Writ in Water

by Natasha Mostert

  Gabriel stared at the printed pages. ‘So you found no indication that he was harmed.’

  ‘Well, no. Just that he left because he wasn’t up to the challenge, whatever that might be. And that he wasn’t strong enough. I suppose she could be using euphemisms, like when she says “he left”, maybe she means he checked out. As in permanently.’

  ‘But nothing about drowning?’

  ‘Nada.’ Isidore shook his head. ‘But they’re into something weird, Gabe. And whatever it is, they managed to get Whittington hooked onto it as well. Take a look at this page. The second paragraph.’

  The three of us are about to engage in the most sublime form of play. We told R. about the game today. He is so keen, bless his sweet heart. It will be fun playing with him. R. is a seeker. He has already searched for the white light elsewhere. But now his journey will truly begin. Passion. Death. Rebirth.

  ‘I can’t make up my mind if they were planning some erotic orgy or if they wanted to take him to church. And all those references to “playing” with him?’ Isidore drummed his fingers on the table top. ‘To tell you the truth, I find that creepy as hell. Like he’s a doll or something. What does it mean?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And what is this “game” and the “white light”?’

  ‘Isidore, I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, I’d better warn you, the ladies have plans for you as well. When you start reading the diary properly, you’ll see they’ve decided that you’re to be their next playmate.’

  ‘Is that a fact?’

  ‘Oh, yes indeed. You’re the chosen one.’

  ‘I suppose I should feel flattered.’

  ‘No, my man. You should feel apprehensive.’

  Gabriel dropped his eye again to the pages in his hands.

  M. and I are convinced that G. is perfect for the game. But, unlike R., G. is no spiritual seeker after truth. Feeding the soul is not high on his list. Instant gratification. Materialism. Those are his gods. A peddler of information. He sells it and moves on. Out of sight, out of mind. No spiritual footprint.

  It will be a challenge and a great adventure. Everything points to this guy’s liking to push the danger button. Risk equals self-knowledge. My kind of man.

  Gabriel frowned. ‘This doesn’t help very much at all.’ He closed the folder and pushed it away from him. ‘Damn.’

  ‘Maybe the answer lies on the second computer. In The Promethean Key.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘So get me the keylogger and I’ll get you the password.’

  ‘I plan to. As soon as they invite me back.’ Gabriel stared moodily at the folder. ‘I wish I knew who the author of the diary is, Minnaloushe or Morrighan.’

  ‘Well, don’t despair. You’ll now be able to access this diary whenever you feel the urge. Maybe the writer will reveal herself in future entries.’

  ‘Here’s hoping.’

  Isidore grinned. ‘And maybe she simply won’t be able to keep her hands off your “cute tush”. That would be a dead giveaway.’ He laughed and ducked the sugar cubes Gabriel threw at him. ‘So, what’s next?’

  ‘As the ladies are so keen on spending time with me, I don’t think I should disappoint them. I’ll give them every opportunity to do so. The three of us will hang some more, to borrow a phrase from your vocabulary.’

  ‘Do you think it wise?’

  ‘Probably not.’ Gabriel grinned suddenly. ‘But who wants wise when you can have fun? In the meantime… I have some reading to do.’

  • • •

  It took Gabriel almost a week to read through the entire diary, which covered a period of close to five years. Some of the entries were thousands of words long, others only a few sentences. The writer did not write in it every day, but she rarely skipped more than a week. She was obviously committed to keeping some kind of record of her thoughts and the passage of her days.

  With the help of Isidore’s Trojan virus, he was able to access the diary’s electronic pages whenever he felt like it. It allowed him to read not only past entries, but also brand-new entries made in the present. Once, he even found himself logging in on the diary just as she was busy keying words into it. It was an odd sensation, watching the disembodied words float across the screen, knowing she had no idea he was on the other side of the looking glass, looking in.

  Much of what he read was obscure: The white light. I will search for it as for an enchanted city lost beneath the waves, following the water-heavy sound of bells tolling in their drowned cathedrals.

