Nefarious Doings (5 page)

‘Shut up, you idiots.’ Scarlet drew a connecting line between the two penises. ‘This is McIvor Highway and these two are Lincoln Court and Small Dairy Lane. And now we’re going to fill in the houses with occupants and motives. We’ll have this solved in no time.’

I sat forward. ‘Good idea. Let’s start with Lincoln Court, because it’s least likely.’

‘Not necessarily.’ Scarlet swapped the black marker for a green one and then drew the plant nursery on the corner of Lincoln Court and the highway, which went almost all the way up the left-hand side of the court. ‘Okay, next?’

‘Next is a vacant block, I think it belongs to the nursery, and then at the top of the court is the Russo place. Michael and Lyn. Do you remember the eldest, Jackson, went out with Red a few times?’

‘And Griffin’s in my year,’ put in Quinn.

‘Okay, so that’s Quinn’s boyfriend’s place then.’ Scarlet filled in the outline of the house with tiny writing. ‘Next!’

‘He’s not my boyfriend!’

‘Next door is Kat Caldwell and she has kids as well. I think the eldest is a friend of Quinn.’

‘No he’s not! And Griffin Russo isn’t my boyfriend!’

‘So far we can mark these houses by their relationship to Quinn,’ said Ruby. ‘A boyfriend here, a boyfriend there. Which means Quinn is moving up the list of suspects. What’s next?’

‘Mum! Make her stop!’

‘Enough.’ I spoke without taking my eyes off the board. ‘Now here’s where it gets interesting, because these next three all back on to houses on Small Dairy Lane. First is Berry Pembroke. She lives alone, bit older than me. Remember the lady we bought guinea pigs off when you were little? Her house backs on to Jim and Rita Hurley. Then there’s Leon Chaucer, who owns Majic Art Gallery in town.’

‘Yum,’ said Scarlet.

‘Gay,’ said Ruby.

‘Could be. Besides, I'd prefer you both stick to guys on your side of thirty. Now back to the task in hand.’ I pointed to the outline that Scarlet was now drawing. ‘His house backs on to Grandma’s. And then last of all, on the corner opposite the nursery, is the double block owned by the Nightingales, but they’re ancient.’

Scarlet made a few notations. ‘Okay, now to Small Dairy Lane. We have old Mrs Fletcher on the corner, next to the Nightingales. Or is she dead?’

‘Not quite. But she’s in a retirement home now so I think that house is empty.’

‘Then next door to her are the Craigs,’ put in Quinn. ‘But because of the Nightingales’ double block, they don’t have a house behind them.’

‘Which is a shame,’ said Ruby. ‘Because someone might have heard something.’

‘Can’t be helped.’ Scarlet drew a neat tennis court on the end of the Nightingale land, behind the Craig house. ‘So then we have Grandma, and the Hurleys and that’s it.’

‘For that side, anyway,’ I said. ‘We have three houses opposite. I’m not sure who lives in the end house now, but next door are this young couple I met today. Mark and Trudy Tapscott. He seems very pleasant but she’s a fool. Of course at the corner we have Edward Given.’

‘Somehow I doubt he did the deed,’ commented Lucy, grinning. ‘You know, I can’t quite see him scaling fences and whatnot.’

‘If he did, he’d blab real quick. And that woman’s name is stupid. Trudy Tapscott. She sounds like a cartoon character, one of those damsel-in-distress types with massive boobs.’ Quinn picked up a red marker. ‘Can I write in the alibis, Scar?’

I tried to recall the size of Trudy’s chest but it hadn’t made much of an impression, even with her advanced pregnancy, which suggested it was nothing to get excited about. Figuratively speaking. The doorbell sounded, then repeated with an insistency that suggested it was my sister, Petra, who had spent the afternoon with our mother at the hospital. I glanced around the room, settling on Ruby.

‘Okay, okay.’ She bounced to her feet, smoothed down her jeans, and went to answer the door. Moments later I could hear her voice, rising, falling. I got up to put the kettle on.

‘I heard that Tapscott guy say he was out last night,’ said Quinn, kneeling down so that she could write neatly.

‘His wife too?’ asked Scarlett.

I shook my head. ‘She’s about seven months pregnant. Your grandmother would be more capable of doing away with Dustin than she would.’

‘Well, thanks for the vote of confidence,’ said my mother from the doorway.

I whipped my head around to stare at her, and then narrowed my eyes at the person who stood behind. In all fairness my sister did look apologetic, but also a little amused. She was dressed beautifully, as usual, with a pair of dove-grey slacks and a cream cowl-necked top. People always commented on how alike we were, but I knew that Petra was actually always a little more, a little less. A little taller, a little slimmer, a little more chest. Her hair a little tamer, her eyes a little wider, her life a little easier.

