The Wolf Who Cried Boy

9. Elliot

Pulling my dressing table chair out, I sat down and lifted the lid of my laptop up. Question upon question raced through my mind as I waited for everything to boot up. How much of what Inspector Bridget told me had been true? Was Paul involved in any of the trouble at that law firm? And if he was, how deep did it go?

The whole world felt like it was moving in slow motion. It even seemed like the Earth’s axis had slowed. I shook violently as I waited for my computer to properly boot up. I realized I was holding my breath again and let it out but I continued to shake.

I clicked wildly at the screen and felt nervous as nothing happened. At any time the others would be back and would want to know why I was out of bed and shaking in front my computer. I supposed it wouldn'y be pretending if I told them I was delirious. In a way, I kind of was. But, delirium wasn't causing my growing suspicion of Paul. My growing suspicion of Paul was causing my delirium.

My fingers stabbed at the keyboard as I typed "Elliot" into the search engine and waited impatiently for the results to come up. The first series of results was a series of news articles about the company. "Elliot in ruin as almost sixteen million dollars in cash and assets is stolen from the company." "Surprised Elliot finds one of their company apartments is sold privately." "Elliot involved in extortion scandal." "One-of-a-kind painting taken from Elliot's collection." "Michelangelo statue worth over ten thousand dollars goes missing from Elliot's collection, theft suspected." "Unknown Elliot employee takes company for one million dollars." Each headline filled me with new fear and suspicion and the more I read each article the more I began to feel sick at the thought that Paul might behind all this. As I reached the end of the articles, I saw one more that caught my attention: "New Financial Whiz-kid hired to be Elliot CFO's personal secretary."

One by one, I opened each article and read through them. With each article I read, the nausea intensified until I was fighting it back, swallowing every few seconds. Battling to focus, I read the last article which had a picture of Paul staring, as though directly at me, with a crooked grin across his face. He appeared to be laughing at me like in my dreams.

I couldn't contain it anymore. Shoving my hand over my mouth, I darted for the bathroom and was just in time to throw the toilet lid up before I was sick again.

Feeling slightly better, I stood up again and splashed cold water on my face. The icy water revived my senses and brought my wits back. I was pleased to have them back, knowing what I had to do next. I shook myself and walked back into my bedroom

I felt like a criminal or spy, as I stalked out of my own room, through the passage and opened Paul's door. I felt numb as I walked past the bed I had helped Paul make a few times and over to a chest of drawers. Paul's bank statement was just lying there, as though he had no idea what he had. My body gave an involuntary shudder but I ignored it and picked up the bank statement. Then with as much rapidity as my body could muster in its weakened state, I headed for the door and back to my own room.

I had to be strong, I told myself as I sat down at my computer again. I had to be numb and unemotional. This was the only way I would get to the bottom of what was going on with Paul. I had to stop feeling.

I held up Paul's bank statement and the bank statement from the secret off-shore account and tried to examine them critically. But the more I looked, the more confused I became. There were names of people I had never known and amounts of moving in and out of the accounts.

Taking a breath, I told myself again to be rational, to be analytical. Then from the draw of my dressing table I took out a little notebook, a pen and my highlighter pens. I had kept them at Chateau Cherise ever since my second year of university when Paul had not come for our Christmas holiday and I had poured myself into my work to keep from being lonely. Armed with my study tools, I began to examine Paul's bank statement again. I quickly noticed names repeating themselves both in Paul’s bank account and in the off-shore account.

"Maybe Paul just got in with the wrong crowd," I said aloud to myself as I started highlighting repeated names on the off-shore account. It seemed to me as though this was bigger than Paul. While amounts of money passed through his account, they passed into other people's accounts as well. Paul couldn't be the only one involved. And maybe there was someone else – a ring-leader of sorts – who was controlling Paul.

