by Maureen Tan
I leaned back in my chair, pressed my eyes shut, wondered why I’d returned her call. What exactly do you want me to do? I thought. Catch a plane to Savannah? Bang on Alex’s door? Say, ‘So sorry that I left and all that, but here I am. Tell me what’s troubling you?’
Essentially, that was what she wanted.
I shook my head. Same result as earlier that day. Pain.
“Alex has a lot of sense, Joey. He’ll ask for help when—and if—he needs it. And he’ll go to you or Tommy. I assure you, he won’t call me.”
“But, Jane—”
“No.”
“At least phone him? Would you do that much? For me?”
Anything to make her go away.
“I’ll think about it,” I said. And hung up.
I popped an antibiotic tablet and a couple more pain pills, accessorized a biceps’ worth of gauze bandage with sweatpants and a large T-shirt, and crawled into bed.
I slept.
* * *
Kitty-mou was crying.
With eyes still closed, I groped through the bedding, searching for her. She’d been tucked in beside me, curled into the warmth of my stomach when I’d fallen asleep. And now . . .
I sat up in bed, wide-eyed, suddenly awake.
She was gone. Out of my bed, out of my bedroom. Grandpa’s Christmas gift to me. I’d had her less than a day, and I’d already lost her.
I slipped my legs from beneath the eiderdown’s warmth, shivering despite the long flannel nightgown I wore. I reached for the quilted robe at the end of my bed, pulled it on. I hated the cold, damp weather, hated England. Greece was bright and warm, our home a swirl of color enclosed by whitewashed walls. The stone walls of Grandpa’s house enclosed only chill and shadows.
Kitty-mou called again, her piteous cry muffled by the closed bedroom door. I rushed across the room, pulled open the door, stepped into the hallway. No kitten.
I stood very still, listening. Mewing echoed upward from the first floor. I ran barefoot down the staircase and across the entry hall, following the sound. It stayed always ahead of me.
The mewing stopped abruptly as I reached the Great Hall’s massive oak doors. They stood slightly ajar, so I slipped through the narrow opening and stood staring into the darkness beyond, trying to match the lurking forms with my memory of the room’s interior.
Earlier, Christmas festivities had banished the shadows. The Great Hall was alive with music and laughter and the warm, friendly smells of apples and cinnamon and oranges. At the center of the hall, the Christmas tree, taller than some of the houses in the village, had twinkled with fairy lights.
Now the stone floors were cold, the fire in the central hearth burned down to embers. The Christmas tree loomed dark and silent, stripped of its brightly wrapped packages, stripped of its reason for being.
Kitty-mou called again. She was in the tree. Ignoring the icy stone floor and the shadows snatching at the hem of my robe, I ran to it. Clutching my robe close to my body, I peered up into the branches.
One by one, the fairy lights glowed on. Red, green, blue. White, yellow, red. Tinsel garlands, stirred by some unfelt breeze, swayed gently from the tips of the branches, reflecting the lights. The longer I stared, the brighter the tree became.
Still, I couldn’t see Kitty-mou.
I went down on my hands and knees, crawled beneath the tree and stared upward along its massive trunk, up through the branches, past rigid tin soldiers, fragile glass ornaments and tiny straw horses.
The star at the top of the tree burst into flames.
The fire spread, moving steadily down the tree.
Heat twisted the branches into skeletal fingers. The straw horses smoldered, blackened. The tin soldiers melted, dripped scalding grey liquid onto my skin. The ornaments exploded, peppering me with glass.
I covered my head with my arms, huddled beneath the tree, terrified. But I didn’t run away. Not this time.
Kitty-mou screamed. I looked up. She was there, out of reach, clinging to the tree trunk.
I slipped out of my robe, held it outstretched.
“Jump!”
She did as I said, came crashing through the fiery branches, landed in the center of my robe. Quickly, I folded it around her.
The smell of petrol hung in the air.
