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Lexi drove to Hamilton Gardens and parked opposite a bus. Enthusiastic tourists disembarked, clicking expensive cameras which dangled from cords around their necks. They photographed everything in their path. The green grass, a lost duckling, the driver.
She’d picked up her motorbike tail outside the office. Lexi didn’t bother brake checking him this time as he’d rode her bumper. They’d switched places at the roundabout on Cobham Drive when he took the inside lane. She’d felt half-disappointed when he headed west. Her argument with Tarant left her spoiling for a fight. On an impulse, she’d made a late indication and received several angry honks for her trouble. She’d driven through the entrance to the gardens, not sure why she wished to go there.
A scorching sun baked the grass to a crisp. It crunched beneath her boots. Lexi strolled up the hill and stared at the picturesque lake beyond it. Children’s laughter made her smile. Their antics reminded her of happier times with Garima. Three boys chased each other in ever decreasing circles for no apparent reason. Her paternal grandparents always brought them to the gardens during outings. They’d run off their excess energy and paddled in the pool in the American garden. The Warholesque image of Marilyn Monroe had smiled down on them as they splashed and squealed. A lifetime ago. When endless summers baked their skin brown and rendered their childish worries insignificant.
Those grandparents had died long ago. They’d known the truth. Still, they’d treated her and Garima as their own blood, regardless. She kicked a ball of grass clippings ahead of her and sent them silent, belated thanks.
As though set on a course of torture, she headed to the American garden. Children on bicycles created a bottleneck at the entrance. A garden official argued with their parents about their erratic peddling, but the children sped on. Lexi arrived at her chosen destination with sweat trickling down her spine. The smallest child had bashed her ankles twice without apology. She stood beside the paddling pool and surveyed the disaster.
The summer holidays had turned the tranquil garden into a riot of yells and splashing. Badly behaved children filled every corner. Lexi turned away and ran into a broad chest. Winded, she took a step back to catch her breath.
“Hello.” He smiled down at her from his massive height. A wide mouth lined by wrinkles masked his expressionless eyes.
Lexi dropped her chin and took a sideways step to move past him, but he extended his inhuman arm span and blocked the exit.
“S’cuse me, s’cuse me!” The mother of the cycling vandals stood behind him. She bounced on her toes to see past his bulk. “Let me through!” she demanded. “My kids went in there.”
“What do you want?” Lexi growled. She dodged his massive bulk, but he angled his body and blocked her. Despite the heat, he wore a suit big enough to double as a marquee. A queue built up behind him.
“He wants to see you.” His words held foreboding. Lexi’s heart rate increased. She didn’t need an audience with a megalomaniac. Not today.
“Not interested.” She squeezed under a narrow gap left by his outstretched arms. The frantic mother squeaked as Lexi barrelled her aside. The box headed giant made a grab for her but he moved like the Titanic. Lexi had cleared two other gardens before he’d turned his heavy feet.
She swore all the way to the car park. Tourists parted like drifts at the point of a snow plough. The craziness lasted as far as her vehicle. The chunky grips of her boots slewed to a stop in the loose gravel. Box head’s twin stood beside her driver’s door. With a matching shaved head and cauliflower ears, he sported a lighter version of the same double-breasted suit.
Lexi smoothed sweat from her brow with her right wrist. Her cargo pants contained another version of the night stick. She imagined slashing it across his expressionless face, and her shoulders slumped. He’d snapped the last one into three pieces like a match stick and handed it back to her. Lexi exhaled.
Nothing worked with this pair. Not violence or insults. She’d tried both. They wouldn’t kill her, but they might accidentally squish her with a flailing pudgy finger. Obedience seemed her best course of action. So she waited in the baking sunshine, not speaking and avoiding the giant’s placid gaze.
A shiver ran through the giant’s frame as his twin approached. He unfolded his arms and stood to attention. Once together, their subtle differences appeared more obvious. The man by Lexi’s car had a scar on his right lip. Doug, then. Len had followed her into the American garden.
“Key.” Len slid his massive hand beneath her chin.
“No!” Lexi backed away. A carabiner fixed her key fob on her bra strap. He wouldn’t take it by force. Indignation seized her. “You broke the suspension last time you drove!” She glanced sideways at her forest green SUV. Even the all-terrain vehicle hadn’t coped with a three hundred kilogram man in the driver’s seat. She dodged sideways. Len’s open hand collided with her shoulder and left the beginnings of a bruise. “I’ll go in your truck,” she grumbled.
Lexi climbed into the back seat. The bearings and suspension of the Ford Ranger groaned as the brothers took their places in the front. Lexi pitied their mother. Pushing out one of them probably broke her. Contractions for the second must have made her scream for a caesarian. Or perhaps she died from her injuries. Lexi had never met the poor woman. Musing about her didn’t help, although it occupied her mind as the Ranger pushed through the traffic into the centre of Hamilton Central.
