Dead Men Don't Order Flake (13 page)

I wasn't convinced. I smacked my forehead as if I'd just remembered something important, shuffled out of the queue, moving at a safe, yet brisk speed and headed for the back of the shop. I'd lurk around down near the bedding for a minute.

Just the act of putting a little distance in between me and the Bamfield-containing-queue made me feel a whole lot better. In an instant, I was breathing again.

‘Stop. That. Woman!'

I turned around.

The woman with the beanie was pointing at me, her pom-pom bobbing madly, her face almost as purple as the pom-pom. ‘She's stolen my property!'

I don't always cope that well in a panic type of situation. In fact, I panic. My mouth dropped open. I whirled around and ran. God knows where I thought I was running to. I ran blindly towards the back of the shop. I know running is the very last thing you should do in that kind of situation. Still, on I ran.

I sprinted down the aisle, dodging startled-looking shoppers. There were heavy footsteps behind me, getting closer. I made a rapid manoeuvre around the Easter display; reached out with my hand and whacked a huge box of Easter eggs onto the floor behind me. The eggs burst out and rolled across the floor. Maybe that'd slow down the security guard. Or at least, if they arrested me, it'd be down near the bedding, out of sight of Bamfield.

Like the wind I scampered. Past women's clothing, past men's, through the blur of colourful kiddies' toys. A heavy hand clutched my shoulder. I kept going, hurtling around the corner past soft furnishings into kitchen items. I slipped and fell, whacking my arm on the floor.

I groaned and reached out on the floor with my hands, trying to get up. A pair of shiny black lace-up shoes near my face. Security guard-type shoes.

The security guard cleared his throat. I looked up. It wasn't a security guard.

21

‘Well, if it isn't our lovely Comfort Specialist,' said Peter Bamfield. ‘What are you doing?'

I clambered to my feet, puffing and clutching my whacked arm so I didn't jar it. ‘I haven't stolen anything.'

A man whizzed around the corner, saw us and stopped. He was wearing a navy blue uniform. He rushed over and grabbed my sore arm. Very firmly.

‘Thank you, sir,' he said to Bamfield. ‘Appreciate your quick thinking.'

A small crowd had gathered at the end of the aisle. A woman came through and indicated she needed access to the pepper mills. I moved aside, the security guard still holding hard onto my arm. The woman selected her pepper mill and left, darting boggly eye glances over her shoulder.

‘Now, could you tell me why you were running, madam?'

‘I'm sorry. I just panicked when that woman shouted at me like that.'

‘I can vouch for her,' said Bamfield. ‘Mrs Tuplin is a highly respected…service provider.' He smirked. ‘From Rusty Bore.'

‘I see,' said the security guard, looking confused. ‘Well, just to be on the safe side, sir, the police are on their way.'

Oh, great. One perfect day not only for me, but for Dean as well.

‘Thanks again, Mr Bamfield. I'll deal with this now.' The guard started walking me away.

‘Hold on,' said Bamfield.

I turned. He held out the packet of G-strings. ‘I think you dropped these.'

I took the packet; my face hot-rod red. ‘They're for a friend.' Shit, that sounded lame. ‘Madison.' God, that sounded even worse.

‘Of course. A soon-to-be satisfied friend.' Another smirk.

The security guard dragged me away before Bamfield could unleash any more of his witticisms.

The guard, whose name according to his badge was Lincoln, drag-led me away to the back of the shop. A customer from the audience scrum shouted, ‘I recognise that beanie, officer. And she did the same thing in Ladz Menswear, just yesterday.'

Lincoln decided to shut me in the store room anyway.

‘I don't like any of this,' he told me. ‘I have no idea of who to believe. You could all be in some kind of gang.'

‘Do I look like a member of a bloody gang?' I said.

‘You watch your mouth, madam. There will be no swearing in this store.'

He pushed me into the storeroom, turned the key and went off in search of the woman with the pom-pom.

In the dim light I managed to find a half-broken chair to sit on. I had a top-notch headache. My black eye throbbed. And there was a golf ball-sized swelling on my elbow. I would have been willing to shoplift anything in return for a glass of water and a couple of Panadol.

