First Born(26)

‘Why?’

She stumps out her cigarette and lights another. ‘’Cos he’s a leery silverfox motherfucker, that’s why.’

I cringe at the language.

‘What? You OK?’

‘I’m just not used to cursing.’

‘Get outta here. Truly?’

I nod.

‘You’re not shitting me?’

I shake my head.

‘Fuck, Molly. Your sister swore like a sailor. I need watch my mouth around you, really?’

‘It’s OK. I think I’m getting used to it.’

‘So you two look the same except for an eyebrow scar and your dress sense, but you’re pretty much fundamentally different, huh?’

‘KT was much more outgoing than me. We used to joke that she took all the extrovert genes and I took all the introvert genes. What were you saying about Eugene Groot?’

‘Like I said, he’s a lech. Pretends to be an upstanding family man – his wife’s a bigwig human rights lawyer always on CNN, always representing some hacker or whistle-blower or freedom-fighter. But Eugene Groot isn’t quite as upstanding as he makes out. We can tell, see. Most of the women in my class understood him before he even opened his mouth. Knew he was the type to profess church and family values while he stares at your shirt the whole damn class. The type to have photos of his kids on his desk while he’s asking you out for a drink.’

‘He did that with you?’

‘Not with me, Molly. He did it with your sister.’

‘I remember something about that. What happened?’

She looks at me. ‘I told her not to go through with it.’

‘But she did?’

‘She said this kind of thing happens in London as well, and it’s normal there. It’s nothing, all consenting adults. But the man played some strange games.’

‘What do you mean?’

She flicks ash from the end of her cigarette. ‘It’s weird talking to you about this. It doesn’t feel right.’

‘I need to know, Violet. I can’t live with her killer on the loose.’

She looks up at the clouds, and with her head tilted that way, she says, ‘I’ve already been through all this with the police. They went out.’ She moves her head to look at me. ‘Your sister and Groot. They slept together.’





Chapter 14


We walk diagonally across the park towards Fifth Avenue and the Plaza Hotel.

My head is full of my sister.

‘Feeling OK?’ asks Violet, studying my face.

‘You mind if we stick to the grass or the small paths?’

‘Small paths?’ she says. ‘Why?’

‘I just don’t like these major paths through the park. I feel exposed. It doesn’t feel too safe.’

‘What, you’ll get attacked by a pigeon or a tour guide, what is it?’

‘If someone came driving through at speed? You know. It’s New York.’

She screws up her face.

I mouth the word terrorists and she blows a raspberry and says, ‘Let them fucking try.’

‘You’re not scared?’

‘If I thought like that I’d never get out of bed, Molly. Shit, we just have to get on with it, same as you guys in London, no? Am I wrong?’

‘Seems more threatening here.’

‘We have sugar lumps all around the park, and we got New York’s finest all over the goddamn place, you don’t even see them but they see you. Cameras. FBI listening in to phone calls. Tech we’re not even aware of. Molly, they see you right now.’

‘Sugar lumps?’

‘The concrete blocks the city puts everywhere. They stop cars and trucks driving where they shouldn’t be driving. Barriers, you know.’

We keep walking.

‘That why you carry a slungshot, is it?’ she says.

I tense up. ‘I don’t carry a slingshot.’

‘I said slungshot, Molly. That ball of rope hanging out of your pocket, that why you carry it, is it, to stop terrorists?’

I push the monkey fist deeper into my pocket. ‘Self-defence,’ I say.

‘Yeah, whatever. You know they’re illegal in the city, right? All weapons are basically illegal here. Other states you can walk around with an open-carry AR15, but here we’re defenceless. But we’re all defenceless together, that make sense?’

‘If you had a twin, and she was killed in her bed, you’d carry something.’

She thinks about that. ‘I’m sorry. Of course you’re scared, it’s understandable. I’m sorry. Shit, Molly, my big mouth. I’m real sorry.’

‘It’s fine. Tell me more about the professor.’

‘There was some kind of investigation a few years ago, some kind of sit-down. I wasn’t involved but people talked. He kept his job, I guess, but most of the female students gave him a wide berth. Your sister liked him, that’s the thing – she genuinely really fucking liked him. Very smart guy, Groot, probably the best in his field. Brain like a supercomputer. Not as smart as me, but he gets pretty close.’

I smile.

‘I’m not even kidding.’

‘What’s his field?’