Duncan lifted her gently and stood her on her feet. She wobbled and opened her eyes. “Come on, we’re going to go inside and see . . .” He hesitated. He couldn’t tell her that he wasn’t sure this was the right place. “If there’s a nice place for you to sleep,” he said.
Duncan could hear the thunder of waves against rocks, but the ocean was not visible from where they stood. They trudged up the stone steps, Janie stumbling in her sleepiness, and entered the cool portico. A man was standing there, in a white sarong and a dingy white short-sleeved shirt. He looked to be in his thirties or forties, with weather-lined skin burned almost black by the sun. His cheeks were hollow and his longish hair oiled neatly back. A neat mustache, curled at the ends, bordered his lip. His eyes were deep set, the whites strikingly bright. He gestured toward the open doorway. A long wooden pestle with an iron-ringed base was leaning incongruously on the wall by it. The door, a heavy wooden one with carved panels, looked like a museum piece. The hall inside was cool and dim and smelled strongly of floor polish. The old-style red cement floor had indeed been recently polished, Duncan saw.
“Is this a guesthouse?” Duncan said, in Sinhala, to the man.
“You are McCloud Sir?” The man replied in Sinhala. The pronunciation of Duncan’s name was off—with the stress on the mac—but there was no doubt that it was his name the man mentioned. “And this baba’s name is Janie?”
Duncan nodded.
“This is the right place,” the man said.
Bent had probably not known himself where the guesthouse was, Duncan realized. He had probably been told it was somewhere down south, close to Hikkaduwa. He could call Bent tomorrow and make sure. Right now, Janie was falling asleep on her feet.
“Where can she sleep?” he said to the man.
“Come,” the man said. He waved aside Duncan’s attempt to help and hefted the bags the driver had set on the portico, the veins standing out on his wiry forearms. He led the way to the back of the house, his bare feet silent on the polished cement floor, his body bowed with the weight of the bags. They walked along a wide corridor with framed paintings on the walls to a spacious bedroom that smelled a little musty. Two beds were set diagonal to one another, each beside a large open window. “This is good?” he said, heaving the bags onto the floor by a tall carved wooden wardrobe.
“Yes, thank you,” Duncan said. He led Janie to one bed and tucked her in. “Go back to sleep,” he said. “Tomorrow we’ll go to the beach.”
30
GRACE
Saturday
By the time Grace got to Gannon Hall, it was almost eleven. There were times when she’d left Gannon later, but she had never arrived at such a late hour, and on a weekend at that. The curb was deserted, except for a single gray station wagon parked close to the building entrance. The streetlamp at the end of the block cast little light close to the building, so all was in shadow when Grace got out of her Honda. She could hear nothing except for the muffled sounds of traffic in the distance. She hurried to the front door, readying the key card attached to her car key. No need to be creeped out, she told herself. The nagging thought of Danibel Garwick dead on her living room couch kept rising in her mind. With her tongue hanging out. That had been how Duncan had described Angie.
The lights were on in the lobby, but when she stepped out of the elevator on the fourth floor, the hallway to her office was dark. The janitorial staff had already done their work and left, she guessed. The silence was unnerving. She flipped the light switch, entered her office, and shut the door. The wall clock sounded oddly loud. Ticktock, ticktock. She pulled out the Post-it on which she’d scribbled the number from the email message. She dialed, wondering what she would even say. The phone rang, but no one answered. What an anticlimax, she thought.
Her cell phone rang, making her jump. Mo. He was returning her call at almost eleven? Had something else happened? Your husband is in danger.
“Grace, did I wake you?” Mo said.
“No, no, it’s fine. I’m in my office, actually. Did something happen?”
She heard Mo draw a deep breath. “I couldn’t sleep, and I don’t know who else to tell. Mariam knows some of this, but not all. I don’t want to say too much to her because Angie—”
“Mo, I found out something,” Grace interrupted.
“Did you talk to Duncan?”
