Watching You (11 page)

“Who are you talking to?” she asks.

“My friend.”

Marnie laughs. “So he lives in the wardrobe—like in Narnia?”

“Huh?”

“I’ll read you the stories one day.
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
.”

“I don’t like witches,” says Elijah.

Marnie gives him a hug, lifting him onto the bed where he stands. “Bedtime, big man.”

“But I’m not tired.”

“Well I am. Brush your teeth and choose a story.”

“Where’s Zoe?”

“She’s on her way home.”

“Can I wait up for her?”

“Nope.”

“Who’s that man you’re talking to?”

“He’s a friend.”

Marnie knows that Elijah will keep asking questions if it delays bedtime. He brushes his teeth and goes to the toilet, concentrating hard as he balances on a step and aims a stream of urine into the bowl. Marnie tucks him into bed.

“Will Daddy be home tomorrow?”

“I don’t think so.”

“What about the next day?”

“No.”

He nods. “Maybe by the weekend.”

She turns off the light and rejoins Joe in the sitting room. Checking her mobile for messages, she’s worried about Zoe. She’s about to call when she hears the door opening.

“Where have you been?”

“At the library,” says Zoe.

“It’s late.”

“I got talking to a friend.”

Zoe is holding her school satchel in both arms.

“Have you eaten?”

“No.”

She glances past Marnie and sees Joe on the sofa. He stands. “This is Professor O’Loughlin.”

“Your psychologist?”

“He’s also a friend.”

“You can call me Joe,” he says.

Zoe looks along the hallway. “I’ll just put this in my room.”

“I can make you something for supper,” says Marnie.

“I can do it.”

Zoe closes her bedroom door. A bolt slides into place.

Joe is holding Daniel’s diary. It’s open on a page with a list of names, some underlined, others crossed out. There are phone numbers and addresses. Other details are jotted in the margins: jobs still to be done.

Marnie takes the diary and studies the list. Most of the names belong to friends, former colleagues, old teachers, or women she met at her mothers’ group. A few she hasn’t talked to or thought about in years.

“Penny must have helped Daniel put it together,” she says. “She’s terrible at keeping secrets, but she kept this one.”

Joe leans forward. Their knees touch.

“Are there any names on the list that you don’t recognize?”

Marnie runs her finger down the page. It stops.

“I don’t know anyone called Francis Moffatt.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“What about this one—Dr. Sterne?”

Marnie hesitates and shakes her head. She points to another name. “Calvin is Zoe’s father. We were married for about eighteen months.”

“Do you still see him?”

“He sends Zoe a card on her birthday when he remembers.”

“Where is he now?”

“He’s been in prison, but he’s out now.”

Zoe emerges from her bedroom. She’s changed into tracksuit bottoms and a T-shirt. Opening the fridge door, she takes out a loaf of bread, butter, and eggs, making more noise than necessary.

“We should do this another time,” says Joe. He holds up the diary. “Can I borrow this?”

“You think it’s important?”

“Daniel contacted these people. Maybe one of them knows what happened to him.”

Marnie is standing near the mantelpiece. “What should I do?”

“Talk to your father and to Penny. Perhaps the Big Red Book will trigger a memory.”

W
hen Marnie was a child I worried that she would fall out of a tree or get hit crossing the road or swim out too far beyond the waves. Look what happened with Mr. Slipper, how close I came to losing her. She rode him every weekend, competing in gymkhanas and practicing over jumps.

Then came the fall. She was riding through a village and a dog came snarling out of a yard, barking and biting at the hooves. Mr. Slipper spooked. Marnie tried to hold on, but fell backwards across a railing fence, rupturing her spleen and causing bleeding on her brain.

I know she loved that pony, but I couldn’t let her ride again. It was too dangerous. Once she was out of hospital, I collected green acorns from the fields, raking them into a hessian bag and carrying it over my shoulder to the stable. I could smell the horses. I didn’t trust them anymore. They were malevolent, ugly creatures that rippled and snorted.

