by C. J. Skuse
I did a grabby hand for it and held it against my chest. It smelled like Tenoch’s deep heat spray.
‘I better make a call. Everyone’s worried about you.’ He stroked my hair and left.
I have no explanation for the mute thing – I swear I wasn’t putting it on. I guess I was reverting to type. I’d been mute for ages after Priory Gardens and I wonder if my brain had gone into some area of regressive trauma.
After Raf had gone, in came Celestina. She was wearing a hospital gown like I was and there were sore red rings around her wrists and ankles but she was clean of all blood, her hair pinned back in a neat bun.
‘Hey, how are you?’ she whispered, checking behind her at the door and creeping in. ‘I wanted to see you without your boyfriend. To thank you.’
I nodded. I wanted to ask how the children were.
‘The children are fine. David has a sore head but there is no problem inside him, gracias a dios. The other two won’t leave his side.’
I nodded again.
‘My mother is here. We are going to stay at my aunt’s house. The children will be happy there. I just want to thank you again.’ She touched my withered, dead hand in the sling.
You are such a good mother, I wanted to say but my mouth wouldn’t say it. Couldn’t say a word.
‘I have spoken to the police,’ she continued. ‘I told them everything. What I did to Stuzzy. And Paco. And what Paco did to me. Detective Beltran is a good man – he listened to me. He says the law is on our side but they will still want to talk to you. I cannot tell him where Tenoch or the doctor went, though. Do you know?’
I shook my head.
She located the clipboard at the base of my bed and removed the pen, tearing off a small strip of paper from the bottom.
‘I give you my number and address at my aunt’s. If I can help you in any way, you will find us there.’ She scribbled it down, enfolding me in a hug which I could only partially reciprocate. I wanted to thank her too for saving my life but my voice wouldn’t come, no matter how much I willed it. I gripped her hand properly with my good one and hoped she understood. If it wasn’t for her… my eyes welled up.
‘I go now,’ she said, releasing herself. ‘Thank you, Sweetpea.’
I didn’t know how to process what had happened at the Hacienda in any logical way. But as it turned out, the mute thing helped massively. Doctors, police, Raf’s family, they all came into my room one by one and in pairs, firing myriad questions at me about what had been going on, why the children were there, who the men were, where Tenoch was, whether I had been kept as a sex slave. I had my backstory, signed and sealed already. I just had to fill in a few blank pages.
The police seemed content that Paco and the Chipmunks had been wiped off the Earth and the ballistics report matched mine and Celestina’s story of what happened that day at the Hacienda. Ming and Arturo had been shot by Paco and she had killed Stuzzy and Paco in self-defence. Tenoch and Dr Gonzales had done a bunk at some point two days before. But where to, that was unknown. There was a rumour, just a rumour mind you, that Tenoch had in his possession over a hundred million dollars. Maybe more. No wonder Paco had been blinded by greed.
For once in my life, I hadn’t killed anyone. Well, not recently anyway.
As far as my side of the story was concerned, that checked out too. It was all there on the system: a young woman with my name, aged 29, originally from England, who grew up in the care system and had moved to New York in her early twenties to study at NYU. Birthdate: 25 September 1990; Blood Type: B+; Civil Status: single; same social security number. She’d ditched her course, due to stress, and gone on the road. The next time she’d shown up on government computers had been in Odessa, Texas a year later where she’d got a library card and a job as an administrative assistant for a realtor in El Paso.
If reincarnation does exist, knowing my luck I’ll still come back working in fucking admin.
Anyway, in October 2016, the girl left her home in El Paso and hit the road again, went off the radar. Presumed dead. Until now.
‘I got in with a bad lot,’ I said, as though that would explain where I’d been for the past three years. ‘I was hitchhiking along the Baja Peninsula one day and Tenoch picked me up, gave me a home, a job. He was good to me.’
Beltran bought it. They all bought it, even Raf’s family. I was a runaway, who’d showed up at the home of an ex-cartel hitman. There I’d been put to work as a cleaner and that was that. But Raf’s mother Bianca knew there was more to it. Why else had I been at the airport that day we first met?
