Chapter Text
Waheed
Sorry I turned my phone off. I had to. Moriya made me, so forgive me for that.
I’m writing this with Moriya’s permission. She kindly let me send you one last message so I could tell you things I should have told you before. She’s challenged me to a fight here on the Falls – she calls it a “discussion” – and I can tell you right now it’s not going to end well. But that’s okay. If we die together, it’ll mean the end of her organization, and that was all I ever wanted to do. I know it’ll make you sad, and my mom too, but there’s no other way.
I must tell you, I kind of guessed there was no medical emergency back at the hotel, but I let you go because I wanted to keep you out of danger. I want you to stay out of danger always, okay? Promise me that.
Waheed, you’ve been the most important person in my life. I’m writing mainly to tell you that. I set my affairs in order before I came out here just in case it ended the way it looks like it’s going to end now. I left you stuff in my will. I want you to remember everything we talked about doing if one day we were separated, and not be sad. Okay?
One last thing. Here are the combinations for my two lockboxes that I keep under the bed. You know the ones. There’s money in them. I want you to take it and spend it on yourself.
1822-1021-1831-1432
1018-2915-2427-2214
Your friend always,
Shirley
The falls thunder next to Jamila as she stares numbly at the rushing water. The footprints she can see in the damp earth tell their own story. There was no patient in need of immediate care, no emergency. It was all a lie to get her away from Shirley.
Still numb, she follows the footprints: large ones, Moriya’s no doubt, and smaller ones with the familiar tread pattern of Shirley’s winter shoes. They go to the center of the bridge… and then nothing. The sound of the waterfall seems to fade out of her hearing as she stares down at the churning pool below. There’s a ringing in her ears and everything seems oddly quiet. She quietly slips her phone out of her pocket and dials 112, speaking calmly into the phone when the emergency operator comes on. Her face is damp and she’s not sure whether it’s from the spray or something else. The note stays clutched in her hand. She’s not going to give it up. Not now, not ever. Not when it’s the last thing she has of Shirley.
Later, on the flight home, she rereads the note over and over, as though by reading and rereading she could somehow recapture a wisp of her friend’s spirit. ("Her friend." That sounds wrong. Other people have friends. Jamila had a Shirley. That's different. Shirley's different. There's no-one like her. No-one could be like Shirley even if they tried.)
She hasn’t told anyone yet. She can’t. Telling them would make it real, and it isn’t real yet, it can’t be. She rubs the note against her cheek, closing her eyes. It feels like a caress. She’s never done this with Shirley in her life. She should have. Should have told Shirley she was the most important person in her, Jamila’s, life too.
She almost doesn’t pick her suitcase up from baggage claim. It’s like nothing matters anymore. She’s been with Shirley in one capacity or another, by her side, for twenty-five years. The years she’s known Shirley outnumber the years she hasn’t. How can she live without her? What’s she supposed to do? What’s her life even going to be, now?
At home, she drops her suitcase by the door and sits on the couch, holding the note like a lifeline. It feels like if she lets go of it, she’ll stop existing. I’m writing this with Moriya’s permission. She kindly let me send you one last message… She must have been watching. Shirley wouldn’t have said “kindly” otherwise, wouldn’t have been thanking the woman with whom she was about to have a fight to the death.
…she must have been watching. That means Shirley might have encrypted something into the message. Some clue that would bring Moriya down. She might have needed Jamila to do something for her from… Jamila is still numb, so it doesn’t hurt like it might have… from beyond the grave. It’s Jamila’s last duty to search the note for any hidden messages.
She starts reading and rereading, carefully now, not with the numbness of grief but with the precision she’s learned from applying Shirley’s methods. You see, but you don’t observe. So she observes.
The first paragraphs yield nothing. Then she finds the paragraph: Waheed, you’ve been the most important person in my life. I’m writing mainly to tell you that. I set my affairs in order before I came out here just in case it ended the way it looks like it’s going to end now. I left you stuff in my will. I want you to remember everything we talked about doing if one day we were separated, and not be sad. Okay?
Something about that sentence niggles at her. Separated, Shirley wrote. Everything we talked about doing if one day we were separated. She wrote, I want you to remember.
