Nefarious Doings (18 page)

‘Hello?’

‘Nell, it’s your mother.’

I waited for some information to follow this.

‘Are you still there?’

‘Of course I am. Well? Is Fiona at home?’

‘It’s customary to respond to a caller’s identification with an acknowledgement, you know. Even a simple “hello” would suffice. Silence suggests either a lack of courtesy, a speech impediment, or loss of communication signal.’

‘And using the word “either” suggests it will be followed by two options, not three.’

There was silence, again, on the phone. I would have liked to have filled it with a sentence beginning ‘It’s customary to respond to a comment with some type of acknowledgement …’ but I knew, from bitter experience, that it was advisable to go thus far with my mother, and no further.

‘Would you like to know the situation here, or would you prefer to discuss grammar?’

‘I’d like to know the situation, thanks.’

‘Fiona is not here. Rosa says she went out last night about seven-thirty, eight, and didn’t come back. She assumed she’d gone to visit her girlfriend in Melbourne. Apparently she does this every Saturday evening, so Rosa simply thought it was Saturday, not Sunday, even though she did think it had come around very quickly. Like in
Groundhog Day
but without the surprise factor. It took me some time to convince her that it wasn’t.’

‘Does she remember
anything
unusual? Like maybe Fiona being upset, or getting a phone call or something?’

‘No, but then everyone in this house seems to keep to themself.’ Her voice lowered. ‘The police are here now, asking questions.’

I glanced over at Ashley Armistead and Leon. The latter met my eyes, grimaced. ‘Okay, thanks, Yen. I don’t know how long I’ll be.’

‘Take your time.’

I slipped the phone back into my bag and approached the counter once more. The detective was jotting some details in his folder.

‘That was my mother. Fiona hasn’t been there since last night.’

‘At your mother’s?’ asked Ashley, frowning.

‘No, at her house. I asked my mother to go around there, before.’

‘I see. Yes, we’ve sent a man around to speak to Mr and Mrs Ramage.’

‘Good luck,’ said Leon with feeling.

‘Can I speak to you for a moment?’ I looked from Ashley to Leon. ‘Sorry, Leon, I don’t want to be rude, but it’s about something Fiona may wish to keep quiet.’

‘Um, sure. Yes, of course. No problem.’

‘How about over here?’ Ashley moved over towards the wall of alien-eyed women and I followed, feeling awkward. ‘Okay then, what’s up?’

‘You know that Fiona and Leon were having a fling, because she’s his alibi for Dustin Craig’s death?’ I continued without waiting for an answer, ‘But I thought I should tell you that I spoke to her yesterday, at a function we were at. And she’s quite frustrated with the arrangement, particularly as she thinks he fancies Beth Craig.’

‘I see.’ He nodded, as if interested, but I had a feeling the information was nothing new.

‘And she tried to ring me last night, at seven-fifteen. Left a message on my mobile saying there was something she wanted to tell me.’

‘Really?’ Now I had his attention. He held out his hand. ‘D’you mind?’

‘Ah, no,’ I slipped my hand into his. Then we both stood there, rather stupidly.

‘I meant the phone.’

It took another moment for this to sink in, the enormity of my idiocy a barrier to comprehension. I wished, fervently, that the earth would open up and swallow me. At that point I realised that we were
still
holding hands. I snatched mine back. ‘I knew that. I was just ah, joking.’ I could see Leon over at the counter, watching with interest. I scrabbled in my bag for my mobile, negotiated the menu with fat fingers, passed it over.

‘It’s not going to launch into “Sweet Transvestite”, is it?’

‘Only if you want it to,’ I replied, trying to recover my equilibrium. My hand felt warm.

The detective read the text and then leant his folder against the wall, sandwiched between heavy-lidded females with triangular heads, and jotted down the contents of the message. He lowered the folder and handed me the phone. ‘I take it you never spoke?’

‘No, I only got the message this morning. I don’t check my phone much.’

‘I see.’

I went on in a rush. ‘I’m thinking maybe it was about what she’d said last night. Maybe she went round there, and she always parked in the nursery you know, so maybe she was attacked nearby.’ I petered off. ‘There’re a lot of bushes around that area.’

‘Yes, there are.’

‘Fiona’s lovely,’ I said, as if this made a difference. ‘She deserves more.’

