Fog Heart (36 page)

Carrie sat with her through all of it, often holding Oona in her arms, talking to her, comforting her. She knew that Oona was convinced that Roz was dead. Somehow, somewhere.

When she woke up the following morning Oona had seemed calm, subdued and lost in herself. Her skin was pale, and cool to the touch. She ate a little and drank some hot tea. But she seldom spoke, and mostly just sat in bed, looking vacant.

‘It'll be all right,' Carrie told her.

‘It won't ever.'

‘It doesn't have to mean what you think.'

‘But it does.'

Roz didn't return home that day or the next. There was no phone call from her, explaining why she was late. Oona had told Carrie that Roz had gone away to take care of some family matter. She hadn't said where, but she did tell Carrie that Roz would be back by – yesterday.

This morning Oona gave Carrie some cash and a list of things she needed, and asked her if she would go out for them. They had to talk seriously. Carrie wouldn't return to New York and leave Oona by herself, but she couldn't stay in New Haven indefinitely. If there was still no word from Roz …

The apparition had fooled Carrie completely. Roz had looked and acted so real. There'd been no sense that she was witnessing another psychic incident, she didn't have the feeling that
it
was happening to her again – until the end.

The sounds were another difference. Carrie was certain that she had heard the front door open and close, and footsteps on the stairs. So had Oona; they had both looked up at the first sound. When Carrie thought about it, she could even remember the little noises that Roz made as she walked across the bedroom carpet and sat down in the chair by the dressing table. They were everyday sounds, perfectly normal. And wrong.

But the most persuasive aspect of the experience was that Carrie and Oona had shared it. They had both seen the same thing and heard the same noises. They hadn't anticipated it, or spoken of it at all. It seemed to Carrie that psychic incidents witnessed by more than one person must be quite rare, and hard to explain as anything but genuine.

Carrie was beginning to draw her own tentative conclusions. There might be an afterlife or another level of existence, and it may be that some portion of our consciousness continues in that realm – personality, nature, soul, whatever. And it may also be that there are occasional ghostly intrusions from that world into this one, and that particularly sensitive people are more likely to experience them.

But none of that necessarily meant that the intrusions had a purpose or design, that there was a method or process at work, or that whatever happened after death was part of a higher spiritual order. Existence in the next world, to call it that, might be as random, blinkered and mysterious as life in this world. Perhaps the intrusions were just irrational occurrences.

The next step for Carrie was to resolve things with Oliver as soon as he returned home. It would be difficult and painful, but it was absolutely essential. The poisonous doubt that Carrie felt had to be removed, regardless of the outcome.

*   *   *

Roz wasn't back, and Oona was gone.

Carrie immediately sensed the difference. She heard Oona's music coming from upstairs, the usual stuff, but the door to the front hall closet was slightly open, which looked inappropriate. There was a flatness in the air, a lack of vitality – some force of which Carrie became aware now only by its absence.

A warm summer breeze stirred the filmy lace curtains at the kitchen window. Carrie put the shopping bags down on the table and hurried upstairs. The bedroom was empty, the bed unmade. She quickly checked the bathroom, then Roz's room, and the spare room that was used for storage.

She walked slowly back into Oona's room. She knew that Oona was gone, but she found it impossible to believe. Why? And where would she go? It made no sense. Even if she had received a call saying that Roz was in some kind of trouble, surely Oona would have waited the hour or two until Carrie returned. Carrie would have driven her to the airport if necessary, have helped her do whatever had to be done. Oona didn't drive. She went through the rest of the house and checked the yard, but Oona was gone.

When she went back and looked for them she started to see the signs. Desk drawers left open, a few papers scattered on the green blotter. Bureau drawers not quite shut, a couple of empty hangers in Oona's closet. Oona's pyjamas balled up on the floor beside the bed.

The big room was the same as it had been on the day of their last session. The pillows were still scattered, the bloodstains had never been washed off. The water in the basin had evaporated and the candles had guttered out. What exactly had happened in this place? She'd seen and heard things, remarkable events, but they were still opaque and indecipherable to her.

