Once

by Elisabeth Grace Foley et al.

  I needed answers, and soon.

  I put up my hands and smoothed down my wavy hair, took a few deep breaths to calm myself, and then went back into the kitchen.

  “Ah, there you are.” Paora handed me a warm plate on which a lamb chop steamed under a rich sauce. “Now the poodle has eaten, you can eat, h’mm?”

  I stared at him in blank misunderstanding for a moment until I remembered the excuse I’d made for escaping a moment ago. “Oh, the poodle is still waiting for his dinner. I just wanted to escape Mr. Moran.”

  He sighed. “Ah, Ruby. You didn’t need to lie.”

  He had no idea.

  The door swung open and Kat came in pulling the trolley, with Max and Ava’s oyster shells making a doleful rattle on the plate. I snatched an uneaten oyster and dug it from its shell. “How long will Max be away? I still need to do his rooms.”

  “He said he’d be late.” Kat slid onto a stool and sniffed appreciatively at her dinner.

  Plenty of time to do his rooms, then. And plenty of time to look for answers—if there were any to find.

  At the top of the stair, the door to the Balcony Suite groaned when I pushed it open. Kat was still downstairs in the kitchen helping Paora prepare tomorrow’s breakfast. Bunny and Edie had turned in. Jim was still waiting at the Roys’ for chopped liver. Casey and Frank had not yet brought the other guests back from town, and several hours ago Bill had ‘phoned to say he had run into trouble with the accountant.

  If all went well, I’d have hours.

  I went through the suite methodically, sweeping and straightening, dusting and wiping. Bill said he wouldn’t be back till late, but I planned to wait up for him. With Ava here, I definitely needed to slip away for a few days.

  Or maybe I should move on. Queenstown, perhaps, or Te Anau.

  I moved from the sitting room to the bedroom, and began stripping down the bed. Max was leaving tomorrow and in the ordinary way of things I should have waited until then to change the linen. But if anyone came up, I wanted an excuse for my presence here.

  Max wanted me to meet Ava. Why?

  There was something he wasn’t telling me. But I had to bet that whatever it was, it had to do with the dead girl.

  With the mattress freshly sheeted and the pillows and duvet still jumbled in a pile on the carpet, I opened the long closet on the north wall.

  A shiver walked down my spine, the awareness of being watched. It was impossible; the room was empty, but before I did anything else I ran to the French windows on the opposite wall and pulled them open a crack. Beyond, a balcony looked over the driveway and the front-door steps; the bend of gravel was empty and silent.

  I went back to the closet, reached behind the hanging jackets, and pulled out Max’s suitcases. One, two.

  The second was heavy.

  I threw back the lid. Inside was a thick file, battered with long use, and a soft bundle wrapped neatly in cotton. I dropped the file onto the floor with a thump and opened it with shaking fingers.

  On top lay the envelope Max had shown me two days ago, the tip of a papery iceberg. I set it aside. Beneath, a newspaper cutting screamed at me. KINGPIN’S DAUGHTER IN GRUESOME KIDNAP CASE. MORAN FAMILY QUESTIONED IN SCHOOLGIRL MURDER. Wu Xue Bai, 16, disappeared from her family home on Tuesday morning…

  Too much. Too much. But I couldn’t look away, not this time. I turned over more pages. Police reports, depositions, transcripts, handwritten notes, the Crown Coroner’s report. Verdict: murder by a person or persons unknown.

  Against that typewritten statement, a pen had scored the paper with a black and emphatic exclamation mark.

  I picked up the cloth-covered bundle and pulled aside its wrappings. Inside, the white cotton was stained the dull brown colour of rust. The thing inside was a hunting knife with a curved black blade for skinning and gutting. The hilt, still brown with long-ago blood, was made from scrimshawed bone; the image was a representation of a bloody haloed Christ with the emblem on his breast (of all things) of the Sacred Heart.

  I was holding a murder weapon.

  I dropped it on the floor, cloth and all, and tried to take a breath. It wouldn’t come. There was a roaring in my ears. The room floated around me—

  I was going to faint.

