Nefarious Doings (2 page)

‘D’you want to get changed, Mum? I can’t concentrate with your top like that.’

Further discussion was curtailed by the doorbell, again. Still holding the T-shirt away, I did a mental tally of remaining daughters. Scarlet – on duty in Melbourne; Ruby – most probably still asleep in the unit they shared; Red – halfway through an internship in London and due home for Christmas in two weeks. I grabbed a chiffon scarf from the hat stand and flung it around my neck, ensuring the ends draped over my chest, before pulling the door open. Police.

My heart froze, solidified, and then sunk; my mouth opened, but no words emerged.

‘Eleanor Forrest?’ asked a young, ruddy-faced policeman with a blonde buzz-cut, his finger still on the doorbell. His older companion was a stocky fellow whose belly strained against his blue shirt.

I nodded, stared.

‘I’m Constable Matthew Carstairs and this is Constable Drew Reynolds. Are you –’

‘My daughter’s a police officer,’ I blurted, as if this would make a difference. ‘Scarlet Blake-Forrest. She’s a constable as well, but in Melbourne. Tall, brown hair, looks a bit like Ana Ivanovic. You know, the tennis player?’

The older one cleared his throat. ‘Are you the daughter of Mrs Lillian Forrest? Of Small Dairy Lane?’

My eyes widened as I registered the implications. Relief surged upwards, like bile. The girls were okay, it was my
mother
. ‘What’s happened? Is she all right? Is she …’

Lucy gasped from behind me. ‘
Grand
ma?’

‘She’s okay,’ said the young policeman hurriedly. ‘That is, apart from some smoke inhalation. They’ll keep her in hospital for a while, to monitor her breathing, but she should be fine. See, there’s been a fire.’

‘A fire!’ And I knew. Not Axedale after all.

Quinn pushed forward and waved towards the right, where the plume of smoke had now disappeared. ‘Was it the one over there? We saw that!’

‘God.’ I took a deep breath, picturing that fingerprint of fire, so distant, but so close. My mother. ‘But she’ll be okay. Do you know what caused it?’

‘Not sure yet but I’m afraid there’s been substantial damage to the house. And …’ He paused, exchanged glances with his partner. ‘Well, I understand your mother is widowed but does she, um, have a … companion?’

I stared, stunned. For a moment I had a widescreen image of my mother – being companionable. I grimaced and shook my head. ‘Hell, no.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Absolutely. Why?’

‘Well, it seems your mother wasn’t the only other person on the premises when the fire took hold. A man? Tallish? Uncertain of the age just yet.’

‘If you’re uncertain of his age,’ I said slowly, ‘does that mean …’

He nodded. ‘We haven’t been able to talk to your mother yet but as soon as she’s up to it, we’ll be asking a few questions to ascertain his identity. In the meantime, could you let us know if you’ve anything to add?’

I took the card the sergeant offered and stared down at the Victoria Police crest. ‘So … she could have died.’

‘Yes, it was very fortunate that a neighbour spotted the fire, rang 000, and got her out through a window.’ The older policeman dropped his eyes for a moment and then blinked. ‘Yes. Very fortunate indeed.’

‘But not for the –’

‘No, afraid not.’

After promising that I would get in touch with any information, I closed the door behind the two policemen and then stared at Lucy and Quinn while I tried to process everything.  

‘So, the guy’s dead?’ asked Lucy, breaking the silence.

‘Yes, it seems that way. Whoever he was.’

‘Like, I don’t know what’s most shocking,’ said Quinn, taking the business card and examining it. ‘That we just had the police here, or that Grandma’s house burnt down, or that she had a boyfriend. Or that he’s dead.’

‘Perhaps it was the sex,’ added her sister. ‘You know, like sparks flew. Ignited.’

‘That’s enough.’

‘Or maybe he spontaneously combusted. It
can
happen.’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘And I suppose you have a best friend who had a friend who spontaneously combusted, which is another reason you’re here instead of studying for your exam.’

‘Mum, really?’ Lucy shook her head. ‘Is
now
the time for sarcasm? With your mother in hospital? Homeless? And by the way, that scarf is see-through so I can
still
see your nipple.’

I resisted the urge to look down, not wanting to know. ‘Don’t think I’ve finished with you. We’ll talk later. For now just go put on some shoes. And, Quinn, brush your hair. Quickly.’

