The weeks after she left marked the lowest point in her life: her “illness,” the Great Depression. She couldn’t remember details or events, the number of times she had just wanted to die, except that Ellie had taken her to the clinic and saved her life. But she could still feel the shadow of the emotion, the sense of utter worthlessness; she could still hear the echo of the voices that berated her, told her she was an evil slut, a trollop, a tart. And, from time to time, she still felt the impulse toward suicide. The darkness was still there inside her, and sometimes it beckoned.
“PENNY FOR THEM.”
“What? Oh, sorry, Paula, I was miles away. I think I’ll have another whisky, please. A double.”
“You want to be careful, you know.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not turning to the bottle. As a matter of fact, I hardly drink at all back in Los Angeles. I just can’t get used to this English cold.”
“You grew up with it, same as me.”
Sarah laughed. “Yes, but it’s amazing how quickly you get soft.”
Paula snorted and poured her a drink.
Sarah paid, then Paula wandered off to serve someone else. The place had started to fill up, Sarah noticed, and one or two people looked at her as if they knew who she was. It wasn’t as if, with her red nose, woolly hat and raw cheeks, she resembled Anita O’Rourke, but probably because she was a stranger in the village and Paula had told them all her famous sister was coming. The actress.
When she met Gary, she remembered, she had been at a loose end because she felt her acting career in England was going nowhere. She was either underdressed in Channel Four art-house erotica or overdressed in BBC costume dramas. There seemed no place for her in a British series. If the Americans put too much of a premium on bland good looks, then the English went too far the other way—crooked teeth and bad skin.
Just before she met Gary, her father had seen one of the Channel Four films. He stopped talking to her for a month and after that, things had never been the same.
She knew her father had always preferred Paula, anyway. Paula did all the right things. Paula got married (even if it didn’t work out). Paula had children. Paula didn’t make dirty films. Paula was the sensible one, the practical one, the down-to-earth, salt-of-the-earth lass who didn’t have ideas above her station.
Paula hadn’t traded the accent God gave her for fame and fortune in a heathen land. Paula hadn’t tossed aside all the moral values she had been brought up to believe in. Paula hadn’t changed the name her parents had christened her with.
Too late to do anything about that now. Sarah finished her whisky. It was time to go back to the cottage.
“Catch you later,” she said to Paula, who was busy serving a man in a fisherman’s jersey, then she zipped up her jacket, put on her mittens and left. As she walked out, she was struck by the thought that the tour was by far the most logical place to start looking for her tormentor, if only she could remember more about it. After all, just about everyone had been crazy back then.
17
ARVO SPENT MOST OF SUNDAY AT HOME SPRAWLED on the floral-pattern sofa in the living-room watching Tunes of Glory for the thousandth time and putting his notes on the Sarah Broughton case in order.
He lived in a tiny, detached Spanish Colonial Revival bungalow hidden away on a residential street in the southern part of Santa Monica, near the college. Apart from one or two new low-rise apartment buildings in the modern, cubist style, most of the houses on the street were older, like his. They were similar in design, all white or beige stucco with low-pitched red tile roofs, but each was just a little different from its neighbor. Some had shutters, for example, while others had metal grille-work around the windows. Arvo’s had both.
A short path wound through a postage-stamp garden crammed with small palms, ferns, jacaranda and bougainvillea, so overgrown that you had to push the fronds aside with your hands as you walked to the portico. Sometimes it felt like walking a jungle path, but the shrubbery provided excellent shade and kept the place cool in summer.
Inside, the living room was immediately to the left, the kitchen and dining area to the right. A short hallway, with closet space for coats and shoes, led to the hexagonal hub, off which doors led to the three small bedrooms and the bathroom. The floors were of unglazed tiles, the color of terracotta, and there were little art deco touches over the tops of the doorways and windows: a zigzag here and a chevron there.
The living room was where Arvo spent most of his time. Nyreen had had very particular ideas about art, and after she left with all her contemporary prints, he put up two large, framed movie posters on the walls, one for Casablanca and one for The Big Sleep.
There were two large built-in bookcases in the room, flanking the shuttered windows: one was filled with an eclectic mix of books, from movie history to theater, urban planning and hard-boiled detective fiction; and the other housed his video collection, from Citizen Kane to Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers.
He had found the down payment for the house from the money he inherited on the death of his parents, and bought it as soon as he knew he had the job on the TMU. The mortgage stretched his resources almost to the limit, but he hoped to hang on to the place if he could, even if he never got to eat out again.
A good house in a pleasant neighborhood was hard to get in LA, real-estate prices being what they were, and apartment living didn’t appeal to him. He had done it in the past and found he quickly tired of smelling someone else’s cooking, or listening to someone else’s music, domestic arguments and sexual gymnastics.
When he had finished note-taking, the movie was over, the pot of coffee was empty, and he had sheets of paper spread out all over the floor and armchairs. But he was still no better off than when he started. The list of names Stuart Kleigman had faxed him gave him thirteen people with the initial M in either their first, middle or last names.
In addition, Stuart had found out very quickly through the movie-industry grapevine that Justin Mercer, Sarah Broughton’s ex-lover, had been working on a movie in a London studio for the past two months. Which let him off the hook.
