The Mysteries (19 page)

16. Peri

I shook my head in answer to Laura's question.

“I'm not sure,” I hedged. “There are some things about Peri's disappearance that remind me of—this other case, but it could be coincidence, or someone deliberately trying to mislead.”

“Who?”

“Whoever's behind it. Mider, whoever he is. Or this friend of yours, Polly—I can't work out why she sent you to me.”

“I could ask her, if you want. But it's obvious: She knows somebody you worked for, and that person raved about you to Polly, so when I wanted a detective, naturally she thought of you.”

That sounded reasonable, but it wasn't. Until now, I'd never had another case remotely like my first, and I couldn't think of anyone, besides myself, who would think there were similarities between Peri's disappearance and Amy's. Who was it who'd thought I had “unique qualifications”—and what were they?

I stared thoughtfully at what was left of the pizza.

“Go ahead,” she said.

“Oh, no, that's yours. I've already eaten my half.”

She reached over to the box and pried away another slice, which she added to her plate. “That's all I'll want. You have the rest.”

I didn't need to be told twice. “Why don't you tell me a little more about Polly Fruell.”

She looked doubtful, so I said, “I've never had a fan before. This is very exciting for me.”

She laughed. “Boy, you've really got that self-deprecating British thing, don't you. I thought you had to be raised over here to get like that. Are you telling me you don't have satisfied customers?
That's
not good.”

“Of course I have satisfied customers.” But I thought of poor Janis Lettes, Linzi Slater's mother, as I spoke, and my protest lacked conviction.

Laura rolled her eyes. “So what can I tell you about Polly?”

“You could start with how you came to know her.”

“Well, if you really want to hear about it . . .”

Laura Lensky and Polly Fruell met when they were both students at the University of Texas in Austin in the early 1970s. They had a couple of classes together, but ran with different crowds, and might never have been more than passing acquaintances if they hadn't met again in Dallas.

Laura had moved to Dallas to be with her boyfriend, shortly after graduation. Polly came a few years later, fleeing an abusive husband. Laura had discovered her working at Kinko's, a couple of blocks from her office, and they met for lunch. Over taco salads, friendship swiftly blossomed. At first Laura, happy in her relationship and her work, within a comfortable social circle, had been the strong one, the giver: She invited Polly to parties, introduced her to people, helped her move to a better neighborhood. But when Laura's relationship began to break down, their positions shifted. Most of Laura's other friends were in couples, and nearly all of them had known her boyfriend first. The one person she could really talk to and expect wholehearted sympathy from was Polly. They'd wound up sharing an apartment, and when Laura was pregnant, Polly had been her sole, staunch support.

“What about your boyfriend?” I asked.

“That had been over for months. He was living with someone else.”

“Did he know you were pregnant?”

“He would have known it wasn't his.”

Her dry tone forbade me to pry.

“Everybody thought I was crazy to be having a baby on my own. Like I'd planned it! Even my parents, who are rabidly antiabortion, practically disowned me. You'd have thought from them that I'd done it just to make them look bad and hurt my good married sister, who'd been trying for years to get pregnant.”

Polly didn't question Laura's morality or her sanity, did nothing to erode her shaky confidence, and was at all times supportive and kind. Besides emotional support, she gave practical help. After Peri's birth she'd been better than family, positively heroic. When Laura had to go back to work, far too soon (maternity leave, even unpaid, was practically unknown in Texas at that time), Polly had switched to the night shift at Kinko's so she could babysit while Laura was at work. For the first few months of her life, Peri had the loving attention of two mothers.

But this seemingly idyllic state had not lasted long. Laura's voice faltered slightly when she described how one night while Polly was out at work, she'd hastily packed everything she could fit into her Volkswagen Rabbit, strapped the baby into her car seat, and fled off down the highway.

“I was crazy,” she said. “Actually crazy. Suffering from postnatal paranoia, although I didn't know it at the time. I was so strung out from lack of sleep that I'd started hallucinating. I thought everyone was conspiring against me; I had nightmares about Peri being stolen from me, and because I
wasn't
coping so well, it seemed a real possibility that I would lose my baby, either through carelessness or because someone from social services would step in and decide I wasn't qualified to keep her.” She paused to take a drink of wine.

“And it
wasn't
just inside my head. My mother started calling. At first I was grateful, thinking she wanted to make up, but then I realized she wanted me to give my baby to my sister. She said it was the only sensible thing to do: I was single, I had to work, I could barely support myself, let alone a baby, whereas my sister was married, her husband made enough money for her to stay home and be a full-time mom, and they were good, churchgoing Christians who'd raise her right.”

Finishing the last of the pizza, I shook my head in wonder. “Whew. I can see why you'd want to run away from
them.
”

“But not Polly. She was the best friend I'd ever had, then I turned against her. See, she was alone with my baby all day while I was out at work. Polly took her out for walks, and in the car to run errands, all that stuff. For all I knew, she might be telling people Peri was hers and they'd believe her. Why would Polly do what she was doing, for no pay, if not for love? And what if she decided she didn't want to share anymore? If she ran away with my baby, I'd never get her back. As soon as I'd thought of it, I was sure it would happen. And that the only thing I could do was run away with Peri myself, before Polly could.”

Laura had driven down to Houston, where she'd had a vital bit of luck, getting a job with a company that offered subsidized day care on the premises. Peri's sleeping patterns changed, and as she began to sleep through the night, Laura's psychological symptoms eased.

By the time Peri was two years old, Laura had her new life on firm foundations and, after another year, felt secure enough to revisit her past. She repaired the broken relationship with her family—it was made easier by the fact that her older sister was by then pregnant—and tried to get in touch with Polly.

But Polly was no longer at the old address in Dallas, or working at Kinko's, and Laura couldn't track down anyone who knew what had become of her. She didn't spend very long trying.

