Writ in Water

by Natasha Mostert

  She stopped and opened those startlingly blue eyes. Before he could gather his wits, Minnaloushe started speaking, obviously taking up where her sister had stopped. ‘and lower went her head as the lips went below the range of my mouth and chin… I could hear the churning sound of her tongue… I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the super-sensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dents of two sharp teeth, just touching and pausing there. I closed my eyes in a languorous ecstasy and waited—waited with beating heart.’

  ‘Holy shit.’ He looked from one woman to the other. ‘What the hell was that?’

  ‘Poor Jonathan Harker. Fighting off Count Dracula’s succubae. Erotic, don’t you think?’

  ‘I’ll say. That was from the book?’

  Morrighan nodded. ‘Those Victorians knew about the allure of sexual mastery and submission, you have to give them that.’

  ‘It’s obviously a favourite. Do you keep it next to your bed?’

  ‘Maybe Minnaloushe keeps it under her pillow. It wouldn’t surprise me. But I haven’t read Dracula since I was at school.’

  ‘Me neither.’ Minnaloushe shook her head. ‘I have to admit, when I was fourteen the Count was top of the pops for me. Dark, handsome, good teeth. But I’m happy to say I’ve grown up and no longer require my men to be quite as exotic.’ She laughed and leaned over to high-five her sister.

  He joined in their laughter, but he was slightly taken aback. Whereas he had difficulty remembering his phone number, these women apparently had word-perfect recall of entire paragraphs of text. From a book they hadn’t read in years. Impressive… and just a little weird.

  From the bottle in Minnaloushe’s hand came a satisfying squeak as she finally succeeded in removing the cork.

  ‘Gabriel, wine?’

  The wine bottle, he noticed, had no label. He sniffed suspiciously at the dark red liquid. ‘What’s this?’

  ‘Berry wine. It’s Morrighan’s brew.’

  He took a cautious sip from his glass. It was unexpectedly wonderful. ‘I could get used to this.’ He took another swallow.

  Minnaloushe smiled slowly. ‘Good. It’s very healthy. It will build up your immune system. Make it part of your daily diet.’

  ‘Maybe I will.’ He drained the glass. The liquid left a red sediment circle at the bottom.

  She nodded again, satisfied. ‘Another glass?’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘To us.’ Minnaloushe smiled.

  ‘To getting to know each other,’ Morrighan added. She squinted her eyes against the glare of sunshine. The ping when her glass touched his was so pure it sounded like joy.

  • • •

  Good for your health it might be, but Morrighan’s berry wine also packed a kick like a mule. When he got home Gabriel fell asleep in front of the TV. When he woke up it was to find himself slumped on the sofa at a very uncomfortable angle, drool staining the cushion under his head. The TV was still on. The phone on the coffee table was ringing.

  He glanced at his watch. 11.53 P.M. Too late for a social call.

  He clicked the mute button on the remote and picked up the receiver.

  ‘Did I wake you?’ Frankie’s voice was so clear, it sounded as though she was standing right next to him.

  ‘It’s OK. What’s up?’

  ‘Nothing much.’ A long pause. ‘I just wanted to chat. I was wondering how you’re doing.’

  He frowned. ‘I’m fine. You?’

  ‘I’m OK.’ But there was something in her voice that was off.

  ‘What’s wrong, Frankie? It’s late. Why aren’t you in bed?’

  ‘I am in bed.’

  ‘Oh. And William?’ Surely she wasn’t calling him just for a chat with her husband lying next to her.

  ‘He’s sleeping. Since his illness started, he sleeps in his own room. He doesn’t want to worry about disturbing me.’ A pause. ‘I was dead set against it, at first. But he insisted. And maybe it’s easier for him that way.’

  ‘I’m sure.’ Gabriel wondered how much physical intimacy there still was between Frankie and her husband. He knew he shouldn’t be speculating about something like that but in the circumstances it was hard not to.

  ‘Gabriel…’

  ‘Yes?’

  A long pause, so long he thought for a moment she was no longer on the line.