Removing the chaff bag, I filled it with the acorns and hung it in Mr. Slipper’s stall. The pony died the next day. His kidneys had failed. They told Marnie that he didn’t suffer; that he died in his sleep. That’s not true, but I’m sure she appreciated the sentiment.

The dog was harder to find. I went back to the village for three weeks, looking for a dog that chased horses. Then I discovered the owners had taken the animal away, sent it to the farm, so to speak, which I hoped was a euphemism.

Don’t get me wrong—I love dogs, I just love Marnie more. It’s like when she was in primary school and wanted to play Snow White in the concert, but they made her share the role. Marnie accepted the decision, but I didn’t think it was fair. I can barely remember the other girl’s name now and neither can anybody else. She vomited both nights and couldn’t go on.

Marnie was magnificent. I mouthed every line and took every bow with her. I wanted to show her that I had the power to save and protect her, to make her stairs less steep. And when she fell, I would pick up the pieces and put her together like Humpty Dumpty even when she didn’t know she was broken.

T
he shooting range is hidden away beneath railway arches and surrounded by factories and workshops in an area of East London that hasn’t changed much in half a century. A small bronze plaque marks the doorway.

Ruiz buzzes and nods to the camera. The door opens. Upstairs, he goes through the protocol of having his license checked and being made to read the rules.

There are a dozen more. He doesn’t bother reading them because he knows them by heart.

The range consists of six parallel twenty-meter lanes with a manual pulley system for varying the target distance. There are changing-room facilities and a small lounge with armchairs where members can make tea and coffee.

Detective Superintendent Peter Vorland is waiting for him at the lanes, wearing protective earmuffs hooked around his neck. Snowy headed, thinning on top, Vorland has a powerful handshake and an Afrikaans accent. He fled from South Africa with his family in the late seventies, after his lawyer father was arrested in Durban for representing a black political prisoner. The only person the Afrikaners hated more than an uppity black man was a white man who defended one.

Like his father, Vorland had proved himself to be a good man. Fair. Honest. Hard. He and Ruiz had both played rugby until their mid forties, throwing their bodies around muddy fields, trying to match it with younger men.

Ruiz is older by eight years. Vorland climbed higher. Both remember when policing required less bureaucracy and more common sense. Corners could be cut. Experience was considered valuable. Those times have passed.

Pistol shots echo through the cavernous range. The two men are side by side in the lanes, legs apart, arm outstretched. Steady. Squeeze. Fire. Vorland is methodical. Between each shot, he pauses, lowers his weapon, stares down the lane. Then he begins his build-up again.

Ruiz takes less time. He doesn’t picture the pistol as being an extension of his arm or reach inside himself for a Zen-like state of focus and calm. He points, aims, and squeezes off six shots—a heartbeat between each of them—and every time the paper target rattles back toward him on the pulley, the cluster is a single ragged perforation.

Vorland grunts in disgust. “I swear to God you don’t even open your eyes. When’s the last time you went shooting?”

“I can’t remember.”

“You should teach people. You could start by teaching me.”

“Can’t do that. Wouldn’t know where to start.”

“Why?”

“You do
everything
wrong.”

“Fuck off!”

They check the weapons, emptying the chambers before signing them back into the armory. In the locker room Ruiz washes his hands with soap and water, wanting to rid himself of the smell. Vorland is sitting on a bench, changing his shoes. He’s not a big man, but solid, honed. He had a heart attack a few years ago and since then he’s been pounding pavements and lifting weights as though death could come calling any day.

“You wanted to know about Niall Quinn,” he says. “He was pulled out of the Thames four days ago. Throat partially cut. Hands bound with a cable tie. They found his car parked near Trinity Pier below the Lower Lea Crossing.”

Ruiz knows the place.

“His body was probably in the water for about twelve hours.”

“Who’s handling it?”

“Eastern Division.”

“Who’s in charge?”

