by Kim Westwood
She waits, understandably not jumping in to say anything yet.
‘Ellie told me about the visits from Neighbourly Watch.’
She grimaces. ‘As if we have the time or energy to kowtow to their demands. Some Nation First politician called up too, concerned about the poisonings. Luckily I could reassure him Albee was recovering, because the first two didn’t. What’s the favour?’
‘Tell anyone who asks that he has amnesia and may never remember what happened to him.’
‘No probs,’ she says. She knows exactly who ‘anyone’ refers to.
The lift bell dings, the door opens. Inside, I watch the numbers light in descent.
Sarah gets out at Level 2. I suppose she thought it was going to be worse — like asking her to fake an entire family for the ICU visitors list. For that, and all the other things since, I can’t thank her enough.
I’m walking to the tram stop on Temperance when I get a call from Geeta.
‘Hope this isn’t a bad time?’
‘Not at all.’
‘You asked me who I confided in,’ she begins, and I slow my step. ‘Nobody outside, like I said, but there was someone from SADA. She vets applicants for the Ovum Recipient Program, so I didn’t put her on the list I made for Tallis. We met for coffee a few times, then I stopped going.’
‘Why do you want to tell me about her?’
‘I feel guilty saying it, but she was a bit strange.’
‘Tallis should hear this.’
‘Could you do it?’ She sounds so vulnerable.
‘She’ll need the details from you,’ I warn.
‘I know.’
I ring the SANE office while waiting at the tram stop, but get the answering machine, so leave a message for Tallis saying Roshani has some new information. I don’t add that her fears of an internal leak may yet be realised.
The tram rolls up. I slip the phone into my jacket and board. Next stop Marlene at the Shangri-La. It’s going to be an effort to stay cool and calm at this meeting, because inside I’m seething. Marlene’s been stringing me along. Not only does the perfume on her letters now connect her to Albee and his brush with death, but in letter number nine she threatened that if she didn’t get her donor permission, she’d wreak havoc on Gail’s ‘too perfect reputation’ along with her ‘bitch-faced broker’s house of business’.
26
The Red Quarter is decidedly less atmospheric beneath the cover of an overcast sky. With the welcome lights at every entrance extinguished and the windows shuttered behind their metal bars, the buildings on Madams Row look worn out. Even the trees seem tired in their shawls of autumn leaves, ready to get on with winter hibernation. I try not to remember where else I’m supposed to be right now, heading to the Shangri-La for a showdown instead of my scheduled work appointment with Mojo Meg.
As I walk briskly along the Row, I see Marlene approaching from the other direction, her high heels tip-tapping and diamanté shoulder bag swinging on its strap. She gives a little wave, and we meet at the bordello’s entrance.
‘Oh, Sal,’ she gushes, as I allow her first into the tiled portico. ‘Thank goodness. I was so worried my silly love letters would fall into unscrupulous hands.’
No danger of that — now.
‘I trust you didn’t betray a besotted lover’s confidences by reading them?’ She laughs prettily but looks at me hard. ‘And you found the donor permission to show Gail’s broker? That’s why we’re here?’
‘I thought you could sort it out with Savannah straightaway,’ I reply. ‘I’ll vouch for your character.’
She’s annoyed at that, but hides it in another gush of false gratitude. I lift the knocker and rap on the red door.
Savannah answers, a stilettoed figure in dominatrix black, and Marlene launches into a rehearsed spiel, vying with her host for most solicitous. I could tell her not to bother. Savannah’s charm is built into her every atom, while Marlene’s is a veneer as easily dissolvable as battery acid with bicarb.
I’m aware of two people arrived silently behind me: the Red Quarter protection team promised by Anwar. Marlene catches sight of them and swings around. Trapped all sides, it’s dawning on her she’s been set up.
She fixes on me. ‘You,’ she says through her teeth.
The two usher her inside. ‘No need to paw me,’ she says to them, heavily aggrieved. ‘I’m just a kitten among you predators.’
Yeah, a werekitten.
