After Ariel: It started as a game (18 page)

 ‘
Was it you
?’

‘
Are you under arrest?’

Shocked, I turned back to rip the man’s throat out, but the constables pushed me into the front seat of a nondescript grey car and slammed the door. I thrust my head down against the dashboard to avoid the cameras pushed against the windows.

‘Your cousin is big news,’ Anthony said quietly, as we headed along the street, leaving chaos behind. ‘And so are you.’

Tears of rage ran down my cheeks; another fresh handkerchief appeared, as if by magic. ‘Here, and I don’t want it back,’ he said, as we pulled up outside Goldie’s cottage, where to my dismay, more photographers lurked. He pulled into the driveway, again dodging media. I was helped out of the car by a uniformed officer and rushed into the house.

I stood silently, my heart pounding. The floorboards and the bottom steps were covered in what I assumed to be fingerprint dust, partially covering stains. I stepped around the spot and moved carefully into the lounge room. Chairs had been pushed aside, cushions scattered, and drawers were pulled out of the sideboard with the contents piled on top. Glue and fingerprint dust smothered everything. I could hear someone moving around upstairs. 

I reminded Hamilton that I wouldn’t know if anything was unaccounted for because I hadn’t been there for a long time. ‘It’s such a mess so how would I know anyway?’ I peered past him from the kitchen into the laundry only to see the same kind of chaos.

We moved back to the front room where Parry’s portrait gazed at me; I averted my eyes. Anthony Hamilton watched everything I did. The intensity of his gaze made me uncomfortable. ‘How about we go upstairs?’

 As we ascended the dusty staircase, a man carrying a folder passed us on the way down, nodding to Anthony as he passed. Was it only about forty-eight hours ago that Goldie and I had been laughing and catching up on gossip as we sipped nightcaps and prepared for bed?

I moved into the guest room where my suitcase had been emptied and the contents strewn over the bed. Nothing was missing. The en suite appeared undisturbed, though fingerprint dust coated all the hard surfaces. Goldie’s room was messy, though whether this was her usual chaos or caused by the detectives searching, I couldn’t say. 

Anthony guided me slowly around the room, peering into the opened drawers and cupboards so I could look without having to touch anything. Knowing technicians and cops had seen the discarded knickers and bras on the floor, I flushed with embarrassment for Goldie. It looked as though she had dressed in a hurry before leaving for the Concert Hall. Clothes lay in piles next to the chest of drawers against the far wall. ‘Can you see if anything’s missing from the wardrobe?’

I looked at the clothes thrown every which-way on the bed and shrugged. Only a few dresses were left hanging. Her handbags were piled on the pillows, opened. Pens, tissues and money purses lay in a heap on the bedside table. ‘I haven’t been here for over a year so I wouldn’t know.’ Anthony said that perhaps Goldie’s mother would be able to account for everything.

We moved to Goldie’s office. I looked around but couldn’t see anything obviously missing except for her laptop and tapes and the steel filing cabinet which normally sat in the corner. Her desk, normally strewn with papers and files, was bare. ‘We took all that down to the station,’ Anthony explained. ‘We’re hoping her work colleagues can help.’ We have to go through her files and notebooks to see if there’s anything that might have led to her death.

‘You mean a threatening letter or something?’

‘It’s possible. Your cousin wrote a lot of fiery articles about social injustice and welfare issues. Any one of those groups could be responsible for her death,’

I shuddered, remembering when my friend Jess was murdered. Her computer and files were taken for forensic examination too. I tried to focus. The walls were lined with photos of Goldie and famous people, award nights and photos taken in the field of war...

‘What is it? Have you thought of something?’

‘Yes, there’s something gone from the house, but I can’t think what it is.’

‘Okay, well we only have to check out the garage and garden shed, so don’t stress. It’ll come to you. Are you coming back here?’

I explained about my unit and the organisers, so he waited while I packed up my things and carried my other case downstairs for me. The mêleé at the front of the house reached stertorous proportions, the bullying shouts of the media following us down the driveway to the shed and the garage. The bouquets of flowers lay discarded by the roller door, their blooms drooping in the heat of the sun. The golden ribbon tied around the sheaf from the Concert Hall looked garish and overdone.