I continued to highlight as I continued to go down the list of transactions in the off-shore account. Then I looked at Paul's account. The names were the same. I picked up my pen and my notepad and began to write the names of the other account holders. There appeared to be five of them – six counting Paul. I also wrote down the amounts passing from Paul's account to theirs and from their accounts to the off-shore accounts. The numbers tallied almost perfectly, given the exchange rate – as though the accounts of the other five individuals were just a second stopping place, after Paul's account, before they reached their final destination: the off-shore account. I was also sickened to see that in total the numbers matched almost perfectly with the amount of money Elliot had lost in cash and assets.

The cool sun passed behind a winter cloud making everything just a little colder and gloomier. I sat at my dressing table looking at the list of names in my hand. I wondered who these people were. I'd read the articles on Elliot and didn't remember any of these names. Were these people not suspected of being involved? Was Paul meant to be the fall-guy while top people in Elliot got away with millions?

I stared at the first name on the list: T. Brown. It was a particularly innocuous name. Was he someone high up in Elliot perhaps? The cloud in front of the sun passed by and it was as though the cool bright brought with it a sudden revelation.

I recalled that on my sixth birthday, my parents surprised me with a wendy house. It was a sweet little wooden construction painted deep purple and hot pink with a little veranda in the front. My parents had put my little toy kitchen, my table and chairs and even my toy cot in the little house. And I had been so excited to play house that I begged Paul to play too.

"But, I'm a boy," Paul had declared – always trying assert himself as a typical boy. "And boys don't play 'house house'." He wrinkled his nose in disgust.

"Please, Paul. Please," I begged, pulling my biggest puppy dog face. "There's no one else to play with me. You can still be a boy. You can be the husband and go off to work in an office and pay the bills."

Paul had thought about this for a moment. He took a big breath that came out as a sigh. "Fine. I'll play with you. I'll be Mr Brown – Timothy – and I work at a bank." Before I had had the chance to thank Paul, he’d marched off to fetch the old briefcase Mr Sauvage had given him and began to play at being a banker. I had decided to call myself Heather Brown. And my baby doll in the cot had been our child that I nursed while Paul was "at work".

For a game that Paul hadn't really wanted to play, he certainly seemed to enjoy the game in which he could play a man who has to go off to work. We had spent hours playing 'house house' together as Mrs and Mrs T. Brown.

I looked down at the name again. Surely, it had to be a coincidence. After all, there were any number of people who could be "T. Brown". But, I still took a pencil and tentative wrote the name Timothy Brown above my note on T. Brown.

My breath rattled out as I looked to the next name: O. Jeppetto. This was a more unusual name than Brown and I thought again about whether I had seen the name in one of those news articles. But, I knew I would remember if I had seen the name. It reminded me of one of Paul's favourite stories growing up: Pinocchio. But the name of the toy-maker was Geppetto, not Jeppetto. Then suddenly another revelation hit me like a swinging punching bag. O.J.

I had grown tired of our games of 'house house' quickly. Though I enjoyed playing in my little kitchen, Paul would leave me alone in the wendy house for an age and I got a bit bored. Then when we were seven and eight, Paul's Auntie Ellen gave him a miniature basketball hoop and ball for Christmas. It had been my chance to play a different game and I took my chance.

"Let's play basketball," I suggested, knowing that Paul usually hated sports. I held his little miniature orange basketball up to him. "You can be O.J. – like orange juice." Paul wrinkled his nose in disgust again. "It's a cool name – like M.J."

"Ya," Paul admitted. "But, M.J. means something. What does O.J. even mean?"

"It can mean anything you want it to mean," I told Paul, desperate to convince him to play. His nose was wrinkling again. "What about Oliver James?"

Paul's mouth twisted in thought. "It's a bit boring," he responded, more to himself than anything else. "What about Oliver Jeppetto?"

I might have said, "But, Geppetto isn't spelled with a 'J'." But, I was just so keen to convince Paul to play a new game that I didn't bother. If he wanted to be Oliver Jeppetto, he could be. I wasn't going to stop him.

It took him another few minutes of thought to decide but eventually he decided that a boy like him should probably be playing sports rather than playing 'house house'. I was relieved. I didn't even mind that he kept beating me at the game. At least were playing together rather than Paul leaving me to get bored.