  Somehow I got to my feet and staggered to the French doors. For a little while I stood with my forehead pressed against the lintel while the cold air revived me.

  Downstairs, in the silence of the night, a telephone began to ring.

  I forced myself to move slowly and think clearly. I wrapped up the knife, careful not to handle it, and returned it to the suitcase. The ‘phone went on ringing but I was too far away to answer. Instead, I opened the file again and sifted through the inquest transcripts, checking the name of each witness as he gave evidence. James Wu. The doctor. Daniel Moran.

  Here.

  Yes, I know this knife. It belongs to my brother Max.

  Max never told me why they arrested him.

  Downstairs, the ‘phone stopped ringing. The silence made me stop and listen. In the stillness I heard footsteps in the common room below. My heart jolted, and I ran for the window again. Outside, something gleamed fawn coloured and sleek in the starlight. Max’s car. Consumed by my search, I’d never heard it.

  The stair creaked; he was coming up. I dropped the file into the suitcase and snapped the catches just as the door opened into the sitting room. I shoved the cases blindly to the back of the closet and pulled two fresh pillows from the top shelf.

  In the sitting room, the light switched off.

  Odd. I took two breaths to calm myself and then went to the bedroom door. “Mr. Moran?” I called.

  No answer.

  I stepped into the sitting room, peering into the dark. “Max? I’m sorry, I’m nearly—”

  I never finished speaking. Two hands came from behind and fastened on my throat. He had been waiting beside the door for me. I would have screamed, but I never had the chance; the only sound was a tortured gurgle in my throat. My ears roared. Blackness clouded my vision. In that moment, only two of my senses continued to function: I tasted blood, as if I’d bitten my tongue, and I felt the shock of bone against bone as I slammed my right heel back and caught him on the shin.

  His hands didn’t loosen. My lungs spasmed for air. Great pinwheels of fire burst in the darkness that had swallowed my vision. I clawed at his hands with my nails, only to find that he was wearing gloves. I flailed with my elbows, but none of my blows connected; he’d stepped out of range and held me at arm’s length.

  I don’t know how long the agony lasted. I know I thought I was dying and it seemed terribly unfair that there was nothing I could do about it. The next thing was Bill’s voice coming from a long way away. “Ruby! Ruby! Wake up!”

  Someone was shaking me. I gave a cry, a ragged, weak sound that hurt my throat, and lashed out with my fists.

  “It’s me, Ruby!” He scrambled back, out of range. “It’s me! It’s Bill!”

  I pushed myself up and scrambled backwards till I hit the wall, blinking in the glare of the electric light. Bill must have thrown the switch when he came in. It was very cold; the French doors in the bedroom were open, and the wind roared in.

  Sweet, sweet air.

  “What happened to you, Ruby?”

  Outside, a motor started.

  “He’s getting away,” I rasped.

  Bill dashed for the bedroom and I put up a shaky hand to my throat. In the morning there would be bruises. As I got to my feet and staggered into the bedroom, Bill closed the French doors and turned to me.

  “I couldn’t see anything,” he growled. “Who was it?”

  I rubbed my throat. “I don’t know. I didn’t see his face.” But he was driving Max’s car.

  “I just got back from Oamaru,” Bill said, “and the ‘phone was ringing. No idea who it was. The voice said there was an intruder in the chalet. I checked downstairs first. By the time I came up, he was already gone.”

 
“He must have heard you coming.”

  Bill sighed. “I know you don’t like the police, Ruby, but…”

  “No,” I said quickly.

  He must have sensed my determination, because he didn’t try to convince me. Instead, he moved around the room, straightening the bed and gathering up my cleaning things. “Okay. But you were right. You can’t stay here. There’s my sister in Oamaru; she’d be glad to have you.”

  “I can’t go back to Oamaru. They know me there. That’s where I went to school.”

  He rubbed a hand across his chin, his face troubled.

  “It’ll be all right,” I said. “First thing in the morning, I’ll go back to the island.”

  I lay awake in the moonlit quiet. There was no sound but the soft rhythm of breathing. Kat, Bunny, and Edie shared the tiny cabin with me, our beds filling the loft space.