Down the corridor we go, Savannah leading, then into the kitchen, Anwar already sitting at the table. He greets Marlene courteously, but she decides to ignore him. Seems we have the haughty Marlene back.
The protection duo move together, seating her in one swift action before positioning themselves by the exits.
I’m impressed.
Savannah sits opposite Marlene, crossing her long black-clad legs. ‘Let’s discuss your letters first,’ she says, and Marlene tightens her lips.
Haughty and unresponsive.
I take the envelopes out of my pack and lay them on the table, then go lean against the sink to watch the thing play out.
Marlene bristles with umbrage. ‘I don’t know why Salisbury tricked me here like this, but I’ve done nothing to deserve such harsh treatment,’ she announces to the room.
Ever the innocent, ever the victim. The calm demeanour I’d promised myself completely cracks.
‘You injected Albee with dirty kit,’ I say hotly.
This is not where Marlene — or any of us — thought we were going to start.
She turns to me, horrified. ‘I thought it was EHg’s stuff.’
‘But you didn’t get it from Gail, did you.’
Marlene knows her letters have told all that, and more.
‘I would have if I could!’ she exclaims. ‘But being made persona non grata and taken off her buyers list meant getting any of her precious product was like sucking blood out of a stone. That’s what happens when you’re no longer the famous Gail Alvarez’s preferred lover. She was very cruel, you know, very heartless with my affections.’
So much for not speaking ill of the dead.
‘Where did you get it then?’ I ask.
‘Someone came to the speakeasy offering T at a bargain price.’
My look of disgust elicits a retort.
‘I’m not made of money,’ she sniffs. ‘I can barely afford the hormones for my own requirements. If a box of polyshells dropped off the back of a C&C delivery van, so what? I was angry with Gail, so I bought one. I thought it would make a nice present for Albee.’
‘How kind of you. But you must have smelt the stuff was dirty before you gave him the jab.’
She looks suitably chastened. ‘I may have got a whiff, but we were too far gone in our little seduction game to stop. We were in the throes of passion. He was begging for —’
I stop her there. ‘I get the picture.’
Savannah intercedes, velvety smooth. ‘Who did you go to for your own supply when Gail refused you?’
‘Mojo Meg,’ Marlene answers defensively.
‘But BioPharm’s goods are just as expensive as EHg’s,’ Savannah responds. ‘How could you afford it?’
‘She’s been kind enough to give me a discount in return for a bit of industry gossip. Nothing important.’
I’ll bet. ‘So you sold Meg information in return for your hormone fixes,’ I say angrily.
Marlene rounds on me. ‘Do you think on the Glory Hole’s wages I can afford to buy premium blend? Maintaining a fertility regime is very expensive, and using EHg’s products put me into debt. I asked Gail for a minuscule discount to help me cope, and she ditched me.’
I’m completely unconvinced. ‘Maybe Gail ditched you because she didn’t want to play yummy mummies with you. If you really want to get pregnant, why not make another arrangement with a different broker?’
‘I’ve spent a fortune preparing my womb for this. I don’t want just any old person’s egg attached to it. Of course, I don’t expe
ct someone like you to understand about quality chromosomes.’ She casts me a dismissive glance. ‘Why would I settle for a bitzer when there’s pedigree?’
I feel everyone in the room wince at that one. And she’s yet to mention the quality of the other part of the baby equation: the sperm donor.
Anwar speaks, voice quiet. ‘Marlene, you’re here because we believe Gail didn’t OD and isn’t dead.’
I wait for her to exhibit shock.
Momentarily at a loss, she looks at us brightly. ‘Well, that’s wonderful news, isn’t it?’
I’m outraged. ‘Is that all you have to say?’
Savannah’s expression is registering that she’s had enough. As she unfolds her legs, the buckles on her leather corselet glint. One hand resting on the table, she leans over Marlene.
‘You play the defenceless female because that’s how you control the game; but you’re going to tell us the truth now.’
‘Get off me, you cow,’ Marlene spits.
Savannah smiles, unfazed. ‘I’m not the one you should be worried about. See those two strong silent types?’ She motions to the protection duo. ‘They’re very good at control. And unless you tell us what you know, so we can find Gail and fix the mess someone’s put her in, they’ll be controlling your personal space twenty-four hours a day.’
