She's Mine

by Claire S. Lewis

  ‘Stop, Miss Kenedey. Wait please.’

  It’s Costa, shoving past the shoppers as he runs, muscles rippling under his white shirt, waving a piece of paper in the air.

  ‘Miss Kenedey, we’ve just received an email from the police dog handling team.’ He waves the computer print-out in her face.

  At 2.21 p.m. today, Sergeant Kingsley Blake, search-and-rescue dog handler, reported 3 positive alerts by detective dog, PJ, on a child’s pink swimsuit located in a rock cavern at Crooks’ Bay.

  8

  Photograph Three

  3 June 2000: The Cherwell River, Oxford

  Do you remember the day this photograph was taken? 3 June 2000 – the first summer of the brave new millennium. We look so young and so impossibly happy, captured together in the punt, you and me, and James wedged in between us, raising a glass of champagne in a toast, and his flinty blue eyes staring straight at the lens of my beloved Canon SLR propped up on the tripod.

  The afternoon sun is behind us and we’re haloed by incandescent light, an image of gilded youth, our mingled strands of golden hair glimmering in the rays. And in the foreground, look, you can see the slender branches of the weeping willow framing the shot, dipping low over the water, the narrow pale green leaves dappling light and shade across the forward-facing stern. The weeping willow, symbol of sorrow and grief, but also of wisdom and everlasting life – ironic, don’t you think?

  Like Shakespeare’s doomed Ophelia in the painting by Millais, you’re almost horizontal, ‘mermaid-like’ above the ‘weeping brook’, reaching for the dangling willow branch as the punt glides past. But you’re carefree and laughing, oblivious to your fate. James’ hand is resting softly on your bare sunburnt thigh. The dark, green, murky water swirls around the dragging metal pole clenched in my fist.

  And we are profiled in the shot, a mirror image, identical yet opposite, our faces turned towards James, leaning in flirtatiously and seeking his attention with our bright rapacious eyes.

  Caught in the click of the camera, the instant before he told me your ‘good news.’

  *

  Gabrielle drove up to Oxford for the day to visit James and Lara. The girls were celebrating their twenty-first birthdays. She was looking forward to a weekend out of London, away from the traffic and the sweaty grime, a chance to breathe and see more than just the jagged rectangle of blue sky visible from her kitchen window. Most of all she was looking forward to seeing James again. She hadn’t seen or spoken to him since April when he’d spent ten days of his Easter vacation lying low at her Chelsea flat, making use of her spare room. They’d kept it a secret from Lara who had gone home to Stratford-Upon-Avon to read and study for her Finals. It’d been a delicious conspiracy between the two of them – heady, passionate, and dream-like.

  The instant Gabrielle finished shooting at the modelling agency in Covent Garden where she now worked as a fashion photographer, she would race for the tube, and hot-foot it back along the King’s Road to the flat. James would be waiting for her, lounging on the sofa bed, pretending to read medical journals, smoking, and looking so young and beautiful. He was lithe and sinuous, lying there on her soft pillows, like an exotic cat, thought Gabrielle

  ‘You should be a model,’ Gabrielle had told him, observing him with a photographer’s eye as she ran her forefinger slowly down his chiselled profile. ‘You’ve got much better features than most of the guys I get to photograph.’

  ‘Stop leading me astray,’ he had replied. ‘I’m destined to make ground-breaking medical discoveries, remember.’ He had grabbed her wrist and pulled her towards him. ‘Anyway, right now I’m having too much fun to go out and get a job.’ He kissed her. ‘Just give me sex and cigarettes and I’m happy malingering here with you.’

  Now, today, it was such a glorious Oxford day, the first brilliant hot day of the summer. Gabrielle was looking forward to finding a pretext to ditch Lara later on and spend some time alone with James. They had some catching up to do. The three of them whiled away the afternoon punting on the Cherwell. James had brought along a bottle of champagne and they drank it in the punt, carelessly leaning back against the vinyl cushions and laughing and looking up at the picture-perfect blue sky. They were sharing the one glass that James kept refilling until the bubbles frothed over and spilt onto their gleaming legs. Gabrielle’s gaze was drawn to the myriad sources of light, glancing off the ripples on the surface of the water, ricocheting off the glass held high in James’ hand, and piercing through the dappled canopy of leaves. She felt bathed in light, and closed her eyes sensuously, to capture the moment.

