The 3rd Woman

The water was turning cold. She stepped out, grabbed a towel and wandered into the living room. Or ‘living room’ as she would put it, in heavy quotes, were she writing a profile of somebody whose apartment looked like this. She assessed it now, with the detached eye of an observer. Outside lay the neighbourhood of Echo City, one part funky to two parts rundown. Inside, a large table, big enough to seat six or eight, entirely covered with paper, two laptops and a stack of filled notebooks, none arranged in any order except the one known exclusively to her. A couch, both ends taken up by piles of magazines and more papers, narrowing it into a seat for one.

Off to one side, through an open archway, the kitchen area, deceptively clean – not through fastidiousness so much as underuse. Even from here she could see there was a veneer of dust on the stove. The explanation lay in the trash can, filled almost exclusively by take-out cartons, deposited in a daily stream since she’d been on this story – and, she conceded to herself, long before.

For a moment Madison pictured how this place looked when she and Leo lived together. No tidier, but busier. Fuller. She enjoyed the memory, interrupted by that cut-glass accent. This is Jade.

She glanced down at her phone. So busy writing all afternoon and into the evening, she’d repeatedly ignored it when it rang. She’d not even checked her missed calls. But here they were: two from Howard, one from Katharine, both now obsolete, six from her older sister, Quincy, and one from her younger sister, Abigail.

She instantly thumbed Abigail’s name and hovered over the ‘Call’ button. It was late and Abigail was no night owl. On the other hand, she was a teacher at elementary school: blessed with a job that allowed her to turn off her cell when she went to bed. No risk of waking her up, no matter how late. Maddy perched on the end of the couch, still in her towel, and pressed the button. It rang six times and then voicemail, her sister’s voice so much younger, so much lighter, than her own.

No one leaves messages on these any more. But go on, you’ve come this far. Let me hear how you sound.

Maddy clicked off as soon as she heard the beep. She looked at the others, at Quincy’s six attempts. That suggested low-level incandescence rather than full-blown rage. Maddy wondered what she had done wrong to offend her older sister this time, what rule or convention or supposedly widely understood sisterly duty she had violated or failed to comprehend. She would not listen to the voicemail, she didn’t need to.

Her skin dry now, she followed the promise of sleep into the bedroom. Letting the towel fall off her, she slipped into the sheets, enjoying their cool. She had a dim awareness that she was following at least two elements of the recommended advice to insomniacs – a good shower and clean bedclothes. Such advice was in plentiful supply. She had been deluged with it over the years. Go to bed early, go to bed late. A bath, rather than a shower. Steaming hot or, better still, not hot. Eat a hearty meal, pasta is especially effective, at nine pm, or six pm, or noon, or even, in one version, seven am. A cup of warm milk. Not milk, whisky. Give up alcohol, give up wheat, give up meat. Stop smoking, start drinking. Start smoking, stop drinking. Exercise more, exercise less. Have you tried melatonin? Best to clear the head last thing at night by writing a to-do list. Never, ever write a to-do list: it will only set your mind racing. People are not clocks: they need to be wound down before sleep, not wound up. Thinking before bed was good, thinking before bed was very bad. One thing she knew for certain: contemplating all the myriad, contradictory methods of falling asleep could keep a person up at night.

Indeed, here she was, shattered, her arms, her hands, her eyes, her very fingertips aching for sleep – and still wide awake. None of it worked. None of it had ever worked. Pills could knock her out, but the price was too high: groggy and listless the next day. And she feared getting hooked: she knew herself too well to take the risk.

She had been up for twenty hours; all she was asking for was a few hours’ rest. Even a few minutes. She closed her eyes.

Something like sleep came, the jumble of semi-conscious images that, for a normal person, usually presages sleep, a partial dream, like an overture to the main performance. She remembered that much from her childhood, back when she could rest effortlessly, surrendering to slumber the instant her head touched the pillow. But the voice in her head refused to fall silent. Here it was now, telling her she was still awake, stubbornly, maddeningly present.

She reached for her phone, letting out a glum sigh: all right, you win. She checked the LA Times site again, her story still the ‘most read’. Then she clicked on the scanner app again, listening long enough to hear the police reporting several bodies found around town. One was not far from here, in Eagle Creek, another in North Hollywood.

