Vigil: Verity Fassbinder Book 1

by Angela Slatter

  My stomach was rumbling, I put bread in the toaster, then wandered through the house while I waited. The place had been invaded, the rooms scoured, but that wasn’t what was making me feel uncomfortable. It was the emptiness and silence. They had never bothered me before, not even after my grandparents died – maybe because I’d changed so little, it had always felt as though they were kind of still there. I’d liked it that way. Empty and quiet meant sanctuary, somewhere to fill as and when I wished, and with what and whom I chose. Even when Bela and I had been a couple, we’d never lived together. Except for those rare occasions when I’d been allowed to stay at his apartment at Highgate Hill, with its ultra-modern furniture, clean surfaces and Expressionist paintings, he’d mostly slept here.

  Other than that, my house had always been quiet and empty, and I’d loved it.

  But now it was quiet and empty and it felt wrong.

  It was quiet and empty because David wasn’t here; quiet and empty had become lonely, dormant, stagnant.

  I’d got used to having him in my life and the warmth he brought so quickly that I’d begun to take his presence for granted. Damn him.

  There was a clang from kitchen as the toast high-jumped. While I was eating, I contemplated whether or not the angels would return. I wondered if one might already be sitting on the fence or perched in a tree, all invisible and watchy, but my experience at Little Venice suggested that even if I couldn’t see them, I would be able to sense them if they were close. I guessed the Arch’s little tour through my brain might have left a trace. Did they know about that? Maybe it wasn’t something that usually happened with Normals, maybe they couldn’t work their voodoo on Weyrd . . . or maybe I was just strange enough that the effect on me was different. Perhaps it was an advantage.

  Then again, if they realised one of their number was MIA, I was pretty sure they’d come charging over here. If they were all psychically connected, they’d already know Sapphire was soot and I wouldn’t be sitting here blithely munching toast and jam. Maybe it was time to grab Lizzie and David and head somewhere they wouldn’t expect us to be, like a roach motel on the outskirts of the city, or even Serena Kallos’ empty home – I had her spare keys, after all.

  I threw some clothes into a bag, locked up and took the now familiar route over the fence, just in case anyone was watching out front.

  The back door opened slowly, but instead of being met by David’s smiling face, I saw Mel’s desolate one. Her left eye was puffy and blue-black, the right red-rimmed. Lizzie was sticking to her like Velcro. The little girl stared at me, tears dripping down her cheeks, and I wondered why she was so upset about having her mother home. I grinned widely and flung my arms around Mel and Lizzie, but as I stepped into the kitchen something felt wrong. A heavy, unhappy weight settled on my chest.

  They hung on to me for dear life, and when we finally broke apart I said softly, ‘Did you escape? Or did they let you go?’

  Mel mumbled something, her face buried in Lizzie’s tousled head.

  I was beginning to feel very strange. ‘What’s that?’

  She lifted her head and repeated, ‘They swapped,’ speaking hesitantly, carefully, as if the words were sharp and she might cut herself.

  ‘Swapped?’ My vision telescoped down to the single point of Mel’s despairing face. ‘Swapped who?’

  She started crying, then Lizzie began to hiccough and sob and I strode past them, listening to the sounds of the house beneath their weeping, but I detected nothing, found not a trace of a man roaming around, in one of the spare rooms, going to the loo, washing his hands, coming out to greet me, asking what I’d found, what had happened, how I’d acquired my latest collection of bumps and bruises.

  I turned back to them, swallowed, and demanded, ‘Where’s David?’

  *

  After that first wave of numbing fear, there was rage. The fear didn’t dissipate, but it was overwhelmed by the welling tide of anger. I grasped Mel’s shoulders and squeezed until I could feel muscle and bone, until she cried out, ‘V, you’re hurting me!’

  Lizzie’s terrified expression told me I’d become one of the monsters she’d been warned about.

  Letting go, I stumbled away, stopping only when the leather couch caught me. I fell backwards and blinked and blinked and blinked as I tried to breathe. Though I wanted to ask rational questions, to find a solution, when I opened my mouth the only sound that issued was a wail.