Thick, oily smoke stung my eyes and made breathing difficult.
The tree exploded.
Heat and flames consumed the room.
* * *
Heat.
Flames.
I sat bolt upright, wrenched from sleep.
And inhaled smoke.
Coughing, gagging, I kicked away the bedding and rolled to the floor.
Down low, there was air that could be breathed.
I did just that as I surveyed the room.
Dark, thick smoke. Flames boiling up my bedroom wall. The wall with three doors on it. Hallway. Closet. Bathroom. Escape in that direction was impossible.
I yelled for help just once, hoping that Mac’s people were listening. Then I crawled toward the window.
The pall of smoke descended, eating up the oxygen near the floor.
Tears streamed down my face. My nostrils and throat burned. My ears were filled with the roaring of the flames. I choked. I wheezed. I fought for every breath.
Finally, I reached the window and opened it. A moment’s relief, a gulp of cold night air, and then the smoke followed me, wrapping itself around me, unwilling to let me go.
I didn’t panic.
I’d chosen my flat with escape in mind.
Decorative brickwork on the face of the building incorporated a four-inch-wide ledge that ran past the bedroom window. Ten meters along the ledge to an ancient copper drainpipe at the corner of the building, and I could climb down from my tower.
With my back to the street, I scooted out onto the sill and grabbed the exterior window frame to pull myself to my feet. A bolt of agony tore through my right arm, punctuating a shattering truth. I didn’t have two strong arms. I couldn’t climb down without them.
I wouldn’t survive if I stayed where I was.
Using my left hand for support, I stood, reestablished my balance, then faced outward. I let go of the window frame and moved sideways, keeping my head, heels, shoulders, and spine in contact with the building. Palms flat against the brick and fingers splayed, I edged away from the heat and smoke pouring from the open window.
I yelled, “Fire!” and “Help!” and “Hurry!”
Lights came on.
A dog began barking.
Shouts came from the street below.
Soon, sirens wailed in the distance.
I hung on.
I waited.
I asked myself if I believed in coincidence.
13
I stood in the midst of the fire trucks and the ambulances and the crowds and the refugees from my building.
No sign of Mac’s people.
Lots of talk of arson.
Cops and firemen trolled the crowd, seeking information.
I avoided them, kept my questions to myself.
I didn’t, in fact, believe in coincidence.
I did believe in betrayal.
I slipped away from the scene. I kept the fire department’s blanket around my shoulders, lifted a wallet from an ambulance attendant and another from one of the cops, and walked around a corner.
Signs at the intersections, installed for tourists who drove on the wrong side of the road, warned, “Look Right.” I did. Right, then left. Forward and back. I made sure I wasn’t followed.
A few corners later, I dropped the wallets minus their cash and credit cards into a post box and went to the nearest tube station. I spent a few minutes in the public washroom, washed smoke streaks from my face and combed my hair with my fingers. Then I took the Underground in an area where no one cared if I wore baggy sweatpants and no shoes and wrapped myself in a blanket.
The hotel took cash. A handful of stolen pounds bought me a shared bat
h that reeked of vomit and mildew, a pay phone in the hallway, and a bed too filthy to sleep in. I slept for a few hours, sitting on the floor with my back against the door and my blanket wrapped around me.
I dreamt that a rat was chewing on my right arm.
At about four A.M., when even the prostitutes and their drunken johns had stopped crashing through the hallway, I woke up and phoned Mac’s private number.
* * *
He didn’t sound as if he’d been sleeping.
“Where are you?” he said immediately.
“Somewhere safe. Where were your people?”
“They were arrested on suspicion of selling drugs. Someone called the Met and reported them. Anonymously, of course.”
Interesting timing.
“Who’s trying to kill me, Mac?”
Silence.
“Who are you trying to trap?”
More silence.
I made a guess, based on the events of the past week.
“Sir William?”
Finally, I received an answer of sorts.
