If You Could See Me Now (36 page)

Elizabeth made a face at him and Luke giggled.

“We must interrogate you. Have you any harsh lights we can shine in your face?” Ivan looked around the room and withdrew the question when he caught the look on Elizabeth’s face. “Very well, Madame.”

“Who has been murdered?” Elizabeth asked.

“Ah, just as I suspected, Monsieur Rotalsnart.” They paced the
floor
in opposite directions with the magnifying glasses still over their eyes. “She pretends to not know so we don’t suspect her. Clever.”

“Do you think she did it?” Luke asked.

“We shall see. Madame, a worm was found squished to death earlier today on the path leading from your conservatory to the clothesline. His devastated family tell us he left home when the rain had stopped in order to cross the path to the other side of the garden. His reasons for wanting to go there are not known, but it’s what worms do.”

Luke and Elizabeth looked at each other and laughed.

“The rain stopped at six thirty
p.m., which is when the worm left his

home to cross the path. Could you tell me your whereabouts, Madame?” “Am I a suspect?” Elizabeth laughed. “At zis stage of the investi-gay-c-on, everyone is a suspect.” “Well, I returned from work at six
fifteen
p.m. and put dinner on, then I

went to the utility room and emptied the damp clothes from the washing machine into the basket.”

“Then what did you do?” Ivan thrust the magnifying glass in her face and moved it around, studying her. “I am checking for clues,” he whispered to Luke.

Elizabeth laughed. “After that I waited for the rain to stop and then I

hung the washing on the line.” Ivan gasped dramatically. “Monsieur Rotalsnart, did you hear that?” Luke’s giggling revealed his gums, from where yet another tooth had

fallen. “Well then this means you are the murder-air!” “The murderer,” Luke translated. They both turned to her with their magnifying glasses over their eyes. Ivan spoke. “As you tried to keep your birthday of next week a secret

from me, your punishment will be to have a party in the back jardin in the

memory of the recently deceased Monsieur Wriggles, the worm.” Elizabeth groaned. “No way.” “I know, Elizabeth.” He replaced his French accent with an upper

class British accent. “Having to socialize with the village folk is so terribly

frightful.” “What folk?” Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, just a few people we invited.” Ivan shrugged. “Luke posted the

invites this morning, isn’t he great?” He nodded to a proud and beaming Luke. “Next week you will be the host of a garden party. People you don’t know very well will be stomping through your home, possibly making it dirty.
Think you can handle that?”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Elizabeth
sat cross-legged
on the white sheet covering the dusty cement
floor
of the building site, with her eyes closed.

“So this is where you disappear to every day,” the soft voice spoke.

Elizabeth’s eyes remained closed. “How do you do it, Ivan?”

“Do what?”

“Just appear out of nowhere exactly when I’m thinking of you?”

She heard him laugh lightly but he didn’t answer the question. “Why is this room the only one that hasn’t been
finished? Or started, by the looks of it.” He stood behind her.

“Because I need help. I’m stuck.”

“Well, what do you know, Elizabeth Egan is asking for help.” There was a silence until Ivan started humming a familiar song, the song she hadn’t been able to get out of her head for the past two months and the song that was almost making her broke, thanks to Poppy and Becca’s pig in the office.

Her eyelids
flew open. “What are you humming?”

“The humming song.”

“Did Luke teach you that?”

“No
I
taught
him,
thank you very much,” he explained.

“Oh, really,” Elizabeth grumbled, “I thought his
invisible
friend made it up.” She laughed to herself and then looked up to him. He wasn’t laughing.

Eventually he spoke. “Why do you sound like you’re speaking with socks in your mouth?” He looked down at her. “What is that on your face? A muzzle?” He roared laughing.

Elizabeth’s cheeks
flushed. “It’s not a muzzle,” she spat. “You have no idea how much dust and bacteria this building has. Anyway, you should be wearing a hard hat”—she knocked on her own—“God forbid this place should come down on us,” she added sarcastically. “Although I forgot you’re invisible. Falling concrete blocks would just
Fly
right through your body.”

“What else are you wearing?” He ignored her moodiness and looked her up and down. “Gloves?”

“So my hands don’t get dirty.” She pouted like a child.

“Oh, Elizabeth.” Ivan shook his head and strolled comically around her. “All the things I’ve taught you and you’re still worrying about being clean and tidy.” He picked up a paintbrush that was sitting beside an open pot of paint and dipped it in.

“Ivan,” Elizabeth said, nervously watching him, “what are you going to do?”

“You said you wanted help.” He grinned at her.

Elizabeth rose slowly to her feet. “Ye-es, help with painting the
wall,
” her voice warned.

“Well, unfortunately you didn’t quite specify that when you asked, so I’m afraid that doesn’t count.” He dipped the paintbrush into the red paint, held the bristles back in his hand, and released them toward Elizabeth like a catapult. Paint splattered across her face.

“Ooh, too bad you weren’t wearing protective clothing on the rest of your face,” he teased, watching her eyes widen in anger and shock.

“Ivan,” she said with venom in her voice, “throwing me in the lake is
one
thing, but this is
ludicrous,
” she squealed. “This is my
work
. I’m serious, I want absolutely
nothing
more to do with you Ivan, Ivan ...I don’t even know your surname,” she spluttered.

“It’s Elbisivni,” he explained calmly.

