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Derek takes a series of backstreets before pulling onto the Lunalilo Freeway heading south.
“I got your text then my battery died.”
“Thank God.”
“Do you want to go home?”
I shake my head. “He knows where I live. But he doesn’t know where you live, DD.”
We’re caught in traffic and I keep looking over my shoulder, expecting to see Roger bearing down on us, semi-naked behind the wheel. He looked angry enough. I’m hoping he hasn’t unlocked the filing cabinet yet and discovered the real extent of my theft. It won’t be long, but at Derek’s he’s got no chance of finding me.
Then I remember Wanda. That old block of flats has no security. He could pound on her door until she’s forced to call the police. I send her a text suggesting she stays with her man for a day or two. She replies, making me promise to give up the juicy details later.
At University Avenue Derek exits, then loses us in a maze of streets before ascending to the hills behind Honolulu – Makiki Heights and the house he shares with Nigel. For the first time in the last hour I relax.
“You saved my life, DD.”
“Is he the one who’s trying to kill you? Stop me saying I told you so.”
“Not literally.”
“Killing your spirit?”
“Something like that.”
He raises one eyebrow towards the contraband on the back seat. “His photo files?”
I tell him the sordid story of the poster.
“As soon as I saw myself sprawled on the wall it felt like my life was in danger. My nakedness, my vulnerability. The way he wanted to own me. Like being preserved by a mad taxidermist.”
I look at the poster on the back seat. Did I get the negative for that too?
“He’s seriously unhinged, wanting to possess you like that,” Derek says. “Haven’t you sensed that about him before?”
“Only lately. He’s always let me think I’m just another shag-buddy. But he didn’t let me go, even while Sheena was around.”
Derek pulls into the driveway of a white two-storey house. Coastal modern, softened by tropical gardens, with a garage underneath and breathtaking views across Honolulu and the bay. It makes me wonder how a dementia nurse can afford an exclusive neighbourhood like this. Nigel Shaw, another mystery man, like Roger Nightingale.
Together we carry everything inside.
“You might have the photo of the woman,” Derek says, nodding towards the loot.
Was she really there on Roger’s path?
“I think I saw her.”
Derek listens, then shakes his head. “You really need a specialist, Selkie. Someone who understands the spirit world and how it behaves. Especially with dodgy Roger up to his neck in it.” He wipes his hands down his arms. “That’s twice she’s appeared in Nightingale’s orbit. Is she stalking you or him?”
I’ve got Roger’s laptop. And his hard drive. If he’s downloaded my cemetery pics, the woman might be here right now. I turn around, fearing she’s sitting on Derek’s sofa. She isn’t.
Derek retells my story for Nigel as I unfurl the poster. I should be embarrassed but these two are my sisters.
Derek is horrified. “Such a violation.”
Nigel taps the file-case. “What’s in here?”
“His negatives, I hope, including this poster. It’s locked.” Suddenly I’m grinning. “I stole it all, Nigel. From right under Roger’s nose.”
“And I drove the getaway car,” says Derek.
We look at each other and burst out laughing. It diffuses my dread about Roger’s retribution.
“Did you bring back the jemmy?” Nigel asks Derek.
“I could use some matches first,” I say.
They let me do it alone. First I shred the poster, then carry the fragments through to the kitchen where Nigel’s disabled the smoke alarm.
It takes a long time for the pieces to burn. Tiny pieces of me. Fragmented and vulnerable. As match after match ignites and catches, they curl under the flame and fall from my fingers into the sink.
***
Nigel jemmies open the file-case and leaves me sitting with it on the floor of their spare room. It’s red, which suddenly seems significant. Inside I find a series of files, each bulging with negatives and prints. The labels look like nicknames, in alphabetical order. My eyes rest on Miss Lunatic about halfway back and I suppress a rising sick feeling as I take in the rest: Blondie, Bobo, Bonfire, Carol by Candlelight, Flick Me, Gabfest, Jelly Wrestler, My Precious, Phanny, She-Girl, Tor, Zaa Zaa. The man’s been busier than a leech in a nudist camp.
Holding my breath, I open my file.
But it’s empty. The negative isn’t here. I cry out in frustration and fear. Roger must be keeping it somewhere else, and after running off with his files I’ve probably goaded him into some serious payback.
My mouth goes dry as I imagine the photo scanned and circulated on the web for all to see. He’s linked into some of my network so he could do some serious damage. But right now there’s nothing I can do, so I take a deep breath and turn to the others.
Every print shows a woman. Nude. Sexually aroused. With face obscured. Like the poster of me, they all seem to be candids. He stands at the end of the bed like a wraith with a tripod. Blondie’s bush is white and luxuriant, like an unclipped poodle. My Precious has enormous boobs that sag to each side, drawing the eye away from her ample recesses. She-Girl is Sheena and, unlike the others, her face is visible. She looks very young, with almost no figure and shaved pubes. In most shots she’s spreading her legs like a kid in a sandpit.
