Authors: Peter Robinson
He relaxed his grip on her right hand. Not completely at first, but enough to get the circulation flowing again. Then, when he saw she wasn’t going to run away, he let go of both hands completely. He didn’t seem to have a gun or anything, at least no weapon that was immediately visible.
Sarah stood before him and massaged her wrists, the water lapping around her bare feet. What could she do? Run? No, he was powerful and would soon catch her. He wanted to kill her, but how? Walking out into the sea together, or some such sentimental love-sacrifice? He wouldn’t see that as
hurting
her. People said drowning in salt water was like going to sleep. But how did they know? Sarah had always wondered.
Again, she remembered the letter. He didn’t like to cause pain. But he had killed Jack. Knocked him out with a hammer and stabbed him. And he had stabbed Stuart. Even so, she could already sense that he was sorry he had grasped her wrists so tightly. Could she play on his sympathy?
Between waves, she could hear loud rock music from one of the houses and cars roaring by on the Coast Highway. So near.
His eyes locked with hers and he seemed to be drinking in her presence, inhaling her nearness. She realized in that moment that no amount of pleading or playing on sympathy could delay the consummation for much longer. He had one purpose and one purpose only: their eternal union through death.
Sarah thought she could hear sirens in the distance. Were they for her? Was she hearing things?
Then he reached in his pocket and took something out. His arm moved quickly by the side of his head. Sarah thought she saw something flash in the moonlight. Was that whirring sound coming closer really a helicopter? Was it coming to save her?
He handed her something. It felt like a mixture of hard calamari and soft tomato. She held her palm open in the moonlight and looked. It was an ear.
His
ear, cartilage and lobe. She dropped it on the wet sand, screamed and stumbled backwards. Then she saw him pointing the knife towards her.
He reached out and grabbed her wrist again, the blade in his other hand coming closer. But instead of stabbing her or cutting her, he handed the knife to her, wrapped her fingers around it and stood before her.
My God, she knew what he wanted now. He wanted her to do the same, to cement their love by parting with a limb. A token.
The sirens were getting closer. She could hear cars screech to a halt by the nearest access point. And the helicopter was flying low, shining a cone of light over the beach about a mile to the south.
Still he just stood there, hands out, waiting for her to prove her love with a token of her flesh. She felt violated by his thoughts and desires; somehow, they seemed to have insinuated themselves into her consciousness.
Again she tried to think what Anita would do, then something snapped inside her, the way it had in the trailer that day. Dammit, he wasn’t Van Gogh and she wasn’t Anita O’Rourke. She was Sally Bolton, fighting for her life. And she would bloody well win. After all, he had given her the means. Holding the knife out in front of her with both hands, she pushed it forward with all her strength into his stomach.
For a moment, he didn’t move, then shock spread across his features and he fell to his knees, the blade sticking out of his flesh. It hadn’t gone very far in, Sarah noticed, but it was far enough. She felt sick. She had never hurt anyone before, let alone stabbed them, and as soon as she had done it she felt an awful guilt start to grow inside her. She had hurt another human being, however bad, however twisted he had been. He looked so pathetic now, on his knees in the foam. Not the monster who had written those letters, stalked her, murdered John Heimar and Jack Marillo, stabbed Stuart. He couldn’t be the man who had made her life hell for the past few weeks; he was just a lonely and pathetic figure, hurting, dying.
She looked around. There were cops with flashlights swarming all over the beach now, and the helicopter had landed about a hundred yards away. It was like a scene from a war, she thought, or the invasion of a small island. Men in military fatigues jumped out onto the beach, sand whipping up in the downdraught from the helicopter blades, and hurried forward, rifles in their hands. Behind her, she could hear voices barking loud orders.
She was safe now. But when she looked back at the man on his knees in the sea, she still felt that she was caught in some sort of perverse mummers’ play that hadn’t reached its final act yet.
He got to his feet and stood in front of her, swaying a little. He had pulled out the knife and was holding it loosely by his side, but she wasn’t afraid any more. He wasn’t going to try to kill her now. His great vision, his intricate web of delusions, had collapsed, shattered. She had smashed it. They weren’t going anywhere together.
