Nicola Griffith - Slow River

“She may already be arrested.” I told her about Tok and Oster, the strange appeal they had made two years ago. “But there’s more to it than that.”

Magyar folded her arms in satisfaction. “Thought there might be.”

“My ransom wasn’t paid for a long, long time. I thought the delay was deliberate.”

“Thought or think?”

“I don’t know.” Did the fact that it was Katerine and not Oster make a difference? No. “I was in that tent for weeks. The ransom demand was thirty million.” I ignored the way her pupils dilated. “They wouldn’t actually expect thirty million, of course. That’s just a negotiating tool. But they would expect about ten.”

“How do you know that?”

“It’s the kind of thing you learn growing up.”

“You might.”

I supposed it might seem odd, to grow up understanding the mechanics of abduction. “Ten million—even thirty million—means nothing to my family. Just on my own I’m worth more than that.” Talk of millions was doing what mention of my name yesterday had not. I could see the shutters start to come down in Magyar’s head. “Don’t. Damn you, Magyar, don’t go away, don’t pretend I’m not real. There’s nothing I can do about the money. It’s what I was brought up with. But I don’t have it now.”

“You could, though.”

“I could. But I won’t.”

“We’ll see.” But she smiled. It was just the corner of her mouth, but she was trying.

“At those prices, my release should have been negotiated within a week. Ten days at the most. I was in that tent six weeks. Why?”

“Bad communications?”

“No. They had excellent lines of communication. Think about it. Someone knew where to abduct me from. I’d been in Uruguay less than twenty-four hours, but they were ready: transport, masks, drugs. And they even knew I was allergic to subcutaneous spray injections. How?”

“I don’t know.”

“Someone told them. And the only people who knew were family members, and those close to the family.” I gave her a minute to absorb that. “So if my family, or someone close, set the whole thing up, the question has to be: Why? The family doesn’t need money, nor does the corporation.”

“Maybe it wasn’t money they were after.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of. Maybe they just wanted me out of the way.”

“But why? And if it was the family, for family reasons, why the Chen kidnappings”

“I don’t know.”

Silence. “So you changed your name and hid.” I nodded. “Well.” She did not seem to know what to say.

She knew I had been in danger, maybe still was. She knew I was rich but would probably never claim the money. She knew I thought I had killed a man. “Magyar, will you help me?”

“Yes.”

Yes. “Just like that?”

She lifted her feet off the desk, gave me a crooked smile. “Murder, money, high intrigue. It’s just getting interesting.”

Another silence, this time longer. “Magyar, why?”

“Why do you think?” she asked softly.

It was not a rhetorical question. But she had known what Kinnis and Cel and all those others had been thinking, and she hadn’t contradicted them. “Because… Damn it, Cherry, you know why.”

“Maybe I do. But I need to hear it. I don’t think I can take any more surprises from you.” She got up, came around to my side of the desk. We stood about twelve inches from each other. The hairs on my neck and the backs of my hands tried to rise. It was like being in a strong magnetic field. I felt very exposed in my skinny.

“I like you,” I said suddenly. Which was not quite what I had intended. “I like being near you. And I admire you. What you think matters to me.” And I had made myself vulnerable. She was the only person in the world apart from Spanner who knew who I was.

I could see every pore in her face, the way the creases around her eyes deepened when she smiled. “Why didn’t you start trusting me a bit earlier?” She moved closer, nine inches, six.

I could feel the heat of her body through the plasthene of my suit. Our hipbones were almost touching. I imagined the feel of her skin under my hands.

The end-of-break Klaxon sounded. Down below there was movement as the shift came back to the troughs.

“Shit.” I started to turn away.,

She snagged my hand. Plasthene on plasthene. Safe and erotic. She did not seem to care about the glass walls. She moved her hand to my wrist, tugged until my arms came around her waist. She laid my palm against the small of her back, pressed it in place. My belly was an inch, half an inch, from hers. Heat swarmed up my legs, down my spine. “Is this what you want?”

I nodded.

“Say it.”

“Yes. This is what I want. You are who I want.”

What was between us swelled suddenly, and was almost tangible: ceramic and smooth, rounded as an egg.

We stepped apart by mutual consent. Magyar did not sit behind the desk again, but perched on one corner. I hovered uncertainly by the door. “We have a lot to do,” she said.

“Yes.”

“And I’ll have to split my time between this”—she gestured at the space between us, the possible murder, she meant—“and the sabotage.”

“Yes.” I turned to go, got as far as touching the door handle, turned. “Magyar, were you ever loved by your family?”

“Yes.”

So sure. “I don’t know if I was. I know that no one else ever did. I’m not sure what love is, but I want… I want to be real.” I wasn’t sure what I was trying to say. “All the people I’ve slept with, none of them knew who I really was.” None of them had whispered my name, sent me love notes. Told me they couldn’t live without me. “I’ve never had any romance, ever. But how could I? I’ve been so many people, I never knew which ones were real. I want to find that out before you and I… before we go any further. I want to see what that’s like. Do you understand?”

“No,” she said softly, “but I’m trying.”

Good enough.

The seven hours between lunch and dinner are the longest part of the day. She tries to stay fit by doing stretches and sit-ups and resistance exercises, but she does not have the strength to work out for more than thirty or forty minutes. The rest of the time drags. She weeps often: for herself, for Stella, for Tok. She wonders why her family has not ransomed her.

Something is different. Both men come into the tent together. She sits at the far end of the tent while they stand at the entrance. They fill the tent, breathe all her air. She must not look scared or they will know she is no longer drugged,

“Your family is stalling,” Crablegs says.

Lore looks from one to the other, not sure if she should say anything.

Fishface squats down until his hooded face is only a foot or so higher than Lore’s. “We’ve asked for thirty million,” he explains, “which isn’t much.”

“They say ten is all they’ll give, We think maybe they don’t care whether you live or die.”

Fishface stands. “If they don’t give us the money, we can’t give you back. You do understand that, don’t you?”

He sounds genuinely regretful. Lore wants to reach out and pat his arm, let him know she understands that he is really trying.

“Think about what you want to say to them, to persuade them to pay.” They leave without another word.

Ten million. What can she say that will make them pay if they don’t want to? And why wouldn’t they want to?

She thinks of Katerine, and Oster. Perhaps they are still competing for her.

Then why haven’t they paid?

When Crablegs brings the camera again, what will she say to convince her parents that she is worth thirty million?