Gardiner dropped the destroyed book of matches, fished in his pockets for another, tore it open, lit a match and continued, letting it burn down to his fingers, not flinching when it quenched itself on his hard, callused flesh.
‘If she hadn’t laughed, it might have stopped with the scream. But this was Andeanna’s house. Her home. Her husband. And here was this woman, this slut, fucking Mikis. And she was laughing.’
Gardiner lit another match, held it up and nodded at the flame. ‘Andeanna flared into life. She moved so fast, Mikis barely saw what happened. She raced across the room. Christinawas still laughing. Andeanna sliced through the bitch’s breasts with the knife, then whipped it across her throat.
‘She didn’t stop there,’ Gardiner said as the match burnt out. ‘She carried on hacking. Mikis lay on the bed, staring at the women, his body and face covered with blood, unable to raise a hand, knowing it wouldn’t have mattered if he had. It was over after the second cut. The rest was mere butchery.’
‘Mere butchery,’ I whisper to myself as I wait for Dr Jan Tressman. A young nurse has asked three times if I’d like anything to drink. She looks worried. Maybe it’s my appearance. I’m not sure what I look like, but I’m not my normal self. I can’t remember the last time I shaved or washed. I spent several hours in the trunk of a car. There are bloodstains on my trousers from Dash’s death spray. I’ve had my world turned upside down, inside out, ripped to pieces and tacked back together with the glue of nightmarish madness. I’m not, I think it’s safe to say, at my dapper, dashing best.
‘Mikis expected to die,’ Gardiner continued. ‘Once Andeanna had finished with Christina, he was sure she’d attack him. He lay there anticipating death, doing nothing to avert it. He was hers for the taking. But she spared him.
‘She stared at him hungrily, gripping the knife, her chest heaving. Maybe the fact that he made no move to defend himself saved him. Perhaps she was waiting for him to raise a hand or cringe or . . . laugh. But he just lay there, gazing at her desperately, and finally she got off the bed, walked to a corner, sank to her haunches and started to croon.’
‘What did she sing?’ I asked.
Gardiner looked at me incredulously. ‘How the fuck do I know?’ he roared. ‘Does it matter?’
‘Just curious,’ I replied, stung by his reaction.
‘Why don’t we find this mystic of yours and ask if she knows? Perhaps she has a spectral CD player.’ He shook his head. ‘What a dumb fucking question.
‘Anyway, she was crooning. Mikis couldn’t lie there all night, much as he’d have liked to. He got to his feet, checked to make sure Christina was dead, then edged past Andeanna and rushed for the phone to call the police.’
‘I’d have thought they were the last people he’d want to involve.’
‘They were. But he was so shaken, he didn’t know what he was doing. He was two digits in before he stopped to consider the consequences. Calling the coppers would have been the end of both of them. Andeanna would have been carted away, taken into custody and subjected to the full process of the law. Details would have leaked to the press, Christina’s name would have emerged, Arnold Whiteoak would have come gunning for Mikis.
‘Going public was out of the question. Mikis put the phone down, sat naked on the floor and thought it through. His survival instincts kicked in and he rang me. He couldn’t handle it alone. I was the only person he trusted. He knew I wouldn’t milk the fuck-up for all it was worth, or hold it over his head for the rest of his life.
‘He didn’t tell me what happened over the phone, only said it was an emergency. When I walked in and saw Christina and Andeanna, I knew we were in deep shit. I wanted to rush to Andeanna and comfort her, but I managed to stop myself. Mikis would have known there was something between us if I had. The state he was in, he’d have throttled me with his bare hands there and then.
‘Mikis had dressed, but he hadn’t washed off the blood. He gave me a rundown of what had happened, explained his basic plan and asked for my input.’ Gardiner cracked a half-smile. ‘Input,’ he repeated with a snort.
‘What was the plan?’ I asked.
‘Kill two birds with one stone,’ Gardiner replied. ‘If it had just been Christina, we’d have dumped her body and prayed that Arnold never found out. But . . . ’
He stalled, so I said it for him. ‘There was Andeanna.’