Anthony asked if I wanted them.

‘No. Poor things, they’ll be dead by tomor –’
So was Goldie
. Pain rolled through me; I wanted to bite my tongue out. The detective guided me into the garage. ‘Anything missing that you can see?’

I looked at the few tools leaning against the back wall – covered in what I recognised as fingerprint dust. A lawnmower was parked in a corner with some oil cans beside it. ‘No, but then I’ve never been in here until last night and that was in the dark.’

‘Did Ms Humphries have a gardener? Someone to mow her lawns or did her father do it?’

‘She had a mowing contractor, but I don’t know the name of the company.’

‘No worries, we’ll find out who it is.’

Then it hit me. ‘Goldie’s new camera! It’s not in the house!’

‘They took several cameras out of the house for testing.
Do you know what it was
?’ Anthony loomed, his expression eager.

‘Goldie lent me her second camera, the Nikon 2. I borrowed the car yesterday and locked it in the boot for safety. Her new one is a Nikon 4 and it cost a fortune!’

‘Okay. So her main camera is unaccounted for. Would she have left it at her parents’ house?’

‘Oh no, she had it yesterday because I saw it on the kitchen bench. She took it with her when she went to take photos of the river.’

‘So someone
has
taken it. Thanks, Pam. Now let’s have a look for the one you borrowed.’

He went to the driver’s side, opened the door and took the keys out, slapping fingerprint dust off his shirt as he came around the back of the car. He opened the boot and there was the camera, covered in dust. ‘It can’t have had anything on the SD card or they’d have taken it for examination,’ he explained. ‘By the way, do you happen to know who Ms Humphries’ executor is?’

‘No, I don’t. She kept all her personal papers in a folder in the steel filing cabinet in the office. Goldie told me once that because of her lifestyle, she keeps – kept– her affairs up to date. Everything will go to her parents. As you know, she had no siblings and the portrait of Parry will probably go to his family.’ Anthony looked puzzled so, as we headed for the police station, I told him the story of Parry and Goldie.

After my statement was written and signed, my fingerprints were taken – I was assured they would be destroyed after they’d been matched and eliminated from enquiries – I was allowed to leave. All I wanted to do was to be left alone and process the trauma of the last twenty-four hours. Anthony Hamilton offered to have me taken to my unit, but I pleaded for time out.

Heading for the Transit Centre opposite police headquarters, I hired a couple of lockers for the afternoon and stowed my bags and flute case, after which I bought a packet of tissues, a cheese and tomato roll for lunch and a bottle of water. I had brought Goldie’s Nikon 2 from the house, so I tucked it back into my shoulder bag and headed for the Roma Street Parklands behind the station. I would spend an hour there, collect my things from the locker and head home to get in a few hours practice for my next concert.

Did Anthony Hamilton’s parting smile hold more than formal courtesy?
Oh yes, you can question me any time.
I pulled myself up, consumed by guilt at having sexy thoughts about a man when Goldie was dead. Rage flared again, encompassing not only the monster for murdering my wonderful cousin, but for taking my personal triumph away. My concert felt as though it had never happened.

A park bench under the shade of a large tree looked as good a place as any to make necessary phone calls.

My mother’s husband, John, answered and in spite of promising myself I wouldn’t worry him, my words tumbled over themselves. Understandably, he was shocked. ‘We haven’t had the radio or the TV on today and I was just about to go into town to get the paper. Your mum had a bad night, so I’m letting her sleep as long as she can this morning. You’re not a suspect are you?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’ Anthony Hamilton certainly hadn’t acted as though I was, but being first on the scene didn’t preclude me from being a “person of interest.” Didn’t the police always suspect the person who finds the body?

‘You’ll need to stay up there today, so would you able to come in to the hospital before your mum goes into surgery?’

 ‘I’ll be there first thing and meet you in the foyer. Why don’t you bring her up and stay at my unit for the night?’

‘Thank you for the offer, Pam. I wanted her to make the trip up there later today, but she refused to leave here because of the animals. Andrea is coming down to house sit.’

‘How’s Fudgie?’ I missed my cat terribly.

‘Fat as ever. He’s fine.’

