The Celibate Mouse (8 page)

CHAPTER 12

The Turning of a Worm

Marli

Tuesday: morning.

M
arli always reckoned her sister, Brittany, stuffed her thumb in Marli’s mouth instead of her own before they were born, because she’d been shutting her up since they started to talk. The night before was no exception. She’d rung to tell her about meeting their father, David. Brit became ominously quiet before lashing into her, citing everything she thought Marli had done wrong all her life and finished with an ultimatum.

‘You’re not to go near him, Marli, do you hear me? Otherwise, I’ll never speak to you again.’

‘Why not?’ Marli felt hurt and utterly bewildered. She had thought Brit would at least be interested. ‘Don’t you want to find out what he’s like? And why he didn’t want to be with us?’

‘No. Like, what’s the point?’

‘But–’

‘
Harry,
is our dad,’ Brit snapped, ‘and our loyalty is to
him
. He’s the one who brought us up. That creep didn’t even want to know us. Like, if we weren’t good enough for him when we were babies, why should we drop everything and let him see us now? And anyway, I’m not going to upset dad by seeing this–David–so you can for-get a great hearts and flowers reunion. Okay?’

‘But Brit, we need to give him a chance, he’s really nice ... we don’t really know what went on after Mum broke up with him.’ She didn’t dare tell her sister about her mother’s confession. Brit would go ballistic and twist things around so that she, Marli, would be to blame for everything.

True to form, her sister honed in on her thoughts. ‘If mother has told you anything about him, it’s all lies. She’d say anything to get herself out of the firing line. Look what she did to Dad! I hate her, and as for
him
–they deserve each other. So don’t you even
think
about going near him! I’m telling you, Marli, if you do, I’m never going to speak to you again!’

‘You can’t tell me what to do!’

‘Yes, I can.’ The phone went dead.

Marli didn’t know what to do. Disappointment and anger intermingled with the realisation that her own opinions and feelings didn’t matter to the one person she loved more than anyone else in the world, her identical twin. ‘She hung up on me! Brit
actually
hung up on me.’

Tears welled up and oozed down her cheeks, but she lacked the energy to wipe them away. All the excitement of seeing David and being privy to their mother’s story disappeared like water soaking into sand. ‘Doesn’t he at least deserve a
chance?’
If she told her mother what Brit had done, she knew all hell would break loose and it would make the situation worse.

She finally went to bed and cried herself to sleep. When she awoke in the morning, it was with a steely core of determination building inside. She’d boasted she was adult and been trusted with her mother’s secrets, so now she’d need to act like it. She hurried to dress, make the bed, feed her pet rats and clean their cage before breakfast.

She was hungry, but indecision had her firmly in its grip. Somehow plain cereal and fruit didn’t seem to cut it. Then she saw it.
Happy food.
She dragged the plate of jam tarts out and peeled off the plastic covering. There was still some whipped cream left from yesterday’s scones, so she piled a spoonful on top of each tart, after which, she took half a loaf of bread for the cows, and carried her stash out onto the back verandah.

The wind had died down; the sun shone. The traffic hurtled along the distant main road, matchbox cars piloted by well-dressed ants scurrying about their business. Her mother, surrounded by dogs, walked across the back paddock. Titch bobbed up and down behind them, trying to keep up.

The cows looked up with great interest when Marli balanced the plate on top of a post, and took the bread out of her pocket. As the slices vanished into slobbering mouths and she stuffed herself full of tart, she vowed, ‘This time I’ll do what
I
want.’

When they were babies, Brittany got the attention because she was noisy. The times her grandmother made one of her rare “Royal Visits”, her sister was always the first down the path to meet the car and wrap herself around the tall, autocratic woman’s knees. For some reason, their grandma didn’t seem to like mum, which confused Marli. Parents are supposed to love their children, no matter what.

One time when they were ten, Marli had been behind the sofa reading a book she’d sneaked off the shelf–one with bad words which her parents had placed off-limits– when her dad and grandma came into the lounge. She’d slid the book under the sofa and concocted a tale about why she was behind there, but something about the tone of their voices made her frightened.

‘Harry, you’ve got to stop Susan from pursuing this ridiculous this ... career ... it’s so low-class. A daughter of mine being a policewoman is unseemly. All that blood and those gutter types she mixes with. You have to make her stay home and be a proper mother to the girls. It’s for her own good. And it’s high time she had another baby. Too busy to take the time out from her precious career, no doubt.’ Marli’s eyes widened. Were they getting a little brother? She’d like that. Her father mumbled something, and grandmother continued.

