Writ in Water

by Natasha Mostert

  She looked down at the cat and scratched it behind the ears. ‘That’s strange. Bruno is very affectionate normally. Ah, well.’ She smiled. ‘He’s male. You’re male. This is his turf so maybe it’s just a question of protecting his territory.’

  Great, Gabriel thought. A pissing contest with a cat. Bruno’s eyes gleamed. He opened his mouth and closed it again without making a sound. The effect was weird.

  Gabriel cleared his throat. ‘Bruno. I’ve always thought that to be quite a macho name. You know, the kind given to stevedores. Or bouncers. Or opera singers.’

  ‘Or martyrs.’ She kneeled and allowed the cat to jump out of her arms. It immediately moved away, back slightly arched, tail straight, and again it opened its mouth in that unnerving silent grimace. ‘Bruno is named after Giordano Bruno.’

  Her tone of voice made it clear that he was supposed to know who that was. He made a kind of noncommittal sound.

  Her lips curved. ‘He was an Italian magician who was tortured in the dungeons of the Inquisition. And then burnt at the stake.’

  How charming. He was trying to think of a suitable response when he heard the front door banging shut and the unmistakable sound of a bag dropped to the floor.

  ‘That will be my sister.’ Minnaloushe glanced at him. ‘Excuse me, will you? I’ll be right back.’

  ‘Sure.’ He watched as she left the room, leaving him and Bruno alone to stare warily at each other.

  He waited. The ticking of the old-fashioned kitchen clock sounded inordinately loud. He could just hear the murmur of voices coming from the hall, the tones low and hushed. He recognised Minnaloushe’s breathy voice. Morrighan’s was lower. Although he couldn’t make out the words, he knew as certainly as though he was standing right next to them that he was the subject of the conversation.

  And then they were suddenly both in the kitchen. They stopped inside the door, blocking it, and for one brief moment he had the extraordinary feeling of being boxed in and taken prisoner. But then Minnaloushe moved forward, smiling. ‘Gabriel, this is Morrighan. My big sister.’

  The first thing he noticed about Morrighan Monk was her eyes. It would be the first thing anyone noticed. The photographs he had looked at the night before had given him an indication of how startling they were, but actually seeing her face-to-face was something else altogether. Her eyes were amazing. The iris was the bluest blue he had ever seen, and her eyeballs were white as snow. But the effect was quite chilly. It wasn’t that her eyes were expressionless—far from it. It was more a case of the brilliance and depth of eye colour making their expression difficult to gauge. Minnaloushe’s eyes made one think of the ocean. Morrighan’s eyes made one think of space.

  The second thing he noticed was the pendant round her neck. A thin silver chain with the letter M dangling from it. Oh, hell. Just when he thought he had it all figured out. So he still didn’t know which of the two sisters was the woman he had seen in his ride.

  Morrighan was dressed in shorts, a light blue T-shirt and trainers. She had, he couldn’t help but notice, fabulous legs. Her long black hair was scraped back in a ponytail and fell down her back like a gleaming snake. She smelled faintly of sunbaked sweat. There was a sheen on her cheekbones and where the hair sprang from her forehead.

  ‘So how was the jump?’ Minnaloushe had put the kettle on to boil and was now arranging some cups and saucers.

  ‘Great. I’m going back on Saturday.’ Morrighan glanced at Gabriel. ‘Bungee jumping,’ she explained. ‘It’s a passion of mine.’

  Bungee jumping. To Gabriel it evoked uncomfortable images of canyons and bridges and deep ravines. He wondered where one would go to bungee jump in London.

  ‘Chelsea Bridge,’ she said, as though he had asked aloud. ‘There’s a crane there, which is just perfect. By the way,’ she turned her head towards Minnaloushe, ‘the locksmith will be coming by later this afternoon.’

  ‘Good.’ Minnaloushe pushed a cup towards him. It was filled with a rather oily-looking green liquid. She looked at Gabriel briefly. ‘We’re having the locks replaced. We think we may have had an intruder on the premises last night.’

  He tried to keep his voice normal. ‘A burglar? Was anything stolen?’