‘Good. Surely they’d be okay just for the night?’

‘Yes, but she’s trying to prolong leaving the house until the last possible moment.’

Obviously Mum thought she might not see her pets again. I know the doctors always give you notice of all the things that can go wrong in theatre nowadays, but I felt that maybe the old adage, ‘Ignorance is bliss’ could sometimes be applied.

‘That sounds like mum. I want to come down and spend a couple of days with you both before I start the next tour.’

‘Well, you know you can come here any time, love.’

Feeling calmer, I sat back to eat the roll, savour the gardens and try to get my head around everything that had happened. My mind, numb with weary grief, slowly came to life, throwing unwanted images of Goldie as I had last seen her, leaving the concert hall in a taxi...Had she known what was going to happen when someone had struggled with her on the stairs? She had to have let him in or how else would he have been in a position to fight with her? Was it the bloke she accused of stalking her?

Anguish flooded me as I thought about her last moments and the terror she would have felt.  I knew now she’d had her neck broken. Hopefully, she wouldn’t have felt a thing. How could I face life without her? Goldie – traveller, career-driven, brilliant – rushing in and out of my life, bringing warmth, love and loyalty. I’d had only three short years with her, owing to Alex’s dislike of my mother and his alienation of her from my mother. Seemingly Alex and Mum had made up somewhere along the way. Was it John who’d brokered the reunion? He would take no nonsense from my uncle.

If I ever married I would have had Goldie and Ally as my bridesmaids, godmothers to my children...for a moment, a vision of the stoic detective flashed through my mind.
Stop thinking about Anthony Hamilton. This is not about you, it’s about her.

I took a deep breath, leaned on the railing and watched the artificial waterfall cascading into the pool on the edge of the park below. Opposite, tenants of the blocks of city units moved in and out of their balconies. Had they read their papers yet? Would they look at the name Marigold Humphries, and say ‘Look! It’s that woman who was on TV last month...’ or last year, or, ‘Wasn’t there some trouble in Afghanistan?’

Families walked past, unaware of the shaken female silently staring into space. The saying, “Loneliness is everything it’s cracked up to be” rose to mind. 

Fiona hadn’t shown hostility, but she came from the ‘old school’ where a woman took her cue from her husband. Would Alex have turned on me if Goldie had lived or was it inevitable?  I’d thought they regarded me as a second daughter. The sense of betrayal was excruciating.

I sat on a nearby seat to make some calls, returning Ally’s first. ‘I couldn’t return your calls because of what was happening at my aunt and uncle’s place.

‘Don’t worry about that. Poor Goldie. I didn’t know her that well, but you were very close. How are you feeling?’

‘Washed out, depressed, you name it! I can’t talk about it right now and the police have asked me not to discuss it. I can’t even go down and be with my mother today, but I’m going to get into the hospital tomorrow morning and see her before she goes into theatre. I can keep John company.’

She excused herself and spoke to someone.

‘Who’s with you?’

‘Brie and some friends. We’re having coffee in Queen Street Mall. Want to join us?’

‘Thanks for the offer, but no, I really need to get back to my unit and settle in. The whole day’s been...well...you know...’ Words couldn’t describe it and I didn’t try to. We closed off with condolences from both of them.

Gradually the sun thawed my muscles. I started to relax and concentrate on the marvellous landscaping and variety of plant life around me. Goldie’s camera was loaded and ready to use so I stopped in front of a bush covered in a blaze of autumn colour to take one photo then another, as the colours in the park slowly awakened me from my fog of misery. Goldie would have loved these scenes. Only three women have been close enough to me to be called ‘sister’ – Ally, Jessica and Goldie. I missed them so much. Jess dead and now, my cousin. Dare I believe she was with Parry? I’ve never been overly religious, but I guess I believed
something
. 

So I thought about my life and the incongruity of people’s appearance compared to what they’re really like, and about all the reasons why I shouldn’t get interested in a certain cop who looked like an assassin. Wasn’t there some law that said cops couldn’t get involved with witnesses? Had he looked at me in a decidedly un-professional manner, or was I reading things into it that weren’t there? 

Below was the fern gully of the parkland, where I remembered some ornamental iron birds standing at the edge of the lake.