of a locked warehouse, huddled together for warmth. They were both youngish—maybe early twenties, though it was hard to tell with pros. They c
ould have passed for 30 or older, they were so haggard and thin, so drained of the plump exuberance of youth. That’s what prostitution does to you, I guess. It steals your best days and hurls you through life so quickly that the speed eventually kills you.

  I nodded and said, “What cop is that?”

  The taller of the two spoke again: “You’re investigating the murder. That girl was killed down here. The rich kid.”

  I took a few steps towards them and they visibly flinched. I raised my hands in an “easy now” gesture and kept walking, nice and smooth, until I was within a few yards of them. The shorter girl sniffled like she had a bad cold and snuggled into her friend’s flank. The other girl embraced her and pulled her to the warm comfort of her underarm.

  “You want a drink?”

  She pulled a bottle of vodka from a bag hung across her chest and proffered it to me.

  “No thanks. But I appreciate the offer.” “Right. Working, huh? ‘On duty.’” “That’s right. You want a cigarette?”

  She nodded. I took a Dark Nine for myself and handed her the rest of the pack. She lit one and pocketed the box.

  “Thanks. What’s your name anyway?”

  “Genie. Detective Auf der Maur full title, but you can call me Genie.”

  “Hi, Genie. I’m Chrissy. This one here’s Tilda.”

  The little one smiled dozily and muttered, “’S short for Matilda.”

  She looked chemically whacked, totally fucked. She listed to the side and Chrissy righted her. I wouldn’t get much out of Tilda, that was certain. But Chrissy looked fairly alert, her limpid green eyes sparkling beneath the drained, anemic pallor of her face. What an oddly lovely juxtaposition: her eyes were like gems in a puddle of dried-out mud.

  I tentatively drew a 20 from my wallet and held it up at shoulder-height. “You feel like answering a few questions, Chrissy? About that girl who was murdered.”