Always Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Praise for Nicola Griffith and Aud Torvingen

  “Griffith is a writer of considerable gifts. Her sentences shimmer, her powers of observation and description are razor sharp.”

  —The New York Times Book Review

  “Aud Torvingen is one of my favorite kick-ass, supercompetent, cool-headed, hot-blooded, semilegal girls. . . . She knows how to fight, kill, survive, and think.” —Salon

  “Griffith has a fine way with character and sure talent.”

  —Los Angeles Times

  “Griffith’s real genius is a portrayal of the brilliant, though damaged, Aud . . . a woman who loses herself in the beauty and balletic control of pure violence yet seeks salvation.” —The Village Voice

  “The sexiest action figure since James Bond, six blond feet of sinew, muscle, and bone. She’s also an ex-cop, a martial arts instructor, a master carpenter, and a private dick for hire. She’s beautiful, she’s independently wealthy, she’s in perfect shape: she’s downright deadly. And sorry, guys: she’s into girls.” —Seattle Weekly

  “[Aud] is sleek, sexy, and decidedly dangerous . . . everything a suspense novel heroine should be.” —The Advocate

  “Stay is simply gorgeous—a powerful character study in the rough domain of mystery and adventure. It is also a courageous and frank portrait of grief, deeply complex and completely true. There was not one misstep, not one moment when I was not being pulled along hoping for some life-saving miracle. And when it happens, it feels real—stubborn human nature doing what it does. Stay made me glad to read it.”

  —Dorothy Allison

  "A noir thriller with a female protagonist who makes La Femme Nikita look like a Powerpuff Girl.” —Details

  "Griffith’s tautly balanced prose perfectly complements her heroine’s erratic progress. . . . [She] skillfully links sensual details with emotional content, anchoring us firmly in Aud’s brutal, beautiful world.” —The Seattle Times

  “Griffith employs a crime thriller’s page-turning audacity and hard-boiled heroine without succumbing to cheap genre clichés. Like the protagonist, the language has a steely snap to it. . . . Stay is a captivating read.” —Out

  “Aud, the protagonist of this novel, is an intuitive, old-fashioned sleuth who would do Elmore Leonard proud.” —Entertainment Weekly

  “Griffith’s prose is at once brutal and beautifully wrought. Stay has a central character both hard-boiled and a softie at heart, and momentum like a car wreck.” —The San Diego Union-Tribune

  “Griffith switches genres and breathes life into an appealing heroine in this smoothly plotted pulse-slammer. . . . Readers will want to see more of Aud Torvingen.” —Publishers Weekly

  “Well-crafted, evocatively written and swift paced, The Blue Place is for devotees of classic, hard-edged detective tales. . . . But this isn’t simply a thriller [but] an excursion into the more disturbing sides of psyches. . . . Ultimately The Blue Place is, as all good thrillers and all the best literary fiction are, a novel of quests and identity.” —Lambda Book Report

  “Griffith has already won herself Lambda and Nebula awards . . . and she seems destined to add to her laurels.” —The Washington Post Book World

  “A heroine who is a cold-blooded killing machine . . . but superfit, super-bright Aud is certainly one watchable sleuth and may win Griffith quite a following of less squeamish readers.” —Booklist

  "The novel goes down like honey, full of the quirky detail that makes a good mystery great. . . . If pretty girls and danger don’t grab you, the plot will.”

  —Out

  “Griffith clearly challenges us to understand a radically atypical—or perhaps just typically ignored—aspect of the female psyche: the fine line between brutality and passion. She produces passages that provoke and startle . . . finely rendered observations. The novel soars. Aud’s ‘blue place’—where women glow with the elated, bluish tinge of power rather than the black and blue marks of victimhood—is a peculiar and unsettling place indeed.” —The Woman’s Review of Books

  “Griffith proves she can write crime fiction that stacks up more than favorably with the work of the best writers in the field. . . . Dennis Lehane, Andrew Vachss, and James Lee Burke have each taken crime fiction to a new level and each has expanded the possibilities of the genre. Nicola Griffith is the next name on a very short list.” —The News Tribune

  ALSOBY NICOLA GRIFFITH

  STAY

  THEBLUE PLACE

  SLOW RIVER

  AMMONITE

  RIVERHEAD BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

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  South Africa

  Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author of third-party websites or their content.

  Copyright © 2007 by Nicola Griffith

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form

  without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in

  violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  RIVERHEAD is a registered trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  The RIVERHEAD logo is a trademark of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Griffith, Nicola.

  Always / Nicola Griffith.

  p. cm.

  eISBN : 978-1-4406-2971-6

  1. Torvingen, Aud (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Ex-police officers—Fiction. 3.

  Lesbians—Fiction. 4. Self-defense for women—Fiction. 5. Real estate investment—Fiction. 6.