‘Grandma!’ Scarlet came across the room to embrace her grandmother, a trifle awkwardly because we were not a particularly tactile family. Especially with the matriarch.

‘But what are you –’ I spared a moment for another glare towards my sister. ‘That is, Yen, I thought you were staying in overnight?’

‘You could at least pretend you’re pleased to see me.’

‘I’m just concerned, about your health.’

‘If you were that concerned you’d be insisting I sit down, offering me a sherry. Did you get those names for me? From the society meeting?’

I took a deep breath. ‘Yes, and I’ve emailed it. So sit down, relax. I’ll get you a drink.’

As our mother made her way across the living room, Petra came over to the island bench, propped herself on a stool. ‘Sorry about this, Nell. She insisted on being discharged. There was nothing I could do.’

‘What about bloody ringing?’

‘Well, yes, maybe that,’ she conceded, then gave me a wide smile. ‘But I was just so looking forward to getting here that –’

‘Oh, put a sock in it.’

‘Good lord, Nell, are you
still
working on that doll’s house? I wouldn’t have thought you had so much spare time. And what’s this chart then?’ Yen was now staring at the whiteboard. ‘That’s
my
neighbourhood. Why have you written “too old” on my house?’

Scarlet frowned at the chart, and then flung her little sister to the wolves. ‘Quinn did it.’

‘It wasn’t personal!’

‘It doesn’t
get
more personal,’ commented her grandmother. She turned to Lucy. ‘How are you? Diagnosed any malignancies lately?’

‘Any what?’

‘Yen, Quinn only wrote “too old” because we were trying to work out who would be most likely …’ I suddenly realised that she wouldn’t have heard the latest. ‘Oh, the
news
! It seems Dustin Craig didn’t die in the fire at all!’

‘Well, that should surprise the coroner. I do hope they realise before they start the autopsy. Could be awkward.’

‘No, no.’ I waved my hand impatiently. ‘I mean he was
already
dead. The police have confirmed it – they’re treating it as a homicide.’

Now it was Petra’s turn to look stunned. ‘Really?’

‘Really. And the fire was deliberately lit, they used an accelerant.’

‘I see.’ Yen hesitated, glanced over at the whiteboard. ‘Yes, I see.’

The kettle started to whistle shrilly. I turned it off and poured a small glass of sherry, taking it over to my mother on the couch. She took her eyes from the chart to stare at it suspiciously, then up at me. ‘Sherry?’

‘You
said
sherry!’

‘No, I said I’d appreciate being
offered
a sherry, not that I’d accept. I’d prefer scotch. Neat, on the rocks.’

I took a deep breath. She’s old, I thought, and sick. In shock. ‘Coming right up.’ I carried the sherry back over to the kitchen where I drained it in one gulp.

‘Don’t let it get to you,’ murmured Petra, settling herself on the stool. ‘You should have seen her at the hospital. I think that’s why they agreed so readily to her being discharged.’

‘I bet.’

‘But if you’re getting drinks anyway, could I have a wine? Red if you’ve got it.’

I opened the fridge and removed a bottle of chardonnay, held it up. ‘This, or nothing.’

‘This then.’ Petra looked towards the whiteboard. ‘So he was murdered? Hell, even the word sounds extreme. Murder.’

‘Sally Roddom and her husband are away,’ Yen was saying, staring at the diagram again. ‘Visiting one of their daughters interstate. They live in that house you’ve got blank, beside Mark and Trudy Tapscott.’ She snapped her fingers. ‘Come on, who’s marking this in?’

Quinn scrambled up, probably eager to compensate for her ‘too old’ notation.

‘You can also write that Edward Given’s too useless, and the Tapscotts are too boring, and the Nightingales are too decrepit. That’s what happens when you play tennis – it’s the court surface. Quinn!’ she suddenly shouted, causing everybody to jump. ‘For god’s sake, you don’t need to write that down. It’s just extra information. Now, hmm, it might be that Chaucer fellow who lives behind me; he’s a slimy piece of work. Or Berry Pembroke, she’s neurotic. All those damn rodents. Or one of those teenagers from up Lincoln Court. If you heard the music they listen to, you’d know they’re capable of anything.’

‘What music?’ asked Lucy with interest.

‘All tits and arse,’ Yen replied promptly. ‘Fuck this, fuck that.’

It was a measure of how well we all knew her, and the occasional shock tactics she used to retain attention, that nobody batted an eye. I finished the drinks and started putting together a platter of savouries.