  The next time I paid attention to anything was when the sofa cushions shifted and Lizzie settled beside me. She put a hand on my arm. In her eyes was understanding, and a guilt centuries older than she was. I wrapped an arm around her and she leaned into me.

  ‘It’s my fault,’ she whispered so her mother, busying herself in the kitchen, wouldn’t hear. ‘I wished so hard for Mum to come home I didn’t think what it might cost.’

  ‘Oh, sweetheart, no. It’s not your fault.’ I swam up from my own misery. ‘None of this is your fault, okay? Tell me it’s not your fault.’

  ‘It’s not my fault,’ she said in a very small, uncertain voice. ‘But—’

  ‘No, buts, Lizzie. Not ever,’ I said as Mel carried two mugs into the room. Chamomile steam tickled my nose as I took a sip. I didn’t feel any calmer and I hated the taste, but it gave me something to focus on. My hands shook and I considered the chances of me dropping the mug were pretty good. We sat for a while, sipping tea that I wished was gin and not saying anything, but in my head there were voices, lots of them. Thankfully, the most sensible was also the loudest, the one warning me that my life was circling precariously near the drain and I didn’t have time to waste on self-pity; that tears would solve nothing; that I couldn’t afford to fall apart just because all of this was cutting too close to my own bones.

  Eventually I managed a shuddering breath and said, ‘Care to fill me in?’

  Mel’s voice was tremulous as she started, ‘There was this girl – there was a knock at the door and this blonde girl was waiting. It took me a moment to realise how young she was because she was plastered in really awful heavy make-up. She was acting so nervous, looking guilty – honestly, I thought she was casing the joint, but then she asked, “Why’s bloody Verity Fassbinder not home?” I didn’t know what you’d want me to say, so I just told her you were at work, then she handed me an envelope and said to make sure you got it. But it was like she panicked then, because she just took to her heels and bolted.’

  I’d really hoped Sally had left Brisbane, gone somewhere safe, but I had this dreadful feeling that the girl had no aptitude for finding safe places.

  Mel was still speaking. ‘I closed the door and was putting the letter on the hall table when someone else knocked and I thought it must be the girl again, but it wasn’t. It was a blonde woman – she had this weird birthmark on her neck – and a young man with her, really skinny and sick-looking, with a bandage on his left forearm – but God, V, he stank.’ She wiped a hand across her forehead as if to rub a headache away. ‘The woman asked to come inside, sweet as pie, but I was really creeped out by the stench and anyway, I didn’t know her, or the guy, and when I asked why, she dropped all pretence of being nice and just forced her way in.

  ‘I . . . I grabbed the guy’s arm and the dressing came away, and’ – she shuddered, looking sick – ‘he screamed and screamed, and I swear I saw him change . . . Honest, V, I wasn’t hallucinating; it was almost like his shape blurred, as if his body was falling apart . . .

  ‘Then the woman back-handed me and I fell over, and that cow started kicking me in the guts until I thought I was going to vomit. I must’ve blacked out for a moment, then I came to and she was re-bandaging the boy’s arm and yelling, “Hold it together!” I thought perhaps she was focused on him and I tried to sit up, but she must’ve had eyes in the back of her head because before I knew what’d hit me, I got Tasered, then she laid into me again until I really did pass out from the pain.’

  Mel was trying hard to keep herself calm, for her sake as much
for Lizzie’s. She sounded very matter-of-fact as she described waking up blindfolded. ‘I was lying on a bed, my wrists had been tied to the metal bed-head. The woman kept interrogating me, about what you could do, about your father – and I don’t think she believed me when I said I didn’t know a damn thing about your dad, that I’d never met him because he’d died when you were a kid. I couldn’t hear much – there was traffic, but a long way away, and sometimes people talking in another room – but it felt like there was someone else in the room with me, just watching and listening – not the stinking young man, though.’

  After the first day, she’d been mostly left alone. The woman had stopped questioning her, but she started feeding her the occasional cold McCaptive Meal. Mel didn’t say she’d just about given up all hope, but I was pretty sure that’s how she’d been feeling when the woman suddenly untied her and bundled her into what felt like the back of a van. She was still blindfolded, and she’d been driven around for ages, and when the vehicle finally stopped she was dragged out and marched along a path, then made to stand there while someone banged on a door.

