Writ in Water

by Natasha Mostert

  He was proved right. He had used every penny he had, and many he didn’t have, to buy as many additional shares as he could when the company made a rights issue. Taumex sailed through the Phase II clinical trials. The number of prescriptions during the first week after its launch dwarfed even that of Viagra—up till then the fastest-selling drug in the history of pharmacology. Temple Sullivan stock soared. It had made his reputation and his fortune—was still making it. And now this woman with the odd accent who had just called him was trying to rain on his parade.

  Geissinger swiveled his chair around to face the prematurely balding man behind him. ‘Hey, Cueball.’

  Charles Quest was speaking into his telephone and did not answer. He simply raised a long finger in warning. Then he said, ‘Certainly, I’ll hold.’ He glanced at Geissinger. ‘Watch out. If you persist in calling me that, I simply won’t talk to you.’

  ‘A real blow that would be.’ Geissinger grinned. Actually it would be. Charles Quest had a reputation for keeping his ear close to the ground. If there were any rumours floating about, Quest would know. ‘Seriously, Charlie, have you heard anything about Temple Sullivan—anything about supply problems?’

  ‘Hmm. Hmm. Where did you hear that?’

  ‘This woman just called me out of nowhere with some cock-and-bull story about Taumex and sourcing problems in Madagascar.’

  ‘What woman?’

  ‘I don’t know. She calls herself Sophia.’

  Quest turned sideways in his seat and spoke into the phone again. ‘Well, could you tell him Charles Quest from Devereaux has called? Yes, thank you so much.’ He hung up. ‘I love this man,’ he said, and gestured to the phone. ‘When other investors get jittery and jump out, this one jumps in. And if you make him a little money he actually says thank you. Anyway, Sophia. Never heard of her.’ He sighed deeply and stared at the rapidly moving tape as though he might find inspiration somewhere within the glow-worm-green alphabet soup. ‘Why don’t you give that pretty pharmaceutical analyst a call? You know, the little blonde with the punk hairdo. Ask her if she and her playmates have anything to share.’

  Geissinger crumpled up the piece of paper with the doodles and lobbed it in the direction of the wastepaper basket. ‘Sophia—it sounds like a character from a sitcom. She’s probably a loony.’

  ‘Probably. But call the little analyst anyway. I hear she has a pierced navel.’

  Geissinger grinned. ‘Maybe I will at that.’

  • • •

  BY THE TIME Isa had finished calling the three men on Alette’s list, her neck felt stiff with tension and she had a crick just below her shoulder blade from sitting perched on the very edge of the seat.

  One of the men she had called had refused to speak to her when she would not give her full name or the name of the ‘company’ she represented. The other two had listened politely but had not sounded exactly startled or in any way worried by what she had told them. They had been quite civil and quite non-committal.

  Well, that was that. Now she only had those envelopes to send to the two newspapers. And then wait.

  She glanced out of the window and stiffened. On the top floor of the apartment block opposite, in the corner window, was the watcher from the other night. He was looking in her direction. When he saw that she had noticed him, he lifted his arm and waved.

  Isa got out of the chair and walked to the other side of the room to get out of his line of vision. But almost immediately the phone started ringing. Isa hesitated, then walked back to the desk and picked up the receiver.

  ‘Hi. I’m just trying to be friendly.’ The deep voice at the other end of the line sounded amused.

  ‘Who is this?’

  ‘The guy you just turned your back on. Yes, that’s right, up here. See, it’s me. Waving.’

  Isa looked at the corner window again. He was a big man with heavy shoulders. He wore a crimson sweater and held a cordless phone to his ear.

  ‘I’m coming over there to talk to you,’ he said. ‘I was a friend of Alette’s.’

  ‘No, wait …’ Isa felt almost panicked.

  ‘See you in a minute,’ he said cheerily, and disappeared from view.

  When the doorbell rang five minutes later, Isa was already waiting apprehensively in the entrance hall. Apprehensively, but also angrily. She didn’t like being thrust into this situation.

