Sofia Pt. 00
The car park was almost full, as it almost always seemed to have been the past few months. Who'd have thought that one of the side effects of a global plague would be that suddenly everyone wants to go hiking. Some of the people here looked like the furthest they'd walk in normal times would be from the comfy seats in the corner to the bar to get in another round. Bicep curling a pint glass would have been the peak of their athletic ambitions. But close the pubs and suddenly they're all waddling round the countryside discussing whether it's Herefords or Lincoln Reds that have the curly horns.
I walked away from the road. I imagine I looked fairly incongruous in my suit. I didn't go far, just enough to get away from the worst of the scrum, so that we wouldn't be overheard. I leaned on the fence below the trig point, which is where I'd told her she'd find me. I love that spot. The view is quite gorgeous. The South Downs stretching out on either side and the wide plain of the Sussex Weald below, with its patchwork of fields, woods and quaint villages. On a good day you can see as far as the North Downs, maybe 30 miles off. And you can see right down on top of my house, so close you'd almost think you could lob a stone through the French windows.
The house is single-story, fairly large, with pale flint walls that contrast with the terracotta tiles of the roof. It's very private in a way. There's a high beech hedge around the garden and you have to cross a field full of fairly moody horses to get to the nearest neighbour. But from up there at the Beacon - where the Romans used to light bonfires to signal that trouble was coming - you can see anyone entering or leaving the house and pretty much the whole garden. I checked my watch - 1555, five minutes; why was I doing this again? - and returned to the view.
A car was heading up the driveway to the house. It parked up and two figures got out. They were as small as ants, of course, but I was pretty certain I could tell which was Anabelle and which was Sofia. That was easy, actually. Anabelle, my wife, would definitely have been the one driving, so she must be the one getting out the right side of the car. You couldn't really see from here how much lighter her hair is than Sofia's or the contrast between her tan and the paleness of her cousin's skin. Maybe it was the way they moved that made their identities seem so obvious. Anabelle has this undulating sensuality to the way she walks, whereas I'd noticed, since she'd come to stay, that Sofia has this boyish lightness of step; it was almost like she had to concentrate to make sure that she didn't accidentally start skipping.
Both figures disappeared into the house. A minute later one of them emerged again in the garden on the far side and walked down towards the pool. Anabelle, definitely Anabelle. I remember chuckling at how obvious that was. She took her dress off. I couldn't see it properly, of course, just a swirling disturbance in the air around her, the gesture of her arms stretching up as she pulled the dress off, and then the crimson shards of her bikini appeared on her chest and groin. There was something strangely touching about that moment. Then she dived into the pool. From up there you couldn't see a splash, the blue of the water just turned to crystal for a moment around her body.
No sign of Sofia emerging to join her. My mind dwelt on her and her disturbing story, which Anabelle had discovered. I remember standing there feeling sick at the thought of it. She was so beautiful. Physically, yes - but more than that. For me she had that painful loveliness that only comes when good looks coexist with a certain kind of grace, an embodied grace that seems inherently good. That loveliness didn't seem to be at all contradicted by the knowledge that Sofia could be aloof, even arrogant, selfish - or at least self-absorbed - or by a vague suspicion that she might be capable of a fair amount of dishonesty and unscrupulousness. So perhaps I was blinded by her smoothness and symmetry, by a facade of youthful innocence. But I could never seem to hold onto the implications of that probability for long; whenever I approached within twenty paces of her I found myself convinced that her beauty was a manifestation of something inherently good, right and true in her essence. Perhaps it had something to do with that story. Was I perceiving as goodness the conjunction of beauty and suffering?
"Dr. Wright?" said a voice behind me. A voice, quite deep for a woman's, that managed to achieve the remarkable balancing act of sounding both professional and Glaswegian. Maybe it's my memory playing tricks with me, but I feel like I already detected in two spoken words that don't-fuck-with-me edge that characterized all our early interactions.
