Nefarious Doings (15 page)

‘Really?’ I asked our mother. ‘You’re looking to your investments at a time like this?’

‘It’s not like it was Maud who got herself murdered, so why shouldn’t I? Besides, then I could arrange for early settlement and move in here while my own house gets repaired. Spare you the torment of my prolonged presence.’

‘It’s not torment! I, ah,
like
having you there.’

‘What absolute crap.’

I opened my mouth to argue the point but decided to let it go. There was too much else. Matthew Carstairs was still standing by the letterbox talking to Lucy, but they began backing away from each other as we neared. The effect was rather theatrical, as if one of them was about to reach out an arm and recite, ‘Farewell, farewell, parting is such sweet sorrow.’

‘C’mon, Lucy, I want to get going. Go grab Quinn.’ I opened the car door and got in. Petra jumped in behind me while our mother continued on into the house, presumably to grab those few items she was after.

‘You spilt the snacks,’ said Petra, gathering up crackers. ‘Crazy driver.’

‘So that’s one suspect off the list.’

‘Which moves the SYM up the top. With the question of the pin put to one side.’

I tracked my gaze down the other side of the road. ‘Or maybe there’s some squatter staying in the Roddom house while they’re away, or maybe Mark Tapscott isn’t all he seems, or even his wife.’

‘Yes. Perhaps that pregnancy is a product of a tryst with Satan.’

‘Or Edward Given,’ I continued, ignoring her. ‘He might not be capable of a lot of physical stuff, but maybe that’s where the SYM comes in. I tell you, I think there’s something a little malicious about Edward. Ned. Whatever.’

‘There always
has
been,’ replied Petra, staring at his house. ‘But there’s also a matching sliver of desperation. And that might be even more dangerous.’

Quinn clambered into the back seat, holding Gusto, and sat directly on the platter of food. There was the crisp sound of crackers crunching, which stopped as she froze, and then started again as she moved her butt experimentally. ‘Shit.’

‘Don’t,’ said Petra. ‘You’ll just make things worse.’

I twisted around. ‘Wasn’t there dip on that platter?’

‘Here, lift.’ Petra gave her a push and Quinn obligingly lifted one side of her posterior so that her aunt could peel the flattened dip container off her jeans. She used it to scoop up globules of chilli tuna dip from both denim and seat.

Lucy jumped in the car and Quinn immediately thrust the dog towards her. She arched her body upwards, undid her jeans, and in one fluid movement, peeled them off.

‘Impressive,’ said Petra, using the jeans to clean from one side while the dog helped from the other. ‘And you may as well enjoy that flexibility while you can. It doesn’t last.’

‘Nor does the willingness to sit around in knickers without feeling self-conscious.’ I turned back as my mother lowered herself into the passenger seat, along with what looked like Mary Poppins’ carpet bag. She didn’t bother glancing in the back, despite the fact the car was rocking with all the exertions taking place.

‘Sorry, Petra, but I can’t find that lapel pin. Most annoying.’

I stared at her, and then at Petra.

‘But it’ll turn up. Maybe I left it on a jacket?’ Yen paused, thinking. ‘Whatever. Let’s go. Nell, what did you want me to do with this mirror here?’

‘Just put it in the glove box.’

‘Really? That doesn’t seem terribly efficient, but each to their own.’

I gave her an even glance and then began reversing from the driveway, which gave those in the back impetus to work faster. By the time we reached the road, they were all seated properly, albeit breathing a little heavily. Noel Maloney was just locking the Fletcher front door and waved, very neighbourly. Almost as neighbourly as Edward Given, across the road, whose curtain was twitching again. Back out on the highway, I made a spur of the moment right turn into Lincoln Drive and my mother looked at me with surprise.

‘What
now
, Nell?’

‘Just want to check something.’ I slowed as I drove up the street, between the long expanse of nursery on one side and the double Nightingale block on the other. Then there was Leon’s house, with his Chrysler parked neatly in the cobblestoned driveway. There were no lights in the front of the house, and just a sliver of light towards the rear, so I guessed they were out on the decking. Perhaps with candlelight. Next door, the curtains of Berry Pembroke’s house were drawn.

‘I wonder what happened to the guinea pigs.’ Quinn leant forward, as if there might be some visual evidence. Perhaps an
ACCOMMODATION WANTED
sign.

