by Crin Claxton
“What do you mean? I thought…” Smith tailed off.
“I set that fight up with Marsh. Marsh is brewing up some potato slop in the kitchens. She’s going to call it vodka and sell it to the other women. I agreed to turn a blind eye if Marsh and two of her mates jumped White. I took a walk down the corridor so I couldn’t be blamed, and so I wouldn’t have to stop it. I gave them a good fifteen minutes.”
“My God, they could have killed her.”
“I was hoping they would.”
There was silence for a moment. Then Somers said, “Just pass the bloody keg over here, will you?”
There was the sound of his glass being refilled. “But they didn’t, did they?” Somers continued. “White got some blows in. She was a good scrapper. I’ll give her that. Then you came along, sticking your beak in.”
“I couldn’t help it. I was doing my rounds.”
“Huh. Bloody jobsworth. Anyway, at least you didn’t gripe too much about dumping her in her cell.”
“Hmm…we shouldn’t have done that, though. Should we?” Smith sounded like he felt bad.
“That’s what I don’t get. What are you so upset about a dyke for? She was lowlife. All that crap about getting her to the hospital wing.”
“She was out cold. You took Marsh to see the doctor.”
“I had to get Marsh out of there.”
“Well, I didn’t know that at the time, did I?”
“I wanted White in her cell because I’d had enough of her. She was making a fool of me. She couldn’t shut her mouth. Always had a comeback. No matter how many times I called her a filthy dyke, she never just took it. She knew I was going to slap her around in her cell later. She didn’t care.”
“You…” Smith stopped talking.
“Don’t tell me you’ve never hit any of them.”
There was silence, then Somers’s voice again. “What, never? Well, you’re an old-timer. You probably don’t care anymore. I’m a young man, in my prime. I ain’t going to take it. They’re criminals. They deserve a slap.” Somers sounded like the drink was starting to get to him. “Frankie White was a piece of filth. I wasn’t going to put up with that. It was fun. Even though she wasn’t a worthy opponent. She was still out of it. I was looking forward to a bit of a scuffle. In the end, it was just me punching her. I didn’t have to worry about bruises for once so I concentrated on the head. Then I pulled her off the bed and kicked her a few times. She needed to know who was boss. I lifted her back into bed, pulled the covers over her, and left it till morning.”
For a couple of minutes, no one spoke. There was just the sound of a clock ticking. Then Somers’s voice again. “What you looking at me like that for? I don’t care that I killed her. She should have kept her mouth shut. And you’d better keep your mouth shut an’ all.”
Smith didn’t say anything.
“I mean it, Smith. I shouldn’t have told you that, but I’ll deny it if you say anything. It’ll be your word against mine. No one will believe you. And you’d be ratting out a fellow officer. I’ll see to it you’re finished. You can’t be that far off your pension, mate.”
There was a noise of a scraping chair.
“I’m off,” Somers said.
After a few seconds, Somers spoke again. His voice was farther away and menacing. “Keep your mouth shut, Smith. I know where you live. You could have a nasty fucking accident, one of these dark nights.”
There was a far off door slam and then a fumbling sound. Then the tape went dead.
Smith looked at Tony. If a ghost could look haunted, he did.
“Gawd. It’s all there still, then.”
Tony nodded slowly. Her mind was racing. The confession was explosive. She had proper evidence. She didn’t like only having one copy. She checked the connectors on the reel-to-reel recorder.
“Excellent. I’ve got just the audio interface I need. It’s the same for transferring vinyl or mini disc.”
“What’s mini disc?” Smith asked.
“A long-forgotten medium,” Tony said, going to the kitchen draw where she kept all her leads and techie bits and bobs.
“Not unlike yourself, then.” Deirdre hovered in the air by Tony’s right shoulder as she fumbled about at the back for the bit of kit she was looking for.
“What?”
“Well, you’re forgotten, or at least unheard of, and you’re a medium. You’re just not long. In fact you’re on the short side.”
