Watching You (13 page)

T
he bookshop has a narrow frontage but deep aisles lined with shelves that reach to the ceiling and into the darker reaches of the store. The place is empty apart from a couple of browsers who are running their fingers along the spines of books, tilting their heads as they read the titles.

The woman behind the counter is helping a customer. Her name-tag is in the shape of an owl and written in an elegant script:
Olivia Shulman
. She taps the name of a book into the computer. “We don’t have it in stock, but I can order it for you.”

Watching people is second nature to Joe. He does it without even realizing it: picking up on small details that accompany every interaction—the shrugs, nods, tics, twitches, jiggles and dips, the words spoken and unspoken, the subtexts and overtones. Olivia’s clothes are shapeless and dark, but she’s flying the flag for a younger version of herself with a pretty smile and sparkling teeth. She glances at Joe, not wanting to keep him waiting. She’s an introvert. Sensitive. Quiet. Perceptive. She listens more than she talks. She doesn’t draw attention to herself. She wouldn’t know how to work a room. She’s more comfortable in a shop full of books than a room full of people.

The customer says goodbye. Olivia turns to Joe. “Sorry to keep you waiting. How can I help?”

“I wanted to ask you about Marnie Logan.”

Olivia’s eyes widen and she steps back, reaching behind her as though looking for something to brace herself against. Whatever goodwill she harbored toward Joe has been replaced by something darker and more elemental.

“Please leave.”

“Why?”

“Did she send you?”

“No.”

Olivia rocks her head from side to side. “Tell her I’m sorry for whatever she thinks I did to her. Tell her to leave me alone.”

“Relax, please, I’m not here to cause trouble. I’m a psychologist. I’m treating Marnie.”

The blast of a truck horn from outside makes Olivia jump. She looks at the windows where sunlight angles onto a display table of discounted books.

“Why are you here?” she asks.

“I’m looking for Marnie’s husband.”

“I haven’t seen him.”

“But you know who I’m talking about.”

“He came to see me last year. He wanted to film a message for Marnie’s birthday. I told him to leave.”

“Did he ask you why?”

“Yes.”

“What did you tell him?”

Olivia begins rearranging stationery on the desk, as though the pencils and paperclips are suddenly in the wrong place. She describes how she and Marnie met in secondary school and became best friends. When they finished school they were both accepted by universities in London. Marnie went to Brunel and Olivia to King’s College. They still saw each other regularly and invited each other to parties.

One Saturday night she arranged to meet Marnie at Piccadilly Circus. They were going to go clubbing but had no money so they went to a party instead. It meant traveling all the way to Millwall, but they took a bus and then walked the final mile.

The house was packed with bodies. People were in the garden and outside on the street. Olivia lost touch with Marnie during the evening. When she decided to go home she went looking, but couldn’t find Marnie anywhere and she didn’t have a mobile.

Olivia looks at Joe. “If I’d known what was going to happen I would never have left her. Never.” She pauses, moving a pen from one side of the blotter to the other. “I didn’t hear about the rape until a few days later. I felt awful. I went to see Marnie. I tried to apologize. She told me it wasn’t my fault. She said I wasn’t to tell anyone.”

“Marnie was raped?”

Olivia nods. “Her drink was spiked. She didn’t press charges.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe she was scared.”

What happened then?”

“About a month later, I had a letter from a secret admirer. I know it sounds stupid, but it was really nice to think someone fancied me. Marnie was always the prettier one who could take her pick of boyfriends.”

Olivia trembles, smoothing the front of her blouse. “He wrote such lovely things. He made me feel…” She doesn’t finish. “I wrote back and we began corresponding. It was like an old-fashioned courtship by post. Romantic, you know. I wanted to meet him, but he said he was frightened because I was so beautiful. I thought he had mistaken me for someone else. Maybe he saw me with Marnie and got us mixed up. He sent me a picture. He was dressed in uniform. I thought he looked very rugged and handsome. Too good to be true.”

“Did you meet him?”

“He said he was due to go to Kosovo with the peacekeepers. He wanted to wait until he got back, but asked if I’d send him a photograph he could take with him. Something sexy, he said. So I borrowed lingerie and I took pictures of myself. Silly really, but I thought it was harmless.” She grimaces and glances at Joe and away again.