  Some ideas surfaced again and again. White light, journey, game. The language used to describe these concepts was frustratingly opaque.

  What to make of this, for example?

  Why try to find sublime purpose in the haziness of dreams or the anarchic lines in the palms of your hands? Play the game. That is all that is required. Follow the path that does not wander.

  The images and observations made little logical sense, but she had created a magical world within the diary’s pages; a wild world. The entire diary was a celebration of an extraordinary imagination: poetic, haunting, evocative.

  Can you hear the sun set?

  What is the colour of seduction?

  The easy answer is red, but that does not ring true. Red is full-on. Seduction is a feather brushing against the skin of the inner thigh. Subtle. Teasing. I think the colour of seduction is cappuccino. Dark coffee diluted with cream.

  From love to death:

  Death should not be turkey-necked, flaccid, trying to speak profound words through a toothless mouth. Death should be strong and virile and grab you by the hand as you run into a windswept darkness stalking flame after flame.

  And then there was the instruction to herself, like a running leitmotiv: I must meditate upon my name.

  But she never gave it.

  Not every observation was mystical or nebulous. There were pragmatic, everyday observations as well: ruminations on politics, local events, pop culture—even trivia read in newspapers and magazines. These observations were irreverent and witty. Often deliriously dark. Sometimes sly.

  Not your ordinary garden variety diary, Isidore had said, and that was certainly true. The voice in these pages belonged to a complex woman.

  Though much of what she wrote had a spiritual dimension to it, the author of the diary clearly did not deny herself the pleasures of the flesh. She possessed a mind aggressively sensual. The entries were studded with sexual encounters: the men, always referred to by their initials only, were usually spoken of fondly, but ultimately dismissively, warranting only a few words. In the diary’s pages her male partners were reduced to alphabet soup. It was the act of love itself that she celebrated.

  The Egyptians believed love to reside in the brain, not the heart. But I believe love should be vehement, physical, blotting out rational thought. Bathing in his maleness: his smell, his touch, his exquisite violence. The next morning a bruised body, a dishevelled bed. And that searing sense that life is joy and passion.

  Another entry:

  Why is it that women find men’s hands so attractive? Is it the strength implicit in the powerful fingers and wrists, or just because of the role hands play in making love? Hands, which may caress, tease, grip in ecstasy. Smoothing the hair from my face, opening my mouth, quietening me.

  He knew he should feel guilty: these sentences were not meant for his eyes. He told himself he had no choice—it was a necessary step in his investigation into Robert Whittington’s death—but he knew there was more to it.

  And it wasn’t just the surreptitious thrill of being a voyeur, a peeping Tom. It went deeper. The more he read, the more captivated he became by the person behind the words.

  She usually entered her thoughts into the computer late in the evening. Writing in her diary was possibly the last thing she did before going to bed. Gabriel pictured her, already dressed for sleep: feet bare, her face innocent of make-up, her brow slightly furrowed as she tapped the keys, hesitatin
g over this word or that. He saw where she sat at the long living-room table in the uncertain light of a lamp, her hands resting lightly on the keyboard, her face turned away from him. He had a glimpse of the outline of her figure underneath the wispy nightdress; saw the shadow hugging her feet. And then she looked his way and immediately her features dissolved and he was unable to see even the colour of her eyes.

  Minnaloushe? Or Morrighan?

  The raw sensuality, which burned up many of the sentences like wildfire reminded him of Minnaloushe. But that wing-brush of darkness—the relentless pursuit of risk—was pure Morrighan. Risk leaves our senses quivering. Danger is erotic. We are most aware when we find ourselves in the shadow of death.

  Was it possible to fall in love with a voice in a diary?

  The woman speaking from these pages was irresistible. He couldn’t get enough of her. He read the diary and it was like watching a beautiful dancer strip off her clothes. Like the sultan and Scheherazade, he thought, self-mocking. Getting turned on by the power of words. A power far more subtle than a pretty face.

  She was keeping him spellbound.