‘I agree.’ He smiled quite suddenly, but it was more a smile of solidarity than a smile of pleasure. I sensed that he was as concerned as I was. With all that had happened in the past week, this looked bad, very bad indeed. He closed the folder and pulled out his own phone, moving away as he pressed buttons. So now all three of us were positioned at different points in the gallery, like a staged scene in a play. Apart and yet together. It occurred to me that even when it was all
about
her, poor Fiona still missed the moment.

I am really tired of reading about middle-aged women every bloody week. What about middle-aged men? What about putting aside your radical feminist agenda and seeing how you are adding to the marginalisation of the middle-class, middle-aged male?

But Fiona was not found in the bushes around the nursery, or anywhere in the vicinity of Small Dairy Lane. Which made more sense after I found out that her car was still parked at her house, in the garage. So it seemed that her last known movements included making a phone call to me and, about half an hour later, saying ‘see you later’ to her mother and exiting through the front door. Then vanishing.

I woke the following morning with this knowledge already weighing me down, closely followed by the thought that she might have been found overnight. I jumped from bed and hurried into the study, where I googled the latest news. There she was:

I leant back in my chair, both disappointed and relieved. Even so, I knew that things did not look good. The best-case scenario had Fiona purposefully absenting herself to make Leon jealous, or perhaps wake up to his true feelings. Absence makes the heart grow fonder and all that. But this level of artifice did not seem in character, nor did the requisite desertion of her parents. It also didn’t factor in the phone call, or the suggestion of lunch.

‘Mum, I’m leaving now.’ Quinn stuck her head around the doorjamb. ‘Gus is out the back, so can you let him in when he’s finished?’

‘Why so early?’

‘It’s excursion week, remember? Today’s the museum so we have to be at school by eight. Caitlin’s mum is giving us a lift.’

‘Of course.’ I smiled, as if I recalled it all perfectly. ‘Well, have a great time!’

‘Thanks. And don’t forget Gus.’

I went back to my bedroom and showered, thinking, then dressed in a polo shirt and cargo-style shorts. I stripped my bed and threw the sheets plus my nightclothes into the hamper. The heatwave was due to break late today, with a showery, thundery change, and I was already looking forward to a significantly cooler night with crisp, clean sheets.

My mother was in the kitchen, making coffee. She brought out another cup and filled it, passing it over without a word.

‘Thanks.’ I took a sip, closed my eyes briefly. ‘She’s still missing. I just checked.’

‘Me too.’ She wrapped her hands around her own mug.

‘It all has to be connected.’

‘Yes. Yes, it does.’

I sat on a stool, regarded her. ‘Yen, I’m not sure how to ask this so I’m just going to come out with it. Do you know anything you’re not telling me? About
any
of this?’

‘What do you imagine I might know?’

‘I honestly have no idea.’ I kept my eyes on her, trying to interpret her body language. ‘But I can’t get away from the fact Dustin Craig was found in
your
garage. Which means someone deliberately chose to put him there.’

‘That had occurred to me as well.’ She finished her coffee, rinsed out the mug. ‘But you and your sister must stop trying to play detective. This isn’t some story you can manipulate. You’ll get yourself in trouble.’ She paused. ‘And I understand Petra is coming back up?’

‘Yes, she’ll be here for dinner.’

‘Morning, Mum,’ said Lucy, bouncing into the room. ‘Grandma, you ready?’

Yen nodded as she picked up her handbag from the counter. She turned back to me. ‘So will Jim Hurley. Be here for dinner, I mean.’

‘Thanks for letting me know!’

‘You’re welcome.’ She smiled as she followed Lucy from the room.

I drank my coffee, now feeling cross, but then remembered that in all likelihood she would be moving out soon. Which, unless the present situation was resolved in some way, would bring its own set of worries. I took some pork butterfly steaks from the freezer and put them in the fridge to defrost. Then I dragged my mobile out again and tried Red in London. There was no answer, possibly because it was just finishing time there. If my calculations were correct she would be catching her plane tomorrow afternoon and I wanted to speak to her before she left to confirm that Ruby would be collecting her from the airport and driving her up here.

