Chapter Text
7 Months Later
Minsk, Belarus
She walked out of the limo and hugged the heavy fur to her body. The icy wind cut into her cheeks. She ran into the open door, resenting it had to stay open for him and his pet du jour. This week, it was an Italian girl just turned 16.
For him, it was a magic number.
She took off her fur hat and fluffed her hair. In the last six months, she had gone through some physical changes - she’d gotten another nose job, a boob job, and liposuction in Brazil, immediately after leaving London. The camera added 10 pounds, after all. She resented who she saw in the mirror. It wasn’t her. Her hair was now shoulder-length and honey colored. Her lips were padded with collagen. She was a doctor, playing a whore. She checked her lipstick in a hallway mirror. Or was it the other way around?
He came through with his arm around the girl’s waist. She walked behind them, head held high. The silly girl gave her a dirty look that she had seen a hundred times before. She wondered why Frank kept Clara around. Why Clara was alpha, although she was older. Frank was an amoral, vile bastard, but he was loyal. And he loved her, in his way. When she disappeared, he only had enclaves in Houston, Tijuana, and Washington DC. In just years, his ring had grown to cover France, Morocco, Italy, Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, China, the Philippines, and of course, Thailand. They were in the middle of a world tour of sorts. He was proud of what he had amassed, and with every stop, her heart dropped a little. He went from being a criminal to an invincible hydra, and with every day that passed, she was more tangled up in his filth.
They were escorted to a large room with leather padded walls and pulsing trance music. People walked around in costumes and grotesque masks. Sex acts were performed out in the open, like perverse art. She was numb to it all.
She took off her coat. She wore red latex ball gown that was translucent enough to show the enticing darkness between her legs. She put on the matching gold mask. A waitress, nude except for gold dust and a mask, walked by her with a tray of champagne. She plucked a flute off as she passed and drank deep.
The people on the floor below how bounced in unison as they began to count down the remains of the year in Russian. The Italian girl leaned against the balustrade, waved her champagne, and counted in Italian.
Frank walked beside her and raised his glass. She did the same. The lights began to flash golden at the strike of midnight, and he gave her a kiss on the forehead.
“Another year, another dollar,” he said, squeezing her waist. “I’m so glad you’re here with me, where you belong. You look beautiful.”
“Thanks, baby,” she said. “I’m glad too.”
He nuzzled her, then walked away to wish a happy new year to his pet. She gave Clara a jealous look before giving him a sloppy kiss in the mouth. It was kind of sad, really. She didn’t know that she had already been offloaded to a Russian IT tycoon. This was their last night together. Frank had loyalty, but only to her. And even then, he felt the need to remind her who was boss with the back of his hand more often than not.
She sucked on her bruised lip, which was well camouflaged by lipstick. He had woken her from her sleep with his last beating, just three days ago. She was frightened and confused as he hit her with a bamboo switch he kept by the bed while roaring about wiping out the stinking memory of that weak motherfucker once and for all-
She had whispered his name in her sleep. More than once. In tears. With love.
He mentioned having him killed. She did everything in her power to calm him, getting on her knees, kissing his feet with tear-wet lips and offering every pleasure she knew well he couldn’t resist.
In the end, after his second orgasm, he calmed down. Her body still ached from the beating. Her skin was criss-crossed in black and blue - it was the reason she wore the long sleeved ball gown. Regardless of the agony, it was a blessing in disguise, since she could not perform until her bruises healed and they would not heal for weeks, if not months.
He had been very furious.
She followed him around like a faithful dog every since that night. She went where he went, eavesdropped every word he spoke in the hopes that he would forget his threats. Alec believed her dead and buried. He most probably moved on, but she was far from it. But she was a good actress. She could endure, however long it took. She would bear the weight of her pain willingly, if she could gather the courage to do what she came to do. But the task seemed more impossible with every passing day.
Her eyes drifted back to Frank. He greeted someone below - a solitary nod - and turned back to the party. He didn’t need to do anything more. He was quickly becoming king of sleaze. And her, his reluctant queen.
“Ten! Nine! Eight!” Ellie yelled the loudest, with the plastic champ flute in her fist. There was a plain gold band on that hand now - her and Mel had married three months prior in a ceremony that had him dangerously close to tears.
Her and Mel held each other.
“Three!Two!One! Happy New Year!” she screamed joyfully, and they gave each other a long, lingering kiss.
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and never brought to mind?
Should old acquaintance be forgot,
and old lang syne?
Everyone sang around him, but he just stared at the gold bubbles in his flute. He couldn’t sing. The words stuck in his throat.
Ellie came around and pulled him into a joint hug with Mel. “Go on then, sing a verse with us,” she said. Her eyes were limpid with sympathy.