She sat by my bedside and leaned in tight when we were alone. ‘Cariño, you can tell me, it’s OK. I do not judge you. Did those bad men force you to… travel to places to… be with other men?’
She meant was I sex trafficked. My subsequent silence spoke volumes for her and she collapsed into tears, gripping my hand, rubbing it as though rubbing me clean. She pulled me into the warmest hug, stroking my hair, rocking me gently. ‘Esta bien cariño. Nosotras te cuidaremos.’
It’s OK, darling. We will take care of you.
As I drifted into sleep I heard hushed voices muttering.
‘That must have been why she was at the airport that day.’
‘Probably pimped out to some drug lord in the city.’
‘He had acres of poppy fields.’
‘He’d been a hitman, they said. Made her change her eyes and have surgery.’
‘Black tar. Unrefined.’
‘The detective said there’s no bank account. Lord knows where he kept it.’
‘She cut off her own hand to save those kids?’
‘What makes a person do that to themselves?’
‘Poor, poor girl…’
The bottom line was that Raf’s family all felt sorry for me. I’d been used and abused by the rich and wealthy of Rocas Calientes and I was a broken, shattered soul in need of their care. And they would care for me, no question. It was like being lifted up by a thousand hands. I even volunteered to have an AIDS test, to further enhance the lie.
It was just like after Priory Gardens. Get Well Soon balloons, presents, cheek-strokes, cuddles and more kisses than I’d had in my life. I’d saved those children. That, at least, was true. And the Arroyo-Carranza family would be there to save me. And that was all I wanted.
None of them left me alone for an instant – except a single ten-minute slot, last thing at night when Raf was snoring in the chair beside me and turned to the wall. I picked up the little yarn gatita on my cabinet, intending to further investigate the small hole that had become unstitched. I’d noticed it a few days before, when the doctor had been wanging on to me about physio facilities in San Diego. There was something white rolled up inside the cat’s rear end. A scrap of paper. I waited for the next snore to mask its unravelling.
A scrawled note in pencil: it read…
NYC Vaults. Box 23-25. Go live your life, gatita. Tx
Part 3: New York State
Wednesday, 22 January 2020 – Sluggers Bar, Fifth Avenue, New York City
‘So that’s why you’re here,’ says Freddie, turning to the last page in his notebook. ‘That’s a safety deposit box number here in the city, right?’
‘Yes.’
‘So what did he leave you? In the box? What did he put in there? Is it money? It’s money, isn’t it?’ He nods towards the cardboard box next to me.
‘Oh, this isn’t it,’ I say. ‘I haven’t checked it yet. This is something else.’
‘Oh God, this is amazing. Can I come with you? To open it?’
‘Nope.’
‘Aww come on.’ Freddie sat back in his seat, staring at my crap hand. I held it out so he could inspect it more closely.
‘Occupational therapy is helping a lot. I can do this now.’ I lift my second finger a juddery inch off the table top, then slowly another inch, until it falls by its own accord. Freddie looks at me before carefully moving back my sleeve to see the raggedy scar all along my wrist.
‘I know, Frankenstein much?’
‘I can’t believe they stitched it back on.’
‘I got lucky.’ The diamond shone on my fourth finger, right on cue. ‘We went back down to Rocas Calientes in November, for the Dia de los Muertos celebrations… that’s where we got engaged.’
‘Congratulations.’
‘It was incredible. The road all the way up to the cemetery was paved with a thick carpet of orange marigold petals and lit by tiny candles. They all sang in Spanish. Everyone brought gifts for the dead and painted their faces and dressed up in colourful clothes. We hung paper decorations from the trees and danced in that cemetery all night long. Every tombstone was lit with candles and colour. Kind of reframed death for me. Having a family has reframed everything for me. People I love. People who love me. Killing isn’t as important anymore. I know what’s important now.’
‘Any sign of Tenoch?’
‘Nope. The Hacienda’s all boarded up and there’s talk of auctioning it off for the locals. Rumour has it he escaped through tunnels he’d dug out beneath the temazcal – where he’d buried his stash.’
