The Verge Practice

by Barry Maitland

  Kathy didn’t reply. She watched Luz’s hand go to the indicator and saw the sign up ahead for the exit road into the dark countryside beyond the highway.

  After a while, she recognised the village they passed through. She caught a brief glimpse of light glowing from the windows of the pub, and then they were plunged back into the darkness of winding lanes between tall hedges.

  Finally, the car slowed and turned in to a gravel drive.

  Kathy made out the razor-sharp line of a dark wall against the night clouds. They were at Briar Hill, she realised, Luz Diaz’s home and Charles Verge’s first building.

  Luz led the way through the opening in the wall into the glass pavilion, so like the one in Barcelona, and down the spiral staircase into the studio lounge, George Todd following close on Kathy’s heels all the while. So far he had said not a word. Luz indicated a seat for Kathy, then threw the short jacket she was wearing over the back of another chair and sat down.

  ‘I’m dying for a drink. Scotch for me please, George.

  What about you, Kathy?’

  ‘Water, please.’ Kathy sat. Beyond their reflections in the glass wall she could make out the shapes of dark tree masses across the fields. They waited while George poured the drinks and then sat down, placing himself, Kathy saw, in the background, between her and the stairs, but also where he could watch her face.

  ‘Kathy . . .’ Luz Diaz leaned forward, cupping her glass in her two hands as if offering something precious to her guest.

  She fixed Kathy with dark eyes that dilated slightly with concentration, a calculated, rather theatrical effect, Kathy thought. ‘What I am going to tell you I will never repeat outside of this room, and will vehemently deny if you repeat it to anyone else. As far as the world is concerned, Charles Verge was murdered on the twelfth of May by his partner Sandy Clarke. As all the world now knows, with the exception of you it seems, he was an innocent victim, an architect of world standing, a tragic loss.’

  She sat back, placed her drink on the glass table at her elbow and lit a cigarette. ‘Okay. Now the truth. Charles Verge may have been a genius, I wouldn’t know, but he was a deeply flawed character. He bullied his colleagues relentlessly, treated his male employees like slaves and female staff with contempt. He was manically jealous of his peers, was obsessed with his public image, and paranoid in his suspicions of disloyalty in those around him. After Gail left him, these tendencies, which she’d more or less reined in, blossomed unchecked. His second wife actually encouraged them, because she thought that, seeing everyone else as potential traitors and enemies, he would rely totally on her.’

  Luz took a sip of her drink, drew on her cigarette and studied her listener for a response. Kathy thought the picture made sense, and gave a nod.

  ‘Okay. About two years ago I met up with him—in Barcelona, I think it was, or maybe New York. Anyway, I hadn’t seen him for a while and I was struck by how he’d changed for the worse. I guess he was under stress with his work, but he struck me as close to a breakdown. We had a meal together, and the whole time he ranted and raved about how everyone was trying to ruin him. His mother and daughter were driving him mad. Sandy Clarke, who from what I’d heard must have had the patience of a saint, had always just exploited his reputation and was now so jealous of his fame that he was trying to undermine his business, Charles claimed. Worst of all was his wife, Miki, who was hell-bent on destroying his reputation with her hopeless ambition to be recognised as a design star.

  ‘I tried to reassure him, make him see sense, but that just made him angrier, and in the end all I could do was be a good listener, and a good friend when he needed a shoulder to cry on. But I think now, looking back, that it must have been around then that he decided, like Samson, to bring the whole temple crashing down, and destroy them all.

  ‘There was another side to him. Outside his own world he could be an extraordinarily generous person, as both George and I know. I caught up with him again early this year, and he seemed calmer, as if he now was in control of the situation. I, on the other hand, was a mess. I’d recently broken up with a partner who had cheated me badly, taking just about everything I owned. Charles insisted on putting me back on my feet. He offered me this house, the chance to move to England and start again. He made it look as if I’d bought the place, but really it was a gift, an astonishingly generous gift.

  George has a similar story. Charles befriended him in prison, and set him up when he came out with a home and money.