I looked down at the name on the notepad again. Was it a coincidence that "O. Jeppetto" just happened to be "O.J."? Was it just a coincidence that the name "Jeppetto" sounded like the name of the toy-maker in Paul's favourite film? I picked up my pencil and again scratched the name "Oliver Jeppetto" over the name "O. Jeppetto".

Then I remembered something I had long since forgotten. A few years after Paul had decided he actually hated basketball, a bully began to hound him – teasing him for his love of maths and the fact that he hung out with a girl like me. Jaco was built a bit like a gorilla with huge hairy arms and legs. And he was on a national rugby team. Paul was brave and strong for his size but he wasn't foolish. He knew that, being twice his size, it was foolish to try and fight Jaco. He also knew that if he told, the bullying would just get more intense. It was clear that Jaco wouldn't take kindly to getting in trouble

But, Paul concocted a plan. Using the alias of Oliver Jeppetto, Paul wrote a note to the principal, telling him exactly what Jaco was doing to many of the boys in our high school – how he used them as punching bags and picked fights with them under the smallest pretexts. Jaco had last tried to fight Paul because he, Jaco, had failed biology.

Paul's plan had worked flawlessly. The Monday after Paul had slipped his note under the principal's door, we all watched as Paul was led to Mr Kingsman, the principal's, office. For the next two hours, rumours were spreading. One girl, that had been to Mr Kingsman's secretary, said she had heard the principal yelling at the top of his lungs.

At the end of the two hours, Jaco walked back into class and declared that he was suspended for two weeks. The moment we saw him round the corner out of earshot, our whole class cheered.

After his suspension, Jaco returned to school. But, if Mr Kingsman had hoped that suspension would subdue him, he was very much mistaken. He stampeded around the school looking for the boy that had told the principal. But, no matter who he spoke to and who he tried to beat up, he couldn’t find the person responsible for getting in trouble. After all, there was no Oliver Jeppetto even attending our high school.

My heart was beginning to hammer against my ribs now. It beat loudly in my ears. My suspicion of O.J. and Oliver Jeppetto was slowly being confirmed the more I thought about it.

Trying to block out the pounding and willing my heart to slow, my eye drifted to the third name on the list. I scratched my head. The name "A. Bird" sounded familiar somehow. I wondered if perhaps I had read the name somewhere in the articles I had read. Surely, this couldn't be another alias. I shut my eyes tight for a moment. Then I gasped – jagged breath needling my lungs – as my eyes flew open. I knew exactly why I thought I had remembered that name.

Paul and my early teen years had been difficult for our parents – especially for Mr and Mrs Valise. We were no longer content to entertain ourselves outside or go swinging in the little playground at Harrismith. I suppose, in a way, it was more Paul than myself who became restless with our little lives. He wanted adventure and to see and be around people.

So, one day – exasperated with one of Paul's more argumentative and sulky moods – Mrs Valise had had enough. "Right, come on you two," she declared throwing the magazine she had been reading roughly down on the coffee table. "We're going out."

"Where are we going?" I asked, feeling the excitement that only comes from spending several days with a grumpy and sulky person and knowing this is your chance to escape.

"There's a small game park in the Midlands. They talk about it in this magazine," she answered patting the magazine she had been reading. I'd seen the title and hadn't recognised it. It wasn't a magazine my mum usually read.

I could tell from the way Paul dragged his feet, his shoulders slumped as we got ready to go out on our outing that he had no desire to go to any game park. I, on the other hand, was beyond excited. I loved game parks. There was one only two hours away from our house which Mum and Dad sometimes took me to over long weekends.

An hour after Mrs Valise had declared that we were going out, we were piling into the car. Paul was wearing the two-tone shirt his father had made him put on because "you look like you're ready for the wild, my boy". Mr and Mrs Valise were still getting the last few necessities for our trip.

"Honestly, you should wear that shirt more often. It suits you." I was laughing at Paul who sat with his arms folded across his chest. I just couldn't help making fun of him in that shirt. I had always laughed at it – ever since Mr Valise had bought it for him. But, never when Mr Valise was around.