  ‘We’ve got something to celebrate – I mean, as well as your birthdays,’ said James, touching Gabrielle’s hand softly. ‘Lara’s pregnant. Did she tell you?’ Gabrielle opened her eyes and now the light was blinding and hostile, bleaching out the colours. James had a huge grin on his face. His white teeth sparkled. The cat who got the cream. The laughter had gone from Lara’s deep, luminous eyes and they seemed to cloud over as Gabrielle stared blankly into them. Lara turned away and looked down at her hand trailing in the water beside the punt. ‘No, she didn’t say,’ said Gabrielle. ‘Well, congratulations!’ she added darkly, after a long pause.

  And so, instead of spending a steamy evening alone with James, Gabrielle went back with Lara to her room in college, where they passed the evening talking and sipping tea. Gabrielle got to work on Lara.

  ‘You’re going to get rid of it, surely?’ said Gabrielle. ‘It’s not fair on James. He’s got three more years before he qualifies. You’ll wreck his career if you have the baby. He can’t support you and the baby on his medical grant. He’ll never be happy if you make him give up his life ambition.’

  Lara listened, not saying much. Gabrielle kept on and on at her.

  ‘And you worked so hard to get into Oxford – bored us all stupid going on about it since you were thirteen years old. Dreaming spires, college balls, Pimm’s parties, a glittering future in academia and all that jazz. You’ve lived the dream these past three years. You can’t just throw it all away now – you can’t go back to being a provincial nobody.

  Now, Gabrielle pointed down angrily at her stomach. ‘And you’d be the laughing stock of the village. Imagine the embarrassment? The vicar’s daughter – an unwanted pregnancy, an illegitimate child. It’s too humiliating.’

  Gabrielle felt the evening stillness almost vibrating through the open window. She caught wafts of perfume from the purple blooms of ancient wisteria growing outside the casement window, carried on the gentle breeze. She watched Lara leaning back in the window seat, breathing deeply, her hand resting lazily across her stomach. Although still slim and angular, she already looked unmistakably pregnant, thought Gabrielle. She had that self-satisfied, bovine look about her.

  The calm of dusk was magnified by the chime of bells from a tower in the back quad. It was such a tranquil setting yet Gabrielle could sense the pulse of anger and jealousy ringing in her ears, like the bells. She had a sudden impulse to strike Lara, to shove her out the window.

  The bells reminded her of childhood quarrels. She was transported back in time to a birthday party at the vicarage in Stratford. She remembered how choked with envy she’d been when Lara had ripped the pink tissue paper from her birthday present, a golden-haired, blue-eyed china doll. For her own birthday present that year, Gabrielle, ‘the tomboy of the two,’ had asked for a skateboard. She thought dolls were for sissies. But when she set eyes on Lara’s lovely china doll, she was possessed with jealousy and desperate to do a swap. Usually so pliable, Lara was implacable. She kept the doll.

  But not for long… it wasn’t long before her pretty face was shattered.

  She’s not keeping that baby, thought Gabrielle. She’s not having the baby and she’s not having James. I’m not the kind of person to sit around waiting for the scraps. Her throat was dry and her chest was taut. She felt an aching sickness in the pit of her stomach.

  She was a little girl again. Telling t
ales to her mother at the injustice of it all.

  ‘He was mine first. She stole him from me. It’s so unfair.’

  This time her mother was not there to adjudicate.

  Just the sort of thing Lara would do to get her man, just typical – get herself pregnant, then play the damsel-in-distress. Well, I want him back. And I’ll get him back. I don’t care if she hates me for it.

  She was already planning her revenge.

  I’ll make her have an abortion. I can fix it up at the Chelsea clinic. And I’ll make him fall in love with me again. Whatever it takes. If the scheming bitch thinks she can trap him with a baby, she can think again.