What did he see now, she wondered? Her betrayal or his triumph? His expression was almost unreadable – the religious ecstacy of a St Sebastian pierced by arrows, crossed with all-too-human shock and surprise. Had he really expected her to cut off an ear and hand it to him? She knew that he had.
His eyes brimmed with pain, sadness and loss. He stretched his hand out to her again and she became so mesmerized by his eyes that she found her own hand reaching out to take it. She could see blood from where he had clutched at the stomach wound, blood shining in the moonlight.
She almost put her hand in his, almost got his blood on her. Christ, now she felt that she wanted to hold him, rock him in her arms, say she was sorry she stabbed him, tell him everything was going to be all right, sing him a lullaby.
What the hell was wrong with her? This man had terrorized her, killed people in
her
name. And all she wanted to do was hold him and ease his pain, maybe let him take his illusions to the grave. Then she snapped out of the spell and snatched back her hand before it touched his.
‘No!’ she yelled. But she didn’t know if he heard her or not. Arvo and Maria had come up behind and grabbed her by her arms. They were leading her back towards the police line.
He
was backing the other way, towards the ocean.
So many men, and they all had their guns out, pointing past Arvo, Maria and Sarah at the man. ‘Jesus Christ,’ Sarah heard one of the uniformed policemen say as she neared him. ‘What the fuck do we do, shoot him to stop him from killing himself?’
Like Lot’s wife, Sarah looked back.
She saw the knife blade flash in the moonlight before he plunged it into his abdomen, just below the stomach wound, with all his remaining strength. Then, with both hands, he dragged it slowly up as far as his breastbone.
She was only about twenty feet away from him, and the moonlight and flashlights gave his eyes an eerie glow, like an animal’s eyes caught in the headlights.
All the time he was pulling the knife through his flesh, he was looking at Sarah, and at the last moment, as something dark and glistening slid out of his stomach into the moonlit water like a grotesque parody of birth, he opened his mouth and emitted a long, high-pitched wail and fell to his knees. It was the only sound she had ever heard him utter and it sounded like ‘Sally.’ Then the light in his eyes went out like a spent candle, a strong wave knocked him over, and the water covered him.
47
Chicken pieces sizzled as they hit the hot grill and released the mingled smells of cumin, coriander, garlic and ginger. Fat and marinade dribbled onto the coals, hissed and turned to smoke. Above, a few milky swirls of cloud decorated the pale blue sky. Seabirds wheeled and squealed over the rippled blue water, which winked with diamonds of sun. Breakers crashed in a chaos of foam on the beach. Like the postcards said, it was ‘Just another day in paradise.’
It was only two weeks after that terrifying night on the same beach, and even now Sarah found it hard to look out there in the moonlight, especially when she was alone.
But she wasn’t alone now. As soon as Sarah had given her a brief account of what had happened, Paula had taken the kids out of school and brought them
and
her father over to visit.
They had been here a week now and were taking off to see the Grand Canyon for a few days before coming back to LA then heading home. Paula had some idea that the air in Arizona would be beneficial for their father’s health. Sarah doubted it. Her father was probably past that kind of help; besides, from what she had read, the air in Arizona was getting just as bad as it was in Los Angeles, thanks to all the Angelenos and their automobiles moving out there. But she didn’t say anything; she didn’t want to discourage Paula, especially when she seemed to be on a rare optimistic streak.
Paula had seemed like a woman with a mission the moment she arrived. Gently, she had assumed command, given Sarah space to heal and talk when she wanted to talk. She had already rented a car and taken the kids to Disneyland and all the way to Sea World in San Diego. She seemed to have taken to driving on the wrong side of the road, even on the freeways, like a fish to water.
Sarah was amazed at the transformation in her sister. The last time she had seen Paula, at Christmas, she had been bitter, mean and unadventurous. Also, like a lot of Brits, she hadn’t had a good word to say for Americans or anything American.