  He, too, has been able to start over again, with a new life. So in the end, when Charles needed us, even though we knew that what he’d done was terribly wrong, we had to help him.

  ‘He came here on the Saturday, right after he’d killed Miki. He was very calm. He explained what he’d done and said it had been unavoidable, that Miki had become unreliable and unfaithful, and dangerous to him. He knew exactly what he was going to do, and needed our help.

  George spent the rest of the day with him, taking his car to the coast, and that night took him over to France in a boat he’d arranged to use. Charles said that he would get Dr Lizancos to change his appearance in Barcelona, then go on from there to South America.

  ‘It was a couple of months before we heard from him again, by phone. He was still in Barcelona, he said, and things had gone terribly wrong. Lizancos had botched the operations on his face, there had been infections and he was ill. The Spanish police were closing in, he couldn’t get to South America and Lizancos was panicking. He needed somewhere to hide out, to recuperate. Of course, we agreed. George drove down to Spain and brought him back here. There is a small self-contained flat on the ground floor. He has been there ever since.’

  Kathy sat very still, as if expecting Verge’s figure to emerge from the shadows.

  Luz crushed out her cigarette. ‘He was in a terrible state, poor man, when George brought him back. His face was a mess—my God, that Lizancos is a butcher! Charles said he is too old to cut people up, his hands shake. It was a terrible mistake going to him, but he was a very loyal friend of

  Charles’s father and Charles knew he could rely on him to keep silent. And there was something else that upset Charles even more. He said that he had arranged things so that Sandy Clarke should have been suspected of both his and Miki’s murders. He had left clues and evidence of financial dealings which incriminated Clarke, the idea being to clear Charles’s name and allow him to escape in safety. But somehow the police had been so incompetent that they had apparently overlooked these things. Now everyone believed that Charles was alive, a killer on the run.

  This preyed on his mind a great deal. As he recovered physically—though disfigured—he became very depressed by the thought that posterity would remember him as a monster.

  ‘Then you came to speak to Charlotte that day, after you had interviewed Sandy Clarke. George saw the files you were carrying, and how upset they made Charlotte, even though afterwards she refused to say what it was about. So he followed you to the supermarket, stole the papers and brought them to Charles, who discovered that Clarke was the father of his expected grandchild. He was very angry.

  That was when he decided to kill Clarke and make him claim responsibility for Miki’s death. He succeeded brilliantly, of course, with George’s help, and his reputation was restored just in time for the opening of his last masterpiece.’ ‘So where is he now?’ Kathy asked. Throughout Luz’s account George hadn’t stirred a muscle, hadn’t blinked and hadn’t shifted his eyes from Kathy’s face.

  Luz reached for a magazine on the glass table. ‘This is the Architectural Review edition featuring Marchdale. It is a wonderful appreciation, the confirmation of Charles’s talent. It came out last Wednesday, the day before the opening. That evening he had supper with us. He was very content, and said that everything was now in order. The next day I phoned him from Marchdale to tell him how wonderfully the opening had gone. When I returned I found him downstairs in his room. He had taken an overdose.

  ‘I call
ed George, and together we built a great pyre with timber from the woods. We burned his body and all his possessions, then scattered the ashes.’ She turned to the window and gestured. ‘He’s out there, Kathy, in the air and the water and the soil. You will find no trace of him.’

  Kathy said nothing, lowering her eyes, aware of them watching her. Finally George spoke for the first time, softly.

  ‘She doesn’t believe you, Luz.’

  Kathy looked up, first at him, then at Luz. ‘Actually, I do believe most of what you said.’

  ‘Most?’

  ‘The trouble is, Charles has done this so many times before—died and left no body. First in the English Channel, then in some unmarked grave, and now scattered across Buckinghamshire.’

  Luz’s expression hardened. ‘It was necessary that there should be no trace left. You understand that. His reputation must be preserved.’

  ‘Hm.’ Kathy didn’t attempt to hide her disbelief. She felt grimy and exhausted.