  9

  Scarlett

  The alarm goes off at half past six and I wake from a broken, fitful sleep. In a state of semi-consciousness, I recall lurid fragments from my dreams – I’m screaming at Damien as he leans over Katie; he’s dragging off her swimsuit while she giggles and licks her ice cream; I’m hitting Damien over the head again and again with a hip flask; I’m lying face up on the yellow lilo looking at the sky; someone is making love to me, he has strong hands, a searching tongue; I’m ruffling his dark hair, overcome with feelings of tenderness; I’m calling out a name, begging him to stop but willing him to go on; wanting this man, but who is he? A face comes into view above my head. It’s not Damien but Detective Sergeant Costa, and he’s bearing down on me, pressing his strong hands around my neck as I struggle for breath; I’m gasping for air, a police car is coming, the sirens are wailing…

  The alarm is bleeping on my phone and a boulder is pressing down on my chest.

  *

  I’m due back at the police station with Christina at 9 a.m. The Commissioner has asked Costa to question me separately from Christina to go over my explanation for being found ‘joyriding’ with Damien in the Jeep. He clearly wasn’t convinced by my answers yesterday – I told him basically that I had no choice about accepting the lift from Damien as I couldn’t get away from him. There was no place to run. And as for what happened in the Jeep, well, I was scared of Damien and, in that moment, it was the only way I could think of to get him off the road and stall him for long enough to give the police time to catch up and take him into custody.

  ‘You could call it preservation sex, if you like,’ I had said, only half-flippantly. The Commissioner didn’t understand that, of course, being a man!

  Anyway, Costa’s tasked with taking a full statement from me this morning. On the plus side he should have the results back from the drug test. After Costa showed us the email about the discovery of Katie’s swimsuit, I persuaded him that what I had told the police about my drink being spiked needed to be taken seriously. So Costa took me back to the police station to administer the drug test while Christina went on down to the beach.

  *

  I knock on Christina’s door just before seven as we had planned to breakfast in her room together, to avoid backhanded whispers of hotel staff and guests. The sight of us engaging in any normal activity seems to provoke outrage. But it’s not as if we can survive on thin air. Christina opens the door and goes back into the bathroom to finish putting on her make-up. She’s wearing the silk gown that Damien had surprised her with for the vacation. I perch on the edge of the bed and see her reflected in the bathroom mirror, slicking red lipstick over perfectly formed lips.

  How can she bother with make-up when Katie is missing?

  I pick up the hotel phone to call for room service. The jade earring is lying on the bedside table next to Christina’s brown moleskin Gucci purse.

  She’s going to lose it again, I think with annoyance.

  She never looks after her things. She’s so careless.

  I tell the maid we’ll have breakfast on the balcony and she sets out a tempting tray of steaming coffee, croissants, fresh fruit and yogurt. My stomach is in knots but I need to keep my strength up.

  Sitting on the balcony, the air is crisp, there’s sunshine on the water. It’s going to be another beautiful day, the second morning without Katie.

  I look up at the cloudless sky. The sun is still hanging there. The sea is still blue. The tourists are still heading for the beach. And Katie is still missing… This can’t be real.

  Still missing.

  I must still be dreaming…

  *

  Christina is still locked in the bathroom, making herself beautiful so I tap on the door.

  ‘Breakfast is here’ I call out. ‘Fresh coffee.’ It’s the little things that keep you going, I tell myself guiltily.

  As the door opens, I note the effort Christina has made with her appearance this morning. Her striking blue eyes are rimmed with navy eyeliner and she’s even gone to the trouble of applying concealer to disguise the dark circles beneath them.

  Clearly, old habits die hard. Perhaps with all those television cameras around she wants to look her best. To be fair, it might be that it’s not simply her incurable vanity but rather an attempt to keep control, to hold it all together.

  She’s done her hair differently, pulled back from her face and twisted into a shiny knot on the top of her head. She’s wearing the jade earrings.

  ‘You look nice’ I say automatically. ‘Those earrings go well with your eyes.’ Christina smiles absently.

  It’s only as I utter the trite words, that a thought strikes me. How very strange? The jade earring I found under the seat in Damien’s car is sitting next to Christina’s purse on the bedside table. I can see it there right now, catching the light. So that makes three…

  She catches me looking.