Still, it was a good thing that Paula had determined to be so independent over here, because Sarah had been so busy on the series most days that she hadn’t been able to spend as much time with her family as she would have liked. She had fixed up a visit to the studio, of course, and the kids had loved that. Paula had been impressed, too, Sarah could tell. In fact, she could also tell that Paula liked it here.
Visitors often did, Sarah knew, maybe because they only saw the paradise and not the inferno, just as she had for so long. And, of course, Brits loved the weather. Especially in January. As it turned out, they were in the fourth day of a heatwave – the high 80s – after a week of heavy rains had washed half of Malibu onto the Coast Highway. Paula hadn’t even complained about the rain.
If her father had still been well he would probably have been spending his time in the King’s Head in Santa Monica, Sarah thought, drinking Boddington’s pub ale. Maybe he would even join the cricket club. He had been a fair pace bowler in his day. Still, he had seen the stars on Hollywood Boulevard, and that had brought a smile to his face and a tear to Sarah’s eye.
Wearing cut-off denim shorts and a white
Good Cop, Bad Cop
T-shirt, Sarah turned the chicken pieces, basting them with tandoori sauce as she did so. A big pot of rice was cooking on the kitchen stove, in chicken stock with turmeric and salt, and Paula was back there in the kitchen, mixing up a salad.
The children were playing on the beach, throwing pebbles, running at the waves and back, as if being chased by them, squealing with delight. A few yards further down, a man stood up to his thighs in water, holding a fishing rod. Optimist, Sarah thought. And to think what had happened on that same beach only a couple of weeks ago. Sarah gave a little shudder. She looked at her watch. He should be here by now. She realized she was anxious to hear what had happened.
Her father sat in his wheelchair at the other end of the deck, wrapped in a light blanket, staring out to sea. He looked lost in his own sense of impending death. Though it had exhausted him, he had made the journey to what must have seemed like the other side of the earth, and Sarah knew he had forgiven her. She loved him and wished there were something she could do other than watch him die, but she knew there wasn’t. All the doctors in California couldn’t cure what he had.
The doorbell rang.
‘I’ll get it,’ Paula yelled from the kitchen.
‘Okay,’ Sarah shouted back.
A moment later, Paula walked through to the deck with Arvo in tow.
‘Look what I found on the doorstep,’ she said. ‘Is he yours?’
Sarah blushed and thumped her sister on the arm. ‘Paula!’ She turned to Arvo. ‘Please forgive my sister,’ she said. ‘She never did learn any manners.’ Then she introduced him to her father, who nodded and shook hands. The children stayed on the beach. They had already eaten hot dogs for lunch, having fallen immediately in love with real American junk food, and they were easy to keep an eye on down there. They knew not to go out into the sea, and even if they hadn’t been told, the size of the waves would have given them ample warning of the danger.
‘You can put those beers in there, if you like,’ Sarah said to Arvo, pointing to the cooler. Arvo did so, detaching a can for himself first. ‘Anyone else want one?’ he asked.
‘Can’t stand that weak American stuff,’ said Paula. ‘Tastes like gnat’s piss.’
Sarah smiled. Ah, good old Paula, back on form now she’s got a new audience.
‘I suppose it’s too cold for you,’ Arvo said. ‘Don’t you English like your beer warm?’
‘Get away with you,’ she said, laughing. ‘Do you know, you sound just like one of those blokes on telly.’
‘Which one?’
‘Americans. On telly, back home.’
‘Oh, I see. Well, I
am
an American, I guess. You sure you won’t have a cold beer?’
Paula gave a coy smile. ‘Oh, go on then. You’ve twisted my arm.’ He passed her a can of Michelob.
Paula actually looked quite attractive, Sarah thought, without condescension. It wasn’t that she had changed her style much: Frederick’s of Hollywood might have beckoned, but Paula was a Bullock’s girl at heart. Still, she had a good enough body to look good in her jeans and Disneyland T-shirt, and she had picked up a tan very quickly. But it went deeper than that, Sarah thought. Paula was more relaxed, she was actually
enjoying
herself, and the frown and worry lines that had seemed so deeply etched in her face had faded.