“I knew she had a sister called Rebecca who lived somewhere around Jacksboro, and maybe I could have found her, but . . .” She shrugged uncomfortably. “I guess I still felt guilty, and it was easier just to let it go.”

“Until she found you?”

“Yes. That was a
long
time later—nearly eighteen years.”

“After Peri had vanished, or before?”

“The same week.”

A chill ran through me. “You didn't think that was strange?”

“It was a coincidence,” she said, her jaw set stubbornly. “A good one. I was so grateful—without her, I don't think I would have survived.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” I waved my hands. “Go back.
How
did Polly get in touch with you—phone? E-mail? And when exactly?”

“A couple of days after Peri disappeared. Christmas Eve, she turned up on my doorstep.”

“And you just accepted that? It didn't occur to you that the two things might be connected?” I reached for my glass, but it was empty. I poured the rest of the bottle into it, baffled by Laura's puzzled frown. Was it really possible she had never suspected her old “friend” could be involved?

“How could they be connected?”

“Well, let's see. Once upon a time you imagined that Polly wanted to steal your daughter, so you ran away from her. Eighteen years later your daughter disappears, and, surprise, Polly turns out to be close by. She turns up on your doorstep. How'd she manage to find you, did she say?”

“She ran into somebody I knew in Houston, and when she mentioned she was going to London for Christmas, this person gave her my address.” Laura glared at me. “Polly is not a suspect! She's been a wonderful friend. Really, she saved my life, twice.”

“You didn't always think so.”

“I told you I was crazy then. Paranoid.”

“Even paranoids have enemies.”

“Oh, honestly!” Laura pushed her plate away although most of her second slice was still untouched, and sighed. “Look, there's a huge difference between stealing a baby and deciding to kidnap a grown woman! How could she do it? And why would she even want to try? Revenge? It's like the plot of a bad movie.”

“I don't know. And I'm not saying Polly kidnapped Peri. Just that I'd be surprised if she wasn't involved in some way.”

“How?”

“That I don't know. But she knows something. We need to find her.”

Laura shook her head unhappily. I could see that my suspicions had affected her, despite her determination that her old friend was a candidate for sainthood. “I guess you ought to talk to her yourself.”

“Where's she living now?”

“Northwest Texas. She and her sister have a ranch out near Jacksboro. I can give you her e-mail address.”

“I might have to go out there,” I warned. Lying is too easy by e-mail, and you can't learn enough through a phone call. When you're suspicious, a face-to-face interview is the only way to go. “I know it might seem like a big expense, but . . .”

“If you think it's necessary. But I just can't believe Polly had anything to do with it. She stayed with me for nearly a month after Peri disappeared. If she had something to hide, wouldn't she have talked me out of hiring a private eye? Why would she send me to you?”

I grimaced at my empty plate. “The
unflattering
reason could be she thinks I'm useless.”

Laura got up. “You're wrong about Polly, that's all. Come on, let's clear this stuff away and watch the movie.”

Washing up didn't take long, and we were soon settled on the couch in front of the TV.

The opening image was the one I'd already seen: the young woman gazing at something off-screen, a faint half smile on her face. She was luminously, timelessly beautiful—this time, I thought of one of Botticelli's goddesses.

On the sound track, the plaintive sound of a single flute. As if she'd heard, the girl slowly turned her head to look directly, wide-eyed, into the camera—and again, even though I'd been expecting it, I felt the same sense that she was looking at
me,
personally, and I couldn't help a fearful, delighted shudder.

The image froze there, and the title came up over her softly smiling face.

THE FLOWER-FACED GIRL
A FILM
BY
HUGH BELL-RIVERS

The scene changed to a party: loud music, young people talking, laughing, and thrashing about in a crowded room. The camera work was jerky and frantic in that contemporary way I dislike, drawing attention to itself, all odd angles and weird perspectives, the zoom function seemingly completely out of control. No particular shot mattered more than any other, the focus was all over the place, and yet—drifting through the chaos, appearing in practically every scene although visible only briefly, was a beautiful blond girl, all the more compelling for being so unknowable.

“That's not Peri?”

“No. A young actress called Alyx Meterie. Hugh picked her because she looked so much like Peri.”

Gradually a sense of story emerged. Alyx was playing a London schoolgirl dabbling in drugs. She became addicted and left her mother's house to move in with her pusher (an improbably sleek, handsome, sinister-looking young man). Intercut with this bleak, modern tale was the myth of Demeter and Persephone. These sections were in black and white, with the same grainy, old-fashioned quality as the opening sequence, and I thought that Peri was playing the part of Persephone until Laura pointed out the way the camera moved from a close-up of Peri's face—the same close-up, mostly—to a longer shot of the actress who was her near double. Hugh had filmed Peri at the start of their courtship in the summer; later, I learned that almost all of that filming had been done in the very same communal garden I'd found so attractive on my walk through West Hampstead. It backed onto the house where Hugh's mother, and also at that time Hugh, lived. It didn't add up to a lot of film, and there was no narrative, just scenes of Peri looking pensive, or smiling, or picking flowers, or, in the longest sequence, stretching out to lie on her back on the grass, half-shaded by a bush.

Hugh had used this material for the Persephone sequences, weaving glimpses of Peri into the dramatic scenes performed by Alyx so painstakingly that it would be impossible for anyone who didn't know to pick out the splices. The careful construction gave the Persephone segments a strange, slow, ritualistic pace that seemed to belong to another age, and invested the story with an even greater sense of mystery. The modern story was backed with a track of alternative rock music—all unfamiliar to me—but in the mythic sequence the only music was brief snatches of flute-playing; otherwise, the sound track consisted of a woman's voice whispering in classical Greek, lines from the Homeric Hymn to Demeter.