Writ in Water

by Natasha Mostert

  The doorbell rang. The sound paralysed him, froze him to the spot. He glanced at the door fearfully. He suddenly thought of Isidore, buried only that morning, resting in his coffin in dank soil. Maybe his friend wasn’t in his coffin. Maybe he was standing outside the front door right this minute, his hand raised to press the bell once more.

  The bell rang again. After a few moments someone pounded on the door with a fist. ‘Gabriel?’ Frankie’s voice was muffled. ‘Are you there?’

  He scrambled to the door and unfastened the door chain with fingers that were weak from eagerness and recent panic.

  ‘My God.’ Frankie’s voice was appalled. ‘What’s happened to you?’

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The MRI scan looked like a work of art. A creepy work of art, but still art.

  ‘Lovely, isn’t it?’ The man on the other side of the desk was beaming at Gabriel as though he had the same thought. ‘The detail is stupendous.’

  Gabriel looked back at the scan, which was clipped up against a light box. He still couldn’t believe he was staring at his own brain. It looked like a splayed white mushroom floating in a well of black ink.

  Next to him, Frankie moved her chair closer to his and took his hand in hers. She had hardly left his side since she found him in his apartment the night before. And it was her doing that he was now sitting in the office of one of the most eminent neurologists in Britain.

  Earlier that morning he had undergone an MRI scan. Gabriel knew that a scan—even a private one—usually took time to schedule, but Frankie had gone into overdrive. She had taken one look at his bloody eye and shaking hands and had called the consultant who had attended her husband. He, in turn, had made them the appointment with the neurologist. Gabriel had no idea which other strings were pulled, but within a day he had been scanned, prodded, examined and called in to learn his fate.

  The neurologist, who went by the cheerful name of Horatio Dibbles, placed two plump hands on his desk and looked at Gabriel with eyes that were coloured angelic blue.

  ‘Mr Blackstone. We have good news and not such good news.’ Gabriel half-expected the medic to ask him which he wanted to hear first, but Dibbles continued without pause. ‘You have suffered a transient ischaemic attack.’

  ‘A stroke?’ For a moment Gabriel thought of his Uncle Ben, who had collapsed with a stroke at the age of forty and, afterwards, had spoken with a tongue that seemed dipped in tar, dragging his left leg behind him like a useless piece of wood.

  ‘A temporary stroke. Now, the symptoms of a TIA are the same as those of a full-blown stroke, you understand. Vision can be affected. Also behaviour, movement, speech and thought. Mental confusion is quite common.’

  Mental confusion. No shit. Melissa Cartwright’s wasted face washed into Gabriel’s mind.

  Dibbles coughed discreetly. ‘However, a TIA’s symptoms are temporary. The majority clear within an hour, although they can sometimes continue for up to twenty-four hours. But what is important to remember is that in most cases permanent damage is unlikely.’

  ‘So what’s the not so good news?’

  ‘Well, you have to realise you’ve had bleeding in the brain. In an artery in your brain there’s a weak spot, an aneurism. It’s like a small balloon or a worn spot on the inner tube of a tyre, and it leaked. What concerns me is that you seem to have had repeated leaks. Each time, the leak has healed itself and the bleeding has stopped. But repeated leaks in the brain are not good news.’

  ‘Is it treatable?’ Frankie leaned forward, her face anxious.

  ‘Usually if an aneurism is identified, it is repaired with microsurgery and removed. But obviously we need to run more tests.’ He looked back at Gabriel. ‘I would like you to come into hospital so that we can get to the bottom of this. Find out what’s responsible for these repeated leaks.’

  Not what, Gabriel thought. Who.

  The neurologist seemed concerned by his silence. ‘Mr Blackstone—’

  ‘It will have to wait.’

  ‘Wait?’

  ‘Yes. I’ll be in touch with your office at a later date.’ Gabriel pushed his chair backwards and started to get to his feet.

  ‘That is highly unwise.’ Dibbles had lost his cheerful smile.

  ‘I understand. But right now is not a good time.’

  Dibbles looked at Frankie. ‘Mrs Whittington, I cannot stress strongly enough how important it is that Mr Blackstone submit himself for observation.’