‘And here, write this in: Maud Fletcher from the corner’s been institutionalised.’

I paused from cubing cheese. ‘Yen, she has not. She’s moved into a lovely retirement home, and by all accounts is very happy there.’

‘Same thing.’ She was frowning at the whiteboard. ‘Of course the most logical … Oh, this is stupid. Nell, why do you have a nude Christmas tree? It looks ridiculous. And where’s my damn scotch?’

Rather than answer I sent another glare in Petra’s direction and then resumed working on the platter.
Woman uses food as therapy. Becomes two-hundred-kilogram blimp.

My mother started lecturing Quinn, who had just used the red marker to draw a smiley face on her arm, about carcinogenesis. Scarlet and Ruby were watching silently, no doubt reluctant to draw attention to themselves. Lucy was keeping quiet also, probably for the same reason, but there was no avoiding the confrontation she would be having with me, sooner or later. Fruit picking, my arse. I thought about the column, due tomorrow, and a full day of work at the bookshop, also due tomorrow. I thought about finding space for all these extra people, and bedding, and breakfast. And I thought about the fact that Petra would be escaping, as would both Scarlet and Ruby, but my mother would be staying on. Then I poured myself an extra dollop of scotch, because I was going to need it.

I just wanted to let you know that I enjoyed your column ‘Why middle-aged women shouldn’t use trampolines’ so much that I now have a suggestion for a new column – ‘Why middle-aged women shouldn’t laugh too hard’. Keep it up!

I spent every Monday at Renaissance, serving customers mostly, but also facilitating a small reading group that concentrated on Australian women writers. Literary authors like Hooper and Tranter, but also lighter reads like Blacklock, Heidke and Evans. I had been working at my mother’s bookshop for as long as I could remember, in exchange for pocket money as a child, for pin money as a young mother, and for social contact as a writer. It was especially valuable nowadays, because otherwise I spent a large part of my entire working life on my own, at home, staring at a computer screen, talking to myself. Often answering as well. And while I loved my job, some diversion was necessary – plus the occasional requirement to get dressed.

This morning, however, I didn’t approach the shop with quite my usual bounce. It had been a late, noisy night, with – despite Scarlet’s promise to ‘have this solved in no time’ – no real progress having been made. Except that we now had a dot-pointed list of reasons why each of my mother’s neighbours were annoying. All of which provided motive for
her
to perform mass murder, not highlight a culprit for the deed already committed.

One bright spot was that, aided by a few glasses of chardonnay, I managed to convince my sister to accompany Yen for the day. First she would be acting as secretary for a list of phone calls, such as insurance, newspaper delivery and police, and after that they were off to outpatients for a quick check-up, then to the house to survey the damage, and then to arrange a hire car, and finally to the bookshop to ascertain all was running smoothly. A communal lunch was scheduled for one pm, when we could exchange information.

Mondays were traditionally a quiet day at Renaissance. Tourists to the area had either departed on Sunday or, newly arrived, were heading for the bigger attractions like the museums in Bendigo, the spa treatments in Daylesford, or the water sports at Lake Eppalock. Most of the locals, despite having had six-day-a-week trading for many years, still treated Thursday and Friday as shopping days and kept away during the early part of the week. But today was different. From the moment I unlocked the double doors at the front of the bookshop, there were customers aplenty. Each of them had watched the news the night before, or heard it from a neighbour/relative/friend, and each had a vital piece of hearsay to slip into the conversation. All of which concerned the victim, and the varying ways in which he got exactly what was coming to him.

Mrs Emerson, who was an academic before she retired to concentrate on Richard III and the merits of cheese puffs, popped in to announce that it was almost certain Dustin Craig suffered from a personality disorder. No, said Caitlin’s mother Jill, selfishness was not a disorder. Roz Gupta, dropping by on her way to get supplies for the primary school canteen, had heard that there’d been moves to get counselling for the older girl, but the parents had been resistant. Fred and Elsa Poxleitner had it on good authority (aka Fred and Elsa Poxleitner) that parents who acted that way should be charged with criminal negligence. Mrs Emerson agreed, however she felt Beth Craig should shoulder responsibility for having stayed in the relationship. And Lyn Russo, the centre of attention for the twenty minutes she was there,
thought
she might have heard raised voices on the night of The Murder, but there was a possibility that could have been her own kids.

At eleven am, always late on Mondays, the cafe opened its doors and immediately drew some of the heat. My mother’s offsider began work also; this was Sharon, a buxom redhead whose favourite colours were purple and orange and who felt compelled to wear a portion of each every single day. Strangely, it worked. She took one look at the milling customers and cancelled plans to begin inventory, thus allowing me to escape for some much-needed coffee.