  He was even bigger close up. His dark blond hair was thick and long and untidy. He was not handsome: his features were far too irregular and he had an odd-shaped nose—squishy was the word that popped into her head. Still, he was attractive in a sort of rumpled way. On the front of his red sweater was knitted a design of flying reindeer. Very much in the Christmas spirit, Isa thought sourly.

  He stuck out a huge hand. ‘Hi, I’m Michael Chapman. And you must be Isabelle.’

  She blinked at him, surprised. He grinned. ‘It can only be you. Alette described you perfectly.’

  ‘I’m Isa. How can I help you?’ Nervousness made her sound brusque.

  He gazed at her for a moment. ‘Look, you don’t know me from Adam and I can see you’re not at your ease. But there’s a really nice little place just around the corner from here where they serve good tea and great scones. What do you say?’

  ‘I don’t know …’

  ‘Oh, come on. I can’t look that dangerous.’ When she didn’t answer he said, suddenly sombre: ‘Please. Alette and I were good friends. I’d love to talk to you about her. I still can’t believe she’s gone.’

  Isa remembered her dream about Eric’s funeral. Her illogical desire to talk to Eric’s wife and family; to share with them her grief.

  He was waiting for her reply, eyebrows lifted inquiringly. He had kind eyes, she thought.

  ‘Let me get my coat.’

  On the way over, she studied him from the corner of her eye. He didn’t walk, he shambled. He was swinging his arms in a disjointed kind of way. His shoes were good shoes, but dull and unpolished. He was not fat, just very heavily built. He reminded her a bit of a shaggy Saint Bernard.

  Inside the tiny tea shop, he dropped the menu twice. Either he was clumsy, or he was more nervous than he was letting on.

  ‘I appreciate this, you know.’ He folded the menu and placed it at the edge of the table, where it seemed in danger of falling off again. She had to stop herself from pushing it back to the middle.

  ‘You and Alette were friends?’

  ‘Good friends. We were never intimate,’ he added awkwardly. ‘But we shared the same interests: the same taste in books. We met three years ago at the Chelsea Flower Show. I recognized her immediately as the beautiful girl living opposite me.’

  ‘So you introduced yourself?’

  ‘Actually, no. I was looking at some roses and she came over to me and told me that I’d do better with another variety. The rose I was interested in had no fragrance.’ He smiled. ‘She said roses that had the scent bred out of them were vulgar. So that was another thing we shared: we’re both gardeners.’

  ‘But you live in an apartment block.’

  ‘My mother, my sister and her little boy live in Putney and they have a proper garden. I look after it for them.’

  ‘So what is it you do exactly?’ Isa suddenly realized it sounded as though she were interrogating him. But if he resented being questioned like this, his face didn’t show it.

  ‘I’m a photographer and artist. Photography’s the bread; art is the fantasy.’ He grinned. ‘The Tate is close by and every Monday you’ll find me there, copying the artwork. It keeps my eye in. The rest of the week I’m a photographer: everything from baby pictures to weddings. I’d love to be able to paint and sculpt full-time, but a man has to eat.’

  He inclined his head slightly to one side. ‘I seem to remember Alette telling me that you’re an artist as well.’

  ‘Not really. In my spare time I sketch a little. It’s just a hobby. Not important.’

  ‘Hobbies are always important. They represent the true passio
ns in someone’s life. I’ve always thought that if I couldn’t be an artist, I’d want to be an astronomer. If I were younger I might have trained for it properly. As it is, I just dabble.’ He shrugged. ‘Of course, living in London is far from the ideal place to observe stars. Too much ambient light. I have to go out to the country and I don’t often get the chance. It’s a pity. I’m passionate about binary stars.’

  ‘Binary stars?’

  ‘Two suns caught in each other’s gravity. Two suns spinning together for all eternity.’

  ‘That’s rather … romantic.’

  ‘I like to think so.’ He smiled. ‘It could also be terrible, I suppose. The idea of never being able to break free.’

  They were quiet as the waitress brought them their tea. Michael slowly stirred the tea in his cup, the spoon almost disappearing inside his hand. Isa noticed that his eyelashes, though fair, were long and thick.