  Frankie got to her feet as well. ‘I’ll talk to him, Dr Dibbles. I promise we’ll be in touch very soon.’

  The expression on Dibbles’ face made Gabriel wonder if he was going to try to restrain them physically. Maybe the man had some kind of silent alarm under his desk which, at a touch, could summon an army of brawny nurses with straitjackets and needles at the ready.

  But then Dibbles sighed. Folding his plump hands deliberately, he said in an emotionless voice, ‘I cannot force you to commit yourself to this hospital, Mr Blackstone. However, please know that the next attack could be a full-blown stroke. It could lead to paralysis.’

  He paused, rearranged his hands.

  ‘Or death.’

  • • •

  ‘Cheers.’ Gabriel clinked his glass against Frankie’s a little too emphatically.

  He brought the glass to his mouth and drank deeply. It was a full-blooded Cabernet and the tannin burned his tongue. Drowning his sorrows in alcohol was probably not the wisest course of action, but he was beyond caring. Frankie was sitting in one of the leather club chairs in his apartment. She looked shattered.

  He didn’t even want to think about what he looked like. He was now consciously avoiding mirrors. Whenever he looked into the mirror his grandfather’s face stared out at him. His grandfather on his deathbed. But it wasn’t merely the fact that the sight of his own face was a real downer—ashen skin, bloodshot eyes—he was also afraid of seeing a shadow fall across the door behind him; a flaccid hand beckoning. He didn’t know what was worse: the mind attacks or the hallucinations.

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘Not bad.’ He had a splitting headache, but these days he always had a splitting headache. It was starting to feel normal. And the pain from the headache was as nothing compared to a full-blown mind attack.

  As if reading his thoughts, Frankie said, ‘Why hasn’t Minnaloushe launched another attack? The last one was two days ago.’

  ‘Maybe she’s tired. Maybe she needs a rest period herself in order to juice up.’ He shrugged, took another sip of wine. ‘Who knows? But launching an attack probably takes something out of her as well.’

  ‘God, I hope so.’ Frankie’s voice was savage. ‘I hope it’s really painful for her. The bitch.’

  Gabriel winced at the word. Strange how he wanted to protest against Frankie’s use of the epithet. Which was pretty damn pathetic no matter how you looked at it. Minnaloushe was hell-bent on destroying him and here he was feeling squeamish when Frankie called her names.

  But he had to be honest. The idea that Minnaloushe was a murderer still felt wholly unreal to him.

  He remembered what she had looked like on the night of her birthday. Like a figure from a religious painting. One of those beautiful women with slender wrists and radiant eyes who inhabited the canvases of the old masters. A worshipful Mary Magdalene or a righteous Judith. Her skin bathed in light, shadows in her hair and at the corners of her mouth.

  He was grieving, he suddenly realised. Grieving for lost innocence. But he was being foolish. He couldn’t afford the luxury of grieving. If he didn’t toughen his mind where Minnaloushe was concerned, it would be the end of him. She was sure to exploit his every weakness and for his own sake he had better shape up. For his own sake and for Morrighan’s. She might be in danger from her sister as well.

  Which brought him to the most important question: how could he protect Morrighan?

  He had a horrible feeling that Morrighan was in imminent peril and in need of his protection. If th
e danger had been physical he would have backed her against Minnaloushe any time. Physically she was by far the stronger and the more agile of the two. But the danger wasn’t physical. It was more insidious. And here he was, his brain leaking like a punctured tube, in pretty poor shape to assume the role of shining knight on a white horse.

  Morrighan. How to warn her? How to protect her?

  Frankie picked up the bottle of wine and filled her glass again. Gabriel waved the bottle away when she offered it to him. He was on his third glass already.

  ‘Frankie…’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m very grateful for everything you’ve done so far. But I want you to go home now. And I want you to stay as far away from me as you can.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Frankie was scowling.

  ‘I mean it. I’m bad news. You know what happened to Isidore. I don’t want the same thing to happen to you.’

  ‘Oh, shut up, Gabriel.’ Frankie didn’t even bother to raise her voice. ‘If it weren’t for me, you wouldn’t be in this mess. So just shut up.’