“Haven’t been able to reach him. But I got this weird email from someone who said I should talk to someone about what Angie had been working on. Danibel Garwick. So I went to—”
“Danibel Garwick? She’s dead,” Mo said. “She’s the one—”
“What? How did you know? You know her?”
“Mortensen said. The one at Cinasat.”
“Oh my God. That’s the Cinasat intern? I didn’t know her name.”
When she’d related what she’d found out, Mo said, “That proves it!” His words tumbled out in a rush. “And Mortensen came to see me. He said they don’t have Angie’s computer. That was one reason he’s been suspicious about her death—the fact that they didn’t find a computer when Angie had been typing the night before.”
Grace’s heart sank. Had they found Angie’s phone? Otherwise, wouldn’t Mortensen have mentioned it to Mo? Did they have some way to find the content of the voicemail message Angie had left?
Mo was continuing, she realized. “I asked him why no one asked us any questions about the computer that night. He said they weren’t suspicious then. I don’t know what he meant by that. I think it had something to do with the medical examiner, and about why Internal Affairs got involved. It wasn’t clear. He wouldn’t go into details. Anyway, in the course of talking about this, I mentioned the mask—”
Grace interrupted. “That mask doesn’t prove anything . . .”
“Just listen, Grace. I showed him the picture, you know, with Angie and the other woman. He already knew she was Minowa Costa. And get this. There is a connection between her and Danibel Garwick. Mortensen wouldn’t give me details. But they knew each other.”
“So what does that mean?”
“Think about it, Grace. Something has to be going on at Cinasat. You have to get in touch with Duncan. Find out whether he knows what all this is about. But . . .” A long breath. “Maybe you should tell him to just come home. We can talk to him when he gets back and then go and see Mortensen.”
This would have seemed irrational two hours ago, Grace thought. But now Yak Adura’s words were pushing themselves into her mind. Your husband is in danger. Could Angie have wanted to talk to her about Cinasat? But then she would have said something in the voicemail. All she’d mentioned was the business at Palmer Square.
“But he can’t just leave. He only just got there. What would he tell Bent?”
“He shouldn’t tell Bent any of this,” Mo said. “I don’t know what’s going on, but there’s something damn fishy, and we don’t know who all’s involved. But I’m fucking sure Bent is.”
“I just can’t believe that,” Grace said. Should she tell Mo about the second email? Trust no one. Would that include Mo? “I have to think about all this, Mo,” she said. “I’ll keep trying Duncan. He’ll have to go back to the hotel to sleep. Tomorrow morning our time. I’ll call you when I find out.”
She tried Yak Adura’s number again. Still no answer. She answered two emailed questions from Gigi, then tried the number yet again. Nothing. She left her office, her footsteps echoing in the empty corridor. Inside the lab, it was eerily quiet, but when she neared the racks of vials, she could hear the flies buzzing. The vials in rack thirty-nine were black now with the growing mass of the fruit flies’ vibrating bodies. She’d need to get Gigi started on the batch soon. Maybe she should do some dissections, she thought, to take her mind off everything. She extracted a vial and sat down at the microscope. The flies were swirling madly inside their tiny prison. Her mind kept going back to Danibel Garwick. Flies all over her, the neighbor had said. Grace shivered. She sat for a while with the vial in her hand,
trying to make sense of it all. It was too late to be doing this, she thought, replacing the vial.
Back in her office, she tried Yak Adura again. No answer. The ticking of the clock caught her attention again. Ticktock, ticktock. Had it always been this loud? The boiler room clanged next door, startling her. She was too jumpy.
She turned off the lights and took the elevator downstairs. Someone else had been in the building, she saw as she stepped out. Some of the lobby lights had been turned off, leaving only the one near the front door. She fumbled in her purse for her car key, looking uneasily at the shadowed hallway beyond the elevators. Did something move? She pushed at the door, sighing with relief when the cool night air hit her.
