After Atlas by Emma Newman

Author:Emma Newman [Newman, Emma]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2016-10-17T10:31:49+00:00

17

I PAUSE PLAYBACK to make notes, having realized I haven’t made any more formal entries into the file since the one about him looking at the curtain. I’m losing my emotional distance. It feels like I’m trying to sketch a drop of water while holding back a bursting dam. I go back and identify time stamps for each bullet point, knowing all the while that I’m putting off watching the rest as much as I’m being diligent.

The shape of Selina’s drugged body can just be made out in the light thrown from the doorway to the rest of the suite. She went to sleep hoping she could find something to bring Alejandro back the following day, only to wake up and see all that blood, all that violence, in a beautiful room they had shared. No wonder she was hysterical. “Tia, connect me to PC Riley.”

“How can I help, sir?”

“Riley, check with SOCO that they’ve finished with Miss Klein’s belongings, and if they have, make sure they’re brought down to her new room. Tell her she can dress and pack to return to the States, but I need to see her before she can leave. I’ll be coming to see her in the next hour or so.”

“Yes, sir.”

I close the channel. I know SOCO will have finished with her stuff—none of her clothes or belongings were in the main room—but I didn’t want Riley rushing up there in his enthusiasm and pissing Alex off by encroaching on his territory. Hopefully Selina will start to feel a little better when she gets her things back. I’ll sign off permission for her to leave once I’ve broken the news about Theo to her and gotten her to sign a cast-iron nondisclosure agreement.

“Resume playback.”

Alejandro closes the door to the bedroom, goes back to the desk and opens the drawer. He pulls out a piece of the letter paper the SOCO told me about along with the complimentary fountain pen, the one we found with Theo’s body at the cottage.

He writes slowly and carefully, pausing often. Sometimes it looks like it’s to find the right words; sometimes it looks like he’s trying not to weep again. The movement of the pen across the paper is obscured by an ornamental vase filled with silk flowers, so there’s no hope of trying to render a three-dimensional reconstruction from the footage and thereby discover what he wrote. It’s not always reliable anyway, with handwriting being such an individual thing.

He fills one side, turns over and finishes a few minutes later. I daren’t speed up the footage for fear of missing some subtle detail or noise from elsewhere in the suite. The sound of the scratching of the nib across the paper knots muscles in my neck. I try to pull back, making a couple of notes and observations, but it’s like fiddling with a cuff while waiting for a public execution: something tiny and ridiculous in the face of impending horror.

Alejandro screws the lid of the pen back on and lays it beside the letter.

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