  ‘Not exactly. And no breaking upon entering.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘But we noticed a number of small things that were not quite right, you know.’ Morrighan pulled out a chair at the kitchen table and sat down. ‘For example, my scarf had been lying on the floor when we went out last night and when we got back someone had picked it up. Also, Bruno was in a room where he shouldn’t have been.’

  ‘Yes,’ Minnaloushe added. ‘And someone also went through the food in our fridge. Rather disgusting, that. We just threw out everything we had in there.’

  What the hell was this? He had hardly touched the stuff in the fridge. He thought back. If he remembered correctly, he had lifted the corner on a carton filled with duck confit. And he had turned the champagne bottle round to see the label. And the scarf on the floor? How could they have noticed? In the dictionary the names of these women should be next to the entry for ‘anal-retentive’.

  ‘And the bastard was in the bedrooms as well. He took something. Not anything valuable. But something of sentimental value to both of us.’

  So they knew about the photograph. A small chill touched the back of his neck.

  ‘That must be distressing for you.’ He took a sip of the green liquid. The tea was quite vile but it gave him a second or two to collect himself. ‘Maybe you should let the police know.’

  Morrighan smiled a faintly contemptuous smile. ‘It’s not worth the hassle. We’ll deal with it ourselves.’ She stretched, lithe as a cat. ‘I need a hot shower.’ She stretched again. ‘It was a good jump. Nothing like pushing the edge to make you feel alive, don’t you think?’

  He made another noncommittal sound.

  ‘From the expression on your face, I take it you don’t agree?’

  ‘Fortune-cookie philosophy is not my thing.’

  ‘Meaning?’ A slight frown.

  ‘The whole idea that pushing the edge of the envelope will make you feel more alive… it seems pointless to me. And a bit of a cliché, quite frankly.’

  He had gone too far. Her eyes were steel.

  ‘What are you doing on Saturday morning?’

  ‘Saturday?’

  ‘Yes. Why don’t you join me for a jump? Try out my fortune-cookie philosophy for yourself.’

  For a moment he stared at her, his brain on pause. He had hoped to engage her in a little playful sparring. He certainly hadn’t bargained on the possibility that she would challenge him to a duel. He didn’t have the slightest wish to go tumbling through space with an elastic band fixed to his ankle. Surely even Frankie would agree that that would be going above and beyond the call of duty.

  The women were watching him steadily. Under the unblinking gaze of the two pairs of eyes—one green, one blue—he felt like an insect pinned to a board. Something told him the correct answer to her question would be crucial if he wanted a return invitation.

  He took a deep breath. ‘Sounds like a plan.’

  ‘Good.’ Morrighan looked at Minnaloushe and for a moment he fancied that something passed between the two women. A kind of mental nod.

  ‘OK. That’s settled then.’ Morrighan got to her feet. ‘I’ll meet you at Chelsea Bridge on Saturday morning at nine A.M. Yes?’

  He nodded. ‘Fine.’

  At the doorway she paused and looked back at him over her shoulder. ‘And don’t worry,’ she said, eyes crinkling. ‘I’ll take good care of you.’

  • • •

  That evening he made himself bangers and mash for dinner. Comfort food. Rather than try to pair this fare with a suitable wine, he settled for lager, even though it was not his favourite tipple. While eating, he paged through Minnaloushe Monk’s research papers, which Isidore had given him that morning. They were dauntingly esoteric. The language was often so
dense and the maths so incomprehensible that he shook his head in disgust.

  But her central hypothesis, as far as he could make out, was curiously simple and unscientific. Memory, she maintained, was what set man apart from his animal relatives. Man’s soul is inextricably bound to his power of recollection.

  And along with this hypothesis came a warning:

  Our brains have become lazy. We are losing the skill of remembrance. Our long-term memories are eroding. Instead of exercising our natural ability to remember, the way our ancestors had to do, we rely on modern technology—the internet, TV, photocopiers—to prop up our weakening ability to recollect facts and events. We are experts at skimming. We are failures at remembering.

  We walk along this path at our peril. Without a highly robust memory we lack the ability to get a handle on the turbulent universe we live in. Without a flexible memory, we cannot draw connections between widely differing concepts.