“Perhaps. I can’t be positive. He did seem disturbed after meeting you. As a matter of fact, he stopped by my office.”
Mac stopped speaking.
Games. I was tempted to hang up. Instead, I took a firm grip on my patience and kept my voice even.
“Why?”
“He wanted to be sure you understood he was innocent of any wrongdoing. I reassured him and thanked him for his cooperation the other night. I told him how pleased I was that your memory was finally returning. It’s so much healthier, you know, not to repress things.”
“You set me up,” I said flatly.
“Yes.”
It would have been easier to hate him if he’d denied it.
“And you told him where I lived?”
John and Mac had that information, as did Alex and Tommy. Miss Marston had access to it, too. Beyond that, I could think of no one else.
“Your file may have been compromised. Miss Marston did have to call me away for a minor emergency. William was alone in my office for quite some time, and your file was on my desk.”
A woman’s shriek interrupted us. The sound came from a nearby room and was followed immediately by deeper, male tones. His words were indecipherable. I tensed, ready to run. But the noise resolved itself into nothing more threatening than enthusiastic sex.
I fed more coins into the phone.
“You might have warned me, waited until I could defend myself.”
Mac managed to sound offended.
“I wasn’t certain that William would attack you, and I’m not fully convinced that he was behind the fire. And, if you’ll recall, I did ask you to stay at the clinic until you were better recovered. When you refused, despite short notice and personnel shortages, I assigned operatives to protect you.”
“Incompetent children. Damn it, Mac. I nearly died in that fire.”
Beyond that, I’d lost a precious possession. My furniture and clothing could be replaced, and a trip to my grandfather’s estate—mine now—would yield duplicate photos of my parents. But I’d had only one photo of Brian. Framed. On my bedroom wall. It was gone forever. I thought of the silver menagerie given to me by Mac and found comfort in imagining it reduced to shapeless blobs of metal.
“Did Sir William murder my parents?” I asked.
“I wasn’t there. How could I know?”
“You’ll know with certainty if he kills me?”
He actually chuckled.
“That’s a bit extreme. We’ll know when, and if, he attempts to kill you.”
I tucked the phone between ear and shoulder, rubbed my aching arm, pushed away thoughts of sleep, and wondered about hidden agendas instead.
“So, you’ve set your trap,” I said. “The question becomes, why the hell should I cooperate? I can disappear. Go so deep you’ll never find me. And neither will your killer. Whoever he is.”
“If it is Sir William, I should think you’d want justice.”
“You mean revenge. As long as it looks like self-defense.”
Months earlier, he’d told me revenge was dangerous and morally indefensible. Now, apparently, it suited his purposes.
Mac coughed and cleared his throat.
“Go somewhere safe, Jane, and recover properly. I’d suggest the clinic, but the choice is yours. No matter where you go, William will be told that you’ve returned to the clinic to receive treatment for something credible—perhaps burns, or pneumonia. Council and Jacoby are near the end of an operation. I think you’ll agree that they are competent. When you return, I’ll assign them to help protect you from person or persons unknown.”
My instinct was to tell him no, to escape his endless manipulation any way I could. But I knew I was too exhausted and in too much pain to make a wise decision. I needed a safe place to rest. I needed to consider my options. I needed, most of all, to remember what had happened that day in Greece. If not to avenge my parents, certainly for my own protection.
I doubted I could remember on my own, but I didn’t trust Mac enough to return to the clinic.
I asked myself who I did trust.
One name, one face, came to mind.
“Is Savannah still secure? Did you give Sir William that information, too?”
“William knows nothing about your life there. I give you my word, Janie.”
I believed him only because I could think of no reason for him to lie.
“I’ll call you,” I said. “In a few weeks.”
“Very well.” He paused, then added an unexpected postscript. “Sometimes, Janie, you remind me of your mother. I was very fond of her, you know.”
He hung up.