We two have paddled in the stream,
from morning sun till dine;
But seas between us broad have roared
since auld lang syne.
He stared at her, but his mouth didn’t move. She gave up and poured a bit more champagne in his flute.
“If you insist on being silent, have another drink,” she said, and filled her own cup. He touched the cup to his lips, but he couldn’t swallow.
She rubbed his back. “You okay?” she whispered. A couple walked past them into the garden for a private kiss. His eyes followed them. His lips disappeared.
Him and Grace. They made love on the only New Year’s they had together. In a garden, much like Ellie’s. He was scandalized until he felt her legs around his hips. 46 years, he never did anything like that. But she brought it out of him.
“Thank you so much for being here with us, Alec,” Mel said. “We know it’s not your scene, but still. You came.”
He turned his head toward the party slowly. “Of course. You and Ellie have been amazing to Daisy and I in the last year,” he said. Daisy was at university, and she lived with Alec in Grace’s old apartment, much to Ellie’s chagrin. He raised his cup, and Ellie and Mel clinked it. “To new beginnings,” Ellie said, kissing Mel.
“To new beginnings,” Alec repeated, then swallowed hard.
He left soon after, wanting to be home when Daisy got there. The ride was uneventful except for a couple of zigzagging cars that he only had the wherewithal to pout at. He just kept his distance and sped on.
That song echoed in his head. He hated it. His father, always drunk, but drunker than usual on New Year's, would bellow it out in his broad Scottish and slap his back if he didn’t sing loud enough. However much he tried to forget, he remembered every cursed line.
But seas between us broad have roared.
Although in his mind’s eye he saw Ellie’s sweet face singing it, it was his father’s voice he heard.
He parked in front of the apartment building and climbed the stairs to the door two at a time. He hoped Daisy was already safe at home, but he doubted it. He opened the door and dropped his keys in the red bowl. The place was silent and dark. He loosened his tie as he walked down the hallway. He pushed Daisy’s door open with a finger. Of course, she wasn’t there. He went into his closet and slung his tie in a hanger bowed with the weight of them - most of them blue. There was only one purple one, and a red one. Both gifts.
He never wore them, but he refused to get rid of them.
He took off his trousers and threw them on a pants press, a novelty Daisy had given him as a housewarming gift. Although at first he had thought it ridiculous, he couldn’t deny that it indeed, did press his pants into a decent state. He didn’t look quite so rumpled. He unbuttoned his shirt and hung it up by a solitary black suit. He only wore it once, so it was pristine. Daisy suggested he give it to Oxfam, but he couldn’t hearten himself to touch it, much less put it in his car, drive somewhere and give it away.
He kicked his shoes off and stared at the dusty corner of the closet floor, where there was a solitary box labeled ‘Tip’ in Daisy’s neat handwriting. He promised to drop off the box with the suit, but he hadn’t gotten around to it yet. He sat down indian style, in his pants, on the closet floor and pulled the box toward him. Inside, there was three pairs of women’s shoes, a red sweater, and some photographs. He took the sweater in his hands and pressed it to his burning eyes.
It was the sweater Grace wanted to wear to Daisy’s party. The faintest scent of her still clung to the fibers. He looked at the photos. Him and Grace at the beach in Broadchurch with Ellie and Fred. He pouted in the shade of a bathhouse, arms crossed over his chest. Grace mugged for the camera, her tongue out, in a white bikini. Another photo of them at the shops, picking out art prints. She posed by a life size version of the Venus de Milo, her face mock grave. He remembered everything about that day - the coffee scent that clung to her skin, giving her his scarf because she’d lost her hat to the canal in a stiff breeze - and it was agonizing.
There were several more, then the one he treasured most. Her, twirling in a white dress for his eyes only, in the garden. Her dark eyes sparkled and her hair billowed around her face. She looked like something out of a dream.
He groaned softly in pain. He had seen the ravaged body missing its head, hands, and feet, with the toothless, hairless head poised beside it like an exhibit. It was her. Her lovely limbs were charred and black, and her smile wiped out forever by a monster she had willingly gone to. He saw the CCTV. She walked freely from limo to airplane, then into that godforsaken warehouse. She put on lipstick, and a sleazy red dress. She smiled at the toadies who delivered her to her death. Frank had disappeared, along with any evidence that Grace Lastra had ever existed. And Clara Zamora was a glaring dead end.
That charred mass haunted him. His new doctor, an older Indian gentleman with a gentle voice, prescribed him a sleep aid, but he never took it. He was afraid the more he slept, the more he would dream. And he knew he would dream of Grace, because his heart demanded it.
He put lilies on her grave, prayed fervently for the first time since his Presbyterian youth, but it brought no respite.
