He bought her drinks and listened to her story, seeing through her first flimsy fabrications, pushing until he had the truth, plying her with champagne and sympathy. And then, later, he took her back onto the gaming floor, losing at roulette and losing at craps and then winning it back at blackjack, a demonstration of his prowess. And, as she realises now, all the while assessing her: deducing that she was smart enough to understand and desperate enough to participate.
In the ruins of the apartment she can still see him. Young, vibrant, handsome, thick blond hair a reflection of her own, not a strand out of place, laughing and toasting her with a brandy balloon, eyes full of her, smile full of himself. Overflowing with confidence, engorged with it. But who was he? A thief, a conman, a police officer? All three? Did he act to protect Zelda and Mandy, sending them out of harm’s way, or did he make sure they weren’t there to interfere with his larceny, or to share in its profits, or to disrupt his police work? What were his motives, his objectives? Does it even matter? He stole the money, ruined their lives. What is she to make of him now? He was cut down, murdered with a bullet to the brain, his killers sending a duplicate text to pacify her and Zelda. And maybe to leave a trail for the police to find. Jesus.
She tries to move, to wade through the destruction, but loses her footing amid the flotsam, collapsing down among it, landing awkwardly, a sharp edge catching her in the ribs. She barely feels it. The tears that start to well have nothing to do with physical pain. She lies there, unable to find the motivation to stand. Was she responsible for Tarquin’s death? The question returns to her now, won’t let her go. Was it all her fault? The new facts, her new knowledge, have distilled everything down to that one question: did she get him killed? Her logic cannot supply the answer but her emotions can: she feels an abiding sense of guilt.
She’d reported him over the passwords, the useless, low-level passwords. At the time, her section head, Pam Risoli, had counselled her, a formality, pretending it was serious. Something similar happened to him: a slap on the wrist, nothing more. It was a misdemeanour; the passwords were changed, life went on. They’d laughed about it, the two of them, being cautioned over something so innocuous. And for the next five years she’d been convinced informing on him was inconsequential, at least for him; he had still managed to steal the money and go, off to live the life of Riley.
Yet it was the questionnaire that saved her, her truthful answer about the passwords, elevating her above suspicion. Pam Risoli cited it in her defence: Mandy had done the right thing and dobbed on Molloy, raising a red flag, and they had ignored the warning. Instead of condemning her, Pam argued, they should be rewarding her for her honesty, for her prescience. Clarity Sparkes and the overall head of security, Harry Sweetwater, interrogated her, but their attention soon shifted to a hapless Zelda Forshaw. Mandy remained free, while Zelda went to prison, confessing to collaboration, pleading guilty. There was no trial, no need to testify: it moved straight to sentencing, been kept out of the papers.
Now, in the detritus of the apartment, Mandy revises her assessment of the questionnaire and its impact. It had helped keep her out of jail, but had it condemned him, alerted Mollisons’ security? Had they started to keep a closer eye on him? Molloy was a policeman, playing a double game; he had used Zelda and herself ruthlessly, but that didn’t mean he deserved to die. Yet unwillingly, unknowingly perhaps, she is implicated in his death. She finds herself unable to plead innocent any longer. Maybe manslaughter instead of murder, but guilty nevertheless.
In a shard of a broken mirror, she catches her own reflection. She picks it up, examining herself. She can see the green eyes, the sculpted cheekbones. She tries a smile, deploying her dimples, her exemplary teeth, just as she had that night at the casino. For a moment she can see what they saw, those drunken gamblers, those gullible security men, or she thinks she does. The beautiful, mysterious stranger. It’s so easy—they believe what they want to believe, projecting their own inventions upon her like she’s a blank screen built for the purpose. Then the glass shifts, the reflection alters. She sees what they don’t: the imperfections; the bloodshot eyes, that unfortunately placed mole, the strange elevation of her ears, her eyes slightly offset. Why are they always so blind? Why do they only see what they want to see?
Another memory comes to her. Back on the school bus once more, back on the breathless plain, heading into summer, the afternoon trip full of heat and hormones. She’s fifteen, turning sixteen, and the boys have found they like her very much and the girls have found they hate her all the more. At least Trina is gone, belly swelling with her own little scandal. Mandy still sits up the front, behind the driver, still buries herself in her books, unimpressed by the clumsy advances of those who had shunned her for so long. But secretly, inside, she is revelling in it, this new power, experimenting on the hapless adolescents, learning that a skirt hitched high or a blouse button undone can so easily incite more attention. Her books and her beauty: her two safeguards against the world, her dual armour.
She tilts the mirror fragment, considering herself. Always