Next, a long article on foreign policy: ‘Yang’s Grand Tour’, detailing how the man tipped to be China’s next president had just returned from an extended visit to the Middle East and analysing what this meant for the next phase of the country’s ambition. The piece was suitably dense. Sure enough, it came close to sending her off, her mental field of vision behind her lidded eyes darkening at the edges, like the blurred border on an old silent movie. The dark surround spread, so that the image glimpsed by her mind’s eye became smaller and smaller, until it was very nearly all black …

But she was watching it too closely, wanting it too much. She was conscious of her own slide into unconsciousness and so it didn’t happen. She was, goddammit, still awake. She opened her eyes in surrender.

And then, for perhaps the thousandth time, she opened the drawer by her bed and pulled out the photograph.

She gazed at it now, looking first at her mother. She would have been what, thirty-eight or thirty-nine, when this picture was taken. Christ, less than ten years older than Maddy was now. Her mother’s hair was brown, unstyled. She wore glasses too, of the unfashionable variety, as if trying to make herself look unattractive. Which would make a kind of sense.

Quincy was there, seventeen, tall, the seriousness already etched into her face. Beautiful in a stern way. Abigail was adorable of course, gap-toothed and smiling, aged six and sitting on Maddy’s lap. As for Maddy herself, aged fourteen in this photograph, she was smiling too, but her expression was not happy, exactly: it contained too much knowledge of the world and of what life can do.

She reached out to touch her earlier self, but came up against the right-hand edge of the picture, sharp where she had methodically cut it all those years ago, excising the part she didn’t want to see.

Later she would not be able to say when she had fallen asleep or even if she had. But the phone buzzed shortly after two am, making the bedside table shake. A name she recognized but which baffled her at this late hour: Detective Howe. A long-time source of hers from the crime beat, one who had been especially keen to remain on her contacts list. He called her once or twice a month: usually pretending to have a story, occasionally coming right out with it and asking her on a date. They had had lunch a couple of times, but she had never let it go further. And he had certainly never called in the middle of the night. One explanation surfaced. The sweatshop must have reported her for assault and Jeff was giving her a heads-up. Funny, she’d have thought they’d have wanted to avoid anything that would add to the publicity, especially after—

‘Madison, is that you?’

‘Yes. Jeff? Are you all right?’

‘I’m OK. I’m downstairs. You need to let me in. Your buzzer’s broken.’

‘Jeff. It’s two in the morning. I’m—’

‘I know, Madison. Just let me in.’ He was not drunk, she could tell that much. Something in his voice told her this was not what she had briefly feared; he was not about to make a scene, declaring his love for her, pleading to share her bed. She buzzed him in and waited.

When he appeared at her front door, she knew. His face alone told her: usually handsome, lean, his greying hair close-cropped, he now looked gaunt. She offered a greeting but her words sounded strange to her, clogged. Her mouth had dried. She noticed that she was cold. Her body temperature seemed to have dropped several degrees instantly.

‘I’m so sorry, Madison. But I was on duty when I heard and I asked to do this myself. I thought it was better you hear this from me.’

She recognized that tone. She was becoming light-headed, the blood draining from her brain and thumping back into her heart. ‘Who?’ was all she could say.

She saw Jeff’s eyes begin to glisten. ‘It’s your sister. Abigail. She’s been found dead.’

Chapter 3

Jeff waited while she threw on the first clothes she could find before leading her to his car. He spoke throughout, telling her what he knew but she digested almost none of it. The only words she heard were the ones that replayed themselves over and over. It’s your sister. Abigail. She’s been found dead.

She was plagued by pictures of Abigail as a child. No matter how hard she tried, she could not see her sister as an adult. One image recurred more than any other: Abigail aged five or six, clutching the doll Maddy herself had once played with, that had, like everything else, been handed down from sister to sister to sister. And in her head, variations on a sentence that would not quite form itself: I let you down, Abigail. I let it happen again. It was never meant to happen again.

