Lynda La Plante was born in Liverpool. She trained for the stage at RADA and worked with the National Theatre and RSC before becoming a television actress. She then turned to writing – and made her breakthrough with the phenomenally successful TV series Widows.
Her fourteen novels have all been international bestsellers. Her original script for the much-acclaimed Prime Suspect won awards from BAFTA, British Broadcasting and the Royal Television Society as well as the 1993 Edgar Allen Poe Writer’s Award.
Above Suspicion and The Red Dahlia have been ratings winners for ITV in 2009 and 2010.
Lynda La Plante has been made an honorary fellow of the British Film Institute and she was awarded a CBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2008.
Visit Lynda at her website: www.LaPlantebooks.co.uk
Also by Lynda La Plante
Blind Fury
Silent Scream
Deadly Intent
Clean Cut
The Red Dahlia
Above Suspicion
The Legacy
The Talisman
Bella Mafia
Entwined
Cold Shoulder
Cold Heart
Sleeping Cruelty
Royal Flush
Prime Suspect
Seekers
She’s Out
The Governor
The Governor II
Trial and Retribution
Trial and Retribution II
Trial and Retribution III
Trial and Retribution IV
Trial and Retribution V
First published in Great Britain by Macmillan, 1996
This edition published by Pocket Books, 2010
An imprint of Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
A CBS COMPANY
Copyright © Lynda La Plante, 1996
This book is copyright under the Berne Convention.
No reproduction without permission.
® and © 1997 Simon & Schuster Inc. All rights reserved.
The right of Lynda La Plante to be identified as author of this
work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of
the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
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London WC1X 8HB
www.simonandschuster.co.uk
Simon & Schuster Australia
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available
from the British Library
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-84983-264-9
Australian trade paperback ISBN: 978-0-85720-139-3
eBook ISBN: 978-1-84983-265-6
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and
incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are
used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual people living or dead,
events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Printed in the UK by CPI Cox & Wyman,
Reading, Berkshire RG1 8EX
To Liz Thorburn
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I sincerely thank Suzanne Baboneau, Arabella Stein, Philippa McEwan, the real Lorraine Page whose name I borrowed, Susanna Porter and Harold Evans of Random House, Gill Coleridge, Esther Newberg, Peter Benedek, Hazel Orme. With special thanks to Alice Asquith, researcher at La Plante Productions, and Vaughan Kinghan, editor at La Plante Productions. To everyone at the Pasadena Police Station and Sheriff’s Office, thank you for your time and expertise.
With thanks for their contribution to: Eliot Hoffman, Arthur Q. Davis, Clara Earthly, Geoffrey Smith, Paul Lovell, Priestess Miriam Chawani, Brandi Kelly, The Voodoo Museum, Yosha Goldstein, Centre for New American Media, Sergeant Barry Fletcher and Lt. Sam Fredella of the New Orleans Police Department, John Gagliano, New Orleans Coroner’s office, Dr Munroe Samuels, Tyler Bridges, Arthur Hardy, Mardi Gras Guide, Luke Delpip, Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club, Warren Green, NOMTOC krewe, Ed Renwick, Institute of Politics, New Orleans, John Maloney, Lakefront Airport, Dr Ragas, University of New Orleans, Kim Brown, Housing Authority of New Orleans, Kara Kebodeaux, New Orleans Chamber of Commerce, Wayne Everard, New Orleans Public Library, Jerry Romig, University City Hospital, Rodney and Frances Smith, Soniat House Hotel, Norman and Sandra Kng, Betty Baggert, Longue Vue House, Wade Henderson, 6 WDSU Television, Courtney Marsiglia, WVUE TV Channel 8, Alcoholics Anonymous, L.A. County Coroner’s office and the Times-Picayune.
But above all my thanks to a very admirable lady who brought me the story of her life.