  Fraud investigation—Fiction. 7. Atlanta (Ga.)—Fiction. 8. Seattle (Wash.)—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3557.R48935A

  813’ .54—dc22

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  For Kelley, my queen

  ONE

  IF YOU WALK INTO A BAR AND THERE’S A MAN WITH A KNIFE, WHAT DO YOU DO
? Walk out again. If you can. In Atlanta it had been a kitchen, and a woman, and I couldn’t.

  It’s a five-hour nonstop flight from Atlanta to Seattle. I had slept the first three hours, but I didn’t want to sleep anymore. If you don’t sleep, you don’t dream. I pressed my forehead against the vibrating cabin window and stared down at the Rockies, visible only as winks of snow in the setting sun.

  Next to me, Dornan stirred and put his guidebook facedown on his lap. He peered over my shoulder at the scenery below. His T-shirt was still very white and his eyes very blue, but his hair, just long enough to hint at waviness, was flat at the back. “Looks like Mars,” he said.

  I nodded. There were places there where no one had walked. Perhaps one day I would go exploring.

  Dornan leaned back. “You missed dinner.” It was unclear from his tone whether he thought that was good or bad.

  “I can eat when we get there.”

  “I don’t know,” he said, and tapped the book on his lap. “I’ve been reading the tourist guide. The good restaurants mostly seem to shut at ten.” Right around when we’d be landing. “There’s always room service.”

  You can’t learn much about a city from a hotel room, and I needed to hit the ground running. My mother would arrive in two days. “Let’s talk about it when we get there.”

  Books were all well and good—I’d already read several histories, maps, and guides to Seattle since deciding on the trip—but I preferred somatic information to extra-somatic. I would know what I wanted to do when I smelled the air and tasted the water.

  “So,” Dornan said. “You haven’t told me much about the new bloke.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Your new stepdad.”

  I looked at him.

  “Well, he is, technically. So what’s the story? You haven’t even told me his name.”

  I opened my bag—once again I resented the nasty ripping sound of the Velcro flap, and missed the bag I’d given away—and pulled out the report.

  “Eric Loedessoel,” Dornan said, reading over my shoulder. “Wait.” He pulled back. “You researched your stepdad?”

  “It wasn’t difficult.”

  “That’s not . . .” He shook his head.

  I leafed through the list of sources: medical bills, brokerage accounts, limousine service, phone records, grocery bills, restaurant bills, and so on. Then the data itself. There was a photograph of Loedessoel taken last year in Washington, D.C., and a photo of his new wife, dated two months ago.

  She was wearing a hacking jacket and turtleneck, a riding hat tucked under her left arm. I wondered what the photo opportunity had been, and why she looked happy. She hated horses. Her hair was dark honey streaked with grey, and cut in a soft, chin-length bob. It looked all wrong; my mother had had long hair for as long as I could remember. She had gained a few pounds. She looked younger and softer.

  “Thumbnail sketch,” I said. “Male Caucasian, mid-fifties, five feet eleven, hundred and seventy-eight pounds, grey hair, grey-blue eyes. Born in Bergen to Norwegian parents; two sisters, one brother. Parents deceased. First year of medical school in Oslo, where he married a Danish woman, and the remaining years in Seattle, at the University of Washington. Graduated in the top third of his class. Never practiced, though.” No hint as to why. “Divorced the Danish wife a few months after graduation.”

  “Children?”

  “No.”

  “Thank heaven for small mercies.”

  My stomach squeezed. The possibility of step-siblings hadn’t occurred to me. “Job in Washington, D.C., with the Norwegian trade delegation. Climbed the ladder. Directorships in several pharmaceutical and biotech companies. Financially stable. Current residence in London.” Chelsea. I wondered if and when he would move into my mother’s official ambassador’s residence. I wondered if she still actually lived there.

  I read some more. Dornan returned to staring out the window.

  Loedessoel’s net worth was nearly four million dollars. Well matched with my mother’s assets. It would have seemed a lot to me four years ago. I started skimming. Clothes, hair, and manicure spending about what you’d expect for someone in his position. Cars: many purchases and resales. In the last three years, a Porsche Carrera, a Jaguar S-type, a Maserati, a vintage Bentley—that one had been sold after numerous high bills for replacement parts.

  “He likes cars,” I said.

  “Lots of men do.”

  I skimmed the list of affiliations, memberships, and subscriptions: Mystery Guild Book of the Month Club, local wine society, the American Museum of Natural History, chamber of commerce, the local Gilbert and Sullivan Society. “He likes operetta.”

  “That’s not exactly sinister.”

  “Well, no.”

  “But you’re frowning.”