“Recording medium, for God’s sake,” Tony snapped.
“Who cares, darling? To be honest, I lost interest when you said converter.”
Tony plugged two jack to phono leads from the outputs of the reel-to-reel to the inputs of the audio interface, and then inserted its USB output connector into her laptop. She pulled up her recording software and did a quick test.
On playback, the first words of Smith and Somers’s conversation came out of her laptop’s speaker. The recording was perfect.
Tony checked her notes for the start of the important bit. The counter had been at 1342. She fast-forwarded the tape to the same point. Then she hit record on the laptop, and play on the reel-to-reel.
“What are you doing?” Smith asked.
Tony looked up from monitoring the recording level. “Making an MP3 file of the conversation.”
“Christ, I know you lesbians like tongues, but do you have to keep speaking in them?” Deirdre snapped. “What are you saying?”
Tony sighed. It was bad enough she had to work with ghosts. Having to explain modern technology to people that died in the eighties and sixties was ridiculous. “This is a computer,” she said, speaking slowly and separating each word.
“She thinks we’re stupid,” Deirdre said to Smith.
“Look, all I’m doing is making a copy. Once I’ve got a digital copy I can make as many copies as I want in seconds.”
Both ghosts were looking at Tony blankly.
“I can store them in different places. If we lose this”—Tony waved at the reel-to-reel—“we lose the confession, right?”
“Oh, I see,” Smith said. “So whatever you’re doing, it’s like having several copies of the tape, and you’re hiding them in different places in case something happens to one of them.”
“Yeah. That kind of thing.”
“Clever.” Smith looked impressed. “I worked with hundreds of dykes like you, hundreds, but none of them had your nous.”
“Thanks. I think.”
“Now you’re acting like a proper detective,” Deirdre said, clapping her hands.
The recording had finished. Tony checked it. It was as clear as the original taped version, and, more importantly, it was all there.
Tony’s mobile went off. It was Rose Henderson.
“Hello, is that Tony?”
“Rose. Yes, it is. How amazing that you’ve called me now.”
“I just wanted to make sure you got my letter. I sent it to your theater, as I didn’t have an address for you. I think I was a bit rude, dear.”
“Not at all. Rose, I’ve just found something that is going to change everything for Frankie’s case.”
“What? You have?” Rose sounded confused.
“Rose, don’t ask me how I got it, but you were right. Ron Somers was responsible for Frankie’s death.”
There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the phone. “How do you know that?”
“I’ve got a confession. On tape. I’ll email you a copy now. Rose, you may want someone with you when you listen to it.”
“Oh, Tony. You’re not messing about, are you?” Rose said with a sob in her voice.
“No, Rose. You’ve been right, all these years.”
“I’ll look out for your email. Thank you, Tony. Oh, thank you so much.”
Tony quickly composed an email to Rose and attached the MP3 file. Feeling satisfied, she sat back in the chair.
“So, what now, Superdick?” Deirdre asked.
“Aww. You haven’t called m
e that for ages,” Tony said. “Go to the police?”
“What about Ron Somers? Why don’t you trace him? Oh, and don’t forget to take the van back.”
“You’d make a great secretary,” Tony told Deirdre.
“Yes, I would. And I could wear glasses, and a long dark wig…or should I be blond? I’d definitely need a pair of those black stockings with the line up the back.”
Tony didn’t answer. Her attention was entirely on the screen in front of her as she searched the Web for any mention of Ron Somers.
*
By the end of the day, Maya was exhausted. All her appointment slots had been taken, which meant Maya keeping on top of each person’s allotted time. When she had first qualified, she had found it very hard to rush people when they needed to talk. Her initial appointments had stretched from one hour to two or more as she had taken very detailed case histories. She knew that a strong element of the healing process was to be heard, and she had wanted to be the kind of healer who made plenty of time for her clients. Unfortunately, she also had a policy of charging as fair and affordable a fee as she could. Those two factors meant Maya couldn’t earn enough to pay her own bills. So she compromised. She allowed one and a half hours for the first visit, kept follow-ups to forty-five minutes, and she charged less than many other herbalists in the area.
