Worse than Death (Anna Southwood Mysteries) (8 page)

There were still a lot of things left unexplained, but I knew I’d have to wait to talk to Lorna. I couldn’t see how Birkett and the Holmes case tied in to Beth Channing’s disappearance — perhaps it didn’t. Except that Birkett was trying to put Leonie in for killing her.

“Well bugger it,” I said. “Let’s get on with finding Beth. That’s what we’re being paid for.”

“I don’t know,” Graham said. “It was Rex Channing who rang this morning and said you were on your way home.”

“Yes,” I said impatiently. “I think Sandy and Balaclava must have told him what Birkett was up to. But I’m sure he didn’t have anything to do with it. He rescued me, for God’s sake.”

Graham didn’t look convinced. “Perhaps we should give him his money back, Anna,” he said. “I don’t feel all that easy working for him — for all we know he could have murdered Beth himself.”

“Graham, let’s give it another couple of days,” I said. “I’m certain that Rex doesn’t know where Beth is. Absolutely certain.” I put my hand on his knee and waited. I really hated the idea of giving up our first real case. Eventually he shrugged and smiled at me.

“Okay. You’re the boss. Now, where were we up to?” He went over to his desk and sat down, riffling through the pile of papers in front of him. “Oh yes — Giuseppe Digrigorio…”

“Who?”

“You know — the old guy in the tomb that Rex put flowers on. Anyway, I went out to the cemetery — Anna, you have to see it. Those vaults are amazing. I got talking to a bloke who works there and he looked up the records for me. Digrigorio came from Windsor and I was going to ring his family, but then we heard about you and I got a bit… distracted.”

“Windsor,” I said. “Isn’t that where all the Mafia boys hang out?”

“Dunno. Shall I follow it up?”

I sighed. “Let’s leave it until I’ve had a chat with Lorna. I wouldn’t mind going through everything we’ve got again, just to see if we’re missing something.”

“Good,” Graham said. “Then I can get on with learning my lines.” He picked up a battered copy of
A
Streetcar
Named
Desire
and went back to the couch. He opened the book and lay back, his eyes closed, mouthing the lines and making aimless gestures with his free hand. I smiled and opened a folder. It was good to be home.

Chapter 8

An hour later I had made a list of loose ends and I was sitting staring into space while Graham paced the room, muttering his lines, addressing them meaningfully to the coffee table and chairs. I was just about to call to him when the phone rang.

“Anna? It’s Paul Whitehouse here.”

“Paul! Hello.” I was surprised. “What can I do for you?”

“You can stop interfering in my client’s affairs, for a start.” His voice was tight with anger. I was immediately angry myself — the redhead’s proverbially short fuse.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’ve been hired to investigate Beth’s disappearance. Your client is an obvious place to start.”

He gave a short laugh. “Hired? Who by?”

“Rex Channing.” It came out before I had time to think.

“Shit.” There was a brief silence. “You must be joking.”

“No.” I was on the defensive. “He’s got a perfect right to know what’s happened to his daughter…”

“He sure has. If he doesn’t already. But why would he hire
you
?” His tone was thoughtful rather than insulting. He went on: “He’s playing you for a patsy, Anna. He’s got half the bent cops in New South Wales in his pocket, why would he need
your
services? Ask yourself that.”

“Well, then, why? You tell me.”

“Perhaps he just wants to make it
look
as if he’s anxious about Beth. He could be hoping you’ll fuck up, muddy the tracks a bit.”

“Thanks a lot. Maybe he genuinely wants someone who’s… disinterested.”

“Could be.” He was clearly unconvinced. “Anyway I certainly can’t talk to you about it now. We’re on different sides. Just keep away from my client, that’s all.”

I was stung. “Well, she seems to have told Graham a lot more than you’ve got out of her. We might even be able to
help
you…”

“Not if you’re working for Rex. My advice is to drop it, Anna. This isn’t a novel — these are real people with real lives getting messed up. You could be one of them, playing games with arseholes like Rex Channing.” He rang off.

I stared at the phone and then at Graham’s concerned look. “Paul Whitehouse,” I said. “He hung up on me. The arrogant shit.”

I made coffee and took it out with me into the garden where I sat and stared bleakly over the choppy bay. I wondered if Paul was right — I’d certainly been out of my depth the last few days. I examined my conscience, as the nuns had often told us to do. No, I was serious. I did want to find out what had happened to Beth Channing and I was prepared for wherever that might lead, I thought. I lit a cigarette and tried to bring my mind back to the details of the Channing case. I was just about to go in to talk to Graham when Lorna came bursting through the back door.

