(2011) The Gift of Death (3 page)

‘
I’ll do my best, okay. I can’t promise, but if I work around the clock you’ll have it by tomorrow a.m.. Is that quick enough.’

‘
I guess it will have to be,’ he had said, his dark eyes glinting again.

She accompanied him back to the door of the lab. He stopped and turned towards her.

‘
Look - sorry I behaved like an asshole earlier. But can I take you out to dinner to make up?’

Of course, she had wanted to say ‘yes’. Instead, she looked straight through him, keyed in her code on the security pass and opened the door for him.

‘
I don’t think that’s such a great idea. Let’s stick to being professional, shall we Detective Harper?’

And with that he had walked out. Not the most promising of beginnings, thought Kate. Maybe she should have taken her own advice. Then she would never have found herself sitting on the john, waiting for the result that would change her life.

***

She had taken a deep breath as she had picked up the kit. She had closed her eyes for a moment of two. On opening them she had seen the two distinctive pink lines that confirmed that she was pregnant. She should have felt overjoyed. After all, Kate had been trying for a child for two years. But instead she had just felt flat, numb.

What a time for it to happen, she had thought. Just my fucking luck.

How many attempts had there been? First of all naturally – god, those were the days - and then with IVF. They had both been optimistic at first, confident that it would work for them. But as time had dragged on the process seemed to eat away at the foundations of their relationship, undermining it like a plague of termites burrowing beneath a wooden-frame house. From the outside it still looked handsome, healthy, but inside it was decaying. Perhaps she had placed too much pressure on Josh to have a child. Perhaps lovemaking had come to be associated more with mucal temperatures, menstrual cycles and medication than raw passion. Perhaps she had mutated into one of those neurotic women – the type she vowed she would never turn into – that obsess over baby-making to the detriment of everything else.

And yet she still couldn’t forgive him for what he had done. Jules. God, she hated that name.

It made perfect fucking sense now, of course. She had discovered the truth about Josh and Jules less than a month ago, just after their last session with the fertility clinic. The drive back in the car was silent, the air poisonous with unexpressed emotion. At the beach house she had noticed that Josh didn’t want to meet her eye. Finally she could bear it no longer and asked if there was anything wrong. Initially, he had said no, he was just beat, that was all. Working long hours on a case of child pornography and internet paedophilia. That was enough to send even the sanest amongst us into silent mode, she had said to herself. Yet – there was something that wasn’t quite right. She had seen Josh handle difficult, disturbing, outright obscene and sick cases before and he had never been like this. She had got the feeling that he would much rather be some place else. Over supper, on the terrace overlooking the ocean, she had asked him if there was anything else bothering him besides the investigation. He had looked down at his steak and had said that he thought maybe they should give the fertility clinic a break for a while. It had been getting too much for him - all those tests, the pressure, the emotional highs and lows.

‘
And maybe it’s not such a good idea, anyway,’ he had said, as something of a throwaway remark, pouring himself another glass of Rioja. ‘I mean, we’ve both got our careers to think about - your photographs, the exhibition. Maybe there’s a reason why we can’t have kids.’

‘
What?’ she had said, nearly choking.

‘
Just that I think we should have a rethink about a few things.’

‘
Josh, it’s a bit late to start saying that now.’ She hated the sound of desperation in her voice.

‘
I know, but –‘

‘
But what, Josh? I thought we were both into this. Don’t you want a child now? Is that it?’

‘
Yeah, sure, but maybe we should wait a couple of years.’

‘
I’m thirty nine, Josh. I know you say I don’t look like it, but there’s no way I can wait. I need to do this now, you know that.’

‘
That’s the problem, though, isn’t it,’ he had said, his voice taking on an edge of bitterness. ‘It’s always what you want, what
you
need.’

‘
Excuse me?’ She had never seen him like this before, his eyes hard and ugly, his voice harsh and accusing. ‘What is it, Josh. I know there’s something else.’ Was he actually squirming in his seat? ‘Or someone else.’

There had been a long, horrible, ugly pause. Please god, no.

‘
Josh?’

‘
It’s been hard, Kate, you know that.’

‘
Oh, no, please, no.’

The food in her mouth suddenly tasted rotten.

‘
It doesn’t mean anything. Nothing. Just a fling. Sex, that’s all.’

‘
Is that not enough?’

‘
Come on.’

‘
Who is she? What’s she called?’

He hesitated.

‘
Jules. She’s called Jules.’

‘
And what does she do?’

‘
Why do you need to know? You don’t need to know.’

‘
I asked what does she do?’

‘
She’s a chef.’

‘
Where?’

He didn’t say anything.

‘
Where?’

‘
At the Amalfi, downtown.’

‘
I see – just round the corner from your office.’

‘
I guess, but –‘

‘
Can you please go now.’

‘
Kate, let’s talk this through. Come on –‘

She had looked at him with cold, bare hatred. ‘Just go. Please.’

He had touched her on the shoulder – a caress that made her shrink into herself - and then he had let himself out.