  ‘Someone jammed a gun into my side – well, I don’t know if it really was a gun, but it was cold and hard—’

  Mel’s voice was shaking, and I held her hand; I really needed her to finish the story, although I was pretty sure I knew what happened next. At last she whispered, ‘I heard a man’s voice, a nice voice, but sounding all tense – and then I heard Lizzie, and the woman said, “You’ve got two choices: either you swap places or you let the little girl watch her mother die”, and I think I screamed then . . .’

  That really was no choice.

  I concentrated on Mel’s tale, examining the details and what they told me. The dagger had obviously done considerable damage to Donovan Baker, which made me happy. And interestingly, his companion sounded very much like the Concrete Blonde – so less his victim than I’d thought; looked like the kid had had a girlfriend after all.

  If they’d taken Mel to get information about me, she couldn’t have given them anything even if she’d wanted to. Maybe they’d taken her for leverage too, to make me stop what I was doing, and when they realised they’d made a mistake, the bar had to be raised somehow. They needed a more valuable piece on the chessboard . . . but why not take David in the first place? Had he not been around when they first came calling, and they’d not wanted to go away empty-handed? Or had they come when they knew I wouldn’t be there? They could have learned about David from Mel; she knew he existed, that I felt something for him. And Ziggi and Bela knew about him . . . but I couldn’t imagine who they’d tell . . . so that suggested I was being watched.

  ‘He said to hurry,’ Mel quavered finally. ‘David said. If you wouldn’t mind.’

  In spite of everything, I smiled – and stopped at the sudden sound of a ruckus on the front porch, a familiar voice swearing loudly and an equally familiar voice cursing at even greater volume.

  ‘Open it,’ I told Mel, who was looking scared, and she did so, then stepped aside sharply as a thin body fell inside.

  Ziggi stumbled in close behind. ‘Look what I found,’ he said proudly.

  Rose Wilkes called him more names as she struggled to her feet, but she stopped in her tracks when she saw Mel and all the disappointment in the world dripped from her mouth as she said, ‘Oh, fuck, you’re back,’ as if her sister had been on a holiday she herself had wanted to take. I’d never before seen Mel lose her temper, but now she drew back a fist and decked Rose with a single blow. It was the one bright spot in my day.

  Lizzie, still sitting next to me, peered at her mother with wide eyes. ‘You said violence never solved anything, Mum.’

  Mel breathed out and shook her hand. ‘No, baby, it doesn’t, but sometimes it’s the only thing that makes you feel better.’

  Chapter Thirty

  ‘How could you think it was me? What have I ever done to you?’

  The icy silence was ten minutes old, so even this grumpy challenge was a relief.

  ‘I didn’t think it was you, I just . . . asked.’ And was fervently wishing with all my heart that I hadn’t.

  The eye in the back of his head was not forgiving. All I’d said was, Is it possible you’ve told someone something about me that you shouldn’t have? But I might as well have said, To whom hast thou been betraying me, varlet? for the reaction I got. On the upside, when he’d answered, ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’, it jerked a response out of Rose, lying on the floor with a bloodied nose. Her very unwise snorting and smirking instantly gained my attention.

  I lifted her up by the shirt and shook her, really hoping she’d confess everything, but what she actually said was, ‘Put me down, bitch!’ which didn’t help matters. So I shook her a bit more until she started crying and gave me what I wanted. In between the sobbing and the wiping away of red-tinted snot, Rose blurted out the tale of how she’d met this blonde woman in a bar who’d offered actual cash money for any tidbits Rose could provide about my movements – anything about me, in fact, even the boring stuff. She’d been given a throwaway mobile to text all and any information to a number that was most probably just another disposable. I liberated the phone, ignoring her vocal disapproval, and found just one number saved to it. It made me so mad; Rose didn’t know why she was betraying me, and she didn’t care either. She just wanted the money the woman with the dark red birthmark had been leaving every couple of days, posting the envelopes through the letterbox of the vacant house across the street where Rose had been squatting. Her clunker of a car had been hidden under a tarp out back .