  ‘Have you ever thought what it might have been like if…’

  ‘If what?’

  ‘If we had stayed together?’

  He rubbed his forehead. ‘Of course I have.’ Not only that, he thought silently, but since she came back into his life there had been times when he had wondered if they might have a second chance. He hadn’t felt good about it—it was as though he were wishing William Whittington dead, which emphatically was not the case. But the fact of the matter was that Frankie would be a free woman again in the not-so-distant future.

  A long, drawn-out sigh. Her voice muffled now. ‘I love William. With all my heart. I need you to believe that.’

  ‘I do, of course.’

  ‘But sometimes I can’t help wondering… I’m sorry; I shouldn’t be saying these things. And I shouldn’t lay this on you. It’s not fair.’

  ‘You know you can talk to me about anything.’

  ‘It’s too soon, you know? He and I haven’t had enough time together. And now that he’s ill, he’s withdrawing. He’s already said goodbye. I can’t reach him.’

  ‘Frankie, I’m so sorry.’

  ‘You, I could always reach. You were a bastard in many ways, but I knew what you were about.’

  ‘Well, thanks, I guess.’

  ‘I feel disloyal. Talking like this.’

  ‘We all need a shoulder to cry on.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Frankie…’

  ‘Sorry I woke you.’ She was in a rush now. She was regretting calling him, Gabriel could tell.

  He sighed. ‘Any time.’

  He replaced the receiver and stared at the phone. Two weeks ago he would not have believed such a conversation to be possible. Frankie opening up to him, talking about the past, reaching out. And two weeks ago, he would have been thrilled to receive such a call. But now, he was not quite as excited as he would have expected, and he did not need a shrink to tell him why. For a moment he thought of the hapless Jonathan Harker on the verge of turning into neck candy for Count Dracula’s brides. I closed my eyes in a languorous ecstasy and waited—waited with beating heart.

  Oh, man. Why the hell did everything always have to be so complicated?

  • • •

  Complicated, of course, did not even begin to describe the situation in which he found himself.

  In the eight weeks that followed, he and Minnaloushe and Morrighan Monk became virtually inseparable. And as he got drawn deeper and deeper into the sisters’ world, he was losing his ability to think about them with any kind of objectivity.

  He knew they had an agenda. The diary made that crystal-clear. Should it have kept him watchful? Undoubtedly. Did it? Hardly. The more time he spent in their company, the more difficult it was to keep up his defences. This was a slow seduction. To be the object of attention of two such extraordinary women was heady stuff.

  And they were extraordinary. Even though he saw the sisters almost every day, and sometimes in the most mundane of situations—doing the laundry, or early in the morning still dressed in their bathrobes with hair mussed and lips pale—they remained exotic creatures, their ways mysterious. They were undoubtedly women of their time, but there was a twist to their thinking which was not modern in the least. It was even evident in their immediate environment.

  ‘Do you still use this?’ he once asked Minnaloushe, pointing at the ivory-beaded abacus.

  ‘Of course,’ she replied, as though astonished by the question.

  And then there was their interest in alchemy. It carried with it a whiff of witchcraft, old dusty books and divine insanity.

  He was starting to neglect his work. He had
always worked as hard as he played but the balance between the two was slipping. Every day saw him squiring Minnaloushe and Morrighan Monk around town. The two ladies made an impact wherever they went and it was flattering to enter a room with a stunning woman on each arm, everyone watching. He would feel pride and even a certain sense of possessiveness. They’re with me, he’d think, noticing the sidelong glances. I’m their man.

  But it wouldn’t be the gala evenings, the polo matches or the dinners at restaurants he’d remember when, later, he thought back on those two months. What he would remember best were the evenings spent quietly at Monk House. Long dusks in the darkening garden watching the humpbacked tree with its fiery petals turn to black; breathing in the fragrance of the star jasmine smothering the rows of trellis. At other times finding himself slouched in one of the creased leather armchairs in the living room, a glass of Morrighan’s berry wine in his hand. Morrighan would be curled up in the peacock armchair, reading with fierce concentration. Perched on a high stool at the workbench was Minnaloushe, fairy-sized chisel in her hand, working on restoring a weathered mask.

