by Roz Nay
He tilts his head. “You must have hated her tattoo. Elephants have soul mates? I thought you had the monopoly on those.”
“Between you and me, Novak, I wouldn’t take anything Saskia tells you to be well researched.”
He laughs once, but I know what he’s doing. He’s pretending to be on my side.
“Okay, so here’s Saskia, moving in on your guy. If this was a love story, we would have reached the problem stage.”
“That’s funny.” I don’t smile. “In any story, Saskia is the problem stage.”
* * *
I only watched the bungee rope for a few minutes. Saskia went first, of course, and the sight of her sprinting in that stretchy dress was enough to send me back to the beer tent. When the barman bent down to wash some glasses, I swiped an open bottle of champagne, two-thirds full, and headed out into the quad with it. The grass was already getting mulchy along the sides of the lawn and I teetered along it, trying not to slide in my boots.
Every few meters around the inner courtyard of Keble small stone stairwells led up to offices, probably rooms for tutorials or dons’ chambers. Like everything in that hallowed city, the stairwells were made of stone, and since there were no gaps in the railing I could sit at the top of the steps with my back against the locked chamber door, completely hidden from the crowd.
I climbed up one of the staircases and paused at the top, looking out from the ivy-covered balcony above the party. Now that Saskia had finished her turn, she stood to the side with HP. She’d tied her hair up into a knot at the back of her head; sun-bleached ends splayed outward from the center like a firework. She was breathing heavily as she poked HP in the ribs; he stood with his arms crossed, grinning and watching Ezra strap into the bungee.
The sky had darkened. It seethed above me in slashed indigo; only a few stars persisted. I grasped the champagne bottle to my chest and slid down the blue paint of the door behind me, letting my legs slump in front of me on the step. The champagne bottle clinked against my front tooth as I sucked down the fizzy froth. It wasn’t long before Freddy found me. He jogged up five of the ten steps and then hesitated.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting wasted. What does it look like?”
“Can I join you, or…” His hands rested uncertainly on the thick of his hips, his tux pushed back. He looked like a penguin.
I smacked the step with an open palm, and once he’d puffed up the rest of the stairs to the doorway next to me, I passed him my champagne bottle. He took a small swig and grimaced.
“It’s mostly backwash by now,” I muttered.
“Delightful.” He brought his knees up to his chest and laced his hands around them. “So who are we hiding from up here? The madding crowd, the Australian, or Harrison Ford?”
“It’s a toss-up,” I hissed.
“Let her know who’s boss if he means this much to you.”
“She’s beautiful.”
“She’s pretty. If you’re unimaginative.”
I thumped my head against the wooden door. “It’s not meant to go like this.”
I peered over the wall of the balcony. I couldn’t see HP or Saskia, but Ezra was on the greasy pole hitting a skinny boy with a pillow. Where the hell had the other two gone?
“Life doesn’t always go to plan,” Freddy said.
“People like us, Freddy.” I stood and took two steps toward him. “We can have it all.” I pushed down his knees and straddled his thighs as he blinked up at me. “Wouldn’t you say thasstrue?” I knew I slurred the question. I didn’t care.
“Angela…” Freddy turned his face away from mine.
“You seriously don’t want this? Tell the truth,” I whispered into his ear, kissing his neck. My nails raked the back of his head.
When I reached down and felt his crotch, he whimpered, “You don’t want this,” although his fat hips were starting to grind into my thighs.
For a minute I rode there on his lap as the skin around his collar reddened and his breathing turned to gasps. His hands grabbed at my breasts and he pinched a nipple, grunting, “Angela,” his eyes squeezed tight in pleasure, “you’re the only—” and it was then that I stopped. I pushed back and stood, staring down at him as he squirreled and heaved in the doorway.
“You’ve been lying to yourself, Freddy. You want me in ways you haven’t admitted. I can’t stand liars.”
I turned and walked down the stairs.
At the base of the stairwell I’d almost finished straightening my clothes when I heard HP’s voice.
