Now I See You

by Holmes, Priscilla; Holmes, Priscilla;

  ‘You’ll be all right,’ he said. ‘It’s pretty painful, eh? Shall I give you an injection to take the edge off it?’

  I bit my lip and nodded.

  Afterwards, he asked again quietly: ‘Who would do this to you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It was dark.’

  He took my bandaged hand in both of his and looked straight into my eyes. ‘Be careful, okay?’ he said. ‘Just be careful.’

  Bea bustled around me, making tea. ‘Come home with me tonight, I’ve got plenty of room,’ she said.

  ‘It’s fine, I’ll be okay here,’ I said.

  ‘No, Thabisa, please,’ Bea insisted.

  ‘Honestly Bea, I’d rather stay here. But thank you anyway. I really will be fine.’

  Bea frowned. ‘I’ve asked them to leave a patrol car outside for the rest of the night.’

  ***

  I lay awake for a long time, unable to sleep. My muscles were twitchy, my mind uneasy. Why hadn’t I pulled out my gun? Why had I let myself be overpowered so easily? Who knew where I was staying? Who was this person who had squawked my name, warned me off the case?

  But most of all, why did he smell so strange? Something sweet and familiar, it clung to my clothes. I knew that smell, I just couldn’t put a name to it.

  5

  Three months earlier

  11 March 2006

  ‘Oh my God, you’re a woman!’

  ‘Shut your mouth. When we get out of the lift, walk in front of me. I’ve got the gun on your back,’ the woman said.

  The lift descended. The doors opened into a basement car park. The woman frogmarched Julia to another lift on the far side, inserted a card and the doors hissed shut. They rose quickly until the doors opened to a dark, gloomy lobby. The woman unlocked a door, pushed Julia inside and slammed it shut. She switched on a light. They faced one another in a narrow hallway.

  A tall blonde woman in her thirties stared at Julia.

  ‘Please. Let me go,’ Julia said. ‘I won’t tell anyone about this, I swear I won’t.’

  The woman didn’t answer. Her face remained blank.

  She gripped Julia’s wrist, pulled her across the hallway into a bland, musty, room and pushed her down on a thin mattress. It covered an iron bedstead. She yanked at Julia’s arms, spreading them wide. Julia felt cold steel closing round her wrists. The woman was handcuffing her to the bed.

  Julia cried out as the cuffs bit into her flesh. ‘Please,’ she begged, kicking and pulling away. ‘Please don’t! No, please.’

  Silence.

  Then the woman stuffed a gag into Julia’s mouth and taped it round her head. She choked and gagged on the rough material. It tasted like a dishcloth.

  The woman didn’t even glance at Julia before she walked out and slammed the door shut.

  Julia was alone. Coffin darkness closed in around her. Despite the fact that she was lying down, stretched out on her back, it felt like she was falling. A dizzy plummeting, without end. An hallucination, or maybe she was falling apart from within.

  She lay motionless, her wrists manacled to the sides of the bed. The night became damaged footage of an old black-and-white horror movie. It was airless, hot, and Julia was clammy with fear. She longed for a drink of water. She tried to cling to reality. She forced herself to think. Remain calm. Try to find an explanation for what had happened. Her eyes darted around the room, from wall to wall to the faint strip of light seeping in under the door. Where was she? Why had this happened to her? Could she escape? She wriggled around trying to free her hands. Every time she moved the handcuffs dug deeper into her wrists. She felt her skin split. Blood trickled onto the mattress. For what seemed like hours, she listened for any sound from the woman. She had no idea what time it was or how long she had been here. She tried not to visualise what was going to happen to her. She replayed her abduction over and over in her mind. The woman, who had seemed to be a man, had been relentless. She was strong. The way she dragged Julia from the restaurant, manhandled her into the lift and now into this room, without saying a word, was chilling.

  Her isolation sharply amplified all the noises around her. Through the door she could hear surreal sounds, heightened by her imagination. A tap whimpered, pipes moaned, she even imagined she could hear pots and pans squeaking in a kitchen somewhere, but no sound of human voices. Outside, the throb of traffic and the wail of police sirens drifted up from the street below. A snatch of music floated up into the night. She was in a city teeming with people, but she was quite alone.

