Beneath the Blonde Read online

  “The letters, the flowers?”

  Saz’s answer was always the same. “I couldn’t. My client didn’t want me to make a fuss.”

  When he finally left her to get back to the matter in hand with the nice helpful policewoman, the older man shook his head as he said goodbye to Saz, “I’d choose more amenable clients in future if I were you, Ms Martin. ‘Bye now. You take care.”

  Saz didn’t like him much but she could certainly see his point.

  Shona’s funeral was very quiet. Just Shona’s mother—not her new father or her stepbrother—Pat and Dennis, and Greg, with Saz and Dan to sit beside him. After the funeral Greg went to talk to Shona’s mother, told her his story and put in his request. She didn’t take much convincing. Didn’t want much to do with Shona now. Two days later they went to collect Shona’s ashes and Saz and Dan sat silently on the beach when Greg and Hone walked into the bush to take the ashes to Gaelene and Shona’s rest area. When they came back Greg was crying and white, Hone crying too, holding Greg close.

  Hone told Saz, “There’s a new tree there, in the bush. Shona must have planted it. We planted her ashes with that tree.”

  Saz visited Siobhan in the hospital the morning before she flew back to England with Dan. Greg was staying behind for a while to give the British tabloids a chance to calm down after all the revelations—including the story of how Gaelene had become Greg—even Cal had finally accepted Greg’s reasoning that it was better for him to come out himself than for someone else to do it for him. Speculation was rife as to what career each of the remaining band members could continue with now, but as neither Dan nor Greg really cared and Siobhan hadn’t had a chance to think about it, speculation was about as far as it would get.

  Saz sat quietly waiting for Siobhan to wake up. Eventually the long black eyelashes fluttered against cheeks that were now bruised and swollen, lined with purple scars and bloody tissue. Siobhan smiled a tight, strained greeting, wincing at the pain and then closed her eyes when even the wincing brought pain of its own.

  Saz began her speech, the semi-rehearsed words faltering as she forced them out. “I’m so sorry. I should have been with you, stopped this happening.”

  Siobhan shook her head and mouthed, “You did.”

  “No. I wasn’t there. My job was to take care of you. And she still did this to you. Fuck, Siobhan, I’m so sorry.”

  Greg had come into the hospital room behind Saz, stood by the door and watched her as she leant forward to kiss Siobhan.

  “Don’t, Saz,” he said sharply, coming round to the other side of the bed. “You can’t kiss her.”

  Realizing what he’d said, he stepped back a little, “I didn’t mean it like that … I mean, you can’t kiss her. One can’t. Anyone. It hurts her. Doesn’t it, babe?”

  Siobhan nodded at Greg and looked back to Saz.

  Greg stroked her free hand. “I know, hon.”

  He turned his attention from his wife to Saz, “Siobhan isn’t pissed off with you. Neither of us are. At least, I’m certainly not. You did get there in time. You got there before me. You found out who it was. Perhaps if I hadn’t been so bloody caught up in all the secrecy I might have figured it out sooner. We’re both to blame too—we should have told you what was really going on.”

  Siobhan shook her head and removed her hand from Greg’s grasp, pointing at herself.

  Greg laughed, “Yeah, ok, babe, you’re to blame. You should have let me tell the truth sooner.”

  He smiled bitterly at Saz, “See? It’s all Siobhan’s fault. Lucky you and me, eh?”

  When Greg saw Saz off that afternoon, he held her tight before she left. “I know what you did, Saz.”

  Saz caught her breath, stepped back and looked up at him, “When?”

  “Both times.”

  “Oh.”

  “Siobhan told me about the first thing and I saw the second.”

  Saz shifted her weight, her bag suddenly wrenching against the unhealed rip in her shoulder, “And?”

  “And I don’t care about the sex. I could tell she fancied you right from the start. I know Siobhan, I thought it was inevitable. It’s not the first time and I don’t suppose it’ll be the last.”

  Saz flinched as he wrote off her idea of herself and Siobhan as a special entity. “Thanks a lot.”

  Greg grinned. “You’re welcome. Once anyway.”

  Saz looked back at him, “And the other?”

  Greg shrugged. “Nothing really. I just wanted you to know. I saw it.”

  “Do you think I did the right thing?”

  “Probably. Who knows? If Shona had realized Siobhan wasn’t quite dead she’d have gone for her again.”

  “I didn’t know Siobhan wasn’t quite dead.”

  “No. Neither did I. And you know, if Shona’d had the chance she would have gone for you again too.”

  “So I probably did the right thing?”

  Greg shrugged. “I reckon probably’s as close as you’re going to get.”

  The last call for boarding came from the pilot as he walked past them and out to the ten-seater plane, swinging his briefcase and smiling at Saz as if she and Greg were lovers, “I’m off now, sweetheart, you wanna kiss the boyfriend and hop on?”

  Two nights later, weary, dirty and jet-lagged, Saz fell off the plane and into Molly’s arms. Home again to wash, to have her dressing changed, to sit by the fire and drink hot soup with fresh bread and be scolded and loved and warmed and held gently while she cried away the telling of everything that had happened in that house. Almost everything that had happened.

  Much later, after they had made love hesitantly and carefully and then not carefully and furiously, after Molly had changed the dressing again on her shoulder, after Molly had fed her sweet honey cake dipped in hot chocolate and after they had kissed and touched and soothed and held each other long enough for it to feel almost normal again, Molly fell asleep on Saz’s good shoulder, a last question whispered into the dark room, “Saz, is there anything else you should tell me?”

  Saz thought about what Greg knew, what she knew, the two things that only she and Greg knew and then she kissed Molly’s forehead, stroking the stream of her long black hair.

  “No, my darling, that’s the whole sorry story. There’s nothing else to tell.”

  Saz lay beside Molly and lied. Then she fell asleep.

  Also by Stella Duffy and published by Serpent’s Tail

  Wavewalker

  “Very near the top of the new generation of crime writers” The Times

  “The clever money should be on Duffy when the crime-writing Oscars are dished out” Telegraph

  “A feisty little page-turner guaranteed to keep you up all night” Big Issue

  Calendar Girl

  “There’s a lot of lesbian lore and sex in it, but it is also a fast, witty and clever crime story, with cracking dialogue and exuberant characters” The Times

  “Steamy erotic moments, some smart one-liners and a few digs at lesbian stereotypes… Stella Duffy is definitely a name to watch” Forum

  “Lends a new dimension to trips to the supermarket” Literary Review

  “A highly atmospheric, rhythmic narrative … a stylish book which also warns of the destructive power of lies and half-truths” Gay Times

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four />
  Twenty-Five

  Twenty-Six

  Twenty-Seven

  Twenty-Eight

  Twenty-Nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-One

  Thirty-Two

  Thirty-Three

  Thirty-Four

  Thirty-Five

  Thirty-Six

  Thirty-Seven

  Thirty-Eight

  Thirty-Nine

  Forty

  Forty-One

  Forty-Two

  Forty-Three

  Forty-Four