“A newly promoted DI called Warren Gennia. He came out of Counter Terrorism Command. I’ve heard good things.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“No.”

“Any suspects?”

“They’ve been interviewing known associates and family.”

“What about Patrick Hennessy?”

“He turned up with his lawyer. Didn’t say a word.” Vorland takes his watch from the locker and straps it on his wrist, checking the time.

“What’s your interest in this, Vincent?”

“Hennessy has been putting the squeeze on a young woman—a mother of two. She was with Quinn that night.”

“Sleeping with him?”

“No.”

“Have the police talked to her?”

“Twice.”

Vorland gives him a prolonged noncommittal stare. “You should have told me.”

“Told you what?”

“You’ve had me making inquiries on behalf of a murder suspect. You know how that looks.”

“I don’t know if she’s a suspect.”

“Don’t bullshit me, Vincent. If she was with Quinn that night she’s a suspect. I hope you’re not protecting her.”

“I hardly know the woman.”

Vorland sighs, still not satisfied. “What are you planning to do?”

“Talk to Hennessy.”

“You’re going to warn him off.”

“I’m going to try.”

J
oe has spent two days looking for Eugene Lansky, finding him via a Facebook page and an artist’s co-operative in South London. A woman tells him that Lansky has a pitch at Camden Market near the canal, an area Joe knows well. He and Julianne once owned a house less than a mile away and would walk to the markets on weekends, pushing Charlie in a pushchair or later letting her ride her bike.

Until the 1950s, the Grand Union Canal was a major transport link to the capital with barges bringing produce and coal from the Midlands, but then road transport took over and the warehouses and stables were no longer needed. In the 1970s artists and craftsmen took up the space, turning it into studios, workshops, and galleries. Most of the artisans have since gone, priced out by the eighties property boom and replaced by stalls selling tourist tat and Chinese knock-offs.

Eugene is wearing paint-splattered jeans and a buttoned-up shirt with an antique tie-pin holding the collars together. His hair is pulled back into a ponytail and he’s sitting beside a girl in customized Doc Martens and a short denim skirt. She looks half his age and impossibly bored.

Joe studies Eugene’s paintings and prints, which are dark and macabre, featuring famous film stars whose bodies have been arranged to look like victims at a crime scene. One of the images shows Marilyn Monroe lying naked in a bed, with an empty pill bottle next to her head. Another shows James Dean’s crumpled body draped over the bonnet of a wrecked Porsche 550.

“I can do you a deal on that one,” says Eugene, pointing to a picture of Katharine Hepburn being eaten by a pride of lions.

“I don’t think Katharine Hepburn was eaten by lions,” says Joe.

“It’s an allegory,” explains Eugene, making it sound obvious. “I love watching old films: stuff from the forties and fifties, you know, but all those iconic actors are gone and they’re just beautiful dead people. I’m trying to capture that final moment—the junction between life and death when immortality is born.”

Joe is glad Ruiz isn’t with him. He once told Joe that modern art was an oxymoron like military intelligence or Australian intellectual.

“I’m not really in the market to buy,” says Joe. “I wanted to ask you about Marnie Logan.”

Eugene glances around, suddenly nervous. “Is she here?”

“No.”

He relaxes and looks at the girl. “Get us a coffee, babe.” He gives her a tenner. “And don’t forget the fucking sugar.”

She sulks and tosses her hair, walking with the strut of a catwalk model. Eugene licks his thumb and leans down, rubbing paint from the toe of his boot.

“Why would I want to talk about Marnie Logan? I’ve spent nearly twenty years trying to forget that bitch.”

Eugene leans over the railing and spits into the canal. Joe tries to picture him at eighteen—gangly, halfway handsome, trying to impress the girls.

“Daniel Hyland came to see you?”

“Yeah. He shoved a camera in my face and asked me what I thought of his wife. I said she was an evil vindictive bitch and I wouldn’t piss on her if she was on fire.”

“Her husband is missing.”

“No surprise there.” Eugene scratches a bite on his neck. “I told him to run a mile and keep going.”