‘Wow.’
I can’t help smiling. ‘I know. Total Shawshanker.’
‘Did you hear that Craig got engaged too?’
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘That weathergirl, wasn’t it? Soapy Titwanks.’
Freddie laughs. ‘Sophie Cruikshanks.’
The accompanying picture to their exclusive interview on the OK! site was of a bride and groom jumping on a trampoline – the bouquet in mid-air between their cheesy expressions, her subheading that Craig was ‘her world’. I barely recognised Craig – he’d put on so much weight. I knew he was getting his dick shined by some ho cos I’d seen him on Up at the Crack weeks earlier, going all coy about the ‘new lady in his life’. I hadn’t realised it was so serious.
‘How do you feel about that?’ asks Freddie.
‘I was a bit miffed to begin with, I’ll admit it. He’d nag the life out of me for buying the expensive dishwasher tablets not Lidl own brand and moaned on like a bitch about the four-star hotel I’d booked for that Beyoncé concert when the ‘Premier Inn is next door to the venue’ and that bitch got a fucking Cartier? Livid.’
‘He’s becoming quite ubiquitous in the UK. Done a few interviews, got himself a publicist.’
‘He’ll be on Ready Steady Cook next, you mark my words.’
Freddie shakes his head. ‘Happy human bonds, huh? You’ve totally got away with it, haven’t you?’ He reached into his bag and pulled out his phone, clicking onto YouTube. He gave a furtive look around and slid the video across the table towards me. ‘I mean, you’re home and dry, now this has happened…’
It’s a WCAX News report from two weeks ago. I’d seen it before – serious-faced newsman in grey suit looking down the barrel of the camera. Blonde in blue anorak, standing in the pissing rain at the end of a darkened street lit only by blue and red police lights. The tickertape headline:
WOMAN SHOT DEAD AT HOME OF SERIAL KILLER SISTER
‘We’re getting information about a shooting in Lawford Heights. Early reports are suggesting that a woman has been shot dead at a house on Old Mill Road. Mark Weppler is live from the scene. Mark – what can you tell us about this unfolding story right now?’
‘Yes, Cindy, I’m here at this beautiful, unassuming house in Lawford Heights, a short distance from the main highway in the town of Weston and what we know about this situation right now is that in the early hours of the morning, sometime around 2.15 a.m., a person attempted to gain entry to this property behind me and that person was thought to be serial killer Rhiannon Lewis, who has been on the run from justice in the UK for the past year.
‘This house belongs to Lewis’s sister, Seren Gibson, and her husband and two children. Fortunately, the Gibson children are away staying with their father at the present time – it’s understood the couple have separated under the strain of the situation – so the children and their dad were not present when the incident took place.’
‘So do we know the status of Mrs Gibson, is she OK?’
‘It’s not clear at this time who was shot – whether it was Mrs Gibson herself or the intruder, Cindy, but one thing we do know is that not five minutes ago, we got these pictures of a body bag being wheeled out of the house and into the back of a private ambulance so somebody’s dead for sure.’
‘What was it like for you to see that headline?’ asks Freddie, stopping the video in its tracks.
‘Weird,’ I tell him. ‘I thought someone pretending to be me had shot her dead inside her own house. I had a panic attack on the spot, right in my mother-in-law’s living room. Luckily no one else was home.’
‘And what about this…’ Freddie clicked onto a news article, this time static, and enlarged the headline:
WOMAN SHOT DEAD IN VERMONT CONFIRMED AS SERIAL KILLER RHIANNON LEWIS:
Sister IDs Body
‘I didn’t get it,’ I tell him. ‘I didn’t understand why Seren had said the woman was me. It was obviously, judging from the news reports, some doppleganger who’d been hanging around her place, breaking in, scaring her kids for months. But Seren had shot her stalker in the face and told the police she was me. She identified the body. She wouldn’t have got it wrong – she’s my only relative.’
‘Right,’ says Fred. ‘But you don’t look like you used to anymore.’
‘Even so, my own sister would know. She just would.’