  ‘You know.’ He paused. ‘You scared the stuffing out of me the other night.’

  ‘I scared you?’

  ‘Well, yes. First the lights went on inside a house where the person who might have switched them on couldn’t possibly have done so. And then imagine how I felt when I saw a woman moving around inside this house where the occupant is supposed to be dead. For one awful moment I thought you were Alette.’

  ‘I was pretty spooked by you as well. I saw you watching me and the next moment you switched off your light. Why?’

  He smiled wryly. ‘Frankly, I was embarrassed that you’d caught me staring.’

  ‘Well don’t do it again. It’s creepy.’

  ‘No, ma’am.’ He smiled again; an easy smile this time.

  After taking a sip of his tea, he said, ‘You were very close to Alette, weren’t you? She told me you grew up together.’

  ‘We were like sisters.’

  ‘I rather expected to see you at the funeral.’

  ‘You were there?’

  He nodded and for a fleeting moment there was genuine distress in his eyes.

  Isa thought of the funeral book Mr Darling had given her. She couldn’t remember seeing Michael Chapman in the list of names. ‘You didn’t sign the book.’

  For a moment he looked confused, then he said, ‘Oh—no. No, I didn’t. Couldn’t think of anything to write, really. Everything I thought of sounded so trite.’

  ‘Her ex-husband didn’t sign his name either.’ Isa didn’t know why she felt she had to mention it. The words left her mouth as if of their own volition.

  ‘I saw him there.’ Michael’s voice was colourless.

  Isa watched him fold his arms across his chest and thought: He knows. He knows about Alette and Justin.

  ‘You don’t like him, do you?’

  She couldn’t believe herself. Under normal circumstances she would never ask such a question of someone she had just met. But after Alette’s letter she felt as though she were flying blind. Anything he could tell her would be important.

  ‘He’s a prick,’ Michael said calmly. ‘Sorry. That was crude. But it’s the truth. Alette’s life was a living hell because of him.’

  She made a non-committal gesture with her head. ‘I gathered that where Alette was concerned, he was … possessive.’

  ‘Possessive?’ Michael was silent for a moment, his gaze vacant. Then he shook his head slowly. ‘Possessive is not the correct word. It went beyond that. Alette was the most independent-minded person I knew, but Temple destroyed her self-confidence. Some guys don’t know how to accept ‘no’ for an answer. He was obsessed with her. Besotted. He couldn’t deal with the fact that she was no longer interested in him.’

  Isa frowned. ‘There is something I don’t understand. Her solicitor told me that on the day of her death she had driven all the way to the north coast of Devon to talk to him. Why would she do that?’

  ‘Her solicitor told you this?’

  ‘Yes. Why, what’s the matter?’

  Michael lifted his eyebrows. ‘I find it odd that he would know about it, quite frankly. I wouldn’t have thought that Alette would have taken him into her confidence to such an extent.’

  ‘I’m not sure what you mean. He said she had business to discuss with Justin.’

  ‘Oh. Well, maybe that’s what she told him … but still, I wouldn’t have thought she would even have mentioned the meeting at all.’

  Isa suddenly remembered the slight hesitation marring Lionel Darling’s smooth voice as he had uttered the word ‘business.’

  ‘So the meeting with Justin wasn’t about business.’

  ‘No. On the day she died she was going to have it out with him. She had asked my advice, and to tell you the truth, I was dead set against her talking to the man. It was only going to fuel his obsession even more. But Alette had had enough. He was visiting his mother and she drove all the way out there to confront him. On her way back, she had the accident. So I suppose we’ll never know whether she managed to talk some sense into him. My guess is not.’

  Isa looked past Michael out of the window. The burst of sunshine that had seemed so bright and cheerful that morning was gone. The wind whipped up stray papers and debris and tugged at the coats of passers-by.

  She realized Michael had asked her a question and was waiting for an answer.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘I asked how long you’ll be staying here,’ he repeated again patiently.

  ‘I’m not sure yet. I have all these arrangements to make.’

  ‘She left you the house?’