I turned and nodded. The woman standing in front of me was somewhere around forty. I find that women of that age, those that I find attractive, fall into two categories. In the first category there are the rosy, apple-pie, maternal types, whose sexuality has matured or relaxed into something that - even where it isn't at all slutty or libertine, even where it's faithful to some partner or entirely chaste - exudes a certain generosity, like their sexuality has ripened to the point where it simply seeps out of them, bathing everyone around them in its sensuous glow. Sarah McGowan wasn't in that category.
If she wasn't taller than me, she would have been if she put on heels. She was slim, not with a model's sickliness but with an athlete's tautness. She looked like someone who didn't feel awake in the morning until she'd run five miles and who thought that the best way to watch a movie was whilst doing a plank. Her face was tanned and slightly weathered and the creases that had begun to form around her eyes gave her a look of imperiousness bordering on cruelty. Her hair was honey-gold and fell below her shoulders. If I'd had to guess based on appearances, I'd have assumed she was a Dutch surf instructor with a sideline as a BDSM Madame. She certainly seemed rather too striking to excel as a private detective. I don't remember what she was wearing, but I remember trying not to look at her breasts.
I held out my hand to her and she shook my hand with a man's firmness, whilst mine went embarrassingly limp as I remembered half way through that we were supposed to touch elbows or namaste or something. She didn't bother to introduce herself. She came and stood next to me at the railing. I moved away just far enough to seem rude without actually achieving adequate distance to reduce the risk of infection. We looked out over the sun-drenched countryside.
"I won't keep ye tay long", she said. "Yuv already sent me all I need tay get started. But I wanted tay see ye in person before I begin - I don't like to start a job without knowing who I'm working for."
"Yes, I can quite understand that." I noticed that my voice had inadvertently became more clipped than usual, even more that of an academic Englishman, as if to draw a contrast to hers. I tried to counteract the effect and succeeded in making myself sound like I was understudying for the Artful Dodger in an amateur production of Oliver Twist. "I'm glad you're on the job. If there's anything I can do to help you hit the ground running, let me know."
"Well, first, we'll need to sign the contract. Do read through it first"
She pulled out two copies of the contract from her bag. At the top of the first page was written - in bold and underlined - "Contract Number SM068: investigation into potential sexual exploitation of Miss Sofia Phillips." Below that she had summarised the background to the case in rather staccato prose.
"Contract SM068 concerns the potential sexual abuse of Miss Sofia Phillips (20). Miss Phillips is the cousin of Ms Anabelle Wright, the wife of Dr Wright (hereafter 'the client'). Miss Phillips parents - Mr. Jack Phillips and Mrs. Svetelina Phillips - are deceased (following car accident dated 22nd October 2019). Miss Phillips has been resident at the home of Dr And Ms Wright since 11th May 2020, and will remain with them until she returns to university in October 2020. Miss Phillips is currently volunteering at the Brakespear House Repatriation Centre through the charity Mi-Kind.
"On 17th May Ms Wright - who, according to the client, had been concerned regarding the mental health of Miss Phillips since the death of the latter's parents - found and read the contents of a notebook belonging to Miss Phillips. Alongside personal reflections not relevant to this investigation, the notebook describes events indicating a history of sexual exploitation. Ms Wright photographed the relevant pages and shared them with the client. The client contacted McGowan Investigations and Analysis Limited (MIA) on 27th May requesting support investigating the veracity and background to the events described by Miss Phillips.
"The client has instructed McGowan Investigations and Analysis Limited to investigate the matter utilising all available legal means, but without formally alerting the police. The investigation will seek to:
"1. Ascertain whether the incidents described in the journal have a factual basis.
"2. Identify, if possible, the identities of any perpetrators.
"3. Collate any evidence into a dossier, preparatory to a potential transfer of investigations to the police."
I scanned through the rest of the document - plenty of legalese, details on fees and expenses that I already knew - and then signed and dated the document, in my embarrassingly ugly scrawl, next to where Sarah had already placed her neat, unflorid signature. She gave me a second copy for myself and I repeated the routine.