By contrast, Lyn Russo’s house at the end of the court was an explosion of light, even though it was barely seven o’clock. Strings of fairy lights outlined the roof and dripped from every available piece of foliage, with a herd of illuminated reindeer spread across the front lawn, and a nativity scene where Jesus was quite literally lit from within. It would have been remarkable anywhere, but here, and now, it was a little shocking.

‘Good god,’ breathed Petra. ‘Of all the … good god.’

Yen sniffed. ‘I always said that woman had an ostentatious frontage.’

I drove around the bowl of the court, the light show dancing across the dashboard, past the Russos’ and the Caldwells’, and back towards the highway. I glanced at Leon’s house, wondering what they were talking about. The murders? The weather? Me? And I also wondered whether Fiona was as uncommitted as he seemed to think she was; because even with our relatively slight acquaintance, and bearing in mind her shy, ingenuous intensity, I rather thought he had it wrong.

Enjoyed your column about birds until I got to the bit where you once kept an injured cockatoo in a cage in your shed. How could you? I’ve been crying all afternoon. How would you like it if I shoved you in a cupboard and fed you nothing but fatty junk food?

I woke early the following morning, tired and irritable after a long, hot night. My bed was supremely uncomfortable, with corrugated sheets that felt thin and sweaty, but my limbs were so heavy that it was difficult even to contemplate getting up. Instead, I lay on my back, for once thankful for the extra space, staring at the spider web that still wafted gently from the cornice.

Our undercover excursion had been rewarding, despite the farce. We now knew that the dark sedan was not an issue and that there had been no other suspicious activity along the street around that time.
Someone
would have seen it, given there were so many people up and around, or peering through their windows. Which meant it was likely that Beth Craig had gone to bed, or at least inside the house, leaving her husband to settle into morose drunkenness. Shortly afterwards, if my mother’s theory was correct, he realised he had run out of beer and decided to perform a late-night retrieval. The key was what happened next.

I rolled over and stared at the wall for a few minutes, then flopped again onto my back. It was the only position where none of my limbs touched the other. Logic suggested that Berry Pembroke saw something in my mother’s backyard that night, through her corner window. But why hadn’t she called the police? Perhaps because whatever she saw didn’t appear suspicious until
after
news of Dustin’s death. My eyes widened. That would explain
everything
– apart from why she waited until Tuesday to approach the police, but that was probably a minor detail.

All of which undermined SYM’s position at the top of the leaderboard. At least by himself. Because if Berry didn’t think what she saw was suspicious, then it followed that she saw people she knew. People from the area. People who also saw her so that later, when it appeared likely she had put two and two together, they decided she had to follow in Dustin’s footsteps. Leaving just one clue in their wake: a gold fleur-de-lis pin that had originally been given to a very select group.

My mother fitted the bill in every regard. I closed my eyes tiredly. The woman had a strong streak of bitch, there was no denying that, but was she capable of murder? Perhaps if she thought she was protecting someone, or something. I was reminded of an incident just after I started high school, when Petra had been bullied for almost an entire year. It had been relentless, both physical and psychological, with taunts of ‘afro-head’ being accompanied by pushing, shoving, tripping. Petra became increasingly withdrawn and Yen’s maternal sympathy, never her strong suit, was tested as the months rolled past. Then one day, on canteen duty, she saw the bully in question pull Petra’s knickers down in the schoolyard. Her reaction was swift and ruthless. First she boxed his ears and took him to the principal, then she visited his parents to demand action. When neither response met her expectations, she went to the police and laid assault charges. And reported his behaviour to his football club, and the scouts. And had a letter published in the local paper condemning the school for allowing the behaviour to happen. And began legal proceedings for pain and suffering.

The boy’s family moved soon after and the lawsuit was dropped. It would not surprise me at all to learn that the first was a condition of the second. But the end result was that Petra’s bully became a victim himself and my mother emerged victorious. I flipped onto my stomach and laid my head sideways on the pillow, breathing shallowly. On the inside of my eyelids I could see her as she had been then, hair beehived into a helmet, eyes steely with determination. Thirty-three years later and little had changed, apart from the hair. I still wouldn’t be taking bets against her.

I woke two hours later, staring straight at the clock. I was startled to see that it was now eight-thirty. This time I scrambled out of bed without hesitation and headed for the shower, the needlepoint spray as close as I got to physical bliss these days. I dried my hair and loaded it with product to tame it, then dressed quickly and padded out to the living room. I could smell the percolating coffee even before I turned the corner, like an aromatic finger beckoning me forward. Spontaneously deciding that Petra wasn’t the only one who could be melodramatic, I closed my eyes and lifted both arms like a sleepwalker, then took a few heavy-footed steps into the room.