“Where’ve you been?” He was alone. He’d unbuttoned his collar, and his bow tie hung loosely around his neck.
“Nowhere.” I smoothed my bangs flat.
“I’ve been looking all over for you.”
“No you haven’t.”
“Little John, listen…” His brow was furrowed. “I wasn’t doing anything wrong.”
“Except flirting with that dumb Australian. Her face is half tanned.”
“I’m not flirting. She’s fun, that’s all.” He wiped one hand against the other. “Hey, we never said we weren’t allowed to h—” He stopped then and stared at the steps behind me.
I turned to see Freddy walk down the last of the stairwell, tucking his shirt into the front of his pants and tugging down his waistcoat. Freddy stood still when he saw us and I wheeled back to face HP.
“Wait.” I took a step toward him.
“You were up there with him?”
“It’s not how it looks.” I reached for his arm, while behind me Freddy piped up.
“Excuse me,” he said, like a keynote speaker. “Don’t badger her, please. It’s unbecoming.”
“Get fucked, Professor Plum.” HP pulled his tie off and stuffed it into his pocket. “Nobody’s buying your we’re just friends act. As if you don’t want to get with her.”
Freddy’s face crinkled like there was a smell. “Get with her? Good Lord. What on earth happened to the English language when it traveled across the pond? It’s been nothing but a steady decline. Get with her.” He sighed theatrically.
HP took a stride toward Freddy, who backpedaled, bracing one hand against the thickness of the banister, but instead HP grabbed my arm and turned me a half step. “Wow, LJ, talk about making a guy feel better about things. Were you hooking up?”
“Was I…? No! Were you?” I shouted. “I mean, get all outraged if you like, HP, but let’s just have a think for a minute about where you were. ‘Play it by ear,’ you say, ‘let’s just go with the flow’”—I knew my face was vicious—“and then you ignore me for the whole of our biggest night in Oxford and wander off with some random fucking Australian who’s clearly hitting on you. How am I supposed to feel?”
HP looked at me like I’d grown a second head. “I was being friendly! Jesus Christ, hang a guy for wanting to have some fun. You know what you are, LJ? Jealous and clingy.” He daggered a look at Freddy. “And shady with friendships.” He stalked away through the mud toward the beer tent.
I watched the back of him until he was gone.
“I’m not shady.”
Freddy readjusted his waistcoat, shaking his head at me. He didn’t reply. A moment later he’d gone, too.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Novak glances at the clock on the wall. “That was cruel.”
I shrug. “Which part?”
“You toying with Freddy like that. The boy was clearly in love with you.”
I shake my head, sighing. “You’re not very good at spotting villains, are you?”
“You don’t know me well enough to tell.” He’s pleased with that one. “Has it occurred to you that HP might not be your Prince Charming? The way I remember it, Prince Charming stays all night by his true love’s side, enraptured by her, lavishing her with attention, searching high and low for her when she vanishes. Yours didn’t even buy you a drink.”
I shift in my chair. “It was Saskia’s fault. If she hadn’t shown up the whole evening would h
ave been different.”
“And yet you say you’re not building a motive.” He writes something down.
“Motive for what?”
He pretends he hasn’t heard. “I wonder if Lacy wishes you hadn’t shown up at the grad party.”
I frown. He pulled that one out of nowhere. “That was different.”
“Sure, okay.” Novak looks up. “So, is this where your lifetime of hating Saskia began? Oxford?”
“I never said I hated her. I said she was a thief.”
“Did you see her again before you left town?” He’s like the keen kid in the front row of the movie theater now. Suddenly my story’s top billing.
“No. Ezra called from the airport. I could hear his husky voice dwarfed by beeps and announcements over loudspeakers. HP wouldn’t speak to me.”
“How does that link to Saskia?”
“Take a guess, Detective.”
“She was at the airport, too?”
It’s tiring having to go through this again. It was hard enough the first time. “Wow,” he says. “Talk about crashing the party.”
