After Ariel: It started as a game (21 page)

Fighting for breath, I couldn’t answer. She hurried out of the room and came back holding a paper bag wide open in front of my face. ‘Come on, mate, deep breathe.’

I tried to tell her that’s an urban myth, but she persisted, so rather than argue, I grabbed it and thrust my face inside.

‘That's it, breathe in...hold it...breathe out. Breathe in...breathe out...I’ll get some water, breathe for goodness sake. Keep going Pam, breathe in...breathe out...’

 Eventually I was relatively normal, apart from a thudding heart, trembling all over, and cold invading my body. Ally looked at me with concern. ‘What happened? ’ She took my hands in hers. ‘God, you're freezing. I’ll turn the fire on; you’re like an ice block.’

‘The man who hit me was in the garden! It had to be him. He was wearing sunglasses and a hoodie.’

She wanted to go outside and look around, but I stopped her and phoned the cops who arrived shortly after, sirens wailing. My neighbours popped out of their doors. Any self-respecting mugger would have long gone, but the police discovered foot prints directly under the lowset balcony in the soft garden bed. As soon as my connection with Goldie’s murder was mentioned again, mobile phones leapt into action.

Two grave-faced older detectives arrived. For a fleeting moment, I wished Anthony Hamilton had come and then chided myself.
For goodness sake, Pam, you’ve got rocks in your head. Don’t go there.

The uniformed officers prowled around outside. The detectives settled in the lounge, with Ally close beside me, holding my hand. My relatives had arrived in response to her phone call, despite my protestations. ‘It doesn’t matter, Pam.
You
need support this time.’

 Alex, visibly aged, sat in the lounge chair furthest from me. Fiona didn’t say much, but stayed near the door holding her handkerchief over her mouth. She had moved to kiss me when they arrived but a hard glance from her husband stopped her.
Oh no.

The older detective looked thoughtfully at the dressing on my temple. ‘Miss Miller, do you think the man standing outside was the one who attacked and tried to rob you yesterday in the Gardens?’

‘Yes. He was wearing a black, hooded jacket. The sun was behind him and he was wearing a pair of those big square sunglasses that cover half the face. I think he was youngish, though. Oh, and I remember now. He had a bandaid on his finger!’

‘How would he know where you are? Could he have been on the same plane from Sydney or at the concert on Saturday night? In other words, could he be stalking you?’

‘I don’t know. He may have been someone I’ve talked to, perhaps someone I’ve met. There was something familiar about him, but I can’t work out what it was. I was looking directly into the sun, so I couldn’t see his features under the sunglasses. With my face splattered all over the papers, it wouldn’t be surprising if some idiot decided to rob me.’

The detective watched me like a hawk, perhaps expecting me to either change or add to my story. Perhaps he just thought I was still disoriented or over-wrought from Goldie’s death. Maybe I was just a hysterical woman.

‘I didn’t see anyone acting strangely on the plane or at the airport, even at the transit centre when I got here. I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary at the concert. Really, I just don’t know, but the papers are full of Goldie and me.’

‘If you remember who it might be, let us know immediately. We’ll get the report on the incident. Do you remember which hand?’

‘What?’

‘His finger. Do you remember which hand had the bandaid on the finger?’

‘Er...no.’ I felt very silly and small. Why couldn’t I remember at least that detail?

They looked at each other, before the younger one replied. ‘We’ve checked the gardens all around the units. You need to make sure the windows are fastened securely and we’d advise you not to go out alone tomorrow. Have someone with you –’ he glanced at Ally – ‘your sister? Are your parents in Brisbane?’

‘Ally’s my friend and no, mum’s in hospital and John’s up here in Brisbane. They live out at Emsberg. I promise I’ll stay inside.’

Alex looked thoughtful. I caught something fleeting and nasty in his expression before he finally spoke to me, his voice cold. ‘Yes, you need to stay inside where
you’ll
be safe.’

The inference was that I was a coward who should have been killed instead of Goldie. Alex wanted me punished for being alive. Hadn’t the man been just under my balcony and wasn’t there a tree abutting it?

The detectives glanced at each other. No fools, they’d picked up the vibes emanating from Alex. ‘We’ll put the report in and liaise with Homicide. There’s no knowing if this is connected in any way to Ms Humphries’ death and you can’t positively identify the prowler as your assailant. Can you come into the station tomorrow and look through some photos?’