  Her arms were stretched taut on either side of her body and her imprisoned hands prickled with pins and needles. She had to keep clenching and unclenching her fingers to increase the blood flow, but with every movement, the cuffs bit deeper. No matter how hard she tried to concentrate on something else to pass the time and distract her from her predicament, fear crept in, threatening to overwhelm her.

  The best way to keep panic at bay was to think about her childhood and her parents. She hadn’t thought about them in years. She remembered her young self. The indulged, only child of wealthy, older parents. Her beautiful, restless mother with her bridge parties and swirling social life. Her silent, distracted father, always deep in business transactions. She had her ponies, her dogs, her music lessons, her school and a dozen caring domestic helpers. But her parents remained distant, almost unaware of her.

  She often watched, crouched at the top of the stairs, when they entertained. Men drinking, puffing smoke out of their mouths, women, like her mother, with hard, sad eyes, wearing glittery clothes and dancing, moving languidly to old-fashioned music.

  ‘Pretty easy life you’ve had,’ Magnus had said when they first met. ‘Nothing seems to have happened to you.’

  Nothing.

  Her parents had tried to stop her marrying Magnus – he came from a dubious background – but she, young and naïve, thought she could handle him, change him. He wanted her money, of course, and much, much more.

  Magnus. She tied to force him out her mind, but he forced his way back in. As much of a bully absent as he was present.

  She shuddered. The handcuffs unearthed memories she would never be able to block. She remembered the latest discovery, just a few weeks ago, of the pornography that made it clear he was fascinated by the sadistic humiliation of women and children.

  She hated the smell of him.

  She hated his touch.

  She hated what she had become since knowing him.

  She tried to go back to her childhood again. To the lonely memories. Anything rather than think about the man who called himself her husband. Or worse, remember what had happened before they dressed for Mama Ruby’s.

  ***

  Chiffon, light. Floating. Running the scarf through her fingers. Winding it around her wrist. Releasing it, watching the colours light on the air. Scrunching it in her hand. Sliding into her bag.

  And then... what came after.

  After the elation of the moment. After the security guard’s hand grabbed her shoulder. After the store manager’s insulting questions. After the phone calls, the police station, the arrest, the shame of it all. After the silent drive home, Julia had stumbled into her bathroom, opened the cupboard that contained all her treasures, and wept.

  Thirteen bars of soap, an umbrella, twenty-two pairs of sunglasses, eighteen lipsticks, a dozen scarves, piles of underwear. All the things she had stolen over the past few months. Seven potato peelers too. Not that she had ever peeled a potato in her life.

  It never seemed like stealing. Whatever she took wasn’t enough. It couldn’t fill the greedy, aching, thrilling hunger in her chest.

  This time they’d called the police. Although for a moment, when the store manager’s eyes roamed over her diamond-stud earrings, pin-tucked Paris shirt and crocodile-skin shoes, she had thought he might relent again. But he just gave her the sort of pitying look she associated with social workers.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mrs McEwen,’ he had said, then picked up t
he phone. He called Magnus.

  Her husband’s face had been impassive as they drove home from the police station. When they arrived home he dismissed all the staff for the day, even the four gardeners. Without a glance in her direction he went to his room and slammed the door.

  Julia ran a bath. She knew what would happen next.

  She glanced at herself in the mirror but the woman with the red hair and fearful eyes who stared back gave no sign of recognition.

  She relived the morning’s events. If only she hadn’t picked up the stupid scarf without checking the coast was clear. She had been successful for too long, got complacent. It was second nature now to enter the store, flash her smile at the security guard and sales assistants, before deftly lifting something off the display and putting it into her bag.

  The scarf wasn’t even silk – just a cheap thing, probably made in China. It seemed so dull, so boring, to meekly queue up and pay for it, rather than seize the moment, feel alive, when most of the time she felt half dead. This was the only thing that made her feel switched on and in control. The rest of the time she felt dead inside. Why not just take the fucking thing?