They had been driving less than ten minutes when Maddy suddenly sat bolt-upright, heart pounding. It took a moment for her to understand. Even if only for a few seconds, she had fallen asleep. Microsleeps, they called them. They happened to all insomniacs. She knew she was especially vulnerable after a shock; it could prompt her system to shut down. It had happened once in college, after some jerk she had fallen for dumped her, the pain sending her into brief unconsciousness.

Arriving at LAPD headquarters helped. Like a muscle memory, she knew how to walk and talk and carry herself here. She shook off Jeff’s attempts to guide her like the walking wounded, a hand on her waist. She made for the entrance, determined to function like Madison Webb, reporter.

Later she would struggle to remember the exact sequence of those next few hours, even though individual moments were etched in her memory. She remembered pleading with Jeff, asking him to pull whatever strings he could to break the usual protocol and allow her to visit the coroner’s office. Once there, she would never forget the grey-white sheet pulled back to reveal the frozen mask of her sister’s face, her lips a faded purple now, though Maddy had been told they were cold and blue when Abigail’s housemate had found her. Nor would she forget the way the doctor on duty had lifted her sister’s right arm, as casually as if it were the limb of a mannequin, gesturing to a fresh needle mark. And she would never forget his words, dully announcing to her the provisional verdict based on the state of the body when found: that the deceased had died of a drugs overdose, specifically caused by a massive injection of heroin into the bloodstream.

A silent, glared rebuke from Jeff had prompted the physician to apologize for his use of ‘the deceased’ about a woman who until a few hours ago had only ever been known as Abigail – a vital, joyful, beautiful force of nature. But there was no room in Maddy’s heart for anger about that. She was too numb to feel anything as direct as anger. Besides, she had covered enough murders to know that that was how death worked. You could be energetic, smart and sexy, an Olympic athlete or a Nobel-prize-winning genius, but it made no difference: within a moment you became meat on a slab. The staff in the coroner’s office spoke and acted the way they did because that was all they were looking at. They couldn’t see Abigail. They could only see a corpse.

Finally, Jeff ensured Madison got to meet the detective assigned to the case, Barbara Miller, a former partner of his. Brisk and businesslike, she gave them an initial briefing, describing the way Abigail’s body had been discovered: lying straight on the floor, on her back. An initial, brief search of the apartment could not confirm any forced entry. There were a few marks on the neck and back, but nothing that suggested a struggle.

It was past four in the morning when Maddy left, Jeff still at her side.

‘Thank you,’ she said, her voice a whisper.

‘You don’t have to thank me. You’ve just had the most terrible shock a person can have.’

‘I don’t believe it, you know.’

‘I know. It’s impossible to take in.’ He opened the passenger door for her, touching her elbow as he eased her into the seat.

‘I mean, I don’t believe it. Not a single fucking word of it.’

‘Of what?’

‘What your friend the detective was implying. In there.’

‘What was she implying?’

‘Come on, Jeff. No “confirmed” sign of forced entry. “Nothing to suggest a struggle.” I used to write that shit. We all know what it means. It means your friend thinks this was an “accident”.’ Maddy indicated quote marks with her eyebrows.

‘I don’t—’

‘I’ve seen that look you guys get when you talk about this stuff. She’s made up her mind that this was some kind of druggie sex game that went wrong.’

‘She didn’t say that.’

‘She didn’t have to. No forced entry, no struggle: it means consent. But I’m telling you, I know my sister, Jeff. I know who she is. She teaches elementary school, for Christ’s sake. She is not a fucking junkie.’

Jeff said nothing, so Maddy said it for him. ‘She was murdered, Jeff. Not killed by accident. Murdered. Someone murdered my baby sister.’

Then the words she thought but did not say out loud: I will find out who did this to you, Abigail. I broke one promise to you, but I will not break this one.

Chapter 4

She woke from two hours of not-quite sleep – the fitful dozing that was often the closest she got to rest – with a momentary pause. It lasted less than a second, the most fleeting delay before she realized that the sense of a great, grave weight sunk onto her chest was not the product of a dream that would slip away, but of memory. She had remembered what had happened in the night, and her spirit sank with the recognition that it was no illusion or confusion, but real. Abigail was dead. She had not been able to save her.