  Bewitched.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  ‘You’re obsessed.’

  Gabriel turned his head to look at his friend. They were in their van, a block away from Pittypats’ offices. But before they could get to work with their Pringle can, they needed a place to park. Gabriel sometimes thought the most challenging part of their job was simply finding suitable parking spaces.

  ‘You’ve fallen in love with the woman in the diary. You’re smitten, Gabe. Admit it.’

  ‘The lady has an appealing voice.’

  ‘You do realise that this appealing voice might belong to a woman who drowned someone? A murderer?’

  ‘No way.’ Gabriel shook his head. ‘No way.’

  ‘You don’t know that,’ Isidore warned. He glanced over at Gabriel before changing gear noisily. Isidore was not the most accomplished of drivers. ‘And if she didn’t kill him,’ he continued, ‘the diary makes it clear that she was—at the very least—engaged in playing this weird game with Whittington, whatever it was. She and her sister both.’

  ‘There’s nothing to indicate that the game led to his death.’

  ‘There’s nothing to indicate it didn’t.’ Isidore was impatient. ‘For God’s sake, she talks about walking through that creepy house of many doors—how weird is that?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Don’t you get it? By her own admission, it puts her in the same location as the woman who drowned Robbie Whittington.’

  Gabriel was silent. Isidore had put his finger on the one aspect of the diary that distressed him. There was no doubt that the writer of the diary was familiar with the house of a million doors. The house in which Robert Whittington had encountered the woman responsible for his death. And the house was not just familiar to her—she walked through it regularly. The journey continues. Every day I climb the unfathomable staircases, walk down the tilting corridors, cross the treacherous drawbridges and open deceiving doors.

  Deceiving doors. Not a bad description, if a little understated. Behind one of those doors lay screaming madness.

  He looked out of the window of the van. ‘She’s not a murderer, Isidore. I know it.’

  ‘You’re kidding yourself, my friend. But even if she didn’t kill him, she probably helped her sister cover up.’

  ‘I think she doesn’t know her sister has killed. Sisters don’t share everything, you know. Especially not murder.’

  ‘You’re rationalising.’ Isidore put his foot on the accelerator a little too emphatically and the van jerked into motion again. ‘You’re infatuated.’

  Yes, Gabriel thought silently. I am. I am infatuated with a woman who has glowing poppies growing in her heart. With a woman who wrote a poem—in rhymed stanzas, no less—to her big toe. Ode to Lord Magnipus. How can you not love a woman who names her toes and writes poems in their honour?

  He suddenly noticed a free delivery bay right outside the squat 1960s building opposite Pittypats. Miracles never cease. He tapped Isidore’s arm.

  ‘Well spotted.’ Isidore turned into the bay with alacrity. ‘Although the chances that we’ll be chased by the building’s security guards are pretty high.’

  ‘So let’s get cracking, then.’

  As Isidore reached behind his seat to extract their goody bag, he said complainingly, ‘Man, I’m not up for this today. To think I could be in Hawaii right now.’

  ‘Chin up. Whistle while you work, that’s my motto.’

  ‘Hi ho, hi ho.’

  ‘Most men lead lives of quiet desperation.’

  ‘No shit. I take it you’re not the author of those immortal words?’

  ‘No. Thoreau. But I can be almost as poetic. How about “life’s crap”?’

  ‘Works for me.’ Isidore dragged the bag onto his lap. ‘By the way, I think we should call it a day on the Levelex job. That place is Fort Knox, man. Let’s cut our losses.’

  Gabriel shook his head. He was still grooming Ariel Scott, and he and the yoga teacher had shared another pot of green tea only yesterday. It was just a matter of time before he’d be able to get some workable info off the man. Isidore knew nothing of that, of course.

  ‘Let’s hang in there a while longer.’

  ‘OK. You’re the boss.’ Isidore tapped the digits into the key lock. ‘To get back to the sisters—when are you meeting up with the girls again? It’s been over a week since the dinner party. You still need to retrieve the keylogger from their computer. It’s going to be difficult if they don’t invite you back.’