Paul was about to open his mouth – probably to say something facetious – when both his parents got in the front seats. “Ready to go?” Mrs Valise asked, turning to face us. "I made a quick call to Mom" – I had always hated it when people who weren't children to my mother called her “Mom" – "lovie, just to ask her if this trip was alright. She said it was fine."

Mr Valise started the engine. "What are we going to do at this place?" Paul asked, his attitude still surly – especially since I'd mocked his shirt.

"Oh, well, we'll see some wildlife. I brought a picnic. I believe they've got a visitor's centre with curios and information."

Paul hadn't got into the spirit, though I was asking Mrs Valise about the species of animals they had. He kept on a rhythmic series of loud sighs and repeated the words "This is going to be so lame" more often than I asked a question.

"Well, honestly, boy, if you don't think you're going to enjoy this outing," Mrs Valise began. Paul murmured “I don't" but it seemed that Mrs Valise had not heard. "Then find a way of making it more interesting for yourself.”

"How?” Paul snapped back with his arms folded tightly over his shirt.

Mrs Valise lifted her hand up as if to ponder the answer. "Well, you could always imagine," Mrs Valise answered. She then seemed to like her own idea. "Yes, imagine you're someone else – a game ranger going out to track game. I'm sure there's plenty at the visitors' centre you could learn about tracking and stuff."

I could tell Paul didn't like that idea by his nose wrinkling in disgust. But, as we stood in the visitors’ centre waiting for Mr Valise o book a game drive, something came over Paul. He was standing watching a group of girls enter the centre. I could tell from their chatter that they were English girls. Paul seemed to brighten as he watched them. He had been slumped against a wall but as he watched he moved away from the wall and his whole body became erect – like a mongoose that’s just sensed something.

Paul swaggered over to the group of girls. "Hello ladies," he said in the most smarmy accent I'd ever heard. "Name's Adam Bird – wildlife expert extraordinaire."

I shook my head and laughed silently to myself, waiting for the moment when Paul's lie would blow up in his face. I thought it had when, a few moments later, Paul came rushing towards me like he was being chased. But, as he got near enough I realised he wasn't. "Quick Rosie, give me an interesting animal fact," he shouted, reaching for my shoulders and starting to shake me.

"Uh," I said, battling to think clearly under pressure. "Leopards can swim."

"Perfect!" Paul declared. Then without thanking me, he released my shoulders and darted off in the direction he had come from.

I was still recovering when I saw him flying back to me. "More. I need more."

"Uh," I thought again as Paul reached out and began to shake me even harder. "A porcupine's quills are hollow. The swipe of a monitor lizard's tail can break a man's leg. Cheetahs can't climb trees.”

Paul seemed satisfied with these and darted back again.

This time I followed him and saw him leaning against a wall looking at the girls who seemed to be focusing only on him. "Oh ja, I heard him say in that smarmy accent. "Of course I was in danger. But, I knew I would be safe because cheetahs can't climb trees.”

I shook my head again. I knew that if I walked over there and started asking Paul more difficult questions, his secret would be blown. The girls would know he was a fake. I could have done it easily. But, I had too much love for Paul – as a friend – to humiliate him in such a brutal way. I shook my head again and walked away.

"A. Bird," I whispered into the silence of my bedroom, as the memory slid through my mind. And then wrote "Adam Bird" above the name on my list.

I now realised that what I was looking at was no mere coincidence. Three names so far had had some connection to our childhood. That could not be a coincidence at all.

I looked at the next name with a lump rising to my throat and growing larger every second. I battled to breathe or focus as I read the fourth name. I recognised the name 'J. Fellows' immediately now.

After our dog grooming business and before Paul's sudden interest in girls, he had been intensely interested in making money and running a business so much so that one day he had suggested we play 'shop shop'. I had a small plastic cash register that could do simple calculations and had a draw that sprung open so money could be slotted in.

"Wait, you want to play pretend?" I questioned him. We'd been growing up quickly and it had seemed to me that Paul preferred reality to the make-believe world we used to live in.

