by Megan Goldin
I was as despicable as the rest of them, really, when I think about it. I chased money as if my life depended upon it. I got high on the adrenalin rush of the deal and learned to block out the impact on the lives of ordinary folk struggling to hold it together.
The only people I spent time with were Kevin and people from work. My flatmate Amanda was transferred to Amsterdam shortly before the lease on our apartment expired. I found a one bedroom in the same block with relatively reasonable rent. The realtor had described it as compact – it was in fact tiny, but it was all I needed. I half hoped that Kevin would insist on moving in, or ask me to move in with him. I was disappointed when he made it clear that, much as he loved dating me, he wasn’t looking for a live-in relationship yet.
Weekends, when I had weekends, were about spending time with Kevin, doing laundry, getting exercise and shopping for food that I never had time to eat. On the Sunday of Cathy’s invitation, I was in the office all morning catching up on work. I lost track of time and had to rush to Queens in an Uber.
I rang Cathy’s doorbell holding a bouquet of white roses and a box of chocolates I’d picked up at a convenience store near the office. Cathy opened the door and kissed my cheek. There was a welcoming smile on her face, though her eyes were stoic. She looked like someone who had endured great tragedy but never succumbed to it.
Still, she’d aged considerably since I’d last seen her. There were flecks of grey in her thick dark hair. She was thinner than before and moved slowly. She had the aura of a woman entering old age, though she was only fifty-nine. There was something else I noticed as Cathy double-locked the front door and then connected the security chain: she looked afraid.
‘I’m so pleased you could make it, Sara,’ she said, gesturing for me to take a seat on a blue-grey sofa that I recognised from Lucy’s apartment.
‘I’m sorry that I haven’t been in touch,’ I said.
‘No need to apologise. I know how busy the firm keeps you all,’ she said. ‘I wouldn’t hear from Lucy for weeks because of her work schedule. Eventually I’d panic and leave her a half-dozen messages, and she’d text back to say she was fine but very busy and that I shouldn’t bother her.’
‘The hours are long,’ I admitted. ‘I travel a lot … Some days I don’t know what hemisphere I’m in, let alone what country. But that’s no excuse.’
‘As it happens, this might be the last time we see each other. I’m moving to Baltimore,’ she paused to let me digest her news. ‘I’ve decided to move back and live with my sister. She’s alone as well.’ I could feel Cathy’s pain as she stumbled over those words. ‘We thought it would make sense for us to live together. Keep each other company. We inherited a lovely apartment, big enough for both of us. I can rent out this place and I’ll find part-time work in Baltimore. It’s time I cut back on work anyway, I’ve had some health issues lately.’
‘Nothing serious, I hope?’
‘Enough to remind me that I’m getting older and need to stop overdoing it. And with Lucy gone, there’s not much to keep me here.’ Her voice had a sadness that seemed to reach into the depths of her soul.
‘Cathy, it sounds like a good decision. I hope you’ll be very happy there.’
‘I’m sure I will be,’ she said. ‘Now, I’m forgetting myself.’ She disappeared into the kitchen. I heard her clattering about and the stove click on as she set the kettle boiling.
‘How do you like your coffee?’ she called out.
‘White, no sugar.’
I looked around the living area while she was in the kitchen. Her apartment had large windows with a view of a park across the road. On the wall was a series of framed photographs of Lucy, spanning from her baby photos to one taken a few months before she died.
Cathy came back in and passed me my cup of coffee. She put down a plate with pastries and sat next to me on the sofa. ‘I only unpacked the boxes I brought over from Lucy’s apartment last week, when I began packing for my move. I won’t have much space at the new apartment. I’ve had to sort through Lucy’s things to decide what to keep and what I’ll donate, sell or throw out.’
‘That can’t have been easy for you,’ I said, sympathetically. I remembered the tears that rolled soundlessly down her cheeks that day at Lucy’s apartment, as she put her daughter’s most precious belongings into boxes.
