Worse than Death (Anna Southwood Mysteries) (2 page)

This was also when he began bringing his friends home and I began to glimpse the reality of his life. They were usually men, grey men in grey suits, who spoke charmingly over dinner and then waited for me, and occasionally the wife of one of them, to leave them to talk business. Later he took to having his meals out with them, brushing off my complaints, forcing himself into my bed in the early hours smelling of cigars and Rive Gauche. I used Ma Griffe in those days.

I was desperately unhappy for a while, until I learned to dislike him — when I realised that our apparent holidays in South-East Asia were all business trips, when he began more and more to leave me to amuse myself in some tropical paradise while he went to meetings and on mysterious inland journeys. After the last ‘holiday’ of this sort I pulled myself together and used my old university friendship with the features editor of the
Sunday
National
to get a job. This time Clyde said nothing — he didn’t care by then, either. I hadn’t shaped up.

For the next few years we led separate lives, taking separate holidays, politely greeting each other if we met on the stairs. Gradually my work at the paper and the friends I made there came to absorb most of my time. Lorna had come back by then and was establishing herself as one of the country’s best investigative journalists, going after corporate and political criminals with single-minded — some said obsessive — determination.

I had several affairs and finally one that was more serious. When the affair had ended, I left Clyde, as Lorna had been urging me to do. He wouldn’t divorce me — his Catholicism still popped up every now and then — but I didn’t care. I had no plans to marry again. I simply walked out, away from our modern elegant house and all the expensive presents of all the years of our sad expensive marriage. I got my seedy little flat in Glebe and I began to build myself a life, which so far deliberately hadn’t included men. I’d gone straight into marriage from home, and I wanted to see what I could make of myself without props. It was lonely, but I was starting to find out who I was, I thought, and I’d proved I could support myself. I hadn’t taken any money from Clyde — perhaps even then I had more than a suspicion about the sources of his wealth.

*

Lorna and Paul Whitehouse had met on my doorstep that afternoon, Lorna clutching a dog-eared and bulging folder, and Paul carrying a briefcase. I got us drinks and Lorna began to explain. She’d been collecting material on Clyde for years, here and there, but she’d never done anything with it because of our friendship.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I said.

“Well, I tried to warn you several times. You took no notice.”

I laughed. “I thought that was just girls’ solidarity,” I said. “‘Leave him, he’s an arsehole’ sort of thing.”

“Well,” she said grimly, “when you did finally move out, I felt free to go after him. If he’d lived, Anna,” she said, leaning forward and frowning her intense frown, “I would have nailed the bastard. Now…” she gestured towards the folder and the briefcase. In her London years she had acquired the slightest edge of Cockney and its tough vowels and glottal stops sat nicely with her blue-eyed, black-Irish charm and guileless smile. To look at her you would never think she was in the habit of meeting informers under the third lamp-post from the left on very dark nights. But a lot of people had regretted saying quite so much to this apparently naive little thing when they’d seen the ruthlessly pieced-together results in the Sunday edition. It was rumoured that she had a filing cabinet full of evidence stashed away somewhere, with instructions to open in the case of untoward disappearance or death. Presumably it kept her safe.

“And where does Paul come in?” I said, looking at him. He’d said hardly anything since they arrived, and was now standing at the kitchen window staring contemplatively over the chimney pots of Glebe. I noticed that his hair was a lighter red than mine and I thought that with his large muscular body he looked more like a rugger bugger than a lawyer. I wondered if he was married yet.

“He’s been holding copies of my stuff,” she said. “He often does. It’s safer that way. I just asked him to drop in with it. Now,” she went on, “there’s not much point in doing Clyde. It would only hurt you and… I don’t think you deserve the shit hitting this particular fan.”

I didn’t think I deserved it, either. No one did. Clyde dealt in death, it turned out. Not directly, he wasn’t a hands-on murderer by any means — more what we used to call a ‘facilitator’ in our Social Welfare tutorials — but he bought and sold the people who bought and sold death. He was into everything. Drugs, prostitution, property development graft, dumping chemical waste, concrete overcoats for dissenters. From bribed right-wing union officials to the hole in the ozone layer, that was my husband. I’ve got a briefcase full of documents to prove it.

My shock wasn’t quite as great perhaps as Lorna had expected. I’d had doubts for a long while before I left Clyde, but I’d never bothered to follow them up. He’d been away from home a lot, and there’d been mysterious phone calls. I really wasn’t very interested by then, but I’d assumed his property deals were a bit on the shady side of the law. I hadn’t imagined the extent of it, though, and it brought me up short to realise I had inherited the proceeds. My first impulse was to give the lot away, but then I started to think of how I might do something decent with it. It would be a sort of revenge.