It’s almost like he finally gets it. I hear something buzz along his waistband. He’s wearing a pager? Who uses those anymore?
Novak stands up and glances at the screen. “We need a break. Can I get you a snack, or coffee? Milk? Sugar?”
“Plain black is good, thanks.”
When he reaches the door, he turns. “Don’t go anywhere.”
Very funny. Novak leaves me alone in this room again, the blink of the video camera the only sign of life. I grab both granola bars Novak brought at the very start and eat one after the other, dropping the wrappers onto the floor.
When he returns, he’s not carrying the promised coffee. He has a bundle of letters that he sets on the table, facedown, so only the cream backs of the envelopes show. He pinches his suit pants up at the thigh before he sits, choosing his normal side of the table.
“The May Ball wasn’t the last you ever saw or heard from Freddy Montgomery?” This question feels weighted: Novak’s holding his breath.
“Is that what you have there? The letters Freddy wrote me after?”
“Can you generalize what most of these letters were about?”
“Why?” I wait for a beat. “They’re right there. You’ve read them.”
“I suspect he wrote you more than what I have here.” Novak thrums the ten or so letters with his fingernail. “You can tell me this isn’t a love story, but I think Freddy Montgomery might beg to differ.”
I feel myself blushing. “They’re not love letters. Not really.”
“Who wrote the first one?” He’s looking me in the eye a lot since he returned.
“Me. I wrote to say sorry for being a crappy friend.” Why is he so interested in Freddy?
Novak eases a fatter letter from the file, takes his time unfolding it.
“Dear Angela,” he begins. “Most certainly you are welcome at my place next weekend—I think by now we can both assume the invite’s ongoing.” Novak stops reading. “What’s he talking about?”
“His apartment. In New York. He has a nice apartment there.”
“I thought he was British.”
“Sometimes British people decide not to live in Britain.”
The muscle in Detective Novak’s jaw tightens. “We know he’s big in chemical weaponry. Biochemistry made him rich.”
“You’ve done your Googling. Yes, he’s a millionaire. He can buy apartments wherever he wants.”
He goes back to reading out loud. “I’d invite you to a ‘work do’ I have on the Saturday, only it’ll be filled with dreadful bores who’ll spend the evening quoting opinions they’ve read in the New York Times, trying to pretend they’re their own.” Novak stops. “What is it about you two that you think you’re smarter than everyone else?” Novak tosses the letter back to the table, where it spins for a second on the chrome. “Haven’t you ever met your match?”
“Not so far.” Novak’s eyes bore into my face. “Detective, you can’t seriously think Freddy’s involved in this. He barely knows Saskia.”
“He hates her, though, by default.” Novak stabs the bottom of the letter on the table. “What does this mean? Good luck navigating the unimaginative people.”
“He always signs off with that. Cross-reference the other letters, if you haven’t already.” I glance up at the window. “Freddy understands me.”
“How much imagination does it take to orchestrate a homicide, do you think, Angela? Surely there’s a lot of planning.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“Did you two come up with a plan to show the world how clever you could be? Get us all running in circles?” He folds the letter and eases it back into its envelope. “Whoever took Saskia did it carefully. There’s no sign of struggle at her house, no blood spatter, and so far, no trace of a body.”
“That’s what I’m telling you. She’s fine! She’s just wandered off.”
“She’s a mother, Angela. They tend not to do that.”
I shrug. “You said people did all kinds of things. You said you’d seen all sorts.”
“Somebody’s taken her. This is a crime with forethought, with intelligent planning.”
“It really might not be.”
“Freddy Montgomery is a brilliant man with a background in chemical violence and a reputation as being cutthroat when it comes to business.”
“Oh, please.”
“How else do you think he became a millionaire so fast?”
“His dad gave him a massive leg up. He’s got nothing to do with Saskia.”
“We’ve asked around. Word on the street is, he’s meaner than you think. At the very least, I’d say he’s an interesting resource.”
