The Grotesques (15 page)

Adam digested that piece of information. His eyes turned hard. “He didn’t hurt her in any way.”

“I’m quite sure he didn’t. He didn’t have time, although if you hadn’t called out when you did, things might have been different.”

Adam groaned. “How did you survive, Ella? I mean when you hit rock bottom, what got you through?”

“I don’t know. I’m still there.”

“No. I don’t believe that. Look at you. You’re confident, you take charge.”

“It’s an act, Adam. Like you said, I despise every aspect of my life. You came to the wrong journalist for support.” Or perhaps he had mistakenly believed her ordeal had fashioned her into someone who could offer reassurance.

“What
do
you do when you feel this hopeless?”

She smiled.

He must have felt her relax. They pulled apart, and he looked at her.

“Honestly?”

He nodded. Sensing her mood, he made light of the question. “That drink you wanted?”

“No. I lost an uncle to alcohol. I couldn’t go down that road, not even when I got the sack. I found something better.”

“Better than oblivion?”

“Oh yes. Chocolate.”

“You’re serious.”

“Perfectly.” She reached for her bag. “I never go anywhere without it.” She broke off a piece and pushed it between his lips. Without taking his eyes off her, he found the chocolate and eased a piece into her mouth. It hadn’t quite melted completely when their lips connected.

ON THE ROOF
of the house, a grotesque creature perched and listened to the night.

A DOZEN CARS
lined the cracked Gilles Plains street, and three more crowded the weedy driveway. Ella parked around the corner and suffered a string of covert peeps around drawn curtains as she struck a brisk pace to the timber framed house with its peeling paint. The singing that burst through its seams sounded decidedly New Age. Not the sort of solemn comfort a grieving family would favour. She paused at the wire fence to check the address, flashing a brittle smile at the old man with the suspicious pout kneeling in his overflowing garden bed across the road.

The last day and a half had been trying. Between rummaging through the wreckage of her house, dealing with insurance, having Tilly checked by the vet then settled into Adam’s place, and fending off Phil’s demands for an exclusive interview about the fire designed to silence the voice of truth, there had been minimal time for anything else. She doubted she would have coped without Adam’s staunch support, but as down as she felt, the best way to get her revenge would be to collar the bastard intent on demolishing even the ruins of her miserable life. And to do that, she needed to get back into the investigation.

“Hello.” She crossed the glistening patches of wet tar. “Do you know if the Travellians are holding a function?”

The old man rose, rusty trowel in hand. Dirt showered off his knees. “You’re not here for the cult?”

“Cult?” She threw a doubtful glance at the house.

He eyed the new grey skirt and white polyester blouse she had bought at Target this morning. Typical male, he never noticed her old shoes didn’t match. “You don’t look like one of them.”

“I’m not one of them. I have business with Mr and Mrs Travellian. Perhaps I should come back later.”

“Won’t make no difference. They’ll be at it till midnight, then back at it tomorrow. And the next day and the next. Never let up. Whack jobs all of them.” He twitched his wrinkled nose.

“At what, exactly, Mr . . . ?”

“That crazy chanting séance thing.”

“I see.”

He thrust the rusty trowel toward her. “Don’t you go getting involved with the likes of them.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it. Have you tried calling the police?”

The trowel did a frustrated dance. “Officers just knock on their door and ask them to turn it down, but they just shut the window and lower the volume and keep right on doing whatever it is they’re doing because no one leaves. It’s no good I tell you.” His eyes narrowed, and he raised the trowel a fraction. “Who did you say you are?”

Ella adopted a confidential lean. “I’m a reporter. Investigating for an exposé on chanting and séances and chanty . . . séance-y cults,” she finished lamely. She fished a plain card without the name of her newspaper out of her tote and pressed it into his dirty glove. “You’re aware how much pressure the press can put on the government to act?”

“You’d do that?” The point of the trowel came down.

“Naturally I’d keep any information confidential. You needn’t fear any reprisals.”

“This used to be a good neighbourhood, this did. Now me kids don’t want to bring the grandkids over coz of them.”

“What I’m really looking for is a connection to the Church of the Resurrection.”

“Jean and Bill go there regular like. Couldn’t stop raving about it.”

“When did they start attending?”

“Went to the very first service, they did.” He screwed up his face. “’round about a year back, I’d say.”

“Did they ever mention anything unusual about it?”

The soothing strains of a flute drifted across the road. “Isn’t that unusual enough for you?” He dropped the trowel. It clanged against a flimsy saw. She had seen the tool advertised in a catalogue. It could be a godsend for her own garden if it did what the marketers claimed. She would have to stop on her way out and check.

“Did you ever see any of them with Mr. Genord?”

“That church man on the TV?” The old gardener shook his head. “You just get back in your car and drive away before you’re murdered too.”

“Do you really think they had something to do with their daughter’s disappearance?”

“You ever heard of anyone celebrating that way after a death that didn’t?”

“Hmm.”

The old man squatted and picked up the saw and one of the pavers he was arranging as a border. Ella thanked him and hurried across the road, glancing back as she rang the doorbell. The old man was watching with the mistrust of a veteran parole officer as he sawed through the brick.

The splintering door opened wide. “We’ve already started,” a blonde teenage girl in a loose white robe said. Her face shining, she grabbed Ella’s arm and led her through the dark hall into a darker living room. Bare of furniture, it was packed with people of all ages clad in similar gowns. Denim hems and polo shirt collars were visible as they danced a circle around the room to the strains of a harp, a flute, and a tinny CD.

“Do your parents know you’re here?” Ella asked because the girl couldn’t have been more than fourteen.