One Christmas about five years ago, after noticing that the main street was looking a little bedraggled in the festive department, the town council had launched a Best-Decorated Shop competition and then, soaked in the spirit, expended a great deal of money on new street decorations. Regrettably, their choice had not been as inspired as their intention. The local teenagers soon detected the possibilities inherent within the cluster of oversized ornaments, and trimmed them back so that each now contained just one elongated pinecone and two Noddy-type bells. The result was that every lamppost up and down the main street, and a little way out from either end, was decorated with what looked like festive genitalia. Nevertheless, each year the council optimistically erected them again, usually with the addition of a newly purchased candy-cane or holly sprig that was removed the very first night, leaving just the basics behind. It had become a town tradition.

The competition had also become an annual rite, with shopkeepers the length and breadth of the street vying with each other for the prize of two movie tickets and a photograph with the mayor. Unfortunately, all subscribed to the philosophy that bigger was better, resulting in a cornucopia of festivity that was inflated, often literally, and turned the main thoroughfare into an obstacle course that saw several shoppers injured every year.

Avoiding our own cafe, and a giant plastic Santa with disturbingly narrow eyes, I strode up the gaily decorated Main Street to a small hot bread shop that had recently opened in the arcade beside Svetlana’s Haberdashery.
Majic Bakery: for all your
majic
bread!
I ordered a chocolate mud muffin and a skinny cappuccino and took them through the arcade to the football oval out the back. Just across from here was the mansion that had spawned the entire town, now named Sheridan House and used as the community centre. It made a picturesque backdrop, with panels of red brick within creamy render and fat, forest-green domes crowning an assortment of rounded rooms on the second and third floors. I found a bench under a plump pine and settled for a brief hiatus, perhaps even some inspiration for my column, now due in under six hours.

‘Well, well, if it isn’t Nell. Look at that, I’m a poet! Responding to poetry in motion.’

‘Or sloth,’ I replied, shading my eyes to glance up at Leon Chaucer. He was looking very dapper today, in a snowy-white shirt with a light and dark blue diagonally striped tie.

‘You wouldn’t be hiding by any chance, would you?’

‘If so, I’m not doing a very good job.’ I smiled to take the sting from my words because I quite liked Leon. He was a relatively late arrival to the town, having established the Majic Art Gallery about four years ago. The gallery focused on Australian art, local in particular, with an exhibition each summer that generated reviews even in the major city papers.

He sat beside me, leaning back with his hands laced behind his head, squinting into the sunshine. ‘To think I moved a little way out because I thought it’d be more peaceful.’

‘Your mistake was shifting behind my mother.’

‘I blame the conveyancer. It should have been part of due diligence.’

I turned to him curiously. ‘Leon, how well
do
you get on? Does she give you any grief?’

‘Does she give me any grief?’ he repeated, clearly giving the matter some thought. ‘Not
really
. But she doesn’t like me much. Doesn’t like my music, doesn’t like my outside light, and certainly didn’t like my dog.’ His voice changed with this last, just slightly.

‘What happened to your dog?’ I vaguely recalled a hyperactive schnauzer that had spent the occasional day at the gallery.

‘Poison,’ said Leon flatly. He unlaced his hands and folded them on his lap. ‘Some bastard poisoned him while I was at work last year.’

‘Seriously? My god, that’s awful!’

‘I know. I reported it but …’ He shrugged. ‘He was only a dog, wasn’t he?’

‘Do you know who did it?’

‘I have my suspicions.’ He flashed me a rapid glance. ‘One of the teenagers up the end maybe. Or that fat fool on the corner.’

‘I’m so sorry.’ I took a sip of coffee. Yen had complained about that dog, and its barking, but would she …? Surely not.

‘How
is
your mother?’ asked Leon, as if reading my thoughts.

‘Oh good, good. Heading over to the house this morning to check out the damage.’

He nodded sympathetically. ‘It’s a mess. You know, I was sitting on my veranda last night, having a drink, thinking about how quickly life can change.’ He hesitated, blinked. ‘Especially for poor Dustin, of course.’

‘Of course. Did you know him well?’

‘No, thank god. I’m sorry to speak ill of the dead, but that guy was a bastard.’

‘Yes, that seems to be the general consensus.’ I took another sip. ‘Do you sit on your veranda most nights?’

Leon laughed. ‘Or, in particular, was I sitting on my veranda the night
before
last? And did I happen to see anything going on in, say, your mother’s backyard?’

‘Well … yes.’

