Heller's Regret (15 page)

“I’m not digging, obviously. I’ve done my
fair share already,” I said drily, holding up my bandaged hands.
“Any volunteers?”

Bick jumped to help, keen to atone for his
hurtful comment earlier. It was impossible to ever stay angry with
him, so I waved my hand at the shovel in invitation. He started
enthusiastically digging in the spot I’d indicated. Farrell
returned after a short absence, carrying another shovel.

On the ground nearby, I found the small
button Samuel had identified as belonging to him.

“Can I have a look at that portrait of him
again?” I walked up the stairs to ask Miss Grimsley, who watched
anxiously from the doorway. I compared the dirty, rusted button
with the shiny one on the black jacket in the portrait. “I think
it’s the same button.” I handed the button and miniature to her.
“What do you think?”

Like Samuel, she took her time comparing the
button against the miniature. “Yes, I believe you’re correct, dear.
That’s the same button.”

Bick and Farrell laboured in the heat without
complaining, until Bick uncovered something interesting. He kneeled
down to gently brush the dirt away from it. I clamped my hand to my
mouth when I saw what it was. A small skull. Heller called the
police and none of us were terribly surprised when Brian and Jed
turned up, grumbling about the heat in the house. Brian stopped in
surprise when he saw the four of us.

“Not you people again? Is there a murder in
this city you’re not involved in?” he asked, shooting Heller a
hostile glance. There was no love lost between the two of them. He
eyed me suspiciously, taking in my bandages, “What happened to you
this time?”

“You don’t want to know,” I answered.

He shrugged, “Suit yourself.” He crouched
down to examine our find. “Doesn’t look recent, thank God. We have
enough hot cases as it is.”

As they waited for the forensic team to
arrive, I asked Heller to accompany me upstairs. I wanted to
revisit the scenes of my madness. He tried to talk me out of it, to
no avail. And seeing that I was determined to go up, with him or
alone, he caved, helping me up the stairs.

Nothing had been moved or altered since I’d
left. The dreaded portrait still hung on the wall, smeared
liberally with my dried blood, some of it having pooled and dripped
on the floor at some stage. Almost afraid to look at it, but
mustering my courage, I saw that the portrait itself was nothing as
I remembered. Staring back at me was just a grim-faced, unhappy
woman, as unremarkable and dreary as the other dusty portraits
hanging in the house. Standing before it, unaffected by the tea and
with sunlight playing across the room, it was impossible for me to
resurrect the emotions I’d experienced and logic I’d applied to my
demented actions in this room.

“She’s probably the one who killed Samuel,” I
told Heller, and while he regarded the portrait thoughtfully, he
didn’t share those thoughts with me.

The sheets on the bed hadn’t been changed,
and I doubted that Miss Grimsley had even noticed their ruined
state, not venturing upstairs anymore. It embarrassed me deeply to
see how filthy they were, covered in dirt and sweat stains, soaked
with my blood. I gathered them up in disgust, planning to take them
home with me to discard.

Samuel’s bedroom was musty, a thick layer of
dust covering everything, and spider webs in every available
vantage point. Seeing it with my fresh eyes, it was painfully
obvious the room hadn’t been occupied for a hundred years.

I spent a few poignant moments there, looking
in the dilapidated and empty toy box, thinking of the wooden toys
I’d imagined Samuel storing in there. The sheets on the bed were
also covered in blood and dirt, presumably from when I’d envisioned
myself reading to him. I angrily bunched up them up, adding them to
my pile of soiled linen.

“Do you believe what we were telling you
about the boy now, Matilda?”

“Yes. It’s not possible to believe anything
else,” I said in a flat voice. “But he seemed so real to me.”

“That was the tea, my sweet.”

“It’s hard to accept that something so
harmless as drinking tea could cause me such a disconnect from
reality.”

He took my hand. “It’s over now.”

We went back down to the basement, Heller
lugging a bag full of dirty sheets. The forensic team had arrived
and it didn’t take them long to uncover the entire small skeleton,
strands of dark blond hair still fanning around the skull. Miss
Grimsley wept copiously and I joined in with her, not able to
forget the sweet, little boy I’d known so briefly. Such a sad
little life.