‘Fe-fi-fo-fum, I smell coffee! Give me coffee!’ I opened my eyes to find myself staring straight into the rather amused ones of Detective Sergeant Ashley Armistead, who was standing in front of the whiteboard with a coffee of his own.

‘Good morning, Nell,’ said Petra, from the kitchen. ‘I take it you’d like a coffee?’

I lowered my arms. ‘Yes, please.’

‘Ashley just dropped around to give us Gusto’s papers,’ continued Petra breezily. ‘Did you know the dog was born on Boxing Day?’

‘We’re going to give him a birthday party,’ added Quinn from the couch. The prospective birthday boy was curled beside her, asleep. ‘He’ll be three. Were you trying to be the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk? Wasn’t he after bread, not coffee?’

‘Fe-fi-fo-fum, I smell the blood of an English-mun,’ intoned Ashley Armistead. ‘Be he alive or be he dead, I’ll grind his bones to make me bread!’

Petra came over to hand me a mug of coffee, and then smiled at the policeman as she folded herself into an armchair. ‘Very impressive. You’ve made my spine tingle.’

‘That’s not hard,’ I muttered. Generally speaking, in my opinion, her spine was in a perpetual state of readiness. I took my coffee back to the island bench and sat on a stool. Quinn returned to her laptop, which she had on the couch by her side. School folders and textbooks covered the coffee table along with a large visual arts diary.

‘You can cross him off,’ Ashley Armistead was pointing at Maniac Brother on the whiteboard. ‘I already told you the bloke is harmless. Besides he’s got an alibi for both.’

‘Okay,’ said Petra agreeably.

‘And who on earth is Scowly Young Man?’

I spoke first. ‘The young guy I met at the police station. The one I told you about, where Berry took one look at him and changed her mind about reporting something.’

He frowned for a moment, and then his face cleared. ‘Oh, him! Well, you can cross him off too. He was just reporting in for his parole. Got nothing to do with any of this.’

‘I don’t believe that,’ I said flatly. ‘And if you’d seen her face, you wouldn’t either.’

‘Was it blue?’ asked Quinn.

‘Was what blue?’

‘Her face. You just said if you’d seen her face and I thought, was it blue? Like you read if someone is choked their face goes all blue, so I was just wondering if it was true or not.’

I stared at her. ‘I meant her face when she was
alive
, not dead.’

‘Yes, it would have been bluish,’ said the detective. ‘Caused by oxygen deprivation. That’s what does it.’

‘Plus the person choking them,’ I added.

‘Yes, them too. Back to your Scowly Young Man, you can take my word for it he’s not involved. Apart from anything else, he was down in Melbourne that whole weekend. So is there a chance her reaction was caused by someone else? Maybe across the street? Shopping?’

I was reluctant to let go of my theory. ‘I suppose it’s possible.’

‘So, like, if she was blue,’ said Quinn with a smirk, ‘then she’d have been a
blue
Berry.’

I whipped back to face her. ‘Quinn! That is
massively
inappropriate.’

‘Hey!
You’re
the one always saying we should find humour in everything!’

‘Yes, but I didn’t mean make a joke about the colour of someone’s face when they’ve just been strangled!’

‘Then you should’ve
said
so!’ Clearly affronted, Quinn gathered up her laptop and several of the books and stalked from the room, leaving the remaining paraphernalia spread across the coffee table. Seconds later she returned, but only to scoop up the sleeping dog. His head flopped over her arm as she left.

‘Interesting child,’ commented the detective, sipping his coffee.

Petra laughed. ‘And there’s four more where she came from.’

‘Hell.’

‘Yes, sometimes. But,’ I said, pointing to the whiteboard, ‘can we get back to this?’

He grinned. ‘In that case, I should let you know that I’m very impressed with your community spirit. There’s not many people who would go to these lengths –’ he waved his spare hand towards the board ‘– to track neighbourhood crime.’

‘Yes, that’s us. Community-minded.’

‘Unless they’re criminals,’ added Petra. ‘I suppose criminals would go to those lengths.’

‘Very true.’ He was still grinning. ‘I hadn’t thought of that.’

Petra put her head on one side, regarded him. ‘What does your wife and/or girlfriend and/or significant other say about you working Sunday mornings?’

The detective looked surprised at her question, as well he might, although his smile never faltered. I sipped my coffee and tried to look only mildly interested in the answer.