I stood for a moment, phone in hand, attempting to define undefinable feelings. How should I feel, I wondered, about parents I hardly knew?
The woman in the nearby room shrieked her way to climax.
Moments later, in the midst of sudden quiet, I called Alex collect.
He accepted the charges.
He didn’t ask why.
For a few minutes, conversation flowed easily as polite adults expressed polite interest in safe topics. We made formula inquiries about each other’s health and gave each other formula answers. Alex asked about the weather in London, then told me there’d been a cold snap in Savannah. The temperature had dropped below freezing for the past two weeks, but now it was raining and 65 degrees.
Silence after that—a crystal-clear, hear-a-pin-drop silence.
I found myself wishing for the days before communications satellites, when distance was filled with the evershifting crackle and drone of a transatlantic cable connection.
Then Alex stepped into the silence with a question that told me he’d been listening to more than my words.
“Are you all right, Jane? You sound—”
A pause, and I could imagine him standing in his cheery kitchen, leaning his tall frame back against the kitchen counter—dark eyes troubled, generous mouth pulled down into a frown, handsome features tense with the effort of balancing his intuitions against my need for privacy.
“—you sound as if you’re hurting.”
Hurting. Like many Americans, Alex used the word to imply emotional pain.
As always, his perceptions frightened me, left me feeling stripped and vulnerable. My impulse was to protect myself with a lie. I didn’t.
“I need a place to stay, Alex. Somewhere safe. And I need your help.”
More silence, during which I feared he might not issue the invitation I had no right to ask for.
I needn’t have worried.
His voice was half an octave deeper when he spoke.
I blamed the slight tremor I heard on the connection.
“Come on home, Jane.”
* * *
I assumed that my bank accounts and credit cards were flagged and that Sir William would find out about charges or money withdrawals. My passport, credit cards, and IDs were smoldering in the ashes in my fl
at, as was the key to the safe-deposit box containing papers and plastic issued to one of my alter egos, Jan Nixon. I sighed, told myself that it was a poor backup plan that didn’t account for a devastating fire, and then used my job skills.
I left my door open a crack, waited until I heard a door open, and then staggered into the hallway, toward the bathroom. Along the way, I watched to see which door had opened. Twice I discovered that the john was leaving, but the prostitute had remained behind. Third time lucky. My noisy neighbor and her male companion left together and left their room unoccupied.
I used a discarded hairpin as a picklock on the room’s worn and battered mechanism. Even left-handed, it was easy. Inside, the closet yielded an empty purse, a dress whose fit bordered on the obscene, a woolly jumper, and a pair of shoes a half size too small.
I left the hotel and joined the crush of commuters on the Underground. On New Year’s Eve day, the crowd included a large number of holiday shoppers, which made my work easier. I started on the East London line, transferred to the District line, then spent another hour or two on the Picadilly line. The resulting cash and credit cards bought me a passport with my picture and someone else’s name on it, a night in a hotel room with bath and without roaches, clothing and luggage, and indirect transportation to Savannah.
14
“Bait.”
“Ma’am?”
The cabby glanced over his shoulder into the backseat. Wiry-thin and dark-skinned, he was old enough to have children who remembered signs on restroom doors specifying sex and color.
He had, in fact, just finished telling me that he had six children, if you counted the two who had died. Which he did. ’Cause almighty God cared for His children from before the cradle to after the grave, and didn’t that mean that a man was obliged to do the same? For his children and all fourteen of his grandchildren. Not to mention his five great-grandchildren. I’d murmured something about the importance of duty, and he’d nodded.
I leaned forward in the seat, pointed past him to a dilapidated building down the road.
“Just reading aloud,” I said.
WILLIE’S BAIT.
The red block letters were peeling and faded, as were the smaller letters and crude illustrations that added specifics. CRICKETS. SHINERS. WORMS. SHRIMP. And then, beneath that, in paint not quite as peeled or faded, the words PEACH PRESERVES & FRESH PRODUCE.