“We’ll never solve this murder,” Brian
admitted, touched by the little bones, though never likely to say
so. He had children of his own. “If it’s the boy you think it is,
it’s been well over one hundred years since he died. There’ll be no
justice for him.”

“But hopefully some peace now,” I said,
gently holding Miss Grimsley’s hand in my own wounded hand. I no
longer felt angry at her, understanding her motivations.

Glad to escape the incredible heat in the
house, we piled back into Heller’s 4WD. He turned the air con on
full blast, the cold air chilling my sweaty skin.

“So Tilly, you actually saw this boy?” Bick
asked, awed.

“I didn’t just see him, Bick. I spoke to him,
kissed him goodnight, held his hand, read to him, listened while he
played me the piano, dug where he told me to dig. How would I know
all these things about him? I’d never even heard of him. He showed
me where his body was buried. How could I possibly know that? I’m
going to have nightmares about this shit for years.”

“Perhaps you’re psychic,” Bick suggested.

“I’m not psychic, but maybe houses,
buildings, capture some of the events lived in them and I tapped
into that. Or something,” my voice faded. There was no point
discussing such things with this hardheaded group of men. They
dealt in reality, in the here and now, not interested in anything
so ‘otherworldly’.

The skeleton was roughly initially identified
as a young prepubescent male, approximately eight to eleven years
old. The bones were carefully packed away at the scene to be
examined further in the forensics lab.

Some time later, Miss Grimsley called me to
advise she’d had a report from the forensics team indicating that
hair strands trapped in a small hairbrush still preserved in
Samuel’s bedroom, matched the hairs found on the skeleton. Assuming
the hairbrush had really belonged to Samuel, science was as sure as
it could be, after more than a hundred years, that the skeleton was
Samuel’s. That was enough evidence for Miss Grimsley and me.

I ended up helping her make the funeral
arrangements. On a hot, blustery day, a small group of us – Miss
Grimsley, Heller, Farrell, Bick, Brian, Jed and I – stood around
the Grimsley family plot in the cemetery while solemn but
comforting words were pronounced by a priest. The small white
coffin was lowered into the ground.

As the ceremony finished, I looked up and
almost jumped in fright, clutching Heller’s hand. “My
hallucinations have returned, Heller. I can see him. Over past that
tree.” And there stood Samuel in the distance, his sweet face
laughing as he waved to us and ran up the grassy hill surrounding
one side of the cemetery.

He stiffened. “God help me, Matilda. I can
see him too.”

I glanced over to Miss Grimsley. She smiled
through her tears, waving in Samuel’s direction. Farrell and Bick
stared in the same direction, gaping in disbelief, their eyes
nearly popping out of their heads. They had all seen Samuel’s
miniature portrait at Miss Grimsley’s house, so they recognised
him. Brian and Jed, who hadn’t, were puzzled by our reactions,
regarding us all as if we had all gone mad.

I freed myself from Heller’s hand and ran as
fast as I could (which I’ll admit wasn’t very fast), up the hill,
following Samuel. He laughed and skipped away from me, up and over
the hill. When I reached the top, puffing with exertion, I swung my
head wildly from side to side, but he had disappeared. Who knew
where he’d gone? I only hoped it was a happy, peaceful place.

I rang Miss Grimsley a few days later to tell
me she hadn’t seen Samuel since his funeral. Though sad about that,
she was ultimately glad he’d finally moved on. She died a few days
afterwards, having fulfilled her promise to watch over him.

Heller and I found ourselves back at the same
family plot in the same cemetery a few days later, the same priest
giving the same words of comfort. Farrell and Bick joined us again.
I wiped a tear from my cheek, but didn’t feel overly sad. It all
seemed fitting in the end.

Back in the 4WD we looked at each other,
nobody saying anything.

“I have worked in this industry for a long
time,” said Heller. “But I’ve never come across a stranger case
than this one.”

And none of us could disagree with that.

Chapter 11

In a surprise move, Heller took the three of
us out to lunch, a sort of mini-wake for both Samuel and Miss
Grimsley. I wasn’t my usual self, subdued, and not contributing
much to the conversation. The events of the last few weeks had
really affected me.

“Would you like a glass of wine with your
meal, my sweet?” asked Heller, leaning over my chair when he stood
to buy the drinks. “I think one would be fine.”

“No, thanks. I don’t want anything that will
alter my perception, even in the smallest way.”