Her final patient left, clutching his new sleep mix. Maya had to make up the stack of repeat prescriptions that she hadn’t got to that morning.
Maya lined up her set of measuring vials and retrieved the plastic jug from the basin filled with sterilizing solution.
The first script was for hay fever, and included ephedra, a restricted herb. Maya opened the locked cupboard that she shared with Suni. Her hand went quickly to the square liter bottle of ephedra, but her eyes rested on Suni’s section. This was the perfect opportunity to snoop through Suni’s stuff.
She started by noting down the names of all the tinctures and dried herbs. Maya had been researching drugs, but she knew that some plants had strong enough properties to be used as recreational drugs. Cannabis sativa was a good example. Scopolamine was in fact a plant-based drug, derived from the nightshade family.
In a few minutes, Maya had a list of Ayurvedic herbs and preparations to research. She could do that later, but it occurred to her that a locked cupboard of herbs was a good place to hide illicit substances. Suni could have drugs hidden behind or amongst the legal stuff.
She wasn’t sure whether to touch Suni’s bottles and jars or not. Maya was a very honorable person. She respected other people’s space, and she hadn’t messed with Suni’s area, unless she’d had to dust it, or mop up a spill near one of Suni’s items. Surely Suni would notice if Maya started pulling things out. There was no way Maya would be able to place them back exactly. The question was did Maya care about upsetting Suni? It would be pretty awful if it turned out that Suni was completely innocent and had been helping Jade all along.
Yes, but why wouldn’t she contact Jade’s friends? If Jade was ill and needed help, why wouldn’t a new lover get her as much help as she could?
Maya pushed her reservations aside. She picked up the brown jars and bottles one by one. She examined them, glanced at the contents, and looked behind them. Unable to help herself, Maya dusted and cleaned as she went along the rows. She told herself that would be her cover story if Suni asked.
She got to the final row without finding anything unusual. She supposed she could take a sample of each of the capsules and send them off for analysis. It would be very easy to put any kind of powder into capsules. Maya had a capsule making machine herself.
Maya sighed. She wished she’d studied Ayurvedic medicine. Then she might know if any of the capsules had been replaced. She opened one of the jars and sniffed. Then she shut the lid back on quickly. That was a really stupid thing to do, considering what she’d read about scopolamine. She could have knocked herself out.
She waited a minute, watching for signs of dizziness or light-headedness.
Nothing happened. Maya sighed with relief.
More cautiously, Maya picked up the next jar. It was lighter than the others. The label said Rasayana. Unlike the other jars, this one was opaque and Maya couldn’t see the contents. She turned the lid. It was fixed shut.
Maya turned the jar upside down. There was a rim where the bottom met the side. There was something weird about it.
Maya held the bottom and twisted.
It opened.
There was a hidden cavity accessed from underneath. Maya shook out the contents. It was a small rectangle of blotter paper divided into squares less than a centimeter wide. A cartoon image of different fruits was printed onto each square. Along the bottom in tiny letters was the legend: one of your five a day.
Maya put the blotter paper back in the jar and put the jar in her pocket. She would definitely get it analyzed. She was almost certain it was LSD. Her roommate at college had experimented with different drugs. Maya hadn’t been tempted. Her father’s behavior on or off his medication was enough to make Maya want to keep sober. Her roommate had had a very similar piece of perforated blotting paper that she’d said was “trip.”
Maya put everything else back and then got on with preparing her patients’ prescriptions. She tried not to rush them, as it was important to be accurate with the measurements and to label the directions correctly and legibly. It was getting late, and she wanted to go and see Jade. She deliberated about calling Tony again. Tony was obviously busy. Was it worth talking to her? Maya wasn’t even sure what she’d found. It would be better if she managed to see Jade first.