The man appeared out of nowhere, a ski mask obscuring his head and face. Before she had time to cry out, he had seized her arm, one leathery gloved hand clamped against her open mouth. She tasted something sour. The hard leather pushed her lips against her teeth, chafing her skin. Her back was jammed against the man, the smell of cigarettes and sweat overpowering. In a panic, she twisted, clawing instinctively at the air behind her, and felt her car key jab the side of his neck. The man grunted, and the hand across her face slackened. She yanked herself away, hearing a scream leave her mouth. His arms swooped down around her. She spun, jerking her leg upward, and kneed him with all the force she could gather. He hollered and reeled back, doubling over, his hands dropping to cup his crotch. Grace ran to the door and swiped desperately at the lock with her key card. Her hands were shaking so hard she barely managed it. As the man rushed forward, she pushed the door open and slammed it shut behind her. His shoulder thumped against the glass a millisecond after the door clicked shut. It was only then that she realized she had been shrieking, loud gasping sounds reverberating in her ears. She grabbed the emergency phone on the wall by the door and panted, “Help! I need help! Gannon Hall!”
An urgent voice said, “Are you safe?”
The man outside spun around and leapt into a black sedan idling by the curb. He sped away.
Grace slumped against the glass and slid down to sit on the floor, barely hearing the calm voice of the campus security dispatcher telling her an officer was on the way. Her purse was lying on the sidewalk where it had fallen during the fray. She wished it had not been too dark to get the mugger’s license plate.
31
DUNCAN
Sunday
Leaving Janie asleep, Duncan slipped out of the bedroom and through the dim hallway, passing several closed doors. On one side of the entrance hall, he found a formal dining room. On an intricately carved eight-seater table, a crocheted white mat held a red tin of Krisco biscuits, a clay water pitcher, and two frosted glass tumblers. A sideboard contained a careful arrangement of china. Through the windows, Duncan could see the glassy blue of the ocean. The house appeared to be set on a cliff.
The adjacent modern kitchen seemed at odds with the living areas, with its black-tiled floor and stainless steel appliances. A cover of fine wire mesh kept a few eager flies away from several curries on the granite counter. Someone was evidently in the process of preparing a meal. Duncan’s mouth began to water. It was almost midnight back in New Jersey, and his gut was expecting a long-delayed dinner.
He went back to the entrance hall, past a wooden screen carved with a lotus design, to a sitting room. More carved furniture, some upholstered in dark raw silk. An entertainment center held audiovisual equipment, and a tall bookshelf displayed rows of English paperbacks. A side door led out onto the back end of the portico, which was visible through the closed windows. The door was locked.
The house looked nothing like the simple, functional guesthouses Duncan had visited while driving around the country, or the modern bed-and-breakfasts he’d seen advertised online. It was more like the private houses of wealthy old Sri Lankans he had sometimes visited. He wandered around, looking for a phone, but none were in sight. He emerged from the front door onto the portico that surrounded much of the house. Three large crows were perched on the white balustrade, their black heads cocked. They barely moved when he hefted the pestle that was still by the doorway, wondering why it wasn’t in the kitchen. No one was around.
He descended the three broad stone steps, noting that the garden appeared well tended. A grove of bamboo pressed against the garden wall next to the gate, their leaves hissing in the breeze. He would walk to the main road, he thought. But when he reached the garden gate, he found it secured with a heavy iron padlock. Looking up at the high wall enclosing the garden, he noticed that it was topped with metal spikes set about six inches apart. Between the spikes, pointed shards of colored glass glinted. He was surprised; spiked or glass-topped walls were not uncommon in areas of Colombo where residents feared burglaries, but they seemed unusual for Galle. But maybe Galle had changed now too.
He walked around the house to the left and found that the garden wall ended at a spot that overlooked the ocean below. Two coconut trees stood there, along with a group of screw pines supported by the tangled pyramids of their branched prop roots. A weathered wooden figurine no higher than Duncan’s knee stood among the roots, its gray color blending in so well with the roots that it was almost invisible. Bending down to examine it closely, Duncan saw that it was a temple guardian of the kind he’d seen protecting the entrances to Buddhist temples all across the island. The crown of the statue’s head was broken, and only a stump remained of one upraised arm, its hand and wrist having broken off, along with the weapon it had presumably once held.