“Have you worked it out yet?” she asks.

Joe shakes his head.

“My secret admirer didn’t exist. He was invented. A joke. My photographs and letters were printed up and stuck on notice-boards and on lockers and put under dorm-room doors and left on chairs in lecture halls.”

Olivia lowers her eyes, looking at the spot where Joe is standing.

“I couldn’t walk the corridors without people pointing me out or whispering things behind my back. It went on for weeks. I wanted to kill myself, I really did…”

“And you think Marnie did this?”

“I received a letter—in the same handwriting that my fake boyfriend used. Someone had written:
See what happens when you leave a friend behind?
”

“Did you confront Marnie?”

“She denied it.”

“But you don’t believe her.”

“I know she was behind the letters. She’s been persecuting me ever since.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve missed out on jobs and had deliveries cancelled. Once I got a phone call from a hospital saying my parents had died in a car accident. Two people were actually dead, but they were someone else’s parents.”

Stepping around Joe, Olivia begins stacking books onto a trolley. She pushes it along the aisle. Joe follows.

“Did you complain?”

“Who to?”

“There are laws about public nuisance and intimidation.”

“I have no proof. I called Marnie. I begged her. She denied everything.”

Olivia stops and turns, pleading, “Please make her stop. No, I take that back. Don’t even mention me. Don’t tell her where I am.”

Joe doesn’t know what to say. He wants to defend Marnie. He wants to believe she’s still the sweet smiling waitress who helped him find a flat. At the same time, he imagines Olivia as a young student, shy and looking for love, whose memories of university will always by tainted by feelings of acute embarrassment and the loss of a friend. His own degradations came much later in his early forties, when Mr. Parkinson began tripping him up, freezing him in mid-stride or sending him sideways or backwards.

When he looks at Olivia he sees a searing frailty and the shakiness of an accident victim who can’t be freed from her torment by a few comforting words. It doesn’t matter that she’s older now. She’s like a walking bruise with eggshell defenses, waiting for the next blow to strike.

As Joe says goodbye, he keeps his eyes closed so he doesn’t have to look at her face and see the hole in her heart.

R
honda Firth lunches most days at an American-style diner on Edgware Road: one of those places where the milkshakes come in tall metal cups with double malt and an extra scoop of ice cream. The waitresses are wearing Betty Boop dresses and little paper hats that are red, white, and blue.

Sitting at the main counter, Rhonda’s buttocks swamp the vinyl stool and her police belt rattles against the metal edge of the Formica table. Ruiz takes the stool next to her and orders a black coffee, looking at the laminated menu.

“The specials are on the board,” says a waitress, whose antecedence is nearer Bangladesh than Bayswater or Brooklyn.

“I’ll have a burger.”

“Which one?”

“Just a normal burger.”

“You want Cajun-style, Creole-style, with or without cheese, double cheese, bacon, double bacon, chili con carne, jalapeño, or egg?”

“Just give me your regular cheeseburger.”

“Swiss, cheddar, Mozzarella, or pepper jack?”

“Cheddar.”

“Rare, medium, or well done?”

“Medium.”

“You want chili cheese fries, taco fries, or French fries?”

“French fries.”

“You want a drink?”

“I want you to stop asking me questions.”

Rhonda’s milkshake has beads of condensation running down the metal mug, leaving a moisture ring on her newspaper. She reaches for another handful of chili fries.

“Excuse me, officer,” says Ruiz.

She turns. Her dreadlocks have been pulled tightly against her skull, showing paler skin on her scalp.

“I don’t want to interrupt you while you’re eating,” he continues.

“Don’t then.”

She goes back to her newspaper.

“My name is Vincent Ruiz. I used to be with the Met.”

Rhonda spins her stool, her breasts heavy on her stomach, her stomach heavy on her lap. “I’ve heard of you.”

“I doubt that.”

“No, I have. You’re the guy who busted that terrorist cell in Swindon.”

“Luton.”

“Yeah, that’s the place.” She wipes her hands on her thighs before gripping his outstretched hand, pumping it firmly.

“I know you’re not allowed to talk about cases, but I was hoping you might make an exception. I wanted to ask you about Marnie Logan.”

“I thought you’d retired.”

“I’m helping a friend.”

“Not Marnie?”