  ‘But there is something,’ Luz said. She got to her feet and handed Kathy a small clear plastic pouch. Inside she saw a colour photo of a laughing girl. Turning it over she read the childish printed message, ‘To dearest Daddy, luv from Charlotte, XXX’.

  ‘It was in his wallet, and I didn’t have the heart to burn it. I suspect it was the most precious thing he had. I dare say it has his fingerprints on it. You can have it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You can use it, perhaps. Tell your bosses that you found it in Lizancos’s house, to prove Charles was there and justify your actions. Tell them about what I have said tonight, too, if you like. Maybe they will forgive you.’

  ‘Why would you want to help me? You said you’d deny everything.’

  ‘Of course I will. But I want you and your people to know the truth and then leave us alone. I am betting that your bosses will want to bury it. It is all too late now, and too embarrassing. I have the feeling that, after tomorrow, the police will be thankful to never hear the name Charles Verge again.’

  Kathy shrugged. ‘Yes. Makes sense.’

  ‘Good.’ Luz smiled at her, then turned and nodded to George, whose expression remained as morose as ever.

  ‘I really do feel very tired, Luz,’ Kathy said. ‘Can you call me a cab?’

  ‘It’s not necessary. George will take you home. We owe you that. I’m only sorry that we had to talk so late, but I think you understand now. Good luck tomorrow.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Kathy got to her feet and moved towards the stairs, Luz and George ahead of her. As she passed the glass table she stooped briefly, took the cigarette butt from the ashtray and dropped it into her pocket. As she started up the stairs behind them, George turned and took hold of her arm. He then gently slipped his hand into her pocket and produced the stub, holding it up for Luz. The other woman stared down, puzzled.

  ‘What is that?’

  ‘She took your fag-end, Luz. She wants to check your DNA.’ He turned to Kathy. ‘Right?’

  Kathy said nothing, watching the expression go out of Luz’s face.

  ‘Oh.’ Luz’s voice sounded flat. ‘That’s too bad.’ She took a deep breath and began to descend once more. ‘We’d better go down to the lower floor. It seems it will be necessary for you to spend the night here, Kathy.’

  With George close at her back, Kathy followed the other woman to a hallway near the foot of the staircase. Luz took a key from her pocket and opened a door, reached in to switch on a light, and led them into a small sitting room.

  There was no picture window outlook down here, but rather a scatter of small windows, like irregular portholes, on the external wall, which was formed of blocks of rough stone. From the outside, Kathy imagined, this storey would look like a rock plinth on which the light glass and steel pavilion above was raised. There was an alcove with an unmade bed, and another with a small kitchen. The furnishings were spartan, as if the room had recently been stripped and scoured.

  Luz gestured to a chair. ‘Sit down, Kathy. George, I’d like you to wait outside in the hall while I have this conversation with Kathy. Stay close to the door in case I need you, okay?’ The Spanish accent had faded.

  George nodded and left, closing the door gently behind him.

  ‘That’s the only way out, Kathy. George is armed, in case you hadn’t noticed. He is very loyal to me, and would kill you without hesitation if he felt it necessary. You understand?’

  Kathy nodded and sat. Luz pulled another seat in front of her, so that they were face to face, intimately close within the bare room.

  ‘How long have you known?’

  ‘I saw what kind of operations Dr Lizancos does, Luz.’

  Kathy felt her throat dry. ‘He keeps videos of his finest work. I have actually seen him cutting off your balls.’

  ‘Oh . . .’ Luz’s mouth turned down in a grimace. ‘I didn’t know that.’

  She sat back and lit a cigarette, the flame trembling a little as she held it to the tip. ‘You find the idea grotesque, do you? What Lizancos did to me?’

  ‘I think it’s rather extreme to change your gender so as to evade the law.’

  ‘Actually, it was more the other way around.’

  Kathy frowned. ‘You murdered in order to change your sex?’

  ‘Yes, that’s what it amounts to.’ She leaned closer to Kathy and her voice dropped to an urgent whisper, as if she didn’t want George to hear. ‘I want you to understand, Kathy. I thought from the very first time I met you, here in this house, that if anyone could understand, it would be you—a young, independent woman, making her own life.’