“Anna! You’re safe!” I stood up and we gave each other a big hug.

“Shit Lorna, I’m sorry,” I said. “They made you drop the story…”

“Oh, that’s okay,” she said cheerfully. “It’ll keep.”

“But Graham said they’ve got your files. It’ll take months to build them up again.”

She grinned. “They
think
they’ve got them. I’ve still got the duplicates, or at least Paul has. No, that’s all right. I just felt like a real dickhead having to go on air and deny everything. I’ll get them for that, too, don’t worry. Now tell me all about it.”

She sat on the bench beside me and I went through it all again for her.

“Birkett, huh?” Lorna said when I had finished. “We can really pin him to this, then.”

“That’s what’s so puzzling,” I said. “Why did he let me go after I’d seen it was him? And I could identify the others, too, if I saw them again. They must figure that you’ll get back to it, that they haven’t frightened you off for good. And now you’ll have my evidence to back it up. Why didn’t he just kill me?”

“I don’t know.” Lorna was thoughtful. “They must have some reason to think they can keep us quiet. Or that you can’t prove anything.”

“Yes. I just remembered Birkett saying something about the alibis being already in place. Still, it’s a risk…”

“Yeah.” Her vivid blue eyes squinted in concentration. “You know, I reckon I might take a closer look at what Birkett’s doing now. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he’s thinking of a little overseas trip. Perhaps that’s why he doesn’t care. He’ll piss off and take a new identity… Then we can accuse him all we like. He must think Tarno named some names…”

“Who the hell is Tarno?”

“This little creep who was picked up in the cells by the public solicitors for possession. He started muttering about the Motor Squad and bent cops and people in high places, then a fancy lawyer appeared and took him away.”

“Did Paul pass that on to you? Was it connected with Holmes?”

“Yeah. There’s still a few missing links, but I’ve been getting hints of Birkett being mixed up in that for a while. This more or less proves it. I still don’t think he’s one of the big guys, though.”

“Who is, then?” I asked. “Rex?”

Lorna’s smile was ferocious. “Jesus, I hope so. And that we can pin it on him, too. Perhaps Birkett’s gone out on his own over this, but I don’t think so. He’s usually Rex’s boy.”

I looked at her curiously. “You really hate Rex, don’t you? Why?”

“Because he’s a creep. I told you in that resume — drugs, under-age prostitution, you name it. Jesus, Anna, what more reason do you need?”

“I don’t know. He’s become our client.” Her look of shock was almost comical. I wondered if I was going to lose Lorna’s friendship through this, as well. But she laughed and shook her head.

“Well, make sure he pays you in advance,” she said. “Before I manage to get him.”

“Lorna,” I said, relieved, “will you come in and talk with me and Graham? I really want to sort out what to do next about Beth Channing.”

“Sure,” she said. “Why not? Then you can both come and help me with the mail-out of the
Rag
.”

*

But when we went back inside, we found Graham just paying off a taxi at the door and juggling with plastic bags full of take-away containers.

“It’s after three,” he said cheerfully, “but they sent them anyway.”

The smell of curry and spices was overwhelming. All I’d had to eat that day was a couple of sweet biscuits. It had been one of those days that seems to last for weeks — impossible to believe that when it began I’d still been kidnapped.

We fell on the food like locusts, hardly saying a word until it was finished. Then I sat back and lit a cigarette. Lorna hadn’t mentioned my smoking — she smoked so much herself I doubt if she’d even noticed when I’d given up two years before. She looked at her watch.

“Sorry chaps, I really have to get back,” she said. “But I tell you what — I’ll take over looking into Birkett’s connection with Rex and Holmes. It’s part of what I’m already working on, anyway. Then you two can concentrate on the missing girls. Okay?”

“Yes,” I said. “Thanks, Lorna.”

“’S’nothing. We’ll liaise. See you.” When she’d gone I got the list I’d made before Paul’s phone call.

“The Johnsons,” I said. “We need to talk to them. And Joe Kominsky’s mate at the tip. There’s Mr Digrigorio at the cemetery, too.”

“Well, I can’t really go to Melbourne, love,” Graham said. “I’ve got to be here in case there are any run-throughs before rehearsals start…”

“Okay,” I said. I thought perhaps an interstate trip might do me good.