A long wait ensued, shut up in that stuffy room alongside a lot of broken electrical items. No drink of water. No phone calls. I wondered how long it would take for Dean to arrive. He's not one to hurry without a reason. Of course, for any normal cop, the concept of a possible pickpocket-slash-shoplifter would constitute a reason. Still, I reassured myself, maybe Dean was doing something useful, like arresting Morris Temple.

An hour drifted by. I was definitely going to be late for Ernie. Another person to add to the list of people I'd be upsetting today. I'd better call him. I rootled through my bag for my phone. No reception. Great.

Finally, the door banged open and six foot one of anger-management stamped in. There weren't a lot of hugs or pecks on Dear Mum's cheek. And no mention of the sausage rolls he'd scoffed earlier.

I got in quick and explained that I hadn't stolen anything, and that, no, I hadn't yet paid for the packet of G-strings, but I had every intention of doing so just as soon as someone would let me near the checkout.

I'm not sure how much of what I said Dean actually took in. He was busy doing a whole lot of shouting and whacking his fist on the top of an old TV.

‘I think that TV's broken, Dean, and what you're doing there is probably not going to help fix it.'

He stopped mid-whack and drilled me with those kalamata-olive eyes. ‘What am I supposed to do with you, Mum? A bloody shoplifter now? And having an affair with your own son's girlfriend? I don't even know who you are anymore.'

‘Madison and I are
not
having an affair. That's just a rumour going around Target. But while we're on the topic, my sexuality is none of anyone's business.' I folded my arms.

But Dean shouted on, like he couldn't even hear me.

The fastest way out of all this now was to just shut up. So I shut up. Pretty soon Dean would wear himself out with his rage, like he used to back when he was two.

It took a few more minutes, by which time there was a vein bulging in his neck, but eventually Dean started to calm down. He snatched the packet of G-strings from me and peered at it.

‘Nine ninety-nine, Mum. Look, if you need money, you only have to ask.'

He flung the packet back at me, then turned and stamped out the door.

22

When I finally got back to my car, it was well after five o'clock. I pulled out my mobile.

‘Ernie, I've been held up. I'm in Muddy Soak. Bit of a…nightmare, actually.'

‘You haven't gone and upset Dean again, have you?'

How the hell he could know that beat me. Extra sensory, perhaps. ‘Err, possibly. Anyway, I'll come in and see you tomorrow, I promise.'

‘I've got a quiz show to watch here. Don't have time to discuss all your social activities.' He hung up.

My headache was a cracker. It had been an early start with a bit too much pretending to keep track of. I was in serious need of a cuppa. And some food. Something quick but not fried—you don't eat fried food, not when you're a professional.

I cruised along the main drag of Muddy Soak until I found a little, normal-looking place selling
not-too-expensive sandwiches. A pleasant enough shop, although they seemed overly fond of motivational signage.

Your past mistakes are meant to guide you, not define you
, I read while I waited for my cheese and salad sandwich. Maybe I could try trotting out that little homily to Dean next time we caught up.

Brad once showed me a picture of a snake eating its tail. It happens sometimes, he explained, that a snake gets confused and mistakes its own tail for prey.
Even snakes can make major tactical blunders
, he told me. Recalling that cheered me up a bit.

Once I had my sandwich and a cuppa safely in my hands, I headed across the street to the huge green park and plonked myself on a bench. I gobbled down my sandwich. Took a scalding sip.

A woman came ambling along the path towards me. Plump, wearing a mauve tracksuit, with long grey hair in a ponytail. She had a huge fluffy scarf around her neck—feathery and a pale-sky shade of blue. She was carrying a large stripy bag: one of those bags people on the TV news put over their heads when they don't want to be recognised. Quite often arrested kinds of people; sometimes not yet arrested, just helping police with their enquiries.

She sat on the bench beside me. The aroma of unwashed-person filled the air.

I had another sip of tea.

She pulled out a pair of knitting needles from the bag and started up on a scarf, the needles moving slowly, peacefully. This scarf was pink, the same feathery wool-type-substance as the blue one she was wearing. It was surprisingly relaxing to watch her.

She reached across and tapped me on the shoulder with
a knitting needle. ‘When I'm prime minister, things will be very different.'