It was important to share things and be open, but Maya was absurdly sensitive about Tony’s opinion of her. Tony’s suggestion that Maya was paranoid had hit a nerve. More importantly, Maya didn’t want to bother Tony now that she knew what Tony had been going through. She didn’t want to bring any of this stuff up unless she had some proof.
Maya had been wrong about people before. She had thought they were kind or damaged or loving, when in fact they’d been trying to hurt her. Maya knew the only way she could put her past behind her was to face her fears.
And she was terribly afraid about Suni.
*
The strangest thing about the room was how bright orange it was. Jade got a rush that started in her toes and swept upward through her body. Her toes tingled. Suddenly, she understood what the expression meant. She liked the idea that she had experienced a genuine toe tingle.
She closed her eyes. The inside of her eyelids was orange too. No wonder Tony liked lighting. How lovely to be able to paint everything in beautiful colors.
Suni came down the steps from the kitchen carrying a little rocket. She was floating on a cloud of white wood. Jade vaguely remembered the steps were painted white, but they looked fluffy like clouds. Maybe they were made of dry ice like in the theater. Jade was born to be on the stage. As soon as she stopped sitting in her living room, she must get a job.
Suni floated across another white cloud that lay across the floor. In the orange light, Suni’s skin was intensely brown. Her lips were crimson. She looked like she’d been eating plums. She held the little rocket toward Jade. “I’ve brought you a present.”
Jade tried to work out how she could fit inside the purple and silver spaceship.
Suni flipped a switch and it turned into a beautiful light. It cast a purple glow across the muffled surface of the white leather sofa. It looked liquid. Jade immersed her fingers in it. The liquid light swam between her fingers like tiny shrimps tickling her skin with their antennas.
“How are you feeling, honey?”
Jade tore her eyes away from the light. Suni was sitting next to her. She began to stroke Jade’s knee. Each stroke was like an embrace. It was distracting, but Jade was more interested in the big red blobs spinning slowly on the periphery of her vision.
She turned toward the little rocket and tripped out. It was alive with light. Huge scarlet swirls danced wit
hin the glass. One blossomed like a mushroom cloud. It flowed out of the rocket ship and floated toward her. Just before it reached her it split into a hundred strands.
The glass radiated strand after strand. They pulsed and hummed, riding on an invisible current.
Jade went to them and then tried to trace their path across the room with her hands. She danced with them for a while. They blended with her skin. Jade knew her skin was dark brown, but it wasn’t really. It was hundreds of colors and shades. Brown was far too small a word for all that Jade’s skin was.
Suni laughed. The sound tumbled over Jade’s right ear, warming her lobes as if Suni herself were stroking them. Jade sensed that Suni wanted her attention, but the strands were very important. She rode with them again.
The most beautiful music began to play. Strings and piano filled the room. Jade sighed and closed her eyes as a sweet voice poured exquisite sadness into Jade’s ears. The sound trickled gently to her heart. The woman wanted her to love her. Jade breathed out a harmony of her own, blending her voice with the singer. Everyone wanted her to love them lately. She had forgotten about the voices, but here was one again.
“Jade, something is really wrong here.”
Jade didn’t want to listen to that voice. She wanted that voice to go away. She tried to reach the singer again, or even the other voice, the voice that whispered behind the singer. She thought she liked the whispering voice, but she couldn’t remember.
“You need to listen to me, girl. Suni is messing with your head.”
Jade looked over at Suni. She was sitting very still, staring at her laptop.
“Drink this.” She pressed a glass of water to Jade’s lips. The water was cool and lemony and very wet. It ran across Jade’s tongue. She felt it slipping over the inside of her throat. She felt it going all the way down past her chest and into her stomach. Wow. It was amazing. There was a chalky disc on Jade’s tongue. It dissolved into bitterness. Jade shuddered, but the lemony water was running through her mouth again and the bitterness melted away.
Tony swam in front of Jade’s eyes. She was in a tiny square frame. The frame receded as Tony walked away. Then she came toward Jade again. It was Tony from their trip to Provincetown.