Graham booked me a flight for the next morning and we decided to call it a day. I went upstairs with the cat and got together a travelling bag. I put Haydn’s piano trios on the tape deck and settled down with a fresh bottle of dry white to see if I could drink myself out of the blues and into sleep. I was angry that what Paul Whitehouse thought could affect me so much — after all I hardly knew him, but I’d thought we were becoming friends. Get real, I told myself, you were starting to fancy him, girl. This made me even angrier, and more depressed. Fancying someone who clearly thought you were a meddling nitwit was a dead-end street.

By the time I’d uncorked the third bottle and was playing the Haydn for perhaps the tenth time I was maudlin. I sat on the couch trying to hold a struggling Toby on my lap, assuring him he was the only one who loved me, the only one I loved. He was so furious with this treatment that when he finally escaped he streaked out onto the balcony and down the bougainvillea to the yard. So I wouldn’t even have the dubious comfort of his large, obtrusive weight on my bed that night. By the time I’d cried myself into false sobriety I was so exhausted that I kicked off my shoes and went to sleep on the couch.

I woke to find Graham standing over me, blocking the early morning sunlight from the open French windows. My right frontal lobe was throbbing and my mouth felt like the inside of a vacuum cleaner bag.

“You’ve got half an hour,” he said. “Looks like a great party.”

I gulped the Berocca cocktail he was holding out to me and while I staggered to the shower and trembled over a handful of Panadols, Graham tidied up the bottles, the overflowing ashtray and the spilled wine. Toby was nowhere around — if he was deeply offended he sometimes stayed away for days.

“You okay?” Graham said when I finally emerged, grasping my bags. “I must say the green face goes beautifully with your hair.”

“Shut up,” I said creakily. Going down the stairs was a nightmare; so was the trip to the airport as I suppressed a constant urge to throw up. Graham’s car was back in the workshop so he was taking mine to Windsor to try to trace the Digrigorios. He dropped me outside the Australian Airlines terminal, where my flight was already being called, and I thought of asking for a wheelchair to get me to the departure gate. By the time we were in the air I was fervently praying that the plane would crash and end it all.

When I got into the taxi at Tullamarine I realised I didn’t have a clue where I was going. Three black coffees and some anti-nausea pills on the plane had cleared the hangover somewhat but I was still shaky. I’d intended to go straight out to Hawthorn, where the Johnsons lived, in the hope that someone would be at home. Now I knew I wasn’t capable of that.

The cabbie waited patiently.

“Oh God,” I said. “Just a decent motel. In Carlton or somewhere.” I lit a cigarette as he pulled out.

“There’s a $200 fine for that in Victoria,” he said, grinning at me in the rear-vision mirror.

“It’s worth it,” I said. He laughed and lit up a fag himself.

“Getting as bad as Queensland here now,” he said, and for the rest of the journey he filled me in on conditions in what he referred to as the Wowser State. I half listened and murmured yes and no and really at appropriate intervals, while I tried to work out what I was doing. All I knew was that I needed a bath and something to eat before anything else.

Melbourne was having one of its rare hot spring days, but the motel room was blessedly dark and cool. I ordered coffee and sandwiches from the restaurant and ran a bath. An hour later I thought I might survive the day and I rang the Johnsons’ number. Mrs Johnson was there and she said she would see me at two o’clock. That gave me a couple of hours to fill in and so I set off to walk down Lygon Street.

I’ve always liked Melbourne, particularly Carlton, where I used to spend school holidays sometimes with a pair of elderly spinster aunts. I’d hoped they might leave me their little sandstone doll’s house with its formal rose gardens, but of course they’d left it to the nuns. I’d got an astonishingly ugly set of amber jewellery instead.

It was years since I’d last been in Lygon Street and it had become even trendier than I remembered. Boutiques and shops full of expensive knick-knacks had replaced the old Italian tailors and shoe shops, and Tamani’s, where I was taken by my aunts for hot chocolate on Saturday mornings, had been renamed and its old owners had moved across the road to a large and modern restaurant. But the delicatessens and the shabby coffee lounges where the old men played cards and gossiped over lethally dark coffee were still there. So was Johnny’s Green Room, in a side street, and the Café Sport, I was pleased to see.

I browsed, bought a silk shirt that would just about break my bankcard and then on a hangover craving went up the cracked lino stairs to the Café Sport for osso bucco. By the time I hailed a cab to take me to Hawthorn I was ready for anything.