‘It has to be done,’ she said, her voice cracking. ‘Time doesn’t heal the pain. It just dulls it. Going through Lucy’s things again …’ She swallowed and paused to compose herself. ‘It dredged up more questions about her death. The state of her apartment – do you remember the mess we found when we packed up?’
‘You thought someone had gone through her cupboards,’ I said, diplomatically.
‘Everyone told me Lucy must have been erratic before she died and that’s why her apartment was in such disarray,’ she responded. ‘But I wasn’t imagining things. In fact, the very next day proved to me that someone had been there.’
‘In what way?’
‘When the movers brought everything here, they were one box short. The missing box was the one that contained Lucy’s personal computer. I labelled it myself when we were packing. I told them that they must have left a box behind, but they showed me their logbook and they delivered the same number of boxes that they’d collected from Lucy’s apartment that morning. The only explanation I can think of is that someone came into the apartment again and took it.’
‘Did you tell the police?’
‘They said it was an insurance matter, that I should take it up with the moving company. But I know that box was stolen. I’m convinced.’
‘Why would anyone take it? There were plenty of other valuables.’
‘I don’t know,’ sighed Cathy. ‘I think it had something to do with the firm. Lucy spoke cryptically about work. She was nervous. She tried to tell me something a couple of times and then stopped herself. The more I’ve thought about it,’ she chose her next words carefully, ‘the more I think there’s a link between Stanhope and her death.’
‘How so?’ I asked.
‘I’m not sure,’ she answered. ‘There are things I still don’t understand about her time at Stanhope and Sons.’
‘Lucy loved her job,’ I said, trying not to sound defensive. I got why Cathy needed to find a reason for why Lucy had taken her life, but it seemed to me that blaming Stanhope was far-fetched and unfair. ‘In fact, Lucy liked her job so much that there were times when she didn’t want to go home at the end of the day. It just doesn’t jibe with what I knew of Lucy.’
‘But you weren’t there when Lucy died.’
‘I was in Seattle.’
‘Maybe something changed while you were away. Something happened to Lucy. Is that possible?’ Cathy asked.
‘We weren’t in touch while I was away,’ I conceded. ‘Except for one night, when I received a couple of missed calls from Lucy. It struck me as somewhat strange.’
‘Strange in what way?’
‘Lucy had never been one for calling. She preferred to message me. I’d been in Seattle for almost three weeks straight. I received the calls, oh, two or three days before Lucy died. I was in meetings until late. When I checked my phone on the way to the hotel, I noticed two missed calls from Lucy. It was too late to call back. I messaged her. She didn’t respond. I tried to get in touch the next day but she didn’t pick up. I … I never spoke to her again.’
‘Did she leave a message? Send a text? Do you have any idea what she wanted?’
‘No, nothing,’ I said. ‘I presumed it was a work question, and that she’d found the answer herself.’
Cathy took a deep breath. She seemed nervous. Her eyes were fixed on my face as if trying to gauge my reaction. ‘I’ll be straight with you, Sara,’ she said. ‘I think something was going on at Stanhope. I think Lucy was frightened. Do you have any idea what might have worried her?’
‘I don’t,’ I answered, honestly.
During the silence that followed, I th
ought to myself that my answer wasn’t quite true. I had always found it strange that Lucy wanted to hide our friendship.
And then there was Vincent’s request to look out for papers at Lucy’s apartment when I went to help Cathy pack. When he sent me there, in fact. It seemed like a reasonable request at the time, discretely reclaiming documents belonging to the firm as they might be confidential. Except there was something about the way that Vincent acted that unsettled me. That afternoon, when I returned to work, he stopped by my desk and asked if I’d found anything at Lucy’s apartment. I told him I hadn’t found a thing. He seemed disappointed – and something else that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. It was unlike Vincent to be so on edge.
I wandered over to Cathy’s living-room window. A boy on a blue bike raced another boy along the street until they were obscured by a hedge. A man stood across the way, smoking a cigarette. He stubbed it out when he saw me watching and walked off with his hands in the pocket of a grey hoodie.