As the girls left, I hurried to my bedroom where I tugged jeans and a shirt from the wardrobe. I
knew
that the man, the dead man, was not my mother’s partner, or boyfriend, or whatever anyone wanted to call it. I knew this as surely as I knew that my mother was not a widow either, never had been. I also knew that it was unlikely he was a welcome visitor, as my mother, despite belonging to several social groups, was not a fan of inviting people over. ‘Thank you, but I don’t
do
guests,’ she had said only last week, emphatically, when one of her grandchildren suggested that she entertain for her upcoming birthday.

I took a moment to sponge the coffee from my breasts and then dressed, only slowing when I caught sight of Darcy smiling at me lopsidedly from our wedding picture on the dressing-table. I stared, wanting,
needing
to make contact, before dragging my gaze towards the mirror. I looked pale, so pale that my dark, stupidly curly hair seemed even darker and my eyes looked huge. A little Botticelli, or a middle-aged Rembrandt. Certainly my figure was more Renaissance than contemporary anyway, so it matched the whole theme. Who knew shock could be so flattering? This last thought reminded me that my mother was in hospital, and a man was dead. ‘Thank you, but I don’t
do
guests,’ she had said. Which was just as well, given the circumstances.

Your ‘Bite Me’ column last week on the sandwich generation resonated so much that I stuck it on the fridge for inspiration. But then one of the kids tore off the heading to use on a ransom note and my father used the rest to jot down a phone message. Which I suppose says it all …

My mother was a woman thwarted by life. Coming into the world just as her parents were hit hard by the Depression, she had been raised with all the responsibilities of money but with little of the benefits. Ironically, being home-schooled by her father gave her a superior education to what was offered to her peers, but it counted for little when she eloped with the son of the local butcher. It was probably the only time that Lillian Antoinette Forrest nee Milner let her heart rule her head and was regretted soon after. The marriage, always a bad fit, lasted for six long years and resulted in two daughters and a lifelong aversion to red meat.

She christened me Eleanor Aquitaine, after a woman dead for nearly nine hundred years. It was a little intimidating to have a namesake who was one of the most beautiful, learned celebrities of her day, as well as queen of France
and
England, one after the other, and who birthed ten children, of whom three became kings, two queens, two dukes, two countesses and one duchess. So far I hadn't even managed to get one through university. And by all accounts she had lovely
smooth
hair. An overachiever, my father declared, choosing instead to call me Nell. The name stuck even though he didn’t, eventually leaving not just his family but also the country, and putting optimum miles between us by moving to the other side of the world. He was very much alive when last heard from, married to a Cornish lass named Edie and the father of numerous offspring with sensible, single-syllable names such as Bob, Dave and Jane.

My mother, left to raise two children, rose to the task by sinking all her spare energy and capital into a bookshop in town. Nowadays, having expanded into the shop next door, Renaissance was not just a new and second-hand purveyor of books but a cafe and a place to buy local produce. It also hosted various book and reading groups as well as committee meetings for my mother’s two personal favourites, the local chapter of the Richard III Society and the Majic Women’s Guild. Despite nearing seventy, she was showing no signs of slowing, still spending every day at the shop alongside her staff, as well as having her finger in so many local pies that she seemed an essential ingredient.

Which was why I was taken aback to find her looking so small, so diminished, in the hospital bed. It is one thing to know somebody is incapacitated, but quite another to see them that way. She was asleep when we arrived, snoring through a transparent oxygen mask, her short white hair splayed across the starchy pillow. Her skin was pale, powdery, with deep folds around her neck. I sat beside her, washed by an unexpected wave of emotion, and smoothed the hair from her forehead. Her skin felt like tissue paper.

‘Yen?’ I whispered, using the derivative that had arisen from her initial insistence that my sister and I not call her ‘Mum’. She hadn’t counted on the difficulties a baby would have with the three syllables of Lillian, and the instinctive incision that would occur. By the time she realised that she had traded a comfortable, cosy moniker for a unit of Japanese currency, it was too late.

Lucy sighed. ‘I am
so
glad that I –’

‘Don’t even start,’ I replied, taking care to keep my voice low and pleasant. ‘And you should start looking up trains, so you can get back in time.’

‘There’s no point. Because I’ve dropped out. When you realise something’s wrong, you should act on it. You always taught us that.’

‘Crap,’ I whispered furiously. ‘I never taught you any such thing.’

‘YOLO, then. I’m thinking of getting that on a tattoo. It’s my motto.’