  Kathy felt a shiver of distaste creep up her spine. The other woman was so intense, little flecks of spittle flying from her mouth as she spoke, her perfume too strong at close quarters, that Kathy felt an overpowering desire to back away, but she could only hear the words if she bent her head close.

  ‘You must understand that this is not some kind of desperate last-minute ploy, Kathy. I have felt that I was really a girl from my earliest years. My first memory is of lying in my bedroom with a woman nurse, and feeling certain that I would grow up to be like her. As I grew older and became aware of human sexuality, the idea didn’t fade away. It grew stronger, more certain. I didn’t want to imitate a woman—I was a woman, locked inside the wrong body.

  ‘I told no one, but I read everything I could about my condition. When I read Jan Morris’s book Conundrum it was an inspiration to me. I remember the year it came out, 1974, the same year I returned to England with my new American wife and began work on this house. Here was a man who had frankly, publicly, discussed his innermost thoughts, his decision to surgically change his body to that of a woman. He had confided in his wife and family, who supported him, and had walked out into the world without shame, a free woman.

  ‘But I didn’t have the courage to follow her example. I kept my feelings secret, and the more successful I became, the more I shrank from the idea of going public. I had a young man come to work for me once, a brilliant draughtsman, sensitive designer. He had much the same problem as me, and one day, it being the liberated eighties, he came to work in a frock. The others goggled, then pretended not to notice. They smirked and sniggered behind his back, of course, but he stuck to his guns. He seemed quite self-possessed when he saw the faces of the trade reps and building inspectors and clients turn red when he walked into a room. Then the day came when he had to go out onto a building site. The men had heard about him, and they weren’t so polite. That night he hanged himself.’

  Kathy’s back was stiff from crouching forward to catch Luz’s words; she straightened, stretched, and wondered how long this pitiful story was going to last. ‘I don’t see how this accounts for murdering your wife,’ she said.

  ‘It’s important you understand the background. I was trapped in a situation I couldn’t change, and I hated myself for it. I began to detest Charles Verge. I despised him for his paranoia and egomania. I didn’t want to be him. So I invented this other person
who I wanted to be: Luz Diaz, the Spanish artist. It turned out to be the most satisfying design project I’d ever done; I created her life story, constructed her career, fabricated catalogues for her brilliant exhibitions long ago. It gave me a secret thrill to mention her to people: “Oh, and I bumped into that Spanish painter the other day in New York. You know, Luz Diaz, who did that big abstract in our flat. She was very sad, her mother died recently, so we had a drink together at the Hyatt and she cheered up a little.” It was a harmless fantasy, I thought, except that it became addictive. More and more I yearned to be Luz. And after my marriage to Gail collapsed I finally rented Luz an apartment in Barcelona and began to act her part, living her life for whole days at a time.

  ‘Then, about two years ago, I met Dr Lizancos at a lunch in Barcelona. He had been a boyhood friend of my father, and one of the other people at the table mentioned to me that he was an expert in reconstructive surgery— cosmetic, but also, more discreetly, transsexual surgery.

  After the lunch I asked Dr Lizancos if I could have an appointment with him. That was how I began to believe that I might turn Luz Diaz into a reality.

  ‘I was married to Miki by that stage, of course, and the hope that my new wife might cure me of my obsession had not materialised. I decided to go ahead with Dr Lizancos’s program of drugs in preparation for future surgery. I envisaged that I would retire from the practice and disappear to Spain, to live Luz Diaz’s life, with Miki as my companion. It was a tremendous burden, this secret, especially when the drugs began to take effect. My sex drive diminished, I lost weight, and the whole shape and texture of my body began to alter. Miki began to make comments about how I had changed. Finally I told her everything, about Luz Diaz and Dr Lizancos, about my plans.

  ‘I expected her to be shocked, of course, but I hadn’t anticipated the full force of her reaction. She was contemptuous. She thought my lifelong dilemma was utterly absurd; she regarded my fantasy about Luz Diaz as disgusting; she said my plans were impossible, that I could no more become a woman through surgery than she could become a mermaid.