“Can you let us in?”
“Happy to.”
They knock on the door of the apartment, out of courtesy, but there is no answer, so Alfonso presses the key code and the door swings open.
They swiftly walk through the rooms. The only thing that initially seems out of place is a typewriter and a pile of paper on the floor outside a bedroom door. They open that door. Clements’s eyes jump from one thing to the next, taking it all in in an instant. The hole in the wall, chains attached to the radiator, debris, empty water bottles, food wrappers, a stinking bucket of crap.
“Call it in, Tanner. We need to take prints, or maybe tests of the waste in the bucket; we need proof she was in here, but I think it’s—”
“A safe assumption.”
“I was going to say a decent lead. There’s no such thing as a safe assumption.” But Clements feels something scorch her belly: adrenaline. This is something. This is big. She has to admit, this is the closest you ever get to a safe assumption.
“No body, though. You think he’s done her in and got rid of her?” Tanner asks.
“I hope not, but we need to find Daan Janssen. Let’s pay him a visit right now.”
Alfonso is holding a handkerchief to his face. He looks pale, shocked. “I’ll take you up. I can let you in there too, if he’s gone.”
46
Fiona
Fiona is trying her best to be as sympathetic as possible. Kylie is her best friend. Well, she was; everything has changed irredeemably. It is very hard to see her beaten and broken body. Clearly, she’s been through a lot. Yet Fiona can’t help but feel just a bit irritated by Kylie’s continued self-justification of her bigamy. She wants to yell, “Own it!” Kylie has been alone for a week, locked up with nothing else to think about, yet she still does not appear sorry; she just wants to keep explaining why she’s done what she’s done. Fiona thinks about Mark’s pain, the boys’ fear, Daan’s anger. Why can’t Kylie see that what she has done is unforgivable, unjustifiable? Fiona bites her tongue and offers to bandage up Kylie’s hand. She straps it close to her chest, which means Kylie has to eat supper one-handed but as it’s the right hand that’s damaged, it doesn’t cause her too much of an issue.
Fiona has prepared a basic pasta dish with a jar of tomato sauce. She expected Kylie to be ravenous, but she is just listlessly picking around the edges of the hearty serving. Kylie is taut, brittle. It’s understandable but hard to negotiate. Fiona wants to feel on solid ground. She wants to be able to recognize her friend and their friendship; however, she isn’t sure she knows Kylie anymore. It’s disconcerting to have a stranger in the kitchen. Has she done the right thing in bringing her here after all?
She nods at the pasta. “Sorry it’s nothing special but obviously I packed in a hurry, I just grabbed some groceries out of my cupboard.”
“It’s great, honestly,” Kylie assures her, but she continues to poke the pasta with her fork, not quite managing to shovel it into her mouth.
This won’t do, thinks Fiona. She needs Kylie to relax. She needs to relax too. “I’ll open a bottle of wine. I think I have a few quite decent ones stashed away.”
Kylie knocks back the wine quickly enough. Once she has sunk a glass she loosens, her limbs lose their contorted hardness. Her eyes become a little glazed and slippery. Obviously, the alcohol has gone straight to her head. Fiona doesn’t know where to start in bringing Kylie up to speed. Should she mention that she dated Daan? That Mark’s first wife did not die of cancer? That Daan was planning on leaving the country? That Oli knew about Daan? That she kissed Mark too?
It seems like a lot to load on her at once.
Instead, she decides it is safest to put the conversational onus on Kylie. Fiona asks, “So tell me, which one would you choose?”
“Really? Now, you’re asking me this?”
Fiona giggles. “Well, I might not get another chance if you go to prison.”
“Very funny.”
“Which one of them are you hoping did this to you, or maybe it’s easier to recognize which one of them are you hoping didn’t?”
Kylie shivers. “I was in Daan’s apartment block. I think it’s pretty clear-cut.”
“Yes, but like I said, maybe Mark set him up.”
“You really think that’s a possibility?”
“Would you want it to be?”
“I just want the truth.”
“That’s a bit of an ask from someone who has lied for so long,” points out Fiona sharply. “Sorry, I don’t want to sound unsympathetic, but seriously, Kylie. Talk to me. Tell me.”
Kylie reddens, looks awkward. No doubt aware of all the thousands of times she could have told Fiona, her best friend, what was going on in her life and didn’t, but instead chose to lock Fiona out. Exclude her. Fiona wants to know how Kylie managed to stamp on her principles and judgment, spit out lies, choke down the truth. But again, that seems a bit much. It’s more palatable to ask, “I mean, you were married to Mark for ten years. He’s your real husband, right?”
Kylie pushes her plate away but picks up her wineglass. “They are both so different. Mark is, you know, at heart cautious. With one man I tried to do more and more and more until I eventually realized no matter what I did, I couldn’t make him happy. I couldn’t square away his pain at his loss of Frances. I’d never replace the dead wife. With two men, I found I gave each slightly less attention and for some reason that worked out well. It shouldn’t have, but it did. Mark seemed relieved that my happiness wasn’t entirely dependent on his and Daan admired my independence; he’d had his fill of needy, clingy, weepy types. Both men got what they wanted.”
Fiona is wide-eyed. “I’m not sure they did.”
“With Daan, I was sexy, elusive, frivolous. I played a role, lived out a fantasy.”
“But just a fantasy?”
“Who is to say our fantasies are any less real than our actuality?”
“Oh, Kylie. For fuck’s sake. That just doesn’t make sense,” Fiona snaps.
“I loved Daan. Okay. I loved them both. I didn’t plan to. If you’d ever met him, you might understand.” That is Fiona’s cue. She could say she has met him, she too has fucked him, but she doesn’t. She gets a strange sense of satisfaction knowing something that Kylie doesn’t for a change, so she stays quiet. Kylie continues. “He had something different, something extra.”
“Tell me about it. Help me understand.” Fiona gets up to refill Kylie’s glass.
“In the early days we met in his apartment; it was serviced, slick, very like a hotel. That alone was, you know, fun. But it was more than fun. The longing, the needing between us was palpable. When I was meeting him, I had to force myself not to run. Sometimes it seemed a wonder that we resisted having sex in the lift as we headed toward the apartment.”
It is black outside now and has started to rain. It seems like they are completely alone in the world. The scene feels familiar. Fiona and Kylie have often shared confidences over the years, swapped stories about flirtations, crushes and seductions, sexual conquests and interludes. But besides that, Kylie’s words feel familiar because Fiona has also felt that urgency—that desire—as she approached Daan’s apartment. Although in her case, it had been one-way. Daan had never asked her to go to a restaurant, let alone to marry him. “So, was he good then? In bed?” She isn’t sure why she is choosing to torture herself this way.