‘But she’s made the whole world believe it was you. Any idea why? Every news outlet, every Tumblr thread, every Twitter tag, everyone believes Rhiannon Lewis is officially dead.’
‘Except Géricault,’ I snort.
‘Yeah well, she’s a detective. She’s programmed to look beyond the obvious. But it looks like the American police are taking it as self-defence, doesn’t it? They haven’t jailed Seren yet at least. She’s done you a big favour if you ask me.’
‘Well, she did owe me one. Or two.’
Freddie shook his head. ‘If I were you, I’d want to know more. I’d want to know why she’s identified that body as you. Are you on your way to Vermont to see her?’
‘No, I’m here for the safety deposit box, I told you.’
He glances at the cardboard box. ‘So what’s in there?’ He has that look in his eyes – his journalist look, the one he was always sidling up to me with on my doorstep. He knew there was more to this visit than met the eye.
‘Just… souvenirs.’ I pat the top of the box to tantalise him. It works – he licks his lips.
Freddie’s eyes thin and he bites his lower lip. ‘What kind of souvenirs?’
‘My souvenirs,’ I tell him.
‘Vermont is only a few hours away. You sure you didn’t engineer this trip just so you could pay your sister a visit? You sure this safety deposit box thing is on the level?’
‘Quite sure, Inspector Clueless.’
He laughs. Sluggers is significantly quieter now – all the baseball and basketball games have finished and only the hard drinkers are left at the bar, like on Cheers, mumbling world views to the barman who looks nothing like Ted Danson. More like Charles Manson. ‘So… I guess that brings us up to date.’ He closes his notebook and clicks off the pen.
‘I guess it does,’ I say. I make the universal sign for Can we get the check, please? to a passing waitress.
Freddie reaches into his jacket. ‘I’ll get this.’
‘Was that the kind of sequel you were waiting for?’
‘No,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘I was expecting something completely different. You’ve… changed. ‘You’ve turned it around, Rhi— whoever you are.’
‘Or so I’d have you believe,’ I say, placing my hand around the box.
Freddie looks at it. ‘You still haven’t told me what’s in there.’
‘Oh yeah. So I haven’t. And you know what?’
‘What?’
‘I’m not going to either.’
I slide out of t
he booth and slip back into my coat as Freddie slips into his. It’s gone 2 a.m. ‘There’s another bar down the street that stays open till four,’ he says, glancing at Google Maps as we gather our things.
‘No, thanks. This has been fun but I have a connection to make.’
Freddie shakes his head, helping me sling my bag over my shoulder and picking up my box before I can. I stare at him and he hands it to me. In the darkness of the bar I see the box is dripping at one corner.
Outside, he clicks on his Uber app – I hail a yellow cab.
‘You wanna share a ride? I can take you anywhere,’ Freddie offers. ‘If you’re going to the vaults now—’
‘No, thanks.’
‘It’s the least I can do. You’ve given me another whole book here. You didn’t tell me anything about Seren though. Or Ivy. What about them? You haven’t given me anything about them.’
‘Nothing to give. The best I can do for them both is to stay away.’
‘So you’re definitely not headed to Vermont now?’
‘Nope. Definitely not. Seren Markled me out of the picture long ago. And Ivy’s with Claudia. Safe. Secure. Claudia’s new husband seems to love her like a real dad. I’m letting sleeping dogs lie. I can’t afford not to.’
A cab pulls in and I open the back door, Freddie stands beside it, keeping it open while I put all my stuff inside. He hands me his business card. It’s a quality document, hard and gilt-edged – he has his own logo and everything – FLC. No company name. He is the company.
‘Wait,’ he says, ‘if you’re dead, how am I meant to persuade people that this is your true story?’
‘Not my problem, is it?’
‘Maybe I could say I met you just before you died, how about that? Rhi—? How about that? Wait, come back!’
I leave him standing there on the street, all frowny and lost, as I step inside my yellow cab and disappear into the night.
‘Greyhound bus station, please,’ I tell the driver.
Thursday, 23 January – Greyhound bus from JFK Airport, Queens to Manchester, Vermont