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“Come on in,” she says with a Durban accent. “I’ve been expecting you.”
She goes ahead. I close the door and follow her to the kitchen where she waits at the table with a pot of coffee.
“Sit.” She motions at the only other vacant chair.
“You know who I am?”
She pours the coffee into two mugs. “No, but I know why you’re here.”
“Do you, now?”
“No one’s come to see me in two years. There can only be one reason you’re here.”
“Lina.”
“Lina. Ah.” The words are pitiful, sad. She pulls the mug between her palms. “How is she?”
“She’s my wife.”
“Do you love her?”
“Yes.”
She pushes the sugar my way. “Good.”
“I want to know everything.”
“She hasn’t told you.”
“She told me enough. I want to hear it from you.”
“I was hoping I’d never have to tell that sad tale to a soul.”
“You do, so start talking.”
“Where do I begin?”
“How about with what your role was?”
“Don’t look at me like that, Mister. I didn’t hurt her. What her husband did to her broke me.”
“Yet, you never said a word.”
“My husband was on life support. Cancer. Jack paid the medical bills. My husband died nine months ago. There’s no more reason for me to keep quiet.”
“Start at the beginning, from when you first met Lina.”
She sighs. Her gaze turns inward. “I always knew what Jack was. He brought prostitutes home, and they never left in a good way. When that young, pretty thing walked through his door, I knew what was going to happen to her, and there wasn’t a thing I could do to stop it.”
“Go on.”
“She found out the very first night. The following morning, she called her father and begged him to fetch her, but he told her to grow up and face her responsibilities.”
She adds two cubes of sugar and cream to her coffee. “Jack locked her in her room and kept her there, as naked as the day she was born. He ordered me not to serve her any food. The fridge and kitchen were locked, and only I had the key. After a couple of days of starvation, she gave up the fight. Jack got what he wanted.”
“You had the key.”
“I already told you, I didn’t have a choice.”
Like hell.
“Every time Lina gave in, Jack granted her a meal. He’d tie her up and make me serve it on a newspaper on the floor so he could watch her eat it like a dog. Sometimes, he invited friends to enjoy her humiliation. Then he’d carve a line on her arm, so she’d never forget how many times she sold her body.”
My insides boil. My heart combusts. I wish with every part of my soul I could resurrect that vicious bastard to kill him all over again with the slow and torturous death he deserved.
“Jack traveled often,” she continues. “His instruction was to give Lina just enough food to keep her alive. Whenever he left, I sneaked extra food to her. Especially when she realized she was pregnant.”
“Clarke didn’t know about the pregnancy?”
“She was so thin, you could hardly see the bump. Didn’t show until she was almost seven months.”
Which explains why Lina doesn’t have any telltale stretch marks. “Why didn’t he want his own child?”
“Lina was an object to him, something he could use and abuse. Children weren’t on his agenda.”
“Then why not use protection or give her birth control?”
“I’m not sure it even crossed his mind. He was away on business for long periods. Who knows how his mind worked? All I can say is that he wasn’t always right in the head. When it came to sex, he had unsavory tastes.”
I can’t keep the accusation from my tone. “And you never tried to help her.”
She gives me a levelheaded look. “On the last trip, Jack was gone for six months.”
“Why so long?”
“He was overseeing the construction of a new mine somewhere in the Richtersveld, I think.”
I clench my fists under the table.
Taking a deep breath, she wraps her hands around her cooling mug again. “He was furious when he came home and found Lina with her big belly. I huddled outside the door. There was a lot of screaming and begging. Then came the crash. It was horrible. Glass splintering and Lina’s scream. I still hear it in my dreams.”
“He threw her from the window,” I hiss.
“Second story.”
“It’s a miracle she survived.”
“She landed in soft soil. The gardener had just upturned it that morning to plant new ferns. Broken collarbone, cracked ribs, a few scrapes and cuts.”
“What happened?”
“She was so still. We thought she was dead. Jack told me to call an ambulance and tell them she jumped. Suicide. Only, when they got there, she was very much alive. Jack was a mess. Lina’s father took charge. He had her transferred to a private clinic.”
Where her secrets could be swept under the carpet and forgotten.