  “I’m trying to imagine my mother beaming fondly at a man dressed as the lord high executioner.”

  “Giggling behind a fan.”

  I stared at him.

  The seat belt light went on. “Look at that,” he said, and busied himself with the tray table and footrest.

  WE WALKED past the tired people in baggage claim and to the man holding a sign saying Torvingen.

  “I’m Aud Torvingen,” I said.

  He didn’t bat an eye at the Norwegian pronunciation but said, “Jeff,” and led us to the town car.

  I fastened my seat belt and opened my window, and we pulled smoothly past the hordes waiting for taxis.

  “Maybe you aren’t potty after all,” Dornan said, leaning back on the grey leather. He’d thought I had lost my mind when I’d first suggested FedEx-ing the luggage. Then I’d offered to pay, and suddenly it hadn’t been such a bad idea.

  Traffic was light. The cool air, heavy at first with jet fumes, then the scents of late cherry blossom and second-growth conifer, reminded me of Oslo last year. It had been May then, too.

  The engine hummed. I’d never driven a Lincoln, but I suspected it would handle like a squashy pillow. The interior wood trim, black bird’s-eye maple, was so heavily varnished it looked like plastic.

  If I’d done my research correctly we were on Highway 99, which ran north and west into the city along the waterfront. I could sense the empty horizon stretching to my left, but I couldn’t see or smell it; there was a steady offshore breeze and the moon was hidden behind dense cloud. In Atlanta it would be twenty degrees warmer. In Oslo, twelve degrees closer to the Arctic Circle, the sky would still be light. There would not be so many cars on the road. My mother and new stepfather would be in the United States by now, in New York, or possibly Vancouver.

  From a distance the Edgewater Hotel looked like a warehouse building, but as we approached, it became clear that what had seemed to be corrugated iron was in fact massive vertical timbers. Fir, I thought. Very Scandinavian. It was just after ten-thirty when we pulled into the parking lot. “Wait,” I told Jeff. “We’ll be out in ten minutes.”

  The lobby was all exposed wood—definitely fir—and polished slate. I handed my Total Enterprises credit card to the woman behind the desk. She handed me two keys.

  “They’re not next to each other. I’m sorry.”

  “Not a problem,” I said, and gave one to Dornan. “Don’t unpack if it will take you longer than ten minutes.”

  In my room were two faxes, and a large FedEx box. I put everything on the bed and opened the window, which was less than eight feet above the water. I listened a moment; all I heard was the slap and slip of Puget Sound against the pilings driven deep into the muck of Elliott Bay. I closed the window. Being so close to the water was less than optimal, in terms of security. I took a dime from my wallet and balanced it against the glass. There were a dozen portable intruder alerts on the market, but low-tech worked well enough.

  One of my credit cards wasn’t plastic but specially sharpened ceramic. I extracted it from my wallet and slit the tape on the FedEx box. The clothes were still on their hangers. I hung them in the wardrobe, and my toiletries bag ab
ove the mirror in the bathroom. I set up my laptop but didn’t connect to the local network—security precautions took time—and glanced at the faxes, one from Laurence, one from Bette, both of which could wait. After a quick visual check of the room I shut the door, rattled it to make sure it was locked, and headed for the lobby.

  Dornan was four minutes late. He had changed his T-shirt and put a sapphire in his right earlobe.

  “Belltown,” he said. “That’s the only place we’ll be able to get anything to eat at this time. Belltown,” he said again to Jeff as we got in the car. “Somewhere called the Queen City Grill?”

  “On First,” Jeff said, and turned left out of the parking lot.

  “First and what?” I tried to visualize the city plan, which was a confused mix of the original diagonal and later north-south grids. If you could believe the maps there was even a spot, north of here, where “First” intersected with “First.”

  “First and Blanchard.”

  Blanchard. Between Bell and Lenora. A little north and east of downtown, a little south and west of here. “Why are we heading north?” Northwest.

  “If I take you south there’s no cross street for a while.”

  “Thank you.”

  We turned right, heading northeast, and then right again, finally moving south and east.

  “After all these years I still can’t believe how early Americans eat their dinner,” Dornan said, as we passed dark storefronts. “Look at that. Can you imagine a U.K. city the size of Seattle shutting down at ten?”

  “No.”

  “It makes no sense.”

  It did to me. The city was full of Norwegians and Swedes who had formed the backbone of the fishing and shipping industry and a large part of the paper and lumber industry, and then settled back to work hard, live quietly, and grow. They would write back to relatives dug into their fjell-side seters, or boiling and freezing in sod houses in the Midwest, and tell them about the good life, the teeming salmon and the miles of trees, and how it hardly ever snowed. Inevitably, the children of the brothers and sisters left behind would come for a month in summer to visit. And here I was.