‘The firm is very competitive. It gets intense,’ I said, turning back to Cathy. ‘But I’ve never seen anything untoward happen. They work us hard, but that’s about it. It’s a very reputable firm. I don’t believe that Lucy’s death had anything to do with Stanhope. She would have confided in me if something was going on.’
Cathy pursed her lips. She said nothing as she absorbed my fierce loyalty to an organisation that she thought might be responsible for her daughter’s death.
‘Sara, why were you so secretive about your friendship with Lucy?’ Her words pierced me.
‘It was Lucy who insisted that nobody from work know that we were friends. To tell you the truth, I never understood why it had to be kept secret. Lucy never explained it to me.’
‘Maybe Lucy was trying to protect you,’ observed Cathy. ‘Here, come with me, Sara.’ She took me to her spare room. It was lined with floor-to-ceiling cupboards filled with books, records and CDs.
‘I’ve taken good care of Lucy’s record collection for years. Unfortunately, I won’t have room for them all once I move. I’m selling them to a collector. All except one,’ she said.
She handed me a record in its original cover. ‘Lucy had a post-it note on here with your name, I think she meant you to have it. I found it when I was going through these last week, before the valuer came. That’s partly why I called.’
It was a Fleetwood Mac single called ‘Sara’, the original pressing. Lucy was obsessive about her record collection, which she’d kept since she was a kid. It would have been something of a sacrifice for her to give me a mint copy of a rare seventies record, even if it did bear my name.
‘Thank you,’ I whispered to Cathy. I had celebrated my birthday while I was in Seattle; I guessed that Lucy planned to give me the record as a present when I returned. I blinked my eyes quickly and looked at the cover while I composed myself. I was about to open it up and take out the record when Cathy said in a strange, thin voice, ‘Better that you do that at home.’
As if to distract me, she pointed out a family photo of Lucy blowing out her candles on her second birthday, her proud parents standing behind her. Intelligence burned in Lucy’s eyes even when she was a baby.
‘Her father left us when she was three,’ Cathy said, without taking her eyes off the photo. ‘I think that’s why Lucy was a late talker. When she started talking, she told me with her very first sentence that she never talked before because she didn’t have anything interesting to say. Imagine hearing that from a child who had barely put two words together before.’
We returned to the living-room sofa. I put the record down near my bag. Cathy made me another coffee and we talked a little about Lucy’s death. She told me about her meeting with Vincent after Lucy died and the way she didn’t feel that Lucy’s suicide note rang true. She showed it to me so that I could see for myself.
Cathy kept repeating her concerns that something had happened at Stanhope in the days before Lucy’s death. It made me feel very uncomfortable. I wanted to sympathise with Cathy, but equally, I was fiercely loyal to my firm. Each time she said anything, I sensed her eyes on me to check my reaction as if she wasn’t sure whether to trust me or not.
‘Will you do me a favour, Sara?’ Cathy asked after a while. ‘I have a small box of Lucy’s things that I need stored. Would you mind keeping it for me?’
‘Of course, I can take it with me now if you like,’ I offered. I wasn’t entirely sure where I’d put it. I had limited storage in my own apartment.
‘No,’ she said, abruptly. ‘It’s heavy. You’ll hurt your back carrying it. I’ll have it sent to you when I send my own boxes to Baltimore later in the week. Leave that record, too. I’ll put it in the box. It would be a shame if it fell and was damaged on your way home.’
I wrote down my address for her and I put Cathy’s contact details in Baltimore into my phone so that we could stay in touch.
‘I’m so pleased you invited me today,’ I said as Cathy escorted me to the door. ‘I very much enjoyed seeing you again.’
‘Me too,’ said Cathy. She gave me a hug. Then she looked through the peephole before opening the locks of her front door and letting me out. I felt her eyes on me through that peephole as she watched me walk across the landing to the elevator.
I left Cathy’s house and walked the two blocks to the subway. I had a weird feeling that I was being followed. I tried to look behind me as naturally as I could, but it was hard to tell who it might have been. There were quite a few people walking to the station.