‘That’s old,’ said Quinn. ‘Like even Zac Efron has that one.’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ I looked from one to the other, fury bubbling at the base of my throat. ‘Yo
what?
’

‘YOLO,’ replied Lucy. ‘It stands for You Only Live Once. So you see, when I heard about the breast cancer, you know with Melanie –’

‘Melinda,’ said Quinn. ‘That’s who you said before, with the lump.’

‘Melinda then. Whatever. So when I –’

‘Actually you were right the first time,’ put in Quinn. ‘I was just testing you.’

Lucy stopped, stared at her sister. ‘You are really starting to piss me off. And boy, you’re lucky it’s me and not one of the others.’

Quinn nodded. ‘True.’

‘So
…’ Lucy swept her gaze back towards me. ‘As I was saying, it’s not really
about
the name, but the message. The suddenness, you know? Like one minute you’re just coasting along with heaps of time, and then the next it’s all taken away.’

‘You mean when I throttle you?’

‘Against the law,’ said Quinn, as if that alone was stopping me.

‘Mum, you’re not
listening
. I hated it down there, and I hated my course too.’

‘So you couldn’t sit this
one
exam to get first year under your belt, just in case?’

‘Just in case
what?
’ Lucy stuck her chin out. ‘I’m not going to change my mind. And I
am
an adult, you know.’

‘Then start acting like one,’ came a husky voice from the bed.

I snapped my head around. My mother’s eyes were open now, alert, and she had lowered the oxygen mask. But she still looked ill, and very tired. ‘Yen! You’re awake!’

‘Bit hard not to be with you lot bickering by my bed.’

‘Grandma!’ Lucy pushed forward. ‘I’m so glad I’m here! If I’d still been at uni, I would have been
devastated
. Just
devas
–’

‘Oh, put a sock in it.’ I sent her a brief, irritated glare before picking up my mother’s hand, feeling the skin slip. ‘How are you? How are you feeling?’

‘Been better.’ She closed her eyes for a second. ‘Couldn’t you have done your hair?’

‘Actually, I did.’

‘Next time try a brush. Have you seen the house?’

I opened my mouth to revisit the hair issue, but then changed my mind. The woman could have died. ‘Not yet, we came here first.’ I paused. ‘I’m afraid the police said there was a lot of damage. Do you know what started it?’

Yen shrugged wearily, then pulled her hand away and tucked it beneath her coverlet. ‘No idea. One minute I was sleeping, and the next smoke alarms were shrieking and Jim Hurley was breaking my window.’

‘Lucky he was there.’ In the cubicle next door I could see another elderly woman, sleeping, with her hand being held by a man sitting in an armchair. I turned back. ‘Yen? Ah, this may seem like a really weird question but, last night, were you, um …’

‘Alone?’

I stared. ‘How did you know what I meant? Unless –
you weren’t?
’

‘Vomit,’ said Quinn, under her breath.

‘Grandma! You’ve got a boyfriend! High five!’ Lucy grinned as she stuck her hand up in the air, just above her grandmother’s recumbent body. Everybody turned to stare at her so she frowned, and then finally followed her statement through to its conclusion. Or his. Her eyes widened as she lowered her hand, taking a step away from the bed.

‘Good one, Luce,’ said Quinn. ‘Real sensitive.’

I looked back down at my mother. ‘But who
was
he?’

‘No idea.’ She used the side rails of the bed to hoist herself up. ‘I’d only picked him up that night. Never asked his name.’

My mouth dropped open. I heard Quinn suck in air beside me but all I could think about was my mother, my
mother
, picking up –

‘Ha, you should see your faces!’ Yen started to laugh, but the sound fractured into a series of raspy coughs. A young nurse came over and rubbed her back as she readjusted the oxygen mask. She gave us all a disapproving look.

‘How about we try and keep things a little calm, okay, folks?’ She waited a moment and then smiled. ‘D’you remember me? Emily Martiner. I went to school with Scarlet. What’s she up to nowadays?’

I blinked, trying to replace the image of my mother cruising for talent with some memory of the girl standing before me. ‘Hello, Emily, of course I remember you. Scarlet’s in the police force down in Melbourne. Doing very well.’

‘Really? Well, who would’ve thought. Tell her I said hi.’ Emily ran her hand across the coverlet, smoothing the ripples. ‘And now if I leave you alone, you must promise you’ll keep the excitement to a minimum. Okey-dokey?’

Yen watched her leave and then plucked the mask away. ‘Condescending little cow. I hope our Scarlet wasn’t a friend of hers.’

‘Who cares. You picked up a
man
? Didn’t even ask his
name
? God almighty!’