  I remembered the night I first came to the Chalet, climbing in one of the windows and curling up in the empty Fountain Suite after demolishing half a loaf of bread and a complete tub of paté. It was late, I had walked all the way from Pembroke, and Bill Fisher had only been the memory of a kind face and an offer I’d hoped not to take.

  Strange then, that the Chalet should have become so much a part of me now.

  I got up and tiptoed to the small window that overlooked the lake. The catch was secure and nothing moved outside. But the world was bright in the moonlight, mysterious and misleading. Full of forking paths. You never knew where the smallest decision might take you. A half-joking complaint about a teacher, the offer of a drink at a cabaret, and your life was knocked off course.

  I went down the ladder into the tiny space that served us as a kitchen and checked that the downstairs windows were also securely fastened. Under the loft was a narrow closet where each of us had a little storage room. I dragged the curtain back and reached for the filmy chiffon of my red dress. Stray moonlight glinted off beaded fringes and sequined butterflies. I’d sewn them myself when Mr. Hunt gave me my job at the cabaret.

  I fingered the beads. Once the dress had meant hope, freedom, and a faster path out of New Zealand. Now I didn’t know what it meant. I pushed past it, reached into the dark recesses of the top shelf, groped under spare uniforms and towels, and pulled out the sock I kept my savings in.

  A third-class passage to Melbourne aboard the Christchurch mail steamer cost thirty-nine pounds. I counted the money coin by coin, trying to convince myself it would be enough. Nineteen pounds, three shillings halfpence. It could be months before I made the full sum, and what would happen in the meantime?

  I pulled on my wool coat and opened the door onto the night. There were no lights burning in the Chalet; even Bill had turned in. I climbed up through the grapevines on the north side of the garden, breathing the delirious sticky-yeasty scent of the year’s late yield. We kept a little moonshine whiskey on a high shelf in the kitchen, and I thought it might steady my nerves enough to let me sleep. Paora didn’t approve, of course, but the guests expected it and technically we weren’t selling it. In the kitchen, I poured a scant three fingers’ worth and topped it off with a shot of soda water. The siphon hissed, startling me in the quiet, and I knocked the cut-glass bottle against the counter with a harsh clank.

  I froze and caught my breath.

  There was no answering movement anywhere in the house. The sound had not been terribly loud, anyway. I returned the bottles to their place and went into the common room.

  Max sat there in the carved chair at the head of the table, his hands clasped under his chin. Against the big picture window that looked onto the lake, his silhouette was terribly stark. I stood motionless, my heart not daring to beat. Then he turned and saw me.

  “Ruby.” He pushed his chair back with a rattle that seemed shatteringly loud.

  I backed. “Keep away from me.”

  “You’re alive.” He spoke very softly, and moved closer.

  I backed again. “Why? You want to finish the job?” My voice rose a little. If he came any closer I would scream blue murder.

  He stopped. His voice tightened. “Don’t be a fool! I wanted you to meet my friend. You made yourself scarce, and you nearly got yourself killed.”

  “You’re blaming me now?”

  “You’re the spitting double of a girl who’s already died once,” he bit. “What did you think would happen if she came back to life?”

  He meant that Xue Bai’s killer would finish me off just to make sure. Did he mean himself? Did he still think I was the dead girl?

  Or was he crazy enough to kill a stranger for the sake of a resemblance?

  I had to know. I edged around him, into the moonlight, until the table was between us and I could see his face. “All right, I’ll listen. How do you propose I keep myself alive?”

  He gripped the chair opposite me, his tense posture a mirror of mine. “I can protect you, Ruby. But you have to do as I ask.”

  “I need something better than that.” Even in the moonlight it was hard to read his face. “Why did you bring Ava? You think she would have helped me?”

  He stilled. “So you know her.”

  Mistake. Mistake. “The same way I know you.” I took hold of the chair in front of me to keep my hands from shaking. “Society columns.”

  “You said you didn’t look at them often.”

  He had a mind like a steel trap. “You know Ava pretty well, don’t you?”

  “She’s in the habit of doing me good turns. Now she sponsors the team.”

