***For those who have read the parts of the Sofia series I've already posted: this was written after parts 1-4, but is set immediately before part 1. I wrote it after I had an idea for how to add a new dimension to the narrative. To be fully coherent with the rest of what I've written, it will probably require a slight re-write for parts 1-4, but I thought I'd just put it up and go back to make adjustments to the other parts later.***
The car park was almost full, as it almost always seemed to have been the past few months. Who'd have thought that one of the side effects of a global plague would be that suddenly everyone wants to go hiking. Some of the people here looked like the furthest they'd walk in normal times would be from the comfy seats in the corner to the bar to get in another round. Bicep curling a pint glass would have been the peak of their athletic ambitions. But close the pubs and suddenly they're all waddling round the countryside discussing whether it's Herefords or Lincoln Reds that have the curly horns.
I walked away from the road. I imagine I looked fairly incongruous in my suit. I didn't go far, just enough to get away from the worst of the scrum, so that we wouldn't be overheard. I leaned on the fence below the trig point, which is where I'd told her she'd find me. I love that spot. The view is quite gorgeous. The South Downs stretching out on either side and the wide plain of the Sussex Weald below, with its patchwork of fields, woods and quaint villages. On a good day you can see as far as the North Downs, maybe 30 miles off. And you can see right down on top of my house, so close you'd almost think you could lob a stone through the French windows.
The house is single-story, fairly large, with pale flint walls that contrast with the terracotta tiles of the roof. It's very private in a way. There's a high beech hedge around the garden and you have to cross a field full of fairly moody horses to get to the nearest neighbour. But from up there at the Beacon - where the Romans used to light bonfires to signal that trouble was coming - you can see anyone entering or leaving the house and pretty much the whole garden. I checked my watch - 1555, five minutes; why was I doing this again? - and returned to the view.
A car was heading up the driveway to the house. It parked up and two figures got out. They were as small as ants, of course, but I was pretty certain I could tell which was Anabelle and which was Sofia. That was easy, actually. Anabelle, my wife, would definitely have been the one driving, so she must be the one getting out the right side of the car. You couldn't really see from here how much lighter her hair is than Sofia's or the contrast between her tan and the paleness of her cousin's skin. Maybe it was the way they moved that made their identities seem so obvious. Anabelle has this undulating sensuality to the way she walks, whereas I'd noticed, since she'd come to stay, that Sofia has this boyish lightness of step; it was almost like she had to concentrate to make sure that she didn't accidentally start skipping.
Both figures disappeared into the house. A minute later one of them emerged again in the garden on the far side and walked down towards the pool. Anabelle, definitely Anabelle. I remember chuckling at how obvious that was. She took her dress off. I couldn't see it properly, of course, just a swirling disturbance in the air around her, the gesture of her arms stretching up as she pulled the dress off, and then the crimson shards of her bikini appeared on her chest and groin. There was something strangely touching about that moment. Then she dived into the pool. From up there you couldn't see a splash, the blue of the water just turned to crystal for a moment around her body.
No sign of Sofia emerging to join her. My mind dwelt on her and her disturbing story, which Anabelle had discovered. I remember standing there feeling sick at the thought of it. She was so beautiful. Physically, yes - but more than that. For me she had that painful loveliness that only comes when good looks coexist with a certain kind of grace, an embodied grace that seems inherently good. That loveliness didn't seem to be at all contradicted by the knowledge that Sofia could be aloof, even arrogant, selfish - or at least self-absorbed - or by a vague suspicion that she might be capable of a fair amount of dishonesty and unscrupulousness. So perhaps I was blinded by her smoothness and symmetry, by a facade of youthful innocence. But I could never seem to hold onto the implications of that probability for long; whenever I approached within twenty paces of her I found myself convinced that her beauty was a manifestation of something inherently good, right and true in her essence. Perhaps it had something to do with that story. Was I perceiving as goodness the conjunction of beauty and suffering?