‘I’m divorced. Which probably tells you what she said.’

‘I know the feeling,’ said Petra. ‘Oh well, plenty of fish in the sea. Do you like fishing?’

‘Somewhat.’ His grin broadened even more. He had a nice smile, one that involved his whole face. He looked at my family-in-white picture, with the girls draped over Darcy and me, and studied it for a split second before turning to me. I flushed, having been caught watching. ‘What about you, Nell, do you like fishing?’

‘No,’ I said truthfully. ‘I prefer my fish already caught. Crumbed, if possible, in a seafood basket with calamari and tartare sauce.’

‘Fair enough.’ He glanced at his watch. ‘And I’d better be off. Thanks for the coffee.’

I slid off my stool. ‘Hang on, can you answer a few questions first? Like have there been any new developments?’

‘You mean for your whiteboard?’ He put his empty cup down on the coffee table, beside Quinn’s abandoned books. ‘I’ve already given you a few hints. Get rid of Scowly Young Man and Maniac Brother.’

‘Any suggestions for who we should put in their place?’

Ashley Armistead looked from the whiteboard to me, then waited a few seconds before speaking. ‘We’ve a couple of people helping with our inquiries. But let’s not lose sight of the fact there’s a killer out there, and he’s a nasty piece of work. You need to be careful.’

‘I am,’ I replied, a little annoyed. ‘So were you going to tell us that the dark sedan had been ruled out? Or that Fiona Ramage was Leon Chaucer’s alibi?’

The detective was staring at me, his smile now completely gone. ‘That’s correct; the dark sedan was eliminated several days ago. As for the other, I’m not in a position to either confirm or deny. I should also advise you, in all seriousness, to leave this to the police.’ He raised a hand as my mouth opened. ‘How
ever
, if you find yourself incapable of that, then at least report anything you discover immediately. It seems likely that one person has already died because they didn’t do that. I’d hate for you to follow her.’

‘I totally agree,’ said Petra. ‘Especially given I’d probably inherit the five girls
and
sole responsibility for our mother.’

His grin returned. ‘Having met your mother on a number of occasions, I can see how that would be an …
exacting
responsibility. So I shall do my utmost to resolve this situation speedily, before your sister can put herself in harm’s way.’ He flashed the grin in my direction. ‘And now I’d really better leave.’

‘I’ll see you out,’ said Petra, uncurling herself from the armchair. She followed the detective from the room and I heard them chatting in the entry. I picked up the dog’s paperwork from the bench and read through it, trying to distract myself. It seemed that he was officially a male White Highland Terrier cross, desexed. There was also a short letter from Berry Pembroke’s nephew, officially passing on ownership of Gusto, nee Harvey, and thanking me for all I had done. By which I assumed he meant finding his aunt’s body. The front door finally opened, then closed, and Petra reappeared in the living room.

‘Well, well, well.
Someone
has an admirer.’

‘And
someone
else just can’t help herself.’ I arched my back and flipped a hand through my hair. ‘Oh dear, you’ve made my spine go all tingly.’

She laughed. ‘Then you’ll just have to get over it. We’re related.’

‘Very funny.’

‘Besides,
you
should try flirting a little more. Here you are with a man who is cute, available and interested, and all you want to talk about is dead bodies. And tartare sauce.’

‘But not together.’ I transferred my mug from one hand to the other. ‘Do you really think he’s interested?’

‘Yes.’

I smiled, feeling a little like a teenager. But if I had a choice I would not be even having this discussion, not be in this situation. Instead, Darcy would be coming through the back door, flinging his gardening gloves to one side and calling out for coffee. I frowned, a little annoyed at his expectation that I drop everything, and even that felt familiar.

‘So we can assume that Yen didn’t do it.
Not
that I thought she did.’

‘Huh?’

‘You know, when Ashley said remember there’s a killer, and
he’s
a nasty piece of work.’

‘So he did.’ I ran the conversation through in my head. ‘Although he was probably just stereotyping, because stats would say it’s more
probable
it’s a guy. But I’ll take it as a good sign, and it sort of balances her not being able to find the pin.’

Petra was picking up Quinn’s books, moving them around. ‘Speaking of which, where
is
the pin? Did you put it somewhere?’

‘No!’ I hurried over. ‘
You
had it last. Where’d you leave it?’

Petra raised her eyebrows. ‘Safe and sound in my room, but I thought I’d search through everything on the coffee table for fun.’