  Rose denied having anything to do with Mel’s kidnapping, and I had to believe her, although she was positively miffed that her sister was back, because she really wasn’t that good a liar.

  Perhaps I shouldn’t have been surprised at Mel’s willingness and efficiency in trussing up Rose Wilkes like a rolled roast before locking her in a cupboard.

  Before Ziggi could circle back to his ‘What did you mean by that?’ huff I’d had another thought. ‘Where’s Sally’s letter?’ I asked Mel.

  The small table in the hall was as bare as it had been when I’d first discovered Mel was missing, but Lizzie was on it, doing what the adults wouldn’t have thought to and reaching under the couch.

  ‘Here it is!’ she cried, brandishing the envelope. She also recovered a five-dollar note, four two-dollar coins, a fur-covered lollipop and a single hot pink stiletto belonging to a Barbie she’d long ago discarded as boring.

  The dirt and crease-marks notwithstanding, the envelope was obviously expensive: the creamiest of cream fabric paper with a raised ripple texture. There was no stamp, no name, no address for either recipient or sender. It had been closed tight with a big glob of red wax, nothing imprinted in it, sloppily applied as if by an uncaring and inexperienced hand. It sure seemed like Sally’s work.

  Cracking the seal revealed an equally expensive-looking, badly folded sheet inside with a list of thirteen names, all in an exquisite script made almost unreadable by flourishes and curlicues that most certainly weren’t Sally’s style. But when your handwriting is as bad as mine, you become a cryptology specialist; I could have had a great career as a pharmacist. Mercado White appeared midway down. I recognised a few more old Weyrd families, and another few nouveau riche. One name in particular stood out. I wasn’t sure if I was surprised or not.

  Then it was just a matter of convincing Ziggi to drive, even though what he really wanted to do was fight with me. He gave in with ill grace and continued the silent treatment as soon as we got in the cab.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I sighed. ‘I didn’t mean you’d done it on purpose, just maybe you’d been chatting to someone who might have chatted to someone else, and in the manner of these things, it made its way to the ears of someone it shouldn’t.’

  ‘So now you think I’m some kind of chatterbox?’

  I refrained from asking if it was his time of the month and settled for placating him the only way I k
new how. ‘I should have known better and I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you, just as soon as Little Venice re-opens.’

  ‘Little Venice is closed? What did you do?’

  Clearly I’d made things worse.

  I assured him it wasn’t my fault – it really wasn’t, although I did give what might have been a slightly self-serving version of the angelic visit to the café. He grumbled, but without any actual words of dissent or disgust, which was a clear sign of thawing. As I was about to continue peace negotiations, my phone squeaked and McIntyre’s ID flashed up. I felt irrationally happy and thankful she was returning calls at last.

  But the voice wasn’t Rhonda’s.

  ‘Is this Verity?’ Soft, tentative tones.

  ‘Who is this?’

  The woman sniffed, as if she’d been crying a lot. ‘Ellie – Ellen Baxter. We met at the morgue.’

  The tattooed tech. Rhonda’s girlfriend. ‘Oh, hi. Where’s McIntyre?’ I asked. ‘I need to speak to her; we’ve got some problems. Some new ones.’

  ‘She can’t talk; that’s why I’m calling.’ Her voice shook. ‘Rhonda’s sick.’

  ‘Is she okay?’ I said, wishing I could stop the words even as they left my mouth. I assumed my First Prize for Stupidest Question of the Year would be in the mail.

  ‘No – she’s got throat cancer. She’s been admitted to the Royal Brisbane. She started coughing at home last night and couldn’t stop. It was horrible; she was struggling to breathe, there was blood coming up, and—’

  ‘Shit. Oh shit.’ It felt like a hammer-blow to an already broken limb. ‘I’m so sorry. Is she—?’

  ‘She’s sedated. I don’t know when she can come home. If. If she can . . .’ She started weeping in earnest, and it took me a moment to work out she’d said, ‘I thought she was going to die.’