  I decide to say nothing.

  While we’re breakfasting on the balcony – or rather, while I’m breakfasting, given that Christina pushes everything away except for a scalding cup of black coffee – the phone rings. A package has been left at reception for Damien. I offer to go down and collect it.

  When I hand over the thick brown envelope to Christina, she rips it open unceremoniously. Damien’s mobile falls out onto the table. She puts the mobile straight into her bag.

  ‘The police will want to see this,’ she says.

  Clearly, she doesn’t want me looking over her shoulder while she goes through his calls and texts.

  There’s also a handwritten note and a sheet of paper with a list of transactions that looks something like a bank statement. She opens them out on the table. The note is on the official letterhead of the office of Leonard de Cruz, manager of the Black Jack Casino at Limetree Bay.

  The note is dated yesterday, Wednesday 17 June.

  Hi Boss, Good to see you last night. You forgot your phone – the concierge passed it over this morning. I’ve enclosed your account. Dieter’s agreed to extend your credit until Saturday latest. Best I could do.

  The casino manager’s clearly on friendly terms with Damien as he signs himself ‘Lennie’ and says he’s looking forward to the game of golf planned for Friday.

  ‘He told me he left his phone at the golf club,’ says Christina.

  ‘He told me he left his phone at the Coco Shack,’ I say. ‘He wanted to go back for it and take me there for lunch. He should get his story straight!’

  She gives me an angry look and I decide I’ve said more than enough.

  While Christina reads out the note, I run my eyes down the printout. On closer scrutiny, the account turns out to be a list of bets placed by Damien at the casino from 4.15 p.m. on the afternoon that Katie disappeared until 3.35 a.m. the next morning. The print-out shows seventeen bets placed in just over nine hours and the tally of wins and losses during that period amounts to a staggering 13,335 US dollars owed by Damien to the Black Jack Casino! As if that wasn’t bad enough, there’s a note at the bottom recording that Damien made a payment at 3.39 p.m. of five thousand dollars as part settlement in respect of deferred debts on his account, but that a further 5,737 dollars is still due, in respect of those deferred losses.

  ‘He’s been gambling again,’ says Christina. ‘I knew he was lying. He wasn’t at the gol
f club at all. While we were searching for Katie, he spent the night placing bets at the casino. I had no idea he had it this bad. It’s an addiction.’

  I think it best not to tell her what I really think of the slippery bastard. But I do register one important fact – the document provides Damien with an alibi. If he really was at the Black Jack Casino between 3.39 p.m. in the afternoon of Tuesday 16 June and 3.35 a.m. the next morning, then he can’t have taken Katie.

  Casinos are prohibited in the British Leeward Isles. The Black Jack Casino is in the US Leeward Isles – more than half an hour’s boat ride from where our hotel is situated on the island of Grand Carmola in the British Leeward Isles. If the gambling debts belong to Damien then he must have already embarked from the island of Grand Carmola by three o’clock in the afternoon.

  Our eyes meet and I wonder if the same thoughts are going through Christina’s head.

  Damien can’t be Katie’s abductor.

  At 3.35 p.m. on Tuesday 16 June, I took a photograph of Katie playing on the beach, filling the red bucket with shells.

  *

  When we enter the police station on the dot of 9 a.m. pushing past the straggle of reporters camped outside the door, the duty officer on the desk greets us like old friends and ushers us straight through to the Commissioner’s private interview room. The room is less shabby than the room we were questioned in yesterday. It’s freshly painted and there’s a comfortable blue sofa and armchairs in the corner. We seem to have been upgraded to VIP witnesses (or is it VIP suspects?). A computer and printer are set up on a polished wooden desk in the middle of the room. There are three black-and-white prints with views of Oxford displayed on the walls. He’s clearly an English expat. It’s more like a study in a university library than a police interview room in a small town in the Caribbean. As we sink into the sofa, Christina points to one of the pictures, a framed print featuring a building with a domed facade, dated 1920 with the title A View of The Queen’s College, Oxford and says casually, ‘How bizarre! Feels like a colonial outpost in here.’