Arvo stuck some leftover chili in the microwave for dinner, tossed a quick salad and opened a bottle of Sam Adams lager.
While the chili reheated, he dialed Ellie Huysman’s Toronto number again. There was a three-hour time difference, so it would be about nine-thirty in the evening there. He had tried three or four times during the day but got neither an answer nor a machine he could leave a message on. This time, as he was about to hang up after the tenth ring, he heard a breathless voice in his ear.
“Yes?”
“Is this Ms. Ellie Huysman?”
“Yes, yes it is. Who’s calling? Oh, damn—Magwitch!—hang on a minute, will you? Magwitch!” She put the phone down on a hard surface.
Arvo heard what he thought were a dog’s paws scrabbling over a wood floor.
“I told you not to do that. Darling, could you . . .”
Arvo heard a man’s voice, but didn’t catch what he said, then Ellie Huysman picked up the phone again. “Sorry about that. The dog. We just got back from the carol service and he seems rather more than pleased to see us. Can you hang on a minute?”
Before Arvo could answer, she had put the phone down again. He heard more voices, laughter, a door opening and closing, then she picked up the phone again. “Hello? Are you still there? I’m sorry about that. What can I do for you? Who are you anyway?”
Arvo introduced himself.
“What’s it about?” she asked. “Hang on again, will you, I want to take this in the living room, on the sofa. I’ve been sitting on a hard pew all night and my bum feels like pressed cardboard.”
Arvo kept his patience as she set the receiver down once again on the hard surface. A few seconds later, she picked up the other extension and called for someone to replace the hall phone. That done, she said, “That’s better. Now I can sit down, kick my shoes off and have that stiff G and T, which I’ve been dying for all ev
ening. Now then, Detective Hughes of the LAPD, what’s it all about? I’m curious.”
“Sarah Broughton.”
“Sal? Nothing’s happened to her, has it?”
Arvo had already debated what to tell her and decided there was no point holding back. She wasn’t a suspect; she was a friend of Sarah’s; and she lived in another country. “She’s been getting some disturbing letters,” he said, “and the writer seems to indicate that he knows her, that she should know him. Normally, we wouldn’t take a lot of notice of claims like that, but . . .”
“But what, Detective?”
“Well, she discovered a body on the beach near her house the other day, just before she left for England. She didn’t know the victim, and there’s probably no connection, but even so—”
“It’s a coincidence you don’t like? I don’t like it, either. Poor Sal.”
“Are the two of you still close?”
“Ye-es, I’d say we are. Maybe not as close as we’ve been at some points in our lives—distance is a problem—but still firm friends. Look, if I can help you in any way, I will, but shouldn’t I verify your identity? I mean, you could be any Tom, Dick or Harry, couldn’t you? You could even be the person who’s been writing these letters. Why don’t you give me your police switchboard number and I’ll ring you back?”
A light breeze fluttered through the window and brushed Arvo’s cheek. He could hear the leaves and fronds rustling in the dark garden. Beyond that was the constant hum of cars on the freeway. He took a swig of Sam Adams. “I’m calling from home,” he said. “I could give you my badge number, and you could call the duty officer downtown and verify it.”
“But I still won’t know it’s really you, will I? I’ve never met you. You could have killed this Hughes fellow and stolen his badge.”
Arvo laughed. “Good point. Maybe you could call Stuart Kleigman, or even Sarah Broughton and ask one of them to describe my voice?”
“Oh, sod it,” she said. “This is getting far too bloody complicated. I’ll take my chances you’re who you say you are. What is it you want to know?”
The microwave beeped to tell Arvo his chili was ready. He ignored it. “Stuart Kleigman says he knows nothing about Sarah’s private life, or about her life before she met him,” he said.
“That doesn’t surprise me. Sal always was a bit cagey when it came to confiding in people. Comes from getting burned once too often.”
“Well, the letters are local, at least the one I saw was postmarked Pasadena, so we’re thinking it might be someone she’s met since she’s been in California, or at least in the United States. When would that be?”
“She came over to the States in . . . let me see . . . May last year, to New York first, where the tour started. As far as I know, she hasn’t left the country since. Until now, of course. She arrived in Los Angeles last autumn, early September, just after the Labor Day weekend.”
“Do you know of anyone who might be doing this?”
“Not offhand I don’t. Just a mo.” Arvo heard a lighter click and the satisfied sigh of someone blowing out smoke after a long time without. “Ah, that’s better,” she said. “If one can’t indulge one’s vices after a carol service, when can one? But the answer’s no. Sal kept very much to herself when she came round to my place.”
“Where were you living then?”
“Redondo Beach. Plenty of loonies there.”
Arvo laughed. “Was there anyone trying to date her while she was with you? Anyone pestering her at all?”
“No.”
“Are you certain?”
“Trust me. Yes.”
“Stuart told me that before she came to you she’d been going out with Gary Knox.”
“That’s right. The creep. If you ask me, that’s what did it.”
“Did what?”
