The Girl in the Water

He spoke in cold, formal phrases. He was a medical professional, of course, and of many years’ standing. But he was also an officer of the state, and she was not here under circumstances any would consider friendly.

Her expression didn’t change. Her eyes remained motionless. From my position in the shadows at the side of the room, I felt unnerved by her solidity.

‘We both know what’s brought you here,’ my superior added. Dr Marcello was an old hand at this, and I’d heard him make similar beginnings before. I craned my neck, trying to observe some emotion on the woman’s face.

‘Do you realize why you’re in this room, at this moment?’

A common formula of approach. Begin with a querying of the context; find out how much the person in front of you is willing to admit of their position, and proceed from there. With an assistant at the side, from the pharmaceutical wing, taking notes in silence in order to help with the medicinal diagnoses.

Thus far, Dr Marcello was keeping things by the book.

The woman said nothing. She was alone in the room, for all her expression would have suggested. She just stared through the walls into a space I couldn’t see.

‘You’re not here because you asked to be,’ Dr Marcello added, stating the obvious. No one came into that room by choice. Still, the comment might jog her.

Her eyes had begun to drift upwards, as if something on the ceiling was attracting her attention. My superior almost spoke again, but then a sound – nearly imperceptible – emerged from the woman’s lips.

‘Not … by … choice.’

It was the first time I heard her speak.

She was mimicking Dr Marcello’s speech, or so I thought, but still – her voice. Almost. She whispered the words, as if holding back a more personal moment.

I leaned forward in my chair, frustrated by the odd angle that kept me from gazing at her face-on. I tried to make out everything I could. She had short black hair, cropped and fine. Visible softness in her cheeks. Rose gloss on her lips that glistened in the fluorescent light as she whispered.

She was beautiful. It might have been wrong for me to think that way. Inappropriate to institutional objectivity. Too subjective and personal. But she was, and I noticed. Even from an angle, even out of reach. She was beautiful.

Dr Marcello remained impassive.

‘Call you tell me your name?’ he asked, hoping to elicit more words from her with a question that hardly required analysis.

The woman’s eyes fell back from the ceiling, straight into his. And then, to my shock, she swivelled her head and stared straight into mine.

Our first gaze. The moment my life changed.

‘My name,’ she said softly, ‘is Emma Fairfax.’

6 (#ulink_edae20b4-1d45-5214-9211-70deb9cf0663)

Amber (#ulink_edae20b4-1d45-5214-9211-70deb9cf0663)

Somehow, the day has disappeared. I’m not sure how it’s happened. I’ve been in the bookshop since it began, going about my usual routine, and it doesn’t seem it’s lasted that long. Not long enough for end-of-the-workday noises to be emerging from the street outside, or for quick drinks at Trader Tom’s around the corner to be the subject of conversations by colleagues, not quite out of earshot, as the metal blinds are lowered inside the windows. Yet I hear them, just like that, and the clock on my monitor agrees with the voices.

Time, I suppose, gets away from us all, now and then. Einstein may have theorized that time changes relative to speed, but I’m pretty certain it also changes relative to concentration. Focus on something hard enough – as I’d apparently been doing with the news on my screen and the other work of the day – and the clocks slow down. Then you blink a few times, smear away the haze of all that intensity from your eyes, and you find you’re back in the present, situated awkwardly in the skin of the person you’d forgot you’d been a few moments before.

So I refuse to be too surprised by the noises around me, now, of a workday at its end. Nor am I overly disappointed. I love this little den of respite, yes, but I’m not a lonely woman, wedded only to my work to give my day its meaning. I have my corner of the shop, my papers, my computer, my employment that feels half like a retreat. But I also have home.

I have David.

I’m out the door by 5.07 p.m.

Mitch walks behind me. With all that mass, it’s rare he walks in front.

‘You going straight home, or you up for a drink?’

His questions are always pure, though he says them with the kind of raunchily exaggerated tone of voice that suggests we might follow up that drink with a steamy escapade, entwined in each other’s naked skin in a hotel that charges by the hour. But it’s all smoke and sarcasm with Mitch. In reality, he is devoted to Susan, the most doting wife in the world, and he knows I’m well and truly hitched and not looking to break that bond. He’s just a kind man, and one who’s fairly certain alcohol won’t be on the menu when he gets home. Nor, for that matter, any particular act that could be described as an ‘escapade’.