I left a message for Ruby, reminding her of the arrangements, and then called my editor to have a preliminary chat about the feature article she was keen on, plus discuss the schedule for the Christmas break. While I had the phone out, I read the message from Fiona again, for at least the tenth time, and then turned the phone to vibrate. That was where it could stay until I learnt to change the ringtone. I reached for the little crystal bowl at the end of the counter, where I kept bits and pieces, and unearthed the lapel pin. It winked at me, full of knowledge. I fastened it on the collar of my shirt, then grabbed my bag and headed for the car. I had to do
something
.

The sun was already fierce, with a cloying heat that felt as if it had sucked the oxygen from the air. There were few cars on the road, and I passed a bus that looked almost empty. It seemed that everyone was hibernating, waiting for the promised cool change. I swept along the road in air-conditioned comfort and arrived at Small Dairy Lane shortly before nine-thirty. Both cars were gone from the Tapscott house, as usual, but Uncle Jim’s car was parked in his driveway. There was a single workman at my mother’s house, rather desultorily clearing debris from the garage into a ute that he had backed into the driveway. He looked up as I exited the car but then ignored me.

Once inside the house, I went straight to my mother’s bedroom. Here one wall was a mix of burnt brick and blue tarpaulin. Despite over a week having passed since the fire, the charcoal smell still tinged the air, made worse by the rising heat. On the far side of the room, near the door, her dressing-table was untouched. The jewellery case that housed all her good pieces was not here, presumably having been put somewhere safe, but a pottery bowl that Petra had made in kindergarten still sat in pride of place. This always held her costume jewellery and other bits and bobs and badges. It was also the most logical place for her lapel pin. But it wasn’t there.

I had rather expected that, given it would have been the first place Yen checked when she looked for it last Saturday evening. I went to the wardrobe, where I jangled the hangers along one by one, checking the collars and lapels of jackets and dresses. All these clothes would have to be washed or dry-cleaned before being worn, as it seemed each housed a burnt smell between the folds. It was oddly nostalgic, reminding me of a thousand childhood meals.

My phone vibrated just as I reached the part of the wardrobe that held all of Yen’s out-of-date outfits. Pants suits from the seventies, grid-iron shouldered dresses from the eighties. My high-school blazer, and Petra’s too.

‘Hello?’

‘Mum, it’s Scarlet. Any developments?’

‘No, I’m afraid not. It’s not looking good at all.’

‘Listen, do you think there’s any chance it’s a drug-related thing? Like a turf war?’

‘Berry Pembroke? Fiona Ramage?’

Scarlet fell silent for a moment. ‘I don’t know either of them as well as you so I’ll take your word for it. I’m just trying to think of something that fits. But I actually rang about something else.’

‘Really?’ I smiled, a little flatly.

‘Yes, it’s about that detective, Ashley Armistead. I don’t want you to think I’m as thingo about you dating again as Lucy is; I think it’s good for you to have a life. Absolutely. But I also think you might be a little … um,
naive
. No offence.’

‘Oh, none taken.’

‘Like it’s been a
long
time that you’ve been out of the game.’

‘Yes, indeed. A very long time.’

‘And we don’t want to see you get hurt.’

‘Of course not.’

‘So after Luce rang yesterday, I did some checking and Mum, he has a pretty bad reputation. I’m sorry, but he’s a player. Do you know what that means?’

‘I’m sure I can look it up. In my old lady dictionary.’

‘It means he’s only after one thing.’

I decided this had to end. ‘Perfect!’

‘Pardon?’

‘I said perfect! Because so am I.’

‘You’re
what
?’

‘Scarlet, I appreciate the concern, really I do, but it’s unnecessary. Number one, things haven’t changed that much and they never will. Number two, I’m well aware that he’s a player. And number three, that’s exactly what I want just now.’

‘But he’s just after –’

‘Sex. Yes, I know. But much of your concern is predicated on me wanting more and that’s simply not the case. I don’t want a relationship. My life is bursting at the seams with relationships. I just want someone to help me draw a line in the sand. A weekend of unbridled sex. Or maybe two.’

‘
Unbridled sex?
’

‘Yes, much more becoming for us elderly types. Leaves less marks.’

There was silence on the other end.

‘So thanks again for your concern. And thank Lucy too. But it’s not necessary. Now I’d better go. Bye, sweetheart!’

‘Um, yes. Bye.’