  Isa nodded, then pushed her chair back and got to her feet. ‘I have to find a post office. Could you direct me?’

  ‘Sure. There’s one just a block away from here.’ His eye fell on the two envelopes she had taken out of her bag.

  ‘That’s Alette’s handwriting.’ He sounded shocked.

  ‘Yes. She asked me to send these off for her.’ When he looked at her strangely, Isa tried to explain. ‘She left me some instructions in her will …’

  ‘Oh. Well, then.’ He sounded almost at a loss. ‘If you need any help, let me know.’ He took his wallet out of his back pocket. ‘Here’s my card. I mean it. Anything I can do—just name it.’

  She looked up into his eyes. He really did have kind eyes. ‘Thank you.’

  She turned around and allowed him to help her with her coat. He was such a big man; he made her feel quite fragile. It was an unusual feeling. She was so tall, she was usually able to look most men straight in the eye.

  On the pavement outside, he held out his hand. ‘Well, so long, then.’

  ‘Goodbye.’ She watched as he crossed the road right in front of an oncoming car. He was walking with that peculiar shambling gait she had noticed earlier, but he was also surprisingly quick. He reached the other side of the road unscathed and turned around to give her a final wave before disappearing around the corner.

  Isa pushed her fists into her coat pockets and turned in the direction he had pointed out to her. She found the post office without any problem. After buying stamps, she pushed the two envelopes through the slit of the post box one by one; holding on to them until her hand had fully disappeared from view.

  For a moment she stood looking around her irresolutely. The weather had deteriorated quite badly. But she couldn’t face going back to the house. She started walking.

  Fulham Road was busy with shoppers. Christmas lights in the shape of Christmas trees were draped around every lamp post. In the freezing fog the tiny white lights seemed to be floating. Movement and noise were all around her, but still Isa felt isolated from it all: as though she were an invisible woman with those around her heedless of her presence. She tried to make eye contact, but people were looking straight through her. She passed by a pub and the door suddenly opened with a rush of warm air. The sound of laughter floated out at her and she stopped for a moment to listen.

  She turned off the high street into a residential street. It was quiet here. It must have started to rain again, because when she touched her hair she was surp
rised to find her hand wet with moisture. It was so peculiar, this English rain. One moment the street was dry and then all of a sudden there was water underfoot and rain glimmered on black trees. The rain was quiet: almost unnoticeable. How did Alette stand its soft, insidious presence day after day? In Natal the rain was heavy and dense and the drops so big they made the leaves on the trees droop.

  Isa could never understand why Alette had not returned to South Africa after the divorce. Alette loved Natal: its sensuous heat; the promiscuous growth of the vegetation. When she asked Alette if she’d ever go home again, Alette said no. ‘One can never go back.’

  Isa was beginning to tire. Her aimless wandering had taken her up the Exhibition Road and she was now walking through large, cast-iron gates into Hyde Park. A swarm of birds flew up from the trees in front of her, their wings black crescents against a cold sky.

  Isa stopped dead in her tracks. She knew this place. She had been here once before. She had a vivid picture of that day: the day before Alette’s wedding. They had just left a restaurant where Justin and Alette had held a late lunch for out-of-town guests. It was a snowy day, with all the enchantment of white pavements and street lights throwing shimmering circles on the ice. Justin and Alette had insisted on walking her back to her hotel and they had passed by Hyde Park, stopping for a few moments at this exact same spot.

  And all of a sudden, as though music were playing for their ears alone, Justin and Alette had started to dance. Isa remembered the two figures twirling silently, locked in an embrace. Alette’s red satin pumps: the thin, high heels sinking into the soft snow; around one slender ankle a gold chain from which dangled a tiny rose-shaped charm. Justin in his long dark overcoat cradling Alette in his arm. Her hair: long red tendrils clinging to his shirtfront.

  Five years ago. Five years in which love turned to hate: gold turning to lead. An experiment in emotional alchemy that went horribly wrong.

  Isa turned around and walked out of the gate. She hailed a taxi, and as she got into the cab, she gave a last look back over her shoulder. That silent dance underneath the hushed trees was haunting her still.