“Hardly know the woman, but my friend says she’s had a rough time.”

Rhonda frowns and glances out the window at the passing traffic. She pushes her plate of fries towards him. Ruiz declines.

“So you’re working as a private detective?”

“I’m trying to find out what happened to her husband. Marnie needs the insurance money, but the company won’t pay out unless she can prove that Daniel is dead.”

“It’s only been a year.”

“You think he’s alive?”

“Didn’t say that.”

“Foul play?”

Rhonda seems to smile at his old-fashioned terminology. “They had a blazing row about a week before he disappeared, a real humdinger, screaming and throwing stuff. Neighbors told me all about it.”

“What was the fight about?”

“Gambling losses.”

“You sound like you don’t believe her.”

“I keep an open mind.”

Ruiz waits for her to explain. Rhonda takes a toothpick and works it between her molars and her gums. “Little Miss Tight Bod has a history.”

“Meaning?”

“She cried rape when she was twenty. Someone found her wandering the streets and took her to hospital. They ran a tox-screen, which came back positive for Special K.”

“Ketamine.”

“The police took a statement. Marnie gave them a name. A suspect was picked up and interviewed. He said he drove her home from a party and she jumped out of his car at a set of lights. Swore blind he didn’t touch her.”

“Forensics?”

“Nothing useful. Police were trying to make a case, but Marnie Logan withdrew the allegations.”

“A lot of rape victims get cold feet.”

“Agreed. But how many rape suspects are dead within a month? Water police pulled Richard Duffy’s body out of the river. Could have been a coincidence. Could have been a contrivance, a god loose in the machine—know what I’m saying?”

“You’re not suggesting…?”

“I’m just telling you the facts, Jack. Marnie Logan cried rape, then withdrew the complaint, and the dude was dead within a month. Maybe it’s got no bearing. Maybe people disappear around her.”

Ruiz’s burger has arrived. It looks like half a cow has been minced and flame-grilled.

“You might want to wash that down with something,” says the waitress.

Andrews,
thinks Ruiz.

“Tell me about the day her husband went missing.”

“She came home. He wasn’t there. She waited. He didn’t show up. We interviewed family and friends. Monitored his bank accounts. Checked the borders. Nothing. He hasn’t so much as signed for a library card.”

“So what’s the thinking?”

“Like I said, I’m keeping an open mind.”

“What about suicide?”

“He didn’t leave a note—not one that we could find. Maybe his old lady got rid of the note because he wrote some cruel things about her. Been known to happen.”

“And the gambling debts?”

“We looked into that. Didn’t take us very far.”

“Patrick Hennessy isn’t famous for his patience when people fall behind in their payments.”

“Dead men don’t pay their debts. Hennessy is a businessman—and I use that term in the loosest possible sense.”

“He’s been putting the squeeze on Marnie.”

“She should make a complaint.”

“Will that do any good?”

Rhonda sighs. Her chins shake. “Not a lot, unless she can produce some evidence.”

“Witnesses disappear around Hennessy.”

“Nature of the man.”

“Scumbag.”

“I’ll drink to that.” Rhonda drains her milkshake in a rumble of bubbles.

“Did the name Niall Quinn ever come up?” asks Ruiz.

“Who is he?”

“One of Hennessy’s drivers.”

Rhonda shakes her head. “What’s he got to do with Marnie Logan?”

“Hennessy had her turning tricks to work off her husband’s debt. Quinn was driving her around.”

“You’re shitting me.”

“I shit you not.”

“I knew the lady was desperate, but that’s a stretch…”

“Quinn’s body was pulled out of the Thames last week.”

Rhonda’s mouth is open. The pinkness of her tongue is almost fluorescent. “Men get waterlogged around that woman. Where was the body found?”

“Wapping.”

“That’ll be the Eastern division. Is Marnie a suspect?”

“Apparently.”

“And you’re still trying to help her?”

“Like I said, I’m helping a friend of mine.”

Rhonda hooks her thumbs into her belt. “Well, I’d be careful about involving myself in a police investigation.”

“Thanks for the advice.”

Ruiz has barely touched his burger. He gets up and reaches for his wallet.

“Are you going to eat the rest of that?” asks Rhonda, not waiting for his answer. “I hate seeing food wasted.”