I agreed that I could.

‘We'll leave you to sort it out, then,’ said the Detective Sergeant, snapping his notebook shut.

‘I’ll bring Pam in tomorrow morning,’ Ally promised. The detectives left, followed quickly by Alex. My aunt hesitated, but a snarl from her husband had her scurrying from the room  with an apologetic glance at me.

‘What was that all about?’ Ally stared after them, puzzled.

Sighing, I recounted, in detail, what had happened between my uncle and me late Saturday night and on Sunday morning.

CHAPTER 22

Operation Lima Photo

Susan

Monday, 10AM

The news that Pamela Miller had been attacked at the Roma Street Parklands hit me hard as did the follow-up.

Briony Feldman had approached me with a slip of paper. ‘Ma’am, this came in a few minutes ago.’ She gave a brief smile and departed. I gazed at the note in consternation. ‘West End advises that Pamela Miller saw a man watching her unit yesterday and she thinks it could have been the man who attacked her in the park. Apparently, this one was about the same height and size, and also wearing a hoodie. Didn’t get a good look at his face. Browning and Morse have gone to interview her.’

Startled glances were exchanged and a rustle of comment spread throughout the team. Our new Detective Senior Sergeant looked thunderous. We’d dismissed the possibility that Pam might have been the target and Marigold Humphries had got in the way. Now I wondered if she had been the intended victim after all and
Humphries
had gotten in the way. ‘What on earth was she doing at the Parklands?’ I asked of Evan and young Jacob, the latest recruit to our team.

Jacob said that Pam had told Anthony Hamilton she needed time out from the aftermath of the murder. ‘A friend is bringing her into the station to make a formal statement and see if she can identify anyone. They kept her overnight at the hospital, but she should be home by now.’

‘Okay.’

 ‘Ah, well let me know when she gets here, will you? Now, everyone in for the Humphries briefing.’

Assuring me that the team was back, with the exception of a couple still following up interviews around the ‘Death Cottage’ as the media were calling it, we moved to the Incident Room. The bright face of Marigold Humphries glowed down from the board, accompanied on either side by the stalker, Adam McIntyre and the reporter who had invited her to go with him to Jane Doe’s murder site. Above Marigold was her father’s name, encircled. Yes, it was most unlikely, but his reported hostility to Pamela could be of interest. Across the bottom Evan had drawn a timeline.

As I waited for the stragglers amongst my team to join the briefing, my thoughts swung back to Humphries’ house which Evan and I had inspected early on Sunday morning while Forensics attended to their main business, the immediate crime scene surrounding the victim’s body. We wanted to get in there before they moved into the rest of the house and before Fingerprints covered the area in powder and glue.

Originally a 1920s workman’s cottage, another storey had been added to it somewhere in its history. The morning light would make it possible to get some idea of the person who owned it. I’d arrived back at eight o’clock Sunday morning, accompanied by an exhausted Evan. We’d logged in, gloved and booteed up, and then entered through the back door in order not to disturb the immediate crime scene and upset the scientists, whose vehicles clogged the driveway. Out the front, the media howled for information. A series of impeccably groomed young women with serious faces were taking turns at reporting from the front gate. Marigold Humphries’ death was big news.

The narrow laundry led to, what was for me and certainly Evan who had four children, an abnormally tidy kitchen. Someone had taken the house phone off the hook and laid it on the kitchen counter. The only items on the draining board had been a used coffee mug and a side-plate with a butter-smeared knife lying across it. So, no sign of a late-night guest.

 Evan made a note while I visually examined the magnets adorning the refrigerator door – mementos of her travels, lots of wildlife, a plastic yabby waving it’s fragile claws at me. I opened the door and peered inside. A half-full pot of acidophilus yoghurt, a square of butter, partially wrapped, Vegemite and couple of tomatoes, strips of bacon and half a dozen eggs completed the inventory. Two bottles of chardonnay – one half empty – stood sentinel by a one litre bottle of Real Milk.
So, not much cooking going on then?