When I boarded my train, I saw a man with headphones and a baseball cap sit down at the other end of the carriage. He lowered his eyes when he saw me watching him. He had a pale freckled face and a prominent chin. He looked familiar.
It was only that evening, when I walked into my health club for a workout, that I realised I’d seen a guy with the same sharp features in our office building before. He’d been wearing a suit. I’d seen him through a glass walled meeting room, talking with Vincent.
‘What’s the longest that anyone has ever been stuck in an elevator?’ Jules asked. It was now Saturday. Late morning. Everyone but Sam was awake. ‘We might be breaking a world record here,’ he added, in a feeble attempt at humour.
‘We’re not.’ Sylvie’s voice was husky from sleep. ‘A woman in China was found in a stuck elevator after a month. She’d died of dehydration. They found scratch marks on the elevator doors.’
‘A month! Let’s hope that people care enough about us to notice we’re missing faster than that,’ said Jules. ‘My ex will definitely notice when I don’t come to collect the kids this morning. Though I doubt she’ll send out the search party for me until the child support payments stop coming through.’
‘She’ll probably be relieved when you don’t turn up,’ mumbled Sylvie under her breath.
‘Back in ’99, a guy was stuck in an elevator for forty-one hours.’ Vincent said, pleased the atmosphere had become less tense. ‘He was a magazine editor working the night shift. He went downstairs to take a cigarette break. On the way up, the elevator got stuck. Forty-one hours. He almost went mad,’ said Vincent. ‘Strangely enough, his troubles really started after he got out.’
‘Oh yeah?’
‘A personal injury lawyer told him he could get a big payout, but first he had to stop working to show that he suffered psychological damage from being stuck in the elevator alone for so long. He quit his job. The lawsuit dragged on for years. Eventually he received a paltry amount. He ended up unemployed, without anywhere to live. No money. No job.’
‘At least he got out,’ said Jules. He was sitting on the floor with legs crammed between Sam’s sleeping body and the elevator wall.
Vincent had held the elevator doors open for a few minutes earlier to allow the ice-cold air from the elevator shaft to waft inside. It was a crude way of cooling the place down, and their only option given that the heating system couldn’t be turned off. Jules and Vincent also used the opportunity to pee through the gap,
down the elevator shaft. They listened for sounds of other elevators moving, people talking. All they heard was the howl of wind and Jules’s voice bouncing off the concrete walls when he called out for help. Vincent let the doors close again.
That was probably an hour ago. Jules had lost track of time. He’d turned his phone off to save battery. The elevator was illuminated only by the white screen of the television monitor, which still displayed the last clue in red letters.
Jules’s foot felt numb. He tried to gently move it to restore circulation. It didn’t help. The pins and needles were painful. He needed to move around, but when he tried to stand up he accidentally brushed against Sam. Heat was radiating from his body. Jules knelt down to check on him.
‘I think Sam has a temperature,’ he said. Sam’s forehead was hot and slick with sweat.
Vincent scrambled over clumsily in the dark. Sam was clearly running a high fever. Vincent took his water bottle out of his briefcase and poured water straight into Sam’s mouth, trickling it down his throat. Sam swallowed in his sleep. Vincent put the cap on tight and returned the bottle to his briefcase. The rest of them could wait to drink. He hoped they’d be rescued before there was a need to ration water.
They all sat back down and listened to the rattle of Sam breathing. It reminded Jules of his horse Prince, who hurt his leg after being spooked by a low-flying crop duster. Jules had been six. He vividly remembered the evening when the vet came to check the injured horse and a decision was made to put it down.
Jules hid in a storeroom in the barn, not too far away from the stall where the horse lay. He was so close to the horse that the shots were deafening. He’d flinched as if it was him and not the horse who was shot. The vet had done a poor job with the first shot. He would never forget Prince’s horrible whine of agony, before the second shot killed him.
‘It would have cost us a small fortune to save that horse,’ he overheard his dad telling his mother later that night, as they argued about whether it had been truly necessary. It was Jules’s first lesson in the ruthlessness of the adult world.