‘Well, how should I know? You must be able to figure something out. Make sure she’s always late for work. Create an impression of unreliability ... perhaps I might have a word with Sally Harijan. She’s the Commissioner’s aunt, you know.’

They moved to the other end of the room and lowered their voices, so she couldn’t hear any more. She wanted to jump up and tell them not to be so horrible to mum, but was too scared. Not only would she be caught eavesdropping, but they’d find out about the book as well. She’d stayed absolutely still until her muscles stiffened and she perspired with the effort of being quiet. She’d thought they loved Mum, but how could they, if they wanted to get her into trouble? Marli didn’t know much about working life, but losing a job was a
major
disgrace.

She and Brit had always known Harry wasn’t their natural father but it hadn’t seemed important because he was devoted to them. Once, when she’d asked mum about their real father, she’d been vague. The only time she tried to talk to her dad about David, his face turned red and he’d gotten a scary look in his eyes.

Marli hadn’t realised the cop who came to the house with Adam Winslow was David. She’d gone out to the back verandah to put Titch in his pen, but their voices had become so loud, she had to intervene. Carissa, her mum and brother were in the lounge room, for God’s sake, talking about their dead auntie! She’d rushed in and been confronted by a man who looked so like Brit and her, it took her breath away. When she’d found out he was their father, she’d felt kind of funny about thinking him a hunk. Father’s were not supposed to be good-looking, though their father–Harry–was handsome, but that didn’t count because he wore cardigans.

When
would
David ring? Her mother’s job entailed long arduous hours. When the investigation into her cousin Ally’s kidnapping was on, it seemed like she hadn’t been home for days. And now this David, also a detective, was in charge of the murder investigation.

Fear threaded through her. Someone had been spying on them. She knew her mother was concerned, because she’d warned–no, ordered her–not to stray away from the house, to keep away from the windows at night and not to walk in the paddocks with the dogs. Why should she hide because some looney sat on the hill acting like a dickhead? She’d pretty much managed to push the shooting of the Harlow man to the back of her mind, but it kept returning to make her sick to her stomach. And then the old lady’s murder would come back to choke her. At night, she would start out in her bed, but inevitably scuttle in with her mother.

She left the cows, walked the short distance back to the house, wiped her sticky fingers on a wet dishcloth as she passed the sink and stood in front of the mirror in the dining room, assessing her appearance, coldly and clinically in the dim light. Will he like me when he gets to know me? ‘Maybe not,’ a small voice inside reminded her. Their father hadn’t seen them for years, so did that mean he didn’t like them? Had never liked them? Perhaps going to see him might be more trouble than it was worth. Brit’s heated, stubborn reaction hardened Marli’s determination to hear his side of the story. A teacher at school told them, ‘There’s one truth, another truth and the real truth, which is somewhere in between.’

She would see David and listen to his version, but couldn’t wait for him to ring. They’d know of his whereabouts at the police station and she’d chase him down from there. She looked out the side door and saw her mother digging vigorously in the vegetable patch nearby, an enthusiastic audience of dogs scattered on the lawn, waiting for something exciting to happen.

‘Mum? I’m going to the library. Do you want anything brought back from town?’ If she really went to the library, then it wasn’t lying if she did something else as well. She didn’t dare say what she was going to do. She would be safe with her father and if he wasn’t available, she would come straight back to the farm.

As her mother straightened and turned, Marli gasped. The morning sunlight picked up Susan’s rich, red hair, turning it into a fiery length of silk, highlighting her glittering, green eyes and turning her skin to pearl. For a moment, Marli felt she was looking at a stranger.

‘Yes, could you take my book back, please? And you can get the local paper if you like and some sliced ham. Take the fifty in my purse. I don’t think we need anything else. I bought milk and bread yesterday. Drive carefully.’

‘I do have my P plate now, mum, so give it a rest will you?’ Marli let her breath out with a great whoosh.
Sheesh.

Susan turned back to the garden bed and became “just mum” again, looking like a dag, in tatty jeans and a green t-shirt with hair hanging down her back. Marli raced to her room, selected a white shirt, skin-tight jeans and black high-heeled boots. Her hands trembled with excitement as she slicked gloss over her lips and dragged a brush through her hair. Adam Winslow might be on duty at the front counter as well. She made kissing noises at her rats’ excited faces peering out of their hammocks in search of treats. ‘Sorry guys, you’ve had yoggie drops this morning! That’ll have to do.’

