Chapter 17
After a momentary leap of fright, I settle back against the pillows. One didn’t need to be Poirot to figure out who it was.
“Go away, Persephone, you irritating little despot!”
I’d slept fitfully the night before. It had been difficult to get back to sleep after an upsetting dream about Joan, Peter, Cess and Ness, and the Italian Stallion.
In my dream I sat in a room with them—all of them—while they interviewed me for the tell-all: Mad Mabel: In Her Own Words.
But then the room became a courtroom, and all of them morphed into jurors as my sentence was being handed down and I was crying out for my mother who I couldn’t find anywhere.
The fist pounds against the door again and I wait for Persephone’s indignant little face to appear at my window.
She wouldn’t see much through my sheers but she’d see enough to know I was awake.
I make a mental note to tell her that waking up your bestie at the crack of dawn is a surefire way to keep you friendless.
I may not be a great citizen, but I can offer her this public service.
But no face appears at the window.
“Ms. Fitzpatrick?”
I sit up straight. Not what I was expecting.
The voice is unusually deep, like a radio presenter on a smutty channel, which rules out Persephone.
I wonder, suddenly, if it could be the police?
Perhaps someone in the neighborhood was burgled overnight and the police are “canvassing the area”?
If that’s the case, I’ll send them to Joan’s house.
Joan is hard of hearing and unlikely to have heard anything, but she’ll welcome their visit so she can mention that her nephew is a partner in a law firm.
“Just a minute,” I call out, wrapping my toweling dressing gown around my midsection.
It’s full length, which means it barely covers my knees.
I briefly check my reflection in the hall mirror on the way to the door and I’m delighted to find I look terrifying.
My hair is sticking up at odd angles and the left side of my face has settled deep into its grooves after eight hours of sleeping on that side.
Since about the age of seventy, it might be noon before my face starts to look vaguely symmetrical.
“Adeem Anand.” The young man on my doorstep extends his hand like a gun.
He’s younger than I expected, given the depth of his voice.
By the look of him I’d say he is twentysomething.
He’s stocky and prematurely balding, but well-endowed in the eyebrow area, as if two fat caterpillars have taken up residence on his forehead.
There is a pretty, nondescript blond woman by his side who looks to be similarly aged.
He waits. When I don’t take his hand, his bravado falters. “Uh … This is my colleague Libby Conquest.” He nods in her direction. “Are you Elsie Fitzpatrick?”
“Why should I tell you?”
Adeem Anand glances at his counterpart. She doesn’t quite roll her eyes, but her facial expression conveys the effect.
“Ms. Fitzpatrick,” she says, “Adeem and I host a YouTube channel—AdLib. Have you heard of YouTube?”
“Of course,” I snap. It’s not a lie. I’ve heard of it. Couldn’t tell you how it works, or what it’s used for, but that wasn’t her question.
“Great,” she says. “Well, we have a channel on there where we dig into old crimes and we thought—”
I blame the early hour for my slowness. Old crimes. I try to shut the front door but Adeem blocks it with a meaty arm. “Ms. Fitzpatrick. We’d like to cover your side of the story. Sympathetically.”
“If you don’t let me shut this I’ll scream,” I say, even though I doubt my scream has much heft to it these days. If Persephone was here I’d get her to scream for me. The little barbarian has quite the set of lungs. It occurs to me that it’s the first time I’ve wanted the child around.
“Ads, for God’s sake, get your arm off the door.” Libby smacks at his arm with all the energy of a frustrated older sister. Adeem releases the door, immediately contrite.
I find myself disarmed by Libby’s interruption, so although Adeem has removed his arm from the door, I don’t close it right away.
Libby takes advantage of my hesitation. “I apologize for Adeem, Ms. Fitzpatrick.”
“I imagine you have to do that quite a lot,” I reply.
“You have no idea.”
“Hey—” he starts, but Libby silences him with a little hand gesture, closing her palm like the conductor of an orchestra. It’s impressive. I make a mental note to try it with Persephone.
“How did you find me?” I ask.
Libby says: “We’re investigative journalists, Ms. Fitzpatrick. I understand you go by your middle name, Elsie, and your mother’s maiden name, but your name is still legally Mabel Waller, so it wasn’t difficult. Yours was the second door we knocked on.”
“I’d definitely recommend you tighten up your security and unlist your address,” Adeem says, “given the new interest in your case.”
“My … case?”
“Adeem and I have spent a great deal of time studying the facts of your story. Personally I’ve always thought there was more to it than what was reported at the time.
I mean, we know there was, considering you were never allowed to give your side.
And now there’s been another death, it’s never been more important to clear your name. ”
“I’m sorry …? ” They are talking too fast. Why do I need to clear my name? “I’m afraid I’m lost. What the dickens are you talking about?”
“We read the article. As far as we’re concern—”
“What article?” My voice sounds sharper than intended.
They pause for a beat, surprised. “It was all over the internet yesterday. About your neighbor who died.”
It takes a second to land. Ishaan. Of course. But why was there an article about Ishaan? He keeled over, presumably from old age or heart failure—or possibly from Nugget’s attitude. It was sad, but not suspicious.
“For pity’s sake! Why is everyone so interested in the death of an irritating old bastard who lived for ninety-three long years? I’ve seen popes farewelled with less fanfare.”
Adeem pulls a device out of his rucksack—one of those rectangular things that seem to control young people’s brains—and taps away. A moment later, he turns the screen to face me.
82-YEAR-OLD CONVICTED MURDERER “MAD” MABEL WALLER QUESTIONED OVER THE SUSPICIOUS DEATH OF “NEMESIS” NEIGHBOR
I stare at the headline, and for a moment, everything is still. There it is—dragged out of the dark like a corpse from a swamp. Convicted murderer. Mad Mabel. I haven’t been called that—to my face—in a very long time, but one doesn’t forget how it feels.
Now here it is again, shameless and blinking in bright typeface—distributed to the world. Or at least to my part of the world.
“I’m eighty-one,” I whisper.
No one says anything. The only sound is Nugget growling low from her cushion like she senses the storm coming. I press my lips together. Steady, Elsie.
“As YouTubers, we have a lot of freedom around how we want to do this,” Libby says gently, “and we have a strong preference for uncut footage from you, so you could rest assured we wouldn’t twist your words.
The reason we want to speak to you is that we think there’s a lot more to the case than people know. ”
“So,” Adeem says, “will you speak with us?”
Beyond them, in the laneway, another pretty blond woman emerges from a white van bearing the logo of a television station.
She joins a man holding a camera. Before he can even point the camera at me, another car pulls up outside Mrs. Nguyen’s house.
Into her parking spot. I see the camera equipment through the back passenger window. I look back at the headline.
“What do you say?” Libby says.
“I’m eighty-one,” I say, and I close the door quickly before anyone can stop me.