  ‘Don’t worry on that score.’

  ‘I hope you’re right. I need to give that logger back to my friend. It’s just on loan, remember. And even though he’s a buddy, this guy can get seriously aggressive when he’s pissed off.’

  ‘Isidore, relax. It’s fine.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I’ve been reading the diary. And it tells me they have not forgotten about me. I expect to hear from them any day now.’

  On the other side of the big plate-glass windows fronting the lobby of the 1960s building, Gabriel could see a capped security man sharing a desk with the company’s receptionist. The man seemed to be looking in their direction. ‘OK.’ Gabriel pulled the bag towards him and rolled down the window. ‘Focus. We need to get to work before they send Fido over there to check us out.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. But you’re sure they’ll invite you back?’

  ‘Believe me. It’ll happen.’

  • • •

  And he was right. The next morning, when he logged onto the diary, Gabriel felt his pulse quicken.

  Entry Date: 20 July

  M. thinks it’s time to contact G. I can’t agree more.

  When I think of him, I feel my entire body turning on. Moist palms, crackling neurons, electric storms in every cell.

  Watch it, girl! M. will not be amused. And she’s right. G. has not entered our life as a romantic interest. He will walk another path.

  And we will need to take it slowly, this time. R. signed up for the game. G. did not. He will have to be seduced into playing.

  And then we can give G. his name…

  So no rushing things. The approach will need to be far more circumspect. A leisurely dance. A courtship.

  He was still staring at the screen when, as if on cue, the doorbell rang.

  It was a courier with a letter. The handwriting on the envelope was feminine but strong: delicate connecting strokes but luscious loops to the Gs and Ls. Inside, a sheet of delightfully scented rice paper folded in half. The message was short but sweet: Two ladies in need of a dashing escort. May we prevail upon your sense of gallantry? Ticket enclosed. Dress glam.

  A buff-coloured ticket was attached to the note with a paperclip. A grand-tier seat for the premiere of Romeo and Juliet at Covent Garden.

  The courtship had begun.

  ENCHANTED

  SUMME
R

  Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est – ‘Knowledge is power.’

  —Francis Bacon, Meditationes Sacrae, De Haeresibus, 1597

  ‘Power is not knowledge. Power is code.’

  —Erik Davis, Techgnosis, Magic, Memory

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Romeo and Juliet was an evening of penguin suits and champagne. But, as Gabriel was about to discover, the tastes and interests of the sisters Monk were eclectic.

  Within the week he had also escorted them to an open-mike poetry evening, a kickboxing tournament in Essex and a picnic in a graveyard. The graveyard, it had to be said, was not just any cemetery, it was Highgate: final resting place of Marx, Christina Rossetti, George Eliot and Michael Faraday.

  ‘And the haunt of Lucy Westenra,’ Morrighan added. She was sitting cross-legged on the grass with a plate of sandwiches on her lap, her finger hovering between cucumber and egg mayonnaise. ‘Dracula,’ she explained in response to the query on Gabriel’s face.

  He looked down at her where she sat, her posture at ease but her back straight. Morrighan seldom slouched. Even at her most relaxed you had the feeling of leashed-in energy. Kneeling next to her was Minnaloushe, red hair fastened in a careless knot. She was worrying the cork from a wine bottle. He knew he should offer his help, but Minnaloushe looked so cute, bottle clutched in one fist, tongue slightly protruding with effort, that he refrained. And as he looked at the two women, side by side, he felt his heart lift.

  ‘Dracula?’

  ‘Yes. Highgate was where Bram Stoker got his inspiration.’

  Morrighan closed her eyes and intoned in a deliberately doleful voice: ‘He is young and strong; there are kisses for us all… The girl went on her knees, and bent over me, simply gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive, and as she arched her neck she licked her lips like an animal, till I could see in the moonlight the moisture shining on the scarlet lips and on the red tongue as it lapped the white sharp teeth…’