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“Professor Reid, I’m glad you called. Did you get home safely?”
“We did. Ry was injured, but his operation went well. The doctors are confident he’ll make a full recovery with some time and TLC.” I explained that I was recording the call and asked if it was okay. When I got her permission, we continued talking.
“She shot him,” she surmised.
“How did you know?” I asked, both curious and concerned. Zali had scrubbed the security footage and took Rosa’s computer. How did they see it?
“We heard the gunshots. I sent Eshan over to make sure you all got out safely.”
“Thank you,” I murmured. She really had taken care of us in the short time we’d been in the country. Her generosity and that of the staff on Langkawi were the two bright spots in our trip. I wasn’t sure whether Martha’s kindness was because of who she was or who we were. It was obvious that she knew who her neighbour was, but that didn’t translate into knowing us. I needed answers.
“Can you start from the beginning, Martha? May I call you that?” I asked. Without giving her a chance to answer, I added, “How do you know us?”
Martha tutted. “Professor, how am I supposed to answer your questions if you don’t give me time to?”
I kept my mouth shut, not wanting to interrupt her again but it also occurred to me that she was calling me professor. I’d never given her my title either.
“I was vacationing in Sydney, visiting an old friend when Rosa and Asher went missing. I’d believed the news when they announced the yacht was feared lost and its occupants drowned. It was purely a coincidence that they moved in next door. My wife, bless her soul, was at home and took an instant liking to that beautiful boy.”
I smiled sadly, wishing I’d known Asher. He’d had such a profound impact on the people around him in his short life that I could only imagine what he would have achieved if he’d been alive today.
She sighed, the sound a sad one. “Val told me that Rosa was running from an abusive husband. She’d said her family had sent her here. She was hiding in a friend’s house. I don’t remember his full name, and I couldn’t find out any information on him without asking her, but there’s an actor with the same name. An English fellow.”
There was only one English actor who came to mind—Benedict Cumberbatch.
“Auberon Benedict?” I asked, flabbergasted at Rosa’s audacity.
“Yes, that’s him,” she answered triumphantly. “How do you know him?”
“Benedict was one of her staff members.” I wanted to add more, to explain the link we’d found between them, but I held off. I still hadn’t figured out exactly what she knew, and I needed more from Martha before I could start filling in gaps in our knowledge.
“Rosa stressed how important it was that no one knew she was there because her ex would hunt her down. She was terrified of him. Apparently, Benedict was the only person who knew where she was because she was in his house.”
“I can’t believe she said Roe was abusive,” I muttered, horrified at what Zali would think when I told her.
“Yes. But there was something about her that didn’t sit right with us. We thought it might have been because of the trauma of her abuse, so we tried to support her. But the longer she was there, the more she seemed to pull back. She pushed us away and everything Asher did upset her. She raised her voice at that boy a lot.”
“What was she yelling at him for?” I asked. I couldn’t fathom the change in her. She’d said that she wanted Zali and Roe with her, and yet she left them. She took her son, but then she killed him. Her actions didn’t make sense even for a psychopath.
“I can only guess. But from what Asher told me—which wasn’t much—she was tired of him getting in the way. He was too sad all the time. He complained too much. He was too moody. We saw him retreat into himself before our eyes.”
“Their deaths were very close together, you know. My beautiful Val had a brain aneurism. It ruptured, and she died in my arms just like that.” She snapped her fingers and her voice wobbled. “We didn’t even know she was sick.” She paused for a long moment, just breathing. Her voice was sad when she continued, weighed down by grief.
“She was my reason for living. Her death broke something inside me. I was in a dark place for a long time afterward, and I spent years sitting alone in that darkness. When I was finally ready to come back into the world, I learned that Asher had passed too.”
“I’m so sorry for your loss, Martha.” Guilt weighed heavily on me. My phone call had dredged up a lot of memories for her. “I’m responsible for making a lot of people re-live their losses lately, and I’m sorry for doing that to you too.”
“I had faith in you, professor. That’s why I funded your research.”
I sputtered, shock rendering me speechless.
“Let me finish my story and you’ll understand,” she continued. “Asher used to hide in the gardens along the fence, trying to surprise our staff. That poor boy just wanted someone to love him. Val had a secret gate made so he could sneak through and visit with us. He used to come nearly every day.”
My smile was bittersweet. I loved the idea of him having a secret garden to play in, but he sounded miserable. “How long did he do that for?”
“It had to have been six or seven months. But then he stopped coming. Val went to visit him, but Rosa wouldn’t let her see him. She said Asher had the flu. But the staff gossip, and they told us Rosa found out about his visits. She shouted at him, and he was crying. She punished him by banning him from leaving the house. He was already withdrawn, and they said he got sadder and sadder every day.”
“He must have been so lonely,” I murmured, my heart breaking for the little boy who’d been torn away from everything he knew and had been hurt, was probably still in pain, and all alone because of the whim of a madwoman.