*

The percolator had been bubbling away ominously and I turned away from the window and my profitless thoughts. I brought our coffees to the alcove, where the Colonel had calmed down a bit, and sat beside my shorthand pad and pen, looking, I hoped, alert and well-meaning.

“Another phone call?” I said, passing the sugar.

“I rang Telecom,” said the Colonel, biting into a shortbread biscuit. “They claim there’s nothing wrong with the line at all.”

“Did the caller say anything?” Graham asked. They had never said anything in the past.

“Yes,” he said, and Graham and I both sat up.

“What?” I said. “I mean what did he say?”

“She,” the Colonel said. “She said ‘Be warned. You won’t get away with this.’ Then she rang off.”

There was no point in asking what he wouldn’t get away with. We knew from the Colonel’s past visits that he led the blameless life of a retired career soldier, with predictable hobbies like gardening and stamp-collecting. He was widowed and rather solitary, I thought.

“We’ll look into it,” Graham said reassuringly.

“How?” The Colonel was no fool.

“We have our sources,” Graham said, with a straight face. “Anna, are you taking this down?”

I bent over my notepad and made some marks that might pass for shorthand if you didn’t look too closely, while he tried to get the old man to describe the voice — old or young; educated or not; husky, clear, high, low. Finally, after a lot of contradictory answers, the Colonel left and we stared at each other, trying not to laugh.

“Waddya reckon?” Graham said. “A wronged woman from long ago?”

“I hope so,” I said, and sighed again. “I wish
something
would happen.” Then I remembered the phone call. The Colonel’s problem had diverted me for a while.

“Who was on the phone?” he said. “You went white. I didn’t think people really did. Go white, I mean.” He was obviously filing it away in his actor’s reference kit.

“I don’t know,” I said. “It was your actual muffled voice. It said ‘Keep out of it, or you’ll be very sorry.’ Or words to that effect. D’you think it could be to do with the Colonel? Could he really have a sordid past? Would anyone care?”

“I don’t know,” Graham said. He looked worried. “Anna, there isn’t something you’re keeping from me, is there?”

“Only the electricity bill,” I said. His being worried, worried me, a bit.

Chapter 2

The next day Graham didn’t appear at all in the morning, and I rang Lorna to arrange lunch. She wanted to try a new Japanese restaurant in Parramatta Road, so we agreed to meet there.

As soon as she’d ordered — I didn’t know much about Japanese food — I brought the conversation round to the Channing case.

“It’s giving Paul the shits,” Lorna said. “He’s usually got so many cases on he doesn’t talk about them much, but Leonie Channing’s got him really going.”

“Why?” I said. “Doesn’t he think she did it?”

“Apparently not. There does seem to be something strange going on — she won’t answer any questions at all. Paul thinks the cops are producing concocted admissions, but she doesn’t deny what they claim she said.”

“What do they claim?” I stared at the raw fish in front of me and forked up a tiny piece.

“Oh, virtually that she’s admitted killing her daughter. But she won’t say how, or what she’s done with the body. And Paul says it’s mostly yes/no answers — you know, ‘Did you kill your daughter?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘How?’ ‘That’s my business.’ ‘Do you wish to add to that statement?’ ‘No.’ Pretty typical unsigned statement if they want to fit her for it. But she doesn’t deny it or admit it, even to him. She just clams up, he says. Apparently he tried to stir her up a bit, to get her talking, so he started to describe what prison would be like — the old lags hate child offenders. He told her she might get bashed in jail, even killed, and she laughed and said there were worse things than death, far worse things. That’s all he can get out of her.”

“Perhaps she did do it,” I said, tentatively putting the fish into my mouth. It was delicious. I speared another piece. “Perhaps she’s a religious nut, and the girl — Beth, isn’t it? — was going out with boys and wearing lipstick or dancing. Perhaps she thought that was the worst thing. Is she all there?”

“I don’t know. Paul says she seems cunning, if anything. As if she knows something she’s not telling, and it pleases her. She’s smug about it. That’s partly why he’s so sure it’s a false statement — why would she open up to the cops and not to him?”

“Well, if she did it, she might think she ought to be punished for it.”

“Yeah,” Lorna said. “But Paul doesn’t seem to think so, and he doesn’t usually let much get past him. Why are you so interested, anyway?”

“I don’t know,” I said and sighed. “There’s nothing much else happening. At least this is a bit of a puzzle. It gives me something to think about.”

“Well,” she looked thoughtful. “If you’ve really got nothing else to do…” She chewed on what looked like seaweed. “I’ve got an interest in it too, but I haven’t got the time to do much about it right now. You could do a bit of snooping for me, if you wanted to. It might help. But I’m mostly interested in the husband, not Leonie.”