“What are you,
Russian?
” she shouted, almost hyperventilating. “Is Ekam Eveileb Russian too or does it even
exist?
” She was screaming now and breathless.

“I’m very sorry,” Ivan said seriously, his smile disappearing. “I can sense that you’re upset. I’ll just put this back down.” He slowly lowered the paintbrush back to the pot and left it back at the perfect angle at which it had been placed, matching the others. “That was over the top, I apologize.”

Elizabeth’s anger began to subside.

“The red is perhaps too much of an angry color for you,” he continued. “I should have been more subtle.” Suddenly another paintbrush appeared before Elizabeth’s face. Her eyes widened.

“White, maybe?” He grinned and once again splashed the paint on her top.

“Ivan!” Elizabeth half laughed and half shouted. “Fine.” She dove toward the pots of paint. “You wanna play? I can play. Wearing colors is your favorite thing to do now, you say?” She dipped a paintbrush in the pot and chased Ivan around the room. “Blue’s your favorite color, Mr. Elbisivni?” She painted a strip of blue down his face and hair and began laughing evilly.

“You thought that was funny?”

She nodded, in hysterics.

“Good.” Ivan laughed, grabbing her by the waist and pushing her to the
floor, pinning her down masterfully and painting her face while she squealed and struggled to get free. “If you don’t stop shouting, Elizabeth, you’ll have a green tongue,” Ivan warned.

After they had both been covered head-to-toe in paint and Elizabeth was laughing so much she could no longer put up a
fight, Ivan turned his attention to the wall. “What this wall needs now is some paint.”

Elizabeth removed her mouth cover and tried to regain her breathing, revealing the only normal skin color on her face.

“Well, at least that came in handy,” Ivan noted, and turned back to face the wall. “A little birdie told me that you went on a date with Benjamin West,” he said, dipping a fresh brush into the red paint pot.

“Dinner, yes. A date, no. And may I add that I went out with him the night you stood me up.”

He didn’t reply. “You like him?” he asked.

“He’s a nice man.” She still didn’t turn around.

“You want to spend more time with him?” he asked.

Elizabeth began to roll up the paint-splattered sheet from the
floor. “I’d like to spend more time with you.”

“What if you couldn’t?”

Elizabeth froze. “Then I’d ask you why.”

He avoided the question. “What if I didn’t exist and you’d never met me, would you want to spend more time with Benjamin then?”

Elizabeth swallowed hard, put her paper and pens into her bag, and zipped it shut. She was tired of playing games with him and his talk was making her nervous. They needed to discuss this properly. She stood up and faced him. On the wall, Ivan had written, “Elizabeth LOVES Benjamin” in big red letters.

“Ivan!” Elizabeth giggled nervously. “Don’t be such a child, what if someone was to see that!” She went to grab the brush from him.

He wouldn’t let go and their eyes locked together. “I can’t give you what you want, Elizabeth,” he said softly.

A coughing from the doorway caused them both to jump.

“Hi, Elizabeth.” Benjamin looked at her with curious amusement. He glanced at the wall behind her and grinned. “That’s an interesting theme.”

There was a pregnant pause. Elizabeth looked to her right. “It was Ivan.” Her voice came out childlike.

Benjamin laughed slightly. “Him again.”

She nodded and he looked to the paintbrush in her hand, dripping red paint onto her splattered jeans. A red-, blue-, purple-, green-, and white-splashed face now turned crimson.

“Looks like it’s
you
who’s been caught painting the roses red,” Benjamin said softly, and went to take a step into the room.

“Benjamin!” Vincent’s voice shouted at him.

He paused midstep, with a pained expression at the sound of Vincent’s demanding voice. “I better go.” He smiled. “I’ll talk to you later.” He laughed and headed off in the direction of Vincent’s shouts. “Oh, by the way,” he called out, “thanks for the party invitation.”

Elizabeth ignored Ivan, who was doubled over laughing and snorting. She dipped her brush in the white pot and erased Ivan’s words, trying to erase this embarrassing moment from her memory.

...

“Good afternoon, Mr. O’Callaghan; hello, Maureen; hello, Fidelma; hi, Connor; Father Murphy,” she greeted her fellow villagers as she walked through the town to get to her office. Red paint dribbled down her arms, blue paint clung in strands around her hair, and her jeans looked like Monet’s palette. Silent, stunned stares followed her as her clothes continued to drip with paint, leaving a multicolored trail behind her.

“Why do you always do that?” Ivan asked, running alongside her to keep up as she marched through the town.

“Do what? Good afternoon, Sheila.”

“You always cross the road before you get to Flanagan’s Pub, walk on the opposite path, and then cross again once you get to Joe’s.”

“No I don’t.” She smiled at another gawker.

“Talk about painting the town red, Elizabeth,” Joe called out to her, laughing as she left red footprints behind her as she ran across the road.

“Look, you just did it!” Ivan laughed.

Elizabeth stopped in her tracks and looked back on her trail, visible by her footprints. True enough, she had crossed the road at Flanagan’s, walked on the opposite path, and crossed over once again to get to her office, instead of staying on the same path. She hadn’t noticed that before. She looked back at Flanagan’s Pub. Mr. Flanagan stood at the door having a cigarette; he nodded at her strangely, appearing surprised that she held his stare. She frowned and swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat as she stared at the building.