The back end of the portico was above him, with four narrow steps that led to the overlook. The house was situated above a small cove. A rocky path led down to an empty beach. Enormous rocks formed natural walls on both sides of it, isolating the beach from the rest of the coastline. Waves were leaping high into the air like ceremonial dancers. At the sides of the beach, they thrashed the rocks, sending great arcs of spray into the air. Duncan’s face was soon damp with it. He could taste salt on his tongue. There was something mesmerizing about the rhythmic power of the sea, the way the waves pounded out their eternal truths. He wanted to stand there, drinking in the view, but he was feeling hungry and thirsty, and he needed to talk to Bent to find out if he was really in the right place. With all of Cinasat’s resources, why had his cell phone still not been fixed?
He walked around the garden to the back of the house and found two small brick structures there. One was a garage, with its gray double doors shut. The other was a low-slung building that he guessed was the servant quarters. He heard baila music playing, a jaunty old song he recognized, “Surangani,” one that had been popular in the village where he had done much of his research. At the end of the building was a porch that appeared to be an open-air kitchen. A small metal shelf, rusted here and there, bore three chipped ceramic plates, three plastic tumblers, and three teacups. A couple of charred metal saucepans and several clay cooking pots were stacked on the cement counter. Steam was rising from the edges of a clay pot set on a village-style coconut-husk stove, and a mouthwatering smell of curry hung in the air.
An open doorway beckoned at the other end of the building. Duncan approached it.
It was dim inside. An old standing fan was whirring by the door. Duncan spotted two woven straw sleeping mats rolled up near one wall. Next to them, on the floor, was a small black radio, the source of the music.
“Hello?” Duncan said, peering in. He caught a glimpse of something large and red set atop a battered gray cardboard suitcase before a figure appeared in front of him, blocking his view. It was the mustached man who had been in the main house earlier.
“Ah, sir has come here?” the man said, addressing him in Sinhala.
“I didn’t see anyone inside,” Duncan said, gesturing toward the main house.
“No one is there. My wife and I will look after sir and baba,” the man said. He emerged from the building, compelling Duncan to step back away from the doorway. “She is taking a bath. Soon she will finish making your lunch.”<
br />
“No one else is staying here at the guesthouse?”
“Only sir and baba,” the man said, adjusting his bare feet on the scrubby grass.
“What is your name?”
“Jotipala,” the man said. “My wife’s name is Karuna.”
“I am Duncan McCloud. Please call me Duncan,” Duncan said, even though he knew that would seem ridiculous to the man. The social gulf between them was wide. Customs about social hierarchies were deeply entrenched. There was no way he would call Duncan by his first name. The most Duncan would get was Duncan Sir.
Jotipala wagged his head, his face still expressionless.
“My boss, Mr. Bentley Hyland, do you know him?”
“I don’t know, sir,” Jotipala said, looking away at the house behind Duncan. “What I was told was to look after sir and baba.”
“Who told you?”
“Fernando Sir sent me a message,” Jotipala said.
“Fernando Sir owns this house?”
Jotipala wagged his head. “Fernando Sir lives abroad. He doesn’t come here much, but sometimes foreigners come here to stay. When Fernando Sir sends me a message, then I prepare the house for them.”
“So you and your wife live here?” Duncan indicated the servant quarters.
Jotipala nodded. There was the sound of a door opening and shutting inside the quarters. Jotipala turned his head back and called out, “Karuna, sir is waiting to eat lunch.”
“No, no, no need to rush,” Duncan said. “I was just looking for a phone to call my boss.”
“No phone, sir.”
Duncan realized what Jotipala meant. Obviously the servant quarters would not have a phone line.
“Not here, I know. I mean in the main house,” he said.
Jotipala raised his eyes and regarded the brilliance of the sky for a moment, squinting. “There is no phone,” he said.
“No phone? In a big house like that?” Duncan couldn’t suppress his disbelief. He looked around, and in the distance, through the fronds of the coconut trees, he spotted telephone lines. He pointed. “There, those are phone lines.”
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