Authors: Peter Robinson
‘Yes?’
‘Is this Ms Ellie Huysman?’
‘Yes, yes it is. Who’s calling? Oh, damn – Magwitch! – hang on a minute, will you?
Mag
witch!’ She put the phone down on a hard surface.
Arvo heard what he thought were a dog’s paws scrabbling over a wood floor.
‘I told you not to do that. Darling, could you . . .’
Arvo heard a man’s voice, but didn’t catch what he said, then Ellie Huysman picked up the phone again. ‘Sorry about that. The dog. We just got back from the carol service and he seems rather more than pleased to see us. Can you hang on a minute?’
Before Arvo could answer, she had put the phone down again. He heard more voices, laughter, a door opening and closing, then she picked up the phone again. ‘Hello? Are you still there? I’m sorry about that. What can I do for you? Who are you anyway?’
Arvo introduced himself.
‘What’s it about?’ she asked. ‘Hang on again, will you, I want to take this in the living room, on the sofa. I’ve been sitting on a hard pew all night and my bum feels like pressed cardboard.’
Arvo kept his patience as she set the receiver down once again on the hard surface. A few seconds later, she picked up the other extension and called for someone to replace the hall phone. That done, she said, ‘That’s better. Now I can sit down, kick my shoes off and have that stiff G and T, which I’ve been dying for all evening. Now then, Detective Hughes of the LAPD, what’s it all about? I’m curious.’
‘Sarah Broughton.’
‘Sal? Nothing’s happened to her, has it?’
Arvo had already debated what to tell her and decided there was no point holding back. She wasn’t a suspect; she was a friend of Sarah’s; and she lived in another country. ‘She’s been getting some disturbing letters,’ he said, ‘and the writer seems to indicate that he knows her, that she should know him. Normally, we wouldn’t take a lot of notice of claims like that, but . . .’
‘But what, Detective?’
‘Well, she discovered a body on the beach near her house the other day, just before she left for England. She didn’t know the victim, and there’s probably no connection, but even so—’
‘It’s a coincidence you don’t like? I don’t like it, either. Poor Sal.’
‘Are the two of you still close?’
‘Ye-es, I’d say we are. Maybe not as close as we’ve been at some points in our lives – distance is a problem – but still firm friends. Look, if I can help you in any way, I will, but shouldn’t I verify your identity? I mean, you could be any Tom, Dick or Harry, couldn’t you? You could even be the person who’s been writing these letters. Why don’t you give me your police switchboard number and I’ll ring you back?’
A light breeze fluttered through the window and brushed Arvo’s cheek. He could hear the leaves and fronds rustling in the dark garden. Beyond that was the constant hum of cars on the freeway. He took a swig of Sam Adams. ‘I’m calling from home,’ he said. ‘I could give you my badge number, and you could call the duty officer downtown and verify it.’
‘But I still won’t know it’s really you, will I? I’ve never met you. You could have killed this Hughes fellow and stolen his badge.’
Arvo laughed. ‘Good point. Maybe you could call Stuart Kleigman, or even Sarah Broughton and ask one of them to describe my voice?’
‘Oh, sod it,’ she said. ‘This is getting far too bloody complicated. I’ll take my chances you’re who you say you are. What is it you want to know?’
The microwave beeped to tell Arvo his chili was ready. He ignored it. ‘Stuart Kleigman says he knows nothing about Sarah’s private life, or about her life before she met him,’ he said.
‘That doesn’t surprise me. Sal always was a bit cagey when it came to confiding in people. Comes from getting burned once too often.’
‘Well, the letters are local, at least the one I saw was postmarked Pasadena, so we’re thinking it might be someone she’s met since she’s been in California, or at least in the United States. When would that be?’
‘She came over to the States in . . . let me see . . . May last year, to New York first, where the tour started. As far as I know, she hasn’t left the country since. Until now, of course. She arrived in Los Angeles last autumn, early September, just after the Labour Day weekend.’
‘Do you know of anyone who might be doing this?’