  There would always be something beautiful playing on the state-of-the-art Nakamichi music system. The sisters had a vast library of music, but their favourite piece was ‘Andante cantabile’ from Tchaikovsky’s string quartet no. 1, opus 11. When later he remembered those long days of summer, he would always recall the bittersweet violin notes: a musical leitmotiv running through their days like golden thread.

  But he was leading a deeply schizophrenic existence.

  To us. To getting to know each other. Except… their tight little group had a fourth member. Invisible but ever-present. When they filled their glasses with wine, he too would be at the table, raising his glass in a silent toast. When they were in the garden, soaking up the sunshine, he was stretching out his lanky legs to catch the rays, smiling a sweet, uncomplicated smile, his eyes—those absurdly innocent eyes—crinkling at the corners.

  Robert Whittington. Who had died screaming, his mind shattered.

  On the surface Gabriel laughed with the sisters, flirted with them, teased them affectionately. But all the while, beneath that gleaming river of friendship lurked the knowledge that one of them was a killer.

  He sometimes forgot that. Or maybe he simply didn’t want to think about it. One of these women walked through his dreams every night. The bizarre fact that he didn’t have a clue as to which of the two she was, meant that he did not want either one of them to be guilty.

  He had thought it inevitable that he would be able to put face to voice as he got to know both sisters better but, as each day passed, the identity of the diary’s writer remained tantalisingly elusive.

  Minnaloushe, despite her warmth and copious charm, had an opaque quality about her. She made him think of smoke on water. Of mist, fog and hidden places. Her femininity was full on. The long, golden-red hair cascading over her cheekbones, the full breasts and rounded hips and the generous gypsy mouth were elementally female.

  Morrighan’s personality was less diffuse. Everything about her seemed pure and clear-cut. Her features were as elegant as a profile on a Grecian urn. The black of her hair was so black it gleamed blue with a midnight sheen, the whites of her eyes so white they looked almost artificial. She carried herself with feline grace. You had the impression that what she wanted from life—and from love—she took. No hesitation.

  With Minnaloushe you were aware of a slow, throbbing erotic energy. He recalled one of the diary entries: I am addicted to experiencing love with all my senses open. Surely the voice in the diary must belong to Minnaloushe.

  Love is extreme sport. It exercises the muscle of the mind with the same intensity as climbing a mountain exercises the muscle of the heart. And it is just as dangerous. Was the voice Morrighan’s?

  Each day Gabriel watched the sisters: evaluating their behaviour, trying to match it to the template of the diary’s enigmatic text. If he watched closely enough, maybe he would get lucky. All he needed was one giveaway gesture; one word to betray her true identity.

  It did not occur to him that his search for the diary’s writer had taken precedence over his quest to find Robert Whittington’s killer. He told himself the two goals were inseparable. Once the identity of the writer was established, the identity of the M. she referred to in her pages would also be revealed. And he would have found his killer.

  The possibility that the writer might be the killer herself was a possibility he simply refused to consider.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  There was another way in which the identity of the killer could be established, Gabriel knew. The answer might lie in that mysterious file, The Promethean Key. And so, within days of escorting the sisters to Romeo and Juliet, he had made sure to retrieve the tiny electronic spy he had installed inside their keyboard.

  Isidore was much relieved. The logger’s rightful owner—a wizard named Aaron—had the brain of a techno-nerd but the arms of a cage-fighter. Messing with him was to be avoided. Before returning the logger to its owner, Isidore analysed the keystrokes it contained.

  He had called Gabriel with the password the next day.

  ‘The password to The Promethean Key is a name: HeRmes TriSmeGistus01. T-r-i-s-m-e-g-i-s-t-u-s.”

  ‘That’s a mouthful.’ Gabriel wrote the words down carefully, checking the caps twice.