The name Jelly Wrestler catches my eye. She’s athletic, with tight buttocks and a glistening vulva. Her face is in shadow but I’ve seen those cheekbones before. Gerry. Jelly Wrestler. Roger’s gift for nomenclature leaps off the page. I flip through her file, finding fashion shots amongst the porn. Is he getting sex in exchange for creating her portfolio? The fashion pics would play into his artistic delusions.
Derek knocks before opening the door. “It’s very quiet in here. Just checking you’re OK.”
I sigh. “You can look if you want. They’ve already had their privacy invaded.”
Derek notices what I noticed. “Are they drugged?”
“Only on sex, I think. He has the knack of the photojournalist.”
“And the paparazzo.”
“Yep. Waits till we’re preoccupied, uses ambient light. Click.”
“What’s he doing with all these prints?”
“Besides owning them? Nothing, I hope. If he was posting them on the web he’d be using digital, wouldn’t he?”
“Unless he’s pretending they’re ‘art’. Creates them in his darkroom, then scans them and exploits them like any other porn fiend.”
“My own negative is missing.”
“That’s not good. Something tells me revenge is his real art form.”
When Roger finally calls, we’re in the living room and I put my phone on speaker so the boys can listen in.
“I thought you were different, Miss Lunatic. Special. But you’re just a common thief, hmmm?”
“That’s rich. You’re the one who took that photo without my permission.”
“Permission? You don’t understand even the basic rules of the paparazzi. The subject doesn’t own the photo. As long as it isn’t posing, it’s fair game.”
“The subject? We’re talking about me.”
He isn’t listening. “I photographed you engaged in your normal business, I’m afraid. Not posing but exposing yourself. It’s very simple. The image belongs to me.”
He hangs up. He’s angry but not as angry as he should be, so he hasn’t opened the filing cabinet.
I’m breathing hard when I look at the boys. “It’s perfectly legal because I wasn’t posing?”
Derek shakes his head. “He just talks about rules so he can drop his pants at them.”
***
Fortified with lunch, we turn on Roger’s laptop but it’s password protected.
I didn’t dare ask Nigel to help, but he’s already flipping through the CDs. “If these are back-up storage,” he says, “they’ll be quicker than trying to crack his password. I’ll take the hard drive.”
We use three computers to triple the effort. Derek and I divide the CDs and start scrolling, looking for anything that might be my cemetery pics. Nigel finds he can access the hard drive so he’s got plenty to look at.
“Look for a dog pissing on a headstone,” I say. “That should be pretty distinctive.”
“Or a naked woman standing on a cliff,” says Nigel.
“Unless he’s deleted them,” says Derek. “Not artistic enough.”
“From the look of these files,” I say, “he never deletes anything. He composes so many images from different sources, he keeps everything.”
Nigel again. “That fits with his ownership obsession. He can’t bear to let anything go.”
We find thousands of photos from different cemeteries but his system of labelling is idiosyncratic.
“Drop in on random thumbnails,” Nigel says, “see if you recognise the cemetery. All those blank gravestones. And who knows? Roger might have photographed the woman himself.”
Shit.
It’s the first time I’ve thought of it. Roger was there with his cameras. Did he see the woman? Did he photograph her? A naked figure on a windswept cliff. Life and Death encapsulated in one image. It would explain why he swapped the memory cards and made sure I never got to see my pics. Or his. If I entered the same subject in the competition, even if his photo was better than mine it wouldn’t be unique.
But if Roger photographed her, that means he saw me running to the cliff and nearly going over the edge. It was ages before he rescued me. Did he leave me there while he swapped the memory cards, with me too freaked out to notice? Such treachery would no longer surprise me.
We continue looking for anything human in the endless images of marble and stone.
After a while, Derek says, “My eyes are still working but the link with my brain is severed. I’ve got no idea what I’m looking at.”
“There are five CDs left,” Nigel says. “Let’s just do a spot check in case we hit pay dirt.”
That’s when I find a whole CD of Gerry. Hundreds of fashion shots, many already retouched.
Derek whistles. “This file must be worth thousands. Has she got her own copy, do you think?”
“I doubt it. I think he took them in exchange for sex so he’d have every reason not to hand them over.”
“That would be our Mr Nightingale.”
It’s another half hour before we admit defeat and Derek pours glasses of homemade lemonade.
“He must have a secret stash,” says Nigel. “The photos from that Sunday. Why?”
“Because he photographed the woman,” I say.
This thought is trounced by a text from Roger. He’s finally opened his filing cabinet and his two-word message oozes menace.
You’ll keep.
A wave of malevolence descends like a cloud and envelops me in something dark and airless. In a moment, all optimism is sucked from me and I’m drowning in despair. Images of the cliff, of the woman, of the sea, flash at me. The rhythm puts me into a waking coma where the horror is real but I’m powerless against it. The boys’ features blur. Something heavy presses against my heart. I try to open my mouth but nothing happens. No air. No sound. Then blackness.