  But things had spiralled out of control, unleashing a cascade of horrors: arrest, shame, prosecution, Magnus’s silence.

  Now she could hear his footsteps on the tiled floor. She turned. He was wearing a bathrobe; his face was grim. He looked at her for a long moment. He reminded her of a bull she had seen as a child, its head lowered, pawing the ground, charging. Killing one of her father’s grooms.

  Magnus reached out, grabbed her wrists and pulled her towards him.

  ‘Bitch,’ he hissed into her face. ‘You’ve humiliated me. You’ve made a fool of me. I own this city, and now I look like an idiot who can’t control his own wife.’

  He tore her shirt open. She fell back, twisting away from him. He dragged her back, ripping off her skirt and pants. Then he seized her head, thrust her face down into the bath and held her under the perfumed water until she thought she would die. When he finally released her, retching, gasping for air, he threw her down on the tiled floor, crushed her with the bulk of his body and straddled her.

  He hissed in her ear, ‘Think I don’t know what you’ve been up to? That I don’t know what’s in the cupboard in here? You stupid bitch. I know exactly what you do.’

  ‘Pretending to be such a lady, Julia, when you’re really just a common fucking thief...’

  At the end of it, he’d stood up and stared down at her as she lay crumpled on the floor.

  ‘You’re not even a good fuck, Julia. Be ready by eight. We’re dining with the Russian tonight.’

  She crawled to the bathroom cupboard and looked again at all the things she had taken. They shimmered with memories of her close shaves, little triumphs and moments of pure exhilaration. She’d risked everything to take these things and this was the result. This was the raw, warped core of her life.

  She’d lain on the bathmat, exhausted, staring blankly at the windowpane rinsed with unseasonal rain.

  ***

  Julia closed her eyes against the memory of Magnus’s silence in the car on the way to Mama Ruby’s. Only as they had been walking in to the restaurant had he spoken. ‘Don’t think this is over, Julia,’ he’d said quietly. ‘You’ve played me for a fool. Every mouthful you take tonight, every sip of wine. They’ll all be bringing you closer to the end of the evening. To coming back home with me.’ Then he’d laughed. She shuddered at the memory of that empty, frightening sound.

  What a fool she’d been to spend all these years with a man she loathed. After today’s attack, she was determined to find a way to leave him... if she survived this.

  She must have dozed off, because she didn’t hear the footsteps, but she was wide awake when the door opened. The light from the doorway blinded her. The woman approached, pulled the gag out of her mouth and unlocked the handcuffs.

  Julia massaged her sore wrists and stood. ‘I need to go to the bathroom,’ she whispered.

  The woman indicated that she could leave the room.

  Directly opposite, a door stood open and Julia glimpsed a washbasin. She stumbled inside, opened the taps and plunged her face into cold water. As she glanced up, the bathroom mirrors caught the reflections of a terrified woman. She looked more like a corpse than a human being. One eye was closed, her hair matted with congealed blood, her mouth bruised.

  Suddenly, shockingly, a telephone rang. Julia listened to urgent conversation just outside the door. Although she strained to hear, she couldn’t make sense of anything.

  The woman wrenched open the bathroom door.

  ‘Wash,’ she commanded. ‘Get the blood off, we’re leaving.’

  Julia didn’t move for a moment.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  The woman ignored her.

  ‘I’ll get you as much money as you want,’ Julia said. ‘Nobody will ever know about you.’

  ‘Do you think I’m mad?’ The woman was restless, jumpy. ‘You’d go straight to the police. The alternative is to kill you here. Like I’ve been told to do.’

  Terror swept through Julia. Who had ‘told’ this woman to kill her? Why? She remembered television footage of hostages in Iraq just before they were beheaded, desperately pleading for their lives. She remembered herself on the bathroom floor. Trying to writhe away from Magnus. She hadn’t begged. And she wasn’t going to beg now. She wouldn’t do that, whatever happened.

  ‘I don’t know why you want to kill me, but if you’re going to do it, for God’s sake, do it quickly,’ she said before turning back into the cloakroom and shutting the door on the woman’s surprised face.