PROLOGUE
Mojo is an African word denoting a fetish or sacred object, which can be used either for good or for evil. Gris-gris, meaning ‘grey grey’ in French, is the name given in New Orleans to the combination of ‘black’ and ‘white’ mojos made by a voodoo practitioner to achieve his or her ends – to safeguard the life of a person to whom the charm is given, protect against disease, and ward off the evil wishes of enemies to avoid bad luck in love and life. A personal gris-gris must be kept secret, and will lose its power if seen or touched by anyone other than the owner. For that reason, gris-gris are usually worn close to the body, on the right side by men, on the left by women.
CHAPTER 1
ANNA LOUISE Caley remained beneath the shower for a full half-hour, scrubbing herself clean, making sure every inch of her perfect body was cleansed. She could blank what she had done from her mind – that was easy – but it was the abuse she inflicted on her body that worried her, and she examined herself with care, pleased to see that there was no bruise or other mark to show what she had done the night before.
With just a soft white towel swathed around her, she re-examined herself, checking and patting her flesh until she was satisfied, then oiled and powdered her body and got dressed. White tennis socks, white cotton panties, white tennis dress and, lastly, pristine white tennis shoes. She laced them up, then chose one of a row of professional-standard racquets and unzipped the cover, tapping the taut strings with the flat of her hand before she slipped the cover back on. She checked her hair, putting on a white stretch head-band to keep her long blonde hair back from her face.
Anna Louise left nothing out of place in her room, placing the towel she had used in the laundry basket along with the previous night’s soiled clothes. She liked the fact that she was not like a normal teenager, prided herself on being meticulously neat, and she slowly appraised her immaculate room before she headed for the tennis court. She passed through the kitchen, still empty at 6.30 in the morning, before any of the domestic staff had begun to prepare breakfast, and went outside, where a gardener was already turning on the sprinklers and sweeping up any dead leaf that might have fallen during the night. He did not look up, however, as Anna Louise headed for the changing room where the tennis balls were kept, picked up a large basket of them, then made her way to the court. First she examined the net, making sure it was precisely the correct height, then fed the balls into an automatic delivery machine and set the dial for speed and direction. She carefully removed her racquet from its cover and switched on the ball machine, ready to begin to play against it – against herself. She stood on the service line, her weight thrown on to the balls of her feet, poised and ready for the first ball to shoot out, then began to practise her double-handed backhand. She was a precise player, fast, meticulous and very powerful, and she slammed ball after ball up the court until she was sweating with exertion, each stroke accompanied by a low grunt of satisfaction.
Her concentration lapsed for a moment and she missed the next ball, which struck her hard in the chest. Someone was laughing, and she recognized both the laugh and the accompanying soft, low giggle.
The balls continued to pop out of the machi
ne, but Anna Louise ignored them now and walked off the court towards the summer-house, through the shrubbery, where she knew her approach could be neither seen nor heard.
Some time later, the machine fired out its last few balls, but now Anna Louise was slashing furiously at them, sending them crashing around the court as Tilda Brown, her closest friend, opened the court gate. Tilda was as blonde and as pretty as Anna Louise and dressed in a similar white tennis dress, but Anna Louise didn’t stop playing even for a moment to acknowledge her.
‘Hi, Anna!’ Tilda called. ‘Sorry I’m late, I’ve got a terrible headache. Maybe I won’t play this morning, I feel real bad,’ she continued, pulling a face.
Anna Louise made no reply, but switched off the machine and picked up the basket to begin collecting the stray balls. Tilda, still complaining of a headache, balanced some balls on her racquet and carried them across to the basket to tip them inside.
‘Did you hear what I said? I don’t feel like playing.’
Anna Louise smiled.
‘Ahh, but I’ve been waiting for you. I want to show you my backhand, it’s really progressed.’
‘It was always good,’ Tilda replied.
‘Yes, but now it’s better,’ Anna Louise said nonchalantly.
‘Maybe later!’ Tilda carried the basket over and tipped the balls into the machine. ‘I’ll refill it for you.’
Anna Louise stood on the service line, bouncing a ball up and down on her racquet, then suddenly took aim. The ball slammed into Tilda’s back, making her turn round, gasping. The blow had hurt so much she could hardly speak, and the next ball hit her so hard in the stomach that she staggered backwards, winded.