She wasted several precious minutes looking for her mother’s purse, which she found buried under the dog’s blankets on the sofa, then swept up the library book, grabbed the car keys and flew to the garage before her mother could decide to come with her. Her heart pounded as she backed her mother’s car out, turned toward the driveway and sped off down the road. Interrupting David while he was working didn’t bother her. He’d have to suck it up.

‘To hell with you, Brit! You might be my identical twin, but you don’t own me!’ she shouted defiantly, as she turned, too fast, onto the main road and sped toward town.

CHAPTER 13

Edna’s Archives

Susan

Tuesday: morning.

A
fter the usual courtesies, Daniella Winslow plunges into the reason for her phone call.

‘Susan, I know it’s probably an imposition to ask you, but would you please come with me to Aunt Edna’s house this morning? The police have finished examining her things and no one else in the family wants to go to the place. Ferna refuses to go with me. She can be a bit difficult.’

I observed her Ladyship’s iron grip on the local populace when I went grocery shopping late yesterday. The old bat had the supermarket staff grovelling.

‘Well, I don’t know whether I can be of any help, Daniella. Isn’t there anyone else you can ask?’

‘I can’t find anyone else to go. Please Susan, you are so level-headed and I feel terrible.’

I’ve never met a family yet who couldn’t wait to grab the goodies, so I am wondering why this lot isn’t breaking their necks to get into her things. Then something occurs to me. ‘Are you and they, afraid the murderer is hiding in Edna’s home waiting to get you?’

‘Of course not! But I–well, yes, a little. What if the person who did it is still around?’

‘You can be sure whoever murdered her will be a long way away, Daniella. He–or she–certainly won’t be hanging around Edna’s house.’
I really don’t know if I can do this.

‘But will you come?’

Years of training are telling me to go, to face down my demons and conquer the heartache which seems to fill my every waking moment. My psychiatrist advised me to take a break right away from crime, but she isn’t on the fringes of a murder investigation. Edna’s whispered hint of a long-ago murder flickers back into my mind, as does the memory of the shadow in the doorway just before she had her heart turn. Could I, as David suggested, do anything to help? Use my ‘in’ with the family to see what I can find out?

Daniella is speaking again. ‘...and I’ve got to go through her clothes and things. I just need for you to sit in a chair and talk to me. Keep me company.’
No, I can’t.
There is something about her tone which alerts me to the fact that this proud woman is lonely. Against my better judgement, I feel sorry for her. ‘All right, I’ll come, but only for a couple of hours and you’ll have to pick me up, because Marli took the car into town,’ I hear my treacherous mouth spouting.

She is delighted. It’s no trouble, she assures me, and she’ll be here in half an hour.

‘But Marli is in town and will come back to an empty house.’

‘Carissa’s home. Tell Marli to go to our place,’ says Daniella.

I phone Marli to tell her where I am going, but only get voice mail. ‘Go to the Winslow’s place as soon as you’ve finished in town,’ I order.

I scoot into the shower and then change into a pair of chocolate cotton slacks, a cream shirt and boots. The face which stares back at me from the mirror looks like that of a doll abandoned in a cupboard. Dark shadows, bags under my eyes and scraggy red hair are the least of it. I plait my hair into a French braid and then slap some make-up on. My sunglasses, carefully chosen for their ability to keep the world at bay, do the rest.

Last night was hell. Marli ended up in my bed and kicked me for what remained of the night. The trauma of the last two months hasn’t passed her by and a fight on the telephone with her sister hasn’t helped matters. I eavesdropped on her side of the argument, but moved away quickly when she snapped her phone shut and headed for the kitchen, where I was cooking dinner.

‘Brit says she’ll never talk to me again, if I even, like, speak to David. But she can’t stop me!’ she announced defiantly.

‘That’s just talk. She’ll come around eventually.’

I tried to be positive, but my eldest girl could be very stubborn – well, bitchy. But if I concede that description, I would then have to admit what a bad mother I’ve been. Long hours away from home are the job description of police officers and being a single woman with babies, then small children, had cut me no slack at the time. My struggle after David left had been horrendous, until my Aunt Beryl came to my rescue and moved into my spare room with her two cats. The trio had taken over the household.

‘It’s time you had a rest, Susan, and none of those useless women are being any help to you,’ she’d announced, referring to my mother and David’s toxic female relatives.