I feel heat blotch at my neck. “Freddy didn’t do anything. Just find Saskia already, would you? And leave us all alone.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
When I first got home from Oxford a week later, Mom told me my room had been converted into a studio for her music lessons; she was learning to play the harp. All of my possessions were in boxes in the basement.
“Feel free to unpack everything again, darling; it’s so lovely to have you back.”
I moved into the basement. I piled the boxes of brochures and memorabilia my dad had collected from Boston museums and made myself a headboard, using actual books as a box spring, standing them four high and eight abreast at each corner of the tired old mattress with another column in the middle for support. I set out the boundaries of my land in the darkness of that basement, stacking empty wooden wine crates to shoulder height to create a border. I could work on my laptop down there even though the signal was weak. And once I’d fooled them into thinking my grades were good, my parents left me alone, for the most part.
Saskia, on the other hand, was everywhere I went that summer. The first week I got back to Cove, I ended up sitting behind her and HP in the movie theater. (We were a town that only got one movie a month so everyone turned out for it the first Saturday.) They were just three rows ahead of me, sharing a kid-sized popcorn and a bottle of water. All I thought about was how their saliva mixed. She wore a thin leather headband with a small flower at the right temple and her shirt was cut to show the tops of her shoulders. I couldn’t tell you anything about the movie.
HP hadn’t called me, and once I’d confirmed Saskia was in town, I didn’t bother calling him, either. But Cove is so small, it’s impossible to avoid conflict for long, and we ran into each other soon enough at the grocery store. He was standing in the dairy aisle, looking at cheese, when I reached for a hacked wedge of Parmesan. He jumped a little when he turned.
“Little John. I had no clue you were back.”
Liar.
“Here I am.” I dropped the Parmesan into my grocery basket.
“Safe trip over?”
I laughed. Obviously it was safe; how else would I be standing in the store? After a pause I spoke carefully. “How’s Saskia liking our t
own?”
He passed a flat packet of cream cheese from one hand to the other as if weighing it, his feet planted square on the fake wood tiling. The fridges whirred around us and I shivered, hugged my own waist.
“She likes it enough.”
“Enough for what? Enough to stay?”
HP cleared his throat. “You look tired. You need more fresh air.”
“You know what? You’re right. Be sure to come get me when you guys next jog past my house.” I walked away from him down the aisle, dropping my basket onto the ground just before I turned the corner.
It was a snippy thing to say, I’ll admit, Detective Novak, but it was maddening to see them run together every morning at eight, a pair of happy gazelles bouncing right past my front gate. One morning Mom happened to be coming into the house just as the two of them bounded by. I watched from the door.
“HP?” she said, and he slowed up.
“Oh, hey, Mrs. P.” He ran a palm across his forehead. “How’s it going?”
“What are you doing? Who’s this?” Mom stared right at Saskia, who was jogging on the spot a few paces down, her hands on her hips.
“G’day,” Saskia said, and waved. “What a beauty morning, hey?”
“This is my friend Saskia.” HP stood tall at the gate in full view from where I was. “She’s just visiting.”
“It’s great here.” Saskia beamed. “The birdsong in the trees? So pretty. At home the birds screech nonstop. Cove’s awesome. What a pearler of a town.”
“How long is she staying?” Mom asked HP. “Is everything … okay?”
HP looked past her, saw me at the door, and shot me a glance.
I said nothing. I just slowly ambled out.
“Oh, Little John, I didn’t know you lived here!” Saskia skipped over and rested her elbows on our gate while Mom glared at her. “You’s should come out for a run with us! It’s a perfect day. You, too, Mrs.…” She floundered for a name.
“Petitjean,” said my mother. “I don’t like to run much. Not publicly.”
“Oh, but I know heaps of people your age who get a lot out of a morning run. Are you sure we can’t talk you into it?”
If there was a game-show button somewhere that nixed Saskia and slid her into a pit, she’d just pressed it. Even HP flinched.