‘Not today, Mitch.’ I smile, pausing to allow him to catch up and lowering a hand onto his wide shoulder. There’s the uncomfortable sensation of moisture rising through the fabric of his shirt. I force myself not to lift my hand away. ‘Thanks for the offer, though.’

‘You sure? Wouldn’t take more than an—’

I switch my grip to a pat. The motion accentuates my headache, which has grown worse throughout the foggy day. ‘I’m sure.’ A bigger smile. ‘Stuff on the mind. But go have one yourself. Susan’s not bound to have a glass of Jack on the counter, is she?’

He heaves a resigned but happy sigh, muttering something indiscernible about pigs and flight, then chortles. ‘Till tomorrow, Amber.’ And he turns, and I blink, and he’s already halfway to his car.

The drive home is, as always, twice as long as the commute in. The roads are packed, the commuter congestion I’d avoided in the morning now at its predictable height. To emphasize the plight, the woman’s voice on the National Public Radio affiliate for the Bay Area suggests there’s no hope for improvement ahead. I settle passively into the time set out before me.

I have a water bottle in the cup holder at my left, its flimsy plastic only slightly sturdier than the interior of the car itself. The myth that water eases headaches is a lie, but it does make popping the ibuprofen easier. Another two are down before I’m fifteen minutes into the drive, leaving their lingering, slightly sweet taste on the back buds of my tongue. It’s too familiar. Advil’s parent company should offer me some sort of loyalty card.

The details of what I’d read during the day peck at my attention as I play tap-dance between the accelerator and the brake.

My spine tingles again with the memory of the headline that had captured my attention. An ice cube projects itself up my back.

This woman in the river.

It had been on the computer, not in print, which meant it was fresh. Probably only became known after the papers had gone to press for the day. I’d looked through them again, just to be sure, but found nothing there.

I’d gone back to the Internet, oddly enthralled, and chased up what few details were available. Age, 40. The woman who’d been found was just a year my elder. Her body had been discovered at approximately 9.45 p.m. by an advocate of late-evening walks who reported his find to the local authorities. It was situated on the Russian River – the 110-mile-long gentle beast that stretches out from near Lake Mendocino, twisting and turning south and west until it joins the Pacific Ocean in Jenner, two hours north of San Francisco. I know the river as well as anyone does who lives in the area, more by simple proximity than first-hand experience. I’ve driven along stretches of its length that run near the highways, that’s about all I can say. At places it appears mighty, at others barely more than a stream.

As I drive, now, I recall the process of searching for these facts on various police websites. It had taken over an hour. Maybe several. The day, as I say, had kind of slipped away from me.

The details, though, continue to cycle through my mind.

A hiker coming upon the body, still floating in a gentle bend in the water.

It wasn’t an overly bloody find, or particularly terrifying or grotesque. This wasn’t a dismemberment or chainsaw attack. What was disturbing was, in fact, the simplicity of the whole situation. The fact that it was almost … scenic. The river water, flowing. The mention of someone out for a casual stroll. ‘Rambling’, as the English would say, which seems appropriate as I drive towards a Californian town called Windsor.

A foolish song I knew as a child tussles at my memory, its tune playful and ridiculously out of concert with the topic of my thoughts.

Rambler, brambler, with rushes at my knees,

Walking, talking, to bushes and to bees …

I shake my head in protest. It seems inappropriate that my mind should wander to such things at this moment. I try to push the tune out of my thoughts.

Beyond the victim’s age, none of her private details – name, residence, so on – have been released to the media, except to indicate that she was a Caucasian female and apparently in good physical condition.

I fidget. But it’s not a fidget, it’s a squirm. I’m uncomfortable. The air in my car is too hot, I realize all at once. I switch on the A/C and turn the knob as far as it will go towards the little snowflake symbol. It lights up with a reassuringly blue glow – blue having at some stage become a colour we all associate with being refreshed and cool. For a moment, this meaningless fact distracts me.