Open-mouthed, I’d stood with our cat and watched the little parade of aunt, pram and her cats make their way across the cul-de-sac in front of the house and wend their way through the trees. I remember being so stunned, it must have taken me at least an hour to fall asleep after diving into bed, after which I slept for ten hours, straight.

However, it wasn’t long before everybody settled down, thanks to my darling aunt who purchased a house and moved us in, God rest her soul, and two months later I was back at work, keeping the roof over our heads and resuming my heady career of tea-making, looking after lost children and kowtowing to a paternalistic hierarchy.

I soon began searching for ways to inveigle my way into investigations. Fortunately, David transferred to another station after we separated and came to take the girls out once a fortnight. On those occasions I made sure I was working or out somewhere, so he only spoke to Aunt Beryl who adored him and tried to talk me into attempting a reconciliation. My stubborn heart made sure it didn’t work...
for God’s sake, Susan, stop harking back to the past.

I check that all the windows are shut and back locked, then ring Marli one more time. She answers and snaps at me that of course she will go to Carissa’s, how old do I think she is and to get off her case. Right.
That’s put you in your place, Susan.

The dogs in the back yard start a ‘visitors’ ruckus.

‘Susan? I’m here!’ Daniella’s voice, coming from the top of the steps, is an elegant shriek above the cacophony.

‘Coming!’ I snatch up my purse and race out to the front verandah, but as I lock the front door, my eyes are drawn to the mountainside where I’d seen someone watching us with a telescope.
Oh God, what next?

Daniella chatters happily as she drives, leaving me free to watch the rolling hills sweep by, the crops spreading over the valley, a symphony of brown, yellow and green patchwork quilt. The symmetry is broken here and there with a canopy of snowy white flowers.

Unsolicited information about Daniella’s friends isn’t my cup of tea, but years of practice at listening to several conversations at once ensures I can’t help absorbing what she is saying even though I “tune her out.” I am relieved when we arrive at the front gate to Edna’s property. I am out in a trice, we are through and I latch it, watching out for Edna’s herd of goats who, I’m assured, are lurking nearby awaiting the chance to make a quick getaway.

The small, gracious Queenslander stands on a river flat lined with willows. A row of gum trees cluster around the front garden and stand sentinel behind the building. Her garden glows with native shrubs and a gang of lorikeets scream in the grevillea blossoms. Momentarily, they stop to watch our approach with beady eyes, then sensing we are harmless, fall to fighting amongst themselves.

Daniella stops the car at the bottom of the steps to the verandah, on which stand a couple of easy chairs and a table. As we reach the front door, a majestic ginger cat dozing in one of the chairs, jumps down and runs over to twirl joyfully around our legs,

‘That’s Fat Albert,’ Daniella announces, as she wrestles the key into the lock, gently pushing the cat aside with her foot. ‘The neighbours have been feeding him, but I don’t know what’s going to happen to him. No one in the family will want to bother and I can’t take an animal in.’

As the door swings open, we are hit with a blast of warm air, thick with the lavender and musky aroma peculiar to elderly ladies. The inside of the house is dark and secretive, resembling an underground cave. Albert slips indoors and runs ahead of us.

‘I suppose he’ll have to be ‘put to sleep,’ she confides, sotto voce, as though the cat might overhear, ‘unless we can find a home for him.’

My heart sinks. There’s been too much death, and now that of a helpless animal? My voice seems to have developed a life of its own. ‘If you can’t find a good home for him, then I suppose I could–’

She swings around. ‘Oh, would you? That would be perfect. I’m sure Edna has–had –a cat carrier somewhere and I know there’s a bed for him. We’ll bundle him in it before we leave.’

Smiling with satisfaction and I realise, relief, she marches in and out of the rooms, pushing the windows up to let cool, fresh air in. I realise I have been cleverly manipulated. Daniella has discovered my Achilles Heel: cats. We reach the kitchen where she flings the back door wide, before filling the electric kettle, switching it on and taking cups out of the cupboard. ‘Coffee?’

‘Yes, thank you.’

Edna appears to have been a collector of pre-WWII Australian china. All available surfaces are covered with ornaments, knickknacks and vases of dying roses. On the refrigerator door, held in place by a plastic yabby magnet, is a shopping list. The contents, written in the loopy hand of the pre-1950s schooled, are poignant: milk, bread, peanut butter (crunchy), eggs and cat food. Idly, I wonder why she was in town the day Marli and I rescued her from the public toilet and who brought her car home. Or had she taken a taxi? If she was shopping, what had happened to her purchases?