The knowledge that something was not right - something beyond his own sorrow - took away his sleep. Grace was dead. Perhaps, if he had not jumped to conclusions and stayed until she came home that night and told her exactly what happened between him and Tess, she might still be alive. But there was something more than guilt pulling at the edges of his mind.
Why had Frank cut her up so horribly? Burned her body, and dipped her toothless head in acid? She died from a bullet to the back of the head, a textbook gangland killing, but there had been no mention of Clara being an explicit part of that world in the information that Tess compiled. In life and at the end, she was just another victim. Why kill her so heartlessly when he had nothing to lose by letting her live, and nothing to gain by murdering her?
He had asked these questions out loud, more than once, to the consternation of Zed, Tess, and Ellie. Only Mel remained quiet when the others urged him to let it go. But he wasn’t very close to her, and she seemed averse to his sorrow.
Frank was powerful enough to walk her out of a police station and make her disappear. What more is he capable of? Coercion? Lies? Murder?
Not necessarily only the murder of Grace-
Clara, her name is Clara
Not necessarily only the murder of Clara, but others. How clever was he, truly?
He looked down to see he had crumpled the photo while deep in thought. He cried out and smoothed it on his knee, then carefully put the things back in the box, and closed it.
“Clara Zamora,” he said out loud to the closet walls. “Clara. Who are you?”
“Dad?” Daisy’s voice was muffled. She knocked softly on his bedroom door.
He wondered whether she had heard him talk to himself. He decided not to worry about it. He quickly put on his long blue robe and opened the door.
“Happy New Year!” she said, blowing a glittery party horn in his face. She gave him a hug and kissed his prickly cheek. He held her for a couple of seconds longer, then kissed the top of her head.
“Happy new year, sweetheart,” he said, and took the party horn and threw it over her shoulder. “Did you have a good time?” He looked into her eyes for signs of inebriation, but she was bright-eyed as ever.
She pulled him to the parlor and sat him down on the sofa.
“I have news,” she said, giving him a giant grin.
“How much will it cost me?” he said, an old joke that he never tired of.
“Nothing. Well, I think nothing. Unless you’d like to send me off with a little spending money…” She bounced in her seat.
“Alright. So, you know I’m studying social work - as a segueway to police work - and there is an internship program in the US that takes people in excellent academic standing to volunteer for credits. You know, building low cost housing, helping in medical and job fairs, assisting actual social workers do their jobs-
“Wait. In the United States? Aren’t there poor people here?”
“Dad. It’s connected to the University of North Carolina, a good university. If I do well, I might be able to go at very little or no cost to you.”
“That school sounds really familiar. Isn’t that the school Finn’s going to in the fall?”
“A little. Yeah.” She gave him another smile.
“How are you dealing with that?” he asked, crossing his legs.
“Like this. If I can go, and I do really well, I have a good chance of being accepted as a sophomore. Then, her and I don’t have to be an ocean apart.”
“I’m still confused. So, she’s gonna be in this volunteer internship thing as well?”
“She’s kinda the one who talked me into considering it.”
“And when exactly does it start?”
“In two weeks from Tuesday. If I were to say yes, we’d be flying out next weekend.”
“Jesus, Dais. Why didn’t you tell me earlier? I don’t like the sound o’ this. There’s plenty of needy poor here. Help them. Why d’you have to go to the ass end of creation to do it?”
“Because it’s where Finn is. And I don’t want to be here alone.” She took off the party hat she wore and put it on the coffee table.
“You’re not alone. You have me,” he said, but he knew it was no consolation.
“Sure, dad. But it’s not the same.” Her eyes shone with tears. She hugged him tight. “You know I love you. You’ve more than proven yourself to me and mum. But I think I have to do this,” she said. Her slim body trembled. She didn’t have to say. He knew she was worried about him. Deeply. But she also longed to move on, be with Finn. And she deserved to have that, however it played out.
“You have grown up to be the kindest, cleverest, loveliest young woman. Far more than I deserve, for all my effort. Although I will miss you, you should go. I’ve only been to the US once, with your mum, as an anniversary trip.”
“Oh, I remember. You went to New York. The weather was horrible and it was expensive and you were miserable. Mum talks about it all the time.” She wiped her eyes.
“I can be a sour shit sometimes,” he said, shrugging. “I asked her forgiveness. And now I’m asking for yours.”
She gave him a tender look. “Da!” She hugged him again, then kissed each cheek. “I forgive you. Maybe, one day, you’ll come visit? I know the American south isn’t as miserably cold as New York. You might like it.”
“Meh,” he said, shrugging. She laughed. “I’ll visit. But I can’t promise I’ll enjoy it.”
“Fair enough,” she said. She squeezed his hand, then kissed it. “Thanks, dad. I’m gonna go tell Finn the good news!” she jumped, then ran to her room and closed the door.
He sat there, unmoving, until the sun came up.