Marlene huffs contemptuously, but she’s gone pale beneath the pancake.
‘They’re excellent at what they do,’ Savannah assures. ‘While you’re here they’ll search and strip you of hormone patches and subdermal implants, then they’ll escort you back to your house and go through your possessions. They’ll remove every gram of kit, including all those pills and powders you’ve stashed for a rainy day. Next will be the beauty preparations that have obviously become necessary to your daily life. By the time they’re finished, you won’t even have a toothbrush. Nor will you be allowed to go out for replacements. You’ll have to face the world without props or potions of any kind, as dowdy as a Hausfrau.’
Savannah’s words are wielded like a whip. I remember the beautifully plaited set I’d seen in the parlour cabinet. No props needed here. Marlene is forced back in her chair as Savannah leans closer, her dominatrix alter emerging like a black moth from its chrysalis. Slowly she inspects Marlene’s body.
‘You’ve spent a fortune on surgery and hormones — I can see that. Unfortunately, once the supplements and special treatments are stopped, the effects will leach out of you like water through sand. That latest vaginal rejuvenation won’t last; those breast implants we can have syringed out. Soon you’ll be scrounging for old troche packs, fingering up the crumbs like a coke addict; but nothing will slow the withering on the vine.’
Marlene is looking decidedly sick, her bravado punctured. The Shangri-La’s chess-playing madam — a practised observer of the human psyche — knows how deeply she’s committed to the trappings of femininity.
Savannah presses harder on Marlene’s weak spot.
‘Oestrogen-deprived, your cunt will dry and your womb will shrink — such effort for nothing, so much money wasted. You’ll be a washed-up vamp with all the sex appeal of road kill.’
Suddenly her tone changes. ‘But that’s just half the story,’ she says silkily. ‘Because shortly we’re going to start injecting you with T. If you’re lucky, we might even find a way to make it interesting, like you did for Albee.’
Marlene stares up at her, appalled. ‘You wouldn’t,’ she squeaks.
Savannah smiles. ‘Try me.’
Marlene’s composure completely shatters. Collapsing onto the Shangri-La’s kitchen table, a low wail comes out of her, winding into a caterwaul of anguish.
‘Monsters! You don’t know what it’s been like, watching Gail take herself every month to Cutters Lane. Number 137 gets all her ova! How dare she sell to people she doesn’t even know and not spare me a single egg. Is that fair? Is that caring?’ Her voice scritches up the decibels. ‘Since that stupid vaccine, I’ve been stuck like a genie half out of the bottle — and unlike you,’ she stares straight at me, ‘I don’t enjoy it here. I deserve a full complement of my rightful hormones.’
I look at her face contorted by anguish and can’t feel offended. After it got out about the additive in the vaccine, the reports were everywhere of premature ovarian failures and plummeting sperm counts. Then came mass panic, everyone trying to conceive or store their fertile eggs and seed before reproductive shutdown.
‘We trusted them,’ Marlene sobs. ‘No side effects, they said. But what they did was criminal: they stole our parenthoods. I always assumed one day I’d have a baby. Then I couldn’t even buy one from my fertile lover. What was wrong with bringing her down a peg or two to make her grateful that I would want to have her child?’
‘What did you do?’ I demand.
She stops sobbing. ‘I didn’t do anything.’
‘Tell that to Albee.’
She regards me from beneath her lashes. I realise how much she hates me.
Savannah signals and the protection duo move in. Marlene squeals, and Savannah holds up a staying hand.
‘Let’s try that again,’ she says. ‘Who’s making Gail “grateful” right now?’
Marlene turns nervously from one unfriendly face to the next. ‘If I tell you, will you keep those two robots away from me?’
The protection duo don’t even blink.
Anwar responds. ‘All we want, Marlene, is to get Gail back unharmed. Beyond that, we have no interest in you.’
She brushes ineffectually at a strand of hair that’s escaped its stylish coiffure while he sits calmly opposite, the picture of mild containment, as if he’s come visiting for a nice cup of tea.