Abandoning the coffee-making, Daniella goes out to the back verandah where a large pile of cartons is stacked. ‘Adam arranged for boxes to be left here so I could make a start on packing up.’

She drags several out of the pile, obviously expecting me to do the same. Whatever happened to
‘sit in a chair and keep me company’?
Reluctantly, I take three out of the pile and follow her into the depths of the house.

‘How did Mrs Robinson get into town the day she collapsed at the park?’

Daniella stops and looks at me sideways, like a spooked horse. ‘Ah ... let me think. She drove in and Adam or Euon, I’m not sure who, brought her car home on Monday. It’s in the garage out the back. Why?’

‘Just curious,’ I reply, casually. Daniella shrugs and leads the way back to the lounge room. The back of the large settee is covered with tapestries which apparently Edna embroidered herself. The whole job of packing everything away looks like a week’s work for ten people. I could be so easily sucked into the investigation. The cop side of me itches to prowl through the house; perhaps it won’t hurt just to see what sort of impressions I can pick up.

Daniella leads the way into a small study. Books have been pulled out of the shelves, drawers left open, the contents disturbed. David’s troops have been thorough. I meander over to the desk and idly glance at her papers. Accounts, letters, ink splatters over several documents. Looks like someone dropped a fountain pen. Do people still use them nowadays?

Daniella bounces over and begins to sweep everything into a plastic bag. ‘These have to go to the solicitors,’ she announces, ‘for probate.’

‘Are you the executor of her estate?’ Daniella shouldn’t be touching the contents of Edna’s desk if she is not. What
were
the contents of Edna’s Will?

She looks at me as though I was mad, and she could be right. ‘Yes, I am actually. Myself and Arthur Robinson, but he’s too old and tired to be involved in this. I’m not letting that old cow, Ferna, near the place.’ She fossicks in a pocket and comes up with a couple of sheets of paper stapled together. ‘I have a list of what everyone is supposed to get, apart from what’s in the Will. Everything else is to be sold.’ She puts them down on the desk and places a glass paperweight on top. I edge closer, hoping to get a glimpse, but she steps in front of me to pounce on a pile of letters, which she throws into the bag. ‘I’ll go through them when I get home. There’s no time for that now.’

The opportunity to snoop at the list is gone. I glance around, uncertain as to what Daniella expects of me.

‘You can start gathering up those photos if you would be so kind, Susan?’

An imposing bookshelf has been given over to dozens of framed photographs. I pick up the nearest, a sepia of a group of men standing beside their draught horses with a load of logs on a wagon They’re all wearing suits with vests, sombre faces almost obscured by their hats and, so common in days gone by, the photo has been taken with the subjects squinting into the sun.

I am about to place it in the box, when I remember Edna’s last words to me.
‘It was a long time ago, but someone needs to know. He was murdered on the farm ... if anyone ever finds out I told ... but they don’t know about you ... and now the sheepdog trials. That shouldn’t have happened!’

Edna and Jack Harlow; cousins. Had Harlow been privy to the secret which Edna had tried to tell me? Too much pain, too much death. My stomach swirls, beads of perspiration form on my brow and trickle down my cheeks. The light in the room darkens, to the accompaniment of rushing in my ears. I grope around and almost fall into a chair near the desk. I must have made some sort of sound, because Daniella is alerted.

‘Susan, what’s wrong? Are you ill?’ She drops the box she’s carrying, hurries over and crouches down beside the chair. ‘Can I get you a glass of water? You said you haven’t been well. I’m so sorry. It was thoughtless of me to ask you to come here. Perhaps I’d better run you home now.’

I pull myself together quickly. Something is telling me to stay here in this house. ‘No, I just felt a bit faint. No breakfast,’ I lie. ‘Perhaps the kettle might be boiled by now?’

She is immediately contrite. ‘I forgot all about it! Let’s go out to the kitchen and have coffee, then if you still don’t feel well, I’ll take you home.’ She glances around and her eyes focus on the photo which I’ve just examined. ‘Mad weren’t they? Fancy dressing in suits and woollen vests to go logging in this heat, and the women weren’t any better with their long dresses and stays!’

She picks up the photo and holds it to the light. ‘That’s great-grandfather Robinson and his sons hauling the timber to build the original house on the family property. Of course, the main parts, the kitchen and bathroom have been modernised. Ferna insisted on that and I don’t blame her, but it’s still around fifty percent original.’