God, that had seemed so long ago. Yet it was only a month. She started to go over it all again in her mind – were there signs she should have seen, hints she should have taken notice of, things she should have done differently? – but then the doorbell rang. The emergency services had arrived. She knew Josh would be amongst the throng. She quickly pulled on some dry clothes and ran to the door, realising the terrible ironies of the situation.

She had been left by the father of her child on the same day it had been conceived. And today – the day she had discovered she was pregnant - she had found a dead baby floating in the water outside her house.

As she opened the door she felt an overwhelming sense of terror, as if a murderer was stepping into her home. The skin on the back of her neck prickled.

‘
Come in,’ she said. ‘The body is on the beach. This way.’

3

He sat in his car, watching for signs of life. Or what passed for life these days. Los Angeles seemed to attract scum like a decomposing corpse bred maggots.

City of angels? City of sinners, more like.

A metropolis of immorality, where baseness, lust, passion, violence and crime ruled. America had embraced the spirit of self-expression, of self-esteem. Which was all well and good, he said to himself, until it had mutated into the cult of self-interest. People seemed to think they could say and do whatever they liked these days, without due regard for others. Young girls wore slutty dresses and talked like porn stars. Gays congregated in warehouses and rutted like animals. And those folk in the film business all seemed to be high on one drug or another. If LA was supposed to be the ultimate expression of America then what hope was there?

He sighed to himself and took another swig of mineral water. At least that was pure. He was as clean inside as he was out, without spot or stain or sin. He was careful not to ingest anything full of nasty chemicals or toxins. He didn’t touch coffee, alcohol, junk food, sugary drinks, anything processed. He liked nature and natural things. Farmer’s markets. Organic fruits and vegetables. Pulses and grains. Nettle tea. Good wholesome cuts of meat. He didn’t trust fish, as you never knew what got spilt into the ocean. His stomach turned as he thought of the kind of filth that floated in the sea. The scum on the waves just reflected the scum on land. Dirt-bags like Raymond Cutler, the lowest of human pond life.

To the outside world he looked kind of normal. A clean-cut guy, well-built, mid-forties. Divorced. With a couple of kids who lived with their mom. A hard-working executive with a steady job in one of the banks in Century City and a home in Westchester West. But what nobody knew – except a few of his sick buddies - was that Raymond liked little girls. Late at night, home alone, Raymond loved nothing better than to search the internet for images of cutesy-looking girls in various explicit poses. Bending over, showing their assholes. Opening their legs to reveal their vaginas. On all fours being penetrated by one man orally and another from behind. They were some of the less disgusting ones. He didn’t like to think of some of the other photographs that Raymond downloaded. Those pictures of tiny children, babies even.

He swigged some more mineral water, trying not to let those images dirty his brain. He had to remain clean, above it all. He closed his eyes for a moment and took some deep breaths. Meditation was good for clearing one’s mind, protecting oneself from the polluting effect of those around you. After a few minutes he felt he had centred himself, ready for the job in hand, a task that had to be done.

At four a.m. – the time the two men had agreed – a light came on in one of the rooms inside Raymond’s house. It was the sign he had been waiting for. He got out of the car, took a black satchel out of the trunk and put on a pair of gloves. He walked down the driveway, past the neatly clipped lawn and up to Raymond’s front porch. He didn’t need to knock or ring, as Raymond was already standing there, the door open for him.

The house was neat, functional, bare of personal possessions. The typical rented home of a newly-divorced dad.

‘
Have you got it?’ asked Raymond, almost whispering, as he closed the door.

‘
Sure, and it’s something you’re gonna really enjoy,’ he said.

‘
Yeah?’ said Raymond, licking his lips. ‘This way.’

Raymond led him down a corridor, past a bathroom, to a small study at the back of the house. In the far corner was a desk, on which stood a PC. He noticed that the screen saver was a picture of two kids – a boy and a girl, Raymond’s kids. Could Raymond not see what was staring him in the face? The sickness of it all? How could he look at the picture of his children one minute and the next, at the click of a mouse, stare at the obscene images of somebody else’s kids. He felt the anger rising inside him, but he had to control it, hold it in check just for a few more minutes.

‘
Here you are,’ he said, handing Raymond a DVD. ‘Your little piece of paradise.’

‘
I’ll get you something in return next couple of weeks, promise,’ said Raymond, beads of sweat breaking out over his forehead.

‘
I’ll just hang around to make sure it works,’ he said. ‘I’ve had a couple of instances where there have been some glitches. Pixelation. Freezing. Don’t know why.’

‘
Yeah, sure,’ said Raymond, placing the DVD into the computer.

The machine made a whirring noise, a sound that Raymond had come to associate with the delights of anticipation. He hoped the disc worked okay. He couldn’t wait until he was left alone. The thought of it left his mouth dry. A five-year-old girl with five different men.

‘
Can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to it,’ said Raymond, as he watched the screen come to life. ‘And great that us guys can stick together. Online you never know who’s out there snooping. Cops, feds, whatever.’

‘
Yeah, that’s right,’ he said. ‘Best if we keep this amongst ourselves. A select few.’

‘
Is this okay? Is there a problem?’ said Raymond, leaning over the desk to look at the computer. ‘It seems like the disc is stuck or something.’

‘
Try pressing control, return and shift all at the same time. That should fix it.’