He smiles encouragingly at her. ‘Help us now, and that will be the end of it. Otherwise, I’m afraid …’ He glances at Savannah then the protection duo, his meaning clear.
Her shoulders slump. ‘His name’s Doug Smeg — he’s a Neighbourly Watch official,’ she says almost inaudibly. ‘He was very supportive after Gail dumped me.’
Anwar freezes at the name, but Marlene doesn’t notice. She continues, eyes downcast.
‘The batch of fake EHg kit was his idea. I just helped with the drop-offs in the city. He said if we gave Gail a bit of a shake-up it would make her more amenable to my situation.’
‘And bring down everything she’s built across the last ten years,’ I cut in.
Marlene ignores me. ‘All he wanted in return was the opportunity to be my sperm donor. He’s very keen to continue the Smeg line.’ A flicker of her old self reappears. ‘Not that I’d ever burden a child with that dreadful surname.’
I want to gag in the sink. And someone should tell her that her own last name, Bott, isn’t much of an improvement.
‘Who supplied the kit?’ Savannah asks.
Marlene chews on one plump, carmined lip. ‘He said he had a mate working at a hormone farm who could provide the goods. I didn’t ask how, or which one, and he wouldn’t have told me anyway.’ She looks up. ‘But I swear on my grandmother’s shroud the stuff wasn’t meant to poison anyone. I went to him after the accident with Albee and he got all creepy — said he’d “sort” it. I could tell it wasn’t in his plan. Something went wrong at the supplier’s end. I told him I wanted out of the arrangement, but he convinced me that if I held my nerve a bit longer, he could persuade Gail to sign the donor permission. He just needed the chance to put his “unrefusable offer” to her without her minders around.’
I exchange looks with Anwar. She believed Doug would do all this just to be a daddy?
‘You didn’t think he might have been after something else from Gail?’ I ask.
‘Does it matter? He was my last resort.’ She eyes the letters on the table, then me. ‘Actually, I was expecting her to sic her bloodhounds on me over the last one of those; but she didn’t …’
She hasn’t worked it out yet that Gail never read it — just me. I don’t enlighten her.
‘So I agreed to get him through
her gates,’ she says.
I suppress an impulse to walk over and slap her. ‘Gail wouldn’t have let you or him on her property.’
Marlene gives me another dirty look. ‘Says you. I rang her from the neighbourhood gate and said I could put things right between us by giving her some information I’d heard about the sellers of the fake stuff, if she’d just let me in. I’d already sob-storied the SOS guard into promising not to tell anyone I’d been there begging for forgiveness from my ex. He was an even easier mark than you, Sally — you’re such a romantic. After that, all I had to do was smile at the camera and press my pinky to the pad.’ She pauses. ‘I was walking through her front gates when the ambulance and police cars sped in. He never told me that’s what he was going to do.’
‘Where did they take her?’ Anwar asks for all of us.
‘I don’t know. I never even got to the house. Doug told me to go, and leave the rest to him. There was still a chance of getting the permission signed, so I did like he said and went to my shift at the Glory Hole. Then he rang to say Gail had been temporarily relocated, and to tell everyone there I’d heard she’d overdosed.’
So it’s all been one big act. She got the kit from Doug, lied to Albee then me about what she injected him with, then mourned Gail’s ‘suicide’ in the Good Bean. How can we trust a single word she says?
‘Why the note in my jacket?’ I glare at her.
‘I panicked over someone finding my letters at Gail’s and blaming me for what Doug might do to her.’ She straightens in her chair. ‘In case you haven’t got it yet, he’s not a man to be messed with. And you shouldn’t be sitting here accusing me. You should be protecting me.’
On impulse, I reach for her diamanté bag and yank it off her shoulder. The contents upended on the table, I light on a small scent bottle. Pulling off the cap, I take a sniff. That perfume again.
‘Not your usual,’ I say drily.
The sly Marlene resurfaces. ‘That one’s for special occasions.’
‘Like poison-pen letters and seductions involving organophosphate?’