  More than that: we are in danger of losing our very souls. Memory is divine. It is what gives man his celestial spark.

  No wonder she had taken flak from her colleagues, Gabriel thought as he closed the folder. Any hypotheses involving souls and psyches—not to mention celestial sparks—would sit ill in the halls of institutional science. She was treading on some powerful taboos.

  But enough of this. There was a kind of quirky charm to her theories, but they were hardly likely to have anything to do with Robert Whittington and his unfortunate demise. He pushed the folder away.

  After stacking the dishwasher, he made himself a cappuccino and carried the cup over to his desk. From here he was still able to see the lights on the other side of the river. It was time he started making notes; organised his thoughts. He sat down in his swivel chair and opened his desktop.

  Robert Whittington had been an accomplished artist. Earlier today Gabriel had tried to check with the Wine of Life Society to find out if Whittington had been a member, but the club was nothing if not discreet about its membership and would not confirm whether this was the case. That hadn’t stopped him, of course. It had been child’s play to hack into the club’s database and confirm his suspicions. Robert Whittington had indeed been a member these past three years.

  He placed his fingers on the keyboard of his computer and typed:

  Wine of Life Society. Robert meets Minnaloushe?

  Minnaloushe = mathematician and philosopher. Sells masks. Nude model.

  Morrighan = environmentalist. Thrill-seeker.

  Both sisters = alchemists.

  Descendants of John Dee. Elizabethan alchemist and creator of the Monas Hieroglyphica. Primary goal of Dee’s studies: personal transformation. Robbie also fascinated by alchemy and personal transformation. Another link between Robbie and sisters?

  He paused. He was now almost sure that the woman in his ride was one of the Monk sisters. But which one?

  Woman wore a pendant with the initial M. Minnaloushe or Morrighan?

  Woman wore a mask. Mask = Minnaloushe?

  What else? The woman in his ride had carried a black crow on her shoulder. The same crow that had followed him as he had walked through the house of many doors. Not that this detail made any sense. But for what it was worth he added another entry.

  Crow.

  As he typed, the bandage on his wrist hampered the movement of his hand at the keyboard. He wished he could get rid of it, but those scratches made by Bruno were still raw and inflamed-looking and instead of itching, which would signal healing, they were burning like the dickens. Thinking of Bruno, he frowned.

  Cat. Named after Giordano Bruno. Scientist and martyr. Died at the stake.

  Two computer files. Password-protected.

  Laptop = Diary.

  Desktop = The Promethean Key.

  Work out access plan for both computers.

  He sat back in his chair and read through what he had written. Hardly impressive. He was no nearer to knowing how and why Robert Whittington was murdered or to answering the one question that mattered most.

  Murderess = Minnaloushe or Morrighan?

  He held the question key down for a few moments too long and a row of question marks followed like an insistent call to arms.

  Murderess = Minnaloushe or Morrighan?????

  For a few seconds he stared at the screen absentmindedly. At some level his mind took in the noise of a faraway car alarm, a sudden burst of laughter coming from the pavement down below, the presence of eyes focused upon him.

  Eyes.

  He whipped round in his chair, heart pounding—and looked straight into the round eyes of the mask given to him by Minnaloushe.

  Shit. He touched his forehead. He had hung that mask himself only a few hours ago. He had been quite pleased with it, actually. It went well with the Shoowa wall-hanging he had bought during a holiday in Kenya.

  After a moment’s hesitation he got up from his chair and walked towards the wall. As masks go, this one really wasn’t too grim-looking. The only thing that bothered him slightly was the slitted mouth. It was pulled back in the semblance of a thin smile, making it appear as though the mask was having a small joke at his expense.

  Well, nix to you too, he thought, and cuffed the wooden face lightly with his knuckles.

  Now that his heart had stopped tripping, he was suddenly tired. Enough of this for one night. But tomorrow he should talk to Isidore on the progress he’d made on the Pittypats case. It wouldn’t do to neglect the bread and butter in favour of playing Sherlock.

  At the door he stopped and switched off the light. The room turned dark. The screen of his computer was a bright oblong of light in the gloom, the words dark against the white background.

