Death Delights (25 page)

‘I’m sorry I lied to you,’ she said. ‘It’s a painful subject.’ I looked at her eyes, only a little lower than my own. But I was sure I could handle her. Particularly now that she’d lost the element of surprise. Ready for anything, I touched the scar. I recalled her words from the meeting.

‘Is that a legacy,’ I asked her, ‘of the man who doesn’t understand?’ She looked away and I had the sense that she was considering something, but she started picking up clothes and slipping on underwear. The silence in which we both moved now had more than the usual awkwardness which occurs between people who have been inappropriately intimate. And, for me at least, there was a dangerous underswell. This woman could be the savage, hate-filled killer of at least three men. Is that what she’d been implying with her talk about clergymen’s children, the terrorists of Europe and the great gunsmiths? Had that been a diagonal confession?

In silence, we finished dressing and she went to the wardrobe, took out the red jacket and put it on. We walked down the stairs together, with her a little ahead of me the way I was trained to do it. Halfway down, my attention was taken by a painting on the stairs. I think I stopped in shock, wondering why on earth I hadn’t noticed it on the way upstairs with her. But I guess my mind then had been on other things. It was a small, simply framed watercolour and it showed a bright blue monkey hanging from a tree that grew just under the lip of a cliff. It was so much the landscape of my nightmare that I must have made some involuntary sound.

‘What is it?’ she said, swinging round to look at me, then behind me, up the stairs so that I couldn’t help swinging round, too, wondering if the nameless predator of my dream was about to pounce on me. I was getting too old for this, I told myself.

‘That painting,’ I said, when my attention came back to it again, ‘where did you get it?’ The fear had vanished from her face and she smiled.

‘I did that,’ she said. ‘I used to enjoy painting with watercolours when I was younger.’

I stared at her and she became uncomfortable, then angry. ‘Surely it’s not that bad,’ she said, and just in that moment I couldn’t imagine her as a killer. But the moment passed.

We continued to the bottom of the stairs, I mumbled something about it being an unusual subject, and then she was walking me to the front door and opening it for me, standing beside it, waiting for me to leave. There was another awkward moment when I stood on the step prior to saying goodbye and her eyes seemed to search my face, wanting some response from me. Just now it didn’t seem possible that this was the same woman who, only a short time ago, had asked that I look right into her soul. As I looked into those eyes, again it didn’t seem possible that she was a murderer. But I’d been party to the charging and conviction of beautiful women for serious crimes once or twice before in my life. I avoided her gaze as I said goodbye and hurried back to my car. I was dazed.

•

It was one of those days that just get hotter as the afternoon wears on into evening, and my mind was swirling around with all sorts of fears and projections. To give myself something ordinary to do, I found myself at the supermarket in Anzac Parade without even noticing I’d driven there. It was a good, if unconscious decision. I needed to do some shopping and going around the shelves loading my trolley brought me back into reality.

Half an hour later, I carried the groceries inside the house. A currawong flew overhead.

‘Gimme a break, gimme a break!’
it complained.

I found Greg lying in front of the television.

‘Hey,’ he said, jumping up as I walked in, ‘I’ve got a part-time job. As a kitchenhand. At the Italian place down the street. Friday and Saturday nights. They’re paying me nine dollars an hour.’ He came over to help me with the shopping.

‘That’s great,’ I said. ‘You’ll be able to save some money.’

My son looked at me as if I were mad. ‘What’s that?’ he said, watching me as I now bagged and labelled the ink-stained paper.

‘Just something that needs examination,’ I said.

While Greg made room in the fridge for the food, I searched around for the folded piece of paper with Iona’s prayer written on it, but it wasn’t in the drawer where I was sure I’d put it. Then I started a full-scale search, alarmed that perhaps I’d lost it. It hadn’t been of any importance before the events of today, except as a tantalising lead into her life. Now, if the handwriting showed similarities to the ‘Rosie’ letters, it could be vital evidence. With new information, the world of an investigation tilts on its axis and things once meaningless become priceless leads. I cursed because I couldn’t find it anywhere.

‘What are you looking for?’ Greg asked, closing the cupboards on the last of the shopping.

I was still agitated and his question seemed a further aggravation. ‘Shouldn’t you be doing your homework?’ I said.

