Feeding the Demons (22 page)

Kit frowned. ‘I think there was a very grand tea or coffee set on a tray in the dining room. Was anything reported as stolen that night?’ She’d been digging around in a low kitchen cupboard and she’d found a vase. She filled it with water and put the bright red tulips she’d brought into it and carried them over to the dining table. Gemma shook her head, then went to the fridge and cut herself a generous slice of pie and put it on a plate.

‘I want to tell our father,’ said Kit, ‘that I’m sorry about the way I’ve been wrong about him. And that I was always so opposed to him. And Gemma, I was wrong to oppose you for wanting to know more about him. I’m a therapist. I’m supposed to be aware that the relationship a woman has with her father is the relationship she has with “the man”. And yet I couldn’t see it in my own case. It was still my blind spot, despite my experience. I know saying I’m sorry is a bit weak after all the years I’ve damned the man, and been judgmental of you too in a way. I really am sorry, Gemma. You were right and it wasn’t just the idealising child in you as I thought. Our father is innocent after all.’ She paused. ‘And yet,’ she said, pointing to the letter, ‘Mrs Moresby knows about angry ghosts.’

‘What do you mean?’ Gemma looked up from Philip Hawker’s notes again, absent-mindedly looking round for Taxi. Then the pang of remembering his loss. She looked at her sister, the question in her eyes.

‘“Angry ghosts”,’ said Kit, ‘is an eastern term. I use it to mean energies operating in the present that have their roots in the past. Another psychotherapist might call them unintegrated, archaic rage and pain in a person’s psyche. They can create great danger in and around the person.’

‘It wouldn’t be from our mother,’ said Gemma. ‘She wouldn’t harm us.’

Kit shook her head. ‘It’s not like being haunted,’ she said. ‘The energies I’m talking about are in one’s own psyche. They’re not caused by another person, but by our own strong feelings
about
that other person. However,’ she added, ‘our mother was very passive and passivity brings its own dangers.’

‘What do you mean?’ asked Gemma.

‘What I say. A passive person creates danger by failing to take responsibility for herself.’

Do I do that? Gemma wondered guiltily. She cleared her throat.

‘What time suits you?’ Kit asked. ‘To visit the cemetery?’ Every year, the sisters visited their mother’s grave on Gemma’s birthday.

‘Any time in the afternoon is best for me,’ Gemma said.

‘I can get some flowers up the street on the way.’ Kit thought of how she couldn’t ask her father to join them, even though she knew now he was innocent.

‘I’d still like to know what’s happened to change Dad’s mind about clearing his name,’ Gemma said.

‘Have you had a chance to ask him?’

‘Yes.’ She shrugged. ‘I didn’t get anywhere.’ She paused. ‘Kit, there’s a reference to a patient of our father’s in Philip Hawker’s notes. Arik someone. The ex-cop in me wants to talk to him if I can find him. Just to tidy things up. Especially after this.’ She indicated the letter and stood up.

The phone rang and Gemma grabbed it. ‘I was just about to ring you,’ she said to Angie. ‘What’ve you got?’

‘We need your sister,’ said Angie, almost talking over her. ‘We’ve got a suspect yelling blue murder.’

‘Great work,’ said Gemma. ‘Kit’s right here with me. Who’ve you pulled in?’

‘Good,’ said Angie. ‘Both of you can come down now.’

‘
Who
?’ Gemma repeated. ‘Who are you questioning?’

‘Nasty piece of work called Clive Mindell,’ said her friend down the line. ‘Screaming for your sister. Another one of her charming clients.’

They were met by a young constable who escorted them up to the lifts. As they stepped in, Kit turned to her sister. ‘This is crazy. Clive wouldn’t have anything to do with this.’ The constable pressed the button and the lift heaved upwards. They stepped out and followed the young woman down the hallway, coming to a door marked ‘Interview Room’.

Kit could hear Clive’s voice already. ‘I’m telling you,’ he was saying, ‘you’re not listening to what I’m saying.’ He turned at their entrance and his face brightened. ‘Kit. Thank God you’ve come,’ he said. ‘You tell this woman. They won’t believe me. Tell them I’m working on my problems. That’s what I pay you a hundred dollars a week to do. So that I
don’t
do the sort of thing they’re suggesting. For God’s sake
tell them
!’ His eyes were pleading with her. He was terrified and pared right down to himself, all contrivance gone. Kit leaned towards him and put her hand on his arm. There was no hint of his usual cockiness or the careless, seductive glibness. Even Gemma could see the shock and fear in the man’s eyes. There was something familiar about him that she just couldn’t place.