‘You’re being ageist,’ said Lucy sanctimoniously. ‘Sexual intercourse is a basic human need for
every
body. No matter who they are.’ She paused as we all turned to stare at her again. ‘Does Uncle Jim know about all this?’

‘What the
hell
has it got to do with him?’ snapped Yen, suddenly cross. ‘Besides, it was just a joke. Haven’t you ever heard a joke? I’ve got no idea who the man was, or why he was in the damn garage.’

‘The garage?’

‘Well, that’s where the police said he was found. Must have got in through the back; I always leave that door open. Probably thought he could get into the house that way. Idiot.’

‘So you’ve already spoken to the police?’

Yen nodded, the mask wobbling in her hand. ‘A police
woman.
She was here for a bit before Little Miss Irritating over there chased her off. Apparently he was wedged behind the Christmas decorations. I suppose I’ll have to replace them now. Wonder if I can sue?’ She narrowed her eyes for a moment. ‘I’ll ask the policewoman tomorrow. She’s going to come speak to me after I’m discharged. I gave her your address.’

‘Maybe they’ll have identified him by then. The garage, hmm? Interesting. That means he could be any – hang on, you gave her
my
address?’

‘Well, it’s not like I can go back to my house and your sister’s in Montrose at the moment, that’s two hundred odd kilometres away. I’d have to leave at oh, say five, five-thirty to make it for work in the morning. But if you think having me to stay is too much, then I’m sure I’ll cope. It’s only time, after all, and I’ve got plenty left.’

‘No, I didn’t mean that.’ My stomach sank, rather unnecessarily flattening my bladder. ‘Of
course
you’ll be staying with me. Until we sort things out, get you back on your feet.’

‘So has anyone thought to
tell
your sister? Fill her in on what’s happened?’

‘Well, not –’

‘And I’ll need you to go to the shop this afternoon and let the Richard III committee in. They’re finalising the preparations for the Christmas function next Sunday. Make sure you check off names while you’re there. Let’s see if everyone is pulling their weight.’

‘But I –’

‘Why would some random man sneak into your backyard, Grandma?’ asked Quinn, who had clearly been thinking this through. ‘Like, there’s a
gate
there. And did he
know
that your back garage door would be open? It doesn’t make sense.’

‘Yeah.’ Lucy frowned. ‘And what was he doing out there anyways? Just wandering?’

‘I don’t know and I don’t care.’ Yen snapped the oxygen mask back on and looked grumpy, as if she resented sharing the limelight, even with someone recently deceased.

‘That’s right,’ said Quinn. ‘Grandma lives way out from town, and even if you catch a bus, you have to walk past a couple of houses to get to hers.’

‘Maybe it wasn’t random.’ I leant forward, forgetting momentarily about the Richard III committee, and my mother’s demands, and her impending visit. ‘Hey, Yen, was there a car outside your place last night? After the fire?’

She pulled the mask forward again. ‘Oddly enough I forgot to check, being so busy trying to breathe. But I’m sure if there
was
a car there, then it’ll still be there now. After all, if your theory is correct, then the driver is now otherwise occupied. You know, being dead.’

‘How can you not be more interested in all this? A man
died
! In your
garage
! The girls are right: this definitely sounds like nefarious doings.’

‘Nefarious doings?’ repeated Yen. ‘Are you even
listening
to yourself? Have you been watching too much
Murder She Wrote
?’

‘Of course not. I just can’t work out why –’

‘Oh, I see! You’re channelling
your
detective!’ She grinned, laughed, and then turned to her granddaughters. ‘Have you seen your mother’s book? The one she published before she started all that column stuff? With the sleuth called Sherry Holmes? Sherry
Holmes
.’

‘I’ve read it,’ said Lucy loyally. ‘
And
I liked it.’

‘
I
didn’t.’ Quinn grimaced to emphasise her point.

‘Well, that’s because it didn’t have any vampires,’ I said, a little crossly. I met my mother’s gaze, held it. ‘But unfortunately you weren’t alone; that’s why my fiction career was so short. Thanks, Yen, for bringing that up.’

‘Sherry Holmes,’ said Yen again, chuckling. ‘It still makes me laugh.’

‘Well, do make sure you don’t laugh too hard. You might choke.’

‘Don’t get snippy, Nell.
You’re
the one with the cliché,
and
the nefarious doings.’

‘And
you’re
the one with the dead body in your garage,’ I retorted. ‘So you win.’