When he returned with a beer each for Farrell
and Bick and a soda and lime for us, the conversation had
deliberately moved on from the Grimsley affair, though my mind was
still fixed on the matter.

I pecked at my meal, a very tasty mixed
seafood pasta, with disinterest. I wasn’t oblivious to the others’
glances of concern throughout the meal, but was too caught up in
thought to care. Miss Grimsley had indicated that not everyone
could see Samuel, even with the tea. But I could. Did that mean I
had a deep running vein of self-delusion in me? And if so, how was
it manifesting itself in other parts of my life? Did I think that
people cared about me when they didn’t? That I was good at things
when I wasn’t? I’d thought I could survive as an actor, but I
almost starved. Had I worked in any other business than Heller’s, I
probably wouldn’t have lasted long as a security officer
either.

It scared me that I no longer had the
confidence to believe I was able to distinguish fantasy from
reality. I would never forget that awful feeling I’d experienced
with the portrait of the woman of not being able to trust in the
accuracy of my own memory.

Later that night in Heller’s bed, somewhat
comforted by being enveloped in his strong arms, I wondered aloud
if I’d ever be able to trust my judgement again.

“Your judgement wasn’t at fault, Matilda,” he
replied. “If anyone’s was, it was mine for sending you on an unsafe
assignment. I honestly thought it would be a nice, easy job for
you.”

“I know you did, but often it doesn’t turn
out that way.”

“It’s difficult to find assignments for you
that simply deliver what’s expected.”

“Maybe I should find a different job?”

“No. I like you working for me. It was hard
on me when you worked for Dawson. I had no idea what you were doing
or where you were during the day. At least here, I know your
assignments.”

Assured by that, I leaned my head on his
chest, my hand resting on his waist. I wasn’t in the mood for sex
and he didn’t make any overtures, as if reading my mood. I was
almost asleep when he spoke again.

“Matilda, I’ve been thinking a lot about the
whole situation with you in hospital. The staff refused to
acknowledge me as your . . . partner, or whatever you want to call
it. They wouldn’t let me visit you at all at first. I was so
furious. They threatened me with the police if I didn’t leave. It
was only when Dr Reid rang the office to speak to me that I was
allowed in.”

“Don’t take it personally. They weren’t
letting anyone visit me. Dr Reid contacted you because he thought
it might help me connect with my reality to speak to you as I’d
vaguely recognised you in the house.”

“There’s nobody who cares more for your
welfare than I do. I should have automatically been allowed to
visit you and talk to your doctors. I hated that you were in
hospital, thinking you were all alone after such a traumatic
experience. And I hated not being informed about how they were
treating your . . . illness.”

I figured this was the wrong time to tell him
I most likely wouldn’t have wanted him to visit me at that point
anyway, not really knowing who he was.

“I think we should have a more formal
arrangement, so I can look after you at all times. I need to be
able to take control if something happens to you again. I have to
be able to make decisions about you and your welfare when you
can’t. You trust me to do that for you, don’t you?”

I nodded, not sure where he was going with
the conversation.

“I want you to sign an agreement that gives
your permission for me to take over your affairs when you’re
incapable of looking after yourself. I’ll have Corby draw it up for
me.”

I couldn’t believe my ears. “An
agreement
? How terribly romantic of you, Heller. We could
also get married, but I know that’s never going to happen, and
neither is me signing any stupid ‘agreement’.”

Incredibly resentful and upset, I rolled out
of his bed and stomped back downstairs to my flat. I turned on
every single light in the whole place, including all the lamps. I
climbed into bed, afraid of being here by myself. I hadn’t slept
alone since I’d come home from hospital. But I was too pissed off
at Heller to stay with him one second more.

I lay in bed for ages, my eyes wide in the
glaring light, the blankets pulled up to my neck. I was afraid to
go to sleep in case I woke up to find the portrait of Rose hanging
on my bedroom wall. It was the secret fear I hadn’t shared with
anybody. Though I realised it wasn’t rational, she remained an
object of great fear for me. What would I do if she appeared? Would
I cut myself again and offer her more of my blood? I would know
then it hadn’t been the tea to blame for my delusions, it was my
mind. Sometimes the tea just seemed like a convenient excuse so
that people could avoid the possibility I’d completely lost touch
with reality.