‘Why do parents always say that?’ Greg frowned. ‘You and Mum. Sometimes it was the only thing you’d say when you came home from work. Not “Hi, how are you? How was your day? Was it tough for you?”’ How come parents are so horrible? Kids never say, “Shouldn’t you be parenting me?”’

I stopped the search and came over and sat down with him. Given everything that had happened to me that day, it took everything I had to bring my focus back fully onto my son. But somehow I did. ‘Are you saying that to me now,’ I asked him, ‘that I should be parenting you?’

Greg shrugged, then nodded his head.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I am.’

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘here I am. I’m a parent. Be my kid. What do you need?’

‘You could tell me a few things for a start,’ said my son. ‘Like, what are these?’ and he held up some of the cards from the shoebox on the table that I’d taken from Jeffrey Saunders’ place. I explained. It was a relief to be talking about this, rather than the frightening and confusing subject who was uppermost in my mind. For a moment, I could put off examining whether or not I’d just been seduced by a violent killer.

‘A photo of Rosie?’ Greg started pulling cards out. ‘Where is it?’

I found it for him and he studied it, looking at the smiling face, then looking up at me.

‘She’s a bit like you,’ he said. Then he put the photo down on the carpet and for a few moments we both looked at it. ‘Jass and I used to wonder why you never talked about her,’ my son was saying. ‘We knew she’d been abducted, but there was this forbidden thing all around her, like an electric fence. Mum used to freak at any reference to her.’

‘Let me grab a shower,’ I said, playing for more time to calm down, ‘and I’ll tell you all about it.’

‘You’re wearing perfume,’ he accused, staring hard at me. ‘What’s going on?’

‘I had a massage,’ I said. ‘A sports massage. He must’ve used a smelly oil.’

‘Why?’ he said. ‘You don’t play sports.’

I was aware of my son’s suspicious eyes on me as I disappeared into the bathroom, where I had a shower and washed sandalwood oil and Iona Seymour off myself.

By the time I was out of the shower, Greg had peeled potatoes and put them on the stove. I rubbed the top of his head and he ducked away, trying to preserve whatever glue he’d used to flatten his curls on his skull. ‘How’s Jass?’ he asked

I shook my head. ‘Nothing’s changed. But thanks for asking. You’re a good son, Reg,’ I said, using his nickname. ‘You’re a good human being.’

‘I’ll do a bit of study,’ he said, pleased and embarrassed.

I was rewarded by a half smile and now I, too, was feeling more settled. For the moment, I was just Greg’s father again, preparing dinner. He vanished into his room, allegedly to do some study, while I mustered a mixed grill. Doing these ordinary kitchen duties gave me more distance between myself and the events of the afternoon. It was even possible to wonder if those events had really happened. But the ache in my lower back and gluteal muscles left no real doubts. While Greg was out of the way, I went into my bedroom, moved the bed, lifted the floorboards and took out the money, stashing it in a black and yellow gym bag. I didn’t want it in the house.

‘I’m going over to Charlie’s,’ I said, when dinner was finished. ‘I’ve got something to give him.’

‘Can I come?’ Greg asked, but I shook my head.

‘Work-related,’ I told him and grabbed the box of cards and postcards and the gym bag.

‘You said you’d tell me,’ he said, pointing to the box, ‘about Rosie. About my little lost aunt.’

‘I will, I will,’ I said. ‘I promise. There are just a few things I must discuss with Charlie. It can’t wait. I’m sorry.’

Greg shrugged and went to the doorway of the spare room. ‘I thought I’d see a bit more of you,’ he said, ‘living with you.’

I was going to go after him, but there was nothing I could say except some version of ‘don’t you remember, I warned you about this’ which is just a fancy version of ‘I told you so.’ I gathered everything up and went over to Charlie’s.

•

‘What do you think?’ I asked my brother as we stood in his lounge room. Siya wasn’t around so we had the house to ourselves. I put the box from the secondhand shop in Blackheath on the sideboard for the moment, the gym bag on the floor and I told my brother about how I’d visited Iona and what I’d found there. I didn’t want to mention the rest of it.

A strong wind had come up and the night outside was wild, but it was a hot westerly and I could almost feel the thousands of miles of desert it had crossed to blow here. I looked outside but couldn’t see anything past my own reflection and the reflection of Charlie’s comfortable room.