Okay. Think. They do have – did have, did have – contingencies in place for if they were on a case and separated. (Not dead – separated – but that was the word Shirley used in the note. Separated.) Jamila forces herself to think. What contingencies?
It’s late. They’re in the living-room, a hockey match on TV with the sound on mute. Shirley is quizzing Jamila on contingencies. “Captured?” she asks.
“One or both of us?”
“All this is if we’re separated. So, just you.”
“Hit the alert on my phone or watch to get through to you and Gregson.”
Shirley tuts. “Before that.”
“Try to crash the car. Before that, scream. Make a fuss. Do anything to avoid getting taken to a hideout.”
“Okay. Good. What if you’re with me and I’m taken?”
Jamila doesn’t like to think of that. But she obediently says, “Trust that you’ll turn on your alert. Monitor my phone.”
“And if I don’t have my phone?”
"GPS search your smartwatch."
"What if that's taken from me too?"
Jamila knows this, too. “Wait for a call or be on the lookout for a message. You’ll try to give me clues to your whereabouts based on compass directions from where we used to live.”
“Good. And if speech is limited?”
“Be on the lookout for numbers. You’ll try to get through to me using our number code.”
And then Jamila blinks. At the end of the note, there were numbers.
Numbers. Sure, there was some stuff about lockboxes, but… numbers.
Jamila surges up from the couch like a woman possessed. Diving under Shirley’s bed, she shines her phone flashlight underneath. Shirley believes that under-bed space is best left vacant, so Jamila knows there aren’t any lockboxes under there, but she thought maybe Shirley left them there knowing it was going to be her last… the last time she ever came to their apartment. Nope. No lockboxes.
Trembling, she pulls out a pencil. She and Shirley have memorized a cipher code, but this is a number code, another one of theirs. She’s so agitated it takes her a second to collect her thoughts. Sitting at their breakfast table, she places the note flat, then brings a second piece of paper. What day is it? No, what day of the week was it when Shirley wrote the note? They agreed on ROT10 for Monday, ROT11 for Tuesday, and so on.
It was a Monday. Monday means A=10, B=11, C=12 and so on.
1822-1021-1831-1432
1018-2915-2427-2214
18-22-10-21-18-31-14-32, which deciphers, if you subtract 9 from each letter, to 9-13-1-12-9-22-5-23.
Her heart starts pounding. Slowly, she goes through it letter by letter, afraid to get it wrong. 9i-13m-1a-12l-9i-22v-5e... Alive. Alive.
I'm alive.
She lets her head fall to the table. She clutches the paper tight, pressing it to her heart. I’m alive. Oh, Shirley. Oh, Shirley.
Jamila takes her time deciphering the final letter and the next line, subtracting 9 from each number value and then translating each to a letter of the alphabet.
32-10-18-29-15-24-27-22-14, which deciphers to 23w-1a-9i-20t-6f-15o-r18-13m-5e
Wait for me.
I’m alive. Wait for me.
Shaking, she leans back, letting her head fall backward, not letting go of the note, still holding it to her heart. The paper crinkles as her fingers press on it. I’m alive. Wait for me. Oh, Shirley. “Shirley,” she whispers, clutching the note. “Shirley, Shirley, Shirley.” Jamila realizes she’s keening, and crying, with relief now, when she never let herself cry since the moment she found the note at the Falls. For all Shirley’s awkwardness, for all she has a hard time processing emotions, she knew. She knew her death would break Jamila’s heart, might destroy her. She cared enough not to condemn Jamila to the horrific agonies of grief. She cared enough to let Jamila know she was coming back for her.
Jamila knows she’s in a precarious position. There must be a reason Shirley wants the world to know she’s dead, probably to do with Moriya or the other members of her gang. Jamila can’t jeopardize that. She’ll have to pretend to grieve, and make it look good. She’ll have to tell everyone that Shirley is dead, and make it believable, make it stick. She’ll have to make funeral arrangements for Shirley. She’ll have to make the hard decision on whether or not to tell Shirley’s mother.
But one thing is for certain. She’ll wait forever. She knows that already. Forever and a day, until her Shirley comes back to her.