Searching for Celia (13 page)

The cigarette ignites, the brief flash of ruby intense against the mellow blueness. She draws a deep breath, then exhales. “Clearly, it wasn’t me. Must be a coincidence. It is a popular spot for suicides, after all.” She pauses. “Dayle. I need your help.”

“Help with what?”

“I must leave London.”

“I figured that, but why?”

She squints, blowing a plume of smoke that, unable to escape the closed confines of the glass capsule, hangs heavily around her head. “You know that I work with girls, some so young they have yet to reach puberty, who are trafficked into the UK as prostitutes, sex slaves, and forced labor.”

“Yes.”

“Well, this multinational trade is primarily controlled by highly organized criminal gangs, many originating in Eastern Europe or affiliated with the Russian Mafia. My work sometimes cuts into their profits, but I’d always been able to negotiate with them.”

My mind flashes back to what Callaway had said at the hospital, about Celia interacting with criminals. “What exactly do you mean by negotiate?” I ask carefully.

“Just that—negotiate,” she snaps. “I can’t go into detail, but suffice it to say, we had an agreement that allowed me to get some of the girls off the streets. But then about six months ago, things changed. The gangs began threatening me. Then the threats turned violent. They attacked me in the street last week—hence this.” She indicates her damaged face with the filter end of the cigarette.

“So Edwina was right—the mugging wasn’t random.”

“No. I knew who attacked me but didn’t dare tell the police.”

“And that explains the photo.”

“Photo?”

“In today’s mail there was an envelope with a close-up photo of you, beneath which someone had scribbled,
We can make you disappear
.”

Her eyebrows rise. “Subtle, they are not.”

“You’ve had other threats?”

She nods solemnly. “Several, in fact. Round Christmas I realized my life was in serious danger and I had no choice but to leave the country. So I invited you to visit, hoping you’d agree to help me build a new life in the States under my mother’s name—Marguerite Alderton.”

So that’s why she wanted to see me. It was never just a friendly visit, ex-lovers hoping to catch up.
“But then why dump the car last night, before I even arrived?”

She flicks a coil of cigarette ash to the capsule floor and grinds it beneath her heel. “Originally I thought we would stage my suicide sometime next week, after we’d had time to organize. I would sail to Ireland, then fly from Dublin to the States.”

“Why the change of plans?”

“Last night one of the Russians threatened to kill me if I didn’t pay them twenty-five hundred pounds by this afternoon, so I had to bring forward the faked suicide in order to buy some time.”

My mind races as I struggle to take in the new details. “What time last night were you threatened?”

“Must have been half nine.”

“And then you phoned my condo around ten p.m.—four p.m., Chicago time—and left that frantic message on my answering machine.”

She nods. “Precisely. After my encounter with the Russian I couldn’t return to the flat to get the things I need for Ireland—cash, clothes, mobile, ferry ticket. So this afternoon, when I saw you and Edwina leave, I sneaked into the flat and searched for the things, but they were gone. Dayle, where are they?”

“Back at your apartment.” I draw a sharp breath. “
You
ransacked the flat.”

“Yes. To cover my tracks. So you wouldn’t guess I’d been there.”

My head spins. Needing a moment to think, I step to the rounded front nose of the capsule, press my hands to the cold glass, and stare down at the dark dream vision of London glittering beneath me. We are near the top of the wheel now, more than 400 feet off the ground. The lumbering sky feels low and dolorous, dense with alternating shades of violet, black, and indigo, lightened only by the lacy wreaths of fog that grace the tops of the highest buildings. They say that on a clear day, from the top of the Eye one can see twenty-five miles, or as far as Windsor Castle. But tonight only a few key landmarks assert themselves through the gloom: Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, the Ministry of Defence.

“Who are the men who brought me here?” I finally ask, my breath fogging the glass.

“Miko Tenuta and his younger brother, Temura. Associates from the antitrafficking world, protecting me from the gangsters.” Celia pauses. “Supposedly, anyway.”

I turn to face her. “Has Miko followed me all day?”

She stubs out her cigarette and then brushes the crushed butt to the floor, kicking it beneath the bench. “I don’t believe so. I had him check this morning to confirm you’d arrived. Then he and Temura picked you up outside the flat after you returned from your speech.”

“Did Miko follow me onto the train to Holland Park?”