‘Not offhand I don’t. Just a mo.’ Arvo heard a lighter click and the satisfied sigh of someone blowing out smoke after a long time without. ‘Ah, that’s better,’ she said. ‘If one can’t indulge one’s vices after a carol service, when can one? But the answer’s no. Sal kept very much to herself when she came round to my place.’
‘Where were you living then?’
‘Redondo Beach. Plenty of loonies there.’
Arvo laughed. ‘Was there anyone trying to date her while she was with you? Anyone pestering her at all?’
‘No.’
‘Are you certain?’
‘Trust me. Yes.’
‘Stuart told me that before she came to you she’d been going out with Gary Knox.’
‘That’s right. The creep. If you ask me, that’s what did it.’
‘Did what?’
She paused. Arvo heard her inhale and blow out smoke again. Ice tinkled in her glass. ‘I suppose I
did
sort of decide to trust you, didn’t I?’
‘I think you did, yes.’
‘And Sal could be in danger when she gets back?’
‘It’s a possibility. If we don’t get somewhere quick.’
‘All right. The tour’s what caused the breakdown, that’s what.’
‘Sarah had a mental breakdown?’
‘Mental, physical, you name it. I think the technical term is “Major Depressive Episode.”’
‘After she came to stay with you?’
‘I can’t be that exact about the timing, but I got the impression she was probably right in the middle of it when she arrived on my doorstep. She was in a hell of a state, anyway. Had nothing but the clothes on her back. I even had to pay the cab driver, and she’d come all the way from Anaheim. Not that I minded.’
‘What happened?’
‘Oh, I held her, calmed her down, gave her some hot chocolate, put her to bed. She didn’t say a word. But she was sobbing and trembling all the time. Her teeth were chattering. Her eyes were out of focus.’
‘Drugs?’
‘Yes, I’d say so.’
‘Did anyone from the tour ever come looking for her?’
‘If they did, they didn’t find her.’
‘Was there anybody around with the initial,
M
?’
‘Not that I recall. Is that his initial?’
‘We think so.’
‘No. I’m sorry I can’t be more help. But Sarah really didn’t see anyone for a long time.’
‘How long did she stay with you?’
‘On and off for a few months.’
‘Where was she during the “off” times?’
He heard Ellie suck in a lungful of smoke. Bogie and Ingrid Bergman were staring at him from the wall. ‘The first few days,’ Ellie said, ‘she was uncommunicative, cried a lot, went off her food, didn’t seem interested in anything. When she did talk, it was just to say how worthless she was and how I should forget about her. Then, when she’d been there just over a week, one night I heard a noise and found her in the bathroom washing a handful of Nembutals down with a bottle of Courvoisier. I stuck my fingers down her throat and made her puke it all up. Luckily she’d just started and the capsules hadn’t even dissolved. The next morning I drove her out to a clinic I knew, a place that had helped another good friend of mine. Very discreet.’
‘What clinic?’
‘It’s called the Shelley Clinic. No kidding. Like the poet. Out on 33 a few miles north of Ojai. Dr Fermor.’
‘And they helped?’
‘You’ve seen her now, haven’t you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, if you’d seen her that night, you’d know they’ve worked a bloody miracle.’
Arvo let that sink in, then said goodbye to Ellie Huysman, making sure she would be available if he needed more information. As he walked into the kitchen to get his chili, he found himself thinking about what Ellie had said.
It certainly seemed as if someone or something had messed up Sarah’s mind, and it made him wonder if what was messing her up now was in some way connected: the tour, drugs, a dead rock star. Or was it someone even
closer
to home? Or a random stalker, some nut who had seen her on television and fallen in love with her? All possibilities. Too many damn possibilities, that was the problem.
Arvo carried his chili through to the living room, opened another bottle of Sam Adams and scanned the bookcase for a movie to watch.
In a Lonely Place
– Bogey and Gloria Grahame – that would suit his mood just fine.