"Well, now that everything is properly formalised, I'd just like tay hear from you first hand, why it is that you really want this job done. What's the purpose?"
I had to think before replying. Not that I hadn't thought about it a lot already, why I was delving, unasked, into stories from someone else's past. But, though I thought I knew why I was taking this intrusive step, it was hard to articulate my reasons baldly to this severe stranger.
"Well, my wife loves Sofia almost like a sister, and I've grown very fond of her too. Anabelle - my wife - seems sure that Sofia wouldn't be willing to go to the police, and I don't want to try and press the matter. But I really don't like the idea that those people could get away with what they did to her." I paused to collect my thoughts. Strangely it felt embarrassing to express moral outrage against people who had done something that was - undoubtedly - vile. Was it that I was uncomfortable at the idea of setting myself up as some saintly figure, driven by a conscience keener than others to pursue justice for its own sake? Presumptuousness, no? Or was it unease at my own fascination with the story?
Sometimes it didn't really feel like I was choosing this, or that I was looking to achieve justice for anyone, but that I was simply compelled to dig deeper. Compelled by some buried part of myself I didn't much care to look at. Now an overpoweringly vivid image suddenly filled my mind: Sofia sprawled naked on her belly on a bed in some cheap hotel room - her face turned vacantly towards a window specked with grey London drizzle, viscous fluid trickling from her thighs onto the bedding - whilst some balding businessman, bulging with fat, with sweat patches under the arms of his dress shirt, zips up the fly of his suit trousers.
It was an effort to bring my attention back to the thread of what I'd been saying. "The people who abused Sofia are going on with their lives as normal. Whilst we're standing here talking, they may be ruining some other innocent person's life. It's only natural to want to see animals like that brought to justice, isn't it?"
Sarah had been looking at me unblinkingly all this time. "So you believe her story?"
"Yes, I believe her." I swallowed. "Why would she make it up? I see no reason why she'd lie about something like that."
"Yes, it would be strange, Dr. Wright. Though, of course, it wouldn't be the first time someone's made up some terrible story to get a little sympathy and attention. And - quite apart from this story - she's had a rough time, what with the death of her Mum and Dad. That would be an ordeal at any age - and she's - what? - nineteen? Twenty?"
"Well, I just don't think that's Sofia. She has been through a lot, but she's not some neurotic who would want to wallow in some imagined victimhood. She's got too much going for her."
There was another pause. Sarah didn't so much as nod in acknowledgement or assent. I found it irritating. Probably a technique she'd been taught on some half-baked police interrogation course. She just looked at me with a look of such professional blankness on her handsome face that it made me want to slap her.
"Tell me, Dr. Wright, it was your wife that first brought the potential past abuse of Miss. Phillips to your attention. And Miss. Phillips is her cousin. Is she - your wife - aware that you've commissioned me to investigate the matter?"
I found myself swallowing again. My mouth felt rather dry and I was suddenly worried that my cheeks would give away my discomfort, like I was a schoolboy again, caught staring at some unobtainable obsession in a grey pleated skirt.
"No, we've not discussed it yet. She's been upset about the whole thing, you see. And I - I don't want to upset her more when this may not come to anything at all."
"I see." The way she said that made me feel like I'd been weighed on the divine scales and had been found lacking. "It's none of my business, of course, but I wonder if that's wise. Anyway, Dr. Wright, you can expect to hear from me with an update within a week. If you find out anything more from Miss. Phillips that might assist me, please pass on the information immediately."
She shook my hand again and I watched her walk away. I wasn't sure I liked her. I wasn't sure she liked me. Was she a lesbian? What would she be like in bed? Cruel and frigid - a black widow - or an insatiable succubus. Nothing in between. A bad call either way.
I turned back to the view. I could see the pale ant-form of Anabelle doing lengths in the pool. Her wake reflected the sunlight in strange ways. What would I do if Sarah found the men who had abused Sofia? After a few minutes I walked back to the car and slowly drove down the hill towards the house.
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