  ‘Frankie, I really think—’

  ‘I refuse to discuss it any longer.’ Frankie set her mouth firmly. Her expression was mutinous. ‘Back off.’

  He backed off. For now.

  ‘Let’s make dinner.’ Frankie got to her feet. ‘And then we can talk about what to do next.’

  While Frankie boiled water for pasta, Gabriel took tomatoes, salad leaves and parsley from the fridge. Placing the vegetables on a chopping board, he removed a gleaming knife from the knife stand. Global. The best. He had picked out this knife set in the Divertimenti kitchen shop in Knightsbridge only a few months ago. An old girlfriend of his had been with him at the time. But he couldn’t remember her name. Kathy? Carol? He tried to concentrate, but his head was splitting.

  The heft of the knife fitted comfortably in his hand. The blade was razor sharp. Chop. Chop. It sliced easily through the stalks of parsley.

  His head was really hurting. He squinted at the chopping board. Chop. Chop. His fingers were pressing down on the parsley stalks and for a moment the thought entered his mind that the tips of his fingers looked like vegetables as well. Like pale, smooth mushroom caps. Button mushrooms. The thought was funny, somehow, and a little giggle escaped his lips.

  ‘Gabriel? Are you OK?’

  ‘Sure.’ He didn’t look up from the chopping board. The movement of the knife slicing through the green stalks underneath his fingers was mesmeric. Chop. Chop. White and green. White for his fingers. Green for the parsley. Chop. Chop. The knife edged closer to the tips of his fingers. Maybe red and green would be a better colour combination than white and green. Red like blood.

  Chop. Chop. He stared at the gleaming knife, at the blade edging closer and closer to his fingers. Just as the blade of that hunting knife had edged closer and closer to Melissa Cartwright’s throat. Red like blood. Red like blood…

  ‘Gabriel!’

  Frankie’s scream broke through the daze. The next moment she had wrenched the knife from his grasp and her hands were on his shoulders and she was shaking him.

  ‘What the hell are you doing? Do you want to slice off your fingers?’

  For a moment he stared at her, speechless. Then he started to cry. He leaned against the kitchen cabinets and threw his head back and wept with open mouth and open eyes.

  Frankie did not try to hush him. She simply waited. Only when the last shuddering sob had left his mouth did she speak.

  ‘I want us to talk to Alexander.’

  ‘No!’ Gabriel jerked upright.

  ‘Yes. It’s time.’

  ‘I’m not going, Frankie. He will not have forgiven me for Melissa. I can’t do it.’

  ‘Yes, you can.’ She paused and repeated, ‘It’s time.’

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  She had been practically beheaded. Round her neck there only remained shredded tissue, the great vessels from the heart exposed. The severed trachea showed white among the clots of blood. Her head was tilted backwards but propped against the wall, as though she were lazily keeping watch.

  Melissa Cartwright. Beauty queen. Glamorous wife of Sir Stephen Cartwright.

  Dead eyes should be empty of expression but hers were not. A horrible knowingness was in her gaze. Her left eyelid drooped flirtatiously. As though she couldn’t help herself, Gabriel thought. Flirtatious in life. Flirtatious in death.

  With a strange sense of detachment he saw that the front of her cream evening dress was soaked. She had bled out. The knobbly sequins on the bodice made the wash of blood look like crimson vomit. Her hands were resting on her lap and tied together with wire, white bone pushing through the slitted skin. But she must have put up a fight. Some of her nails had snapped so violently, they had broken off right into the quick. Her long dress was rucked up, exposing her inner thigh.

  ‘She’s not wearing knickers,’ a voice said behind him. One of the detectives, talking to a female colleague.

  ‘Probably didn’t have any on to begin with. That tight a dress, you go commando.’ The female officer was smiling.

  ‘Still looks like a sexual assault to me.’

  The woman shrugged, bored. ‘Let’s wait for the vaginal and anal swabs.’

  Behind him someone sobbed. Sir Stephen Cartwright was holding his hands to his face. Next to him stood Alexander Mullins. The two men had plastic covers on their shoes and were swaddled in white protective overalls, just like Gabriel himself. Like ghosts, Gabriel thought. Ghosts visiting the dead.