She paused. Arvo heard her inhale and blow out smoke again. Ice tinkled in her glass. “I suppose I did sort of decide to trust you, didn’t I?”
“I think you did, yes.”
“And Sal could be in danger when she gets back?”
“It’s a possibility. If we don’t get somewhere quick.”
“All right. The tour’s what caused the breakdown, that’s what.”
“Sarah had a mental breakdown?”
“Mental, physical, you name it. I think the technical term is ‘Major Depressive Episode.’”
“After she came to stay with you?”
“I can’t be that exact about the timing, but I got the impression she was probably right in the middle of it when she arrived on my doorstep. She was in a hell of a state, anyway. Had nothing but the clothes on her back. I even had to pay the cab driver, and she’d come all the way from Anaheim. Not that I minded.”
“What happened?”
“Oh, I held her, calmed her down, gave her some hot chocolate, put her to bed. She didn’t say a word. But she was sobbing and trembling all the time. Her teeth were chattering. Her eyes were out of focus.”
“Drugs?”
“Yes, I’d say so.”
“Did anyone from the tour ever come looking for her?”
“If they did, they didn’t find her.”
“Was there anybody around with the initial, M?”
“Not that I recall. Is that his initial?”
“We think so.”
“No. I’m sorry I can’t be more help. But Sarah really didn’t see anyone for a long time.”
“How long did she stay with you?”
“On and off for a few months.”
“Where was she during the “off” times?”
He heard Ellie suck in a lungful of smoke. Bogie and Ingrid Bergman were staring at him from the wall. “The first few days,” Ellie said, “she was uncommunicative, cried a lot, went off her food, didn’t seem interested in anything. When she did talk, it was just to say how worthless she was and how I should forget about her. Then, when she’d been there just over a week, one night I heard a noise and found her in the bathroom washing a handful of Nembutals down with a bottle of Courvoisier. I stuck my fingers down her throat and made her puke it all up. Luckily she’d just started and the capsules hadn’t even dissolved. The next morning I drove her out to a clinic I knew, a place that had helped another good friend of mine. Very discreet.”
“What clinic?”
“It’s called the Shelley Clinic. No kidding. Like the poet. Out on 33 a few miles north of Ojai. Dr Fermor.”
“And they helped?”
“You’ve seen her now, haven’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, if you’d seen her that night, you’d know they’ve worked a bloody miracle.”
Arvo let that sink in, then said goodbye to Ellie Huysman, making sure she would be available if he needed more information. As he walked into the kitchen to get his chili, he found himself thinking about what Ellie had said.
It certainly seemed as if someone or something had messed up Sarah’s mind, and it made him wonder if what was messing her up now was in some way connected: the tour, drugs, a dead rock star. Or was it someone even closer to home? Or a random stalker, some nut who had seen her on television and fallen in love with her? All possibilities. Too many damn possibilities, that was the problem.
Arvo carried his chili through to the living room, opened another bottle of Sam Adams and scanned the bookcase for a movie to watch. In a Lonely Place—Bogey and Gloria Grahame—that would suit his mood just fine.
18
HE GAZED LOVINGLY AT THE SMALL, BLURRED PHOTO of Sally at LAX, leaving for England, above the brief article in the Los Angeles Times. Then he reread the text:
Actress Sarah Broughton, who plays Detective Anita O’Rourke in the hit series Good Cop, Bad Cop, boarded a flight today for England, where she is to spend Christmas with her family in the coastal village of Robin Hood’s Bay. Sources say Ms. Broughton, 34, was still shaken by an incident that occurred earlier that day. It seems that real life imitated art just a bit too closely for comfo
rt when she discovered a dismembered corpse partially buried in the sand near her beach home. What would Anita O’Rourke have done?
What indeed? He wondered where Robin Hood’s Bay was. He would have to look it up in an atlas and try to imagine her there. It was a bay, at least, which meant it must be on the sea, so for the moment he could picture her the way he had watched her in Pacific Palisades.
He sighed and put the newspaper down. Well, just because she was far from him physically, it didn’t mean she wasn’t still with him. He gazed around his room and her image stared back at him from every square inch of wall space: close-ups, head and shoulders, full body, nudes, evening dress, casual clothes, stills from movies and TV, you name it.
Wrapped in a warm cocoon of Sally, he could function properly, see things clearly. The only thing he didn’t know was what would happen after the consummation. He could only visualize two main possibilities, depending on the circumstances.
If all went well, they would end up living in a nice house by the sea in a nice neighborhood. Not in Los Angeles, but somewhere quieter and smaller, somewhere less vivid. Maybe even Robin Hood’s Bay, if it was as quaint as it sounded. He would like to meet her family.
If that happened, he thought they should start a family as quickly as possibly and have maybe six children. Or fewer if she thought that was too many; he didn’t want to turn her into a baby factory against her will. He would work from home so he would never have to leave her, and she could devote all her time to the house and children. They would be together all day, every day.
Of course, they would have people over for dinner—he didn’t know who; he didn’t know anyone he wanted to invite, and it certainly wouldn’t be anyone from her present lifestyle—and they would talk and drink wine in the candlelight. He would hold hands with her secretly under the table.
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