Every Second Counts

Chapter Two

AFTER LILA HAS REHOUSED ME and Floppy back in my beautiful apartment she flies back to Venice but only after I have promised a million times to keep in contact with her and leave the tracking of the murderers to the police.

I hadn't been back to Athena's apartment for several months and when I walk on the luxurious carpet and scan the million dollar view from my dining room window I have an overwhelming desire to stay and leave all my stupid ideas in Red Picasso's tardy flat. Just a faint musty smell and I whip around spraying Jasmine toilet perfume. It is a mistake and in an instant I image my mother and her favourite perfume.

I cannot stifle the tears that threaten to slip down my cheeks as I remember my mother, her blonde curly hair in a loose braid scooped up at the back of her head and secured with a silver clasp. The image I always have of her is wearing one of her soft blue dresses, sitting on the piano stool, playing one of the classics. The dining room is covered with prints of famous paintings collected over the years lovingly, by my father. The mid-day sun streams through the French Doors behind of which her much loved pink roses are bobbing in the breeze.

She senses my presence, stops playing and turns around. 'Athena,' she exclaims and her face creases into the smile that melts my heart and makes me wish I hadn't left home. She bounces toward me and we embrace. I smell her jasmine perfume and I breath in her love.

I jettison the memory before I break down and spiral into despair, but the lump in my throat stays with me all day.

* * *

Policewoman Polly texts me, she needs to see me and it's just as well I'm at Athena's apartment again, or I'd be in a scramble to get here, before she arrives.

'So, how are you?' she greets me.

'Good, good. Sorry about not answering the phone. Um, I lost it,' I lie.

'Actually, Lila updated me. You're not doing too well, are you?'

I wonder momentarily exactly how much Lila has told Polly, surely she wouldn't have mentioned I have assumed another life and I'd contemplated sleuthing about? I realise Lila has kept her mouth shut when Polly sits herself down and says, 'I thought as much. You've just shut yourself away, in here, haven't you? You were very close to Patrick. His death must have hit you pretty hard.'

I breath relief. 'Yes, it did. But, I read in the news you are investigating him...or something?'

Polly looks embarrassed. 'I'm not supposed to talk about it. You understand?'

'Yeah, yeah, privacy and all that crap,' I tell her. 'But, I was a patient, you know? The media are insinuating he has done something? Malpractice or something?'

'Well, you of all people shouldn't believe what the media says. I mean, look what they insinuated about your parents? And we all know how wrong they are about them, don't we?'

I am gutted, because the media are right in both cases. But, Polly doesn't know what I know about my parents, because I'm not going to tell anyone. Not until I find out more about their secret lives which I hope I can then prove they have done no wrong doing. Although they had secrets the weight of which could sink a battleship, it was all to keep them and myself safe. I pray!

In terms of Patrick, Polly and the police know very little. Just enough to question his ethics and morality, but not enough to question his suicide. I hope! For God's sake, the guy went to his death with a suicide note which tells the reader why he has chosen to take his own life, signed by him in his bloody pocket. And then the nervous rattle which appears at random to shake every bone in my body appears as the text from Unknown arrives in my head. 'Suicide? I don't think so. I have photos.'

Who the hell is it from? I have return texted the number several times with, 'Who are you?' Whoever witnessed the true circumstances of Patricks death, and has photos, has not replied.

I struggle to get up off my couch and pad toward my window which overlooks the city. The sun streams across the tall buildings.

'Are you OK?' Polly asks.

I turn to face her. 'I'm fine.'

'If you say so,' she answers with her eyebrows raised. 'Look, I'm glad I'm here. I need to let you know that someone will be visiting you shortly to ask a bit about Patrick's relationship with you.'

'I didn't have one, with him,' I answer.

'Sorry, I didn't mean to imply, you know...I mean your professional relationship.'

'Nothing to ask, then,' I snap. I so do not want to talk about the perverted motherfucker who used to be my trusted Psychiatrist and friend!

'Well, apparently, some of his clients were a bit more than his client,' she says. 'Obviously...'

I interrupt, 'As I said, Patrick and I had a professional relationship. I cannot add anything more.'

Polly nods. 'Look, I need to give you the heads up on this. My Gov reckons you know more about your Psychiatrist than you're letting on. He's sending someone around to have a chat with you.'

Although every part of my body is on nerve alert, I manage a calmness when I tell her, 'Whatever. He'll just be wasting his time. I don't know anything.'

I think she believes me but then she gets up, sighs heavily and says, 'Have it your own way, Athena.'

* * *

Night time is a prick of a time! Sleep hasn't been a friend of mine since Patrick died. And no bloody wonder I say to myself. Like, blood is on my hands. Thoughts flit through my head at random and the heinous way Patrick died is always there. Tonight, as I sit in my dressing gown drinking hot chocolate in Athena's apartment, I go over all the things that won't let me sleep.

The discussion I overheard when I was somewhere I should never have been, between my accountant Ryan Thompson and his secretary, Carol. – 'I feel pretty guilty, Athena should be told,' Carol had said. What should I be told? And how do I find out without them knowing I was there, listening to them when they were having sex in the middle of the night in Ryan's office?

And overhearing my parent's neighbour Mrs. Heslop telling her husband that there was 'funny goings on' at my parent's house prior to them being killed. What did they mean? What counts as funny goings on—in the heads of seventy year olds?

And what about the man in the Black Sedan? Even though it has been proved to me time and time again there was no such man stalking me, especially after I made a spectacle of myself virtually yanking an innocent man out of a parked Black Sedan by his white collar in front of his terrified children. But, the nagging paranoia I live with still thinks he may exist and is getting better at what he does, like merging into a crowd.

Being thumped that night outside Ryan's office was nothing to do with paranoia. Whoever it was, they were warning me off. Obviously knew I was feritting around.

How can I find out who Reuben is...Patrick's client who overheard the conversation about my mother's Russian ring and put two and two together which I am confident started the chain of events ending in their deaths. I have to find him! He's the key to my future.

And then, as per usual, the text takes centre stage... 'Suicide? I don't think so. I have photos,' and I know I won't be going to sleep anytime soon. Who knows Patricks death wasn't suicide? What do they want from me? I know they want something because if they were honest law-biding citizens, they would have handed their photos to the police and I would have been arrested by now. So, whoever it is, wants something from me.

As I pad back to my bedroom, I wonder again if I should heed Lila's advice. Well, everyone's advice actually. Leave it to the police. I guffaw with sarcasm. The police haven't gotten anywhere. However, there's a tiny part of me that thinks maybe they know stuff but won't tell me anything until they have proof.

What can I do? Sit around like a fucking moron hoping they turn up with the murderers?

It is exactly one hour later that I know what I will do as soon as it gets light. Red's apartment is calling me.

* * *