18
He gazed lovingly at the small, blurred photo of Sally at LAX, leaving for England, above the brief article in the
Los Angeles Times
. Then he reread the text:
Actress Sarah Broughton, who plays Detective Anita O’Rourke in the hit series
Good Cop, Bad Cop
, boarded a flight today for England, where she is to spend Christmas with her family in the coastal village of Robin Hood’s Bay. Sources say Ms Broughton, 34, was still shaken by an incident that occurred earlier that day. It seems that real life imitated art just a bit too closely for comfort when she discovered a dismembered corpse partially buried in the sand near her beach home. What would Anita O’Rourke have done?
What indeed? He wondered where Robin Hood’s Bay was. He would have to look it up in an atlas and try to imagine her there. It was a bay, at least, which meant it must be on the sea, so for the moment he could picture her the way he had watched her in Pacific Palisades.
He sighed and put the newspaper down. Well, just because she was far from him physically, it didn’t mean she wasn’t still with him. He gazed around his room and her image stared back at him from every square inch of wall-space: close-ups, head and shoulders, full body, nudes, evening dress, casual clothes, stills from movies and TV, you name it.
Wrapped in a warm cocoon of Sally, he could function properly, see things clearly. The only thing he didn’t know was what would happen after the consummation. He could only visualize two main possibilities, depending on the circumstances.
If all went well, they would end up living in a nice house by the sea in a nice neighbourhood. Not in Los Angeles, but somewhere quieter and smaller, somewhere less vivid. Maybe even Robin Hood’s Bay, if it was as quaint as it sounded. He would like to meet her family.
If that happened, he thought they should start a family as quickly as possibly and have maybe six children. Or fewer if she thought that was too many; he didn’t want to turn her into a baby factory against her will. He would work from home so he would never have to leave her, and she could devote all her time to the house and children. They would be together all day, every day.
Of course, they would have people over for dinner – he didn’t know who; he didn’t know anyone he wanted to invite, and it certainly wouldn’t be anyone from her present lifestyle – and they would talk and drink wine in the candlelight. He would hold hands with her secretly under the table.
In bed they would lie together naked and . . . But when he thought of the act itself he started to feel excited, confused and angry; waves of red surged in front of his eyeballs. It was the same way he felt when he watched the video: so disturbed and violent that he sometimes bruised his penis and made it sore when he masturbated. Well, that part of their relationship would take care of itself when the time came.
If things didn’t go their way, though – and he could at least admit that might happen, as they had many rich and powerful enemies – then it might be necessary to forgo the earthly paradise and head straight for the heaven beyond the flesh.
Sometimes that seemed like the best idea, anyway. He was sure there was no comparison between the world of the flesh and that of pure spirit. But when you pit the known against the unknown, usually the known has an edge. That was something for him to work on: learn to love the unknown more. Faith, that was what he needed. Faith was the key. And courage.
For now, though, he had his images of her, and he would create more while she was away. With his computer, he could do anything he wanted to photographs or video images. He could play God with the arrangement of body parts and even put different heads and bodies together.
He had experimented with several permutations: putting Sally’s head on the body of a porn image, for example, so that she smiled at him with her legs wide open, one hand holding herself and a finger inside her vagina. The bottom part wasn’t Sally, of course. Though she had appeared nude in some films – he had videos of them all – she had never done anything remotely as pornographic as that. She wouldn’t. He knew that. At heart, she was a decent, wholesome girl. But this was a part of his power; his ability to play God with images. And God had a sense of humour, too. Once he had put Sally’s head between the legs of the porn photo and it looked funny smiling at him from where the model’s pussy should be.
But his crowning glory was the footage he had rearranged from an erotic video and several photographs of himself and Sally. As he ran it now and watched, he felt that familiar surge of excitement and anger. It was a simple scene: a man and woman in a bedroom. The man lay on his back, erect and ready, and the woman lowered herself onto him, taking his penis in her hand and guiding it into her. Then she began to rock back and forth, gently at first, and then more wildly.