The Lazarus Effect (9 page)

Days that started out well often didn’t stay that way for long. Upstairs in Jacqui Paulsen’s bedroom, Vee sifted through her most precious possessions, things the girl would never touch or value again. Jacqui had been a nice, normal kid, and her stuff confirmed that. Vee chided herself for thinking in past tense and gloomy absolutes like ‘she was a good girl who was never coming home again’, but she had to concur with Adele and her instinct on that point. Jacqueline Paulsen was gone for good.

And she’d left a lot of junk behind. There were masses of clothes in the cupboard, some folded, others still wrapped in transparent plastic, collecting dust in closet hidey-holes. There was an alarming predilection for the tools of beauty, especially high-sheen lip gloss, of which there were several tubes, some unused with the sticky white barcode still attached. Most were in red and hot pink shades, complementing the room’s colour scheme. A Nike shoebox of odds and ends was tucked at the back of the topmost tier of the built-in cupboards. Vee hoped it would yield something more interesting, but after opening it she wasn’t sure.

Feeling bad, Vee twiddled a condom packet, flicking it back and forth between the fingers of one hand like a casino chip. She didn’t have any qualms about rooting through a stranger’s belongings, and a teenager who brazenly kept condoms in a shoebox wouldn’t exactly be falling apart over the threat of discovery.

Vee was far more worried about the shrunken woman downstairs, drowning her sorrows in a relay of tea and menthol cigarettes. Rekindled interest in the case had let mayhem loose, and the little house in Little Mowbray was overrun with invisible demons. Though Adele insisted to the contrary, she’d most likely taken some comfort in the lull that followed the hysteria of Jacqui’s disappearance and allowed herself a life – one tempered by loss, but normal. Now the bandage had been ripped off before the healing process was complete, and the wound was seeping.

Grief deflated its victims. Adele, wrapped in a dressing gown and shrivelled to half the woman she’d been two days before, had greeted Vee at the door and granted her free reign in her daughter’s room. ‘The police went through everything countless times. Nothing up there surprises me any more,’ she said, triumphant, daring the new challenger to bring on a fresh gush of anguish. Vee would’ve preferred to do her ferreting in the evening but arguing proved useless. Adele had already taken leave for the day and that was that.

Vee turned the condom over in her palm. It was the cheap variety, encased in foil so thick and crunchy you half-expected to find a baked potato rather than a contraceptive inside. ‘Make-Me-A-Daddy condoms’, standard fare at free clinics and university
campuses. Reliable, some of the time. Maybe Jacqui had been knocked up after all.

Vee tossed it back into the box. In her book, seventeen was a little young to jump from heavy petting to going pro. She’d waited a couple more years herself, and ended up taking the plunge with a dullard who hadn’t deserved it. Jacqui had clearly opened her eyeballs to life sooner. But condoms in the house, though – you wouldn’t pull that if you weren’t courting trouble. The back of a closet wouldn’t throw off any mother worth her salt. This shoebox was giant middle finger in the rule of law’s face: ‘Up yours, I’m doing me and you can’t stop it.’

‘Did you find anything?’ Adele asked from the doorway. Vee jumped. Adele looked like Sisyphus, lugging the unbearable sum of her sins up the hill of daily life, only to have to haul it up again the next. For all her burdens, the woman moved like a ghost.

‘I knew about those,’ Adele dismissed the contents of the box with a wave of a hand, ‘like I knew about Ashwin and boys before him. Don’t take it the wrong way, she wasn’t all over the place with anyone who winked at her. She wasn’t that kind of girl. But kids these days, they get there so much faster than we used to when I was young. It’s a scary reality. You can’t stop it.’

‘So she flouted your authority a lot, then?’

Adele gave a dry chuckle. ‘Yeah. Sometimes it felt like all she did.’

She stayed in the doorway, clutching the front of her robe and looking lost. Her eyes scanned the room for a place to sit, somewhere she would cause the least disturbance, preserving the shrine as it had always been. Vee drew out the chair behind the desk but Adele chose the bed instead, perching so close to
the edge it looked like she might fall off. Her skill and ease holding the pose told of many visits to the room, probably staring into space for hours or crying her heart out. Vee settled down beside her.

‘How did she meet Ashwin?’ Vee said gently. ‘Y’all had been living here for years and she had a healthy social life. Athlone’s a long way for a popular girl to go for romance.’