She had refused Jeff Howe’s offer to sleep on her couch, which meant she had to drive herself to Quincy’s house in Brentwood. The long downhill ride along Huntley Avenue, the twists and turns, made her nauseous. Though she suspected that had less to do with the winding road – which was, in fact, remarkably free of the potholes that were standard in all but the richest, and usually expat Chinese, neighbourhoods of Los Angeles – and more to do with sickening anticipation of the duty that faced her.

The dashboard clock told her it was just before seven. Quincy would be up now, getting the kids ready for school.

She walked around the single BMW – an SUV – in the driveway. That meant Mark was already at the office. Some role in finance she struggled – or, rather, had not bothered – to understand. The dawn start was becoming rarer in LA these days: most began work later and carried on into the evening, so they could be on Beijing time. But it was a relief. She would need to be alone with Quincy.

She pressed the doorbell once and waited. She could hear her nephews squabbling, then her sister’s voice: ‘Juanita! Will you get that?’

The live-in maid; Maddy had forgotten about that. It still surprised her, the notion of anyone in her family being able to afford staff. When they grew up under the same roof, they could afford nothing.

The door opened to reveal Juanita’s pursed lips. Suddenly, and for the first time, Maddy thought of what she looked like: sleepless and in stained jeans with a sweater holed below the armpit. Was the Mexican-Catholic maid judging her appearance – or would she have got that look of disapproval no matter how she was dressed, thanks to a sustained campaign of propaganda from her employer?

‘Hello, Juanita,’ she managed, stepping inside. ‘Is Quincy around?’

‘We’re in here!’ her sister called out, her voice full of capable good cheer, the mom busy with her brood.

Maddy thought of asking Juanita to call Quincy out so they could speak alone, but thought better of it. So, bracing herself, she entered the kitchen that was as big as her entire apartment, large enough for the boys to be throwing a softball to each other in one area, their play barely disturbing their sister as she sat, eating cereal, at the breakfast bar. Quincy was stationed at what she called ‘the island’, making waffles.

‘Hi, Aunt Maddy,’ said the younger of the two boys, raising a mitt in greeting. His child’s smile stabbed at her heart. He was not much older than Abigail in the photograph.

Quincy looked up from the stove. ‘What happened to you? You look awful.’

Maddy moved over to her sister, dropping her voice. ‘We need to talk.’

‘I know,’ Quincy said, pulling at a wide drawer which noiselessly slid out to offer a vast range of cutlery. ‘That’s why I’ve been calling you. You know Mom has an appointment today, don’t you? At Cedar Sinai? Mark arranged it, with a specialist he knows. The thing is, I can’t take her. And it’s very much your turn, isn’t it? Why don’t you put these on the table? It’s so nice to see you. The kids haven’t seen you for ages.’ She handed her three plates and a small jug of maple syrup.

Maddy took them and put them straight down. ‘Quincy, it’s not that. It’s something terrible. We have to talk. Away from here.’

Into the vast living room, the silent black of the enormous TV screen that filled one wall reflecting them as they faced one another. Quincy’s brow was furrowed into a frown that said: What have you done now?

‘It’s Abigail. The police called me in the middle of the night. She was found … They found her. She’s dead, Quincy.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t make me say it again.’

‘What are you talking about? I saw her on Sunday. She was here. She had lunch with us.’

‘They say it was a heroin overdose.’

‘Heroin? Abigail? Why would you say these things, Maddy? What’s wrong with you?’

‘I wish it wasn’t true. But I’ve seen … I’ve seen her. I was there a few hours ago, at the coroner’s office. It’s not a mistake.’

Once Quincy surrendered to the truth, she crumpled. As she did so, she instantly managed to find what had eluded Maddy all night: tears. Quincy held her arms open to be hugged by her younger sister, and they stood together, Maddy’s face growing wet from tears that were not her own.

‘You should have told me,’ were the first words Quincy managed.

‘I couldn’t do it over the phone.’

‘You should have come here earlier. I should have known.’

‘I couldn’t wake you up in the middle of the night. It would have terrified the children.’

‘It wasn’t right that you had to know this on your own, Maddy.’ After a few seconds, she spoke again. ‘And where was she?’

‘Like I said, in her apartment.’

‘No. I mean where?’