“They brought me,” she said, twirling into the circle of arm-waving dancers.

“Here, dear.” A curvy, white-haired woman thrust a gown at her.

“Er . . .” Ella moved for the door but the current of ecstatic humanity had already swept her halfway around the room. She had a sudden panicked fear of never being allowed to leave until she swore allegiance to Genord and signed over what was left of her property and life-savings to his church.

“Your first time?” a skinny middle-aged man sitting against the wall asked as he twisted the top tuner on a lute and rubbed a sock clad foot across the orange patterned carpet.

“Actually, I’m looking for Mr and Mrs Travellian.”

“You’ll need to put that on if you want to stay,” a plain brunette said as she pivoted past.

“I’ll come back later.”

She nudged behind the dancers, stepping over a row of resting legs both outstretched and bent, right into a stern, middle-aged figure. His stoop made him look like he shouldered a great burden.

“I don’t believe you were invited.”

Ella pulled her right leg from between the knees of a young man tapping his ribs in time with the music. “Mr Travellian? My name’s Ella Jerome. I’m a reporter. I was hoping for a moment of your time.”

“As you can see, I’m busy.”

“Your neighbours are suspicious of your practices. Wouldn’t you like to set the record straight? My newspaper would like to run a balanced article on cults.”

“This is not a cult.” He glided into the middle of the circle without disrupting a single waving wrist.

Ella squeezed through after him, copping a trodden foot and clap on the ear. Thankfully, the oblivious dancers continued through their blissful sequence. “Then explain it to me, so I can explain it to the rest of the neighbourhood.”

“That’s why you’re here? Not about Jo?”

“You needn’t say any more than you wish about your daughter.” If they didn’t leave this circle, she was going to collapse from dizziness.

“Very well. I’ll talk about our prayer group.”

“That’s what this is?”

The music chose that moment to end. The dancers, ankles crossed, bent over to touch their fingertips to the carpet. Ella balked. She would have toppled if Mr Travellian had not reached out to steady her. At the other end of the room, in a circle of white candles, atop a Grecian pedestal, sat a stone head. Its wavy hair and side fringe made for an exact likeness of Joanne Travellian.

“We are throwing wishes for our daughter’s safe return to the universe,” Mr Travellian said.

As the music started up again, Ella slipped between two posing dancers. Up close, the detail on the statue was extraordinary. “It reminds me of Romain’s work. At the Church of the Resurrection.”

“It is his work.”

The lopsided statue was sitting in an ornate bowl. At a loss, she leaned closer, running her eye over a dirt-encrusted groove at the jagged bottom of the neck. Smooth, semi-conical indentations prevented the head resting flat unassisted. The rough finish seemed incongruous with the obsessive mason’s work.

“What did he say? When he gave it to you,” she asked, conscious she had just promised not to probe in this direction.

“Jo.” She straightened. Mr Travellian’s eyes were watering. “If you have met Romain, you will know he is a man of few words.”

“But incredible talent.”

“We were touched when he presented it to us.” He nodded her to a wobbly sliding door which opened into a small dining room. The table was littered with books on meditation, crystal healing, and angels. Ella slid one over and flipped through as he closed the door, shut his eyes, and nodded to the rippling melody of a harp.

“What sparked your interest in all this?”

He opened his eyes and gestured at a vinyl chair. They both sat, he perpendicular to the back with crossed legs. “I have always been interested in alternative medicine. Would it surprise you to learn I’m a nurse?” It did. She closed the book. Bill Travellian sighed with the resignation of a man used to prejudices. “I was not so heavily involved until my mother-in-law was diagnosed with cancer about two years ago. The oncologist gave her a year to live, but when a friend convinced her to try crystal healing, she went from strength to strength.”

“How is she?”

“Dancing.”

“Ah.” The music died. Someone started chanting. Ella could not help stiffening. “How does the Church of the Resurrection fit this ideology? I mean, it does seem rather traditionalist.”

“Not at all. Genord is adamant it remain interdenominational. He welcomes different groups to use the church in their own way provided it is for spiritual purposes. Nothing could be closer to what we are trying to achieve in our community.”

There was a chorus of chants now. She had to admit it did sound kind of cultish. “Isn’t it a long way to travel?”

“If it keeps peace with the neighbours, I’d gladly travel twice the distance.”

“You said you were . . . um . . . praying for Joanna. You will forgive me if I say your ceremony seems a touch . . . celebratory, even extravagant, and to do this every day, here, when you’ve just said you want to keep the peace . . .”

“Joanna loved singing and dancing. We honour her by celebrating what she loved best. We would not protest if the neighbours wished to express their own faith in an unorthodox manner.”

“I see. So you will keep celebrating until her return.”

He sighed. “As much as I would like to, our spiritual leader has suggested eighty-one days.”

“Eighty-one?”

“I take it you are not familiar with numerology?” She shook her head. “Nine symbolises the end. Life must end before there is a new beginning. Nine times nine is eighty-one and the addition of eight and one gives nine. It is perfect symmetry. Now, I should like to get back to my daughter’s ceremony.”

“Um, yes. Thank you. Can I tell the neighbours to expect an end after eighty-one days?”

“If you think they will listen.”

She had a hundred questions about Joanne, her involvement in the crazy chanting non-séance non-cult prayer group, and whether, despite what was written in the police report, Joanne might have been at the Church of the Resurrection on the night of her disappearance. Unfortunately, Mr Travellian, unconventional meetings aside, came across as the sort of no nonsense person who meant what he said. “Do you mind if I take a closer look at the bust?” she asked instead. Something about those indentations and unfinished base was niggling. If she could sneak a peek at the underside, her thoughts might sort themselves out.