Питер Робинсон - No Cure for Love

14 December

My Darling Little Star,

Thank God I have found You again. When I lost you I entered the darkness. Lost in the dark silent Room with only the Hum of my Machines and my Memories and Images of you.

I told myself you could not have known what I feel for you. Love strikes me Dumb. I see all that now. Thank you for giving me another chance, thank you for seeking me out. This time there will be no mistaking my Love. This time I will prove myself to you again and again until you feel the Power of my Love and come to me. I won’t let you go this time.

You think you do not know who I am, but you do. They took you away and Seduced you and stole you from me, just as the others did before. They have tried to blot out your Memory of me. And I failed you, Sally. Yes, I did. But everything is clear now. The months I spent Lost and Wandering in the dark Room have made everything bright as Day, the Visions I bore witness to have made my Purpose clear, they have revealed our Destiny. Now I watch you on the Screen and I know you are speaking only to me.

As I labor to prove myself to you, you will remember me and you will come to me. Then, my love, will we lie together and I will bite your Nipples till the Blood and Milk flow down my chin. We will hack and eat away the Corrupting Flesh, the Rank Pollution of Tissue and Sinew, and go in Moonlight shedding our Skin and spilling our Blood on the Sand through the Mirrors of the Sea where all is Peace and Silence and no one can harm us or tear us apart ever again Forever and Forever.

Be Strong, my Love. I have much to Plan and Execute before we can be together as Fate intends. My mind Boils and Seethes with the Burden, the Weight and the Glory of it. All for you. Let me prove I am more than equal to the Task.

With all the love in my bursting heart,

Sarah Broughton’s hand shook as she let the letter drop on the glass-topped table. She wiped her palm on the side of her jeans.

It was the third letter in two weeks, and by far the most detailed. The others had merely hinted that she should begin to prepare herself for a special event. This was also the first one to contain anything even remotely sexual.

Sarah walked over to the sliding glass doors. Beyond the deck and the narrow strip of lawn, the rocky promontory on which her house stood dropped twenty feet. Below, fine white sand sloped down to the Pacific Ocean, darkening where the breakers pounded the shoreline not more than fifty yards out.

Sarah stood and watched a wave swell until its rounded peak turned translucent green then burst into a crest of foam that rushed horizontally along its length until everything churned into a roiling white mass. Sometimes she thought she could stand and watch the waves forever. The roar was deafening, and through the open door she could smell salt and seaweed and something dead, that odor of primordial decay that always seemed to linger around the edges of the sea.

Though the temperature was in the mid-sixties, Sarah shivered and hugged herself. Her nerves weren’t that good to begin with, hadn’t been for over a year, and now she felt defiled, violated and scared. But even as she trembled, she found herself probing the feeling, storing it for later use. If she ever had to play a victim again, this memory could be useful.

She walked back to the table, picked up the letter and made to rip it up like the others, but she stopped herself in time. No. She would show this one to Stuart. No more procrastination.

It was close to eleven in the morning, and she was due to have lunch with him in a couple of hours. She would show him the letter then. Stuart would know what to do.

She looked at the envelope again. It was postmarked Pasadena, dated 14 December, which was Friday, four days ago, and addressed to Sarah Broughton at the beach house address on the Coast Highway.

So how had “M,” whoever he was, found out her address and phone number? Like most people in the movie and TV business, Sarah guarded her privacy well. Or thought she did.

He could have found out from the article in TV Guide that mentioned she lived in Malibu. Which wasn’t quite true. Strictly speaking, the house was in Pacific Palisades, close to the Los Angeles city limits, but that probably didn’t sound quite as glamorous to Josephine Q. Public, Ottumwa, Iowa, who liked to read about actors and actresses in TV Guide .

All in all, Sarah supposed, the secrecy was probably something of an illusion. When it came down to it, no address was that hard to come by in Hollywood. Everything was for sale.

Stop worrying, she told herself, folding the letter and putting it back in its envelope. There are millions of perverts out there drooling over actors and rock stars, and this is probably just one of them. A harmless one, more likely than not.

She imagined some overweight, pimply nerd with Coke-bottle glasses, dandruff and halitosis masturbating in a candlelit room with nude pictures of her plastered all over the walls. Somehow, it wasn’t a comforting image.

Sarah slipped the letter in her purse and decided to take a walk on the beach. She slid open the door, walked down the wooden steps from the deck to lawn, then down the stairs carved in the rock. At the bottom stood a gate made of six-foot-high metal railings, painted black, all with very sharp points. It didn’t offer much security, though, Sarah realized. Anybody who really wanted to could climb up the rocks beside it easily enough.

On the beach, she slipped off her sandals and wiggled her toes in the sand. Though the sun was only a white ball through the haze, its brightness made Sarah squint and reach in her purse for her sunglasses.

There was hardly anyone around. For Sarah, the mid-sixties was warm enough for sunbathing, but it was chilly to the natives. Also, while this area of the beach wasn’t exactly private property, access was difficult because of the solid wall of houses, flanked on both sides by low-rise office buildings.

Out toward the horizon, water and sky merged in a white glare. A light ocean breeze ruffled Sarah’s cap of short blond hair. It would soon dispel the sea-mist. She walked with her hands in her pockets, eyes scanning the beach for interesting shells and pebbles.

To the north, the mountains were almost lost in the haze, and to the south she could just about make out the Santa Monica Pier with its restaurants and amusement palaces. Funnily enough, it reminded Sarah of childhood holidays in Blackpool, staying at Mrs. Fairclough’s boardinghouse. Of course, it was rarely over sixty degrees in Blackpool — more often than not it was about fifty and raining — but her mum and dad would always splurge on one good variety show at the pier theater, and it was there that her love of show business had begun. And just look at her now. Top of the world, Ma. Well, getting there, anyway. Such a long journey, such a long, long way from Blackpool to Hollywood.

As usual, thinking of her mum and dad brought her other problem to mind: the family she had put off dealing with for too long. She hadn’t been home in two years now. Her mother was dead, had been since long before the rift, but there were still Paula, her dad and the kids. Well, she would be facing them at Christmas.

And now, on top of everything else, the letters.

As she walked along the edge of the beach, Sarah felt uneasy. Not for the first time these past couple of weeks did she keep looking over her shoulder. And whenever she did notice anyone walking toward her, she felt herself tense, get ready to run.