“I don’t think so.” She pauses, looking concerned. “Holland Park?”

“I saw Dr. Whitaker.”

“Why?” she asks warily.

“To figure out what the hell happened to you. Dot Crawford and Edwina said you’d attempted suicide twice, first slitting your wrists, then OD’ing on sleeping pills. But Fiona knew nothing about the overdose.” I pause. “That’s because it was faked, wasn’t it?”

She considers lying to me; we both realize it at the same moment so instead she offers the truth. “
Faked
insofar as I didn’t actually intend to end my life, yes.”

“Why?”

She leans back on the bench, crosses her ankles, and folds her arms. “This goes back about two months,” she explains. “I had already decided to leave England and start fresh in the States. I knew my supposed leap from Waterloo Bridge would be more credible if I’d twice attempted suicide in the previous year, the second time as recently as two months earlier. So I took enough pills to make me ill, but not kill me.”

“And you didn’t tell Dr. Whitaker because you knew she’d be suspicious.”

She nods. “Precisely. Attempting suicide didn’t fit the symptoms I was then experiencing.”

“Was slitting your wrists fake too?”

She appears horrified. “God, no! To my great shame and regret, that attempt was legitimate.”

When I don’t respond, she searches my face anxiously. “You must believe me,” she insists.

“I’m no longer sure what to believe,” I admit.

“It’s true. Dad’s death left me gutted. He suffered so in his final months. I have devoted my life to helping those in need, but I could not help the one who mattered most.” Her hard hazel eyes soften as she shakes her head. “Dayle, you would not have recognized him toward the end. Barely nine stone when he died, all his hair gone, his mouth and throat so full of sores he could not swallow.”

Not for the first time in my life I am glad that my father died quickly, and where I could not see him. Pappa
was
thinking of us—my mother and me—when he died.

“It was a foolish, stupid, melodramatic gesture on my part.” Celia uncrosses her arms and offers them as proof, palms up and wrists flexed. “Dad would have been furious, of course.”

The pale skin of her wrists catches what little light there is inside the glass capsule and I step closer, peering down, but before I can get a good look she pulls away. “Wait,” I say. “Let me see.”

Warily she again presents her arms, wrists emerging slowly from the dark caverns of her denim sleeves. I sit down beside her on the bench, place her left palm in my lap, and carefully explore the scarred wrist with my fingertip. Celia shudders as I slowly trace the bubbled, uneven pink skin. Skin that was stitched quickly, artlessly, the only concern being to seal the slashed vessel and save her life. The damaged skin reminds me of a gash on canvas that destroys a work of art. This is really Celia here beside me, I think, and she is changed forever. She is no longer the same Celia I once made love to. I curl her fingers into a fist, which I squeeze with my good hand. “
Handle me and see
,” I whisper, “
for a spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have.
”

Celia stares steadily into my eyes, almost daring me to kiss her. I let her hand fall softly to her side, then return to the glass nose of the capsule.

“I haven’t been up here for years,” I whisper, looking down at the white steel girders that connect our pod to the outside of the wheel. Inside the pod just behind us I can make out the silhouettes of half a dozen people, some walking the perimeter of the capsule, others standing side by side. A man with his arm around a woman points out the sights as their wiry figures are intermittently illuminated by the flicker of a camera flash.

“It’s still beautiful to me, the little we can see tonight,” I continue. “It looks like a fairy tale down there—all the pleasure boats and barges slipping down the river, the rows of lights outlining the bridges and embankments. When I was a kid, I worried I would never see anything beyond the Glory Road water tower with
Ashwaubenon
written on the side in green and gold. To me that marked the outer edge of the possible world.”

“London is a bloody nightmare,” Celia complains, kicking out her heels. “Can’t wait to be rid of this horrid place.”

“How can you say that?” I challenge. “This is your home.”

“Britain has changed since you last lived here. The country is falling apart, a casualty of the rampant consumerism that has reigned since Thatcher’s tyrannical regime. All our major institutions are corrupt—government, education, the local authorities, right through to the legal system, the banks, the media. Our so-called leaders are inept, greedy, or incompetent. Sometimes all three. Being British used to mean something. It doesn’t anymore. I’m ready to move on.”

We are both quiet for a while, until I ask softly, “Was breaking up with Edwina also part of your plan?”