"Come on, Rosie," Paul pleaded. "It'll be fun. I promise. I'll be the shop-keeper, Mr James Fellows of Fellows and Sons and you can come to my shop." My scepticism must have shown. "Come on. Ma'am van Heffer is always telling us we need to practice our maths. This could be our chance to practice and have fun too."

I took great exception to doing maths during the Christmas holidays. I worked so hard during the year that by the end of it, I no longer wanted to think. But, Paul had already disappeared into my wendy house and was carting my table out into the bright summer sun. He then plunged back inside and came back with the cash register and a handful of plastic foods. A few more trips later and almost the entire contents of my toy kitchen were outside.

"Here," he said, handing me a wad of fake money and returning to the cash register. "You're the shopper. You need to shop for groceries."

I pretended, that day and for the next few days after that, to enjoy myself, for Paul's sake. He truly seemed to love being a shopkeeper. But, in truth, I hated every second of our games of 'shop shop'. Paul was always correcting my maths and I always ran out of fake money with no way of getting hold of more.

"You need to learn how to save," Paul had reprimanded me when I told him I couldn't play anymore because I was out of cash.

"How am I supposed to do that?" I asked my mother testily, when I told her about Paul's new fetish while she was preparing supper in the kitchen. "The whole game is about spending money at Paul's shop and I don't have any way of earning money."

Mum slid the bits of tomato she had just diced off her chopping board and into a pot. "Aren't you both a bit big now to be playing pretend games?" she asked, not looking at me.

"It wasn't my idea," I told her, feeling exasperated. I don't want to play pretend. But, clearly Paul does."

Mum smiled at me and I could see that twinkle in her eye that comes from her having a brain-wave of an idea. She stalked out of the kitchen and came back holding a large box in her hands. "It's a bit dusty," she told me, holding out the box so I could see the word 'Monopoly' on the lid. "But, we'll take this with us when we go to Harrismith. Paul can still play with money but in this board game you can actually earn.”

The very day we got to Chateau Cherise that year, Paul and I started playing Monopoly and I think we played almost every day that summer until our parents got fed up and told us were only allowed to play twice a year – especially since every time we played, Paul refused to be Paul but wanted to be James Fellowes.

This time I didn't question the name at all as I looked down at the name on my pad. I simply wrote 'James Fellows' down above the name on my pad. The lump was now constricting my airways, making it hard to take a breath. I was also feeling waves of nausea wash over me.

But, I gasped and took another look at the last name on the list. The name 'S. Feather' stumped me. I remembered Paul and my games with all those other characters but never 'S. Feather'. “What other games did we play?" I asked aloud again. "There was 'shop shop' and 'house house'," I mentioned counting them off on my fingers. "Then there was basketball. And Paul pretended to be an animal expert…." I gasped again. "Cowboys and Indians.”

While our games after Mum and Dad bought me my wendy house were somewhat more domestic, before the wendy house and when Paul and I were first getting to know one another, our games were more generic. Paul had invited me to play hide and seek one day. We would play 'catches' in the garden. And one day, Paul – being the regular boy that he was – suggested that instead of "boring old 'catches'", we play a game of 'cops and robbers'.

"Now you two," Mum – who was busy writing a book on child-psychology – reprimanded us. "We don't play at games about stealing in this estate."

"But, Mrs Chesterton" Paul whined. "We won't really be stealing anything. And anyway, Rosie can be the cop and I'll be the robber."

Mum shook her head. "No 'cops and robbers'."

Paul thought for a moment. "Alright, what about 'cowboys and Indians'?" I gave him a hard glare. "'Cowgirls and Indians'", he corrected himself.

Mum considered this for a moment. "I suppose that's alright," Mum told us. "We made to get up off the living room floor here we'd been sitting. "But," Mum continued, halting us in our tracks. "While you're playing, I want you both to think about what it must have been like for those poor Native American people having their home invaded and what it must have been like for those Settlers who only wanted a new life in a new land." Mum had always considered that there was a lesson t be learnt in anything – even a simple childhood game.

She hadn't finished her speech yet when Paul scrambled to his feet, took my hand and Paul me up. "We'll do that, Mrs Chesterton," he called from the back door as we raced for the freedom of the garden.