The freezer drawer was packed with frozen pre-cooked meals. Some were commercial, many obviously homemade which tended to indicate that Marigold’s mother must have been aware of her daughter’s slapdash diet. Hanging on cup hooks from the underside of the overhead cupboards was a set of crude pottery mugs painted with what looked like African scenes.

‘Not much in the food cupboard,’ Evan said, as he poked the pantry door open with the tip of his pen and peered inside. Apart from a comprehensive herb and spice rack, the contents of the storage cupboard consisted mainly of packets of biscuits and tinned food. Cobwebs and moths could be seen through a clear glass jar containing muesli. A packet of teabags and half a jar of instant coffee made up the list from there. At the far end were stacked tiers of exotic-looking crockery and wineglasses, obviously party-ware. To say the young woman had been a “non-cook” would have been over-stating the case. 

I’d lifted the lid of the garbage can near the sink with the tip of my gloved finger, but it was lined with a clean plastic shopping bag. Evan scooted out the back door and I could hear him rummaging around. ‘We’ll have to check when the garbage collection came round, but there was only one empty Lean Cuisine packet in there along with a pile of newspapers and magazines. The boys’ll be checking it this morning,’ he reported. He prised open a cupboard under the bench. ‘There’s stacks of stuff in here, but the coffee mugs are dusty. Can’t have had too many visitors!’ 

‘She mightn’t have been home for a long time. We’ll have to check with her parents, they’ll know.’ The usual kitchen drawer with odds and ends had just that – a half empty packet of bandaids, bobby pins, rubber bands, old receipts, several biros, several buttons, a reel of white cotton stained from what looked like gravy, a couple of menus from takeaway shops...the accumulation of things that we women might find useful, know we won’t but can’t bear to throw away.

So far, it had been hard to get a “handle” on the woman’s personality. Anyone who travelled for her work as often and for as long as she had could be forgiven for not accumulating too many possessions, but I was surprised by the lack of bits and pieces which usually surround women.

The photo journalist’s body was being removed as we moved into the lounge-dining room. An unprofessional spurt of rage shot through me, as I watched the bagged body of the brilliant young woman being strapped to a gurney. So much talent and so much to offer...all gone, leaving devastation in the wake of the crime. How many times had I watched as husbands, parents, siblings and friends bowed beneath crushing pain. Accidents were bad enough, Heaven knows, but
murder?

Outside, the media frenzy rose in a crescendo as the loaded gurney was trundled to a waiting van to be transported to the city morgue.

The room was cold and felt spiritually empty, not only because it was, but because the energy of its owner had fled. The lounge suite looked as though the stuffing had shrunk, the papers on the coffee table abandoned. The gallery of photographs stared back at me, blank-faced and meaningless, but the eyes of the man I’d been told was the love of Marigold Humphries’ life watched with gentle amusement, privy to a secret which only those in the afterlife shared. Did spirits find each other as soon as the host died?

Evan paused to examine Humphries collection of CDs and DVDs, most of which appeared to be copies of news programs. ‘Doubt if any of these are relevant, but we’ll get her boss to have a look,’ he said, making a note. A shelf of beautifully carved African animals looked on from a shelf above the fireplace.

Seeing that some of SOCO were packing up, I enquired if we could go upstairs. “Fingerprints’ll be here any minute,’ advised the young Forensic officer as she packed up her kit.

Knowing the house would shortly be a disaster area, we hastily ascended the stairs. After “cottage” style lounge room, the upstairs quarters were a surprise. Ms Humphries had made up for the Spartan furnishings with bold primary colours in all the rooms. We found Pamela Miller’s belongings in the guest room. She hadn’t been able to confirm that with the exception of Humphries’ very expensive new Nikon camera, anything was missing.

The main bedroom boasted an un-made double bed, built in wardrobes, a dressing table and a chair. Painted all in white with multi-coloured curtains and a few pictures of wildlife on the walls, the pile of clothes strewn across the bed, knickers half under the bed and scattered underclothes indicated that the occupant was not the perfect house-keeper. Then, why would she be? Living on one’s own means you can do what you like.

The office next door housed a large desk, chair on castors and the walls lined with bookcases, crammed with everything from chick-lit, crime and non-fiction, with books piled on top of each other. Papers were heaped next to a clean rectangular space where a laptop had rested. Presumably relating to photographic work, they were likely to be outside my sphere of knowledge.