Maddy hesitated, picturing the image supplied to her at the coroner’s office and now seared into her mind: of Abigail, laid out on the floor. She should tell her. Quincy had a right to know. If Maddy had had to endure it, then they both should. Quincy had even said as much, that it was wrong for Maddy to carry this knowledge alone. Instead she said, ‘I don’t know. I’m not sure.’

At that, Quincy started sobbing again. Her son, Brett, was calling for her.

‘I’m really sorry, but there’s something I need to ask you,’ Maddy began. ‘About Abigail.’

Quincy stood up. ‘I’m going to go over to Mom’s now. I think we should go together.’

‘No. I can’t.’

‘What do you mean, you “can’t”?’

‘I can’t, Quincy.’

‘Don’t tell me you’re going to work. Jesus.’

‘Of course I’m not! For God’s sake. But I need to find out what happened to Abigail. None of it—’

‘Are you kidding? Let the police do that. Right now, you need to be with your family.’

‘I can’t do it, Quincy. I’m not going over there.’

‘Christ, Maddy. I don’t understand you at all, do you know that? At a time like this, your place—’

‘Look, just tell me. Did Abigail do drugs? Is that possible?’

‘Abigail? Abigail? I can’t believe you’d even ask that. Of course not.’

‘OK. Because what this means—’

‘Where would she even get drugs from? She didn’t mix in those kind of circles. And nor do I.’

‘What the fuck is that supposed to mean?’

‘Shhh. The children!’

‘No.’ Madison raised her voice louder, deliberately shouting out the word most likely to anger her sister. ‘What. The. FUCK is that supposed to mean?’

‘Nothing, Maddy. Nothing. We’re all in shock. Ignore it, just ignore—’

‘Are you saying that I mix in those kind of circles, that I hang out with junkies? Is that what you’re saying? You can be a real shabi sometimes, you know, Quincy.’

‘How dare you use that language in this house!’

‘I can’t believe it. You’re blaming me!’

‘I’m not. Of course I’m not, Maddy. I’m just saying that you, you know, sometimes showed Abigail a more urban lifestyle than—’

‘More urban? What the hell is that supposed to mean? You mean because I don’t live in Crestwood fucking Hills with an SUV and a Merc?’

‘I think you should leave. I need to tell our mother that her daughter is dead.’

That stopped Maddy cold. She felt the rage ebb, leaving only exhaustion behind. ‘I’m sorry, Quincy. I’m not thinking straight. I’m just so …’ The sentence faded away.

Quincy looked at her with eyes that were raw. ‘OK. But you’re meant to be this great investigator, so brilliant at finding out the truth. But you don’t even know the people right in front of you, do you? You think you’re this big media star, Maddy, but guess what: you don’t always know everything. Not about me. Not about Mom.’ She paused, considering whether to continue. ‘Not even about Abigail.’

Chapter 5

She felt an extra rebuke in the fact that she didn’t have a key. Quincy probably had one, entrusted to her by Abigail in case of emergency. If Abigail had locked herself out or gone on vacation without turning the air-con off, who was she going to call? Madison didn’t blame her younger sister. Truth is, she’d have done the same in her position: rely on the one you can rely on.

You don’t always know everything. The words had stung her, replaying themselves as she had driven away from Quincy. So typical that, even now, her elder sister had managed to find a way to make Maddy feel excluded, as if she were somehow on the edge of the family, not privy to a knowledge shared by the other three women. Occasionally, Maddy felt that way, somehow lacking a clear place in the sibling line-up. Quincy was the eldest, Abigail the youngest but what was she? The middle sister? There wasn’t even a name for that.

In her head and even, for one moment, out loud in the car – alone in the driving seat – Madison had rehearsed her comeback. Truth is, Quincy, it’s you who doesn’t know everything. In fact, Quince, you know nothing. Thanks to us, you never did. You don’t have the slightest idea what happened that day, do you?

It was then that it struck her. With Abigail gone, and her mother in the state she was in, Madison was the only one left who knew. The only one left who remembered. The sensation of it left her queasy, as if she were at a great height looking down, her knees ready to buckle. It was like that thing they taught her in college, when she did a philosophy class: if a tree falls in the forest, and no one hears it, does it make a sound? If you are the last living soul to remember an event, did it even happen?