MORNING SERIAL

IT was striking how quickly you can forget how powerful a feeling helplessness is. So I painted. I tore at that canvas as if I was possessed, I swung at it and gritted my teeth and hit at it, and fell exhausted back into the armchair. Illie believed that in this scene somewhere was the location of his son. Perhaps I had hit a stride – perhaps Illie had got me into the state he wanted me in – for this painting was indistinguishable from the others.

There were police at Lou’s place. They had found a body up near the coves and they were looking for ways to identify it. I said to the policeman who seemed to carry himself with more authority than the others that Lou worked at The Castle and that they must have had some employment records there of some sort that would help.

“We have spoken to the manager here,” he said, ushering me a little down the corridor away from Lou’s room. “There is no record of Miss Louise Brighthead working in Cyprus.”

“What are you talking about?” “Relax,” said the policeman. “You thought she worked at The Castle?”

“That’s where I met her, she was waiting tables.”

He nodded and made a note in his flip-top pad.

“So perhaps she got a job there the last few days,” he said.

“No, that isn’t it,” I said. “She has been working there for six months. At least six months.”

The officer looked at me, as if to say that this chapter is done with. And then a thought occurred to him.

“You knew her well?” he said. I shook my head. “No, not well. We met a few days ago.” “But you could identify her.” My heart sank, and the saliva in my mouth became a metallic liquid. “I’m not your man for that,” I said.

“You knew her in that way?” the policeman said.

My head was heavy, foggy, and I was trying to glimpse over his shoulder through the door to Lou’s room where other officers were going through her things. “That way? You mean, was I sleeping with her?”

> The Golden Orphans by Gary Raymond is published by Parthian www.parthianbooks.com