Carrie touched a blood spot the size of a quarter, a rusty brown scab on the marble. She half expected to receive a psychic flash, a sudden vision, a glimpse of Oona. But she felt nothing. She thought of those ancient maps where the coastline was clearly marked in detail – but everywhere beyond it was blank, the great emptiness. Sometimes nothing
is
the definition.

‘Oona.'

Carrie's voice disappeared at once, as if it had been sucked into thin air. No resonance, no echo. The house felt abandoned. Carrie grew angry and fearful. Why are you doing this to me? It was the worst thing, the least considerate thing that Oona could have done. Roz had warned her about something like this.

She wandered into the kitchen, and discovered the note. She hadn't seen it when she had come in and put the bags on top of it, on the table. Oona's scrawled handwriting.

Carrie

Sorry to go like this but I have to. I wish I did more for you but I think you'll be O.K. Thanks again for being so nice to me. You were a big help. We're both alone now but you'll be OK, I think.

Love, O.

Carrie walked out of the house and drove back to Manhattan, where nothing was new and nothing important had happened at work and there were no messages on the answering machine. Early that evening she tried Marthe's number in Munich.

‘Hallo.'

‘Marthe Frennsen?'

‘Ja.'

‘This is Carrie Spence. Is Oliver there?'

‘Ja.'

‘May I speak with him, please.'

A short giggle. Carrie heard Marthe speaking away from the phone. ‘Oliver, do you have anything to say to your wife?' She laughed, and then spoke again to Carrie.
‘Nein, danke.'

‘Put him on right now,' Carrie said coldly.

Another giggle.

The line went dead. When Carrie tried again a minute later, it didn't ring at all.

*   *   *

The taxi from the airport skirted central Munich and brought her to a district of dreary warehouses and small factories. The streets were full of lorries and vans. The area was grim enough, but the steady rain made it seem even greyer.

Marthe Frennsen's building looked like a pre-war office, with high windows, muddy brown stone walls and a slate roof. It was stranded by itself at the end of a cul-de-sac, right up against a tall brick wall topped with coils of razor wire. It was the kind of place that had probably been taken over by underfunded artists and musicians, Carrie thought.

She paid the driver and then climbed the wide stone steps to the front entrance. There were no nameplates or cards, only one bell, and mail was delivered through a rusted metal slot in the tall wooden door. Carrie tried the bell. She didn't hear if it rang inside, and there was no response. A second attempt had the same outcome.

Carrie turned the handle and pushed the heavy door. It made a scraping sound on the stone floor, but opened. She went into a small foyer, then through a second doorway. Stairs to the right, and a long corridor straight ahead with rooms off it on either side. The place felt like an old cellar, the air cool and moist, the light from outside diminished by grimy windows.

All the rooms on the ground floor were empty, aside from scraps of litter and a few plastic buckets of varying sizes. The paint hung in spiral tatters from the walls and the ceilings were almost bare, marked with cancerous brown damp patches. The floor itself was strewn with fallen paint, dust and grit. It looked as if the place hadn't been touched since the last occupant departed thirty or more years ago.

The second floor was virtually identical to the first, but a glance out of the back window proved interesting. Carrie saw a car at the side of a cement parking area that was cracked and broken, stitched with weeds. It was an older Audi, with a couple of rust spots. No sign of a new rental that might belong to Oliver.

A small dock had been built onto the back of the house. She figured it was probably for unloading Marthe's supplies. Carrie looked up and noticed a small crane sticking out overhead, above the dock, with a cable and hook. It would have made more sense, she thought, for Marthe to use the basement and ground floor as her storage area and work space, even if it meant knocking out a few walls.

The third floor was a single huge open area, scattered with drums of chemicals, rolls of fabric arranged on wooden racks, and numerous work tables, measuring instruments and cutting tools. A power winch stood at the rear, next to double sliding doors. The machinery looked recent and well maintained.

Other additions included an array of plastic plumbing pipes, a snarl of heavy-duty electrical cables connected to an extensive bank of fuses, switches and breakers, and what appeared to be a dumb-waiter to the top floor.