  ‘Now that you have the password you can take a peek at that file, bro. Just make sure they don’t catch you at it.’

  ‘I’ll do it as soon as I can.’

  At the time, when he said those words, he meant them. But as the days passed, he kept putting it off. To be fair, the perfect opportunity to access the computer did not immediately present itself. But when he finally got his chance, he did not take it.

  It was a Saturday afternoon. He was in the kitchen slicing up a lemon to add to some freshly made granita. Minnaloushe and Morrighan were in the garden, sharing a hammock, balancing it between them effortlessly. He had been sent inside by Minnaloushe to find her something to drink.

  After slicing up the lemon, he took the jug of granita from the fridge and poured the mixture into a tall glass. As he replaced the jug, he paused.

  The door of the fridge was covered with photographs drooping lopsidedly from coloured magnets. Many of the snapshots were of himself. There he was, looking decidedly goofy doing an Ali G impersonation. That was embarrassing. He must have had way too much to drink that night. But in all the pictures he looked amazingly carefree, he thought. Happy.

  Just as Robert Whittington had looked happy.

  He frowned, remembering the photographs of the boy tacked to the wall in the bedroom upstairs. He wondered if they were still there. After that first clandestine visit to Monk House, he had not had the opportunity to visit the top floor again. Certain things were still off-limits to him despite his friendship with the women. Bedrooms were definitely out of bounds. Sadly so.

  He picked up the glass and headed out of the kitchen. As he walked through the living room, his eye fell on the computer. The screensaver was on, the woman with the flowing hair and swirling robe smiling gently at the exploding sun waxing and waning in her hands.

  He stopped. The ice cubes in the glass tinkled lightly.

  Through the slatted shutters he could see the hammock and its two occupants. Morrighan had covered her face with her hat and seemed to be napping. Minnaloushe was reading her magazine.

  He looked back at the machine. All that was needed was for him to type in the password. Open the file. Nick one of the spare CDs in that plastic holding case over there and download the data.

  Easy.

  So do it.

  He was dimly aware of a trapped bumble bee desperately buzzing against the window pane. In his glass box on the shelf above the computer, Goliath stirred, long legs moving restlessly.

  He waited, his mind oddly blank. Inside his chest a sick feeling.

  The contents of that file could tell him who Robert’s murderer was
.

  Do it.

  Teardrops of condensation were forming on the sides of the glass. His hand was wet.

  He transferred the glass from one hand to the other and wiped his hand dry on his trousers. Pushing the French doors wide, he walked back into the heat of the garden.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  At about this time Gabriel started having the dream.

  He was in the portal. The room in which Robert Whittington had opened a door and discovered madness. And even though he had come to know it well, each time he entered the vast circular space his sense of awe was as sharp as though he was seeing it for the first time. The blinding light illuminating the dome. The massive concentric stone walls covered with symbols. The feeling that he was entering sacred space.

  At this point in the timeline of the dream Gabriel would be happy, a sense of expectation lifting his heart. If only the dream stopped there—but it never did.

  The door. The door that was open a crack. He knew he should keep his distance. He knew what was lurking behind it. Pain and an avalanche of images and sounds that would crush his mind to pulp.

  He was sweating. Turn away. Turn away. But he kept moving forward, his fingers reaching for the door.

  He had once read that dreams could be harbingers of what was waiting down the road. Patients dreaming about mutilation and death had been shown to have serious health problems. And the more nightmarish their dreams became, the more their condition worsened, even though in some cases they were not even aware of their illness. Progression in the dream mirrored progression in the disease.

  Gabriel’s dream was also progressing. Every time, he knew he was one step closer to opening the door. With every instalment he was moving nearer to that moment when his fingers would not just reach for the door but open it fully.

  • • •

  But if his dream life was progressing, the same could not be said for his waking life. He was still no closer to identifying the siren voice who kept him in a state of invisible intimacy. It sometimes felt to him as though she was engaged in a game of cruel, perpetual arousal. Here I am, she seemed to say. You may look, but you can’t touch.