‘Right. As much as he loved her, Mikis couldn’t let her walk. We could see that she’d passed way beyond reason. We couldn’t help her. There was only one other solution — we had to kill her.’
A middle-aged, grey-haired, chubby doctor steps into the waiting room and casts an eye around. ‘Mr Sieveking?’ he asks, already stepping forward to shake my hand. ‘I’m Jan Tressman.’
‘Doctor,’ I greet him.
‘Please, call me Jan.’ He studies my face and clothes. If the nurse didn’t spot the bloodstains on my trousers, Tressman does, and his lips tighten. ‘Do you need assistance, Mr Sieveking?’
‘No. I’m fine. Never better.’
He grunts sceptically. ‘So, you’re here to visit one of my patients?’
‘Yes,’ I whisper.
‘Our mutual acquaintance –’ he’s careful not to mention Bond Gardiner’s name – ‘told me that Miss Emerson doesnot know you. Is that correct?’
Is it? Beats the hell out of me. But I go along with Gardiner’s story. Less complicated that way. ‘Yes.’
Tressman chews his lower lip. ‘Miss Emerson is unaccustomed to visitors. She is docile most of the time, but reacts nervously to unfamiliar faces. When we have to introduce someone into her environment – a new nurse, for instance – we do so gradually. There is no direct contact to begin with. The nurse remains at a distance until Miss Emerson learns to accept his or her presence, then slowly moves closer and plays amore active role in her life over a period of concurrent days. A stranger walking straight in to see her . . . ’ He shakes his head.
‘Has she never had a visitor?’ I ask.
Tressman hesitates, then says, ‘Only her son.’
‘Greygo?’ I gape.
‘Gregory Menderes, yes. He first came several years ago, before I started here, and has been a regular visitor since.’
I didn’t think Greygo knew about his mother. Then again, I didn’t ask Gardiner about the Menderes heir. I know that Greygo was desperate to find out more about Andeanna. He must have tracked her down, probably through Mikis, who maybe told him the truth during a drunken bout of self-pity.
‘What does Greygo do when he comes?’ I ask.
‘Sits with her. Talks. Tells her about himself.’
‘Does she know who he is?’
Tressman sighs. ‘Miss Emerson is beyond the realms of such recognition. Her fragile mental state, combined with her medication . . . You know about that?’ I nod stiffly. ‘She knows somewhere within the remains of her mind that she has a son – she plays with dolls and often pretends that one of them is her child – but she is incapable of recognizing him in the flesh. Gregory tried jogging her memory when he first visited – he would tell her who he was, bring photos of himself when he was younger, beg her to acknowledge him – but he now knows that can never be. He is satisfied just to come and sit with her.’
I think about that in silence. It’s sad, but also troubling. Greygo told me he saw his mother’s ghost when he was growing up, that he’d spoken with her. If that had been a cover story, I could accept it, but he sent me to Etienne Anders, who not only backed up his claims but put me in touch with the ghost. An elaborate ruse to steer me away from the truth? Or a more calculated ploy? Might Greygo have set me up with 279 the Andeanna lookalike? Could he have masterminded the downfall of the father he claimed to love?
All reports contradict that hypothesis – everyone says that Greygo was a model son – but the evidence is beginning to weigh against the Menderes heir. I may have to corner him again and put a few harsh questions his way.
Focusing on the present,
I consider the matter in hand. The last thing I want is to disturb Miss Emerson. If she’s as wrapped up in her own world as Gardiner and Tressman have said, I can gain nothing by questioning her. I ask the doctor if it’s possible to view her without revealing myself. ‘Of course,’ he beams. ‘That would be best.’ Smiling approvingly, he slips away to set things up, and I’m left alone again, with nothing to do but think back upon the revelations in the glade.
Gardiner couldn’t kill her. Even though he agreed that execution was necessary, he’d been Andeanna’s secret lover, and when it came to placing a cushion over her face and smothering her, he faltered. He fetched a pillow from the bed, fluffed it up and started forward, but got no closer than a couple of feet. Her blank look, her trembling hands, her crooning, memories of their affair . . . In the end, he could only stand, pillow in hands, and shake his head.