  “You fancy her?”

  “No.”

  “Then you’re missing your chance. Because she surely fancies you.”

  He didn’t answer that. “You’re shivering.”

  “It’s cold.” Better than telling him I was scared and inches away from panicking again.

  “You’re frightened. By thunder, you’re terrified. You know you can trust me, don’t you?”

  “Someone tried to strangle me!” It burst out, too loud in the midnight quiet. I picked up my glass from the table and drained it, then set it down again with a smart click. “He was in your room. He was driving your car. And you tell me to trust you?”

  He swore, a low sound of concentrated fury that made my scalp prickle. Then he was silent and I could have begged him to speak again, to tell me that Ava would vouch for his not leaving her side that evening. He didn’t. Instead he reached into his breast pocket and brought out a small package, wrapped, like the knife had been, in white cotton.

  “Ruby. You need to see this.”

  He put it down gently on the table and then pushed it to the centre, midway between us.

  Another souvenir from the morgue? I pulled back. “No.”

  He glanced up at me, and then reached out and tugged the cloth open. It was a hair comb with seven tapering tines and a black-and-red enamelled butterfly decorating the head. There was a sparkle in the moonlight. It had ruby eyes.

  Its shape was lovely and delicate, and I couldn’t resist reaching out to touch it.

  “I took it from a dead man’s pocket.”

  I snatched my hand back.

  Always, with Max Moran, the dead.

  “He kept it with him the rest of his life. Next to his heart. It was his vow to avenge her. I know who did that, too.” His voice dropped to the thread of a murmur. “I know who killed Xue Bai’s father.”

  The blood whoosh-whooshed through my ears so loudly I could barely hear anything else until my own voice cut dimly through the rush:

  “Her father? You said he died naturally.”

  “I said he died of methanol poisoning.”

  “Poisoning.” On the back of the chair, my fingernails were hurting. “Why? Who says he was poisoned?”

  “I say he was poisoned. No solid proof. Death by misadventure. But I was there when he died.”

  It sounded horribly like a boast. I couldn’t stand it anymore. I struck wildly at the butterfly with the ruby eyes and sent it careening across the table. Max dove to one knee a
nd caught it. When he came up, cradling the delicate thing in both hands, I already stood in the kitchen doorway.

  I wanted to scream at him. I wanted to call him what I thought him: a monster, a killer. I choked it all down because I must get through the night; I must live just long enough to make the world safe from him.

  “I don’t want to know.” My voice was ragged. “This has nothing to do with me.”

  But as I said them, I knew the words were a lie. Whether I wanted anything to do with her or not, the dead girl in Dunedin had left me a terrible bequest.

  IV.

  I could have hidden on Roy’s Island for weeks. Although it forms barely more than a fish-shaped fleck just outside the bay, and although the teashop brings visitors from the town on most sunny afternoons, there is plenty of loneliness to be found there. Long and tapering in the south, the ground rises steadily toward the north end of the island, where the marquee stands. A steep shelving cliff cuts off easy access to the northwest corner.

  Very few knew that in this corner under the cliff, screened by trees now gilded by the autumn, the Hunts kept their still in a ramshackle cabin. I was one of those few, and once or twice before, when it had made me feel happier to drop out of public view for a while, I had spent a few days or a week there: reading, sleeping, tending the still.

  Before, even in the depths of winter, I had found comfort and a sense of safety in this isolation. Now the dark walls of the secret cabin hemmed me in. In the constant silence I found myself listening for the footsteps of death, and the cold sweep of the lake under the stars when I went out at night confronted me with a truth much clearer than glass, much colder than ice.

  Sooner or later, I must go out and face what Xue Bai had left me.

  My legs were goosefleshed that Sunday evening when I sat down on a fallen tree at the top of the island and pulled my stockings from my purse. I’d come up from the cabin barelegged to save the nylons from the prickly undergrowth that concealed the path. It was nearing midnight and the stars were bright in the clear and frosty sky. All lit up with paper lanterns and local firewater, the marquee beyond the brow of the hill radiated light and laughter like a tiny sunrise. The cabaret had already been at full swing for hours.