Arrabella
Arrabella pours herself a glass of red wine and continues scrolling through articles on the Paz Doyle murder late into the night. She copies and saves several stories and photos.
She drains her glass, pours another. Then another. While waiting for Patrick, she rehearses different ways of dropping the bombshell news. He’ll believe her now. He’ll be thankful she brought him on this cruise, close to Lillith. He’ll finally see how dangerous “Poppy” is.
When her glass is empty again, she checks her watch. It’s past midnight and Patrick still has not returned. A knot of anxiety begins to tighten in her gut. She decides to take a temazepam pill. She needs the sedative-hypnotic meds to help her sleep.
Arrabella changes into silk pajamas, washes her face, but as she smooths lotion onto her skin, her mind returns to the articles about the murder trial. One clip made mention of the fact Poppy’s stellar legal team was defending her pro bono. Arrabella knows law firms routinely offer pro bono services to various nonprofit organizations, including domestic violence shelters. But in most domestic violence cases, the legal issue is clear, and the danger to the woman is imminent. They wouldn’t defend someone who had killed, surely?
Or would they?
She screws the top back onto her jar of face cream. She’s already in bed, eyelids drooping, her world turning syrupy as her sleeping meds take hold, when she remembers her EpiPen.
She’ll search for it in the morning ...
Carter
Carter has been left gloriously alone in the suite. His mom and Gramps tucked him in before heading to the Midnight Salon, telling him to call or text if he needed them. To play it safe he lies in bed fifteen minutes with the lights out, just in case they forgot something and return.
When all seems quiet, he throws back the covers and creeps to the desk. He clicks on the small desk lamp. It casts a magical yellow glow over the stacked papers and neat container of pens and pencils. Carter’s heart beats faster. The incident at the mural has taken second place in his mind—right now he’s wholly focused on peeking into Gramps’s manuscript.
He checks the time. Gramps will be talking by now. He should be safely alone for at least an hour or two. Carter pulls up a chair and scoots it closer. He reaches for his grandfather’s manuscript and lifts the top sheet. The title reads:
Thrall of the Naga.
Carter frowns as intrigue snakes through him. He flips to the next page and begins to read what appears to be a rough draft or start of an author’s note.
Vincent Kapoor was first referred to as the Bikini Killer after a twenty-three-year-old Californian—Marianne Smith—was discovered by a Thai fishermanfloating face down in a bikini off Pattaya Beach. Later, however, he came to be dubbed “the Naga” for his uncanny and almost mythical ability to slither out of danger and assume new skins—new identities—much like the mythical, shapeshifting Thai naga. A creature with more than one face, or head. A monster that hides its true form beneath a human facade, and stands at thresholds between two worlds; i.e., life and death, truth and lies, innocence and corruption.
This chameleon skill enabled him to brazenly trick law enforcement, and to slip out of seemingly inescapable prisons from Greece to Afghanistan and Iran, only to reappear in another country under another daring guise.
His legend was eventually spread so wide that a folk song about him was sung by children on the streets in India, as one might sing ballads of Robin Hood, or Dick Turpin the highwayman, or Ned Kelly the Australian bushranger, or Jesse James, Billy the Kid, Pancho Villa ...
Beneath the words is a painting of an undulating dragon with fangs and fins and iridescent green and gold scales. The creature is twisted into a circle, consuming its own tail. Excitement mushrooms through Carter.
He feels as though he’s once more slipped through a looking glass into a magical world, the glow of the lamp cocooning him in golden light, the ship creaking as wind whips the windows and theBlack Orchidbegins to roll. He’s Darwin drawing specimens aboard theBeagle. He’s Odysseus leaving Troy. He’s Jason on theArgoin quest of the Golden Fleece. He’s Joseph Banks scribbling notes by the swaying halo of his lamp aboard Captain James Cook’sEndeavour.
Before he reads further, unable to contain his curiosity, Carter reaches for the folder of news cuttings and photos. He slides the contents out. On top of the pile is a copy of the photo of the glamorous couple with the little monkey.
Carter has previously only glimpsed this image from a distance on Gramps’s crime board. Now he studies it in intimate detail: the woman’s skinny face, her thick, wavy brown hair. Her big, intense eyes behind seventies-style sunglasses with a graded tint; the man all muscle and sinew and martial-arts lean. Carter reckons he’d be a terrifying guy to run across in a dark alley. But he’s more intrigued by the monkey and piles of money and passports spread out on the table in front of the pair. It really does resemble a heist-movie scene.
On the back of the image, his grandfather has scrawled the words:
Vincent Kapoor and Aline-Claire Lavoie. Thailand circa 1975. Photo sent to Vincent’s mother, Mai, in Paris.
Carter runs a fingertip over the image, imagining them existing in this other era. He turns his attention to another photo of the couple, this time posing with the very dark-skinned young man. Carter peers at him. His eyes look coal black and his shoulder-length hair is thick and wavy and shiny, and also very black. He’s a bit like a magical prince from a sinister fairy tale, thinks Carter.
He flips the photo over. On the back are the words:
Sanjay Lohar with Aline-Claire and Vincent. Bangkok circa 1975.
He shuffles through the rest of the pile, and another photo sharply snares his attention: an older man with glasses and an expensive-looking coat. He wears a red scarf around his neck, and he stands on a bridge over a canal. Bicycles are chained to the railing beside him. Along the canal runs a row of very narrow and colorful multistoried gabled buildings. There are no leaves on the tree branches. It looks cold.
It strikes Carter like a mallet. His head begins to buzz—he recognizes the man. He’s seen him. Right here. On theBlack Orchid. Excitement explodes through him and fizzes into his veins.
He flips the photo over.
Vincent. Amsterdam. Dec. 15, 2018.