“Rex Channing? Why?”

“He’s a forty-carat slime,” she said cheerfully. “I’ve been keeping a dossier on him for a while — anything I can find out about him — and it’s
his
daughter, too, who’s missing. Though from the newspaper reports he sounds genuinely mystified about it.” She dipped her seaweed into sauce and swallowed it. “I’ve been pumping Paul about it for all I’m worth, but he can’t really tell me much. And I’m flat out on this Holmes stuff. But I’ve vowed to get Rex one day, too.” She grinned with pleasure at the thought.

“What’s so special about him?” I asked. I knew what Lorna was like once she got her teeth into someone — it made me feel sorry for Rex Channing.

“He’s a creep.” She used her chopsticks again to emphasise each point. “Drugs, under-age prostitution, stand-over stuff, corrupt property deals, bent cops — you name it, Rex’s done it. And there’s some hint that he ties into the Holmes mess somewhere, too. But nothing hard enough to follow up.”

I knew a bit about the Holmes case — Lorna’s stories in the
National
had been instrumental in getting him charged and eventually put away for a fairly long stretch for some scam involving drugs and car-theft fraud. She was still ferreting out the higher connections — she was sure he had been used as a fall-guy.

“Well,” I said, trying not to sound too eager, “I
would
like something real to do. If you honestly think I could find out anything useful.”

Lorna looked at me hard. “It’s time you stopped farting about, isn’t it?” she said. “If you’re really serious about the agency, that is. You’re tougher than you think, Anna. I’ve always thought so.”

I was surprised. I’d always thought Lorna regarded me as the air-head partner in our friendship.

“Well, okay,” I said, trying to live up to her expectations. “Let’s start. What else do you know about it? What other evidence have the police got?”

I got my notebook out of my bag and uncapped my pen. There wasn’t much else that Lorna could tell me — apart from the statement to the police, all the evidence was circumstantial. Mrs Channing hadn’t reported the child missing; she’d lied to the school and to Beth’s father; and someone had seen her loading a large canvas bag into the boot of her car the day after Beth had last been sighted. Without her so-called confession, none of it would have been enough to charge her, without a body.

*

“Graham,” I said the next morning, when he finally came into the office. “We’ve got a real case.”

He looked uneasy and moved over to stroke Toby in his pool of sunlight.

“Well?” I said. “Aren’t you even going to pretend to be interested?”

“Anna,” he said, “I’ve… well actually I’ve got an audition this afternoon…”

“You arsehole,” I said in a calm voice. “I’ve been paying you double Equity rates for the last six months to
not
be an actor, and now that I need you…”

“It’s a really good part,” he said, turning on the boyish charm. “I’ll still be able to help in the hours around rehearsals and stuff…” He got enthusiastic. “It’s Mitch,” he said, “in
Streetcar
…”

“Go,” I said. “Never darken these doors again. Anyway, you won’t get it — that part calls for a gentleman.”

“Don’t be like that,” he said. “It’s a one-off. I still consider myself to be working here.”

I looked at him thoughtfully. It was true that he’d lost his enthusiasm for the agency lately. None of the exciting, adventurous cases we’d hoped for had come our way. But I thought Lorna was right — it was time we stopped farting about, and I was pleased to find that I
was
serious about making the agency work. Even if Graham turned out to be dead wood, I still liked the idea of having a bloke around, at least nominally.

I made us black coffees and persuaded him to at least talk to me about what Lorna had said.

“But there’s nothing much we can really do,” Graham said. “No one has actually hired us — and I don’t think Paul Whitehouse will be too happy if we butt in on his client. Besides, from what you say, Leonie Channing doesn’t seem to
want
anyone to find out anything. She’s probably guilty.”

“We can root about a bit,” I said. “Apparently Paul’s really worried about it.
He
thinks she’s innocent. But our hands aren’t tied the way his are, with professional ethics towards the client and stuff. Anyway,” I waved towards the in-tray full of bills and invitations to art openings and PR letters from investigatory technology firms, “we haven’t got anything better to do.”

“There’s the Colonel…” he began and I quelled him with a look. “Oh, all right. But don’t blame me if Paul gets really pissed off.”

“He needn’t know,” I said. “Not till we hand him the guilty party on a plate.” I rather fancied myself bursting into a crowded courtroom at the dramatic moment, and handing over a name scribbled on a scrap of paper to a background of hushed silence. I watched too many Perry Mason re-runs as a kid.

“Well, where do we start then, Miss Marple?” he said, looking resigned, but with a bit more interest in his voice. “We obviously can’t talk to
her
.”