‘Lots of women have red jackets, and blonde wigs,’ Charlie said. ‘It has to be
that
red jacket and
that
blonde wig. Worn by
that
person. You know that.’

‘That might be very hard to prove,’ I said. ‘Even with the paper and the ink.’ And I told him about that, too.

‘Do you think she’s physically capable of the killings?’ he asked. ‘You’ve seen the damage.’

‘Physically,’ I said, ‘I can’t see a problem. She’s very fit. And when you consider that surprise is the main element of these murders, I believe she could inflict those injuries.’ I shivered at the thought of the knife slicing through my flesh, hacking off my penis.

‘What’s your sense of her?’ Charlie asked. ‘Would she be psychologically capable of doing it?’

I recalled the haunted shadows round her eyes, her sobbing in the dining room, the dramatic way she’d stripped down and shown me her scar, the strange mood swing on the staircase, the abrupt way she’d shown me out of her house.

‘I think she’s capable of a lot of things,’ I said.

‘Why aren’t you talking to Bob about this?’

I considered the question. ‘If I tell Bob,’ I said, ‘the whole machine might swing into action. Out of my hands. And I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

‘Why?’ Charlie came over and peered into my face. I looked away, fearing he would read the true reason there. There was a silence broken by my brother’s disbelieving voice. ‘Jack, you haven’t, have you?’

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t have to. My brother looked at my face again, noted my silence and whistled slowly as he formed the right conclusion. Then he shook his head.

‘Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear,’ he said. ‘You’ve broken the first and last investigator’s commandment. What
were
you thinking of?’

Not much, I thought to myself as I remembered, thinking of the shocking scar on her chest.

‘She has a long scar across the top of her breasts,’ I said, now that he knew everything. ‘She gave me some bullshit answer about how it got there. But someone’s cut her. I reckon she’s involved with a violent alcoholic partner.’ I paused before saying something I didn’t want to say. ‘It’s also possible that the injury was self-inflicted.’ I stopped before voicing my third conjecture.

‘I can’t believe you’ve been so stupid,’ said Charlie, ‘so compromised.’

‘Look,’ I said, pissed off, ‘I’m a chemist. I work at a bench in a sterile environment. I search for particles and fibres. I work with physical evidence and little amps. I look down binocular microscopes and I mop up positively charged ions. I can’t
be
compromised because I don’t work with people like an investigating police officer. It’s not an issue.’

‘Until now,’ said Charlie. He went and poured himself a brandy and lime soda. ‘See how it’s already gone murky,’ he said. ‘Already you’re not taking your partner into your confidence.’

His words stung and I defended automatically. ‘That’s not the way it is,’ I said. ‘Bob’s not my partner.’

‘I thought he was your friend.’ I couldn’t argue with that and there was nothing I could say. But my brother hadn’t finished with me. ‘And now, worst of all, your
professional
judgment is compromised. Now you’ve got sex mixed up with everything else.’

These words hit me hard. To lose one’s scientific objectivity is to lose everything in my world where reputation equals livelihood. In my mind, old Dr Brouardel’s words jumped off the screen in my office:
If the law has made you a witness, remain a man of science. You have no victim to avenge, no guilty or innocent person to convict or save
. But now everything was shifting around .
 
.
 
.

‘Charlie,’ I pleaded, ‘there was absolutely no question of Iona being a suspect in this investigation when I first became’—I hesitated, finding the right word—‘
personally
interested. All I knew then was that she knew something about Jass. It was my business to get involved. And that was light years away from sex offenders getting murdered.’

‘Okay,’ said Charlie, ‘and now Jass is back. Well, physically back. And you don’t need Iona Seymour’s information any more.’ He walked outside into the windy night, leaned over the timber railing, then turned back to look at me. A waxing moon had risen to treetop height and skeletal branches bowed against its brightness. A wagtail wittered away,
‘Teach, witty preacher,’
it called, agitated by moonlight. ‘Didn’t you tell me not so long ago that you thought there was something in her voice when she phoned with the tip-off?’ said my brother. ‘That there was a dramatic change in both her manner and what she was talking about? Didn’t you tell me that you and Bob thought there was the possibility of some connection in the caller’s mind between Jacinta and the murders of the first two men?’