‘I told you, she was nothing if not dogged in her loyalty. There was no reason to hide away after Sean passed on. The dirty secret was out. I needed a change from the old neighbourhood; schools were better here and Ian made a contribution for her sake. But Athlone always had a hold on her. That’s where she spent her childhood and some of her best friends still lived there. They met because she hung out there from time to time.’

‘Did you put her on the pill when you found out about their relationship?’

Adele sniffed and shook her head. ‘No. That would’ve made it painfully real, that she wasn’t a child any more.’ Her breath wafted stale from sleep and heavy with the sweet smell of alcohol – brandy or rum, Vee couldn’t tell. So, not just tea in the tea, then.

‘I told her to be careful and I’m sure she was,’ Adele continued. ‘She swore she was, but I didn’t know exactly how she was going about it. We did talk about sex and things like that, but …’

She shook her head more vigorously as she looked down at her hands. ‘God, I have so much to answer for.’

‘What about her father? Were they close enough for her to confide in him? Maybe she felt more comfortable talking to a doctor who also happened to be her dad.’

Adele flinched like she’d been slapped. ‘Jacqui had her secrets but she was close to
me
. She wouldn’t hide major things from me, because I respected that she was too old for me just to punish her. Ian just
spoiled her
,’ she hissed, tears welling up. ‘The older she got, the less time he could spare. At least he was consistent and ignored all his kids. Whenever he did manage to drag himself over here, he compensated by buying things she didn’t need or giving her money to do just that.’

She flapped her hands around at random objects – the clothes, computer, cosmetics – to illustrate. ‘Useless junk to make up for being a lousy father. Jacqui was too naïve and good-hearted to see through it, but I knew that once she got older she would. She wanted to be one of his ‘real children’. Like if he filled her life with the same material things, it would be the same as living in a fancy house with them and being a fucking Fourie. She was desperate for that status to make her life meaningful. It made me sick.’

Or maybe Jacqui was just a carefree girl who took her good fortune where she found it, and didn’t sweat the small stuff like most hormonal teenagers, Vee thought. Doting parents who lavished gifts and overlooked bad behaviour were thin on the ground in adolescence. Jacqui sounded like a skilful sweet-talker.

‘Was she close to her half-siblings? You told me they knew about each other, but how well? Did they spend time together?’

‘I suppose.’ Adele sounded reluctant to answer. Her shoulders sagged. ‘From the outside it seemed she got along with all three of them all right, but I sensed some underlying friction. Maybe it was just the normal tension between young adults, but I got the feeling there was more. Ian and Carina run their home like they do their careers – by the book. Those kids should be much more individual and aggressive, but somehow they haven’t fully matured. You’ll notice it when you meet them. They follow their parents’ orders, and I’m sure their instructions went along the lines of ‘don’t get too chummy with your bastard sister’. Not that Jacqui didn’t manage to win them over. Her personality was impossible to resist.’

‘Did she ever say anything specific to you about it?’

‘Kids need their secrets. And anyway, how bad could it be? They got along well enough for children who hadn’t grown up together, who had only found out about each other’s existence when the eldest was dying. Under the circumstances, they had taken to each other better than any of us adults would’ve expected. Lemons into lemonade. If something more serious had been bothering Jacqui, she would’ve told me.’

Kids need their secrets and parents need their lies. Or they needed to tell themselves something even when they knew or suspected differently. Adele didn’t quite meet her eyes, so Vee tried another tack.

‘She, Serena and Lucas were all in their late teens. Did they share interests, was she closer to either one of them? I’ll be speaking to both of them, of course, but it would really help if I had a clearer picture of how your daughter spent most of her
time and with whom.’ Vee still needed to chase down Bronwyn Abrams and Tamara Daniels, two of Jacqui’s closest friends and the most hopeful leads about how her final day had played out.

‘Lucas, more in the beginning,’ Adele said. ‘Jacqui had problems with other girls, even from a young age. They either got along great immediately, or they couldn’t stand each other at first sight. After Sean died, it was easier to turn to her other brother. I didn’t see what they had in common, personally. Lucas was a bit awkward, though I haven’t seen him for some years now. I did get the impression that something changed between them after a while, because she got into Serena more, and then the little one.’

