The Forgotten Dead: A dark, twisted, unputdownable thriller

He smiled as he wrapped his shiny woollen scarf one more time around his neck.

‘When you hear from him, tell him hello and that I still have space in late November.’

I gritted my teeth. In his eyes I was merely a nervous wife in need of reassurance, so the boys could be kept out in the field. Phnom Penh? Kiss my ass.

Evans was busy putting his wallet away in his inside pocket, but then he stopped.

‘There’s a stringer in Paris that we sometimes use,’ he said, shuffling through a bunch of business cards. ‘If they decide to set fire to some suburb again, we give her a call.’ He dropped a few cards, and I watched them sail to the floor. Pick them up yourself, I thought.

‘She’s a political journalist.’ He bent down to gather up the scattered business cards. ‘I think I gave Patrick her name too. Damn. I can’t find it, but I’ve got it on my computer.’ He handed me his own card. ‘Send me an email if you want the info.’

‘Sure.’ I didn’t bother with any final courtesies and left the café, walking ahead of him and turning right on 8th Avenue. It was thirty-eight blocks to the theatre in Chelsea, and I walked the whole way. At that moment I needed air more than anything else.

‘There stands an oak on the shore, with golden chains around its trunk.’ The dancer on stage made the words float, her voice as delicate as a spirit or a dream.

The others joined in, repeating the words in a rhythmic chorus as Masha danced her longing. On the stage stood three substantial chairs from Russia’s Czarist period. I’d leased two of them from a private museum in Little Odessa, and then I’d spent weeks searching half the East Coast until I found the third chair in Boston.

I sank silently onto the seat next to Benji in the auditorium, noting that it had been worth all the effort. I watched the bodies in motion around the solid chairs, which were a constant, something on which to rest and yearn to flee. They were also practical obstacles that stood in the way, preventing the dancers from moving freely, forcing detours and pauses in the choreography. Chekhov’s play was about three sisters who spend the entire drama longing for Moscow without ever getting there, as the world around them changes. At first I’d imagined an empty stage, with the starry sky and space overhead, but then I realized that something solid was needed on stage, something that held the sisters there. Why didn’t they just leave? Take the next train?

I touched Benji’s arm to let him know I was back. His real name was Benedict, but I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone.

‘What is it?’ he whispered. ‘Where have you been?’

I shook my head. ‘Not now.’

I hadn’t told even Benji how worried I was. I’d gone about my job as usual, while thoughts of Patrick whirled through my mind.

‘They’re doing Masha now,’ he whispered in my ear.

The light changed from yellow to blue, then switched off before coming on again. The light technician hadn’t yet worked out all the cues.

‘They were supposed to rehearse Irina, but Leia has locked herself in her dressing room. She swears she’s never going to dance in this theatre again. She says there’s evil in the air, and she can’t express her innermost emotions.’

He gave me a sidelong glance and smiled sardonically.

‘And she says it’s all your fault.’

‘Oh my God. What the hell …’

I got up, groaning loud enough to be heard in the whole auditorium. He was talking about that girl I’d called a spoiled diva a few hours ago. Duncan, the choreographer, glared at me from the edge of the stage, motioning with his hand for me to leave. Out. Go fix the situation. OK, OK. I understood the signal.

‘I’ll go talk to her,’ I whispered to Benji. ‘Or do you think that would make her commit suicide?’

The whites of his eyes gleamed blue in the wrongly placed light.

‘I hear she actually tried that once, in all seriousness. It was Duncan who found her. Did you know they used to be an item?’

‘Be right back,’ I whispered.

A small group of people had gathered outside Leia’s dressing room.

‘She won’t come out,’ said Helen, who played the third sister, Olga. ‘She says we should find someone else for the part of Irina. But she knows full well that’s impossible.’

‘Take it easy,’ said Eliza, who was the theatre’s marketing manager. She’d witnessed all sorts of neurotic behaviour. ‘She’ll come out when she starts to wonder if we miss her.’

I knocked on the door.

‘Come on, Leia,’ I called. ‘I shouldn’t have said that to you. This show can’t manage without you. You are Irina. Nobody else can play her the way you do.’

The silence lasted thirteen seconds. I counted. Then the lock clicked. I opened the door and slipped inside the dressing room, shutting the door behind me. The dancer’s face was streaked with make-up. She was still sniffling.

‘I don’t understand what I ever did to you,’ she said. ‘Why are you so mean?’

‘I don’t know what got into me. I guess I’m just stressed out because of the opening night,’ I replied.

‘You don’t care how I feel,’ said Leia. ‘You only think about yourself. Everybody in this fucking business only thinks about themselves.’

‘Everyone’s nervous,’ I said. ‘It’s an important show.’

Leia looked at me from behind her smeared mask. A mask of despair, I thought. Maybe that’s what I should use. Streaked make-up, a person who’s on the verge of falling apart. First the make-up runs, then the whole face gives way, and underneath is an entirely different face. Neither is who she seems to be. There’s yet another face behind the mask, just as real or phony as the outer one.

‘What are you nervous about?’ asked Leia, who had now stopped crying. She cast a glance at herself in the mirror and reached for some cleansing cream. ‘You don’t have to stand on stage in front of an audience that might hate you.’

‘I’m not nervous,’ I tell her.

‘Then why do you keep yelling at me? Why do you call me names if you don’t mean it?’

‘They don’t hate you. They love you.’ I picked up a dress that had been tossed on the floor and brushed it off. What a stupid girl. She couldn’t even take care of her costumes. ‘It just slipped out. I must be tired. That’s all.’

‘Are you having your period or something?’

‘No, I’m not.’ I put a bit too much emphasis on those words, but it was too late to change what I’d said. I saw Leia’s eyes studying me in the mirror. Those sharp blue eyes of hers.

‘So are you pregnant or what?’

The words hovered in the air. I couldn’t think of a thing to say as I stared at the girl in the mirror. A small, insecure girl who barely weighed a hundred pounds. And then I saw a spark appear in her eyes. I’d been silent a second too long.

‘My God, you’re pregnant!’ said Leia triumphantly.

I turned away from her annoying, make-up-smeared face.

‘Do you know who the father is?’

‘Of course I do,’ I said, my voice barely audible even to me. It was a mere exhalation, a toneless whisper.

‘Congratulations,’ said Leia. ‘Poor you.’

‘Nobody else knows about this,’ I said quietly. ‘If you tell anyone, I’ll kill you. No, sorry. I didn’t mean that. But I don’t want anybody to know. It’s way too early. It hardly exists at all.’