  What did it matter anyway? She had nothing of value in her life. In the past twenty-four hours, she had been arrested for shop-lifting, brutally assaulted by her husband and kidnapped. Death would be a sweet escape from this nightmare. After a few minutes, Julia walked out and faced the woman. She surveyed her dispassionately. She still wore the black hooded tracksuit, her long hair scraped into a ponytail. She was beautiful in a pale, Eastern-European way, lean and strong with delicate features and cold, pale eyes under straight, dark brows.

  ‘Move,’ said the woman. She waved a gun in Julia’s face. Her voice had an accent of some sort, perhaps from London.

  ‘I’m not going to tie your hands. I expect absolute obedience. When we get to the parking floor, if you make any attempt to escape, I’ll shoot you.’

  Julia believed her.

  ‘There’ll be a car parked near the lift. When I open the door, get onto the back seat and lie down. One false move and you’re dead. Get it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  They left the apartment and descended in the lift. The woman pushed Julia with the muzzle of the gun. They moved towards a white Toyota parked nearby. Julia got in and lay down on the back seat. The woman fiddled in the boot of the car, then opened the door again and threw a heavy rug over her. It was dusty and scratchy. Julia tried not to cough. As they drove out of the underground parking she heard a shout. The woman braked and pulled over; her window hissed down.

  ‘Hi,’ she said.

  ‘Everything okay, sisi?’ a male voice asked.

  ‘It’s fine,’ the woman said. ‘I’m going to the office.’ There was a metallic click as she cocked the gun.

  ‘Ah, it’s very early for work.’

  ‘Yes, I get overseas phone calls. Any trouble? I heard police sirens in the night. See anything?’

  ‘There was a hold up at Mama Ruby’s restaurant,’ the voice said. ‘I only came on duty afterwards. I didn’t see anything.’

  ‘Jo’burg’s a dangerous place for us all. Bye now. Take care.’

  She accelerated out of the parking lot and made a sharp right. After a while Julia worked out that they were going south. The regular, distinctive bumps felt like the concrete highway, the N1 that snaked around Soweto, then ran due south to Bloemfontein and beyond. The woman drove fast and said nothing. She slowed for the tollgates, the
n sped on the open road for about forty minutes.

  Julia was sweating, her breath restricted by the blanket. Tiny fibres found their way to the back of her throat, making her gag. Her blood roared in her ears. The car slowed down. The woman pulled over, drew the car to the side of the road and stopped.

  This is it. Julia felt surprisingly calm. She sat up, pulling the blanket away. She’s going to kill me.

  It was still dark, but she could see the first streaks of dawn fingering the eastern sky.

  The driver’s door clicked open. A foot hit the gravel at the side of the road. ‘Get out.’ The pistol’s cold muzzle pressed into her neck. ‘Walk ahead of me across the field,’ the woman hissed.

  As Julia’s feet touched the ground, she was struck by a moment of blinding clarity. She wanted to live. The thought surprised her; she had contemplated suicide so many times. The air was cold but fresh. Through the quiet night Julia felt the whisper of a breeze. The maize field they walked in was scratchy, the dry mealie stalks murmuring sweet sounds as they passed. She tried to turn, face the woman. She knew it was harder to kill someone if they were facing you, breathing on you. Even the most deadly assassin asked his victims to turn away.

  ‘Kneel,’ the woman commanded.

  Julia fell on her knees, jerking with nerves, gasping. This was where she was going to die, in a maize field off a national highway. As she gulped her last breath, dropping her head forward, Julia felt an ache of regret for what life could have been. She heard the woman making a call on her mobile, talking to someone, but she couldn’t catch the words.

  The cold metal crack of the pistol shot ripped the thick night air.

  The sound echoed across the fields.

  Julia looked around.

  Her ears were ringing.

  There was no blood.

  The woman had fired into the ground beside her.

  Julia fell forward, twitching with terror and relief. She was alive. She could hear distant noises over the veld: the sound of cars on the highway. A plane droned overhead. The world was still turning.