‘Did she give any specifics?’

Adele shook her head for the hundredth time. Vee suppressed a sigh. Too many gaps.

‘Well, I know they went to church together. She and Serena, and sometimes Rosemary,’ Adele elaborated. ‘Jacqui took it as a pastime in the beginning, a way to spend more and more time at that house. After school, on Sundays. But she actually became born again, to my disbelief. I didn’t buy it at first, knowing my daughter and her flights of fancy. It was too cute to be taken seriously. Then she started to live up to it and I had to accept it for what it was. What mother would complain? She didn’t become an angel overnight, but there was a big difference.’

That explains the ‘hidden’ condoms, Vee thought. Vestiges of an old life, squirrelled out of sight and mind but not discarded. ‘Difference how, exactly?’

‘Just different, in every way. Her life … her
soul
, it just changed. I … I don’t see how any of this is important. It didn’t save her in the end.’

Adele hunched, chin drooping to her chest, as if attempting to fold into her own body and implode. Touched to an uncomfortable degree, Vee stopped and let the silence spin out. She hugged her arms close, partly to ease the chill in the air and partly to prevent herself from reaching out and touching the woman. Not every grieving person received touch in a comforting way; she’d learnt that from past experience.

Adele started to shake, a series of minute tremors undulating through her, threatening to jar her completely off the bed. ‘You have to help me,’ she choked. She repeated the words as if in prayer, voice barely audible. Vee heard her tears before they came.

‘I’ll do everything I can,’ Vee heard her mouth promise. ‘But you … we need to be patient. It takes time–’

From the towelling of her gown, Adele produced a thick brown envelope. Her hands shook as she held it out, her face contorted like the thing would spring to life and bite her. ‘I can pay you,’ she said, nodding hard, reassuring them both. ‘If money’s the problem, if it makes the process faster …’

‘Ms Paulsen,’ Vee murmured, backing away from the bed. She couldn’t remember getting to her feet.

‘It’s twenty-five thousand. Take it,’ Adele said, thrusting out the packet. Vee gently pushed her hands away. ‘Please,
please
take it.’ Adele tried to stand, and, like a very old lady, shuddered back onto the mattress. Her shoulders quaked as she held her
head in her hands and sobbed. Against her better judgement, Vee opened her arms and drew in the grieving mother.

Back on the street, Vee fumbled with her car door and a vibrating handbag. The air outside was cooler and much fresher. Away from Adele, everything felt less dour and stale. She dug out the Nokia. Blocked caller ID. She answered anyway.

‘I know how to help you
and
get you to go out with me.’

Vee sucked her laughter back in shock as she watched her breath puff white. A few days and September was over – how the hell was it still so cold? She yanked the door open and scrunched into the driver’s seat. ‘Dah whah dey white pipo payin’ yor good money for, Joshua Allen, to harass other pipo during working hours?’

‘Hear me out. Before you say no.’

‘No.’ She snickered and pressed the ‘end call’ button. She had hardly got the car’s engine pumping when her phone started tinkling again.

‘Are you sitting down?’ Chlöe breathed in her ear.

Vee switched the engine off. The blast of the heater was so loud she couldn’t hear a damn thing. ‘In a sense.’

‘Then check this out. First of all, I’m still tracing Jacqui’s steps. As in, making every stop exactly as she did that day, hazarding a guess about how much time she’d have spent at each place. I’m about to leave Newlands Sports Club, headed for Athlone, but I’m nearly done, which doesn’t work with our timeline. Either I’m moving way faster, which I’m not, or she must’ve gone somewhere or met someone, another stop that wasn’t recorded
in the police report or any of the statements. Which makes me wonder: if she did make another stop, why didn’t whoever she met come forward to inform the police?’

‘That’s what we find out. I like the way your mind works. You did great, taking the initiative to physically trace her steps.’ Vee could practically see the tendrils of Chlöe’s gingerific blush wafting down the receiver. Bishop was clever but pampered; she needed her pats on the head. As long as she walked the walk, Vee saw no reason to withhold.

‘Next, I traced her cell,’ Chlöe said. ‘By some miracle – I guess because after she went missing no one considered it was the most pressing thing to do – the phone wasn’t blacklisted. It’s still in use somewhere in town. Actually, it was last used early this morning in Gardens, only it’s under a different number now.’