‘What problems, Clive?’ said Angie, pouncing. The freckled police officer seated at the table opposite Clive muttered something and turned around to his colleague with the video camera. They looked at the strange woman in their midst and nodded to Gemma. It was clear that a formal videotaped interview was not in progress at the moment. Clive looked haggard and exhausted, as if he’d been interrogated for hours already.

‘Clive,’ Kit said in a steady voice. ‘Take a few deep breaths.’ She saw him close his eyes and his chest expand. When he opened them, his eyes were tear-filled.

Angie leaned against the wall, staring at Clive. ‘He’s denying everything. Says he’s got nothing to do with it. But you sure have a few things to explain, don’t you, Mr Mindell?’ Angie made a sudden lunge at him. ‘What about the clippings, Clive?’ she said, waving several long strips of newsprint at him. ‘Why have you got clippings about Marcia Harding’s and Bianca Perrault’s deaths? Tell me.’

Kit looked at her client, frowning. This was a shock. She remembered his previous remarks in the therapy room, about the open window at Maroubra, the murdered woman. But surely not Clive, she thought. It can’t be Clive. Alexander’s words about the blind spot suddenly confronted her.

‘You’ve got no right to have those,’ he said. ‘Your officers just barged into my place. No warrant. Nothing.’

‘You must’ve asked them to come inside,’ said Angie. ‘My people do things by the book.’

‘I said they could come in because I’ve got nothing to hide.’

‘And they could hardly help it if their eyes just fell on these cuttings lying on your table.’

‘That young one. Sandy someone. He was picking things up all the time saying What’s this? What’s that? Picking up all my private things. He had no right.’

‘Why did you keep them?’ Angie shoved the cuttings closer to his face.

‘I’ve told you. I already told these men here. I collect murders. It’s like a hobby.’ Kit remembered his talk of the statistics of death, of which sex killed the other more frequently, of his sly pleasure in the fact that men killed more. ‘If you look in the cupboard in the second bedroom at home, you’ll find a whole lot of other ones, too. You’re trying to put this on me. You’re just putting these things together to make me look bad.’

‘We don’t have to make you look bad,’ said Ian, walking over to the table. ‘You’re doing that real well yourself.’ He tipped up a stiff manila envelope and a pair of lacy pink panties fell onto the table. ‘What about these? Tell us the truth, Clive. How did these get in your car?’

Kit stared at the pale pink panties, shocked. She looked away, not wanting any movement on her face to be seen.

‘I told you already,’ Clive was saying. ‘I told you I got those from the rubbish bin. They were just sitting near the top and the lid was partly opened. It’s just a souvenir.’

‘Hey!’ Gemma said. ‘It was you standing outside the Perrault house early in the morning after Bianca was abducted!’ She turned to Angie. ‘Remember him? The fellow Mick said he moved along?’

Clive looked even more haggard. ‘You don’t understand,’ he said.

Angie stared at Gemma a long moment and then turned on Clive. ‘We understand only too well, Clive,’ she said, her voice soft and menacing. ‘We understand all about souvenirs, too.’ Her gleaming red head bent close to his as she hooked up the pink panties on the end of her pen and waved them at him. ‘And we understand all about killers who like to take souvenirs from their victims, so they can enjoy the action replay when they haven’t got a live one. And you know about that too, don’t you? Whose are these, Clive?
Tell me.
’ She walked back to the window, the panties still dangling from her pen.

Clive swung round in his seat, pulling away from the accusing woman. ‘You tell them,’ he called to Kit. ‘Tell them I’m working on my shit. Tell them I didn’t do this. I’ve got nothing to do with it.’ His big head and neck were puffed up, his face red, but now the energy was that of terror and frustration. Clive stared at each woman in turn, his head moving like someone at a tennis match. ‘Anyway,’ he said belligerently, ‘if I was so busy abducting and murdering that girl, how come I was able to stand there and watch you lot?’

Angie came away from her position on the wall and pushed Ian out of the chair opposite Clive. She threw the panties back onto the table and sat down in front of him. Her face was flushed and she pushed her hair impatiently back behind her ears.

‘Not difficult, Clive. Not difficult to tie your victim up somewhere nice and safe while you get more thrills watching the mug coppers.’ She stood up again, smiling. ‘You’ve walked straight out of the profile, Clive, so start talking.’ Suddenly she swooped on him, her face inches from his. ‘Now I’ll ask you again about these panties. Souvenir of who? Souvenir from where?’