‘Mikis howled at me to kill her,’ he said. ‘In all our years together, that was the only time he turned on me. He struck me, threatened to kill me. I didn’t fight back, just stood my ground and told him I couldn’t do it.’
Eventually the Turk grabbed the pillow from Gardiner, determined to finish her off himself. He got right up to her, the pillow poised mere inches from her face, before he stalled.
‘It was her expression,’ Gardiner croaked. ‘It never changed. She went on singing softly, no understanding in her eyes. You’d think that would have made it easier to kill her, but it didn’t.’
When Mikis tossed the pillow aside, he thought his world had come to an end. He would get rid of the corpse of Christina Whiteoak, confine his wife to home and hire a tight-lipped harridan to nurse her, but he was sure the truth would leak. It was too much to hope that Andeanna would remain comatose. She’d return to consciousness and bring him to ruin. There was nothing he could do to prevent it.
‘The idea to swap bodies was mine,’ Gardiner said hollowly. ‘It hit me when we were discussing ways to dispose of Christina. Mikis wanted to dump her where she’d never be found, but I thought it would be better if we could arrange for her body to be discovered. If she disappeared, her husband wouldn’t stop looking for her, but if we made it look like an accident . . . ’
‘A bit of a problem, given the way she was killed,’ I noted.
Gardiner nodded. ‘She’d been hacked to pieces. Mikis asked if I meant to throw her down a flight of stairs and claim she’d tripped while carrying a knife. I lost my temper and told him to stop acting like an idiot. It wouldn’t be easy, but it could be done. If we started a fire, the flames would destroy the evidence of foul play. Her wounds were flesh deep. Get rid of the flesh, get rid of the wounds.
‘Mikis was worried. Too much could go wrong. He didn’t see the need to be so elaborate. He’d almost won me over when a new plan struck. And struck is exactly the way to describe it. The scheme slammed into my mind in a single sickening second. You could say it was my one real moment of genius.’
It was a dreadfully simple idea — incinerate the corpse but pretend it was Andeanna. They’d have to burn Christina beyond identification to get rid of the stab wounds. Such a body could be anyone’s. If they dressed it in Andeanna’s clothes, placed it in her car – even at that early stage he saw the need to stage a crash – and said that it was the Turk’s wife, who would ever question them?
‘Mikis thought I’d lost my mind. The women looked nothing alike. They weren’t the same height. They wouldn’t have matching dental records. And Arnold Whiteoak — the whole reason we’d considered burning Christina was to throw her husband off the scent. Without a corpse, he’d keep searching for her, and Mikis thought we’d be left with the threat of Andeanna one day blabbing and alerting Whiteoak to the truth. I convinced him that she wouldn’t. That she couldn’t.’
Gardiner talked him through it quickly and convincingly. They could smash the teeth to pieces and the police would believe it was a result of the crash. The ruse wouldn’t stand close scrutiny, but if they staged the crash correctly, why should anyone suspect a swap? It would be Andeanna’s car, clothes, jewellery. Mikis would say he’d seen her leaving the house. Why would the police believe she was anybody other than who she appeared to be?
‘He still couldn’t see the point of swapping the bodies,’ Gardiner muttered. ‘It wasn’t until I told him what we could do with Andeanna that he saw the light.’
At that, Gardiner’s shame overwhelmed him and he practically shrivelled up.
Tressman sticks his head into the waiting room and whistles for me. I get to my feet and follow him into a long white corridor. He leads the way to a small dark room that looks on to a larger area via a two-way mirror. There’s a chair next to the mirror, positioned close to a loudspeaker. The room beyond is vacant.
‘She will be here presently,’ Tressman says. ‘This is one of her recreational zones, so she will feel at ease. You can stay and watch as long as you wish. She cannot see you. A nurse will be waiting outside when you want to leave.’
‘You aren’t staying?’
‘I am busy. I have papers to –’
‘I’d prefer if you stayed,’ I interrupt. ‘I might have questions.’
‘What about?’
‘Her condition. Her history. Her state of mind.’
He laughs cynically. ‘She has no mind. Her previous doctors were most successful in drugging that out of her.’
I stare at him curiously. ‘You don’t approve of how she’s been treated.’