‘Stop it, Anna, STOP IT, THAT HURT . . . YOU HURT ME.’
Anna Louise moved closer. ‘Get Polar to kiss it better . . .’
Tilda was scared and tearful; her belly ached, while her back felt as if it was burning, and Anna Louise was bouncing another ball, ready to aim at her again. Tilda ducked for cover as the third ball came towards her.
‘What are you doing? STOP IT!’ she screamed.
Anna Louise grinned as she picked up a fourth ball.
‘You can’t get away from me, Tilda Brown.’ She was now throwing the ball up in the air as if to serve. Tilda moved further back and bumped into the ball machine, hitting the switch with her arm. The machine began to pump the balls more rapidly towards Anna Louise, who laughed as she swung her racquet, forehand and backhand in perfect unison, every ball viciously directed at the cowering Tilda, who screamed, running this way and that to avoid the swift hail of tennis balls, until she squatted sobbing behind the net.
Even behind the safety of the net, balls slammed into her arms and legs through the mesh, Anna Louise first taking aim at Tilda’s body, but then at her face.
‘Stop it, please stop it,’ sobbed Tilda, looking up to see Anna Louise standing over her.
‘You stay away from him, Tilda, he’s mine. I see you with him again and I’ll make you sorry, I’ll hurt you more than any tennis ball, I’ll hurt you so bad, Tilda Brown, you’re gonna wish you were dead . . .’
Tilda was crying like a baby, terrified as much by Anna Louise’s verbal threats as by her violence, and she sobbed with relief when she recognized the figure coming towards them. Anna Louise saw him too, and gave Tilda a final quick, hard blow on the side of the head, then lowered the racquet, smiling sweetly, her whole manner altered.
‘Hi, honey,’ Robert Caley smiled to his daughter, then looked towards the weeping Tilda. ‘What’s happened, Tilda?’
Anna Louise linked her arm through her father’s. ‘It was my fault, you know that serve o’ mine, Papa, poor little Tilda here got right in the way of it . . . and you got to take some of the blame for coachin’ me to serve so hard, but I didn’t mean to hit her, I guess she just isn’t up to my standard.’
Robert Caley had one arm around his daughter as he reached out to Tilda with concern. ‘You all right, sweetheart?’
Tilda wouldn’t look into his eyes, but held her hand to her head feeling the lump where Anna Louise had hit her. ‘I want to go home, Mr Caley, today,’ she said in a low, but firm voice.
‘She is just bein’ silly ’cos she lost the game,’ Anna Louise said petulantly. She tried to keep hold of her father’s arm to stop him following Tilda, but he pulled free of her, and she was infuriated to see him help Tilda to the gates and walk her back to the house. She smashed the racquet against the tarmacked court, then examined it, afraid she had damaged one of her favourites. Long strands of Tilda’s hair were caught between the strings.
Tilda had packed, and refused to say anything else to Anna Louise through her locked bedroom door other than that she was going home at once. Anna Louise tried to cajole her, saying she was sorry, that she hadn’t meant to be nasty, but Tilda refused to unlock the door. Now Anna Louise was worried about what Tilda might say to her mother, and was beginning to think that perhaps the sooner she left the better.
‘Fine, you leave, Tilda Brown, I don’t care,’ she said angrily, but she was worried enough to decide to go and sit with her mother. Tilda would certainly want to say goodbye to her, and more than likely would tell tales. Anna Louise tapped on the door of her mother’s suite and waited; it was often locked in the mornings as Elizabeth Caley hated being seen without her warpaint, even by her own daughter. Anna Louise knocked again, then walked in: all the curtains were drawn and the room was in darkness. She called out to her mother, but receiving no reply wondered if Elizabeth was still sleeping or, worse, had gone downstairs and would see Tilda. She hurried through her mother’s sitting room towards her bedroom.
‘Mama,’ she whispered, then pressed her ear to the door, listening. ‘Are you awake Mama? It’s me, it’s Anna Louise.’