I hung up, and then let a smile form. It was better than being irritated, or even insulted.
Mother of five retains libido. Offspring shocked.
I left the bedroom, heading towards the bathroom for a quick pit stop. Afterwards, the plan was to check all the other knick-knack spots and then give up. I only wanted the pin as confirmation because I didn’t really believe that Yen was involved in Berry’s murder anyway. Dustin Craig perhaps, but Berry – if we were right about her having been killed because she saw something – no. My mother simply wasn’t the type to cover her tracks.

I washed my hands briskly, staring at my face in the mirror. The heat was reacting with my hair in a fashion that even a scarf was struggling to hide. Fuzzy spirals escaped every which way, making me look like my head was covered in the sort of material that was once used to stuff chairs. I sighed and looked away, almost immediately spotting a glint of gold behind the potpourri bowl. I snared it with one finger and slid it out, then stared in the mirror again as I held it up beside the one on my collar. Snap.

With a sense of accomplishment rather out of proportion to the actual deed, I rang Petra and left a message. Then I fastened the pin on my collar beside its twin and admired my handiwork in the mirror for a little longer before leaving the house. The worker, who was now leaning against his ute having a smoke break, nodded with more interest than he had shown before. It occurred to me that he may have heard some of my conversation with Scarlet so I took this as a compliment. I half expected Edward Given to be outside, hovering around his front yard, but he was nowhere in sight, so after a moment’s thought I left my car where it was and crossed the road diagonally to his house.

His frontage was neat but unremarkable. Rhododendrons blossomed around the front porch, but that was the extent of the garden. I rang the doorbell, having a sudden flashback to the last time I rang a doorbell around here. But this time footsteps sounded almost immediately and the door opened, just slightly.

‘Hello?’ said Edward, peering through the gap.

‘Ned!’ I said cheerfully, a little surprised by the lack of welcome.

‘Nell. How are you? What can I do for you?’

‘I just thought I’d drop in. Find out if there’s any news around here.’

‘Oh.’ He relaxed visibly, but kept the door in place. ‘Well, nothing much, although Trudy Tapscott went into premature labour yesterday. She’s in hospital now.’

‘Is she going to be okay? How’s the baby?’

‘Both fine, so I’m told.’ He licked his lips. ‘Um, Nell, this isn’t a good time.’

‘Ah. Okay.’ I backed away, embarrassed. ‘Sorry. Perhaps another day.’

‘Thanks, Nell. See you then.’

The door closed before I reached the end of the porch. I stared at it, my mind churning. That was odd – really odd. Could it have been Edward Given all this time? He had proximity, he had a lapel pin, he had enough privacy to carry out all sorts of nefarious doings, but did he have motive? More importantly, did he have Fiona? I hesitated for a moment then made my way around Edward’s house, towards his side gate. This was latched but not locked, so I eased up the latch and slipped through. The backyard was as sparse as the front, with just a square of grass bisected by a concrete path leading to an old Hills hoist. I edged up to the first window before ducking to pass beneath. Now I could hear noises coming from a little further down so I continued until I reached the next window, then stopped to listen.

The sound had ceased also, but now started again. A low, grunting noise that spoke of effort being expended almost rhythmically. My blood chilled, despite the warmth. There were any number of things that might fit with the sound, most of which I preferred not to think about. But the one that swam to the front of my mind and then refused to leave, despite its fancifulness, was the thought that this would be the type of noise one made when dismembering a body. Heavy exertion, interspersed with brief breathers, particularly for a man of Edward’s size.

Something quivered against my hip, suddenly and shockingly. I yelped, unloosed my shoulder bag and then dropped it, all in one fluid movement. Inside the house the grunting noise stopped abruptly, and for a moment all was silent. From where I now crouched I could see my bag vibrating cheerfully right beneath the window, the little green light of my phone blinking in sync. I reached out and hooked it with one arm, dragging it over just as the curtains opened. I flattened myself against the wall and held my breath.

It was the longest two minutes of my life. Finally the curtains closed once more and shortly afterwards the grunting noise recommenced, bizarrely welcome under the circumstances. I edged back along the wall and held my breath as I rounded the corner, half expecting Edward (
call me Ned!
) to be standing there with an axe. Once through the gate I hurried across the road and gave the workman such a large smile that he probably thought his day was about to get a whole lot better.