“Why?”

Eugene chews the inside of his cheek, his eyes distant. “How well do you know her?”

“I’m her psychologist.”

“I knew it! She’s a complete fucking head-case!”

“What have you got against Marnie?”

“I used to go out with her. We had some fun. I got bored. Moved on. But after that a rumor went round the school saying I’d given Marnie herpes and the clap and genital warts, you name it. No girl would go within thirty feet of me.”

“Is that it?”

“You heard of Camberwell College of Arts?”

Joe nods.

“I had early acceptance, but they withdrew the offer because I didn’t have an A-level. The deputy head raided my locker and found a bag of weed. I got expelled. Didn’t sit my exams.”

“What’s that got to do with Marnie?”

“It wasn’t my weed. Someone put it there. A few weeks later I got a card through the post. Four words:
Payback is a bitch!
She diced me up into little fucking pieces and ate me cold.”

“Did Marnie sign the letter?”

“No.”

“Was it her handwriting?”

“It was typed.”

“So you can’t prove anything.”

Eugene glances past Joe. A brightly painted canal boat is navigating beneath the hump-backed bridge. Tourists are taking photographs.

“OK, I’ll tell you another story. I’ve got this mate, Devon Boucher. We went through school together. He created this fake yearbook with funny captions about the students. It was a joke, you know. Harmless. He called Marnie a professional virgin because she acted like such a princess. For the next six months somebody played porn soundtracks down Devon’s home phone with lots of grunting and screaming orgasms. His parents had to change their number.”

“Did he confront Marnie?”

“She denied it. I know what you’re thinking. No proof. But Marnie is too clever to let anyone trace it back to her.”

“You said she ruined your life.”

“Maybe I exaggerated a little. I didn’t go to art school. Yeah, I could have sat my A-levels at another school or tried again, but I didn’t. That’s my fault. But what she did to Debbie was worse.”

“Debbie?”

“Debbie Tibbets. The girl I went out with after Marnie.”

“After you dumped her at the graduation ball.”

“Yeah, well, these things happen. Debbie got engaged a few years after we broke up. No hard feelings. I was booked to take photographs at her wedding, but someone rang up and cancelled the job a week before the event. They also cancelled the reception, the band, the honeymoon flights, the flowers, and the wedding cake.

“It was malicious. Debbie didn’t realize until the day before. Her entire wedding was ruined, months of planning. She was devastated. Finished up marrying in a registry office. A month or so later, Debbie got a card through the mail. Same message:
Payback is a bitch!
”

“And she thinks it was Marnie Logan?”

“We all do. Debbie, Dean, me, the others.”

“Did anyone ask her?”

“You don’t believe me. I can see that. She’s got you fooled. That’s Marnie’s gift. She comes across as all sweetness and light. When you’re with her you feel stronger, cleverer, more capable. But when she turns, it’s like winter setting in, the longest coldest winter of your life.”

The sun has passed behind a cloud, throwing shadows across the cobblestones. Nearby, a street mime dressed up as Mary Poppins unfurls her umbrella and curtsies. Eugene lowers his face again, watching from under his eyelashes.

Joe is trying to picture Marnie taking revenge on old boyfriends and past enemies, but he can’t make the image stick in his mind.

“You mentioned there were others.”

Eugene squints at Joe, trying to decide how much to say. “Talk to Olivia Shulman.”

“Who is she?”

“She works at a bookshop on Charing Cross Road. I bumped into her a few months back.”

“What happened to her?”

“It’s not my business to tell you.”

His girlfriend is back. She’s carrying two coffees. A digital camera is hanging from her wrist. Joe didn’t notice it before. She lifts it to her right eye and takes a photograph. Lowers it again. Then she gives him a soulful, commiserating look, as though she understands.

Eugene takes the coffee and rips open two sugar sachets, tipping the contents into the cup. He looks at Joe, almost pleading with him. “Do me a favor. Don’t tell Marnie where I am.”