The ceiling had been reinforced with steel columns situated along the lines of the load-bearing walls on the floor below. So much unnecessary trouble and expense, Carrie thought. The column plates had cracked and punched through the crumbly old plaster on the ceiling, to the floor timbers above. But in other places the plaster was still intact, and Carrie saw several dark stains that had not been caused by dry rot.

It all seemed so dismal and unlikely. It was what you might expect of an amateur inventor, not a serious professional who was developing a product with legitimate commercial potential. Maybe the important work was done on the top floor. Oliver had spoken of the loft, but Carrie had assumed that it was mainly used by Marthe as living quarters. She walked to the front of the building and started up the final flight of stairs.

There was a wide landing at the top, a wooden railing, and a steel door. Carrie knocked forcefully but nothing happened. She hesitated as she was about to knock again. She had a sudden and painful image of Oliver and Marthe in bed, having sex, scrambling into their clothes at a sound from the door. Or not – perhaps they'd just slip into robes and greet her openly; no pretence, no flimsy lies. She didn't know which would be worse.

This is where you learn something about your husband, Carrie thought. And yourself. She felt swamped with diffuse anxiety as she reached for the doorknob. It turned smoothly, the door swung inward, and Carrie stepped across the threshold.

A chemical stench hit her immediately. It seemed to be made up of several different ingredients, by turns harsh, acrid, oily, or as nauseatingly sweet as durian left out in the sun. How could anyone eat, sleep and live with it? Carrie breathed through her mouth, but that only helped a little.

She seemed to be in a maze with no design. There were more tall wooden racks all over the place, but here the textiles were laid out flat on them, as if drying. Items of furniture cropped up at random – a dresser, a dressing table, bookshelves, a dining table, floor lamps, a wine cabinet, wardrobes, free-standing screens and meaningless room dividers – jumbled among the racks, more drums and work tables, tools, instruments and unfamiliar equipment. It was a chaotic non-arrangement of everything in Marthe's personal life and her work. No separation. Carrie understood why Oliver described Marthe as eccentric and a kind of genius – most people simply couldn't tolerate such apparent confusion and disorder in their homes and lives.

There were no windows to be seen in the stone walls, and the skylights overhead did little to dispel the pervasive gloom. She edged slowly down a narrow aisle between towering racks of cloth, passed under a stepladder and went around a corner into a fairly open area with a circle of battered armchairs and a sofa. On the coffee table were the remains of various fast-food meals, crusts of pizza, doner kebabs, burger wrappers, unfinished French fries, rice cartons, soda cups and empty beer bottles. On the dark wood of the floor, a darker stain. Carrie bent down to touch it, and came away with brown powder on her fingertip.

She became aware of certain noises – a steady whirring that might be made by strong fans, some other mechanical droning and music. Industrial rock, driving guitars and drums blended with a variety of sophisticated electronic sounds. Years ago Oliver had had a passing interest in it. Carrie found it oppressive. The music was persistent but not too loud. She couldn't tell where it came from in the huge, impossibly cluttered loft.

Near one wall Carrie found a cubicle containing a toilet and a sink. The bowl was stained with accumulated hard water mineral deposits. A small stack of German newspapers and
Herald Tribunes
on the floor – the
Trib
was Oliver's favourite whenever he was in Europe, she knew. These papers were faded, months old.

A few yards away Carrie came to another clearing. A rug was hemmed in by shelves and boxes containing various personal items. An ashtray full of Disque Bleu and Senior Service butts. A tin canister of snapshots, some lying loose on the rug. She picked up five or six, and looked at them. Oliver and some woman (Carrie realized that she had no idea what Marthe looked like) on the sofa. Sitting, talking, more or less normal – but the young woman was clearly uncomfortable. Next, Oliver and—

The second Polaroid opened black patches in Carrie's vision. The pressure on her chest was so immense it felt as if she would never be able to breathe again. Oliver and the same woman on the same sofa. The woman in torn underwear, flat on her back, Oliver kneeling on her, strangling her.