People stared as the giants flanked Lexi through the narrow passageway. The bottleneck forced them to pass one at a time and for a moment, she saw only Len’s wall of a back. They towered over her by at least two full heads. She could have fitted three of herself into Doug’s trousers. The thought made her cringe.
The bell over the door tinkled as Len pushed it open. A musty paper scent hit Lexi full in the face as she stepped over the threshold. She’d once adored the bookshop smell until her father ruined it for her. The pages of every book told a sensory story. Urine, bathwater, food, and age percolated their yellowing leaves. It deterred Lexi from touching their contaminated dust covers.
He rose from his armchair in the furthest corner. He clutched an expensive first edition of some lost bard in his left hand. His right carried an oven bag, and he set the book inside it with exaggerated care. The action seemed incongruous, to anyone not knowing that oven bags had preservative properties.
“Lexicon.” He spoke her full name with his booming bass. The towering shelves surrounding them muted its full effect.
She ground her teeth and set her boots parallel on the tiled floor. “Lexi,” she growled. “You gave me a stupid name. I don’t have to use it.”
As tall as his henchmen but nowhere as solid, Lachlan Mortimer filled a slither of Lexi’s view. He studied her through blue eyes containing all the emotions of an iceberg. Wide lips flattened as he sucked in his cheeks, unable to hide his irritation.
Lexi held her breath as claustrophobia built up steam in her stomach. With the twins behind her and Lachlan in front, she felt trapped by the wall of bodies. She fought the urge to scream, to kick and fight until she’d broken free. But her father ended the stand-off first. “Tea,” he said in his clipped British accent. He didn’t ask if she wanted any, just assumed she’d drink what he poured.
Lachlan turned and led the way towards his scruffy office at the rear of the bookshop. The cash register chimed as his assistant rang up another sale. She glanced up at Lexi with a wrinkled smile as she passed. Still working in her eighties, the woman loved her job. And she adored Lachlan, though Lexi couldn’t imagine why. They rarely exchanged two words a day with each other.
The twins didn’t follow. They melted away, and only the tinkle of the bell heralded their exit. Gone to do another round of Lachlan’s bidding in some dark corner of the town, no doubt.
A teapot and two China cups occupied an ornate tea tray. Lexi frowned at the delicate filigree patterning of the matching saucers. Sarcasm rose into her mouth before she could stop it from becoming airborne. “Anyone would think you expected guests,” she snarled. Too pent up to sit, she wandered around the office with her hands clasped behind her back. It prevented her from smashing Lachlan’s head to smithereens with the night stick. She imagined each timed stroke and the devastation it would wreak on his scalp, his skull, his sanctimonious face. He’d abandoned her and Garima. Given them ridiculous names and then fled back to England. Business class. She hated him with every fibre of her being. And now she’d allowed him to trap her in his rats’ nest.
Tea tinkled into the China cups behind her. She turned to see Lachlan wielding a strainer with the care of a mother. He did everything with consummate perfection. Except for marriage and parenting.
“Pinky and Perky broke my SUV last time you called for me.” She loaded the accusation at her father, gratified by his frown of concern. “They knackered the suspension.”
“Send me the invoice.” His expressionless tone ended any discussion. Lexi oscillated between deciding she would forward it to him and stamping on the idea. Owing Lachlan Mortimer always invited a loaded trade.
He finished pouring the tea and dropped two sugar cubes into his own cup. His knees creaked as he sank into the ancient armchair. The stuffing showed through the arms, the paisley fabric threadbare.
“What do you want?” Lexi sighed as she matched his actions. She perched on the edge of her chair and reached for the tea. A gentle earl grey scent filled her nostrils as she sniffed the greyish brew.
“Just a chat with my daughter.” Lachlan smiled, the expression genuine. His sharp features melted into a passable handsomeness. Soft white waves crested his basketball of a head and he leaned back in his chair. One leg crossed over the other, his right knee balanced over his left. Shiny shoes handmade in Italy winked beneath the sickly yellow glow of the overhead bulb. Topped by scruffy, worn jeans, they mitigated for a man who cared little for appearances and everything for personal comfort.
Lexi sipped her tea and waited. The silence stretched beyond her breaking point. She sensed Lachlan studying her over the rim of his cup and squirmed beneath his scrutiny. The chink of his teacup hitting its saucer made her jump. Tea slopped over the sides of her cup and pooled beneath it.
“Garima visited you this morning.” Fact and not a question.
Lexi relaxed. Perhaps Doug or Len had followed her brother’s beaten up car to her house and waited outside. She frowned, knowing she’d missed something important despite her shiny new qualification. “So?” She kept her tone light. “He often visits.”
Lachlan made a sound low in his throat. It resembled a growl. He dipped forward in his chair and the seat padding creaked. “But what did he tell you?” he demanded.