“The neighbourhood,” I said. “According to Lorna, Mrs Channing and Beth had massive fights and the police were called to some of them. The neighbours might be happy to talk.”

I argued down his grumbling about not being properly authorised and sent him out into the sunshine, heading for the outer west. I sat at my desk and typed up the notes of everything Lorna had said, and what I remembered from the paper. There was real pleasure in getting out a fresh pink manila folder and carefully labelling it ‘Channing’. The cryptic crossword only took me an hour. Then I sat twiddling my thumbs and wondering what to do next.

*

When I started the agency it was in some sort of belated backlash at the revelations about my husband’s dealings. I developed a sort of Robin Hood persona there for a while — thinking perhaps I could somehow help the helpless and downtrodden against the people like Clyde, the sharks who thought they had a God-given right to ruin other people’s lives, just for more money and power of their own.

For a long time I couldn’t think how to go about it. The first thing I did, though, was to help Lorna set up her own monthly paper, the
Gutter
Rag
. She’d been talking about it for years — something she could run herself and be totally responsible for, something that would print the hard stuff that even the
National
wouldn’t go with.

At first I thought I might work on it with her, but I’d never done much investigative journalism and Lorna had often scoffed at the stuff I did do — profiles of actors, artists, writers, film and music reviews and so on. In the end I just gave her an enormous cheque and paid two years’ rent and hire on an office in Glebe Point Road and all the desktop publishing gear she needed. She’d had no qualms at all about taking Clyde’s money.

Now, by its fourth or fifth edition, the
Rag
was doing well, mostly subscribed to by radical lawyers, politicians’ press secretaries and other journos, but increasingly selling in news agencies. Lorna still did regular pieces for the
National
and I did the odd theatre and book review for them, and for Lorna, too. I formed the habit of dropping in to her pleasant overcrowded office for a drink and a gossip most afternoons, where I used to look wistfully at Lorna tapping away at her keyboard, her spunky young layout artist muttering over his light-table, and her assistant-cum-secretary, Jill, bouncing about in the full glory of punk
haute
couture
. It pleased me that I was responsible in part for all this activity, but I was frustrated at doing nothing useful myself. Clyde’s money seemed to increase exponentially as soon as you took your eyes off it and I had vowed not to spend it on lollies.

Then, one afternoon as I was leaving the
Rag’s
office, I had bumped into Graham. I hadn’t seen him since university days when he’d been studying Law in a dilatory sort of way, and acting with the drama society more seriously. We fell on each other with enthusiasm and ended up getting a taxi to the Regent, where we ordered expensive champagne.

Graham was, like most actors, resting, and he’d just failed to get the part of a private eye in a television series. I commiserated and bought more Heidsieck. We caught up on most of the last ten years and I told him all about Clyde’s death and Lorna and my own frustrations. In return he groaned about the erratic fortunes of being an actor in Australia — the missed parts, the long periods of no work — and told me that for most of the last few years he’d been working as a process server. His failed Law background had stood him in good stead.

“The ironic thing is,” he said, staring owlishly into his drink, “that I’ve actually got a private investigator’s licence. But no, the casting agent said I didn’t look battered enough.” Graham’s smooth blond good looks had been the bane of his acting life. No one believed he could look that good and act, too.

“Why have you?” I said. I wasn’t feeling very coherent by then. “Got a licence, I mean.”

“For serving the writs,” he said. “It helped if I had to snoop around a bit. People are impressed when you flash it at them — they think it’s just like the movies.”

“You could start a detective agency,” I said flippantly. “Then someone could write a film about you and you could star in it.”

“I’ve thought about it,” he said with deep gloom. “But you need money. You’ve got to have an office and answering machines and petty cash and…”

I think the idea came to us both simultaneously.

“
I’ve
got money,” I said and Graham looked up at me, bright-eyed.

“And
I’ve
got a licence.”

By the time we’d left the pub we’d talked each other into it. Graham had made me helpless with laughter with his hard-boiled private eye impressions and we’d decided that I’d always been a bit on the tough cookie side, too. It seemed a great idea at the time. We’d got into quite a crusading spirit about it all — dirty money used to clean up dirty crime, etcetera. But so far the poor and the powerless and manipulated masses had stayed away in droves.

I’d picked Lorna’s brains, of course, and she had been surprisingly encouraging. She’d even ‘employed’ us before, to do some paperwork for her, researching deadly dull business registrations mostly, though once Graham had had to do a round-the-clock observation on someone she was interested in. She’d never told us whether the information that the subject had apparently gone to bed at nine every night, worked at his office from eight-thirty until five every day, and cooked himself an early dinner every evening after walking his poodle, had been useful to her or not.