She eased the bedroom door open and peeked inside, adjusting her eyes to the darkness of the room, then called out softly again, but saw that the bed covers had been drawn back. Her mother was known to fly into an even worse rage if she was woken from sleep than if she was surprised without makeup. She suffered from severe insomnia and her sleep was precious, if rarely natural.
Anna Louise looked across to the bathroom door and heard the soft sounds of bath-water running. She was about to leave when she noticed the low, flickering light of a candle on her mother’s bedside table. The candle was sputtering, and she crossed the room to check it out, not expecting to find anything else.
The gris-gris had been consecrated, because it was positioned on top of a worn black Bible, a small white cotton sack of salt to the left and a tiny green bottle of water to the right. Above the Bible a blue candle, representing the element of fire, guttered in its candlestick; below the book was a square of sweet-smelling incense, the symbol for air. Anna Louise felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle when she opened the gris-gris bag and looked at the contents, unaware of their meaning and of what it meant to have seen and touched a consecrated gris-gris. Fascinated, she picked up the old Bible and opened the fly-leaf: in old-fashioned scrolled handwriting whose ink had faded from black to brown there was an inscription to Elizabeth Seal – her mother’s maiden name. Anna Louise carefully replaced the book, flicking through the tissue-thin pages to try to make sure it was in the same position she had discovered it.
Back in her own room, she sniffed her fingers and decided they smelt musty, so she filled her wash-hand basin with hot water and soaped her hands clean. She was just drying them when she heard her mother calling for her and returned to the suite.
‘Tilda wants to go home today,’ Elizabeth said, toying with a silver spoon on her breakfast tray. ‘But that’s silly as we’re all leaving tomorrow.’
Anna Louise sat on the edge of her mother’s bed, noticing that the bedside table had been cleared. ‘Oh, we had an argument, we’ll make it up.’ She was anxious to change the subject, so asked with concern, ‘How you feeling today?’
‘I’m just fine, honey. Now you go and talk to your friend, it’s stupid for her t
o go if we’re all going to New Orleans tomorrow.’
‘Okay, I’ll make up with her. Do you want me to take your tray?’
‘Mmmm, I’ll sleep a while maybe, I had a bad night. Kiss kiss?’
Anna Louise leaned over to plant a kiss on her mother’s cheek and then carried the breakfast tray out of the room and closed the door behind her.
Tilda had already left by the time Anna Louise returned her mother’s tray to the kitchen. Anna Louise was unconcerned: she’d make it up to her, buy her something expensive. She wandered into the kitchen where Berenice, the housekeeper, had just baked a tray of fresh blueberry muffins, and began picking at one with her fingers, remembering the strange, musty smell from the Bible she had seen upstairs.
‘Tilda told me somethin’ weird, something she’d seen . . .’ she began casually, still picking at the muffin’s crispy top.
Berenice was emptying the dishwasher, not paying too much attention to her employers’ daughter, only half-listening as she went back and forth stacking the clean dishes in the cupboards. She poured a glass of milk for Anna Louise and set it beside her.
‘Miss Tilda sure was upset about somethin’, crying her eyes out. We thought maybe she’d had bad news.’ She continued putting the clean crockery away.
‘What does it mean if you got a Bible, a blue candle and funny little bags of salt and incense, you know, like those gris-gris bags they sell back home?’
The cupboard door banged shut.
‘You don’t wanna know, Miss Anna Louise, an’ you stop pickin’ at each muffin. You want one, then you take one.’
‘What does it mean?’
The housekeeper was replacing the cutlery in its drawer now, buffing each knife and fork quickly with a clean cloth before she put it away.
‘Well, it depends on which way the cross is placed on the Bible.’
‘Ah, so you do know what it means?’
‘All I know is, if you and Miss Tilda are playing around, then you stop and don’t be foolish. That’s voodoo, and nobody ought to play games with things they don’t understand because evil has a way of getting inside you, like a big black snake. It sits in your belly and you never know when it’s gonna uncoil and spit . . . and if you touch another person’s gris-gris, then you got bad trouble.’
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