I smiled. ‘Wouldn't hurt. What'll you do?'

She looked thoughtful. ‘No one's ever asked me that. I'll have to consider my policies.'

‘Fair enough.' I don't suppose anyone pulls their manifesto together in five minutes. Although you have to wonder, given the kind of manifestos we've been subjected to in recent times.

‘It all depends on Peter.'

I took my last sip of tea; crushed the empty cardboard cup.

‘He's the love of my life. I met him on the internet this morning. He lives in America. He's so handsome.' She started a new row. ‘If I move to America, I won't be able to be prime minister. Not here, anyway.'

‘I see.' I stood up. Gathered up my handbag. ‘Well, I must be off.'

‘You're not going to visit that Freddie Mercury, I hope?'

I laughed. ‘No. He's been dead a fair while.' I slung my handbag over my shoulder.

‘That girl went to see him. I don't think she should have.'

Haha. ‘Did she? I'm not sure he was into girls.'

‘Well, it didn't look that way to me. I don't like him. He was very disrespectful.' She pointed a knitting needle accusingly.

‘He told me to mind my own business when I asked him what he was up to.'

‘Right. Well, I really must go. Bye.'

I hurried off before I was subjected to any further delirium about dead rock stars.

By seven o'clock Muddy Soak's streets were empty. Maybe everyone was at home eating dinner, staring at the nightly news-horror or just getting on with a top-quality family argument. I decided this was probably the best moment to break into a certain newspaper office. One that might possibly contain Natalie's stolen bag, which could make for some satisfying irony.

I parked a block away from the
Cultivator
. Walked briskly up the street. Peered in the windows; through the gaps in the green vertical blinds. No lights. It looked like there was no one in. I slipped around the back.

It wasn't too hard to get the mortice lock open on the back door. One of Ernie's auto jigglers did the trick—a few moments of fiddling and some upward pressure, and I was in. The door hinge squeaked as I opened it. I stood there a moment, holding my breath, listening for an alarm. Silence. Maybe they had a heritage security system for their heritage building. I stepped inside, closed the door and locked it. Clicked on my torch and stepped forward. A floorboard creaked.

I started in the main office. There were two desks: one empty, the other with piles of papers and cardboard coffee cups around it. I tried that one first: presumably it was Morris's desk. Went through his drawers: plenty of elastic bands and snack-bar wrappers, but no sign of anything I remembered being in Natalie's bag.

I moved my focus to the empty desk; devoid of even a computer. Had this been Natalie's? I had a quick squiz through the drawers: empty. The bottom drawer wouldn't close properly, not even after I pulled it out and pushed it back in again. I pulled it out a third time and lay on the floor, flicking my torch around, craning my neck to see
behind the drawer. Something was jammed in the back. I reached in and fished it out: a notebook.

I flipped through the pages. It was full of some kind of hieroglyphics. I put it in my bag and headed into the editor's office. Opened the filing-cabinet drawers, looked in the shelves, under the desk, through the desk drawers. No sign of Natalie's bag or her laptop. Well, it made sense; Morris was hardly likely to have left it in here.

Car headlights loomed outside. I flicked off my torch and moved away from the window, back into the gloom. Time to get out of here. Maybe their security system involved an actual guard with an hourly round.

A jiggling sound like a key turning in a lock. I caught my breath. Slithered rapidly over to Shane Millson's desk and slipped underneath. The lights flicked on. The sound of heavy footsteps on those heritage floorboards. I held my breath; crouched into a ball in the dust underneath the desk. Don't sneeze, Cass.

The sound of drawers opening and closing. So the guard was checking the desk drawers? Seemed a bit odd. The sound of a computer starting up. Trying not to make a single tiny noise, I slid my makeup mirror out of my bag. Shuffled across the floor to the edge of Millson's desk and held up the mirror, close to the desk, like a little periscope. I carefully angled it so I could see the reflection of the main office, through Millson's doorway. He had obviously set up his desk so that he could keep an eye on his journalists.

There was a man sitting at Morris's desk. Stripy business shirt rolled up to the elbows. Dark hair, thinning. A huge moustache, and a definite air of self-importance.