"Dr. Wright?" said a voice behind me. A voice, quite deep for a woman's, that managed to achieve the remarkable balancing act of sounding both professional and Glaswegian. Maybe it's my memory playing tricks with me, but I feel like I already detected in two spoken words that don't-fuck-with-me edge that characterized all our early interactions.
I turned and nodded. The woman standing in front of me was somewhere around forty. I find that women of that age, those that I find attractive, fall into two categories. In the first category there are the rosy, apple-pie, maternal types, whose sexuality has matured or relaxed into something that - even where it isn't at all slutty or libertine, even where it's faithful to some partner or entirely chaste - exudes a certain generosity, like their sexuality has ripened to the point where it simply seeps out of them, bathing everyone around them in its sensuous glow. Sarah McGowan wasn't in that category.
If she wasn't taller than me, she would have been if she put on heels. She was slim, not with a model's sickliness but with an athlete's tautness. She looked like someone who didn't feel awake in the morning until she'd run five miles and who thought that the best way to watch a movie was whilst doing a plank. Her face was tanned and slightly weathered and the creases that had begun to form around her eyes gave her a look of imperiousness bordering on cruelty. Her hair was honey-gold and fell below her shoulders. If I'd had to guess based on appearances, I'd have assumed she was a Dutch surf instructor with a sideline as a BDSM Madame. She certainly seemed rather too striking to excel as a private detective. I don't remember what she was wearing, but I remember trying not to look at her breasts.
I held out my hand to her and she shook my hand with a man's firmness, whilst mine went embarrassingly limp as I remembered half way through that we were supposed to touch elbows or namaste or something. She didn't bother to introduce herself. She came and stood next to me at the railing. I moved away just far enough to seem rude without actually achieving adequate distance to reduce the risk of infection. We looked out over the sun-drenched countryside.
"I won't keep ye tay long", she said. "Yuv already sent me all I need tay get started. But I wanted tay see ye in person before I begin - I don't like to start a job without knowing who I'm working for."
"Yes, I can quite understand that." I noticed that my voice had inadvertently became more clipped than usual, even more that of an academic Englishman, as if to draw a contrast to hers. I tried to counteract the effect and succeeded in making myself sound like I was understudying for the Artful Dodger in an amateur production of Oliver Twist. "I'm glad you're on the job. If there's anything I can do to help you hit the ground running, let me know."
"Well, first, we'll need to sign the contract. Do read through it first"
She pulled out two copies of the contract from her bag. At the top of the first page was written - in bold and underlined - "Contract Number SM068: investigation into potential sexual exploitation of Miss Sofia Phillips." Below that she had summarised the background to the case in rather staccato prose.
"Contract SM068 concerns the potential sexual abuse of Miss Sofia Phillips (20). Miss Phillips is the cousin of Ms Anabelle Wright, the wife of Dr Wright (hereafter 'the client'). Miss Phillips parents - Mr. Jack Phillips and Mrs. Svetelina Phillips - are deceased (following car accident dated 22nd October 2019). Miss Phillips has been resident at the home of Dr And Ms Wright since 11th May 2020, and will remain with them until she returns to university in October 2020. Miss Phillips is currently volunteering at the Brakespear House Repatriation Centre through the charity Mi-Kind.
"On 17th May Ms Wright - who, according to the client, had been concerned regarding the mental health of Miss Phillips since the death of the latter's parents - found and read the contents of a notebook belonging to Miss Phillips. Alongside personal reflections not relevant to this investigation, the notebook describes events indicating a history of sexual exploitation. Ms Wright photographed the relevant pages and shared them with the client. The client contacted McGowan Investigations and Analysis Limited (MIA) on 27th May requesting support investigating the veracity and background to the events described by Miss Phillips.
"The client has instructed McGowan Investigations and Analysis Limited to investigate the matter utilising all available legal means, but without formally alerting the police. The investigation will seek to:
"1. Ascertain whether the incidents described in the journal have a factual basis.