He shrugs sadly. ‘I have two children in university and a third with special requirements. My predecessor knew of my need for additional income. He introduced me to Mr Gardiner and I snatched the thirty pieces of silver from his hand. I am all too aware of my faults, but I still know right from wrong, and the way that woman has been treated is as wrong as you can get. I would never have sanctioned what was done to her, at any price.’
‘Is there no way you could help her?’ I ask softly.
‘No. The damage was done long before she passed into my care. God himself could not reverse the effects of what they have pumped into her. Her personality has been erased and it can never be restored.’
The door to the room opens and he stops. We watch silently as a young black nurse leads in a wizened old woman. She shuffles forward with short, trembling steps, clutching a couple of dolls to her chest, lips moving wordlessly in rhythm with the twitching of her neck. With a mix of horror, disgust and pity, I watch.
Gardiner’s plan – awful simplicity itself if they could get away with faking the car crash – was to commit Andeanna to a mental asylum and keep her doped up for the rest of her life. They had contacts in the medical profession, doctors who owed them favours or who could be otherwise coerced into following orders.
‘He warmed to the idea once I’d explained it,’ Gardiner said without pride. ‘In a matter of minutes he was on the phone, first to a hospital in Kent, then Darlington, where she ended up. It was expensive, but Mikis didn’t care. Anything was better than having to answer to Arnold Whiteoak for the death of his wife.’
‘You weren’t afraid that he’d find out some other way?’ I asked.
‘No. Nobody else knew about their affair. Andeanna was the only link.’
They had to act quickly. Early the next day, they bundled Christina’s corpse into the trunk of Andeanna’s car, having taken a hammer to her mouth and adorned her with Andeanna’s clothes and personal items. Gardiner drove to the countryside and Menderes followed. They found a quiet stretch of road and pulled in. Together they prepared the body and the car – it wasn’t the first time they’d staged a crash – then Gardiner got in and aimed it down a hill at a group of trees. Once he’d set the corpse on fire, he rode in the flaming car most of the way, taking a dive only when he was within sprinting distance of the trees. Dashing for cover, he hurried through the forest and down to the next stretch of road, where the Turk was waiting. Then it was back to London to collect Andeanna.
‘We’d tied her up before we left,’ Gardiner said, ?
??but I spent the entire journey back thinking she’d somehow clawed her way free and would be waiting for us with a knife. The idea didn’t frighten me — I was already having regrets. Part of me wanted her to recover, longed to die at her hands.’
But she hadn’t escaped. She never would.
Andeanna didn’t react when they bundled her into the back of Christina Whiteoak’s car and covered her with a blanket. Menderes sobbed and vowed to scrap the plan, keep her with him, nurse her back to sanity and beg forgiveness. If the Turk had made a real attempt to stop Gardiner, he wouldn’t have argued, but for all his tears and protests, the grief-stricken husband made no move to detain his partner, who was soon on the road north, leaving his boss to sit by the phone and wait for the police to break the tragic news of his wife’s death.
‘And that was that,’ Gardiner finished gruffly. ‘I switched cars along the way, leaving Christina’s outside a hotel near Birmingham airport, then made sure Andeanna was safely tucked away. I signed the papers, used her mother’s name and paid the first of what would prove to be many instalments. Her doctor – our doctor – knew what was expected of him and promised to take good care of her. I didn’t ask what that entailed. If I live to be a hundred, I never will. There are some things you’re better off not knowing.’
I agreed wholeheartedly with that. There was a lot about Andeanna Menderes, her marriage to the Turk and her life thereafter, that I’d have been happier knowing nothing about. But having come so far and learnt so much, I couldn’t stop now. So I pushed for more and asked which hospital she’d been admitted to. Without even pausing, Bond Gardiner reeled off the address, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Until that tired old woman walked into the room, I’d been entertaining hopes that she might be my Andeanna. She could have recovered her sanity – perhaps under the guidance of a new doctor – and set out to destroy the man who’d cheated her of so many years. I had visions of her looking through the glass, sensing me on the other side, smiling knowingly. ‘Took your time getting here, Ed,’ she might chuckle.