She pauses before replying. “You must know that it was.”

“She’s heartbroken.”

“I had no choice.”

“Why not?”

“I was leaving Britain forever. I figured it would be easier to accept my death if we were no longer a couple.”

“She would support you, unselfishly, even at her own expense. Why not tell her the truth?”

“To protect her! Dammit, Dayle. If the Russians find out I’m still alive, even in the States, they could target her. The less Edwina knows, the better.”

We’re nearing the end of our journey through the London night sky and I struggle to recall everything I need to ask Celia. I sense that she will disappear the moment we touch ground. “The delivery,” I say suddenly.

“Delivery?” she asks.

“Edwina and I saw Sophie Jameson at the hospital when I broke my hand. She said she expected you to make a delivery tonight. Perhaps money.”

She nods. “That’s right. My original plan, before I had to move up the staged suicide, was to give Sophie a going-away donation of twenty-five hundred pounds. For her shelter.”

“Where would you get twenty-five hundred pounds?”

“From the five thousand I had stashed behind my mattress.” She pauses. “Did you think I planned to take all of it with me to Ireland?”

“Well, yes,” I admit. “That was everything you have.”

“I only need twenty-five hundred. The rest was for Sophie. Although I don’t know how I’ll give it to her now.” For the first time tonight, Celia’s face shows real regret.

I stretch, raising my good arm above my head. “Celia, let’s go back to your flat and get some sleep,” I say. “I’ve booked a seat on a flight to Chicago tomorrow afternoon. I’ll buy you a ticket too and we can go together.”

She shakes her head. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“I can’t travel as Cecelia Frost now that Cecelia is supposedly dead, and I don’t have a Marguerite Alderton passport,” she explains. “I’ve arranged to have one made in Dublin. I can get from here to Ireland with just an ID card, but without a passport I can’t fly abroad.”

“Oh.”

“Dayle, that’s why you have to help me.”

“How?”

“Meet me at the Circle of Lebanon, Highgate Cemetery. The tomb of Radclyffe Hall. Quarter past nine. You’ll find a bright red gym bag inside the wardrobe at my flat. Bring that, along with the cash, the clothes atop my suitcase, the ferry ticket, credit card, and mobile phone. There’s a train tomorrow at ten past five in the evening, from Euston to Holyhead. I’ll take that, then sail to Dublin and fly from there to the States. I’ll contact you as soon as I’m settled.”

“That sounds so risky,” I argue.

“Please! It’s the only way.” She takes a deep breath. “I’m scared, Dayle. And I can’t get out of London without your help.”

I’ve never seen Celia so rattled. Always the queen of cool, she never loses her composure. “Of course. You can count on me,” I reassure her. “I’ll be there.”

We watch as the pod just in front of us unloads its passengers. Then Celia and I take up position near the door to our pod, preparing to disembark. Standing beside Celia, our arms nearly touching, I can feel her anxiety rise the closer we get to the ground.

“Quarter past nine,” she reminds me. “Don’t forget my things.”

“I won’t.”

An attendant opens the glass door and we step out onto the concrete platform as our pod continues on its journey, rising slowly behind us. “Don’t tell Edwina or the police that I’m still alive,” she warns.

“I won’t.”

We move quickly through the grounds of the Eye and enter the Jubilee Gardens. Celia’s pace increases with each step. “Don’t tell anyone that you’ve seen me.”

“I won’t.” I want to grab her arm and hold on tightly, stealing a few final moments together.

“Please, Dayle. I’m counting on you.” Her voice is frantic.

“Celia, you can trust me. I promise.”

We reach Belvedere Road and stop to catch our breath. I turn to embrace her but she takes a step back and holds up her hand, palm outward. “Noli me tangere,” she warns—
touch me not
. “Quarter past nine. The tomb of Radclyffe Hall. There’ll be time for hugging then”—she grimaces—“if you insist.”

And with that she turns and runs away, back through the Jubilee Gardens, swept up by the darkness of night: a shade, a slip, a shadow. I remain standing silently, cold and alone on this damp, deserted street, with the warmth of her presence cooling against my skin, her breath a memory lingering over my head, and that voice I was certain I’d never hear again still sounding in my ear. Celia. My darling Celia. Could it be? A death redeemed. And suddenly, nothing seems impossible.