  Murderess = Minnaloushe or Morrighan?????

  Entry Date: 29 June

  Success! We may have found someone new to play with. He is the complete opposite of R. But M. is right. R. wasn’t strong enough. He was not up to the challenge. One thing’s for sure: G. will be a different proposition altogether. We’ll be playing with a sophisticate this time, not an innocent…

  He is undeniably hot. He has the look of an adventurer—a modern-day buccaneer. I can quite imagine him standing on the bow of a tall ship with a knife between his teeth, ready to plunder and burn!

  There is undoubtedly a strong streak of narcissism there. And with G. it is more than just personal vanity; it is also a vanity of the mind. A deep belief in his own ability. A conviction that he can take on anyone, on any terms.

  Let’s hope a pedestrian mind doesn’t hide behind that too-handsome face.

  But the indications are good. He is a risk-taker and a thief. And not just any thief: an information thief. As M. said, we could hardly ask for a more tailor-made description of the perfect playmate. A man who immerses himself in data every day but for whom knowledge is just currency.

  We can change this. M. and I can take him on a journey all the way to the stars.

  Will he be up to it? Will he be strong enough? Maybe we’ll have a better idea by Saturday.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Saturday. A beautiful morning. Blue skies, light breeze. When Gabriel stopped for his takeaway coffee at Starbucks, everyone in the shop was slurping lattes and nibbling pastries. Not a frown in sight. Only shiny, happy people.

  Except for him. He felt sluggish and his disposition was sour. He was also pretty much freaked out of his mind. Today was D-day. The day he was scheduled to experience the joy of the bungee jump. He wondered where the word ‘bungee’ came from. It sounded so benign—like a mildly strenuous activity meant for children. Except that in another thirty minutes or so he would be shouting ‘Geronimo’ and diving head-first from a great height towards the Thames.

  As he turned the Jaguar in the direction of Chelsea Bridge, he decided he must have been delirious when he agreed to partake in this insanity. He was going to die today, Morrighan Monk’s promise to ‘take good care’ of him notwithstanding. Besides which, it had just occurred to him that the woman who was going to supervise h
is attempt at playing Icarus might also be the person who had killed poor Robert Whittington. A great thought, that. Why didn’t he think of it before?

  The lady was waiting for him dressed in tight-fitting lycra and a snow-white T-shirt with a low scooped-out neck. On one breast was a small tattoo, a replica of the one on her sister’s lower back. Very sexy, even though this preoccupation with the Monas was getting on his nerves a bit. Her black hair was once more pulled back in a ponytail and her eyes were even bluer than he remembered.

  ‘Hi.’ She nodded at him. ‘So you came.’

  ‘Of course. Didn’t I say I would?’

  ‘So you did.’ She shrugged; smiled slightly. ‘Great car, by the way.’

  ‘Thanks.’ He looked past her to where a sort of cage-like contraption sat at the foot of a light blue crane which reached into the sky to what seemed an obscene altitude.

  She followed his gaze. ‘Pretty high. Three hundred feet. You’ll be able to dine out on this for a long time.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ He tried to think of something witty to say but his powers of repartee seemed to have deserted him.

  ‘OK, well, let’s get this show on the road. I need to talk to Wayne to find out when we’re scheduled.’ She pointed to where a short queue of people were waiting near the cage with expressions that ranged from the extremely apprehensive to the ‘look-at-me-I’m-such-a-tough-mother’ smugness. At the front of the line was a painfully skinny man wearing a tiny red swimsuit. He was talking to a man with blond hair who was dressed in overalls with the word JUMPMASTER emblazoned on the back.

  Gabriel looked at Morrighan as a fresh wave of apprehension hit him. ‘Why is that guy wearing a swimsuit? Am I actually going to hit the water?’

  ‘No, no.’ Her voice was soothing but there was a gleam in her eyes. ‘This is not a dunk jump. You won’t get wet, don’t worry. I don’t know why that guy feels the need to show off his Speedos. People come here dressed in all kinds of weird outfits. I’ve been here when someone took the jump dressed in a bridal gown. Another guy arrived wrapped in a straitjacket.’