But Clive said nothing, just looked up at Kit, and she could see the deep shame in his face. ‘Souvenir of
what
?’ The accusation in Angie’s voice was sharp and Kit could see Clive’s cringe in full flight.

‘Clive. I want to know where these panties came from,’ Angie was insisting, her voice strident. She jabbed at the underwear.

‘Shut up and leave me alone!’ Clive screamed.

‘It’s okay, Clive,’ Kit said. ‘Take a deep breath and take your time. You don’t have to answer till you’re ready.’

‘I don’t have to answer at all. I’m only here because I want to be helpful.’

‘Then why wouldn’t you let one of our doctors take a DNA sample from you, Clive? If you’re innocent it’ll serve to eliminate you. We don’t even have to prick you. Just a cheek cell scraping. Why did you refuse that?’

‘You’ve got no right,’ said Clive, looking as if he were about to burst into tears and putting a hand on his face as if to protect himself from any scraping. ‘I’m not some
thing
you can just take pieces from.’

Angie turned to the two men near the door. ‘Take him downstairs and put him in another interview room where he can have a think about all the things we already know. We know you love women’s clothes already.’ She fished up the panties with her pen again. ‘You like to make effigies of women, don’t you? Then you stab them and wank all over them!’

Clive went bright red. ‘No! You’re not listening. I’ve told you! I just took them on a stupid impulse. I saw them sticking out of the rubbish bin and I took them.’

‘What bin, Clive?’ Angie demanded. ‘You said
“the
” bin, not “
a
” bin, Clive.’ She was relentless and Clive pulled himself upright in his chair, looking as if he had to brace himself against her, as if she were a gale force wind. ‘Your language indicates to me that you have a bin in your mind. It means a particular bin you know, Clive. Not just any random bin. Which bin, Clive?
Whose
bin?’

But again he shook his head, refusing to answer, and Kit noticed that under pressure the cringe had gone, suddenly replaced with arrogance.

‘I’m not going to answer any more of these stupid questions,’ he said, purpling in the face. ‘I’ve told you everything I know.’ He looked at the expensive watch on his wrist. ‘And I’ve been here four hours.’ Kit watched the way his energy seemed to come back into him, puffing him up, swelling him into his domineering persona. ‘I know enough about the law to know that you can’t keep me any longer than that unless you charge me.’

Angie pushed backwards in the chair with disgust and stood up. ‘Take him downstairs and make him a cup of tea.’

‘Stuff your cup of tea,’ said Clive, standing up. ‘You have to let me go and you know it.’

‘How come you know so much about the law, Clive?’ said Angie, out of her chair now and moving intimidatingly close. ‘Ordinary blokes don’t have a clue about this sort of thing. It changes all the time. Even I don’t know sometimes. How come you’ve made sure you’re up to date? That’s the sort of information that only lawyers keep in their heads.’ She swung round on him. ‘Or crims.’ She turned to Kit. ‘A word,’ she said to her, jerking her head at the door. ‘Outside.’

‘Don’t listen to her, Kit,’ Clive was saying as Angie closed the door. The two women stood in the corridor.

Angie’s face was flushed. ‘If you’d just say that he’s potentially dangerous,’ she said, ‘I’ve got more of a chance to extend the time we’re allowed to keep him.’

‘Angie, that’s an impossible ask. I’m here because one of my clients asked for me. Not to make things easier for the police.’

‘How long’s he been seeing you?’ she asked Kit. ‘At least you can tell me that much.’

‘A few months.’

‘What for?’

‘That’s confidential, Angie.’

‘Then let me tell
you.
His marriage has busted up,’ Angie said, placing her right index finger on the little finger of her left hand, then moving to the next, ticking each point off. ‘He’s seeing you because of low self-esteem, a sense of alienation and isolation, the failure to make good, long-term relationships with women, a difficult relationship with his mother, maybe he can’t get it up.’ She flung her hands apart, having run out of fingers. ‘Oh, and a miserable childhood. How am I doing?’ She raised her eyes to the ceiling. ‘People like him have miserable childhoods because they’re miserable mongrel bastards, that’s why. Right from the start.’

‘My feeling,’ said Kit, not reacting to Angie’s comments, ‘is that Clive isn’t involved in something like this. He wouldn’t be acting out homicidally.’