"So, I'm Scarlet Feather, the Indian." Paul began to do a dance around me while he made a noise with his hand and mouth. "And you can be Calamity Jane, the cowgirl who tries to stop me."

"Stop you from doing what?" I asked, remembering my mother's mandate.

Paul thought for a moment. "I don't know," he finally responded. "Why did the cowboys try and stop the Indians in the first place?"

I stood in the middle of the lawn and pondered Paul's question. "I think the Indians did things – like to chase the cowboys away from their land."

"What kind of things?" Paul asked, one eyebrow raised in scepticism.

"Well, like burning down their houses, killing their crops, taking away their animals – that sort of thing."

Paul smiled. "Alright, I'll pull a lot of tricks and then you need to come find me and stop me. You need to lock me in the hoosegow," Paul ended, using a word I'd never heard before but one which he seemed to think fitted with his character – Scarlet Feather.

I wrote 'Scarlet Feather' above the last name on the list and then examined my list again. I felt constantly physically ill now. These had to be aliases. It was too much of a coincidence that each name had come from our childhood, had been Paul's way of somehow making his life better or more amusing. My head spun wildly as though the whole Earth was spinning out of control.

I clung to my dressing table as I tried to rationalise what I knew. "Paul had worked for a company called Elliot," I told myself, "which had lost several million dollars a little while ago. A similar amount had appeared in drips and drabs in Paul's personal account and then had been transferred into several other account in the name of aliases. These amounts had then been transferred into an off-shore account." My head throbbed painfully and I breathed hard. "The off-shore account had a password which was my name and the date Paul and I met. The password clue was also one of Paul's nicknames for me."

I had thought that rationalising would somehow make it easier – that maybe the world would stop spinning that maybe things would not seem as bad. But, the more I rationalised, the worse the situation seemed. Paul had been working solo with aliases not other people. He had been responsible for every action. It had been him who took the money and had moved it between his accounts to his off-shore account. It had all been him.

And yet, the gullible side of me had still tried to defend him. "Maybe Paul had forgotten he'd done all this," I told myself. "Maybe the accident has brought him to his senses. Maybe he's turned over a new leaf and will want to give back the money. Apologise on behalf of his former self for stealing."

"Rosie, we're home."

My mother's voice made me jump and I felt off my chair and onto my feet. I hardly registered what I was doing as I staggered to the door, flung it open and stumbled down the passage.

Everyone was standing in the TV room and near the front door as I reached the end of the passage way. They were all beaming at me. Their sickly smiles were like nails scratching slowly down a blackboard. I tried hard to remain composed even as my body trembled.

Then Paul stepped forward. His sickly sweet which might have made me melt a few days ago now reminded me of the laughing hyena turned wolf of my dreams. He stepped forward a little more and I took an involuntary step back. I had a hard time preventing myself from running. Every good feeling – all companion, pity and even affection – for Paul had now dissolved. I was wise now to his deceit.

"Primrose," he addressed me incorrectly again and I heard someone correct him. "Sorry, Rosie," he said but I didn’t hear the rest of his speech. My mind reeled again. I had been counting all along – after those initial mistakes. Twenty two. He had now called me by the wrong name 22 times. I had initially thought it was the memory loss that had caused it – that he hadn’t been able to help his mistakes. But, now I suspected differently. Twenty two had also been the number of years Paul and I had first known each other. It had been 22 years since that day in the shade – since the third of March, 1995. And now I wondered whether it was all planned, whether he had known my name all along and had just been plotting to call me the wrong name to garner sympathy. The number of times would fit with Paul’s personality. He had always loved patterns and connections – like he loved how he had beaten the bully with his own childhood character named after someone in his favourite film.

Paul was still talking and I now saw him fishing in his trouser pockets as my mind returned to the present. He pulled out the little blue box and withdrew from it the very ring I had seen in his bag a few days ago. "Rosie, will you marry me?" he asked, his smile still torturously present. "See, it's shaped like a flower. It's a flower just like you."

"So, what do you say?"