‘Sorry, but no.’ He shot me a look of amusement. ‘The police already asked. That is, I
was
out there earlier in the evening and I even saw Dustin on their decking having a few drinks. He was in one of his bully-boy moods. Got the oldest girl to demonstrate her gymnastics. Handstands and all that. When Beth tried to stop it, he started carrying on about how he was paying for the lessons so had a right to see if he was getting his money’s worth. That was about nine or so.’

‘Were you still there when the police came?’

‘Nah.’ He shook his head. ‘I saw your mother come storming out, so I went inside. To be honest, I didn’t want to get involved. I mean, Dustin Craig
and
your mother? Do I look masochistic?’

‘No. Can’t say I blame you.’ A breeze washed across the oval, enveloped us for a moment, and then continued on. ‘I hear you’ve been promoted to president of the Wine and Cheese Society. Congratulations.’

‘I think it was a case of me being the slowest to say no.’ He stared at me. ‘I’ll find it hard to fill Darcy’s shoes, that’s for sure. We miss him there.’

I nodded, as always unsure how to respond. Should I apologise? Promise I’d do better next time?

Leon had lifted his gaze to my hair. ‘Have I ever told you I
love
your hair? It’s so … so wild. So unrestrained.’

‘Oh good. Unrestrained is exactly the look I’m after.’

‘Don’t sell yourself short.’ He dropped his eyes back to my face. ‘You have a lot more going for you than you realise. And sometimes … well, sometimes we have to lose something to set ourselves free.’ He reached out, clasped my hand briefly, and then rose in one fluid movement. ‘I’d best be off. Otherwise Fiona will start doing purchases and turn the Majic Art Gallery into the Majic Crap Gallery.’

I smiled, feeling a little foolish, my hand still tingling from his touch. I watched him stride away across the little gravel car park and into the arcade. Only after his tall, slim figure vanished did I turn away. A pigeon hopped across the grass, its head bobbing to search for abandoned crumbs. It was the type with an erect crest on the top of its head, which my offspring endearingly called ‘dickhead pigeons’.

‘Well, wasn’t that a nice thing to say?’ I asked the dickhead pigeon. It cocked its head, crest now diagonal. I rolled my eyes. ‘Okay, okay, yes, it was a little odd. But still nice. He meant well.’

I broke off a piece of muffin and threw it to the pigeon before storing the remains in my bag. Then I threw my empty coffee cup into the bin on the way back to work, keeping my head averted to avoid low-hanging decorations and conversation with passing locals. I only glanced up as I passed the Majic Art Gallery, but Leon was nowhere in sight. Instead his assistant Fiona, a blonde beanpole of a woman, was in the window pulling a male sculpture into position. Leaning forward and tugging the curve of the sculpture into her own body, she looked more like she was trying to mate than manoeuvre.

Back at the bookshop, Sharon was holding the fort with remarkable skill, although all eyes swivelled to me as soon as I entered. And that set the scene for the next hour and a half, just as it had before my break. Karen Rawlings from the community centre exemplified matters when she cornered me by Autobiographies & Memoir to describe how she once heard Dustin Craig call his wife a lazy bitch. ‘In full view of the entire supermarket, too! We were
flabbergasted
!’

Was
that
why you didn’t intervene? I wanted to ask, because you were so flabbergasted? Why you slipped into the next aisle, as fast as possible, and didn’t say anything, or call security, or pass her the phone number of the community centre itself, where there were pamphlets on domestic violence, and counsellors, and information on how Beth Craig could extract herself from a situation that, if a brief glimpse left fellow shoppers flabbergasted, must surely have been hell on earth? But I didn’t say anything, because neither had I.

At one pm, Sharon stuck a sign on the door and closed the shop, then slid shut the dividing door from the cafe. She leant against the counter and regarded me silently, waiting for a comment.

‘My mother’s not going to be happy,’ I said obligingly.

‘Tough. It’s showing no signs of letting up and you’re off to lunch in a minute, so I’m buggered if I’m going to run the show by myself for an hour.’

‘Fair enough.’ I watched an elderly couple try the door handle and then peer, surprised, through the glass. I shook my head and pointed to the sign.

‘It wouldn’t be so bad if they just came for a gander and then left, but they’re all hanging around. There’s a few been here as long as I have!’

‘Well, you might as well have lunch too. Then we’ll just reopen at two. But I may have to leave early – what with everything else, I’ve still got my column to do.’

While Sharon was tallying the cash register, I got my bag from the cupboard and headed towards the sliding door. The cafe was also doing a roaring trade, with many of the bookshop customers having taken their conversations next door. Kim, the waitress, rolled her eyes as I passed, then concentrated on balancing a tray of bruschetta. I held the fly-strips aside to pass through and almost collided with my mother, coming the other way.