  Mullins’s eyes filled with rage. ‘You don’t belong here, Gabriel, but I wanted you to see for yourself. You could have prevented this from happening.’

  Gabriel tried to speak but his throat was tight.

  ‘First you lied. And then you refused to slam the ride because you were feeling… petulant.’ Gabriel winced at the contempt in Mullins’s voice.

  ‘Get out.’ Mullins’s voice shook. ‘Get out now.’

  Gabriel looked back at the body. A smell was seeping from it. Oxidised blood. Urine. Faeces. He knew that smell was going to stay with him. It would leach into his memories.

  Memories. Over time they grow blurred. As though they had been stored on a disc that became corrupted, throwing up a treacherous density of fragmented code whenever you tried to access the data.

  But some things you never forget.

  • • •

  Gabriel would always remember the look on Alexander Mullins’s face the day he told the viewers at Eyestorm that they had been retained by Sir Stephen Cartwright to assist in solving his wife’s kidnapping.

  ‘Stephen and I are friends,’ Mullins said, his face for once animated. ‘This case is personal. We all need to work together.’ He turned his head deliberately towards Gabriel and the young man knew what that look meant: Shape up. Fall in line. Be a team player.

  Except that being a team player had never suited his MO. When you slammed a ride it was just you and your target. There was no room for group hugs or inspirational chats. Huddling together with other RVs, sharing information, talking things over, opening up, was all wasted energy. Besides, Gabriel enjoyed pitting himself against his colleagues. He always won, and didn’t they just hate it.

  Melissa Cartwright was a supermodel and her violet eyes had smiled from the pages of dozens of fashion magazines at Gabriel and millions of others. A sociopath by the name of William Newts must have thought her smile was meant for him only. By the time Sir Stephen enlisted their help, his wife had been missing for three weeks and the media frenzy was intense.

  Gabriel was excited. A success would be bound to impress Mullins.

  The relationship between Gabriel and his mentor was rocky. Gabriel knew that Mullins admired his viewing skills and the older man had once admitted that in his thirty years of studying RVs he had never encountered one with greater ability. But Gabriel also knew that Mullins considered him arrogant and a loose cannon, and his reluctance to work as part of a team was a c
ontinual bone of contention.

  For his part, Gabriel thought Mullins overly cautious and sometimes outright punitive. Still, much as he hated to admit it to himself, he sought Mullins’s respect in the way a son would seek approval from an emotionally reticent parent.

  Maybe the Cartwright case would be a turning point. If he could bring Melissa home safely, the old man would be forever in his debt.

  • • •

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Frankie switched on the bedside light. The glow was feeble, leaving the corners of their tiny student flat in shadow. Outside the window, the town of Oxford was asleep.

  Gabriel sighed and plucked irritably at the bed sheet. ‘Nothing. Go back to sleep.’

  ‘No.’ Frankie pulled herself upright. ‘It’s one o’clock in the morning and you’re still awake. And I’ve had enough of your bad temper. You’ve been impossible to live with for the past week. Tell me what’s up!’

  Gabriel stared at her sullenly.

  ‘Gabriel, you and I are in a relationship. Re-la-tion-ship. That means you get to tell me what’s bothering you and I get to listen and tell you it’s OK and not to worry. And then maybe we can both go back to sleep and get some rest without you tossing and turning all night long and behaving like an ass the next morning.’

  If only it were that simple, he thought, looking at her flushed face. He suddenly felt close to despair.

  ‘Gabriel?’

  ‘The ride. I don’t think I can do it any more.’ He had difficulty uttering the words. His lips felt weirdly numb.

  Frankie frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘I’m having trouble slamming the ride, Frankie. I think… I think I may be losing the fire.’ Mullins had warned them. Remote viewers sometimes burned out and lost their gift. It happened to the best of them. Had it happened to him?

  Frankie sighed impatiently. ‘Gabriel, just because you failed once—’

  ‘Three times.’

  ‘—three times, does not mean you’re losing it. You’re just not seeing clearly yet.’